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You know what's cooler than a million users? A billion users. And now Facebook has just that.
Yep, the social network birthed in a Harvard dorm grew in eight short years to a membership that it says accounts for nearly one-seventh of the world's population. Not fake users or bots — which Facebook tracks closely — but real humans who actively engage on the social network, a company spokesperson told TODAY.
Just so we're clear: As of Sept. 14, one in seven people on this planet has been classified by the company as an active Facebook user.
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared the milestone in an exclusive interview with Matt Lauer, which aired Thursday on TODAY.
"I mean, it's just — an amazing honor," Zuckerberg said of his social network's monolithic membership when he sat down with Lauer last week at Facebook's campus in Menlo Park, Calif. "To be able to come into work every day and build things that help a billion people stay connected with the people they care about every month — that's just unbelievable."
No hyperbole there. Since Facebook launched, the social network's seen 1.13 trillion "likes" and 140.4 billion friend connections. 219 billion photos are currently being shared, while 17 billion check-ins have been made. Since the music listening app launched in September 2011, 62.6 million songs have been played 22 billion times — that's around 210,000 years of music.
And while Zuckerberg may have a responsibility to investors to publicly boast Facebook's accomplishments, this gives us an opportunity to wrap our heads around exactly what 1 billion means.
How big?
If Facebook were a country, it would have the third largest population, right behind China (1,347,350,000) and India (1,210,200,000), and ahead of the United States (314,500,000).
If steampunk Facebook existed in 1804 — precisely when the world population hit 1 billion — everyone on Earth would have a profile: Thomas Jefferson, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Jane Austen ... and every other living soul.
Rock Center: Zuckerberg defends Facebook as it reaches 1 billion users
What may be more staggering than the "1 billion users" milestone is how quickly Facebook reached it.
"I don't think in the history of the world that there's been a single medium that's amassed a billion users as fast as Facebook did," Steve Rubel told TODAY.com. As vice president of all-encompassing public relations firm Edelman, Rubel is a well-regarded expert in the many ways we consume information, and what that means on a large scale.
Radio, television, even mobile phones — Rubel notes none of these were adopted at the rapid global rate comparable to Facebook's eight-year rise. "Considering I struggle to think of anything that touches as many people as much as Facebook does," he said. "Maybe water ..."
True enough, if you're not on Facebook now, you are — quite literally — not participating in the global conversation, which is taking place on Facebook. It's your friends, your family, your employers, your interests and that's just in the United States. Everywhere, as we continually see, Facebook aids all sides of revolution.
As Zuckerberg told Lauer, "There's no way that when we were getting started with (Facebook) that I would have ever thought that, you know, myself or any of the people around me would be able to — to be a part of something like this."
The average Facebook user worldwide — now around age 22 — would've been about 14 when Zuckerberg famously launched the first version of Facebook in 2004. As the Aaron Sorkin-penned movie "The Social Network" depicts, thefacebook.com was first available only to Harvard students, before rolling out to other Ivy League schools in the U.S. and Canada.
Whether cunningly planned or by accident, exclusivity was a successful strategy. By opening first to upwardly mobile students, the word spread organically. Early Facebook offered a clean, well-ordered alternative to the glitter GIFs and chaos of MySpace, the the social media leader of the time. People wanted in.
So in 2005, Facebook opened its doors to high school students in the U.S. and six other countries, including Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia. And, in a politically savvy move, a few choice employees at high-tech companies including Apple and Microsoft were also invited to join.
Matt Harnack / Facebook
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks to TODAY's Matt Lauer.
Then, in 2006, your mom was allowed to join — along with everybody else age 13 and older. Things quickly got interesting.
Story: Mark Zuckerberg confirms: 'I wear the same thing every day'
Going global
By December 2006, Facebook had reached 12 million users. (An earlier version of this story citing statistics provided by Facebook reported that by January 2006, Facebook reached 25 million users.) At that time, Australia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States as the top five countries signing up for the social network. The average Facebook user was 19 years old, and had 598 Facebook friends.
In a reverse British invasion, Facebook saturated the U.K. in four years, stomping both MySpace and Bebo. By 2010, Facebook accounted for more than 50 percent of the U.K.'s Web traffic, according to Hitwise. (Neither Bebo nor MySpace accounted for even 2 percent.) While membership in the U.K. has since leveled of at 32 million members, it is the sixth highest amount of Facebook users, according to Socialbakers, a social media analytic firm.
The first countries to adopt the social network have leveled off — the U.S. itself started to slow down at 150 million in 2011. Pretty much everyone who's going to join has joined, because "younger people can't use it and some older people never will," noted Jan Rezab, Socialbakers CEO.
Outside the United States however, "growth is huge," said Rezab. Brazil, India, Indonesia and Mexico join the U.S. as the top five countries currently engaging with Facebook. Further, Rezab noted, Facebook has handily overtaken the native social networks in other countries. The only notable exceptions are China, where Facebook is not allowed, and Russia, where VKontakte has 290 million users, over Facebook's 6.7 million.
Russia is also the largest Internet market in Europe, so it's no mystery why Zuckerberg would have visited the country earlier this week. While there, he met with Russian prime minister Dmitri A. Medvedev, a vocal fan of technology.
But the next great territory for Facebook might lie elsewhere. In fact, the next billion Facebook users may rely on mobile technology. "There's a lot of potential in Africa," Rezab said, especially since it's a region where many don't have computers but they do have phones. Mobile phones are largely credited with Facebook's explosion — there are more than 600 million mobile Facebook users, and that number is growing at a rapid rate.
Pew Research Center
Facebook triggered a global hunger for social networking. The Pew Research Center mapped it out in February, and the findings were astounding. In addition to the expected high levels of engagement from the U.S., Britain, Spain and Germany, there were even some countries — Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt — where having Internet access almost automatically means social network membership.
Growing pains
With extreme growth comes extreme headaches — for both Facebook and its users. Civilian users wrapped their heads around a new social ettiquette, uploading our real world quirks to online and expecting Facebook to referee. And to both earn money and serve a growing and diverse demographic, the once streamlined social network which users flocked to for a sense of privacy not afforded on MySpace has changed. A lot.
In its march toward global acceptance, Facebook pummeled Flickr to become the biggest photo-sharing outlet on the Internet. The now-ubiquitous "like" button lives all over the Internet. Timeline and Open Graph allow users to advertise not just what they "like," but what they're reading, watching and listening, too.
With all this action, it's no wonder Facebook is now the focal point of our Internet privacy fears. Earlier this year, Facebook finally reached a settlement with the FTC stemming from it's privacy rollbacks in 2009. That's when Facebook made much of your previously private "personal information" widely available to the public and third-party advertisers.
According to the FTC complaint, Facebook "deceived consumers by telling them they could keep their information on Facebook private, and then repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public." The FTC settlement didn't make Facebook roll anything back — you must actively "opt out" to lock down what privacy remains. Going forward, however, the settlement requires Facebook, in part, to give "consumers clear and prominent notice and obtaining their express consent before sharing their information beyond their privacy settings."
Throughout, Zuckerberg and Facebook have maintained dedication to their product.
"Our responsibility as a company is just to do the best that we can and build the best products for people," Zuckerberg told Lauer, echoing assertions he's made over the years when consumer advocates called out the site over user privacy and users griped about every service addition and site redesign. "And if we build the best products," he told Lauer, "then I think that we can continue leading in this space for a long time."
Industry watchers such as Edelman's Rubel say it would take a real game changer to usurp Facebook from its social media dominance — a zombie apocalypse perhaps, or Google Glass, the search giant's high-concept glasses that promise to make social media integration wearable, and thus, more mobile than the mobile phone.
As we await that possible Google Glass future, Facebook is already locking it down with purchases such as mobile photo sharing network Instagram, cementing its hold on the increasingly popular photo sharing aspect of social media. The tiny, powerful computers in our pockets are the next frontier for social media, and as Zuckerberg told Lauer, Facebook is on it.
"The future is really gonna be about mobile, right? And the opportunities for growth there," Zuckerberg explained to Lauer.
When queried by Lauer about whether Facebook is still playing catch-up in the mobile area, Zuckerberg quickly pointed out, "Well, we do have the most used mobile apps. There's five billion people in the world who have phones. So we should be able to serve many more people — and — and grow the user base there." That confidence may border on bluster, but if anybody can do it, Facebook can.
Watch Matt Lauer's interview with Zuckerberg on Oct. 4 on Rock Center with Brian Williams.
Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about the Internet. Join her, won't you, on Twitter and/or Facebook. Also, Google+.
More about Facebook:

subset: commoncrawl


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Price exc vat :
If your fuser unit is working, you can reset it by sticking on our reset chip. The procedure is very easy, takes 1 minute, full instructions are provided.
The chip will not fix any print defects, or improve print quality, it simply resets the fuser unit back to zero so you can continue printing and remove the replace fuser unit error message.
What is a fuser unit?
A fuser unit is a pair of heated rollers within the printer that fuses the toner onto the paper being printed on.
Fuser reset chip instructions


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Beaumont, Royal Oak nationally ranked in seven medical specialties
Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak once again ranks among the nation's "Best Hospitals" in
the 24th annual rankings by U.S. News & World Report. It's the 19th consecutive year
that Beaumont, Royal Oak has been nationally ranked by USNWR.
Beaumont, Royal Oak is nationally ranked in seven medical specialties in the 2013-14
lists released today:
Cardiology & Heart Surgery – #40
Diabetes & Endocrinology – #44
Gastroenterology & GI Surgery – #48
Geriatrics – #45
Orthopedics – #26
Pulmonology – #44
Urology – #48
Beaumont, Royal Oak earned a "high-performing" ranking in Cancer; Ear, Nose &
Throat; Gynecology; Nephrology (kidney disease); and Neurology & Neurosurgery and is
ranked No. 2 in Michigan and No. 2 in Metro Detroit in the USNWR state and regional
Just three percent of all hospitals earn a national ranking in any of the medical
specialties ranked by U.S News. Only about 15 percent of hospitals are recognized
for their high performance as among their region's best.
Beaumont Hospital, Troy earned a "high-performing" regional ranking in 12 medical
specialties (Cancer; Cardiology & Heart Surgery; Diabetes & Endocrinology; Ear, Nose
& Throat; Gastroenterology & GI Surgery; Geriatrics; Gynecology; Nephrology;
Neurology & Neurosurgery; Orthopedics; Pulmonology; and Urology) and is ranked No. 6
in Michigan and No. 5 in Metro Detroit.
Beaumont Hospital, Grosse Pointe earned a "high-performing" regional ranking in five
medical specialties (Gastroenterology & GI Surgery; Geriatrics; Nephrology;
Neurology & Neurosurgery; and Pulmonology) and is ranked No.15 in Michigan and No.12
in Metro Detroit.
"Our physicians, nurses, other caregivers, our Board and management team are
strongly focused on providing high quality-high value care to achieve the best
outcomes for patients," says David Wood, M.D., executive vice president and chief
medical officer, Beaumont Health System. "It's gratifying when those efforts are
recognized at the national level by U.S. News and others. But it's the positive
impact we have on the lives of our patients that's most meaningful to us."
U.S. News evaluates hospitals in 16 adult specialties. In most specialties, it ranks
the nation's top 50 hospitals and recognizes other high-performing hospitals that
provide care at nearly the level of their nationally ranked peers.
U.S. News publishes Best Hospitals to help guide patients who need a high level of
care because they face particularly difficult surgery, a challenging condition, or
added risk because of other health problems or age. Objective measures such as
patient survival and safety data, the adequacy of nurse staffing levels and other
data largely determined the rankings in most specialties.
The specialty rankings and data were produced for U.S. News by RTI International, a
leading research organization based in Research Triangle Park, N.C. Using the same
data, U.S. News produced the state and metro rankings.
The rankings have been published at
and will appear in print in the U.S. News Best Hospitals 2014 guidebook, available
in bookstores and on newsstands Aug. 27.
Read more http://www.michronicleonline.com/index.php/news-briefs-original/13343-beaumont-one-of-u-s-news-best-hospitals-for-19th-year


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New film role for Maggie Smith
Dame Maggie Smith is returning to one of her stage roles in a new film version of Alan Bennett's The Lady In The Van.
The Downton Abbey star w ill play the title character based on a real-life woman who set up home in a battered van on the writer's north London driveway for many years.
The film will be directed by outgoing National Theatre boss Nicholas Hytner and star Alex Jennings as Bennett.
It is part of a string of new films announced by the BBC ahead of this year's Cannes Film Festival in the south of France.
Others include City Of Tiny Lights, with Riz Ahmed playing London private eye Tommy Akhtar, and Pride, a comedy drama with Dominic West and Sherlock star Andrew Scott about a group of gay activists who support striking miners in 1984.
BBC Films boss Christine Langan said: "Our ambition is to be a creative hub enabling exciting British filmmakers to tell their stories. From Pride at Cannes through to today announcing The Lady In The Van with Alan Bennett, BBC Films nurtures a comprehensive range of films from inception, through production, cinema release and to their eventual home on BBC Two."
Other projects include Dame Helen Mirren starring in Woman In Gold, based on the real-life story of a Jewish survivor of the Second World War who fought a legal battle to reclaim sev eral paintings by Gustav Klimt that were stolen from her family, and Sir Ian McKellen who will play an ageing Sherlock Holmes in A Slight Trick of The Mind.
PA Media


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MGO 30+ Manuka Honey Blend
Save 25%
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MGO™ 30+ Manuka Honey Blend is derived from Leptospermum Scoparium, a plant unique to New Zealand; its flowers are powerfully fragrant and full of nectar, which attributes Manuka Honey with its rich, dark and full-bodied flavour.
MGO™ 30+ Manuka Honey is certified to contain a minimum of 30mg/kg methylgyoxal. Methylgyoxal is a naturally occurring compound in Manuka Honey that lends the substance its remarkable and unique properties. No other system of measurement gives such a clear and simple indication; the higher the MGO™ rating, the higher the Methylglyoxal content.
Manuka Honey is not suitable for children under 12 months.
All of our MGO™ Manuka Honey products are scientifically tested and verified to ensure you are getting consistent quality. Every batch is subjected to laboratory tests that measure various quality parameters including Dietary Methylglyoxal content. Great care is taken to ensure that the Methylglyoxal is maintained from the bee-hive to the finished product so you do not lose any of the valuable properties of this remarkable honey.
More Details
Delivery & Returns
Express Delivery Available - If ordered before 11pm, delivered by courier next working day. More Info »
If ordered before 11pm, delivered by courier next working day. Applies to most delivery addresses within mainland UK.
How long will it take to arrive?
Please check the stock availability notice on your item when placing your order. This item is: In stock | Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Please remember to add postal time (2-3 working days) to obtain a complete estimate of delivery to your door.
How will I know it has been sent?
You will receive an email to confirm when your item has been sent.
You can also check the status of your order and individual items by accessing My Account details and following the prompts.
Please allow 10 working days from dispatch of your order before notifying us of any late deliveries.
It may be advisable to check with your neighbours to see if a parcel has been left with them, check any outhouses you might have where it may be left if it cannot fit through your letterbox and contact your local sorting office to see if the item has been returned to the depot as undelivered and awaiting collection.
If I'm not completely happy with my item?
Please see our returns policy.


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Based on the Spark mini car introduced into the American marketplace last year, the 2014 Chevrolet Spark EV is a pure electric urban mini-car designed for fun driving and easy ownership. While the Spark EV looks like a three-door hatch, designers cleverly disguised the rear doors by integrating the handles into the C-pillar area. The technique gives Spark EV its sporty appearance without sacrificing four-door comfort and utility. An integrated spoiler over the rear hatch door enhances Spark EV's dynamic appearance while also improving the car's aerodynamics, for fuel efficiency.
It uses no gasoline, yet its GM-built motor and single-speed drive unit boasts a top speed of 90 mph and a 0-60 time of less than eight seconds. Storing that energy from the charging process and the vehicle's regenerative braking capability is a 21-kWh lithium-ion battery pack. When fully charged, Spark EV features a combined city/highway EPA-estimated range of 82 miles.
The Spark EV builds on Chevrolet's proven electric motor and battery development programs for the Chevrolet Volt and its full-size truck and SUV hybrid programs. Three available levels of recharging capability include the industry's first use of the recently approved SAE combo charger for DC fast charging, which charges 80 percent of the battery in just 20 minutes. Aero refinements, unique wheels and tires and active shutter system on the grille opening help extend the Spark EV's range.
Available in 1LT and 2LT trim levels, the Spark EV differs from its gasoline sibling in the following ways: unique chrome upper two-tier grille is closed to reduce airflow; electric charge portal over the driver's side front wheel well; underbody panels, tire air deflectors and aero-optimized exterior mirrors; unique 15-inch aluminum wheels and low rolling resistance tires; active shutter system controls airflow through the lower intake opening; a lower and wider rocker system to increase tire coverage for improved aerodynamics; rear diffusers optimize airflow under the vehicle; and a unique roof-extending rear spoiler. Combined, all of these refinements help contribute to Spark EV's range and its impressive 0.326 coefficient of drag.
The 2014 Chevrolet Spark EV exterior colors include Electric Blue, Silver Ice, Black Granite, Summit White and Titanium.
Like the gasoline-powered Spark, the Spark EV's body-frame integral structure is tight and stiff for improved driving dynamics. The electronic power steering, MacPherson strut-type front suspension and braking systems are designed to deliver taut, tight handling characteristics that better connect the driver with the road and provide outstanding overall stability.
Inside the passenger cabin, the standard Chevrolet MyLink Infotainment system provides a seven-inch color touch-screen that shows critical vehicle EV functions and connects with owners' smartphones for infotainment that includes apps for Pandora, Stitcher, TuneIn global internet radio and BringGo full-function navigation (requires smartphone app purchase). For those with compatible iPhones, the system brings the Siri Personal Assistant into the car.
Air conditioning and power windows are standard. Color-coordinated interiors feature a lower instrument panel – with a motorcycle-inspired gauge cluster – and lower center console for maximum visibility and storage. Decorative inserts in the front door and instrument panel add a premium touch, as does the ice blue ambient lighting and faceplates across the door pockets and dash. Heated leatherette seats and leather-wrapped steering wheel are included with 2LT trim level.
Dimensions & specifications
Wheelbase: 93.5; overall length: 146.5; width: 64.0; height: 62.6
All vehicle measurements are in inches
Engine: permanent magnetic drive motor – 140 hp (105 kW) at 400 lbs-ft of torque from 0 rpm and 336 rechargeable lithium-ion battery system – 120kW at 21 kWh.
Transmission: single-speed automatic
Driving range: 82 miles (119 MPGe)
Cargo capacity: 23.4 cubic feet
Safety features
Dual front airbags, front/rear outboard seat mounted side-impact airbags, dual front passenger knee airbags, dual head curtain side-impact airbags, four-wheel anti-lock brakes, brake assist, all-speed traction control, StabiliTrak vehicle stability control, battery run-down protection, tire inflation kit, hill start assist, tire pressure monitoring system, automatic power door locks, push-button start, remote keyless entry, remote vehicle start, alarm system, OnStar communications system, automatic headlamps, daytime running lights, alarm system and engine immobilizer.
Basic: 3-year/36,000 mile
Powertrain: 5-year/100,000 mile
Battery: 8-year/100,000 mile
Corrosion: 6-year/100,000 mile
Roadside Assistance: 5-year/100,000 mile 24-hour
The base Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) for the 2014 Chevrolet Spark EV starts from $26,685 for the 1LT trim and $27,010 for the 2LT. Destination charges add $810.
Juneau, AK 99801
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text:
O2 confirms UK Pré launch date
Rolls out iPhone-style contracts
O2 has finally confirmed a UK launch date for the Palm Pré smartphone.
O2 will release the Palm Pré across Blighty from 16 October
The network operator will release the must-have device, both in stores and online, to panting punters on 16 October.
O2 has exclusive UK distribution rights for the Pré, but will also allow Carphone Warehouse and Phones4U to sell the smartphone from the same date.
Unsurprisingly, O2 has drawn up iPhone 3GS-style contractual agreements for the device – which you'll be required to sign into before the network operator will hand over a Palm Pré.
The smartphone will be free to customers willing to sign a 24-month contract costing £34.26 ($56.05/€37.97) per month. This will include 600 UK minutes, 500 UK text messages and unlimited downloads.
Alternatively, an 18-month contract - priced at £73.41 ($120.10/€81.36) per month – will still see you get a free Pré, but also a whopping 3000 UK minutes. The contract will include 500 UK text messages and unlimited downloads.
The cheapest and shortest monthly tariff available will cost £29.38 ($48.06/€32.56) per month and last for 18 months. However, the Pré will then cost you £96.89 ($158.52/€107.38).
Much noise has been made about the Pré's wireless charging dock – known as Touchstone. O2 said it will sell Touchstone, and the necessary back cover, for £44.11 ($72.16/€48.88).
Business tariffs lasting either 24 or 36 months will also be available. O2 hasn't mentioned anything about buying the Pré on pay-as-you-go, yet. ®
Sponsored: How to get more from MicroStrategy by optimising your data stack


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Three Oceanside hikers who disappeared near Big Bear in May and prompted an intense search have are taking on a much bigger challenge – hiking Mount Kilimanjaro.
The three friends who disappeared on San Gorgonio Mountain were eventually found by helicopter after several days of intense searches.
Read: Lost Hikers Huddled to Survive
It was a happy end to a scary ordeal. But as it turns out, the ending was just the beginning.
When Ryan Shankles isn't fixing up this Oceanside home, you'll probably find him on a mountain.
It was the 11,500-foot San Gorgonio that made him slightly famous in a way he didn't want or expect.
"People still come up and say 'Hey man, you were the lost hiker,'" Shankles said.
Lost for days, huddled in a makeshift cave - Shankles and two others from his church men's group took a wrong turn and lost their way, only to be eventually found and reunited with worried family and friends.
What most people didn't realize: the fateful trip near Big Bear was their first training hike for 19,341-foot Mount Kilimanjaro.
"Now we've gone to several mountains, we've gone to Mt. Whitney, we've gone back to Half Dome, we've gone to San Gorgonio twice now and we're still training," Shankles said. "So you learn, you get better, and you condition and now what seemed insurmountable definitely seems easily feasible."
Shankles climbs for the same reason he now remodels: to raise money for an African orphanage.
He started an organization called "Aiding Children's Villages" with the hopes of buying and fixing up distressed homes and flipping them for a good cause.
"You're doing it for kids, you're doing it for other people, it just becomes a part of you," he said.
He hopes to have the first remodeled home on the market by the end of the month.
He'll then hit the road for Africa, his team planning live nightly internet video feeds including the summit.
They're also working on a DVD documentary of that now famous first climb... they're calling it "Directed Not Lost."
Shankles calls the trip a catalyst, an unplanned detour that became an integral part of an even bigger climb.
Unlike previous adventures Shankles said the group will have guides for Mount Kilimanjaro.
For more information you can go to his website Aiding Children's Villages.Org.


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Like two peas in a pod, Facebook
This is Facebook's first earnings release as a public company. Let's see how the debutante did.
Can I get your digits?
Total revenue in the second quarter jumped 32% to $1.18 billion. Of that total, advertising revenue was $992 million, or 84% of the total, while the remaining $192 million were from the payments and fees segment. Worldwide average revenue per user, or ARPU, came in at $1.28, a sequential increase from $1.21 last quarter and about on par with the $1.26 a year ago.
While not disclosed specifically, I calculate ad and payments ARPU to get a better feel for the monetization of each segment and how that's driving the overall business.
|Ad ARPU
|Payments ARPU
|Worldwide ARPU
Sources: SEC filings, author's calculations.
It's subtle, but you might notice that ad ARPU declined slightly while the rise in payments ARPU more than made up for it. The payments business is far from mature, but this is still a positive sign for that segment. Facebook hasn't broken these figures down geographically quite yet, which will probably have to wait for the 10-Q filing.
Payments revenue was up 3% sequentially, which is interesting since Zynga is the biggest contributor there and the game maker's online game revenue declined by just a hair sequentially. That's continued evidence that Facebook and Zynga are beginning to diverge slightly and that other developers are pitching in more to Facebook's payment revenue while Zynga shifts focus toward mobile games.
Thanks to the IPO, Facebook recognized a hefty $1.3 billion in stock-based compensation expense, a major contributor to the $157 million, or $0.08 per share, net loss that the social networker posted. On a non-GAAP basis, the company posted a $0.12-per-share profit, which was ahead of Street expectations.
The "B" word
The largest social network in the world now boasts 955 million monthly active users, or MAUs, flirting with the magical 10-digit threshold of a billion users. Of these, 552 million were active on a daily basis and 543 million are monthly mobile users. Unsurprisingly, the mobile subset is growing tremendously, increasing 67%, and has reached an all-time high penetration at 57% of the user base.
Source: SEC filings.
Facebook's efforts to ramp up mobile monetization are showing healthy signs, with the recent implementation of Sponsored Stories in mobile News Feeds, in addition to the desktop News Feed. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that overall Sponsored Stories are now producing a run rate of $1 million in revenue per day, with roughly half of that coming from mobile.
These Sponsored Stories are an important initiative for Facebook's ad business, because they have higher click-through rates and fetch higher prices from advertisers because they're more engaging. This is because they're socially tied to a person's friends in some way, which is like the 21st century version of word-of-mouth marketing. They're far more effective than the traditional display ads on the right-hand column that users habitually ignore.
Putting Facebook in its place
Thankfully, I'm not the only one that thinks the rumored Facebook Phone makes no sense. Zuckerberg himself specifically said that it "wouldn't really make much sense for us to do." Instead, he wants to focus heavily on continued integration into other platforms, most importantly in Apple
Facebook wants to be the social layer between the operating system and the app. Here's what Zuckerberg had to say in the conference call:
Now let's shift to platform. We believe one of the biggest opportunities we have is to create the identity and social layer that all new apps and websites can be built on top of. We think almost every product is better when you can experience it with the people you care about. So over time, we expect almost all of these products should naturally become social. Since there's no way we could ever build all of these ourselves, we're focused on building a successful platform, which enables developers to build great social experiences into their own apps by integrating with and exchanging information with Facebook.
This is the right strategy because that's exactly what Facebook's role should be. Clearly, Facebook wants to be more than just another app, but it also has no chance of making an entirely new mobile OS platform, so seeing heavy integration into existing ones is the perfect strategic balance.
Warmer... warmer...
The ad business needs to be improved, and Sponsored Stories is a good start but that's all it is: a start. While mobile ads are seeing some healthy signs early on, mobile payments are non-existent. There are reasons to have confidence that Facebook can migrate its ad business to mobile platforms, but it has nearly no chance of doing so with its payments business since it doesn't own the platform. That cut will continue going to Apple or Google.
Overall, the business continues to have potential, but I'm still in the "wait-and-see" camp. Shares have hit fresh all-time lows, and investors are rattled by the lack of visibility since Facebook didn't provide any type of financial guidance for the coming quarter or full year.
The good news is that its valuation is getting closer to the point of piquing my interest considering signs of improvement in its monetization strategy, but it's not there yet.
Facebook has become a global phenomenon, with the majority of user growth now generated abroad. Here are another three American companies set for world domination. Read this special free report on three companies tapping emerging markets.


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Xiamen GRAND SLAM | 22 - 27 October 2013
Xiamen, China, October 22, 2013 – Top seeded qualifiers Alex Ranghieri and Andrea Tomatis of Italy rallied past Chinese newcomers Ha Likejiang/Bao Jian 2-1 here Tuesday afternoon to lead eight teams into the men's Main Draw of the 2013 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Xiamen Grand Slam.
Dropping the first set 21-16 against the Chinese duo, who earned a hard fought 2-1 (17-21, 21-14, 15-12) victory over Poland's Pawel Pelka/Dawid Popek in a first-round qualification match Tuesday morning, Ranghieri/Tomatis surged back strongly for an astonishing 21-9 win in the second set. It was tied 11-all in the tie-breaker before the Italian pair ran off four of the next five points to complete the come-from-behind victory in 46 minutes.
"It was a really tough match. They played a great game, they are a great team. We didn't know them, because they didn't play international tournament. They were a new team for us," said Tomatis. "They played really good jump serving while we didn't play that good especially in the first set. And the second one was really good for us, we focused on our goal, we did very well and the third one was tough as well. So I am very happy for this win because it was a hard one."
"We had a really bad start, but I had to say they played a very good first set and the result was fair I think," he added. "In the second one the tall guy he played a little bit worse and he made a couple of mistakes that gave us confidence and we came back strong."
Finishing ninth together in the Sao Paulo Grand Slam two weeks ago, Ranghieri/Tomatis eyed another impressive result here in Xiamen.
"We were in the ninth place two weeks ago in Sao Paolo, we want to keep going. We need another good result to be in the Main Draw next year so we really want to do well," said Tomatis. "The windy condition is not perfect for us, because we are two tall guys and we still don't play really good in windy conditions. We have to work a lot in this tournament."
The only major upset of the day was produced by Australia's 15th seeded qualifiers Damien Schumann/Joshua Court, who took only 33 minutes to send packing second seeded Christian Redmann/Maverick Hatch of Canada with a surprisingly easy 2-0 (21-12, 21-14) win.
Two teams from France have earned Main Draw berths from the 18-team qualification tournament as Andy Ces/Edouard Rowlandson beat China's Li Zhouxin/Zhang Lizeng 21-16 and 21-17 while Yannick Salvetti/Jean-Baptiste Daguerre swept Austria's Thomas Kunert/Christoph Dressler 21-18 and 21-11.
Other teams making it to the 32-team men's Main Draw, which is scheduled to start on Wednesday, are Eric Koreng/Finn Dittelbach (Germany), Kotsilianos Georgios/Zoupani Nikos (Greece), William Montgomery/Stafford Slick (USA) and Peter Eglseer/Felix Koraimann (Austria).
Thirty-two teams will play a single round robin in eight groups with top three finishers from each group to advance to the 24-team knockout stage.
The double gender Xiamen Grand Slam is the last of a record 10 Grand Slam events on the 2013 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour calendar with the women's Qualification Tournament scheduled for Wednesday.
China has hosted more than 23 women's and 14 men's tournaments on the FIVB World Tour, but this is the first visit for an FIVB international beach volleyball event in the city of Xiamen. The event in Xiamen is one of three FIVB international beach volleyball events being held in China this year. The first was the 2013 FIVB Open tournament held in Fuzhou on April 23 to 28, followed by the Shanghai Grand Slam, which took place from April 30 to May 5, 2013.
With a guaranteed purse of US$120,000, the bonus pool will push the total purse for the event to nearly $220,000.
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07.11.2013 14:08:37
Watch Xiamen Grand Slam highlights
Lausanne, Switzerland, November 7, 2013 – The final FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour event of the year wrapped up last month in Xiamen, China, but fan... More...
27.10.2013 10:24:35
Ross/Walsh hold off Lima/Talita for back-to-back Grand Slam titles
Xiamen, China, October 27, 2013 – April Ross and Kerri Walsh of the United States held off world No. 1 Taiana Lima and Talita Da Rocha Antunes of Braz... More...
26.10.2013 11:53:54
Alison/Vitor rally past Brouwer/Meeuwsen to win Xiamen Grand Slam
Xiamen, China, October 26, 2013 – Alison Cerutti and Vitor Felipe of Brazil rallied past reigning world champions Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwse... More...
26.10.2013 08:51:27
Unbeaten Lima/Talita storm into Xiamen Grand Slam semis
25.10.2013 12:19:07
All-Dutch semis set up at Xiamen Grand Slam
25.10.2013 10:16:57
Xue/Xia lead eight teams unbeaten at Xiamen Grand Slam
24.10.2013 11:19:19
Top teams dominant in Xiamen Grand Slam women's Main Draw
24.10.2013 11:12:17
Dollinger/Fluggen upset Pedro/Bruno at Xiamen Grand Slam
23.10.2013 11:57:07
Pedro/Bruno keep winning momentum at Xiamen Grand Slam
23.10.2013 10:34:40
Antonelli/Agatha storm into Xiamen Grand Slam women's Main Draw
02.10.2013 19:26:49
Germany and Brazil provide three apiece for Xiamen Grand Slam
27.09.2013 16:40:13
Xiamen upgraded to become 10th Grand Slam of the year
30.07.2013 10:03:01
China to host women's 2013 FIVB Beach Volleyball Xiamen Open


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Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 2, by Edward Gibbon, [1781], at sacred-texts.com
After a long delay, the reluctant Caesar set forwards on his journey to the Imperial court. From Antioch to Hadrianople, he traversed the wide extent of his dominions with a numerous and stately train; and as he labored to conceal his apprehensions from the world, and perhaps from himself, he entertained the people of Constantinople with an exhibition of the games of the circus. The progress of the journey might, however, have warned him of the impending danger. In all the principal cities he was met by ministers of confidence, commissioned to seize the offices of government, to observe his motions, and to prevent the hasty sallies of his despair. The persons despatched to secure the provinces which he left behind, passed him with cold salutations, or affected disdain; and the troops, whose station lay along the public road, were studiously removed on his approach, lest they might be tempted to offer their swords for the service of a civil war. 23 After Gallus had been permitted to repose himself a few days at Hadrianople, he received a mandate, expressed in the most haughty and absolute style, that his splendid retinue should halt in that city, while the Caesar himself, with only ten post-carriages, should hasten to the Imperial residence at Milan. In this rapid journey, the profound respect which was due to the brother and colleague of Constantius, was insensibly changed into rude familiarity; and Gallus, who discovered in the countenances of the attendants that they already considered themselves as his guards, and might soon be employed as his executioners, began to accuse his fatal rashness, and to recollect, with terror and remorse, the conduct by which he had provoked his fate. The dissimulation which had hitherto been preserved, was laid aside at Petovio, *_0040 in Pannonia. He was conducted to a palace in the suburbs, where the general Barbatio, with a select band of soldiers, who could neither be moved by pity, nor corrupted by rewards, expected the arrival of his illustrious victim. In the close of the evening he was arrested, ignominiously stripped of the ensigns of Caesar, and hurried away to Pola, !_0040 in Istria, a sequestered prison, which had been so recently polluted with royal blood. The horror which he felt was soon increased by the appearance of his implacable enemy the eunuch Eusebius, who, with the assistance of a notary and a tribune, proceeded to interrogate him concerning the administration of the East. The Caesar sank under the weight of shame and guilt, confessed all the criminal actions and all the treasonable designs with which he was charged; and by imputing them to the advice of his wife, exasperated the indignation of Constantius, who reviewed with partial prejudice the minutes of the examination. The emperor was easily convinced, that his own safety was incompatible with the life of his cousin: the sentence of death was signed, despatched, and executed; and the nephew of Constantine, with his hands tied behind his back, was beheaded in prison like the vilest malefactor. 24 Those who are inclined to palliate the cruelties of Constantius, assert that he soon relented, and endeavored to recall the bloody mandate; but that the second messenger, intrusted with the reprieve, was detained by the eunuchs, who dreaded the unforgiving temper of Gallus, and were desirous of reuniting to their empire the wealthy provinces of the East. 25
Besides the reigning emperor, Julian alone survived, of all the numerous posterity of Constantius Chlorus. The misfortune of his royal birth involved him in the disgrace of Gallus. From his retirement in the happy country of Ionia, he was conveyed under a strong guard to the court of Milan; where he languished above seven months, in the continual apprehension of suffering the same ignominious death, which was daily inflicted almost before his eyes, on the friends and adherents of his persecuted family. His looks, his gestures, his silence, were scrutinized with malignant curiosity, and he was perpetually assaulted by enemies whom he had never offended, and by arts to which he was a stranger. 26 But in the school of adversity, Julian insensibly acquired the virtues of firmness and discretion. He defended his honor, as well as his life, against the insnaring subtleties of the eunuchs, who endeavored to extort some declaration of his sentiments; and whilst he cautiously suppressed his grief and resentment, he nobly disdained to flatter the tyrant, by any seeming approbation of his brother's murder. Julian most devoutly ascribes his miraculous deliverance to the protection of the gods, who had exempted his innocence from the sentence of destruction pronounced by their justice against the impious house of Constantine. 27 As the most effectual instrument of their providence, he gratefully acknowledges the steady and generous friendship of the empress Eusebia, 28 a woman of beauty and merit, who, by the ascendant which she had gained over the mind of her husband, counterbalanced, in some measure, the powerful conspiracy of the eunuchs. By the intercession of his patroness, Julian was admitted into the Imperial presence: he pleaded his cause with a decent freedom, he was heard with favor; and, notwithstanding the efforts of his enemies, who urged the danger of sparing an avenger of the blood of Gallus, the milder sentiment of Eusebia prevailed in the council. But the effects of a second interview were dreaded by the eunuchs; and Julian was advised to withdraw for a while into the neighborhood of Milan, till the emperor thought proper to assign the city of Athens for the place of his honorable exile. As he had discovered, from his earliest youth, a propensity, or rather passion, for the language, the manners, the learning, and the religion of the Greeks, he obeyed with pleasure an order so agreeable to his wishes. Far from the tumult of arms, and the treachery of courts, he spent six months under the groves of the academy, in a free intercourse with the philosophers of the age, who studied to cultivate the genius, to encourage the vanity, and to inflame the devotion of their royal pupil. Their labors were not unsuccessful; and Julian inviolably preserved for Athens that tender regard which seldom fails to arise in a liberal mind, from the recollection of the place where it has discovered and exercised its growing powers. The gentleness and affability of manners, which his temper suggested and his situation imposed, insensibly engaged the affections of the strangers, as well as citizens, with whom he conversed. Some of his fellow-students might perhaps examine his behavior with an eye of prejudice and aversion; but Julian established, in the schools of Athens, a general prepossession in favor of his virtues and talents, which was soon diffused over the Roman world. 29
Whilst his hours were passed in studious retirement, the empress, resolute to achieve the generous design which she had undertaken, was not unmindful of the care of his fortune. The death of the late Caesar had left Constantius invested with the sole command, and oppressed by the accumulated weight, of a mighty empire. Before the wounds of civil discord could be healed, the provinces of Gaul were overwhelmed by a deluge of Barbarians. The Sarmatians no longer respected the barrier of the Danube. The impunity of rapine had increased the boldness and numbers of the wild Isaurians: those robbers descended from their craggy mountains to ravage the adjacent country, and had even presumed, though without success, to besiege the important city of Seleucia, which was defended by a garrison of three Roman legions. Above all, the Persian monarch, elated by victory, again threatened the peace of Asia, and the presence of the emperor was indispensably required, both in the West and in the East. For the first time, Constantius sincerely acknowledged, that his single strength was unequal to such an extent of care and of dominion. 30 Insensible to the voice of flattery, which assured him that his all-powerful virtue, and celestial fortune, would still continue to triumph over every obstacle, he listened with complacency to the advice of Eusebia, which gratified his indolence, without offending his suspicious pride. As she perceived that the remembrance of Gallus dwelt on the emperor's mind, she artfully turned his attention to the opposite characters of the two brothers, which from their infancy had been compared to those of Domitian and of Titus. 31 She accustomed her husband to consider Julian as a youth of a mild, unambitious disposition, whose allegiance and gratitude might be secured by the gift of the purple, and who was qualified to fill with honor a subordinate station, without aspiring to dispute the commands, or to shade the glories, of his sovereign and benefactor. After an obstinate, though secret struggle, the opposition of the favorite eunuchs submitted to the ascendency of the empress; and it was resolved that Julian, after celebrating his nuptials with Helena, sister of Constantius, should be appointed, with the title of Caesar, to reign over the countries beyond the Alps. 32
Although the order which recalled him to court was probably accompanied by some intimation of his approaching greatness, he appeals to the people of Athens to witness his tears of undissembled sorrow, when he was reluctantly torn away from his beloved retirement. 33 He trembled for his life, for his fame, and even for his virtue; and his sole confidence was derived from the persuasion, that Minerva inspired all his actions, and that he was protected by an invisible guard of angels, whom for that purpose she had borrowed from the Sun and Moon. He approached, with horror, the palace of Milan; nor could the ingenuous youth conceal his indignation, when he found himself accosted with false and servile respect by the assassins of his family. Eusebia, rejoicing in the success of her benevolent schemes, embraced him with the tenderness of a sister; and endeavored, by the most soothing caresses, to dispel his terrors, and reconcile him to his fortune. But the ceremony of shaving his beard, and his awkward demeanor, when he first exchanged the cloak of a Greek philosopher for the military habit of a Roman prince, amused, during a few days, the levity of the Imperial court. 34
The emperors of the age of Constantine no longer deigned to consult with the senate in the choice of a colleague; but they were anxious that their nomination should be ratified by the consent of the army. On this solemn occasion, the guards, with the other troops whose stations were in the neighborhood of Milan, appeared under arms; and Constantius ascended his lofty tribunal, holding by the hand his cousin Julian, who entered the same day into the twenty-fifth year of his age. 35 In a studied speech, conceived and delivered with dignity, the emperor represented the various dangers which threatened the prosperity of the republic, the necessity of naming a Caesar for the administration of the West, and his own intention, if it was agreeable to their wishes, of rewarding with the honors of the purple the promising virtues of the nephew of Constantine. The approbation of the soldiers was testified by a respectful murmur; they gazed on the manly countenance of Julian, and observed with pleasure, that the fire which sparkled in his eyes was tempered by a modest blush, on being thus exposed, for the first time, to the public view of mankind. As soon as the ceremony of his investiture had been performed, Constantius addressed him with the tone of authority which his superior age and station permitted him to assume; and exhorting the new Caesar to deserve, by heroic deeds, that sacred and immortal name, the emperor gave his colleague the strongest assurances of a friendship which should never be impaired by time, nor interrupted by their separation into the most distant climes. As soon as the speech was ended, the troops, as a token of applause, clashed their shields against their knees; 36 while the officers who surrounded the tribunal expressed, with decent reserve, their sense of the merits of the representative of Constantius.
The two princes returned to the palace in the same chariot; and during the slow procession, Julian repeated to himself a verse of his favorite Homer, which he might equally apply to his fortune and to his fears. 37 The four-and-twenty days which the Caesar spent at Milan after his investiture, and the first months of his Gallic reign, were devoted to a splendid but severe captivity; nor could the acquisition of honor compensate for the loss of freedom. 38 His steps were watched, his correspondence was intercepted; and he was obliged, by prudence, to decline the visits of his most intimate friends. Of his former domestics, four only were permitted to attend him; two pages, his physician, and his librarian; the last of whom was employed in the care of a valuable collection of books, the gift of the empress, who studied the inclinations as well as the interest of her friend. In the room of these faithful servants, a household was formed, such indeed as became the dignity of a Caesar; but it was filled with a crowd of slaves, destitute, and perhaps incapable, of any attachment for their new master, to whom, for the most part, they were either unknown or suspected. His want of experience might require the assistance of a wise council; but the minute instructions which regulated the service of his table, and the distribution of his hours, were adapted to a youth still under the discipline of his preceptors, rather than to the situation of a prince intrusted with the conduct of an important war. If he aspired to deserve the esteem of his subjects, he was checked by the fear of displeasing his sovereign; and even the fruits of his marriage-bed were blasted by the jealous artifices of Eusebia 39 herself, who, on this occasion alone, seems to have been unmindful of the tenderness of her sex, and the generosity of her character. The memory of his father and of his brothers reminded Julian of his own danger, and his apprehensions were increased by the recent and unworthy fate of Sylvanus. In the summer which preceded his own elevation, that general had been chosen to deliver Gaul from the tyranny of the Barbarians; but Sylvanus soon discovered that he had left his most dangerous enemies in the Imperial court. A dexterous informer, countenanced by several of the principal ministers, procured from him some recommendatory letters; and erasing the whole of the contents, except the signature, filled up the vacant parchment with matters of high and treasonable import. By the industry and courage of his friends, the fraud was however detected, and in a great council of the civil and military officers, held in the presence of the emperor himself, the innocence of Sylvanus was publicly acknowledged. But the discovery came too late; the report of the calumny, and the hasty seizure of his estate, had already provoked the indignant chief to the rebellion of which he was so unjustly accused. He assumed the purple at his head- quarters of Cologne, and his active powers appeared to menace Italy with an invasion, and Milan with a siege. In this emergency, Ursicinus, a general of equal rank, regained, by an act of treachery, the favor which he had lost by his eminent services in the East. Exasperated, as he might speciously allege, by the injuries of a similar nature, he hastened with a few followers to join the standard, and to betray the confidence, of his too credulous friend. After a reign of only twenty-eight days, Sylvanus was assassinated: the soldiers who, without any criminal intention, had blindly followed the example of their leader, immediately returned to their allegiance; and the flatterers of Constantius celebrated the wisdom and felicity of the monarch who had extinguished a civil war without the hazard of a battle. 40
The protection of the Rhaetian frontier, and the persecution of the Catholic church, detained Constantius in Italy above eighteen months after the departure of Julian. Before the emperor returned into the East, he indulged his pride and curiosity in a visit to the ancient capital. 41 He proceeded from Milan to Rome along the Aemilian and Flaminian ways, and as soon as he approached within forty miles of the city, the march of a prince who had never vanquished a foreign enemy, assumed the appearance of a triumphal procession. His splendid train was composed of all the ministers of luxury; but in a time of profound peace, he was encompassed by the glittering arms of the numerous squadrons of his guards and cuirassiers. Their streaming banners of silk, embossed with gold, and shaped in the form of dragons, waved round the person of the emperor. Constantius sat alone in a lofty car, resplendent with gold and precious gems; and, except when he bowed his head to pass under the gates of the cities, he affected a stately demeanor of inflexible, and, as it might seem, of insensible gravity. The severe discipline of the Persian youth had been introduced by the eunuchs into the Imperial palace; and such were the habits of patience which they had inculcated, that during a slow and sultry march, he was never seen to move his hand towards his face, or to turn his eyes either to the right or to the left. He was received by the magistrates and senate of Rome; and the emperor surveyed, with attention, the civil honors of the republic, and the consular images of the noble families. The streets were lined with an innumerable multitude. Their repeated acclamations expressed their joy at beholding, after an absence of thirty-two years, the sacred person of their sovereign, and Constantius himself expressed, with some pleasantry, he affected surprise that the human race should thus suddenly be collected on the same spot. The son of Constantine was lodged in the ancient palace of Augustus: he presided in the senate, harangued the people from the tribunal which Cicero had so often ascended, assisted with unusual courtesy at the games of the Circus, and accepted the crowns of gold, as well as the Panegyrics which had been prepared for the ceremony by the deputies of the principal cities. His short visit of thirty days was employed in viewing the monuments of art and power which were scattered over the seven hills and the interjacent valleys. He admired the awful majesty of the Capitol, the vast extent of the baths of Caracalla and Diocletian, the severe simplicity of the Pantheon, the massy greatness of the amphitheatre of Titus, the elegant architecture of the theatre of Pompey and the Temple of Peace, and, above all, the stately structure of the Forum and column of Trajan; acknowledging that the voice of fame, so prone to invent and to magnify, had made an inadequate report of the metropolis of the world. The traveller, who has contemplated the ruins of ancient Rome, may conceive some imperfect idea of the sentiments which they must have inspired when they reared their heads in the splendor of unsullied beauty.
[See The Pantheon: The severe simplicity of the Pantheon]
The satisfaction which Constantius had received from this journey excited him to the generous emulation of bestowing on the Romans some memorial of his own gratitude and munificence. His first idea was to imitate the equestrian and colossal statue which he had seen in the Forum of Trajan; but when he had maturely weighed the difficulties of the execution, 42 he chose rather to embellish the capital by the gift of an Egyptian obelisk. In a remote but polished age, which seems to have preceded the invention of alphabetical writing, a great number of these obelisks had been erected, in the cities of Thebes and Heliopolis, by the ancient sovereigns of Egypt, in a just confidence that the simplicity of their form, and the hardness of their substance, would resist the injuries of time and violence. 43 Several of these extraordinary columns had been transported to Rome by Augustus and his successors, as the most durable monuments of their power and victory; 44 but there remained one obelisk, which, from its size or sanctity, escaped for a long time the rapacious vanity of the conquerors. It was designed by Constantine to adorn his new city; 45 and, after being removed by his order from the pedestal where it stood before the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis, was floated down the Nile to Alexandria. The death of Constantine suspended the execution of his purpose, and this obelisk was destined by his son to the ancient capital of the empire. A vessel of uncommon strength and capaciousness was provided to convey this enormous weight of granite, at least a hundred and fifteen feet in length, from the banks of the Nile to those of the Tyber. The obelisk of Constantius was landed about three miles from the city, and elevated, by the efforts of art and labor, in the great Circus of Rome. 46 *_0041
The departure of Constantius from Rome was hastened by the alarming intelligence of the distress and danger of the Illyrian provinces. The distractions of civil war, and the irreparable loss which the Roman legions had sustained in the battle of Mursa, exposed those countries, almost without defence, to the light cavalry of the Barbarians; and particularly to the inroads of the Quadi, a fierce and powerful nation, who seem to have exchanged the institutions of Germany for the arms and military arts of their Sarmatian allies. 47 The garrisons of the frontiers were insufficient to check their progress; and the indolent monarch was at length compelled to assemble, from the extremities of his dominions, the flower of the Palatine troops, to take the field in person, and to employ a whole campaign, with the preceding autumn and the ensuing spring, in the serious prosecution of the war. The emperor passed the Danube on a bridge of boats, cut in pieces all that encountered his march, penetrated into the heart of the country of the Quadi, and severely retaliated the calamities which they had inflicted on the Roman province. The dismayed Barbarians were soon reduced to sue for peace: they offered the restitution of his captive subjects as an atonement for the past, and the noblest hostages as a pledge of their future conduct. The generous courtesy which was shown to the first among their chieftains who implored the clemency of Constantius, encouraged the more timid, or the more obstinate, to imitate their example; and the Imperial camp was crowded with the princes and ambassadors of the most distant tribes, who occupied the plains of the Lesser Poland, and who might have deemed themselves secure behind the lofty ridge of the Carpathian Mountains. While Constantius gave laws to the Barbarians beyond the Danube, he distinguished, with specious compassion, the Sarmatian exiles, who had been expelled from their native country by the rebellion of their slaves, and who formed a very considerable accession to the power of the Quadi. The emperor, embracing a generous but artful system of policy, released the Sarmatians from the bands of this humiliating dependence, and restored them, by a separate treaty, to the dignity of a nation united under the government of a king, the friend and ally of the republic. He declared his resolution of asserting the justice of their cause, and of securing the peace of the provinces by the extirpation, or at least the banishment, of the Limigantes, whose manners were still infected with the vices of their servile origin. The execution of this design was attended with more difficulty than glory. The territory of the Limigantes was protected against the Romans by the Danube, against the hostile Barbarians by the Teyss. The marshy lands which lay between those rivers, and were often covered by their inundations, formed an intricate wilderness, pervious only to the inhabitants, who were acquainted with its secret paths and inaccessible fortresses. On the approach of Constantius, the Limigantes tried the efficacy of prayers, of fraud, and of arms; but he sternly rejected their supplications, defeated their rude stratagems, and repelled with skill and firmness the efforts of their irregular valor. One of their most warlike tribes, established in a small island towards the conflux of the Teyss and the Danube, consented to pass the river with the intention of surprising the emperor during the security of an amicable conference. They soon became the victims of the perfidy which they meditated. Encompassed on every side, trampled down by the cavalry, slaughtered by the swords of the legions, they disdained to ask for mercy; and with an undaunted countenance, still grasped their weapons in the agonies of death. After this victory, a considerable body of Romans was landed on the opposite banks of the Danube; the Taifalae, a Gothic tribe engaged in the service of the empire, invaded the Limigantes on the side of the Teyss; and their former masters, the free Sarmatians, animated by hope and revenge, penetrated through the hilly country, into the heart of their ancient possessions. A general conflagration revealed the huts of the Barbarians, which were seated in the depth of the wilderness; and the soldier fought with confidence on marshy ground, which it was dangerous for him to tread. In this extremity, the bravest of the Limigantes were resolved to die in arms, rather than to yield: but the milder sentiment, enforced by the authority of their elders, at length prevailed; and the suppliant crowd, followed by their wives and children, repaired to the Imperial camp, to learn their fate from the mouth of the conqueror. After celebrating his own clemency, which was still inclined to pardon their repeated crimes, and to spare the remnant of a guilty nation, Constantius assigned for the place of their exile a remote country, where they might enjoy a safe and honorable repose. The Limigantes obeyed with reluctance; but before they could reach, at least before they could occupy, their destined habitations, they returned to the banks of the Danube, exaggerating the hardships of their situation, and requesting, with fervent professions of fidelity, that the emperor would grant them an undisturbed settlement within the limits of the Roman provinces. Instead of consulting his own experience of their incurable perfidy, Constantius listened to his flatterers, who were ready to represent the honor and advantage of accepting a colony of soldiers, at a time when it was much easier to obtain the pecuniary contributions than the military service of the subjects of the empire. The Limigantes were permitted to pass the Danube; and the emperor gave audience to the multitude in a large plain near the modern city of Buda. They surrounded the tribunal, and seemed to hear with respect an oration full of mildness and dignity when one of the Barbarians, casting his shoe into the air, exclaimed with a loud voice, Marha! Marha! *_0042 a word of defiance, which was received as a signal of the tumult. They rushed with fury to seize the person of the emperor; his royal throne and golden couch were pillaged by these rude hands; but the faithful defence of his guards, who died at his feet, allowed him a moment to mount a fleet horse, and to escape from the confusion. The disgrace which had been incurred by a treacherous surprise was soon retrieved by the numbers and discipline of the Romans; and the combat was only terminated by the extinction of the name and nation of the Limigantes. The free Sarmatians were reinstated in the possession of their ancient seats; and although Constantius distrusted the levity of their character, he entertained some hopes that a sense of gratitude might influence their future conduct. He had remarked the lofty stature and obsequious demeanor of Zizais, one of the noblest of their chiefs. He conferred on him the title of King; and Zizais proved that he was not unworthy to reign, by a sincere and lasting attachment to the interests of his benefactor, who, after this splendid success, received the name of Sarmaticus from the acclamations of his victorious army. 48
23 The Thebaean legions, which were then quartered at Hadrianople, sent a deputation to Gallus, with a tender of their services. Ammian. l. xiv. c. 11. The Notitia (s. 6, 20, 38, edit. Labb.) mentions three several legions which bore the name of Thebaean. The zeal of M. de Voltaire to destroy a despicable though celebrated legion, has tempted him on the slightest grounds to deny the existence of a Thenaean legion in the Roman armies. See Oeuvres de Voltaire, tom. xv. p. 414, quarto edition.
*_0040 Pettau in Styria. - M
!_0040 Rather to Flanonia. now Fianone, near Pola. St. Martin. - M.
24 See the complete narrative of the journey and death of Gallus in Ammianus, l. xiv. c. 11. Julian complains that his brother was put to death without a trial; attempts to justify, or at least to excuse, the cruel revenge which he had inflicted on his enemies; but seems at last to acknowledge that he might justly have been deprived of the purple.
25 Philostorgius, l. iv. c. 1. Zonaras, l. xiii. tom. ii. p. 19. But the former was partial towards an Arian monarch, and the latter transcribed, without choice or criticism, whatever he found in the writings of the ancients.
26 See Ammianus Marcellin. l. xv. c. 1, 3, 8. Julian himself in his epistle to the Athenians, draws a very lively and just picture of his own danger, and of his sentiments. He shows, however, a tendency to exaggerate his sufferings, by insinuating, though in obscure terms, that they lasted above a year; a period which cannot be reconciled with the truth of chronology.
27 Julian has worked the crimes and misfortunes of the family of Constantine into an allegorical fable, which is happily conceived and agreeably related. It forms the conclusion of the seventh Oration, from whence it has been detached and translated by the Abbe de la Bleterie, Vie de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 385-408.
28 She was a native of Thessalonica, in Macedonia, of a noble family, and the daughter, as well as sister, of consuls. Her marriage with the emperor may be placed in the year 352. In a divided age, the historians of all parties agree in her praises. See their testimonies collected by Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 750-754.
29 Libanius and Gregory Nazianzen have exhausted the arts as well as the powers of their eloquence, to represent Julian as the first of heroes, or the worst of tyrants. Gregory was his fellow-student at Athens; and the symptoms which he so tragically describes, of the future wickedness of the apostate, amount only to some bodily imperfections, and to some peculiarities in his speech and manner. He protests, however, that he then foresaw and foretold the calamities of the church and state. (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p. 121, 122.)
30 Succumbere tot necessitatibus tamque crebris unum se, quod nunquam fecerat, aperte demonstrans. Ammian. l. xv. c. 8. He then expresses, in their own words, the fattering assurances of the courtiers.
31 Tantum a temperatis moribus Juliani differens fratris quantum inter Vespasiani filios fuit, Domitianum et Titum. Ammian. l. xiv. c. 11. The circumstances and education of the two brothers, were so nearly the same, as to afford a strong example of the innate difference of characters.
32 Ammianus, l. xv. c. 8. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 137, 138.
33 Julian. ad S. P. Q. A. p. 275, 276. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 268. Julian did not yield till the gods had signified their will by repeated visions and omens. His piety then forbade him to resist.
34 Julian himself relates, (p. 274) with some humor, the circumstances of his own metamorphoses, his downcast looks, and his perplexity at being thus suddenly transported into a new world, where every object appeared strange and hostile.
35 See Ammian. Marcellin. l. xv. c. 8. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 139. Aurelius Victor. Victor Junior in Epitom. Eutrop. x. 14.
36 Militares omnes horrendo fragore scuta genibus illidentes; quod est prosperitatis indicium plenum; nam contra cum hastis clypei feriuntur, irae documentum est et doloris. . . . . . Ammianus adds, with a nice distinction, Eumque ut potiori reverentia servaretur, nec supra modum laudabant nec infra quam decebat.
37 The word purple which Homer had used as a vague but common epithet for death, was applied by Julian to express, very aptly, the nature and object of his own apprehensions.
38 He represents, in the most pathetic terms, (p. 277,) the distress of his new situation. The provision for his table was, however, so elegant and sumptuous, that the young philosopher rejected it with disdain. Quum legeret libellum assidue, quem Constantius ut privignum ad studia mittens manu sua conscripserat, praelicenter disponens quid in convivio Caesaris impendi deberit: Phasianum, et vulvam et sumen exigi vetuit et inferri. Ammian. Marcellin. l. xvi. c. 5.
39 If we recollect that Constantine, the father of Helena, died above eighteen years before, in a mature old age, it will appear probable, that the daughter, though a virgin, could not be very young at the time of her marriage. She was soon afterwards delivered of a son, who died immediately, quod obstetrix corrupta mercede, mox natum praesecto plusquam convenerat umbilico necavit. She accompanied the emperor and empress in their journey to Rome, and the latter, quaesitum venenum bibere per fraudem illexit, ut quotiescunque concepisset, immaturum abjicerit partum. Ammian. l. xvi. c. 10. Our physicians will determine whether there exists such a poison. For my own part I am inclined to hope that the public malignity imputed the effects of accident as the guilt of Eusebia.
40 Ammianus (xv. v.) was perfectly well informed of the conduct and fate of Sylvanus. He himself was one of the few followers who attended Ursicinus in his dangerous enterprise.
41 For the particulars of the visit of Constantius to Rome, see Ammianus, l. xvi. c. 10. We have only to add, that Themistius was appointed deputy from Constantinople, and that he composed his fourth oration for his ceremony.
42 Hormisdas, a fugitive prince of Persia, observed to the emperor, that if he made such a horse, he must think of preparing a similar stable, (the Forum of Trajan.) Another saying of Hormisdas is recorded, "that one thing only had displeased him, to find that men died at Rome as well as elsewhere." If we adopt this reading of the text of Ammianus, (displicuisse, instead of placuisse,) we may consider it as a reproof of Roman vanity. The contrary sense would be that of a misanthrope.
43 When Germanicus visited the ancient monuments of Thebes, the eldest of the priests explained to him the meaning of these hiero glyphics. Tacit. Annal. ii. c. 60. But it seems probable, that before the useful invention of an alphabet, these natural or arbitrary signs were the common characters of the Egyptian nation. See Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses, vol. iii. p. 69-243.
44 See Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xxxvi. c. 14, 15.
45 Ammian. Marcellin l. xvii. c. 4. He gives us a Greek interpretation of the hieroglyphics, and his commentator Lindenbrogius adds a Latin inscription, which, in twenty verses of the age of Constantius, contain a short history of the obelisk.
46 See Donat. Roma. Antiqua, l. iii. c. 14, l. iv. c. 12, and the learned, though confused, Dissertation of Bargaeus on Obelisks, inserted in the fourth volume of Graevius's Roman Antiquities, p. 1897- 1936. This dissertation is dedicated to Pope Sixtus V., who erected the obelisk of Constantius in the square before the patriarchal church of at. John Lateran.
*_0041 It is doubtful whether the obelisk transported by Constantius to Rome now exists. Even from the text of Ammianus, it is uncertain whether the interpretation of Hermapion refers to the older obelisk, (obelisco incisus est veteri quem videmus in Circo,) raised, as he himself states, in the Circus Maximus, long before, by Augustus, or to the one brought by Constantius. The obelisk in the square before the church of St. John Lateran is ascribed not to Rameses the Great but to Thoutmos II. Champollion, 1. Lettre a M. de Blacas, p. 32. - M
47 The events of this Quadian and Sarmatian war are related by Ammianus, xvi. 10, xvii. 12, 13, xix. 11
*_0042 Reinesius reads Warrha, Warrha, Guerre, War. Wagner note as a mm. Marc xix. ll. - M.
48 Genti Sarmatarum magno decori confidens apud eos regem dedit. Aurelius Victor. In a pompous oration pronounced by Constantius himself, he expatiates on his own exploits with much vanity, and some truth


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Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture Title...
..."Dude, I Can't Talk, I'm Being Chased by the Police!"
Possible Hot Topic for Researchers
Men who eat a lot of tofus AND watermelons. (Bonus research point: a gas mask--yay or nay?)
A Wake Up Call for Elvis Fans
The King was NOT abducted by the aliens. He just went back in time.
A 1,800-year-old relic found in a Roman coffin as a solid evidence.
Guess who was also featured on an ancient Egyptian tomb?
Yes, The King of Pop.


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Memories of Hiperbatch
MartinPacker 11000094DH Comments (2) Visits (13180)
It's nice to see a flurry of activity in IBM-MAIN about Hiperbatch. And it's more for the emotional reason of reminiscence than for any stunning insights that I'm blogging about it... Back in 1988 I ran a technical project in my then customer, Lloyds Bank, to evaluate Data In Memory (DIM). It was a fun project with a wide range of workloads on multiple machines, including the then-new DB2. So we... [More]


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- Parent Category: News
Monday > Dense Fog Advisory
Dense Fog Advisory
Statement as of 3:49 AM February 06, 2012
...Dense fog advisory in effect until noon today...
Visibility...dense fog will reduce visibilities to less than a quarter mile...to near zero at times.
Visibility can drop from fair to less than a quarter
mile within minutes. In addition...temperatures below freezing will allow fog to freeze on contact with exposed surfaces. As a result...light ice deposits may develop on area roadways...with bridges and overpasses being most susceptible to slick conditions developing. Motorists are urged to use caution and remain alert for changing conditions.
Precautionary/preparedness actions...
A dense fog advisory means visibilities will frequently be reduced to less than one quarter mile. If driving...slow down...use your headlights...and leave plenty of distance ahead of you.
94.1 FM, WGFA --- since 1961


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N/NE Quadrant Stakeholder Advisory Committee Meeting, Dec. 9
Dec 7, 2010 at 2:06 PM
The Stakeholder Advisory Committee will meet on Thursday, December 9 from 5:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. The SAC will discuss the draft scope and goals of the N/NE Quadrant and I-5 Broadway/Weidler Plans. The location and agenda for the meeting are below:
Calaroga Terrace
1400 NE Second Avenue
Portland, OR 97232
Please review our Code of Conduct rules before posting a comment to this site. Your comment will be visible to site administrators only.


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... to Green Hype, the collective run by Joy. The collective was prevously known as Filipina Princess and was opened sometime in January 2003. Please enjoy your stay!
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Data on the Beat
You get lied to a lot out there," says Brian Joseph Tierney, a burly beat cop with the Chicago Police Department. Tierney is referring to...
You get lied to a lot out there," says Brian Joseph Tierney, a burly beat cop with the Chicago Police Department. Tierney is referring to his regular street-level encounters with individuals he thinks might be skating under the law's radar.
Until recently, Tierney didn't have much choice but to accept someone's story and whatever name he or she gave him, and let the individual move on -- even if he strongly suspected that the person had something to hide.
But things are changing quickly in Chicago, thanks to the convergence of two very powerful tools: first, rapidly filling reservoirs of data on everything from warrants and rap sheets, to nicknames, scars, tattoos and mug shots; and second, the technology to quickly sift through it all and retrieve relevant information in moments from just about anywhere.
Now, says Tierney, he can use the equivalent of a BlackBerry or laptop computer to quickly cross-check names, physical features, style of dress and even fingerprints -- all while he's out on the street. As a result, the tenor of Tierney's beat encounters is starting to change. "It's very deflating to them," he says, "when some character finds out that I know he's lying to me because I was able to pull up his picture with the touch of a finger."
The reason for the turnaround in Chicago is CLEAR, which stands for "Citizen and Law Enforcement Analysis and Reporting." CLEAR takes the basic concepts behind data-driven crime mapping (a tactic pioneered by New York City through its Compstat program) and vastly expands it, creating a widespread and cross-cutting system of information gathering, storage and retrieval that gives all law enforcement officials -- from foot patrols to high-level managers -- as well as citizens a virtual view of the total crime picture in the metro region.
Actionable Intelligence
CLEAR isn't an technological monolith, rather it's a collection of high-tech tools and IT-enabled tactics that have been woven together over more than a decade to allow for more information-driven and prevention-focused crime fighting -- giving rise to the term "fusion centers."
On the hardware side, CLEAR includes everything from the squad-car laptops and handheld devices police officers use to check and collect names, license plates, photos and fingerprints out in the field; to field microphones that pick up and triangulate gunshots; to stationary cameras that monitor potential crime hotspots; to mobile cameras that can scan thousands of license plates an hour to check for stolen vehicles or possible fugitives or suspects.
On the intelligence side, CLEAR links databases that contain a huge range of information on arrests and convictions, stolen vehicles, warrants, firearms data, investigative alerts, gang activity (including individuals' affiliations and rank), juvenile curfew violations and incidence reports, among a host of other information sets. Meanwhile, relevant information on incidents and key events can be quickly mapped to identify patterns and trouble spots -- and even predict where and when an offender or trouble might show up next.
The whole idea behind CLEAR is to get the right information to the people who need it most when they need it most, says Jonathan Lewin, director of IT for the Chicago Police Department. For example, when it comes to strategic deployment, that information may be used at a fairly high level. David Sobczyk, head of the department's deployment center, notes that the days of getting in a patrol car and cruising around town waiting for a dispatch are long gone. "Now, you go where we tell you to go based on actionable intelligence," says Sobczyk.
What is "actionable intelligence"? With CLEAR, it can be just about any detail related to a crime or a suspect. In one recent case, the police had only a discarded lottery ticket as evidence at a murder scene. Guessing the number sequence chosen might have some significance, they ran it as a street address through CLEAR, got a clean hit on a career criminal, cross-checked DNA found at the scene with samples on file and made the arrest.
In another improvement over past Compstat-style efforts, CLEAR also pushes all kinds of relevant -- and potentially life-saving -- information down to the street in real time so that police officers have a much better idea of who they're dealing with and what they might be getting into. Lewin describes these capabilities as "crime fighting at the speed of thought."
Citizen Input
This is hardly a phrase that would have described the Chicago Police Department in action not very long ago. It was so bad in the late 1980s, says Philip J. Cline, who just retired as department superintendent after 37 years on the force, that when he was head of the department's violent crimes unit, he and some of his fellow detectives actually pooled their own money to buy a computer -- which they used mostly for word processing.
Back then, if a detective or a uniformed officer wanted a mug shot or a rap sheet, Cline recalls, he'd have to make the pilgrimage to "11th and State," the venerable old Chicago police headquarters that housed all the paper files on which crime-fighting intelligence depended. Mug shots were on one floor, rap sheets on another. "You'd make this sort of onion-skin copy," says Cline. "And everything was in black and white." It was slow and uncertain work. Cases often went cold in a hurry.
Ultimately, though, it wasn't frustration on the part of the police force over their woeful technological status that finally pushed the department into the next century, according to Cline and Lewin. It was a different phenomenon that was taking hold in cities across the county -- community policing.
While pressure was coming down from top elected officials to improve police-community relations, a new theory was building within law enforcement itself that effective crime fighting required a tighter connection between police and neighborhoods. As the CPD began considering ways to implement community policing, it dawned on them that to create any kind of decent partnership would require sharing a lot of information -- much of which either didn't exist or wasn't readily available absent much better IT tools.
"In 1991, Mayor Daley made a commitment to community policing," says Lewin. "As part of that effort, he wanted us to create a system of data gathering that was fast and easy to use and that could generate maps."
The technology push was aggressive and sustained. But while CPD was going from worst in class to high performer on the IT front, it wasn't exactly proving to be a model when it came to community policing. That began to change with the gelling of CLEAR in 2002. From the start, Lewin says, there was a strong outreach effort in order to find out what sort of information citizens wanted at their fingertips, so the department could build that into CLEAR.
Alvaro Obregon says he knew the police were serious about improved community relations when he made his very first request regarding CLEAR at a District Advisory Committee meeting. "It was heartening right off the bat," recalls Obregon, who chairs his west side DAC, "when we said that it was important that whatever information was included be bilingual, and the police department said 'Check, we're already on it.' " Community-accessible information offered through CLEAR is now available in more than a dozen languages.
And so the first -- and perhaps most significant -- benefit of CLEAR to community groups such as Obregon's DAC was simply that the push to include citizens and local businesses in its design served to rekindle a tighter police-community relationship in general. "It was more than just about software and data and how to link up to it; that's important but dry," says Obregon. "It was involving the community in the planning process. I saw people who had been very cautious in how they related to the police start to open up."
Democratization of Policing
On the "dry" side alone, though, CLEAR has plenty to offer. For starters, it allows citizens to quickly find out who, exactly, is policing their neighborhoods, from foot patrols to beat commanders. And it allows for the rapid exchange of information on criminal activity in specific neighborhoods.
Currently, 20,000 citizens and local businesses subscribe to a service through CLEAR that offers regular updates on what's happening in specific beats (there are 280 citywide, generally organized along the lines of recognized neighborhoods), including alerts if police are seeing -- or anticipate -- some uptick in crime in a particular area or if they need help finding a particular person.
At the same time, the system also offers residents a way to pass along tips -- anonymously, if they wish. They also can attend "virtual" beat meetings through CLEAR. Meanwhile, the department is working with the city's District Advisory Committees to create Web-based bulletin boards listing everything from what community and city services are available in a particular area, to recreational and job opportunities for youths.
The potential to build on CLEAR to improve community-police relations is significant, says Dennis Rosenbaum, who teaches criminal justice and psychology at Loyola University and evaluates community policing efforts nationally.
For example, CLEAR isn't used only to monitor criminal activity. It also contains personnel information on police officers themselves, ranging from keeping track of sick leave to complaints about excessive use of force. The system allows for "early intervention" if a cop seems to be racking up an unusual number of complaints out in a particular neighborhood.
Rosenbaum envisions CLEAR being used to do citizen polling, including asking questions around police-community relations generally, what sort of law enforcement services residents would like to see more of or how safe people feel walking the streets of their neighborhoods. "It's the democratization of policing," he says of the CLEAR-community connection. "It's about expanding the dialogue between the police and citizens around police and public safety."
Another spin-off of the CLEAR-community connection has been that other city agencies are now frequently called in to help solve neighborhood problems that were initially identified by citizens and the police -- whether it's a need to repair streetlights, remove abandoned cars or deal with derelict properties.
But at the end of the day, CLEAR is first and foremost about fighting crime, and to that end, CLEAR seems to now routinely prove its value. It's been so effective in helping police, in fact, that dozens of jurisdictions in the metro area have signed on to access CLEAR databases. "We border the city on two sides," says Oak Park police chief Rick Tanksley, "and so we share some of the same criminals."
Tanksley says CLEAR has dramatically shifted how his department does business. "We use it every day, and we've made plenty of arrests based on CLEAR information." One small, recent example: The Oak Park police were looking for a "person of interest," and found him after the police downloaded a color picture of a tattoo.
In all, more than 300 other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies -- including some in Indiana and Wisconsin -- have access to CLEAR. The department also is adding more than 100 downstate police departments to the system. "The benefits of sharing information can't be overestimated," says Lewin. In fact, the federal government is so impressed with CLEAR's capacity for sorting through suspects, it has asked the CPD to work with the Department of Defense on creating a system to be deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Chicago's Type I crimes have been ratcheting down every year since CLEAR went live, even as crime in other major cities has trended upward. And just about every police officer or detective in Chicago seems to have a story about how CLEAR has made a difference.
Burglary detective Dewey Lee Jr., characterizes his job as "chasing ghosts," because of the citywide game of hide and seek in which he's engaged full time. Except these days, ghosts are starting to discover they're not so invisible, Lee says, thanks to the connect-the-dots capacity of CLEAR.
To see how citizens in Chicago can use CLEAR, check out the Web version at http://gis.chicagopolice.org. There you can search for and map crime by type, date, ward, park, school, community or address. Data is updated daily, and tracked for the past 365 days. Additional information includes beat, district and station maps, reports and statistics, and the official blog of the Chicago Police Department.
These articles are part of a continuing series on public performance measurement focusing on citizen involvement. Support has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Although the foundation may assist some of the programs described in these articles, it had no control or influence over the editorial content, and no one at Sloan read the material prior to publication. All reporting and editing was done independently by Governing staff.


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Lady Gaga was generally acclaimed to be the most popular new artist of 2009. But due to an outdated rules system, the Fame Monster wasn't eligible to snag a Grammy for best newcomer because "Just Dance," her first major hit, was nominated the previous year in a different category.
To prevent that situation from happening again, the Recording Academy, which presides over the Grammys, released revised guidelines this week which determine the conditions under which an artist can still qualify as a new artist. The new rules allow previous Grammy nominees to be eligible, as long as the artist hasn't released an entire album and doesn't win.
"More and more, the first release of a new artist is as a featured artist on someone else's album or the new artist may release a single long before the release of his/her/their entire first album," the Academy said in a statement.
"By current rules, if the other artist's album or the new artist's single receives a nomination, the new artist may never have the opportunity to compete in the best new artist category. With this change, each artist will have at least one opportunity to enter in this important and highly visible category."
Changes were also announced in other categories. Classical producers no longer have to submit a minimum of three recordings to be eligible for a nomination for classical producer of the year, and like non-classical producers, can submit just one recording.
In addition, classical box sets will be eligible if more than 51 percent of the material is at least 5 years old.
The Academy also voted to exclude all Grammy performances, and performances during any Recording Academy event, from consideration for a Grammy. The change was made to ensure the "integrity of The Recording Academy and to be completely impartial in our awards process."
In regards to Gaga, she might want to thank her lucky stars that she didn't win the coveted trophy, which would have placed her alongside such hallowed acts as Milli Vanilli, Arrested Development and Hootie and The Blowfish.


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Louis Daignault (ISN)
May 3, 2013, Shanghai, China (ISN) – Jaime Broder of Victoria and Kristina Valjas of Toronto reached the playoff round for the second straight week on the FIVB World Tour beach volleyball circuit on Friday to finish in 17th place at a $220,000 Grand Slam event.
The Canadians completed the round robin portion of the tournament Friday morning with a victory over Martina Bonnerova and Barbora Hermannova of the Czech Republic 21-16, 21-17. They finished the round robin at 1-2 for third spot in their pool to advance to the first round of the playoffs.
In that playoff match they fell 21-19, 17-21, 15-7 against 13th seeds Liliane Maestrini and Barbara Seixas de Freitas of Brazil.
Last week, Broder and Valjas were ninth at the season opening event. Earlier this spring they won gold at a NORCECA (North and Central America and Caribbean) tournament stop.
www.volleyball.ca and www.fivb.org


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