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In 2018, Central Florida was ranked first in the nation for job growth, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Additionally, Forbes magazine ranked the metro Orlando region No. 1 to invest in a home with an estimated 84,000 building permits issued in Orange County valued at $2.3 billion. Orange County also earned the highest AAA credit rating from Moody's Investors Service, recognizing its fiscal reliability and continued quality-of-life enhancements.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Saturday, July 30, 2011
5 in a Row!
8 comments:
- AnonymousJuly 30, 2011 at 12:30 PM
I love this journal. Mr. Petruccio you do a great job. I look foward to reading it every day. Thank you. Also I really appreciate the Gary Carter reference in each sketch. In my eyes Gary Carter does not get enough recognition for his contributions to the Mets in 1985 thru 1986.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJuly 30, 2011 at 1:45 PM
I understand that you may not get many comments on your journal, but trust me there's a lot of people watching these and are enthused by your drawings. Keep it up, loving it.ReplyDelete
Thanks.That means a lot to me.ReplyDelete
it's more fun to draw when the Mets are winning, eh? great job as alwaysReplyDelete
A new Beltran drawing! What were the odds?ReplyDelete
I, also, look forward to looking at this everyday. I, so, wish you would self publish an annual at the end of the season. You would have my money. Best wishes.ReplyDelete
I'm really trying to publish this myself. Here are some issues..... Likenesses of players(they want to be paid) AND MLB.ReplyDelete
Everybody wants a taste.
That's why I'm looking for a real publisher.
Tnanks and stay tuned!
While I'm a Yankees fan, I love keeping up with this journal. Your art is beautiful and a fun way to keep track of what's happening at the end of the 7 line.ReplyDelete


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This morning I visited the great synagogue of Budapest. This massive structure is over 200 years old, and was initially part of the Neolog "stream" of Judaism...similar to Reform. The Chatam Sofer put a "cherem" on this shul, and I therefore did not enter the building, but took pictures of the outside and visited the areas surrounding the building.
If you click on the picture above, you'll notice dots on top of some of the letters of the pasuk "ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכה" -- and I haven't figured out why.
During the Holocaust the shul was used as a concentration camp. Adolf Eichman had an office behind the rose window in the women's balcony, and the Germans used it as a radio tower. In the courtyard of the synagogue, there are mass graves of thousands of Jews from the ghettos in Budapest.
Raoul Wallenberg who came to Budapest as secretary of the Swedish Foreign Ministry in July 1944 with instructions to save as many Jews as possible. He issued thousands of Swedish identity documents to Jews to protect them from Nazi deportation and is credited with ultimately saving as many as 100,000 people. He worked with the Swiss consul Charles Lutz, as well as Portuguese and Spanish legations to create "protected" houses and a "protected" ghetto to house the Jews with international identity papers. Wallenberg was last seen leaving the city on January 17, 1945, right after the Soviet army liberated the city.
Wallenberg and other righteous gentiles are memorialized in the shul's courtyard.
In the holocaust museum next door, there were all sorts of objects I had never seen before in real life from the Holocaust.
This dress was made out of tallit -- to degrade and defile it.
The following was rather interesting:
Here is a "Haftorah Scroll"...if you click on it, you'll see that although it's a scroll, there's nikud and simanei kriya written in as well (makes reading it rather easy)
Anti-semitic sentiment in Hungary during the Holocaust...
This visitor seemed a bit out of place in the museum.
A Chevra Kadisha tzedakka box in the museum...I thought it was rather morbid.
Yet, of everything I saw this morning I found this the most surprising. Outside the museum was the following "souvenir" coin machine...which would engrave on coins different "mementos."
I found the sign on it rather...offensive?
Will write more later.
Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael


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Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film
24 Jun, 2013, 19:07 BST
DUBLIN, June 24, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --
Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/nmbmzc/touch_panel) has announced the addition of Wintergreen Research, Inc's new report "Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film: Market Shares, Strategies, and Forecasts, Worldwide, Nanotechnology, 2013 to 2019" to their offering.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130307/600769 )
WinterGreen Research announces that it has a new study on Transparent Conductive Film Market Shares and Forecasts, Worldwide, 2013-2018. Transparent conductive film improves electronic device usability. The ability to navigate using touch screens improves the usefulness of all electronic devices, paving the way of a spurt of innovation and new applications.
Transparent conductive film enables features of smart phones and electronic applications. Devices are evolving in response in part to the characteristics of the transparent conductive film that is used in the user interface. Products support collaboration. Solutions are competitive.
According to Susan Eustis, the principal author of the study, the advantage of transparent conductive film is that a very thin layer of material as a coating on a surface can provide touch screen capability. Transparent conductive film supports electronic device usability. Factors that influence commercial success in the wireless device and services market relate to usability above all: The designs of the iPhone are genius designs because of the usability they bring. Development of an integrated hardware, software and service platform to support multiple wireless network standards is an essential aspect of market participation.
The transparent conductive film markets are leveraging the expanding market opportunities related to mobile communication and media devices of smart phones and tablets among others. Transparent conductive film provides the base for device navigation by recognizing the presence of a finger as it moves across a screen. That navigation supports transmission of digital data into and out of the smart phone. The transparent conductive film markets are highly competitive. The competition is expected to intensify significantly as new technologies evolve.
Transparent conductive film principal competitive factors include price, product features, relative price/performance, product quality and reliability, design innovation, marketing and distribution capability, service and support, and corporate reputation. Indium tin oxide (ITO) has been the prevailing transparent conductive film used in touch screen applications. It requires an expensive and cumbersome sputtering deposition process. The price of indium is increasing rapidly and the film is rigid. There is demand for more flexible film in the market.
The Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film TCF market is $956 million in 2012. Markets are anticipated to reach $4.8 billion by 2019. ITO is an entrenched technology for displays manufacturing. Indium tin oxide (ITO) has been the transparent conductive film technology for touch screens. Newer technology will erode ITO and provide improved functionality as lower prices. Transparent conductive film supports electronic device usability.
Companies Mentioned
- Calico Coatings'
- Cambrios
- Hitachi
- Honeywell
- Heraeus
- Kodak
- Nitto Denko
- OIKE & Co., Ltd
- Orthogonal
- Leonhard Kurz Stiftung & Co.KG / PolyIC
- Sumitomo Metal Mining Co
- Teijin Group
- Toray
- Wisepower / Unidym
- Transparent Conductive Film University Research
For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/nmbmzc/touch_panel.
Source: Wintergreen Research, Inc
Research and Markets
Laura Wood, Senior Manager
U.S. Fax: +1-646-607-1907
Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716
Sector: Computing and Technology
SOURCE Research and Markets


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10 U.S. Code § 8066 - Repealed. Pub. L. 96–513, title II, § 201, Dec. 12, 1980, 94 Stat. 2878]
Section, acts Aug. 10, 1956, ch. 1041, 70A Stat. 494; Sept. 2, 1958, Pub. L. 85–861, § 33(a)(36), 72 Stat. 1566, authorized President, by and with consent of the Senate, to make temporary appointments in grades of general and lieutenant general from officers of Air Force on active duty in any grade above brigadier general and specified the number of positions in each such grade. See section 601 of this title.
Effective Date of Repeal
Repeal effective Sept. 15, 1981, see section 701 of Pub. L. 96–513, set out as an Effective Date of 1980 Amendment note under section 101 of this title.
LII has no control over and does not endorse any external Internet site that contains links to or references LII.


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Lamps and Lighting on the TheBrightSpot.com
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The Bright Spot is your best spot to buy lamps and indoor and outdoor lighting fixtures in Mission, Tiffany, Mica, Prairie, Arts & Crafts, Modern Arts & Crafts & Art Deco styles. Our featured brands are Quoizel, Kichler, ELK Lighting, Mica Lamp Company, Meyda Tiffany, Dale Tiffany and more. So whether you are looking for Table lamps, Floor Lamps, Outdoor Lighting, Chandeliers, Semi Flushes, Flush Mounts, Sconces always try The Bright Spot first.


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We'll make it happen
Organising a big event or conference can be a real challenge. But for our expertly trained and experienced event hosts at Highfield Park, there's no such thing as mission impossible. From the moment you call, you'll have your own dedicated Event Host to help make anything – and everything - happen.
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At Highfield Park, our impressive venue is set in acres of land so our vision extends well beyond our walls.
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- Energy stations with a ready supply of fresh fruit, porridge, home made cakes, biscuits and popcorn - to keep energy levels soaring


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In the spirit of simplicity, this will be my only blog post this month. If you'd like to read more about our Christmas this year, check out my Farmwife at Midlife blog where I've posted today about "Less is Always More" at the holidays. I'm deliberately not going to blog any more this month on any of my three blogs––even if I have to sit on my hands!––to save up time and room for a simple, relaxing holiday––and to spend more time with my family: how, may I ask, do we do that if we're always on the computer? Also, there is a link back to some Christmas cookie recipes on this blog and you can always search In the Pantry (see column at right) for more holiday and food-related blogs from Christmas Past. As this blog is now over six years old, there is plenty of fodder in that department.
Father Christmas visiting Stan Hywet Hall, c. 1940.
[That's my grandmother on the right.]
If you are in the Akron, Ohio area this season you can visit this
historic manor during the holidays and enjoy their decorated Tudor Revival-era
rooms and beautifully lit grounds. Click here for more information.
Blessings to you and your family this holiday season, and always,
|My father, left, admiring the Yule Log in the Great Hall of Stan Hywet Hall, c. 1940.
PS For more great images of Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens––at Christmas and through the years (both archival and promotional)––check out this new blog by architectural historian Michael Henry Adams, a fellow Akronite who now resides New York City.


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Murano Art Deco Collection Yellow Starfish Wine Stopper - DC2741
Inspired by the artisans of Murano Italy, these handcrafted Murano like glass bottle stoppers are stunning and will wow your guests with it's elegance and style.From Cassiani Collections exclusive Murano art deco collection this unique starfish design handmade Venetian like glass wine stopper is accented with gorgeous yellowy gold and white swirl colored glass attached to a Crystal clear glass stopper base, and it is sure to impress your guest with it's sophisticated design. Each of these unique art deco bottle stoppers are handmade and because of that no two are exactly alike. They come packaged in high quality two piece white gift box and set in a pillow soft satin lining, each stopper measure approximately 5" in length.
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After months of qualification, the 20 players who will represent their nations at the FIFA Interactive World Cup (FIWC) Grand Final have been named.
1,997,689 players from all round the world attempted to qualify for Rio de Janeiro's Grand Final and ten different nations will be represented on 2 and 3 July. Players from the likes of Brazil, Romania, France and the Republic Ireland will clash for the chance to be named FIWC World Champion, win USD 20,000 and an invitation to the FIFA Ballon d'Or to rub shoulders with the best footballers in the world.
The 20 finalists will travel to Rio de Janeiro as part of a dream three-day trip courtesy of FIFA and Presenting Partners EA SPORTS™ and Sony PlayStation. As well as competing, they will be taking in the Rio sights, meeting football legends, and will take part in an exclusive trip to the Maracana, where they will watch one of the FIFA World Cup™ quarter-finals.
This year marks the tenth edition of the FIWC and is the first year the FIWC Grand Final is to be held in the same country and at the same time as the FIFA World Cup. In light of this a Grand Final space was reserved for a Brazilian player and Rafael Fortes, a student from Rio de Janeiro, qualified through April's Brazil Qualifier and will proudly represent his nation.
Speaking ahead of the Grand Final, Brazilian qualifier Rafael said: "It is a dream come true and I feel honoured to be Brazil's representative. I am now going to train day and night to ensure I do Brazil proud at the FIWC Grand Final."
The players will be divided into four groups of five with the winners and runners-up qualifying for the knockout rounds. Should they progress, players will then have to navigate the quarter and semi-finals before the ultimate final showdown. The tournament will be played on the 2014 FIFA World Cup game and each finalist will pick first and second-choice teams ensuring no match-ups will feature the same two sides. Higher ranked players will have the advantage of being able to use their first choice should the situation arise.
Ralph Straus, FIFA's Head of Strategy and Brand Management, said: "We're all especially excited about this year's FIWC, as this is the first time that the Grand Final will take place in the same country as the FIFA World Cup. As ever the line-up is very strong and it will be fascinating to see the best players in the world go head-to-head. This year's event is more accessible than ever with our strong social media presence supported by a live stream of the event available to fans all over the world."
The FIWC is organised by FIFA and its presenting partners EA SPORTS™ and Sony PlayStation® and is recognised by Guinness World Records as the world's largest online gaming tournament and more than 5,000,000 players have taken part since 2009. It is an official FIFA tournament that gives football fans the chance to live out their passion for football and to interact with other fans around the world. Participants from every continent battle it out to qualify for the Grand Final, where the FIWC champion is crowned.
The online tournament takes place on the PlayStation Network and can be accessed through the latest version of EA SPORTS™ FIFA 14 on PS3.
Full list of qualifiers:
Adam Johnston (Republic of Ireland)
Adrien Viaud (France)
Alban Xhemajli (Netherlands)
Anders Bollerup (Denmark)
August Rosenmeier (Denmark)
Bruce Grannec (France)
David Bytheway (England)
Farid Diffallah (France)
Irving Velasques (Mexico)
Johan Simon (France)
Jorrick Boshove (Netherlands)
Julien Dassonville (France)
Krasimir Ivanov (Bulgaria)
Marian Avram (Romania)
Michael Ribeiro (USA)
Ovidiu Patrascu (Romania)
Rafael Fortes (Brazil)
Steven van de Vorst (Netherlands)
Tihomir Kolev (Bulgaria)
Ty Walton (England)


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text: On the doorstep of the Hotel, Cabot Circus Shopping Centre stands proud. With over 120 stores, including Harvey Nichols, House of Fraser to name a few. This fantastic destination places Bristol firmly in the spotlight. Experience a mix of traditional and modern Bristol at the Bristol Marriott Hotel City Centre. Our hotel in southern England pampers the most discerning travelers. Located in the city centre close to businesses, shopping centres and area attractions, Marriott offers spacious rooms with air conditioning, high-speed Internet access, and 24-hour room service. Upgrade to our Executive Rooms for access to the Executive Lounge. Our Terrace Grill restaurant features a wonderful selection of international cuisine and fine wines and our Coffee Shop offers breakfast and lunch in a relaxed setting. Renowned as one of the largest conference centres in southwest England, the Marriott hotel - along with our superb catering and experienced staff - creates wedding ceremonies and conferences to remember.


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retrac on Family Tree Circles
view: full | list
Journals and Posts
Searching for Charles Carter in Michigan
Hit a Brickwll with finding any new info on my Great
Grandfather, Charles Carter b. 1853. Married to Ida
Pierson or Pearson 4-26-1877 in East Saginaw, Mi.
In 1890, he lived at 751 Russell, Saginaw. My Grandfather
was Charles Alexander Carter, I don't think he was a Jr.
Any leads would be greatly appreciated.
- Displaying 1-1 of 1 Journals
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Name any game!
Whatever the game, there are very specific rules. And even for those situations where the rules don't clearly cover a corner case, the house rule, resolution, or consensus-based solution is also a quantifiable action!
This is why in game theory and design the definitions of the terms must be clear and succinct.
In many games with broad design space, this is very true. Mana cost, tempo, psychographic profiles, color pie; each of these is very specific jargon that allows Magic: the gathering designers to communicate clearly about the structure of a game.
Communication is about shared meaning. So lets share some meaning and clear up some terms and how they are frequently misused.
Railroading (v.): The act of removing agency from a player in a game.
Railroad (n.): A game or situation in a game where the agency of the player within the structure of the game has been actively removed.
Player Agency (n.): "the feeling of empowerment that comes from being able to take actions in the [virtual] world whose effects relate to the player's intention" -Mateas, 2001
[Edit: Added the definitions of Player Agency, since I guess some people don't know it]
I have often seen these terms applied to JRPG's like Final Fantasy or to situations where a player says "Let's run this module or adventure path." These are not railroads. If they were railroads, then the fact that you have to pay mana to play spells in magic would be a railroad because it limits your choices.
Please please note that the actions you can take are proscribed by the rules of the game.
Games are designed. That means there are places where the player has agency by design and places where they do not.Final Fantasy games aren't railroads, because the agency is in how you level up your party and fight the battles*. The agency in checkers is which diagonal you select for your piece. If you were given a list of where you had to move each piece in order, you would no longer be playing a game. Why? Because you would no longer be making choices.
When does railroading happen within a role playing game? That's right! When player choice or ability is invalidated! Because this most often happens in situations that are important, it is especially galling for players. (e.g. Do we kill the bad guy or does he escape? Can we bypass this encounter? Can we ambush and kill this dangerous encounter without having to fight it?)
Note that railroading is an active process. Generalizations are often inaccurate, because cases where this occurs are specific. i.e. There are many examples of older Dungeons & Dragons modules where the Dungeon Master is encouraged to railroad her players in specific situations.
This means that if you like knowing where the story is going or you enjoy playing in role playing adventure paths, this does not mean you are a fan of railroading. It just means you like your agency to be in other areas. The insight that the agency is not always in deciding the direction of the story was noted by Jason Alexander.
If you were being railroaded, you wouldn't be playing a game, because by definition your agency is being invalidated. No one likes that.
Updates from the comments:
Brendan: "In other games, there is no such expectation. PCs can go wherever they want and do whatever they want and the setting will respond appropriately. This is not extreme improv either (a setting can be designed to handle this)."There should be terminology for this difference as well, because it is important."Yes, but this terminology exists without needing to overload the word railroad.
Module. Sandbox. Adventure Path. Series:Episode:Scene. Campaign.
"If you think about the original metaphor-- a train that starts at one place and goes to another-- expectations have little to do with it. If we both play a video game and the game makes us meet the same people, watch the same cutscenes, fight the same bosses, we are essentially trains on the same rails. . . "I think railroad is an important descriptive term and shouldn't be discarded because people have become familiar with railroads or enjoy them."According to the example given, every game ever is a railroad, because by following the rules of the game, you are stuck on the train. Every game must have some sort of agency. Otherwise it would be a movie or book - a passively consumed experience.
*Since XIII actually removed part of this agency, having basic stances that determined how you fight battles, it is one of the most reviled of the series.


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Subscribe To Disconnect Updates
In this exclusive clip from Lionsgate Home Entertainment's Blu-ray release of the film, Bateman explains why he was grateful for the role, while director Henry-Alex Rubin spends a little time explaining why he feels Bateman was the perfect choice for taking on a more dramatic character.
Did you know that your computers and phones have the power to kill you, or at least ruin your life? That kind of fear-mongering about the dangers of the Internet was something that went out of style in the mid-90s-- or so we thought until we saw this trailer for Disconnect, a movie about all the many dangers of technology
It was a mixed summer for Jason Bateman. Though Horrible Bosses, which was released this past July, was a critical success and made over $200 million at the global box office, his second entry of the season, the R-rated body switching comedy The Change Up, was slammed by critics and couldn't even make its money back internationally (it only made $47 million worldwide on a $52 million budget).
K, it's not exactly like Forster is abandoning World War Z, and I'd much rather him get the script in shape than go forward with a bad one. But we need our zombies! And Disconnect sounds boring! If I whine long enough, will this zombie action get going faster?


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App Review: Ricky by Nabil Chatbi
by Dorothy on
August 18, 2009
Filed under Daily App Reviews, Entertainment, Games, Kids
Super Mario Brothers was an amazing hit when it was released for Nintendo. The characters have since been used in several other games and are still very popular with kids today. Ricky by Nabil Chatbi has certainly borrowed much of its design from the Mario Brothers, although in my opinion pales by comparison.
The game starts by introducing you to the story behind the game. Unfortunately, the story is not well written. I could not figure out exactly what was going on. What I did learn from it is that Ricky is on a quest to find his long lost older brother Parry. Good enough. The controls for the game are fairly simple and easy to use. The left and right buttons in the lower left of the screen control your direction. The up button on the right makes you jump.
Next, you are brought to the map of the levels. At first, only the first level is unlocked. To play a level, double tap on the blue mushroom. (A single tap will not do it.) The goal of each level is simply to make your way to the door at the end of the level. You can kill enemies in your way by jumping on them. There are a few that will kill you no matter what you do. These are best avoided. There are also stars for you to collect along the way. As in the Super Mario Brothers games, there are often multiple paths that you can take. There are tubes that you can go through. You do not have a down button that you can use to go down. Instead, those tubes that you can go down will let you fall through as soon as you land on them. So, watch out. Sometimes they catch you off your guard.
My biggest complaint with this game is that you can only get hit once by an enemy before you die and have to go back to the beginning of the level. It would be nice to have a life bar that lets you take a few hits before you die or have check points that you can return to when you get hit. Overall, Ricky is a decent game for $0.99. However, because it is so similar to the Mario Brothers Games, it is naturally compared with them and unfortunately falls short.
Developer's Website: http://www.fbssoftware.it


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Militia File 10.52 : Sarlin Church
- Crime scene; Gartin avenue, July 4th 1012. Soldier Vernes reporting.
Acting on reports of a scream heard in Gartin Avenue on July the fourth, Myself and my partner, Garner, went to investigate. The scream was reported to be of a male, and heard in the vicinity of a side-alley between two residential houses. Upon studying the side alley, Massive amounts of blood was discovered on the dirt road. No body was evident, and the only other object out of place was a silver bracelet with a symbol of a crucifix on it. To further our investigation, we decided to look into the local church.
- Church of the Faith, July 4th 1012. Soldier Vernes reporting.
Furthering the possible murder in Gartin Avenue, we went to the Church of the Faith to speak with the high priest there: Sarlin Church. All the townsfolk know of Sarlin Church, they speak of him as a visionary; a true saint. He had worked his way up from nothing, and it is said his sermons bring a fire in the souls of the listeners. He is also the person who has settled the debate between Religion and the formerly blasphemous 'magic', bieng a mage himself.
Mr. Church was more than happy to offer information. He told us the bracelet he found was one of the bracelets he gives to all devout followers of the church. He provided us with a list of people who currently owned those bracelets. Our next move is to investigate all of these people.
-Click- The door of the unused basement beneath the church swung shut and was locked. The tapping of footsteps echoed loudly through the hall, and Sarlin Church entered the cell room. There, chained to the wall by metal spikes which were rammed midway through its forearms, was a body. Or half a body, to be more specific: Instead of legs, the corpse ended at the waist. Over its head was a large horned helmet with a cross-visor, and slung over its neck was a long, thick chain-necklace draping a little lower than the cadavers body, a large metal crucifix hanging on the end of it. No other clothing was on it, and it was obvious that the corpse had been there a while - skin was decaying slowly from the flesh, and red, raw muscle was beginning to show through. Abruptly, this corpse moved, stiffening violently when Sarlin entered the room.
"Oh! You're awake? Good. I wouldn't want you to miss this one. After all, I know how much you hate pain." Sarlin smiled priestly, and walked towards the hanging corpse, stopping just two feet away.
"I have a gift for you. It was given to me last night - Tonight is the night that you see." Sarlin raised his hands - bloodsoaked hands - and in them lay a pair of lifeless eyes. The faint, crimson glow of magic surrounded these organs, and the high priest forced those eyes through the cross-visor of the helm and into where the corpses sockets should be. As those eyes were melted into that head, the body spasmed violently, as though writhing in agony. When it was done, the eyes lay lifeless beneath the metal for several seconds, before suddenly swivelling and focusing on the priest.
"And now you see your creator. Tonight is a special night for you! I have another gift to give you. These were not easy for a priest to get without having a few eyebrows raised."
Sarlin raised a pair of heavy metal gauntlets into the corpses new vision - instead of fingertips though, the gauntlets ended in four-inch long claws. After carefully sliding the gauntlets on the emaciated hands of the cadaver, the glow of magic shone once again and the metal of those gauntlets began to glow red-hot. Once more, the corpse flailed in pain as the metal seared through flesh and molded with the muscles of its hands. The priest watched calmly as the creature jerked and writhed, and when it finally calmed down, Sarlin smiled once more, "Why do you fight the pain? You are not human - though I know you think you are - so I do not understand why you think to act like it. No matter. Soon, you will be complete. Then I will preach to this town about the REAL devil." The sound of footsteps faded from the room, and the door clicked shut once more. Silence reigned, and alone, the body on the wall lowered its head, spasming occasionally as though it were silently weeping.
- Gartin Avenue, July 5th 1012. Soldier Vernes reporting.
After cross-checking all of the names on the list we had of the bracelet owners, we determined that none of the people could have been either the victims or the killers - they all had alibi's. Because of this, Myself and Garner decided to patrol Gartin Avenue for the night to see if there would be any reoccurances. At approximately 2:15am we heard a cry for help inside a house which was quickly silenced. We burst our way into the house to come across the High Priest Sarlin, kneeling over a corpse of a man and - using a hatchet - methodically hacking off the man's left leg from the upper thigh. Upon seeing us, he growled and leapt up, running at us with the weapon. We were forced to kill him.
Further investigations found the bodies of no less than eight other men, buried in unregistered graves in the graveyard of the Church of the Faith. Each of these men had certain body parts removed. What the deranged priest was using the parts for remains a mystery.
Case closed.
Militia File 10.94 : Sarlin Church copycat March 14th, 1014
The bodies of several men have been found, murdered and body parts removed from them recently. Searching through our records, we found the case of Sarlin Church similar. We believe the murders to be the work of a serial murderer who had heard of Sarlin Church and is copying his style. So far, no leads have been found.
Additional Information
After Sarlin Church was apprehended, the patchwork golem which he was working on was left, unused and for several years. In the forgotten cellar of the church it waited, hanging in agony, until eventually the spikes thrust into the creatures forearms which held it to the wall weakened, and it was able to wrench itself free. Without legs, however, it had to crawl itself to the door, picking the lock with it's clawed gauntlets and escaping into the city undetected. Though there are powerful magics sustaining its body, Church's Devil is made out of dead body parts, and as such will decompose over time. So, since its, it has been continuing its creators work - Slaying people and stealing body parts to replenish its own limbs as they die and decay to nothing. It never thinks to add legs to its design, believing that it was completed by its creator by the time it escaped. If it isn't able to make kills and transfer body parts, the golem will eventually erode to skeleton - however the magic surrounding it will allow it to move without muscle tissue - it can survive for nearly four years without requiring additional body parts. Additionally, The magic will protect its core - which is the human brain and head beneath that visored helm. His head will never decompose while it is 'alive'.
Although the Golem cannot speak, it is moderately intelligent, and can understand human language. Dispite its lack of legs, it is able to move quite quickly, and can even climb smooth surfaces with those clawed gauntlets. It IS aware that what it is doing by killing people is 'wrong', but also knows that if it does not replenish itself, it will eventually die.
The golem can feel pain, although it does have a decent threshold of tolerance for it, after how it was created. Any limbs cut off it, or anything done to its torso will not kill it - the only way to do so is to destroy the brain beneath that heavy metal helm.
Although it may be able to be reasoned with to an extent, people will find it difficult to converse with an apparantly undead creature with half a body, clawing its way ominously towards them. Church's devil is motivated by survival, and that is all it wishes to do: Survive.


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|» Overview
|» Basic
|» HotSpot VM
|» Mntr-Mgmt
|» Tools APIs
Remote Method Invocation (RMI)
Java Remote Method Invocation (Java RMI) enables the programmer to create distributed Java technology-based to Java technology-based applications, in which the methods of remote Java objects can be invoked from other Java virtual machines*, possibly on different hosts. RMI uses object serialization to marshal and unmarshal parameters and does not truncate types, supporting true object-oriented polymorphism.
Java RMI is included with Java SE and is available as a separate download for Java ME.
For more information, please see the:
RMI Documentation: J2SE 1.4.2 | J2SE 5.0 | Java SE 6
What's New
See RMI Release Notes for RMI changes In Java SE 6.
See Also:
RMI Whitepaper
RMI Online Course
Technical Articles
RMI Forum
Archive of the RMI-USERS mailing list
Object Serialization
You may send comments to the RMI team by going to the Java SE feedback site
and selecting Java RMI from the Subject pulldown menu.
*As used on this web site, the terms "Java virtual machine" or "JVM" mean a virtual machine for the Java platform.


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To Infinity, and Beyond
motto of Project Infinity
The interplanetary cruiser ISS Livingstone was launched on a grandiose mission to tour every planet in the solar system, a technological tour de force of Technodyne Heavy Industries and SmartTek Technologies. It was an over-hyped media sensation that, predictably, failed to live up to expectations.
The holovids are full of stories about mecha garrisons bravely battling dastardly pirate raiders. It's a pretty picture for the propaganda films, but its a long way from the truth of the pirate raids.
People live inside a series of walls. Outside the walls, there are Titans (giants, unless you actually want to use the Titan, which are fetching powerful). There's a spell that needs breaking to return everything to normal size. That can only be done by collecting the elemental devil arms. Hot dang.
An ominous emblem begins appearing in tapestries, paintings, engravings, streets, etc. across the town or city in which the players are staying.
An obviously wealthy and beautiful woman contracts the PC's to solve a missing persons case. The missing person is her younger sibling, a teenage boy.
Or why you should always look women in the eye
"What do you mean the vault is empty?!"
"Just that, sir. It's empty."
"There was a half tonne of gold coins in there! Did you see a cart? Any orcs or ogres? A dragon?! It's not like it just got up and walked away!"
"Actually, sir..."
The Agents are being sent to Mexico to stop a large shipment of drugs from breaching the US border.
A combination planning/game summary submission with some details about what I'm planning for the next one as well.
A man approaches you with a proposition; a cult that seeks to only protect the weak; plots mingling and causing destruction.
Death, it seems, shall stalk the land of Merthia tonight- unless, of course, the PCs can stop it.
A journalist is preparing a story on Agency 17. Predictably, the Agency would like it if the story died...
The players are sent on their first mission for Agency 17: Stealing Sarin from a right-wing militia group in rural Texas
UAC Scientists have discovered a strange artifact on the surface of Phobos. They wish to transport it to an 'off-the-radar' base above Saturn's moon, Titan, but fear that space pirates may have gained intel on the artifact. Additional protection is needed; this is where you come in!
A Cosmic Era, Event Horizon/Doom-influenced Plot, for the optional Occult Brotherhood quest.
Lazarus Lightward waits in the town of Lockmour - he desires the Whitebone tomes to study demons and learn their weaknesses. Will the party help him out?
When the barbarian increase their raiding of Tauria, the King of Tauria decides that hiring a couple of lowlife mercenaries (the PCs) is his best option to fix the problem.
An explorer gone missing. A king in panic. A treasure to find.
Welcome to the Craggy Peaks. We hope you don't freeze to death.
That would mean we couldn't... play.
Lavish glade and lush green field,
Wizen'd oaks; to the blight all yield.
Weeping trees of crimson blood,
the Fields of Flesh turn life to mud.
Will you tread and smile and sleep
where devils dance and angels weep?
Ah, Spring! When a dragon's fancy turns towards thoughts of (ahem) love. Unfortunately, this particular dragon has been very unlucky in matters of the heart and has yet to mate successfully. The females just don't understand him, you see. This year, however, he's trying a different approach by hiring a group of adventurers to take his message of love and/or lust to several scaled beauties that he's had his eye on for some time. Can they convince one of the ladies to mate with him?
The PCs are sent to rescue the Lady Helen from the pyramid she has been trapped in...but it will not be easy.
The player characters, experienced and somewhat well known, hear rumors and travelers' tales about a distant area being overrun by dragons (or other terrifying monstrosities). The locals have sent them a message, begging for heroic aid.
When they investigate, they discover that nothing of the sort is going on. It turns out that a group of thieves wanted them out of the way so that they could rob them (or someone who would normally receive their protection).


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Federal and state protection measures for the Lower Dolores River were sharply criticized by local officials Thursday during a regional water meeting in Cortez.
But public land agencies and the Colorado Water Conservation board defended the decisions as part of their job to inventory special waterways and insure adequate flows on the river.
New management plans by the BLM and Forest Service upgrade the status of two native fish, and list new sections of the river as "preliminarily suitable" for a Wild and Scenic designation.
Roy Smith, a BLM water specialist, explained that the suitability status for the Lower Dolores from the dam to Bedrock has been in place since a 1976, and the special status was reaffirmed in a recently released public lands management plan.
"It qualifies because below the dam, the lower Dolores is a free-flowing stream that has outstandingly remarkable values (ORVs)," he said. "A common misconception is that suitability means we can wave a wand and make it Wild and Scenic, but that is not true. That takes congressional action."
The 1976 suitability study noted that the Dolores is compatible with a Wild and Scenic designation, and "McPhee dam will enhance and complement such designation."
ORVs are obscure and sometimes controversial assessments that identify river-related natural values. They are an indication that a river could qualify as a Wild and Scenic River in the future. In the meantime, their natural values are protected in management plans.
In their recent management plan, the BLM and Forest Service upped the ante, adding the bluehead and flannelmouth suckers to ORV standard list, which already includes the bonytail chub.
The Colorado Water Conservation board also believes native fish on the river deserve additional help. They propose to issue a new in-stream flow requirement for a 34-mile section of the river from the confluence with the San Miguel River to the Gateway community.
Ted Kowalski, a CWCB water resource specialist, explained that the new instream flow is proposed to improve habitat conditions for native fish.
"In-stream flows are designed to protect the natural hydrographs on the river, and we feel they are better than top-down river management from the federal side," Kowalski said. "The proposed instream flows on that section of the Dolores are timed to accommodate spawning needs for native fish."
Required peak flows reach 900 cfs during spring runoff, and then taper off. Most of the water would be provided by the San Miguel River, an upstream tributary.
"If instream flows are not being met, it would be investigated to find out why the water is not there, or if it is being improperly diverted elsewhere," explained Linda Bassi, section chief for CWCB. "It could result in a call upriver to satisfy downstream instream flow requirements."
The Dolores Water Conservation Board and the Southwestern Water Conservation board objected to the changes, fearing the move could force more water to be released downstream. They have filed appeals and protests to stop them.
Even the preliminary Wild and Scenic status on the Dolores is strongly opposed by McPhee Reservoir operators because if officially designated, Wild and Scenic rivers come with a federally reserved water right, which would also force more water to be released from the dam.
Jeff Kane, an attorney representing SWCD, said adding two native fish as ORVs was unexpected and unfair to a local collaborative process working to identify and protect native fish needs.
"They were not in the draft proposal. The eleventh-hour finding struck the community and put them on edge," he said.
Barry Spear, an attorney representing DWCD, said the additional instream flow requirements and suitability designations will impede water development.
"We found that instream flows you are proposing are not imposed on any other BLM or forest in the state. Is this a new precedent? We feel like southwest Colorado is being singled out," Spear said.
"Where would the water come from?" asked Dolores County commissioner Doug Stowe. "We are in a drought."
Accusations that federal agencies and the CWCB hijacked a 10-year-long, grass-roots effort to protect the Dolores were expressed at the meeting, which was attended by 80 local and regional officials.
"From a water manager perspective, the changes feel like a full court press on McPhee reservoir," said Mike Preston, DWCD manager.
A diverse stakeholder group, the Dolores River Working Group, is proposing to make the Lower Dolores River into a National Conservation Area through future legislation. As part of the deal, suitability status for Wild and Scenic on the Lower Dolores River would be dropped.
"It is still worthwhile to get our proposal out there," said Amber Kelley, Dolores River coordinator for the San Juan Citizen's Alliance. "We should continue to move forward in our collaborative effort despite the concerns about the BLM changes."


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Ferrari enthusiast's winning bid helps earthquake victims
Monza, 8 September – A special ceremony took place this afternoon in Monza, when a 599 XX Evo was driven into the paddock. It's the car that Ferrari had put up for auction to raise funds for the families who were victims of the earthquake that hit the Emilia Romagna region back in May. The car was the star attraction among the many items put up for the auction organised on a global basis by the Maranello company. It has several features included especially for this event and it went to Benjamin Sloss who made the generous winning bid of 1.4 million Euros. Handing over the keys to its new Californian owner who was here with his wife Christine, was Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo, along with the Scuderia drivers, Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa. Sloss got an additional souvenir in the shape of a photo taken outside the team motorhome, alongside the Ferrari men. He was thrilled with the event and said he was extremely happy to have contributed to this cause, which he decided to support as soon as he heard what had happened in Italy, in the hope of helping with the reconstruction plans.


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The TPS753xxQ and TPS751xxQ devices are low-dropout regulators with integrated power-on reset and power-good (PG) functions respectively. These devices are capable of supplying 1.5 A of output current with a dropout of 160 mV (TPS75133Q, TPS75333Q). Quiescent current is 75 µA at full load and drops down to 1 µA when the device is disabled. These devices are designed to have fast transient response for larger load current changes.
Because the PMOS device behaves as a low-value resistor, the dropout voltage is very low (typically 160 mV at an output current of 1.5 A for the TPS75x33Q) and is directly proportional to the output current. Additionally, because the PMOS pass element is a voltage-driven device, the quiescent current is very low and independent of output loading (typically 75 µA over the full range of output current, 1 mA to 1.5 A). These two key specifications yield a significant improvement in operating life for battery-powered systems.
The device is enabled when EN\ is connected to a low-level input voltage. This LDO family also features a sleep mode; applying a TTL high signal to EN\ (enable) shuts down the regulator, reducing the quiescent current to less than 1 µA at TJ = +25°C.
For the TPS751xxQ, the power-good terminal (PG) is an active high, open drain output for use with a power-on reset or a low-battery indicator.
The RESET (SVS, POR, or power on reset) output of the TPS753xxQ initiates a reset in microcomputer and microprocessor systems in the event of an undervoltage condition. An internal comparator in the TPS753xxQ monitors the output voltage of the regulator to detect an undervoltage condition on the regulated output voltage. When the output reaches 95% of its regulated voltage, RESET goes to a high-impedance state after a 100-ms delay. RESET goes to a logic-low state when the regulated output voltage is pulled below 95% (that is, during an overload condition) of its regulated voltage.
The TPS751xxQ and TPS753xxQ are offered in 1.5 V, 1.8 V, 2.5 V and 3.3 V fixed-voltage versions and in an adjustable version (programmable over the range of 1.5 V to 5 V). Output voltage tolerance is specified as a maximum of 2% over line, load, and temperature ranges. The TPS751xxQ and TPS753xxQ families are available in a 20-pin TSSOP (PWP) package.
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Say NO to More 'F' Words and Nudity on TV!
The FCC is seeking public comment on their plan to reduce their responsibility to take action against obscenity and nudity on television. The proposed new guidelines for broadcast television would require "egregious" indecency – "deliberate and receptive use in a patently offensive manner."
In their April 1 public notice asking for public comments, the FCC announced it was reducing by 70 percent a backlog of over one million consumer complaints regarding indecency on television. The proposed "egregious violation" policy will result in further reduction of consumer complaints. Under the new guidelines, the FCC can simply declare that complaints do not meet the "egregious" standard and not proceed any further.
The FCC website describes current law:
"It is a violation of federal law to air obscene programming at any time. It is also a violation of federal law to air indecent programming or profane language during certain hours. Congress has given the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the responsibility for administratively enforcing these laws. The FCC may revoke a station license, impose a monetary forfeiture or issue a warning if a station airs obscene, indecent or profane material."
Clearly, the current commissioners on the FCC no longer want the responsibility. In President Obama's first term, only one proceeding against indecency was filed – a case against Fox TV for a scene of bestiality on AMERICAN DAD. The fine was only $25,000 and was actually for Fox's unwillingness to even comply with information requests.
The FCC has set up a form on their website to receive comments.
1. Go to http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/upload/display?z=7ebb1.
2. Enter your comment in the text box provided and click "Continue."
3. From there, review your comment and click "Confirm."
Make the comment you wish. Below is a suggestion:
I oppose any changes to FCC indecency standards that would allow television and radio stations to broadcast any expletives and nudity on the public airwaves between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., even if they are not deliberate and repetitive.
The Supreme Court ruled that the FCC has the authority to revoke a station license, impose a monetary forfeiture (a fine), or issue a warning for indecency as long as the station is aware of the FCC's standards in advance of their offending broadcast. I favor strong, clear standards, consistently enforced.
As of May 7, 2013, there have been 93,238 comments posted. The highest number of comments ever posted to an FCC comment request was 236,292. The 93,238 is the fifth highest. Let's make it the highest!
May 20 is the cut-off date set by the FCC to receive the public's feedback on this issue. Please share this article on Facebook and encourage your family and friends to help us get the response up to 300,000.
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Oracle shares fell sharply a day after the company posted disappointing quarterly software sales and said its customers had become more cautious, quashing the idea that the software sector would be immune to the economic turmoil that has roiled the rest of the tech sector.
Oracle shares fell 8 percent in premarket trading, which also pulled down the stocks of other software makers like SAP, which fell more than 6 percent premarket.
Chief Financial Officer Safra Catz warned that businesses had delayed approving purchases of Oracle's software toward the close of its fiscal third quarter, which ended on Feb 29. The company would likely have a tougher time closing sales this quarter than it did a year ago, she added.
"Customers got a little more cautious toward the end of the quarter," Catz said on a conference call with analysts following the results.
Oracle's stock had gained 10 percent in the month leading up to Wednesday's fiscal third-quarter earnings report, on expectations the results would be a bright spot among an increasingly disappointing flow of corporate results.
"People have turned to the software sector in general as somewhat defensive, but it's not immune," said Charles DiBona, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co who has a "market perform" rating on Oracle shares.
As Oracle's fiscal quarter closes a month earlier than the typical March 31, investors look to it as an indicator of how other software makers will perform.
While profit matched market expectations, Oracle's sales of new software -- which investors look to as an indicator of future financial performance -- rose 16 percent, near the low end of its December forecast of 15 to 25 percent growth.
Sales of new business management software rose 7 percent to $451 million, short of the $553 million that Wall Street was expecting according to Brendan Barnicle, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities.
Shares of rival SAP, the No. 4 software maker by total sales but No. 1 in business management, were off 6.2 percent, while IBM was down more than 1 percent and Microsoft dipped 0.7 percent.
Business Management Software
Goldman Sachs analyst Sarah Friar said that Oracle's sales of business management software, or applications, such as accounting programs, were particularly disappointing.
"The applications business is definitely very weak. That makes me worry about what software (results of other companies) will look like for the March quarter. I think this is definitely going to spook the market," said Friar.
Oracle's results had previously outperformed expectations.
This was the first quarter that it has disappointed Wall Street since the economic downturn began.
Net income in the quarter rose 25 percent to $1.34 billion, or 26 cents per share, from $1.03 billion, or 20 cents, a year earlier, the company said.
Profit excluding items was 30 cents per share, which was in line with Wall Street forecasts. But non-GAAP revenue was $5.37 billion, which was lighter than the average analyst forecast of $5.415 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.
New software sales figures are followed because the customers also sign maintenance contracts that cost 20 percent of the product price per year. Also, software makers get extra revenue from customers when they expand the number of workers using a computer program that they have already purchased.
Oracle shares were down to $19.15, or 8.5 percent, in after-hours trading after closing at $20.94 on Nasdaq.


text: Monday, November 04, 2013 PTs Have 'Tremendous Opportunity' in Medicare's Shift to Quality Reporting While the media focuses on high-profile website problems and political debates, physical therapists (PTs) may find that for them, some of the biggest news around the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has to do with how payment systems will emphasize quality of care—and how that quality will be measured. The role of the PT in the new health care reporting landscape is the focus of an article (member login required) in the November issue of PT in Motion, the magazine of APTA. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are making a "fundamental shift in the health care system" toward quality measurement, writes Heather Smith, PT, MPH, APTA program director of quality. She states that these quality measures "afford PTs a tremendous opportunity to demonstrate their value in the health care system" by delivering the kinds of outcomes that will be of increasing importance in future reimbursement models. The Medicare quality reporting programs are likely to influence reporting among private payers, making the PT's role even more crucial. Smith's article includes an overview of the health care settings that have adopted quality programs, explanations of the aims and strategies of the move toward quality reporting, and definitions of the various measure categories. PT in Motion is available free to APTA members in both online and print versions. Comments Quality patient care is vital is returning functional skills to those in need. Posted by Heidi on 11/9/2013 11:32 AM


text:
Nov. 2, 2012
RALEIGH, N.C. (seminoles.com) – The 11th-ranked Florida State indoor volleyball team used a trio of comebacks in all three sets to overcome minor deficits and get past NC State, 3-0 (26-24, 25-16, 25-21), on Friday evening at the Reynolds Coliseum.
The win gives the Seminoles (22-2, 13-1) sole possession of first place after rival Miami fell on Friday night to North Carolina in three sets. Despite its fifth consecutive three-match sweep, the victory did not come easy for Florida State. The Seminoles were forced to come back from deficits of six points in the first set, a small three-point deficit in set two and a seven-point deficit midway through the third set.
Regardless, the sweep bears plenty of significance for Florida State. The Seminoles have now won 18 straight sets, their longest ever streak in the rally scoring era (2001-present) and their seventh longest overall in program history. The school record is 35 consecutive sets won by the 1981 team.
"The thing that stood out to me was the character of our team in making these comebacks tonight," head coach Chris Poole said. "We didn't play perfect all the time and we gave away some points but we always kept our head in the match. Our team never panicked and altogether I think it was a good team effort tonight."
Florida State also continues its 16-match win streak, which is tied for the fourth longest in school history with the 2011 squad that reached the NCAA National Semifinals. The school record is 21 consecutive wins also held by the 1981 team.
Behind several contributions, the Seminoles stretched their win streak over a much improved Wolfpack (19-6, 9-5) team to 26 consecutive matches. Senior outside hitter Fatma Yildirim and junior middle blocker Ashley Neff produced identical stat lines with nine kills apiece in 21 attacks and four blocks.
The Seminoles recorded a .303 hitting percentage, the 11th time this season they have recorded .300 or better. Senior Sareea Freeman had seven kills, a .636 hitting clip and five blocks. Junior Elise Walch provided a noticeable spark with five kills, a .375 hitting percentage and two blocks in two sets of action.
Junior Olivera Medic was strong again defensively for Florida State, picking up 10 digs and seven kills. Redshirt sophomore Katie Mosher led the team with 13 digs, while setters Duygu Duzceler and Sarah Wickstrom combined for 36 assists and led another fine offensive performance.
The Seminoles are now 9-2 against the current Top 50 RPI with Friday's win. NC State entered the match ranked 40th in the latest ratings.
Florida State stole a first-set victory over the Wolfpack after staving off two set points and going on a late 4-0 run. Trailing 24-22, Poole called a much-needed timeout to allow the Seminoles to regroup. Coming out of the break, back-to-back kills by Neff and Yildirim tied the set. The Seminoles then used a couple NC State attack errors that sailed over the end line to come back and win the opening frame. The Wolfpack seemingly dug every ball early in the set and held 6-1 and 12-6 leads, but Florida State battled back and used six blocks to its advantage in the set.
The Seminoles took control of the second set about midway through with a 9-1 run that turned a 13-13 tie into a 22-14 advantage. Wickstrom started the run with a service ace and a timely combination of blocks and well-placed kills allowed Florida State to seize momentum in the frame after NC State took an 11-8 lead. Florida State hit .481 in the set on 17 kills and reached 10 team blocks midway through. Mosher ended the second set with a floated kill to the back left corner. Elise Walch sparked Florida State with five kills in the frame, while Medic added four in five attacks.
Florida State once again dug deep in the third set, trailing 14-7 midway through the set before coming back. The Seminoles put together a 9-2 run to tie the set at 16-16, and after NC State regained the lead at 20-17 Florida State put together a 4-0 run to take a 21-20 lead on an attack error by NC State's Alesha Wilson. A nice kill by Yildirim gave the Seminoles a 22-21 lead and they would not surrender another point as a service ace by Wickstrom and an attack error by Brie Merriwether ended the match.
Florida State finishes its road trip with a match at third-place North Carolina on Saturday evening at 5 p.m. at Carmichael Arena in Chapel Hill, N.C. The match will be streamed on ESPN3.com.


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From kindergarten to seniors, students at Sarasota Christian School are going global with help and the love of Christ.
According to Amanda Stutzman, "Each grade level has begun a long-term partnership with 13 schools around the world."
The goal, Stutzman said, is to increase knowledge of other cultures and foster "interconnectedness."
"As citizens of God's kingdom and followers of Christ who taught us to love our neighbors as ourselves, Sarasota Christian School is committed to promoting global citizenship," she added.
Jeff Shank, superintendent of Sarasota Christian School, and Dawn Graber, guidance and chapel coordinator, organized the new initiative, Global Family.
Global Family education sponsorship is a program of the Mennonite Central Committee.
"Dawn went to the Middle East to interact with the other schools," Shank said.
For international conflict resolution to work, Shank added, "we have to tie it to peace and connect with and love our neighbors."
Graber said that she visited six schools in Jordan and Palestine.
"My mission was to get to know the people and learn what we can about them," Graber said.
Daron Nouri, 7, is in first grade.
"My country is Kenya," he said. Daron and his classmates have begun raising money for Menno Kids Academy.
"They don't have McDonald's, or malls or movies," Daron said.
"They don't have any money for books or school supplies either," he added.
Zach Perron, 12, and his sixth- grade class are raising money for Seeds of Hope in Colombia. While researching Colombia, Zach found that more than 50 percent are Christian; "but Colombia is not free like we are."
Zach said that he hopes the people will turn to God so that they may lead a free life and live well.
Lauren Henry's senior class is sponsoring Matabelel and North in Zimbabwe.
"In general Zimbabwe has a lot of economic problems -- we learned about them in Econ class," Lauren said.
Lauren said that she learned that girls were recently allowed to attend educational classes but because they have no desks, they sit on rocks.
"We are so privileged; I have all of the materials that I need to be successful," Lauren said.
"I think sometimes we take a lot of things for granted," she added.
Nicaragua's Place of Hope school is sponsored by the sophomore class.
"The average Nicaraguan only makes $100 a year -- that means no school supplies for the kids," said Youvany Ovalle.
He said that his class is collecting funds and supplies "so that the kids can learn and better themselves."
Brittany Swart's eighth-grade class is sponsoring Education First in Tanzania, the kindergarten class has Kids House in Iraq.
Cambodian Angkearhei Primary School belongs to Sarasota Christian's second grade class, and third grade has Guarderia Moises in Bolivia.
The Latin Patriarchate School in Palestine, Hope School in Burundi, Arab Episcopal in Jordan and Northwest Schools in Bangladesh are sponsored by fourth, fifth, seventh and ninth grades.
Kelsey Murphy, 16, is a junior; her class is raising money for Sunrise and Hope in Palestine.
"It's Shoroq wa-Amal, on the Gaza Strip," Kelsey said. "And it's kind of a refugee camp for kids from 6 to 16.
"I learned a lot about the area and it's sad -- there are a lot of orphans and they use this camp as a safe place."
Kelsey said that the kids are "Christians and Muslim -- and some are nothing -- but they all need hope.
"We are excited about the program," she continued. "We want to tell the world that we are excited and want to get to know you."
Young Christians go global
From kindergarten to seniors, students at Sarasota Christian School are going global with help and the love of Christ.


text:
Some time ago we featured "The Pioneer Woman Cooks" as our Blog of the Week.
We often visit her site to check out what great recipes and stories she has in store. Ree now has a new website called "thepioneerwoman.com" and I have just come from reading about her Tomato-Basil Pizza, Two Ways: An Experiment. Both ways of making this pizza are very easy to make and very tasty to eat.
I really like her new website and I am sure you will as well.
Ree has a great way of writing which is entertaining and amusing. So why not get yourself a coffee and settle down to check out the recipes and all the other interesting stuff on thepioneerwoman.com


text:
Posts Taggedflight simulator
Space… the final frontier. A frontier not often explored by video games — not in a spaceship anyway. While there's a sea of racing games, first person shooters, and other genres that have way too many clones, space flight simulators that let you explore the vast galaxy while admiring it's magnificent beauty are very scarce.
This once popular type of game is considered by most to be a "dead" genre, and this is sad because there are many people who love space, spaceships, and space battles. Some have EVE to rely on, but not everyone can afford the monthly price or the hours needed to invest in such deep game.
This is where Galaxy on Fire 2 Full HD comes into play. While these are not the voyages of the starship Enterprise, this title will take you were no one has gone before — and it'll do so with finesse.


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AspectWerkz 2.0: An Extensible Aspect Container
In this article, Jonas Bonér introduces the new AspectWerkz 2.x architecture. AspectWerkz 2.x has been designed to be an extensible AOP container where any kind of aspects can coexist ranging from Spring aspects to AspectJ aspects. The article explains why this architecture is beneficial to the Java AOP communtity and explains the benefits and drawbacks of running AOP Alliance, Spring and AspectJ aspects within the AspectWerkz Extensible Aspect Container. It concludes with performance figures.
In this article, Jonas Bonér introduces the new AspectWerkz 2.x architecture. AspectWerkz 2.x has been designed to be an extensible AOP container where any kind of aspects can coexist ranging from Spring aspects to AspectJ aspects. The article explains why this architecture is beneficial to the Java AOP communtity and explains the benefits and drawbacks of running AOP Alliance, Spring and AspectJ aspects within the AspectWerkz Extensible Aspect Container. It concludes with performance figures.
AspectWerkz 2.0.RC1 is already available for download here.
The last couple of years the Java AOP landscape has flourished. It has gone from one single implementation (AspectJ), to a whole bunch of frameworks, each one with its own way of defining and instantiating its aspects and with its own weaver, runtime environment and tools. Even though having many ways of doing things is not necessary a bad thing, especially not in such early days of a new technology, it is not making it easier for new users of AOP and does not speed up its adoption.
When you look at most frameworks out there you can see that they have a lot in common, most of them share same semantics, life-cycle options etc. Most of them have re-implemented concepts introduced by AspectJ and in some cases introduced their own.
This is something that we have had in mind when we were designing the new AspectWerkz container and weaver and led us to an open architecture that was easy to extend, an architecture that formed the foundation for the AspectWerkz Extensible Aspect Container.
Basically it allows you to plug in extensions that can handle the framework specific details, while the common things are shared. What this brings you is a weaver and a container that can weave, deploy and run any aspect no matter how it is implemented and defined.
This introduces many advantages and opens for standardization on tools (development and runtime manageability), but also some risks since it can be hard for one single container implementation to handle both optimal performance and the full expressiveness of all the supported AOP implementations.
Container architecture
If we try to illustrate what happens when a method has been advised by a before advice on execution (callee) side, the sequence diagram for the resulting invocation is as follows.
This first diagram shows a regular unadvised method invocation:
In this diagram we have the same method invocation when it is advised by a before advice. The aspect in this example is deployed as
perTarget() (one aspect instance should be created per advised callee instance):
This sequence diagram will be the same no matter how the advice has been implemented. The extension implementation for this aspect model needs to define parts like: "how to get an aspect instance?", while some other parts, like: "how to get the advised member arguments?" are independent of the implementation details of the aspect and should be part of container.
The container is responsible of handling the semantic differences between the different aspect models to allow the aspects to coexist in one single runtime environment. AspectWerkz 2.x architecture follows this principle and supports aspect models extension, so that both AspectJ, Spring, AOP Alliance and AspectWerkz aspects can be handled and deployed in a consistent single runtime. Virtually any kind of aspect model can be added to it.
Here is an illustration that shows the high-level architecture of the AspectWerkz Extensible Container and how it interacts with the Aspect Model Extensions and the weaver. Each extension is seen as an Aspect Model and is implemented by implementing the
AspectModel interface, but more on that later.
AOP Alliance extension
One of the extensions that we have already implemented is one that supports aspects that implements the AOP Alliance interfaces.
This means all aspects written for:
Apart from benefits of having one single weaver and container, one intermediate representation and one container (which handles deployment modules, security, isolation, management etc.) there are many interesting aspects on how we can enhance the user experience of these frameworks.
We will continue this discussion using Spring as example, but the same concepts apply to all these frameworks (apart from perhaps JAC, which has a completely different approach).
Spring extension
Spring (and all frameworks listed above apart from JAC) only supports a subset of AOP, a subset that is in many cases sufficient for the needs of your application. It does a good job at implementing some of the standard J2EE services and being a starting point for users that are starting to learn AOP. However, when users get more experienced they tend to feel restricted and there are many situations where you need to utilize the rich semantics defined by AspectJ (and implemented by f.e. AspectWerkz and partly by JBoss AOP).
But, what is interesting and important is that the limitations these framework have is not necessary in the programming model (the way you implement, define and instantiate the aspects), but how they are weaved. All of them (apart from JAC) are using a proxy based approach to the weaving and this is what mainly limits the expressiveness (although the AOP Alliance and proxy based approaches have not designed an Invocation object that represents a field access/modification or catch handler join points).
In the Spring extension we have added support for the features available in Spring but not in AOP Alliance, f.e. before and after advice.
Richer semantics and expressiveness
Using the AspectWerk Extensible Container we now can take full advantage of the semantics defined and implemented by AspectWerkz. This includes advising:
- method execution
- method call
- constructor execution
- constructor call
- field access
- field modification
- catch handlers
- static initialization
Currently Spring (and all other proxy based implementations) only supports:
- method execution
- constructor execution
For Spring users this means being able to add the pre-packaged transaction interceptor on the caller (client) side, implement client side authentication (reduce network traffic) or implement generic transparent persistance by advising field modification and much more.
To make use of these richer semantics in Spring we need a way to define and handle them. We can do that in two ways, either we extend the Spring bean definition to understand and support the new semantics (f.e. add the caller instance to Spring's Invocation class) or we define our Spring aspects using the AspectWerkz definition, either using Annotations or XML. The latter approach actually works really smooth (and we can make it even better if we make use of the
SpringAspectContainer to let Spring handle the instantiation, dependency injection and life-cycle management for the aspects).
Better performance
Since the weaver in AspectWerkz 2.x is compiling everything statically, meaning that the output of the weaver is code that is statically compiled and verified, Spring (and any other framework) will benefit from that.
Statically compiled code can be highly tuned and optimized and no reflection is needed. This means that we don't have to perform all the expensive plumbing needed in a reflective model.
- no casting
- no boxing and unboxing of primitives
- no wrapping (and unwrapping) of parameters in an object array that needs to be allocated at each invocation (and maintained throughout the invocation flow)
- no reflective invocations
- etc.
Apart from this, statically compiled code tends to be more predictable than code that is reflectively evaluated.
For details on the performance improvements see the benchmark in the appendix at the end of this article.
AspectJ extension
We have also implemented support for running AspectJ aspects inside the AspectWerkz Extensible Container. The aspects on this are very different compared to the Spring extension. AspectJ still supports a richer set of semantics than AspectWerkz so there will be certain aspects that we will not be able to run, but we will on the other hand give the AspectJ users a new dimension of dynamicity (for a large subset of their aspects).
Load time weaving
When using the AspectJ extension the AspectJ aspects can be weaved into the target application at load time, using AspectWerkz's production stable implementation that is verified to work on all major application servers and JVMs on the market, for Java 1.3 up to Java 5.
Hot deployment and undeployment
The AspectJ users will have the possibility of doing hot deployment and undeployment of the aspects, a feature that is based on true runtime weaving and unweaving in the AspectWerkz 2.x architecture.
// deploy a specific aspect in a specific class loader (will propagate down to all its children) Deployer.deploy(Aspect.class, loader); ... // undeploy the specific aspect from a specific class loader Deployer.undeploy(Aspect.class, loader) // deploy an aspect and store a handle to the deployment event DeploymentHandle handle = Deployer.deploy(Aspect.class); ... // revert the changes made by the deployment defined by the handle Deployer.undeploy(handle)
Deployment modules and class loader awareness
The AspectJ aspects can be packaged in deployment modules that can be deployed at different levels in the class loader hierarchy and will inherit the visibility and isolation of the class loader they are deployed in (just like AspectWerkz's deployment modules packaged with the
META-INF/aop.xml deployment descriptor).
Deployment time configuration
The users of AspectJ can choose to override the pointcut definition in the aspects using external XML deployment descriptors (the
META-INF/aop.xml file). Something that will allow late binding, e.g. the possiblity of taking certain decisions at deployment time and not at compile time. This is something that can be very beneficial in some cases in enterprise application development but is a highly debated topic and should be use with care.
Custom extension
If you want to plug in your own AOP or interceptor framework into the AspectWerkz Extensible Container then all you have to do is to implement the
org.codehaus.aspectwerkz.transform.inlining.spi.AspectModel interface and the container will manage the weaving, deployment, life-cycle management etc.
You need a way of registering your extension and this can be done by adding the fully qualified name of the implementation class to the
-Daspectwerkz.extension.aspectmodels=... VM option. Autodetection of aspect models might be added later.
This is the API defined by the
AspectModel interface which is the only interface that the extensions needs to implement:
public interface AspectModel { String getAspectModelType(); boolean requiresReflectiveInfo(); AroundClosureClassInfo getAroundClosureClassInfo(); void defineAspect(..); void createMandatoryMethods(..); void createInvocationOfAroundClosureSuperClass(..); void createAspectReferenceField(..); void createAspectInstantiation(..); void createAroundAdviceArgumentHandling(..); void createBeforeAdviceArgumentHandling(..); void createAfterAdviceArgumentHandling(..); }
The road ahead
Having one single intermediate representation for the aspect (definition/model/plan), regardless of how it is implemented, defined and weaved, and a well-defined API to work with this definition opens up for standardization on tools, both for development and runtime manageability.
Support for other frameworks, f.e. JBoss AOP which has a programming model that is somehow similar to AspectWerkz's, would be easy to implement. This is left as an exercise to the JBoss AOP users.
AspectWerkz Extensible Aspect Container allows to have this single intermediate representation, single container and single weaver, while making use of any aspect programming model. What would be even more interesting would be to have one single container and internal representation but make the weaver pluggable. Meaning being able to plug in different strategies of doing the actual weaving. This would be a natural step to integrate for example VM weaving, which we believe is the place where the weaving ultimately belongs. This illustration shows how the weaving mechanism can be made pluggable using different weaving strategies:
Notes on compatibility:
- Spring extension - supports all advice apart from
ThrowsAdvice. Full compatibility will be implemented if the user community finds it of interest.
- AspectJ extension - still only a proof-of-concept. It does f.e. not support,
thisStaticJoinPointand inter-type declarations. This is something that will be implemented if the user community finds it interesting and worth the effort.
We have done a microbenchmark between the AspectWerkz container extensions to AspectJ and Spring, and the regular AspectJ, Spring, JBoss AOP and AspectWerkz frameworks.
The numbers in the table shows number of nanoseconds per iteration, where one iteration is the invocation of the advice and the advised method. All advice are doing the same amount of work (incrementing a public static int in another class).
Benchmarks where run on a Pentium M 1.60 GHz, 1.0 Go RAM running Java 1.4.2 (HotSpot) and Windows 2000 SP4 without any specific JVM settings.
|AspectWerkz 2.0 RC1
|Spring 1.1.1
|Spring extension in AspectWerkz
|AspectJ 1.2
|AspectJ extension in AspectWerkz
|JBoss 1.0
|Non-advised invocation
|before advice (1)
|before advice - argument access
|205 (2)
|around advice
|95 (3)
|around advice twice - argument access
|460 (2)
Notes :
- (1) Using an after advice gives the same results.
- (2) Spring extension - for the user to get all the benefits from the statically compiled approach he needs to make use of direct access to contextual information in the advice. This means f.e. adding the arguments he is interested of to the advice signature, something that will break the Spring API which relies on specific advice method signatures, in particular a the requirement to pass in an object array with the wrapped arguments. It could perhaps be solved using delegation, and lazy and optional creation of the object array.
- (3) AspectJ extension - the before advice and all the after advice types has the same performance as when using the regular AspectJ weaver (ajc).
The reason why the around advice is so much slower than both the regular AspectJ version and the AspectWerkz version is because:
- First, the regular AspectJ compiler inlines the advice body in the target class, e.g. no closure is created (which is something that the AspectWerkz compiler can't do if it wants to keep the option of possible redefinition of the aspect model. This is the tradeoff for providing dynamicity, runtime weaving and multiple weaving support).
- Second, the AspectJ compiled aspect in itself is poorly optimized.
Note that argument access is not yet implemented in the AspectJ extension of the AspectWerkz Extensible Container.
Jonas Bonér is a Senior Software Engineer at the Java Runtime Products Group, BEA Systems. He is the founder of the AspectWerkz AOP framework and an active contributor to the Java Open Source community.