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Given that the demand for physical gold among private investors has remained strong throughout 2013, the significant price declines in recent months took many investors by surprise. Attempting to make sense out of this situation, speculation has arisen that the so-called 'bullion banks' (the mostly "Too Big to Fail" institutions that are known to work closely with the central banks) have lent out, or even sold, gold on a fractional basis, far in excess of what is supposedly held in their vaults. The result would have been to multiply greatly the amount of 'apparent' gold in the market and thereby depress prices. Such an action would provide needed cover for the embarrassment of currency depreciating central banks' policies.
Much of the chatter stems from the mysterious announcement in January by Germany, the world's second largest holder of gold reserves, to repatriate some 300 metric tons of its gold reserves that are being held at the New York Federal Reserve Bank. It is widely believed that the request was motivated by internal political demands, which questioned the continued need for Germany's sovereign wealth to be in the hands of foreigners.
The request represented less than 5% of all the gold that the Fed officially holds in its New York vaults. (Interestingly, an earlier request by Germany to inspect its assets was denied by the Fed). Despite the relatively small request (relative to the total holdings), repatriation is expected by 2020.
Perhaps for fear that she may be 'persuaded' to accept being 'cash-settled' with U.S. dollars in lieu of gold, Germany dared not complain. Either that, or as an important member of the elite club of central banks, Germany acted 'responsibly' in order to avoid threatening the 'happy equilibrium' of the fractional, central bank-controlled physical bullion market. Nevertheless, the seven-year wait for the return of a deposit rippled through gold markets. Suspicions grew that perhaps the Fed no longer held ownership of the 8,133.5 tons of gold that it reports. For years, central banks have declared that they 'do' things with their gold, including lending it and engaging in swaps. Some, like the Austrian central bank, even declare "earnings" from gold, a non coupon-bearing instrument.
Bloomberg reports that most unexpectedly, since Germany's request for partial gold repatriation, the gold inventory of the COMEX has fallen from eleven million ounces to some seven million, or by about 36 percent, the lowest level in five years. Clearly, dealers have demanded physical delivery on gold purchase contracts on an increasing scale throughout 2013.
Some dealers may even have been prompted to take delivery by the news that bullion banks, including Morgan Stanley, were rumored to have experienced serious runs on the physical gold held in their vaults for their clients. As early as January 23, 2013, The Wealth Cycles site commented that, "The issue...is the near certainty that not all the gold recorded to be held in the bullion banks is really there. Much of it has been pledged and re-pledged against the debt that keeps the world's monetary system afloat."
The letter issued on April 1, 2013 by Dutch State-owned ABN-AMRO bank to holders of paper claims to gold and silver held in its vaults must have shaken complacency. Clients were advised that any physical metal custodied at the bank would in the future be "cash-settled" and that requests for physical delivery would be denied. Contrary to logic, the price of gold did not rise over this period of increased physical uncertainty. Indeed, by the end of June 2013, the gold price had fallen from $1,668.25 on February 8 an ounce to $1,192, or by some 29 percent.
Many have understandably sensed that central banks may well have acted to allow bullion banks to take out massive naked short positions in precious metals in order to drive down the price. The previous upward march of gold was a continuing embarrassment to the current fiat currency regime. On July 18, 2013, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke testified to Congress that, "...nobody really understands gold prices, and I don't pretend to understand them either." This statement went unchallenged in Congress but aroused suspicions of gross hypocrisy, even evasion, by some observers. So much for deceptive 'forward guidance'.
Likely, Mr. Bernanke would have been shocked utterly had any Congressman had asked him to explain why the Gold Forward Offered Rate (GOFO) had dipped into negative territory. GOFO stands now below both the U.S. Federal Funds Rate and the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR). Investors should appreciate two vital factors. First, gold prices may have been suppressed for years by central banks and could be set to respond as physical shortages and fiat currency debasement become clearer. Second, the enhanced value of physical possession of precious metals could be about to become manifest.
John Browne is a Senior Economic Consultant to Euro Pacific Capital. Opinions expressed are those of the writer, and may or may not reflect those held by Euro Pacific Capital, or its CEO, Peter Schiff.


text:
Simply Southern Campersock PineappleSold Out
Brand: Simply Southern
This product is sold out
Luxuriously soft sherpa lined thick "camper socks" will keep you feeling cozy and warm all season. Non slip soles make these safe and comfy to wear around the house as slippers or socks. One size fits most.
Care Instructions:
- Wash inside-out.
- Machine wash cold.
- Tumble dry low.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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Updated: 2004-05-07 20:04 UTC
The 2003 Transit of Mercury.
Live WebCam Images of the Mercury Transit on 2003-05-07.
Worth Hill Observatory, Worth Matravers, Dorset, England.
To prevent server overload the images are now being posted to several mirror sites, follow the link to see a list of these sites. The link will open into a new window. The Mercury Transit Images from Worth Hill Observatory.
In 2004, Worth Hill Observatory is also presenting a live webcast of the Transit of Venus on 2004-06-08. This event can be seen on another web page. Follow the link to see The Venus Transit Images from Worth Hill Observatory. The link will open into a new window.
Introduction to the 2003 May 07 Transit of Mercury.
A rare chance to see a transit of the planet Mercury across the Sun's disc. This happens just about 13 times per century, and this event is quite long, lasting about five and a half hours. The event can be seen across Europe and Africa, as well as most of Asia and the far-East; anywhere that there is daylight. For most of the US it occurs just before their Sun rise on 2003 May 7th. Mercury is quite a small planet, so will appear only as a very small black dot on the face of the Sun. This Mercury transit is the first one for several years.
A transit is simply where a planet passes in front of the Sun's disc as seen by the observer. There is another transit in 2004, but that will involve the planet Venus instead; only the inferior planets, Mercury and Venus, can Transit the Sun.
Warning: You will go blind in a fraction of a second if you look at the Sun through binoculars or a telescope. The only safe way is to project the image of the Solar disc onto a piece of card.
When the Moon passes in front of the Sun it can partially or sometimes completely obscure it, and that is known as an eclipse. Another type of eclipse occurs when the full Moon passes through the Earth's shadow. Sometimes the Moon, or one of the planets, will pass in front of a star, or very rarely in front of a planet, and that event is known as an occultation. In 2003, the May 7th event is a Transit of the planet Mercury across the face of the Sun.
Getting Images of the Mercury Transit on 2003-05-07.
This page will have near realtime live images added to it on 2003 May 07, approximately every 15 minutes from 05:00 to 11:00 UTC. After the event, these images will also be assembled into an animation file, which will then be made available on this site.
Some other sites may be running a webcam showing a live picture or images taken at very small intervals. Here, it was felt that since the planet Mercury is such a small dot, and moves so slowly across the Sun's disk, that it may be more difficult for people to make out what is happening, especially as most webcams have quite low resolution.
These images from Worth Hill Observatory were originally going to be from a CCD camera, rather than a webcam, but this was found to saturate quite easily. An Astro-Vid camera, and frame capture software, is being used instead. Early trials used a small lens in front of the camera to gain a larger image. The camera was heavily protected with several sheets of mylar film, to cut down the light level. These are fixed on the Sun side of the lens. A telescope isn't really necessary for this job, but the observatory will also be using one to take some close up views of the transit from time to time throughout the event. This will be heavily protected with special filters at the "big" end of the scope, NOT at the eyepiece.
We hope that May 7 has clear skies for some serious daytime astronomy!
The date of the event is 2003-05-07, as written in the standard Year-Month-Day format that astronomers have now been using for several centuries. In your old local format you may see the date as either 07/05/2003 (UK) or as 05/07/2003 (US). These correspond to 7th May 2003, or 7 May 2003 for UK readers, and for the US as either May 7th 2003 or as May 7 2003 in longhand formats. These latter ambiguous numerical formats, where the meaning of the 5 and 7 may be accidentally transposed, and hence misunderstood by the reader, should now all be replaced by the unambiguous YYYY-MM-DD formats shown in International Standard ISO 8601 and in the new Internet Standard RFC 3339.
Transit Information for 2003 May 7th.
The transit of Mercury is already mentioned by many other web sites. Some provide maps and diagrams of the event, even photographs of previous such events. A few of these are listed below. A Google search will find many more, perhaps that is how you arrived here? On the day there should be no shortage of information about the event from many sources worldwide.
Worth Hill Observatory will be placing live images on this site as they happen. Additional information will be linked from this page, and there may even be some other image galleries of equipment and people to see here. A chat server may also be running during the transit, with Astronomers live and online to answer any questions that you may have.
Imaging Equipment Used at Worth Hill Observatory.
Astrovid camera and BAADER AstroSolar filter stopped down to 10cm.
A 50 cm f/4 Newtonian will capture the images.
A quick shot of Mercury in the evening twilight, taken just two weeks before the transit. Low in the Western sky just after Sunset, in a hazy sky, it was fairly easy to find when the sky was dark enough. Using a 3 inch finder scope, with 2 x Barlow, this image is a frame capture from an Astro-Vid camera onto an old networked Dell 486 running Windows 3.11 and "Motion Picture" frame capture software. Mercury was showing a fairly thin crescent when viewed visually, but due to being so close to the horizon the image was quite unstable, hence it is blurred in the video image above. Mercury set below the western horizon not very long after this image was taken, and sets sooner after the Sun on each successive night, making each one more difficult.
Initially we were going to use Mylar film as a filter, but some new Baader AstroSolar filter film arrived today, and it seemed a good opportunity to try it out. The first image is of a large Sunspot that is visible at the moment. The filter is fitted at the front end of the 50 cm (20 inch) telescope which is also stopped down to an overall aperture of 10 cm (4 inches). Hardware and software as before. We also tried an image using the CCD camera, but the image is still too bright to be useful even though the filter cuts down the light by 99.999%.
Using the above equipment this image of the Giant Sunspot group 349 was captured on 2003 May 1st 16:30h UT. This huge group is about ten times the diameter of Earth. Alternatively this spot is 26 times the diameter of Mercury, which will appear a little larger than the spot at lower right!
Due to a coding error, the page counter wasn't functioning from 2003-05-03 00:22 UTC until 2003-05-04 22:00 UTC if anyone wondered why the visitor numbers seemed very low for those two days.
Wow! We had 1119 visitors to the website today. Most visitors arrived via the NASA GSFC page. The equipment is all set up and waiting to go. The sky is clear at the moment.
A view across the fields to the dome at Worth Hill Observatory, just before sunrise, 2003-05-07, with clear skies, and a little light cloud in the background.
The dome at sunrise 2003 May 7th; showing the 50cm (20 inch) f/4 Newtonian ready for imaging the transit of Mercury.
Processing the images in the office. One computer is used to capture images from the video camera out on the telescope, another to process them, and the third to upload them to the web site.
This site seems to have been a success today, with nearly 16 000 visitors logged by 18:00 UTC. At one point there were several visitors logging in each second.
A composite of the best images of this transit, from Worth Hill Observatory. The event was interrupted by clouds several times, which has made producing the planned animation very difficult.
Linking to this site.
Why not link to this page? Add a line of code somewhere on your site, perhaps something like:
Live Images of the Transit of Mercury 2003
Other Pages with Mercury Transit Information:
These links all open in a new window each time.
NASA: 2003 Mercury Transit information page.
NASA Diagrams for 2003 May 07 Transit.
Transit Information Page from Germany.
ESO Transit Information Page.
University of Essen : Transit Observation Project.
Live Solar Views from SOHO and LASCO satellites.
Other Useful Sites:
Worth Hill Observatory Main Web Site.
Learn more about Wessex Astronomical Society.
What are those 2003-05-07 format dates all about?
Live Images of the Transit of Mercury on 2003 May 7th:
To prevent server overload the images are now being posted to several mirror sites, follow the link to see a list of these sites. The link will open into a new window. The Mercury Transit Images from Worth Hill Observatory.
In 2004, Worth Hill Observatory is also presenting a live webcast of the Transit of Venus on 2004-06-08. This event can be seen on another web page. Follow the link to see The Venus Transit Images from Worth Hill Observatory. The link will open into a new window.
Worth Hill Observatory, Dorset, U.K.
Latitude: 50deg 36min N Longitude: 002deg 02min W Elevation: 130 metres David Strange.
links ida remove links Who is IDA? Sections Project Symposium Declarations Press releases Links European Contacts International Contacts Sitemap


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Loving Heavenly Father, You put us into families and set a father as the leader and role model for each family, but Lord, there are many families that are being torn apart by a husband and father that has become addicted to alcohol.
Knowing the devastating nature of this disease, I pray that You would prompt each one to turn away from this evil habit to become the responsible husband and father that You desire each one to be.
Lord, we know that there are many alcoholic husbands that abuse their wives both physically and emotionally and that many children are also placed in danger due to abuse from an alcoholic father. And also Lord, we know that such drinking habits can often leave families with insufficient money to live on.
Protect all those that are vulnerable from all forms of abuse, and convict such men of the responsibilities of being loving husbands and dependable fathers. Lord, we pray that they turn from their evil ways to turn to the Lord Jesus, knowing that only in You is true freedom found.
Thank You Father. I commit all families that are in this position into Your safe-keeping. In Jesus' name,


text:
Friday, February 15, 2008
I saw the sun!
Pictured below is the view from my office window in Zurich of the sunset last night. I like my new office because it's 3 sides window, 1 side wall! Glad I took this pic to remember the sky as I'm sure it will be awhile again before the clouds move out.
2 comments:
- Benny said...
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text:
Drego Ls Capsule
By USV PVT LTD
10 Capsule(s) in Strip
Inclusive of all taxes
7 days return policyRead More
All the Products are packed and stored Safely
Drego Ls Capsule Description
Drego Ls Capsule is a combination of Rabeprazole and Levosulpiride, an-anti reflux medicine.
Product Summary
|Offer Price
|You Save
|Levosulpiride(75.0 Mg) + Rabeprazole(20.0 Mg)
Check more medicines with composition as Levosulpiride(75.0 Mg) + Rabeprazole(20.0 Mg)
19 Generic Alternate(s)
Contains same composition as Drego Ls Capsule
- Rabesec Ls Strip Of 10 CapsulesBy Cipla Gx10 Capsule(s) in StripMRP 219.61₹ 186.67₹ 18.67/Capsule
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View All
Uses of Drego Ls Capsule
For the treatment of gastrointestinal reflux disease, a condition in which acid from the stomach comes up to the food pipe, causing heartburn, chest discomfort, acidity, etc.
Contraindications of Drego Ls Capsule
- If you are allergic to this medicine or any of the ingredient of this medicine
- If you are suffering from fits or have a history of fits
- If you have a mental disorder and you have difficulty in walking, balance and coordination
- If you are pregnant or breastfeeding
- Should not be given to children & elderly
Side effects of Drego Ls Capsule
- Headache, nervousness, dizziness and sleepiness
- Diarrhoea, abdominal pain, bloating, gas, constipation, nausea and vomiting
- Abnormal movements of body parts, desire to move body parts, stiff and jerky movements of face and jaw
- Increase in breast size, abnormal milk production and absence of periods
- Low blood pressure, back pain, weakness or flu-like symptoms, sleeplessness, allergic reactions, frequent infections, skin blisters and rashes, mouth ulcers
- Nasal congestion, cough and airway blockage
Precautions and Warnings of Drego Ls Capsule
Can I take Drego Ls Capsule during pregnancy?
- The components of this medicine might harm your unborn baby, thus should not be used during pregnancy.
- Consult your doctor if you are pregnant or think you may be pregnant or planning to have a baby.
Breast Feeding
Can I take Drego Ls Capsule while breastfeeding?
You should not take this medicine if you are breastfeeding.
Can I drive if I have consumed Drego Ls Capsule?
You may experience dizziness, drowsiness or reduced alertness after taking this medicine. Thus, you should avoid driving and operating machines in the presence of any of the symptoms.
Can I consume alcohol with Drego Ls Capsule?
Alcohol consumption along with this medicine can cause confusion, lack of focus, anxiety and drowsiness. It is advised to avoid alcohol intake during treatment with Drego Ls Capsule.
Other General Warnings
Talk to your doctor if
- If you experience allergic reactions like skin rashes and other skin reaction
- If you have a history of allergic reaction due to similar medicine
- If you develop an infection after taking this medicine
- If you have fever, muscle rigidity and irregular heartbeats, movement problems
- If you have a history of brain tumor, fits, heart disease, lumpy breast, etc
- If you have low vitamin B12 levels, blood and liver problems, stomach bleeding, ulcers or tumor in stomach If you have any heart disease, bleeding disorders or tendency to bleed easily...
- Taking this medicine for more than one year may increase chances of developing bone fractures
Mode of Action of Drego Ls Capsule
How Does It Work?
- Rabeprazole blocks the secretion of acid in the stomach by acting on a pump called the proton pump in the stomach and is responsible for the secretion of stomach acids.
- Levosulpiride increases the motility of the stomach and intestine so that acid does not reflux back into the food pipe.
Directions for Use of Drego Ls Capsule
- Take this medicine as directed by your physician
- It should be taken before food
Interactions of Drego Ls Capsule
Interactions with other medicines
- Medicines like Ketoconazole or Itraconazole used to treat fungal infection, Atazanavir used in the treatment of HIV may not work properly
- Medicines used to neutralize gastric acids & to treat ulcer-like sucralfate should be taken with at least 2 hours of gap
- Your blood pressure may drop if you are taking antihypertensive medicine along with this medicine
- If you are taking medicines like Methotrexate or Tacrolimus, then levels of these can increase, causing side effects
- Medicines used to stop blood clotting like Warfarin. Blood clotting parameters should be monitored closely
- If you are taking medicine like Levodopa to treat a brain disorder called parkinsonism
- You may experience irregular heart rhythm with Digoxin, Atomoxetine, Cisapride, Quinine, Furosemide, steroids and stool softners
Storage and disposal of Drego Ls Capsule
- Store this medicine below 30°C
- Keep it in a cool and dry place and out of the reach of children
- Store it in a tightly closed container
Dosage of Drego Ls Capsule
There is limited information available on what symptoms you will have if this medicine is consumed in excess. If you have taken too much of this medicine, seek medical attention immediately.
Missed a Dose
If you missed any dose, take it as soon as you remember. If it is almost time for your next dose, skip the missed dose and take the next dose at the scheduled time. Do not take a double dose to compensate for the missed dose....
Content Details
Dr. Ravi Kakarla
Dr. Ritu Budania
MBBS, MD (Pharmacology)
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q: Levosulpiride is an antipsychotic medicine. How can it treat stomach disorders?
A: Levosulpiride is derived from a medicine called Sulpiride. Levosulpiride which is the most effective form of Sulpiride, decreases the activity of a neurotransmitter (a substance that transmits signals in the brain) called dopamine. Apart from the brain, dopamine also acts on the digestive tract. Thus, by inhibiting dopaminergic effects, levosulpiride exerts anti-emetic (prevents vomiting), antipsychotic (used to treat schizophrenia) and increases gastrointestinal motility and allowing food to pass freely through the intestines.
Q: When should I use Drego Ls Capsule?
A: Do not take this medicine without a prescription. Do not stop taking this medicine or self-adjust the dose without the knowledge of your doctor. Inform your doctor if you have any liver problems or stopped taking this medicine for more than 5 days, before re-starting the dose.
Q: Is there anything else I need to know before taking Drego Ls Capsule?
A: Levosulpiride can increase prolactin levels in the blood. In females, this may result in painful menstrual periods and discharge of milk from nipple (galactorrhea). Consult your physician if you notice any such symptoms. Taking this medicine for a prolonged period can cause bone thinning. This medicine should not be used in children and adolescents below 18 years of age.
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Product Details
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Expires on or After
Manufacturer Details
The information provided herein is supplied to the best of our abilities to make it accurate and reliable as it is published after a review by a team of professionals. This information is solely intended to provide a general overview on the product and must be used for informational purposes only. You should not use the information provided herein to diagnose, prevent, or cure a health problem. Nothing contained on this page is intended to create a doctor-patient relationship, replace or be a substitute for a registered medical practitioner's medical treatment/advice or consultation. The absence of any information or warning to any medicine shall not be considered and assumed as an implied assurance. We highly recommend that you consult your registered medical practitioner for all queries or doubts related to your medical condition. You hereby agree that you shall not make any health or medical-related decision based in whole or in part on anything contained in the Site. Please click here for detailed T&C.
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text:
redo command restarts the loop block without evaluating the
conditional again. The
continue block, if any, is not executed. If
the LABEL is omitted, the command refers to the innermost enclosing
loop. Programs that want to lie to themselves about what was just input
normally use this command:
redo cannot be used to retry a block which returns a value such as
eval {}
sub {}
do {}
, and should not be used to exit
a grep() or map() operation.
Note that a block by itself is semantically identical to a loop
that executes once. Thus
redo inside such a block will effectively
turn it into a looping construct.
See also "continue" for an illustration of how
next, and
redo work.
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Fiery Furnace Trail, Photo Gallery, Arches National Park, Utah
Fiery Furnace Trail
Arches National Park
The Fiery Furnace is a small but concentrated maze of colorful sandstone fins and narrow slot canyons. This surreal geologic labyrinth earns its name from the deep red and orange glow of the sandstone fins that, when lit by the setting sun, resemble a 'fiery furnace'.
|Related Trails:
|Fiery Furnace
Visitors must obtain a permit or join a ranger-led tour to enter the Fiery Furnace
Looking towards the La Sal Mountain range from the Fiery Furnace Overlook
Watch where you put your hands! Tucked away in a Fiery Furnace crevice, a female Black Widow protects her eggs - This is the most venomous spider in North America
The female Black Widow is usually marked with a red hourglass shape on her abdomen - the male is about half her size
The Fiery Furnace leads through multiple slot canyons - The guided tour is highly recommended
The colorful formations of the Fiery Furnace


text:
Joshua Lederberg
Sackler Foundation Scholar and
President Emeritus, Rockefeller University
D-Lib Magazine, May 1996
Symposium on electronic publishing, ICSU/UNESCO
February 22, 1996
Paris, France
First I wish to review what the scientific literature is all about and, in all my remarks, I'm making a very explicit distinction - as my colleague did before - that our discussion concerns principally the primary scientific literature, the original reporting of scientific data and theory, formulation and assertion of claims with respect to priority and the like. I think a very different set of rules applies to that literature than to the dissemination of monographs, textbooks, novels, biographies and so on.
It is a special characteristic of that primary literature that its authors, by and large, are totally uninterested in royalties, which indeed have generally not been available to them. Their gain from publication is recognition by their colleagues and the dissemination of knowledge in the spirit of science.
Primary literature constitutes, as it stands on the shelves of libraries and in other formats, an unerasable public archive. I think it is of the utmost importance that we not take fluidity too lightly, that there be a point of commitment when the author says: "These were my words; this is what I said we have done in the laboratory; these are the claims that I am making and they should not be tampered with at any further stage". Obviously they may be modified, there can be links to corrections addenda, further distinctions, but it should always be possible to reconstruct what the author is to be held accountable for.
The registration of claims is a very important point - what drives science is the possibility of making a novel discovery. It's not a novel discovery if somebody else made it first, and we get very scant credit for even being hard on the heels of others, who had managed to get there a few minutes before. There are many implications of the allocation of scores for achieving success in that regard, but it's built into the structure of science as innovation that there be a system of registration of claims for what is new, what is different, what is distinctive, what was "my contribution" to the growing corpus of scientific knowledge and understanding.
A scientific publication is a grave act to be undertaken with the utmost seriousness; it's an inscription under oath. To lie in a publication is de facto perjury, and, when that is discovered, there are consequences no less serious than perjury in court and so it should be. We shouldn't have to worry about whether an assertion of data from an experiment or other claims was made with other than the utmost seriousness on the part of the author. Otherwise, we would be eternally confused whether the matters presented deserve our attention. And the literature is a historic repository where the record of our scientific culture can be refreshed and re- examined for the purposes of history, for the purposes of rediscovering ancient matters, whose significance was not fully understood before, the establishment of links between different disciplines, and so forth.
So you see, I take the literature very seriously. To me it's holy writ and I want to be sure that, in whatever format it is distributed, it will be accessible, its veracity can be attested by its being observable by everyone at will, and it should be an achievement that cannot be altered. But it's also a dynamic place, as it should be, and effectively, is an open forum. It could be more open than it is. We don't have enough dialectic in our current modes of publication after the fact. There has to be almost a federal case before you can have a comment published on a prior article, and the electronic media will help to lower the threshold in that regard. It's a "rumen", which is a place for fermentation, for digestion, for re-examination of the given truths over a period of time, and it certainly has a dynamic quality taken in its totality, even if every brick of the edifice has been put firmly into place in a severely qualified process.
And then, of course, a very important social function - perhaps the most important function that the print journals now have and would be difficult to replacing with the electronic media - this is the dignity of the work, having a physical representation of clear type on durable paper. That goes along with the attributes that I mentioned earlier, being a definitive act of publication in its original form, and so forth. That dignity is attested by the imprimatur of the editors. There's no reason in the world why that intrinsic function cannot be transferred to the electronic forum. This question has consequences for the accumulation of prestige, for competition for tenure, for grants, for attraction for students - all of the things that are involved in the social system of science and that make science work. We have to be very careful in guiding the evolution of the electronic journal, to be sure that the positive values of our current system are preserved while maintaining lively access to information - which is the primary asserted advantage of this new form.
We have a community of actors concerned with scientific publication. They have sometimes convergent, sometimes divergent interests. The authors above all want to make their work known to others. That is their superordinate goal in publication. In order to achieve it, they are certainly interested in having their work available at the lowest price and cost to their readership and, with varying success, this has been internalized in the practice of page charges, which are negative royalties. These are payments that authors are willing to make in order to help lubricate the system, in order to help have their work made available to the community and to others. They're concerned about speed, for a wide variety of reasons: to be sure there are no artefacts in the competition for priority or just to accelerate the process of dissemination so that others can most promptly take advantage of and build on the work that has been published. One is really quite irked at having to wait six, eight, ten months from the time of submission of an article - those are typical intervals of delay - and we all believe that whatever we have just done and just submitted is of the utmost importance and that the world is holding its breath waiting for it. Sometimes it is! We look for places that have a reputation for reliability, so that people don't have to waste an undue amount of time just in a first order assessment of whether the statements that are made are to be taken at face value.
As part of that process, the author is as interested in easy retrievability as is the reader. If the reader's searching for material is facilitated by the system, the author knows there will be more readers who will be able to make use of a given contribution. And, yes, one of the things that authors can often profit from is good advice from good editors about their modes of expression. I will never forget the first manuscript that I wrote that was seriously edited. It was covered with blue pencil marks, and I wish I still had a copy of that markup because there was a lesson in every line of it.
Libraries and publishers are increasingly at odds with one another. Pricing policies are leading to a black hole - especially with journals with an already limited subscription - the subscription base goes down, the subscription fees go up and there's a necessary reaction of further retrenchment. The reductio ad absurdum will be a single subscription that will cost a million dollars and we will rely on interlibrary loan subject to rules of access for fair use to get copies of it. We're approaching that situation with some journals and of course, it's pure silliness and why print it at all in this case?. In other words why not make the transition to the electronic medium forthwith, when we're heading that way anyway?
The reader wants access but not to be flooded with information and, of course, it's hard not to be inundated with material, even just that which is essential and important to one's scientific existence, not to mention everything else that comes to one's attention. We want quality assurance so we look for assistance, we look for filters, we look for peer review as a method of assisting us in navigating through the blizzard of available information that will only worsen. It will worsen anyhow with the accelerating pace of scientific activity, and the ease of deposit on the Internet will aggravate it further. So readers are going to need that kind of filtering assistance more than ever, and that's the big argument for the peer review imprimatur in some form or another, roughly analogous to what we have with print journals. If we don't get it by a formal method, we will simply have a universe of readers who will have no time to read and they will wait for the equivalent of the book reviews and the commentaries of others - a sort of ex post-facto review, so you'll eventually get around to being told by one's colleagues that so-and-so was the article you should have read.
The producers, the publishers and the editors, of course, have had their very important part to play, and their role in quality improvement and quality control has been indispensable. They have established the mechanisms for editorial review on which we rely for the kind of filtration that I have described. And then - not sufficiently mentioned - there are other people who have an interest in the substantial outcome of scientific work, the sponsors and the beneficiaries. These are the people who pay for the scientific work and the public which is the ultimate beneficiary of that activity. They pay the bill and have every right to expect that we scientists have organized systems which will operate with reasonable smoothness and efficiency: that we don't waste time doing work that's already been done, that we are properly informed about our colleagues' work. That is the assertion that we have made in applying for our research grants and which ensures their worth to the community.
Now there are other functions of literature for the future which are based on but go beyond the concept of the intelligent agent for retrieval. I foresee the point at which it will be both possible and necessary to have intelligent agents examining the content of literature and assisting us in drawing of inference, in finding relationships between facts, in truth maintenance - in other words in consistency checking among the data that are present in the literature - the kinds of things that we exercise by cerebral management with some assistance today. The scientific world has gotten to be so complicated - certainly in the biological area - that no single mind can encompass it all properly and we will need conceptual models that involve some computer assistance in dealing with it. Without direct access to the literature on the part of these intelligent agents, the process is quite hopeless. I spent several years in a programme at Stanford with Ed Feigenbaum and Bruce Buchanan and Carl Djerassi on artificial intelligence in chemistry - the Dendral programme - and by far the most arduous part of that was the knowledge transfer from the factual information from the mind of the chemist - mainly Carl Djerassi - into the set of rules for the computer programs, and that simply is not workable as a practical mode of developing computer systems in other disciplines. We said then and still have to stress that, until the day comes that we have intelligent agents capable of abstracting that knowledge directly from its existing repository, namely from literature, we are going to be in a cul de sac for really serious further development in that field. Now all of my remarks so far have come from the journal as the starting point - the existing framework of scientific communication. I'm going to take a slightly different tack at this point.
Recall that the Scientific Journal began as letters of correspondents. They were then aggregated in order to make it a bit more convenient for a given scientist to communicate with his colleagues in those days and so the journals were then founded. We are seeing a re-enactment of that process today with electronic mail; bulletin boards, discussion groups and lists and they're here to stay. I'm not making any exhortations or predictions about the future. I'm talking about current circumstance.
Scientists and other scholars are on a rising wave of exercise of that intercommunication capability. Most of it is rather informal. I'm a little worried that, if this process goes on without some discipline, that it will be all too fluid and some of the virtues of accountability and of seriousness, of freedom from pollution and from exploitation by individuals who have nothing better to do than run their mucky fingers over the typewriters all day long and so forth, will create such a blizzard of junk that we will not be able to find our way through it. So, if we had never heard of the Scientific Journal in its print form, and were just watching the manifestation of this communication as it is operating today on the net, I think we would very quickly come to the conclusion we had better invent something like a peer review journal in order to provide some modicum of order and of discipline in that medium.
My recommendation is that we, as professional societies, really have got to get together and work out a code of conduct about what we regard as responsible scientific communication through the electronic media. What are the appropriate modalities? What are the appropriate forms of submission, examination, tagging, labelling? In asking such questions I think we will discover something very close to what has evolved in the print journal system. The professional societies have a uniquely important role to play in this process.
Now what are some of the foreseeable consequences? I really have nothing to ask of the print publishers or of the "for profit" electronic purveyors. Unless they are very selective - and they sometimes will be - about their value added, they will fall of their own weight as scientists become empowered to manage their own communications without the benefit of intermediaries. Yes, I'm echoing Paul Ginsparg. If publishers insist, as some of them have been, on defying claims of fair use to mitigate access to material through copyright, they will only accelerate the resentment of the creator-authors, whose primary purpose is dissemination of knowledge and easy access by others to their intellectual output. Some journals, print and otherwise, will be so invaluable, so difficult to replicate, have such a fine customer base, that they will still be wonderful bargains and they will thrive: Science, Nature, and a dozen others that could be named are outstanding examples. But the publishers no longer have a captive audience that has no place else to go. It used to be that subscriptions were automatically taken for every journal by every library, regardless of price and, of course, we know that world has changed irrevocably at this time.
These issues will just work out in future of their own accord as scientists manage their affairs in their own best interest, but one certain source of conflict, regrettably bound to be exacerbated, is the disposition of historic copyright - the many decades of copyrighted scientific material which is now the property of corporate publishers, to whom copyrights had been transmitted, as part of the routine contract that few of us ever stopped to look at, in order to get our papers published.
Obviously, much will depend on the definition and applicability of fair use. We were told that moral arguments played a considerable role in the judicial process in Michigan, so my second recommendation is for an ICSU/UNESCO-Industry Conference to try to map out some standards of definition that may be more convergently acceptable to both the academic and the commercial communities involved in this process and try to minimize some of the rancour which is otherwise bound to be exacerbated. Not to mention government funders of the underlying research.
So I foresee the evolution of a mixed system in which there will be communications over a broad range of formality, from private to public. I fear that we will see a few invisible colleges that will be closed enclaves. I hope that that can be discouraged as contrary to the true spirit of science. Obviously, there's room for very specific and short-lived collaborations but we none of us want to see an exclusive model develop, and that could be an issue to be taken up under the codes of conduct that I had indicated earlier. There will be people who post their own data and own images from time to time, without authentication through peer review, and these same individuals will try to acquire a little more dignity at other times in presenting their more formal results for the peer review process.
Scientists are moving rather quickly in this field and I think we should, sooner rather than later, try to get some explicit agreement on these codes of conduct. One of the issues to be addressed is the dignity to be given to the stamp of approval. The process seems fairly obvious and will resemble very much our current one - postings that are submitted through this process deserve a mandate to be acknowledged and cited by others. They should get full credit in the various gate-keeper systems, and we haven't turned the corner on that just yet. At this point, few of my academic colleagues would, by preference, submit an article to an all-electronic journal as opposed to the print journal because they are not yet assured that that has the printed journal's prestige when it comes to academic review, when it comes to visibility in other regards and when it comes to grants. It shouldn't be long before that's turned around but I think it would help to have some formal endorsement of that process.
Electronic materials need to be archived, -- the formidable technical problems of retrieving data from "dead media" have been eloquently put forth at this conference. Here again I can really see no other reliable place where that commitment is likely to be enforced over any substantial period of time but the professional societies themselves. There may be functional agents acting on the societies but I think the moral and contractual commitment for that preservation and perpetuity will have to come from within the scientific community itself.
There will be a second tier of publication and perhaps we ought to acknowledge what somebody - I think Dr. Pullinger - remarked - that Nature sees a lot of articles and they all get published somewhere else anyhow, that nothing is ever really rejected. Well let's admit that. Let's at least examine one possibility (which I haven't really thought through). The result of a review process might be: "Well, by all means this belongs in our premier journals" or "This is so obviously faulty that it can't appear anywhere. It is full of slander, it is full of lies. We wouldn't dare touch it with a ten-foot pole". But the majority of submissions would probably be fall somewhere in between and I would say: Why not accept them but not put them in the premier site? We won't call it Grade B but everyone will know that's what it means; if you didn't make it in the first one, yes, you can have more or less automatic accessibility to the second one. Who will ever read it, who will ever want to look at it? That is another story but at least it will be part of the available public record with the advantage of open accessibility, and we will have, I think , saved a lot of churning in going to three or four other journals in order to achieve that result.
One of the aspects of electronic publication is we no longer have any excuse for rationing input. It matters little if the journal is five, ten or twenty thousand pages and particularly if, as I hope will be understood, we use page charges as the primary medium of financing that kind of a system. One of the other benefits of the page charge is that, yes, the potential polluter of excessive input will at least have to pay for the cost of what's coming in.
Well, there are other formats for deposit but I think they would follow fairly naturally from the expectation that there will be a continuum, so my final remark really is that this system is evolving, whatever we say or do or resolve at this Conference. It is going to march ahead anyhow. None of us can be a King Canute saying this tide can't come in and the real issue is: Can we channel this technologically driven but, I think at this point, quite inexorable process in ways that will be of the utmost benefit to all the members of our community ?


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Expert's Rating
- Large screen is great for movies.
- The Rubberdium stylus feels natural to use.
- Uncomfortable to hold.
- Not very many apps take advantage of the stylus.
Our Verdict
The LG Optimus Vu has the makings of an excellent phone, but its dreadful design will leave your hand aching.
On paper, the LG Optimus Vu (currently available only in South Korea) sounds like a killer phone: It has a high-resolution display, a speedy processor, and NFC (near-field communication), and is LTE-compatible. However, the phone itself doesn't live up to what you see on the spec sheet, and you're left feeling let down by what could have been a superb product. The disappointments include an awkward design, a nonremovable battery, and some software that felt a little undercooked.
Much like Samsung's wildly popular Galaxy Note, the Vu is a tablet-size phone–casually referred to as a "phablet". The Vu's 5-inch IPS display has the same resolution as the original iPad (1024 by 768) and is one of the phone's defining features. Unlike other phones, the Vu has a 4:3 aspect ratio–a rarity now that most modern smartphones are shipping with widescreen displays. This works to the Vu's advantage when it comes to presenting Web pages, since most websites and documents are formatted to fit screens with this standard aspect ratio. The screen on the Vu isn't as sharp as the one on the Samsung Galaxy S III or Apple's iPhone 4S, but I didn't mind reading longer news articles off of it. The display can look grainy at times, and can be a bit difficult to read outdoors in direct sunlight.
Aside from its massive screen, the front face of the Vu also includes the four standard Android navigation buttons (Menu, Home, Back, and Search) and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera. The volume rocker is located on the right spine of the device, while the SIM card slot is hiding behind a small door on the phone's left spine. You'll need a small tool to open the slot (the hole was too small to fit a paper clip into), so you'll want to make sure you keep it in a safe place to avoid losing it. The charging and headphone ports are on the top of the phone, as are the power button and the QuickClip key (more on that later). The phone also has a retractable antenna for picking up TV and radio signals, but it uses a different spectrum than what we use here in the United States so I wasn't able to test it. On the rear of the Vu you'll find an external speaker, as well as an 8-megapixel camera with an LED flash (again, more on that later).
The body of the Vu is largely a gaudy-looking plastic that makes the phone feel cheap; despite that, the Vu overall felt quite sturdy.
The Vu's boxlike design is by far the phone's biggest fault and really detracted from my overall experience with it. The Vu is both shorter and thinner than the Samsung Galaxy Note, but it's also a tad wider. That extra width gives it a blocky shape, making it uncomfortable to hold for long periods of time. Trying to use the phone one-handed—even if you have larger-than-average hands—proved to be challenging and often caused me to accidentally tap things on the screen that I didn't mean to. I was able to fit the phone into the pocket of my jeans, but it felt bulky, and I sometimes felt that it would burst out of my pocket whenever I sat down.
While I was a fan of the Galaxy Note, I didn't like how small its stylus was. It felt unnatural to write with, and I always felt I was going to break it. I experienced none of these problems with the Rubberdium stylus that came with the Vu. Rubberdium is a technology that allows the Vu's stylus to feel and behave more like a pencil. Whereas traditional styli slip around on glass screens, a Rubberdium stylus has some drag to it that mimics the way a pencil drags across a piece of paper.
The stylus is as long as the Vu (5.5 inches) and is as thick as the average No. 2 pencil. The Vu's stylus is made of a lightweight metal (most likely aluminum) and is comfortable to grip and write with. The stylus can also be used to navigate the phone's screen, but you're probably better off just using your finger.
By pressing the aforementioned QuickClip key on the top of the phone and entering memo mode, you'll be able to mark up whatever screen you're currently on. So if you were looking at a PowerPoint presentation on your phone and wanted to write some notes on it, you could just give the QuickClip key a tap, make your notes using the stylus (or your finger), and save the screen to your Gallery.
The one complaint I have, though, is that you have no way of storing the stylus when you aren't using it. The Galaxy Note has a slot where you can store its stylus when not in use; the Vu doesn't. Your only option is to carry the Vu's stylus around separately, making it another thing that can easily be lost while traveling.
Specs and Performance
Design flaws aside, the rest of the phone is quite impressive. The Vu is powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor and has 1GB of RAM, both of which keep the phone running buttery-smooth. The phone was quite responsive to my touch, and I noticed little or no lag when scrolling through menus or flying around Web pages. I played a few games of Temple Run without any issues, and even more-intensive games like Minecraft: Pocket Edition did little to slow the phone down.
Because the phone is currently available only in Korea (and I lacked a compatible SIM card), I was not able to test the Vu's call quality or download speeds over LTE. I was, however, able to test the Vu's NFC capabilities. The Vu comes with two premade NFC tags that let you change your settings on the fly simply by tapping your phone to the tag. Tapping your phone to the "Office" tag, for example, turns off the phone's ringer, turns on Wi-Fi, and puts the phone on vibrate. You can rewrite the tags using the included LG Tag+ app, and creating your own tag is as easy as selecting the actions that you'd like to occur from a basic menu. Besides toggling certain settings (like the GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and data), you can also create an NFC tag that launches a specific app.
The 2100mAh battery on the Vu is not removable. Though I didn't perform any formal tests on the Vu's battery life, I managed to get around 6 hours out of the phone while doing things like browsing the Internet over Wi-Fi, drawing on the screen, and playing a few games of Temple Run. We'll update this story later on, once we have run the Vu through our suite of official PCWorld battery tests.
The Vu we received ran Android 2.3.6, with a custom LG overlay. The overlay is similar to ones we've seen on previous LG Android phones, and features things like a notification center and seven home screens that you can rearrange at will. LG has said that the Vu would be upgraded to Android Ice Cream Sandwich sometime in June, though at this writing we still have not received the update.
Apart from the memo mode, the only other pen-centric application on the Vu is the Notebook app. This app lets you create notebooks where you can draw, take notes, add photos, and enter text. You can have multiple notebooks—each with its own cover—and you can share notebooks through email. Sadly, the app is extremely clunky, and flipping from one notebook page to another was excruciatingly slow. The Notebook app has a magnifying feature that lets you draw minute details, but it can be difficult to use—I found it frustrating.
Many of the other apps that came preinstalled on the Vu were in Korean, a language that I am sadly not proficient in. Some of the apps (like the T Store Book eReader app) looked useful, but many others seemed nothing more than bloatware.
While couldn't test the TV and radio tuner on the Vu, I did play a few of my own videos on the phone. The two movies I played on the Vu were recorded at 720p and looked good playing on the Vu's 5-inch display. Both movies were widescreen and played back just as they would on an iPad or a standard-definition television.
The music player on the Vu is slightly better than the stock one on Android Gingerbread, and is reminiscent of the music player on Samsung's phones. Music played through the rear speaker sounded, frankly, tinny and terrible. If you plan to use the Vu as your primary music player, you'll want to use either the included pair of headphones (which I liked) or your own. The Vu lacks expandable storage, but ships with 32GB of internal memory, for music, videos, photos, and files.
The Vu has two cameras: A 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera and an 8-megapixel camera on the rear. Pictures taken with the rear camera came out looking dull, with colors being not as crisp as they would be in real life. The front-facing camera wasn't much better, but it did have an interesting shooting mode that lets you essentially airbrush your face when taking photos. The intensity of the effect can be adjusted through the menu—though even at the lowest setting the software made my face look creepy.
The phone is capable of shooting videos in 1080p, and the few videos I shot using the Vu came out looking pretty good. A minor jelly effect appeared when I moved the phone (causing the camera to momentarily lose focus), but overall the picture quality was above average compared with other phones I've recently tested. I can't say the same for the audio in the videos, which sounded as if it were coming in through a metal tube. Voices in particular seemed distant, and I heard a distinct hiss in the playback of all the videos I took using the Vu.
Bottom Line
Though LG has no current plans to bring the Optimus Vu to the United States, it's always interesting to review phones from other countries. I like the idea of the Vu—a smartphone large enough to use as a digital notepad—but I wanted more. The phone's performance is top-notch (though I can't speak for its call quality), and the Rubberdium stylus worked well enough that I would like to see other styli employ similar technology. Yes, the camera is mediocre, but it's usable for taking pictures for Instagram or Facebook, and the video quality wasn't half bad. Unfortunately it all comes back to the Vu's awkward, difficult-to-hold design.
So how does the Vu compare to the Galaxy Note? While I favor the Vu in overall performance, the Note is still the better phone—largely because it doesn't feel like a big phone. The boxy nature of the Vu makes it feel huge—something that you really don't want in a smartphone. I want to see more phablets in the future (I'm a fan of styli), but I hope future large-screen phones won't require Hulk-sized hands.


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Basics of the Reformed Faith: The Covenant of Grace
August 10, 2011
It has been said that covenant theology is at the center of Reformed theology. No doubt, this is correct. In Eden, all of humanity fell when Adam, the first of our race, rebelled against his creator and plunged the entire human race into sin and death. It will take a second Adam (Jesus Christ) to perfectly obey the commandments of God so as to fulfill all righteousness (cf. Matthew 3:15). It will also take a second Adam to remove from us the guilt of our individual sins, as well as that guilt imputed to us from our first father, Adam (cf. Romans 5:12-19). But in order for a second Adam to accomplish these things, there must be a different covenant than the covenant of works (and its demand for perfect obedience), in which God allows a second Adam to do what is necessary for us and in our place to be saved for us, and to earn sufficient merit to save us. This brings us to the covenant of grace.
The covenant of grace is the historical outworking of an eternal covenant of redemption (the so-called "covenant before the covenant") in which the members of the Holy Trinity decreed that Jesus was to be the redeemer of those whom the Father had chosen in him, and that Jesus would do this on behalf of, and in the place of, all those sinners chosen from before the foundation of the world (cf. Ephesians 1:3-14). This means that God's saving grace is not directed to the world in general, but to those specific individuals whom he intends to save. In this covenant of redemption, the Holy Spirit will apply the work of Christ to all those whom the Father had chosen, and for whom the Son will die, ensuring that all of God's elect will come to faith in Jesus Christ through the preaching of the gospel–which is the divinely appointed means by which God's elect are called to faith.
As is the case with the covenant of works, the specific terminology "covenant of grace" does not appear in Scripture, although the rich and manifold theme of covenant appears throughout redemptive history and lies at the very heart of God's redemptive purposes and relations with humanity. As with the covenant of works, God is the author of this gracious covenant and he imposes specific conditions upon Adam and his fallen race. This covenant also includes the promise of eternal life, but is made on behalf of sinners by a gracious God who intends to save his elect from the consequences of Adam's sin through the work of Jesus Christ–the second Adam. In the covenant of grace, everything hinges upon the sacrificial death and the perfect obedience of Jesus who is the only covenant mediator between God and humanity (1 Timothy 2:5), yet who can sympathize with us in our weaknesses having been tempted in all ways as we have, yet without sin (cf. Hebrews 3:1-6; 4:14-16).
While the condition of the original covenant of works was full and perfect personal obedience to the commandments of God, the condition of the covenant of grace is faith in Jesus Christ, who undoes the awful consequences of the fall (Romans 5:12-21; 2 Corinthians 15:20-28). The essence of this gracious covenant can be seen in the oft-repeated refrain first found in Genesis 17:7; "And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you." If we fast-forward redemptive history to the final chapter, when the new Jerusalem descends out of heaven on the last day, once again we hear these wonderful words which serve as the motto of the covenant of grace. "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, `Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God" (Revelation 21:3). Yes, he is our God, and we are his people.
Therefore, redemptive history, which is the outworking in human history of God's eternal decree, is essentially the account of the unfolding successive covenants, which are historical manifestations of the one covenant of grace. Immediately after the fall of the human race into sin, God promised Adam that a redeemer will come and rescue him and the human race from the consequences of his sin. In Genesis 3:15, we find the first historical manifestation of the covenant of grace in the first promise of the gospel (the so-called proto-evangelium). No sooner had Adam sinned, the Lord pronounced the following curse upon the devil: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her [Eve] offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." In this first gospel promise, God promises to crush the serpent and to save his people. The coming of the mediator of the covenant was now ensured. Jesus will die on a cross to redeem us from our sins.
Although the covenant of grace unfolds in several historical steps–(i.e., the promise God made to Abraham in Genesis 12, 17, etc., the promises God made to Israel at Mount Sinai in Exodus 24, as well as on the plains of Moab in Deuteronomy 29:13, the promise of an eternal kingdom made to David in 2 Samuel 7:14, followed by the prophecy of a New Covenant made to Jeremiah in his prophecy [31:33], which the author of Hebrews specifically applies to Jesus Christ, the covenant mediator in Hebrews 8:1-13)–the covenant is essentially the same throughout the entire course of redemptive history. This can be seen in the simple fact that there is but one gospel in both testaments, just as there is only one covenant mediator (Jesus Christ).
God has promised to be our God, and that we are his people. These covenant promises bookend redemptive history from the fall of our race into sin, until the time of the end, when our Lord returns to raise the dead, judge the world, and make all things new.


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I just hired a virtual pimp.
That's right – dating in New York has become such a
soul-numbing chore that I'm outsourcing my love life to
Sure, most people hire virtual assistants for tasks like
booking flights or scheduling orthodontics (just this
past year, according to the International Virtual
Assistants Association, membership is up 35 percent),
but I'm hiring one for what I really need help with:
finding love.
It's Bridget Jones meets Bill Gates. "Sex and the City"
meets "Short Circuit 2."
In the spirit of "The 4-Hour Workweek" ("The 4-Hour
Dateweek," anyone?), I hire teams from GetFriday.com,
AskSunday.com and TasksEveryday.com, all based in India.
Their mission? Identify eligible bachelors, compile
extensive romantic research and find my soul mate. By
the close of business Friday.
Within hours, I have everything from a spreadsheet on
flirtatious conversation starters ("Do you have any
raisins? How about a date?") to a cost-benefit analysis
of sex on a first date. ("After going through the data,"
explains one assistant, "I see it as a 50-50 ratio, so
there is no clear answer if it's advisable or not.")
Guess I'll hire someone to flip a coin.
My favorite designated hustler is Suresh Kumar, an
assistant from GetFriday. He lives in Bangalore. He vows
to be at my beck and call. He has a pencil-thin
I think I'm in love.
"What are your requirements for a partner?" he asks.
"Um, awesomeness?" I stammer.
"Not a problem," he says. "I can read what's in your
mind. I can find a perfect match with you."
We've known each other for three minutes.
I ask Suresh if he's familiar with the kind of men
American ladies like. He assures me he's watched an
episode of "the very popular and best ever television
program, 'Friends.' "
Sold – I hand over my password.
And he's off. In the last month, I've accessed my
Chemsitry.com account twice. Within hours, Suresh has
harvested a dozen potential mates for me.
Bachelor No. 1 is Jeff, a 35-year-old consultant from
Brooklyn. Suresh insists that Jeff is perfect because
"he has never had a relationship before!!"
I give Suresh carte blanche to respond to suitors
however he guesses I would.
Jeff: "What are your guilty pleasures?" Suresh writes:
"I don't feel guilty about anything, pleasurable or not.
But I do get an unexpected pleasure rather than a guilty
one out of 'America's Next Top Model.' "
Jeff: "What made you smile today?" Suresh writes:
"Waking up everyday know I'm still alive and still
young! Every day usually is for me!!!!"
Suresh signs off: "Awaiting for your reply!!!!!"
Somewhere, a tween is crying because the world just ran
out of exclamation points.
But, who cares?!!!! My virtual assistant is now my
virtual BFF. Before the date, I agonize over my outfit
and instant-message Suresh, who submits an illustrated
report on sensual clothing options. And Jeff turns out
to be TV-star handsome, seriously funny and, best of
all, proficient in traditional English sentence
structure. When I confess about the other "men" in my
life, he's intrigued enough to ask me out again.
Maybe having a dating attachi makes me seem
elusive and exotic, like James Bond – or a call girl.
Emboldened, I commission Suresh to write Jeff a casual
"My everlasting dream came true when the day broke just
to meet you," Suresh writes. "Every woman born out of
the elbow of her man, I think I am from yours."
A few hours before our second date, Jeff suddenly has to
go out of town. For several weeks.
Maybe Suresh and I were looking under the wrong elbow.
He refuses to surrender, setting his sights on another
prospect, also named Jeff. I ask my team of assistants
to plan a romantic evening for us. Abhilash proposes a
boat ride in Central Park or "eating a messy meal, like
spaghetti, without utensils."
As I walk breezily toward the Central Park lagoon, I
realize what a changed woman I've become.
My dating life is now entirely out of my hands. I no
longer feel awkward around guys I've never met because
Suresh has taken my awkwardness to a whole new level.
And it's kind of amazing.
My date, Jeff No. 2, approaches, carrying elegant white
I think about my dating spreadsheet and consider
flipping a coin when it hits me. Suresh – 8,000 miles
and three grammar zones away- intuitively understands
how to pick New York men better than I do.
So Jeffs, if you're reading, Suresh is wondering: Would
you like to go out with me again?
Awaiting for your reply!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


text:
Junior Football with Tottenham Hotspur Foundation
Free inclusive football coaching sessions delivered by staff from Tottenham Hotspur Foundation. Come along to learn new skills and make new friends. Open to all abilities.
The sessions are open to all ages from 5 – 16 and they are free of charge.
Date: Saturday 30 May
Times for the sessions below:
Cerebral Palsy Football 10 am – 11 am
Visually Impaired & Deaf Football 11.30 am – 12.30 pm
Learning Disability (LD) Football 1 pm – 2 pm
Venue: Selby Centre, Selby Rd, Tottenham, London N17 8JL
Map LInk: https://blindsport.uk/MapN17
Contact: Connor Allbutt – Coach
T: +44 07741314353 E: firstname.lastname@example.com
For more Information:
firstname.lastname@example.com or call 0208 365 5138


text:
FOX News host and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee organized a "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day" on Wednesday, August 1 after the company received heat for their support of anti-gay organizations as well as president Dan Cathy's remarks about marriage equality. Melissa Reeves, who plays Jennifer in DAYS OF OUR LIVES, tweeted a message that day which read as follows:
Chick-fil-A today!!!! Loved every bite of it;)!! Land of the free and home of the brave. Love that we all appreciate free speech, right?"
Soap fans and non-soap fans alike tweeted immediate and strong reactions ranging from unconditional support for Reeves to being completely dumbfounded and even disgusted. I personally fell into the surprised and confused category. In a January 2011 interview with We Love Soaps, Mrs. Reeves shared her thoughts on speaking out against things that are unjust:
I think we're so afraid of not being liked that we don't speak out for what's important. Now I don't want to just be a blowhole because that is ugly. But when I think something is not right, I definitely want to speak out about it. You have to. That's how we love and protect people.
In the past decade, Reeves has spoken often about her strong religious beliefs but based on our interviews and everything I knew about her, she came across as compassionate and accepting of others. And it just seemed like an odd time to speak up for this particular cause since DAYS OF OUR LIVES won a GLAAD Award this Spring for its gay storyline. From a public relations standpoint, if nothing else, why take a stand on this particular issue and invite negativity on to her and her show? So I wondered to myself if she really believed the heart of the controversy was Dan Cathy's freedom of speech (and nothing more). No one ever questioned Dan Cathy's First Amendment rights, but perhaps she did not understand why the company, its funding of hate groups and Mr. Cathy's comments upset so many people.
I tweeted Reeves from our @WeLoveSoapsTV Twitter account to share my thoughts and to try to understand hers. Instead of responding and engaging in a conversation, she blocked @WeLoveSoapsTV.
She did the same to other people with an opposing view including THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS Emmy-winning actor, Greg Rikaart, who plays Kevin on the show. Rikaart expanded on his thoughts in a wonderful essay for the Huffington Post on Friday. Here's an excerpt:
The media blitz surrounding Chick-fil-A isn't about chicken sandwiches or Dan Cathy's First Amendment right to speak his mind. Mr. Cathy's company has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to organizations like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which publicly denounces the "impure lifestyle" of the LGBT community.
Furthermore, this company donated money to the Family Research Council, which supports the criminalization of homosexuality and states on their website that they oppose efforts for homosexuals to have equal rights. Can you even imagine -- your neighbor, your friend, your sibling or your child being criminalized for being who they are?
I posted a tweet airing my disappointment in Melissa Reeves (another member of the daytime community) for aligning herself with this company that financially supports the furthering of hatred and bigotry. I did so because I have aligned myself with organizations like GLSEN (the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network) and the HRC (Human Rights Campaign) and I have read too many stories of alienated LGBT kids taking their lives after relentless persecution.
Whether grown up bullies like Dan Cathy and Melissa Reeves realize it or not, they are directly or indirectly telling these vulnerable kids that there is something wrong with them, or they are somehow less than. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm certain of it.
I'd happily talk to Mrs. Reeves about this myself, but alas, she has not responded to me and has blocked me from having access to her twitter account. I have happily engaged in debates with people who have reached out to me in defense of her and/or their own beliefs. People often say "agree to disagree." I think that's a cop-out.
Like Mr. Rikaart, I would love to speak with Mrs. Reeves about this subject. That's what I was trying to do on Twitter that day. While the intentions of some people may have come from a good place, if you read "Chick-fil-A" tweets on August 1 you saw large percentage of homophobic and hateful remarks. It was enlightening and somewhat discouraging to read some of these comments, but also gave me even greater appreciation for my own life. As a gay man living in New York City, I can legally be married to the love of my life. In fact, that exact thing is happening on August 18! Why people like Don Cathy think marriages like mine will somehow harm him is something I will never understand. But more and more people have come to understand that it won't impact them at all.
In responding to supporters and critics alike, Mr. Rikaart set an example for other celebrities by engaging in a respectful and honest dialog to use it as a teaching moment. I don't have lofty expectations of famous people, expecting them to use their status for good in the world. But it's a wonderful thing when they do. Thank you, Mr. Rikaart.


text:
Korean Live Chat
I have set my camera in the bathroom of this aunty staying next door. Ayesha is the sexiest Korean webcam BBW who is from a strict family. I just wanted to see how she looks in her naked body. That day, she came to the bathroom in a red kurtha. After removing all her clothes, she squatted on the floor to have a bath. Look at the huge milk bags hanging as if they would touch the floor. She sits on the floor after a while to clean the hairy pussy and had a nice shower. Later, she wore a new panty and bra and her clothes.
This Korean cam chat porn shows a hot girl coming to the neighbor's place. The guy at the home gives her a glass of water and feels horny. Looking at her sexy thighs and legs, he could not control himself. He comes alone and begins to stroke his penis. She notices that and she too feels aroused. Now, she comes closer and grabs the dick. Just look at her jerking it off and kneels to suck it. After the blowjob, he takes her to the living room and strips her nude. Then, he sucks her pussy after finger fucking it. Soon, his brother joins them and they enjoy threesome sex.
I have a Korean live chat girlfriend and still, I love having an affair with this Korean aunty. She is a real beauty and maintains it even at this age. That day, she told me to be prepared as she was so horny. While making out, she was fully clothed but removed all of my clothes. Now, she kneeled and began licking the dick head. After holding the skin of the penis alone on top, she inserted the tongue inside it and did some magic. That was even more arousing and I controlled when she was giving me this erotic blowjob.


text:
The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) announces that a team of students from Miami Valley Career Technology Center in Clayton, OH has won the 2011 AEM Construction Challenge Presented by Volvo Construction Equipment.
The team competed against 23 other teams from around the United States and Canada for the title. The competition took place March 22 to 24 in Las Vegas during the CONEXPO-CON/AGG trade show.
The 2011 Construction Challenge consisted of two parts: the H2Oh Yeah! Challenge and the Road Rumble Challenge sponsored by Ditch Witch (The Charles Machine Works).
The Road Rumble Challenge required each team to build a device that delivered construction materials from one location to another over rough terrain on a custom-designed course. The H2Oh Yeah! Challenge required students to answer questions in a game show format and then participate in a mini-challenge that involved solving real-world water infrastructure problems.
The challenges allowed students to showcase their creative problem-solving skills, knowledge of mathematics and engineering and ability to work together as a team. In addition, students were exposed to leaders in the construction industry and learned about the variety of construction careers available. The winning team received scholarships and a variety of prizes.
AEM initiated the Construction Challenge in 2007 as a response to the severe shortage of qualified workers to meet future construction needs. As a sign of its success, Volvo Construction Equipment signed on as the presenting sponsor of the competition.
The Construction Challenge blends the creative problem-solving methodology of Destination ImagiNation with subject matter from AEM to create a program that engages youth in a fun learning experience and exposes them to new careers in the construction industry. After the first year, nearly 70% of Construction Challenge participants said they are now considering a career in construction.
"These students continue to impress. Their knowledge of infrastructure and water issues and the devices they were able to build and maneuver over a tough course are a testament to the hard work they put in to prepare for the finals," says Al Cervero, senior vice president at AEM. "AEM and all of our sponsoring companies look forward to the chance to welcome them into the construction industry."
The Construction Challenge offers a chance for students, teachers, parents and community leaders to learn more about the construction industry and the need for skilled employees to deal with infrastructure problems such as crumbling bridges, overcrowded roadways and aging water and wastewater systems. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that employment in the construction industry is projected to increase by 1.3 million jobs by 2018.
2011 Construction Challenge Results
Overall Winners
1st Place - Miami Valley Career Technology Center, Clayton, OH, sponsored by Ohio CAT
2nd Place - Pearce and Richardson High Schools, Dallas, TX, sponsored by Kobelco Cranes North America
3rd Place - Creekview, R.L. Turner and Newman Smith High Schools, Carrollton, TX, sponsored by Liebherr
Road Rumble Challenge Winners
1st Place - Pearce and Richardson High Schools, Dallas, TX, sponsored by Kobelco Cranes North America
2nd Place - Bartlett High School, Bartlett, IL, sponsored by Volvo Construction Equipment
3rd Place - Creekview, R.L. Turner and Newman Smith High Schools, Carrollton, TX, sponsored by Liebherr
H2Oh Yeah! Challenge Winners
1st Place - Chippewa Falls Senior High School, Chippewa Falls, WI, sponsored by Astec Industries
2nd Place - William Henry Harrison High School, Harrison, OH, sponsored by Gorman-Rupp Company
3rd Place - Bartlett High School, Bartlett, IL, sponsored by Volvo Construction Equipment


text:
- Hardware Tessellation on Radeon in OpenGL (Part 2)
- Hardware Tessellation on Radeon in OpenGL (Part 3)
Update (2010.02.10): AMD provided me some important details about tessellation on Radeon. You can read these details HERE.
I recently played with the hardware tessellation unit included the Radeon HD 5770. Actually this unit is included in all Radeon HD 2000, 3000, 4000 and 5000 series.
Tessellation on Radeon – Theory
The tessellation is the processus that divides a polygon into smaller ones. Another definition is: tessellation allows to increase polygons density. Today tessellation can be done on GPU and provides several key benefits:
- Compression: using tessellation allows to reduce the memory footprint and bandwidth consumption by storing on disk only low resolution meshes.
- Bandwidth is improved because, instead of transferring all of the vertex data for a high-polygon mesh over the PCI-E bus, only the coarse mesh is sent to the GPU.
- Scalability: because of its recursive nature, subdivision naturally accommodates LOD rendering and adaptive approximation with a variety of metrics.
In old hardware like Radeon 8500 or Radeon 9800, there was a hardware tessellation module called TruForm. In OpenGL, TruForm functionality was accessible via the GL_ATI_pn_triangles extension. TruForm was designed for organic shapes. But AMD has removed the support of TruForm from Catalyst a long time ago so today we can ignore it.
Instanced tessellation is another technique that performs tessellation by rendering a single tessellated quad multiple times, using instancing to do this in a single call. This tessellation method does not require a hardware tessellation unit but requires more code.
Now let's quickly see the tessellation in recent Radeon cards.
In Radeon HD 2000, 3000 and 4000 series, the tessellation unit or tessellator is placed before the vertex shader (DX10 architecture):
In Radeon HD 5000 series (DX11 architecture), the tessellator is placed after the vertex shader and comes with two new programmable units: the hull shader and domain shader.
The tessellation hardware in DX9/DX10 is a subset of the full tessellation unit of DX11. In both cases, the tessallator is a fixed function unit. You can't program it with a shader.
In OpenGL, AMD Catalyst driver exposes the GL_AMD_vertex_shader_tessellator extension that allows to tweak the tessellator via 2 functions:
- glTessellationFactorAMD(GLfloat factor)
- glTessellationModeAMD(GLenum mode)
glTessellationFactorAMD specifies the amplification factor that allows to control the level of tessellation. The minimum value is 1.0 and the maximun value depends on the architecture / 3D API used: 15.0 in DX9 and DX10 and up to 64.0 in DX11.
glTessellationModeAMD specifies the tessellation mode: discrete or continuous. Discrete mode allows to use only integer part of the tessellation factor: 1, 2, 5, 10 or 15 for example. Continuous mode allows to use real float factor: 1.0, 1.2, 4.3, 12.7 or 15.0 for example. Continuous mode is well adapted for LOD algorithms.
In the part 2, we'll see the tessellation in action on a Radeon HD 5770.