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Reviewed at the 2011 New York Film Festival
Melancholia opens with a series of painterly images, accompanied by Wagner and presented in agonizingly slow motion. That presentation gives the otherwise befuddling images a weight and significance that we don't fully grasp--except for the final one, which encompasses nothing less than the end of the world. Put on your clown noses, kids, it's a new Lars von Trier movie!
We go back. "Part 1: Justine." It is wedding day for Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård), and a good hour or so is spent on their reception, thrown by her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and brother-in-law John (Kiefer Sutherland) at their giant country estate (which includes, John never tires of saying, an 18-hole golf course). The sequence begins with more warmth and humor than we've come to expect from the filmmaker, but by taking his time and letting first act unfoldly slowly, von Trier subtly fades that warmth away and gives us a clearer impression of exactly who these people are.
When we first meet Justine, she is all sunny smiles and soft kisses, but the more time we spend with her, the more we see that she is a total mess--so deeply, presumably clinically depressed that she is unable to even keep it together for her own reception. She's prone to moodiness and despondence; she disappears for long stretches, leaving the guests standing around awkwardly, waiting for her to return. "Is everybody in your family stark raving mad?" John asks, and not unreasonably--by that point, they've all shifted uncomfortably through just about the worst wedding toast you've ever heard, courtesy of mother Gaby (Charlotte Rampling). "I hate marriage," Gaby announces. "Enjoy it while it lasts!"
In a nice touch, von Trier lets us put together how Justine both needs her mother, who is perhaps the only person she can speak freely to, and is ultimately done unceasing damage by the older woman's enabling. These are the kind of murky psychological waters the filmmaker is treading into in this long and fraught sequence, which captures vividly the hopelessness and despair of trying to get through to someone who is, well, filled with hopelessness and despair.
"What did you expect?" asks Justine of her beau, and miraculously, her face transforms; she suddenly looks as old as she feels, weathered and beaten, all but destroyed. (Dunst won a richly-deserved Best Actress award at this year's Cannes Film Festival; it's a peerless piece of work.) That's just a warm-up for the second half of the film ("Part 2: Claire"), which finders her debilitated--almost paralyzed--by her sickness. We are now in the days after the reception, and the focus is on an event causally mentioned there: an approaching planet, which all scientists of note are proclaiming will pass by the earth, and will not (as those cranks on the internet insist) collide with it.
And so an intriguing question is asked: what happens when someone who treats everything like it's the end of the world is faced with the literal end of the world? What's more, what happens to the support network that keeps her calm and collected?
Much of this is quite uncomfortable to watch--not squirm-inducing, like Antichrist (get out of my brain, scissor scene), just unsettling, awkward, and frankly riveting. The latter quality is particularly impressive, considering that von Trier has already given up the game in that opening sequence (and doesn't cop out on it). Some might question that decision, but it's a wise one. We know right from the jump that anything goes.
The closing passages, dealing with the approach of Melancholia, are anxious, convincing, unnerving cinema, made all the more potent by von Trier's efficient direction. He doesn't push, steering clear of stock effects and stingy music cues (there's no score at all, just a couple of well-chosen Wagner excerpts). This is an infinitely confident filmmaker. His instincts occasionally fail him; a few of his beats--particularly those involving Justine's boss (Stellan Skarsgård) and his new underling (Brady Corbet)--fall flat, and the array of divergent accents within the same family is an occasional distraction. These are minor concerns, as are the filmmaker's off-screen antics. Yes, he's a pain in the ass. He also remains a major talent, and Melancholia is his best work in a decade.
Jason lives in New York. He holds an MA in Cultural Reporting and Criticism from NYU.
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This week in the New York Times, Drs. Scott Gottlieb and Ezekiel Emanuel make the case that there will not be a physician shortage as a result of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Both have extensive experience in policy and have held respected positions in government.
Based on a projected need of nearly 90,000 more physicians by 2020, I have difficulty seeing how a shortage will not occur. The Affordable Care Act has already demonstrated the ineptness of government to manage health care — the laughable website rollout, newly discovered "backend" issues with signups, inaccurate quotes and information and questionable security (and this is all since October). Now, as the mandates loom, consumers are beginning to wonder where exactly they will be able to get care and who may be providing it.
How can there not be a physician shortage?
Using the Massachusetts health care plan as an example, Drs. Gottlieb and Emmanuel argue that the shortage predictions are flawed. However, Massachusetts is not at all representative of the entirely of the US — one cannot extrapolate the response in Massachusetts to the rural midwest, or the deep south or sunny California.
Moreover, the provisions and funding of the legislation in Massachusetts are very different from those in the ACA. They argue that the biggest driver of increased physician manpower needs is more related to an aging population rather than the impacts of Obamacare and the flood of new patients that are insured by either Medicaid or the ACA exchanges that are able to set reimbursement levels at new all time lows. They state that the solution to shortage issues will come in the form of technology driven "remote medicine" and the use of non-physician extenders such as advanced practice nurses and physician assistants.
Moreover, they go on to argue that the solution is not producing more doctors — rather it is getting those of us in current practice to become "more efficient."
Really? We are already doing more every day with much less than we have had in the past.
As doctors often do in clinical practice, I respectfully disagree with their assessment. Obamacare will soon flood the system with millions of newly insured patients. As evidenced by the current climate in California, many physicians will choose not to participate in the exchanges due to very poor reimbursement rates.
Recent surveys in that state found that nearly 75% of doctors would not take the exchange insurance or Medicaid due to the fact that the exchange payments were far below the standard CMS Medicare rates. Many practices are unable to maintain autonomy as payments continue to decrease — many are being integrated into hospital systems. Overhead continues to increase in order to meet federal requirements for electronic documentation and records as well as maintaining coding experts to keep up with the ever changing systems such as the newly minted ICD-10 to be implemented in 2014.
The concept of a completely free standing private practice will no longer exist within the next 3 years. Whether in academic or private settings, all physician groups will be employees of health conglomerates.
What is ultimately going to drive the physician shortage and what are the potential solutions?
For starters, I certainly do not have all the answers. While I do agree that the aging population certainly presents a manpower challenge, I do not concede that this alone will be the driving force behind any potential physician shortage. Medicine is becoming less attractive for young bright students considering a career in health care. Training physicians is expensive — medical schools are pricey for potential students and post-graduate training is costly for the academic centers where they learn.
Financially, students may no longer be able to incur the significant debt (in the hundreds of thousands of dollars) that continues to accrue when attending medical school when the job prospects promise declining financial rewards. Once in practice, newly minted MDs will find that their hours are longer and the time that they spend with each patient will be more limited — increasing documentation requirements will result in more screen time and less time listening and bonding.
Physicians are essential to the delivery of care. However, I also recognize the vital role that physician extenders play in health care today (and will in the future). Nurse practitioners, physician assistants and pharmacists are critical in ensuring that patient care is optimized. These providers must work in concert with physicians — approaching the whole patient in a team care model will ultimately improve outcomes.
But, utilizing these allied health professionals in more independent and unsupervised roles as Drs. Gottlieb and Emmanuel suggest is reckless. Although well trained and expert in their scope of practice, these allied health professionals are not physicians — they have not completed the academic rigors of a four year medical school nor gained the experience of a 3-8 year residency and fellowship. Replacing doctors with other provider types will not eliminate the need for physicians and will not forestall the expected physician shortage as we move into 2014 and beyond. We must continue to work with physician extenders and other allied health professionals in order to meet the increasing demands of a busy medical practice — I do not advocate for the independent practice that is currently being considered in many states.
Remote medicine, telemedicine and remote monitoring are certainly complementary and extremely valuable in providing care. In fact, as Drs. Gottlieb and Emanuel suggest, these modalities may reduce the number of doctor visits and may play a major role in prevention. While I am a real advocate for utilizing technology to engage patients and facilitate care, face to face interactions between doctor and patient must still be a part of the process. We cannot rely on computers and other electronic devices in isolation — they can, however, enhance the delivery of care when carefully included in a comprehensive treatment plan.
Ultimately, time will certainly determine the state of physician supply. If we remain on our current course and continue to fund and implement (albeit haphazardly) the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, we will ultimately see the fallout of a significant physician shortage. Long lines, significant wait times and scarcity of both newly trained primary care and specialty doctors will become reality. Medicine in our country is at a crossroads. We must continue to advocate for our patients and protect our right to practice our noble profession in a way that provides the best possible outcomes for our patients today and in the future.
Kevin R. Campbell is a cardiac electrophysiologist who blogs at his self-titled site, Dr. Kevin R. Campbell, MD.

subset: commoncrawl


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Good Morning Friends,
I am so happy to be here to share another great challenge with you for Delightful Challenges. This week we're putting on our Holiday Spirit with a new release. So create a card or project for any winter holiday!
My card features Elf Marcie. She's so adorable! The sentiment is from Caroling Sentiments Set, I did print that directly on my card base. I kept my card pretty simple by following the sketch from Unscripted Sketches. I added a bit of texture with an embossing folder and home-made "fun flock." My DIY fun flock is nothing more than rubbing two pieces of styrofoam together and using the shavings. You can color it, too, with just a touch of ink from a re-inker.
Here's a close up of my home-made fun flock.
I do hope you'll join us this week for a fun challenge. Have a great day!
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Delightful Challenges Thursday
Posted by Melissa Craig at 12:01 AM
7 Encouraging Thoughts:
- Wendy Hall said...
Amazing job Melissa :)
- October 3, 2013 at 1:16 PM
- Debbie said...
What a cute little elf!! Love your DIY fun flock!!
- October 3, 2013 at 2:54 PM
- Larelyn said...
So cute. The flocking is the perfect addition.
- October 3, 2013 at 4:41 PM
- Migdalia said...
How SWEET is this elf?....Just darling!!
Have a wonderful day,
♥ Crafting With Creative M ♥
♥ 2 Creative Chicks Challenges ♥
- October 3, 2013 at 5:00 PM
- Shell Shearer Swinscoe said...
Love it hun, your flock looks fab!
Hugs Shell xx
- October 4, 2013 at 7:52 AM
- Denise @ kc242 said...
What an adorable Christmas card. Love your embossed background.
- October 4, 2013 at 7:58 AM
- Lisa Foster said...
SO Adorable! Love the snow! Outstanding work as always, Mel!♥
- October 4, 2013 at 1:22 PM
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


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After a slow start and declining return projections, the Kenai River king salmon fishery will move to catch-and-release fishing beginning Saturday through the season's July 31 ending.
For the first time in Alaska's history, the catch-and-release fishery will be accompanied by a restriction to barbless hooks.
Starting Saturday, king salmon caught in the Kenai River cannot be retained or in possession and cannot be removed from the water — they must be released immediately, according to a Thursday emergency order.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game defines a barbless hook as one that is either manufactured without a barb or has a barb that has been completely removed or compressed so the barb is in complete contact with the shaft of the hook.
While there have been studies showing that barbless hooks reduce the efficiency of anglers, there have yet to be conclusive results showing that a barbless hook reduces the chance that a fish will die after it has been caught, said Fish and Game area management biologist Robert Begich.
"We will still be using an 8.25 percent mortality rate in our calculations," he said.
During the 2013 fishing season when Fish and Game moved to catch-and-release fishing on the early run of king salmon, fewer than 80 fish were caught and Fish and Game managers estimated that of those, five fish died, according to data Begich presented to Alaska's Board of Fisheries in February.
Though catch-and-release fishing sharply reduces the number of king salmon killed in the sport fishery, Begich said the restriction alone would not be enough to help managers make the fish's escapement goal.
"This is a step down measure that's going to give us some time … to see if the fish are going to come in," Begich said.
If the king salmon passage rate, or number of fish that make it upriver past the sonar, does not improve managers will further restrict the fishery.
"Then the next step is to close," he said.
Begich said managers were hopeful that the passage rate would "come up quite a bit."
Fishing with barbed hooks is still permissible with other species on the Kenai River including red salmon, rainbow trout and Dolly Varden.
The barbless hook regulation, a new one for the Kenai River and for the state, was passed during the final day of the Alaska Board of Fisheries meeting on the Upper Cook Inlet.
The seven-member board considered, modified and ultimately approved a proposal originally submitted by the president of the United Cook Inlet Drift Association, Dave Martin.
"I believe it's the only time we've ever adopted a regulation that talks about barbless hooks in the state," said Board of Fisheries chairman Karl Johnstone during the meeting.
Johnstone said that he considers the barbless hook regulation, which applies only to catch-and-release king fishing on the Kenai River, a conservation measure that reduces the handling time of the fish.
Moving to barbless hooks was discussed extensively during the meeting.
Fish and Game regional fisheries management coordinator Matt Miller told board members that using barbless hooks didn't reduce the number of hooked fish that were killed — rather that the gear was inefficient and caused fewer fish to be caught.
Fish and Game staff comments on Martin's proposal estimated that angler efficiency with barbless hooks was reduced between 11-24 percent while young and inexperienced anglers were disproportionately affected.
It may be difficult to find hooks that are manufactured barbless in the area.
Scott Miller, co-owner of Trustworthy Hardware in Soldotna, said the store would not be stocking barbless hooks and would instead provide the tools to crimp a hook into being legal.
"We tried that about 15 years ago and no one bought them," Miller said. "We sell a lot more files."
Miller said he didn't think moving to catch-and-release fishing would be too significant as the king salmon fishery was already struggling this season.
"I was out there last night and I was the only boat," he said. "I saw two fish caught and they were small."
Stuart Cridge, of New Zealand, stopped into the hardware store and said he would still fish for king salmon even with the catch-and-release regulation.
Cridge, who said he had been fishing the Kenai River for 11 years has already practiced the method at least once this year when he caught a 66-pound king salmon Tuesday evening and let it go.
"My biggest one before that was 72-pounds," he said with a grin. "But that was in '06."
Also new to 2014 management — commercial setnetting on the east side of the Cook Inlet will be restricted to 12 hours of fishing time per week when the Kenai River is restricted to catch-and-release.


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Abstract: "This dissertation argues that teaching ideology plays a vital but overlooked role in the success of Basic Writing students. Student engagement and retention research recognizes that faculty belief, attitude and approach to students and curricula affect students' willingness to engage with course material, and engagement is the primary factor in determining whether students persist in college. I argue that these beliefs, attitudes and approaches--ideologies--have been represented over time in Basic Writing research but have not been overtly examined and connected to student success in Basic Writing courses. I outline the patterns of representations of ideologies found in Basic Writing research and separate the patterns into four ideological categories. Each of the categories is described in detail and linked to its effectiveness in encouraging student engagement and success. To support these categories, I provide three case studies of currently teaching Basic Writing instructors. I then apply my taxonomy of teaching ideologies to the administrative processes Basic Writing programs engage in that are related to teaching: recruiting and hiring, training, evaluation, promotion and tenure. Each of these processes can be reexamined and adapted to include attention to teaching ideology. In this way, I fill in gaps about teaching in Basic Writing research while providing a structure by which to assess program effectiveness and development."--Abstract from author supplied metadata.
Teaching Matters: Pedagogical Ideologies and Success in the Basic Writing ClassroomPDF (Portable Document Format)508 KBCreated on 12/1/2007Views: 2592
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text:
Personal info
- Name: Anthony PALMER
- D.O.B: 10th Mar, 1819
- D.O.A: 5th Nov, 1854
- D.O.D: 12th Dec, 1892
- Award: Victoria Cross
- Occupation at time of action: Private, 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards, Guards Brigade, 1st Division
- Book: The Complete History - Volume 1
The Battle of Inkerman, Russia 5 November 1854
5 November 1854
The Crimean War
The Battle of Little Inkerman had shown the Russians that the Allied 2nd Division, camped on Mount Inkerman, the high ground east of Sevastopol and south of the Tchernaya river, was seriously overstretched and on 5 November 1854, reinforced by troops returning from the Balkans, the Russian commander Prince Menshikov launched a more substantial assault on the British positions there. In the early morning and under cover of mist, a large force under General Soimonov advanced east out of Sevastopol, across the Careenage Ravine and onto the western flank of Shell Hill. Meanwhile, another column under General Pavlov crossed the bridge over the Tchernaya river and marched up the Quarry Ravine to the east of Shell Hill. Although an attack had been expected, the British were not fully prepared. An offer of immediate French assistance was foolishly declined and a confused battle followed. In an attempt to drive back the initial Russian advance on Shell Hill, Lieutenant Colonel Haly ordered a charge by 47th Regiment. Haly himself was thrown from his horse and suffered a bayonet wound in the leg but was rescued by Captain H Rowlands (qv), 41st (the Welsh) Regiment, and Private J McDermond (qv), 47th (the Lancashire) Regiment. To the west of Shell Hill on the Miriakoff Spur, Lieutenant F Miller, 12th Battalion RA, tried to rally the withdrawing British troops behind his guns and, at the very least, to defend the guns themselves from the advancing Russians. It was a vain endeavour but he was awarded the VC for his actions. However, a small British force of 250 men, comprising four companies of the 77th Regiment led by General Buller and Colonel Egerton, was proceeding north round the left of Home Ridge when it encountered a Russian force advancing up the Miriakoff Spur. General Buller sent his ADC Lieutenant H H Clifford (qv), Rifle Brigade with the order to charge. Clifford soon recognized that his force's left flank was at risk from attack by the Russians and himself led the charge to eliminate this. Sergeant J Park (qv), 77th Regiment also distinguished himself by his gallantry in this action. To the west, across the ravine from the Miriakoff Spur, on the Victoria Ridge sat Codrington's artillery, with the Lancaster battery at the northern end, manned by men from the Naval Brigade. Lieutenant W N W Hewett (qv) and Seamen J Gorman (qv), T Reeves (qv) and M Scholefield (qv) distinguished themselves by their gallantry when driving off a Russian attack. Down in the ravine close to the Lancaster battery were a number of caves occupied by Russian snipers. Corporal J Prettyjohns (qv) of 59th Company, Royal Marine Light Infantry, led his platoon, under fire from a frigate in Sevastopol harbour, to clear the caves. Meanwhile, as Pavlov's column approached the end of the Quarry Ravine from the northeast, it reached a British position known as the Barrier which blocked the track up onto Home Ridge, behind which lay the 2nd Division's camp. This was manned by 200 men of the 30th Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Maulever. However, the British found that their rifles had got damp and would not fire. Undaunted, Maulever and his adjutant, Lieutenant M Walker, led a desperate bayonet charge against the Borodino Regiment, forcing the Russians to retreat. As the Russian troops under the command of General Dannenberg pushed the British back from Shell Hill towards Home Ridge, it became increasingly difficult to maintain the British position. A half battery on the western edge of Home Ridge fell to the Russians. To the northeast of Home Ridge fierce fighting developed on the Kitspur and at the Sandbag Battery to its south. This battery guarded the approach to Fore Ridge which connected at right angles with Home Ridge. Sandbag Battery changed hands several times with the Guards playing a major role. Two battalions of Grenadier and Scots Fusilier Guards advanced on the Russians. In the fighting that followed, three Grenadiers, together with Lieutenant R J Lindsay (qv), Scots Fusilier Guards, distinguished themselves by their bravery. The Duke of Cambridge, com - manding 1st Division, was present at the Sandbag Battery with some of his staff when Captain W Peel RN (qv), accompanied by Midshipman E St J Daniel (qv) of HMS Diamond, Naval Brigade, arrived with news that the position was about to be cut off by a further Russian advance. The Yakutsk Regiment had indeed marched through the gap between Fore Ridge and the Kitspur. Sir George Cathcart had been ordered to close this gap but had instead moved his men, including four companies of the 68th Regiment, to attack the Russians' left flank. They came under very heavy fire and Private J Byrne was awarded the VC for his gallantry in rescuing a wounded soldier but Cathcart himself was soon killed. Fortunately the British had now called for French assistance whose artillery began a heavy bombardment of the Russians. All attempts by the Russians to capture the Home Ridge failed and eventually, without consulting Prince Menshikov, General Dannenberg decided to give up the fight and withdraw. The Allies had held Mount Inkerman but at a very heavy cost.
Present when the charge was made in defence of the Colours, and also charged singly upon the enemy, as witnessed by Sir C. Russell; is said to have saved Sir C. Russell's life.


text: Date: Sun, 5 Sep 93 18:11:35 PDT To: Fun_People Subject: BlackNet - In Cyberspace, no one can hear you scream. [Origin obscured by massively baroque and convoluted forwarding. -psl] Introduction to BlackNet Your name [sic] has come to our attention. We have reason to believe you may be interested in the products and services our new organization, BlackNet, has to offer. BlackNet is in the business of buying, selling, trading, and otherwise dealing with *information* in all its many forms. We buy and sell information using public key cryptosystems with essentially perfect security for our customers. Unless you tell us who you are (please don't!) or inadvertently reveal information which provides clues, we have no way of identifying you, nor you us. Our location in physical space is unimportant. Our location in cyberspace is all that matters. Our primary address is the PGP key location: "BlackNet<firstname.lastname@example.com>" and we can be contacted (preferably through a chain of anonymous remailers) by encrypting a message to our public key (contained below) and depositing this message in one of the several locations in cyberspace we monitor. Currently, we monitor the following locations: alt.extropians, alt.fan.david-sternlight, and the "Cypherpunks" mailing list. BlackNet is nominally nondideological, but considers nation-states, export laws, patent laws, national security considerations and the like to be relics of the pre-cyberspace era. Export and patent laws are often used to explicity project national power and imperialist, colonialist state fascism. BlackNet believes it is solely the responsibility of a secret holder to keep that secret--not the responsibilty of the State, or of us, or of anyone else who may come into possession of that secret. If a secret's worth having, it's worth protecting. BlackNet is currently building its information inventory. We are interested in information in the following areas, though any other juicy stuff is always welcome. "If you think it's valuable, offer it to us first." - - trade secrets, processes, production methods (esp. in semiconductors) - nanotechnology and related techniques (esp. the Merkle sleeve bearing) - chemical manufacturing and rational drug design (esp. fullerines and protein folding) - new product plans, from children's toys to cruise missiles (anything on "3DO"?) - business intelligence, mergers, buyouts, rumors BlackNet can make anonymous deposits to the bank account of your choice, where local banking laws permit, can mail cash directly (you assume the risk of theft or seizure), or can credit you in "CryptoCredits," the internal currency of BlackNet (which you then might use to buy _other_ information and have it encrypted to your special public key and posted in public place). If you are interested, do NOT attempt to contact us directly (you'll be wasting your time), and do NOT post anything that contains your name, your e-mail address, etc. Rather, compose your message, encrypt it with the public key of BlackNet (included below), and use an anonymous remailer chain of one or more links to post this encrypted, anonymized message in one of the locations listed (more will be added later). Be sure to describe what you are selling, what value you think it has, your payment terms, and, of course, a special public key (NOT the one you use in your ordinary business, of course!) that we can use to get back in touch with you. Then watch the same public spaces for a reply. (With these remailers, local PGP encryption within the remailers, the use of special public keys, and the public postings of the encrypted messages, a secure, two-way, untraceable, and fully anonymous channel has been opened between the customer and BlackNet. This is the key to BlackNet.) A more complete tutorial on using BlackNet will soon appear, in plaintext form, in certain locations in cyberspace. Join us in this revolutionary--and profitable--venture. BlackNet<email@example.com> -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.3 mQCPAixusCEAAAEEAJ4/hpAPevOuFDXWJ0joh/y6zAwklEPige7N9WQMYSaWrmbi XJ0/MQXCABNXOj9sR3GOlSF8JLOPInKWbo4iHunNnUczU7pQUKnmuVpkY014M5Cl DPnzkKPk2mlSDOqRanJZCkyBe2jjHXQMhasUngReGxNDMjW1IBzuUFqioZRpABEB AAG0IEJsYWNrTmV0PG5vd2hlcmVAY3liZXJzcGFjZS5uaWw+ =Vmmy -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----


text:
Who Uses Genshi?
This page lists projects, products, companies, organizations, or individuals who are successfully using (or have used) Genshi.
If you're also using Genshi, feel free to add a blurb to the list!
Note: we'll occasionally check links added to this list, and remove sites that seem unlikely to be using Genshi (such as Wordpress powered blogs that claim to use Genshi for generating RSS/Atom feeds). If we accidentally remove a legitimate entry, feel free to protest by sending a mail to our MailingList.
- The Trac Project (http://trac.edgewall.org/)
Trac has switched from ClearSilver to Genshi for templating in 0.11 — in fact, Genshi was originally developed for Trac
- Kaizen (http://code.google.com/p/kaizen/)
- a web-based GTD application
- AtomGT (http://code.google.com/p/atomgt/)
- a Genshi based Atom Feed generator.
- homework prod. (http://homework.nwsnet.de/)
- personal site mostly about code; happily utilizes Genshi (and has replaced Kid and SimpleTAL)
- Foxmarks (http://foxmarks.com)
- At Foxmarks, we're turning web search upside down. Creating a better way to search that is community inspired and people powered. We're using Genshi for all our public facing Web sites.
- Pastie (http://pastie.ufsoft.org)
- It's a pastebin joined from 2 great ideas, Pylons pastebin and Pocoo's LodgeIt pastebin.
- PylonsGenshi (http://pastie.ufsoft.org/wiki/PylonsGenshi)
- Pylons based Paste project template Using Genshi as the templating language.
- TurboGears web framework (http://www.turbogears.org) - Genshi can be used as an alternative template engine with TG 1.0 and is the default engine for TG 1.1 and TG 2.
- Freebase online database (http://www.freebase.com)
- Kind of like a database version of Wikipedia, using Genshi for all aspects of the site including inline editing and RSS.
- relatorio (http://relatorio.openhex.org)
- A high level templating library able to output OpenOffice documents and PDFs.
- openhexperience (http://ohxpd.openhex.org)
- A rapid appplication development framework that use genshi in its view creating module
- BTB Royals (http://www.btb-royals.de/)
- A basketball team from Oldenburg, Germany.
- Siafoo (http://www.siafoo.net/)
- A site dedicated to sharing code and programming experience.
- Bcfg2 (http://trac.mcs.anl.gov/projects/bcfg2)
- A configuration management tool, using genshi to generate XML configuration specifications and textual configuration files.
- web2help (http://www.skeed.it/web2help.html)
- A CHM help authoring tool. It grabs contents from web pages, and places them into CHM files, using genshi as a templating engine.
- Adjector (http://projects.icapsid.net/adjector)
- Fast, flexible, and free (as in beer and speech) ad serving software. Imports, organizes, randomizes, and tracks ads.
- sahriswiki (http://sahriswiki.org/)
- Lightweight WIKI Engine
See also: MailingList, IrcChannel
Last modified 13 years ago Last modified on Jul 23, 2010, 2:43:25 PM


text: FAQ For additional administrative information please contact the programme administration. For all academic questions feel free to ask any professorial member of the PEF faculty or your supervisor. What are the career prospects for PEF students? The PEF prepares students for top academic as well as non-academics careers that require a good education in economics, finance and quantitative methods. Is it possible to work during my Ph.D. studies? We appreciate that many graduate students work part-time during their doctoral studies and that this is necessary to support themselves. Realistically, part-time commitments should, at least in the course phase, be less than 40 percent of a student's total time. The Programme Committee does not consider a job to be an important reason to grant an extension of the deadline for handing in the research proposal. Are scholarships available? Students are strongly advised to raise funds from external organisations wherever possible. Remuneration for teaching within the Department of Economics or for Research Assistance is an important element of the funding available to students. Depending on where you come from, there are several organisations which offer various scholarships: Swiss Government Institute of International Education Fulbright programme German DAAD How long does it take to complete the Ph.D.? Students take about three to five years to earn their degree. Equivalence/ Recognition of Ph.D. and "Dr." title Any foreign academic title can be held in Switzerland, no formal claim of recognition is necessary. In Germany, Austria and other countries an individual can apply for recognition of the Ph.D. title with the public authorities. In that case the Dean of Studies certifies that the Ph.D. title is equivalent to the doctoral title. Is it possible to do an exchange during the Ph.D. programme? Yes. If you are still in the course phase, please make sure that you attend similar courses. The Programme Committee decides before the exchange if courses are equivalent. An exchange is also possible during the research phase. In that case you have to attend Ph.D., literature/research seminars abroad. The International Exchange Office at the University of St.Gallen generally supports exchanges at the Ph.D. level. Additionally, you have the opportunity to take single courses at cooperating universities like Frankfurt, Konstanz, and the NCCR Finrisk Network. What form does the PEF doctoral thesis take? The thesis for the Ph.D. Programme in Economics and Finance should be written as a cumulative thesis consisting of at least three publishable essays. The overall quality of the three essays should be that required by reputed international academic journals. Essays may be co-authored.


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Messi Leads World's Top Sports And Entertainment Celebrities
Posted on 22 March 2013
World famous sports and showbiz celebrities are showing they care for the planet through their support of Earth Hour on social media platforms Facebook and Twitter, inspiring their fans to join in the world's largest mass participation event on the planet, for the planet.SINGAPORE: World famous sports and showbiz celebrities are showing they care for the planet through their support of Earth Hour on social media platforms Facebook and Twitter, inspiring their fans to join in the world's largest mass participation event on the planet, for the planet.
Lionel Messi, Gisele Bunchen, Yoko Ono, Miranda Kerr, Alejandro Sanz, Doutzen Kroes, McFly are just some of the celebrities asking fans to turn off their lights on March 23, 8:30PM. Lionel Messi, who has 43 million fans on Facebook asked them to accept the challenge and join Earth Hour.
Celebrities from Asia with a combined social media following of 20 million are also leading the efforts for Earth Hour this year, lending their voices of support for the campaign and taking up the challenge to inspire ongoing positive actions for the environment beyond the hour.
Nadya Hutagalung, Utt Panichkul, Pevita Pearce, Andy F. Noya, Ariel from NOAH, G.E.M., Eason Chan , Kay Tse, Shruti Hassan, Marc Nelson, Rovilson Fernandez, Mikee Cojuangco-Jaworski, Bathiya & Santhush (BNS), Li Bingbing, Yu Quan, Chen Yibing , Li Yundi, Li Yuchun, Harlem Yu, Sonia Sui, JJ Lin, Amber Kuo, Christine Fan and S.H.E are among the biggest names in Asia supporting the global environmental movement now in its seventh year.
It's not only sports and entertainment celebrities rallying for action. Also on the eve of the seventh Earth Hour, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called on the world to mobilise beyond the hour as extreme weather increasingly harms families, communities and economies.
"We participate with an undimmed determination to take action on climate change. Everyone has a role to play. Governments need to provide the political will, businesses can contribute solutions, and civil society, especially young people, can mobilise global action. Together, let's do our part and shed light on common sense answers for a cleaner, greener world," said the UN Secretary-General.
As an open sourced campaign powered by WWF, Earth Hour uses social media to connect a global community of people inspired to change the world we live in and support from these stars take the campaign to new levels of engagement with young people who will benefit the most from a sustainable planet.
Earth Hour 2013 will take place at 8.30pm – 9.30pm on Saturday 23 March
For live updates on Earth Hour 2013 starting Thursday March 21, go to http://earthhour.org/live


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Redesigned 2014 Mazda 6 gets slight price increaseThu, 03 Jan 2013
The redesigned 2014 Mazda 6 sedan carries a base price of $21,675 including shipping charges. That's a $155 increase over the 2013 model.
Mazda redesigned its midsize sedan and incorporated the brand's SkyActiv fuel efficiency technology.
The SkyActiv suite includes a 2.5-liter gasoline engine that can be paired with either a six-speed manual or six-speed automatic transmission. The engine is rated at 184 hp at 5,700 rpm and 185 lb-ft of torque at 3,250 rpm.
With the manual transmission, the Mazda 6 is rated at 25 mpg city/37 mpg highway/29 mpg combined MPG. The automatic does slightly better at 26 mpg city/38 mpg highway/30 mpg combined.
Those numbers put the 2014 Mazda 6 amid the crop of redesigned midsize sedans launched for 2013, including the redesigned Nissan Altima that achieves 27 mpg city/38 mpg highway/31 mpg combined when equipped with a 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine and continuously variable transmission.
Mazda will make the SkyActiv 2.2-liter diesel engine available in the Mazda 6 in the second half of this year. Final specifications and pricing will be released then.
The gasoline-powered 2014 Mazda 6 is on sale now and available in three trims.
Standard equipment on the base i Sport includes the manual transmission, push-button start, air conditioning with pollen filter, power windows with a driver-side one-touch up/down feature, a tilt-and-telescopic adjustable steering column, steering-wheel-mounted audio and cruise control functions, 17-inch alloy wheels and auxiliary and USB connection ports.
With the optional automatic transmission on the i Sport, added features include Bluetooth phone and audio connectivity, a 5.8-inch color touchscreen display, a rearview camera, HD radio, Pandora Internet radio compatibility, SMS text message receipt and delivery, automatic emergency notification and voice commands.
The mid-level i Touring trim is $25,290 with shipping charges. Additional equipment includes 19-inch alloy wheels, dual-zone automatic climate control with rear-seat vents, leatherette-trimmed sport seats, a six-way power driver's seat and a switch for operating functions on the 5.8-inch display screen.
The Touring Technology package, a $2,000 option, adds a navigation system, Bose 11-speaker surround sound system, keyless entry, automatic on/off headlights, rain-sensing windshield wipers, an auto-dimming rearview mirror with Homelink, an auto-dimming driver's side outside mirror, heated outside mirrors and the new brake support system that reduces brake pedal travel if a potential collision is detected when traveling at speeds less than 19 mph.
The top-of-the-line Mazda 6 trim is the i Grand Touring, which is $30,290. It builds on the i Touring with Touring Technology package and adds platinum silver 19-inch alloy wheels, a power moonroof, a rear lip spoiler, bi-xenon high-intensity discharge headlights with auto leveling, leather-trimmed sport seats with heated front seats, an eight-way power driver's seat with power lumbar support, a four-way power front passenger seat, steering wheel-mounted paddle shifter and Sirius satellite radio with four months free.
Two package options are available with the i Grand Touring. The Mazda Radar Cruise Control and Forward Obstruction Warning package ($900) adds those safety features. The Advanced package will be available in the second half of 2013 and adds those safety features and lane departure warning, high beam control and a braking energy regen system, named i-ELOOP, for a fuel-efficiency boost. Pricing has not been released.
By Angie Fisher


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NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Derek Mason wants to make a few things clear: He has plenty of experience recruiting in the South, hopes to finish his career at Vanderbilt and has very high goals for the Commodores -- such as playing for the Southeastern Conference championship.
Vanderbilt introduced its new football coach Saturday, a week after starting a search to replace James Franklin, who left for Penn State.
"This job means everything to me," Mason said before a packed room. "This is where I want to be, this is where I plan on spending the rest of my career. We will win. Make sure of that. Make no doubts about that. I understand what college football's about. It's about winning, and you hired a winner for sure."
Mason, 44, spent the past four seasons at Stanford working first for Jim Harbaugh, then David Shaw the last two as defensive coordinator. This is Mason's first head-coaching job in a career that started in 1994, and he said he wanted this job so much that he packed a black suit for his first interview in Atlanta -- site of the SEC title game.
He made clear he understands Vanderbilt's priority as a top academic university is graduating players, with winning just as important on the field.
"SEC East title, here we come," Mason said. "Make no bones about it. If you can't talk about it, you can't be about it."
The Commodores, who went 4-20 combined in 2009 and '10, were 24-16 over the past three seasons under Franklin. They are 16-4 over the past 20 games -- second in the Southeastern Conference only to Alabama and tied with South Carolina in that span. Vanderbilt has played in three straight bowls, winning two, for the first time in school history.
Vanderbilt also has finished in the final Associated Press poll each of the past two seasons, including No. 24 for 2013. The last time Vanderbilt was ranked in the final AP poll before was 1948 under Red Sanders.
Defensive end Kyle Woestmann said Franklin is the reason that a coach the caliber of Mason would want the Vanderbilt job so much.
"Franklin showed how to win and win big and that all we have to do is win two more games a year and you get close to competing for SEC championships and national championships," Woestmann said. "Derek Mason saw that as an opportunity. He's here to take us to that next level."
Mason is the second consecutive black football coach at Vanderbilt. Out of 125 colleges in the Football Bowl Subdivision, only 13 had black coaches in 2013. Vanderbilt athletic director David Williams, also black, said they heard from up to 70 people wanting this job, including coaches in the NFL, head coaches and assistants and even a computer analyst.
"Thank you for believing in us and trusting in us to get you a good head coach," Williams said.
A former cornerback at Northern Arizona, Mason has been an assistant at various colleges the past 20 years, including stops at Ohio, New Mexico State, Saint Mary's, Utah, Weber State, Idaho State, Bucknell and San Diego Mesa College. He coached in the NFL, including Minnesota between 2007 and '09.
Mason helped Stanford slow down hurry-up offenses and read-option runs and beat Pac-12 division rival Oregon the past two years. That had about a half-dozen NFL teams sending coaches last summer for tutorials on Mason's defensive schemes.
But Mason pointed out he has recruited throughout the south for years, making him very comfortable in SEC country.
Vanderbilt's new coach met with his players Friday and has been busy studying tape. Mason said he expects to have most of his coaching staff filled out within 48 hours.
Salvaging a recruiting class that had been ranked in the top 25 by many services is his other priority with national signing day less than three weeks away on Feb. 5. Out of 20 commitments, Vanderbilt currently has 11 and sunk to 64 at least according to Rivals.com.
Mason said he'll make his vision and mission very clear.
"I think you'll like what you see on signing day," Mason.


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So you bought a compact fluorescent lightbulb in a bid to be green. Such bulbs are vastly more energy-efficient than traditional incandescents and screw into standard sockets. Should you treat them like their older cousins?
After all, four- and eight-foot- (1.2- and 2.4-meter-) long tubular bulbs common in more institutional settings are sometimes left on permanently, perhaps due to their slow, flickering start-ups. The thinking is that the boost of energy such bulbs require to power up means that it might be best to keep them on when leaving a room, rather than subjecting them to the stress of a restart on your return.
Turns out, however, that power surge is so brief that its energy draw doesn't amount to much: the equivalent of a few seconds or so of normal operation, according to U.S. Department of Energy estimates. In other words, from a strict energy-conservation standpoint, it's almost always beneficial to shut off fluorescents when leaving the room—the start-up energy is offset by the power saved in even the briefest outages.
But what about the wear and tear on the bulb itself? Being too switch-happy reduces the operating life of the lamp, and given that newer fluorescents are still a few times more expensive than old-fashioned incandescents, it makes sense to forestall burnouts. There are also real environmental impacts of their production and disposal to consider.
A simple rule of thumb that balances both concerns is to shut off fluorescents if you're planning to leave a room for more than five minutes, according to Francis Rubinstein, a staff scientist in the Building Technologies Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Environmental Energy Technologies Division. Mary Beth Gotti, manager of the GE Lighting & Electrical Institute in Cleveland, agrees. For all practical purposes, "it almost always makes sense to turn the lights off," Gotti says. "From an environmental standpoint, the best way to save energy is to turn off the things that you're not using."
Rubinstein notes that, even for fluorescents, the cost of electricity over a bulb's lifetime far outpaces the cost of the bulb itself. "Even if you switch on and off a fluorescent light frequently," he says, "the slight reduction in lamp life is a small effect relative to the energy savings you accomplish by being a good citizen." Gotti adds that the reduction in lamp life from frequent on-and-off switching can often be counterbalanced by the extension of "calendar life"—the actual passage of time between lightbulb replacements—that results from using the bulb for fewer hours.
That sort of calculation will probably become more common as compact fluorescent lightbulbs come down in price, cast more pleasant light and, most importantly, force their power-hungry competitors from store shelves. The Australian government will phase out the sale of traditional incandescents in that country by 2010, and the U.S. Congress has effectively mandated the same ban domestically by 2012. But whereas that new fluorescent bulb is sure to lower utility bills in your home, the real energy-crunch savior has been there all along: the light switch.
* Editor's Note: This is part one of a two-part series of Fact or Fiction? on fluorescent lightbulbs. The next, appearing on April 10, will address the question of the mercury inside them.


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The New York Times dubbed it "a quiet revolution in the teaching of Israeli history." That front-page Times article, headlined "In Israel, New Grade School Texts for History Replace Myths With Facts," and published Aug. 14, has kicked up a lot of dust among right-wing commentators. One educator mentioned in the article has even received a death threat in a letter postmarked "Bronx."
Whether a "quiet revolution" is really taking place, however, is debatable.
What's happening is that in this school year (whose scheduled start on Wednesday was threatened by a likely teacher's strike), three new textbooks that challenge hallowed Israeli beliefs about the country's history will be used in most ninth-grade classrooms.
The books, approved by the Education Ministry in the spring, argue, among other things, that the Jews outnumbered the Arabs on the battlefield in the War of Independence, and that many Arabs were expelled during that war. The books also use the term "Palestinian," which might not seem too controversial, but is a departure for Israeli history schoolbooks, according to Dr. Eyal Naveh, the author of one of them.
"The books I read in school used to refer to the Palestinians as 'the Arabs of the Land of Israel,' " he noted.
The books also integrate Jewish history with world history — another departure, Naveh said.
"What this approach does, for instance, is to show that Zionism didn't come down from the heavens, but was one of the nationalist movements that came out of Europe in the latter part of the 19th century. Another point is that the Holocaust was not separate from World War II — which is the way the Holocaust has been taught in Israeli schools — but was connected," said Naveh, who teaches history at Tel Aviv University.
After the Times story, Ruth Matar of the extreme right-wing Women in Green denounced the books in her interview show on the religious nationalist radio network Arutz 7. "The Jewish state is being destroyed from within by the brainwashing of our children," Matar said. One of her guests compared the books' "falsification of history" to Holocaust denial. An edited transcript of the show went out on Arutz 7's Internet site.
West Bank settler intellectual Elyakim Ha'etzni wrote in the daily Yediot Aharonot that students who adopt Naveh's view of Israeli history "will look on their parents and teachers with the eyes of a stranger, and see them as conquerors, oppressors, usurpers and relate to Israel as a country that is not theirs."
Naveh said a guest on an Israeli talk show — he couldn't remember whom — described his writings as "treason." The educator mentioned in the Times article who received the death threat with a Bronx postmark, was characterized as a "kapo" and "SS," Education Ministry spokeswoman Rivka Shraga said. The educator, who wishes to remain anonymous, filed a complaint with police.
Yet aside from right-wing circles and the media, the "new history" controversy has gone almost unnoticed. Asked what sort of reactions had come in to the ministry, Shraga said a number of journalists had made inquiries, as well as some professional educators. "We haven't received any faxes, letters or calls from regular Israeli citizens," she noted.
Shai Lachman, head of the national Parents Assn., said he had never heard of the matter. Neither had Shmuel Abuav, head of the education desk for Israel's municipalities, which fund the public schools.
While the books are debuting now, during the tenure of left-wing Education Minister Yossi Sarid, they were approved during the term of the previous government, when the education ministry was in the hands of the right-wing National Religious Party.
Yitzhak Rath, spokesman for the NRP's Yitzhak Levy, who was education minister when Naveh's book was approved, said he, too, was unaware of the controversy. He said he was likewise unaware that Naveh's book had been OK'd on Levy's watch. "There are hundreds, thousands of committees — do you expect the minister to be aware of what each of them are doing?" Rath said.
Israeli historians from both left and right contended that at any rate, the books weren't saying much that was new. Schoolbooks, they said, had been taking a critical look at Israeli history for the last 10-15 years.
"The 'myths' of Israeli history are taught in the youth movements, not in the schoolbooks," said historian Michael Oren, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, a right-wing think tank. Oren said his impression from the previous history schoolbooks he'd read was that they actually downplayed the "power and vitality of Zionism," treating it as a merely "reactive" movement to anti-Semitism and European nationalism.
Hebrew University Moshe Zimmermann, an outspoken Israeli leftist, said the books didn't break much new ground, and were gaining interest mainly because of the Times coverage, and because a red flag goes up as soon as "post-Zionism" or "new historians" are mentioned. The Times' characterization of the books as a "quiet revolution," Zimmermann said, "accorded them a significance that was exaggerated and unwarranted."
Yediot columnist Nahum Barnea noted that another of the three books, "Passage to the Past" by Kezia Tabibyan, devoted all of 170 words to the issue of the Palestinian refugees. "The book blames the Arab leadership exclusively for the Arabs' disaster. The Israelis emerge as blameless," he wrote. As schoolbooks must be purchased by Israeli parents, Barnea concluded: "Sadly, the only revolution that will be made by these new books will take place in the parents' wallets."


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WORK+SHELTER Hand Warmers
My friend Theresa VanderMeer runs an organization called The Lotus Odyssey that exports fair-trade products from different eco/people-friendly groups in India. She is starting a foundation called WORK+SHELTER that will offer women living in the slums of New Delhi a fresh start. Theresa is working to give these women decent living conditions and a chance to build a better future. WORK+SHELTER will be a safe place where women can come with their children to live and work. She will be providing training, materials, and a fair wage, and members of WORK+SHELTER will be producing products to be sold in boutiques around the world.
Theresa asked me to design garments and accessories that will be hand knit by the women living and working at WORK+SHELTER. These cozy hand warmers are one of those items! By purchasing this pattern you are helping this amazing cause. Read more about this project here, donate by emailing Theresa at email@example.com, and when someone compliments you on your new hand warmers, be sure to tell them about WORK+SHELTER.
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No amount of PR and no number of company blogs can make a bad company look good — or smart. Wal-Mart is the poster pig for that lipstick. Again and again, they prove themselves to be mean, greedy, and stupid. Again and again, they and their PR people are forced to apologize. And it's clear: They never learn. The culture remains venal. Management remains blind to the fact that their moral myopia is bad for the brand and bad for business. Even the PR company, Edelman, fails to realize that this is bringing them down — who'd want to trust them after they keep throwing themselves on swords for Wal-Mart and who'd want to hire them given Wal-Mart's horrid reputation — and they'd be better off resigning the account, no matter what it's worth. Greed is usually such a simplistic explanation for bad behavior but in this case, it explains everything. This wouldn't be so incredibly apparent if it didn't keep happening over and over and over again.
The latest of the company's moral lapses is the story of Debbie Shank, a former employee who was hit by a truck, is severely brain-damaged, and who won a lawsuit to help pay for her very expensive care. Wal-Mart wanted a piece of that suit.
Wal-Mart's health care plan lets the retail giant recoup the cost of its expenses if an employee collects damages in a lawsuit. And Wal-Mart set out to do just that after Shank and her husband, Jim, won $1 million after suing the trucking company involved in the wreck. After legal fees, the couple received $417,000.
Wal-Mart sued the Shanks to recoup $470,000 it paid for her medical care. However, a court ruled that the company could only recoup about $275,000 — the amount that was left in a trust fund for her care.
Who cares what the clause says? The story went on TV and it inspires both heartbreak and rage (much of it in blogs). It's obvious that Wal-Mart has no moral compass and not even a self-interested sense of priorities given its PR problems, especially over its health care for employees.
People make fun of Google's righteous vow not to be evil. It's practically a self-parody. And it's a shame that any institution should think that it needs to make such a promise; shouldn't it be presumed?
But imagine if Google took over Wal-Mart and made that one change, posting a sign in every store and every office: Don't be evil. Imagine if that became the basis of firings and hirings: out with the bad air, in with the good air. Could the culture of this company possibly be reformed? Could they ever see that being evil to employees and customers is bad business? Could they ever train employees to think differently, to factor decency into their decisions? Or has it descended too far into hell?
The contrast between Wal-Mart and Google illuminates Google's vow in a new light. It doesn't look so silly to promise not to be evil when you watch the business of an evil company.
: LATER: I meant to add this: Wal-Mart spends many, many times as much on PR with Edelman as it was going after from the poor, brain-damaged accident victim and her family. Even from a self-interested, practical, sensible perspective, they should have seen that this would be damaging — so much so that Edelman would have been better paying the fee itself. This also indicates bad management judgment at Wal-Mart.


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Nine McLaren MP4-12C GT3 racecars (in six customer-team liveries, including the classic powder-blue-and-marigold Gulf) are competing this weekend at the Belgian bucket-list confab, Spa24. How does the GT3 differ from the road car — and what it's like to drive in an endurance race? Let's query driver Rob Bell.
Production-based, GT3 cars may not be the darlings of sports-car racing, but neither are they low on tech. On this week's Shakedown, Leo Parente get a driver's-eye look at the MP4-12C GT3 — during qualifying for the Blancpain Endurance Series, Spa 24 Hours — with Bell, a McLaren works driver and veteran of Spa, as well as Le Mans, Daytona and Sebring. We're looking for a better showing this year at Spa for the McLarens, which had a tough time there in 2011. Granted, last year was a development season for the cars. This year is the real deal.
Bell's driving one of the two Gulf Oil-liveried Maccas fielded by British GT3 team, Gulf Racing UK, with co-drivers Mike Wainwright and Andy Meyrick.
In his walkaround of the GT3, Bell talks about some of the aerodynamic tweaks the FIA allows on the GT3s, and how a driver tunes the ABS, traction control and throttle position on the fly to compensate for changes due to tire wear and other factors over the course of the punishing 24-hour race.
Yes, but does all that stuff just add up to the over-nannification of racing? That's for you to decide.


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Finally, a summer collection we can truly drool over: Charm City Cakes (yes, the Charm City Cakes, of Ace of Cakes fame) has graced our desktops with their summer '12 line of wedding cakes, featuring some of the most over-the-top designs we've ever seen.
The confections are inspired by different style eras and icons, such as Carmen Miranda and Frida Kahlo. Designs range from classic lace and femme florals to zebra prints and fringe, and we're confident that the phrase "too pretty to eat" has never been more fitting. These beauties make the perfect centerpiece for a wedding reception, or even a decadent birthday party. Or just feel free to start making up holidays — because we're pretty sure National R29 Appreciation Day would be way better with one of these cakes.
Photo: Courtesy of Charm City Cakes


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Should I Buy InterContinental Hotels Group?
LONDON -- It's time to go shopping for shares again, but where to start? There are loads of great stocks to choose from, and I've got my wallet out. So here's the question I'm asking right now. Should I buy InterContinental Hotels Group ?
Checking in
One of my broker contacts has been getting very excited about InterContinental Hotels Group. He thought it was a great way to play the U.S. recovery, claiming the current low supply of hotels gives plenty of scope for growth in total revenues per available room (RevPAR), the key measure of industry success. As the global economy recovers, the business travel market should rebound, helping to fill up those rooms. Is he right? And if so, should I buy this share?
Traveling light
InterContinental boasts more than 4,500 hotels in nearly 100 countries ,with a total of 672,000 rooms. Every year, 153 million people spend a night in one of its nine brands, which include Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, and, naturally, InterContinental. Yet the group physically owns a mere handful of those hotels, having sold the rest and signed long-term management or leasing contracts with the owners. Instead, it sells its expertise in-house management, systems, and marketing to these hotels. Its "asset light" strategy means there is a lot less capital-intensive baggage for investors to carry, and a lot more cash to count.
RevPAR for the course
Not that investors have been worrying lately. The share price is up 24% over the past three months to 18.96 pounds, helped by a reassuring Q3 2012 update, which showed strong RevPAR growth across all its key markets, and in the U.S. and China in particular. InterContinental has opened nine hotels with a total of 2,704 rooms in Greater China in Q3 alone. Group revenue rose between 1% and 3%, adjusted for currency movements, while operating profit rose 9% to $167 million. Group net debt fell to $472 million, from $644 million in 2011. The group's global diversification has been a big help, sparing it restless nights in Europe. In fact, InterContinental is one of those businesses that have benefited from the recession, as a shortage of business finance has made it tricky for smaller rivals to borrow the funds they need to compete.
One concern is an Office of Fair Trading investigation into claims that the group broke competition laws by fixing room rate discounts with two online brokers, a charge it denies. If the OFT concludes that InterContinental has breached the Competition Act, it can impose penalties of up to 10% of its turnover. Further strife in Europe, and U.S. government spending cuts, could also do some damage.
Checking out
InterContinental has been a steady long-term performer, up 38% over 12 months, and 140% over five years. Earnings per share growth was a modest 3% in 2012, but is expected to rise to 14% and 11%, respectively, this year and next. I like its fat 33% operating margin, but its 2.9% yield underperforms the FTSE 100 as a whole, which offers 3.5%. The figure no investor can ignore with this stock is its price-to-earnings ratio, currently around 20 times earnings. That looks a bit pricey and leaves it vulnerable to any hiccup in China's growth trajectory. I think I'll sleep on this one.
The power is yours
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We have singled out this stock because it offers one of the best yields on the FTSE 100, a far sight more than you can get on cash. The report is completely free, so download it now.
The article Should I Buy InterContinental Hotels Group? originally appeared on Fool.com.
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The Equivalence Principle
May 18, 2007: Standing on the Moon in 1971, Apollo 15 astronaut Dave Scott held his hands out at shoulder height, a hammer in one hand and a feather in the other. And as the world looked on via live television, he let go.
Right: Astronaut Dave Scott drops a feather and hammer on the moon. [Video] [Transcript]
"What do you know!" exclaimed Scott. "Mr. Galileo was right."
Scott was referring to a famous experiment of the 16th century. Depending on who tells the story, Galileo Galilei either dropped balls from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa or he rolled balls down slopes at home. Either way, the result was the same: Although the balls were made of different materials, they all reached bottom at the same time.
Today, this is known as "the equivalence principle." Gravity accelerates all objects equally regardless of their masses or the materials from which they are made. It's a cornerstone of modern physics.
But what if the equivalence principle (EP) is wrong?
Galileo's experiments were only accurate to about 1%, leaving room for doubt, and skeptical physicists have been "testing EP" ever since. The best modern limits, based on, e.g., laser ranging of the Moon to measure how fast it falls around Earth, show that EP holds within a few parts in a trillion (1012). This is fantastically accurate, yet the possibility remains that the equivalence principle could fail at some more subtle level.
"It's a possibility we must investigate," says physicist Clifford Will of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. "Discovering even the slightest difference in how gravity acts on objects of different materials would have enormous implications."
In fact, it could provide the first real evidence for string theory. String theory elegantly explains fundamental particles as different vibrations of infinitesimal strings, and in doing so solves many lingering problems of modern physics. But string theory is highly controversial, in part because most of its predictions are virtually impossible to verify with experiments. If it's not testable, it's not science.
"Some variants of string theory predict the existence of a very weak force that would make gravity slightly different depending on an object's composition," says Will. "Finding a variation in gravity for different materials wouldn't immediately prove that string theory is correct, but it would give the theory a dose of supporting evidence."
Right: Modern tests of the Equivalence Principle. Figure based on a similar diagram in a review article from Physics World. [More]
This new facet of gravity, if it exists, would be so astonishingly weak that detecting it is a tremendous challenge. Gravity itself is a relatively weak force—it's a trillion trillion trillion (1036) times more feeble than electromagnetism. Theorists believe the new force would be at least ten million million (1013) times weaker than gravity.
Just as magnetism acts on objects made of iron but not plastic, the new force wouldn't affect all matter equally. The force's pull would vary depending on what the object is made of.
For example, some versions of string theory suggest that this new force would interact with the electromagnetic energy contained in a material. Two atoms that have the same mass can contain different amounts of electromagnetic energy if, say, one has more protons, which have an electric charge, while the other has more neutrons, which have no charge. Traditional gravity would pull on both of these atoms equally, but if gravity includes this new force, the pull on these two atoms would differ ever so slightly.
No experiment to date has detected this tiny difference. But now three groups of scientists are proposing space-borne missions that would hunt for this effect with greater sensitivity than ever before.
"What you want to do is take two test masses made of different materials and watch for very small differences in how fast they fall," Will says. "On Earth, an object can only fall for a short time before it hits the ground. But an object in orbit is literally falling around the Earth, so it can fall continuously for a long time." Tiny differences in the pull of gravity would accumulate over time, perhaps growing large enough to be detectable.
Right: An artist's concept of STEP in orbit. [More]
STEP's design uses four pairs of test masses instead of just one pair. The redundancy is to ensure that any difference seen in how the test masses fall is truly caused by a violation of the equivalence principle, and not by some other disturbance or imperfection in the hardware.
"When trying to measure such a miniscule effect, you have to eliminate as many external disturbances as possible," Will explains. STEP's design places the test masses inside a large tank of liquid helium to insulate them from external temperature fluctuations, and surrounds the masses with a superconducting shell to shield them from magnetic and electrical interference. Microthrusters counteract the effects of atmospheric drag on the orbiting satellite, making the free fall of the test masses nearly perfect.
In this pristine environment, each pair of test masses should stay perfectly aligned with each other as they fall around the Earth—that is, if the equivalence principle holds. But if this new component of gravity does exist, one test mass will fall at a slightly different rate than its partner, so the pair will drift slightly out of alignment over time.
Currently, STEP is still in the design phase. Another satellite-based experiment, the French-developed Micro-Satellite à traînée Compensée pour l'Observation du Principe d'Equivalence (MICROSCOPE), is scheduled to launch in 2010. MICROSCOPE will have two pairs of test masses instead of four, and will be able to detect a violation of the equivalence principle as small as one part in a million billion (1015).
Whether any of these missions stand a chance of detecting a violation of the equivalence principle is hard to say. Will says that he expects the experiments won't find any deviation, in part because finding one would be such a major revolution for modern physics. And string theory makes a range of predictions about how strong this new force would be, so it's possible that the effect would be too small for even these space-borne instruments to detect.
Finding no deviation would still be helpful: it would rule out some variants of string theory, inching physicists toward the correct "Theory of Everything." But finding a deviation, however small, would be a giant leap.
Author: Patrick Barry | Editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA
|More Information
Note: The equivalence principle discussed in this story is now referred to by physicists as the "weak equivalence principle" or WEP for short. In 1907, Einstein formulated a more comprehensive strong equivalence principle (SEP) for his General Theory of Relativity. The WEP is a subset of the SEP.
Space missions to "test EP" -- STEP, MICROSCOPE, GG
The home page of Clifford M. Will -- professor of physics at the University of Washington; President of the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation; member of the National Academy of Sciences.
The legend of the leaning tower -- Historians are not sure if Galileo ever carried out experiments at the Leaning Tower of Pisa. So why, asks Robert P Crease, has the story become part of physics folklore?
Tests of the Weak Equivalence Principle (PhysicsWorld)
The Eöt-Wash Group: Laboratory Tests of Gravitational and sub-Gravitational Physics -- learn more about recent laboratory tests of the Equivalence Principle
NASA's Future: The Vision for Space Exploration


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*checks calendar*
Its not April again already is it??
They really missed a trick here, if it was installed with AmigaOS, or even just dual boot into Amiga in a Box (http://aiab.amiga.sk), this thing would FLY off the shelves through nostalgia alone.
A C= branded machine running XP, perish the thought.


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A proposal by nonprofit groups in the Palo Alto area to target the most violent and disruptive homeless dwellers at Cubberley Community Center with "homeless outreach teams" of case managers is now fading from consideration as officials consider more delicate and less costly ways to provide assistance to the city's neediest population.
A "HOT program" was first proposed in a white paper submitted last month by InnVision Shelter Network, one of the agencies involved in a newly formed coalition charged with strengthening a support network for the city's homeless. The effort took on more urgency on Aug. 19, when the City Council approved a new policy that would shutter Cubberley Community Center at night, effectively closing what officials refer to as the city's "de facto homeless shelter."
The HOT program, which targets the most disruptive homeless individuals (as identified by police), is already in place in San Mateo, Redwood City and East Palo Alto. In Palo Alto, however, it doesn't look like the program will be making its debut any time soon. Mila Zelkha, a strategic relations fellow at InnVision Shelter Network, told the Weekly that the program is "off the table," at least for now. Rather than pushing for the new program, her nonprofit is now working with other groups in the newly formed Homeless Services Task Force to find ways to leverage existing programs to accommodate more homeless participants.
Zelkha said the idea of establishing a "HOT program" came up early in the discussions between the nonprofits and the City of Palo Alto. But as they followed the City Council's discussions on the topic, they came to a realization that it probably wouldn't be "the right tool right now," she said.
One significant reason has to do with funding. The council this week allocated $150,000 to programs to aid the homeless and charged the city to work with nonprofits to refine the proposed programs and return in October with specific proposals. This one-time contribution, however, falls short of what would be needed to sustain a HOT program, which Zelkha said requires more time and effort in order to achieve success. The program also has a limitation in that it focuses primarily on the most "difficult to serve" individuals, which may make it harder for homeless people who are not disruptive to get aid.
"All the other HOTs we had ever put in place have had a minimum of two years of funding. ... It's a great model, but I think given the realities of what kind of funding we have, the terms around the funding we're looking at, at least from the InnVision Shelter Network's point of view, we don't think that a HOT model is appropriate at this time," Zelkha said.
Instead, her nonprofit group and others in the task force are looking for ways to strengthen existing programs and promote more coordination between them. One idea would be to expand Hotel de Zink, which provides shelter to the homeless at religious facilities on a rotating basis. Zelkha said she is reaching out to the participating congregations, both in Palo Alto and in neighboring cities, to see if it would be possible to increase the number of beds from 15 to 20.
Zelkha said another idea on the table is providing more intensive case management to Hotel de Zink participants, whether they're looking for housing assistance, disability programs or job-development skills. While participants already get some assistance from case workers, the task force is considering ways to build on the existing programs and more effectively connect residents with the Opportunity Center, which offers food, housing, computer access and other programs for the homeless.
One possibility is having a van bring Hotel de Zink guests to the Opportunity Center in the morning so that they can participate in the day programming there, she said.
Another organization that could expand its services to soften the impacts of Cubberley's closure is WeHOPE, a nonprofit that runs a homeless shelter in East Palo Alto. The Rev. Paul Bains, its founder and president, told the council's Policy and Services Committee on Aug. 13 the shelter has already been accommodating some of the Cubberley dwellers. In recent weeks, the shelter had installed new showers, a particularly valuable amenity given that the Palo Alto officials plan to cut off the access of Cubberley residents to the center's showers on Aug. 31.
"If you don't mind coming across county lines and supporting us, we have part of your solution, I believe," Bains told the committee on Aug. 13.
The council's vote this week gives the nonprofit groups about a month to create a plan for homeless assistance. This plan would include recommendations for both short- and long-term actions for the city to take.
"There's a lot of great ideas out there that the service providers are bringing to the table," Zelkha told the Weekly. "I'm happy we're brainstorming together about how these components can fit together."