text:
A drug commonly used to slow the loss of central vision has shown promise in stemming a common precursor of blindness in diabetics, which involves the same central light-sensitive area of retina, Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute scientists report.
Encouraged by the effect of ranibuzumab in people with macular degeneration, the Hopkins researchers injected the drug into the eyes of 10 people losing their sight from macular edema, one of many complications of diabetes and a first stage of diabetic retinopathy.
Over the course of several months of therapy, every patient in the preliminary Hopkins study could read at least two more lines on the standard eye chart, the researchers said. Moreover, the thickness of the patients' maculae, the central part of the retina responsible for seeing fine details, decreased an average of 85 percent. The American Journal of Ophthalmology published the team's findings in their December issue.
"The results are impressive," says Quan Dong Nguyen, M.D., M.Sc., an assistant professor of ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins, "although we will not know until we begin a larger clinical trial what the long-term benefits of the drug might be."
The Hopkins group believes that ranibuzumab interferes with a protein that spurs the growth of unwanted blood vessels in the back of the eye. Vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF, is released when the oxygen supply in the eye is restricted by blood vessel damage related to diabetes.
In a self-preserving attempt to acquire more oxygen, the VEGF signals for the creation of new blood vessels, which almost always damage, rather than improve, vision by blocking light's entry onto the retina.
"We've suspected for awhile that ranibuzumab's ability to shut down VEGF's signaling would do the trick because it's highly likely that VEGF is the culprit when it comes to diabetic macular edema," says Nguyen.
More than 4 million diabetics in the United States have diabetic retinopathy and, according to the National Eye Institute, one in 12 of those experience at least some vision loss.
Macular edema, a first stage of retinopathy, occurs when, over time, excess uncontrolled blood sugar damages the tiny blood vessels in the eye, causing fluid and fat to leak onto the retina at the back of the eye. The swelling interferes with focus and blurs vision. Making matters worse, a lack of oxygen often then triggers VEGF's production cycle.
All 10 subjects in the study had some vision loss at the start of the clinical trial, in which ranibuzumab was administered at the one, two, four and six month marks. The thickness of each patient's macula was also measured at each point in the study using an advanced digital imaging technique.
"Within a week, several patients experienced dramatic reductions in the thickness of their maculas, and there were further improvements with each injection," says Peter Campochiaro, M.D., the Dolores and George Eccles Professor of Ophthalmology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who is also an investigator in the study.
Ranibuzumab is marketed for treatment of neovascular macular degeneration by Genentech Inc. under the brand name of Lucentis.
American Journal of Ophthalmology


text:
Accelerometer Specifications - Quick Definitions
Measurement Range:
The level of acceleration supported by the sensor's output signal specifications, typically specified in ±g. This is the greatest amount of acceleration the part can measure and accurately represent as an output. For example, the output of a ±3g accelerometer is linear with acceleration up to ±3g. If it is accelerated at 4g, the output may rail. Note that the breaking point is specified by the Absolute Maximum Acceleration, NOT by the measurement range. A 4g acceleration will not break a ±3g accelerometer.
Accelerometer Sensitivity:
The ratio of change in acceleration (input) to change in the output signal. This defines the ideal, straight-line relationship between acceleration and output (Figure 1, gray line). Sensitivity is specified at a particular supply voltage and is typically expressed in units of mV/g for analog-output accelerometers, LSB/g, or mg/LSB for digital-output accelerometers. It is usually specified in a range (min, typ, max) or as a typical figure and % deviation. For analog-output sensors, sensitivity is ratiometric to supply voltage; doubling the supply, for example, doubles the sensitivity.
Sensitivity change due to Temperature is generally specified as a % change per °C. Temperature effects are caused by a combination of mechanical stresses and circuit temperature coefficients.
|Figure 1. Nonlinearity is a measurement of the deviation of an accelerometer
response (illustrated in black) from a perfectly linear response (in gray). This
graph is for illustration purposes only and does not show real accelerometer data.
Ideally, the relationship between voltage and acceleration is linear and described by the sensitivity of the device. Nonlinearity is a measurement of deviation from a perfectly constant sensitivity, specified as a percentage with respect to either full-scale range (%FSR) or ± full scale (%FS). Typically, FSR = FS+FS. Nonlinearity of Analog Devices accelerometers is low enough that it can most often be ignored.
Package Alignment Error:
The angle between the accelerometer-sensing axes and the referenced package feature (see Figure 2). "Input Axis Alignment" is another term used for this error. The units for package alignment error are "degrees." Packaging technology typically aligns the die to within about 1° of the package.
(Orthogonal) Alignment Error:
The deviation from the ideal angular displacement (typically 90°) between multi-axis devices (see Figure 2). Analog Devices accelerometers are manufactured using photolithography on a single piece of silicon, so axis-to-axis alignment error is not generally a problem.
Cross-Axis Sensitivity:
A measure of how much output is seen on one axis when acceleration is imposed on a different axis, typically specified as a percentage. The coupling between two axes results from a combination of alignment errors, etching inaccuracies, and circuit crosstalk.
Zero-g Bias Level:
Specifies the output level when there is no acceleration (zero input). Analog sensors typically express this in volts (or mV) and digital sensors in codes (LSB). Zero-g Bias is specified at a particular supply voltage and is typically ratiometric with supply voltage (most often, zero-g bias is nominally half the supply voltage).
Several aspects of zero-g bias are often specified:
- Zero-g Voltage, in V, specifies the range of voltages that may be expected at the output under 0g of acceleration.
- Output Deviation from Ideal, also called Initial Bias Error, is specified at 25°C, either in terms of acceleration error (g) or output signal: mV for analog sensors and LSB for digital sensors.
- Zero-g Offset vs. Temperature, or Bias Temperature Coefficient, in mg/°C, describes how much the output shifts for each °C temperature change; and
- Bias Voltage Sensitivity is the change in "Zero-Bias Level" with respect to change in power supply. The units for this parameter are typically, mv/V, mg/V, or LSB/V.
- Zero-g Total Error includes all errors.
Acelerometer Noise Density:
In ug/rt(Hz) RMS, is the square root of the power spectral density of the noise output. Total noise is determined by the equation:
Noise = Noise Density * sqrt(BW * 1.6)
where BW is the accelerometer bandwidth, set by capacitors on the accelerometer outputs.
Analog Devices accelerometers' noise is Gaussian and uncorrelated, so noise can be reduced by averaging the outputs from several accelerometers. supply voltage (most often, zero-g bias is nominally half the supply voltage).
Total Noise:
The random deviation from the ideal output and is equal to the multiplied product of the Noise Density and the square root of the Noise Bandwidth. The units for this parameter are typically mg-RMS.
Figure 2. Showing package alignment error α and sensor alignment
error θ. α is the angle between the sensor axes and the package axes.
θ is the deviation of the sensor axes from orthogonal, i.e., the
difference between (ysensor – xsensor) and 90°.
Output Data Rate:
In digital-output accelerometers, defines the rate at which data is sampled. Bandwidth is the highest frequency signal that can be sampled without aliasing by the specified Output Data Rate. Per the Nyquist sampling criterion, bandwidth is half the Output Data Rate.
In analog-output accelerometers, bandwidth is defined as the signal frequency at which the response falls to -3dB of the response to DC (or low-frequency) acceleration.

subset: commoncrawl


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Woman Dies After Being Denied Abortion: When Religious Rules Trump Science
Savita Halappanavar, who died in Ireland after being denied a pregnancy termination, was a young wife eager to have more children when she learned that her pregnancy went wrong.
A Hindu, she organized celebrations for her expat community in Galway, one of Catholic Ireland's more liberal cities.
Even as she begged the hospital to abort her doomed pregnancy, suffering and in horrible pain, they refused to do so until the fetal "heartbeat" faded away, telling her, "this is a Catholic country."
From the Irish Times article, here is her husband's account of the tragedy:
"Savita...was very upset, but she accepted she was losing the baby. When the consultant came on the ward rounds on Monday morning Savita asked if they could not save the baby, could they induce to end the pregnancy. The consultant said, 'As long as there is a foetal heartbeat we can't do anything'....
The consultant said it was the law, that this is a Catholic country. Savita [a Hindu] said: 'I am neither Irish nor Catholic' but they said there was nothing they could do.
"That evening she developed shakes and shivering and she was vomiting. She went to use the toilet and she collapsed. There were big alarms and a doctor took bloods and started her on antibiotics.
"The next morning I said she was so sick and asked again that they just end it, but they said they couldn't."
Listen to the Times' full interview with her husband here.
Dr. Jen Gunter blogged from a doctor's perspective about what she thinks must have happened:
As there is no medically acceptable scenario at 17 weeks where a woman is miscarrying AND is denied a termination, there can only be three plausible explanations...
1) Irish law does indeed treat pregnant women as second-class citizens and denies them appropriate medical care. The medical team was following the law to avoid criminal prosecution.
2) Irish law does not deny women the care they need; however, a zealous individual doctor or hospital administrator interpreted Catholic doctrine in such a way that a pregnant woman's medical care was somehow irrelevant and superseded by heart tones of a 17 weeks fetus that could never be viable.
3) Irish law allows abortions for women when medically necessary, but the doctors involved were negligent in that they could not diagnose infection when it was so obviously present, did not know the treatment, or were not competent enough to carry out the treatment.
This is the reality of "pro-life" policy. No life for the mother. No life for the fetus. No life for the other children she had or might have had. The only thing living on in such a situation is the self-righteousness of patriarchal rules.
The consequences of breaking rules is no joke; the Catholic hierarchy memorably excommunicated a nun who consented to a life-saving abortion for a young patient in Arizona, garnering outrage on this side of the Atlantic.
Ireland has been in a legal conundrum for years, since the 1992 "X case" around a distraught young woman, the victim of assault. The case established that Ireland's policy must permit the ending of pregnancies that threatened the life--not the health, the life--of the mother. But nothing has changed. Since then, Irish and European human rights courts have seen many other cases designed to force implementation of this law.
The legal editor of the Irish Independentbegged her government to create clear rules for medical professionals:
As a result of the X case, abortion is permissible in Ireland if it is established that there is a real and substantial risk to the life -- as distinct from the health -- of the mother which can be avoided only by the termination of the pregnancy.
But no government has ever introduced laws to give effect to the ruling and there is no means for any woman to clarify whether she qualifies for a medical termination under X.
Not one.
Though this writer and many others in Ireland have petitioned for clarifying legislation, they are up against entrenched and powerful opponents.
For instance, a group of pro-life doctors recently convened to declare, falsely, that abortion is never medically necessary--even to save the life of the mother. Meanwhile, a new abortion clinic in Belfast is also drawing fire from anti-choicers, because even though it technically belongs to the UK, opposition on the island is so intense that abortion services were for a long time excluded even in the six counties of the North.
As vigils and marches pop up around the country and at embassies abroad, it's worth considering the political circumstances that make Ireland, in other cases a liberal modern European democracy, such a unique case for abortion politics.
Galway, where Savita Halappanavar lived, with its gay bars and transient population, is the city that welcomed me when I was 19 for a semester abroad. It opens its pub-lined streets to thousands of American kids each year, who come to Ireland to party and connect with their ancestral roots. (I like to quip that I had no roots to discover, being Jewish, but I read a lot of Joyce and Yeats.) The popular joke at the time I was there was three things never to bring up in a pub: The "Troubles" in Northern Ireland, abortion and the proposed smoking ban. The third was the joke--the first two were genuinely contentious.
When I sat down in my Irish women's studies class that autumn nearly a decade ago I discovered that almost everyone else around me was American. This was mostly because it fit in with our foreign-student schedules, I think. Still, I remember at the time feeling sorry for our professor, a veteran feminist, because she had to talk about Ireland's abortion policy and other difficult local issues to a group of beer-soaked American girls who took their own hard-won reproductive rights for granted.
I do remember her telling us about the "thousands of silent journeys" that Irish women make each year to the UK for abortions. She called the more liberal English laws and easy transit options "an Irish solution to an Irish problem"--a way of evading a tough national debate about abortion. You see in Ireland, the abortion debate pits the country's modern reality (condom dispensers in nightclubs, immigration) with its long, mostly ethnically homogenous Catholic history, and -- this is particularly important -- its use of Catholicism as a site of resistance to violent and oppressive imperialism from Britain.
The last time I was in Dublin, a brief overnight stop in 2008, the Irish people were preparing for a referendum on a contentious EU resolution. We saw posters everywhere opposing Ireland's involvement in the treaty that warned of more foreign workers arriving and of "abortion on demand" being imported from abroad.
Even as the church has been pilloried for sex abuse and corruption scandals, the abortion issue is a cultural one, too, that goes beyond church hierarchy. When people say that Ireland is "backward" because of its restrictive abortion laws, for instance, it feeds into age-old racialized stereotypes about Irish people that were used to justify colonization.
Today on Twitter, some Irish feminists noted that the sudden interest of British women in Irish abortion laws made them uncomfortable exactly because of that imperialist legacy.
How do other Irish people feel about mainly English people having a protest at the Irish embassy in London? I'm pro-choice, but it feels odd— Gauke (@Gauke) 1352915348
And yet despite these factors, opinion on the island is changing rapidly. In the Time magazine article about the first abortion clinic in Belfast (which was met by hundreds of protesters), a startling statistic popped out:
Now the time for kicking the issue into the long grass may have passed. A poll carried out last year in the republic showed 54% of the country's electorate backing the full legalization of abortion, up from 37% four years earlier. And, for the first time, women in the south contemplating unwanted pregnancies need only look north to see another option.
Indeed, with these numbers and with Halappanavar's tragic death--the account which appears to include Catholic hegemony and possibly xenophobia --the debate is going to happen no matter what. International feminists need to support Irish feminists in their struggles, both legal and social, and listen to their concerns. My guess is the climate on abortion in Ireland may change, and if it is ever legalized in some circumstances, Irish feminists are going to have to contend with an anti-choice movement just as virulent (if not more so) as ours--and backed by thousands of years of patriarchal Catholic tradition.
And if our circumstances are any indicator, they will never stop fighting. After all, we are besieged by legislators who want to turn back the clock and treat American women as Savita Halappanavar was treated. Ohio's zombie "Heartbeat bill," which has been introduced yet again, is a prime example.


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"This is the saddest moment in my 45-year career as a psychiatrist..." Dr. Allen Frances wrote this in a December blog post on the Psychology Today website. The reason was the approval by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) of the new edition of psychiatry's bible – Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM – the handbook that doctors and psychotherapists worldwide use to determine mental illness.
In May, DSM-5 – the first revised edition since 1994 – is due to be published in the United States. And Allen Frances's verdict about it has clout – he was the chair of the DSM-4 Task Force. His advice to clinicians, the press and the general public is to remain skeptical about DSM-5: "don't follow it blindly."
Over 1,500 experts from 39 countries have spent the last 14 years working on improving the classifications so that superfluous or imprecise diagnoses can be avoided and with them the wrong medication or therapy.
The new edition features new disorders, such Minor Neurocognitive Disorder – that can presage dementia, or eating and gambling addictions that for the first time link addiction to other sources than mind altering substances.
Other disorders have been left out – like Rett Syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder. The diagnostic criteria for many other illnesses have been changed. Autism for example will no longer be listed as a spectrum of many separate conditions so that, as of May, Asperger's Syndrome will no longer exist.
All of this is the result of a great deal of hard work and discussion on the part of contributing experts, resulting in many different drafts of the manual before the APA signed off on the latest edition. The subject of sex addiction was particularly controversial – at first it was going to be included among behavioral addictions, then as a whole new illness called hypersexual disorder, and finally it was dropped because scientific evidence to support it was too slim.
According to the APA, the number of mental illnesses in the new edition remains the same and there are only a few fundamental changes. However, critics maintain that some diagnoses have been watered down and that changes are not based on sufficient scientific evidence.
These experts fear that DSM-5 will turn many healthy individuals into patients, and will limit treatment of certain diagnoses like autism. Fred Volkmar of Yale University estimates that only 60% of those who would get an autism diagnosis today will get it in the future.
Frances agrees that with the exception of autism, all the changes in the new edition will turn the "current diagnostic inflation into diagnostic hyperinflation" – something that could have dire consequences, given the global importance of the manual.
Temper tantrums as mental disorder
"The DSM is the standard reference book worldwide; research and treatments are based on it. It is also used as a reference in court cases and by insurance companies," says Winfried Rief of the University of Marburg, one of the experts involved in producing DSM-5. German doctors also use the World Health Organization (WHO) International Classification of Diseases, the present edition of which (ICD-10) is due for an overhaul in 2015.
Hans-Ulrich Wittchen of Dresden's University of Technology, who also worked on DSM-5, says he does not believe the new version will lead to increased numbers of diagnoses. "No changes are to be expected because the criteria were only changed marginally," he explains, adding that "even the new disorders will most likely not impact the total number of patients because most patients suffering from conditions added to DSM-5 usually have other disturbances listed in earlier editions."
But Frances is adamant that the new edition is going to bring with it a dramatic rise in the number of mental illness diagnoses, particularly – as "painful experience" with previous editions has shown – if anything in the diagnostic system is abused and turned into a "fad."
The conflict demonstrates just how difficult it is to classify mental illness. A case in point is what DSM-5 lists as "disruptive mood dysregulation disorder" in children. On Frances's list of the ten worst changes from the previous edition, this condition is ranked number one.
According to the APA, this diagnosis applies to children who display disruptive patterns three or more times a week for at least a year, and it is supposed to help check over-diagnosis and over-treatment of bipolar disorder in children. But Frances charges that what it amounts to is turning "temper tantrums into a mental disorder." His own book, SAVING NORMAL: The Battle at the Boundary of Psychiatryis due out around the same time as DSM-5.
What is clear is that there are no definitive answers – or answers that will satisfy everyone. Says Wittchen: "Diagnostics never end – many problems have yet to be resolved because we don't yet know enough about how the brain works. Breakthroughs in neurobiological research could mean a whole new set of diagnoses. And then we get to start from scratch."


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Christina Gausas
Christina Gausas is an actress, improviser, and writer. She currently performs with Scott Adsit (30 Rock) in their fully improvised two-person show, "Adsit & Gausas." TimeOut New York magazine recently profiled the duo's "high stakes improv" show, calling them "two of the most talented improvisers in New York City." Christina created the long-form show "Let's Have a Ball" which plays on Saturdays nights at UCB NY.
She has appeared on 30 Rock, Important Things w/Demetri Martin, Delocated, Late Night w/Conan O'Brien, VH-1, and The Al Franken Show. Christina wrote and produced an independent pilot entitled "The Department" which was a finalist in the New York Television Festival 2008, with lead actor Nick Offerman winning the Best Actor Award for the Festival.
Christina was named one of "The 10 Funniest New Yorkers You've Never Heard Of" by New York Magazine. Their show, "Dorff and Gausas" was described as "brainy, off-the-cuff interplay that recalls the heyday of Nichols & May."


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Saturday, August 27, 2011
Animation Blog Roll
The Frederator blog, a collection of posts by Fred Seibert, Eric Homan, and their associates, celebrates the art form and its artists. Besides giving countless newcomers their first public nod, this blog also takes readers behind the scenes showing how hit series such as "Adventure Time" (pictured above) and "Fan Boy & Chum Chum" are made. I can't think of a more transparent production than "Adventure Time," for instance, in that it appears that every model sheet and background painting made for the series has been posted for viewing. Since the quirky show is the most game-changing animated series since "SpongeBob," this is nothing to sneeze at. Add to this the entrepreneurial musings of Fred Seibert, forever encouraging readers to re-invent themselves and their industry, and to do it all with passion, joy, and enthusiasm.
As a teacher at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, I had the pleasure to meet the latest wunderkind to emerge from the program, the multi-talented Stephen P. Neary. After wowing the festival world with his quirky and delightful student films such as "Shark Suit," and "Chicken Cowboy," Stephen graduated and was immediately snatched up to work in the story department of Blue Sky. For so many, scoring a dream gig like that would mean putting any personal projects on hold, but not for Mr. Neary. He's been busying himself making further short films such as "Let's Make Out," and the upcoming, "Dr. Breakfast," as well as creating book and feature proposals, and otherwise scribbling lovely observations into his sketch books (pictured above). Oh, I forgot to mention, Stephen is a hell of a nice guy, making it all the more fun to go along on his journey and cheer him on.
old address to find invaluable posts on budgeting, pipeline, and all aspects of doing business. His discussions on the creative side are no less insightful. Richard and I began our careers in animation in NYC during the same year but have charted very different paths. Even though it is not my goal to operate a traditional studio as Richard does, I admire his ability to hold a bustling studio together, to get work, and how he shares his knowledge and experiences to help others navigate this difficult business.
The overgrown kid known as Mr. Warburton has achieved a lot in his 20-year (and counting) career (note the page above from his first job hunt journal heralding his hire at Buzzco). Once the poster child of NY animation success (going from employment at studios from Buzzco to J.J. Sedelmaier to creating and producing his own long-running series for Cartoon Network), he has since packed up to reboot his career in L.A., currently supervising retakes for the Disney TV series "Fish Hooks." Despite his level of achievement, Mr. Warburton's blog somehow manages to feel like the fresh enthusiastic observations of someone just starting out. This is a man appreciating life working in a field he loves.
Like an indie version of the Frederator blog, brothers Tim and Mike Rauch have been extremely transparent in sharing their production process (pictured above, Tim's design studies for Miss Devine), collaborations, thoughts, and research behind their acclaimed StoryCorps animated films. These guys did things the hard way, creating work on their terms, and giving hope to today's generation of animation talent that there's another option besides lining up for a more conventional job or internship in the field.
4 comments:
- Michael Sporn said...
The blog I like most of these is Mark Mayerson's. I do like his comments on pitching, and I trust the words since he's successfully done a full series of a cgi show, MONSTER BY MISTAKE. But actually, I only listen to my own advice on pitching. I do go to Mark for a clearheaded voice on higher business matters in the Industry. He also knows film (live action & animated) inside out, and he shares the knowledge. Finally, he has the taste of the gods, but unlike me he often holds back when he has something negative to say about other people's work. I kinda like that attribute, even though I don't practice it often enough.
Thanks for the mention, by the way. And I'm the first one here on Monday mornings to see what you've had to write.
- August 30, 2011 at 6:07 AM
- David B. Levy said...
Thanks for the comment and compliment, Michael!
A great analysis of why you like Mark's blog here. It's why I visit too!
- August 30, 2011 at 8:39 AM
- stephen said...
hey thanks, david! here i thought only my mom read my blog.
that's a lie, of course. my mom can barely use a computer, let alone look at blogs.
- September 1, 2011 at 12:22 PM
- Mark Mayerson said...
The two of you are balmy.
- September 1, 2011 at 4:38 PM


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Every now and then
, a bit of slang comes along that draws a bright red line between young and old. In 2012, that slang term is
If you are over 25, YOLO likely means nothing to you. If you are under 25, you may be so familiar with YOLO that you're already completely sick of it.
A tip to the oldsters: YOLO is an acronym for "You Only Live Once." It shot to fame earlier this year thanks to the rapper Drake, whose song "The Motto" has the hook, "You only live once, that's the motto...YOLO, and we 'bout it every day, every day, every day." After a video for the song was released in February, the buzzword spread quickly among the high school and college-age set by word of mouth, not just in person but through the turbocharged vehicle of social media.
How quickly? Consider the lists of slang compiled every semester by students of Connie Eble, a professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. YOLO was entirely absent from the submissions by Eble's fall 2011 classes. By the spring semester, YOLO had become the most frequently mentioned slang term among the students, just edging out "totes" for "totally" and "cray" (or "cray-cray") for "crazy."
What accounts for the meteoric rise of YOLO, and how has it gone virtually unnoticed by nonmillennials? Its appeal to the youthful is self-evident. YOLO as a shorthand mantra defines youth, on a certain level. What is teenagehood if not the adventurous, often foolhardy, desire to test the limits of acceptable behavior—because hey, why not? YOLO!
The carpe diem sentiment of "you only live once" has a long history predating its punchy acronymic clipping. Garson O'Toole, on his Quote Investigator blog, traces variations on the theme back to the 18th century, as in this line from Samuel Richardson's novel "Clarissa": "We live but once in this world; and when gone, are gone from it for ever." The exact wording of "you only live once" begins cropping up in the late 19th century, and by 1937 it was popular enough to be used as the title of a Fritz Lang film noir. One wry elaboration, credited to the comedian Joe E. Lewis in 1952, is "You only live once, but if you work it right, once is enough."
Today's young purveyors of YOLO do indeed appear to be trying to work it right, though what that means is up for debate. Eble's students illustrate its typical use, as a carefree tag to explain an impulsive choice: "You want to park illegally in this spot? YOLO!" "Should I buy these shoes or pay rent? YOLO!" The word has also found favor as a verb, as in this Yelp review of a Jersey City pizzeria: "All the times I come home after a night of YOLO-ing, I crave a delish slice to soak up the booze and sober me up."
But as the term has circulated over the past several months, a YOLO backlash has set in. Jason Salcedo, a high school senior from Stuart, Fla., recently blogged that YOLO is now "used by teens only as an absolute justification to do dangerous or harmful things." As he pointed out, those who use it might not appreciate that you only die once, too.
Even as teenagers argue over the merits of YOLO-ing, their parents and teachers remain largely oblivious. Slang serves a powerful function for marking an "in-group," as sociologists say, and it's easy to see how YOLO would be precisely the type of term that its users would want to keep to themselves, away from elders.
One elder who has taken notice is David McCullough Jr., an English teacher at Wellesley High School (and son of the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian). "Now, before you dash off and get your YOLO tattoo," he said in his caustic commencement address for the school in June, "let me point out the illogic of that trendy little expression—because you can and should live not merely once, but every day of your life. Rather than You Only Live Once, it should be You Live Only Once...but because YLOO doesn't have the same ring, we shrug and decide it doesn't matter."
(McCullough's objection to the placement of "only" in the expression is an old one, but even the great usage writer Henry Fowler thought it was folly to insist on placing "only" nearest to the part of the sentence it qualifies, ridiculing "the modern precisians who have more zeal than discretion." No one, upon hearing "you only live once," would would interpret it to mean that living is the only thing you do once—just as "I only have eyes for you" would never be understood to mean that "eyes for you" are the only thing I have.)
If there's anything that signals the death knell of YOLO, it is that Katie Couric has now latched onto it. In advance of her syndicated talk show, "Katie," which debuts next month, Couric has announced that the show will have a regular feature called "What's Your YOLO?", encouraging viewers to make videos describing things they want to do before they die. After Couric's use of the term was reported, the writer Greg Campbell tweaked her on Twitter: "Rule of thumb: When @KatieCouric starts using internet acronyms, they've jumped the shark months ago."
It's true that if Couric and others of her age group start YOLO-ing, making the term synonymous with crossing items off one's "bucket list," any generational cachet it might have will be lost. But it would be somehow fitting if an expression encapsulating the joys and perils of youthful indiscretion burns out just as quickly as it blossomed.
Ben Zimmer is the executive producer of VisualThesaurus.com and
Vocabulary.com. He can be reached at benzimmer.com/contact.


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Welcome to Stefan's Gourmet Blog! ?I post sous-vide recipes on a regular basis. If you like what you see here, you can sign up on the sidebar to receive an email whenever I post a new recipe.
Many recipes on my blog use a modern cooking method called Sous-vide. Sous-vide is French for "under vacuum" and it means that you cook food sealed in an airtight plastic bag inside a water bath. The temperature in the water bath is kept constant and is lower than you would imagine, whereas cooking times are longer.
Why sous-vide?
- Because the food is cooked inside a sealed bag, all the flavor and juices stay inside.
- The food is cooked evenly, it is equally cooked from the outside to the inside.
- A taste, and especially a texture and juicyness can be reached that cannot be achieved by other methods of cooking.
- Foolproof: meat and fish always come out exactly the way you like it (medium rare, medium, etc.)
- Less stress at dinner parties because there is a wide range of cooking times in which the food comes out 'perfect' and in many cases you can just cut open the bag and serve.
- Also less stress at dinner parties because you can cook a large number of single person portions at the same time and all of them will be cooked exactly right.
Are there any drawbacks?
- You need equipment that costs money and takes up space.
- Although cooking is less 'work', it does take more (waiting) time so you need to be prepared.
- You can't cook vegetables at the same time as meat or fish in the same water bath, because different temperatures are needed (but you can keep vegetables warm in the bath while you cook meat or fish).
- If you want meat to have a brown crust, you still need to brown the meat before or after sous-vide cooking.
How does it work?
Like all matter,?food consists of molecules. Cooking food (no matter what method you use) changes the molecules in the foodstuff by using heat, as the molecules will change according to the temperature. Different types of food need a different temperature to be cooked, and different temperatures can produce a different texture, flavor and juiciness for the same food.
If you have ever used a meat thermometer to cook meat, you know that beef is medium rare at 55C/131F. However if you roast a large piece of beef in the oven at say 180C/355F until the center reaches 55C/131F, then at that point in time the outside will be close to 180C/355F. When you take the meat out of the oven, you have to let it 'rest' until the temperature evens out throughout all of the meat (so the temperature is the same from outside to center). The temperature in the center will increase above 55C/131F, causing the meat to be overcooked. You can avoid this by taking the meat out earlier (for instance when the center is 45C/112F), but then it's hard to arrive at exactly 55C/131F and in any case the outside layer of the meat will be overcooked. With sous-vide, you can cook a large piece of beef at exactly 55C/131F so it will be perfectly medium-rare throughout!
You can think of sous-vide cooking having two phases:
- The entire piece of food will heat up to the temperature of the water bath, from outside to center. This takes from 10 minutes to 4 hours or more, depending on the size of the piece of food and the initial temperature. Very tender foods are ready to be eaten as soon as they have the same temperature throughout.
- As soon as the temperature is reached, the food very very slowly becomes more and more 'cooked' and thus tender. For fish this happens very quickly, but for most other foods there is a pretty long period of time in which the texture of the food is perfect or nearly so. If you leave food cooking sous-vide too long, the texture?will break down and become unpleasantly soft.
Sous-vide time & temperature
Tender meat sous-vide time and temperature
Tender meat only needs to be brought up to temperature, so cooking times are short and depend only on the thickness and shape. If the meat is not too thick, you could cook lower than 55C/131F to go more to the rare side of medium rare.
- Beef tenderloin (55C/131F for medium rare, time depends on thickness)
- Bison Ribeye?(1 hour at 39C/102F, 1 hour at 49C/120F, 2 hours at 55C/131F for medium rare)
- Foie Gras (57C/135F for 2 hours)
- Hamburger (1 hour at 39C/102F, 1 hour at 49C/120F, 2.5 hours at 55C/131F for medium rare, post-sear on BBQ)
- Hanger Steak (1 hour at 39C/102F, 1 hour at 49C/120F, 3 hours at 55C/131F for medium rare)
- Pork tenderloin (1 hour at 57?C/135?F)
- Rack of lamb (2-4 hours at 54.5C/130F)
- Venison (53C/127F for medium rare, time depends on thickness)
Tough meat sous-vide time and temperature
Tough meat needs to be cooked longer than 4 hours to tenderize it (in many cases 2-3 days) and thus it is not safe to cook at less than 54.5C/130F. Luckily cooking at 55C/131F gives excellent results for many meats and gives the texture of steak to tough cuts. Go up to 63C/145F to get a more flaky texture.
- Beef brisket (2 days at 57C/135F)
- Beef short ribs (2 days at 57C/135F)
- Chuck roast (3 days at 63C/145F for flaky texture)
- Lamb shank (2 days at 62C/144F)
- Lamb shoulder (1-2 days at 57C/135F, depending on the age of the lamb)
- Lamb breast (1 day at 57?C/135?F)
- Ossobuco (veal shanks) (3 days at 62C/144F for flaky texture)
- Oxtail (100 hours/4 days at 60?C/140?F)
- Pork belly (3 days at 60C/140F for tender and juicy, fat will not render)
- Pork shoulder (36 hours at 65C/149F for flaky texture or 48 hours at 57?C/135?F for tender)
- Pulled Pork (4 hours at 84C/183F)
- Rib-eye steak (1 hour at 50C/122F, sear afterwards)
- T-bone steak (12 hours at 54.5C/130F)
- Wagyu flank steak (48 hours at 55C/131F)
Poultry sous-vide time and temperature
Tender breast meat only needs to come up to temperature, but tougher legs or wings need a few hours and a higher temperature to get tender.
- Chicken breast (45 mins at 60C/140F)
- Chicken leg (12 hours at 62C/143F or 4 hours at 64C/147F)
- Chicken thigh, boneless (90 mins at 64C/147F)
- Turkey breast, 56C/133F, time depends on thickness
- Turkey thigh, turkey leg, turkey drumstick: 18-24 hours at 62C/144F
- Duck breast (2 hours at 54.5C/130F)
- Duck legs (24 hours at 64.5C/148F)
- Duck leg confit?(8 hours at 82C/180F for flaky traditional confit texture)
- Eggs?(60 mins at?64.5C/148F)
- Stewing hen legs?(3 days at 62C/143F)
Game sous-vide time and temperature
Just like other types of meat, tender meat only needs to come up to temperature whereas tougher meat needs a longer time to become tender.
- Farmed rabbit leg (8 hours at 75C/167F, or 2 hours at 60C/140F)
- Pheasant leg (10 hours at 75C/167F)
- Pigeon breast (1-2 hours at 54.5C/130F)
- Rack of Venison (4 hours at 55?C/131?F)
Fish and shellfish sous-vide time and temperature
Fish only needs to come up to temperature, and since most fish fillets are not very thick this usually takes less than half an hour. The temperature for cooking fish is lower, usually 50C/121F for a tender juicy texture that is not flaky.
- Cod (30 mins at 54C/129F, flaky; or 30 mins at 45C/113F, tender)
- Halibut (20-30 mins at 45C/113F)
- Lobster claws?(15 mins at 60C/140F, shelled, with butter)
- Lobster tail (15 mins at 46C/115F, shelled, with butter)
- Mackerel (15 mins at 50C/121F)
- Monk fish (45 mins at 48C/118F)
- Octopus (3 hours at 85C/185F or 4 hours at 77C/170F)
- Oysters (20 mins at 48C/118F, shucked)
- Salmon (30 mins at 43C/109F)
- Sea bass fillet or?Sea bream fillet?(10-15 mins at 48C/118F, post-sear on skin)
- Sole (10-20 mins at?50?C/122?F)
- Turbot (20 mins at 49C/120F)
Vegetables sous-vide time and temperature
A temperature of 84C/183F is needed to tenderize the fibers in most vegetables. The time depends mostly on the thickness, usually between 30 and 60 minutes.?Vegetables must be pre-cooked to cook them with meat, otherwise the temperature is too high for the meat or too low for the vegetables.
- Artichokes (60 mins at 84C/183F)
- Potatoes (60 mins at 84C/183F)
- Salsify (45-60 mins at 84C/183F)
- White asparagus (30-45 mins at 84C/183F, with butter)
Dessert s0us-vide time and temperature
- Custard such as crème br?lée or bounet (45 mins at 85-90C/185-194F)
Sous-vide tips & tricks
- How to use juices from the bag after sous-vide braising
- Adding liquid to the sous-vide bag by freezing
- Adding liquid to the sous-vide bag by using a ziploc bag and the water deplacement method to evacuate most of the air
- Tenderizing meat by 'warm ageing' to activate the enzymes
- Using the water bath as au bain marie for custard


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What is the true cost of your commute? One example comes from 4HWW reader Troy Gardner, who recently wrote to me:
I'm still work focused (I like creating things!), but since I control my time/location, I'm reaping some of the rewards of being among the New Rich. My girlfriend and I will be spending the entire month of October visiting Chicago and Hawaii. Since I'm project/laptop based I can work during the evenings/free time, while spending the time out and about, finally learning surfing, and maybe kiteboarding etc.
Here is his experience, in his own words, of going from shocked awareness to blissful mobility…
People often fail to include the amount of time, wear and tear on the car, and loss of sanity into the allure of a high paying job, and how that high paying job once calculated hourly might not be better off than a fast-food worker.
My Example (back in 2000):
* 100K startup job in Sunnyvale, frequent meetings and late nights.
* Lived in Pacifica because Sunnyvale was boring.
* Girlfriend in Oakland: the only place she could afford a house.
Which, if your familiar with Bay Area traffic, forms a bermuda triangle of life suckage. What would be 20 minutes on a good day could turn into 4 hours of red lights. The draining aspect is its unpredictability, which you can never tell, and which also makes planning on getting to work on time difficult (should I get up at 4am or 6 am?).
Measuring the Pain
I got out my trusty stopwatch and averaged times over a few weeks. I was spending 20hrs in commute (commuting is an awful part-time job!) and 45-65 hrs at work, sometimes 6 days a week. Which when averaged into the "high" income calculated hourly rate between UPS delivery boy and McDonald's chef, and I'm sure the UPS guy was in better shape. Needless to say, I was quite astounded finishing the calculation.
On Fridays, I would go visit my girlfriend and get so frazzled from the commute that, when faced with another commute into the city to go out, coupled with 20-45 minutes finding parking (sometimes coupled with stresses of showtimes), any enjoyment to be had was quickly offset by the road rage and unknowns. This frequently took its toll on the relationship in the form of arguments.
Getting to a Zero Commute
Ever since then, I've never lived more than 30 minutes away from work, either structuring where I live, or where/how I work. Here are the steps I followed.
1. Negotiated (both work and girlfriend) for flex time, avoiding traffic. Savings of 5-7 hours a week.
2. Second was switching to 4 day in office, 1 day telecommuting, showing productivity enhancements.
3. 3rd was going to 3 day 10 hour days (keeping an eye out for how to go independent), networking and building credibility: started presenting at user meetings, conferences, tech edited books.
4. Having enough in savings, and enough contacts, that I could go solo without stress.
Interestingly, since going solo, my hourly rate in the last year has gone from 1.5 to 4 times what I was making working for others. The projects (I develop in flash) are smoother, as there are fewer people in the pipeline and less that can go wrong. My commute can be zero if I choose, yet I can travel more. Right now, my girlfriend and I are planning a full month trip to Chicago and Hawaii.
This is not to say that one has to work out of one's home. Increasingly, I'm entirely laptop-based, so I can work while visiting/travelling a higher percentage of the time, etc. While cafes are obvious, there are lots of other avenues. Some highlights of my work:
* in a quiet sunny grassy/tree park that connects to the cities free wireless,
* a free concert at the city of Pasadena that I wouldn't have paid that much attention to just watching.
* at the Getty museum on the lawn.
It's easy to make a goal of eating at one new place and seeing one new street. I was amazed at how little I knew the area around me. I might spend now 45 minutes a day commuting, but this is zero-stress walking and sightseeing and, at least in a decent city, it's amazing how much is accessible via foot and bus distance.
The killer commute and addiction to cars is really sad… The hidden causalities in relationships, jobs, due to the stress has never been measured, but I'm sure it's high. It's hard to be present for the nice dinner/evening in front of you when your already stressed out about the morning commute and the important meeting.
Zero Commute with 500% More Travel
The amount I save not paying interest or insurance can be used for other things. That said I love flying when I travel, and $600 is easily 2 flights a month (perhaps more if your using the Platinum AMEX card). Renting car and a hostel can be $50/day in the US.
A few years ago, a good friend and I wanted to drive from Vegas to Marin, up the beautiful California coastal highway for a friends wedding, so we rented a convertable Mustang for a 7 days and came back through Yosemite. It was a blast! Cost $240 + $140 in gas, split 2 ways. All the experiences, none of the maintenance or interest. The car we rented had a dragging brake caliper, which I'm sure cost at least half of what we spent that week to fix. He eventually put down a payment on a house, and I went solo.
What unidentified time sucks have you suffered from, and how did you — or could you — eliminate them?
[This post edited from Troy Gardner's new blog]
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While studies have found that insiders typically account for a minority of incidents, they tend to cause more damage, especially when privileged users, who have access to a company's crown jewels, go rogue. In addition, negligent insiders cause nearly 40 percent of all data breaches, and malicious attacks account for a third of incidents, according to a March study.
"The difference with insiders is they can inflict measurable financial, measurable IP, measurable brand and reputation damage -- more so than an outsider can," says Jim Butterworth, chief security officer for HBGary, a subsidiary of ManTech International. "Make sure that your employees, especially those with access to the crown jewels, are held accountable."
While insiders are usually only marginally involved in the theft of many types of data, incidents involving intellectual property are the exception, according to a Verizon report. In two-thirds of cases, regular employees played some role in the loss of intellectual property, the report stated.
The definition of "insider threat" continues to broaden. Once used to describe any attack by a rogue employee, the term now encompasses attacks that use insider-like access to compromise systems and data, such as employees who bring infected devices inside the firewall or companies that allow Internet-facing resources -- such as remote-desktop applications and videoconferencing -- unfettered access to the inside of their networks.
"In those cases, the breach would have never occurred if not for the insider making a mistake," says Rob Sobers, technical marketing manager for data-protection firm Varonis.
[Protecting intellectual property against insiders is tough enough when the insiders are a company's own employees, but the problem becomes even more difficult when a third party has access to confidential information. See When Someone Else's Insider Is Your Threat.]
Here are five significant attacks involving insiders in 2012.
5. Infrastructure As An Insider: Barnes & Noble
In October, retail book chain Barnes & Noble announced that rogue PIN pad devices had been found at 63 of its 700 stores, allowing criminals to siphon off credit- and debit-card numbers as well as the PINs to victims' bank accounts. Because the affected stores were located in different geographic areas, the attack is thought to be the work of an organized group of criminals.
Less than 1 percent of the devices were compromised with hardware "bugs," making the attack unlikely to be a supply-chain issue, Barnes & Noble stated. The incident showed that compromised infrastructure -- whether corrupted somewhere in the supply chain or later on-site -- is a major insider issue, said Gunter Ollmann, then vice president of research at Damballa, at the time.
"There is very little that can be done to protect these devices than what is already being done today," he said. "In essence, an insider threat is the most insidious."
4. Bug In The Boardroom: Rapid7 Videoconferencing Research
In January, researchers at vulnerability management firm Rapid7 published research showing that many videoconferencing systems were directly accessible from the Internet, essentially giving attackers a direct line into conference and meeting rooms.
The company's researchers scanned about 3 percent of the Internet's address space, finding that some 5,000 systems were set to automatically answer calls from the Internet. Statistically, that indicates a total of 150,000 systems are likely accessible from outside corporate networks. In lab tests with similar equipment, the researchers found that they could listen in on nearby conversations and even read information on whiteboards and sticky notes.
"People definitely want to be familiar with the products they are deploying," said Joshua Talbot, security intelligence manager at Symantec, at the time. "Companies that adopt a new technology should become aware of the security risks that they are bringing into the environment."
Later research found that remote-access software, used to administer a client's systems, could be a major security issue for companies that did not configure the software correctly, giving attackers a backdoor into the enterprise.
3. Data Walk Out: From Cityville To Kixeye
In August, Alan Patmore left Zinga and moved over to a small San Francisco startup, Kixeye. Just before leaving, he created a Dropbox folder and used it to transfer 760 files to the cloud, Zynga claimed in an October lawsuit. The data included a description of Zynga's methods for measuring success of game features, an initial assessment of Cityville, and design documents for nearly a dozen unreleased games, Zynga stated in its complaint. "Patmore transferred this data from Zynga in violation of his obligation and without Zynga's knowledge or consent," the company stated.
Kixeye countersued under California's business codes, claiming that the information is not proprietary and Zynga was attempting to stem an exodus of employees using legal tactics. The saga continues in the Superior Court of California.
Insiders walking out with proprietary data to which the workers believe they have some ownership rights is a common problem for companies. Educating employees about a company's intellectual-property concerns is a must. In addition to legal protections, companies should focus on limiting employees' access to data they do not need to do their work.
"Always make sure that people have access to only what they need," Varonis' Sobers says. "Just because they are an executive, they don't need to have access to everything in the company."
2. The Inadvertent Insider: South Carolina's Dept. Of Revenue Breach
In mid-August, attackers obtained the login credentials for an employee of the South Carolina Department of Revenue, essentially gaining insider access to the agency's systems. The attack, detected in October, resulted in the theft of some 3.6 million Social Security numbers belonging to state residents, as well as 387,000 credit- and debit-card numbers. Total cost: $14 million and growing.
Mandiant, the security firm that conducted the forensics investigation (PDF) into the breach, theorized that the attackers used spearphishing e-mails to compromise a worker's system and collected the credentials. Such a scenario is quite common, Varonis' Sobers says.
"Most of the time, the insider component of these attacks is not malicious," Sobers says.
Organizations should limit their workers' access to information that those employees need to know. The S.C. Department of Revenue did not do that, allowing the Social Security numbers to be stored unencrypted.
1. The Disgruntled Insider: Swiss Intel Leak
Rivaling the leak of U.S. State Department memos by a U.S. military serviceman, the Swiss intelligence agency, NDB, told its American and British counterparts that a disgruntled system administrator had reportedly taken terabytes of classified information from its systems. The employee reportedly had unrestricted rights to the intelligence service's systems and had carried out hard drives containing the stolen data, according to a Reuters report published earlier this month.
"Here is an administrator with root privileges, and there were no measures in place to restrict what that administrator could do," says Todd Thiemann, senior director of product marketing for data-protection provider Vormetric.
While authorities do not believe that the rogue employee sold or transferred the data, they have no way to be sure, sources told Reuters.
Have a comment on this story? Please click "Add Your Comment" below. If you'd like to contact Dark Reading's editors directly, send us a message.


text: Cigarette smoking is the single leading cause of preventable death and disease in the United States. But because of the physical and psychological addiction to nicotine, smokers find it quite difficult to quit. This video offers important reasons to stop smoking and a framework of change to help you achieve your goal.


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Golfball Typewriter Element
Typing has always been a precious activity to me. The keyboard was one of my first primary themes in the development of the early reactive graphics work. I finalized this interest in the keyboard with Tap, Type, Write. This image has stayed with me for 7 years on my desktop as a kind of good luck charm. I'm cleaning up my desktop finally and I figure there's no better place than the web for it now. I shot it with an early digital camera, thus the crummy, yet charming quality of the image combines well with the old-school progressive loading of the GIF image. Who needs Flash?
Copyright 2005, John Maeda.


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Front-End Developer & Designer
Return to shop
As your digital solution partner from İstanbul, I create strategy, creative and technology to deliver smart digital experiences across all devices and platforms since 2004. I believe on doing everything from user experience design and digital transformation to unique digital solutions including branding, eCommerce and digital marketing for the clients growth.
For a better customer experiences with an award-winning expert, let's meet!
Address: 34672 Uskudar / Istanbul
Phone: +90 555 710 22 85
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Our REU program in Puerto Rico has a new page
Please visit our new web page
Favor visite nuestra nueva página
Page developed by A. Ramirez. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in the material presented here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Puerto Rico or the National Science Foundation. Please contact webmaster with questions, comments, or for technical assistance regarding this web site. firstname.lastname@example.com


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Home >
News & Policies >
April 2006
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
April 25, 2006
President Discusses Energy Policy
Marriott Wardman Park Hotel
Washington, D.C.
Fact Sheet: President Bush's Four-Part Plan to Confront High Gasoline Prices
In Focus: Energy
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. Bob, thanks for the introduction. It's always good to be introduced by somebody who is referred to as the "Promoter in Chief." (Laughter.) For 25 years, the Renewable Fuels Association has been a tireless advocate for ethanol producers. Your advocacy is paying off. Renewable energy is one of the great stories of recent years, and it's going to be a bigger story in the years to come. (Applause.)
I like the idea of talking to people who are growing America's energy security. I like the idea of policy that combines agriculture and modern science with the energy needs of the American people. I'm here to talk to you about the contributions you are making, and I'm here to talk to you about the need for this country to get off our dependency of oil.
And so I want to thank Bob for the invitation. I want to thank Ron Miller, the Chairman of the Renewable Fuels Association. I want to thank the board of directors and the members of the Renewable Fuels Association. I thank the members of my administration who are here -- Clay Sell is the Deputy Secretary of Energy, has joined us. I see members of the United States Congress who are here. I appreciate Jack Kingston of Georgia, Jerry Weller of Illinois, and Gil Gutknecht of Minnesota for joining us. Thank you all for your interest in this very important subject. (Applause.)
Before I talk about energy, I do want to share with you some thoughts about the war on terror. I just got off of a conference -- a videoconference with our strong ally Tony Blair. And we were talking about a major development that has taken place in the war on terror. After months of patient negotiations, Iraqi leaders reached an agreement on a unity government. And that's positive. (Applause.) This is a government -- this new leadership reflects the diversity of Iraq, and it reflects the will of the Iraqi people who defied the terrorists and killers and went to the polls last December. This new government is an important milestone for a free Iraq.
And it's the beginning of a new chapter in our relationship with the Iraqi people. When I was in California over the weekend, I had the opportunity to speak to the three leaders -- the President, the Speaker, and the Prime Minister-designate. I congratulated them on their courage and encouraged them to stand strong for the Iraqi people. I reminded them the people had voted, the people had expressed their desire for democracy and unity, and now there's a chance for these leaders to stand up and lead.
I told them that they have important responsibilities to their people, to rebuild infrastructure and to improve their economy and enhance security. I was pleased with the response I got. It's important for the American people to know that these three leaders appreciate the sacrifice that our troops have made and that our taxpayers have made to help them realize a dream. And the dream is to live in a unified, free society. A free Iraq is in the interest of the United States of America. A free Iraq will be a part of laying the peace for generations to come. And a free Iraq will be a major defeat for the terrorists who still want to do us harm. (Applause.)
We've got good news here at home on the economic front, too. This economy of ours is growing, and the entrepreneurial spirit in America is strong. We've cut the taxes for everybody who paid income taxes, and that tax relief is getting results. Last year, our economy grew faster than any major industrialized nation. Since August of 2003, this economy of ours has created 5.1 million new jobs. The unemployment rate nationwide is 4.7 percent. That's lower than the average rate of the '60s, '70s, '80s, and '90s. The American people are working. (Applause.)
Farm income is up. Agricultural exports are growing. Real after-tax income is up over 8 percent for Americans since 2001. Productivity is high. More people own a home than ever before in our nation's history. This economy is strong, and we intend to keep it that way. And one way to keep it that way is to make the tax cuts permanent. (Applause.)
Yet amongst this hopeful -- these hopeful signs, there's an area of serious concern, and that is high energy prices. And the prices that people are paying at the gas pumps reflect our addiction to oil. Addiction to oil is a matter of national security concerns. After all, today we get about 60 percent of our oil from foreign countries. That's up from 20 years ago where we got oil from -- about 25 percent of our oil came from foreign countries. Now, part of the problem is, is that some of the nations we rely on for oil have unstable governments, or agendas that are hostile to the United States. These countries know we need their oil, and that reduces our influence, our ability to keep the peace in some areas. And so energy supply is a matter of national security. It's also a matter of economic security.
What people are seeing at their gasoline pumps reflects the global economy in which we live. See, when demand for oil goes up in China or India, two fast-growing economies, it affects the price of oil nation -- worldwide. And when the price of crude oil goes up, because it's such an important part of the price of gasoline, the average citizen sees the price of gasoline go up at the pump.
Gasoline price increases are like a hidden tax on the working people. They're like a tax on our farmers. They're like a tax on small businesses. Energy prices are -- energy experts predict gas prices are going to remain high throughout the summer, and that's going to be a continued strain on the American people.
And so the fundamental question is, what are we going to do? What can the government do? One of the past responses by government, particularly from the party of which I am not a member, has been to have -- to propose price fixing, or increase the taxes. Those plans haven't worked in the past. I think we need to follow suit on what we have been emphasizing, particularly through the energy bill, and that is to encourage conservation, to expand domestic production, and to develop alternative sources of energy like ethanol. (Applause.)
Signing the energy bill was one thing, and I want to thank the members of Congress for getting a comprehensive energy bill to my desk. But there's a lot more to be done. First thing is to make sure that the American consumers are treated fairly at the gas pump. Americans understand, by and large, that the price of crude oil is going up and that the prices are going up, but what they don't want and will not accept is manipulation of the market. And neither will I.
The Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether price of gasoline has been unfairly manipulated in any way. I'm also directing the Department of Justice to work with the FTC and the Energy Department to conduct inquiries into illegal manipulation or cheating related to the current gasoline prices. The FTC and the Attorney General are contacting 50 state attorney generals to offer technical assistance to urge them to investigate possible illegal price manipulation within their jurisdictions. In other words, this administration is not going to tolerate manipulation. We expect our consumers to be treated fairly.
To reduce gas prices, our energy companies have got a role to play. Listen, at record prices, these energy companies have got large cash flows, and they need to reinvest those cash flows into expanding refining capacity, or researching alternative energy sources, or developing new technologies, or expanding production in environmentally friendly ways. That's what the American people expect. We expect there to be strong reinvestment to help us with our economic security needs and our national security needs.
Record oil prices and large cash flows also mean that Congress has got to understand that these energy companies don't need unnecessary tax breaks like the write-offs of certain geological and geophysical expenditures, or the use of taxpayers' money to subsidize energy companies' research into deep water drilling. I'm looking forward to Congress to take about $2 billion of these tax breaks out of the budget over a 10-year period of time. Cash flows are up. Taxpayers don't need to be paying for certain of these expenses on behalf of the energy companies. (Applause.)
Second part of a good plan is -- to confront high gasoline prices is to promote greater fuel efficiency. And the easiest way to promote fuel efficiency is to encourage drivers to purchase highly efficient hybrid or clean diesel vehicles, which, by the way, can run on alternative energy sources. Hybrid vehicles run on a combination of a traditional engine and an electric battery. The twin sources of power allow hybrid cars and trucks to travel about twice as far on a gallon of fuel as gasoline-only vehicles. When people are driving hybrids, they're conserving energy.
Clean diesel vehicles take advantage of advances in diesel technology to run on 30 percent less fuel than gasoline vehicles do. More than 200,000 hybrid and clean diesel vehicles were sold in the United States last year. It's the highest sales in history. Congress wisely in the energy bill expanded a tax credit for purchase of hybrids and clean diesel vehicles up to as much as up to $3,400 per purchase. That made sense.
If we're trying to conserve energy, if we want to become less dependent on oil, let's provide incentives for consumers to use less energy. The problem is that these tax credits apply to only a limited number of hybrid and clean diesel vehicles for each manufacturer. If the automakers sell more than their limit, new purchasers are not eligible for the full tax credit. And so here's an idea that can get more of these vehicles on the road, and that is to have Congress make all hybrid and clean diesel vehicles sold this year eligible for federal tax credits. We want to encourage people to make wise choices when it comes to the automobiles they drive.
Third part of the plan to confront high gas prices is to boost our supplies of crude oil and gasoline. It makes sense when the supply-and-demand world, if prices are high, it means demand is greater than supply. One way to ease price is to increase supply. One immediate way we can signal to people we're serious about increasing supply is to stop making purchases or deposits to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for a short period of time.
I've directed the Department of Energy to defer filling the reserve this summer. Our strategic reserve is sufficiently large enough to guard against any major supply disruption over the next few months. So by deferring deposits until the fall, we'll leave a little more oil on the market. Every little bit helps.
We also need to ensure that there are not needless restrictions on our ability to get gasoline to the pump. Under federal quality -- air quality laws, some areas of the country are required to use fuel blend called reformulated gasoline. Now, as you well know, this year we're going -- undergoing a rapid transition in the primary ingredient in reformulated gas -- from MTBE to ethanol. And I appreciate the role the ethanol producers are playing to meet this challenge. You're playing a vital role.
Yet state and local officials in some parts of our country worry about supply disruption for the short term. They worry about the sudden change from MTBE to ethanol -- the ethanol producers won't be able to meet the demand. And that's causing the price of gasoline to go up some amount in their jurisdictions.
And some have contacted us to determine whether or not they can ask the EPA to waive local fuel requirements on a temporary basis. And I think it makes sense that they should be allowed to. So I'm directing EPA Administrator Johnson to use all his available authority to grant waivers that would relieve critical fuel supply shortages. And I do that for the sake of our consumers. If Johnson finds that he needs more authority to relieve the problem, we're going to work with Congress to obtain the authority he needs.
Secondly, we also need to confront the larger problem of too many localized fuel blends, which are called boutique fuels. The number of boutique fuels has expanded rapidly over the years, and America now has an uncoordinated and overly complex set of fuel rules. And when you have a uncoordinated, overly complex set of fuel rules, it tends to cause the price to go up.
And so I'm asking Director -- directing Administrator Johnson to bring the governors together to form a task force on boutique fuels. And the mission of this task force will be to find ways to reduce the number of boutique fuels and to increase cooperation between states on gasoline supply decisions. I want to simplify the process for the sake of our consumers. And then I'm asking them to get these recommendations to my desk, and I look forward to working with the United States Congress to simplify the process.
Listen, we need to expand our refining capacity. One of the problems we face is we've got tight supplies because we haven't expanded refining capacity. There hasn't been a new refinery built in 30 years. If you're worried about the price of gasoline at the pump, it makes sense to try to get more supply to the market. That will be beneficial for American consumers to get more supply to the market.
Part of the reasons why we haven't expanded or built new refineries to the extent we need to is because the permitting process in this country is extremely complicated. Companies that want to upgrade their equipment or expand their existing refineries or build new ones often have to wade through long, bureaucratic delays and/or lawsuits.
To make this gasoline supply more affordable and more secure, Congress needs to allow refiners to make modifications on their refineries without having to wait for years to get something -- to get their idea approved. I mean, if we want more supply, let's reduce the paperwork and the regulations.
Congress also needs to simplify and speed up the permitting process for refinery construction and expansion. And so I'm going to work with Congress. It's important for Congress to cut through the red tape and guarantee refinery construction permits will be processed within a single year.
We also need to be mindful of the fact that we can find additional crude oil in our own country in environmentally friendly ways. The technology is such that we're capable of environmentally-sensitive exploration. We got tight crude oil supplies, and it seems like it makes sense for us to use our new technologies to find more crude, particularly crude here at home.
One of the issues, as you know, that has been confronting Congress is ANWR. And I fully recognize that the passage of ANWR will not increase the oil supply immediately. But it's also important to understand that if ANWR had been law a decade ago, America would be producing about a million additional barrels of oil a day, and that would increase our current level of domestic supply by 20 percent. We've got to be wise about energy policy here in America. We've got to make sure that we protect the environment, but we've also got to make sure that we find additional supplies of crude oil in order to take the pressure off the price of crude, which takes the pressure off the price of gasoline at the pump.
And all I've outlined here today are interim strategies -- short-term and interim strategy. The truth of the matter is, the long-term strategy is to power our automobiles with something other than oil -- (applause) -- something other than gasoline, which is derived from oil.
And we're making progress. In my State of the Union Address, I talked about the Advanced Energy Initiative. And this is an aggressive plan, a wise way of using taxpayers' money to get us off our addiction to oil. We have a unique opportunity to continue forward with this plan.
Technology is the way, really, to help us -- to help change America for the better. Years of investment in fuels like ethanol have put us on the threshold of major breakthroughs. And those breakthroughs are becoming a reality for our consumers. I set a goal to replace oil from around the world. The best way and the fastest way to do so is to expand the use of ethanol.
The Advanced Energy Initiative is focused on three promising ways to reduce gasoline consumption. One is increasing the use of ethanol, another is improving hybrid vehicles, and finally, one is developing hydrogen technology. All three go hand-in-hand; all three are an important part of a strategy to help us diversify away from hydrocarbons.
Ethanol is -- has got the largest potential for immediate growth. Most people may not know this, but today, most of ethanol produced in America today is from corn. Most vehicles can use 10 percent ethanol in their automobiles.
What's interesting that Americans don't realize, with a little bit of expenditure, we can convert a -- kind of the standard automobile to what's called a flex-fuel automobile. And that flex-fuel vehicle can use ethanol that is -- or fuel that is 85 percent ethanol. It's amazing, isn't it? Without much cost, your automobile can be converted to be able to burn fuel with 85 percent ethanol, or a product made from corn grown right here in America.
Ethanol is a versatile fuel and the benefits are -- the benefits are easy to recognize when you think about it. One, the use of ethanol in our automobiles is good for the agricultural sector. I'm one of these people who believes when the agricultural sector is strong, America is strong. (Applause.) The way I like to put it, it would be a good thing when a President can sit there and say, gosh, we've got a lot of corn, and it means we're less dependent on foreign sources of oil. (Applause.)
Years back, they'd say, oh, gosh, we've got a lot of corn, worried about the price. Ethanol is good for our rural communities. It's good economic development for rural America. New biorefinery construction creates jobs and local tax revenues. When the farmer -- when the family farmer is doing well, it's good for the local merchants.
Ethanol is good for the environment. I keep emphasizing that we can be good stewards of our environment, and at the same time, continue with our economic expansion. And ethanol will help meet that strategy. You don't have to choose between good environment and good economics. You can have both by the use of technology. And ethanol is an example of what I'm talking about. And ethanol is good for drivers. Ethanol is home-grown. Ethanol will replace gasoline consumption. It's a good -- ethanol is good for the whole country, and we've been -- (applause.) I thought you'd like that. (Laughter.)
The ethanol industry is booming. It must be exciting to have worked for as long as you have on encouraging alternative sources of energy, and then all of a sudden see the work come to fruition.
Last year America used a record 4 billion gallons of ethanol. There are now 97 ethanol refineries in our country, and nine of those are expanding. And 35 more are under construction. The ethanol industry is on the move, and America is better off for it.
Many of these refineries are in the Midwest -- the Midwest because that is where the source of that -- the feedstock for ethanol comes from. That happens to be corn. But what's really interesting is there are new plants springing up in unexpected areas, like the Central Valley of California, or Arizona, or, of course, in the sugar fields of Hawaii. After all, sugar is also an important -- can be used for ethanol. As a matter of fact, it's a very efficient feedstock for ethanol.
Ethanol required our support. In other words, to get this new industry going, it required a little nudge from the federal government. Since I took office, we've extended the tax credit to 51 cents per gallon for suppliers. We've created a new 10-cent per gallon tax credit to provide extra help to small ethanol producers and farmers; provided $85 million of loans and grants for the ethanol business ventures.
In other words, this is a collaborative effort. The federal government has got a role to play to encourage new industries that will help this nation diversify away from oil. And so we're strongly committed to corn-based ethanol produced in America. Yet there -- you just got to recognize there are limits to how much corn can be used for ethanol. After all, we got to eat some. And the animals have got to eat.
And so I am committed to furthering technology research to find other ways, other sources of ethanol. We're working on research -- strong research to figure out cellulosic ethanol that can be made from wood chips, or stalks, or switch grass. These materials are sometimes waste products and are just simply thrown away. Doesn't it make sense for us -- I think it does -- to use taxpayers' money to determine whether or not we can use these new -- these raw materials to make something out of nothing, so that we continue the advance of ethanol, so the market for ethanol expands throughout the United States.
We're spending -- I proposed, and I'm working with these members of the Renewable Caucus -- $150 million in next year's budget for research in advanced forms of ethanol. And that's a significant increase over previous levels. I think it makes sense. And surely the prices at the gas pump should say to the taxpayer it makes sense for this government to spend money on research and development to find alternative sources of energy. (Applause.)
I also support biodiesel fuel, which can -- (applause) -- which can substitute for regular diesel in cars, trucks, buses and farm equipment. Last year I went out to see a biodiesel refinery in Virginia that's making clean-burning fuel from soybean oil. And it was a really interesting process to watch. I don't know if you know this or not, but they're able to use waste products like recycled cooking grease to manufacture biodiesel. In other words, research and development has lead to new alternative sources of energy like biodiesel. So that's one of the reasons why I signed into law the first ever federal tax credit for biodiesel producers. In other words, we're interested in addressing our energy security needs on a variety of fronts. It makes sense for the United States to have a comprehensive strategy to help us diversify away from oil.
And so we also have got to understand that we got to research not only to find -- to invest in ethanol and biodiesel, but part of a comprehensive strategy is to spend money on researching new battery technologies. And one of the really interesting opportunities available for the American consumer will be the ability to buy a plug-in hybrid vehicle that will be able to drive up to 40 miles on electricity. Seems to make sense to me. If we're trying to get us off gasoline, with crude oil as the main -- as its main feedstock, then why wouldn't we explore ways to be able to have vehicles that use less gasoline? And one way to do so is to use electricity to power vehicles.
And we're pretty close to a breakthrough. We believe we're close to a technology that will make it possible to drive up to 40 miles on electricity alone. And then if you have to drive more than 40 miles, then your gasoline kicks in.
But you can imagine what that will mean for a lot of drivers in big cities who on a daily basis, they don't drive over 40 miles. And so therefore, a lot of drivers that are going back and forth from work in big cities won't be using gasoline. And that's going to help. We've got $31 million in our budget to speed up research and development into advanced battery technologies.
And finally, one other opportunity that is more long run than ethanol or biodiesel or plug-in hybrid vehicles, or encouraging people to buy the hybrids that are on the market today, is hydrogen. We're spending about $1.2 billion over five years to research the use of hydrogen to power vehicles. And it makes a lot of sense when you think about it, because hydrogen produces zero emissions. The only emission it produces is water. And when I was out there in California, I visited the California Fuel Cell Partnership and saw buses and cars and SUVs that are driving on the highways out there powered by hydrogen. And the research and development money that we have spent has lowered the cost of hydrogen fuel cells, it's helped make them lighter. In other words, there's an industry coming. And it's an industry that will enable consumers to drive to work, just like we're doing today, but not rely on foreign sources of oil.
What I'm describing to you today is a strategy that recognizes the realities of the world in which we live. Our dependency on oil has created economic security issues for us, and national security issues for us. And therefore, this country must use our brain power and entrepreneurial spirit to diversify away from the hydrocarbon economy. You all have known this a lot longer than most Americans. You've known that we've needed to have this strategy, and that's why you're on the forefront of incredible changes that are taking place in this country.
You know, there's no doubt in my mind that one of these days, instead of people driving up to a gas station, they're going to be going up to a fueling station. And they'll be able to have choices to choose from. Got a hydrogen-powered car, you'll be able to have that choice. If you want 85 percent, maybe someday 100 percent ethanol, that will be an option available, too.
We owe it to the American people to be aggressive on price gouging now. We owe it to the American people to be promoting alternative ways to drive their car so as to make us less dependent on foreign sources of oil. We owe it to the American people to be aggressive in the use of technology so we can diversify away from the hydrocarbon society. And that's precisely what we're doing, and I'm glad to stand with you.
I appreciate your work for the United States of America. Thank you for letting me come by and talk to you, and may God bless you. (Applause.)


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Police in Idaho Falls have told a man to stop wearing a bunny suit in public after people complained he has been frightening children.
Residents in the northwestern city of 54,000 people also reported William Falkingham, 34, occasionally wears a tutu with the bunny suit, police said in a statement on Tuesday.
Police warned Falkingham after a woman said she saw him dressed in the costume, peeking at her young son from behind a tree and pointing his finger like a gun.
While a police report said other residents were "greatly disturbed" by his activities, one neighbor defended Falkingham as eccentric but otherwise harmless.
"He's got the bunny outfit, a cowboy suit and a ballerina dress but you don't see him except where he's tripping through his backyard," Deborah Colson told Reuters. "He's got a strange lifestyle at home but we all do weird things at home."
Falkingham told officers he "enjoys wearing the suit" but understands the concerns and that he could be cited as a public nuisance, police spokeswoman Joelyn Hansen said.


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Brynn writes:
In January I wrote about Mary Jones, the Central Kitsap woman who has cared for some of the state's most medically fragile babies while they were placed in state custody. (Read that story here).
Jones started fostering 31 years ago, but in December she terminated her foster care license with the state because she'd finally had enough with the state's Department of Social and Health Services.
It takes a lot to get Jones that upset — this is a woman who has the patience of a saint — but after an infant in her care was not tested for HIV, even though the child's mother gave permission, Jones had had enough. She was told by DSHS officials that a court order was needed to test the child, but it took close to six months for that order to be issued. Testing the infant as soon as possible would have been in the baby's best interest, because if the infant tested positive it would have been given necessary antiviral medication to potentially keep the disease away.
It wasn't until Jones terminated her license and the baby was moved to a different foster family that Jones received a call from the baby's caseworker saying the court order had been issued. But even then if the infant tested positive for HIV, the state wouldn't tell Jones the results because she longer was caring for the child — even though she'd cared for the baby for three months, potentially exposing herself to the disease.
This isn't the first time Jones has run up against DSHS about its lack of policy on whether to test infants at birth for HIV. She has tried since 2004 to get legislation passed that would test infants for HIV if the status of the mother is unknown, and if the mother is at high risk for the disease (i.e. an intravenous drug user). Many pregnant women whose children enter state custody after birth receive prenatal care, so the percentage of women whose HIV status is unknown at the time of delivery is low. But it's the babies born to women who are intravenous drug users, or who don't receive any medical attention during pregnancy, and who don't know if they're HIV positive, that the bill aims to reach.
Working with Sen. Christine Rolfes, D-Bainbridge Island, Jones hopes to see legislation passed this year that would update state law to require the test in infants whose status is unknown.
The bill, SB 5454, made it out of the Senate Human Services and Corrections Committee and after a detour through the Senate Ways and Means committee (an inaccurate fiscal note was attached to the bill, which is how it ended up there) the bill is now waiting on the rules committee to be brought to the floor for a vote.
This is the first time this legislation has made it out of committee. Rolfes is optimistic the bill will pass once on the floor, but she's also pragmatic and knows it faces an uphill battle.
"The challenge is right now we have hundreds of bills waiting to get to the floor for a vote," Rolfes said Wednesday. "We have another week or so to get the bills out and the Senate moves very slowly. Whether I can get it to the floor is the big 'if.'"
Jones has been holding her breath, waiting to see if the bill finally passes. Seeing this legislation approved might help heal Jones' wounds — the 63-year-old planned to retire this spring when her license ran out; terminating her license early was an act of desperation. While she knows she did the right thing, there's still a part of her that is upset she didn't get to retire the way she wanted.
Even though she's no longer caring for the medically fragile babies, she's still fighting for them in Olympia.
"When I go down there to testify I am always just focused on who I am there for, which is always my babies," she said earlier this month.
If the bill doesn't make it to the floor this session, Rolfes isn't discouraged, in fact she's optimistic that it will be even easier to get it passed during the next session.
"A lot times when the bills get this far you can get them out the next year," she said. "Where we are right now is strategically a good spot. We'll know in another couple of weeks if it's still alive. It's certainly my priority."
Here's some excerpts from SB 5454, which updates RCW 13.34.315:
When an infant under one year of age is placed in out-of-home care under this chapter, the department or other supervising agency shall request that the infant's treating physician test the infant for human immunodeficiency virus, if the human immunodeficiency virus status of the mother of the infant:
(i) Is known to be positive; or
(ii) Is unknown and the department has specific information indicating that the mother is at increased risk of human immunodeficiency virus infection, including, but not limited to, a history of drug abuse.
The bill goes on to indicate the supervising agency must then follow a treating physician's recommendation for follow-up testing and care for infants that test positive. It also says the child's parent must be asked for consent. If they object for any reason, including conflicts with religious beliefs, a court order is required to perform the test.
Click here to see the TVW footage of the Feb. 12 Senate Human Services and Corrections Committee hearing on SB 5454.
Click here for a history of SB 5454, which includes links to a pdf of the original bill.


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Electrical Engineer and Computer Programmer for hire in Victoria, BC, Canada
Click Here
Employers: Click Here.
This page is best viewed at a resolution of 1024*768 or higher.
I'm currently employed in a full time engineering position and I am no-longer actively seeking employment at this time. I might be interested in a small interesting project, but my free time is pretty scarce these days.
I am back on the job hunt, so I have added an updated resume: Short Version or Long Version.
I made a Depth of Field and Diffraction Limit Trade-Off Calculator and Grapher.
You heard me.
I changed the structure of my web page from a frames page to a non-frames page, using PHP to load a standard title block on most pages.
I also changed around the directory structure, so there might be some dead links until I find the time to test everything, and convert the rest of the pages to the standard title block.
I just felt like building something (ok I was procrastinating because I didn't want to do homework), so I built a BedWoofer!.
WinAmp.com finally reviewed my plugin 3 weeks after I submitted it, and they added it to their visualization plugins section:
It is currently getting about 10 downloads per hour.
Updated 2002 / 05 / 16 @ 17:52 Pacific North America time: I just checked the download page and I've passed the 1000 download mark. It is currently at 1,008 downloads.
I added a Things I Have Built section to my home page.
I built my first OpenGl Winamp plugin and added it to my OpenGl/C++/Winamp plugins section.
I built my first OpenGl/C++ program and added an OpenGl/C++ section.
I added a new version of my geiss-like java applet to my Java Section.
This page has been viewed 1883 times since July 21'th 2003.
2023 / 09 / 26 . 19:16:15


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Jack French #3
Jack is back in this 3rd episode of the famous Flash game series. You meet up with Jack when a businessman is thrown out of a running train. Clearly, this case is going to be more complicated than initially expected... This episode should keep you at the edge of your seat!.