text:
Geocaching Maine Newsletter
August 2008
Volume II Issue 8
I. Remember to Vote: 2008 Geocaching Maine Geocoin
----Side Bar: What about the Volunteer Geocoin drawing?
II. Creative Caching, Challenge Caches
III. Upcoming Events
IV. Maine Geocaching Media Coverage
V. Hot Topics of the Past Month
VI. Photos of the Past Month
I. Remember to Vote: 2008 Geocaching Maine Geocoin
Vote for geocoin design
--A 2008 geocoing has long been discussed. There is a poll now for choosing a design for the next Maine geocoin. Choose from a winter scene, which depicts a snow-covered cabin and snowshoer; a Maine-shaped coin with four aspects of Maine overlaying geocaching colors; a unique-shaped coin with snowshoes on one side and lobster on the other; a cut-out coin resembling a compass with a state shape inside; and a Maine-shaped coin depicting the state bird, the mosquito! Thank you to everyone who helped brainstorm ideas, put together designs, and helped digitize them!
----Side Bar: What about the Volunteer Geocoin drawing?
------Congratulations to Lexmano for winning the Volunteer Geocoin! The name was drawn at the Slipping into Summer 2008 event.
II. Creative Caching, Challenge Caches
Its not just one find, these caches will take time
--Geocaching is fun in its simplest form. It also allows for a lot of creativity. The creativity has generated challenge caches: geocaches that require a certain set of actions (hides and/or finds) to achieve the find. Challenge caches can dominate conversations at events, so you may have heard of these, and there are more out there!
-- Maines Delorme Challenge GCW8N6 by Team Teebow: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache...b-1d7f61d1ddb7
gets a lot of attention from cachers. If youre going camping or to a geocaching event, it may just be on a new map page! The challenge is completed by getting at least one geocache on each map page of the Maine Delorme Atlas and Gazetteer, except for the exemptions listed on the cache page.
--This is a challenge that you work on over time, Firefighterjake says in his good humor, I suspect that few folks set out to just do the Delorme Challenge; rather most have done a bunch of the maps and then at some point figure they might as well do a few more to wrap up this Challenge and be one of the proud, the few, the Marines--I mean--the Geocachers! Read more discussion: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3304
--Four Maine geocachers got together for a special find and named themselves the Rescue Rangers. While thats a story for another time, theyve created the challenge cache called Maine Natural and Unique Delorme College Associates Degree GC13H9D: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache...0-c7d4033be95e
--TAT, a member of the Rescue Rangers, explains that the goal is to find caches at the Natural and Unique Areas in Delorme's Maine Atlas and Gazetteer. At least 20 are required for the Associates Degree. In the future, I hope to publish a Bachelor's degree (40 places) and a Master's degree (60 places). When TAT got his first Atlas, it became his goal to go to all of the Natural and Unique Areas. The greatest aspect of this challenge, TAT says, is seeing some of the most spectacular places in Maine.
--Another popular challenge cache in Maine is Cache Like Its 2001 GC146JV by Sudonim: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache...spx?wp=GC146JV
--In 2003 when Sudonim started caching, he noticed that there were some older caches on his list, and by 2007 they had nagged him until he set the goal to find all the 2001 caches. Maines oldest cache was placed in 2001. After he found them all, he says, I thought it would make a good challenge cache to get others to do as well. Because of this challenge, Sudonim says, I did some hard caches, far from my normal caching area that were fun to do, if hard to get to. Currently only three cachers have completed the challenge, and many cachers are getting close. Theres discussion about this challenge: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3297
--TAT offers this advice to cachers interested in creating a challenge cache, Carefully review all of the guidelines and get your reviewer involved early in the process. A reviewer is the volunteer for Geocaching.com who reviews and publishes cache pages. Sudonim adds, I think challenge caches are so varied that there are no pre-set rules; just think them out well before publishing, because they sure are a lot of work for the people trying to complete them.
III. Upcoming Events
Thank you to DeLorme for the donated door prizes, which were won at the Slipping into Summer 2008 event in July!
08/08/08 8/8/08 From 8:00-8:08am: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache...3-0ea606146082
08/09/08 Trail Work Day and Picnic: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache...b-b403bf68bbf8
08/16/08 Cachin and Scrapin Event: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache...3-0ded8e4d736a
08/23/08 Warren Island Campout: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache...4-5a877ce60ffe
Discussion: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3274
IV. Maine Geocaching Media Coverage
Dont forget about the Maine PodCache: http://goddess.libsyn.com/
V. Hot Topics of the Past Month
All the caches: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3309
ATV trail tracks: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3289
Cache Containers: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3256
Caches on the AT: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3257
Eustis Cache Challenge: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3320
Five Star Rating: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3302
Good Hikes in S. ME: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3255
IntotheWoods adoptions: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3321
H.P.Lovecraft cache: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3264
Loon Echo Hike N Bike: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3244
Maintenance or Archive: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3317
Newbie advise: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3314
Newbie questions: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3305
NE Mega Event?: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ad.php?p=43712
Rails to Trails: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3267
Require warnings?: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3291
eTrexH and Mac: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3300
Garmin GPSmap 60CSx: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3315
Improve Colorado: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3290
Mapsource and Vista: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3269
PDA Suggestions: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/forum...ead.php?t=3282
VI. Photos of the Past Month
Tacoma Lakes Area Ospreys after SSS 2008 Event By EMSDanel: http://www.geocachingmaine.org/galle...534/cat/last14
~~~Next Months Feature: Popular Geocache Characteristics~~~
--Brought to you by GeocachingMaine.org; editor Medawisla; distributor Attroll; reviewers Geocaching Maine Advisory Board. Questions/Comments welcome.
--To be removed from mailing, uncheck the "Receive Email from Administrators" option.
--Submit material, tentative event dates, to Medawisla by the 3rd Wednesday of the month.


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Individual solutions
Overview of individual solutions
Capsula GmbH manufactures to suit your requirements, i.e. using your formulae and in your batch sizes. We can work for you as a "one-stop shop" – from obtaining the raw materials through processing into the bulk product, then packaging right through to the finished folding box and dispatch – all under one roof. Naturally, you can make use of just some of these services.
And in all this, you can rely on our production experience.
We are happy to advise our customers on raw material selection, production processes and packaging.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
LOS ANGELES — Jennifer Lawrence has contacted authorities to investigate who stole and posted nude images of the Oscar winner online, a publicist for the actress said.
Intimate images of the actress, who stars in "The Hunger Games" film franchise and won an Academy Award for her role in "Silver Linings Playbook," began appearing online on Sunday.
Naked images purporting to be of other female stars were also posted, although the authenticity of many couldn't be confirmed. The source of the leak was unclear.
"This is a flagrant violation of privacy," Lawrence's publicist Liz Mahoney wrote in a statement. "The authorities have been contacted and will prosecute anyone who posts the stolen photos of Jennifer Lawrence."
Mahoney declined to provide further details, including which authorities were contacted. Lawrence, 24, is a three-time Oscar nominee.
Actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead also confirmed that nude photos of her were posted online.
Winstead posted on Twitter:
Winstead, who starred in "Final Destination 3" and "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter," wrote that she thought the images had been destroyed.
"Knowing those photos were deleted long ago, I can only imagine the creepy effort that went into this," Winstead wrote.
The FBI has investigated previous leaks of nude celebrity images, including leaks involving Scarlett Johansson, Mila Kunis, Christina Aguilera and footage of television sports reporter Erin Andrews in a Tennessee hotel room.
Those cases resulted in convictions.
FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller declined comment on whether the agency was involved.
How widespread the hacking of celebrities photos was is not immediately clear. Some of the images were quickly denounced as fakes.
Some cybersecurity experts speculated that hackers may have obtained a cache of private celebrity images by exploiting weaknesses in an online image-storing platform.
"It is important for celebrities and the general public to remember that images and data no longer just reside on the device that captured it," security researcher Ken Westin wrote in a blog post Monday. "Once images and other data are uploaded to the cloud, it becomes much more difficult to control who has access to it, even if we think it is private."
Private information and images of celebrities are frequent targets for hackers.
Last year, a site posted credit reports, Social Security numbers and other financial info on celebrities, including Jay Z and his wife Beyoncé, Mel Gibson, Ashton Kutcher and many others.
Johansson, Kunis and Aguilera were hacked by a Florida man, Christopher Chaney, who used publicly available information to hack into the email accounts of more than 50 people in the entertainment industry.
"I have been truly humiliated and embarrassed," Johansson said in a tearful videotaped statement played in court at Chaney's sentencing in December 2012.
"That feeling of security can never be given back and there is no compensation that can restore the feeling one has from such a large invasion of privacy," Aguilera wrote in a statement before Chaney's sentencing.


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Photo: Daylight right outside my door, coffee in hand, truck fueled, ipod loaded (new Steeldrivers), 9'1 in the back... ready to ramble down my favorite stretch of coastline in the world.
Photo: First stop, first surf... this is a super easy wave with a mellow crowd. I surfed it with six or seven others- paddled off to the side of the main peak and scored head to head and a half high lefts all morning long.
Photo: Sunny, glassy and hot, even the water was warm- I wore my 2mm long-sleeve spring suit (thanks Emerald City!) and was perfectly comfortable. This is the Rincon carpark- that weird land of trailers all in a row inches from trucks whizzing by at 60 mph- peaks all over the place.
Photo: If you've grown up surfing the Ventura/SB coast, then you definitely know this spot. This is the best spot to learn how to catch a wave on a stand up board on the whole California coast (in my humble opinion) and today it was looking super inviting. The wave up at the top was firing (guess where I'm surfing tomorrow morning).
Photo: This is the first spot I take paddle groups- everyone loves it because everyone catches waves here- it's a fun little spot if you've got a big board and the right attitude.
Photo: Had a killer lunch at Cold Spring Tavern (the one and only- a must see if you're in town... killer beer, killer tri-tip, don't miss it) chased that with a nice two hour nap and then jammed up to this little bend in the coast. It was small but fun- I passed on the surf session for a three mile paddle down the coast (got the Battle of the Paddle coming up) but it did look fun.
Photo: I'll leave you with a close up of that little point- how about that one-look-take-off? Be good to each other out there.


text:
Estimated By E.P.A.Actual Mileage May Vary
Vehicle Options
- Air bags, dual-stage frontal, and thorax side-impact, driver and front passenger, and head curtain side-impact, front and rear outboard seating positions includes Passenger Sensing System (Always use safety belts and child restraints. Children are safer when properly secured in a rear seat in the appropriate child restraint. See the Owner's Manual for more information.)
- Air conditioning, single-zone manual
- Air filtration system with pollen filter
- Alternator, 150 amps
- Antenna, integral rear window
- Antenna, OnStar and SiriusXM Satellite Radio fin-type, Black, located on roof (Body-color when (WRS) RS Package is ordered.)
- Audio system feature 6-speaker system
- Axle, 3.27 ratio
- Battery, maintenance-free with rundown protection and retained accessory power
- Brakes, 4-wheel antilock, 4-wheel disc (Single piston front brakes with super corner rear brakes.)
- Coat hooks, driver- and passenger-side rear
- Compass, located in Driver Information Center
- Console, floor, with armrest
- Cruise control, electronic with set and resume speed, steering wheel mounted
- Cup holders, 2 front
- Dead pedal, driver
- Defogger, rear-window, electric
- Differential, limited slip (Included and only available with (MN6) 6-speed manual transmission.)
- Door handles, body-color
- Driver Information Center, monochromatic display
- Engine, 3.6L SIDI DOHC V6 VVT (323 hp [240.8 kW] @ 6800 rpm, 278 lb-ft of torque [375.3 N-m] @ 4800 rpm)
- Exhaust, dual-outlet stainless-steel with bright tips
- Fascias, front and rear body-color with front grille and rear diffuser
- Fog lamps, front projector type
- Glovebox, lockable
- Hood blanket
- Instrumentation, analog includes speedometer, tachometer, fuel gauge and engine temperature gauge
- LATCH system (Lower Anchors and Top tethers for CHildren) for child safety seats
- Lighting, front reading lamps
- Lighting, interior with illuminated entry and theater dimming
- Map pockets, front doors
- Mirror, inside rearview manual day/night
- Mirrors, outside power-adjustable body-color
- Molding, Black roof ditch
- Moldings, body-color lower rocker
- Power outlets, 2 auxiliary 1 located in center console storage area and 1 located at front of center console
- Rear wheel drive
- Safety belt pretensioners driver and front passenger
- Safety belts, 3-point, all seating positions
- Seat adjuster, driver, 6-way power (fore/aft, up/down, tilt) with power recliner
- Seat adjuster, front passenger, 6-way power (fore/aft, up/down, tilt) with power recliner
- Shift knob, leather-wrapped
- StabiliTrak, stability control system with traction control
- Steering column, manual rake and telescopic
- Steering wheel controls, mounted audio controls
- Steering wheel, 3-spoke leather-wrapped
- Steering, power, variable ratio
- Suspension, Sport
- Theft-deterrent system, PASS-Key III
- Tire Pressure Monitor System
- Tire sealant and inflator kit in place of spare tire
- Trunk emergency release handle
- Trunk release, remote, located on driver-side
- Visors, driver and front passenger vanity mirrors, covered
- Windows, power with driver and passenger Express-Down/Up
- Wipers, front intermittent
Vehicle Description
Visit Stargate Auto Sales LLC online at stargateautosales.com to see more pictures of this vehicle or call us at 615-622-7827 today to schedule your test drive! Stargate Carries Clean Titles Only! In Business 20 + years.


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One in four people age 44-70 are interested in becoming entrepreneurs.
We hear a lot about young entrepreneurs and the many programs designed to encourage college students and 20-somethings to build their own businesses. But what about not-so-young entrepreneurs?
If you're over age 50 and want to start a business, or if you're nearing retirement age but facing up to the fact that you won't have enough savings to stop working, Tuesday is your day. The Small Business Administration and AARP have partnered to celebrate National Encore Entrepreneur Mentor Day on October 2. The event is part of a broader effort by the two organizations to promote entrepreneurship among individuals ages 50 and older.
According to SBA, 25 percent of people aged 44-70 are interested in becoming entrepreneurs. More than 60 percent of Americans plan to work during their "retirement" years. Whether that's because their retirement savings disappeared during the recession, their investment portfolios have dwindled, or they just want to keep active, SBA says small business ownership is a good option for older Americans and that small business owners with long-term counselors see bigger sales, hire more workers, and last longer.
SBA and AARP offices across the country will host events today designed to help older people who are interested in launching businesses learn how having a business mentor could be useful. "Encore entrepreneurs" will have a chance to be matched with successful business owners and community leaders for advice and assistance.
Events will include 5-minute speed mentoring sessions and lunches during which would-be entrepreneurs can learn from successful business owners. The events also will help connect encore entrepreneurs with mentors from SBA's network of Small Business Development Centers, Women's Business Centers, and SCORE chapters who can help throughout the life of an entrepreneur's business.
Can't attend a live event? Check out the SCORE website for free, confidential online mentoring. Search for SCORE email mentors by area of business, industry, or skill and browse their profiles to find the one that's right for your business.


text:
What is stackoverflow.com?
Nothing, yet.
But here's the concept:
Programmers seem to have stopped reading books. The market for books on programming topics is miniscule compared to the number of working programmers.
Instead, they happily program away, using trial-and-error. When they can't figure something out, they type a question into Google.
And sometimes, the first result looks like it's going to have the answer to their exact question, and they are excited, until they click on the link, and discover that it's a pay site, and the answer is cloaked or hidden or behind a pay-wall, and you have to buy a membership.
And you won't even get an expert answer. You'll get a bunch of responses typed by other programmers like you. Some of the responses will be wrong, some will be right, some may be out of date, and it's hard to imagine that with the cooperative spirit of the internet this is the best thing we programmers have come up with.
Jeff Atwood and I decided to do something about it. We're starting to build a programming Q&A site that's free. Free to ask questions, free to answer questions, free to read, free to index, built with plain old HTML, no fake rot13 text on the home page, no scammy google-cloaking tactics, no salespeople, no JavaScript windows dropping down in front of the answer asking for $12.95 to go away. You can register if you want to collect karma and win valuable flair that will appear next to your name, but otherwise, it's just free.
When I'm building a new product, my policy has always been to keep quiet about it until I have something to ship. But this isn't really a product. This is a free new community site for programmers around the world and we need your help to design it, to program it, and to build it. We want to hear your suggestions, hear your ideas, and we're going to build it right in front of your eyes. Thus, the vaporware announcement.
Every week, Jeff and I talk by phone (he's in California, I'm in New York), and we're going to record those phone calls and throw them up on the web for you to listen in on, and call it a podcast. We have a lot of trouble keeping on topic, so the podcast may be interesting to you even if you don't want to hear about stackoverflow.com. The first episode is up right now. Eventually I imagine we'll figure out this newfangled "RSS" technology and you'll be able to actually subscribe and get fresh episodes delivered into your ears automatically. All in good time.
PS I'm still CEO of Fog Creek full time. StackOverflow.com is a joint venture between Fog Creek and Jeff Atwood. He's the full time CEO which means he's calling the shots. I'm sort of a consultant on this one.


text:
A gray October late-morning. Wheaton, Maryland. On the playground at St. Andrew Apostle School, Billy's holding forth before a rapt audience of thirteen year olds. I'm one of them.
"Hey guys, my brother and I saw AC/DC," he tells us. "I met Bon Scott."
We know that the band will come to town again soon to rock Capital Centre, out in Largo. And we wonder: since Billy's already shaving once a week and has an older brother who brings him along to rock concerts, will a backstage pass to one of the great party bands come next in the inevitable, lucky scheme of things? In our freshly minted teenage naiveté we can virtually inhale the sweat and the reefer as Billy talks to us. It feels as if we're in the presence of divine fortune here, on the blacktop next to the dodge ball court and the basketball hoops and the swing sets, just feet away from the rectory where the priests live and write the sermons to which we'll mentally undress the girls. Will Billy get to hang out in a smoky backstage, feel up the groupies, drink beer with Bon Scott?
As the Seventies came to a close, AC/DC was not yet a sonic institution firing oversized cannons from vast stages into seas of millions. The band's seams were showing. They'd formed in Sydney, Australia, in late 1973, when twenty-year-old, Scottish-born guitarist Malcolm Young aborted an earlier band and roped in his kid brother Angus on lead guitar to round out a new lineup featuring Colin Burgess on drums, Larry Van Kriedt on bass, and singer Dave Evans. They debuted on New Year's Eve at the Chequers Club in Sydney. Maneuvering among band defections, they ducked into EMI Studios and recorded their debut single "Can I Sit Next To You, Girl?," and spent the remainder of the year raising their profile, gigging tirelessly, and enduring various rhythm section lineups with feet firmly planted on a bedrock of Chuck Berry, the Rolling Stones, and loud, electric blues. At older sister Margaret's cheeky suggestion, Angus donned a schoolboy uniform onstage in April of 1974, and in between tours and one-off shows taking them from divey gay bars and provincial dance halls to the Sydney Opera House (where they opened for Australian legend Stevie Wright), the band signed with Albert Productions, benefiting happily from record distribution through the mammoth institution of EMI. Their first single charted in Perth, in Western Australia. AC/DC were hungry.
In August, a wiry, affable hood tattooed with a risky past caught an AC/DC show in Adelaide in southern Australia, and he dug what he saw. Ronald "Bon" Belford Scott was like the Young brothers, a transplanted Scotsman, but a bit older and a little wilder, and already a veteran singer in several bands (the Valentines, Fraternity). In the midst of a brief stint as a driver, handyman, and general gofer for an old bandmate, Scott was asked to audition to replace Evans, with whom Malcolm and Angus had grown unhappy; he joined in September. In November, after relocating southwest to Melbourne, AC/DC swiftly cut their debut album, High Voltage; their second, T.N.T., was recorded eight months later. Melbourne local Phil Rudd stepped in as drummer, and over the next several years the band committed themselves to a Herculean diet of gigs, drinking, and writing and recording: Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap was released in 1976; Let There Be Rock in 1977. By 1978, with English-born bassist Cliff Williams in the band and the classic lineup intact, they were reaping the benefits of their driven work ethic. Though essentially ignored in America, AC/DC was hugely popular in Australia, where their concerts had grown in size and intensity as their albums went gold. They'd made exploratory inroads throughout Europe and in England, and were boozily, noisily heading west.To get the juices flowing here are two clips of the band in full-on, classic-lineup glory: "Sin City" from NBC's Midnight Special (1978), and "Highway to Hell" recorded in Arnhem, the Netherlands in 1979. Get your Bon on. (Best viewed in a new window; double-click the vid.)


text:
Acclaim 36" Single Bathroom Vanity in Oyster Gray, White Carrara Marble Countertop, Undermount Square Sink, and No Mirror
Sale Sale
Original price $1,199.00 - Original price $1,199.00
Original price
$1,199.00 - $1,199.00
Current price $1,199.00
Sublimely linking traditional and modern design aesthetics, and part of the exclusive Wyndham Collection designer series by Christopher Grubb, the Acclaim Vanity is at home in almost every bathroom decor. This solid oak vanity blends the simple lines of traditional design with modern elements like square undermount sinks and brushed chrome hardware, resulting in a timeless piece of bathroom furniture. The Acclaim is available with a White Carrara or Ivory marble counter, porcelain sinks, and matching mirrors. Featuring soft-close door hinges and drawer glides, you'll never hear a noisy door again. Meticulous attention to detail on this beautiful vanity is second to none and is sure to be the envy of your friends and neighbors.
The Wyndham Collection is an entirely unique and innovative bath line. Sure to inspire imitators, the original Wyndham Collection sets new standards for design and construction.
The Wyndham Collection is an entirely unique and innovative bath line. Sure to inspire imitators, the original Wyndham Collection sets new standards for design and construction.
- Constructed of environmentally friendly, zero emissions solid Oak hardwood, engineered to prevent warping and last a lifetime
- 12-stage wood preparation, sanding, painting and hand-finishing process
- Highly water-resistant low V.O.C. sealed finish
- Cutting edge, unique styling by Interior Designer Christopher Grubb
- Practical Floor-Standing Design
- Minimal assembly required
- Deep Doweled Drawers
- Fully-extending undermount soft-close drawer slides
- Concealed soft-close door hinges
- White Carrara Marble Countertop
- Counters include 3" backsplash
- Counters include porcelain undermount sinks
- Pre-drilled for a single hole faucet
- Faucet not included
- Matching mirror available
- Metal exterior hardware with brushed chrome finish
- Two (2) functional doors
- Five (5) functional drawers
- Plenty of storage space
- Includes drain assemblies and P-traps for easy assembly
- Variations in the shading and grain of our natural stone products enhance the individuality of your vanity and ensure that it will be truly unique
- Product Dimensions: 36"W x 22"D x 34"H
- Vanity Dimensions: 35"W x 21-1/2"D x 33-1/4"H
- Countertop Dimensions: 36"W x 22"D x 3/4"H
- Sink: Undermount Square White Porcelain Sink
- Sink Style: Undermount Square
- Vanity Style: Transitional
- Color: Gray
- Type: Vanity Set
- Weight: 275 lbs
- Boxes: 2
Installation Guide
Specifications Sheet
Counter Handling Instructions
Warranty Information
CA Prop 65


text:
MOVIE REVIEWS - Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Tim Burton's abortive Planet Of The Apes is now a distant memory thanks to the 2011 revamp Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes and this superior sequel, which pushes the art of motion-capture performance to new limits.
Andy Serkis' exemplary work as Caesar, the super-intelligent chimpanzee who leads the ape uprising, is the film's emotional heartbeat.
His ability to convey the character's rage, despair and passion through movement and subtle gesture is breathtaking.
Toby Kebbell is also compelling as Caesar's war-mongering rival, who believes the key to his species' survival is the extermination of humans.
Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver's script elegantly draws parallels between the feuding primates, juxtaposing tender scenes of parenting with bruising skirmishes that create divisions on both sides.
Ten winters have passed since simian flu ravaged the globe.
In the absence of law and order, basic resources such as water, food and electricity are dangerously depleted.
One-time military man Dreyfus (Gary Oldman), who lost his entire family to the virus, leads survivors of the ALZ-113 virus in San Francisco.
He despatches a team led by family man Malcolm (Jason Clarke) to access the O'Shaughnessy Dam, which provides the city with electricity.
In the forest that envelops the dam, the scouting party encounters apes led by Caesar, including his ambitious second-in-command Koba (Kebbell), impetuous son Blue Eyes (Nick Thurston) and Bornean orangutan Maurice (Karin Konoval).
Malcolm's trigger-happy compatriot Carver (Kirk Acevedo) shoots one of the apes and the humans are banished to their stronghold.
Once Dreyfus learns about the neighbouring ape community, he asks Malcolm and co to refrain from telling the other survivors.
"They're talking apes with big-ass spears!" shrieks Carver.
Malcolm realises that he must earn Caesar's trust to gain access to the dam so he prepares to return to the forest with wife Ellie (Keri Russell) and teenage son Alexander (Kodi Smith-McPhee).
"If you're not back in three days, we're going to go out there and kill every last one of them," warns Dreyfus.
Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes is a slick thrill ride with brains as well as brawn.
The grim mood, which permeates the first half, leads to all-guns-blazing war and director Reeves orchestrates these brutal sequences with elan.
Digital effects are jaw-dropping, giving birth to a realistic army of blood-thirsty apes who cram every chaotic, blood-spattered frame.
The film's strong anti-gun message comes through loud and clear, but the appetite for destruction overpowers diplomacy.
"I always think ape better than humans," laments Caesar as his dream of lasting peace founders.
"I see now how like them we are."
My rating 9/10
Check your local cinema for showtimes.


text:
Bio::Tools::Phylo::Phylip::ProtDist - parser for ProtDist output
use Bio::Tools::Phylo::Phylip::ProtDist;
my $parser = Bio::Tools::Phylo::Phylip::ProtDist->new(-file => 'outfile');
while( my $result = $parser->next_matrix) {
# do something with it
A parser for ProtDist output into a Bio::Matrix::PhylipDist object. See also Bio::Matrix::IO::phylip this module may go away.
User feedback is an integral part of the evolution of this and other Bioperl modules. Send your comments and suggestions preferably to the Bioperl mailing list. Your participation is much appreciated.
email@example.com - General discussion
http://bioperl.org/wiki/Mailing_lists - About the mailing lists
Please direct usage questions or support issues to the mailing list:
rather than to the module maintainer directly. Many experienced and reponsive experts will be able look at the problem and quickly address it. Please include a thorough description of the problem with code and data examples if at all possible.
Report bugs to the Bioperl bug tracking system to help us keep track of the bugs and their resolution. Bug reports can be submitted via the web:
Email firstname.lastname@example.com
The rest of the documentation details each of the object methods. Internal methods are usually preceded with a _
Title : new
Usage : my $obj = Bio::Tools::Phylo::Phylip::ProtDist->new();
Function: Builds a new Bio::Tools::Phylo::Phylip::ProtDist object
Returns : Bio::Tools::ProtDist
Args : -fh/-file => $val, # for initing input, see Bio::Root::IO
-program => 'programname' # name of the program
Title : next_matrix
Usage : my $matrix = $parser->next_matrix
Function: Get the next result set from parser data
Returns : L<Bio::Matrix::PhylipDist>
Args : none
To install BioPerl, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm BioPerl
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell
install BioPerl
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.


text:
[ Search ] [ PDF text ] [ Legislation ]
[ Home ] [ Back ] [ Bottom ]
|[ Introduced ]
|[ Senate Amendment 001 ]
92_SB1094eng SB1094 Engrossed SRS92SB0021JJap 1 AN ACT in relation to civil liabilities. 2 Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, 3 represented in the General Assembly: 4 Section 1. Short title. This Act may be cited as the 5 Induced Birth Infant Liability Act. 6 Section 5. Findings and intent. The General Assembly 7 finds that all children who are born alive are entitled to 8 equal protection under the law regardless of the 9 circumstances surrounding the birth. Children who are born 10 alive as the result of an induced labor abortion or any other 11 abortion are in special need of protection due to the fact 12 that the intent of their birth is to cause the death of the 13 born child. Therefore, it is the intent of the General 14 Assembly to protect a child who is born alive as the result 15 of an induced labor abortion or any other abortion and to 16 ensure that the child receives all medical care necessary to 17 preserve and protect the life, health, and safety of the 18 child. 19 Section 10. Induced labor abortion; actions. If a child 20 is born alive after an induced labor abortion or any other 21 abortion, a parent of the child or the public guardian of the 22 county in which the child was born may maintain an action on 23 the child's behalf for damages, including all costs of care 24 to preserve and protect the life, health, and safety of the 25 child, punitive damages, costs of suit, and attorney's fees 26 against any hospital, health care facility, or health care 27 provider who harms or neglects the child or fails to provide 28 medical care to the child after the child's birth. Any 29 damages recovered shall be used to pay for the cost of 30 preserving and protecting the life, health, and safety of the SB1094 Engrossed -2- SRS92SB0021JJap 1 child. If the child does not survive, the balance remaining 2 after the costs of preserving and protecting the life, 3 health, and safety of the child are paid, shall be deposited 4 into the Neonatal Care and Perinatal Hospice Fund. 5 Section 20. Neonatal Care and Perinatal Hospice Fund. 6 The Neonatal Care and Perinatal Hospice Fund is created as a 7 special fund in the State treasury. Moneys deposited into the 8 Fund shall, subject to appropriation, be used by the 9 Department of Public Health to make grants for neonatal care 10 or perinatal hospice. 11 Section 90. The State Finance Act is amended by adding 12 Section 5.545 as follows: 13 (30 ILCS 105/5.545 new) 14 Sec. 5.545. The Neonatal Care and Perinatal Hospice 15 Fund.
[ Top ]


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Friday 11 November 2011 by Bradley M. Kuhn
Those of you that follow my blog have probably wondered we're I've been. Quite frankly, there is just so much work going on at Conservancy that I have almost had no time to do anything but Conservancy work, eat and sleep. My output on this blog and on identi.ca surely shows that.
The one thing that I've kept up with is the oggcast, Free as in Freedom that I co-host with Karen Sandler, and which is produced by Dan Lynch.
Since I last made a blog post here, Karen, Dan and I released four oggcasts. I'll discuss them here in reverse chronological order:
In Episode 0x1C, which was released today, we published Karen's interview with Adam Dingle of Yorba. IMO (which is undoubtedly biased), this episode is an important one since it relates to the issues of non-profit organizations in our community who waiting in the 501(c)(3) application queue. This is a detailed and specific follow-up to the issues that Karen and I discussed on FaiF's Episode 0x13.
In Episode 0x1B, Karen and I discuss in some detail about the work that
we've been up to. Both Karen and I are full-time Executive Directors,
and the amount of work that job takes always seems insurmountable.
Although, after we recorded the episode, I somewhat embarrassingly
the Bush/Kerry
debate where George W. Bush kept saying his job as president is
work. It's certainly annoying when a chief executive goes on
and on about how hard his job is, so I apologize if I did a little too
much of that in Episode 0x1B.
In Episode 0x1A, Karen and I discussed in detail Steve Jobs' death and the various news coverage about it. The subject is a bit old news now that I write this, but I'm glad we did that episode, since it gave me an opportunity to say everything I wanted to stay about Steve Jobs' life and death.
In Episode 0x19, we played Karen's interview with Jos Poortvliet, discussed the identi.ca upgrade, and Karen discussed GNOME 3.2.
My plan is to at least keep the FaiF oggcast going, and I'm even bugging Fontana that he and I should start an oggcast too. Beyond that, I can't necessarily commit to any other activities outside of that (and my job at Conservancy and volunteer duties at FSF). BTW, I recently attended a few conferences (both LinxCon Europe and the Summer of Code Mentor Summit). At both of them, multiple folks asked me why I haven't been blogging more. I appreciate people's interest in what I'm writing, but at the moment, my day-job at Conservancy and volunteer work at FSF has had to take absolute priority.
Based on the ebb and flow (yes, that's the first time I've actually used that phrase on my ebb.org blog :) of the Free Software community that I've gotten used to over the last decade and a half, I usually find that things slow down in mid-December until mid-January. Since Conservancy's work is based on the needs of its Free Software projects, I'll likely be able to return a "normal" 50 hour work week (instead of the 60-70 I've been doing lately) in December. Thus, I'll probably try to write some queued blog posts then to slowly push out over the few months that follow.
Finally, I want to mention that Conservancy has an donation appeal up on its website. I hope you'll give generously to support Conservancy's work. On that, I'll just briefly mention my "hard work" again, to assure you that donors to Conservancy definitely get their money's worth when I'm on the job. Since I'm on the topic of that, I also thank everyone who has donated to FSF and Conservancy over the years. I've been fortunate to have worked full-time at both organizations, and I appreciate the community that has supported all that work over the years.
Posted on Friday 11 November 2011 at 09:00 by Bradley M. Kuhn.
Comment on this post in this identi.ca conversation.
This website and all documents on it are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License .
#include <std/disclaimer.h>
use Standard::Disclaimer;
from standard import disclaimer
SELECT full_text FROM standard WHERE type = 'disclaimer';
Both previously and presently, I have been employed by and/or done work for various organizations that also have views on Free, Libre, and Open Source Software. As should be blatantly obvious, this is my website, not theirs, so please do not assume views and opinions here belong to any such organization. Since I do co-own ebb.org with my wife, it may not be so obvious that these aren't her views and opinions, either.
— bkuhn
ebb ℠ is a service mark of Bradley M. Kuhn.Bradley M. Kuhn <email@example.com>


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Investigators in eastern Ukraine reached the wreckage of a downed Malaysian airliner Thursday.
It was their first look at the July 17 crash site after earlier attempts were blocked by armed pro-Russian rebels.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe announced the development Thursday, saying a small team of its monitors, accompanied by four Dutch and Australian experts, had reached the site using a new route.
As the investigators - two each from the Netherlands and Australia - made an initial survey of the area shortly after lunchtime, fighting raged between government forces and pro-Russian separatist rebels, and mortar shells rained down on fields in a nearby village, The Associated Press reported.
Initial visit a success
Despite the dangers, upon returning to the rebel-held city of Donetsk, the team called the one-hour inspection a success.
Alexander Hug, deputy head of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) mission to Ukraine, told AP the team had gathered vital information regarding the security situation on the ground, which would allow them to return and start work in earnest.
He said the biggest risk was that rebels in the area were "very nervous."
"Today was more about an assessment of the site than it was a search," Australian Federal Police commander Brian McDonald, who is working with the OSCE team, told AP.
Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, head of the Dutch-led international team investigating the disaster, said at a news conference in Kyiv that experts on Thursday had not seen any bodies but would begin searching for human remains and belongings on Friday.
'A lot of negotiation'
An OSCE spokesman said to CNN television that the team managed to reach the crash site thanks to "a lot of negotiation in a short amount of time."
On its Twitter feed, the OSCE said the team is expected to do "initial reconnaissance" and will start searching for evidence and remains as soon as possible on a later visit.
Earlier Thursday, Ukraine announced a one-day halt in its fight against the pro-Russian rebels in the area to allow the international investigators to reach the crash site.
Kyiv said the move was in response to a plea by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to stop fighting and allow the team in.
Families of the victims of the crash, which killed 298 people July 17, have been anxious for investigators to reach the scene.
Some human remains are believed still at the site, after about 200 sets of remains were transferred to the Netherlands for identification last week.
Video shot Wednesday by a CNN team that managed to reach the site showed broken pieces of luggage, travel books, a pair of blue jeans, and parts of the plane riddled with holes, all scattered across a field full of grass and wildflowers in some locations and charred bare in others.
Speaking during a visit to the Netherlands, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Thursday called for an" immediate cessation of hostilities in eastern Ukraine." He also stressed that investigators need to be given full access to the crash site.
Russian missile
U.S. analysts say the Malaysia Airlines plane - downed over eastern Ukraine - was destroyed by a Russian missile likely fired by rebels who believed the aircraft was Ukrainian.
In other developments, Ukraine's parliament approved legislation boosting funding for the fight for control of Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine. Lawmakers also voted not to accept the resignation of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who announced his departure last week after the two parties backing him left the ruling coalition.
In Brussels, meanwhile, the European Union formally adopted broad economic sanctions against Moscow for its support of rebels in Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine.
The new measures, agreed to after months of EU debate, target Russia's banking, energy, and defense sectors. The EU's official journal named banking giants Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank, VEB and Rosselkhozbank. U.S. President Barack Obama announced separate penalties Wednesday in Washington.
Russia's Foreign Ministry called the EU - US sanctions -- the strongest against Moscow since the end of the Cold War - "destructive and short-sighted." It also accused Washington of behaving in a "pretentious, prosecutorial manner" that will lead to "further aggravation of U.S.-Russia relations."
Some information for this report provided by Reuters and AP.


text:
Giant Foods Gift Card Balance Check
Check Giant Foods Gift Card Balance online, over the phone or in store. Gift card merchant Giant Foods provides you a gift card balance check, the information is below for this gift card company. All questions or issues regarding your Giant Foods gift card or gift card balance should be directed to the company who issued you the gift card and or Giant Foods. This site is not affiliated with any gift cards or gift card merchants listed on this site.
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text:
Who We Are
We are your local string instrument provider. Our staff consists of skilled Luthiers and music experts.Read More
What We Do
We offer a complete inventory of string instruments available for anyone. We do rentals, repairs, and restorations.Read More
Start Renting
Interested in renting from us? Start here to learn more or call us at (469) 241-1152 for a consultation.Read More


text: Stuxnet creators recognized they had built the world's first true cyber-weapon and were more interested in pushing the envelope of this new type of digital warfare than causing large-scale destruction within targeted Iranian nuclear facilities, a study shows.In an analysis released Wednesday, Ralph Langner, head of The Langner Group and a renowned expert in industrial control systems (ICS), also refuted arguments that only a nation-state had the resources to launch a Stuxnet-like attack. Assailants with less ambition could take the lessons learned and apply them to civilian critical infrastructure, he said."While Stuxnet was clearly the work of a nation-state \u2013 requiring vast resources and considerable intelligence \u2013 future attacks on industrial control and other so-called 'cyber-physical' systems may not be," Langner said in an article he wrote about his study for Foreign Policy magazine.Langner's analysis was based on reverse engineering the attack code in Stuxnet and combining the data with the design of the targeted nuclear facility and background information on the uranium-enrichment process.Langner concluded that Stuxnet comprised two radically different destructive payloads. The first one, which had been around at least since 2007, was much more complex and was capable of causing catastrophic damage by increasing the pressure within centrifuges used to enrich uranium.The second payload, which came years later and was much simpler, manipulated rotor speeds, so centrifuges could be damaged enough to force Iranian engineers to replace them, causing continuous delays.The creators of Stuxnet, which media reports say was a joint project of the U.S. and Israeli governments, decided to use the second version, indicating a major change in strategy."The attackers were in a position where they could have broken the victim's neck, but they chose continuous periodical choking instead," Langner said."Stuxnet is a low-yield weapon with the overall intention of reducing the lifetime of Iran's centrifuges and making the Iranians' fancy control systems appear beyond their understanding."Langner estimates that Stuxnet, which was discovered by security researchers in 2010, set back the Iranian nuclear program by two years, about the same amount of time that would have been lost if the attackers had destroyed all operating centrifuges at one time.Stuxnet creators were also interested in monitoring contractors who worked on the Iranian facilities. The malware exploited previously unknown vulnerabilities in Windows, making it possible for Stuxnet to infect contractors' laptops when they were plugged into the Iranian network. Stuxnet then reported the Internet protocol address and hostnames of infected systems back to command-and-control servers.Spreading the malware to "soft targets," eventually led to Stuxnet's discovery, Langner said. But by then, the attackers had determined what was possible with cyber-weapons.Using Stuxnet as a blueprint, attackers would need fewer resources in targeting widely understood ICS in civilian critical infrastructure, such as power plants or water treatment facilities, experts said."We need to internalize this new class of threat and defend against it," Andrew Ginter, vice president of industrial security( at Waterfall Security Solutions, said.Overall, Stuxnet proved that digital weapons are effective without sacrificing lives in combat. They can also be deployed secretly and are "dirt-cheap," Langner said."The contents of this Pandora' box have implications much beyond Iran; they have made analog warfare look low-tech, brutal and so 20th century," Langner said.


text:
Please note that the coronavirus pandemic has caused a global reduction of flights. Accordingly, acceptance of international mail items to some countries/territories is temporarily suspended and considerable delivery delays are expected for outbound mail items to other countries/territories. Thank you for your patience!
Black metal lens cap "CONTAX". This cap is a copy of the Contax GK-54 hood for the Contax G series cameras.
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text:
All students must be approved by the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP)
prior to any involvement in on-campus or off-campus research.
Students and faculty share their current research and gain recognition for outstanding research presentations.
KCU's Science Friday Talks, held on our Kansas City campus, features lectures and presentations from a broad spectrum of national and international speakers on topics that are relevant to the diverse University community.


text:
"A Call to Action"
Working Together to Restore Mental Well-Being to our Veterans
Monday, March 18, 2013
12pm – 2pm
One Dupont Circle, NW
Suite 700
Washington, DC 20036
The Aspen Institute proudly announces the launch of its Aspen Veterans Initiative, in collaboration with the Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense, Department of Health and Human Services, Blue Shield of California Foundation, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Give an Hour, Corporation for National and Community Service and The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, which will foster discussion among clinicians, organizations and policy makers about meeting the mental health needs of returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families.
Over the next 5 years, the Initiative will produce educational materials for frontline providers in the civilian population, develop a track at the Health Forum dedicated to veterans and build a coalition committed to provoking discussions about challenges and solutions related to the mental well-being of returning veterans.
Remarks by:
Peter Long, PhD, President & Chief Executive Officer
Blue Shield of California Foundation
Featured Speakers:
Koby Langley, JD, Senior Advisor, Veterans, Wounded Warriors and Military Family Initiatives Corporation for National and Community Service
Paul Rieckhoff, Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA)
Casey T. Taft, PhD, Staff Psychologist, Associate Professor of Psychiatry
National Center for PTSD, VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston University School of Medicine
Barbara Van Dahlen, PhD, Founder and President
Give an Hour
James Dao, Reporter and Co-editor of the At War Blog
New York Times
This event is open to the public and media, please RSVP to Katie Payne at firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Sleeping Beauty
Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper's Bazaar.
Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.
Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.
In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she's not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group.
Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.
More France Please, we're British; Gibson Square 2004
Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)
All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006
Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007
Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006
Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007
So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)
More, More France; Gibson Square 2009
To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)
The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009
Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011
The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013
Smart Women Don't Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016
The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016
Smart Women Don't Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018
The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019


text:
Should I Minor in Writing? Application Deadline March 24th
What goes with any major?
A Sweetland Minor in Writing
As hokey as that may sound the Sweetland Minor in Writing is designed for undergraduate students who are interested in developing their disciplinary and professional writing abilities while pursuing their majors. It gives you the freedom to write about what matters to you while helping you develop as a writer and thinker.
Students currently in the Minor program come from all over the university bringing a wealth of diverse interests to the classroom. You might find a screenwriter sitting between a scientist and a musician or Kinesiology, Business, and Communications majors giving each other feedback on their writing.
With a Sweetland Minor in Writing you will earn a credential that certifies your writing expertise to prospective employers and graduate programs. You will also pick up new media skills designing and creating content for your electronic writing portfolios.
If you are interested in learning more about the Sweetland Minor in Writing from current students and faculty you can stop by our table at the Major/Minor expo or attend our informal Minor in Writing Information Session on Tuesday, March 11th from 5-6:30pm at the Michigan Union, Pond Room (2nd floor). Also feel free to browse Minor e-portfolios, the Minor in Writing blog, or read more about the application process and program requirements in the Minor in Writing section of our website. The application deadline is Monday, March 24th at noon.
Click image for 1920x1080 digital flyer


text:
Maxim Morphs Kata Dobo Badly
By now, it is clear that any photo layout in a magazine is far from the reality of the subject originally in front of the camera's lens. Adrants reader JagEsquire points out the very poor morph job Maxim did on their Kata Dobo layout in the magazine's November issue. Not only did the magazine morph Kata but they morphed the tiles behind her as well making the whole effort very obvious.
by Steve Hall Nov- 7-03 Click to Comment


text:
Whether we're buying your ideal domain or selling your premium domains for the best prices, our experienced team of brokers is there for you – dedicated, trustworthy and discrete.
Are you not able to find your desired domain on our marketplace? Or would you simply like to save the time and hassle by having our brokers negotiate for you? Our experts will contact the owner on your behalf and handle all of the necessary negotiations.
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Your domain consists of no more than two descriptive words.
You agree to an exclusive marketing agreement.
You notify us of any ongoing correspondence and offers already received from interested parties.
Domains with spelling and typographic errors will not be accepted.
You provide us with traffic statistics for the past 12 months.
A premium domain can help your business establish a strong brand, attract more traffic, and improve your search engine rankings, while potentially reducing your advertising spend. Unlock the power of a premium domain and elevate your brand today.
You will find the most frequently asked questions here.


text:
October 28, 1982
Pix #1 - The four Kuhn brothers, two of whom were mentioned in the lead story today, photographed years ago, perhaps at the time mentioned in the story. "Bid" is top row left. Next to him is George. Charles is bottom row left and Jim is on the right. Photograp courtesy of Mrs. Wilson (Marguerite) Hessey, 1010 N. Main St., cousin of the four brothers.
Mrs. Clarence (Dorothy) Vanderhoff, 905 Williston Ave., brought an interesting experience to my attention when the West Center Street articles about the Andes Opera House appeared in Potluck.
Way back when Dorothy was a little girl of seven, she was lucky enough to see the enactment of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" at the opera house in the Andes Building.
Back then, Dorothy was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jim Kuhn, and her dad took her to see the show. She recalls sitting in the first wow in the balcony.
I can still see and remember the bloodhounds chasing the slaves over the frozen ice and little Eva dying and Uncle Tom crying, she said in her letter to me.
Dorothy's dad was a stagehand at the opera house and among other things pulled the curtain, she recalls. Her uncle "Bid" Kuhn had an orchestra which provided music for the opera house. Many readers will remember "Bid" as the father of Virginia and Janet.
But, the opera house experience wasn't the only thing she had to tell me as the result of the Center Street Articles.
The Kuhn family lived on the southwest corner of Countyline and Tiffin, directly opposite of Dr. Hale's residence shown in one article.
Dr. Hale was our neighbor, Dorothy said. In the wintertime we (the neigbor- hood kids) used to slide down the hill on which Hale's house was built.
Dorothy also recalled Dr. Hale's mother lived in the house just north of him at 111 S. Countyline St., where Mary's Beauty Shop is now, operated by Mary Emerine.
Mrs. Vanderhoff's husband, Clarence, was an employee of The Review many years ago, in charge of the stereotype department.
Mrs. Ora Wade telephoned to report that so many of the recent Potluck articles recalled pleasant memories for her.
She started by saying that Dr. Hale, who was their family doctor, loved children and then went on to illustrate a case. In 1918, when Mrs. Wade took their daughter, Pauline, to the Halloween parage, she rather accidentally discovered that she (Pauline) had scarlet fever blotches on her hand.
Taking her home at once, she called Dr. Hale who came to the house and verified the affliction.
Pauline had two small kittens and she and Dr. Hale played with them during the housecall, Mrs. Wade said.
At that time Mrs. Wade's husband Ora was scheduled to give a speech in the downtown area. However, coming down with pneumonia, he was ordered to bed by Dr. Hale. The band that was scheduled to play at the affair came to the Wade house to play for Mr. Wade.
Mrs. Wade has a keen memory for back then.
Mrs. Wade was pleased to see the article about "Queen" the horse which was owned by Alonzo Emerine and later purchased by F.M. Glassburn. She said when she was about 16 or 17, Willard, the son of Mr. Glassburn, gave her a ride in the buggy pulled by Queen from uptown Fostoria to her home.
She also remembers Earl "Skeet" Green and the delicious candy he made.
In another instance, Mrs. Wade recalled that she went to school with Fay Emerine at the Union Street School. Fay was the daughter of Alonzo Emerine.
In a conversation with Helen Burtscher Wright, she told me that when the West Center Street story gave the history of her family, many people told her they didn't realize that she had such important ancestors. One friend said she had a nice looking grandfather, only to discover later that the names had been inadvertantly switched on Charles Henry Jr's. photo and that of Nicholas Burtscher.
Talking with Alice Margaret Van Curen Sanders, Woodville, about the Andes Block, she said that whenever she hears the names "Andes Block" she always recalls that when she went to her dentist Dr. A.O. Cole, on the second floor of the First National Bank building, the dental chair always faced across the street and the name "Andes Block" always greeted her during the "operation".
Some weeks ago your author had a few paragraphs in an article about the possibility of publishing a book of Potluck articles, which was suggested at various times during the past several years by many readers.
The response for a tentative (not binding) agreement to purchase a book was not sufficient to warrent publication. In fact, the coupons returned numbered only 60. Not nearly enough!
Some readers have subsequently inquired about the matter and when told of the poor response suggested another reminder and coupon to fill in.
Following the suggestion, another coupon is provided today for the convenience of those who may have overlooked it or forgot to clip and sent it.
Returning the coupon is not binding at this time since a price for the book has not been set. The purpose is to determine actual interest if the price is not too much and if prospective purchasers are able to a make a firm purchase agreement later.


text:
TORONTO – The Toronto Maple Leafs felt good in the third period when they led by a goal at home with under eight minutes left.
It turns out the Pittsburgh Penguins had them just where they wanted them.
Pascal Dupuis scored two of Pittsburgh's three goals in the third, and the Penguins stormed back to beat the Maple Leafs 3-1 on Thursday night and win their seventh game in a row.
Before the game turned dramatically, the Penguins were generating little offense against Toronto's tight checking, and goalie Ben Scrivens handled whatever chances got through to him.
But defensive zone breakdowns led to Dupuis' goals on setups from linemates Chris Kunitz and Sidney Crosby that sent the Maple Leafs to their fourth straight loss.
"We had our chances," Toronto coach Randy Carlyle said. "It's not all doom and gloom, but it's doom and gloom when you lose the way we lost. It tears at the fabric of your heart because we're finding a way to lose a game instead of finding a way to win a game."
Marc-Andre Fleury made 28 saves for Pittsburgh (20-8), which defeated the Maple Leafs 5-4 in a shootout in Toronto five days earlier.
Craig Adams sealed this win by scoring into an empty net with 10 seconds left.
"We didn't make it easy on ourselves," Crosby said. "We didn't execute, especially in the first two periods. But we kept it simple in the third and just tried to give us a chance to get back into the game. We were fortunate to do that."
Tyler Bozak had the lone goal for Toronto (15-12-1). Scrivens finished with 25 saves.
"It was a pretty choppy game from our standpoint," Penguins coach Dan Bylsma said. "But we didn't give up a lot. It was a tight game the whole way through."
Tied 1-1 in the third, Chris Kunitz fed Dupuis in the slot for a shot that beat Scrivens and found the top corner with 2:10 left in regulation.
Pittsburgh trailed 1-0 after two periods but tied it when Kunitz won a puck battle in the Toronto zone and found Crosby. The Penguins captain then fired a backhanded, no-look pass to Dupuis, who beat a helpless Scrivens at 12:42.
"We know what type of player (Crosby) is for sure," Carlyle said. "He's a talented player. There's no secret that he's probably the best player in the league right now.
"He had a chance to make the difference and he makes the big play to Dupuis."
Maple Leafs center Leo Komarov had a breakaway with just over three minutes to go, after the stick of Penguins defenseman Brooks Orpik shattered, but Fleury made the save to keep the game tied.
"(Fleury) made some big saves throughout the game," said Crosby, who had two assists to give him 40 points in 26 career games against Toronto. "We made it difficult on ourselves and difficult on him.
"It's a lot different outcome if he doesn't play the way he does. That's a big plus for us, and we're lucky that he played the way he did."
Scrivens started ahead of James Reimer for Toronto, which had given up 18 goals over its previous four games (1-2-1).
"Fundamentally we had some breakdowns that cost us the hockey game," Carlye said. "I thought that for 53 minutes of the game we did a lot of things really well.
"(We) made some mistakes that cost us at a critical point in the game and they score two goals that were definitely flaws of defensive zone coverage."
Bozak opened the scoring at 10:01 of the second period. Phil Kessel brought the puck into the Penguins zone and delayed for a second before finding a pinching Cody Franson, who fed a pass to the wide-open Bozak at the side of the net for his seventh goal.
A sleepy first period featuring just 15 shots was in stark contrast to Saturday night's shootout between the teams.
"I like the standpoint that we didn't go off the page," Bylsma said. "We stayed with it and kept and at it. We didn't give up a lot, kept with this game, and ended up getting two points from sticking with it and playing the right way."
NOTES: Maple Leafs D John-Michael Liles returned to the lineup after being a healthy scratch the previous 12 games. ... Toronto traded minor league forward Nicholas Deschamps to the Washington Capitals for minor league defenseman Kevin Marshall.


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2 Key Reasons Why the Dow Fell Today
The Dow Jones Industrials closed down 90 points today, as the stock market pulled back after yesterday's rise, and brought the average back to within spitting distance of yet another all-time record high. The Dow actually held up better than the broader market, as both the S&P 500 large-cap benchmark, and the Russell 2000 index of small-cap stocks, did worse than the Dow on a percentage basis. International stocks also fell.
Here's a look at the two main themes that played out in the stock market today:
Banking stocks under siege
Both Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase fell more than 1.5% today, as the financial sector faces a number of uncertainties. The Cypriot banking crisis has made headlines around the world because of the potential impact on ordinary bank depositors, with political pressure having led to revised bailout provisions that would protect insured deposits in full rather than imposing a tax of more than 6% on small depositors. Yet, with banks having greatly reduced their European exposure, the bigger problem could come from the LIBOR banking scandal, in which both JPMorgan and B of A have been alleged of wrongdoing. With the afterglow of the successful stress tests fading into the background, both banks will need to keep addressing structural issues in order for their stocks to rise further after strong recent gains.
A tech slowdown?
The other big losers in the Dow were all tech stocks, as Cisco, Hewlett-Packard , and IBM were all among the worst five performers in the average today. For HP, news that the company's board of directors survived its shareholder meeting intact didn't lead to investor optimism, as all three tech giants have had to deal with fallout from rival Oracle's poor results last night. Moreover, IBM and HP were among companies potentially connected to a bribery investigation in Poland.
Among these stocks, IBM looks best poised to rebound. This morning, it announced that it won a contract from the Ohio state government to improve its information-technology infrastructure, giving investors evidence of the success of its strategy to provide all-inclusive high-margin IT services to customers much in need of newer technology. With all the recent advances in technology, it's clear that overall spending in the area will keep growing. The only question is, which companies will profit and which will be left behind? IBM has done the best job of keeping up with changing trends.
Bank of America's stock has already rebounded from its big losses during the financial crisis, having doubled in 2012. Will B of A keep soaring? Find out by reading the Motley Fool's premium research report on B of A, in which our top two financial analysts tell you what you need to know about the bank. Click here now to claim your copy.
The article 2 Key Reasons Why the Dow Fell Today originally appeared on Fool.com.
Fool contributor Dan Caplinger owns warrants on Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase. You can follow him on Twitter @DanCaplinger. The Motley Fool recommends Cisco Systems. The Motley Fool owns shares of Bank of America, IBM, JPMorgan Chase, and Oracle.. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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Barack Obama's capmain co-chair, Gen. Merrill A. "Tony" McPeak (Ret.), is in the news with his comic thrust tagging Bill Clinton as Joe McCarthy.
But the Dark Captain has dug up a classic interview with Barack's campaign co-chairman; this is from 2003, just after US troops had entered Iraq:
Is time on the United States' side in this battle?
Yeah. I really think time is on our side here. This is a fragile society, a little old one-town country, the size of Nebraska, maybe a little bigger, with the GDP about half the Army budget. So if this is a hard problem, we ought to get ourselves some new generals. I mean there's no reason why this shouldn't be a walkover.
And a bit later we get the General's timeframe:
Is Iraq the last country we confront in the Middle East?
Who wants to volunteer to get cross-ways with us? We'll be there a century, hopefully. If it works right.
I'll tell you one thing we should not hope for (is) a democratic Iraq. When I hear the president talking about democracy, the last thing we should want is an election in Iraq. We're not very popular. So I don't think we'll see any open elections in Iraq for a long time.
Hopefully over time they can be brought along like Japan and Germany -- Japan and Germany were relatively easy, I think, and South Korea.
The Captain has a question:
Isn't this the exact argument McCain has made repeatedly, and which Obama derides as "a hundred-years war"? ...
This should raise some eyebrows on the Obama campaign's willful deception on this point. Didn't McPeak bother to explain to Obama the exact same reasoning he had in March 2003, at the start of the war? Did Obama not bother to listen?
I can handle this without even vexing the Obama spinners - Obama was not in the briefing that Sunday when McPeak made his controversial remarks.
In any case, McPeak is a part of the American story; Barack can no more disown him than he can disown his own grandmother, who made comments about the war effort against the Japanese that made Barack cringe.
MORE: McPeak has been out in front of Barack for a while:
The Obama campaign Friday launched its own television ad in Texas, titled "Gulf."
The ad, which first aired before the Iowa caucuses, features retired Air Force Gen. Merrill McPeak, a former combat pilot who was the service's highest-ranking uniformed officer during the first Gulf War.
"As a combat pilot and Air Force chief during Desert Storm, lives depended on the judgments I made," McPeak says in the spot. "And judgment is what we need from our next commander in chief. Barack Obama opposed this war in Iraq from the start, showing insight and courage others did not."
McPeak backed John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race.
McPeak humiliated himself in early February with some stray comments about Hillary that were promptly repudiated and withdrawn.
And here we learn that McPeak "publicly opposed the current Iraq campaign from the start". Gee, a retired member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff opposed the war and the Times missed it. But James Fallows of The Atlantic confirms it, as of Nov 2002 anyway.
This is from April 2006:
Though some retired senior officers are critical about the conduct of the war, that doesn't mean they want a quick pullout.
Gen. Merrill McPeak, retired Air Force chief of staff, says if anything the number of US troops there needs to be doubled - to around the figure Shinseki predicted would be needed three years ago - if Iraq is to become truly secure and democratic.
General McPeak lost friends when he started speaking out against the war several years ago. Now, he says, "everybody is sending me e-mails and cards and letters saying 'I wish I had seen it the way you saw it from the beginning,' and I've gotten some of those friends back."
McPeak participated in a pre-surge panel for Rolling Stone handicapping different scenarios (all grim). Snippets:
The war in Iraq isn't over yet, but - surge or no surge - the United States has already lost. That's the grim consensus of a panel of experts assembled by Rolling Stone to assess the future of Iraq. "Even if we had a million men to go in, it's too late now," says retired four-star Gen. Tony McPeak, who served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War. "Humpty Dumpty can't be put back together again."
...Best-Case Scenario: Civil War in Iraq and a Stronger al Qaeda
...Gen. Tony McPeak: It's not a question of whether we're going to leave Iraq - it's a question of when. And everybody in Iraq knows that. So they say, "Fine. We'll stock arms and wait for you guys to leave. And then we'll do what we want."
...Most Likely Scenario: Years of Ethnic Cleansing and War With Iran
McPeak: We're going to see a full-scale intercommunal war that may not burn out until one side is all dead, all gone. The Kurds would like to sit on the sidelines, but I don't see how they stay out, especially up in the Kirkuk area, where they sit on a lot of oil. This is going to be ethnic cleansing like we had in Kosovo or Bosnia - but written big, in capital letters. And we can't stop it.
...Worst-Case Scenario: World War III
...McPeak: The worst case? Iraq's Sunnis begin to be backed into a corner, then the Sunni governments - Jordan, Saudi Arabia - jump in. Israel sees that it's threatened by these developments. Once the Israelis get involved, then everybody piles on. And you've got nuclear events going off in the Middle East. That would be about as bad as it could get.
So McPeak was committed to defeat, as of March 2007 anyway. He's got the right candidate.


text:
Something Positive
Something Positive, or S*P, is a webcomic by R. K. Milholland, which debuted on December 19, 2001. The comic is defined by its cynical tone and off-beat humour.
2001 Edit
- Aubrey: Embrace the power of the labia, PeeJee! Embrace it!
- PeeJee: Well, I thought, "Who among my friends would want a candy cane-shaped, eggnog scented strap on?" Then I thought, "Who deserves it?"
- Davan: You know, for a lesbian, you seem to suck a whole mess o' dick.
2002 Edit
- PeeJee: Chemo kitties need extra love!
- Aubrey: I could menstruate a better cup of coffee than this!
- PeeJee: You're like a Columbine kid who was too lazy to do anything.
- Kim: Nothing is as sexy as the look on a man's face as he slips into an unplanned slumber.
- Davan: I try not to think. It's not really a hallmark of my generation.
2003 Edit
- Aubrey: So I made some pork chops and rented "Babe."
- Jason: Heresy is sexy, Aubrey. Cancer isn't!
- Jason: I bukkake for justice!
- PeeJee: I'm sorry. Is our date interrupting your conversation with my boobs?
- Aubrey: If a guy tells me I can't possibly stick a crazy straw all the way up his smallest orifice, that's a challenge I'm honor-bound to accept!
2004 Edit
- Aubrey: I'm going to find religion just so I can pray against each of you.
- Aubrey: If masturbating was s'posed to be cute, pink bunnies would do it in meadows and they'd ejaculate rainbows and flower petals.
- Davan: Why reach to the sky to touch a star when you can scoop one out of the gutter?
- Lisa: For future reference, when a woman says she wants your honest opinion, she really doesn't.
- Davan: The way I see it, there's so much love and beauty in the world, and someone has to balance that shit out.
2005 Edit
- Aubrey: Oh, good. More snow. Nature's bukkake.
- Andy: Well, as long as you promise we're only lynching them for science.
- Davan: I'm just saying I've never heard of a SIDS baby growing up to be a murderer or a rapist. Draw your own conclusions, my friend.
- Cab: It's a lot like nature. You only have as many animals as the ecosystem can support and you only have as many friends as you can tolerate the bitching of.
2006 Edit
- Nancy: Elize, I need your help. I'm worried this chloroform has gone bad but my nose is stuffed up. Could you smell it and tell me what you think?
- Davan: This is one of those situations where "I don't care" is the right answer, but not the right answer, isn't it?
- Milholland's commentary: On one shoulder is a devil saying, "do it." On the other shoulder is an angel saying, "do it now."
2007 Edit
- Davan: Well, y'know, true friendship is a lot like a cervical punch.
- Mike: ...a wise man once said that being in love means never having to say, "I'm sorry."
- Tamara: A wise woman once said being in a committed relationship means a man never will.
- 03/05/2007, Investing in Tomorrow pt 2
- Milholland's Commentary: If you don't get the joke, you're probably the punchline.
- Morganna: So...should we skip straight to finding an empty room to have sex in then?
- Milholland's Commentary: Someone, somewhere, is dressing up like your favorite childhood cartoon character and having sex.
2008 Edit
- Kharisma: Thank God I was taught fat people don't have emotions.
- Nancy: Oh, baby...talk some more stupid for me. It makes me so hot...
- PeeJee: What is it with Texas and the child raping cults?!
- Milholland's Commentary: Everything sounds dirtier when preceded by "For a good time..."
- Davan: You're only offended because liberal society says you're supposed to think "child rape" jokes are wrong.
2009 Edit
- Fast Food Customer: I'm the customer and I'm white! That makes me twice as right! Se habla customer service, jerk?!
- Rory: If I get this cool stuff now I bet the stuff you give me when you die is gonna be great!
- Monette: I've never wanted to be a magician's hat so badly in my life.
- PeeJee: Damn it! Why am I arguing shit on the web again?
- Davan: 'Cuz sometimes you just need a cumshot of stupid to the face?
- 07/10/2009, Idle Brains are the Internet's Playthings
- Vanessa: Expect foreplay full of fumbling and awkward apologies.
2010 Edit
- PeeJee: Hey! You! I've got a Vagina! You got a problem with that?
2012 Edit
- Cat: (angry) Mrrrrrrowwwr.
- Cat-to-English translation: I am your god and your pain is my altar. Now, Worship!
2013 Edit
- Rayne (of Least I Could Do): The server's light flashed green three times. That's consent. That's robot consent.
- Fred: Friendship only really matters if you give it as willingly as you took it in the first place.
Cite error: Invalid
<ref> tag; refs with no name must have content== External links ==


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WALLDORF — Among ongoing economic uncertainty, tight margin pressures and an unyielding global growth imperative, the emphasis for consumer products companies on optimizing trade spend has never been greater. SAP today announced general availability of the SAP Trade Promotion Optimization application to help companies make the most of trade promotion spend.
SAP Trade Promotion Optimization uses advanced modeling and predictive analytic capabilities to provide visibility into both forward-looking performance guidance and backward-looking performance analytics. The application enables consumer products companies to perform what-if simulations based on retail point-of-sale, syndicated retail measurement data, market research data and order history and other internal data. In doing so, they can obtain reliable recommendations for promotional activity, from individual events to annual promotion plans. Users can assess and define the best promotion opportunities for a given product, such as discounts, rebates or premiums, and take into consideration effects such as seasonality, holidays, product availability, store closures, cannibalization of products and price changes.
Molson Coors Brewing Company is piloting SAP Trade Promotion Optimization for its UK and Canadian business units. The application gives Molson Coors the ability to predict and suggest optimal pricing and merchandising options — for both the company and its retailers. Predictive optimization capabilities available within the application will enable Molson Coors to predict consumer demand and optimize promotion variables. This will help the company achieve category objectives and improve mutual confidence that revenue, volume and profitability targets will be achieved, and thus supports increasingly strategic collaboration with retailer partners.
To help consumer products companies jump start their journey to trade promotion optimization, SAP released a rapid-deployment solution for trade promotion planning and optimization. The rapid-deployment solution leverages SAP and industry best practices to enable a template-driven approach for quick implementation and deployment. At the same time, it provides consumer products companies the flexibility to modify and adjust their business processes and predictive models over time based on business growth and observed results. Companies that leverage the SAP rapid-deployment solution for trade promotion planning and optimization can expect time to value in as little as 12 weeks.
For more information, visit the SAP for Consumer Products solutions page on sap.com and the SAP Newsroom. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews and @SAPtweetTPO.
Media Contact:
Kate McNeel, +1 (484) 624-2256, email@example.com, CDT


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MADISON, WI, June 21st, 2010 — Water runoff from cropped farm fields can contain large amounts of eroded soil as well as some of the fertilizer and herbicide. Expanding on existing conservation practices, a team of scientists has tested whether compost filters socks in grassed waterways would reduce sediment flow and retain dissolved chemicals in runoff. The researchers observed reduced sediment in a non-tilled field and reduced concentrations of two herbicides.
Compost filter socks are mesh tubes filled with composted bark and wood chips. These devices have been approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for use at construction sites as an alternative to silt fences and bales of straw, but have not been tested in agricultural fields.
The two year field study was conducted by USDA-ARS soil scientists Martin Shipitalo and Lloyd Owens, along with hydraulic engineer Jim Bonta and Ohio State University collaborator Libby Dayton. They found that filter socks reduced sediment concentration by 49% in runoff from the tilled field, but had no effect for the no-till field, where sediment concentrations were already 1/5 of that from the tilled field. The filter socks also reduced the concentrations of the herbicide alachlor by 18% and the herbicide glyphosate (Roundup) by 5% in runoff from the tilled field. The filter socks had a negligible effect on nutrient concentrations in the runoff.
Their report was published in the May-June 2010 issue of the Journal of Environmental Quality, published by the American Society of Agronomy, the Crop Science Society of America, and the Soil Science Society of America. It was conducted at the USDA-ARS's North Appalachian Experimental Watershed near Coshocton, OH.
Conservation tillage practices, sometimes referred to as "no-till," leave some of the residue from the previous crop on the soil surface, help reduce the amount of sediment lost in runoff, but do little to reduce the concentrations of surface-applied nutrients and herbicides that can be readily dissolved and transported in runoff.
Similarly, conservation buffers, such as filter strips, riparian forest buffers, and grassed waterways, can further reduce chemical and nutrient transport as runoff moves from crop fields to streams. They are also generally more effective in retaining sediment than dissolved chemicals and work best when runoff is uniformly distributed across the entire area of the buffer.
Unfortunately, uniform distribution is often difficult to achieve and maintain due to soil and topographic conditions. Runoff can naturally concentrate in small areas as it passes through buffers. In fact, the USDA-NRCS has referred to concentrated flow as the 'nemesis' of pesticide trapping in conservation buffers.
This study demonstrates that filter socks can enhance the effectiveness of grassed waterways in reducing sediment transport. Investigations in which materials will be mixed with the compost to improve the removal of nutrients and herbicides are being conducted in collaboration with filter sock manufacturer Filtrexx International, LLC. If these results are promising, filter socks may become another tool that can be used by farmers and conservationists to reduce the impact of crop production on surface water quality.
The full article is available for no charge for 30 days following the date of this summary. View the abstract at http://jeq.scijournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/39/3/1009.
The Journal of Environmental Quality, http://jeq.scijournals.org is a peer-reviewed, international journal of environmental quality in natural and agricultural ecosystems published six times a year by the American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), and the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA). The Journal of Environmental Quality covers various aspects of anthropogenic impacts on the environment, including terrestrial, atmospheric, and aquatic systems.
The American Society of Agronomy (ASA) www.agronomy.org, is a scientific society helping its 8,000+ members advance the disciplines and practices of agronomy by supporting professional growth and science policy initiatives, and by providing quality, research-based publications and a variety of member services.


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Get Your CMA Awards 2012 Fix With These Artist Interviews, Previews and More
Getting excited for the 46th Annual CMA Awards? Yeah, us too (to put it lightly). This year's ceremony is set to take place on Nov. 1 on ABC. We've been marking the hours by listening to tons of music, messing around with the CMA app, and watching old clips of Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood.


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Hey friends! I've been so busy creating a new pack and I'm excited to share it with you! In this unit, students will learn all of the features included in an informational report and discover just how writers learn about a topic in order to write! I have filled this mini unit full of anchor charts, writing pages, a check list, bubble map, and MORE. And what's even better is...it's all aligned with Common Core! Our district is requiring us to have an actual research PIECE to place in our students' on going review folders, and this unit is going to help me do just that. You must check it out!
Not only have I created the Explore Informational Reports pack, I have updated a TON of my old units. I reviewed a few of them and it was almost embarrassing at how my packs looked. HA They needed a new look, new fonts, new clip art, etc. If you have purchased any of the units from me below, please visit my TpT store to download the newest version or click on the unit covers below.
Also, I've revamped a few of my free units too! If you've snagged the MLK or Groundhog unit from my store...be sure to visit and grab the latest versions of those to put away for next year. Thanks for all your love and support. Happy Saturday!


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Functional style makes code more maintainable. How? One way makes processing into a flow of data with discrete steps. Another way separates flow from context, making the context swappable. This post illustrates both.
We'll go from an imperative style to a more and more functional style. Scala is a good language for this illustration, since it supports both. If you want to run this, grab the code from github and :load it in the Scala REPL.
Example: Given a filename, we extract the message from its first line:
The secret message is '…'
Watch out for files that don't exist, are empty, or don't follow the format. In any of these cases, return None. If everything looks good, we get a SecretMessage containing the quoted text from the file.
case class SecretMessage(meaning: String)
The type of the function is:
String => Option[SecretMessage]
Note: In good old-fashioned style, this function could return null if it can't provide a result. I may be starting out imperatively, but not that dirty. Option is better: None represents no result, or Some contains a value. Either way, we get a valid object reference and no NullPointerExceptions.
Note: Since the SecretMessage is input and output as a string, we could encode it as a String. This isn't specific enough for my taste. I like my types to tell me what the thing is, not just how it is read in or output.
The imperative implementation is straightforward IF you like to play compiler in your head. Open the file, check whether it exists. If it does, read it; check whether it's empty. If it isn't, read the first line and then use a regex to check its format and extract the secret message. Nothing weird there, but you have to step through every line to know what the method is doing.
def imperativeStyle(filename : String)
: Option[SecretMessage] = {
val file = new java.io.File(filename)
else {
val source = io.Source.fromFile(file)
if (!source.hasNext) {
else {
val firstLine = source.getLines.next
val ExpectedFormat = "The secret message is '(.*)'".r
firstLine match {
case ExpectedFormat(secretMessage) =>
case _ => None
} } } }
Data Flow
Think about what this function is trying to do. Take a filename, get a file (that exists), get its first line (if it isn't empty), extract a message (if it's in a certain format). These are three transformations, and each of them might not work. These become three methods:
def openFile(n: String) : Option[java.io.File]
def readFirstLine (f : java.io.File) : Option[String]
def parseLine(line : String) : Option[SecretMessage]
If any of these return None, then our function will return None. A Some return means processing continues.
This makes two pipelines: one where processing continues, and one where the None value is just passed along; only the type parameter changes to meet the required output of the function. This is like the gutter in a bowling alley.
Now, to implement this. The three transformation functions I've stuck in a module called transformers; it's the form of the surrounding function that's interesting. We'll walk through four refactors that make it more and more readable.
Minimally, we can change the if statements to call the transforming functions.
def useTransforms(filename: String)
: Option[SecretMessage] = {
import transformers._
val fileOption = openFile(filename)
if (fileOption.isEmpty)
else {
val lineOption = readFirstLine(fileOption.get)
if (lineOption.isEmpty)
else {
} } }
This is a little cleaner than the original. The transforming function names call out what each is accomplishing. The separation of these pieces of functionality leads to more lines of code, but now each piece can be tested individually. That's always good!
Moar functional
Checking isDefined on options is ugly. The more idiomatic way to branch on Option is to use pattern matching.
def patternMatching(filename:String)
: Option[SecretMessage] = {
import transformers._
openFile(filename) match {
case None => None
case Some(file) =>
readFirstLine(file) match {
case None => None
case Some(line) =>
} } }
This is shorter, but it still has a repetitive pattern. With each transformation step, we're manually coding that gutter flow.
The next trick is to recognize that Option is a collection. It's a special collection, containing either one or zero items. Then notice that each transformation operates on the single item in the collection returned by the previous step. What method applies a function to items in a collection? map! Except that is not quite right, because map transforms a collection element into another element. Each of our transformers return another collection of zero or one items. What method applies a function to items in a collection and turns each into another collection? flatMap!
def chainOfMaps(filename:String)
: Option[SecretMessage] = {
import transformers._
Now this is about as short as it gets. The gutter pipeline is encoded in flatMap itself, because a flatMap on None will return another None. How can it get cleaner than this?
There's another way to process collections in Scala: the for comprehension. it lets us line things up in a more readable fashion, and then it calls flatMap and map. Here, we give names to intermediate values in the pipeline.
def forComprehension(filename:String) : Option[SecretMessage] = {
import transformers._
for( file <- openFile(filename);
line <- readFirstLine(file);
secretMessage <- parseLine(line))
yield { secretMessage }
In IntelliJ, it lets me hover over these variables names to see their types. In my experience, this style is drastically easier to get right, to debug, and to follow when reading. These benefits are worth a few extra lines and curly braces.
What have we accomplished?
We turned a step-by-step imperative function into a very concise concatenation of three transformations. We removed all manual handling of the gutter pipeline. We broke out the transformations into testable bits.
Now for the cool part.
Here, we're using the Option class as a context for our data. It is a context that says, "I might have a result, and I might not. If I don't, roll the ball down the gutter and ignore future transformations."
Requirements change! The caller of our function wants to know why no secret message was found. Instead of None, return a failure type with a message. Implement this by changing the context the work is done in. The work for this is in another file, if you want to run it yourself.
That context is either a Failure or a Success. It is a generic context, but at the end of our function a Success will contain a SecretMessage, while a Failure contains only an error message.[1]
Change each transformer to output Result instead of Option. They each include a descriptive message upon Failure.
One more step is needed to make Result operate as a context the same way Option does. Scala's for comprehension will work with any type that implements map and flatMap. Add the declarations to the common Result trait, and then the implementations to each concrete class.
sealed trait Result[A] {
def flatMap[B](f : A => Result[B]) : Result[B]
def map[B](f : A => B): Result[B]
case class Success[A](value : A) extends Result[A] {
def flatMap[B](f : A => Result[B]) = f(value)
def map[B](f : A => B) = Success(f(value))
case class Failure[A](message: String) extends Result[A] {
def flatMap[B](f : A => Result[B] ) = Failure(message)
def map[B](f : A => B) = Failure(message)
Success applies the passed-in functions to the value inside it. Failure always returns another Failure, with the same message but a different type parameter. This is the gutter where errors flow.
Here's the interesting bit: when it comes to changing our function, we almost don't. The return type changes. The pipeline is identical!
def forComprehension(filename:String) : Result[SecretMessage] = {
import transformers._
for( file <- openFile(filename);
line <- readFirstLine(file);
result <- parseLine(line))
yield { result }
This is a key concept of functional programming: separating out context. Sometimes that context contains state, other times isolated side effects (I/O), other times order of execution (synchronous, asynchronous, parallel). We can abstract things that used to be inherent. An imperative style cements mutable state and step-by-step order of execution; changing this is a huge amount of work and easy to get wrong. Functional style, once you get used to it, gives us more degrees of freedom.
Next time you write a method longer than a few lines, look for a path of data transformation. It might lead you someplace elegant.
[1] Sure, this sounds like an Either. If only Either implemented flatMap, it would completely work for this.