text:
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Translators needed
That day is coming now. We have many of the languages in solid quality already, but we could use additional translation power to cover more languages for countries where we know we have fans eager to play the games as well. And we hope we can involve our fan community again to serve the needs of the community.
We are not going to open the floodgates to anybody though. The experience with Trucks & Trailers was such that there were too many participants eager to "score easy points" and rather than putting to service their braincells to come up with a quality translation, they used Google Translate. The result was too much noise in the system, too many quarrels and quite some frustration.
If you want to help, and if you feel up to the challenge to do a good quality translation, please contact us by e-mail at info (at) scssoft.com. Write us a few lines explaining why you are the right person to get the invitation (yes, we are going to look at your text to get an impression about your command of the English language). Do not post your e-mail here in the comments, get in touch with us directly!
Thank you in advance for your help - this is the only economically viable method to have the game translated into languages which are typically mostly ignored even by big game publishers. In fact was have seen that the quality of the resulting translation can achieve very high standard. Many of you know the proper trucking and logistics terminology, unlike "generic" translators typically used by translation agencies.
96 comments:
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 11:19 AM
Thanks for this opportunity, i send you an email for french translation.ReplyDelete
"yes, i'll help my email is: email@example.com" - so, it's a typical noob commentReplyDelete
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 11:42 AM
Могу с Русским помочь.ReplyDelete
When are you going to post more news about ETS 2, you said in last post this: "We are going to cover ETS2 in more depth soon here on the blog, for today, here is just one quick user interface screen shot." This post was yesterday, i hope today you post some news if you have the time, that woud be great. I personaly, can`t whait untill the game is out, i need pictures from the game or gameplay footage, that woud be better. This defenetly will be the best truck simulator EVER MADE. GL with the translation, i hope there will be romanian language :D.ReplyDeleteReplies
give them a break they are working their ass's off trying to complete 2 games at the same time, they explained in a few blogs that they do not have the time to keep posting video and pictures, let alone write a commentDelete
MADxMAX, SCS has split up the work, one team works on STDS and the other on ETS2.Delete
- AnonymousMay 26, 2012 at 11:24 AM
STDs Ha HaDelete
@ Michael, I know 2 teams are working on 2 games, but once they get STDS completed and released the team working on STDS will help out the other team, but people keep asking every single day for SCS to give updates and post screenshots, video's they just do not have the timeDelete
Could you share the list of languages you need translation for?ReplyDeleteReplies
Just as an example, we could use help with Baltic languages, Turkish, Greek...Delete
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 2:02 PM
i'm from the netherlands so i could translate english to dutch for you. I would be really glad to help you!!Delete
contact me: firstname.lastname@example.com
Can't contact with you I will be happy to help the game with my language,Greek language I have English Lower certificate if you want to contact with me firstname.lastname@example.com...I refresh my words,Greek Language for Scania Truck Driving Simulator and if need for Euro Truck Simulator 2Delete
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 2:45 PM
English Lower Certificate? Must be really low then.Delete
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 4:50 PM
We want to turkish game :) I LOVE YOU SCS... We are very happy :) thanx a lot...good workDelete
come on people learn to read, they said NOT to put your contact details in comments on the blog but to email them directly, but then again if they can not read properly, they might not be good enough for the translationDelete
SCS i would love to help but the only language i speak is english, but i drive a truck for a living aswell as coaches if their is anything else you might need help
- Olav EmilMay 25, 2012 at 11:05 AM
Also, one more Norwegian translator would be nice, I am mostly focusing on nynorsk, and I'm sure bokmål would be appreciated too ;) . I will get them both done eventually, but it is alot of work for one person.Delete
I can help witch serbian languageDelete
Someone for Greek language PLEASEReplyDelete
Hello Friends!ReplyDelete
Here is the list of languages translated 100%, and those that are incomplete.
Look this picture:
SCS Soft is to be congratulated for collaborative work you are doing! This causes the player to work for the game will give more value when it was released!
Greetings from Brazil
Rafael Brusque Toporowicz
São Mateus do Sul - Paraná - Brasil
WOW, the game si translated in romanian, thx guys, if that is true i`m speechless.Delete
I so wanted to help, but I see this list, the Portuguese language Brazil, has already been fully completed. But one hand is good to know that our Brazilian public is increasing, the speed that the language was completed.Delete
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 4:58 PM
Rafael se quiser posso ajudarDelete
traduzi completo o ets1 veja orkut euro truck brasil
carlos silva
se precisar tamo aki
Sorry to look dumb but I didnt see English on the list, some body has to ask right? lolDelete
- Olav EmilMay 25, 2012 at 11:07 AM
Haha. English is the main language in the game ;) .Delete
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 1:28 PM
I'm help you. I spoke Turkish, and English.ReplyDelete
I can help you with croatian, I'm from Croatia. Contact me on email@example.com
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 2:12 PM
im for croatia too contact me firstname.lastname@example.com
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 3:26 PM
Guys, don't post your e-mail here. Just send them an e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 1:36 PM
would really like to translate to dutch (netherlands)ReplyDelete
i'm doing gymnasium so it should be no problem.
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 2:16 PM
SCS, What about serbian?ReplyDelete
Add Vietnamese please :XReplyDelete
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 3:19 PM
SCS please be made mirrors of trucks to be thickened, as in real life.ReplyDelete
If possible, please do so.
Here's a picture see how the mirror is thickened.
thats a mercedes interior, this game only has scania's of wich they already improved the mirrors.Delete
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 5:47 PM
I'm talking about Euro Truck Simulator 2 there to make the thickened rear.Delete
this is about STDS so it would fit better when you posted this at an ETS 2 topicDelete
This comment has been removed by the author.ReplyDelete
Reference is madeReplyDelete
Turkiye Fan
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 4:13 PM
Do you need somekind of help with Slovene (not Slovak) and Italian translations maybe?ReplyDelete
I can help you with the Croatian language if you need.ReplyDelete
Something I have translated as many of m8 here at T & T.
Contact me @ email@example.com
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 4:59 PM
I can help with lithuanian translation my email is firstname.lastname@example.com
If do you need the translatin in romanian I'm here...ReplyDelete
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 5:27 PM
add dutch lanquage! :DReplyDelete
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 5:28 PM
i mean language :PReplyDelete
ets will be at 2 also sit in DutchReplyDelete
You said that you cover ETS 2 yesterday on the blog, nothing happend, still whaiting, can you post some news, please, i want to see how the game looks now when it`s almost finished, gameplay, screen shots, anything, please!ReplyDeleteReplies
wow, be gratefull that they even post stuff here, they are working on a game you know, they dont have all day to post stuff here and look a all reactions, do you even know another game developer who has a blog and keeps giving more info to their fansDelete
I know they are busy, very busy actualy, thx for reminding, but they said that they will cover ETS 2 and i was expecting some news, if not yesterday at least today, i`m not upset about this but it would be nice to see some new things about the game that they are making, and they are doing a really great job. You got me rong there ;), i just can`t whait untill the game comes out :)), i`m very anxious to play the game, at least Scania TDS untill ETS 2 is realeased. GL!Delete
We are all hungry for new info, gameplay videos, and screenshots of the game, but I think its best for them to spend their time doing what they do best, and finish STDS to keep us busy until ETS2 arrives, when they have the time they will show us what they can patience my padawanDelete
:)) padawan lol. For you it`s simple you are a truck driver, but i`m just simple driver i have only B, i hope this year i will get the licence for truck C+E.Delete
- Iordachioaie IonutMay 24, 2012 at 7:19 PM
Thank you for this great opportunity SCS Software , i have just sent my application to the email given in your blog post (my email is email@example.com)ReplyDelete
Once again , thanks for the opportunity and keep it up with your work , you guys rock !
- gabryelMay 24, 2012 at 7:27 PM
firstname.lastname@example.com , i participated in the last project, T&T , i would be more than happy if i could give my english knowledge in helping SCS. .DReplyDelete
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 7:40 PM
If you want i can help you to translate game on bosnian,serbian and croatian languageReplyDelete
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 8:31 PM
can anyone please give me some useful words in croatian i would be realy greatful thanksReplyDelete
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 8:34 PM
Are the translators going to be in the credits of the game, or will they get the game for free or something. (maybe discount)ReplyDelete
keep up good work :)
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 9:29 PM
Free MOD from GAME :)ReplyDelete
SUperb video, they fixed the shifting problem and accelerating, but now the truck is braking too hard, a little tweak round hear would be a great thing.Delete
breaking is good, a truck can stop that fast in europeDelete
Do you know if there will be a demo of this game? The game looks fantastic, i like the sounds, traffic AI, graffics, accelerating and shifting they look very real. If this game looks that good ETS 2 shoud be a lot better.Delete
scs always have a free 1 hour trial for there games, after that you have to pay for it. €12,-Delete
Cool. I see that it take some time to make 1km, that`s good. The traffic don`t make instant break, finaly.Delete
The game looks great, shame the person playing it had to crash into a car on the outside lane twice thoughDelete
he was one of the dutch Beta testers, im on the same forum as himDelete
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 9:35 PM
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 10:07 PM
I am now very busy with school, but when I did all, I will give you a hand.ReplyDelete
I am Massimiliano. I from Italy.
I would help you willingly with the Italian.
My e-mail: email@example.com
I can help translating English to Portuguese PT-PTReplyDelete
I have a European A1 Studies in English.
email: firstname.lastname@example.com
I am more than happy with Hungarian tranlation for the whole of the game, i am working as a software developer so it shall not cause much problems, my email is:ReplyDelete
Can't you people read??ReplyDelete
'Do not post your e-mail here in the comments, get in touch with us directly!'
And you people who are posting emails want to help with the translating... PFF if you can't even understand the text SCS writes, good luck.Replies
- AnonymousMay 24, 2012 at 11:05 PM
^^^^ hit the nail on the head... ffs.. you idiots are posting your email on a live blog...Delete
read what scs said .... then read it again as you need to lmao......
Nice point, if they can`t understand that you must send them an email not post on the blog, 'they can translate the hole game'.Delete
This comment has been removed by the author.Delete
ive said the same thing more than once on this blog, the one that made me laugh said that he helped translate T&T and yet even that person but his email into the blog, ill email them to see if their is anything else i can offer, being a truck driver i might be able to give advice on the way it happens for me any way, I work for a UK haulage comany for 15 yearsDelete
- AnonymousMay 25, 2012 at 12:18 AM
- AnonymousMay 25, 2012 at 8:01 AM
can anyone please give me some useful words in croatian i would be realy greatfulReplyDelete
- AnonymousMay 25, 2012 at 9:37 AM
Please don't request Croatian translations, the game is 100% translated to Croatian.ReplyDelete
¿estará traducido en español ?ReplyDelete
You has been reported in the translation for string "Profile is currently running in offline mode." in Croatian (Croatia)ReplyDelete
SCS please explain?Replies
- AnonymousMay 26, 2012 at 3:45 PM
Ja sam te prijavio zato što si krivo prevodio...Delete
1. 'RPMx100' ne može biti 'Obrtaji u minuti x100' zbog 2 razloga:
1. to se nalazi na zaslonu kamiona pa je preveliko
2. na hrvatskom se ne kaže 'Obrtaji', već 'Okretaji'
2. 'Esc' se misli na tipku 'Esc'/'Escape' na tipkovnici, a ne na tipku za izlaz
3. 'Continue in offline mode' - Offline mode je suprotno od Online modea - online (na mreži;mreži), offline (izvanmrežni;lokalni), a ne 'Ugašeni'
4. 'Profile is currently running in offline mode' - isto kao i gore, potpuno krivi prijevod riječi 'offline'
5. 'Replay download' - i ovo si potpuno promašio: replay je snimka igre, download - nije 'skidanje', već 'preuzimanje'... 'Replay download' je naredba za preuzimanje snimke, a ne za 'Ponovno ponavljanje skidanja datoteka'
6. ono s prikolicom - kako si ti napisao -> 'doživjeti' je samo vidjeti kako se prikolica ponaša, a spoznati je vidjeti i razumjeti kako se prikolica ponaša, što je točan prijevod...
7. Map zoom - ljudi razumiju što je karta, ne moraš pisati '(mapa)' što je usput i gramatički netočno
Valjda se ne ljutiš što sam te reportao, ali želim da igra bude točno prevedena - pravilno, gramatički točno i u kontekstu.
Here i explained Dino why I reported him - for bad translation skills.
Is there need for a Danish translation?ReplyDelete
- AnonymousMay 25, 2012 at 2:15 PM
Mohli by ste to prelozit aj do SlovenčinyReplyDelete
- AnonymousMay 25, 2012 at 6:54 PM
Serbin translation ?ReplyDelete
- AnonymousMay 25, 2012 at 7:14 PM
This email and scssoft.com @ hotmail.com?ReplyDelete
Do you SCS guys need translation of Finnish language? I would like to try to translate into Finnish bcs i like in finlandReplyDelete
- AnonymousMay 25, 2012 at 11:17 PM
SCS Software - the most community-friendly studio in the World :)ReplyDelete
I have just send you an e-mail offer for translating into Serbian (cyrillic) and Montenegrin (latin/latinic) languages. And more, if needed.ReplyDelete
I sincerely hope that we will cooperate.
- AnonymousMay 26, 2012 at 1:45 PM
Lithuanian translation done, some validation needed ;)ReplyDelete
Well, translation to Serbian is mostly done in latin alphabet until now, but using it is somewhat wrong.ReplyDelete
I'll try to start over and make an cyrillic version, but I can't promise to do it in just a few days. :)
When is a "dead limit" for all this translations?
- AnonymousMay 27, 2012 at 4:16 PM
Are you paying money for translation؟ReplyDelete
- AnonymousMay 29, 2012 at 6:57 PM
I can translate to Spanish, I'm from Spain. :)ReplyDelete
my email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Spam, offensive, hateful and other inappropriate comments will be removed and authors may be permanently restricted from commenting.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.


text:
Sunday, February 6
Sunday Dose of Cute: Coming at You—The Daily Donkey!
12 comments:
That is a great idea. LOL! Love those ears, they sure do tell all!ReplyDelete
- Anonymous2/06/2011 3:20 PM
Oh, sure, distract us with donkeys when what we are really longing for is LAMBIES.ReplyDelete
I love that shot! So peaceful...ReplyDelete
I love the idea. I love this photo with the long-eared dog on the right. Seems likes he is making tracks in a rapid fashion - maybe he thinks that the donkeys will eat him.ReplyDelete
If it weren't for all the hee-hawing they do donkeys would be more appreciated by me. Nice pictures though.ReplyDelete
- jackie C.2/07/2011 7:07 AM
I have been looking forward to "Daily Donkey" and also to seeing Gnat and Gus pulling small carts some time in the future! "ain't going to happen??"ReplyDelete
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the Daily Donkey!!! This is my new favorite part of your blog (just kidding - I LOVE ALL of your blog!!)ReplyDelete
Of course, you could have...Daily Doggie, Daily Lamb, Daily Kitty, Daily Hunky Farm Guy...you get my drift. Thank you so much for Daily Donkey - they really are delightful! I'd even like to hear them HeeHaw-ing!!
- Anonymous2/07/2011 7:26 AM
Daily Donkey is a hit with me already. Your roasted bussel sprouts got me hooked a year ago and when I first made them I had left the recipe at work. Instead of lemon and parmesan I used just garlic powder. Absolutley wonderful. They do not last long, as snack on them all day. If I ever had enough to have at least 3 batches of each kind I would do the lemon and parm. I could do it with the garlic, or skip the lemon and do the garlic powder and parm. One thing I have noticed, the cut brussels sprouts almost act like eggplant and soak up the olive oil. Oh, it tastes wonderful, just it is not exactly low calorie. Brussels sprouts are not easy to find lately so I bought 2 bags of frozen sprouts and am going to defrost them and try roasting them. Since they are blanched the roasting should take less time. Has anyone tried it with frozen sprouts? I know, I know , the purists are having hissy fits but if one can't buy them fresh what's a girl to do?? any ieas for a hooked on brussels sprouts roasted person? Jackie in MDReplyDelete
Aw, we are getting all wrapped up in newly found donkey love:)ReplyDelete
Mocha Barney, Ashley Pumpernickel and Winniechurchill
TDD sounds like a good place to get a donkey fix!ReplyDelete
- Anonymous2/07/2011 11:29 AM
That is one happy dog!!!ReplyDelete
December 2015 update: Hi! For some reason I can't figure out, Blogger hasn't been letting me leave comments on my own blog (!) for the last several months, so I've been unable to respond to your comments and questions. My apologies for any inconvenience! You're always welcome to email me: farmgirlfare AT gmail DOT com.
Hi! Thanks for visiting Farmgirl Fare and taking the time to write. While I'm not always able to reply to every comment, I receive and enjoy reading them all.
Your feedback is greatly appreciated, and I especially love hearing about your experiences with my recipes. Comments on older posts are always welcome!
Please note that I moderate comments, so if I'm away from the computer it may be a while before yours appears.
I try my best to answer all questions, though sometimes it takes me a few days. And sometimes, I'm sorry to say, they fall through the cracks, and for that I sincerely apologize.
I look forward to hearing from you and hope you enjoy your e-visits to our farm!

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The story surrounding Kaitlyn Hunt – an 18-year-old American who finds herself facing prosecution over her ongoing relationship with her three-years-junior girlfriend – leaves much to get upset about. After all, what's not controversial about the prospect of the teenager facing jail time for "lewd and lascivious bahevior" simply for having a girlfriend? Beyond that, however, authorities conducted controlled conversations between the two to use as evidence – an invasion of privacy that should upset even the most staunch homophobes.
No surprise, then, that Anonymous has become involved with the story. The non-group has previously sought those whose blackmail led a teen to suicide and unmasked teen bullies online, so the idea of them becoming involved in a situation where, again, a teen is being shamed for entirely normal behavior fits into their increasingly high profile as social crusaders. The difference in this case, however, is that this isn't Anonymous versus bullies – it's Anonymous versus the law.
"Greetings, Bigots," starts the message released from Anonymous. "We are Operation Justice. The last operation our team conducted led to the case of Rehtaeh Parson's being re-opened and to an independent investigation into the actions of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. You may have read about us."
Characterizing Kaitlyn as "a bright young girl who was involved in a consensual, same-sex relationship while both she and her partner were minors," the Anonymous message poses a blunt question to the Indian River County State Attorney's Office in relation to the case: "Who in your office didn't have the balls or the intelligence to put an end to this ridiculousness?"
The group continued by citing their displeasure with the country's intolerance. "There are quite a few organizations in this country that would prefer that our elected officials not hire bigots that hunt down and file erroneous charges against young women because of their sexual orientation," they write. "The fact is, the puritanism you practice doesn't have a place in this world any longer."
Instead of a more direct (or, perhaps, destructive) threat, the Anonymous message simply suggests that a reconsideration of events may be in order, otherwise a petition calling for resignations may be forthcoming. For the bad reputation that Anonymous has gathered around itself over the years, seeing this kind of formal protest against injustice seems rather inspiring. We'll still hold onto our hats for a possible attack if things don't change though. It's only natural.


text:
JAMIE STENGLE,Associated Press
DALLAS (AP) — Nearly a dozen people reported being injured in the last five years while riding the Texas roller coaster from which a woman fell to her death last week, though the most serious injuries appear to be a concussion and muscles strains due to jostling, state records show.
Six Flags Over Texas reported 14 injuries involving the Texas Giant roller coaster between April 2008 and April 2013, according to Texas Department of Insurance records. Three of those injuries happened either before or after the ride, such as tripping on the steps leading to the roller coaster.
It wasn't immediately clear how many of those injuries prompted the ride to be shut down, department spokesman Jerry Hagins said. If an injury requires medical attention and involved the actual ride, the ride must be closed until it gets a new safety inspection, he said.
"Our role is to make sure that happens," Hagins said, adding that the Texas Giant was currently closed and wouldn't reopen until the department sees a new safety inspection report.
Amusement park safety analyst Ken Martin noted that such injuries are self-reported, so it's hard to gauge their accuracy. He also said such numbers don't include "near-misses."
"The numbers that we hear about are typically the tip of the iceberg," he said.
Walter Reiss, an amusement park ride safety inspector, added that fatal accidents on roller coasters "are very unusual and infrequent."
"Most times that you have death accidents, it was something either ignorant or human error," he said.
The investigation is ongoing into how Rosa Ayala-Goana fell while riding the roller coaster Friday evening at the Six Flags amusement park in Arlington, a western suburb of Dallas. A witness told local media that Ayala-Goana expressed concern moments before the 14-story ride began that the safety bar had not completely engaged.
The Tarrant County medical examiner's office confirmed Monday that the 52-year-old Dallas resident was the victim in the accident, and that she suffered "multiple traumatic injuries" during the fall.
A man who identified himself as Ayala-Goana's son declined comment Monday when approached at her home.
Six Flags Entertainment Corp. President and CEO Jim Reid-Anderson said Monday that company was using "both internal and external experts" to investigate the accident, but he offered no details during a conference call to discuss the company's earnings.
In an email to The Associated Press later Monday, Six Flags spokeswoman Sharon Parker said the company "will not release any details pertaining to the investigation until it is complete."
Meanwhile, Six Flags has temporarily closed the Iron Rattler roller coaster at its Six Flags Fiesta Texas in San Antonio. The decision came late Friday after officials heard about the accident in Arlington, Fiesta Texas spokeswoman Sydne Purvis said Monday.
Purvis said it's a precautionary move until the Texas Giant investigation is completed. Both roller coasters are wooden structures with steel rails.
The Texas Giant first opened in 1990 as an all-wooden coaster but underwent a $10 million renovation in 2010 to install steel-hybrid rails before reopening in 2011. The coaster, which can carry as many as 24 riders, has a drop of 79 degrees and a bank of 95 degrees.
Reiss, the amusement park expert, speculated that either Ayala-Goana managed to slip out from behind a locked mechanism or that the harness mechanism failed and it opened.
"Right now, I would say investigators are probably tearing apart every inch of that train and every harness mechanism, and inspecting and testing every millimeter of those harness mechanisms to find out whether the potential even exists for her harness to have failed or for any other harness to have failed," Reiss said.
"At the end of the day, it comes down to whether or not the person fits," he added. "If the harness locks normally, without forcing it, it's OK. And the final say is up to the ride operator to tell you, 'I'm sorry, you can't ride.'"
The roller coaster was issued its most recent safety permit in February and was in compliance with state regulations that require an annual inspection by a qualified engineer, according to state records. Proof of those inspections also must be submitted to the Texas Department of Insurance.
Hagins noted that Texas has an insurance-based regulatory system for amusement park rides and that the ride also was in compliance with rules that require $1 million liability insurance.
The Dallas Morning News has reported that officials with the roller coaster's car manufacturer, Gerstlauer Amusement Rides in Germany, were set to come to Texas to inspect the ride. The company could not be reached late Monday by phone and an email was not immediately returned.
Don Hankins, of Lakeland, Fla.-based PLH & Associates, Inc., who inspected the roller coaster in February, did not return a call to The Associated Press on Monday.
Associated Press reporters Betsy Blaney in Lubbock, Uriel J. Garcia and Nomaan Merchant in Dallas and David R. Martin in New York contributed to this report.


text:
How to Cite Encyclopedia Articles
We are sometimes asked how the encyclopedia articles can be cited. This depends on whether you want to cite the print version or the online version:
Print Version
An example for a proper citation:
R. Paschotta, article on optical heterodyne detection in the Encyclopedia of Laser Physics and Technology, 1. edition October 2008, Wiley-VCH, ISBN 978-3-527-40828-3
Of course, the style of the citation may somewhat differ depending on rules of the publisher, for example.
Note that many articles of the online version are not yet contained in the print version, and the online version contains updated articles.
Online Version
When you cite an online encyclopedia article in an electronic document (e.g., on a website), the citation may e.g. look like this:
R. Paschotta, article on 'optical heterodyne detection' in the RP Photonics Encyclopedia, accessed on 2023-10-02
(Note that in 03/2019 the online version has been renamed to "RP Photonics Encyclopedia".)
The corresponding html code (ready for copy/paste):
R. Paschotta, article on 'optical heterodyne detection' in the RP Photonics Encyclopedia, accessed on 2023-10-02
Code for generating an external link in Wikipedia:
== External links ==
* [https://www.rp-photonics.com/optical_heterodyne_detection.html article on optical heterodyne detection in the RP Photonics Encyclopedia]
When you cite an online encyclopedia article in a book, the citation may e.g. look like this:
R. Paschotta, article on 'optical heterodyne detection' in the RP Photonics Encyclopedia, <https://www.rp-photonics.com/optical_heterodyne_detection.html>, accessed on 2023-10-02
Better Cite the Online Version or the Print Version?
Citing the online version has several advantages:
- A citation on a website or in another type of electronic document can contain a link, which allows the reader to check the cited article immediately.
- The latest version of the article is available; it may have revisions which improve it over the version in the printed encyclopedia.
- You do not need to have access to the print version, but only to the Internet.
On the other hand, a limitation is that an online article may be changed later on with your knowledge, or potentially even be removed. These concerns are not very serious, however:
- The RP Photonics Encyclopedia is expected to stay online for many years to come.
- We nearly never remove an article; at most, we would modify the article keyword, and in that case install an automatic redirection to the new article.
- The date of last revision is not published, and would indeed not be very meaningful, as some revisions are strong, whereas others may be very small (e.g., changing only a single word). Instead of the date of last revision, you can simply state the date when you accessed the article.


text:
ST. LOUIS (AP) — A Missouri commissioner on Friday ruled that the state's only abortion clinic can continue providing the service at least until August as a fight over its license plays out, adding that there's a "likelihood" that the clinic will succeed in the dispute.
Administrative Hearing Commissioner Sreenivasa Rao Dandamudi granted what's called a "stay," which will allow the St. Louis Planned Parenthood clinic to continue providing abortions past Friday.
The state health department last week refused to renew the clinic's license, but a St. Louis judge issued a court order allowing the procedure to continue through Friday.
St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Michael Stelzer wrote in his ruling that the order would give Planned Parenthood time to take their case to the Administrative Hearing Commission, where Stelzer said the licensing fight must begin.
The Administrative Hearing Commission scheduled a hearing on whether the state was right to not renew the license Aug. 1 in St. Louis.
The state has said concerns about the clinic arose from inspections in March. Among the problems health department investigators have cited were three "failed abortions" requiring additional surgeries and another that led to life-threatening complications for the mother, The Associated Press previously reported, citing a now-sealed court filing.
The Department of Health and Senior Services wants to interview physicians involved in those abortions, including medical residents who no longer work there. Planned Parenthood has said it can't force them to talk.
The interviews are a major sticking point in the fight over the clinic's license, and attorneys for the health department wrote in legal filings to the commission that physicians' refusal to talk "presents the final, critical obstacle."
But Dandamudi wrote that the physicians' stonewalling "in itself does not constitute a failure to comply with licensure requirements."
"Because DHSS relies substantially on the lack of these interviews as grounds for denial, we find there is a likelihood that Petitioner will succeed in its claim," Dandamudi wrote in his order granting a stay, referring to the clinic and its effort to stay open.
A spokesman for the Missouri Attorney General's Office, which is representing the state in the dispute, in a Friday email said attorneys are reviewing the order to determine next steps.
Planned Parenthood has said Missouri is using the licensing process as a weapon aimed at halting abortions.
The organization and its supporters celebrated Friday in St. Louis, where activists hung banners from a bridge. One banner's message was directed at Republican Gov. Mike Parson. It read: "Shame on Gov. Parson."
Another declared: "Abortion Is Healthcare."
"We are relieved to have this last-minute reprieve, which means patients can continue accessing safe, legal abortion at Planned Parenthood in St. Louis for the time being," said Dr. Colleen McNicholas, an OB-GYN at Reproductive Health Services at Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, in a statement. "This has been a week-to-week fight for our patients and every Missourian who needs access to abortion care."
The fate of the clinic has drawn national attention because Missouri would become the first state since 1974, the year after the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, without a functioning abortion clinic if it loses its license. The battle also comes as abortion rights supporters raise concerns that conservative-led states, including Missouri, are attempting to end abortion through tough new laws and tighter regulation.
Parson signed legislation on May 24 to ban abortions at or beyond eight weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for medical emergencies but not for rape or incest.
The number of abortions performed in Missouri has declined every year over the past decade, but uncertainty in Missouri is sending women to neighboring states, particularly Illinois and Kansas.
Missouri health department statistics show that abortions in Missouri reached a low of 2,910 last year. Of those, an estimated 1,210 occurred at eight weeks or less of pregnancy.
The Hope Clinic in Granite City, Illinois, 10 miles (16 kilometers) from St. Louis, has seen a big increase in Missouri clients since 2017, said Alison Dreith, the clinic's deputy director. That year, Missouri adopted a more restrictive abortion law, including giving the attorney general power to prosecute violations.
Dreith said about 55 percent of patients at Hope Clinic are from Missouri, 40 percent from Illinois and 5 percent from elsewhere around the country. The clinic attracts clients from across the U.S. in part because Illinois allows the procedure for up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, longer than most states, she said.
The Granite City clinic saw about 3,000 total patients in 2017. Missouri's more restrictive law played a big role in the number spiking to 3,800 in 2018, Dreith said.
This year, she expects well over 4,000 patients. So far in 2019, the number of Missourians at the Hope Clinic has spiked 30 percent due to concerns about the St. Louis clinic's license and other anti-abortion efforts, Dreith said.
"Our patients are calling us with a lot of anxiety because they're seeing the headlines that abortion is banned," Dreith said.
Information from the state of Kansas shows that about 3,300 of the 7,000 abortions performed there last year involved Missouri residents, meaning that more Missourians get abortions in Kansas than in their home state. Kansas has an abortion clinic in Overland Park, a Kansas City suburb just 2 miles (3 kilometers) from the state line.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Suza Lambert Bowser: Writer, Actor, Director, Filmmaker, Teacher, Mother, Felon, Prisoner
Kevin L. Hoover
Eye Editor
ILLINOIS – A 61-year-old Arcata resident traveled to New Hampshire last week to visit her 85-year-old mother, possibly for the last time. The next day, she surrendered to authorities in Ottowa, Illinois to begin serving a six-year prison sentence.
Suza Lamber Bowser, most recently known as the creative mastermind behind the independent film Flea, had been arrested for transporting about 100 pounds of cannabis through LaSalle County on Feb. 16, 2012. She was charged with possession of marijuana with intent to deliver and marijuana trafficking, both of which carry a mandatory sentence under Illinois law.
In a negotiated plea deal, Bowser, 61 admitted to carrying 12 pounds of marijuana valued at $33,000, and was sentenced to six years in prison. With good behavior, she could serve half that time, followed by three years supervision.
Bowser was ordered to pay $36,100 in fines and costs, less the $15,000 cash bond she had put up for her bail. The rest is to be paid within one year of her release from prison. She forfeited the motor home she was driving when arrested as well as $25,840 cash she had been carrying.
Bowser told mywebtimes.com reporter Dan Churney that the arrest had ruined her finances, causing her and her husband to get a divorce in order to separate him from her financial consequences. She said it was the first time she had trafficked in cannabis.
She'll first be incarcerated in Dwight Correctional Center, a maximum-security facility for women. She hopes to be transferred to the minimu-security Decatur Correctional Center.
Last Thursday night, on the eve of her prison spell, Bowser was spritually girding herself for hard time. "Everything's crazy, but I'm in a good place," she said. "It's surreal to me."
Her practical concerns ranged from the profound to the creative to the trivial.
Bowser's biggest source of anguish was her inability to console her three children. "That's my number one painful feeling," she said. "I have hurt my children."
She said she foresaw creative opportunities in the looming ordeal, and was forming up ideas for expressing her prison experiences. "I feel like I'm on the brnk of this Michael Moore adventure," she said. "I don't want to give away the title of my book."
Bowser's arrest follows an emerging trend previously noted by Arcata Police, where locals are intercepted east of California, often in the Midwest, transporting large amounts of cannabis, cash or both. Sometimes, though not in Bowser's case, the out-of-state arrest leads back to a grow house back in and around Arcata.
Bowser characterized the LaSalle County State's Attorney's Felony Enforcement (SAFE) unit as a predatory entity which targets passers-through. SAFE, she said, wrangles funds for LaSalle County via asset forfeiture as part of a profitable, big-business enterprise.
Her legal misadventure started with the right-hand tire of her RV gong over the fog line, giving SAFE an excuse to pull her over. "The next thing I know, I'm sitting in their vehicle," She lamented.
"The whole system here is absolutely corrupt," she said. "Everybody already knows the deal."
She said that when she related her plight to LaSalle-area cab driver, he told her, "Honey, you would have been better off going in a bank, shooting the teller and robbing it."
Bowser said she could have contested the charges, but that would have been an expensive, high-risk gamble. "If I was 25, I might have fought it," she said. "But I don't have another 30 grand to put into it. I've already dropped $30,000 into Illinois."
She said everyone she discussed the case with told her, "If you fight it, you'll lose." Losing, she said, entailed a 12-year mandatory sentence.
Bowser dismissed any suggestion of being a poster child for Illinois' prison-industrial complex. "I'm not Aung San Suu Kyi or Nelson Mandela," she said. "What I am is just me."
She said she wanted to enter prison alone, and without wrenching goodbyes from family members. "I can be a better soldier, and more dignified," she said.
She does enter the Big House with a gale-force wind of well-wishes at her back. She started a blog, suzalambertbowserprison.com, which will be maintained by her sister. The nascent blog is already loaded with expressions of support and encouragement from friends.
"I'm overwhelmed at the emotion and love," she said. "That's what's killing me now."
One supporter, she said, told her that her jailers would find themselves outmatched by the irrepressible Northern Californian creative dynamo. "I'm not sure Illinois knows what it's gotten itself into with you," the friend said.
Her near-term issue was the appalling prison couture she would soon spend three-plus years wearing. "I hate orange. I never wear orange," Bowser said. "And it's stripes!"


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It was a storm that would terrify the bravest of mariners, but a California robot swam through it without blinking.
The Wave Glider robot has weathered a direct onslaught by Typhoon Rammasun, battling 9-meter waves and gusts up to 216 kilometers per hour while gathering data on sea surface conditions, maker Liquid Robotics said Tuesday.
The surface robot, which slowly bobs through ocean waves at about walking speed, was remotely piloted through the storm on the South China Sea. The robot has a propulsion system that uses the motion of waves to move it forward.
Rammasun, the strongest typhoon to batter the region in decades, has left over 150 people dead in the Philippines, Vietnam and China, as well as hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars in damage. Typhoons, hurricanes and cyclones refer to the same kind of ocean storm depending on its location in the Pacific, Atlantic or Indian oceans.
"To our knowledge, this is the most powerful storm that a Wave Glider or any other sea robotic system has weathered successfully at the sea surface," Graham Hine, senior vice president at Sunnyvale-based Liquid Robotics, said in an interview.
"Interestingly, the telemetry shows no degradation of the system, so all of the sensing systems and vehicle performance seem to be nominal."
The robot in question will be recovered in about a week and was deployed for a corporate customer of Liquid Robotics, which has over 250 Wave Gliders deployed around the world.
Wave Gliders have sensors to measure oceanographic conditions such as the speed and direction of winds and currents, temperature, wave action and barometric pressure. They also have satellite, cellular and even Wi-Fi communications capabilities for data transmission.
The machines can swim the seas and collect data for months on end. Some have been recovered with embedded shark teeth, jellyfish tentacles and other evidence of encounters with marine life.
In 2012, an autonomously navigating Wave Glider launched in San Francisco reached Australia after a record-setting 16,600-km trek across the Pacific Ocean, demonstrating the technology could survive the high seas.
Liquid Robotics believes that the information gathered by the other robot's passage through Rammasun will complement predictions of how and when typhoons and hurricanes make landfall.
"The hope is that by getting more measurements at the sea surface and really understanding how the energy is transferred from the sea water to the air and vice versa is pretty critical to being able to predict the intensity of the hurricane when it hits shore," Hine said.


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There were rumors last year about ASUS releasing a strange, form-changing phone-cum-tablet. Those rumors are now reality; say hello to the Padfone, the latest in a rash of schizophrenic mobile handsets.
So, uh, it's basically a smartphone that docks inside, and powers, a tablet. Let's take things in turn.
First off, the phone itself has a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED qHD display, Snapdragon's new dual-core S4 chip, an Adreno 225 GPU, Ice Cream Sandwich and an 8-megapixel rear camera with an LED flash and f/2.2, autofocusing lens. It doesn't work with LTE, sadly, but elsewhere it has 16-64GB of storage and HDMI out. So far, so good.
Then, the odd bit. This thing slips neatly into an optional screen unit that effectively allows you to use it as if it were a 10.1-inch tablet. With that obviously comes a jump in battery life, and the option of using an—again optional—full-size keyboard. Oh, or a stylus. Which doubles as a headset. I know, I know: too much. Either this is the future, or ASUS has gone a step too far.
It's scheduled to ship in April, and will probably make some indecisive people very, very happy. [Engadget]


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But if you are tired of the usual spread and you are looking for something new to add to your Super Bowl Sunday repertoire, honey you're in the right place. I am so excited to share with you something new and refreshing, my Asian inspired : Crispy Chicken Bites with Wasabi Mayo ta-dah!
Monday, January 30, 2012
Super Bowl Grub: Crispy Chicken Bites with Wasabi Mayo
But if you are tired of the usual spread and you are looking for something new to add to your Super Bowl Sunday repertoire, honey you're in the right place. I am so excited to share with you something new and refreshing, my Asian inspired : Crispy Chicken Bites with Wasabi Mayo ta-dah!
15 comments:
Ooohh...these look good! I want to come to your Super Bowl party! Love the flavors...wasabi is always a hit in this house.ReplyDelete
Wow! Now if I had ever attended a football party with glamorous goodies such as these, I may attend one at my own will :) Delightful recipe and fantastic plating and photos!ReplyDelete
Beautifully done my friend, hugs
I'm sorry it's taken so long to visit your site since following you on Twitter! I'm happily following you on Google Connect too now! I love canapés and these tick all the right boxes - elegant and scrumptious! Love them! Am pinning your pic!ReplyDelete
Game or no game, I want to eat that. I like all of the components of that dish! Love the plating, too.ReplyDelete
Love the Asian take - and the Wasabi mayo? 2 thumbs up. And I don't even watch football.ReplyDelete
Thanks Karen. I loooove wasabi too.ReplyDelete
Alisha: I'm thrilled to hear that from you re:pic because I'm trying really hard to take better photos. thank you for the kind words.
LinsFood: It's ok not a problem at all. What matters most is that you stopped over today. Thank you!
Adora: I love your comment. But you do watch it over there in the UK too right?
Claudia: yeah me myself is not an NFL fan either. I just have to feed the boys haha. thanks again,
this looks like a sosyal pulutan. keep them coming.ReplyDelete
I don't even LIKE mayo...but wasabi mayo is a whole other delicious beast. These sound delicious!ReplyDelete
What a perfect game-day snack. These sound delicious and I know they would be popular in my house. I hope you have a great day. Blessings...MaryReplyDelete
Very artistic presentation, simple yet delicious, my kind of dish.ReplyDelete
Wasabi and mayo YES!!! A match made in heaven so to speak!! Lunok. Looks divine too. Kudos, Ading Malou!!!ReplyDelete
arturo: it's quite simple yet elegant looking isn't it. i hope you could try it.ReplyDelete
Joanne: my daughter also doesn't like mayo as well but could take wasabi mayo.
Mary: thank you i'm glad to know that.
Norma: Hello, I'm glad to meet you and thank you for stopping by.
Manang Lanie: you really crack me up. great to see you stop by.
We don't get the superbowl but don't need it to devour these - love the wasabi mayo. I hope they notice the beautiful presentation before digging in!ReplyDelete
How pretty! I'm the only Japanese you find who doesn't like wasabi. I know, it's lame. But my Taiwanese husband doesn't like it either. Most Chinese friends put like triple wasabi in soy sauce compared to typical Japanese. lol. We're weirdest couple. Anyway... wasabi mayo is very common and popular flavor even in Japan too. I bet this will be a big hit! Looks lovely!ReplyDelete
Definitely going to have to make these, they look awesome. Do you think it would be ok if I did a sriacha mayo instead of wasabi mayo? I'm not a huge fan of wasabiReplyDelete
Thank you for stopping by and oh I would be thrilled even more if you could leave a comment... :) Cheers!


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The Ultimate Team mode has taken off for the FIFA franchise more than its counterparts in other EA Sports' series, and FIFA has appropriately led the way when it comes to advances for the mode.
Developer EA Canada is adding a new dimension to teams' chemistry ratings in the mode apart from factors such as players' favored position, formation, nationality, teammates, etc. Different Chemistry Styles can be used at each position, and these in turn will boost players' individual attributes.
As you can see, specific styles can be chosen (such as "Sniper" for Messi to the left) and you'll see the resulting attribute bump and chemistry rating with other players. It's unknown at this time how many styles are available, how exactly you change these styles (will it require an item card to do so?), and if there will be separate player cards for each style variation.
EA has said that the next-gen versions of the game out this year will include Ultimate Team mode, but for some reason today's announcement only mentioned the current-gen releases.
For more on how you can get a leg up in the mode, check out the game's pre-order bonuses, which include some free gold packs.
Flip over your squad's cards and you can see how the new chemistry system affects individual player attributes. Click either shot below to enlarge.


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Castlewood has been caught in a struggle with its unionized dining room and kitchen employees for more than two years after deciding to lock out the union members when negotiations for a new contract stalled. The club then hired replacement workers.
This week an administrative law judge found in favor of the union and declared that the country club quit negotiating in good faith when it changed its offer to the union. The lockout took place after the workers' union did not accept the final offer.
The judge found that the club was liable for full back wages for the locked-out workers who have been picketing, along with surrogates from the mother union, since the lockout occurred. It's really a different scene on the first tee with union folks screaming and the club trying to drown them out with music played over the loudspeakers. Think kickoff at a football game.
The potential tab-- $3 millionouch.
Great news for the union negotiators who now seem to have lots of leverage tough challenge for the board and their attorneys (somebody seemed to have miscalculated big time to leave the club and its members facing this kind of liability).
Disclosure: I have never been a member, but have played the course and dined at the club in a variety of events over many years. I live nearby so I've seen the workers and the members consistently for the past two-plus years.
Reading a recent digital bulletin from the Bay Citizen, I was struck by the report about Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan seeking another $175,000 for the outside investigation into complaints of police misconduct during the Occupy Oakland protests. The city already has agreed to pay an outside law firm $100,000.
Certainly allegations of police misconduct deserve to be investigated, but who is conducting the investigation into how Mayor Jean Quan's welcoming attitude toward the protests sparked them. A different attitude from the mayor may well have resulted in a different result for the city that suffered $100,000s of damage thanks to the rioting protesters.
KPIX TV's management decision to reassign (demote) the popular Roberta Gonzalez was reminiscent of KTVU's decision to remove Mark Curtis from the Morning News anchor spot in favor of the current anchor Dave Clark. Despite Clark being a bad fit for the Bay Area and the No. 1 rankings the Morning News enjoyed with the team of Mark Curtis and Pam Cook, Mark was sent packing.
Like Roberta, he was very active in the community, participating widely in community eventswell beyond the call of duty for TV personalities.
In Roberta's case, she had been promoted from the early morning broadcast to the prime TV newscasts. She has been reassigned to weekend weather with additional field reporting during the weekin other words, the third weather slot for the station from the No. 1. The good news is, for the time being, she still is employed and that's a good thing for a quality person who lives here in town.
Presumably KPIX management had a reason to bring in the former Seattle-based Paul Deanno at the end of the month. Time and


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Flower pot with saucer made of porcelain painting green floral motif Ø 28cm
Product Details
This porcelain flowerpot with a diameter of 28 centimeters has a special beautiful green with colorful floral motif.
The flower pot is supplied with a decorative porcelain saucer and is part of a series of porcelain flower pots / planters with identical design with flower pattern.
The series comprises a total of 7 different sizes with diameters of 17 to 49cm.
Everything for your plants
Our assortment includes decorative Chinese flower pots and planters, porcelain and earthenware vases in various sizes, colors and shapes.


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Britain's first 100mph car celebrates centenary
The Vauxhall 30-98, one of the greatest sports cars of the twentieth century and the first to top 100mph in production form, is marking its centenary in style this May, when almost 50 surviving examples attempt the Waddington Fell hillclimb, site of the car's first appearance and competition success in 1913.
Described as 'The car of grace that sets the pace', the 30-98 was derived from Vauxhall's C10 'Prince Henry' – acknowledged as the UK's first real sports car – and was produced at a time when Vauxhall vied with Bentley in the prestige car market.
But armed with a kerb weight 400kgs less than a Bentley 3.0-Litre, a powerful engine and high axle ratio, the 30-98 became renowned as a high-performance car that could swallow long distances with ease. This made it particularly popular with drivers in the colonies, and explains why so many cars still survive in Australia today.
A precursor to the recently launched Cascada convertible, the 30-98 was actually developed in just 71 days, but went on to spawn a production run of 600 cars over a 14 year period (with a break for WW1). Remarkably, around a third of these cars still survive today.
At a time when car manufacturers promoted the performance, durability and handling of their products through competition, Vauxhall had already been successful in hillclimbs, grands prix and endurance trials since the company was formed in 1903 (now celebrating its 110th anniversary, it's the UK's oldest surviving car brand).
And the 30-98 represented the zenith of those achievements. On its first outing at the Waddington Fell hill climb in Lancashire, it set fastest time of the day, proving to the car's designer, Laurence Pomeroy, and Vauxhall's directors, Percy Kidner and Leslie Walton, that the car had a future, and production started in earnest.
Originally fitted with a 4,525cc side-valve four cylinder engine, producing 90bhp, the model was made in two basic types: E-type and OE-type, with the latter denoting the more powerful overhead valve cars producing 112bhp, and built between 1923 and 1927.
And it was the OE-type that became the first production car to exceed 100mph, partly prompted by a letter to The Autocar's editor from a Major L.Ropner, complaining that he was unable to buy a road car that could cover a flying mile at more than 100mph!
Vauxhall responded by producing a stunning two-seater 30-98 for him in polished aluminium, with a full set of road equipment. On March 28, 1923 factory test driver Matt Park took the car to Brooklands and achieved a flying lap at 100.7mph, before delivering the car to Ropner, who used it extensively for competition, continental touring and commuting to London from his home in Yorkshire.
The British motoring press fell in love with the OE-Type 30-98, and in 1923 The Autocar subjected one to an early road test, recording a maximum speed (with standard Velox body and wind-breaking full windscreen) of 82.57mph – no mean feat at a time when most cars were struggling to top 50mph.
The Autocar went on to say: 'Few cars have such graceful lines yet at once suggest unlimited strength allied to speed…and very, very few can take a corner stiffly with absolute certainty as this one can.'
This year, Vauxhall Motors' own 1926 OE-Type Velox Tourer (OE268) will join around 50 other 30-98s in Lancashire to celebrate the model's competition debut at Waddington Fell. Working with the Vauxhall 30-98 Register, local authorities have closed the public road which used to form the course, allowing cars from as far afield as Australia and the US to recreate Higginson's winning run.
Other events which Vauxhall is supporting as part of the 30-98 centenary include:
Brooklands Double Twelve (June 15-16)
The 30-98 Centenary Run (July 5) – Tour starting at Brooklands and travelling to Vauxhall's Luton HQ and then on to Millbrook Proving Ground with up to 100 30-98s
CarFest North, Oulton Park (August 2-4)
CarFest South, Laverstoke Park (August 23-25)
'Thirsty Down Under' Tour (Oct/Nov) – a three-week tour of Victoria and Tasmania for the thriving 30-98 Register based in Australia
Goodwood has yet to confirm entry of the 30-98 in its centenary year at the Festival of Speed.


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In February 1997, during one of Jason's first days in the program, George Johnson (not his real name) arrived to pick up five boys who were to stay at his place in Palm Beach Gardens that night. Among them were his son, George Jr., and four others, including Jason.
On the ride home, the boys began to discuss what they would do to Jason that night. "The Naked Crusader was going to appear," Jason later remembered one of them saying. It frightened him; he pretended not to hear.
That night at 10 o'clock, after doing chores and eating dinner, all five boys went to the bedroom where they were to sleep. They wore only underwear. The rest of their clothing was kept in a different room. Three of them lay down on mattresses on the floor. Jason and another boy wriggled into sleeping bags.
Several hours later, Jason suddenly noticed some noise. The other four boys were masturbating. "The Naked Crusader is coming," one of them said.
Then George Jr., naked, suddenly jumped on Jason's back, according to a statement Jason gave to police. Another boy held down his legs. Two others slapped Jason in the face with their erect penises.
"Stop!" he pleaded.
They did. But the boys weren't finished. They returned to their beds and masturbated again. A few minutes later, they assaulted Jason once more. Again, two boys slapped Jason with their penises. One of them tried to put his penis in Jason's mouth. Jason clenched his jaw shut. Then he felt warm liquid on his back. One boy had climaxed. Another ejaculated in his hand and rubbed the semen in Jason's hair.
Finally, they were finished.
If he ever told anyone about the incident, the boys warned, they'd do it again. And worse. But three months later, Jason could no longer stay silent. He told his father what had happened. Together, they filed a report with the Palm Beach Gardens Police Department on June 18, 1997.
During the one-month investigation that followed, two of the boys told the detectives that they too had been victims of "The Naked Crusader" soon after entering the drug treatment facility. The Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office filed misdemeanor battery and indecent exposure charges against the four boys but later dropped them. The records have since been purged, so there's no more explanation.
Growing Together's 17-year-old, nonprofit facility treats 25 to 40 children at a time. It rakes in roughly $1 million annually from donations and fees paid by parents of drug-addicted kids, some of whom are ordered by judges to attend. It has powerful friends and donors, including West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel, banker Warren W. Blanchard, attorney Jack Scarola, and Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Foley.
Yet physical and sexual abuse appears to be common there, according to a New Times investigation that included reviews of state records, police reports, and interviews with about two dozen former patients and parents. Kids rioted at the facility in April 1997, and last year, state investigators found that Growing Together was too quick to use physical restraint on children. Moreover, police have written more than 800 reports related to the program since 1995.
"I still can't get the screams out of my head from hearing kids dragged down the hall by the hair on their heads," says a former graduate of the program who asked to remain anonymous. "The crimes that were committed there have never been told in public. Nobody has ever put these people on trial."
Rik Pavlescak, a former investigator with the Department of Children and Families (DCF), wrote reports on the program in the early '90s that detailed beatings, restraint, imprisonment, and systematic humiliation. He alleges that influential outsiders have undermined investigations of the group.
Growing Together Executive Director Pat Allard denied a request to tour the facility, citing laws that protect confidentiality of patients. In three phone interviews in November, she maintained that children are not abused and claimed not to be aware of any of the evidence uncovered by New Times. "We would never beat any child," Allard said.
Every Friday evening, 50 to 100 adults and children, most ages 13 to 17, gather inside Growing Together's facility at 1000 Lake Ave. The open house begins the same way every week. Parents sit in chairs at one end of a large room. Their children, who are enrolled in the program, sit at the opposite end. At first, an accordion divider separates the two groups.
Then the session begins. The partition is pulled back. The music starts. The children sing:
I am a promise, I am a possibility
I am a promise with a capital P
I am a great big bundle of potentiality
And I am learning to hear God's voice
And I am trying to make the right choice.
I am a promise to be anything that God wants me to be.
Vicky Butler, a Jupiter woman who enrolled her troubled, 16-year-old son, John, in Growing Together in the fall of 1999, remembers these sessions well. "The songs they made these kids sing -- and they were teenagers -- were songs intended for 4- and 5-year-olds," she says. "It was degrading. You just had to look at the kids. Behind their eyes, they would be saying, 'This sucks. '"
Butler says she began to wonder, when she attended her first open house, whether she'd made a mistake. "My son was no angel," she admits, "but no one deserves the treatment these kids receive." During the session, Butler remembers, staff passed around a microphone to parents, who would tell everyone in attendance about their children's misdeeds. There were drugs, illicit sex, violence, theft. The microphone would then move to the other side of the room. Assuming a child had behaved well during the week and earned the "privilege" to speak, he or she would then confess.
During one session in October 1999, Butler's son became agitated before she spoke. He stood up and flailed his arms. "He was totally flipping out," Butler remembers. John began to walk off. An alarmed Butler started toward her son. As she did, a large behavioral therapist parents referred to as "The Enforcer" also headed for John. Suddenly, the accordion divider rolled across the room and blocked Butler.
"All of a sudden, I heard my son screaming," she recalls. Butler panicked and confronted Growing Together staff. "That's my kid behind that curtain, and I don't know what's going on," she told them. They assured her that John was fine and that he would see a psychiatrist soon. Butler returned to her suburban home in Jupiter, convinced that John was in a safe place.
Meanwhile, she continued hosting other Growing Together children at night. She had modified her $169,292 home following directions from the program's staff. All pictures and mirrors were removed from walls. Knives were hidden. The bathroom was stripped, leaving only the sink, toilet, and bathtub. The windows and doors of the bedroom where five kids slept were rigged to an alarm system. Once they went to bed at 10 p.m., they could not leave the room until the next morning. "If any of them had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, they would have been in trouble," Butler admits. "It was like a prison."
Before bed, the children would write in their journals about what they had learned that day. Often, their entries involved confessions they had made during therapy. Growing Together refers to these journal entries as "moral inventories." To advance through the phases of the program, children must confess to illicit behavior or abuse they suffered, then describe the incidents' effects on their lives.
Butler recalls asking the kids about their entries. They told her that they made up most of their confessions because Growing Together required such admissions before graduation. Accounts that included sexual abuse or underage sex were particularly encouraged by staff, the kids allegedly told Butler.
The children also claimed staff had beaten and physically restrained them, Butler says. She even met one young girl who claimed a therapist had broken her arm. Other kids asserted that the building was always filthy. Growing Together administrators admitted to Butler (and later in court documents) that the facility had rats and that several urinals had been backed up for days at a time.
In March 2000, Butler and her ex-husband, Stephen, who shared custody, removed John from the program. Stephen Butler was moving to Arkansas and wanted to take the boy. Once free, John told his mother that he had suffered a sprained wrist at Growing Together when a therapist slammed him down on a table. Mickey Bowman, then the executive director of Growing Together, showed little concern for the injury. In a letter to Vicky Butler dated June 20, 2000, Bowman wrote: "Regarding the 'purported injury' to your son's wrist, he was laughing at the issue immediately following."
Soon after, a private psychiatrist examined John and determined that his problem wasn't drugs. He was bipolar. "You would think that, being in the program, someone would have said, 'Oh, by the way, your child is bipolar,'" Vicky Butler says. "Nobody picked up on that because no psychiatrist or psychologist ever saw him."
Butler later refused to pay Growing Together the roughly $5,000 she owed for John's treatment. She claimed the facility had billed her for clinical exams that never occurred. "Kids got more messed up in there than they were when they went in," she says. The facility sued and turned the debt over to a bill collector. Butler eventually forked over a reduced amount.
"My teeth grit every time I hear the words Growing Together," she says. "They used to say, 'What goes on here stays here.' Now I know why. They don't want the outside world to know what's going on."
Growing Together Executive Director Allard says today that she has no knowledge of the "Naked Crusader" incidents or the types of child abuse alleged by Butler. "Could things like this happen in an institutional setting? Yes," Allard says. "Would it blemish the institution? Yes, it would. Would anyone condone it? Absolutely not."
The history of Growing Together begins 28 years ago and more than 200 miles from South Florida. In 1976, Mel Sembler, who made millions developing strip malls throughout the Sunshine State, opened a nonprofit juvenile drug treatment center in St. Petersburg called Straight Inc. His reasons were altruistic: The only adolescent drug treatment facility in the Tampa Bay area had shut down, and Sembler wanted to give back. One of his own sons had been rehabilitated in such a program.
During the late '70s, Straight became a well-known and apparently effective drug treatment center. Its methods, which were designed by psychiatrists Miller Newton and George Ross, were a kind of hybrid of the common 12-step model used by Alcoholics Anonymous; but there were only six steps and a hierarchical system. Children who had been in the program for a few months graduated to higher levels and became "oldcomers." They were then put in charge of new attendees, known as "newcomers." Newcomers weren't allowed to move around the facility unless oldcomers held them by the belt in a technique known as "belt looping."
Privacy was elusive. Newcomers were watched at all times, even in the bathroom. Boys had to keep their hair cropped close to the scalp. Girls were not allowed to shave their legs or armpits. During the day, children attended hours of group therapy. At night, they went to host homes run by parents of other children in the program.
At its height, Straight operated three facilities in Florida and others in California, Georgia, Michigan, Massachusetts, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia, and Texas. They were based on a "tough love" philosophy that required a minimal staff because children did some of the disciplining and restraining.
The facility's success, coupled with Sembler's wealth, helped raise the developer's political profile. In 1980, he donated $100,000 to the Republican Party and exploited his network of wealthy friends to raise millions more. Eight years later, though Sembler had no political or diplomatic experience, President George H.W. Bush named him ambassador to Australia.
Ross, who would later write about his theories in a book titled Treating Adolescent Substance Abuse: Understanding the Fundamental Elements, left Straight in 1980 and formed two similar programs: LIFE in Osprey, near Sarasota, and Possibilities Unlimited in Lexington, Kentucky. Soon after Ross' departure from Straight, allegations of malfeasance surfaced. A state attorney's investigation shut down Straight-Sarasota in 1983 amid charges of child abuse. The organization also paid out substantial sums in settlements and judgments, according to court records and news reports. One former patient, Karen Norton, won a $720,000 jury verdict in St. Petersburg after she was strip-searched and humiliated by staff, then slammed against a wall by Newton. "Dr. Ross left Straight because he didn't like some of the shenanigans," Allard says, alluding to these abuse charges.
One of Straight-founder Ross' new programs also had problems. In 1985, the psychiatrist, who declined to comment for this article, was charged and acquitted of falsely imprisoning teenagers in Kentucky.
In 1987, two of Ross' top assistants from LIFE started Growing Together in Lake Worth. "In the LIFE program, there were so many people from the West Palm Beach area that were traveling across the state that they basically asked if they could start their own program on this side," Allard explains. To this day, Allard cites Ross' theories as the foundation of her program.
Children generally attend for 18 months. Parents pay a flat $14,000 fee, and financial aid is available. Additionally, a public school teacher visits every day so children in the program can progress to the next grade level.
Straight's militant style of drug treatment piqued the interest of Barry Lane Beyerstein, a professor of psychology at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Colombia. In 1992, Beyerstein penned a scathing report on Straight's methods for the Drug Policy Foundation, a nonprofit organization that advocates changes to U.S. drug policy. He compared them to the mind-control techniques used by communists on American POWs during the Korean War.
"Straight tried to break down individuality," Beyerstein recalls. "That's what the Koreans succeeded beautifully in doing, making people dependent on their captors and removing any individuality and any ability to think about what they're being told. They never give any time alone. They keep them frantically busy all the time so they're always exhausted and hungry. That makes people more malleable. Straight was like a cult."
The same year Beyerstein released his report, Richard Bradbury, a graduate of Straight-St. Petersburg who had become a staff member after spending two years in the program, started collecting evidence of child abuse. In December 1992, the insider provided his findings to the state Inspector General's Office.
"I was brainwashed," the 39-year-old Bradbury says today. "As children, we believed it was for our own good when we were beaten or stabbed. We believed we were pieces of shit."
In April 1993, one month before Acting Inspector General Lowell Clary was to release his report, Straight closed its Florida clinics and moved the headquarters to Atlanta.
According to Clary's five-page account, Ambassador Sembler's political influence had kept Straight in business despite evidence that staff withheld medication and food, used excessive force, and deprived children of sleep in an effort to control them. "It appears that some [state regulators] experienced some degree of pressure to grant Straight a license," Clary wrote. That pressure included calls from Sembler and state senators, though the report does not specify which senators. Additionally, according to the Clary report, a top state official named Dr. Ivor Groves made it clear to his underling, Linda Lewis, that she should not take action against Straight. According to the report, when Lewis expressed concerns about child abuse, Groves told her, "If you do anything other than what I tell you to do on this issue, I will fire you on the spot." Groves then reportedly made the same threat to another state inspector.
Three months later, Straight went under. But some former staffers went on to form new facilities based on the program's model. Newton, for instance, formed KIDS of North Jersey, which closed in 2003 after the psychiatrist settled a lawsuit that alleged abuse for $6.5 million.
Growing Together is one of about a dozen facilities nationwide that continues to employ the controversial Straight model. The program's parent-patient manual and treatment method are similar to Straight's. The terms that Straight developed -- oldcomer, newcomer, and moral inventories, among others -- are used by Growing Together.
In 1989, two years after Growing Together had gone into business as an offshoot of Straight, Rik Pavlescak began to receive complaints of abuse. The state's director of substance abuse services in the West Palm Beach regional office of DCF, Pavlescak inspected the facility during two days in March 1990.
"As a state employee, I had access to all client files, interviews with staff, and clients," the 42-year-old Pavlescak explains. "I could make unannounced visits to the program at any time and review their records for compliance with state laws."
New Times requested all Florida records about Growing Together, but the state appears to have purged papers related to the investigation. Luckily, before leaving his job in 1990, Pavlescak made copies of records related to the program. Among his findings: A female client complained that she had severe cramping and bleeding. Staff did not refer her to a medical doctor. Only days later, when her mother became aware of the condition, did she see a physician. The girl was pregnant and miscarried.
Another female client was forced to stand in front of a mirror and yell, "I am a whore, a slut, and a druggie."
When asked what would happen if he reported child abuse, a 17-year-old male commented, "I'd be ignored and told to shut up." That boy said he had restrained other children at least 15 times. Once, he allegedly witnessed a staff member punch a child.
A 16-year-old boy told Pavlescak that he regularly killed cockroaches during mealtimes and was not given privacy when showering or using the toilet. The boy said he did not want to be "brainwashed." Pavlescak wrote in his report: "He believes that is what has happened to other clients."
An oldcomer told him: "I sleep in front of the [bedroom] door... [to keep] newcomers from escaping."
A 15-year-old boy attempted suicide while in the program, and staff never referred him to a psychologist. "The [suicide] issue appears to have been dropped by the program staff," Pavlescak wrote. Months later, the boy said he still had suicidal thoughts.
Children were given lessons on how to restrain other kids. (Using patients to restrain patients is a violation of state law.) "They said to kick in their knees to knock them down if you have to," one girl said.
Following his visits in March, Pavlescak issued a probationary license that required the facility to address the state's concerns and undergo another site visit within 90 days.
Also in March, Karen Weiss, whose teenaged daughter Dana had been committed to Growing Together, complained to Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Michael Gersten. Weiss, who then lived in Coral Springs, said Dana had been a newcomer for 15 months. Two psychiatrists who examined Dana alleged the girl had suffered severe psychological trauma.
Stephen E. Moskowitz, a Coral Springs psychiatrist, told Gersten that Dana was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. "When discussing returning to the program," Moskowitz wrote, "she seemed quite fearful and seemed to project an image of a child whose spirit and sense of confidence had been totally crushed." Growing Together's psychological reports on Dana were "incomplete and really lacked a professional type of organization and presentation," Moskowitz stated.
What's more, Moskowitz recommended that Judge Gersten talk to Dana privately. "One must use the analogy of people who were part of a cult and felt indoctrinated into the cult and were fearful of repercussions," Moskowitz advised.
Gersten ordered the girl out of Growing Together, saying in court that he would refuse to send more children to the program unless its treatment improved. "Everything I see smacks of child abuse," Gersten said.
Growing Together refused to yield to either Gersten or the DCF. In a letter dated March 30, 1990, then-Board President Warren Blanchard appealed the probationary license. Blanchard also disputed nearly all of the state's findings. The only actions Growing Together had taken, according to Blanchard's letter, were to stop giving classes to children on restraining their peers and to define more clearly when staff should use physical restraint.
That's when Pavlescak discovered that Growing Together held sway in Tallahassee. The group's request for a review hearing went to Pavlescak's boss, program supervisor Linda J. Giesler, and then on to Pam Peterson, the state chief of alcohol and drug abuse in Tallahassee. Both of Pavlescak's superiors attended the licensing hearing with Growing Together's attorneys. That was unprecedented, he says. (Neither Giesler nor Peterson could be reached for comment.)
"We licensed over 90 different treatment centers in the area, and this was just one," Pavlescak says. "But the entire team was never involved with any of the issues with any of the other treatment centers."
The state ignored Pavlescak's reports and gave Growing Together full license. The buzz at the West Palm Beach DCF office was that the political push had come from the top. Gov. Bob Martinez was one year away from becoming the nation's drug czar under President George H.W. Bush.
"It wasn't until later that I learned that Martinez had ties to the program," Pavlescak explains, "and that some strange things had happened." During his investigation of Growing Together, Pavlescak had personally reported one complaint to the state's child abuse registry. Upon inquiry, a state official later told him that no complaints existed.
Pavlescak left state employment in April 1990 following an unrelated dispute with one of his bosses, who was later chastised for a financial conflict of interest by the Florida Commission on Ethics.
Even after Pavlescak left public service, the state continued to document abuse at Growing Together. An August 1993 investigation by Pavlescak's successor, James Kouba, documented that "there appears to be a lack of clinical supervision" at Growing Together. Some staff members couldn't identify their supervisors, state officials learned, and the children complained about the "lack of adult supervision."
Growing Together also failed to correct the violations Pavlescak had cited three years earlier. Among DCF's findings in 1993:
Teenagers would restrain fellow patients by sitting on them.
In two instances, a group of parents who called themselves the "restraining fathers" kidnapped runaway girls and returned them to Growing Together. One girl's aunt reported that several men had pulled up to her house and dragged the girl into a van.
Kids of both sexes were forced to use a jar or pot in the bedroom if they needed to relieve themselves in the middle of the night.
The rigorous program is also associated with a suicide. Travis Stone, a 20-year-old African-American who had successfully graduated from Growing Together and become a staff member, told peers as early as January 23, 1993, that "he was feeling helpless and overwhelmed." Those remarks were not passed on to clinical or executive staff members, Kouba alleged. Six months later, on July 27, 1993, Stone took a combination of pills and alcohol and then put a plastic bag over his head.
Kouba blamed Growing Together, claiming that the facility did not send Stone to a psychiatrist or psychologist. "His feelings were discounted by peer staff as merely 'manipulative,'" the report stated. "Only a trained professional should be in the position of making this evaluation, which, in this case, may have been a life-and-death assessment."
The state ordered Growing Together to stop using children to counsel other children. "They are still involved in their own early recovery process and cannot be expected to take on the role of counselor while they are clients themselves," Kouba wrote. Allard claims that today, kids have easy access to licensed mental health professionals.
In the past ten years, Growing Together has filed roughly a dozen lawsuits to collect fees that parents have refused to pay. In nearly every case, the defendants have cited Growing Together's lack of therapeutic value and abysmal treatment of children as reasons for not settling the debt.
In two cases, parents described a prison-like facility that emphasizes revenue over kids' needs. Ellen Decter, a single mother in Jupiter, said her son was examined by a psychologist in October 1999 only after she agreed to fork out the $14,000 tuition upfront. By then, Growing Together had a financial interest in seeing her son diagnosed as suitable for treatment, she alleged. The program was "a concentration camp for clients and parents," Decter wrote in a letter submitted to the court April 3, 2002.
Cathy Snyder of Fort Myers Beach told the Palm Beach County Circuit Court on May 21, 1997, that Growing Together misdiagnosed her son's problems. Rather than being drug-addicted, he had a chemical imbalance that an independent psychiatrist discovered after she removed the boy from the program.
Reports from the Lake Worth Police Department, which is located across the street from Growing Together's building, seem to substantiate parents' claims. Since 1995, police have written more than 800 reports related to 1000 Lake Ave. for incidents including assault, drugs, noise complaints, and runaway juveniles.
On April 27, 1997, at 8:30 a.m., teenaged patients rioted inside the facility, according to police reports filed that day. Three boys took chairs and shattered the second-story windows, spraying glass on construction workers and pedestrians. They then barricaded themselves inside a room. Police later barged in to regain control of the facility.
Since 2000, police have written 28 reports related to battery and 22 to missing juveniles. In some cases, officers documented instances of abuse or violations of state law but declined to pursue charges:
On June 1, 2001, an oldcomer beat a newcomer because he was reading a book.
On July 6, 2001, an oldcomer slapped a newcomer after finding that the newcomer had been innocently drawing.
On October 23, 2003, police reported that a teenaged patient was "enforcing the rules with other patients" -- the same violation Pavlescak cited in 1990.
On January 2, 2004, police observed Growing Together's 54-year-old clinical director, Laura Hughes, restraining a teenaged girl on the ground after she "had been disrespectful and disobedient to Growing Together staff throughout the day."
While DCF's investigations of Growing Together are less aggressive than they were ten years ago, the state agency continues to find significant problems. During the most recent inspection, on December 19, 2003, investigators discovered documents that suggested staff was too quick to use physical force and that children continued to sleep on mattresses on the floor. State law requires children to have a full bed and frame.
Both issues are misunderstandings, Allard says. She contends her staff does everything possible before using physical force. "I think what was happening was that the staff wasn't putting down [in their paperwork] everything that happened before a child was restrained," Allard says. As a result, Allard says, Growing Together started using a form that provides additional space for the narrative. "There are times when a kid needs to be restrained if they are a threat to themselves or others," Allard explains. "If a child picked up a heavy chair and was going to throw it at another client, I can tell you that they would be restrained... Restraining is the last resort. No one wants to restrain anyone. You don't want that for the child, and you don't want that for the adult."
Allard refuses to alter her policy on bed frames, claiming that children could use the metal to cut themselves. "We can't do that in good conscience," she says.
On July 27, Piotr Blass, a computer-science professor at Key College in Dania Beach, sued Growing Together after his 16-year-old son, David, was court-ordered into the program. In his lawsuit, Blass alleges that Growing Together "often kidnaps children from their parents and then employs draconian, sadistic, destructive, and highly damaging psychological techniques to destroy the relationship between parent and child, all for their own benefit and financial gain."
These types of allegations can also be found on an Internet bulletin board (www.fornits.com/wwf) used by former patients of Growing Together and other Straight-based clinics. Most of the messages detail physical, psychological, or sexual abuse. Allard claims the allegations are "made up" and written by "people who are still involved in the druggie scene."
It's noon on Friday, November 19, and Jessica Norris sits quietly on a bench near the fountains at the end of Clematis Street in West Palm Beach. An anxious, pretty 18-year-old with long brown hair and a disarming smile, Jessica (not her real name) considers herself a survivor. At 14, she experimented with cocaine. Her parents placed her in Growing Together, where she says she endured 18 months of physical and psychological trauma. "When I first got there, the other girls were telling me about Naked Crusader," she says. "Everyone in Growing Together knew there was abuse. But no one said anything. We were all too scared."
Inside the facility, Jessica says she witnessed beatings and child neglect. In the "white room," where children were sent to calm down, clumps of hair lay on the floor and blood was smeared on the walls, she claims. Every day, staff interrogated the kids, making them give more and more outlandish confessions about their past. "I made up that my uncle molested me," Jessica says. "It was the only way to move up."
Now a student at Palm Beach Community College, Jessica is still adjusting to life on the outside. During her time at Growing Together, she claims she couldn't take a shower in private. She believed she was worthless. She became accustomed to the sight of staff members throwing children to the ground. To this day, she hears the screams that rolled through the halls like thunder between buildings.
"I've tried not to look back," Jessica says, brushing a string of hair behind her right ear. "What we went through was a terrible thing."


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Web surfers tired of waiting for the official release of hardware featuring Google's Chrome OS now have a browser-based alternative right at their fingertips: Splashtop Linux 1.0, a downloadable instant-on operating system tailored to life in the cloud.
Splashtop Linux has already been around for some time as an OEM-installed Linux distribution on hardware from vendors including Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo and LG. On Wednesday, however, its maker released the instant-on operating system as a free download, making it widely available to anyone.
"For people who spend all their time using Web apps and services like Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox Google Docs and Gmail, adding a fast, safe and secure browser-centric environment to the traditional desktop-oriented environment makes total sense," said Phil Sheu, CTO and co-founder of Splashtop Inc. "With Splashtop OS, users don't need to buy new dedicated hardware, and they don't need to wait for six months."
The lightweight, Web-centric operating system is not only optimized for notebooks and netbooks, but it's actually designed as a "companion OS" that co-exists with Windows. Even based on Chromium, Splashtop includes the Google Chrome browser and the Bing search engine. It provides one-click access to the Chrome Web Store for easy installation of thousands of web apps, games, extensions and themes.
Following a beta period that started in November, the free Linux distribution is now available for download from the Splashtop site. A quick video on YouTube demonstrates the operating system in action.
Settings Automatically Imported
Splashtop Linux includes no native applications beyond the Chromium-based browser, and it boots in seconds directly into a start screen featuring a Bing-powered search box. A raft of core plug-ins are pre-installed, including Adobe Flash.
With support for a wide variety of hardware, Splashtop OS sets up easily alongside Windows by automatically importing numerous critical settings from Microsoft's operating system. Web apps, extensions, games and themes can be imported from the Chrome Web Store to personalize the user's experience.
"We picked a Linux kernel version to achieve good hardware compatibility with majority of the PCs from the past few years," explains Sheu in a company blog. "2.6.32 isn't the latest and greatest, but is an ideal platform to make both new and old Wi-Fi chips, audio codecs, and other PC peripherals work. We make use of the SquashFS filesystem and special X11 architecture to cut down on the boot time."
No Separate Installer
Indeed, Splashtop's boot menu allows users to choose between Splashtop OS and Windows upon start-up, requiring no separate installer. Splashtop's maker–formerly known as DeviceVM–estimates that its operating system can be successfully installed on the majority of PC notebooks and netbooks that have shipped in the last three years.
I don't know about you, but I'm not sure why anyone would feel the need to wait for Chrome OS devices. Splashtop is proven, and it's downloadable today. If you value speed and a Web focus, it's time to check it out.
Follow Katherine Noyes on Twitter: @Noyesk .