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Meet Kate Wilson, a reluctant hero who finds herself caught behind enemy lines when terrorists seize the Queen of the World, a new city-sized super ship. The terrorist attack takes place on the occasion of the first anniversary of the Queen of the World, and it's up to Kate to stop them.
Hydrophobia is a action/adventure survivor game utilizing the revolutionary HydroEngine technology to place you inside the flooding lower decks of the Queen of the World. Flowing water behaves completely realistically, creating a chaotic, dangerous and ever-changing environment. As systems engineer Kate Wilson,, you must use every tool at your disposal to survive and escape the rising waters.
Dark Energy Digital's soaking-wet survival adventure, Hydrophobia, impressed gamers and critics alike with its dynamic water effects -- and little else. Control issues and repetitive gameplay led to a disappointing 58 score on Metacritic. But the developers didn't sulk, they took the criticisms to heart and have remade Hydrophobia with an upcoming title update. Read More »
Also known as: PROJECT: Hydro [working codename]
Release Region: United States
Release Date: September 29, 2010
Publisher: Dark Energy Digital
Release Region: United Kingdom
Release Date: September 29, 2010
Publisher: Dark Energy Digital
Also available on: PC, PlayStation 3
1 GB download
For more info on these technical requirements and features, please view GameSpy's Specs FAQ.
Hydrophobia at IGN
Hydrophobia at GameSpy
Hydrophobia at TeamXbox
Hydrophobia at GameStats


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Iraq panel clears senior judge over Saddam ties
BAGHDAD (AP) — An Iraqi judicial panel has rejected a decision to remove one of the country's top judges from his post because of alleged ties to Saddam Hussein's regime.
Last week, the Justice and Accountability Committee tasked with purging government ranks of officials with ties to Saddam decided to remove judge Medhat al-Mahmoud who heads the Supreme Federal Court for his alleged role as an adviser to the late dictator.
The committee's deputy chief, Bakhtiar Omar al-Qadhi said on Tuesday that the cassation panel didn't find strong evidences of such ties and rejected the judge's dismissal.
The panel reviews decisions by al-Qadhi's committee and wields higher authority.
After the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam in 2003, al-Mahmoud was appointed supervisor for the Justice Ministry and later oversaw all Iraqi courts.

subset: commoncrawl


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Trudy Rubin | Helping women in Afghanistan
At a recent Georgetown University symposium, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Laura Bush and Secretary of State John Kerry all urged Americans not to abandon Afghan women after U.S. troops exit next year.
Their pleas were emotional.
Bush, who, together with Clinton, has taken up the cause of Afghan women, said she feared that "once the troops leave, American eyes will move away. I want the people of Afghanistan to know the people of America are with them."
Kerry recalled the anxiety he has heard from Afghan women who have "legitimate concerns that the gains of the past decade could be lost."
"We have to be determined that they will not stand alone," he said firmly.
Admirable sentiments. But given public weariness with aid to Afghanistan, there's no guarantee that Congress — or other international donors — will keep funding projects for Afghan women after 2014.
Those who care about this issue — and no other Afghan topic has aroused more genuine concern among Americans than the situation of women — must look for other ways to support them. That means raising funds and donating to nongovernmental organizations that work with women on the ground in Afghanistan.
I have some groups to suggest, including Aid Afghanistan for Education (www.aidafghanistanforeducation.org). It is headed by the dynamic Hassina Sherjan, who spoke last week at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia.
Her organization runs 13 schools in nine provinces for older girls and women, including returning refugees who lost out on education during Afghanistan's years of turmoil and are not accepted in the regular school system.
But first a look at where things stand for Afghan girls and women now.
Under the Taliban, almost no Afghan girls were in official schools, but 2.4 million supposedly were studying by 2011. Over the past decade, U.S. aid money has flowed into schools and education, and in Afghan cities, women flock to universities.
I have met brave Afghan women who run shelters for battered women, campaign for human rights and serve in parliament, where male members mostly ignore them.
Yet the struggle for women's rights in Afghanistan — and education for girls and women — is still in its infancy.
Female government officials have been murdered and kidnapped. Girls' education is under serious threat in southern and eastern provinces where the Taliban has made a comeback. There is a woeful shortage of female teachers. Skittish parents keep girls home when security is dicey, and female illiteracy is still sky high.
Last week, Kerry thought he had negotiated a bilateral security pact that would have kept a few thousand U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan after 2014 as trainers and enablers — and as symbols that the West won't forget the country.
But Afghan President Hamid Karzai suddenly announced a delay in signing the agreement. Without that international presence, many Afghans fear a greater Taliban resurgence and an end to Western aid.
This uncertainty about the future of Western governmental support is why the work of NGOs is so essential, especially for Afghan women.
Sherjan, who grew up in Afghanistan and came to America as a young refugee, is determined to keep her organization going, whatever happens. However, with the U.S. Agency for International Development shrinking or ending its grants, she has been unable in recent months to pay her 256 teachers.
Sherjan hopes Congress will reconsider the need to aid NGOs such as hers during the coming transition period. In the meantime, she is trying to start a movement for peace through education, in which U.S. partners would help Afghan women whether or not U.S. troops all leave.
Having spent time as a writer-in-residence at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania and lectured at Lehigh University and other liberal arts colleges in the area, she has encouraged students to start clubs through which they will contact Afghan students by video conferencing. Hopefully, the U.S. students can raise grassroots interest and donations to help keep her schools afloat.
There are other NGOs with a record of helping Afghan women to whom one can donate. Among them are Women for Women International, Care International, Save the Children, the Central Asia Institute, Women for Afghan Women, Afzenda and the Linda Norgrove Foundation.
Given the uncertainty about America's future role, those who care about Afghan women should look for innovative ways to help them, such as student exchanges, scholarships or professional training.
Sherjan, who traveled to Kabul in 1999 under the Taliban and set up five underground schools for girls, has chosen to take matters into her own hands again — through grassroots fundraising.
Americans moved by the sight of brave Afghan schoolgirls risking Taliban wrath should join her cause.


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Natalie Portman And Her Baby Bump — Lovely In White!
The Oscar-nominee opts for a simple and sweet dress at the Vanity Fair Campaign Hollywood gala. Beautiful!
As she gears up for her big Oscar night, mom-to-be Natalie Portman, 29, chose to wear something comfortable and easy at the Vanity Fair event Feb. 24 — and she looked gorgeous!
Natalie, who is reportedly expecting a baby boy in early spring, dazzled in a white lace dress and metallic gold heels. We can't wait to see what she wears Oscar night!
Natalie is a front-runner in the race for the Best Actress trophy for her portrayal of a psychologically troubled ballerina in the thriller Black Swan. She will most likely be attending the Academy Awards alongside her co-star, fiance and baby daddy, dancer Benjamin Millepied, 33.


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Haiti: Aftermath of the Earthquake
Photo Essay: Photographer Willie Davis offers a glimpse into the fallout of the Haitian earthquake, capturing the devastation, life in tent cities, and resilience.
On January 12, shortly before 5 p.m., a magnitude 7 earthquake struck about 10 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Although the earthquake lasted 35 seconds, the destruction continues to devastate Haitians over a month later. The death toll stands at over 200,000 people. UN food deliveries did not reach parts of the country's capital for three weeks after the quake.
Photographer Willie Davis offers a glimpse of life in Haiti following the earthquake. His photographs capture the devastation caused by the disaster, the tent cities where survivors are camped out in Port-au-Prince, and the resilience of the people affected.
To view the photo essay, click here.
More coverage of Haiti, including , , and .


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Hand Painted Enamel Museum Cuff Bracelet
$ 58,000.00
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SALE: 40% OFF All Chains with the purchase of any pendant or charm (includes crosses!) Limited Time Sale*
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The earrings are 1&1/2 inches long.
Have a question or request? Most of our customers start by simply asking a question. As with all our items, this piece will be handcrafted upon order and you'll be getting one-on-one attention from the workshop in Greece. So if you have a customization request or other concerns please talk to us about your preferences. We love helping our customers find the right piece.
Save 10% now by joining our newsletter — you'll receive ongoing offers and style updates.


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Established in 1972 under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, Chugach is a unique organization, dedicated to serving the interests of its 2,500 shareholders and descendants. One of the ways we provide opportunities to our people is by offering internship, apprenticeship and employment opportunities and preference to shareholders and descendants through Chugach companies:
• Visit our Jobs page for current job openings
• Visit our Shareholder Development page for intern and apprenticeship opportunities.
"Hello, my name is Millie Johnson, the Vice President of Shareholder Development for Chugach Alaska Corporation. Our main focus is promoting Shareholder hire. I assist shareholders with their resume development and mock interviewing. Think of us as your personal promoters for marketing your skills throughout the Corporation and it's subsidiaries, as well as the joint ventures."


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New iPhone expected from Apple on Tuesday
Apple Inc. is unveiling a new, more powerful version of its wildly popular smartphone - more than a year after it launched the iPhone 4.
Last week, Apple Inc. e-mailed invitations to a media event at its headquarters in Cupertino on Tuesday morning. The invite says "let's talk iPhone," implying the secretive company intends to show off the latest version of the device.
The first iPhone came out in 2007, and the phone's signature slick looks, high-resolution screen and intuitive software has gained millions of fans over the years. There were 39 million iPhones sold just between January and the end of June.
Beyond the iPhone itself, the Tuesday event is anticipated as Apple's first major product unveiling in years that won't be led by Steve Jobs, who resigned from the CEO post in August after being out on indefinite medical leave since January. The Apple co-founder is now its executive chairman. And though Jobs did emerge from medical leave twice this year to present Apple's innovations - most recently in June to show off its new mobile software and iCloud content storage service - his successor, Tim Cook, is expected to take the lead this time.
Though not nearly as recognizable as Jobs, Cook, formerly Apple's chief operating officer, has been running Apple since January. For years, he has been in charge of Apple's day-to-day operations, and he has long been seen as the natural successor. He also served as Apple's leader for two months in 2004 while Jobs battled cancer and again for five-and-a-half months in 2009 when Jobs received a liver transplant.
Perhaps more important to Apple fans than who is presenting is what the company will reveal on Tuesday. A new iPhone is expected to have a number of changes, the biggest of which will likely be under the hood: the inclusion of Apple's latest iOS mobile software, iOS 5, which has been slated for release this fall.
IOS 5 will include things such as wireless device setup and content syncing, and beefed-up camera, email and Web-browsing apps. A new service called iMessage will allow iOS 5 users to send text messages to each other over Wi-Fi or wireless carriers' data networks, while a folder called Newsstand will corral newspaper and magazine app subscriptions in one place to make it easier to find them. When it comes out, the software will also be available for Apple's iPad, iPhone 4 and 3GS and the two most recent generations of the iPod Touch.
A new iPhone is also expected to include Apple's forthcoming iCloud service, which will store content such as music, documents, apps and photos on Apple's servers and let you access them wirelessly on numerous devices.
As for hardware, a new iPhone isn't expected to look that much different from the iPhone 4, though it could be thinner and have a bigger screen. The existing iPhone is 0.37 inches thick and has a display measuring 3.5 inches at the diagonal.
An improved rear camera is anticipated, too. The existing iPhone has a 5-megapixel camera on its rear. A number of recently released smartphones have moved to 8-megapixel cameras.
One of the most notable hardware changes many industry watchers are predicting is the inclusion of a more powerful chip: Apple's dual-core A5 processor, which is the same chip it uses in its current iPad. The iPhone 4 runs on Apple's older A4 chip, and the move to a more capable chip should improve things such as multitasking, opening apps and gaming.
Analysts also believe Apple could also use the event to trot out new iPods and updates to its iTunes music software, which it usually does in the fall anyway. Last September, Apple announced updates to iTunes and a line of revamped iPods, which included a version of the iPod Nano with a touch screen.
Explore further
©2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Written by guest blogger David Goodman
With the conclusion of Grimm Fairy Tales: Myths & Legends with issue #25, that currently leaves Zenescope with two regular series (three if you include the bimonthly Grimm Universe) for their fans to look forward to each month. And while the various limited series that they publish are more than enough to keep even the most hardcore of Zenescope fans in a comic book coma month in and month out, there is something very rewarding about following a monthly series, especially if you have the chance to read it from issue #1.
And while Zenescope hasn't announced any plans to launch a new monthly series anytime soon, I thought that with Unleashed putting a bright spotlight on the Grimm Universe, it might be fun to see what the candidates would be for a new regular series and what you the fans thought. After all, you are the ones that ultimately decide what Zenescope publishes when you vote with your hard earned money so your input counts more than you may think.
So what Grimm Universe characters might make for an outstanding monthly series? Let's take a look.
Robyn Hood
This one should be fairly obvious to anyone who is a fan of Zenescope. Robyn Hood has easily been the companies biggest breakout hit since Wonderland and for good reason. In just one short 5 issue miniseries, Pat Shand created a multidimensional, fully realized character in Robyn Locksley, one that could be the subject of stories for years and years to come. Plus it helps that she embodies everything that Zenescope has come to represent in the comic book marketplace; kick ass women who can run with the big boys.
Realm Knights
If ever there was a concept that was perfect for a regular monthly series, Realm Knights is it. I was blown away by the one-shot that came out a few months back and amazed how well a book like this worked in the Grimm Universe. Realm Knights takes the idea of the Avengers and boils it down to it's essence, getting rid of all the extra crap and giving the reader the best of Zenescope in one book. Plus we would still get more Robyn Hood, and that's never a bad thing.
Van Helsing
Even though she has only just made her first appearance in the pages of Unleashed, Van Helsing has already proven quite popular with the fans (and honestly how could she not the way Jamie Tyndall draws her on those covers). Much like Robyn Hood, she fits the Zenescope mold perfectly, and with most of her backstory still an open book, there are any number of directions a monthly series could go. And if ever someone should be a member of the Realm Knights, it's Van Helsing.
The Jungle Book
Through two captivating miniseries, Mark L. Miller has reimagined The Jungle Book for a whole new generation and given it that special twist that makes it uniquely Zenescope. That's no easy task, and yet when you finish Last of the Species, the second Jungle Book miniseries, you still get the feeling Miller has barely scratched the surface of the story he wants to tell. Some might say that a title like The Jungle Book works best in the miniseries format, but to me, it could be one huge, sprawling epic that could last for years.
Given the fact of her recent resurrection in Unleashed and apparent attempts to make right the wrongs she has committed, Belinda would make for a comic unlike any on the stands. It would be incredibly interesting to follow the character as she tries to redeem herself in the eyes of Sela and follow a new, dangerous path. Of course, we'll have to wait until the end of Unleashed to see how things turn out for her, but I have my fingers crossed.
Like Robyn Hood, this one should jump right out at you. The long talked about fourth realm of power has finally been revealed in Oz #1 and you can't tell me that the whole story can be wrapped up in six issues. I could imagine a book like Oz lasting at least 200 issues if not more; the idea is that deep and complex. I for one am going to have a really hard time waiting between miniseries so why don't you do us all a favor and just make it a monthly, huh?
Other than Hook appearing in the pages of Bad Girls and Realm Knights, not much has been heard from Neverland since the Dream Eater Saga and I think it's time for that to change. Like Oz, Neverland is a rich concept that could sustain a monthly series for years. Hell, at this point I would even take a Hook monthly book; at least then we could see a peek every now and then of Neverland.
So what do you think? Any of those sound like something you would be willing to buy each and every month? Or maybe you have another idea? Well let us know. Sound off in the comments below and help Zenescope decide if launching a new monthly series is a good idea. They only way they'll know is if you tell them.


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Well Ladies,
How are we all doing on our 'healthy eating plan' ur right pebbles, it does sound so much better than a boring ole diet lol.
Well, today i have been good (2 days in a row wooo hooo lol) i missed my breakfast, but munched on fruit untill dinner time, then had homemade vegtable soup (hmmmm scrumptous) 2 rounds of wholemeal bread (toasted to give it more omph! - no butter) and for tea, i had baked potato, peas and a pkt of pasta n sauce (All free foods on my diet) A yogurt and 2 tescos biscuit bar (orange flavour) = 8 syns Im quite stuffed actually - must mean my stomach is shrinking!! (oh i wish lol).
Hope everyone is in high spirits - the week end is comming - thats my downfall when im on a diet - opps - i mean 'healthy eating plan'
My AF STILL isnt playing ball properly, the signs are there but no one is comming out to play well she better shift her arse or she'll have me to see to lol
Hope ur all keeping well - speaky soon
And remember ladies:
Once past the lips, a life time on the hips!!!! LOL
Becky Xxxx


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Growth through knowledge
School Enrolment Management Plan (School EMP) sets out the conditions
under which students may be enrolled into Moreton Downs State School,
subject to any other requirements or limitations in:
This School EMP is supported by:
number of students entering Prep in any given year is not to exceed 125
in 5 classrooms, unless there are more than 125 students enrolling from
within the catchment area.
school's local catchment area is the geographical area from which the
school is to have its core intake of students. A catchment map defines
the catchment area for Moreton Downs State School.
This school
operates under an equidistant catchment area. The school's catchment map
is available to be viewed at either the school's administration
building or online .
student, whose principal place of residence is within the school's
catchment area/s, is(subject to the Education (General Provisions) Act
2006) entitled to enrol at the school. The school Principal will reserve
places for students who move into the catchment area throughout the
school year.
Parents or legal guardians who wish to enrol their
child at the school will need to demonstrate that the student's
principal place of residence is within the catchment area. Current proof
of residency at the address indicated can be provided by way of one of
each of the following:
the Principal is not satisfied that the documentation provided by an
applicant demonstrates adequately that the address stated is the
student's principal place of residence, then the Principal may request
further sources of proof of residence, such as an additional utility
bill (e.g. water) showing the same address.
The Principal may
also request a properly sworn Statutory Declaration from the enrolling
parent or legal guardian attesting that the student's principal place of
residence is the place nominated in the enrolment application.
should note that a false statement / assertion about the student's
principal place of residence may amount to an offence and may be
reported to police. The school Principal may repeal a decision to enrol a
student in such circumstances.
The following groups of students will be entitled to enrol, even though they may reside outside the school's catchment area:
Out of catchment enrolments will be considered:
Out-of-catchment students applying for enrolment at this school are placed on a waiting list and assessed in order of receipt.
Under the department's State Education Fees procedure ,
a principal of a state school with an approved School EMP is able to
charge a fee for recouping costs of enrolment processing (subject to
consultation with the Parents and Citizens' Association) where:
of catchment enrolment applications will be recorded in order of
receipt, by date and time. These applications will remain current only
for the school year in which they are applying to enrol.
The Principal is responsible for all decisions on enrolments.
a Principal forms a preliminary view that an application will not
succeed, applicants will be notified in writing. Applicants may respond
to the Principal's preliminary view by making a submission to the
Principal, no later than seven school days after receiving the
preliminary view letter.
If no submission is received, the
Principal's preliminary view will be treated as the final decision and
no further notice will be provided.
If a submission is received,
the Principal will consider the submission and make a final decision. A
final decision notice will be provided to the applicant as soon as is
practicable. There is no internal review of the Principal's decision.
This updated version of the School Enrolment Management Plan of Moreton Downs State School was gazetted on 19 December 2014.
School EMP is internally reviewed each year, and if required, updated
to reflect any changes to student enrolment capacity and/or Programs of
© The State of Queensland (Department of Education) 2019


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MILAN - The maison Vionnet is honouring its heritage with an exhibit of sketches of founder Madeleine Vionnet's designs as rendered by the futurist artist Thayaht.
The 60 sketches, on display at the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan in conjunction with fashion week, also pay tribute to the French design house's long bond with Italy.
Madeleine Vionnet designed strictly on 80-centimetre (31-inch) mannequins, which allowed her to achieve the proper draping and three-dimensional effect on the body. The designs are rendered into drawings by Thayaht, an Italian artist born Ernesto Michahelles, who invented the iconic Italian blue worker's jumpsuit. They depict a bold tunic with an asymmetrical shawl top and drop-waist black gown with a red-and-brown sash.
The French house founded in 1912 was purchased in 2008 by Matteo Marzotto and Gianni Castiglioni, who recreating the French brand with Italian quality. They have brought on as creative director Milan-based Russian designer Goga Ashkenazi, who has kept up the house's tradition of designing on mannequins.
"In order to maintain the heritage of the house, working on mannequins is indispensable," Ashkenzai said at the opening this week. "Working on a mannequin allows you to experiment directly with the material and come up with new patterns. Once the mannequin work is perfected, sketches and patterns can be produced."


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The American Water Works Association (AWWA) has published the 2010 AWWA Water Utility Compensation Survey; this year's results are separated by size of utility to more accurately reflect competitive labor markets.
Now in its 15th year, the survey continues to provide the most extensive study of salaries, salary ranges, and compensation practices in the water utility industry.Information is available for small and medium-sized utilities with less than 100,000 customers and large utilities with more than 100,000 customers. The survey includes information from 544 utilities that supplied data for nearly 13,000 employees. The information presented in the report is effective as of June 1, 2010.
Important highlights of the survey include:
The survey is available for a fee in both CD-ROM and print format at AWWA's online bookstore.


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NEW YORK (AP) — About 30 people charged in New York with participating in what investigators say was a Russian organized crime operation that included illegal, high-stakes poker games have pleaded not guilty.
The New York Times (http://nyti.ms/179gTLl ) reports the suspects were arraigned Friday in federal court.
Federal authorities say the poker players included pro athletes and Hollywood celebrities but haven't named them.
The money laundering investigation led to arrests Tuesday across the country, including in New York, Los Angeles and Miami.
The newspaper says prosecutors told a judge investigators recorded up to 25,000 phone calls, tapping nine cellphones over four months.
Among those who pleaded not guilty was Hillel Nahmad, of the prominent Helly Nahmad art gallery. Defense lawyer Benjamin Brafman tells the newspaper his client didn't knowingly violate the law.
Trial is set for June 9, 2014.


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Three Deals or No Deal: Two deals from Democrats and one from the governor are in play as we near the start of the 2010-11 fiscal year. [Sacramento Bee]
Weekend Visitor from Alaska: Sarah Palin makes a stop in California's farm belt, where she talked a lot about Jerry Brown. Brown also had some things to say about Palin. [SF Gate]
Housing Help: The California Housing Finance Agency plans to use nealry $700 million in federal funds to help families facing avoidable foreclosures. [Inland Valley Daily Bulletin]
They Used to Hire People: Now many mid- to late-career professionals find it difficult to get hired. [Voice of San Diego]
2002 in Hindsight: Some sheriffs and supervisors look back on the 2002 pension plan with regret. [Contra Costa Times]
First, a Court Test for Prop 14: The measure passed in the June primary, but it might face a series of court challenges. [SF Gate]
Cut the Cuts Talk: Robert Cruickshank at Calitics looks at the many ways in which Californians have rejected spending cuts. [Calitics]


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Crocker named Rabbitohs' 2013 NRL skipper
South Sydney have dumped their co-captaincy structure, installing Michael Crocker as their sole skipper for the 2013 NRL season.
The Rabbitohs blossomed into a finals team last season under the leadership of five co-captains, one of them Crocker, where they fell just one game short of a grand final appearance.
But 32-year-old Crocker, a Queensland and Australian representative, stood above Roy Asotasi, Sam Burgess, Matt King and John Sutton in the eyes of the players and coach Michael Maguire.
"We are one group here at the Rabbitohs and the players and staff decided that the way to go, in terms of leadership this year, was to have a leadership group directing things with Michael to act as the captain on field and as a spokesperson off the field," Maguire said in a statement.
"Crock has demonstrated over a number of years that he is a strong leader on and off the field, and really acted in this role for the latter part of last season as it was.
"I'm delighted to be working with Michael at this level again and I'm looking forward to him and the leadership group developing their skills to lead further, as well as helping nurture the next group of players coming through as leaders at this club."
Crocker said the leadership would still be shared among the senior players.
"Part of our culture is that we are one group and, as captain, I will simply be the spokesperson on the field and, in some cases, off the field as well for the playing group," he said.
"The leadership group is full of strong characters and people who want to see the team achieve everything it can, and we know that the whole squad will be working in the one direction to make that happen.
"... it's an honour to captain this side and we will do everything we can to have a successful season in 2013."


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ABS report profiles Australia's children
Australia's children are generally healthy, staying more years at school, living in 'nuclear' families and likely to be in homes that are owned or being purchased by their parents. These and other characteristics are monitored in a new report about children aged 0-17 and their families released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
At the same time, 16% of children aged 0-17 are affected by asthma; participation in education declines between the ages of 15 and 17; and only 26% of Indigenous families with children own or are purchasing the home in which they live, compared with 69% for all families with children.
The vast majority (94%) of children live with at least one of their parents. However, children were more likely to have parents who were in a de facto relationship or to be living in one-parent families in 1996 than they were ten years previously. Around 9% of children who lived with parents also had relatives, particularly grandparents, or non-relatives living with them.
One million children (21% of all children) had one natural parent living outside their household, usually as a consequence of marriage or relationship breakdown.
More than 50,000 children were affected by the divorce of their parents during 1997. Although the annual number of divorces rose from 39,700 to 51,300 between 1987 and 1997, the proportion involving children fell from 59% to 54% of all divorces.
Other information contained in this report includes:
Further details are in Children, Australia: A Social Report (cat. no. 4119.0) available in ABS bookshops in all capital cities. A summary of the main features of the publication may be found on this site.
Document Selection
These documents will be presented in a new window.


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Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, HI(M), SBt, (Urdū:حمید گل) (born 20 November 1936) is a retired Pakistani Army three star general known for heading the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the premier Pakistani intelligence agency, after the Soviet-Afghan War, and for supporting the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir against India in 1989 with the support of the militants, who fought in the Soviet-Afghan war.
Hamid Gul served as the director general of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence during 1987-89, mainly in the time when Benazir Bhutto was Prime Minister of Pakistan. He was instrumental in the anti-Soviet support of the mujahideen in the Afghanistan War of 1979–89, a pivotal time during the Cold War, and in establishing the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad, a right-wing political party against the Pakistan Peoples Party. He also was a vehement supporter of the Kashmiri insurgency against India, and is accused by the United States of having ties to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Hamid Gul was born on 20 November 1936 to Muhammad Khan, an ethnic Bhati Rajput, in the Sargodha District of Punjab in what was then British India but now Pakistan. He got his early education from a school in his village. He briefly got admission in Government College Lahore, before reporting to Pakistan Military Academy Kakul.


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News from the world of Maths
Here's your chance to venture to the frontiers of physics using your very own computer. This week CERN began public testing of LHC@home 2.0, a project that enlists the computing power of volunteers from around the world to help simulate high-energy collisions of protons in the LHC.
A team of nanoengineers have constructed new materials that don't wrinkle when you stretch them. This makes them similar to tissue found in the human body, so they may in the future be used to repair damaged heart walls, blood vessels and skin.
Convex or concave? It's a question we usually answer just by looking at something. It's convex if it bulges outwards, and concave if it bulges inwards. But when it comes to mathematical functions, things aren't that simple. A team of computer scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have recently shown that deciding whether a mathematical function is convex can be very hard indeed.
If you live in or near Cambridge, you've got the chance to see a genuine World War II Enigma machine in action and watch the movie Enigma starring Kate Winslet and Dougray Scott afterwards!
This summer the Royal Institution is running a series of workshops as part of its Engineering Week where you will have a chance to try your hand at engineering and discover it is rocket science, underwater robotics, hip joint design, crash testing and much more!
Whatever you're planning to do tonight, cancel it! Because tonight at 9pm on BBC Two it's the first episode of Marcus du Sautoy's new series The Code. It's a three-part series about maths in the world around us, exploring anything from honeycombs to flocks of birds, nautilus shells to planetary motion.
Did you know slime mould can recreate the Tokyo subway network? Or the special connection between crickets and Kevin Bacon? Samuel Hansen does and he wants to tell you all the weird and unexpected stories from the mathematical world... but he needs your help.


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At the police station two suspects are questioned in separate rooms. Whoever talks first gets the better deal, the detective tells them. But they know that if they both keep quiet, they might beat the rap.
Television scriptwriters have drawn on this situation for countless plots. Game theorists have seized on it, too, but theirs is a more abstract and austere art form. They strip away the grimy crime-story details, leaving a formalized contest known as the Prisoner's Dilemma. Gone is the threat of jail time; the game is played for points. Each player must choose either to cooperate (stay silent) or to defect (confess) and must make the choice before learning the other's decision. If both players cooperate (cc), they earn three points each; if both defect (dd), they get just one point. If one player defects and the other cooperates (cd or dc), the defector receives five points and the hapless cooperator gets nothing.
A player devising a strategy for this game might reason as follows. "If my opponent cooperates, I'm better off defecting: I get five points rather than three. If my opponent defects, I still gain by defectingone point versus none. Defection wins either way." Of course the other player reaches the same conclusion. Thus they both wind up with a paltry single point, even though they know they could have gotten three points by mutual cooperation.
In a single game against a player you'll never meet again, there's no escape from this doleful logic. But the options are more complicated in Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma (IPD), where you play a long series of games against the same opponent. The repeated encounters favor cooperative strategies that benefit both parties. A further refinement adds a Darwinian element to the game, with a population of players whose average scores determine their fitness and hence their probability of survival. In this case, too, cooperation can pay off.
Prisoner's Dilemma has been a subject of inquiry for more than 60 years, not just by game theorists but also by psychologists, economists, political scientists, and evolutionary biologists. Yet the game has not given up all its secrets. A startling discovery last year revealed a whole new class of strategies, including some bizarre ones. For example, over a long series of games one player can unilaterally dictate the other player's score (within a certain range). Or a crafty player can control the ratio of the two scores. But not all the new strategies are so manipulative; some are "generous" rules that elicit cooperation and thereby excel in an evolutionary context.


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The National Science Foundation has given two universities a million dollars to study whether video games can improve thinking skills in the elderly. They're using Boom Blox in the research.
The grant to the universities - N.C. State and Georgia Tech - is part of the federal stimulus package and will span four years of research. Phase one of this study will seek to identify the qualities a game must have to improve cognition - memory, problem-solving, critical thinking and the like."
"We want to determine the components an effective game should have," said Dr. Anne McLaughlin, an assistant professor of psychology at N.C. State, and the study's principal investigator.
After determining which game qualities deliver the greatest improvement in cognitive function, phase two will seek to develop guidelines for "a new class of video game for older adults," and also develop a prototype game that follows those guidelines. State seems to be supplying the analysis, with Tech coming in to create the game. The study will last from September this year to August 2013.
Boom Blox was chosen as the study game because its "novelty, attentional demand and social interaction may be manipulated by the researchers."
I think it's significant for a number of reasons: They're moving the Wii-as-therapy fad beyond the examination of physical benefits. They're starting with a reasonably current and commercially successful title. And they're trying to spur games development. (And I went to N.C. State, but no one should really care about that.)
Study to See if Video Games Can Boost Thinking Skills in Elderly [Eurekalert.org thanks Jason]


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Sunday, 18 December 2011
Brookbank House, Castle Folly
12 comments:
- Tom said...
I've had the pleasure of viewing this many times... I remember the first time I came across this I was amazed by it... and when I asked people I knew about it very little was known at all.. nice to see and read this post by Paul... I hope some one reading this as more information about the Folly..
- Sunday, 18 December, 2011
When I moved to Godley in 1981 neighbours told me about a doctor who used to live at the house, and used it for his practice, had the folly built as it reminded him of his birth place somewhere in Scotland. Not sure how true it was, but it sounded quite plausable at the time.
- Sunday, 18 December, 2011
- Tom said...
Thanks for the comment Garry.. I've not heard that before... but as you say.. plausible.
- Sunday, 18 December, 2011
- Alan Terrill said...
There was an article on this in issue 25 (in 1995) of 'Follies', the magazine of the Folly Fellowship. I'll quote the most relevant parts "..Sandra Ray found that one of her neighbours had recently obtained outline planning permission to demolish an unlisted folly and replace it with a housing development. ...Sandra has sent us a wealth of very helpful material proving that the folly is in fact a castllated pigsty dating from 1767. The handsome structure, built of local stone and still with many of its original features still intact , is actually one of a pair -its brother being at the bottom of Sandra's own garden. The threat has also excited local MP Tom Pendry, who has personally intervened to try and save the folly. ...We have brought the matter to the attention of the Listings section at the Department of National Heritage and have asked it to be given Grade II* status. A more detailed article will follow in a later edition of Follies."
Unfortunately it never did and I heard no more about it until it appeared in Keith Warrender's book 'Manchester Oddities' last year. Aprt from saying it was now in the grounds of a day nursery there was no further information. I wonder where the other one is?
- Thursday, 12 April, 2012
- Tom said...
Thank you for taking the time to comment.... very good information in deed... and now like you I'm wondering about the other one.
- Thursday, 12 April, 2012
- Unknown said...
I believe my brother lived at the house with the other folly when we moved into Godley in 1978, and I can confirm, he did find pig bones! I believe the main folly is protected, because it houses a colony of bats?
- Friday, 08 June, 2012
- Unknown said...
I believe my brother lived at the house with the other folly when we moved into Godley in 1978, and I can confirm, he did find pig bones! I believe the main folly is protected, because it houses a colony of bats?
- Friday, 08 June, 2012
- Gerald (Hyde DP) said...
My own photo of this folly has just been used on Pasadena Daily Photo
There is another folly castle in Hyde/Godley - just to the north of the M67 near it's end - it is visible from the motorway or from the top of Underwood Road. That one is definatly Grade II listed. Not sure about this one.
- Tuesday, 02 October, 2012
- Jim Kitchen said...
My great, great great grandfather Joseph Hibbert built the folly at the same time as the rest of Brookbank House.
- Friday, 01 November, 2013
I played there in the late 70s with my freinds we was told it was full of bats
- Wednesday, 14 June, 2017
I used to play in this castle when i was younger
- Sunday, 29 July, 2018
I was told that aswell i played there late 70s
- Sunday, 29 July, 2018


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Sunday, February 28, 2010
Sentimental Sunday - The Old High Chair
I never really thought I'd be writing about a high chair. However, we have a very special one in my family.
This is the high chair that my paternal grandparents gave to my parents when they had their first child, my brother Randy in 1957. My two brothers, my sister and I all used the high chair. In fact, I found a picture of my brother on his first birthday and one of me, asleep as I wait for my supper.
My parents hung on to the high chair and as soon as their grand children began arriving, they pulled it out again. I couldn't find a picture of my daughter in the chair but here is my son along with dad and sister.
Eleven grandchildren and one great-grandchildren have used this high chair so far. Here's to the old high chair and many more cute little family members to come! Thanks Gram and Gramps.
Labels: High Chair
5 comments:
This is exactly why I found it so hard to part with some of my girls' baby furniture. Thanks for posting this!ReplyDelete
Got my momma and genie heart strings! Sentimental, yep, great story, and LOVE LOVE LOVE that photo of you asleep! How sweet.ReplyDelete
What memories and what great condition it is in now. Love the red color. Kathy, what can I say, you are so lucky to have these things. Love the photo of you sleeping.ReplyDelete
Oh my gosh! This looks exactly like my old high chair and my mother still has it and used it with my kids! I love it! Thanks for sharing!ReplyDelete
I'm amazed at the great condition of your little high chair, especially after so much use. I love the red and chrome. It's so fun that you still have it. Thanks for sharing.ReplyDelete
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I made a new word today.
"This problem is a shit-onion"
Just as you finish fixing an issue you find a new layer to the problem. Clean up that bit and you find another. And so on. Doing this usually makes you cry.
· ) -) –) —) —-) ——) ———) ————–) ——————–)
I made a new word today.
"This problem is a shit-onion"
Just as you finish fixing an issue you find a new layer to the problem. Clean up that bit and you find another. And so on. Doing this usually makes you cry.
I'm giving a talk in a couple of months on the very weird state of the games industry. So I'll be posting some info as I collect it. To begin, 2 giants of 2010 both with Craft in the name. Presenting the last 6 months of popular interest in Minecraft vs Starcraft. (The large peek in July is the Starcraft launch date)
Details »
The games industry has had a see saw year. Studios closures. The rise of indie development. Failure on big titles. Success on small titles. All the classical rules of "how it works" in this business are in flux. The GFC has done wonders for throwing consumers into chaos. And it's really hitting the way the industry makes product.
For me nothing sums this up more than what appeared in my twitter feed this morning. On the same day as LA Noir drops a very impressive trailer, a never heard of bunch of students drop Octodad.
Click through for both.
I used to work here. In fact that hole in the wall on the second floor. Well thats where I sat. A lot of the people who worked there have moved on. A number overseas, some in other states. There are only a handful of us who's work has kept them in the same area and I'm still loitering at the same coffee shops.
I've watched that building stay vacant for the last two years. EA had a 5 year lease and they were happy to keep it empty.
So last Monday was a shock. Shawn, Kieran, Morgan and I just stood there. It was hard to put into words really. We'd all had good and bad times at that job. But the space is gone. There's a lot of mixed feelings. But I thought the least I could do was post a few photos from the place.
I've known that chapter was over. Now I know it's buried.
More photos in the full post. Details »
The video explains most of the process. And it's a couple of months old now but I keep forgetting to add it here. So here it is.
Also there are images in the details post.
I'm starting a new project. It'll be going for a while. I've got to have it finished by 2018. I'm not going to take that long, at least I don't plan to. I'm starting a DVA (here's a link)
So there might be some weird posts over the next few years, while I work on this thing. Don't say I didn't warn you.
If you haven't heard, Freeplay is going to happen in Melbourne in about a week and half. It's turning into a pretty significant event. Not only because of the stellar lineup of people. Not just because most major game conventions in Australia are slowly dying. But for me it's the way the talks have been put together. Grab a bunch of people and take them out of their comfort zone. Then put an audience in front of them. What could go wrong.
Why am I mentioning this? Well I'm on a panel called "101 things I learnt in Game Design School". The idea comes from this book, which is a personal favourite of mine (buy it, it's really good). The way it's working is that all the Freeplay speakers (there are about 600,000 of them) offer a thing they learnt. And then we panel about them. The last bit is a little hazy but Helen assures me that it's under control.
Before my friends get out the pitchforks, it wasn't my idea. I'm not a game designer. And I never went to a Game Design School. But I do run one (which might be the only reason I'm on the panel) and I hang around a lot of Design people so I've leached a lot of ideas though the years.
As prep I sat down to see if I could write out 101 things that I actually do know. I present them below as a way of throwing myself at the mercy of the court. If I've learnt anything it's because people much smarter than I already figured it out and shared it with me. This talk is for them.
Click Details to get the list.
This was day 1 for the Alternator Brisbane Dev team. The amazing thing is nothing exploded.
So myself and 3 other people are looking after the Brisbane side of the Alternator Game project for the ABC. The project is going to run for about 6 months. I'm going to endeavour to document the whole thing and drop out updates. I want to make the whole stressful and insane process a little more stressful and insane by being as open as possible.
And so the video above. This is our first clean, build, break, fix, network, install day. And the funk music makes it sound a lot more awesome. We've moved into K Tower in the Valley with Defiant Development. A brand new studio started by Morgan Jaffit.
More info to come, as we wind down from all the red cordial of yesterday.
Music by Kutiman "The Mother Of All Funk Cords"
You can buy his stuff here And you should because he's awesome.
I finally had a weekend off so I put together this face tracking PONG demo using openCV. It's just like the original PONG. But. With. Your. Face. There should be a nice HD version at Vimeo. I try to explain what's happening in the video so watch it to hear what's going on. Strangely enough keeping composed while trying to smack cubes with your face is a little tricky.
March was insane. I got back home and the next day was the first class of the year. And I haven't stopped. Every project I was working on came to a grinding halt. Which was a little annoying. But there is great stuff coming down the line that I'm looking forward to getting out there. GFSGames has their first lot of 3rd years and they are awesome.
But next week is the mid term break so it's scramble to get ahead time. No rest for the wicked or the convenor.
Tomorrow is Saturday and it's really my last day of holiday. Sunday I'm getting a tour of the TOKYO GEIJUTSU DAIGAKU new media department from my old processing buddy Saito. I get the plane home on Monday, touchdown Tuesday and stand up in fronts of the first class of the year on Wednesday. I'm already damn tired and I've got a backlog of 40GB and growing of photos and video to get through. I'm leaving the photos for the plane.
Just one thing though. Visually this country is exhausting, Tokyo specifically. I'm good with iconography and body language so I've had no problems getting places or talking to people, just no existential topics. But I can't read the language so I'm constantly searching for english in any signage. And the sheer number of fonts is driving me insane. How do people stand it here? After a day walking around I'm happy for any small part of familiar grounding. It did make me smile when I thought I saw comic sans at DisneyLand.
We've been here a day and it's raining. Which is better than the snow that was falling when we first got here. If you follow the link above, I've started a flicker set with all the photos. Off to get some lunch and avoid the cold.


text:
From: David Fenton
To: John Watson, CEO of Chevron
Dear Mr. Watson,
I'm the one who asked you about global warming at the Council on Foreign Relations last week. I accused you of being in denial. I'm afraid your answer proved it.
I pointed out that three recent reports warned we are headed for 4 to 6 degree centigrade warming over the next century — from those radicals at PricewaterhouseCoopers, The International Energy Agency and the World Bank. This is what your industry business model is threatening us with, a future that UK climate scientist Kevin Anderson has called "incompatible with an organized global community." It will make coastlines unstable for generations as seas rise, bring the price of food beyond the reach of the world's poor, create even stronger storms, droughts, wildfires and floods — all while wrecking the global economy. And it is happening now.
If you need a reminder, you can watch our exchange here.
Your answer? We have no choice but to keep burning all the fossil fuels to avoid returning to the Stone Age. China and India are doing it so we will too (sounds like what a five-year-old would say). There is no alternative technology, so we have no choice but to advance towards collective suicide. Such foresight and leadership!
But none of it is true.
What will return us to the Stone Age is burning all your reserves, and those of the other fossil fuel companies. That isn't politics — its physics, as burning them will warm the earth beyond anything civilization has known.
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Meanwhile, as the experts at McKinsey, the Rocky Mountain Institute and many others have shown, we can move towards an almost carbon-free energy system over the next 30 to 40 years at either zero net cost (McKinsey) or a $5 trillion dollar net present value savings to the economy (rmi.org). We have almost all the technologies needed, and as they scale they are coming down in price rapidly. Wind and solar are competitive in many places now, and soon won't need subsidies (when will you give up yours?). With a smart grid, solar and wind can scale to at least 50% of our energy needs even before storage becomes more affordable, which it will. The new Tesla electric sedan gets 300 miles on a charge, and those prices will fall as volume rises too. Why isn't Chevron leading us into this survivable and profitable world?
We can also save at least 40% of the energy we use just by making systems efficient, without sacrifice and with enormous savings, especially in buildings. This would end the recession and put millions to work. Why aren't you leading this?
As for other countries, they are getting far ahead of us. Germany now gets 26 percent of its power from renewables and forecasts doubling that by 2025. At times last spring, 60 percent of all German electricity was renewable in Europe's strongest economy, growing by 3 percent yearly. Germany is now installing over 7 gigawatts of solar each year — that's 7 nuclear power plants worth at peak power. In India the Reserve Bank concluded that new coal plants make no economic sense, India cancelled plans for 42 GW of coal and Tata, the largest power company, announced it would no longer build anything but renewables. Coal still dominates in China, but things are changing — it leads the world in renewables, with installed windpower doubling every year. Last month the Party Congress announced a "revolution in energy production and consumption," words they don't use lightly over there.
Do you really want these countries to beat the U.S. for the technologies and jobs of the next era? Is that "maximizing shareholder value?" Is scorching the earth?
I suggest that sticking with fossil energy business as usual and 4 to 6 degree warming is probably the worst business mistake ever made. Instead, you should become an energy service company leading the inevitable transition to a low carbon economy. It's inevitable that people will demand this. As the weather worsens, those whose products are causing the warming will become social and economic pariahs. You will be regulated and restricted to death. Remember the tobacco lawsuits? Small potatoes compared to what you will face. As Bill McKibben has suggested, perhaps our recent New York storm should be renamed "Hurricane Chevron."
To change the climate for business, and rescue your legacy, you should support a slowly rising carbon fee, 100 percent of which is rebated to consumers per capita. This will level the energy playing field and make renewables and efficiency much more affordable by pricing your products for their true cost to society. Then you can make the money on renewables you claim you can't now.
Lastly, Mr. Watson, in addition to denial and deception when it comes to climate, your comments on the lawsuit against you for your oil spills in Ecuador are yet another terrible example for our children. You can complain about lawyers all you want, but it won't hide the contamination still poisoning water, fishing grounds and habitat in the Amazon, all clearly captured on the documentary you mentioned. Clean up your mess in the Amazon, and join us in cleaning up the mess we've made of our climate.


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Copyright Office Boss Admits Copyright Law Is Broken And Needs A Rethink... But Still Focused On Bad Ideas
from the a-lot-to-worry-about deptWe posted one short post about a key comment from Register of Copyright, Maria Pallante, suggesting that the focus of copyright law should be on large scale piracy, rather than the teenager downloading at home. Many in our comments rightfully cheered on this line, but as the hearing is concluding it's worth pointing out that there are a number of things she's brought up that should be equally, if not more, troubling.
"I've never thought that copyright inhibits innovation."Throughout the hearing, she repeatedly emphasizes her old line about how copyright is "first for the author" and then later for the public. This is a rewriting of history. Copyright is for the public, period. The means to do that is to create a benefit for authors. She's absolutely correct that these two things can and should be aligned, but those things are only aligned when you put the public interest first and then look to see how to create the best incentives following that. It's a different approach, and I'm troubled by her repetition of it being about "the artist first." It's not.
Also, troubling, was that she more or less endorsed large parts of SOPA as a proper solution for going forward. Specifically, she calls out the "follow the money" approach, which was a key part of SOPA, as a solution she believes would be effective for enforcement. This ignores the massive unintended consequences associated with that approach -- including the ability to shut down and kill off all sorts of innovations early on. A "follow the money" approach would have killed off radio, cable TV, the photocopier, the VCR, the MP3 player, the DVR and more in their early days. Do we really want that?
She also goes back, repeatedly, to saying that we need to make the public performance right a felony, rather than a misdemeanor -- another piece of SOPA. This is the "streaming" question. She wants to let law enforcement throw people in jail for streaming works, even if they do no host or even touch the content itself. That's pretty scary. She talks about the horrors of people "streaming the Super Bowl," ignoring that the Super Bowl isn't suffering from this at all. They're raking in tons of cash from advertisers. And yet, she claims that making streaming a felony is one of her "top 3" priorities on fixing copyright.
In a rather bizarre exchange with Rep. Chu, Pallante agrees with Chu that DRM is a form of innovation and that this shows that copyright inspires innovation. Furthermore, she insists that DRM is a required part of a functioning copyright system. Why? That is not explained.
Elsewhere, she mostly just focused on how things were "broken" and needed to be explored -- but held off on making specific proposals. That's a perfectly reasonable position to take, but it's worrying that there's little to no discussion about why the copyright system is broken. That is, we're talking about fixes to certain parts and a rethinking of those parts, but not looking at the very crux of the issue: whether or not copyright actually is creating an incentive, and if that incentive is useful or necessary. There's no discussion of why or how people create -- nor is there any discussion about how the vast majority of creation today is not for direct monetary benefit anyway, and yet is still locked up by copyright law. Without examining the core issues, the overall reform process is just going to produce another, outdated and broken law.
Filed Under: copyright office, copyright reform, felonies, maria pallante, sopa, streaming


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The Kardashians are proving they are a united family as Khloe Kardashian, who has been a strong advocate of PETA, even stripping to nothing but her bare skin for one of the organization's "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" campaigns, has decided to stop supporting PETA after the flour attack on her sister Kim.Kim Kardashian was rocking the carpet at the launch of True Refection perfume at The London Hotel in West Hollywood donning a lovely black and royal blue ensemble when she was pelted with a flour bag by a woman who was later taken into... Read More


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Let's start shaksham's journey to become Superkid
This is a personalized book (design and printed) uniquely created for Shaksham based on his name.
The book is formed in such a manner that each alphabet gets associated with a positive value/traits or good habits. So in a story, Shaksham Finds that he has following good qualities in him :
The story starts with Shaksham finding himself lost in a wonderland and somehow could not remember his name. To come out of the wonderland and go back to his home, he needs to find his name. Hence the adventure starts to find the missing alphabets of his name. At each page of the storybook, he meets a new character who gives a missing alphabet as per the good traits/habits/values.
So at the end of the book, he realizes that his name contains these superpowers, which is the true meaning of his name. These powers make him a SUPER KID!
*Upload your kid's photo and add a personalize message on BUY NOW page.
Theoretical physicist
We went one-step ahead of Einstein's advice and created a fairy tale with your child as the protagonist. We discovered a very unique way to inculcate the right values and virtues in a kid's personality in the most innovative and creative manner.


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Jan 25, 2008
Cake Day
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Mary Helen Huber, age 89, of Washington died Thursday November 26, 2009 at the M.L. McCreedy Home in Washington following a brief illness.
Celebration of life services will be held 11:00 am Wednesday, December 2, at the United Presbyterian Church in Washington with Rev. Kitch Shatzer officiating. Interment will take place at Elm Grove Cemetery in Washington. General calling hours will be held from noon until 5:00 pm Tuesday at the Jones Eden Funeral Home and the family will receive friends from 10:00 am until 11:00 am Wednesday at the United Presbyterian Church. A general memorial has been established. Online condolences may be sent for Mary's family through the web at www.jonesfh.com.
Mary was born on July 30, 1920 in Washington, Iowa the daughter of Donald "Pony" and Harriet (Keck) Huber. She graduated from Washington High School. She received her degree in nursing from Mercy Hospital School of Nursing in Iowa City. As a registered nurse she spent most of her career with a private practice in Wheaton, Illinois. She was also a graduate of Moody Bible Institute, Chicago. Mary was involved in many church circles at the United Presbyterian Church, Washington. She enjoyed quilting, needlework, music and gardening. She sang, played piano and accordion. She enjoyed staying very active. She was a loving aunt to her five nephews and their families.
She is survived by her sisters, Kathryn Conner of Corvallis, Oregon; Clara Pearson of Washington, Iowa; nephews, Bill Pearson of Washington, Iowa; John (Jack) Pearson of Beverly, Massachusetts; James Conner of Methuen, Massachusetts; Calvin Conner of Corvallis, Oregon; and David Conner of Corvallis, Oregon.
She was preceded in death by her parents and her sister Norma Huber of Tucson, Arizona.


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30 in 30: Strome, Reinhart top Islanders' prospectsby Brian Compton
In 2013, the New York Islanders ended two six-year streaks. Not only did they finally get back to the Stanley Cup Playoffs, but they went to the NHL Draft without a top-five selection.
Five straight seasons of finishing in the bottom five in the NHL standings allowed Islanders general manager Garth Snow to rebuild his roster basically from scratch. Alexei Yashin, Jason Blake and Brendan Witt have been replaced by John Tavares, Josh Bailey and Travis Hamonic.
The latter three, each signed to a long-term contract, played key roles in helping New York end its playoff drought last season. More help is on the way, perhaps as early as this season.
Here's a look at New York's top 10 prospects, according to NHL.com:
1. Ryan Strome, C/RW: New York's first-round selection (No. 5) in 2011, Strome got his first taste of professional hockey late last season with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers in the American Hockey League (playing mostly right wing), where he had seven points (two goals) in 10 games. This was after Strome (6-foot-1, 188 pounds) completed his fourth season of junior hockey, when he had 94 points (34 goals) in 53 games with the Niagara IceDogs of the Ontario Hockey League.
Strome, 20, could spend the 2013-14 season honing his skills in Bridgeport, but could stick in the NHL with a strong training camp. If the Islanders move him on a full-time basis from center to right wing (something they are considering), he could be the long-term solution on the top line alongside center John Tavares.
"I think it's different because this year I know I can't go back to juniors; it's either pro in the NHL or the AHL," Strome said during development camp in July. "It'll be a different scenario. I think it's a great opportunity that I know I'm going to be down here, one way or another. I'm looking forward to getting my pro career full-time started."
2. Griffin Reinhart, D: Like Strome, Reinhart is a high first-round selection (No. 4 in 2012) who will arrive at training camp in September with the goal of playing in the NHL this season. The 19-year-old is a big (6-4, 202), mobile defenseman. He's the son of Paul Reinhart, who played more than 600 games in the NHL with the Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks.
In 59 games last season, Griffin had eight goals, 21 assists and a plus-30 rating for the Edmonton Oil Kings in the Western Hockey League, his third season with the team. He will return to Edmonton should he not make the Islanders roster, which has an opening after defenseman Mark Streit was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers in June.
"I'm going to do everything I can to make it and show the coaches that I deserve to be here, and try to prove that I can play here," Reinhart told the Islanders website. "I'm looking forward to that opportunity. Last year was a little bit different with the shortened season, so I never got to come into a full camp. I'm looking at it two ways: I have to make an impression, but at the same time, I look to enjoy the process."
3. Brock Nelson, C: The 21-year-old is coming off a solid first pro season at Bridgeport, where he had 25 goals and 27 assists in 66 games. A first-round pick (No. 30) in 2010, Nelson appeared in one game for the Islanders during their Eastern Conference Quarterfinal series against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Nelson (6-3, 196) will compete for a spot on the roster in training camp and could be the Islanders' No. 3 center behind Tavares and Frans Nielsen.
"[Nelson is] a guy who has really developed," Islanders coach Jack Capuano said. "He came out of North Dakota and spent time in the American Hockey League, put up really good numbers. More importantly, just his body and the way he's matured, his strength; he played a lot of hockey down there. He's a guy who's really come along for us."
4. Ryan Pulock, D: For the second straight year, the Islanders used their first-round selection (No. 15) on a defenseman. Pulock, 18, brings a heavy shot from the point; his slap shot has been clocked at more than 100 mph. Pulock missed some time last season due to an arm injury, but the 6-1, 213-pound defenseman managed 45 points (14 goals) in 61 games for the Brandon Wheat Kings in the WHL, his third season with the club. He'll likely return to juniors as Brandon's captain this season.
"I think my shot is a key part of my game," Pulock said. "I can move the puck well, read the ice well, help out on the power play. I think the biggest thing I need to work on is being tougher in the D-zone and being harder in front of the net."
5. Matt Donovan, D: New York's fourth-round selection (No. 96) in 2008, Donovan could be ready to make the jump to the NHL after scoring 93 points during the past two seasons in Bridgeport. The 23-year-old is a terrific skater who helped the United States win the gold medal at the 2010 World Junior Championship.
Donovan (6-0, 195) is primed to push Brian Strait, Thomas Hickey and Matt Carkner for playing time and could fill the offensive void on the blue line left by Streit's departure. Donovan's 48 points last season tied him with Justin Schultz for the most in the AHL by a defenseman. Donovan plays with an edge, evidenced by his 112 penalty minutes.
"His positional play has really improved," Bridgeport coach Scott Pellerin told the Connecticut Post. "I think his defensive habits -- whether it's body position, stick position -- and his compete level, those are areas within his game that he's improved."
6. Anders Lee, C: One of the top players in college hockey the past three seasons, the 23-year-old turned pro last spring and scored in his first NHL game, April 2 against the Winnipeg Jets at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. The 6-2, 225-pound center had 61 goals and 55 assists during his time at Notre Dame and could prove to be a steal after being selected in the sixth round (No. 152) of the 2009 draft. Lee likely will begin the season at Bridgeport to work on becoming more of a two-way forward.
"Being up here for a month and being able to understand how things work was beneficial," Lee told the Islanders website. "I got experience with the day-to-day life, getting my body ready every day and the mental side of things at the same time. I didn't know if I was in the lineup or not each day, and just had to be ready to go no matter what. It was just a good experience and I definitely learned a lot from it. That should help me in the future."
7. Ville Pokka, D: New York's second-round pick (No. 34) in 2012, Pokka, who turned 19 June 3, is coming off his second season with Karpat of SM-liiga in Finland, where he was again the youngest player on his team. In 47 games, Pokka (6-0, 205) had six goals, six assists and a plus-2 rating. The right-handed shot plays well in both ends of the ice and makes a solid first pass out of the defensive zone. He has represented Finland at the World Junior Championship the past two years and likely will be on its top defensive pairing at the 2014 tournament.
Pokka missed development camp in July fulfilling his commitment to the Finnish military, which runs through November. He will play for Karpat again this season.
8. Anders Nilsson, G: The 6-5, 227-pound goaltender missed most of last season due to an illness sparked by a recently discovered allergy to gluten and dairy products. It limited the 23-year-old to 21 appearances for Bridgeport, where he went 8-11-0 with a 2.98 goals-against average and a save percentage of .899. Now healthy, the third-round pick (No. 62) in 2009 is eager to get going. Nilsson will compete with Kevin Poulin for the backup job in New York, but after everything he dealt with last season, he'll likely start the season as the No. 1 goaltender in Bridgeport.
"Obviously last season didn't go the way I wanted it," said Nilsson, who in 2011-12 had a 2.42 GAA and .921 save percentage in 25 AHL games. "I'm healthy now, but the thing was it came up that I'm allergic to gluten and dairy products. When you're eating gluten and your body can't handle it, it's kind of like it's a poison for the body. If you're eating it a long time, your body stops absorbing the nutrients. So it was kind of like small things adding up to a big pile. I didn't have energy. I was feeling tired all the time. I'm not going to lie … last year was a really tough year for me, but at least we found a solution. I'm back to 100 percent now."
9. Scott Mayfield, D: Another big defenseman (6-4, 209), Mayfield turned pro in April after playing two seasons at the University of Denver. In 81 collegiate games, the St. Louis native had seven goals, 22 assists and 188 penalty minutes. The 20-year-old is a stay-at-home defenseman who does not shy away from the physical game. He appeared in six games for Bridgeport at the end of last season and will be in the Sound Tigers' lineup when the team opens its season in October.
"I definitely feel like I'm getting closer, especially with signing after my college season and turning pro," Mayfield said. "But at the same time, there's always work to be done. I'm still not there yet. Playing in Bridgeport was definitely another step up. There were a few challenges, but I think I handled them well. The guys are older and they've been around a little bit longer. They're more skilled and faster. So there's definitely that change. But I feel like I was ready and I handled the jump."
10. Johan Sundstrom, C: The Islanders have to be pleased with what they've seen from this second-round pick (No. 50) in 2011. Sundstrom is a big (6-3, 201) center who plays well at both ends of the ice, evidenced by his 32 points (11 goals) and plus-7 rating in 59 games (25 of those points came in 39 games before sustaining an upper-body injury) for Bridgeport last season, his first in North America. Sundstrom, who will return to Bridgeport, turns 21 Sept. 21.


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Scientists name Puerto Rico water mite after JLo
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Pop singer Jennifer Lopez may be thinking life is funny after some scientists gave her name to a water mite species they discovered near Puerto Rico.
Biologist Vladimir Pesic of the University of Montenegro said in an email Wednesday that the group was entertained during its research by the music of the Bronx, New York-born artist who has Puerto Rican roots.
Pesic calls it a small token of gratitude for the singer of hits such as "I Luh Ya Papi," ''All I Have," and "Ain't It Funny."
Pesic is the corresponding author of the study published Tuesday in the peer-reviewed online journal ZooKeys.
He and other scientists collected the newly baptized Litarachna lopezae water mite from a coral reef in Mona Passage between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.
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Managing your brand's presence on so many different social channels can be a pain, and one of the annoying aspects of it is getting the right cover photos for each one. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ — all have different guidelines for what the cover photo size should be.
Here is a list of official and unofficial references that will give you cover and profile picture specification for all social networks:
1. Facebook
The cover photo of your Facebook page is very important: not only is it featured on your page, it is also prominently displayed in the user's newsfeed when your page is recommended (paid or otherwise) by Facebook. Facebook's official guidelines give very little detail but this page covers all you need to know.
Continue reading Monday Marketing Mash-up: Social Media Profile Cover Photos


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Code Clusters is a fond look back at some of the most interesting and outlandish Code violations published in the pages of EC&M magazine over the past 15 years — the item below is the third in a series of 10. Questions? Comments? We'd love to hear your feedback! Post your thoughts in the box below.
Someone Needs to Find the Source of This Water Leak
All references are based on the 2008 edition of the NEC.
A facility manager — who wishes to remain anonymous — recently sent us this photo. Unfortunately, he found this at his own facility! This situation was uncovered when he and another worker were removing 8 in. of snow from the roof. The box is located on top of what appears to be a mushroom fan. Water was trickling down through the metal-clad armor and finding its way to a junction box inside of the building. In addition, the blue insulated conductor was energized at 120V. Needless to say, he was not happy.
When this equipment was originally installed, the Code would have required this box to be suitable for use in wet locations, as required by 314.15. Additionally, 314.25 would require this box to have a cover. Another concern is that type AC cable is prohibited from being used is wet or damp locations, as noted in 320.12, and the opening at the top of the box should be closed with a KO seal, as called for by 110.12(A).
Abandonment of equipment is common in most all commercial and industrial occupancies at one time or another. During the course of preparing this piece, I was unable to locate any code or standard that would provide guidance for properly performing such an operation. However, in the absence of a published guideline, common sense must prevail.
Whenever you "safe-off" or abandon a piece of equipment or a circuit, your first step should be to make sure you de-energize the circuit. Next, remove all equipment, such as the box and the cable supplying the box. At least cover the box and physically disconnect the circuit conductors from the overcurrent protective device to help ensure the circuit is not unintentionally re-energized at a later date.


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The breakdown that led to the shooting of a University of Maryland police officer during a training exercise last week does not appear to be a matter of insufficient policies and procedures. The Baltimore City Police Department, whose officer has been identified as having shot the trainee in the head after mistakenly pulling his service weapon, has policies in place that should have prevented this from happening. The problem appears to be that they were not followed, and the department's main focus needs to be on determining who was at fault — and, most likely, dismissing them from the force.
Multiple investigations into the incident are under way, and the picture of what happened Tuesday afternoon is not complete. However, it is clear that the training exercise was conducted without the knowledge of top commanders, including the director of the department's training academy, and that no supervisors were on site. The department's top brass didn't even know that city officers were using the abandoned buildings at the shuttered Rosewood Center site in Owings Mills. The officer who fired the shot, identified as 18-year veteran William Scott Kern, was reportedly on site but not participating in a drill when, evidently intending a joke, he reached for what he thought to be a paint cartridge pistol and instead grabbed his loaded handgun and pointed it at recruits who were looking through a window from another room.
The University of Maryland officer, who has not been identified, was struck in the head but survived. Whether he will ultimately recover and to what degree is unknown. Another officer was injured by the broken glass from the window.
The Maryland State Police are conducting the primary investigation of the incident, since it took place on state property. Theirs is a criminal investigation, and ultimately they will pass their findings on to Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott Shellenberger, who will determine whether any charges should be filed.
Ultimately, though, such an investigation will not determine all those at fault because it will not reveal who knew what and when about the exercise, who authorized it and whether the culture of safety in Baltimore police training exercises has been compromised. Police Commissioner Anthony Batts has vowed to get to the bottom of the matter, and he has asked both the Maryland Police and Correctional Training Commissions and the department's internal affairs unit to investigate. In the meantime, he has stopped all training activity and suspended six officers, including the major in charge of the police academy. Mr. Batts has pledged that the results of all the investigations will be made public.
That is essential to rebuilding public trust and restoring the reputation of his agency. A useful model for him to consider is the aftermath of the training death six years before — almost to the day — of Baltimore fire cadet Racheal Wilson. She was killed during a live burn exercise in February 2007, and within two weeks, the head of the Baltimore Fire Department's training academy had been fired amid reports of widespread safety violations. Ultimately, three people would lose their jobs over Ms. Wilson's death, and it would be a factor in Fire Chief William J. Goodwin Jr.'s resignation nine months later. Then-mayor Sheila Dixon took direct responsibility for making changes in the department, brought in an outside agency to determine what went wrong, and made public reports of dozens of safety violations.
Mr. Batts has been on the job for six months and is still remaking the agency. He had changed the oversight of the agency's training activities within the last few weeks, putting an officer who had previously headed the department's fiscal section in charge, and placing the division under his chief of staff rather than a deputy commissioner. He also hired Los Angeles Police Department veteran Jerry Rodriguez to head a new Bureau of Professional Standards, which includes internal affairs, audits and other functions. Given the history of police corruption scandals in the last few years — including officers convicted in a towing kickback scheme and another who was dealing drugs out of a station parking lot — Mr. Batts was wise to create that bureau and to hire its head from outside the agency. Now that move will add credibility to the internal investigation into last week's shooting.
Mr. Batts said after the shooting that he would "do everything in my power [to] find out what happened and [make sure] something like this never happens again." That's going to take more than, for example, creating rules to prevent officers from carrying loaded handguns in training drills. Those rules already exist, and the department's training procedures are already subject to regular outside audits. The situation requires finding fault, assigning blame and taking action against those whose negligence and poor judgment contributed to an entirely preventable tragedy. It is a major test for a new commissioner, and both the public and the members of his force are going to be watching him closely.


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When it comes to decking out your windows, you'll find so many choices, optional features, and price ranges that it's easy to get blindsided by the process. Here's our advice on how to buy the right stuff.
Plantation shutters. Roman shades. Curtains. There are so many ways to cover your windows that it's tempting to just tape newspaper over the panes and be done with it. Here's a primer on the best options to block the light, keep prying eyes at bay, or just dress up the joint.
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A good painting contractor will produce better results than most DIYers—and finish faster. But because they don't have to pay for their own labor, lots of homeowners grab rollers and brushes. Before taking the painting plunge, consider the following.
We've received a disturbing number of complaints from consumers regarding window installation work. Even more alarming is that a large percentage of the complaints were about incredibly sloppy work.
Even if you turn into "that host" who makes everyon leave their shoes inside the front door, there's no way to avoid it: You'll eventually need to have your carpet and rugs cleaned.