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Here's something about the differences between the male and female brains that bears on the T-F dimension of the MBTI. It also goes off on a tangent about autism, which is still interesting, although not pertinent to the MBTI, although it is pertinent to the increased diagnosis rate for autism among Millennials.
My comments are in italics.
Standard disclaimers apply.
They just can't help it
What kind of brain do you have? There really are big differences between the male and female brain, says Simon Baron-Cohen. And they could help explain conditions such as autism
Simon Baron-Cohen
Wednesday April 16 2003
The Guardian
Are there essential differences between the male and female brain? My theory is that the female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy, and that the male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems. I call it the empathising-systemising (E-S) theory.
And the MBTI calls it T-F. The majority of women are F; the majority of men are T. This is not a new insight, although the neurology may now explain what was inside the "black box" postulated by other theories of thought and personality.
Empathising is the drive to identify another person's emotions and thoughts, and to respond to these with an appropriate emotion. The empathiser intuitively figures out how people are feeling, and how to treat people with care and sensitivity. Systemising is the drive to analyse and explore a system, to extract underlying rules that govern the behaviour of a system; and the drive to construct systems. The systemiser intuitively figures out how things work, or what the underlying rules are controlling a system. Systems can be as varied as a pond, a vehicle, a computer, a maths equation, or even an army unit. They all operate on inputs and deliver outputs, using rules.
According to this theory, a person (whether male or female) has a particular "brain type". There are three common brain types: for some individuals, empathising is stronger than systemising. This is called the female brain, or a brain of type E. For other individuals, systemising is stronger than empathising. This is called the male brain, or a brain of type S. Yet other individuals are equally strong in their systemising and empathising. This is called the "balanced brain", or a brain of type B. There are now tests you can take to see which type (E, S, or B) you are. Not which type you'd like to be, but which you actually are.
A key feature of this theory is that your sex cannot tell you which type of brain you have. Not all men have the male brain, and not all women have the female brain. The central claim of this new theory is only that on average, more males than females have a brain of type S, and more females than males have a brain of type E.
So are females better at empathising? This theory rings true at an anecdotal level. For example, we've always known that people choose different things to read in the newsagent on the railway platform or in the airport departure lounge. Women are more likely to go to the magazine rack featuring fashion, romance, beauty, intimacy, emotional problems and agony-aunts,
"Agony-aunts"? How quaintly British! Would Dear Abby and Ann Landers have qualified?
counselling, relationship advice, and parenting. Men are more likely to go to a magazine rack featuring computers, cars, boats, photography, DIY, sport, hi-fi, action, guns, tools, and the outdoors.
And we all have anecdotal impressions about typical hobbies for men and women. Men are more likely to spend hours happily engaged in car or motorbike maintenance, light aircraft piloting, sailing, bird- or trainspotting, mathematics, tweaking their sound systems, computer games and programming. Women are more likely to spend hours happily engaged in coffee mornings or pot-luck suppers, advising friends on relationship problems, or caring for friends, neighbours, or pets.
But the E-S theory goes beyond such anecdotal evidence to pull together the scientific evidence, and investigate the origins of these differences.
The evidence for a female advantage in empathising comes from many different directions. For example, studies show that when children play together with a little movie player that has only one eye-piece, boys tend to get more of their fair share of looking down the eye piece. They just shoulder the girls out of the way. Less empathy, more self-centred. Or if you leave out a bunch of those big plastic cars that kids can ride on, what you see is that more little boys play the "ramming" game. They deliberately drive the vehicle into another child. The little girls ride around more carefully, avoiding the other children more often. This suggests the girls are being more sensitive to others.
Baby girls, as young as 12 months old, respond more empathically to the distress of other people, showing greater concern through more sad looks, sympathetic vocalisations and comforting. This echoes what you find in adulthood: more women report frequently sharing the emotional distress of their friends. Women also spend more time comforting people.
When asked to judge when someone might have said something potentially hurtful, girls score higher from at least seven years old. Women are also more sensitive to facial expressions. They are better at decoding non-verbal communication, picking up subtle nuances from tone of voice or facial _expression, or judging a person's character.
There is also a sex difference in aggression. Males tend to show far more "direct" aggression such as pushing, hitting and punching. Females tend to show more "indirect" (or "relational", covert) aggression. This includes gossip, exclusion, and bitchy remarks. It could be said that to punch someone in the face or to wound them physically requires an even lower level of empathy than a verbal snipe.
I generally display more "female" aggression. I guess that's why I like the Internet!
Two other ways to reveal a person's empathising skill are to see how they (as a newcomer) join a group of strangers, and to see how they (as a host) react to a new person joining their group. This has been cleverly investigated in children by introducing a new boy or girl to a group who are already playing together. If the newcomer is female, she is more likely to stand and watch for a while, to check out what's going on, and then try to fit in with the ongoing activity. This usually leads to the newcomer being readily accepted into the group. If the newcomer is a boy, he is more likely to hijack the game by trying to change it, directing everyone's attention on to him. And even by the age of six, girls are better at being a host. They are more attentive to the newcomer. Boys often just ignore the newcomer's attempt to join in. They are more likely to carry on with what they were already doing.
How early are such sex differences in empathy evident? Certainly, by 12 months , girls make more eye contact than boys. But a new study carried out in my lab at Cambridge University shows that at birth, girls look longer at a face, and boys look longer at a suspended mechanical mobile. Furthermore, the Cambridge team found that how much eye contact children make is in part determined by a biological factor: prenatal testosterone. This has been demonstrated by measuring this hormone in amniotic fluid.
All this adds up to a large amount of evidence for a female advantage in empathising, with at least some biological determinants. What about the claimed male advantage in systemising?
Boys, from toddlerhood onwards, are more interested in cars, trucks, planes, guns and swords, building blocks, constructional toys, and mechanical toys - systems. They seem to love putting things together, to build toy towers or towns or vehicles. Boys also enjoy playing with toys that have clear functions, buttons to press, things that will light up, or devices that will cause another object to move.
You see the same sort of pattern in the adult workplace. Some occupations are almost entirely male. Think of metal-working, weapon-making, crafting musical instruments, or the construction industries, such as boat-building. The focus of these occupations is on constructing systems. Professions such as maths, physics, and engineering, which require high sys temising, are also largely male-chosen disciplines.
Some psychological tests also show the male advantage in systemising. For example, in the mental rotation test, you're shown two shapes, and asked if one is a rotation or a mirror image of the other. Males are quicker and more accurate on this test. Reading maps has been used as another test of systemising. Men can learn a route in fewer trials, just from looking at a map, correctly recalling more details about direction and distance. If you ask boys to make a map of an area that they have only visited once, their maps have a more accurate layout of the features in the environment, eg, showing which landmark is south-east of another.
And why men won't ask for directions.
If you ask people to put together a 3D mechanical apparatus in an assembly task, on average, men score higher. Boys are also better at constructing block buildings from 2D blueprints. These are constructional systems. And in Nick Hornby's novel, High Fidelity, the male protagonist is obsessed with his record collection, and works in a second-hand record shop catering for (almost all male) customers searching for that one missing item in their collections of music. Collections (of albums, or anything else) are often highly systematic in nature.
The male preference for focusing on systems again is evident very early. Our Cambridge study found that at one year old, little boys showed a stronger preference to watch a film of cars (mechanical systems), than a film of a person's face (with a lot of emotional _expression). Little girls showed the opposite preference. And at one day old, little boys look for longer at a mechanical mobile.
We, of course, know that with time, culture and socialisation do play a role in determining a male brain (stronger interest in systems) or female brain (stronger interest in empathy). But these studies strongly suggest that biology also partly determines this.
Behavior, including learned behavior, is also biology. "Biological" is not synonymous with "genetic" or even "innate". Sorry, as someone trained to be a behavioral biologist, I have to get that pet peeve off my chest!
Some of the most convincing evidence for biological causes comes from studies of the effects of hormones. There was a time when women were prescribed a synthetic female hormone (diethylstilbestrol), in an attempt to prevent repeated spontaneous miscarriages. Boys born to such women are likely to show more female-typical, empathising behaviours, such as caring for dolls. And if a female rat is injected at birth with testosterone, she shows faster, more accurate maze learning, compared with a female rat who has not been given such an injection.
Some important lessons have been learnt from studies of clinical conditions. Male babies born with IHH (idiopathic hypogonadotrophic hypogonadism) have very small testes (and therefore low levels of testosterone) and they are worse at spatial aspects of systemising, relative to normal males. Other male babies born with androgen insensitivity (AI) syndrome (testosterone is an androgen) are also worse at systemising. Compare these with female babies born with CAH (congenital adrenal hyperplasia), who have high levels of androgens and who have enhanced spatial systemising.
But even if you leave aside these clinical conditions, there is evidence for the effects of hormones on the mind in the typical child: our own study found that toddlers who had lower foetal testosterone had higher levels of eye contact. Presumably eye contact may have something to do with sociability and empathising. And a group of Canadian researchers found that the higher your prenatal testosterone the better you do on the mental rotation (systemising) test.
Should a theory like this be a cause of concern? Some people may worry that this is suggesting one sex is better than the other, but a moment's reflection should allay this fear. The theory is saying that, on average, males and females differ in what they are drawn to and what they find easy, but that both sexes have their strengths and their weaknesses. Neither sex is superior overall.
Others may worry that a theory like this stereotypes the sexes. But we need to distinguish stereotyping from the study of sex differences. The study simply looks at males and females as two groups, and asks why on average, differences are seen. There is no harm in that, and even some important scientific advances that can come out of it. Stereotyping, on the other hand, is when a characteristic of a group is assumed to apply to an individual, and this is potentially discriminating and harmful. The E-S theory does not stereotype. Rather, it seeks to explain why individuals are typical or atypical for their sex.
What are the potential new insights from a theory like this? It may help us understand the childhood neurological conditions of autism and Asperger syndrome, which appear to be an extreme of the male brain.
And may explain why both conditions are far more prevalent in males than females, although females with these conditions exist, too.
FWIW, anti-social personality disorder (ASPD) is also both much more common in males than females and characterized by a lack of empathy, although the lack of social understanding apparent in people with autism and Aspergers is not present in those with anti-social personality disorder. Neither is the rigidity associated with autism. Those with ASPD show at least some social understanding (and can even be superficially charming) and tend to impulsivity.
Hmm. I'd say ASPD is much more of an extreme male brain--or at least, a very different kind of extreme male brain--than autism. It's also more of a danger to society!
Such individuals may have impairments in empathising alongside normal or even talented systemising. The theory also predicts the existence of the mirror-image of autism or Asperger syndrome, namely, the extreme female brain. Science has not even begun to investigate what such people are like, but we know they must have impairments in systemising, alongside normal or even talented empathising.
Interestingly, the fact that this condition exists in theory, but has not been described in a recognizable fashion (perhaps hystrionic personality disorder might qualify) suggests that lack of empathy is far more of a problem than a lack of rationality and impersonal practicality.
Finally, the theory delineates two key dimensions of individual differences - empathising and systemising - that exist among any group of children, so that parents and educators can become more tolerant of difference.
Is there an explanation for autism?
I argue that people with autism may have an extreme of the male brain - good at systemising, very bad at empathising - and that studying autism with E-S theory in mind, can help increase our understanding of the condition.
Two largest sub-groups of autism are classic autism, and Asperger syndrome. Both share certain features: a difficulty in developing social relationships; a difficulty in communication; the presence of unusually strong, narrow interests; and a strong adherence to routines.
They differ in that in classic autism, the person might have an IQ at any point on the scale (even in the learning disabled range) and the person invariably had a language delay as a toddler. In Asperger syndrome, the person is always at least average in IQ (and may be well above average), and talked on time as a toddler. Autism spectrum conditions affect about one child in every 200, with males being far more likely than to be diagnosed.
What's interesting is that the obsessional interests that people with autism spectrum conditions show often focus on a system. It may be an intense preoccupation with light switches in the house, or running water from the taps in different sinks in the house. For their long-suffering parents, these "obsessions" can be very hard to cope.
But according to the E-S theory the child may simply be focusing on the tiny details in the system - how fast the water flows when the tap is turned to different angles, or which lights go on when different switches are in the up or down position - using their intelligence to work out the underlying rules that govern the system. The characteristic approach they take is to home in on a topic or area of knowledge, and comb it for every detail, until they feel they've covered most if not all of the information available. The "obsession" might last weeks, months, or even years. And then typically, they move on to a new area to master.
In a British book on Aspergers I read four years ago, "Trainspotting" (identifying trains) was suggested as a hobby of people with Aspergers.
Some parents and teachers will indulge the child so that the child can follow their obsessional interests all the way. And just sometimes, this can lead to great achievement or the development of expertise. Other parents or teachers - with good reason - feel a need to interrupt the child's obsessional focus. But the E-S theory sees individuals with autism spectrum conditions as having a learning style that prefers depth over breadth, and accuracy or exactness over gist.
So much for their strong systemising. What about their impaired empathising? This is the area that is likely to lead them into trouble, or to leave them disabled. Difficulty empathising translates into a whole set of hurdles. You might be last person to get the point of a joke, which can leave you feeling like an outsider. You might end up saying something that another person finds hurtful or offensive, when that was the last thing you intended. You might misinterpret other people's actions and motives. And you might just not pick up how others see you, and hence not know how you come across as odd or different. People's insincerity or subtle emotions may just go straight over your head.
Such difficulties can lead to a child with autism or Asperger syndrome being neglected, or even ostracised by their peer group. Or worse, teased and bullied. Tragically, such bullying often goes undetected by teachers and even parents, so that the child suffers in silence at school for years and years. During the teens, this difficulty in fitting into a peer group can lead the person with Asperger syndrome to become depressed.
No wonder educators are now urgently waking up to the existence of Asperger syndrome, since if it can be better recognised, many of these secondary difficulties might be avoided. And the hope is that a better understanding of such conditions - the extreme male brain - may lead teachers to be more tolerant of the very different learning style such children possess. If nurtured, systemising is not only a valuable contribution, but can even result in a refreshingly original way of thinking and seeing the world.
Simon Baron-Cohen is the director of the Autism Research Centre, Cambridge University. His new book, the Essential Difference: Men, Women and the Extreme Male Brain, will be published by Penguin on May 1 For more information, visit the National Autistic Society UK website www.nas.org.uk
Well, that explains both the connection he makes between "male brain" and autism and the plea for understanding of those with autism and Aspergers.
Further reading
Sex and Cognition, Doreen Kimura, MIT Press,1999
Mindblindness: an essay on autism and theory of mind, Simon Baron-Cohen, MIT Press/Bradford Books, 1995
Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences, David C Geary, American Psychological Society, 1998
The Two Sexes: growing up apart, coming together, Eleanor MacCoby Harvard University Press, 1998


text:
6 Inch (1 Unit)
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subset: commoncrawl


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The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age
By John Michael Greer
259 pp. New Society Publishers – Sept. 2008. $18.95.
The Internet writings of John Michael Greer—beyond any doubt the greatest peak oil historian in the English language—have finally made their way into print. Greer's searingly perceptive blog entries on peak oil, which for the past several years have enjoyed a robust online following, have now been incorporated into a single bound volume from New Society Publishers titled The Long Descent.
Greer fans will recognize many of the book's passages from previous essays, but will be delighted to see them fleshed out here with additional examples and analysis. Casual bookstore browsers with no prior knowledge of Greer's work, for their part, will happily find themselves in possession of as fine a treatise on peak oil, or introduction to Greer's ideas, as one could possibly desire.
If you've been following the peak oil debate, you're well aware of Greer's mantra. In discussions about the future of industrial society, Greer has long complained, too many people remain fixated on only two possible outcomes: business as usual and imminent apocalypse. People cling to these two polar opposites because of how well they jibe with existing cultural narratives—namely the myth of progress and the myth of apocalypse—that exert tremendous emotional power over us. But there are a vast number of middle-ground scenarios in between these two extremes, and these latter possibilities represent the most likely future course of our civilization.
The middle ground that Greer foresees is a period of glacial deterioration that he calls The Long Descent, driven by a process that he refers to as catabolic collapse.
The Long Descent is Greer's attempt to help the average reader make sense of this coming age of decline. He begins the book with a bit of background on peak oil, the Club of Rome's The Limits to Growth study, some lessons from past societal collapses and the difference between problems (which are solvable) and predicaments (which aren't). He makes a strong case for peak oil being a predicament rather than a problem.
Having laid down this background material, Greer then explores the habits of mind that blind us to our predicament. He explains why the myth of progress and that of apocalypse truly are myths (they're literally no different from those once circulated among ancient cultures), and warns of the dangers inherent in continuing to force the proverbial round pegs of reality into the square holes of our myths of choice.
Drawing on the theory of catabolic collapse touched on earlier, Greer next outlines in detail how our predicament is likely to play out during the decades and centuries ahead. Greer's theory of catabolic collapse—well-known within peak oil circles—shows how civilizations headed for collapse tend to decline in a gradual, downward stairstep of repeated crises and recoveries. They don't undergo the sudden, catastrophic free fall envisioned by diehard peak oil doomers. This theory makes for truly fascinating reading, and is included in its entirety as an appendix.
How will our own society's catabolic collapse proceed? Greer sees us on the verge of a couple of decades of economic contraction, chronic energy shortages, declining public health, political turmoil and vanishing knowledge and cultural heritage. This crisis period, he predicts, will be followed by a respite of perhaps 25 years or so, during which industrial civilization's newfound relief from the lavish energy demands of universal motoring and electrification, climate-controlled buildings, modern medicine and other present-day amenities will buy it a little breathing room. But this respite will, in turn, be followed by another round of crises that will rid our civilization of further layers of social complexity, and so on.
Eventually, the developed world will assume an agrarian lifestyle built around local communities and sustainable resources. But this change will happen so slowly that no one alive today will be around to witness the end result. Thus, Greer maintains, our energies should be focused not on surviving the end of industrial civilization, but on making it through the imminent crisis period that will be but one brief interval within that larger context.
To this end, Greer lays out some strategies and technologies for weathering the coming decades of crisis. The appropriate response to the challenges we face, Greer believes, is not to set up survivalist enclaves or lifeboat communities, but to reshape our existing cities, towns and rural neighborhoods in order to better meet those challenges. Greer sees renewed participation in fraternal orders like the Freemasons and Odd Fellows as a vital part of restoring the former institutions of civil society that so successfully weathered past periods of dramatic social change.
On an individual level, everyone needs to sharply curtail energy usage and find low-tech ways of doing things, in order to prepare for the inevitable shortages. We also need to position ourselves into occupational niches that meet actual human needs, since these are the jobs that are likely to stay in demand. In the face of declining public health, each person should learn to take charge of his or her own health. Lastly, we must help foster local community networking, which will be essential in preserving basic services like public safety and sanitation when the federal government proves ineffectual.
Greer discusses at length the tools and technologies needed in order to bring about these changes. Many of these tools, he points out, could easily be salvaged from present-day technologies that are bound to fall into disuse as profligate energy use becomes prohibitively expensive. For example, alternators from automobile engines could be used to build waterwheel-based micro-hydro plants.
We could also profit greatly from revitalizing antique tools, such as wooden ships and fireless cookers, that are better suited to energy conservation, and less reliant on electronic gadgetry, than their modern-day counterparts are. Two other technologies that could serve us well in the deindustrial future are organic intensive farming and the farmers market movement (the latter being an example of a "social technology").
The final part of the book examines the spiritual dimension of the changes ahead. At the heart of our coming spiritual transformation, Greer believes, is a shift away from the "prosthetic society" in which machines perform an ever-increasing number of tasks that were once done by humans. As human labor once again becomes cheaper than machine labor, people will relearn a host of now-forgotten skills, and will abandon consumerism in favor of more spiritually fulfilling pursuits.
More fundamentally, people will lose faith in the religion of progress—and it is a religion, Greer convincingly argues—as it proves less and less capable of delivering on its promises. Greer makes a few educated guesses as to which religious faiths might prosper in its wake.
The Long Descent is one of the most highly anticipated peak oil books of the year, and it lives up to every ounce of hype. Greer is a captivating, brilliantly inventive writer with a deep knowledge of history, an impressive amount of mechanical savvy, a flair for storytelling and a gift for drawing apt analogies. He is perhaps the most spiritual out of all the current thinkers on peak oil, as well as one of the most eclectic and wryly humorous. No other peak oil writer possesses his same blend of aptitudes, and only a few approach his cunning.
His new book presents an astonishing view of our society's past, present and future trajectory—one that is unmatched in its breadth and depth.
Frank Kaminski is an ardent peak oiler who participates regularly in Seattle Peak Oil Awareness (SPOA). He can be reached at frank.kaminski AT gmail.com.


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I don't usually blog about my work, not because it's boring but because it tends to strike me as advertising. I guess I assume that you couldn't possibly be as excited about the things I do as I am. (Don't tell me if I'm right about that.)
Today, however, I saw something on Eventful that I just have to share: The Eventful Politics Project, started by Jed Sundwall and Alex Hunsucker. In their own words:
…while conservative bloggers blog for conservative readers and liberal bloggers blog for liberal readers, we hope that technology can serve to remind us that, as Thomas Jefferson said in his inaugural speech, "We are all Democrats, we are all Republicans!" There are millions of passionate voters in this country, voters with myriad concerns and needs that don't necessarily fit in with either of the major party platforms.
We're building a database of all event information in the world (yes, all). This means we're sucking up info on conventions, town hall meetings, rallies, protests, meetups, house parties, etc. We're doing this because we think the internet can—and should—make smaller events more discoverable. It's a pursuit that parallels transparency. That is, we believe that there are tens of thousands of wholly public events that are essentially hidden from the public simply because there's no simple place to find them…
The blog is worth a read, but the really impressive part is the site they've put together to answer the need. (I'd love to say "the site I put together," but aside from the base technology I wasn't involved.) With a few clicks you can discover that house party down the street you didn't know was happening, demand that the politicians come to earn your vote, or invite the world to come to your Lefty Libertarians for Literacy meeting.
The proof, for me at least, was that on my very first view of the page I discovered three different things I'd like to be doing, none of which I would have known about otherwise. Hopefully you'll find something similar.
Jed and Alex are hoping to make a mark on the 2008 election. They have quite a long road ahead of them, but the first steps are really exciting.


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BERLIN – The U.N.'s climate chief says deadlines set by some of the world's top polluters to end greenhouse gas emissions, along with U.S. President-elect Joe Biden's pledge to take Washington back into the Paris accord, have boosted hopes of meeting the pact's ambitious goals.
The agreement signed in the French capital five years ago aims to keep global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) — ideally no more than 1.5 C (2.7 Fahrenheit) — compared to pre-industrial times by the end of the century. Experts say the world is far off track and that, with average temperatures already up by about 1 C (2 Fahrenheit), drastic action is needed in the next 30 years.
But the recent announcement by China, the world's top polluter, that it will phase out emissions by 2060, and pledges by Japan and South Korea to do the same a decade earlier, have drawn cautious optimism from climate campaigners. Their hopes were further boosted by Biden's election win earlier this month and his pledge to undo President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Paris agreement.
"These announcements are really extraordinary," Patricia Espinosa, head of the U.N. climate office, told The Associated Press. "Just a few months ago, I don't think anybody would have really predicted that we would see these kinds of announcements at this time. And especially in the middle of the pandemic."
Espinosa said countries' willingness to commit to tougher emissions limits shows that curbing global warming remains a political priority — and that the target set in Paris is a possibility.
"Science has told us that we still have a chance to achieve it," she said. "Looking at these announcements, I think that we should be also having even more hope."
But Espinosa cautioned against complacency. "I don't want to sound like it's a done deal," she said. "We are still far from there."
The pandemic brought a sudden halt to the U.N.'s carousel of climate meetings, disrupting complex negotiations on a wide range of environmental issues and forcing the cancellation of the global body's annual climate summit for the first time in a quarter century.
"It has been challenging," Espinosa said by video from her agency's headquarters in Bonn, Germany, noting how carefully forged relationships were suddenly confined to virtual conversations. "It does not substitute the in-person contacts, but it works."
In some ways, however, the coronavirus crisis has proved to be an opportunity to change old habits, she added.
"Everybody is clear that we will not go back to the normal that we had before the pandemic," Espinosa said, recalling her globe-trotting days as Mexico's top diplomat from 2006 to 2012 that sometimes included two long-distance flights a day. "You cannot continue to travel like you used to travel."
The 62-year-old praised young people in particular for being willing to adapt, forgoing some of the planet-warming habits of older generations such as owning cars and indulging in meat-heavy diets that scientists say need to change.
"This deep transformation is very much going to be driven by the youth," Espinosa said.
Still, political leadership remains key to weaning economies off fossil fuels, especially in countries where large numbers of jobs are tied to extraction of oil, natural gas and coal, she said, adding that governments will also have to look beyond national interests when it comes to investing in low-carbon solutions.
That will mean denying COVID-19 economic recovery funds to polluting industries while putting up the $100 billion each year world leaders pledged in Paris to help poor countries tackle climate change by 2020, she said.
"It is absolutely indispensable that we align those recovery packages to the goals of the Paris agreement," Espinosa said. "We should not go back to the past. We cannot continue to invest in a gray future."
Her comments were echoed Thursday by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who called on the European Union to ramp up its emissions target for 2030, from 40% cuts to at least 55%.
"I urge you to continue to lead with concrete and ambitious near-term commitments," Guterres said in a speech to the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank.
The 27-nation bloc, which has also tentatively committed to reaching "net zero" emissions by 2050, is in talks to earmark parts of a vast stimulus package for 'green recovery' projects.
"The proposed 1.85 trillion euro ($2.1 trillion) investment package is an opportunity to invest in measures and technologies needed to achieve climate neutrality by 2050," Guterres said.
Follow the AP's climate coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate


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I came across this quote from the "confession" of William Barker, Sr. from the Salem Witch trial. (Forgive the poor spelling. They were more 'creative' than us back then.)
Satans design was to set up his own worship, abolish all the churches in the land, to fall next upon Salem and soe goe through the countrey, He sayth the devil promeised that all his people should live bravely that all persones should be equall; that their should be no day of resurection or of judgement, and neither punishment nor shame for sin.
It's a suprisingly accurate description of modern times, isn't it? I'm not even sure all of it sounds that bad to me. (What's wrong with everyone being brave and equal?)
But here's a thought for you. I assume most of you, like me, don't believe any of these people were actual Satanists in contact with some supernatural power. So that means this William person is laying out what the good God-fearing people of that time feared the most: Becoming us!
And while you are chewing on that, consider this: doesn't this quote mean that the 17th century people were already well aware of what a 'modern progressive' society might look like? Doesn't that make it not modern? And doesn't it sound like they were fighting against such a society on moral grounds?


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(Reuters) - Ousted American Apparel Inc Chief Executive Officer Dov Charney has handed over his entire stake and voting rights in the struggling retailer to Standard General LP, enabling the fund to negotiate directly with the independent directors over the company's future, two sources close to the matter said on Wednesday.
Earlier Standard General had loaned its American Apparel shares to Charney, according to regulatory documents, allowing him to boost his stake in the company from about 27 percent to 43 percent. Charney had hoped to gain majority control, but American Apparel countered with an anti-takeover plan that prompted him to change his strategy.
As a result, the 45-year-old American Apparel founder handed over his entire holdings to his ally Standard General, according to the sources, who requested anonymity because the talks are private.
The retailer, which has refused to meet with Charney since he was suspended, has agreed to negotiate with the New York-based fund over the retailer's corporate governance structure and its financial condition, the sources said. It is unclear what changes will result, and the sources cautioned that the negotiations could still fall apart.
American Apparel declined to comment. Standard General officials were not immediately available for comment.
Charney, accused of misusing corporate funds and helping disseminate nude photos of an ex-employee, has also given up his battle to recover his CEO role until an investigation being led by FTI Consulting is completed, the sources said.
According to regulatory filings earlier this week, Charney himself had intended to pursue discussions with the board and called for a special shareholder meeting on Sept. 25.
Days earlier, American Apparel said it had adopted a "poison pill" takeover defense that would be triggered when shareholders who own more than 15 percent of the stock acquire an additional 1 percent or more. At the time Charney was in the process of building his shares.
Standard General, known for investing in distressed companies such as RadioShack Corp, has had a relationship with American Apparel. The fund provided capital in March when the retailer needed to make an interest payment to its largest bondholder, Monarch Alternative Capital, a third source familiar with the matter said.
Amid the public battle between the company and its ex-CEO, American Apparel employees have expressed concern over the company's future, including a possible buyout, the sources said.
Last week, a board director spent several hours at its main manufacturing facility in Los Angeles assuring employees that the company still cares about them and that the company is not for sale, one of the sources said.
(Reporting by Nadia Damouni and Jeffrey Dastin in New York; Editing by Jilian Mincer, Frank McGurty and Lisa Shumaker)


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Erik D. Martin
Making countless chicken scratches to make drawings
Wednesday, December 03, 2014
Trip to the Redwood forest
(update) I changed the paintings to png to see if the color and value would be more correct, blogger has been really frustrating and I'm not sure why jpg keep coming out really messed up.
Posted by Erik D. Martin at 11:28 AM 41 comments:
Labels: art, digital painting, illustrations, redwood forest, visual development
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Sunday, August 03, 2014
I actually reached a thousand followers on Tumbler! That's pretty awesome and thanks for viewing! I figured I should post something for the occasion.
Earlier this year, I went to Ireland for the first time and it was a game changer for me. These paintings are based on colors and moods I was feeling, not necessarily a specific location. It was an attempt to capture how I felt at a particular moment and the color and light I observed. I decided not to do any drawings or paintings when I was there, even though I packed everything I would need. I simply wanted to observe the environment. I felt as though I was seeing a classic European painting in front of me and maybe understood their painting decisions a little more.. the next time I return, I'll actually draw and paint something! ….maybe.
Hope you enjoy and thanks for checking out my paintings and following!
Posted by Erik D. Martin at 6:26 PM 6 comments:
Labels: art, digital painting, illustrations, visiual development


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Inspired by nature
Biomimicry inventors tackle environmental problems
What if we could solve big environmental problems simply by shifting our approach -- from relying on human cleverness to mimicking nature? What if architects studied how bees build hives to design sturdier, lighter skyscrapers, and chemists figured out how mussels attach to rocks to create stronger, nontoxic adhesives?
This is the premise of biomimicry: Solutions to our most intractable problems already exist in nature and are waiting to be copied. Leonardo da Vinci and the Wright brothers, for example, studied bird flight and drew up designs for the first aircraft. Alexander Graham Bell modeled the telephone receiver on the human ear. Now, a new generation of inventors is systematically examining the natural world to address every-thing from transportation to climate change.
Many of these inventors and entrepreneurs are in the West, especially in California. Their claims are startling -- "if these inventions were fully adopted, we could save one-third of the energy used on the planet" -- but many scientists and entrepreneurs see real promise in biomimicry. The following three inventors and their projects illuminate the possibilities of this emerging discipline.
Jay Harman PAX Scientific, San Rafael, Calif.
Invention Fans, pumps and propellers
Inspiration Spiral shapes everywhere in nature
Since his childhood in Australia swimming in the ocean, spear fishing and building primitive boats, Jay Harman, 60, has been observing the relationship between shape and movement in nature. He noticed something extraordinary: From nautilus shells to tornadoes, flow in the natural world moves in spirals. Engineers, though, typically design propellers, fans and pumps as if a straight line is the path of least resistance.
Harman spent 20 years trying to reverse-engineer a whirlpool, which he eventually did by making a cast of the vortex formed when water flows down a bathtub drain. Quantifying its exact shape took a few more years, but gave him a mathematical guideline for translating the efficiencies of natural spirals into industrial applications.
Such spirals share identical geometry. The shape allows the most efficient flow of liquids and gases, reducing the amount of turbulence in air or fluid and minimizing the energy required to generate and maintain flow.
After moving to California, Harman founded PAX Scientific in 1997 to bring his spiral inventions to market. ("Pax" is Latin for "peace.") He's since spun off companies to pursue applications in different industries, including PaxFan, PaxMixer and PaxAuto.
Pumps use 30 percent of the world's electricity, Harman says, and PAX pumps are 12 percent more efficient than the next best available. PAX refrigerator fans are 25 percent more efficient than conventional refrigerator fans. The most widely adopted PAX invention so far is a water mixer that circulates municipal water supplies, in use in roughly 50 U.S. cities and elsewhere throughout the world. It uses 80 percent less energy than conventional mixers, and reduces chemical use by 85 percent. PAX air conditioners, heat exchangers and wind turbines offer similarly dramatic improvements.
After years of promotion, though, Harman's designs remain largely obscure; the large energy savings and greenhouse gas reductions he says his products could bring have yet to materialize. Cheap energy has worked against him, he says, but the biggest barrier is that companies are reluctant to adopt technologies their engineers don't understand.
But things may finally be shifting Harman's way. PAX Scientific formed a research partnership with Cascade Technologies and Stanford University to independently evaluate its designs, confirming the technology's substantial performance improvements compared with traditional designs. Now, rising energy prices, climate change and the global economic crisis are pushing companies toward his products, Harman says. "Fully adopted, the world can save, probably, a third of its energy bill, and that means a third less CO2 emissions," he says. "It's the only way to go."
Judy Muller-Cohn and Rolf Muller
Biomatrica Inc., San Diego, Calif.
Invention Stabilizing biological samples without refrigeration
Inspiration Water bears (microscopic, eight-legged animals often living on mosses and lichens)
Unless you are a molecular biologist, you may not know that you can buy freezers designed to stay at -80 degrees C with alarms that blare during malfunctions. These freezers are made for scientific labs -- at universities, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, medical and forensics laboratories and elsewhere -- that rely on cold storage to protect fragile samples of DNA, RNA, proteins and other biological materials.
But multiple freeze-thaw cycles, warming for manipulation, and accidental thawing often degrade or ruin samples; it's expensive for labs to buy and operate freezers; and the environmental costs of cold storage are high.
Entomologist Judy Muller-Cohn and her husband, Rolf Cohn, a molecular virologist, spent many years working in molecular science labs -- and cursing freezers. One night 13 years ago, when Muller-Cohn was working for a biotech company, a broken freezer destroyed more than 1,000 of her valuable samples. Meanwhile, in a different lab, her husband was buying one freezer after another to chill his ever-increasing DNA and RNA samples, ultimately spending nearly half a million dollars.
The couple started thinking about extremophiles -- organisms that thrive in extreme conditions such as severe cold or heat. How do such creatures cope? A tiny aquatic organism called a tardigrade, or water bear, survives dry periods by secreting a dissolvable matrix that wraps around its DNA, protecting it. When the tardigrade gets wet again, up to 120 years later, the matrix dissolves and the creature returns to life.
John Crowe, a UC Davis scientist, had studied tardigrades since the 1970s. The couple built on his work, creating synthetic structures that mimic the water bear's protective molecules. Their synthetic molecules protected DNA at room temperature, and they could restore the samples for use and analysis by adding water. They developed kits for scientists, and in 2006, they founded Biomatrica, which now sells kits to thousands of labs throughout the world. Qiagen, the largest DNA purification company in the world, has licensed two Biomatrica products, and they have recently been accepted into several large labs.
Over the next 10 years, Stanford University has estimated that it could save 40 million kilowatt hours of electricity, 18,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions and 16 million dollars by adopting Biomatrica's technology in its 350 biological research labs. With the explosion of genomics research in fields ranging from archaeology to genetic engineering, the estimated $34 billion market for Biomatrica's products is growing all the time. "Wherever there's DNA or RNA or proteins," Muller-Cohn says, "there's an application for this."
Brent Constantz Calera Corporation, Los Gatos, Calif.
Invention Concrete that sequesters carbon dioxide
Inspiration Reef-building corals
Most experts agree there's just no easy way to avert climate change. Brent Constantz, however, has an idea. A biomineralization expert affiliated with Stanford University, Constantz invented a biomimetic process that could neutralize two of the largest sources of manmade CO2 emissions -- power plants and cement production.
A geologist and former Rhodes scholar, Constantz, 51, didn't start out to save the planet. As a Ph.D. student, he studied how corals make reefs from the calcium carbonate in seawater. His understanding of the process led him, at 27, to invent bone cement that revolutionized bone-fracture repair. After selling his bone-cement companies in the 1990s, Constantz taught geology at Stanford. Motivated by learning that cement production is the third-largest source of anthropogenic CO2 worldwide, he says, "It took me a very short period of time to come up with a way to make cement in a biomimetic fashion, similar to my old cement." He filed a few patents and, with backing from the billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, started Calera Corp. in 2007.
Conventional cement production requires massive energy input to heat limestone to 1,400 degrees C. In contrast, Constantz' process, the details of which are patented, involves running power-plant exhaust through seawater. The CO2 and other pollutants combine with calcium and magnesium to form synthetic limestone, which is processed into cement or aggregate, the main ingredients in concrete and asphalt. Other byproducts are fresh water and clean air.
Calera's technology removes 90 percent of the CO2 from power-plant emissions and converts it to carbon-negative cement. (Each ton of Calera's cement sequesters half a ton of CO2.) The trick, Constantz says, is that he's mimicking something that requires no energy input: Corals make reefs by utilizing a passive process in which calcium carbonate precipitates out of super-saturated seawater. Calera cement is also cheaper to make than conventional Portland cement. This lower cost is one of the things that convinced Khosla to invest in Calera. To succeed, new technologies have to be cheaper first and greener second, Khosla says, and this product is both "dramatically cheaper and dramatically greener."
Calera's first pilot plant began operating in 2008 next to a natural gas-fired power plant on the California coast near Moss Landing. A second, larger plant began operating there on Jan.1. In December, Calera announced an alliance with Bechtel, a worldwide engineering and construction firm, to bring the technology to the global market.
Constantz and his company are attracting a lot of notice. Former Sierra Club President Carl Pope calls the technology a "game changer." Scientific American, Popular Science and the Engineering News-Record, a construction industry magazine, have all written glowingly of Calera's potential. The potential impact is huge: Currently, electricity generation accounts for 35 percent of human-caused CO2 emissions, while cement production accounts for another 5 percent.
Some skepticism, or at least hesitation, is coming from building engineers, however. Rich Bohan of the Portland Cement Association cautions that any new material would have to get incorporated into building codes. Tom Pyle, an engineer on California's Climate Action Team, says in an e-mail that the state is willing to test Calera's product to determine if it meets its aggregate standards. Calera has recruited Terence Holland, a past president of the American Concrete Institute, to help get the product accepted by the concrete industry.
Calera has pilot projects in Australia and Dubai, and is discussing projects in other locations around the world. Constantz is confident that he will prove that Calera's technology is technically and commercially viable. Whether it can be scaled up quickly enough to successfully combat the planet's immense CO2 problem and fulfill our growing appetite for cement is still unknown. Constantz says that even without greenhouse gas regulation, power plants are eager to partner with his company, because along with CO2, Calera cement stores all the sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, mercury and arsenic from flue gas, "and we think the roadways are a much better place to sequester all that stuff than anywhere else."
Carla A. Wise is an environmental and science writer based in Corvallis, Oregon.


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Why do mature redwood trees have trunks that rise two hundred feet before branches commence, live for centuries and have bark that's a foot thick? Because they are adapted to fire.
Why does the silver-green chaparral that covers California's hills and mountains burn so easily? Because it's supposed to.
Why, other than its color, is the California Poppy such an appropriate flower for the Golden State? Because it is adapted to both fire and earthquakes. Says Wikipedia, "It grows well in disturbed areas and often recolonizes after fires".
Of course, so do we. That's why it's not weird to find humans colonizing hillsides and other "disturbed areas" of California. Case in point: I am writing this in a house sited on an former landslide, not far from the perimeters of two wildfires that claimed hundreds of other houses in the past few months.
Every spot on Earth is temporary, but California is a special example. As permanence goes, California is a house of cards.
For example, take a look at some of the animations here, prepared by geologists at UCSB. Watch as a sheet of crust the size of a continent gets shoved under the western edge of North America. Debris that piled up in the trench where that happened is what we now call the Bay Area. Submerged crust that melted, rose and hardened under North America — and was just recently exposed — we now call the Sierras. Take a look at the last 20 million years of Southern California history. It's a wreck that's still going on. One section of that wreck is a bend along the boundary between plates of crust. Mountains pile up along that bend, like snow in front of a plow. The biggest of these ranges we call the San Gabriels. Those are on fire right now. Add up all the Southern California wildfires over the last twenty years and you'll get a territory exceeding that of several smaller states.
My point is perspective. The human one is so brief that it can hardly take in the full scope of What's Going On, or what our lives contribute to it. In a geological context, what we contribute are carbon and fossils. We do that by dying. Other planets have geologies as well, but none have marble, limestone, coal or oil. Those are all produced by dead plants and animals. It would be hard to make heat on Mars because — as far as we know — there is no dead stuff to burn.
Humans love to make structures and produce heat, which means we have an unusually strong appetite for dead stuff. Even cement and steel require dead stuff in their making.
If you fly a lot, as I do, you start to notice black lines on the landscape. These are coal trains that move like ant trails from mines in the West to power plants all over the country. The largest of these mines are in Wyoming, more than 50% of which has coal to burn. This coal consists of dead stuff that has been buried for dozens of millions of years, and took at least as long to form. In Uncommon Carriers, John McPhee says the largest power plant in Georgia, Plant Sherer, "burns nearly thirteen hundred coal trains a year—two thousand miles of coal cars, twelve million tons of the bedrock of Wyoming."
Nothing wrong with that, of course, unless you're not human.
From any scope wider than our own, we are a pestilential species. Since the human diaspora began spreading out of Africa only a few thousand generations ago, we have chewed our way through land and species at a rate without equal in the history of the Earth, which began 4.567 billion years ago, or more than a third of the way back to the start of the Universe. We are distinguished by our intelligence, our powers of speech and expression, our ability to use tools and to build things, our ability to learn and teach, and our diversity (no two of us, even twins, are exactly alike). There are 6.781 billion of us now. Few of us will live more than a hundred years, and fewer still will have more than a few decades to contribute more than carbon to the world.
Among the many recent developments in civilization, two stand out. One is a widespread realization that the effects of human activity on the planet are non-trivial. The other is a growing ability to connect with each other and communicate over any distance at very little cost. What will we do with this knowledge, and the ability to share it? Will we follow the model of civilizations that waste the places where they live? Or will we prove to be creatures who can change their nature and stop doing that?
The former is the way to bet. The latter is the way to go.
Bonus read: John McPhee's The Control of Nature. A third of it is called "Los Angeles vs. The San Gabriel Mountains." While it is mostly about "debris flows" — slow motion landslides — that happen during winter rains, the important part for today's discussion involves a primary condition for those flows: mountain slopes denuded of vegetation by fires. This means you can count on many mudslides this coming winter.


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U.S. Food and Drug Administration Approves New Psoriasis Drug
February 16, 2017
Washington, DC - - (February 15, 2017) - - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Siliq (brodalumab) to treat adults with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. Siliq is administered as an injection.
Siliq is intended for patients who are candidates for systemic therapy (treatment using substances that travel through the bloodstream, after being taken by mouth or injected) or phototherapy (ultraviolet light treatment) and have failed to respond, or have stopped responding to other systemic therapies.
"Moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis can cause significant skin irritation and discomfort for patients, and today's approval provides patients with another treatment option for their psoriasis," said Julie Beitz, M.D., director of the Office of Drug Evaluation III in the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. "Patients and their health care providers should discuss the benefits and risks of Siliq before considering treatment."
Psoriasis is a skin condition that causes patches of skin redness and flaking. Psoriasis is an autoimmune disorder that occurs more commonly in patients with a family history of the disease, and most often begins in people between the ages of 15 and 35. The most common form of psoriasis is plaque psoriasis, in which patients develop thick, red skin with flaky, silver-white scales.
Siliq's active ingredient (brodalumab) binds to a protein that causes inflammation, inhibiting the inflammatory response that plays a role in the development of plaque psoriasis.
Siliq's safety and efficacy were established in three randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials with a total of 4,373 adult participants with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis who were candidates for systemic therapy or phototherapy. More patients treated with Siliq compared to placebo had skin that was clear or almost clear, as assessed by scoring of the extent, nature and severity of psoriatic changes of the skin.
Suicidal ideation and behavior, including completed suicides, have occurred in patients treated with Siliq during clinical trials. Siliq users with a history of suicidality or depression had an increased incidence of suicidal ideation and behavior compared to users without this history. A causal association between treatment with Siliq and increased risk of suicidal ideation and behavior has not been established.
Because of the observed risk of suicidal ideation and behavior, the labeling for Siliq includes a Boxed Warning and the drug is only available through a restricted program under a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) called the Siliq REMS Program. Notable requirements of the Siliq REMS Program include the following:
• Prescribers must be certified with the program and counsel patients about this risk. Patients with new or worsening symptoms of depression or suicidality should be referred to a mental health professional, as appropriate.
• Patients must sign a Patient-Prescriber Agreement Form and be made aware of the need to seek medical attention should they experience new or worsening suicidal thoughts or behavior, feelings of depression, anxiety or other mood changes.
• Pharmacies must be certified with the program and must only dispense to patients who are authorized to receive Siliq.
Siliq is also approved with a Medication Guide to inform patients of the risk of suicidal ideation and behavior, and that because Siliq is a medication that affects the immune system, patients may have a greater risk of getting an infection, or an allergic or autoimmune condition. Patients with Crohn's disease should not use Siliq. Health care providers should also evaluate patients for tuberculosis (TB) infection prior to initiating treatment with Siliq. Health care providers should not administer Siliq to patients with active TB infection, and should avoid immunizations with live vaccines in patients being treated with Siliq.
The most common adverse reactions reported with the use of Siliq include joint pain (arthralgia), headache, fatigue, diarrhea, throat pain (oropharyngeal pain), nausea, muscle pain (myalgia), injection site reactions, influenza, low white blood cell count (neutropenia) and fungal (tinea) infections.
Siliq is marketed by Bridgewater, New Jersey-based Valeant Pharmaceuticals.
Information source: U.S. Food and Drug Administration


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Free shipping on all US order or order above $200
Go sporty this summer with this vintage navy and white striped v-neck t-shirt from the Abercrombie & Fitch. Perfect for pairing with denim and white kicks for a stylish sporty vibe. Will fit a UK 8-10, model shown is a UK 8 and 5'5. !!
Typography is the work of typesetters, compositors, typographers, graphic designers, art directors, manga artists, comic book artists, graffiti artists, and now—anyone who arranges words, letters, numbers, and symbols for publication, display, or distribution—from clerical workers and newsletter writers to anyone self-publishing materials.
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Free shipping on all US order or order above $200
Contact us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Simply return it within 30 days for an exchange.
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Deepakbhai Desai is the current representative of Akram Vignan, a direct path to Self-realization.
Born in Gujarat, India, Deepakbhai met Dada Bhagwan (the originator of Akram Vignan) at the age of 17, and attained Self-realization from him in the Gnan Vidhi ceremony. He credits these two events as the great turning points of his life.
Previously burdened by a shy and introverted nature, Deepakbhai became able to successfully complete his engineering studies and, over the coming decades, to build three successful engineering businesses.
Simultaneously, Deepakbhai was nurtured in further spiritual development by Dada Bhagwan, and Niruma Amin (Dada's closest disciple). With all available free time, Deepakbhai attended satsangs (spiritual discourse), performed seva (selfless service), and engaged in continuous Self-introspection – devotedly seeking to understand the full dimension of Dada's spiritual science.
In 1987, before Dada Bhagwan's passing, Niruma and Deepakbhai were given the spiritual abilities to conduct satsangs and Gnan Vidhi ceremonies on Dada's behalf. Together, they carried on Dada's mission with tremendous harmony and spirit of oneness until Niruma's sudden passing in 2006. Since then, Deepakbhai has officiated over a burgeoning spiritual community (Simandhar City, Gujarat, India), celibate male and female groups, teen and children's programs, and ongoing world-wide satsang and Gnan Vidhi programs for seekers of Self-realization.
Deepakbhai is beloved by all who meet him, and is renowned both for his extraordinary levels of awareness and extreme humility.
His remarkable spiritual achievements are demonstrated in every instance of his selfless life.
For further information, and for Deepakbhai's tour schedule, please visit: http://www.dadabhagwan.org/
All satsang and Gnan Vidhi programs are offered entirely free of cost.
Interview recorded 6/16/2012
Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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Gennett, Davis among young Brewers hoping to stick
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Coaches can be fond of reminding players about how adversity creates opportunity. For the Brewers this year, there has been plenty of both.
Amid losses, injuries, and the shadow created by the Ryan Braun doping suspension, a couple young players have emerged with hopes of sticking in the big leagues for the long haul.
Second baseman Scooter Gennett is among the league leaders since Aug. 1, batting .386 during that period. Left fielder Khris Davis is hitting nearly .300 with nine homers since rejoining the team on July 23, replacing Braun on the roster.
All-Star Jean Segura has already established himself as one of the top shortstops in baseball. The 23-year-old was hitting .304 with a National League-leading 39 stolen bases entering Thursday's games. The Brewers, who were off, play next on Friday against the Cubs.
"The thing about Scooter, Khris and Segura is they bring energy. They're still excited. They're in their boyhood stages yet," Brewers general manager Doug Melvin said. "I love it when a player brings a kid's mentality."
This has all been welcome news for the team, of course. Braun, the 2011 NL MVP, was suspended July 22 for the rest of this season for taking performance-enhancing drugs. A month later, he apologized and there were more PEDs headlines.
Besides that, Mat Gamel and Corey Hart have missed the season with knee injuries. Rickie Weeks went down for the year with a strained left hamstring in August. Aramis Ramirez has missed about two months during two different stints on the disabled list.
Going into Friday, the Brewers were 60-79, fourth in the NL Central.
"I look at our ballclub right now, and it's unfortunate how our season turned out," Melvin said. "But that's allowed us the opportunity with the other circumstances and with injuries to look at these younger guys."
Gennett — he of the baseball nickname and 5-foot-10 build — isn't wasting his shot at second with the veteran Weeks sidelined, even if it's not the way he wanted to get on the field.
He has a spark that Melvin likes, such as when the 23-year-old infielder this week ranged to his right in the hole and slid to one knee against the Angels before bouncing up a split second later with a strong throw to get the runner at first.
"Shoot, I could sit here all day," Gennett said when asked what inspired him to pursue a baseball career. "But it boils down to just how I always wanted to play baseball and never let anybody tell me what I could or couldn't do. I made my own decisions with work ethic and how much time I put into it."
Manager Ron Roenicke wants Gennett draw more walks, especially if he uses him in the leadoff position. Gennett on the year is hitting .328 with five homers and 14 RBIs in 134 at-bats with eight walks.
Davis is hitting .279 with nine homers and 21 RBIs. Davis swings with so much intensity at the plate, he nearly spins around like a corkscrew when he misses. When he connects, it can be epic: His two-run homer to left-center off Pirates ace Francisco Liriano this week traveled an estimated 428 feet.
Segura is hitting .304 with 12 homers and 46 RBIs, though he's tailed off a bit since June. The Brewers acquired him at the 2012 trade deadline after sending Zack Greinke to the Los Angeles Angels.
Manager Mike Scioscia is well aware of what the Angels gave up.
"Jean's skill set is terrific," Scioscia said. "Right now, there's no doubt he's having a terrific year. His challenge is going to be a like a lot players who come up and have that good first go-around, is to keep searching for consistency and do it year in and year out."
Segura figures to be a mainstay for years to come. Davis, Gennett and other players getting a look down the stretch may have to impress again in spring training.
Melvin notes two of the club's current "veteran" leaders — catcher Jonathan Lucroy and All-Star outfielder Carlos Gomez — are only 27, too.
"In the individual mind of the player, a lot of time the player is performing to get to the big leagues," Melvin said. "When they get to the big leagues, the aspect of doing little things to help the team win becomes more important in their minds."


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I've had the dubious privilege of being on the frontlines of Apple's war against web leaks. After my Apple news site, Think Secret, published details of Apple's Mac mini two weeks before the product was officially announced, the company sued me in an attempt to ferret out the leaker. (I was a freshman in college at the time, and the prospect of being sued by one of the world's largest technology companies suddenly made my history final seem a lot less stressful.)
I've had the dubious privilege of being on the frontlines of Apple's war against web leaks.
But lately, there are signs that Apple—long the most secretive company in the tech world—has thrown in the towel on fighting leaks. This year, advance details about a number of Apple products spilled onto the web, including photos of the iPhone 3G and the latest lineup of iPod nanos. In the past, Apple would've fought like hell—including threatening legal action—to get the leaks off the web. But when I spoke to many of the sites that published the images, all of them said that the company's lawyers had been strangely silent. "There's no doubt that Apple has changed," Jeremy Horwitz, editor in chief of iLounge, told me in an email. "Probably due to the awful PR its prior lawsuits generated, and because cease-and-desist letters only confirm leaks, Apple has wisely stopped going after the people who generate its 'buzz.'"
While most big tech companies would be grateful for the publicity, Apple prefers to let public speculation build to a fever pitch until Steve Jobs, with his usual theatricality, pulls the curtain off of the latest iWhatever at highly choreographed press events. The company's regime of secrecy was engineered by Jobs himself. Before returning to Apple in 1997, he was known for hanging World War II-era posters by his desk proclaiming "Loose Lips Sink Ships," according to Alan Deutschman's biography, The Second Coming of Steve Jobs.
Last year, for instance, a site called 9to5Mac published photos of a new lineup of iPod nanos two weeks before Jobs unveiled them to a crowd of reporters. Before long, the photos were replaced with the glum message: "Sorry. Apple called. Said take 'em down. They are down."
My own site, Think Secret, which I started when I was 13 years old, didn't comply with Apple's demands. So the company sued me and sought to uncover the identities of my sources. (I mounted a First Amendment defense and, shortly before graduating, settled the suit, leaving Apple reporting behind to join The Daily Beast.)
It wasn't the only time Apple has used the courts in an effort to discover who's leaking. In December 2004, the company subpoenaed two sites, AppleInsider and O'Grady's PowerPage, to try to find out who had leaked information to them about a top-secret project. Apple lost on appeal and gave up the fight. Why has Apple changed tactics? It may have something to do with the fact that Apple leaks have shifted from scrappy fan sites into the mainstream. These days, Mac rumors are regularly published by technology news powerhouses like Engadget, which is owned by AOL, while the spy photos of the new iPod nano this summer were first published on the personal blog of Kevin Rose, the founder of the popular social news web site Digg. "The people who are posting this stuff—a lot of them are affiliated with big companies, or have grown into big companies," says Dave Hamilton, the publisher of iPodObserver, which published advance photos of the iPhone 3G. Perhaps Apple is now seeking to avoid legal fisticuffs with more established companies that are less likely to cave in to its demands. It can't have helped that Apple's legal efforts to identify leakers have been entirely fruitless. And as Apple expands its roster of partners—the iPhone will be sold in 70 countries by the end of the year—the number of people possessing information about future products will increase. Or perhaps Apple has belatedly realized that strong-arming fan sites into removing their reports only serves to confirm those reports, which quickly spread to other news outlets. Few outside the Apple faithful were following Think Secret's story about the Mac mini—until Apple sued us, propelling the leak into the pages of The New York Times (the suit "appears to acknowledge the accuracy of the reports," the paper said). But maybe Apple has also realized that when it threatens, subpoenas, and sues web sites run by some of its biggest fans, its actions create a torrent of negative PR that ultimately tarnishes Apple's brand. Apple has contended that leaks dampen interest in new products, but if anything they generate a great deal of excitement around its announcements. "All of the rumors are good for Apple in the long run—it keeps a lot of attention on Apple," says Arnold Kim, the proprietor of MacRumors.com. Apple's apparent shift marks the end of a self-defeating war.


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Eco Technology
Green Gig watts
Computers are getting a shade greener this year. Sustainable materials are replacing plastic, and low energy technologies are making it easier to keep those gig watts humming. The new Dell Studio Hybrid is a super compact, energy-saving desktop PC. The unit is 80 perecent smaller than a typical desktop (saving materials) and uses 70 percent less energy (Energy Star® 4.0). The case is available in bamboo. Iameco of Ireland builds beautiful wood-finished computers, keyboards, monitors and wide screen TVs. These superbly hand-crafted products are made from ash, beech, maple and ebony trees and will lend your home or office a natural feel. The SlimStar 820 Solargizer wireless keyboard from Genius has a built-in solar panel to power itself, eliminating the need for those toxic disposable batteries. The wireless laser mouse uses ultra power-saving technology for a continuous operation of up to 15 months.
Dell: www.dell.com
Iameco: www.iameco.com
Genius: www.geniusnet.com
Eco Energy
Palm Oil and Orangutans
Palm oil (not-so-eco) touted as a sustainable alternative to petroleum-based oil, is used in everything from soaps to lipstick to margarine and fuel oil. The oil is now in such demand that palm oil plantations are displacing and destroying rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia on a catastrophic scale. Family-run sustainable plantations could be an option, but the current huge commercial operations create human rights abuses and are threatening the extinction of orangutans and many other species in Borneo and Sumatra. According to "Oil for Ape Scandal," published by Friends of the Earth, the orangutan may be gone from the wild in 12 years. Contact FOE or the Orangutan Foundation to find out how you can help. The Orangutan Foundation offers conservation tours to Borneo to see the great apes in person and lend a friend a hand.
Friends of the Earth: www.foe.co.uk
Orangutan Foundation: www.orangutan.org.uk
Eco Banking
Sony Bank goes Carbon Neutral
Sony Bank has become Japan's first carbon-neutral bank. By purchasing 1.1 million kilowatt hours of renewable energy from the Japan Natural Energy Company (JNEC), they cover their annual power consumption, save the equivalent of 400 tons of greenhouse-gas emissions and support much needed investment in wind and solar energy in Japan.
Sony Bank: www.sonybank.net
JNEC: www.natural-e.co.jp
Eco Tour
Hokkaido Drift Ice Festival
The drift ice in the Sea of Okhotsk that floats by the Shiretoko Cape in northern Hokkaido each year may soon be a thing of the past. And so will the annual Drift Ice Festivals in Abashiri and Mombetsu. According to National Geographic, Arctic sea ice is disappearing much faster than initially predicted. In 2004, Abashiri had just 54 days of drift ice, down from the previous average of 87 days. Thousands of people visit the festivals in February to see illuminated ice sculptures beautifully contrasted against the night sky. You had better get there while you can.


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|» Summary
|» License
|Simple class for converting base set of numbers with a customizable character base set.
|» Current Release
|» Bug Summary
0.3.1 (beta) was released on 2009-09-20 by saltybeagle (Changelog)
Easy Install
Not sure? Get more info.
pear install Math_Basex
Pyrus Install
Try PEAR2's installer, Pyrus.
php pyrus.phar install pear/Math_Basex
0.3 (stable) was released on 2003-10-20 (Changelog)
No open bugs
Report a new bug to Math_Basex
|» Description
|Base X conversion class
|» Maintainers
|» More Information


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Episode 104: Plugin Architectures
Recording Venue:
Guest(s): Klaus Marquardt
Host(s): Martin
In this episode we talk with Klaus Marquardt about building systems out of plugins. After briefly introducing the concept of a plugin in contrast to modules and related software engineering concepts, we discuss different views on plugins and different ways of working with plugins for developing software. We are looking at plugins for embedded systems as well as large business systems, at how plugins change the working mode and team organization, and discuss the possibilities of why and when to use plugins for implementing software systems.
- Book with patterns on plugins
- Article (German) contrasting plug-ins with components and demonstrating extension points
- Eclipse
- Article: Notes on the Eclipse Plug-in Architecture
- OSGi
- Paper: Patterns for Plugins
- Simple code example
- Plugin at Wikipedia
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Tags: architecture, plugins, Technology/Guest


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DescriptionIn Wipeout: The Game players will prove they have what it takes to make it to the grand finale Wipeout Zone for their chance to be proclaimed champion. Four players can compete at the same time, even allowing players to hurl objects at and taunt their opponents. The video game features everything that people love about the hit ABC show, including commentary from the show's hosts, John Anderson, John Henson and co-host Jill Wagner. Players will have to run, jump and dodge all of Wipeout's various obstacles, including the brutal Sucker Punch, the beloved Big Balls, and the insanely difficult Sweeper.
Product DetailsUPC: 047875761735
Genre: Game Show
Platform: Nintendo Wii
Region: NTSC (N. America)
Rating: Everyone


text: [Agent420] brought up this touchpad and VFD hack in the comments on our capicitive sensor guide post. He had broken dell laptop from which he harvested the touchpad and an HP laserjet that contributed the VFD. Though the touchpad communicates using standard PS2 protocol, he wanted to use it with his Atmel 8535 AVR which required him to write some custom code. In the picture above, you can see the VFD displaying the coordinates of his finger. You can download his code as well as the spec sheets for the different pieces on the project thread.


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Product Details
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This product has been discontinued.
Versatile and flexible for live and recorded sound.
Equally at home in houses of worship, schools, broadcast facilities, live venues, touring rigs, and recording studios, the PreSonus® StudioLive® RM16AI rack-mount Active Integration digital mixer is a versatile and flexible solution for live sound and recording. These versatile 25-bus mixers offer 16 analog inputs and an additional 16 digital inputs via FireWire, AVB, or Dante™ for a total of 32 input channels, expandable up to 64. StudioLive RM16AI mixers are flawlessly integrated with state-of-the-art software and boast an integrated multitrack recording interface, advanced AVB or Dante networking, and multiple control options. Yet they're easy to use, with a workflow that will let you focus on mixing, without being distracted by the technology.
Networking provides remote control, recording, and more.
Powerful, real-time, wired and Wi-Fi networking enables recording and remote control over all StudioLive RM16AI features. Use the included AVB networking connection or choose optional Dante networking. Control your StudioLive RM16AI wirelessly from anywhere in the venue using free Mac®, Windows®, and iOS® software. Network the RM16AI to a StudioLive AI-series front-of-house console, using the rack-mount mixer as a stage box and monitor mixer. Send and receive networked audio via optional Dante for multitrack recording. Connect to hundreds of Dante-enabled products. Once you've used a networked StudioLive RM16AI, you'll never go back to the old way of mixing!
Each StudioLive RM-series mixer comes equipped with an AVB network card that can be replaced with an optional Dante card. Use AVB to cascade two RM-series mixers to create a larger system or connect the RM mixer to a StudioLive AI-series front-of-house console; use the RM32AI as a stage box and monitor mixer; and send audio to and from a StudioLive CS18AI control surface.
Or go with Dante to send and receive networked audio for multitrack recording and connect to hundreds of Dante-enabled products—including Macs and Windows PCs running Audinate's Dante Virtual Soundcard software and PreSonus StudioLive AI-series loudspeakers and WorxAudio loudspeakers that are equipped with a PreSonus SL-Dante-SPK option card. Whether you choose AVB or Dante, you can control your RM mixer from a Mac or Windows PC and from a StudioLive CS18AI control surface.
We made networking an RM-series mixer as easy as possible. Your wired networked devices connect with lightweight CAT5e or CAT6 Ethernet cable, eliminating bulky, expensive analog snakes. You never have to create an IP address or enter a subnet mask, or even know what those are.
That said, we understand that corporate, educational, and government environments require secured, firewalled networks, which requires some expertise. We gave you that capability, too: The networking backbone of PreSonus AI technology is registered with IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority). Simply open port 47809 to let AI control network traffic through. And while you don't have to create IP addresses, you can manually assign static IP addresses if you wish.
Control the mixer with hardware and software—from anywhere.
Thanks to PreSonus Active Integration, StudioLive RM16AI mixers can be controlled in multiple ways simultaneously so you can customize your system to suit your needs and workflow. Control the mixer over a wired or wireless network using an array of integrated software for Mac, Windows, and iPad. Add physical control with PreSonus' StudioLive CS18AI Ethernet/AVB control surface, which features high-quality, touch-sensitive, motorized faders and far more mixer-control features than we can list here—and can control Studio One®, too!
Integrated, multiplatform software for flexible control and one-click recording.
PreSonus StudioLive RM-series mixers are tightly integrated with an entire suite of state-of-the-art software. Mix wirelessly or over a wired network from anywhere using UC Surface touch-control software for Mac, Windows, and iPad. Musicians control their monitor mixes onstage with QMix®-UC for iPhone®/iPod® touch. Completely automate virtual soundchecks and record shows at up to 96 kHz with Capture™. Tune your system to the room and watch for problems in your mix with UC Surface's integrated Smaart® wizards, RTA, and spectrograph. Save mixer scenes with your live recordings in Capture and edit both in Studio One Artist. StudioLive RM-series mixers and software work together to form a cohesive ecosystem that helps you achieve your creative vision.
Recording is in StudioLive AI's DNA.
The StudioLive R16AI's built-in 54x34 multitrack recording interface is tightly integrated with the rest of the mixer—not an afterthought we tacked on. All 32 channels and your choice of buses continuously stream to your FireWire- or Dante-connected Mac or PC. Each of the first 16 channels can independently access its analog input or its dedicated digital return from your computer. The 16 digital input channels can receive multitrack inputs from a computer, perfect for backing tracks and effects. And with StudioLive RM mixers, recording is simple and easy: Just launch the included, preconfigured Capture software for one-click recording of all channel inputs and your main mix. Or record with the included Studio One Artist DAW—or any recording software that supports ASIO or Core Audio. Now you can record in the studio or at the gig with equal ease—only with StudioLive.
You'll never run out of signal processors.
StudioLive RM mixers provide more DSP power than any other mixer in their class. There are no limitations, no shared resources, no figuring out what processing is available where. You have all of the processing available at all times, with no compromises or caveats. The unique Fat Channel provides a compressor, limiter, expander/gate, and parametric EQ on every channel and bus; a highpass filter on each channel; a library of professionally crafted, useful presets; and the ability to save, selectively recall, and A/B-compare processor settings. You also get four effects processors—two reverbs and two delays—each with their own dedicated mix bus; 15 dedicated 31-band graphic EQs; and 500 ms of delay available on the last four mix outputs.
Expandable to meet your needs.
Only StudioLive Active Integration mixers let you create a large-format console on a small-format budget. Connect two StudioLive RM16AIs or an RM32AI and an RM16AI via AVB to create up to a 64-channel mixing system. Rack-mount them together, place one on each side of the stage, or put one onstage and one at front-of-house. Record all 64 channels with free Capture software and have single-window control of all channels using UC Surface control software. Or enjoy up to 86x66 recording via FireWire with a DAW, such as Studio One. The Mix outputs are conveniently mirrored on both RM mixers. Now your system can grow with your needs and budget!
Superior sound.
Connect a StudioLive RM mixer and you'll instantly hear details and an open high end you'd expect to find only in an expensive studio console. StudioLive RM mixers operate at up to 96 kHz for high-definition mixing and recording. They use the same high-quality 64-bit summing engine found in our Studio One DAW, which consistently receives rave reviews for sound quality. High-quality Burr-Brown converters on every input and output provide a best-in-class 118 dB of dynamic range so you'll catch every high and low with great accuracy and no audible distortion. And our recallable XMAX microphone preamps deliver incredibly high headroom, deep lows, smooth highs, and a rich overall sound.
We start with a great microphone preamplifier. The job of a microphone preamplifier in a digital mixer is to boost a microphone-level signal to line level before conversion to the digital domain. A good preamp boosts the level to almost 400 times that of the original signal, making the preamp one of the most important stages in an interface. A cheap, off-the-shelf, op-amp-type mic preamp delivers thin, noisy, harsh results. But with XMAX preamps, the sonic quality is limited only by the microphone you plug into it.
XMAX preamplifiers are built with three key elements:
- Class A. Class A circuits have no crossover distortion and deliver purer, clearer, and more musical results than the Class AB designs that are found in many preamps.
- High Voltage. The XMAX preamplifier runs on power rails of 30V. Most off-the-shelf, op-amp-based designs run on power rails of 10V to 18V. Higher-voltage power rails deliver more headroom, deeper lows, smoother highs, and a richer overall sound.
- Discrete components—not op-amps. We only use genuine transistors, resistors, and capacitors. Op-amps add noise, coloration, and harshness to a signal. Our discrete design delivers ultra-low noise and transparency.
The net result of the XMAX preamp design is high headroom, low noise, wide dynamic range, extended frequency response, and—most important—musicality and transparency.
Once the signal is precisely converted to the digital domain by high-quality Burr-Brown converters, synchronization to your computer is stable and robust, thanks to JetPLL synchronization technology. JetPLL incorporates noise shaping to virtually remove all audio-band jitter, ensuring near-perfect clock performance and optimal converter performance when networking two or more digital-audio devices. JetPLL quickly locks to any digital format through a wide range of frequencies and is extremely robust and tolerant of wide variations in clock frequencies. As a result, you'll experience better stereo separation and clearer, more transparent audio.
The XMAX preamps in StudioLive RM-series mixers offer another advantage: They are recallable. In 1995, PreSonus patented digital control over analog circuits with our first studio product. Building on this legacy, we created a separate digital volume-control circuit ahead of our analog XMAX preamp design, providing the convenience of digital recall without sacrificing fidelity. So StudioLive RM preamps can be remote-controlled with UC Surface software or a StudioLive CS18AI control surface, and when you load a StudioLive RM mixer scene, the preamp trim values are recalled along with the other settings.
Dedicated I/O—no guesswork.
View the front of a StudioLive RM-series rack-mount mixer, and you'll see a straightforward jackfield with XLR channel inputs, XLR mix outputs, and other important connections. Every channel has a locking XLR mic input on the front panel. Every aux mix has a dedicated XLR Mix Output on the front panel, mirrored in a pair of DB25 connectors (Mix Outputs 1-8 and 9-16) on the rear. You never have to guess which input feeds which channel or which aux mix goes to an output because they're always the same. It's all part of a design that enables you to work quickly and without confusion.
Safe, sane, and secure.
Powerful networking and wireless remote control is great—but what if someone tries to hack into your Wi-Fi system and take control of the show or that jokester bass player tries to use his iPhone to mess with the lead singer's monitor mix? There's an app for that!
If you've mixed many shows, you know that securing the mixing station can be crucial when you step away for any reason. Securing your wireless remote control system is an even bigger issue because a hacker could be anywhere in the venue. That's why StudioLive RM-series mixers with UC-Surface software have security features that effectively protect the entire system—in addition to whatever protection your wireless router affords. UC-Surface lets you set permissions that determine which features can be controlled from each iPad or laptop on the network.
With UC Surface, you can decide whether a given Mac, PC, or iPad can have full access or limited access to all or just to one aux mix. When using QMix-UC for iPhone/iPod touch and Android, you can enable each device to control an entire aux mix or just the Wheel of Me. The rhythm guitarist is quite capable of creating a good monitor mix, so allow him to do it. But that lead guitarist is sure to mess up his monitor mix and then complain that he can't hear—so build a monitor mix for him and just let him use the Wheel of Me to get "more me." You also can assign specific iPhones/iPod touches to control a specific aux bus, which means that jokester bass player can control his own mix but can't mess with the singer's mix.
Here's the best part: You can completely block any iOS device from accessing the network entirely, even if someone has the router password. That hacker who wanted to take over the system and managed to break through your router's firewall? Foiled!
Includes Studio MagicPlug-in Suite.
This suite of plug-ins adds a wealth of fresh virtual instruments and effects to Studio One. Cherry-picked from the first names in virtual instruments and effects, each plug-in brings a different flavor of practical magic to your songs. These plug-ins aren't gimmicky one-trick ponies — these are real-deal workhorses that you'll rely on for countless mixes.
Read more about the Studio Magic Plug-in Suite
Content and terms of the Studio Magic Plug-in Suite are subject to change.
You will not find any digital mixing system that has the features, processing power, sonic quality, and flexibility for control surface that the StudioLive RM16AI and StudioLive RM32AI mixing systems have.Edward Frebowitz, Live2Play Network


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Thursday, April 05, 2007
Only had to buy a red pepper for this Hoisin Beef and Edamame Noodle dish!
The main reason I picked out this recipe, Hoisin Beef and Edamame Noodles, was that I only needed to pick up a bell pepper as the bulk of the recipe called for ingredients we almost always have lingering in our pantry or freezer. While some soba (buckwheat) noodles boil away, we quickly cooked the rest of the thinly sliced flank steak in pungent toasted sesame oil that has been heated in a large skillet. I love how sesame oil brings in such a rich nutty background without needing a large amount of it. After just a couple minutes, the steak is removed and diced red bell peppers are added to sauté in the juices the steak left behind. The edamame (green soy beans) are stirred in and the two are left to thoroughly heat through. I always have some frozen edamame in the freezer, so we quickly thawed them by running the beans under cool running water until they started to have some give to them. Fresh ginger is added, followed by the cooked beef and a dressing made from fresh lime juice, hoisin sauce, chile-garlic sauce and cornstarch. The cornstarch only takes a minute or so to thicken the dressing up and we were ready to toss in the soba noodles and fresh cilantro. Tangy and slightly sweet from the hoisin, there was only enough dressing to just barely coat everything - I would double the sauce next time as it was almost too dry. I used two full teaspoons of the chile-garlic sauce and it was just spicy enough for us - feel free to adjust to your taste. If you don't have access to soba noodles, I imagine this would work just fine with whole wheat spaghetti!
6 comments:
Looks delicious and I love it when everything I need is close at hand.ReplyDelete
Thanks for sharing.
- Anonymous4/06/2007 10:28:00 AM
oooh, thats a great idea for dinner tomorrow. easter weekend, lazy weekend. heh, easy dinner, sounds good.ReplyDelete
- Anonymous4/06/2007 11:38:00 AM
That looks really tasty. I'm not nuts over soba noodles, but I bet another noodle would do. Yum.ReplyDelete
Ruth - Let me know if you try it!ReplyDelete
Victoria - It is really a quick to make dish!
Jen - Whole wheat spaghetti would work great!
I finally made this tonight and it was delicious. I took your recommendation and doubled the sauce and used 3 teaspoons of the chili-garlic sauce which I would reduce to 2 next time as it was a bit spicy (and I can take spicy). This is the first time I've cooked with hoisin, chili-garlic sauce and soba noodles but it certainly won't be the last! Thanks for the recipe!ReplyDelete
Hi Robyn!ReplyDelete
Glad to hear you liked it! I'll have to jot down the note about the chile-garlic sauce... I agree that it probably should not be fully doubled!


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How To Spend Your Tax Refund
(CBSMoneyWatch) The best part of paying your taxes is probably getting your refund check.
According to the IRS, the average tax return last year was $2,899. According to a 2012 survey by TurboTax, many people say they are being responsible with their tax refunds: 42 percent plan to use the money to pay down debt and cover bills, and 25 percent plan to save it. But others are splurging: 15 percent of taxpayers plan to treat themselves to a vacation or shopping.
If you're one of the people lucky enough to get a substantial tax refund this year, be smart about how you spend it. Remember, even though it may feel like "found" money from an unexpected windfall, you earned that check by working hard -- the same as you do every other paycheck, so don't blow it on 2,899 lottery tickets.
Top priority: Pay off your credit card. It's far and away the smartest thing you can do.
for more features.