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In case you were wondering:
This despite Rodman's obvious, if preliminary, success at ingratiating himself with a historically taciturn North Korean leadership. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, U.S. State Department—this drying out period/jaunt through the Democratic People's Republic could well be the first step towards a demilitarized North Korea. Give the new era of Celebrity Rehab diplomacy a chance.
The State Department was, oddly, not opened-minded after Rodman's visit ended yesterday:
"The North Korean regime has a horrific human rights record, quite possibly the worst human rights situation in the world," spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters in Washington. He accused the regime of depriving their people of food, shelter, water and maintaining prison gulags.
Ventrell also took aim at Pyongyang for its grand treatment of the visiting basketball stars.
"Clearly you've got the regime spending money to wine and dine foreign visitors, when they should be feeding their own people," he said.
Kim, a diehard basketball fan, told the former Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls star that he hoped the visit would break the ice between the United States and North Korea, said Shane Smith, founder of the New York-based VICE media company.
Gulag this, gulag that—if the dictator is on board, what are you complaining about? Alas, Rodman is now in Beijing for whatever reason, and relations between the U.S. and North Korea remain chilly. We keep sending over our best and brightest, and Kim Jong-Un has yet to yield to democracy.
The State Department may have clarified Rodman's role, but our basketball-loving leader wouldn't comment:
Rodman's trip is the second attention-grabbing American visit this year to North Korea. Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, made a four-day trip in January to Pyongyang, but did not meet the North Korean leader.
The Obama administration had frowned on the trip by Schmidt, who was accompanied by former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, but has avoided criticizing Rodman's outing, saying it's about sports.
The new strategy for anyone hoping to breach the North Korean border without drawing the ire of the White House: Stick to sports.


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A FEW YEARS AGO, I began to notice that the panhandlers I'd been seeing near my workplace in Harvard Square seemed more plentiful, younger, more troubled. There were lots of new "passing through, need food" signs, and even whole families begging — some are still there. I used to hurry by them, but then I began to stop. Each face tells a story, I realized, and I would try to capture as many as I could through a series of oil paintings.
I do not ask the panhandlers to "pose" for me, but to carry on with their business. I pay each person $10, though I wish I could afford more, because they earn that small fee in the hour or two it takes me to paint them. Over that time, we often get to talking, which has been a privilege and an education. I've seen or heard many human dramas: the tragic love story of Gary and Whitney; squabbles over the best places to work; the mysterious figure everyone calls "The Rabbi," stuffing $20 bills into cups and disappearing before anyone can see his face. I've witnessed a few instances of cruelty, but many more of thoughtfulness and generosity. And when I head home, I'm always struck by one thought: There but for the grace of God go the rest of us. Perhaps that's why we find panhandlers so hard to look at.
This is my first painting of 2013. Maxine, known as Max, was camped out next to the Harvard Coop with a sign that read "I see you but do you see me." While I was painting, several panhandlers yelled at another woman about squatting on other people's territory.
Kelly, working on a needlepoint, introduced me to her husband. After I paid her, an elderly panhandler came up and asked her for money. Without a second thought, Kelly gave her one of the fives I had just handed her.
A Desert Storm vet, Gary did not actively solicit. At one point, I asked him if I was preventing him from making money. He smiled and said no. His wife, Whitney, also a panhandler, stopped by. She was wearing a face mask and was largely bald. She said she was going in for chemotherapy.
"Let me look at your eyes," a passerby told Michael. Satisfied, he gave him a $20 bill. "I used to be homeless, too," the man said. "Now tell me your story." Michael was working as a construction supervisor when he had a minor stroke. When he got out of the hospital, he had no money, no job, and no home.
Melvin spoke of working as a mechanic, then taking care of his dying mother, a breakdown, and ending up on the street. His big beef was with the buskers. People tended to walk right past the homeless if there was a street musician to give their money to. As I was finishing up, a young man in a white jacket and tie set up behind us and began to play the didgeridoo.
Stationed at the entrance to CVS, Kimberly asked every passerby for spare change. If they went in without making a donation, she would ask, "Maybe on your way out?" Most people gave her their change as they left, and she was getting a handout every two or three minutes.
The come-on from Merlin (in the back) and Slim was "Spare change for Arizona Iced Tea." When they'd collected enough, Slim bought two Arizona Iced Teas. They then switched to "Spare change for pizza." I have no doubt that's what they had for lunch.
Visit Marc Clamage's website, IPaintWhatISee.com, to view the more than 30 works in his ongoing series. Send comments to email@example.com.

subset: commoncrawl


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A No-Spoilers Review of Tonight's Game of Thrones Premiere
Tonight, Game of Thrones returns for its fourth season. The episode airs at 9pm ET/PT on HBO, Sunday, April 6.
Because executive producers D.B. Weiss and David Benioff have requested that we don't spoil any plot twists or spoilers, our review of tonight's episode must be curtailed. So here, I present the most spoiler-free GoT premiere review I can manage.
Tywin Lannister
Is alive and making weapons. Or rather, paying others to make weapons for him. (See also: 7 Secrets of a Game of Thrones Weapons Artist.)
Tyrion Lannister
Is doing odd jobs for his dad. It's not easy being the Hand's errand-boy (sorry, I mean Master of Coin), being married to a distraught child bride, and having to manage his increasingly bold mistress Shae.
The Dornishmen (and Women)
Are coming. (Kind of like Winter, but with more characterization.) Well, they're pretty much here now, and that could be a problem in the long term. There's some lightweight sexposition featuring these new characters.
Daenerys Targaryen
Has dragons that are growing up. And is surrounded by various men who want to give her advice and/or date her and/or impress her. She is not impressed.
Ser Jorah Mormont
Has two lines.
The Red Wedding
Was not a dream, and has bummed out a bunch of people. On the bright side, there's a new wedding coming up in King's Landing in a fortnight! Yay, weddings!
Sansa Lannister (nee Stark)
Is extra-bummed due to the recent death of most of her remaining family in the aforementioned Red Wedding. She could really use a break. Will she get a break? Magic 8-Ball says: outlook not so good.
Ser Dontos Hollard
Is drunk. (You'll be forgiven if you don't remember this fellow when you see him.)
Jon Snow
Knows nothing. And is about to go on trial for all the crazy nothings he's done on the wrong side of the Wall.
The Wildlings
Know plenty, but are freaked out by the arrival of the Thenns. (Because everybody knows the Hornfoots hate the Thenns.)
All I'm saying is that Jon Snow had better watch out because his ex is manufacturing an alarming number of arrows.
Samwell Tarly
Has two lines, and one's a zinger.
The Commanders of the Night's Watch
Are ticked at Jon Snow for pulling the various hijinks he's been up to.
Brienne of Tarth
Is "just marvelous." Has made various promises/vows regarding Renly and the Stark children in previous episodes. She's looking to keep them.
Ser Jaime Lannister
Has a new haircut! Is still missing a pretty important hand. He's not a confident lefty yet, but he's trying. His dad is still tough on him. Will he keep his promise to protect the Stark girls? Is that even possible? Also, he's in charge of security for the upcoming wedding. That sounds like fun.
King Joffrey Baratheon
Is still a jerk. He's even mean to his uncle/father Jaime. He's getting ready for his wedding. Yay, weddings!
Margaery Tyrell
Is getting ready for her wedding. But she needs a new necklace! Who will find her a necklace befitting a queen? (Tune in next week to find out.)
Olenna Redwyne
Is helping sort out this necklace business.
Cersei Lannister
Drinks more than she used to.
Sandor Clegane (The Hound)
Is a stupendous badass.
Arya Stark
Is rapidly becoming a stupendous badass. Who wants her very own horse.
Arya Stark's Enemies
Should watch out, because, you know, "Valar Morghulis."
Bran and Rickon Stark, Osha, Jojen and Meera Reed, etc.
Presumably exist. Can't really tell ya.
Hodor? Hodor. (Spoiler: Hodor?)
All in All
Game of Thrones has so many moving parts that it can be hard to keep track of all the subplots and familial relationships. This first episode is mainly about establishing where the various major characters are (notably excluding the Greyjoys and the non-Arya Stark kids) and what they're up to.
This episode is an appetizer sampler offering a little bit of everything, but not too much. The episode runs long, filling out a full hour, because we have to see at least enough of each of the above-listed characters (except Hodor, because Hodor) long enough to establish their current position on the global chessboard.
Relatively speaking, this episode is light on sex and violence, but heavy on exposition. Having said that, there is still sex and violence, the latter being the most interesting development in the episode. But, this being ultra-spoiler-free, you're just gonna have to wait and see. Here are some trailers to help you while away the few hours between now and tonight's premiere:
And if you need to refresh your memory, consult The Game of Thrones Viewer's Guide, including episode recaps, character studies, and plenty of maps.


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This is a nice option!
A classic, Mark Twain quipped, is "a book which people praise and don't read." The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the rare classic that is highly praised and widely read. Following World War II, it became required reading in most of the nation's middle schools and high schools. It addressed many Cold War needs: More than any other major work of nineteenth-century American literature, its use of dialect and regional settings made it seem authentically and distinctively American. In addition, it spoke to the greatest contradiction in American history: the existence of slavery and virulent racial prejudice in a country dedicated to liberty and equality.
When we think of works of fiction that "changed history" we typically envision works of social reform, like Uncle Tom's Cabin or The Jungle, or of utopian vision, such as Looking Backward, or of scathing cultural criticism, like 1984 or Animal Farm. But there are other, more subtle ways that works of fiction can change history. These include powerful critiques of the American dream, like The Great Gatsby or Death of a Salesman, or metaphorical explorations of the connections between past and present, like The Crucible, the McCarthy-era examination of the Salem witch hunt. Huckleberry Finn is all these and more. It is a picaresque tale of adventure, a coming of age story, and a novel of escape and liberation (from slavery and an abusive family life). It is also a travelogue, a work of comic satire, sarcasm, and social mockery, and an impassioned critique of progress, civilization, and the cult of respectability. Equally important, it is a brilliant work of history that shows how the past illuminates and shapes the present.
Ernest Hemingway was right when he announced that all modern American literature comes from Huckleberry Finn. Although many previous novels had included dialect (including Uncle Tom's Cabin), Huckleberry Finn is the first major novel in which the narrator speaks in dialect. Unlike earlier works of fiction in which the narrator speaks in refined language and tells uplifting and ennobling stories, Twain's narrator speaks in a distinctly natural American voice. Twain's novel is "Huck's autobiography," as Twain put it in a letter to William Dean Howells, which is significant because Twain is showing that moral authority can come from a representative of "poor white trash," and a juvenile delinquent at that, which was, at the time, something new in American culture. This is what prompted Louisa May Alcott to condemn the novel: "If Mr. [Samuel] Clemens [Mark Twain] cannot think of something better to tell our pure-minded lads and lasses, he'd best stop writing for them," wrote the author of Little Women.
Huckleberry Finn is not only one of this country's undeniably great novels, it is also, perhaps, the most entertaining. One of our first "buddy stories," Huckleberry Finn served as our prototypical tale of interracial friendship. Similarly, long before there were highways, it was the model for our later road novels (like On the Road) or road movies (like Easy Rider or Thelma and Louise).
Yet from its publication in 1884 and 1885, Twain's novel has been subjected to bitter criticism. In the late nineteenth century, the book was disparaged as coarse, unrefined, irreverent, and vulgar. The Concord, Massachusetts, public library called it "trash of the veriest sort." In the late twentieth century, the novel was condemned for its frequent use of racial expletives, its condescending portrait of the runaway, Jim, and its misogyny, depicting women either as nurturers or as controlling and repressive figures. In fact, Huckleberry Finn, like the greatest works of literature, is open-ended, offering complex portrayals of race and gender (as evidenced by repeated instances of cross-dressing), and a conclusion, as we shall see, that is far more ambiguous than readers sometime assume.
In interpreting a novel, it is often best to begin with the title. Why, we might ask, did Twain name his title character Huckleberry? In the late nineteenth century, the word referred to an utterly insignificant person or event. This is how Ralph Waldo Emerson used the term in his 1862 eulogy for Henry David Thoreau: "Instead of engineering for all America, he was the captain of a huckleberry party." Twain's ironic point was that precisely because Huck Finn was an outcast on the margins of his society, he was able to perceive flaws in his society that others could not.
Twain begins the book by telling his readers that they should look for no plot or moral lessons. The novel's structure is episodic, and even though it is often read as if it were a straightforward critique of slavery and racial prejudice, it is much more problematic than that. The book's organizing metaphor is that of a journey. Many of our most cherished myths and novels have been built around the notion of a harrowing odyssey. These include quest tales (such as the pursuit of the holy grail) and the bildungsroman, which traces a character's moral and psychological development, from innocence and inexperience to knowledge, and from childhood to maturity. Like the other great novel that explores a trip along a river, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the journey is not simply physical, but metaphysical. It is a journey into the human psyche and the cultural subconscious.
The novel's overarching theme is how young Huck has internalized his society's racial prejudice yet is able, at times, to rise above it. Huck uses the word "nigger"—derogatory and offensive in 1884 as it is today—150 times or so, and yet is ultimately willing to go through Hell in order to help Jim achieve freedom. In short, the book underscores the extent to which individual and collective morality can be contradictory, and that political beliefs and personal behavior can be at odds. Huck hates abolitionists, and yet in the book's most poignant scene, the book's moral center, he apologizes to Jim for the indignities he has inflicted. Admits Huck: "I done it and I warn't ever sorry for it afterwards." Yet this is also a book without a clear, unambiguous hero.
Historians tend to read novels differently than literary critics, focusing less on formal elements of narrative and language than on themes and especially historical context. Viewed through the lens of history, the novel sheds a fascinating light on many subjects—and not solely the subject of slavery. For one thing, the novel rebuts the nostalgic notion that the past was a simpler, more innocent time. Huckleberry Finn lays bare the sordid underside of antebellum American life. Filled with chicanery, greed, illiteracy, bigotry, and brutality, including thirteen deaths, the novel presents us with a rogues gallery of hucksters, charlatans, braggarts, con men, and cheats. Huck's father is a dissolute degenerate who beats his son for going to school. Twain himself was unable to romanticize or sentimentalize the past—by the age of twelve, Twain had lost his father and three siblings, and had watched as a slave was beaten to death.
Huckleberry Finn is also our greatest example of regional or "local color" writing, a genre that flourished following the Civil War. The war ushered in an era of centralization and organization building that undermined the culture of the nation's unique regions. Local color fiction documented the distinctive cultures of those parts of the country that were being lost to social and economic modernization, in this case, the culture of the Mississippi River. And so the novel is a "people's history" of a community and way of life that has been lost to "progress," a concept that Twain hated. Indeed, it is Twain's hatred of the idea of progress that makes him a modern writer, and his exposure of the illusions of progress makes him one of the nation's most incisive cultural critics.
The novel also tells us a great deal about the impact of the Civil War on the American mind. Much of the serious literature prior to the Civil War was, by later standards, highly unrealistic. Especially influential were sentimental domestic tales and romances, imaginative representations of moral problems, rather than novelistic depictions of social realities. The grim brutality of the war led authors to experiment with more realistic forms of literature, which were free of embellishment or idealization.
Today, controversy continues to rage over the question of whether Huckleberry Finn is racist. This controversy is compounded by certain myths that have been shown to be false: That Twain fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War and later deserted. Twain, whose parents had owned and leased slaves, and whose father served on a jury that sentenced two alleged abolitionists to twelve years imprisonment, had, by the time he wrote Huckleberry Finn, come to abhor racial prejudice. He had married into an abolitionist family; had tried, unsuccessfully, to publish articles about anti-Chinese prejudice in San Francisco; and had become friends with Frederick Douglass. He even wrote a letter offering financial assistance to one of the first African American law students at Yale.
At the novel's very heart lies the conflict between Huck Finn's instincts and his conscience, which had been deformed by his upbringing. It is often assumed that the book can be read as a record of Huck's moral growth, as he overcomes his society's prejudices, risks damnation, and learns to respect Jim as an equal. But the book's much criticized conclusion complicates any reading that suggests that Huck had overcome his society's racist values. Once off the raft, Huck backslides, and once again plays pranks on Jim. On shore, the power of race ultimately trumps justice, democracy, and friendship. To reduce the book to a simple story of Huck's triumph over prejudice is to strip the book of its moral complexity.
Literary interpretation changes drastically over time, reflecting shifts in critical fashion and social circumstances. Nothing better illustrates this principle than the changing understanding of Huck Finn. He has been celebrated as a symbol of youthful resourcefulness and spirited rambunctiousness and decried as a rowdy, a racist, and a reckless risk-taker. One prominent literary critic argued that Huck's relationship with the fugitive slave Jim embodied a sublimated homoerotic strain that runs through classic American literature; another suggested that he was modeled on a black child named Jimmy, whom Twain called "the most artless, sociable and exhaustless talker I ever came across." In our own era of diminishing expectations, Huck has been interpreted as an abused child—illiterate, homeless, beaten, neglected—and as a victim of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)—fidgety, impulsive, disruptive, and easily bored. For over a century, Huck has served as a lightning rod for popular fantasies and anxieties about childhood.
When the novel first appeared, reviewers frequently deemed it a "boys book," one of a growing number of novels through which boys could vicariously experience adventures that were impossible in an increasingly urban and industrial America. Today perhaps the novel's greatest significance lies in its conception of childhood, as a time of risk, discovery, and adventure. Huck is no innocent: He lies, steals, smokes, swears, and skips school. He accepts no authority, not from his father or the Widow Douglas or anyone else. And it is the twin images of a perilous, harrowing odyssey of adventure and perfect freedom from all restraints that so many readers find entrancing.
Emerson, Everett. Mark Twain: A Literary Life. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.
Hutchinson, Stuart, ed. Mark Twain: Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.
Leonard, James S., ed. Making Mark Twain Work in the Classroom. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999.
Mensh, Elaine, and Harry Mensh. Black, White, & Huckleberry Finn: Re-imagining the American Dream. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2000.
Powers, Ron. Dangerous Waters: A Biography of the Man Who Became Mark Twain. New York: HarperCollins, 1999.
Steven Mintz, a historian at Columbia University and director of the Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Teaching Center, would like to express his profound debt to John Stauffer of Harvard University for sharing his many insights into the novel. Mintz is author of Huck's Raft: A History of American Childhood; Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of American Family Life; and Moralists & Modernizers: America's Pre-Civil War Reformers.


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Boxing witnessed a rarity on Saturday night in Las Vegas: not just a fight of relative consequence — when the dominant English junior welterweight Amir Khan faced American part-champ Zab Judah — but a body-shot knockout. In the fifth round, Khan lifted a right hand directly into Judah's beltline. It was one of those singular punches that boxing's remaining fans will talk about for a long time. Everyone will remember the night when Zab Judah's bladder exploded. It was awesome.
After, Judah said it was a low blow, but it wasn't. (He would have had a stronger case had he claimed that Khan dropped an elbow into his back right before the finishing punch, which he did.) It was just a fast, technically perfect punch tossed into the dead center of Judah's soul. For punch connoisseurs, it was a thing of beauty.
Only its location might have been improved. I don't mean the head. Head shots are overrated. Body shots are the essence of great fundamental boxing, the heart of it. And great body shots — all-time body shots — are almost always delivered to the ribs. Better yet, they're delivered to that soft little target on a man's right side, where, for whatever biological or evolutionary reason, a few square inches of his liver have been left exposed.
Making the short list of the modern era's all-time body shots, the 1998 punch thrown by Roy Jones Jr. into Virgil Hill's left kidney is probably the first to come to mind.1 That's not wrong, exactly. That punch knocked out Hill for the first time in his long and mostly very good career, but more important, it was impossible to forget how it looked: There was something both awful and thrilling about watching Hill in those seconds after, trying to crawl into the canvas, his glove pressed to his broken side. Even in boxing, we rarely see pain like that. We see hurt, mostly. There's a difference.
"Sometimes when you're hunting, the shotgun makes a sound like that," Jones said of his handiwork. "But I've never heard anything as devastating as that, or I would have given up hunting a long time ago."
Micky Ward was a great body puncher;2 Arturo Gatti had a permanent knot, like a tumor, grow in his stomach after their epic trilogy finished in 2003.3
Ricky Hatton also has an outside claim to the body-shot title with the precision left hook that he put into Jose Luis Castillo's liver in 2007. Hatton went for that spot time and again during the opening rounds of that fight, leaving himself vulnerable to counters. "I should have shown a bit more caution," Hatton said after. But throwing that liver shot is like aiming for the target on a dunk tank. Finally, in the fourth round, he connected perfectly. Castillo twisted away and went down on one knee. The referee counted him out, shouting in his face — Ocho! Nueve! — and Castillo never once looked like he was going to get back up, because he wasn't.
"It just about cut him in half," Hatton said.
But my all-time favorite body shot is the one Bernard Hopkins delivered to Oscar De La Hoya in 2004. It came in a big fight. It was the textbook left hook-to-the-liver combination that fighters dream about. It came shortly after some really loud guy in the crowd called it, yelling "BODY SHOT!" over and over again. It was perfect.
Watching it again now, I love the brutality of it — and if you're a boxing fan, you might as well admit that, deep down, you're in love with the brutal — and I love how long it left De La Hoya on his knees, hitting the canvas with his fists. A head shot puts a man to sleep. A body shot makes him wish for it.
But here's why I love that punch most of all: So many people thought then, and probably still think today, that a punch like that couldn't have put down De La Hoya. He must have thrown the fight. It didn't look like much of anything. It didn't sound like much of anything. It was a phantom, a whisper, a glancing blow.
Those many people don't know. I've taken a five-finger death punch like that, and let me tell you how it feels: A punch like that causes all sorts of strange satellite pain, express-delivered by your scrambled, panicking nervous system. You can feel a punch like that in the arches of your feet, in your balls, in your back, in your eyes. A punch like that somehow leaves you gasping for air and feeling as though you're full of air all at once. A punch like that makes you feel, frankly, like you're going to shit your trunks. But more than anything else, a punch like that puts a terrible picture in your head: You can see this black, spreading stain just under your skin, all of your body's essentials bleeding out and filling spaces where they don't have any business. A punch to the head can make you feel dizzy or woozy or sleepy, but it doesn't hurt, exactly. A punch like that one, like the one Hopkins slipped into De La Hoya, makes you feel as though you're about to die.
Body-shot knockouts are rare because of our modern obsession with the human head and its well-documented vulnerabilities; there's something almost hard-wired into us to equate punches with faces. Noses seem like a better target, because noses break, and besides, fans want to see blood. Body-shot knockouts aren't bloody until the victim tries to take a piss later. Body-shot knockouts also make it possible for fans to say that the opponent was weak or in the tank or just wanted to quit. They make it possible for the recipient to say that it was low or illegal or unsporting, the way Judah did on Saturday night. In a sport that often demands a more mathematical proof, body-shot knockouts are too abstract, too mysterious.
But they're beautiful precisely because of their rarity — because they're so fundamentally sound, because they require discipline and technique and art. Body-shot knockouts are boxing's equivalent of a great wraparound, open-field tackle in football, or those nights when Michael Jordan went after Grant Hill's ankles, because Jordan knew that's where Hill's worst weakness hid. They display an intelligence, a determination, a self-control that, for me, is far more impressive than fireworks.
They tell me that I'm watching a man who isn't worried about how things look; he's more concerned with how things feel.
Watch Oscar De La Hoya cry out again. That's how it feels.
Chris Jones is a Writer at Large for Esquire; he covers the American League East for Grantland. You can find him on Twitter here: @MySecondEmpire.
Previously from Chris Jones:
The lost magic of Bartolo Colon
Ayrton Senna and the sports documentary of the year
The sad state of the Blue Jays
Hope for the Orioles


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This is big. A computer program has successfully managed to fool a bunch of researchers into thinking that it was a 13-year-old boy named Eugene Goostman. In doing so, it has become the first in the world to have successfully passed the Turing Test.
The test is named after computer pioneer Alan Turing. To pass it, a computer program needs to dupe 30 percent of human judges in five-minute, text-based chats, a feat that until now had never been accomplished.
"Eugene" was created by a team based in Russia, and passed the test organized by the University of Reading just barely, by duping one in three judges. It should also be noted that a chatbot successfully pretending to be a 13-year-old boy for whom English is a second language ain't exactly Hal 9000. There's no artificial intelligence at work here; it's more clever gamesmanship by Eugene's creators.
It's still an obviously exciting breakthrough, though, one that has critics already raising red flags about its implications. "Having a computer that can trick a human into thinking that someone, or even something, is a person we trust is a wake-up call to cyber crime," said Kevin Warwick, a visiting professor at the University of Reading and deputy vice-chancellor for research at Coventry University told the Independent.
Are there serious concerns about what this means for online security in the future? Sure. But today they'll have to take a back seat to the understanding that we've entered a new era of computing. One that's alive with possibilities, or at least convincingly enough so. [The Independent]


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In the Moodle 2.3 Question Bank, Calculated questions can be set up as multichoice questions. For more information on setting up a Calculated Question click here. The difference between the Calculated Question and the Calculated Multichoice Question is that the calculated question has a text box to input the answer; whereas, the multichoice question has options to select the correct answer. The following will walk through the steps in creating a multichoice question.
Creating a Calculated multichoice question in the Moodle Question Bank
- Log into the Moodle Dashboard
- Navigate to Front page settings > Question bank > Questions in the Settings section on the left..
- Click Create a new question. When the Choose a question type to add box pops up, select the Calculated multichoice radio button and click Next.
In the Adding a Calculated multichoice question page, Fill out the General section. This will be the same as what was done in the Inserting a Calculated question in the Moodle Question Bank tutorial.
Next fill out the Choices for each answer. One choice will be the correct choice and the others will be incorrect. So for Choice 1 the formula will give the correct answer. Choice 2, Choice 3, Choice 4and so forth will contain the incorrect answer. In this tutorial, the question will be:
What is the difference between {A} and {B}?
The following table explains the values necessary for the question to be set up appropriately.
…{={x}+..}… type the formula for the correct answer. The format will basically be in curly brackets with the = in it. For example, in the current question "What is the difference between {A} and {B}?" the correct formula would be {={A}-{B}}. Correct Answer shows and Format This setting is to display precisely the Answer number of decimal or significant figure. Feedback This will display text when the student answers the question..
In the Combined feedback section, fill in the response that the student will see when they answer the question. Correct, Partially correct, and Incorrect responses can be set here. When the question parameters are set click Save changes.
On the Choose Wildcards dataset properties page click next. (This section will be discussed in detail in a different article.)
On the Edit the wildcards datasets page, where the Add section is located, make sure to click Add.
Important! . If the dataset item is not added, there will be an error message stating:
You must add at least one dataset item before you can save this question.
Once the dataset is added, click Save changes. (This section will be discussed in detail in a different article.)
Now the question will show in the Question bank. Click the Preview link to preview the question.
The when the question is answered it should look like the following snapshot. Congratulations! the Calculated Multichoice question was created.
This concludes the article on Creating a Calculated multichoice question. Setting up Wildcards and Datasets are an essential part of the Calculated Question. Please check the next article on How to Create Wildcards and datasets in Moodle. Please see the Working with the Question Bank course section for more articles on the Question Bank. Also, visit Working with the calculated question Tolerance in Moodle 2.3 to learn how to configure the Answer Tolerance for Calculated questions.


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Notice of Intent To Prepare a Draft Environmental Impact Statement for a Proposed Habitat Conservation Plan and Incidental Take Permit, 30384-30386 [2011-12860]Download as PDF
[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 101 (Wednesday, May 25, 2011)] [Notices] [Pages 30384-30386] From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov] [FR Doc No: 2011-12860] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Fish and Wildlife Service [FWS-R3-ES-2011-N096; 30120-1112-000-F2] Notice of Intent To Prepare a Draft Environmental Impact Statement for a Proposed Habitat Conservation Plan and Incidental Take Permit AGENCY: Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. ACTION: Notice of intent; request for comments. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: We, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), advise the public that we intend to prepare a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) to evaluate the impacts of several alternatives relating to the proposed issuance of an Endangered Species Act Permit to Fowler Ridge Wind Farm LLC, Fowler Ridge Wind Farm II LLC, Fowler Ridge Wind Farm III LLC, and Fowler Ridge Wind Farm IV LLC (Applicant) for incidental take of the Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis), a Federal endangered species, from activities associated with the operation of Fowler Ridge Wind Farm in Benton County, Indiana. We also announce a public comment period. DATES: The public scoping period begins with publication of this notice in the Federal Register and will continue through June 23, 2011. The Service will consider all comments defining the scope of the EIS that are received or postmarked by this date. Comments received or postmarked after this date will be considered to the extent practicable. The Service will conduct a public scoping meeting in Fowler, IN, on June 7, 2011. The scoping meeting will provide the public with an opportunity to present comments, ask questions, and discuss issues with Service staff regarding the EIS. ADDRESSES: You may submit comments by U.S. mail or hand-delivery to Mr. Scott Pruitt, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 621 South Walker St., Bloomington, Indiana, 47403; electronic mail: firstname.lastname@example.com; or fax: (812) 334-4273 (Attention: Scott Pruitt). FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Scott Pruitt at (812) 334-4261. Individuals who are hearing-impaired or speech-impaired may call the Federal Relay Service at (800) 877-8337 for TTY assistance. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: We publish this notice in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), as amended (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.), and its implementing regulations (40 CFR 1501.7, 1506.6, and 1508.22), and Section 10(c) of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (the Act), as amended (16 U.S.C. 1539(c)). We intend to gather the information necessary to determine impacts and alternatives to support a decision regarding the potential issuance of an incidental take permit to the Applicant, and the implementation of the supporting draft habitat conservation plan (HCP). We intend to prepare an EIS to evaluate the impacts of several alternatives relating to the proposed issuance of an incidental take permit (ITP) under the Act. The applicant proposes to apply for an incidental take permit through development and implementation of an HCP. The proposed HCP will cover take of the Indiana bat that is incidental to activities associated with the operation of Fowler Ridge Wind Farm, and will include measures necessary to minimize and mitigate impacts to the Indiana bat and its habitat to the maximum extent practicable. Request for Information The Service requests data, comments, new information, or suggestions from the public, other concerned governmental agencies, the scientific community, Tribes, industry, or any other interested party on this notice. These comments will be considered in the development of a draft EIS, in the development of a draft HCP by the applicant, and in the determination of whether to issue an ITP. We particularly seek comments concerning: (1) Biological information concerning the Indiana bat; (2) Relevant data concerning wind power and bat interactions; (3) Additional information concerning the range, distribution, population size, and population trends of the Indiana bat; (4) Current or planned activities in the subject area and their possible impacts on the Indiana bat; (5) Any information identified in the aforementioned as it relates to other bat [[Page 30385]] species, in particular, tree bat species such as red bat (Lasiurus borealis), hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus), and silver-haired bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans) that occur in the project area; (6) The presence of archeological sites, buildings and structures, historic events, sacred and traditional areas, and other historic preservation concerns, which are required to be considered in project planning by the National Historic Preservation Act (16 U.S.C. 470 et seq.); and (7) Identification of any other environmental issues that should be considered with regard to the proposed development and permit action. Public Comments You may submit your comments and materials considering this notice by one of the methods listed in the ADDRESSES section. Comments and materials we receive, as well as supporting documentation we use in preparing the NEPA document will be available for public inspection by appointment, during normal business hours, at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bloomington Indiana Field Office (see FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section). You may obtain copies of this notice on the Internet at: https://www.fws.gov/midwest/Endangered/permits/hcp/r3hcps.html, or by mail from the Bloomington Indiana Field Office (see FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section). Background Section 9 of the Act prohibits ``take'' of fish and wildlife species listed as endangered under section 4 (16 U.S.C. 1538, 1533, respectively). The Act's implementing regulations extend, under certain circumstances, the prohibition of take to threatened species (50 CFR 17.31). Under section 3 of the Act, the term ``take'' means ``to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct'' (16 CFR part 1521). The term ``harm'' is defined by regulation as ``an act which actually kills or injures wildlife. Such act may include significant habitat modification or degradation where it actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, feeding, or sheltering'' (50 CFR 17.3). The term ``harass'' is defined in the regulations as ``an intentional or negligent act or omission which creates the likelihood of injury to wildlife by annoying it to such an extent as to significantly disrupt normal behavioral patterns which include, but are not limited to, breeding, feeding, or sheltering'' (50 CFR 17.3). Section 10(a)(2)(A) of the Act requires an applicant for an incidental take permit to prepare an HCP that describes: (1) The impact that will likely result from such taking; (2) the steps the applicant will take to minimize and mitigate such impacts, and the funding that will be available to implement such steps; (3) the alternative actions to such taking that the applicant considered and the reasons why such alternatives are not being utilized; and (4) the other measures that the Secretary may require as being necessary or appropriate for the purposes of the plan (16 U.S.C. 1539(a)(2)(A)). Section 10(a)(2)(B) of the Act requires the Secretary to issue an incidental take permit to an applicant when it determines that: (1) The taking will be incidental; (2) the applicant will, to the maximum extent practicable, minimize and mitigate the impacts of such taking; (3) the applicant has ensured that adequate funding for the plan will be provided; (4) the taking will not appreciably reduce the likelihood of the survival and recovery of the species in the wild; and (5) the measures, if any, the Secretary may require as necessary or appropriate for the purposes of the plan will be met (16 U.S.C. 1539(a)(2)(B)). Regulations governing permits for endangered and threatened species are at 50 CFR 17.22 and 17.32. The Indiana bat was added to the list of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants on March 11, 1967 (32 FR 4001). It is currently listed as an endangered species under the Act. The population decline of this species is attributed to habitat loss and degradation of both winter hibernation habitat and summer habitat, human disturbance during hibernation, and possibly pesticides. An additional and emerging threat to Indiana bats is White-Nose Syndrome (WNS). WNS is associated with a recently discovered fungus (Geomyces destructans) that affects the skin and wing membranes of bats. Over 1 million bats of 6 species, including the federally endangered Indiana bat, have died in eastern North America from WNS since 2006. The range of the Indiana bat includes much of the eastern United States, and Indiana is located within the core of the species' range; approximately half of the known population of Indiana bats hibernates in Indiana. Winter habitat for the Indiana bat includes caves and mines that support high humidity and cool but stable temperatures. In the summer, Indiana bats often roost under loose bark of dead or dying trees. During summer, males roost alone or in small groups while females and their offspring roost in larger groups of up to 100 or more. Indiana bats forage for insects in and along the edges of forested areas and wooded stream corridors. Maternity colonies of Indiana bats occur throughout Indiana. FRWF is located approximately 100 miles from the nearest known hibernaculum, and it is unlikely that Benton or surrounding counties contain Indiana bat hibernacula. Proposed Action--Modified Operations Alternative The proposed action is issuance of an incidental take permit (ITP) for the Indiana bat during operation of Phases I, II, III, and IV of the Applicant's FRWF. The proposed HCP, which must meet the requirements in section 10(a)(2)(A) of the Act, would be developed and implemented by the applicant, and will include measures necessary to minimize and mitigate impacts to the Indiana bat and its habitat to the maximum extent practicable. The HCP will present the Applicant's plan to modify operations to avoid, minimize, and mitigate impacts to endangered species that are present or migrating through the action area. The Applicant for the ITP is developing and operating a wind power project in Benton County, Indiana. The area under lease for the FRWF is approximately 54,880 acres (ac) (22,209 hectares (ha)) within portions of Richland, Parish Grove, Center, Pine, Hickory Grove, Grant and Oak Grove Townships. The wind power project includes the operation of 355 existing wind turbine generators during the first three phases of the project, and construction and operation of up to 93 additional turbines at Phase IV of the project, for a total of up to 448 wind turbines. The project would also include all associated collector lines, access roads, utility lines, substations, operation and maintenance facility buildings, and temporary staging areas and concrete batch plants, if applicable. Up to five different models of wind turbines may be in use at various times during the four phases of FRWF. The wind turbine hub height at Phases I, II, and III is 263 feet (ft) (80 meters (m)), with the rotor diameter varying from 253 ft (77 m) to 315 ft (96 m), depending on the type of turbine. Approximate total height at the rotor apex at Phases I, II, and III varies from 389 ft (118.5 m) [[Page 30386]] to 446 ft (136.5 m), depending on the type of turbine. The proposed wind turbine hub height for Phase IV would range 263-328 ft (80-100 m), depending on the type of turbine selected. Rotor diameters at Phase IV may vary from 253 to 371 ft (77 to 113 m), depending on the type of turbine selected. Approximate total height at the rotor apex would vary from 389 to 514 ft (118.5 to 156.5 m). Installation of each individual turbine will temporarily impact an area of approximately 2.9 ac (1.2 ha), while the final footprint of each turbine will be approximately 0.2 ac (0.08 ha). Access roads to the turbines will have a temporary width of up to 55 ft (17 m) during construction and a permanent width of 16 to 20 ft (4.8 to 6.1 m). The project is located in a rural setting, with the landscape primarily composed of agricultural properties. Of the roughly 72,953 ac (29,523 ha) within 0.5 mi (0.8 km) of turbine locations, row crops comprise about 93 percent of the land use for the study area. After tilled agriculture, the next most common land uses within the FRWF are developed areas (e.g., houses and buildings), which comprise 5.0 percent of the total, and pastures/hayfields, which comprise 1.4 percent of the total. There are 22.8 ac (9.2 ha) of grasslands, which compose less than 0.1 percent of the study area. Grasslands in the study area are limited primarily to strips along drainages, railroad rights-of-way (ROW), and ROWs along county and State roads. Trees in the study area occur at homesteads, along some of the drainages and fencerows, and within some small, isolated woodlots. Forested areas are rare within the study area, based on 2001 data, and the 249.3 ac (100.8 ha) of forest comprise 0.5 percent of the total area. Small amounts of barren ground, open water, and woody wetlands are also present. Despite the relatively small acreage of land to be affected by the project, impacts to wildlife, particularly birds and bats, are anticipated. Minimization for potential impacts to Indiana bats will include a turbine operational management adjustment program developed based on the results of post-construction studies conducted at Phases I, II, and III of the project. Any turbine operational management adjustment program is likely to contain various measures to avoid and minimize impacts to Indiana bats, including the impact of lethal take. Various methods that may be considered include, but are not limited to: Protection of roost trees and surrounding habitat, set-back distances from known roost trees, mapping and avoidance of foraging areas, protection and enhancement of Indiana bat habitat outside the project area, various operational adjustments for turbines during prime activity or migration periods, and post-construction monitoring for fatalities. Alternatives to the Proposed Action In addition to the proposed action, there is one additional action alternative that is currently under consideration related to the proposed issuance of an ITP to the Applicant for activities associated with operation of the Fowler Ridge Wind Farm. These alternatives, and possibly additional alternatives, will be considered in the draft EIS, along with the potential impacts associated with each alternative. Each action alternative analyzed in the draft EIS will be compared to the No Action alternative. The No Action alternative represents estimated future conditions to which the proposed action can be compared. No Action Alternative Under the No Action Alternative, an ITP pursuant to Section 10(a)(1)(B) of the Act would not be issued for the existing phases or the future Phase IV of the Fowler Ridge Wind Farm. The existing phases of the project would continue to fully operate, and Phase IV would fully operate once construction is complete. Under the No Action Alternative, the applicant would not have coverage for an incidental take of the Indiana bat and would be at risk of violation of Section 9 of the Act. In addition, no HCP would be produced; therefore, the Indiana bat would not have the protections afforded to it through development and implementation of an HCP. The proposed project purpose would not be met under the No Action Alternative. Maximally Restricted Operations Alternative Under the Maximally Restricted Operations Alternative, an ITP would be issued; Phases I, II and III would continue to operate; and Phase IV would be constructed as described under Proposed Action--i.e., full build-out of up to 448 turbines. Minimization for potential impacts to Indiana bats would include shutting down turbines at night during the period from April 1 through October 31, the active period for Indiana bats. This minimization would occur during all four phases of the project, every year the FRWF is in operation. Environmental Review The Service will conduct an environmental review to analyze various alternatives for implementing the proposed action and the associated impacts of each. The draft EIS will be the basis for the impact evaluation for Indiana bats and the range of alternatives to be addressed. The draft EIS is expected to provide biological descriptions of the affected species and habitats, as well as the effects of the alternatives on other resources such as vegetation, wetlands, wildlife, geology and soils, air quality, water resources, water quality, cultural resources, land use, recreation, water use, local economy, and environmental justice. Following completion of the environmental review, the Service will publish a notice of availability and a request for comments on the draft EIS and the Applicant's permit application, which will include the draft HCP. The draft EIS and draft HCP are expected to be completed and available to the public in late 2011. Authority This notice is being furnished as provided for by NEPA, the NEPA regulations, and the Act. The intent of the notice is to obtain suggestions and additional information from other agencies and the public on the scope of issues to be considered. Comments and participation in this scoping process are solicited. Dated: May 9, 2011. Lynn Lewis, Assistant Regional Director, Ecological Services, Region 3, Fort Snelling, MN. [FR Doc. 2011-12860 Filed 5-24-11; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 4310-55-P
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Left 4 Dead 2 on PC is open to fan modification. Indeed, it's encouraged by Valve, who not only released the tools to enable gamers to do so, but even pledged to promote one user-created map each week for the foreseeable future. One such mod is 'Cold Stream' – a fan-made campaign set in a forest that's been picked up by Valve who have officially released it on PC after months in open Beta as a free download. As a first for Xbox 360, this very same fan-made content is coming to Xbox 360 on Friday.
For 560 MS Points.
Above: The Cold Stream campaign is not officially canon to the Left 4 Dead storyline, but at least it's officially being published by Valve. A seal of approval if ever there was one
560 MS Points may be a nominal amount, but it is a price 'in money' for something PC owners can already get for free. We would admittedly rather have to pay for the content than not have it at all (as Left 4 Dead is ace), but it does seem a bit unfair.
But is it? Double Fine's Tim Schafer famously went on the record to say it costs $40,000 just to release a patch for a game on Xbox Live (as well as having to jump through a load of hoops). But perhaps the most telling story is that of Valve itself, who famously said that all of their first party DLC would be free back in 2009. Left 4 Dead's first DLC was indeed free, but the second pack was not. Valve's Chet Faliszek said at the time:
"We own our platform, Steam. Microsoft owns their platform. They wanted to make sure there's an economy of value there." When pressed about whether Microsoft effectively enforced the pricing, he added: "Well, they helped us get the first one out for free. We had the one DLC out for free. And I think... they have to look and say, wow, we're kind of being unfair to everybody else if these guys can do that.
So it's more likely a case of Microsoft wanting people to pay for DLC on their service than Xbox owners getting a bum deal from Valve. Fair enough, of course - XBLA is not a charity. And besides, you won't just get the Cold Stream campaign for your money. You also get ports of four campaigns from the original Left 4 Dead – namely Crash Course, Death Toll, Dead Air and Blood Harvest, plus the ability to use all the mutations in multiplayer.
Above: You do need to own 'The Passing' DLC if you're playing on Xbox to access Mutations
If you're still grumpy and wondering why it's also hitting 360 a week later than the PC and Mac versions, it's due to the 'title update' for L4D2 that's coming at the same time. Apparently it took longer than anticipated to get that through Microsoft's certification process, and the DLC won't work without the update. It's a whole other world that we're pleased we don't have to worry about - we can just play the results. Even if it is for 560 MS Points.
Let us know what you think in the comments.
Source: OXM


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From our kitchen to yours, Good Hart pot pies are sure to please. Keep frozen. Remove from packaging and bake frozen on baking sheet at 350 for 90 minutes.
Twenty small pot pies shipped via insulated container. Package includes your choice chicken, beef, or half and half.
Small Pot Pies $11.00 ea. (serves 1)
Large Pot Pies $20.00 ea. (serves 2-3)
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This particular combination of pies ships conveniently in one of our insulated shipping containers. Making multiple selections of pies will result in multiple packaging and shipping fees.
Both large and small pies shown in images.
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Our kitchen is tiny and we cannot at all guarantee cross contamination of potential allergens. Therefore all products produced in our kitchen may contain and/or encounter wheat, soy, tree nuts, dairy, or eggs. We regretably encourage those with allergies and sensitivies to refrain from enjoying our goods.
Shipping Details
This item ships via UPS. Shipping options may be offered at check-out. Please note that items may ship seperately.


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Product Description
We recommend our customers to review our Sizing Guide for general recommendations for measuring your pet and finding the right size. The Product Size Guide below are specifications for this product only.
Need assistance with finding the right size? Please contact us and we will be happy to help.
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Please note that as this is a seasonal holiday product, only store credit will be issued to customers for returns/exchanges subject to our Return Policy. No return/exchange will be accepted on or after December 10.


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Learn Everything You Need to Know About March Madness With a Handy Infographic
The NCAA basketball tournament is wide-open in a way that no other major American sporting event is. Hence its nickname "March Madness." But if you were to single out the other distinguishing characteristics of the tourney, they would be the brackets that everyone is so fond of filling out and the fact that a good chunk of the games takes place when folks are supposed to be at work.
Businessdegree.net's 'Coming This March: Your Guide to the Perfect Bracket' infographic reveals that 40 million brackets will be filled out this year, and that American workers will spend almost 8.4 million hours watching March Madness. (And that doesn't even account for the work hours lost while folks fill out their brackets.)
Beyond that, the graph is intended to help you ace your brackets. Among their advice is that the ninth seed is actually slightly better than a 50% bet to beat the eighth seed in their first round match-up, and that you should never pick a 16th seed. Another no-no is picking all four number one seeds to advance to the Final Four, as there is only a .026% chance of this happening.
So whether you intend to wager some of the $3.5 billion dollars that will be bet on March Madness brackets this year, or if you just fill them out for fun, check out the guide to March Madness below.
Created by: BusinessDegree.net


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About Marist College
Marist History: 2008-Present
New student townhouses opened in 2008 as a result of the demolition of two smaller residence halls, Benoit and Gregory.
In their place was built, in 2011, the Hancock Center, named for Marist Trustee Ellen Hancock, who provided the lead gift for the facility. Designed by noted firm Robert A.M. Stern Architects, the building is a stunning example of the Hudson River Valley vernacular, using the stone and brick that are signature elements of many of the region's great estates and institutions, such as the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. At the same time, it is a uniquely advanced building in its infrastructure and functionality, featuring a green roof and advanced teaching and research technology in its classrooms, the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, the School of Computer Science and Mathematics and its computer research labs, and a New York State-funded business development incubator. In concert with the project, nearby roadways were reconfigured and new green spaces were created.
Also in 2011, the College, in partnership with the New York State Department of Transportation, undertook an ambitious project to create a beautiful new pedestrian underpass to link the College's main and east campuses such that students no longer have to cross busy Route 9.
In 2013, Marist undertook a hugely complex project, involving the construction of a new academic building to house the College's music programs and a complete renovation of the adjoining Student Center. The result is a Robert A.M. Stern-designed building that includes: a choral rehearsal and recital hall with tiered seating, a band rehearsal and recital hall with seating for over 300 people, three classrooms, a music library and conference room, string ensemble room, piano lab, computer lab, practive rooms, and faculty offices.
The new building connects seamlessly with the renovated Student Center, the centerpiece of which is a grand dining hall built around a former exterior courtyard, which was enclosed with a cathedral ceiling and features three, brass, custom-made chandeliers. The dining hall also includes a quiet dining area that can be used for group meals, and a patio for al fresco dining. Elsewhere in the Student Center, the Nelly Goletti Theatre and student activity spaces were all extensively renovated, and new activity spaces were added. The buildings began opening in phases, starting in August 2013, and were fully operational by November 2013.


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ERP software for manufacturing and distribution companies
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ERP is an industry acronym for Enterprise Resource Planning. Broadly speaking, it refers to automation and integration of a company's core business to help them focus on effectiveness & simplified success.
SOFTMEHR defines the meaning of ERP
As one of the longest standing ERP vendors, we often get asked by prospects (and potential employees) to define what it is. The Information Technology industry is renowned for its adoption of acronyms, which are often widely used, but not fully understood. The term 'ERP' itself is not self-explanatory and refers to the business software that has been designed to record and manage your enterprise data.
An ERP system automates and integrates core business processes such as taking customer orders, scheduling operations, and keeping inventory records and financial data. This can drive huge improvements in the effectiveness of any organisation by:
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Rocky Mountain Express propels audiences on a steam train journey through the breathtaking vistas of the Canadian Rockies and relates the epic adventure of building the nation's first transcontinental railway.
The completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in 1885 ranks among the greatest engineering feats in history. The project drew on the labour and expertise of thousands from around the world, including a young American railway superintendent named William Cornelius Van Horne. If the builders had failed, would Canada exist today? Spanning thousands of miles and some of the world's greatest natural barriers, this grand transcontinental project and its wandering ribbon of steel drew together far flung communities isolated in the wilderness, shaped a new nation and changed the face of the North American continent forever. The success or failure of the venture was decided deep in the mountains.
Retracing the original route aboard the majestic steam engine 2816, the audience is transported back to the age of steam to re-live this alpine nation-building odyssey. The film weaves together spectacular IMAX aerial cinematography, breathtaking vistas of the west, archival photographs and maps and the potent energy and rhythms of a live steam locomotive to immerse audiences in a an era of remarkable ingenuity and struggle and a region of stunning natural beauty. Ride the rails along deep river canyons and over high mountain passes. Discover some of the most beautiful and rugged landscapes on earth and the heroic human drama and epic engineering that shaped a continent.


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A publication of the Archaeological Institute of America
Telling Tales in Proto-Indo-European
By the 19th century, linguists knew that all modern Indo-European languages descended from a single tongue. Called Proto-Indo-European, or PIE, it was spoken by a people who lived from roughly 4500 to 2500 B.C., and left no written texts. The question became, what did PIE sound like? In 1868, German linguist August Schleicher used reconstructed Proto-Indo-European vocabulary to create a fable in order to hear some approximation of PIE. Called "The Sheep and the Horses," and also known today as Schleicher's Fable, the short parable tells the story of a shorn sheep who encounters a group of unpleasant horses. As linguists have continued to discover more about PIE (and archaeologists have learned more about the Bronze Age cultures that would have spoken it), this sonic experiment continues and the fable is periodically updated to reflect the most current understanding of how this extinct language would have sounded when it was spoken some 6,000 years ago. Since there is considerable disagreement among scholars about PIE, no single version can be considered definitive. Here, University of Kentucky linguist Andrew Byrd recites his version of the fable, as well as a second story, called "The King and the God," using pronunciation informed by the latest insights into reconstructed PIE.
Schleicher originally rendered the fable like this:
Avis akvāsas ka
Avis, jasmin varnā na ā ast, dadarka akvams, tam, vāgham garum vaghantam, tam, bhāram magham, tam, manum āku bharantam. Avis akvabhjams ā vavakat: kard aghnutai mai vidanti manum akvams agantam. Akvāsas ā vavakant: krudhi avai, kard aghnutai vividvant-svas: manus patis varnām avisāms karnauti svabhjam gharmam vastram avibhjams ka varnā na asti. Tat kukruvants avis agram ā bhugat.
Here is the fable in English translation:
The Sheep and the Horses
A sheep that had no wool saw horses, one of them pulling a heavy wagon, one carrying a big load, and one carrying a man quickly. The sheep said to the horses: "My heart pains me, seeing a man driving horses." The horses said: "Listen, sheep, our hearts pain us when we see this: a man, the master, makes the wool of the sheep into a warm garment for himself. And the sheep has no wool." Having heard this, the sheep fled into the plain.
And here is the modern reconstruction recited by Andrew Byrd and rendered here in linguistic notations. It is based on recent work done by linguist H. Craig Melchert, and incorporates a number of sounds unknown at the time Schleicher first created the fable:
H2óu̯is h1éḱu̯ōs-kwe
h2áu̯ei̯ h1i̯osméi̯ h2u̯l̥h1náh2 né h1ést, só h1éḱu̯oms derḱt. só gwr̥hxúm u̯óǵhom u̯eǵhed; só méǵh2m̥ bhórom; só dhǵhémonm̥ h2ṓḱu bhered. h2óu̯is h1ékwoi̯bhi̯os u̯eu̯ked: "dhǵhémonm̥ spéḱi̯oh2 h1éḱu̯oms-kwe h2áǵeti, ḱḗr moi̯ aghnutor". h1éḱu̯ōs tu u̯eu̯kond: "ḱludhí, h2ou̯ei̯! tód spéḱi̯omes, n̥sméi̯ aghnutór ḱḗr: dhǵhémō, pótis, sē h2áu̯i̯es h2u̯l̥h1náh2 gwhérmom u̯éstrom u̯ept, h2áu̯ibhi̯os tu h2u̯l̥h1náh2 né h1esti. tód ḱeḱluu̯ṓs h2óu̯is h2aǵróm bhuged.
In the 1990s, historical linguists created another short parable in reconstructed PIE. It is loosely based on a passage from the Rigveda, an ancient collection of Sanskrit hymns, in which a king beseeches the god Varuna to grant him a son. Here, Andrew Byrd recites his version of the "The King and the God" in PIE, based on the work of linguists Eric Hamp and the late Subhadra Kumar Sen.
Here is an English translation of the story:
The King and the God
Once there was a king. He was childless. The king wanted a son. He asked his priest: "May a son be born to me!" The priest said to the king: "Pray to the god Werunos." The king approached the god Werunos to pray now to the god. "Hear me, father Werunos!" The god Werunos came down from heaven. "What do you want?" "I want a son." "Let this be so," said the bright god Werunos. The king's lady bore a son.
And here is the story rendered in reconstructed Proto-Indo-European:
H3rḗḱs dei̯u̯ós-kwe
H3rḗḱs h1est; só n̥putlós. H3rḗḱs súhxnum u̯l̥nh1to. Tósi̯o ǵʰéu̯torm̥ prēḱst: "Súhxnus moi̯ ǵn̥h1i̯etōd!" Ǵʰéu̯tōr tom h3rḗǵm̥ u̯eu̯ked: "h1i̯áǵesu̯o dei̯u̯óm U̯érunom". Úpo h3rḗḱs dei̯u̯óm U̯érunom sesole nú dei̯u̯óm h1i̯aǵeto. "ḱludʰí moi, pter U̯erune!" Dei̯u̯ós U̯érunos diu̯és km̥tá gʷah2t. "Kʷíd u̯ēlh1si?" "Súhxnum u̯ēlh1mi." "Tód h1estu", u̯éu̯ked leu̯kós dei̯u̯ós U̯érunos. Nu h3réḱs pótnih2 súhxnum ǵeǵonh1e.


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With the closing days of 2012 rapidly drawing into sight, where do we stand now on Lana Del Rey? The general thinking prior to - and continuing after - the release of Born to Die appeared broadly split into two camps: those considering her to be exhibiting a bruised, seductive movie-star persona with a series of deliciously dark pop tracks from the unlit side of the Hollywood sign. And those that considered her a cynical piece of record label fodder and dolled-up industry window dressing. Or in failing to concoct anything so articulate, uttering something appertaining to the shape of her lips. This polarisation became one of 2012's defining pop music opinions – it became remarkably difficult to predict who fell for the charms and who turned away in distaste. Lana Del Rey - the Marmite artist of 2012.
As for me? I hate Marmite. Loathe the stuff. But I've a genuine love for Born to Die. It has its flaws, sure. The dreary fallen angel whimsy of 'Carmen' sums up precisely the unfocused drift that critics often use to malign her and on songs such as 'Dark Paradise', the caricature extends beyond our empathy. And certainly, there are times where the lyrics steer far too close to the rocks and razor edges of cliché for comfort. But for all of these moments, there are always quite spectacular counterpoints. The stunning twists and swoops of 'Off to the Races'. The ethereal elegance and climactic shudders of 'Radio'. And of course, the heart-stopping film noir perfection of 'Video Games'. Which a year on from release, has lost precisely none of its majesty.
So why do we need an extended Born to Die - The Paradise Edition? Normally, I despise these things. Reissue a popular record with a few extra songs just in time for the critical lists and Christmas sales and then KER-CHING! What makes The Paradise Edition relevant however (though it's still a repackaging, whichever way you look at it) is that within its added chapters, the whole Lana Del Rey figure: that composite character she builds her songs on, emerges more completely. A starlet caught in the headlights. The tortured, neurotic beauty of a Tennessee Williams play. And as such, the new tracks work to complement the character, fully exposing the dark underbelly of the music. It's like the reality after the reel spins to a cease. If Born to Die was the script-defined character, then Paradise shows the darker routes through reality once the director yells "cut".
Of the new tracks, three ('Without You', 'Lolita' and 'Lucky Ones') were actually found on the expanded edition of the album's initial release, and still seem a little too much like an effort to graft excess epilogues and a faux happy ending onto the fittingly melancholy original tracklisting (though 'Lucky Ones' is a delectable companion piece to 'Video Games'). From the rest, it's those epic and bloody dissections of the used and knowingly abused starlet chasing the American Dream that still most engage the senses.
The sweeping corners of 'American' and the night-air escapism of trailer single 'Ride' almost come over like a reflective, feminine take on Springsteen, filtered through a haze of the cigarettes, whiskey fumes and exhaust smoke. Yet when she switches tempo, the results can be even more striking, most notably on the shimmeringly beautiful 'Yayo' which is shot through with uncertainty, 4am bloodshot-eyed regret and a sense of everything only a heartbeat away from collapse. And her take on 'Blue Velvet' – played completely straight – is simply sublime.
Yet for so much of the second disc takes on a noticeably more orchestrated feel. In comparison to the clatter and storm of Born to Die, the music here is more considered and richly teased out. Her lyrical themes may remain fairly limited in scope and a source of annoyance to some, but there's intelligence, a maturity and an admirable sense of restraint in so much of the music that can't be ignored entirely. The lost little girl might just be growing up. And above all, learning. And while Paradise still has its moments of frustration ('Bel Air' never quite manages to achieve the Sufjan-esque melodic complexity it aspires to, while 'Gods and Monsters' simply drags), like Lady Gaga's The Fame Monster, it takes a polarising debut artist and brings a new degree of respect and expectation into the equation.
As for the initial album, there's nothing more I can say that wasn't expressed far more eloquently by Krystina Nellis in her original review. But it certainly is telling that there remains interest in Lana Del Rey's music after the initial clamour and hype. And for those overly concerned on critiquing her through the prism of her looks, image and interviews, I can't help feel that there's a purpose behind it all. Like all great pop and cultural standpoints, the image and the aura is important. And while I'm still on the side of those believing that Lana Del Rey is about so much more than that stylised, Technicolor frame she seems to dwell within, there's also the need to understand and appreciate that the background is often as important as the subject in front. The image and glamour of Lana Del Rey is symbiotic with her music and the structure and function of her songs cannot exist without the faded Hollywood glamour her character seamlessly drifts in and out of - a portal to the past in the midst of the iPhone generation. And once the makeup and dresses are put away and the last of the champagne is drunk, so many of these songs still stand tall; long after the regrets and recriminations of the morning after. "Elvis is my daddy / Marylin's my mother" she croons on 'I Sing The Body Electric'. It would certainly explain an awful lot…
8David Edwards's Score


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RUSTENBURG, South Africa — England's players couldn't get off the field fast enough. The Americans lingered to savor the night.
They walked to the end of Royal Bafokeng Stadium where thousands of red, white and blue-clad fans were waving the Stars and Stripes and cheering their heads off.
Try convincing the U.S. team and its fans there wasn't a winner in the 1-1 draw with mighty England.
"We'll take more out of a draw than they will," said U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard, the man of the match. "They're going feel like they should have won the game."
Text continues after gallery …
Facing the Three Lions in the World Cup for the first time in 60 years, the United States rallied and then hung on for an instant boost in confidence that they could advance to the second round.
Clint Dempsey became only the second American to score in two World Cups, getting the tying goal in the 40th minute on a blunder by goalkeeper Robert Green. Howard made six saves, withstanding a second-half barrage by Wayne Rooney and his celebrated teammates.
"I think a lot of us came off the field satisfied with this result, but maybe a little disappointed we didn't get more out of the game," U.S. star Landon Donovan said.
Steven Gerrard put England ahead in the fourth minute, blowing past Ricardo Clark to beat Howard from short range. Dempsey tied it when Green fumbled his 25-yard shot that skipped off the ground twice, yet another mistake in a long line by English goalkeepers.
"Mentally we're strong enough to get over it and as a goalkeeper these things happen," Green told Sky TV. "You prepare yourself for not letting it affect you."
Anticipation had built for six months for the much-hyped game, the first competitive meeting between the nations since the famous 1-0 U.S. upset at the 1950 World Cup in Brazil. There were viewing parties across America, and several Major League Soccer teams opened their stadiums to show the match from across the world on large video boards.
"I'm sure they were excited in bars back home. I can only imagine it was pretty intense," Howard said. "We're a resilient side, you know. We're a tough side and on our day we can put a good performance in."
Howard bruised his ribs when Emile Heskey's foot slid into him in the 29th minute. He was down for awhile, grimaced several times when play resumed and had a painkiller injection at halftime.
Then he saved the Americans time and again in the second half, frustrating the very high-priced stars he faces each week when he plays for Everton.
Howard said the hit "felt like agony." After the match, he felt sore and said he might need an MRI to make sure there isn't any damage.
"Obviously the adrenaline is pumping," he said. "In a couple hours I'll be struggling."
Big defender Oguchi Onyewu played his first 90-minute game since rupturing a knee tendon in the last World Cup qualifier on Oct. 14. Forward Jozy Altidore, back from a sprained ankle, nearly put the U.S. ahead in the 65th minute, but Green got a hand on his angled shot and it deflected off the corner of the goal.
"A little unlucky," the 20-year-old said after his World Cup debut.
With each save late in the game, louder chants of "U-S-A!" erupted from Sam's Army and American Outlaws, groups who made the long and expensive trip from home to sit among the vuvuzela-blowing fans on a cool night in the Southern Hemisphere. The crowd of 38,646 included Vice President Joe Biden, who visited the U.S. locker room before kickoff. Some players skipped his greetings.
"I was getting taped," captain Carlos Bocanegra said.
England must try to regroup as it seeks its first major title since winning the World Cup at home in 1966. The U.S., trying to rebound from first-round elimination four years ago, got a boost as it heads into first-round games against Slovenia on Friday and Algeria on June 23.
While not a shocking win to match 1950, the U.S. earned a huge single point in its quest to reach the second round for the first time since 2002.
Both sides started out tentative and nervous. England broke on top when Heskey took Glen Johnson's throw-in and sent a through ball to Gerrard broke in as Clark couldn't catch him and flicked it past Howard for his 17th goal in 82 appearances.
It continued a troublesome pattern for the Americans, who fell behind in three of their last four qualifiers before coming back for a draw or win.
"The funny thing is, we talk about, you know, don't concede early," Bocanegra said. "And man, it's been our trademark lately, conceding early."
Dempsey, whose become a key player for Fulham in England, scored on a play very similar to the goal by Croatia's Niko Kranjcar that went in off Scott Carson's arm and helped eliminate England from qualifying from the 2008 European Championship.
Dempsey took several touches, spun around Gerrard and hit a dipping left-footed shot. The ball hit the field twice, glanced off Green's right hand and went into the net for Dempsey's 19th goal in 63 national team games. Dempsey, who also scored against Ghana as the U.S. was eliminated in 2006, matched Brian McBride in 1998 and 2002 as the only American to score in World Cups.
"At the last second, it moved a little bit," Dempsey said. "These balls move so much, you just hit them on goal, you have a chance. It's one of those goals you always say, 'Why can't I get one like that?"
David Seaman and David "Calamity" James are among the other English keepers to make gaffes, one of the reasons Howard is among three American starters in the 20-team Premier League.
Howard made a point-blank stop on Heskey's 18-yard right-footed shot in the 52nd minute and parried Lampard's 20-foot left-footed shot over the crossbar in the 63rd. Rooney had a quiet night, failing to make good contact with a Gerrard cross while open on the side of the goal in the 76th minute. The ball glanced off his head and went harmlessly wide.
"It was a difficult game," Gerrard said. "I think the important thing in the first game is not to lose. Unfortunately, we've let a poor goal in and we couldn't go on and get the winner."
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Jimmy Wales
Our editors will review what you've submitted and determine whether to revise the article.
- Born:
- August 8, 1966 (age 57) Huntsville Alabama
- Founder:
- "Wikipedia"
Jimmy Wales, in full Jimmy Donal Wales, (born August 8, 1966, Huntsville, Alabama, U.S. [see Researcher's Note]), American entrepreneur, who cofounded Wikipedia, a free Internet-based encyclopaedia operating under an open-source management style.
Wales received degrees in finance from Auburn University (B.S.) and the University of Alabama (M.S.). From 1994 to 2000 he was an options trader in Chicago, amassing enough money to allow him to quit and start his own Internet company. Wales was a devotee of objectivism, and in 1989 he began moderating the online Ayn Rand Philosophy Discussion List. In March 2000, perhaps inspired by objectivist "openness," he founded a free online encyclopaedia called Nupedia, which sought free contributions from scholars and other experts and subjected them to an intensive peer-review process. Frustrated by the slow progress of this project, Wales and Nupedia's editor in chief, Larry Sanger, in 2001 turned to a new technology, a type of software called wiki, to create Wikipedia, a companion encyclopaedia site that anyone could contribute to and edit. Sanger and Wales parted company in 2002, but they continued to dispute who first came up with the idea of using the wiki software.
Despite certain vulnerabilities—including the fact that Wikipedia was the object of deliberate vandalism, editorial wars, and practical jokes—the site was a huge success. By 2006 Wikipedia was available in a number of languages and was one of the Internet's most popular sites. In 2003 Wales established the Wikimedia Foundation to oversee his expanding online enterprises. He extended the wiki model to several other projects, including Wiktionary and Wikinews. In 2004 he cofounded with Angela Beesley the for-profit Wikia, Inc.


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Maybe She's Born With It (Maybe It's Lead!)
|Barbara Palmer (née Villiers), Duchess of Cleveland by John Michael Wright
So many seventeenth-century portraits feature women with smooth, perfectly white complexions. The paint used in the portraits would have been very similar to the makeup used by the women featured, both being comprised chiefly of white lead. By the Restoration, cosmetics were widely available and used across the social spectrum. In a time when freckles were undesirable and so many faces were marred with smallpox scars, demand for complexion correctives was high, and white lead made its first comeback as a cosmetic since the end of the Roman Empire.
Ceruse was made of lead carbonite or oxide and could be combined with lemon juice or vinegar. It was bought as a powder and mixed into a paste with water or egg whites and applied with a damp cloth to whiten the face, neck, and chest. It clung well to the skin and didn't have to be applied too heavily to produce an even, matte result. It could be set with a mask of egg whites to varnish the skin or powders of starch or ground alabaster.
While it could create the illusion of perfection for a time, ceruse was not without its failings. The egg whites dried quickly on the skin, and they would have created an uncomfortably tight mask that would wrinkle and crack with any facial movement at all, so smiling and talking were out. Over the course of a day, it could even turn grey, necessitating touch-ups with alabaster powder to disguise the changing tone. Ceruse was also found to have a depilatory effect on the eyebrows and hairline, which could be seen as an advantage (or disadvantage, if false mouse-skin eyebrows don't appeal to you) and could partially explain the artificially high hairlines that appeared throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Still, it was preferable to the alternative, a combination of borax and sulphur, which created a pale powder that was very drying as well as slightly yellow; not very compatible with the fashionable pink and white complexion of the time.
Ceruse was also extremely poisonous. The most sought-after ceruse came from Venice, seen by many as the center of the fashionable world, which was the most expensive and contained the highest concentration of lead. In 1651, Noah Biggs warned against the use of lead in lab equipment and near any water supplies in The Vanity of the Craft of Physic, and the Royal Society noted that people involved in the manufacture of white lead suffered from cramps and blindness by 1661. Mercury was used in the production of beaver hats, giving rise to the term "mad as a hatter."
Although mercury and lead were known to cause madness, they continued to be used in cosmetics, hair rinses, and popular (if only somewhat successful) remedies for syphilis in every form from enemas, ointments, and pills to steam baths or "sweats" in mercury vapor.
The first person known to die from it was Lady Coventry in 1760.
|Hogarth. Harlot's Progress (detail)
Patches reached their height of popularity in the seventeenth century. Lady Castlemaine advised ladies to wear them daily, except when in mourning. They could be made of taffeta or other thin, black fabrics, and even red Spanish Leather. They came in all shapes and were affixed to the face with gum to disguise blemishes or pockmarks, or to provide a "mark of Venus."
They were called different things depending upon their position on the face. A patch beside the mouth was called a "kiss." At the middle of the cheek, it was called a "finery," a "boldness" beside the nostril, and a "passion" at the corner of the eye. During the 1650s, it became fashionable to wear patches shaped as coaches complete with galloping horses, although it's difficult to imagine how large a patch would have had to be to resemble anything of the kind.
If a coach and six was not to the wearer's taste, the Exchanges were restocked daily with a plethora of shapes. From The Gentlewoman's Companion (Anonymous, 1675):
"By the impertinent pains of this curious Facespoiling-mender, the Exchanges (for now we have three great Arsenals of choice Vanities) are furnished with a daily supply and variety of Beautyspots … and these Patches are cut out into little Moons, Suns, Stars, Castles, Birds, Beasts, and Fishes of all sorts, so that their Faces may be properly termed a Landscape of living Creatures. The vanity and pride of these Gentlewomen hath in a manner abstracted Noah's Ark, and exprest a Compendium of the Creation in their Front and Cheeks. Add to this the gallantry of their Garb, with all the Ornamental appurtances which rackt Innvention can discover, and then you will say … That she was defective in nothing but a vertueus mind."
Despite this scathing attack on the virtue of London's patch-wearing populace, patches continued to be popular through the eighteenth century, and during the reign of Queen Anne, were even worn to indicate political allegiances by wearing them on different sides of the face.
Jessica Cale is a historical romance author and journalist based in North Carolina. Originally from Minnesota, she lived in Wales for several years where she earned a BA in History and an MFA in Creative Writing while climbing castles and photographing mines for history magazines. She kidnapped ("married") her very own British prince (close enough) and is enjoying her happily ever after with him in a place where no one understands his accent. You can visit her at http://www.authorjessicacale.com
Look out for her debut novel, Tyburn the first of a romantic series set in the time of the Restoration.