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TechRadar Verdict
A beautifully designed bit of kit, but its performance isn't good enough justify the higher price
- +
- -
Picture noise during dark scenes
Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you're buying the best. Find out more about how we test.
Sharp's XV-Z201 appears to have a tough job on its hands. As a DLP model costing £2,700, it's not high-end, yet it has to convince us that it's worth the fairly considerable hike up from the latest ultra-budget blockbusters. Many projectors have tried and failed to master the 'step up' mid-ground even before the two aforementioned budget big-guns hit the streets. So the XV-Z201 has got its work cut out.
It gets the looks part right. Boasting a hip triangular shape, pleasing two-tone finish and tilting foot mount, it gives the signals of having been born of a design brief that placed the strongest emphasis on home as opposed to business use.
DVI with HDCP
Connections are good too. There's no HDMI jack, but compensation for this can be found in the provided DVI jack - especially as this is HDCP compliant for video use. Backing DVI up are a set of component video inputs able to handle high-definition or progressive scan signals, plus the usual S-video/composite suspects and an RS232 interface.
The key justification for the XV-Z201's price is its use of Texas Instruments' Matterhorn chipset. This means the projector has a native 16:9 resolution of 1,024 x 576 - a significant (DVD-friendly) step above most entry-level DLP models - and a very respectable 2,000:1 claimed contrast ratio.
The XV-Z201 is also noteworthy for its extremely short-throw lens, which is capable of delivering a 100in image from a distance of just 2.6m.
Other XV-Z201 step-ups from the entry level can be seen in a flexible set of colour adjustments; some gamma presets; a peak white emphasis toggle; and five memory slots for your own favoured picture presets.
Just because the XV-Z201 offers more sophistication than its uber-cheap rivals doesn't mean it's harder to set up. In fact, the presence of the short-throw lens and manual vertical lens shifting arguably make it even easier than usual to adapt to your particular room requirements.
The only foibles I found with the XV-Z201's operating system are that its onscreen menus look a touch cluttered, and the otherwise solid remote control doesn't feature a backlight (a disappointment at this price).
Lights down...
In terms of specification, then, the XV-Z201 just about carries enough feature finery and inner-wizardry to make the step up to £2,700 seem worthwhile. But will this impression be backed up by its performance?
The greatest strength of the XV-Z201's pictures is their contrast range, which produces some convincing black levels and some beautifully controlled, perfectly toned peak whites. Furthermore, as usual, these contrast talents create exceptional vibrancy, solidity and colour richness, with a tangible depth guaranteed to pull you head-first into the onscreen action.
Colours benefit too from the XV-Z201's intrinsic balance. Very little greying is allowed to come between you and the picture's full saturations. Not that this vibrancy is forced, however - colours are as natural in tone as they are rich. The only coda I would place on this is that the authentic tone is only achieved if you use the provided 6,500K colour temperature setting.
Throw in some decent handling of motion and adept presentation of even starkly contrasting edges, and the XV-Z201 is getting close to pulling off that tricky mid-range magic. But unfortunately it's got a fairly hefty achilles heel in the shape of video noise.
Many DLP projectors, especially at the cheaper end of the market, suffer with two main noise problems: green dot crawl over dark areas, or 'buzzing' dot crawl over moving objects, especially people's skin.
Not only does the XV-Z201 not conquer these problems, it actually suffers more profoundly with them than one or two budget models. Occasionally, dark images can look so 'alive' with dot crawl that distance shots in movies lose their clarity.
The XV-Z201 is a very likeable projector. It's a beautifully designed bit of kit that boasts the sort of specs necessary to justify its higher price. It's just that the picture noise fetches it up fractionally short of delivering the full performance monty necessary for us to recommend stepping up to £2,700.
Tech.co.uk was the former name of TechRadar.com. Its staff were at the forefront of the digital publishing revolution, and spearheaded the move to bring consumer technology journalism to its natural home – online. Many of the current TechRadar staff started life a Tech.co.uk staff writer, covering everything from the emerging smartphone market to the evolving market of personal computers. Think of it as the building blocks of the TechRadar you love today.


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KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia – Describing the ice as smooth, fast and by all accounts perfectly safe, luge athletes took their first formal training runs of the Sochi Olympics on Tuesday.
Some sliders took as many as three trips down the track, part of systematic training system where they have the opportunity to acclimate to the course by sliding from lower start positions. That particular method of course-learning has been in place for several years, predating the crash that took the life of a Georgian luger hours before the start of the Vancouver Games in 2010.
"When you're going down you're focused, just wanting to make it down shiny side down," said first-time Olympian Kate Hansen of the U.S., who won the final women's World Cup race of the season. "It's surreal. There's just a lot of people here. Everyone's willing to help. Everyone thinks you're awesome. It's just a cool, cool thing."
Many sliders were at the track last fall for an international training week, and just about the entire Olympic field competed in a World Cup event at the facility last year.
So for many, Tuesday's slides were more of a reintroduction to the track than anything else.
"You get comfortable, you get the routine down, how to get to the track, how much time you need, making it as efficient as possible so on race day I've done it a few times," said Erin Hamlin, the 2009 women's world champion from the U.S. "The track felt great. It was systematics today and that's not the most convenient, but it's nice to get a feel for the track."
The Sochi track is considered the longest in the world, with three uphill sections — designed to both limit speed and test sliders' technical ability — among its many nuances.
"It's a very interesting track because of the three uphill parts," said Natalie Geisenberger, the reigning world and World Cup champion from Germany. "It's not typical. It's new for us. If you make a little mistake, the time is bad."
Men's official training begins Wednesday, in advance of their competition Saturday and Sunday. Medals will also be awarded in doubles, women's singles and for the first time in the Olympic program, a team relay.
For Tucker West, another U.S. Olympic rookie, the first day on Olympic ice was a success. He didn't get pranked.
Longtime U.S. sliding coach Bill Tavares tends to tell first-time Olympic competitors that they need to wear their accreditation on the track while they slide in training, or else they won't be allowed back to the start of the course. Very few have believed him along the way, and West didn't fall victim to the tall tale on his first day donning a bib with the Olympic rings.
"It's above and beyond what I ever expected," West said. "It still gives me chills to see the rings. Just being around them, sliding under them, it's really cool."


text: Lake Monona Residence KEE provided interior design and interior architecture services. The vitality of the family's lifestyle influenced the durability and timelessness of the finishes; solid woods, concrete and galvanized metal. The combination of interior finishes, playful geometry, exposed structure, and changing volumes creates a sense of excitement within the house. Common materials are used throughout the three floors providing visual continuity. In associate with GMK Architecture Completion: 2009


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Lil Wayne says he's an epileptic and has had seizures for years.
In an interview with Los Angeles-based radio station Power 106 on Thursday, the 30-year-old rapper said epilepsy caused his most recent health scare earlier this month, when he was rushed to a hospital. Wayne said he had three back-to-back seizures.
The Grammy winner says: "I've had a bunch of seizures, y'all just never hear about them."
Wayne says he "could've died" and that the recent seizures were a result of "just plain stress, no rest, overworking myself."
He released his 10th album, "I Am Not a Human Being II," this week. He'll embark on a 40-city tour in July with rappers T.I. and Future.
The New Orleans native, whose given name is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., is one of the biggest stars not only of his genre but in all music.


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Gordon has traveled extensively throughout the world in his military career. Gordon has collected many images from his travels, and also from visiting the nearby attractions from whereever his home base has been on any given year. There are many images available here in many forms and sizes. All of Gordon's images are available for digital download and licensing. Please select your image through the licensing site: http://licensing.pixels.com/profiles/gordon-elwell.html To visit his portfolio site for professional photography services, visit: http://www.ghephotos.com Here is a slideshow of Gordon's recent images. If you spot one you like, click on it to take you to that image page:


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The 'Other Audubon': A Family's Passion
The 'Other Audubon': A Family's Passion
In the late 1800s, Genevieve Jones set out to create the first book in America to catalogue the nests and eggs of birds. But when Jones tragically died of typhoid, her family made the remarkable commitment to complete the project. Melissa Block talks with Joy Kiser, who has once again published the illustrations and wrote the story behind their creation in her book, America's Other Audubon.
In 1827, John James Audubon published the first part of his book, "Birds of America." The realism of his illustrations in that book led to a new understanding of bird anatomy and behavior.
Well, a couple of decades later, a little girl in Ohio named Genevieve Jones was on a nature outing with her father and she identified where Audubon fell short.
JOY KISER: She found what turned out to be an Oriole's nest, but at the time, she didn't know what it was, so she just thought she'd come home and look it up in the book and her father let her know that there was no book. No one had ever written a book about the nests of American birds and that's when the seed for her idea was planted.
BLOCK: That idea would eventually turn into a book that would require an extraordinary amount of work, not just from Genevieve Jones, but from her whole family. The Jones' book was completed in 1886. It was called "Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio" and it contained intricately detailed renderings of the nests of nearly 130 species.
Now, Joy Kiser has reproduced those stunning illustrations, along with the story of the Jones family's mission. Her book is called "America's Other Audubon." Joy Kiser told me the project started when Genevieve's parents forbade her to marry the man she loved. Genevieve was distraught, so they proposed a project.
KISER: They realized that she just - she needed something in her life to give it meaning. And, at that time, you didn't commonly think of a woman needing a career, but they realized that Genevieve just needed something.
BLOCK: And it's a huge undertaking. They have to go out and find all of these nests, bring them back and then make what are these...
KISER: Lithographs.
BLOCK: ...incredibly detailed lithographs. I'm looking at one now. This is Genevieve Jones' lithograph of an Eastern Phoebe's nest. It's got five eggs in it, tightly wrapped with twigs and beautiful green moss around the outside. How did she know how to do this? How did she become a lithographer?
KISER: She used to draw. She was used to drawing and she learned how to do lithography by writing letters to the lithographic company in Cincinnati, so she learned that all by correspondence and through trial and error.
BLOCK: I'm trying to imagine, Joy, how a young woman with no formal artistic training creates an illustration and a lithograph as detailed and beautiful and perfect as this Phoebe nest that I'm looking at right here.
KISER: Well, I feel the same way. I think it shows that she poured the love that she wasn't going to invest in her own home and her own children and her own family into creating these homes.
BLOCK: These homes for the birds.
KISER: These little homes for the birds.
BLOCK: Here's where the story takes a tragic turn. Genevieve Jones is struck with Typhoid Fever. She dies at age 32. She's only completed five illustrations and what happens next is truly remarkable. Her family decides they're going to complete the book. They're going to carry out the mission that she started. And, notably, it's her mother who is not an artist, didn't particularly like birds, as I understand it. She's the one who ultimately completes a lot of these illustrations.
KISER: Well, that's really the most remarkable part, I believe, because she had never, ever drawn from life or done anything that required the kind of measuring and attention to detail that scientific illustration requires. And that - if you saw what she created earlier and what she was able to produce for her daughter's book, the transformation is absolutely phenomenal.
BLOCK: Talk about what happens to the mother, to Virginia Jones, in the process of creating this book because it takes a physical toll on her.
KISER: Well, Virginia Jones also contracted Typhoid Fever. She recovered, but her eyes were never the same. But she never gave up. Every time a new nest was brought in with eggs to be drawn, she drew the original, which was very hard on her eyes.
BLOCK: There were only 53 hand-colored copies of these books of birds' nests. You found a couple of dozen that exist today and one of them was the book that you first saw on exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History where you were a librarian at the time. What caught your eye about that? What sparked your imagination?
KISER: My favorite pastime when I was a little girl of six was climbing in the trees in my father's orchard to look at the nests that were there. I felt a strong connection to Genevieve because I'd never known another little girl who was interested in climbing trees or in nests and eggs. And I thought of all the second chances that I've had, but Genevieve didn't seem to have any choices to make and nothing she decided would have saved her from her fate.
BLOCK: And it's a really intriguing thing to think about because your book now is essentially a revival of Genevieve Jones' work. You're giving her, in a way, that second chance.
KISER: Well, that's really what I had hoped to do. Genevieve's story - or telling it - has become my life's work. And I'm very happy that I lived long enough to see this come to be, but I'm always a little sad that all the attention that's coming couldn't be experienced by Genevieve and her parents and her brother.
BLOCK: Joy Kiser, thanks so much for coming in. It's been a pleasure.
KISER: Thank you for having me.
BLOCK: Joy Kiser's book with the 19th century lithographs from the Jones family is titled "America's Other Audubon."
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Discussions on folklore protection affect all creative industries, including publishing.
By way of example, publishers of children's books and school books make reference in their works to the cultural context and environment of their readers. The retelling of folk tales or the depiction of the culture forming part of their readers' daily lives is part of the editorial content.
Similarly, many writers of fiction are inspired by local customs, traditions and the social environment. Academic publishers publish works describing ethnological observations; others may publish medical research which is based on discoveries by indigenous peoples.
In recent years, governments have called for a special legal framework at international level for the protection of their traditional cultural expressions or folklore. International organisations such as WIPO and UNESCO have long sought to address legal, conceptual, operational and administrative needs and issues in this area. At national level, a number of jurisdictions have enacted legislation for the protection of folklore.
IPA has been a central participant in the international debate on folklore protection. We support the protection of folklore because its formal identification and acknowledgement strengthens respect for traditional cultural expressions.
However, IPA also believes that any international framework for the protection of folklore should ensure that the positive impact of publishers' activities on the culture which they operate is not threatened. In particular, IPA tries to ensure that any possible new international framework does not conflict with one's freedom of expression.
Please contact the for more details.


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On Being a Jewish Parent
The most influential man who ever lived, does not appear on any list I have seen of the hundred most influential men who ever lived. He ruled no empire, commanded no army, engaged in no spectacular acts of heroism on the battlefield, performed no miracles, proclaimed no prophecy, led no vast throng of followers, and had no disciples other than his own child. Yet today more than half of the 6 billion people alive on the face of the planet identify themselves as his heirs.
His name, of course, is Abraham, held as the founder of faith by the three great monotheisms, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He fits no conventional stereotype. He is not, like Noah, described as unique in his generation. The Torah tells us no tales of his childhood as it does in the case of Moses. We know next to nothing about his early life. When God calls on him, as He does at the beginning of this week's parsha, to leave his land, his birthplace and his father's house, we have no idea why he was singled out.
Yet never was a promise more richly fulfilled than the words of God to him when He changed his name from Abram to Abraham:
"For I have made you father of many nations"Gen. 17:5
There are today 56 Islamic nations, more than 80 Christian ones, and the Jewish state. Truly Abraham became the father of many nations. But who and what was Abraham? Why was he chosen for this exemplary role?
There are three famous portraits of Abraham. The first is the one we learned as children. Abraham, left alone with his father's idols, breaks them with a hammer, which he leaves in the hand of the biggest of the idols. His father Terach comes in, sees the devastation, asks who has caused it, and the young Abraham replies, "Can you not see? The hammer is in the hands of the largest idol. It must have been him." Terach replies, "But an idol is mere of wood and stone." Abraham replies, "Then, father, how can you worship them?"[1] This is Abraham the iconoclast, the breaker of images, the man who while still young rebelled against the pagan, polytheistic world of demigods and demons, superstition and magic.
The second is more haunting and is enigmatic. Abraham, says the Midrash, is like a man travelling on a journey when he sees a palace in flames.
He wondered, "Is it possible that the palace lacks an owner?" The owner of the palace looked out and said, "I am the owner of the palace." So Abraham our father said, "Is it possible that the world lacks a ruler?" God looked out and said to him, "I am the ruler, the Sovereign of the universe."Midrash Bereishit Rabbah 38:13
This is an extraordinary passage. Abraham sees the order of nature, the elegant design of the universe. It's like a palace. It must have been made by someone for someone. But the palace is on fire. How can this be? Surely the owner should be putting out the flames. You don't leave a palace empty and unguarded. Yet the owner of the palace calls out to him, as God called to Abraham, asking him to help fight the fire.
God needs us to fight the destructive instinct in the human heart. This is Abraham, the fighter against injustice, the man who sees the beauty of the natural universe being disfigured by the sufferings inflicted by man on man.
Finally comes a third image, this time by Moses Maimonides:
After he was weaned, while still an infant, Abraham's mind began to reflect. Day and night, he thought and wondered, "How is it possible that this celestial sphere should continuously be guiding the world and have no one to guide it and cause it to turn, for it cannot be that it turns itself?" He had no teacher, no one to instruct him in anything. He was surrounded, in Ur of the Chaldees, by foolish idolaters. His father and mother and the entire population worshipped idols, and he worshipped with them. But his mind was constantly active and reflective, until he had attained the way of truth, found the correct line of thought, and knew that there is one God, He that guides the celestial spheres and created everything, and that among all that exists, there is no God beside Him.
This is Abraham the philosopher, anticipating Aristotle, using metaphysical argument to prove the existence of God.
Three images of Abraham; three versions, perhaps, of what it is to be a Jew. The first sees Jews as iconoclasts, challenging the idols of the age. Even secular Jews who had cut themselves adrift from Judaism were among the most revolutionary modern thinkers, most famously Spinoza, Marx and Freud. Thorstein Veblen said in an essay on "the intellectual pre-eminence of Jews," that the Jew becomes "a disturber of the intellectual peace . . . a wanderer in the intellectuals' no-man's-land, seeking another place to rest, farther along the road, somewhere over the horizon."
The second sees Jewish identity in terms of tzedek u-mishpat, a commitment to the just society. Albert Einstein spoke of the "almost fanatical love of justice" as one of "the features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my stars that I belong to it."
The third reminds us that the Greek thinkers Theophrastus and Clearchus, disciples of Aristotle, speak of the Jews as a nation of philosophers.
So these views are all true and profound. They share only one shortcoming. There is no evidence for them whatsoever in the Torah. Joshua speaks of Abraham's father Terach as an idolater (Josh. 24:2), but this is not mentioned in Bereishit.
The story of the palace in flames is perhaps based on Abraham's challenge to God about the proposed destruction of Sodom and the cities of the plain: "Shall the judge of all the earth not do justice?" As for Abraham-as-Aristotle, that is based on an ancient tradition that the Greek philosophers (especially Pythagoras) derived their wisdom from the Jews, but this too is nowhere hinted in the Torah.
What then does the Torah say about Abraham? The answer is unexpected and very moving. Abraham was chosen simply to be a father. The "Av" in Avram/Avraham means "father". In the only verse in which the Torah explains the choice of Abraham, it says:
For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what He has promised him."Gen. 18:19
The great scenes in Abraham's life – waiting for a child, the birth of Ishmael, the tension between Sarah and Hagar, the birth of Isaac, and the binding – are all about his role as a father (next week I will write about the troubling episode of the binding).
Judaism, more than any other faith, sees parenthood as the highest challenge of all. On the first day of Rosh Hashanah – the anniversary of creation – we read of two mothers, Sarah and Hannah and the births of their sons, as if to say: Every life is a universe. Therefore if you wish to understand the creation of the universe, think about the birth of a child.
Abraham, the hero of faith, is simply a father. Stephen Hawking famously wrote at the end of A Brief History of Time that if we had a Unified Field Theory, a scientific "theory of everything", we would "know the mind of God." We believe otherwise. To know the mind of God we do not need theoretical physics. We simply need to know what it is to be a parent. The miracle of childbirth is as close as we come to understanding the-love-that-brings-new-life-into-the-world that is God's creativity.
There is a fascinating passage in Yossi Klein Halevi's book on Christians and Muslims in the land of Israel, At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden. Visiting a convent, he is told by a nun, Maria Teresa:
"I watch the families who visit here on weekends. How the parents behave toward their children, speaking to them with patience and encouraging them to ask intelligent questions. It's an example to the whole world. The strength of this people is the love of parents for their children. Not just the mothers but also the fathers. A Jewish child has two mothers."
Judaism takes what is natural and sanctifies it; what is physical and invests it with spirituality; what is elsewhere considered normal and sees it as a miracle. What Darwin saw as the urge to reproduce, what Richard Dawkins calls "the selfish gene", is for Judaism high religious art, full of drama and beauty. Abraham the father, and Sarah the mother, are our enduring role models of parenthood as God's gift and our highest vocation.
[1] Midrash Bereishit Rabbah 38:13
With thanks to the Schimmel Family for their generous sponsorship of Covenant & Conversation, dedicated in loving memory of Harry (Chaim) Schimmel.
"I have loved the Torah of R' Chaim Schimmel ever since I first encountered it. It strives to be not just about truth on the surface but also its connection to a deeper truth beneath. Together with Anna, his remarkable wife of 60 years, they built a life dedicated to love of family, community, and Torah. An extraordinary couple who have moved me beyond measure by the example of their lives." — Rabbi Sacks


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In the beginning, the Master Economist created the Economy. He created businesses large and small, consumers, governments with their regulation, and financial institutions of all types. And the Master Economist declared that the economy should grow. And it did grow, but only for a while. Then it stalled. Then He declared that stimulus of various types should fix it, and it did, for a while. Then He declared that if humans would just wait for a while, it would fix itself, but it wouldn't.
We all know that the foregoing isn't the real story about the economy, but what is the real story?
I think if we dig deeper, we discover that energy plays an all-powerful role, just as it does in the natural world in general.
Population: How Inadequate Energy Acts as a Limiting Factor
Human population is of course an important part of the economy. If population keeps growing, it helps the economy grow, because more consumers mean more demand. Can human population keep growing?
The answer seems to be no. Here we find that researchers have found an extremely important role for energy. The relationship they have found relates to any species, not just to homo sapiens.
Ecologists often talk about the existence of a natural cycle between predators and prey. The predators eat the prey that is available, but in time, the predators drop in number, as less food becomes available. When the population of predators drops, the prey is able to expand its population. In fact, Lotka and Volterra created a model that has been used to model a number of predator-prey relationships, including the wolf and moose population on Isle Royal National Park (Lotka) (Volterra) (Jost).
Humans are now the dominant predator species on earth. Our numbers have grown from a relative handful in our earliest days to over 7 billion in 2012. Other species have had to contract in relationship to the advances man has made.
The United Nations is now forecasting a world population of over 9 billion in 2050, and over 10 billion in 2100 (United Nations). If this happens, the populations of other species will need to be pushed down to offset the growth in the human species. Eventually, this situation will reach a limit, since we need to eat other species, both plants and animals.
The situation is more complicated than Figure 2 suggests, because there are many species involved, and there are many other changes taking place—temperature of the sun is gradually changing, the earth's orbit around the sun varies, etc. Also, external energy, including fossil fuels and nuclear, is adding to total energy available to man. But the point remains: we cannot expect population growth to continue indefinitely.
The situation in Figure 2 is described as a predator-prey situation, but if we analyze the situation, it is really an energy situation as well, because prey is an energy source to the predator. Howard T. Odum has written extensively on this subject. Let me explain his view.
The Role of Energy in the Population of Species
Energy plays a major role in the balance between predators and prey. Natural systems, such as groups of plants and animals, arrange themselves to get the best possible use of energy resources available. All of us know that if there is a bare spot on our lawn, and enough sunlight and water, it is not long before some kinds of plants come along to fill the gap. Sunlight allows photosynthesis to take place, producing food for plants. If more sunlight is available, more plants will grow.
This tends to work with animals as well. Let's take the example of wolves that are predators of moose (mentioned above as being modeled using Lotka-Volterra equations). From the point of view of a wolf, a moose is a form of stored energy, since eating it provides calories that provide energy to the wolf. If at some point more moose become available to eat, then more offspring of wolves will be able to survive to adulthood, under survival of the fittest, so the wolf population will increase. As a result, the wolves get as much use as possible of the energy available to them.
Howard Odum, in A Prosperous Way Down, credits Lotka with discovering the fundamental energy law that underlies ecological systems, which Odum calls the Maximum Power Concept and rephrases as follows:
In the self-organization process, systems develop those parts, processes, and relationships that capture the most energy and use it with the best efficiency possible without reducing power.[1]
This means that ecosystems (and in fact, other self-organizing systems, such as economies), will gradually adapt to get the best use possible of the energy available to them. Ecosystems are "self-organizing" in that with the abundance of offspring of animals, and the abundance of seeds of plants, there are always offspring available to move into available niches with excess energy. There are other ways of making use of available energy—for example, selection of the fittest can lead to people with the right skin color being adapted to best using the intensity of the suns rays in their part of the globe.
Energy Use by Humans
Energy plays an important role for each of us as humans, just as it does for other species in ecosystems. The most obvious use for energy is in the food that we eat. Some of the energy we use is embedded energy—that is energy from the past that has been used to make something that we use today. The stored energy can be human energy, as in the energy it would take to shear wool from a sheep, make it into yarn, and knit a sweater from it. Stored energy can also be from other sources. For example, it takes a great deal of energy to extract and refine metals. It also takes a great deal of energy to make today's concrete.
One type of stored energy comes in the form of education (Odum). Education is available because the student's labor is not needed in the workforce to create the food and other goods that he consumes while being educated. Education requires that teachers attend school themselves for many years, meaning that teachers must somehow be supported by the energy of the rest of society both during their own education and while they are teaching students.
Education also involves the concentration of knowledge in the form of books and on the Internet. All of this requires energy. Books require energy to support the people taking time to write the books, to physically make the books, and to transport them to the location where they are read. The Internet requires electrical energy. Even thinking requires energy. The human brain uses a disproportionate share of man's energy, up to 20% of the energy used by humans (Swaminathan). The people with the highest education tend to receive higher salaries than others, indicating that this form of embedded energy is highly valued by society.
The Role of Energy in Numbers and Types of Businesses and Governments
Businesses, governments, and consumers form another self-organizing system, not unlike ecological systems (Odum). This system has gradually arisen over many years, and adapts itself as conditions change. The financial system is the part of the self-organizing system that keeps track of the energy costs of the system (as well as other costs), and pushes the whole system toward the lowest cost approach to creating goods and services. Businesses tend to succeed or fail in ways that make the most productive use of energy resources, according to the rules set out by the system.
Let's consider a small-scale example of a potential addition to this self-organized system. An entrepreneur decides to plant a field of turnips. In this case, part of the energy for the business comes from the sun, and part of the energy comes from the labor of the entrepreneur. The calories the entrepreneur eats provide energy for his labor. The entrepreneur's education represents another form of stored energy, affecting his success. If the entrepreneur buys fertilizer, it is an energy input as well, since energy was required to make and transport the fertilizer to the location where it is used.
Part of the energy used by the entrepreneur may come from mechanical equipment that was made in the past using heat energy, and part from fuels that power that equipment. If purchased energy is scarce, and because of this, high-priced, the entrepreneur will have to charge a higher price for turnips he sells in order to cover his costs. The entrepreneur has a much greater chance of success in selling his turnips to customers if energy is low-priced rather than high-priced because many more customers will be able to afford turnips at $1.00 pound than at $4.00 pound. So it is the price of goods, which is tied to energy costs, that helps determine both which goods are sold and which businesses will succeed. High energy cost tend to lead to business failures.
Governments, too, use energy, and fit in with the same self-organizing system as businesses. The type of government requiring the least amount of energy is one run by a single person, perhaps a king or dictator. In order to support the king, the economy needs to have enough spare energy (in the form of food) available so that the king or dictator doesn't himself need to work to grow food. It is also helpful if there is excess energy generated by society to provide clothing, a home, heat for the home, and the many other things that the king or dictator expects to own.
More complicated governments require more energy. A government of elected officials requires not only the excess energy from society to feed and clothe the elected officials, it also requires the energy to build the buildings where polling takes place, and the energy for officials to travel to the location of the government offices. The offices themselves also require energy, both for their construction and their maintenance. If energy supply is constricted, the price of energy is likely to be higher, and thus the cost of government will be higher. Taxes will need to be raised. If there is a sufficient energy surplus elsewhere to afford these higher taxes, these higher taxes may be acceptable to taxpayers. If not, some government officials may need to be laid off, to balance the (energy) budget.
What Happens When Energy is Deficient?
Something has to "give," when there is not enough energy.
A deficiency in solar energy would likely cause the world to get colder. Crops would fail, prices would rise, and the problem of low solar energy would affect both the natural world, and the economy consisting of businesses, governments, consumers, and financial institutions. The last time this was a major issue was during the Little Ice Age. The biggest impact seems to have been during the 1600s. I show in The Long-Term Tie Between Energy Supply, Population, and the Economy that this seems to have been the case.
What happens when energy supply such as wood, coal, oil or natural gas is constrained?
Unfortunately, we are getting a chance to find out. There is considerable evidence that oil, our largest and most flexible source of energy, is now encountering supply issues. Oil price in 2012 is more than three times the price it was ten years ago, in inflation-adjusted prices.
It is during the time that prices have been high (indicating short supply) that the world has been suffering from recession. This is precisely the impact one would expect, if energy is closely tied to the economy. Adequate supply would be reflected in low price. When it is not, the economy of countries, especially of oil importers, tends to go into recession. We will discuss this more in future posts.
Figure 3 shows that there was a previous time, in the 1970s and early 1980s, when oil prices were very high in inflation adjusted terms. This was the time shortly after the United States discovered that its own oil supply was decreasing rapidly (Figure 4).
After United States oil production began decreasing in 1970, a huge amount of effort was put into finding more oil supplies, increasing efficiency, and converting oil use to other types of energy use. There was considerable success in these areas. The second "bump" in Figure 4 reflects the addition of oil from Alaska, something that is now in decline also. Oil uses that could be easily switched to another fuel were switched away. For example, where oil had been used to create electricity, new generation using nuclear or coal was built. In the case of oil for home heating, the switch was often made to natural gas. Cars became smaller and more energy-efficient during this period.
It might be noted that the period of high oil prices in the mid 1970s and early 1980s was also a time of recession. Economist James Hamilton has shown that 10 out of 11 US recessions since World War II were associated with oil price spikes (Hamilton, 2011). He has also shown that there appears be a direct connection between the price run-up of 2007-08, cutbacks in consumer consumption and spending on purchases of domestic automobiles, and the economic slowdown of 2007 – 2008 (Hamilton, 2009).
The run-up in oil prices in the past few years seems to be related to a combination of (a) world oil supply that is not growing very rapidly, and (b) increasing demand from developing economies, such as China and India, and (c) higher production costs for oil, because much of the inexpensive to extract oil has already been extracted.
There is a great deal more that could be said about these issues, but I will save this information for later. I will make a couple of observations, however:
1. The United States has not been very successful in increasing its oil production, in spite of improved technology. The right hand side of the graph in Figure 4 is higher than what it would have been because of opening areas to drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, new technology, and enhanced oil recovery methods. But current production still lies far below the 1970 peak of oil production.
2. The government has not been forthright in telling us about this problem. Science textbooks don't generally discuss this issue, nor do history books. Some things are embarrassing. This seems to be one of them.
[1] Power is the rate at which energy is used. For example, a 100 watt light bulb uses more energy per unit of time than a 50 watt bulb, so has more power. Any organism has a rate at which it uses energy. For example, we may eat 2200 calories a day. This quote is just saying that the rate at which organisms use energy is considered in this self-organization process.
Lotka, A.J., Elements of Physical Biology, Williams and Wilkins, (1925)
Volterra, V., Variations and fluctuations of the number of individuals in animal species living together in Animal Ecology, Chapman, R.N. (ed), McGraw–Hill, (1931)
Jost, C., Devulder, G., Vucetich, J.A., Peterson, R., and Arditi, R., "The wolves of Isle Royale display scale-invariant satiation and density dependent predation on moose", J. Anim. Ecol., 74(5), 809-816 (2005)
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, World Population Prospects the 2010 Revision. Total Population – Both Sexes. http://esa.un.org/wpp/Excel-Data/population.htm
Odum, H. T. and Odum E. C., A Prosperous Way Down: Principles and Policies, University Press of Colorado, (2001)
Barnosky, A. D. et al., Approaching a State Shift in the Earth's Biosphere, Nature, 486, 52-58 (07 June 2012)
Swaminathan, N. Why Does the Brain Need So Much Power? Scientific American, April 29, 2008. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-does-the-brain-need-s
Hamilton, J. D. Historical oil shocks. NBER working paper No. 16790. Feb 2011. Available from http://www.nber.org/papers/w16790.pdf
Hamilton J. H. Causes and consequences of the oil shock of 2007-08. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity:215e61. Spring 2009. Accessible at https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/brookings_papers_on_economic_activity/toc/eca.2009.1.html


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Taxpayers, beware: Fraudsters impersonating IRS agents are calling people across the country demanding they pay taxes that they don't even owe.
The IRS warned of this "pervasive" scam on Thursday, saying it has been identified in nearly every state.
Innocent taxpayers -- often immigrants -- are answering their phones only to be informed they owe money to the IRS and need to pay it immediately by either loading money on a prepaid card or sending it via a wire transfer. If they argue or refuse to pay, scammers will threaten to arrest or deport them, or suspend their business or driver's license.
"In many cases, the caller becomes hostile and insulting," the IRS said in a statement.
Related: U.S. expats cry foul over tax system
These calls may be convincing, because the scammers use caller ID spoofing to make sure the IRS's toll-free phone number shows up on the caller ID, they make up bogus badge numbers and may know the last four digits of a victim's Social Security number. Sometimes victims will even hear background noise that sounds like a call center.
And if the victim hangs up, they may get another call seconds later from the same scammer -- or another one -- saying they are with the police or an agent at the DMV.
To avoid getting duped, don't believe anyone claiming to be the IRS who calls to ask for your credit card number or requests a prepaid debit card or wire transfer. The IRS said it will never ask for payments to be made by prepaid debit card or wire transfer, and it typically makes its first contact with taxpayers by mail.
Related: Tax season delayed due to shutdown
You should also be immediately suspicious of any caller claiming to be from the IRS and demanding money, especially if you aren't aware that you owe anything. Nasty language and threats should also be a red flag.
"If someone unexpectedly calls claiming to be from the IRS and threatens police arrest, deportation or license revocation if you don't pay immediately, that is a sign that it really isn't the IRS calling," IRS Acting Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a statement.
To report any calls like this, contact the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at 800-366-4484.


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There's a reason it took the country so long to pull out of the Great Depression under FDR, why Americans became acquainted with the Misery Index under Carter, and why we've had the weakest economic recovery from a recession in U.S. history under Obama. Liberal economic policies just don't work. In fact, the only time left-wingers have taken charge in the last 40 years without decimating the economy was during the Clinton years when Republicans in Congress balanced the budget and spent 6 years strong-arming Clinton to keep him from molesting the economy like one of his interns. This is no coincidence; it's a natural consequence of the errant liberal view of economics.
1) Keynesian stimulus doesn't work. As Walter Williams has pointed out, the whole idea of revving up the economy via a government stimulus is doomed from the start.
…Where does Congress get the resources for the spending? Well, there is no Tooth Fairy and there is no Santa Claus. So, the only way Congress can get one dollar to spend is to take that one dollar from Americans, borrow that one dollar from Americans, or inflate that one dollar from Americans.
So, it's very much like the visual image of a swimming pool. A person notes there is a shallow end, so he takes the water out of the deep end and pours it in the shallow end, hoping to raise the height of the water in the pool — and you would call that person stupid.
2) You can't fund the whole country on the backs of the rich. Remember the Buffet Rule that liberals hyped endlessly for months? It turns out it would only raise 45 billion dollars over a decade. All of that money combined will amount to about 2 weeks' worth of this year's Obama deficit. That hearkens back to the dirty little secret that liberals don't want the American people to find out. America already has the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world and the most progressive tax code in the Western world. That means the rich are already almost tapped out and since they can afford high dollar accountants, tax shelters, and lobbyists and they can just move out of the country or stop working if that isn't enough, there's just not that much more revenue to be had from the wealthy.
3) Liberals incentivize failure. If I were willing to pay anyone and everyone $500 who would send me proof that they hit themselves in the face with a hammer hard enough to leave a bruise, YOU might not do it, but you could safely predict a 10,000% increase in the number of people hitting themselves in the face with a hammer over the next few months. So, if that's true, what are liberals incentivizing with food stamps, welfare, 99 weeks on unemployment insurance, and other giveaway programs? Only liberals would be surprised when they produce more failure by rewarding people for failing.
4) They create a hostile business environment. When Uday Hussein used to run Iraq's soccer team, players who performed poorly were slapped, spit on, and beaten with electric cables until the blood flowed. This is similar to how liberals treat American businesses. They demonize them, raise their taxes, bury them in new regulations, make it easier to sue them, and harass them with regulatory agencies at every turn. Then, they become puzzled as to why those same businesses aren't creating jobs or are looking to move more of their business overseas. You can't cut the sparrow's throat and fry it up for dinner and listen to it sing at the same time.
5) The business environment becomes unpredictable. Because liberals believe in routing as much of American life through the hands of government bureaucrats as humanly possible, businesses never know what to expect. They could lose profits via new taxes, have huge new expenses because of regulations, have projects shut down by the EPA, face huge lawsuits for spurious reasons, be crippled by labor union strikes, and on and on it goes. When businesses fear the unexpected, they tend to become cautious. They don't hire, they don't expand, and they horde cash to make sure they don't get wiped out by some arbitrary decision made by a government official who has never so much as run a lemonade stand in his life.
6) Liberals cause businesses to focus on government instead of the product. In Ayn Rand's classic Atlas Shrugged, Hank Rearden's company could outperform his competitors, but they were still able to hamstring him using their allies in government. That's the environment liberals encourage today and it's why we're spending increasingly larger sums on elections. For many businesses, lobbying and greasing palms in D.C. has become just as important as their performance. Chrysler, Solyndra, Bank of America, Citigroup, and (A.I.G.) among many, many others could tell you all about that.
7) Government is inherently slow, stupid, and inefficient. Saying that government doesn't do anything very well is like noting that it's easier to get a suntan at noon than at midnight. Yet, because liberals have a totalitarian impulse to control as many aspects as possible of their fellow citizens' lives, they never stop working to transfer as much power as possible to Washington, D.C. Since there is absolutely nothing that the government can run better, cheaper, and more efficiently than the private sector, anything the government takes over from the market degrades in quality and increases in price. As Ann Coulter has noted,
If politicians and employers had guaranteed us "free" food 50 years ago, today Democrats would be wailing about the "food crisis" in America, and you'd be on the phone with your food care provider arguing about whether or not a Reuben sandwich with fries was covered under your plan.


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Well, I left my motel room, down at the Starkville Motel,
The town had gone to sleep and I was feelin' fairly well.
I strolled along the sidewalk 'neath the sweet magnolia trees;
I was whistlin', pickin' flowers, swayin' in the southern breeze.
I found myself surrounded; one policeman said: "That's him.
Come along, wild flower child. Don't you know that it's two A. M. "
They're bound to get you.
'Cause they got a curfew.
And you go to the Starkville City jail.
Well, they threw me in the car and started driving into town;
I said: "What the hell did I do?" He said: "Shut up and sit down."
Well, they emptied out my pockets, took my pills and guitar picks.
I said: "Wait, my name is..." "Awe shut up." Well, I sure was in a fix.
The sergeant put me in a cell, then he went home for the night;
I said: "Come back here, you so and so; I ain't bein' treated right."
Well, they're bound to get you, cause they got a curfew,
And you go to the Starkville City Jail.
I started pacin' back and forth, and now and then I'd yell,
And kick my forty dollar shoes against the steel floor of my cell.
I'd walk awhile and kick awhile, and all night nobody came.
Then I sadly remembered that they didn't even take my name.
At 8 A. M. They let me out. I said: "Gimme them things of mine!"
They gave me a sneer and a guitar pick, and a yellow dandelion.
They're bound to get you, 'cause they got a curfew,
And you go to the Starkville City Jail.


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All images are available for purchase. They will NOT have the watermark on them!
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Variety creates interest it can be used to move the eye through a painting and its complexity is endless. To see variety you must make yourself aware of the differences between pictorial elements that share similar traits but have a unique quality that creates their individuality. A successful artist can reveal subtle differences that most people over look.
Variety can be created in a number of ways within your image, you can vary the size (contour, height and width) of elements in your scene you can vary their coloring or their angle or spacing to each other. All of these changes add interest and they can be designed into the painting once an artist learns to see them.
Variety can also be added through brushwork and surface quality. Some passages can be painted thinly some with thicker paint. The calligraphy of the brushstrokes can be varied so no two are the same in direction or size.
Edges are another area that gives an artist many opportunities for variety. Edges can be soft or hard optically or they can be physically blended or left sharp and unblended.
Adding this kind of interest insures the painting has lasting appeal beyond the attention of the image itself. Although the subject matter in the image is what draws many people to a particular painting eventually it is the structure and handling of the painting that gives a work power and separates it from current fads or cliché. It is the strength of the design that allows it to stand the test of time.


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Red beaded necklace with gold skull accent. Measures 18in long.
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Discover this nice keys holder in semi-rigid leather conceived with a rectangular elongated design. It can easily slip in a pocket or a purse, and its relatively comfortable size allows you to find your keys easily. Your keys find their place in a high-end flat silver ring.
Dimensions with ring: 4.3 x 0.79 inches
Diameter of ring: 1.34 inches
Flat silver ring with "LUCRIN GENEVA" engraving.


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Come along with Nosh as we explore East Bay restaurants in photographs. This week we focus on FIVE restaurant, in Berkeley, CA. (See the menu.) If you've tried the spots we feature, please let us know about your experience in the comments below. If you'd like to submit your own photo gallery for consideration from a meal you enjoyed, please email firstname.lastname@example.com for more information. You can also add photographs to our Flickr group. (Photos by Emilie Raguso, captions below the fold.)
(1) Executive Chef Banks White, FIVE restaurant, Berkeley, CA. (2) FIVE restaurant interior. (3) Cocoa-chile rubbed pork tenderloin (house-smoked bacon, true southern grits, brussel sprouts, pork jus), $24. (4) Three French Hen-nessey. (5) A festive table setting at FIVE. (6) Baby beets (satsumas, heirloom chicory, avocado, fennel, sonoma goat cheese, cashews, citronette), $10. (7) FIVE restaurant bar. (8) The Pear Tree. (9) The chandelier at FIVE restaurant. (10) Big eye tuna tartare (fresh coriander salad, pickled beech mushroom, lotus root, avocado), $13. (11) Four Calling Birds. (12) The FIVE bar. (13) Chocolate crema (persimmons, plum jam, chantilly whipped cream), $8.
The restaurant invited Nosh to try its offerings with a complimentary meal.
Twelve drinks a drinking: Reasons to rejoice at Five [12.12.12]
Bookmark Berkeleyside NOSH for East Bay food news and stories, and follow Berkeleyside NOSH on Twitter, and on Facebook.


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Chimera Video Pro Plus 1 Triolet Rental Kit
Product DescriptionThe Chimera Video Pro Plus 1 Triolet Kit is a combination of several products for much less than if you bought everything a la carte. A small Video Pro Plus 1 softbox (with speed ring) and the Triolet continuous light fixture (with a 1000W bulb) form the core of this kit. The softbox is designed for use with a hot light but can be used with flash as well. With a silver interior intended for the heat of a continuous light, the Small Video Pro Plus 1 is ideal for work in small spaces when medium soft light is required. The 24 x 32″ size is lightweight and portable. The "Plus 1" designation means the front face of the softbox is removable; Chimera makes different strengths of diffusion material for front face applications. The softbox comes with a one-stop diffuser (hence the "1" designation). Purchasing the 1/2 and 1/4 grid cloths separately would allow for more light transmission and less softening of the light. A fabric eggcrate light modifier that attaches to the front of the softbox, directing and narrowing the beam (to 40 degrees) for more control, is also included.
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The chip war will heat up as Advanced Micro Devices prepares PC processors to rival Intel's Sandy Bridge chips, which have already started appearing in laptops, analysts said this week.
Intel's new Core i3, i5 and i7 chips are now available in consumer laptops such as Dell's Inspiron R-series models, which were introduced on Thursday and priced starting at US$499. AMD, meanwhile, plans to release new A-series chips, which are code-named Llano, for consumer laptops and desktops in the second quarter.
The A-series processors could intensify the chip battle between Intel and AMD as consumers evaluate laptops based on price and performance. The Intel and AMD chips both combine a CPU and graphics processor inside a single chip, but have unique strengths, analysts said.
Intel's Sandy Bridge chips are generally considered to provide better CPU performance and have a capable graphics processor, but PCs with AMD's Llano are thought to better handle graphics-intensive tasks.
Laptops with A-series chips could be priced above $499, higher than laptops and netbooks carrying AMD's low-end E-Series and C-Series chips, which started shipping earlier this year, an AMD spokeswoman said. But the pricing of laptops will ultimately depend on PC makers, the spokeswoman added.
The A-series chips will include between two and four cores, according to the company's road map.
Beyond price, laptop selection will likely depend on the type of PC a user is looking for, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64. If a buyer needs to run programs that stress CPUs they may prefer laptops with Sandy Bridge, which has a CPU core that is faster and more advanced than the CPU in AMD's Llano, which is based on an architecture that is six to seven years old.
"That's not even up for debate," Brookwood said.
Intel's new Core i3, i5 and i7 chips can render high-definition video and are good for mainstream gaming, Brookwood said. Analysts said that Intel has looked beyond the graphics processor, implementing instruction sets to process 3D graphics and accelerators in the integrated chips to quickly decode and encode video.
But AMD's Llano will have a better graphics engine and offer a superior movie playback and gaming experience, Brookwood said. Llano's integrated graphics processor supports DirectX 11, which is a set of tools that help generate more realistic images when playing games on PCs running Windows 7. Most of the recent high-end games released support DirectX 11, Brookwood said. Intel's Sandy Bridge chips support a version of DirectX 10, which puts it almost a generation behind AMD.
AMD's superior graphics capabilities could also give it a price advantage, Brookwood said. PCs based on Intel's Sandy Bridge chips may require a dedicated graphics card to handle high-end graphics, which could increase the price of laptops.
But few users need high-end graphics, and the consumer market is trending to lower-end laptops where price matters more and graphics matter less, said Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research.
"If you want to compare CPU versus GPU performance … that depends on the price you are willing to pay," McCarron said.
McCarron said he expects AMD to use Llano's powerful graphics core as a means to gain market share from Intel, as opposed to changing its pricing model. AMD typically has a price advantage over Intel, with laptops selling for comparably lower prices.
AMD lost market share to Intel in the fourth quarter last year, according to an IDC study released in February. Intel had an 80.8 percent processor market share, compared to 80.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009. AMD's market share was 18.9 percent, declining from a 19.5 percent share the previous year.
Graphics chips are being increasingly used in high-performance systems for parallel execution of some scientific, math and video applications. But many programs for desktop operating systems like Windows have been written for processing on multicore CPUs.
Intel may be "overweight" on CPUs, but AMD is making a bigger bet on graphics as computing becomes more visual, said Godfrey Cheng, director of product marketing at AMD's client technology unit.
A lot of the Web browser processing goes through a CPU, but the latest versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Google's Chrome and Mozilla's Firefox offload tasks such as Internet video to the graphics processor.
AMD is also providing tools for programmers to write applications for execution on graphics processors, Cheng said. AMD's graphics processors also support OpenCL, a programming standard for parallel execution of tasks across multicore CPUs and GPUs.
But graphics processors are also known to be power-hungry, which could hurt laptop battery life. To tackle the issue, AMD has added some power-saving features such as power gating and the ability to shut down blocks of the graphics processor.
"We're giving [consumers] more power, capability to process videos," Cheng said.
Intel spokesman Dave Salvator said that rather than talking CPU versus GPU, it is more useful to look at what people do regularly with PCs. Sandy Bridge chips are good for mainstream gaming, and have advanced power-saving and security features.
"If you're an enthusiast gamer, then Intel Core i7 with a high-end discrete 3D card is the right solution for high-end gaming," Salvator said.
AMD may have an aging CPU in Llano, but a price advantage and a better graphics processor could help it compete with Intel's Sandy Bridge, Mercury's McCarron said. AMD will provide a much-needed upgrade to the CPU to the new Bulldozer core next year, but consumers may not wait.
"Upgrade when you feel the need to upgrade," McCarron said. "If you wait for [new] technology, you'll be waiting continuously."


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I was able to obtain a a booklet recently from the Tantramar HeritageTrust entitled "Nathaniel Smith : A Stranger in a Strange Land." It contains excerpts from his letters home to family, even written during the crossing. On May 29, 1774, he wrote to his brother Benjamin:
"...we had three weaks of excessive stormes and dreadful horicanes but in no great dainger of suffering, save upon Sable Island which sertainly would have been the case of our Capton had not been before the ship in his rekoning two hundred miles, as the Isle is that distance from the Cape called Sable, he begun to sound expecting to we were nigh the shores and about the Dead of Night could find not bottom, again about two they sounded on the starbord Side and found only aleven fathom, All was in an uprore expecting we were just upon the rocks."
Photo credit: http://www.windewardbound.com
Nathaniel Smith : A Stranger in a Strange Land,, Pat Finney, ed., a publication of Tantramar Heritage Trust Inc., Sackville, NB, Canada, August, 2000.
The Descendants of Nathaniel and Elizabeth Smith, Philip and Joan Smith Brides, Halifax, MA, 2000.


text: This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin' it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do.


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Vik's Chaat, Berkeley, CA
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Vik's Chaat
2390 4th St, Berkeley, CA 94710
(510) 644-4432
4 comments:
- Mary said... [Reply to comment]
Three quick things....1) how adorably adorable is that baby? 2) I love indian food and used to steal my roommates' indian food from home out of the freezer in our apartment and then deny it while smelling of cury :). 3) How great is Mad Men right now? Best Season Ever.
- September 4, 2010 at 4:16 PM
- The College Baker said... [Reply to comment]
I love that you've been trying out restaurants in the Bay Area! I'm currently residing in Berkeley, and it's been interesting to see pictures from all the places I've heard of. And I absolutely LOVE Ici (I go at least once a week) so I'm looking forward to your post on it :)
- September 4, 2010 at 4:21 PM
- Beth said... [Reply to comment]
Wish I lived closer to Berkeley. That meal looks amazing!
- September 5, 2010 at 5:19 AM
- Pauline said... [Reply to comment]
Hey Mary! Wow! You're around Berkeley and Orange County like me! That's so cool. I know most of the places that you've been blogging about on your restaurant week posts, and it excites me to know that a blogger that I admiringly follow is in such close proximity to me. You've definitely hit up some nice places in Irvine and Berkeley, and there's a lot more out there dying to be tried out. That'd be cool if we and other bloggers met up for a luncheon in the East Bay or in SoCal some time. Anyways, I've enjoyed and am always enjoying your posts. Thanks! ~Pauline
- September 5, 2010 at 5:02 PM


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Phytosanitary Certificates are now available for international buyers. We ship Internationally and Australia wide including Tasmania and WA.
Swordfish Dryandra or Tangled Dryandra
Stock: Out Of Stock
SKU Code: N 499
Family: Proteaceae
Genus: Banksia
Characteristics: Shrub 1.5 m spread 1 m
Seeds per packet: 5
A small sized shrub with an erect stem and woolly branches. Attractive large terminal amber-yellow flower heads occur in summer.
Leaves divided into saw like segments 20 cm long.
Endemic to Western Australia.
Note: Formally known as Drayandra mucronulata.
Dryandra was considered a separate genus until early 2007, when it was merged into Banksia.
Prefers a light to medium well-drained soil in an open sunny position, drought and frost resistant.
Although seed can be sown most of the year in many parts of Australia seed is generally best sown in spring or autumn in temperate climates, avoid the coldest and hottest months of the year. The optimum germination temperature for germination is around 18-22°C
Pre-treatment of smoke: Not considered critical to germination of this species and germination will generally occur without it.
However many members of the Proteaceae family are responsive to pre-treatment of smoke. Although germination will often occur without smoke treatment it has proved to be beneficial in reducing the number of days to germination and increasing germination rates in many species of the Proteaceae family.
Smoke treatments are simple and can be undertaken either by soaking the seed overnight or by applying to the surface after sowing, both provide good results. Smoke treatments available by clicking here.
General note: Seeds of many natives are dormant and require specific conditions or pre-treatment for germination.
Do not be too hasty to discard seed that does not germinate, seeds will often lay dormant until the conditions are similar to their natural requirements for germination to occur. Containers put to one side will often surprise long after they were discarded.
Australian Native Plants Society (Propagation of Banksia)
Australian Plants Online (Dryandra cultivation)
Florabase of Western Australia
We now stock a range of Propagation Accessories including the popular Aquamiser Propagation Kits, Pots, Native and Forestry Tubes, Trays, Labels and more.
We can only ship these items to Australian locations, international customers please request shipping quotation prior to purchasing.


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Tablets running 64-bit Android haven't been out for long but prices are already set to fall fast.
Lenovo's 8-inch Tab 2 A8 will ship in June starting at $129, with a 64-bit version of Android 5.0 and a 64-bit quad-core processor from MediaTek. It was one of three tablets Lenovo announced ahead of the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona.
Sixty-four-bit tablets have a few advantages. They can support more memory and therefore make light work of multimedia-intensive apps such as games, as well as apps that use encryption for security. More 64-bit Android apps are in development, so a 64-bit tablet also provides some future-proofing.
Only a handful of 64-bit Android tablets are on sale today. One of the best known is Google's Nexus 9, which sells for $399.99 in the Google Play store. Many more are expected as vendors deploy Android 5.0 more broadly and as more 64-bit processors become available. Lenovo's Tab 2 A8 could prompt other vendors to drive down prices for their own 64-bit Android tablets.
The Tab 2 A8 is 9 millimeters thick, weighs 360 grams and will offer eight hours of battery life, according to Lenovo. The $129 model has Wi-Fi only, while a $179 model will have integrated LTE. It doesn't look like the LTE model will be offered in the U.S., however.
The tablet has a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, a 2-megapixel front-facing camera and 1GB of RAM. It has a maximum of 16GB of storage that can be expanded to 32GB with a Micro-SD card.
With a 720p screen, Lenovo has compromised on the display to keep the price low.
Tablet shipments flattened last year after years of strong growth, and the 64-bit Android tablets could spur people to upgrade from older models.
Apple had an early start in 64-bit tablets with the iPad Air, but the low-priced tablets could shift the market in Android's favor.
Lenovo also announced the 10-inch Tab 2 A10, which has a 64-bit processor but will initially ship with a 32-bit version of Android, version 4.4. The tablet will start shipping in April and users will be able to upgrade their devices to Android 5.0 in June, Lenovo said.
The Tab 2 A10 will be priced at $199 with Wi-Fi and $279 with LTE -- though again, the LTE option does not appear to be available in the U.S. The prices are still pretty good considering the features. The A10 will have a full HD screen, 16GB of storage, an 8-megapixel rear camera, a 5-megapixel front camera and built-in Dolby Atmos speakers. It weighs 509 grams and offers 10 hours of battery life.
For Windows fans, Lenovo announced the IdeaPad Miix 300 tablet with Windows 8.1. Priced from $149, it's an entry-level tablet and will start shipping in July. It has an 8-inch screen and is intended mainly for web surfing and basic productivity applications. It weighs 360 grams and will provide around seven hours of battery life. Key features include up to 64GB of storage, 2GB of RAM, two cameras and Wi-Fi.
The Miix 300 will compete with other low-cost Windows tablets, like HP's Stream 8, which sells for $179.


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Why are Notes of the Tonal Scale Called "Do, Re, Mi" etc.?
Solmization, or the practice of assigning syllables to the different "steps" of the scale, originated in ancient
. Fast forward a few thousand years, when Isidore, the Archbishop of Seville during the sixth century, lamented that "Unless sounds are remembered, they perish, for they cannot be written down." A Benedictine monk who was also a master of music named Guido d'Arezzo set to work to prevent so many sacred tunes from being lost.
Brother Guido was familiar with solmization, and noted that most of the Gregorian chants popular at that time could easily be learned by singers if they could see the tone progression up and down the scale, and associate it with the sound. He assigned the notes of the scale—C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C—a syllable: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do. (We know what you're thinking: Yes, it actually is SOL—it's traditionally written that way when the tonic notes are spelled out, and often referred to as the "sol-fa scale" colloquially—but that final L is hard to hear thanks to the LA that follows.)
Those weren't just random sounds he chose; they came from "Ut Queant Laxis," a well-known hymn of the Middle Ages that was chanted for vespers. Each succeeding line of the song started one note higher than the previous one, so Guido used the first letters of each word of each line: UT queant laxis, REsonare fibris: MIre gestorum , FAmuli tuorum: SOLve, etc. "Ut" was eventually deemed too difficult pronounce and was changed to "Do."
Did the Guido method work? Well, as Rodgers and Hammerstein later put it, "When you know the notes to sing, you can sing most anything!"


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The question on everyone's lips today will be this: Can Hollywood's most celebrated and likeable Everyman make blackface acceptable again? After narrating the Barack Obama 17-minute campaign ad, Tom Hanks ' next premiere comes from a 2004 charity auction, where he and singer Glenn Frey of The Eagles entertained the audience while raising money for a private school in tony Pacific Palisades, California. The video shows the CEO of an investment-banking firm in an Afro wig and dark makeup while Frey and Hanks make, er, politically incorrect jokes:
Video footage obtained by The Daily Caller shows Hollywood screen legend Tom Hanks and Eagles musician Glenn Frey at a 2004 fundraising auction, playfully interacting with a white man dressed as an African native, complete with blackface makeup and a giant Afro wig. …
The 2004 auction's routine included a white man in blackface, identified in the footage as investment banker James Montgomery, CEO of the Santa Monica, Calif., firm Montgomery & Co. In addition to blackface makeup and the wig, Montgomery wore a leopard-print toga and an arm band made to look like it consisted of animal teeth.
During a lull in the auction, Frey refers to Montgomery and comments, "See how boring money management and stock investment is, people? It's not nearly as much fun as, like, professional basketball." …
Frey identifies Montgomery by name and says he is "just back from a Jerry Falwell sensitivity training seminar." Referring to his appearance as a black caricature, Frey later says, "All I know is, this school is so conservative that Jamie Montgomery was almost not allowed in. They stuck him in the parking lot — they let him in. These are the jokes, people."
Frey said that because people in the audience weren't laughing — not even with one of Hollywood's liberal icons on hand to give them permission. In fact, the video suggests that the only people who found the sight gag funny at all were Montgomery and Frey, who provided almost all of the related jokes. Hanks plays along with the gag, but besides the one remark about O'Reilly, he seems intent in this clip to keep making jokes about IPOs and to ignore Montgomery's antics.
Niger Innis wasn't laughing, either. The national spokesman of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) called the skit "an orchestrated, heinous, and racist 'Stepin Fetchit' routine," and demanded that Team Obama remove Hanks from their documentary's narration. The Daily Caller also digs up a 2010 interview Hanks did with CNS News, in which he decried the slow pace of "enlightenment" on race relations in the context of the war against Japan in WWII, as a bit of context for Innis' complaint. Interestingly, the video only came to light because the person who filmed the fundraiser in 2004 has grown irritated with Hanks for his "sharp-elbowed partisanship." "Tom would be the first to scream 'racist' if a conservative put their arm around a 'Wall Street Banker' in blackface while their co-emcee made racists remarks," she said. "He's a hypocrite."
I'm a bit torn on this. On one hand, I think people get way too sensitive about comedy routines, and taking the outrageous outrage to the level of a school fundraiser doesn't seem healthy for anyone. On the other, if a Republican had participated in this skit — or even been videotaped in attendance while laughing at it — that would be proof positive of inherent GOP raaaaaaacism for years to come. The hypocrisy of the same crowd who likes to toss claims of racism at Obama's opponents makes this fair game, but let's not lose sight of the fact that in the end, this is just comedy … and lousy comedy at that.
Update: Innis is national spokesman for CORE, not its chair; I've fixed it above.


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Washington, DC—Today Governor Bob McDonnell vetoed legislation that would have taken the first step toward saving the lives of newborn Virginia babies who die each year from heart disease.
The legislation, HB 399, would have fast-tracked implementation of screening in all Virginia hospitals to ensure that every child would have access to a simple, yet vital, screening test for critical congenital heart disease (CCHD).
"While we commend the Governor for acknowledging CCHD screening is an issue that deserves attention, we respectfully disagree that convening a no cost, public-private stakeholders group to ensure that all hospitals in Virginia – both urban and rural – have the necessary tools to implement a newborn screening program is unnecessary," said Jacqueline D. Bowens, Executive Vice President & Chief Government Affairs Officer at Children's National. "It is the role and responsibility of state government to establish uniform standards for statewide newborn screening. As such, to replace the pathway established in HB 399, we urge Governor McDonnell to formally direct the Department of Health to convene experts and stakeholders to establish a plan for implementation of statewide CCHD screening this year."
"Screening for critical types of congenital heart disease using pulse oximetry is simple, non-invasive, inexpensive, and helps to identify newborns with congenital heart disease so they can get early care," said Gerard Martin, MD, Senior Vice President, the Center for Heart, Lung and Kidney Disease at Children's National. "Doctors and nurses can perform this simple test just after birth to help detect a life-threatening condition when we do other routine tests. We are deeply troubled by the Governor's veto of a bill that could bring such dramatic benefit to newborns."
"If serious forms of congenital heart disease are missed, lifelong health problems or death may result. Some hospitals in Virginia, but not all, are already screening newborns for CCHD and this bill would have guaranteed smart and cost effective care to all children in Virginia, regardless of where they live," said Martin.
Potentially Far-Reaching Implications
Gov. McDonnell's veto of this legislation could also hurt Virginia's chances of receiving $1 million in badly needed federal funding to help address this public health issue, said one of the bill's supporters, Cathleen Smith Grzesiek, senior director of government relations for the American Heart Association.
"This legislation would have shown the federal government that Virginia is serious about saving the lives of newborns with heart disease, increasing our chances to get financial support to make progress on this issue and make a difference for more Virginia families," said Grzesiek.
More about Critical Congenital Heart Disease
Critical congenital heart disease (CCHD) is the most common birth defect and is often missed in routine prenatal and newborn examinations. Simple, non-invasive screening is now available to catch defects that can cause serious long term consequences if left untreated.
House Bill 399 would have established a process for statewide implementation of newborn screening for CCHD. This type of screening is endorsed by The American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human and Human Services.
"It is critical that all newborns in Virginia are screened for congenital heart disease. Without mandatory screening, babies will die," said Jodi Lemacks, national program director of Mended Little Hearts, American Heart Association volunteer, and a mother of a child born with a congenital heart defect. "There is no doubt that screening for the disease using pulse oximetry saves babies' lives. In New Jersey, just one day after Gov. Chris Christie signed a bill mandating screening into law, a baby boy's life was saved."
HB 399 received unanimous approval from the House of Delegates and the Senate during the 2012 legislative session and enjoys support from health care providers and child advocacy organizations from across the Commonwealth. The Virginia Chapters of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Heart Association have already expressed disappointment in Gov. McDonnell's veto of HB 399.
Contact: Paula Darte or Susan Muma at 202-476-4500.
Children's National Health System, based in Washington, D.C., has served the nation's children since 1870. Children's National is one of the nation's Top 5 pediatric hospitals and, for a second straight year, is ranked No. 1 in newborn care, as well as ranked in all specialties evaluated by U.S. News & World Report. It has been designated two times as a Magnet® hospital, a designation given to hospitals that demonstrate the highest standards of nursing and patient care delivery. This pediatric academic health system offers expert care through a convenient, community-based primary care network and specialty outpatient centers in the D.C. Metropolitan area, including the Maryland suburbs and Northern Virginia. Home to the Children's Research Institute and the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation, Children's National is the seventh-highest NIH-funded pediatric institution in the nation. Children's National is recognized for its expertise and innovation in pediatric care and as a strong voice for children through advocacy at the local, regional and national levels.
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text:
NFPA Members save an additional 10%.
Ensure the quality and reliability of security system installations.
NFPA 731: Installation of Electronic Premises Security Systems Spanish Edition is the first Standard developed primarily to define the means of signal initiation, transmission, notification, and annunciation, as well as the levels of performance and the reliability of electronic security systems.
Requirements cover every step of security equipment installation, with provisions for the application, location, performance, testing, and maintenance of physical security systems and their components. Detailed chapters are included for:
Rules address the protected premises from the property line to the interior of the premises. NFPA 731 also references or incorporates provisions from applicable UL, SIA, and other standards. (Approx. 43 pp., 2006 Spanish Edition)


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ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Two months after meeting in the AFC championship game, the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots are squaring off in the wine and dine game.
They've been the conference's most aggressive teams in trying to upgrade their rosters in free agency.
After watching Seattle win the Super Bowl, both Denver and New England focused on beefing up their defenses.
New England added two cover cornerbacks; Denver signed three Pro Bowl defenders.
Broncos General Manager John Elway, who committed $66 million in guaranteed money to four players in the first week of free agency, acknowledged the additions of safety T.J. Ward, cornerback Aqib Talib, pass rusher DeMarcus Ware and receiver Emmanuel Sanders were made with the Patriots in mind.
"You always know you have to go through New England," Elway said. "If you look at their track record the last 10 years, they're a team that you're going to have to be able to deal with. And for us to be able to get done what we want to get done, you have to be able to beat them.
"So it's kind of a fun arms race and we'll see what happens next year."
For the second straight offseason, the Broncos added a player from the Patriots' roster, luring Talib a year after they cajoled Wes Welker to leave Tom Brady for Peyton Manning.
The Patriots responded by signing cornerback Darrelle Revis, who was released by Tampa Bay, then added cornerback Brandon Browner, who spent the past three seasons with the Seahawks.
Browner missed the Super Bowl while serving a suspension for violating the NFL's substance-abuse policy and must sit out the first four regular-season games in 2014. He can participate in offseason activities, including training camp and preseason games.
The Broncos lost receiver Eric Decker to the New York Jets but signed Sanders, a speedy receiver formerly with the Pittsburgh Steelers, to a three-year, $15 million pact.
After losing Brady's top target to the Broncos last year, the Patriots were in danger of losing his favorite receiver again this spring, but Julian Edelman re-signed Tuesday with New England after testing the free-agent market.
Edelman, who caught a career-high 105 passes with six touchdowns last season, signed a deal reportedly worth $17 million over four years, two days after the Patriots added receiver Brandon LaFell, who became a free agent after catching 49 passes in his fourth NFL season, all with the Carolina Panthers.
Elway's primary focus was rebuilding his defense.
With the release of Champ Bailey saving the Broncos $10 million and the retirement of Chris Kuper giving them another $4.1 million savings, Elway had lots of financial flexibility, and he signed:
n Ward for four years and $22.5 million to play strong safety with Rahim Moore returning to free safety.
n Talib for $57 million over six years to play cornerback opposite Chris Harris Jr., who's coming off knee surgery.
n And Ware for $30 million over three years to rush the passer, and mentor Von Miller and Quanterus Smith.
Talib was injured in the AFC championship game when he took a hard hit from Welker on a pick play at the line of scrimmage.
The Patriots called it a hip injury but Talib says now it was a thigh injury and insists he's 100 percent.
Of Denver's four additions, only Ware is north of 30 years old.
"That goes to show you that's not for now. We want young football players that are going to be here for a long time, who are still young in their career and are still going to get better," Elway said.
"So the age thing is big. That's one thing we've had some success with is being able to plug in some older guys in the right spots but that's usually been right around training camp if something were to happen. But still the base is to get as young as we can with the best football players we can."
And he'll make an exception with a guy like Ware.
"A guy with 117 sacks, yeah, and we feel like he's got a lot of football ahead of him," Elway said.
"He's been banged up. He was really banged up last year, and so I always like getting guys that are future Hall of Famers with chips on their shoulder."
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text:
Recipe by: Nanette Blanchard
(Makes 8 pear halves)
I love the texture and buttery flavor of poached pears. This microwave poaching method is so simple that sometimes I buy a big bag of pears and poach them all at once. They can then be refrigerated and covered and eaten as snacks throughout the next week. Bosc and Bartlett pears are the best varieties for poaching.
This is a nice holiday recipe because the cranberry juice turns the pears a pale pink color. These pears are pretty garnished with some fresh mint sprigs. This recipe is best made at least 30 minutes in advance to give the pears time to cool.
4 pears, preferably Bosc
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 cup cranapple juice
Halve, peel, and core the pears. Sprinkle freshly cut pears with lemon juice to prevent browning. Place in microwave-safe dish and cover with cranapple juice. Cover and cook on high 6 – 8 minutes or until pears are fork tender. (Check the pears after 6 minutes; the fresher the pears, the longer they'll take to cook.) Spoon juice over pears, cover, and let stand 30 minutes or refrigerate overnight.
Total Calories Per Half Pear: 62; Fat: less than 1 gram
Posted to www.vrg.org