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Undergraduate Admissions
Summer Orientation and Registration Program Overview
Welcome! At Western Illinois University, we challenge you to take advantage of the premier undergraduate opportunities and resources available. You will experience a true residential campus, a dynamic student activities program, and first-rate faculty who will challenge your mind and test your assumptions. You will be encouraged not only to answer questions, but to continually seek new information and challenge your current way of thinking. At Western Illinois University, you will have the chance to explore new opportunities, make life-long friendships, serve your school and community, and celebrate your discoveries, joys, and triumphs! Let the learning begin!FAQs: Program Overview
Why is Summer Orientation and Registration so important?
Participating in the Summer Orientation and Registration program is one of the first steps that students take in their transition to the University. During Summer Orientation and Registration, you will meet with an academic adviser from your intended major, register for classes, meet with faculty members, and interact with other students. You will also learn academic requirements and services that will be invaluable your first semester.
What type of identification will I need to present in order to get my student ID?
All students will be required to provide a legal form of identification in order to get their WIU student identification card. The following are the ONLY acceptable forms of picture identification: driver's license or state identification card, U.S. or foreign passport, military ID, or INS I-1551 resident alien card. For the Canada Provinces a driver's license, learner permit, or official province ID are acceptable. The Mexican Counselate ID, Matricula Counsular, is also acceptable under Illinois law. The Illinois Firearm ID (FOID card) will not be accepted as a legal form of identification.
What is there to do in the evening?
Activities are scheduled for both the students and family members/guests.
Questions about Placement Testing
I have never taken any college classes; do I have to take English and math placement tests?
You will not take an English exam. English placement is determined by your ACT Reading and English subscores or your SAT Writing component or Critical Reading score. The mathematics department will do an initial placement into math courses using a student's math ACT score and the math courses completed in high school as guidelines. The mathematics department may recommend that a student take the math placement test (called COMPASS) to improve the placement level.
I have taken classes at another college; do I have to take English or math placement tests?
Freshman students who are transferring in the equivalent of WIU's English 180 (freshman composition) will be asked to provide a writing sample by taking the English placement exercise regardless of the transfer of credit. Students with completion of an approved equivalent to WIU's Intermediate Algebra or above will not be required to take the math placement test.
Can I use a calculator in the math placement test?
Yes, you can bring your own calculator or use the drop down calculator in the COMPASS program.
What if I am placed into a non-credit Math course?
Depending on your math background, you may be advised to take the COMPASS exam to try to place into a higher course.
If my placement remains Math 099N, the non-credit course, can I take it at a community college before I come to WIU?
Yes, we encourage you to take the equivalent of Math 099N at your area community college before attending WIU. Once you select a registration date, you will receive a letter explaining how to determine what your math placement will be so that you can decide whether or not to take a math course over the summer.
What if I need special testing accommodations?
Students needing any accommodations in order to fully participate in these events, should contact Disability Resource Center at (309) 298-2512.


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Exford Hotel
BREAKFAST IS INCLUDED FOR ALL GUESTS!! Come down and help yourself to our delicious crepes and selection of cereals.
Free WiFi for all weekly stays - See staff for details upon check in.
The Exford Hotel is a heritage style building, built in 1854. Located in Chinatown in the heart of the city. We offer dormitory style rooms as well as twin and doubles. The reception is open 24hrs with secure access to the hostel and a relaxed come and go as you please feel. Facilities include internet access with WiFi throughout the building. All weekly stays receive free access, otherwise there is a small charge involved. We have a TV room with Foxtel and free movie hire, a huge kitchen with walk in fridge and secure lockers for food storage.
10.30am check out. Tour bookings and an on site bottleshop thats open until 3.00am.
On the ground floor is one of Melbourne's oldest pubs with its stained glassed windows and ornate pressed metal ceilings. Free pool on Sundays and discount drinks for guests.. Best of all its open until at least 4.00am every night. On the 1st floor is the Winter Garden room an elegantly designed lounge bar that hosts a variety of nights. Come on down and enjoy a pizza and a pot of beer and sample a true Australian pub.
All rooms have been recently repainted with new carpet throughout the common areas. All beds have inner spring mattresses and rooms are cleaned daily.
Please note No persons under 18 years of age accepted and there is no elevator in the building. We offer dormitory style rooms as well as private rooms.
Close to all public transport connections and shopping districts.
Facilities include Global Gossip internet access. TV room with Foxtel and Free DVD hire, huge kitchen with walk in fridge and secure lockers for food storage. Free breakfast, 11am check out. Tour bookings and a on site bottleshop thats open until 5.30am.
On the ground floor is one of Melbourne's oldest pubs with its stained glassed windows and ornate pressed metal ceilings. Free pool on Sundays and discount drinks for guests as well as a free BBQ on Friday evenings. Best of all its open until 5.30am every night.On the 1st floor is the Winter Garden room an elegantly designed lounge bar that hosts a variety of nights
Availability & RatesTo view availability and prices please select dates and click 'Update Dates'
Hostel Facilities & Policies
- 24 Hour Reception
- 24 Hour Security
- Age Restriction
- Bar
- Free Breakfast
- Cable TV
- Ceiling Fan
- Common Room
- Credit Cards Accepted
- Dryer
- DVDs
- Telephone/Fax Facilities
- Free City Maps
- Free WiFi
- Hair Dryers For Hire
- Hot Showers
- House Keeping
- Internet Access
- Iron / Ironing Board
- Jobs Board
- Key Card Access
- Self-Catering Facilities
- Laundry Facilities
- Linen Included
- Security Lockers
- Luggage Storage
- Meals Available
- Microwave
- No Curfew
- Non Smoking
- Outdoor Terrace
- Playstation
- Pool Table
- Postal Service
- Taxes included
- Tea & Coffee Making Facilities
- Tours/Travel Desk
- Towels For Hire
- Washing Machine
- Wi-Fi
Cancellation PolicyThis property has a 1 day cancellation policy. Failure to cancel within this time will result in a cancellation charge equal to the first night of your stay.
Must-Read Hostel InfoThis property has specific Terms & Conditions.
Exford Hotel Terms & Conditions:
- Cancellation Policy: 24 hours notice must be given to cancel a booking. Failure to comply with this will result in the cost of one night's accommodation being debited from the credit card.
- Check-in from 14:00 to 23:00.
- Check-out at 10:30 am.
- No persons under 18 years of age.
- All guest must have a VALID DRIVERS LICENCE OR PASSPORT at time of check-in. If you do not have these your booking will be cancelled and you will not be checked in.. We require as a key deposit for the room either photo i.d (which can be a valid drivers licence, passport or identification card), a valid credit card or $50 cash. This will stay with us for the duration of your stay. If guests leave i.d they can request it at any time.
- There are no 'cash refunds' given once guests are checked in. Credit vouchers are issued for a future stay and are valid for 1 year.
DirectionsShow MapHide Map
Located on the Corner of Little Bourke Street and Russell Street in Chinatown.
If you are coming from Tullamarine Airport the Skybus express service to Southern Cross Station which operate 24 hours a day from the front of all terminals except Tiger(ask for directions to the Skybus terminal), can drop you off at the front of our hostel usually between the hours of 6am-9pm(ask customer service for exact times this service operates).
If you arrive from Avalon airport there is a shuttle service which operates to Southern Cross Station.
Otherwise if you are coming from Southern Cross station jump on any tram for free heading into the city down Bourke St and get off at the Russell St stop. We are 2 minute walk from this stop.
Located Near
The MCG, Rod Laver Arena, Princess Theatre, Federation Square, Etihad Stadium, Melbourne Museum, Victorian Arts Centre, State Library, Queen Victoria Market, Flinders Street Station and all major universities are within a short walking distance from our central location. Plenty of supermarkets and department stores within a block. Otherwise jump on any tram for free travel within the Melbourne CBD.

subset: commoncrawl


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Roger & Cheryl Clark
Duration: 65 minutes
First Pasture Price: £14.65
Status: In Stock
In this programme we see Roger and Cheryl Clark using working horses to help run their farm in Suffolk.
The programme features ploughing, harrowing, drilling, rolling, planting potatoes, haymaking and how the horses are harnessed and managed.
For quick reference of all farming dvds available within the shop, visit the Farming DVDs A-Z page.


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American moms creating a parenting melting pot
When young American mothers wrestle with the daily struggles of parenting, where do they look for advice?
Increasingly, anywhere but here.
Call it the parenting melting pot, as mothers build on the American framework of raising children by importing the best practices of other cultures — whether the laissez faire approach of the French to the give-them-space allowances in Iceland to the unforgiving rigidity of China's "Tiger Moms."
This search for just the right parenting mix goes well beyond the U.S.-based books and myriad mommy blogs, embracing a global view that has become more a way of life than a trendy divergence.
"I wanted to read about a different outlook, on making your kids more a part of your family, instead of the center of your family," says Rebecca Gordon, a 35-year-old New Yorker with a 3-month-old daughter.
Gordon, who on Sunday will celebrate her first Mother's Day, joins many of her peers in venturing beyond the 50 states. Several recent books about parenting practices around the world have even become top sellers. And, since these moms have grown up largely with the Internet, are often well-traveled and have a diverse group of international friends, thinking globally is almost second nature.
Such interest doesn't surprise Jennifer Lansford, a research professor at the Duke University Center for Child and Family Policy in Durham, N.C.
"As the world becomes a more global place, there is interest from parents in many countries about what parents in other countries are doing," she says.
A developmental psychologist, Lansford has since 2003 studied parenting in nine countries, including the USA. She says most parenting research comes from Western industrialized countries and has left out the "vast majority of the world's children," but that's beginning to change. Later this month, she will present her findings at a conference in Sweden where researchers from China, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines and the USA will discuss parenting across cultures.
Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, an associate professor who teaches child development courses at Ohio State University in Columbus, makes sure her students read about parenting philosophies elsewhere.
"The idea is not necessarily to adopt one of these perspectives, but to calm down because there are different ways to do things," she says.
Emma Swift, 34, whose four kids are ages 4 to 14, was born in Germany and moved to Iceland when she was 5. She's been in the USA nine years and now lives in Madison, Wis., where she says differences are apparent at the pool.
"We let them make mistakes in Iceland," she says. In Madison, "there are lifeguards at every corner. As soon as a child goes into a run or walk, the lifeguards will be yelling."
Erin Black, 39 and a mother of three from New York, points to the emotional and physical strains inherent in American culture as a reason to seek "clues" from abroad.
"I think when you look at the depression, obesity and anxiety in our country's children, that is fairly unique to America," says Black, whose children range in age from 1 to 6.
Rachel Rodgers, 31, of Rapid City, S.D., has read books and blogs about motherhood in other countries, including France and Africa, both places she's traveled.
"I think it's part of growing up in my generation with so much information at our fingertips," Rodgers says. "We have a natural inclination to over-research everything," says the lawyer with a 19-month-old daughter, and a son on the way in June. "That's what we're used to doing."
Jasjit Sangha, a researcher at the Center for Women's Studies and Education at the University of Toronto, co-edited a collection of essays in the book South Asian Mothering: Negotiating Culture, Family and Selfhood, out in March. She says the interest in global motherhood is natural.
"What they're looking for is trying to figure out the best parts of other cultures," Sangha says.
Parents in Western cultures tend to emphasize individual achievement and independence over other values, according to a team of pediatricians from Boston University Medical Center, writing in the journal Pediatrics last month.
Western parents "offer frequent praise, may favor verbal feedback over close physical contact, and promote independent behaviors," the article says. "Children are encouraged to think critically, question the status quo, and distinguish themselves from others."
Many other cultures — particularly Asian, African and Latino, the paper notes — put a higher value on collective achievement. They expect children to "obey authority, share their possessions, and place the needs of the family and community before their own."
Yale Law School professor Amy Chua's book on "traditional Chinese" or "Tiger Mom" parenting offered another cultural approach that sparked lots of controversy about proper parenting. Her website calls her book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, out in 2011, "the story of her family's journey in two cultures."
Mei-Ling Hopgood has seen such cultural differences firsthand. Hopgood, 39, an associate professor of journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., was born in Taiwan but raised in the USA. Both her daughters, ages 5 and almost 2, were born in Argentina, where she and her husband lived for seven years. Her book, How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm: And Other Adventures in Parenting, came out last year.
"American parents are just looking for 'The Answer' all the time — the best way — and they are worried the way they are doing things is the wrong way," she says. "If you look at the way people parent in a lot of places, there's not this anxiety about what to do right."
"I think parents in America are looking for common-sense solutions and alternatives to the parenting style that's taken hold among the middle-class in the United States," says Pamela Druckerman, 43, an American mother of three living in Paris. Her book on the wisdom of French parenting, Bringing Up Bébé, was a hot topic in parenting circles last year.
"The advantage of looking at the way another culture raises kids is not some parenting theory — it's actually looking at the place and seeing what works in practice," she says.
Cassie Hay, 30, of Jersey City, N.J., has a 4-month-old son. Her takeaway from Druckerman's book is "the children are children and the adults are adults, and the entire universe shouldn't be centered around the child" — a shift she acknowledges can be "very hard" to adapt in the real world. "I was interested in seeing if this was actually feasible."
Christine Gross-Loh researched parenting practices and interviewed parents from seven countries for her book Parenting Without Borders: Surprising Lessons Parents Around the World Can Teach Us, out earlier this month. It looks at measures of parental well-being and happiness and academic achievement among children.
Gross-Loh — a mother of four, ages 3 to 12, in Cambridge, Mass. — says most other cultures have more of the "it takes a village" approach, but in the USA, "it's all on us." Parents here have much less maternity and paternity leave and less financial assistance for health care and yet face increasing expectations of sending their kids to college. Although there are more dual-income households, they face rising child care costs and the stress of juggling it all makes American parents feel overwhelmed, she says.
Parenting expert Susan Newman, a social psychologist from Metuchen, N.J., says all the concern over how other cultures parent has to be tempered by the reality all parents know.
"Much of parenting is reactionary: 'How do I solve this problem?' " she says. "No single approach can work within the American culture or even within one family, because every child in that family is different."
For her new book, Parenting Without Borders, author Christine Gross-Loh gathered childrearing lessons from around the world and shares some, organized by country.
• Finland: Despite starting academics later (age 7), shorter school days (sometimes as little as four hours), less homework and more recess than American kids, Finnish children are among the highest achievers in the world.
• Sweden: "Don't control your kids: teach them to control themselves." Swedish parents believe in childrearing that combines gentle guidance and lots of freedom to make responsible choices for themselves. Swedish children are among the top on measures of well-being and happiness.
• Germany: "Make sure children play." In Germany, kindergartens (ages 3-6) are nearly all free-play based, because they strongly believe in the importance of plentiful unstructured play during the early childhood years. When Germany experimented with academic kindergarten during a wave of early-learning reform in the 1970s, they found that kids' academic and social achievement suffered later down the line – so they reverted back to their free-play model.
• France: Parents raise their children to enjoy the benefits of good food and assiduously cultivate their patience. They believe it's their duty to educate their children how to eat, as important as teaching a child to read.
• Japan: Japanese parents teach their children to always consider others from the time they're babies – they cultivate this social awareness the way parents elsewhere might cultivate their child's cognitive skills. Adults don't hover, but "let the children work it out," because being allowed ample practice in social interactions is what they believe to be the best way to raise kids of character who have a moral compass.
• China: Chinese parents don't think a dose of family obligation will stifle a child. They think it will help inspire him to do well and stay on a straight path.
• Italy: "No kid's meals." The concept of picky eating is practically unheard of. Instead of assuming kids won't want to be adventurous and preparing separate children's meals for them, Italian families believe in modeling the joys of eating with others through leisurely family dinners and gatherings.
Despite all the parenting advice online, some experts have taken a more comprehensive look at childrearing across cultures. Among the books that offer a more global perspective:
• Parenting Without Borders: Surprising Lessons Parents Around the World Can Teach Us by Christine Gross-Loh: a mother of four, Gross-Loh lived for five years with her kids in Japan, which sparked her interest in parenting practices around the world. Her multicultural approach includes topics such as sleeping, eating, self-esteem and play.
• Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman: a mother of three, Druckerman has lived in Paris since 2004 and shares her observations about the differences she's noticed between the French approach and parenting in the USA.
• Bébé Day by Day: 100 Keys to French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman: a how-to-guide on a variety of topics with 100 rules and a discussion of parenting the French way, out this year as a follow-up.
• Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua: a mother of two, the Yale Law School professor sparked controversy with her book that championed the strict and traditional parenting methods of her Chinese immigrant parents.
• How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm: And Other Adventures in Parenting (from Argentina to Tanzania and everywhere in between) by Mei-Ling Hopgood: a mother of two, Hopgood was born in Taiwan and raised in the USA. Both her daughters were born in Argentina, where she and her husband lived for seven years.
• South Asian Mothering: Negotiating Culture, Family and Selfhood edited by Jasjit Sangha and Tahira Consalves: a collection of essays that explores cultural norms and values and explains perceptions and parenting practices of South Asians.


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"Where are all the red umbrellas?" a conference attendee asked in the busy corridors of the 2012 International AIDS Conference. She was referring to the international sex worker community, which has adopted the red umbrella as its symbol. Others also wondered why sex worker and drug user activists from around the world, who have actively participated in past conferences, were largely absent this year.
The reason? Visas. When the U. S. Government issued a travel ban in 1987 that prevented people with HIV from entering the country, activists and scientists criticized the move as both a violation of human rights and an ineffective response to the epidemic. After a 22-year battle, the ban was finally lifted; however, the victory was only partial. Applicants for U.S. visas must still answer the following two questions:
- Are you or have you ever been a drug abuser or drug addict?
- Are you coming to the United States to engage in prostitution or unlawful commercialized vice or have you been engaged in prostitution or procuring prostitutes within the past 10 years?
Based on these questions, sex workers and drug users remain barred from entering the U.S. unless they are issued a waiver at the discretion of their country's consulate. This means they must either lie on their forms -- which is against the law -- or risk being denied a visa. Yet, how can two of the communities most at risk for HIV worldwide be left out of an international conference on AIDS? And how can we hope to end AIDS when such blatant social exclusion persists, driving the epidemic?
These U.S. immigration laws are just one example of the many ways national and international laws, regulations, and policies directly affect groups at risk for HIV. In July, the United Nations Global Commission on HIV and the Law released a report calling for the removal of all discriminatory and punitive laws, policies, and state practices which are fueling the global HIV epidemic. It explicitly recommends the decriminalization of consensual adult sex work and drugs for personal use. The U. S. should take note and bring its actions in line with the freedom, tolerance, and nondiscrimination it preaches. We can end AIDS, but only if those most affected are at the forefront of the response.


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Thousands of oil and natural gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico could be converted into deep-sea fish farms raising red snapper, mahi mahi, yellow fin tuna and flounder, under a plan backed by the Bush administration.
NEW ORLEANS Thousands of oil and natural gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico could be converted into deep-sea fish farms raising red snapper, mahi mahi, yellow fin tuna and flounder, under a plan backed by the Bush administration.
For years, marine biologists and oil companies have experimented using the giant platforms as bases for mariculture, but commercial use of the platforms as fish farms never got off the ground because of the federal government's reluctance to open up the oceans to farming.
Yet in December, President Bush proposed making it easier to launch fish farms off the nation's coasts. That could be done by resolving a "confounding array of regulatory and legal obstacles," the White House said.
Fish farming in the rough-and-tumble ocean, done by enclosing thousands of fish in submerged pens serviced by scuba divers, is limited commercially to waters within state jurisdiction, where permits have tended to be easier to get. Moi is grown in Hawaii, and cobia is farmed near Puerto Rico. Salmon farming is common, but it takes place mostly in the calm waters of fjords and bays.
But, fish farmers say, the future is rosy and fast-approaching.
"In Asia, they're starting to creep off into the open waters; there's a lot of talk of doing it in Ireland. In the Mediterranean, they are now looking at moving out into open waters and experimenting with new cages," said Richard Langan, who heads the University of New Hampshire's Open Ocean Aquaculture program. He is experimenting with a variety of species -- cod, Atlantic halibut, haddock, summer flounder and mussels.
With seafood now accounting for about $7 billion in the nation's foreign trade deficit, advocates of deep-sea farming say mariculture would bolster American seafood production and provide much-needed employment to coastal communities harmed by the eclipse of traditional fishing.
"Aquaculture is an issue that is here, and now we're already in the middle of it and how is the U.S. going to play in the game?" said Michael Rubino, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's aquaculture coordinator. "It's already being done in a big way in Korea, Taiwan and China. In the U.S., we'd like to start small, prove the concept and learn by doing."
The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy recommended in its report last year to move forward with offshore aquaculture, but to hold it to high environmental standards. In a response to the commission's report, Bush in his "Ocean Action Plan" listed offshore farming legislation as a priority this year.
The new frontier is federal waters, Rubino said. "There's no good framework in terms of where this should be done, how it should be done, how the rules of the game should be applied."
The Gulf could be just the place where such a framework is developed.
Oil and gas platforms function as barn-like bases: They're big enough to store feed, their deck winches and cranes can lift and drop pens in and out of the water and, if needed, fish farmers can spend the night onboard.
And unlike many in Florida and California, the people along the coasts of Louisiana and Texas by and large welcome the offshore industry and its array of spindly legged and blinking rigs and platforms.
"The Gulf has tremendous potential," said Granvil Treece, an aquaculture specialist at the Texas Sea Grant. "There's been a logjam so far, and that's been because of permitting mostly."
There are an estimated 3,500 idle platforms in the Gulf -- and each one of them could be a candidate for a new lease on life as a fish farm.
"The oil companies are looking for a way of leaving platforms in place and delaying the disassembly and expensive process of dismantling and removing a platform," said George Chamberlain, president of the St. Louis-based Global Aquaculture Alliance. It costs about $2 million to bring a platform ashore, Treece said, but another option, the "Rigs-to-Reefs" program converting a platform into an artificial reef, costs about $800,000. Chamberlain said the cost of production in fish farming continues to decline.
So far farming from the Gulf's platforms has only been experimental. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, for example, Occidental Petroleum Corp. teamed up with Texas Sea Grant scientists to grow redfish. Feeding the penned fish brought out some ingenious ideas and presented some problems.
Project officials learned computers could be used to open feed gates. With so many platforms far out in the Gulf a boat can't go out every day to unload fish feed as farmers do with salmon in the fjords of Scandinavia and North America.
"We dumped feed amounts in depending on how many fish were in the pens and what weight we wanted to grow them to," said Russell Miget, a Texas Sea Grant fisheries specialist who worked on the project.
Severe storms damaged some pens and fish got out. And Treece said studies show that the ocean-raised redfish worked out to cost a whopping $22 a pound, whereas redfish sold for $3.50 a pound at market. Also, just to run the platform's navigational lights and fight off corrosion cost about $50,000 a year, he said.
Miget remembered standing on a platform with an Occidental representative contemplating the future of fish farming. Responding to a question, Miget estimated that in ideal conditions, the platform could gross $6 million a year.
"The Occidental employee turned to me and said: 'We produce $6 million in gas every month off this platform,'" Miget said. "That put it in perspective."
While advocates believe it could work and be profitable, it's less sure whether any legislation Bush proposes will get the support of environmentalists.
Critics worry about turning the nation's oceans into the equivalent of ugly, dirty feedlots -- but for fish instead of cattle.
"It's much like chickens or hogs or other confined feeding operations on land and putting them in the ocean," said Roger Rufe, president of The Ocean Conservancy. "There are considerable issues with that, pollution issues."
Not to worry, Treece said, who believes the Gulf's strong currents "should take care of that," he said. "The solution to pollution is dilution, and that's what you got out here -- lots of dilution."
"We've found environmental impacts to be relatively minor," Rubino said. "You don't want to crowd these together and stick them on top of coral reefs."
He added: "This is a big coastline. We're not needing a lot of space."
Critics also question whether the government should designate sections of the ocean for farming and, in effect, privatize a public resource.
Another concern: Hatchery-raised fish could be put out in open-water farms, escape into the wild and corrupt wild populations' genetic pools.
Alaskan fishermen, for example, warn that their wild stocks are being infiltrated by Atlantic salmon bred in fish farms.
"The potential for Atlantic salmon to compete with our natural wild salmon or to spread diseases is an ongoing concern and part of the reason the United Fishermen of Alaska opposes finfish farming," said that group's executive director, Mark Vinsel.
The efficiency of fish farming is another question. Fish farmers have been known to feed eight pounds of fish for every pound of fish they raise, said Andy Rosenberg, a U.S. Ocean Commission member and former deputy director of the National Marine Fisheries Service. Fish farming, he said, "has the potential to produce high-quality seafood, but you need to do it carefully and it needs to be managed in a comprehensive way."
Source: Associated Press


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The Persistence of Vision Raytracer (POV-Ray).
This is the legacy Bug Tracking System for the POV-Ray project. Bugs listed here are being migrated to our github issue tracker. Please refer to that for new reports or updates to existing ones on this system.
FS#86 - Add support for more RNG types
Opened by Juha Nieminen (Warp) - Monday, 22 March 2010, 16:44 GMT
Last edited by William F Pokorny (wfpokorny) - Friday, 21 April 2017, 11:10 GMT
The current 32-bit linear congruential generator used as RNG in POV-Ray is sometimes quite limited for some purposes and in a few cases its poor quality shows up (as has been demonstrated more than once in the newsgroup). Thus it would be nice if POV-Ray offered additional, higher-quality random number generators, besides the current one (which should probably remain for backwards compatibility). These RNGs could include algorithms like the Mersenne Twister and the ISAAC RNG, both of which have very decent quality and have an enormous periods (while at the same time being very fast).
After a long discussion, the following syntax for specifying the RNG type and seed (which may be larger than 32 bits) has been suggested:
seed(<value>) | seed(<type>, <value> [, <values>])
For example:
#declare Seed1 = seed(123); // Use the current RNG, with seed 123 #declare Seed2 = seed(1, 123); // Identical to the previous one #declare Seed3 = seed(2, 456, 789, 123); // Use RNG algorithm #2, // with a large seed (96 bits specified here)
A C++ implementation of the ISAAC RNG can be found at http://warp.povusers.org/IsaacRand.zip
- Field changed: Status (New → Tracked on GitHub)
Now tracked on github as issue #277.


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With the preseason about to kick off, we're ready to announce that the 2014 World Championship will be held in South Korea.
South Korea is widely considered to be a center of esports and is home to some of the most devoted fans on the planet. With a deep esports heritage, this is an ideal location to follow up the largest esports event to date and showcase the top League of Legends players. At the World Championship, they'll battle it out for the title of world's best.
Before we head to South Korea though, we're looking forward to watching the best League of Legends pros from each region face off at the 2014 All-Star game in Europe.
Next season will once more showcase the best teams and players in the world so get ready, the 2014 season is on its way!


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Kory Boyd, Randall Hild, and Aage Giessing were snowmobiling in Wasatch County backcountry when a massive snow storm approached. They quickly realized they needed to get moving.
As the snow came in and day shifted to night Thursday, the men tried to make it to safety on their own, but the situation quickly became dangerous. After hours of being trapped in the snow and enduring bitterly cold temperatures the men began to show early signs of frostbite. Eventually they found shelter under some trees and built a fire. There was no cell phone service and little food. But the men did have something that would ultimately save their lives – a SPOT Satellite Tracker, thrown into a pack at the last minute.
Two Canadian hikers were found on Mt. Lafayette after one of them activated his SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger. New Hampshire Fish and Game Department officials rescued the two hikers, after they ran into severe conditions on the mountain. "The only information that led us to starting the search was that we had this personal locator beacon signal activated," said Capt. John Wimsatt. "Otherwise, we wouldn't be searching."
Read more and see video: http://www.wmur.com/news/nh-news/Stranded-hikers-found-on-Mt-Lafayette/-/9857858/17955774/-/l97taxz/-/index.html#ixzz2GvkA4n8r
John Chepulis, 65, is in critical condition after an injury caused him 10 broken bones and a punctured lung. Fortunately for John his friends had a SPOT Satellite GPS MessengerTM . Once the SPOT's emergency alert was activated a helicopter arrived at the GPS coordinates air lifted John to safety.
Read more at //billingsgazette.com/lifestyles/recreation/gps-device-speeds-rescue-of-seriously-injured-columbus-hunter/article_beddf68b-58ea-5434-b6a8-9aafd7731c2c.html
Cora Edmunds' husband, son and nephew were stranded at sea near Makkovik just before dark on Friday, when the motor on their boat broke down.With strong winds driving the craft away further out, rowing to shore was not an option.But a situation that could have ended tragically had a positive outcome instead, thanks to a satellite tracking device called a "SPOT." The device traces users' coordinates and relays them by computer, enabling people elsewhere to log on and see where they are.The men pressed the SOS button on the device, alerting Cora Edmunds, as well as the agency that handles the calls.