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A former astronaut and researcher at the San Francisco VA Medical Center will be traveling to the Cosmodrome space-launch site at Baikonur, Kazakhstan, this Saturday, Sept. 2, 2006, to prepare a crucial experiment designed to demonstrate how human immune response is suppressed in the weightless environment of space.
Millie Hughes-Fulford, PhD, director of the Laboratory of Cell Growth at SFVAMC, scientific advisor to the Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and a payload specialist aboard space shuttle flight STS-40 in 1991, will send human T-cells up to the International Space Station aboard ISS Soyuz 13. That science mission, operated by the European Space Agency, is scheduled to launch from Baikonur between September 14 and September 18, 2006.
"We're doing this experiment because many astronauts are immunosuppressed during flight. Their T-cells stop working in microgravity," says Hughes-Fulford, who is also an adjunct professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. "This experiment will tell us for the first time exactly which genes involved in the normal immune response aren't activated in space."
T-cells are white blood cells that play a central role in the body's immune response. They are a target of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which suppresses them. When an HIV patient's T-cell count falls below 200, he or she is susceptible to the dangerous infections that are the symptoms of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
The problem of immunosuppression in microgravity was first noted during the Apollo moon mission series in the 1960s and 1970s, when 15 out of 29 Apollo astronauts developed infections during their missions or soon after landing. Subsequent experiments aboard Skylab and several space shuttle missions, including Fulford's, confirmed that T-cells do not activate properly in microgravity.
"In this experiment, we're looking at why they're not working," says Hughes-Fulford. "Normally, in order for T-cells to be activated, certain genes have to be expressed in a certain order, in what's called a signaling pathway. Aboard the ISS, we hope to find exactly which genes are not being expressed in microgravity."
The experiment will be carried to the International Space Station inside a specially designed incubator called Kubik, which was made to fit precisely under the cosmonaut's seat in the Soyuz spacecraft. Kubik contains a compartment for weightless experiments as well as a centrifuge that can accelerate cells in a range from 0.2 to 2 earth gravities.
On board the space station, European Space Agency astronaut-scientist Thomas Reiter will simultaneously activate T-cells in the weightless compartment and in the centrifuge for four hours. "By activating the cells, he'll be simulating the activation that normally occurs in response to infection," Hughes-Fulford explains. "He'll be setting up the whole cascade that would normally turn on the T-cells. Except we know that some of the genes will not turn on because they're in a weightless environment."
At the end of the experiment, the T-cells will be safely packaged and then sent back to Earth aboard the returning Soyuz craft. In her VA lab in San Francisco, Hughes-Fulford will analyze the results.
"Our expectation is that the T-cells in the centrifuge – basically, under artificial gravity – will be activated normally, and the T-cells in microgravity will not be activated," she predicts. "We will compare them side by side and discover, for the first time, exactly which genes did not turn on in microgravity."
Hughes-Fulford placed an earlier version of the same experiment aboard the space shuttle Columbia on shuttle mission STS-107. At the end of that mission on February 1, 2003, the Columbia broke up upon reentry into Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven crew members and destroying all experiments aboard.
"We cannot go to Mars, or even to the Moon over the long term, without knowing more about why T-cells are not working," says Hughes-Fulford. "When we learn that, we can start looking for possible treatments."
From UC San Francisco


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One idea behind a "cyborg life" is that we look to machines to take on critical, physical roles. These 10 machines illustrate how we have already begun passing the torch on tasks we are getting to lazy to do ourselves.
Remember handwriting? We have all but abandoned it, but the torch is being taken up by robots like Kuka, who has been put to work writing out copies of the Martin Luther bible. [BotJunkie]
Developed by Aberystwyth University and the University of Cambridge, Adam the robot was the first machine to independently discover new knowledge.
Using artificial intelligence, Adam hypothesized that certain genes in baker's yeast code for specific enzymes which catalyse biochemical reactions in yeast. The robot then devised experiments to test these predictions, ran the experiments using laboratory robotics, interpreted the results and repeated the cycle.
The results of the experiment were later replicated and confirmed by a team of human scientists. So, it appears that computers are not only doing our calculations, but they have begun thinking for us as well. [Scientific Blogging and Link]
Are you lactose intolerant? Do you have frequent heartburn or constipation? Perhaps one day your defective digestion system could be replaced with a more advanced version of the Cloaca machine. This thing simulates actual human digestion and, in the end, produces a turd you would be proud of. [Cloaca via Link]
Dishwashers have been around for decades, but we still have to physically put the dishes into the machine. This is completely unacceptable. Panasonic's robot takes care of the entire cleaning process from start to finish. [Link]
Seriously, what don't smartphones do for us these days? At the most basic level, these phones are how we communicate, how we entertain ourselves and how we gather information. Thanks to apps, smartphones are taking on even greater roles—like helping us keep our girlfriends happy without actually having to do any work. Girlfriend Keeper sends automatic texts and emails to your significant other depending on the intensity of your relationship. [Girlfriend Keeper]
If you are tired of your co-workers being promoted over you, just wait until a robot becomes your new boss. JAST or the "Teamworkbot" has the ability to observe and mimic human behavior. As you will see in this video, JAST already knows how to complete the task, so it observes the human's actions, anticipates his next move and dresses him down when he gets it wrong. [Link]
I'm pretty sure that allowing robots to take a critical role in surgery qualifies as crossing a Rubicon with respect to our level of trust in machines. The Da VInci robot enables a surgeon sitting at a console to control movements and equiptment with greater precision—resulting in a procedure that is minimally invasive. [Wikipedia]
It's only a matter of time before technology becomes advanced enough to allow lazy parents to turn over the duties of child-rearing to robots. In fact, it's already happening in Japan where robots like Tmsuk babysit kids in shopping malls thanks to RFID badges. They even have robot teachers like Saya that terrify elementary schoolchildren into doing their work.
The Affective Intelligent Driving Agent (AIDA) was developed by MIT to help drivers navigate, bitch about their driving when necessary, and keep them company on long trips.
"When it merges knowledge about the city with an understanding of the driver's priorities and needs, AIDA can make important inferences," explains Assaf Biderman, associate director of the SENSEable City Lab. "Within a week AIDA will have figured out your home and work location. Soon afterwards the system will be able to direct you to your preferred grocery store, suggesting a route that avoids a street fair-induced traffic jam. On the way AIDA might recommend a stop to fill up your tank, upon noticing that you are getting low on gas," says Biderman. "AIDA can also give you feedback on your driving, helping you achieve more energy efficiency and safer behavior."
While the AIDA robot helps you navigate, there are plenty of engineers working on cars that do all of the driving for you. Chevy's "Boss" Tahoe is one of the higher profile projects that have come out in recent years, winning the DARPA Urban Challenge in 2007 after successfully navigating a 60-mile course littered with obstacles. [Link]

subset: commoncrawl


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Since jQuery Mobile uses an Ajax-powered navigation system, there are a few helpful things to know when writing scripts that manipulate your content. You can explore the mobile API in more detail by reading up on global configuration options, events, and methods or dig into the technical details of the Ajax navigation model.
When the user clicks a link in a jQuery Mobile-driven site, the default behavior of the navigation system is to use that link's
href to formulate an Ajax request (instead of allowing the browser's default link behavior of requesting that
href with full page load). When that Ajax request goes out, the framework will receive its entire text content, but it will only inject the contents of the response's
body element (or more specifically the
data-role="page" element, if it's provided), meaning nothing in the
head of the page will be used (with the exception of the page title, which is fetched specifically). Please note that script's loaded dynamically in this fashion do not guarantee a load order in the same way they would if the page was loaded via a normal http request.
This means that any scripts and styles referenced the
head of a page won't have any effect when a page is loaded via Ajax, but they will execute if the page is requested normally via HTTP. When scripting jQuery Mobile sites, both scenarios need to be considered. The reason that the
head of a page is ignored when requested via Ajax is that the potential of re-executing the same JavaScript is very high (it's common to reference the same scripts in every page of a site). Due to the complexity of attempting to work around that issue, we leave the task of executing page-specific scripts to the developer, and assume
head scripts are only expected to execute once per browsing session.
The simplest approach when building a jQuery Mobile site is to reference the same set of stylesheets and scripts in the head of every page. If you need to load in specific scripts or styles for a particular page, we recommend binding logic to the
pageInit event (details below) to run necessary code when a specific page is created (which can be determined by its
id attribute, or a number of other ways). Following this approach will ensure that the code executes if the page is loaded directly or is pulled in and shown via Ajax.
Another approach for page-specific scripting would be to include scripts at the end of the
body element when no
data-role=page element is defined, or inside the first
data-role=page element. If you include your custom scripting this way, be aware that these scripts will execute when that page is loaded via Ajax or regular HTTP, so if these scripts are the same on every page, you'll likely run into problems. If you're including scripts this way, we'd recommend enclosing your page content in a
data-role="page" element, and placing scripts that are referenced on every page outside of that element. Scripts that are unique to that page can be placed in that element, to ensure that they execute when the page is fetched via Ajax.
One of the first things people learn in jQuery is to use the
$(document).ready() function for executing DOM-specific code as soon as the DOM is ready (which often occurs long before the
onload event). However, in jQuery Mobile site and apps, pages are requested and injected into the same DOM as the user navigates, so the DOM ready event is not as useful, as it only executes for the first page. To execute code whenever a new page is loaded and created in jQuery Mobile, you can bind to the
pageinit event.
pageinit event is triggered on a page when it is initialized, right after initialization occurs. Most of jQuery Mobile's official widgets auto-initialize themselves based on this event, and you can set up your code to do the same.
$( document ).delegate("#aboutPage", "pageinit", function() {
alert('A page with an ID of "aboutPage" was just created by jQuery Mobile!');
If you'd like to manipulate a page's contents before the pageinit event fires and widgets are auto-initialized, you can instead bind to the
pagebeforecreate event:
$( document ).delegate("#aboutPage", "pagebeforecreate", function() {
alert('A page with an ID of "aboutPage" is about to be created by jQuery Mobile!');
pageCreate() vs
Prior to Beta 2 the recommendation to users wishing to manipulate jQuery Mobile enhanced page and child widget markup was to bind to the
pagecreate event. In Beta 2 an internal change was made to decouple each of the widgets by binding to the
pagecreate event in place of direct calls to the widget methods. As a result, users binding to the
pagecreate in
mobileinit would find their binding executing before the markup had been enhanced by each of the plugins. In keeping with the lifecycle of the jQuery UI Widget Factory, the initialization method is invoked after the create method, so the
pageinit event provides the correct timing for post enhancement manipulation of the DOM and/or Javascript objects. In short, if you were previously using
pagecreate to manipulate the enhanced markup before the page was shown, it's very likely you'll want to migrate to 'pageinit'.
If you want to change the current active page with JavaScript, you can use the
changePage method. There are a lot of methods and properties that you can set when changing pages, but here are two simple examples:
//transition to the "about us" page with a slideup transition
$.mobile.changePage( "about/us.html", { transition: "slideup"} );
//transition to the "search results" page, using data from a form with an ID of "search"
$.mobile.changePage( "searchresults.php", {
type: "post",
data: $("form#search").serialize()
To load an external page, enhance its content, and insert it into the DOM, use the
loadPage method. There are a lot of methods and properties that you can set when loading pages, but here is a simple example:
//load the "about us" page into the DOM
$.mobile.loadPage( "about/us.html" );
The page plugin dispatches a
pageInit event, which most widgets use to auto-initialize themselves. As long as a widget plugin script is referenced, it will automatically enhance any instances of the widgets it finds on the page.
However, if you generate new markup client-side or load in content via Ajax and inject it into a page, you can trigger the
create event to handle the auto-initialization for all the plugins contained within the new markup. This can be triggered on any element (even the page
div itself), saving you the task of manually initializing each plugin (listview button, select, etc.).
For example, if a block of HTML markup (say a login form) was loaded in through Ajax, trigger the
create event to automatically transform all the widgets it contains (inputs and buttons in this case) into the enhanced versions. The code for this scenario would be:
$( ...new markup that contains widgets... ).appendTo( ".ui-page" ).trigger( "create" );
Note that there is an important difference between the
create event and
refresh method that some widgets have. The
create event is suited for enhancing raw markup that contains one or more widgets. The
refresh method should be used on existing (already enhanced) widgets that have been manipulated programmatically and need the UI be updated to match.
For example, if you had a page where you dynamically appended a new unordered list with
data-role=listview attribute after page creation, triggering
create on a parent element of that list would transform it into a listview styled widget. If more list items were then programmatically added, calling the listview's
refresh method would update just those new list items to the enhanced state and leave the existing list items untouched.
As of jQuery Mobile 1.0, all the markup within a page is scanned for elements to be enhanced. This is problematic for 3rd party widgets/libraries that don't want anybody enhancing their markup or attaching behavior. We heard requests for a data-* attribute that can be placed on an element container to tell the framework not to enhance anything inside it for these situations. In 1.1, we've added a new
data-enhance="false" attribute that can be added to a container to prevent both auto-initialization and link/form hijacking.
This is also available via
$.fn.jqmEnhanceable. It's important to note that because of the performance impact incurred by finding a parent element with the
data-enhance="false" attribute this feature must be turned on explicitly with
On a related topic, we've always offered the ability to disable the AJAX navigation system from hijacking a link or form submit via the
data-ajax="false" attribute, but people have asked for a way to apply this exclusion more efficiently to a grouping of links. In 1.1, this is now possible by simply adding, and setting
$.mobile.ignoreContentEnabled=true, the
data-ajax attribute to a parent container and it will exclude all the child links or forms from the AJAX navigation system behavior.
Since we use the URL hash to preserve Back button behavior, using page anchors to jump down to a position on the page isn't supported by using the traditional anchor link (#foo). Use the
silentScroll method to scroll to a particular Y position without triggering scroll event listeners. You can pass in a
yPos argument to scroll to that Y location. For example:
//scroll to Y 300px
One important consideration in mobile is handling mouse and touch events. These events differ significantly across mobile platforms, but the common denominator is that click events will work everywhere, but usually after a significant delay of 500-700ms. This delay is necessary for the browser to wait for double tap, scroll and extended hold tap events to potentially occur. To avoid this delay, it's possible to bind to touch events (ex. touchstart) but the issue with this approach is that some mobile platforms (WP7, Blackberry) don't support touch. To compound this issue, some platforms will emit both touch and mouse events so if you bind to both types, duplicate events will be fired for a single interaction.
Our solution is to create a set of virtual events that normalize mouse and touch events. This allows the developer to register listeners for the basic mouse events, such as mousedown, mousemove, mouseup, and click, and the plugin will take care of registering the correct listeners behind the scenes to invoke the listener at the fastest possible time for that device. This still retains the order of event firing in the traditional mouse environment, should multiple handlers be registered on the same element for different events. The virtual mouse system exposes the following virtual events to jQuery bind methods:
vclick, and
jQuery Mobile does not support query parameter passing to internal/embedded pages. For example, if the framework sees a link to "#somePage?someId=1" it interpret that as "#somePage" and navigate to the internal page div with an ID of
somePage and apply a data-url of
#somePage?someId=1 to that page container. Subsequent calls to other params such as "#somePage?someId=2" will find the same div because jQuery Mobile refers to the data-url on the div which is only set once and will remain at
There are two plugins that you can add to your project if query parameters are needed between pages. There is a lightweight page params plugin and a more fully featured jQuery Mobile router plugin for use with backbone.js or spine.js.


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'Google Me' Google's next social experiment?
Social media relevance has eluded Google for years. If a pair of industry executives are to be believed, it's readying another attempt at cracking that market.
"Google me" sounds like a lame pickup line delivered near closing time, but it might also be Google's latest attempt at becoming relevant in social media.
Kevin Rose, of Digg fame, got the speculation rolling Sunday with a tweet that Google was working on a social service called Google Me that would compete with Facebook, perhaps Google's biggest rival for attention on the Internet. On Tuesday, former Facebook executive and Quora founder Adam D'Angelo took things a little further by declaring on Quora that "this is not a rumor. This is a real project. There are a large number of people working on it. I am completely confident about this."
So what might Google Me actually be? No one seems to really know. But it does appear to be somehow related to one's Google Profile, a service that got a shot in the arm with the debut of Google Buzz earlier this year. Google Buzz lets users share links, pictures, and thoughts with friends who find them through their Google Profile, but Buzz hasn't exactly put a dent in Facebook's growth.
That could mean something that mimicked Facebook's news feed within a Google Profile, with status updates, new pictures, and ultimately a fair amount of requests for pitchforks or other digital farming equipment could be in the works at Google. A company representative did not immediately return a call seeking further comment.
Social media has been one of Google's most elusive goals. The company just hasn't produced anything that has moved the needle on social media: Orkut is probably having a good month with the Brazilians in the World Cup quarterfinals, but it doesn't resonate anywhere else. Google Buzz caused a huge privacy flap upon its debut and does not appear to have caught on with the general public once Google fixed those issues. Google Latitude has a decent user base but has been eclipsed by a location start-up--Foursquare--that it actually had the blueprints for in-house after acquiring Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley's earlier start-up, Dodgeball.
But Google has attempted to hit reset on its social strategy in 2010, and Google Me could be the first project designed entirely by that new group. If Google Me does come to pass, expect Google to do its homework on the privacy front (finally) and pitch the service as the anti-Facebook, with clear privacy controls and easily exported data.


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Arab Spring and Fear of Migrant Surge Expose Rift in EU Immigration Policy Circles
The world watched the Arab Spring unfold with bated breath, hopeful at the possibility of a changing of the guard in North Africa and the Middle East, yet anxious about the possibility — and, indeed, inevitability in some places — of violence against civilians.
Europe, however, confronted an additional fear: That the violence and political unrest would spark a large-scale movement of migrants and asylum seekers towards the European Union's southern border.
Those fears proved overblown: Most European countries did not experience significant inflows of people fleeing the Arab Spring. The two EU countries that took the biggest shares — Italy and Malta — received little more than 50,000 of the nearly 800,000 migrants who fled Libya and Tunisia in 2011 (See Issue #8: The Arab Spring and Other Crises in Africa Displace More Than 1 Million People).
Issue No. 1 of Top Ten of 2011
Despite the small inflows, the immigration consequences of the Arab Spring revealed a significant chasm within European policy circles.
When Italy first began receiving migrants from Tunisia and Libya on the tiny island of Lampedusa, the Italian government appealed for broader financial and technical support from the European Union to manage the flow. Italy felt the burden ought to be shared by all and accordingly wanted asylum seekers relocated to other EU Member States. But other Member States objected for a number of reasons.
Some were unsympathetic because they felt that the relatively modest numbers did not warrant a collective response; others objected to the relocation of asylum seekers within the European Union on principle; and still others felt Italy was not justified in asking for support since the country had rather controversially collaborated with former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to prevent migrant inflows of Northern and sub-Saharan Africans in the first place.
Facing little support within the European Union, Italy summarily issued residence permits to approximately 22,000 Tunisian migrants — papers allowing them to move freely throughout much of Europe. In response, the French government moved to close its southern border with Italy and reinstated checks on trains.
This disagreement between neighbors and founding members of the European Union began a new debate on the parameters of Schengen cooperation, not least when Member States might reintroduce internal border controls. The European Commission has published its suggested new rules, though an agreement has yet to be reached.
Europe's reaction to the Arab Spring is perhaps best explained as a problem of mutual trust within the union, compounded by the perception that some (predominantly southern) Member States are shouldering disproportionate responsibility for border management. But the increasingly toxic climate toward immigrants — and to a lesser extent, the European Union — has increased national political sensitivity on the issue.
In this way, the Arab Spring exposed critical weaknesses and exacerbated long-held disagreements within the European Union related to asylum, immigration, and external border control policy matters that spilled over into the operation of the Schengen area, which allows for borderless travel within the 25 signatory countries for those holding a Schengen visa.
If they cannot come to a satisfactory, long-term solution, what will it mean for the future of Schengen — a system dependent on high levels of mutual trust? At the European Summit in June, ministers publicly and unanimously reaffirmed their support of the Schengen system, which is widely revered as one of the main achievements of a unified Europe. However, continued cooperation may prove more difficult to maintain in an environment of discordant national politics and immigration priorities, especially with respect to enforcement and humanitarian assistance.


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Previous Lesson
Complete and Continue
Newborn Sleep: Simplified & Demystified
Welcome & Intro
What to expect when you're (taking this course) 🤰 (4:20)
Will I Ever Sleep Again? 👼
Small Steps Giant Sleeps' Origin Story ⚡ (2:52)
Free Phone Consults!
Download the Newborn Sleep Field Guide and other key resources! 📝
It's 3am and Baby won't sleep! Help!
Need a jumpstart to baby sleep? Start here. (9:02)
FAQ: Ok, but WHEN will my baby sleep through the night? 😳 (2:44)
The Science of Baby Sleep
Why is baby sleep so hard? Human babies are "born too soon." (2:27)
Circadian Rhythm (3:19)
Newborn Sleep Cycles (4:29)
To swaddle or not to swaddle? (1:53)
Swaddle Demo (1:33)
Sleep Environement
The ABC's of Safe Sleep
A room conducive to great sleep: work smarter not harder!
Days with Baby 🌞
Intro to Eat, Play (Love)... for SLEEP (7:29)
A quick pause
Nights with Baby 🌙 ⭐
Overnight feedings (7:53)
Intro to "Pause, Pat, Pop-In(Pickup)"... or the "3 P's" (8:21)
Cry Babies 😭
But what does crying mean? The untold truths of newborn crying (6:12)
Street Cred? SLEEP cred! Track your baby's cues
Over-tiredness and the "witching hour"
Awake Windows: My not-so-secret secret to great naps
Breaking the cycle of overtiredness: FALLing asleep
Breaking the cycle of overtiredness: STAYing asleep
Feeding: Breast/Chest and Bottle
Eat: Feeding Complications
Eat: Why is breast/chest feeding so hard? (no, there's nothing wrong with you.) (6:59)
How to initiate Laid-Back Feeding (6:38)
Pain when breast/chest feeding?
Pumping to establish milk supply
Paced Bottle Feeding
Weeks 1-3
Coming home from the hospital
Goals for weeks 1-3
Eat: Frequent Feeding
Eat: get ahead of the gas!
Play (Love): Tummy time (1:40)
Play (Love): Babywearing (0:41)
Sleep (0:54)
Sleep: Awake Windows
Recap Weeks 1-3
Weeks 4-6
Goals for Weeks 4-6
Eat: Establish an eat-play-sleep routine
Play: Get outside, sunshine!
Sleep: Bedtime Routine, the simple but mighty tool in your sleep tool belt
Sleep: Calm (or drowsy) but awake
FAQ: "But baby will ONLY sleep in my arms! They HATE the crib. What do I do?" (9:02)
What to do when baby wakes in the night
Recap Weeks 4-6
Is it Colic? Is it Reflux? Help!
The Colic and Reflux Survival Guide
Weeks 6-9
Eat: Growth Spurts
Play: Smiling!
Play: Observe, Respond, Take Turns
Naps: Wind-down routine, please!
Sleep: Consistent awake time and bedtime
Sleep: Early Bedtimes; don't knock it till you tried it!
Dream Feed at 10-11pm
Sleep Cred: Start weaning the swaddle
Recap Weeks 6-9
Weeks 9-12
Play: Free movement, practice rolling
Sleep: How to extend short naps
Naps: Napping on the go and finding balance
Recap Weeks 9-12
Beyond Newborn
The 4-Month Sleep Regression: What is it and why is it ruining my life?
How to encourage "self-soothing"
Wrap-Up and Next Steps
We were never meant to do this alone
Teach online with
Small Steps Giant Sleeps' Origin Story ⚡
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Winners of the 3rd Annual First Amendment Cartoon Contest Announced Today
Contact: Daisy Yee, 415-865-8929
May 1, 2012
Six Winners of the 3rd Annual Nationwide Bill of Rights—First Amendment Cartoon Contest Recognized Today on Law Day
Honorable mentions presented to 30 students
SAN FRANCISCO—The Administrative Office of the Courts, in partnership with the Constitutional Rights Foundation and the California State PTA, is pleased to announce the winners of the third annual First Amendment Cartoon Contest today. The theme of this year's contest is "Free Expression through the 'rights of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.'"
The six first-prize recipients are from California, Illinois, and North Carolina. Thirty finalists from California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington, Utah, and the District of Columbia, receive honorable mention. Their artwork may be viewed here.
The First Amendment Cartoon Contest was announced on Bill of Rights Day on December 15, and was opened to elementary, middle, and high school students nationally. Criteria for judging are based on students' understanding of the First Amendment, creativity, and artistic merit. There were 1,010 submissions. See here for a complete list of recipients.
Organizers of the contest hope to increase student understanding of the Bill of Rights and the United States Constitution as well as to help educate youth about the role of the judicial branch and their role as future jurors.
Law Day is a national day to celebrate the rule of law and its contributions to the freedoms Americans enjoy as well as the essential role informed citizens play in a democracy. To see other law-related education programs, visit this page.


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The Scottsdale Public Library (SPL) recently went live with the Papago Salado Story Tour Collection, a digitized project that features historic photos of several of their city's most notable buildings, accompanied by audio files of locals telling stories about those buildings. The collection got its start last year, when Arizona's Papago Salado Association received a grant from the Arizona Humanities Council to record memories of historical buildings.
Groups Digitize Local History with Help of Scottsdale Public Library
By Matt Enis on November 9, 2012


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Washington University School of Law initiated the Mel Brown Family Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP I) in January 2002. The purpose of this program is to enable an increased number of our graduates to pursue government or public service careers during a time when rising student debt loads have made this increasingly difficult.
Beginning with the graduating Class of 2010, Washington University Law has adopted a new loan repayment assistance program (LRAP II) that dovetails with the federal government's Income-Based Repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness Programs under the College Cost Reduction Act of 2007. By integrating LRAP II with the Income-Based Repayment (IBR) option and Public Service Loan Forgiveness provided, Washington University Law will provide more substantial coverage for graduates who opt to utilize these repayment options.
LRAP I remains available for graduates of the Classes of 2002-2009 and for graduates of the Classes of 2010 who do not utilize IBR.


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Published at https://www.SarkariNaukriBlog.com
Recruitment of Temporary Constable (Driver) in Delhi Police - 2012
Applications from Indian nationals are invited to fill up following vacancies in the following category. Recruitment will be held at Delhi for which candidates fulfilling conditions will be considered :
- Constable (Driver) : 751 posts (UR-299, SC-192, ST-80, OBC-181, UR), Pay Scale : PB-1 Rs. 5200-20200 Grade Pay Rs.2000/- , Age : 21 to 30 years as on 01/01/2012, relaxation in age for reserved categories as per rules., Qualification : 10th pass (ii) Should be able to drive heavy vehicle (iii) Valid HTV driving licence for driving heavy motor vehicle (iv) knowledge of maintenance of vehicles., Physical : Height : 170 cm., relaxable by 5 cm fo hill people and ST candidates, Chest : 81-85 cm, relaxable by 5 cm for resident of hill and ST candidates.
Application Fee : Rs.100/- in the form of Bank DD/ Banker's Cheque drawn in favour of DCP/ Recruitment Cell, New Police Lines, Delhi. No fee from SC/ST/Ex-SM candidates.
How to Apply : Application in the prescribed format alongwith the requisite fee should be send the Post Box No. 8020, Delhi - 110033on or before 29/06/2012.
Detailed information along with application format will be published in the Employment News dated 02/06/2012 AND/ OR is available at http://delhipolice.nic.in or at http://delhipolicerecruitment.nic.in


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The brand new series of Doctor Who is almost here!
The first episode will be on BBC 1 on 30th March and it'll be called 'The Bells of St John'.
This will be the first episode after the Christmas special with the Doctor's new assistant Clara and we can't wait!
Check out the pictures of the upcoming series below…
Also, if you're a huge Doctor Who fan then you should check out our fan page. It's got the latest news, videos, pictures and more. Click here to explore!
Remember, you can listen to Fun Kids on DAB Digital Radio in London and online across the UK! Click here to listen!Add a comment


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Chechen leader denies sending troops to Ukraine
By AP - May 28,2014 - Last updated at May 28,2014
DONETSK, Ukraine — As the fighting becomes more ferocious in eastern Ukraine, Chechnya's Moscow-backed leader is denying that he has sent in some of his famously ruthless troops to help the pro-Russia insurgents battling government forces.
Scores of rebel fighters have been killed this week around the major eastern city of Donetsk, and Ukrainian border guards have reported at least one gunbattle as they blocked groups of armed men trying to cross into Ukraine from Russia. Ukraine and the West have accused Moscow of fomenting the unrest, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied sending any troops or intelligence agents to help the insurgents.
Still, fighters who looked like Caucasus natives have been seen among the pro-Russia rebels who have seized government buildings, declared independence from Ukraine and are fighting government forces.
In a statement posted Wednesday on his Instagram, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said two-thirds of the 3 million Chechens live outside his province in Russia's North Caucasus mountains, so he can't "know where each of them goes".
But he said it was possible that some pro-Russia Chechen fighters went to Ukraine on their own.
"If someone saw a Chechen in the zone of conflict, he's there on his own," he said.
Kadyrov's forces, known for their warrior spirit and deadly efficiency, helped Russia win a quick victory in a 2008 war with neighbouring Georgia. The 37-year-old leader has vowed unswerving fealty to Putin and has hailed his policy in Ukraine.
In the most furious battle yet, rebels in Donetsk tried to take control of the city airport Monday, but were repelled by Ukrainian forces using combat jets and helicopter gunships. Dozens of men were killed and some morgues were overflowing Tuesday. Some insurgent leaders said up to 100 fighters may have been killed.
The city remained tense Wednesday, with Ukrainian fighter jets flying overhead. Some gunshots were heard.
In Slovyansk, a city 90 kilometres north of Donetsk that has seen constant clashes over the past few weeks, residential areas came under mortar shelling Wednesday from government forces. A school was badly damaged and other buildings were hit. Residents told The Associated Press that several people were wounded.
Kadyrov, a former rebel who fought Russian forces in the first of two devastating separatist wars, switched sides during the second campaign when his father became Chechnya's pro-Moscow leader. Following his father's death in a rebel bombing, Kadyrov rebuilt the region with generous Kremlin funding and squelched the rebel resistance with his ruthless paramilitary forces, which have been blamed for extrajudicial killings, torture and other abuses.
Putin praised Kadyrov last week after he negotiated the release of two Russian journalists arrested by Ukrainian forces and accused of assisting the rebels. The Chechen leader has not said how he got the journalists freed, but has directed threats at Ukrainian authorities.
"If the Ukrainian authorities want so much to see 'Chechen units' in Donetsk, why go to Donetsk if there is a good highway to Kiev?" he said in Wednesday's statement.
However, he added that he fully supports Putin's policy to help restore peace in Ukraine.
Putin has denied Ukraine's allegations that Russia has sent its special forces to foment the mutiny. On Tuesday, Russia's Federal Security Service rejected the Ukrainian claim that a convoy of vehicles loaded with weapons attempted to break through the border and engaged in a gunbattle with Ukrainian border guards.
Russia, which annexed Crimea in March, has ignored the requests of eastern insurgents to join Russia following controversial independence referendums. The Kremlin also welcomed Ukraine's presidential election and said it was ready to work with the winner, billionaire candy magnate Petro Poroshenko, trying to deescalate the worst crisis in relations with the West since the cold war and avoid a new round of Western sanctions.
"It's necessary to use the situation after the election to immediately end using the military and launch a broad all-Ukraine dialogue involving all regions and political forces," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday.
Russia has supported a plan by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe that calls for ending hostilities and opening a political dialogue. It has sought to cast the rebels' actions as a response to the heavy-handed use of force by the central government.
Putin's foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said Ukrainian military action in the east was "pushing the situation into a deadlock, making it increasingly difficult to organise a dialogue".
He said the Kremlin hadn't received a letter from the insurgents asking Russia for assistance.
Ushakov said Putin will visit Paris on June 5, where he would meet with French President Francois Hollande and then travel to Normandy the next day for the 70th anniversary of the allied landing in Normandy. It will be Putin's first meeting with President Barack Obama and other Western leaders since the start of Ukraine's crisis.
Ushakov said there are no plans for any formal meetings but Putin would likely have informal contacts with the other leaders.
Related Articles
Ukraine accused Russia on Saturday of unleashing a mass propaganda campaign to persuade global powers not to recognise an election that gave the presidency to a pro-Western tycoon.
Ukraine's government launched talks Wednesday on decentralising power as part of a European-backed peace plan but didn't invite its main foes, the pro-Russia insurgents who have declared independence in the east.
After days of street battles and weeks of shelling, Ukrainian troops made significant gains Wednesday into rebel-held territory, capturing a large part of the city of Luhansk and nearly encircling Donetsk, the largest rebel-held city, in fighting that left at least 52 dead.
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Indiana is a great state to live in, but it can also be expensive when it comes to car insurance. Fortunately, Versailles residents can find ways to get cheap auto insurance rates if they are savvy about shopping for coverage. Here are five tips that can help Versailles drivers save money on auto insurance:
These tips can help Versailles residents save money on auto insurance rates without sacrificing coverage or quality. By following these five steps, Versailles IN drivers can get the best deal on their auto insurance policy.
Indiana has its own set of unique auto insurance laws, which Versailles drivers should know and abide by. Here are five that are particularly important to understand:
If you're looking for affordable car insurance rates in Versailles, then it pays to shop around. Fortunately, Indiana is home to several companies that offer some of the cheapest car insurance rates in the state. Here are seven top-rated Indiana companies to consider when shopping for better coverage and lower premiums:
When shopping for Versailles car insurance, be sure to compare rates and coverage options from a variety of providers in order to find the best deal. No matter which company you choose, make sure that you are getting adequate protection at an affordable rate. With these seven Indiana companies offering some of the cheapest car insurance rates around, it's easy to find a policy that fits your needs and budget.
It may help your shopping experience to compare the rates of other cities by zip code such as 61063, 47042, 99705, 15027, 75956, 14975, 79041, 17527, 61238, and 30108.
Temporary car insurance can be an attractive option for Versailles drivers looking to save money and only pay for the coverage they need. Whether you're renting a car, borrowing one, or just need some extra protection on the road, Indiana temporary car insurance is a smart choice. Here are four reasons why Indiana residents should consider getting temporary car insurance:
Versailles residents who are in need of rental car insurance or rental car reimbursement coverage should consider the differences between the two before making a decision. Rental car insurance covers the costs of damage and liability associated with renting a car, while rental car reimbursement provides financial assistance to pay for alternate transportation while your vehicle is being repaired.
Rental car insurance typically covers any damage done to a rented vehicle, as well as any liability that may arise from an accident involving it. It is important to note that Indiana law requires all drivers to carry sufficient insurance when operating their own vehicles; if you do not have enough coverage on your existing policy, rental car insurance can fill in the gaps. Additionally, this type of coverage often includes certain benefits such as primary liability and additional coverage for loss of use, collision damage waiver, and supplemental liability.
Rental car reimbursement provides Versailles residents with financial assistance to cover the costs of alternative transportation while their vehicle is being repaired or replaced due to an accident. This type of coverage will typically pay a set amount per day up to a certain number of days. The amount and duration of rental reimbursements vary greatly by policy, so it is important to shop around to find the plan that best suits your needs.
When buying a used car, it's important to do your research beforehand. Versailles residents should take special caution when choosing the ideal vehicle for their budget and lifestyle needs. Here is a list of 10 of the worst used cars to buy in Indiana:
By doing your research beforehand and avoiding these worst cars to buy in Indiana, you can save yourself money, time, and hassle in the long run when searching for the perfect used vehicle.
Are you looking for a new car to lease in Versailles? Look no further - we've got the top 10 best cars available! From luxury vehicles to economy models, there is something here to fit everyone's needs. Whether you're an Indiana resident or just visiting the state, this list will help you find the perfect car for your needs and budget.
Electric vehicles (EVs) have become an increasingly popular form of transportation in Versailles. With their environmentally friendly emissions and great fuel efficiency, EVs are a great way to get around Indiana's scenic highways and country roads. Here is a list of the top 10 most popular EV cars currently available in Indiana:
By including these electric cars Versailles drivers have plenty of options to choose from when it comes to finding an efficient and eco-friendly vehicle. No matter what your needs are, there's something on this list that will help you get around Indiana with ease. With all these great choices available, Indiana drivers can take advantage of the state's abundant natural resources while still being environmentally friendly.
If you're looking for a convenient and affordable way to get around Versailles, a car rental app could be just what you need. Indiana has plenty of great options when it comes to finding the right car rental app for your needs. From budget-friendly options to luxury car rentals, there's something for everyone. Here are our top 5 picks of the best car rental apps in Indiana:
As ride sharing services such as Uber and Lyft become increasingly popular, it's important for Versailles drivers to look into adequate insurance coverage. Luckily, there are a variety of companies that offer Indiana-specific policies tailored to the needs of rideshare drivers. Here are six reliable companies that provide Indiana insurance for Uber and Lyft drivers:
Versailles drivers must stay current on the state's driving laws and regulations in order to avoid costly insurance increases. Here is a list of the top 10 Indiana driving infractions and their associated insurance increases:
If you are a driver in Indiana and have had your license suspended or revoked, you may be required to obtain SR22 insurance. SR22 is a special type of insurance that provides proof to the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles that you are carrying the minimum liability coverage as required by Indiana law. Here's why it might be necessary for you:
Although filing an SR22 form is not necessarily difficult or expensive, it does signal that you pose a higher risk than other drivers; as such, you may face higher premiums or be turned down by some insurance providers. Indiana BMV requires drivers to carry SR22 insurance for a minimum of three years, so it's important to shop around and find the best coverage that meets your budget.
If you have had your Indiana license suspended or revoked and need SR22 insurance, understanding why it is required can help you get back on the road safely and legally. By following Indiana's laws for carrying proper liability coverage, you can avoid future penalties and maintain your driving privileges in Indiana.
Choosing between a national insurance company and a local Versailles agent or broker for the best deal can be a nuanced decision, largely dependent on your individual needs and circumstances. National insurance companies have their advantages. They typically offer a wider variety of products and services, and may provide discounts for bundling different types of insurance such as auto, dwelling, and life. These companies usually have extensive customer service departments, often available 24/7, and their digital platforms for quotes, policy management, claims, and payments are usually quite comprehensive. However, the trade-off might be less personalized service. Since you're more likely to deal with different customer service representatives each time, building a relationship with your insurer could be more challenging. Additionally, national insurers may not fully comprehend the specific insurance needs and risks of your local area in Versailles.
On the other hand, local Versailles agents and brokers can offer more personalized service and the opportunity to build a longstanding relationship. They can guide you through the intricacies of insurance policies, assist with claims, and are generally more attuned to the particular risks and insurance needs of your locality. Brokers, representing multiple insurance companies, are in a position to shop around for the best deal for you. To get an idea of how much rates can vary by zip code you could compare ones such as 73734, 48117, 66956, 45101, 75501, 74460, 47042, 68333, 99004, and 56723. However, their range of products may not be as wide as national insurers, and their operating hours might not be as flexible. Also, customer service may not be available round the clock. In terms of digital accessibility, their platforms may not be as user-friendly or feature-rich as those of larger, national companies.
In conclusion, the better option is largely dependent on your preferences. If a personal relationship and local Versailles expertise is valued, a local agent or broker could be your best bet. Conversely, if you prefer the convenience of digital tools, round-the-clock customer service, and a broader range of products, then a national insurance company might be the right choice. It's always prudent to compare quotes from different sources before making a decision.
Disclaimer: Please note that the content provided above is for informational purposes only and it does not constitute legal advice. You should always consult with an insurance professional or legal counsel for any questions related to insurance laws.
David Miller is a trusted authority in the world of car insurance and road trips. With over a decade of experience in the insurance industry, David has helped countless individuals and families find the right coverage for their vehicles. His passion for travel and exploration has also led him on numerous road trips across the country. David enjoys sharing his knowledge and expertise through his writing, and is dedicated to providing credible and reliable information to his readers. Whether you're planning a road trip or looking for the best car insurance policy, David's articles will guide you towards making informed decisions that protect you and your loved ones.


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h-SUN+ Clean & Care:
A properly functioning intestine
The intestine is currently gaining unprecedented prominence in literature, research and the media, as researchers believe it plays a central role in restoring and maintaining good health. Our hormones are controlled here, and our immune system also relies on the intestines. The large and small intestines are as important for our overall health as almost no other organ, yet many people are unaware of them. Only a healthy intestine with the appropriate bacterial strains can fulfil its three main tasks:
- The optimal utilisation of our food intake
- The absorption of important nutrients and vital substances
- The maintenance of our immune system


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Welcome to Better Know An Umpire, an effort to educate ourselves on the human elements who have ultimate decision-making power over some 2,500 Major League Baseball games a year.
Name: Dale Scott
Uniform number: 5 (crew chief)
Age: 52
Height/weight: 6 feet, 190 pounds
First year as MLB umpire: 1985
Total MLB games worked through 2011: 3,311 (home plate: 832)
Previous experience: Northwest League, California League, Arizona Instructional League, Texas League, American Association, Dominican Winter League
Career ejections: 78 (two in 2011)
No-hitters called: One official, one unofficial
Over/under record (1999-2011): 169-188
Hated in: Boston, Anaheim
Notable alleged blown calls: Yankees-Angels, Oct. 20, 2009 (Game 4, ALCS); Twins-Mariners, June 2, 2010
Claim to fame: Worked home plate for Andy Hawkins' 4-0, no-hit loss on July 1, 1990, producing one of the weirdest scorecards in history. (MLB later ruled that because Hawkins did not pitch nine innings, it would not be recognized as a no-hitter.)
Scouting report from Major League Umpires' Performance, 2007-2010, by Andy Goldblatt:
Scott's strike zone changes from year to year. ... [In 2009], Scott turned into a pitchers' umpire, calling ten percent fewer walks than average. ... In 2010, he bucked the trend and called more walks. ... Scott's temper can be short. He has a 2.4-percent career ejection rate.
Scouting report from a random Internet commenter:
We hear how players have comprimised the integrity of the game, with peds, but this looks like a case where an umpire has done the same. The fans at the game, those watching and listening on the radio, were all shortchanged. Also, as WEEI sagely pointed out, professional hitters take every at bat seriously. Its their craft, their job, how they make their living. Ortiz is fighting for his career. In short, you rarely hear about umpires called intop question, except for a mistake on a call. But then, we all make mistakes. Im as outraged as I can be on a Mid May day game with Toronto.
Average K/9 (2010): 14.97
Average BB/9 (2010): 6.4
Sample PITCHf/x strike zone: May 12, 2010. Red Sox manager Terry Francona was ejected by Scott for arguing the ginormous strike zone. (Called strikes to Boston hitters are shown as red triangles.)
True fact: On May 30, 1988, became the last umpire to eject Billy Martin, who was fired as Oakland's manager three weeks later.
On umpiring: "There's an old saying about an umpire that you have to start up perfect and then improve. That's a high standard, but it's not more pressure with technology. There's always been pressure and our goal is try to get every pitch and every play right. That doesn't always happen, so we try making a negative into a positive and figure out why we didn't get the call right."
Strike 3 call:
To check out other installments of Better Know An Umpire, click here.


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Friday, September 5, 2014
Venture Contest Winners Announced
It's been a heck of a month for Venture pilots. At long last, the results of the Venture-killing contest are revealed! See the official EVE-O thread for a full list of the prizes, rules, etc.
Without further ado!
The winner of the special prize for youngest Venture ganker went to Agent Wind of Justice, who scored his Venture kill after playing EVE for only about 6 hours. Who says EVE has a learning cliff? The important things can be picked up so quickly.
As a bonus, Wind of Justice created a YouTube video of the gank, along with some inspirational words. This truly goes to show that you don't need a bunch of money and skillpoints to make a difference in EVE.
The remaining prizes went to those gankers who killed the largest number of individual, unique Venture pilots. In other words, you couldn't win the contest by ganking the same Venture over and over. Each contest participant had to go the extra mile to hunt as many different characters as possible. They spread the love. Participants had to submit their results to the contest coordinators to be considered.
The third runner-up is Agent Super Perforator, with a respectable 21 Venture kills.
The second runner-up is Agent Gavin9012, with 100 Venture kills! That's a lot.
The first runner-up is Lucrezzia, who really knocked it out of the park with 176 Venture kills.
And the winner...
Agent Just Got OutOfJail, who managed to score--gasp! is this number correct?--a total of 365 Venture kills.
A well-earned first prize of 5 PLEX and 3.5 billion isk was awarded to Just Got OutOfJail for this uncommonly elite PvP achievement.
Three hundred and sixty-five Ventures! That's so many different people touched in a positive way, all by one Agent in one month. We can only hope that all these Venture pilots learned something about the way EVE is meant to be played.
Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks to all the participants and contest organizers. I think I speak for everyone when I say you made highsec very, very, very, very proud.
19 comments:
- AnonymousSeptember 5, 2014 at 7:58 PM
Inb4 Ripard.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousSeptember 5, 2014 at 8:44 PM
So many unsubs closer to CCP's bankruptcy! Go CODE go!ReplyDelete
Even that very first guy mentioned unsubbed:
- Veers BelvarSeptember 5, 2014 at 9:03 PM
365 Ventures but not one incursion runner.ReplyDelete
How much lower can CODE go?Replies
Awww, Veers - I keep looking for any content you have ever created or large alliances you have ever lead to victory - and I just see nothing.Delete
Please link us all to your personal contest where you have offered a bunch of awesome prizes to anyone who takes place.
It's okay, take your time.
But you know what you will do - you will reply with a epic veers tears about emotional abuse, cyber torture, how unfair this game is, and how your random sperg counts as content :P Got anything else? No. Great :)
Keep it civil, DJ.Delete
You're starting to sound like a angry miner.
Mr X:Delete
Lack of coherent response = just fire off a "U MAD BRO" and call it content :P A bold strategy, sir.
If you cannot see the delicious irony of listening to Veers whine and complain about contests that he has never run while smack talking others who donate their own cash and personal time to try to bring to life what CCP likes to call "Emergent Gameplay" - while never once creating any content of his own or giving up a second of his time or money to bring more fun to other players - I really can't help you.
Frankly, I don't care if we are talking about members of the New Order or random AFK miners when it comes to this topic - his strategy of shit talking those that actually embrace the very core spirit of Eve Online in order to make himself feel relevant is transparent and yet another all time low for him.
Just keep it simple and stick with replies that have nothing to do with the original content. When called out, just ignore people and repeat the same three or four tired catch phrases over and over. Trust me, we are used to this - and it's exactly what we expect from you.
I have spoke to him. He's pretty civil. You however seem to start most of these arguements (his 355 ventures' comment not withstanding...I haven't looked at his earlier posts so I may be mistaken) by smack talking him, resulting in a 'back and forth' of insults.Delete
Act like the diplomat you claim to be and keep it civil. A diplomat usually doesn't respond to insults.
Do the same. That way any insults he sends you ARE unprovoked and you have the high ground with everyone. At the moment you are just provoking him and sinking to his level.
As for his 'contests', I've never seen him claim to have one and as for the taunts over the incursion competition...while they are unprovoked, there is a simple way to shut him up. Go out and kill some incursion runners. and post the kill here. Its that simple.
Oh, and in relation to my 'veers contest' comment...choose a better insult. Its not even a good one. Or better, wait till he actually starts up a contest THEN insult him over it.
They can unsub if they want to. It just means more bandwidth for those that want to participate in the game as designed.ReplyDeleteReplies
So well said. +1 to that.Delete
If you can't deal with the loss of a spaceship in a video game who's tutorial reminds you no less then 9 times about how unsafe things are, and how you will lose spaceships, and how to learn to minimize your losses - good riddance to you.
<--------- Hello Kitty Island Adventure is that way. The rest of us will continue to embrace the sandbox, and keep the spirit of HTFU alive.
- AnonymousSeptember 5, 2014 at 9:26 PM
Praise to the Code! Ero just announced she's coming back. No word on bonus rounds, just that she will be hunting those without permits. I foresee rebel corporations crumbling.ReplyDeleteReplies
Truly, 2014 has been amazing. It's only going to get more awesome with the return of Erotica 1 - one of the original top content creators.Delete
Inb4 Veers cries about it and claims psychological and emotional torture due to a video game :)
- AnonymousSeptember 6, 2014 at 5:59 PM
woohoo as soon as find out name and so forth ill make sure to put in a ticket for the ban Happy days indeedDelete
- AnonymousSeptember 6, 2014 at 6:05 PM
Veers BelvarDelete
- Tisiphone DiraSeptember 6, 2014 at 3:34 PM
A venture for every day of the year, done in just a month?ReplyDelete
That's how good our code agents are. Well done Just got outofjail, you deserve it.
I am very proud.ReplyDelete
Beyond the enjoyment of exploding spaceships, I ve learned a lot of things about the game mechanics :)
- AnonymousSeptember 7, 2014 at 4:21 AM
Wow that's a lot of ventures, did you just hang out in the starter systems and wait for new players to head out on career missions to get resources. This contest is ridiculous, why not pick something more challenging, like battleships or cruisersReplyDeleteReplies
They even included me in the tutorial.
- Veers BelvarSeptember 26, 2014 at 10:00 PM
My name is Veers Belvar, and I approve of ganking new players in starter systems.Delete
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NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell still is talking about shortening the preseason.
The public push for an 18-game regular season has died down, but that doesn't mean the current four-game preseason necessarily is safe. Goodell mentioned during his Thursday talk at Harvard University that he might cut down the number of preseason games.
"It just does not meet the standard of quality that the NFL is all about," Goodell said, via The Associated Press.
This is the second time Goodell has publicly talked about cutting the preseason in the last month. (He also mentioned it during an appearance on SiriusXM NFL Radio.) The most recent collective bargaining agreement gave the NFL the ability to reduce preseason games from four to two.
The NFL Players Association might not love that idea, but it sure sounds like Goodell is setting the groundwork to make it a real issue sooner than later.


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Do you intend having a peaceful marriage? If yes, the top ten things you need to discuss with your partner are discussed in this article before you get married to him/her.
10 Things You Need to Talk About Before You Get Married
1. Past: When it comes to planning for a marriage it's crucial to talk about your past, because the past has a role in shaping the present. Whether your past is tainted with pain, or filled with hope- you need to get real with where you come from. Past relationships, family history, and significant experiences (both positive and negative) that have shaped you are just some of the things that need to be discussed as you look back- so that you can join together in moving forward. IT MAY BE TOO SENSITIVE BUT IT IS BETTER THEY HEAR IT FROM YOU THAN DISCOVERING IT THEMSELVES. IF THEY ARE THE ONE, THEY WILL STICK WITH YOU.
2. Family: What role will your family play in your life once you are married? How will visits, holidays, and special occasions impact your relationship with one another? Will you start your own traditions, or continue those of your family of origin? What role will our family have when it comes to our life and decision making? Combining two people from two separate families into one is something that many people take lightly. But it's a topic that can cause much strain and stress if not tackled in part before you say I do.
3. Sex: Our views of sex and sexuality are shaped long before we commit to marriage. It's crucial to get comfortable with this topic of conversation, because it's one that you'll carry on for the rest of your married life. What are your views of sex, and how have they been shaped? What is your past sexual history and how might that impact your relationship? What expectations do you have and are you on the same page? Understanding your sexual views and knowing your partner's is a valuable part of preparing for intimacy.
4. Secrets: I get a lot of questions from people wondering when is the right time to share "secrets"- the parts of your life that you rarely share with others. There is no better time to share these intimate things than now, as you look ahead at marriage. From family secrets, to personal choices, from health problems to mental health concerns, this is the time to share things big and small, paving the way for honesty and openness as the foundation of your relationship.
5. Expectations: Because expectations are such a deep-seated part of who we are, we don't often think about them. But talking about these things gives us a chance to bring them to the surface in a constructive way. What are your views on work, family, and marriage roles? How will you accomplish the cooking, the cleaning and the chores? This is just skimming the surface of the things we may expect going into marriage, and it's an important conversation to have.
6. Money: It's amazing how such a seemingly benign topic before marriage, can become such a trigger after. Too many couples get caught in the trap of financial stress and struggles because they didn't take the time to discuss the finances. How do you feel about combining money? What are your spending habits? Do you have any debt and how are you going to pay it off? What are your views on saving, tithing, and giving? Getting on the same page when it comes to money will save you so much strain as you soon become one.
7. Faith: When it comes to genuine faith, it's a part of you that should be oozing out of your life long before marriage. But just as important as it is to retain our individual relationship with God, it's important to connect in our faith experiences as we look toward marriage. Discussions about prayer life, reading God's word, spiritual roles, theological beliefs, and denominational preferences are all things that need to be considered and discussed as you move forward.
8. Children: Above and beyond dreaming about baby names, there is so much more to the topic of family planning before marriage. How many children do you hope to have? What happens if you aren't able to get pregnant? How were you parented, and what are your personal views on parenting? Who will take care of the children, and what are your views on day-care, schooling, and the like. There are many important aspects to this topic that would be beneficial to take the time to discuss and work through.
9. Boundaries: Essentially, boundaries are your views on what is okay and what is not okay when it comes to your relationship and marriage. What do boundaries look like with friends of the opposite sex, past boyfriends/girlfriends, and even family members. How will we protect our time, guard our emotions, and prevent our bodies from negative interactions with others?
10. Struggles: One thing I know about marriage, is that it magnifies everything. Your strengths and your weaknesses. Before you enter the pressure-cooker of marriage, you need to get real with your bad-habits and hang-ups here and now. Do you have a tendency to express anger through rage? Do you struggle with any addictive behaviors? Are there any areas in your life that you need to expose and address before you move forward toward marriage? Take the time to talk frankly and honestly about your struggles, and make the time to work toward hope and healing.
The season before marriage is a rich and joyous time in a couple's life. Don't allow the pressure of creating the "perfect wedding" to keep you from focusing on what really matters. Plan your wedding, but most importantly, plan your marriage- because a healthy marriage is something worth truly celebrating.


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Legendairy Mug
Legendairy Mug
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Regular price $14.99 USD
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Who doesn't love a funny mug? The perfect gift for someone else...or yourself.
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LG had initially said their tablet would be available as a Christmas stocking stuffing, but it appears it's been delayed until January's CES show now. It's no big deal really, but according to Bloomberg it's due to software issues.
We know it'll be running on Android, but Reuters heard from a source that seems to think it won't be running Android 2.2 (Froyo), with the unnamed LG rep spilling the beans that it will instead run "on the most reliable Android version." They're currently 'in talks with Google to decide on the most suitable version" for the tablet, which is said to be larger than Samsung's 7-inch Galaxy Tab. Which runs Froyo just fine, judging by our hands-on preview at IFA last month.
Still, we appreciate the extra time spent getting the software right—Toshiba's Folio tablet is a prime example of how buggy software can make top-notch hardware seem like an expensive drinks coaster. [Bloomberg and Reuters]


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State Rep. Derrick Smith (D-10th) was arrested Tuesday on bribery charges for allegedly taking $7,000 in cash in exchange for writing an official letter of support for a local business seeking a state grant, according to a criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney's office.
Smith, 48, was charged with one count of accepting a bribe. He was arrested by federal agents and was released on $4,500 bond after appearing in federal court Tuesday. Smith was not required to enter a plea. His next court date has not been set. The bribery charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Smith's arrest came after an undercover operation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that began in December with the help of an undercover informant who was working on Smith's election campaign.
According to the criminal complaint, Smith allegedly sought $7,000 from a fictional owner of daycare business in exchange for an official letter of support to help the owner get a $50,000 construction grant from the state. The campaign worker, unbeknownst to Smith, was working with the FBI since December 2011. The informant recorded a meeting where Smith was given $7,000 cash from the fictional daycare owner, the complaint alleges.
According to the complaint, Smith discussed the need to raise campaign funds. Smith allegedly told the informant that he needed donations ranging between $5,000 and $7,000. The informant said Smith was willing to accommodate "reasonable" requests from donors. The informant then told Smith he allegedly knew a woman who owned a daycare center and would be willing to donate to Smith's campaign. The informant told Smith that the owner was looking for a grant to make repair to her center.
Smith allegedly told the informant that he would help the daycare owner with obtaining a state grant in return for a $7,000 political contribution. On March 2, Smith provided a letter of support on his official letterhead. According to the complaint, the daycare owner was, in fact, fictional, and the daycare center, while a real business, was not applying for a state grant, nor was it seeking to bribe Smith.
According to the complaint, Smith rejected payment by cashier's check because he didn't "want any trace of the money." Smith told the informant he wanted the $7,000 in cash, and agreed to give the informant a $2,000 finder's fee for arranging the deal. On March 10 Smith met with the informant in an alley to receive the money, the complaint states.
Smith could not be reached for comment.
The arrest comes a week before the March 20 primary election where Smith faces challenger Tom Swiss. Swiss, the former head of the Cook County Republican Party, is running as a Democrat. Swiss is now calling for Smith to drop out of the race.
A protégé of Secretary of State Jesse White, Smith served four years as deputy director of accounting revenue with the Secretary of State's Office. In a press statement, White expressed his disappointment in Smith, saying: "I am very disappointed with the conduct alleged in the charges. I am confident this case will be handled fairly and justly by the judicial system."
Smith was appointed 10th District state rep with the backing of White in March 2011. Smith replaced Annazette Collins, who was elevated to state senator of the 5th District after Rickey Hendon abruptly quit his job that same year.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Smith was fired in 2005 from his job as 27th Ward Superintendent for allegedly using streets and sanitation workers and city equipment to do private landscaping work.
Smith, the Sun-Times reported, got the ward superintendent job with the help of a childhood friend, 27th Ward Alderman Walter Burnett. Both Smith and Burnett grew up Cabrini Green. Smith also served as precinct captain for 27th Ward Democratic Organization where White is the committeeman.


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Sea turtles nest at record pace along Georgia coast
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) - The number of sea turtle nests along the Georgia coast is on pace to set a record this year.
Kris Williams is director of Caretta Research Project, a sea turtle conservation organization. She told the Savannah Morning News that beach patrols along the Georgia coast between Tybee and Cumberland islands had recorded 1,726 nests by Tuesday. Last year's season total was 1,742.
Georgia Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Biologist Mark Dodd said if nesting continues increasing, he expects up to 4,500 nests by the end of the season. The previous record, set in 2016, is 3,289 loggerhead nests. Loggerhead sea turtles are the species seen most often in Georgia.
Nesting season usually reaches its peak in June and continues into early July. Less intense nesting usually lasts through August.


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Ways to Improve Informed Consent are Testable, Study Says - 01/11/2008
Ways to Improve Informed Consent are Testable, Study Says
Findings could prevent costly but worthless attempts to improve mainstay of clinical trials
Release Date: January 11, 2008
New ways to make sure people are adequately informed about the risks and benefits of taking part in a clinical trial can be field-tested for effectiveness as rigorously as new medical treatments themselves, a study led by a Johns Hopkins bioethicist suggests.
Informed consent, a mainstay of ethical clinical trials, is the process by which potential research subjects are asked to decide whether to participate in research. The bedrock components of the process include gaining an understanding of the study's goals and benefits, as well as the risks and roles of the subjects themselves.
"Many clinical researchers believe that the informed consent process and documents need to be better and that people often consent without understanding that the research is not intended to benefit them personally," says Jeremy Sugarman, professor of bioethics and medicine at the Berman Institute of Bioethics at The Johns Hopkins University.
"Although numerous improvements have been suggested, no sound objective method existed to test them, leaving the process open to costly or time-consuming interventions that could ultimately have no effect," he adds.
Writing in the December 2007 Clinical Trials, Sugarman and his colleagues, Philip W. Lavori of Stanford University School of Medicine and Timothy J. Wilt of the Minneapolis VA Center for Chronic Disease Outcomes Research, describe a questionnaire tool they developed and tested at 30 study sites in five ongoing clinical trials for medical treatments that include from administering selenium and vitamin E to prevent cancer and giving female veterans therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Though the tool ultimately proved ineffective in improving informed consent in this experiment with its use, Sugarman says the evaluation method they developed is helpful in ruling out what doesn't work.
Sugarman and his colleagues started with the idea that if those seeking informed consent from potential subjects were armed with reminders of the steps needed to adequately educate them, participants would be more likely to receive and understand the information they need to make good decisions.
Consequently, the investigators put together a short, self-monitoring questionnaire for researchers to fill out after each time they obtained informed consent. This questionnaire is a checklist of 18 questions that review critical parts of the informed consent process designed to help ensure that potential participants understand what is being asked of them.
In an experiment to test the questionnaire, clinical trial administrators used it at half of the study sites so that they could compare its impact.
Research staff at a phone bank spoke with study subjects who minutes before had agreed to join a clinical trial at all the study sites, asking a series of questions to assess how much the subjects understood about the trial, their role in the research and what the trial's benefits would be.
When the researchers compared results from the calls with participants at all of the sites, they found similar results, suggesting that the questionnaire did nothing to improve informed consent. A significant number of patients did not fully understand the purpose of the research, that the research may not benefit them or that agreeing to participate was completely voluntary.
"Implementing changes to the informed consent process is like taking new medicine - you wouldn't want to take a drug if it was too expensive or burdensome unless it's really helpful," Sugarman says. "This study shows that we can do rigorous clinical testing of informed consent, just like we can do rigorous testing of drugs in clinical trials."
This study was funded by the Cooperative Studies program of the Department of Veterans Affairs' Office of Research and Development, Clinical Science Research and Development Service.
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This first page uses Random. I think it is and will always be one of my favorite Crate lines. I decided to scrap about my Lenten Sacrifice. I'm a coffee junkie. I visit Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, Wawa, etc. at least once (if not more!) a day. So, I decided that for Lent I will only make coffee at home. So far, so good. But, I'm really missing my daily stops. Coffee at home just doesn't taste as good!! Really.
Anyway, I played around with a new technique - braiding paper- on here. The result is the border under the photo here.


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Microsoft is expanding the free services it offers to help enterprise customers adopt its products.
The company announced Monday that its FastTrack services now encompass Dynamics 365, Windows 10 and Microsoft Teams. Those come in addition to Office 365 and the Enterprise Mobility Suite, which were already covered under FastTrack.
Each service is designed to help companies get the most out of products they've already subscribed to and adopt products that the company has recently released. FastTrack includes adoption guides, tools to find a Microsoft partner company to help with migration, and consulting help from Microsoft employees on particular issues.
FastTrack began life a year and a half ago as a one-time service to help companies migrate to Office 365. Since then, the service has evolved to support continued use of Microsoft products and adoption of new features.
Organizations evaluating a Windows 10 deployment will be able to use FastTrack in planning a rollout and upgrading users. For Dynamics 365, FastTrack will offer expert guidance on how to get the most out of Microsoft's suite of business apps, which include CRM and operations management tools.
Getting customers to use the subscription services they pay for is important to the long-term success of products like Office 365 and Dynamics 365. If companies aren't using the subscriptions, they won't renew them.
It's a common issue for most enterprise software companies, including Oracle, IBM, Salesforce, SAP, and smaller players like identity and access management vendor Okta.
"In our world, if the product doesn't get deployed, [customers] don't renew. They're not successful, we're not successful," Okta CEO Todd McKinnon said at a press event last week.
Including Windows 10 in the FastTrack service should help Microsoft get customers to upgrade to the new OS. It will provide a centralized set of resources for IT administrators dealing with difficult aspects of migrating their users, like ensuring apps are compatible with the new OS.
On the Dynamics 365 side of things , Microsoft is offering technical talks, workshops and ongoing calls from its engineers to help with adoption of its products, which launched last year. It's a suite of different products that compete with the likes of Salesforce, Zendesk and ServiceNow.
The Microsoft Teams support for FastTrack includes guides that help walk users through scenarios that might be helped by the live collaboration service.
Cyril Belikoff, a senior director of Office marketing at Microsoft, said in a blog post that the company is making those resources available ahead of the launch of Teams so it's easier for administrators to get people to use it.


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Name: Mark Uhrmacher
Age: 39
Time with company: 5+ years
Education: Bachelor's of Science, Computer Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Company headquarters: New York City
Countries of operation: U.S.
Number of employees total: 230
About the company: ideeli is a U.S. membership-based e-commerce website that offers daily sales on fashion, home decor and travel. The site has more than 5 million members and more than 1,000 sales partners.
1. Where did you start your career and what experiences led you to the job you have today?
I started my career at Oracle, where I learned a great deal about building well-factored software. I left in 1995 for a startup called NetGravity, which was an amazing experience. There, I had the privilege of being part of a team that built an enterprise software product and then joined the consulting organization where I deployed the software for customers all over the country. That experience was formative as it gave me an appreciation for the application of software solutions to business problems, and the inherent gaps therein. That role was great practice for being a technology and business expert/leader.
2. Who was an influential boss for you and what lessons did they teach you about management and leadership?
My most influential manager was Mike Davies. He came in to run the consulting organization at NetGravity while I was a member. From him I learned a great deal about structuring roles and responsibilities, rules around core behavioral management, internal and external communication, and measuring effectiveness. He still acts as a mentor.
3. What are the biggest challenges facing CTOs today?
The role of the CTO is evolving and is quite different across different industries and company life stages. I've spent most of my time in startups and growth companies so I'll direct my answer to environments like ideeli. Being a CTO of a fast-growing company requires maintaining a balance of handling tactical issues and investing in technology, people and process to support the company of tomorrow. Problems that are annoying today can be unmitigated disasters in 90 days if you're going through a period of 20 percent M/M growth. In addition, you never have the resources you need to meet the demands on your organization, which leads to our most significant challenge: recruiting. The top technology professionals are an order of magnitude more productive than the average. Finding top talent is always a main priority for us.
4. What is a good day at work like for you?
I like variety and the opportunity to dive deeply into technical and business problems. A good day has one or more issues that require that kind of work. I really enjoy working with people coming from all parts of an organization and solving problems efficiently and effectively.
5. How would you characterize your management style?
I prefer to hire top people and stay out of their way. One could characterize my style as exception management. I get involved when there is a problem or if I'm asked to clear an obstacle for one of my people/teams.
6. What strengths and qualities do you look for in job candidates?
First and foremost, I look for the ability to think at multiple levels of abstraction. Understanding the downstream impact of a change is key to being successful in environments like ours. A correlated trait is the ability to deal with ambiguity and avoid rigid beliefs in "turf" or precedent. Everything must be re-evaluated over time.
7. What are some of your favorite interview questions or techniques to elicit information to determine whether a candidate will be successful at your company? What sort of answers send up red flags for you and make you think a job candidate wouldn't be a good fit?
Primarily, I ask candidates to go into depth on one or more of the items on their resume. Any candidate who cannot speak with knowledge and authority about an item therein is unlikely to be successful in my organization. Thereafter, we'll do a series of questions related to our current business to assess problem-solving abilities and cultural fit. Over the years, we've come up with some questions that are incredibly predictive of success on the software development side of the house.
8. What is it about your current job, at this particular company, that sets it apart from other chief technology positions?
I hate to keep beating the same drum but growth is a big differentiator. Beyond that, we have both the "virtual" component of scaling a website whose usage patten resembles a game more than typical e-commerce and the physical world of shipping thousands of packages per day.
9. What do you do to unwind from a hectic day?
I play with my 4-year-old son. I enjoy eating in nice restaurants, listening to my ridiculously large music collection and watching videos (Netflix, mostly).
10. If you weren't doing this job, what would you be doing?
Starting another company, I suspect. The recent resurgence of startup accelerators is also an interesting phenomenon.


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The avant-garde (from French, "advance guard" or "vanguard", literally "fore-guard") are people or works that are experimental, radical, or unorthodox, with respect to art, culture, and society. It may be characterized by nontraditional, aesthetic innovation and initial unacceptability, and it may offer a critique of the relationship between producer and consumer.
The avant-garde pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo, primarily in the cultural realm. The avant-garde is considered by some to be a hallmark of modernism, as distinct from postmodernism. Many artists have aligned themselves with the avant-garde movement and still continue to do so, tracing a history from Dada through the Situationists to postmodern artists such as the Language poets around 1981.
The avant-garde also promotes radical social reforms. It was this meaning that was evoked by the Saint Simonian Olinde Rodrigues in his essay "L'artiste, le savant et l'industriel" ("The artist, the scientist and the industrialist", 1825), which contains the first recorded use of "avant-garde" in its now customary sense: there, Rodrigues calls on artists to "serve as [the people's] avant-garde", insisting that "the power of the arts is indeed the most immediate and fastest way" to social, political and economic reform.
Several writers have attempted, with limited success, to map the parameters of avant-garde activity. The Italian essayist Renato Poggioli provides one of the best-known analyses of vanguardism as a cultural phenomenon in his 1962 book Teoria dell'arte d'avanguardia (The Theory of the Avant-Garde). Surveying the historical, social, psychological and philosophical aspects of vanguardism, Poggioli reaches beyond individual instances of art, poetry, and music to show that vanguardists may share certain ideals or values which manifest themselves in the non-conformist lifestyles they adopt: He sees vanguard culture as a variety or subcategory of Bohemianism. Other authors have attempted both to clarify and to extend Poggioli's study. The German literary critic Peter Bürger's Theory of the Avant-Garde (1974) looks at the Establishment's embrace of socially critical works of art and suggests that in complicity with capitalism, "art as an institution neutralizes the political content of the individual work".
Bürger's essay also greatly influenced the work of contemporary American art-historians such as the German Benjamin H. D. Buchloh (born 1941). Buchloh, in the collection of essays Neo-avantgarde and Culture Industry (2000) critically argues for a dialectical approach to these positions. Subsequent criticism theorized the limitations of these approaches, noting their circumscribed areas of analysis, including Eurocentric, chauvinist, and genre-specific definitions.
Relation to mainstream society
The concept of avant-garde refers primarily to artists, writers, composers and thinkers whose work is opposed to mainstream cultural values and often has a trenchant social or political edge. Many writers, critics and theorists made assertions about vanguard culture during the formative years of modernism, although the initial definitive statement on the avant-garde was the essay Avant-Garde and Kitsch by New York art critic Clement Greenberg, published in Partisan Review in 1939. As the essay's title suggests, Greenberg argued that vanguard culture has historically been opposed to "high" or "mainstream" culture, and that it has also rejected the artificially synthesized mass culture that has been produced by industrialization. Each of these media is a direct product of Capitalism—they are all now substantial industries—and as such they are driven by the same profit-fixated motives of other sectors of manufacturing, not the ideals of true art. For Greenberg, these forms were therefore kitsch: phony, faked or mechanical culture, which often pretended to be more than they were by using formal devices stolen from vanguard culture. For instance, during the 1930s the advertising industry was quick to take visual mannerisms from surrealism, but this does not mean that 1930s advertising photographs are truly surreal.
Various members of the Frankfurt School argued similar views: thus Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer in their essay The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass-Deception (1944), and also Walter Benjamin in his highly influential "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1936). Where Greenberg used the German word kitsch to describe the antithesis of avant-garde culture, members of the Frankfurt School coined the term "mass culture" to indicate that this bogus culture is constantly being manufactured by a newly emerged culture industry (comprising commercial publishing houses, the movie industry, the record industry, and the electronic media). They also pointed out that the rise of this industry meant that artistic excellence was displaced by sales figures as a measure of worth: a novel, for example, was judged meritorious solely on whether it became a best-seller, music succumbed to ratings charts and to the blunt commercial logic of the Gold disc. In this way the autonomous artistic merit so dear to the vanguardist was abandoned and sales increasingly became the measure, and justification, of everything. Consumer culture now ruled.
The avant-garde's co-option by the global capitalist market, by neoliberal economies, and by what Guy Debord called The Society of the Spectacle, have made contemporary critics speculate on the possibility of a meaningful avant-garde today. Paul Mann's Theory-Death of the Avant-Garde demonstrates how completely the avant-garde is embedded within institutional structures today, a thought also pursued by Richard Schechner in his analyses of avant-garde performance.
Despite the central arguments of Greenberg, Adorno and others, various sectors of the mainstream culture industry have co-opted and misapplied the term "avant-garde" since the 1960s, chiefly as a marketing tool to publicise popular music and commercial cinema. It has become common to describe successful rock musicians and celebrated film-makers as "avant-garde", the very word having been stripped of its proper meaning. Noting this important conceptual shift, major contemporary theorists such as Matei Calinescu in Five Faces of Modernity: Modernism, Avant-garde, Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism (1987), and Hans Bertens in The Idea of the Postmodern: A History (1995), have suggested that this is a sign our culture has entered a new post-modern age, when the former modernist ways of thinking and behaving have been rendered redundant.
Nevertheless, an incisive critique of vanguardism as against the views of mainstream society was offered by the New York critic Harold Rosenberg in the late 1960s. Trying to strike a balance between the insights of Renato Poggioli and the claims of Clement Greenberg, Rosenberg suggested that from the mid-1960s onward progressive culture ceased to fulfill its former adversarial role. Since then it has been flanked by what he called "avant-garde ghosts to the one side, and a changing mass culture on the other", both of which it interacts with to varying degrees. This has seen culture become, in his words, "a profession one of whose aspects is the pretense of overthrowing it".
Avant-garde in music can refer to any form of music working within traditional structures while seeking to breach boundaries in some manner. The term is used loosely to describe the work of any musicians who radically depart from tradition altogether. By this definition, some avant-garde composers of the 20th century include Arnold Schoenberg, Charles Ives, Igor Stravinsky, Anton Webern, George Antheil (in his earliest works only), Alban Berg, Henry Cowell (in his earliest works), Philip Glass, Harry Partch, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Richard Strauss (in his earliest work), Karlheinz Stockhausen, Edgard Varèse, and Iannis Xenakis. Although most avant-garde composers have been men, this is not exclusively the case. Women avant-gardists include Pauline Oliveros, Diamanda Galás, Meredith Monk, and Laurie Anderson.
There is another definition of "Avant-gardism" that distinguishes it from "modernism": Peter Bürger, for example, says avant-gardism rejects the "institution of art" and challenges social and artistic values, and so necessarily involves political, social, and cultural factors. According to the composer and musicologist Larry Sitsky, modernist composers from the early 20th century who do not qualify as avant-gardists include Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, and Igor Stravinsky; later modernist composers who do not fall into the category of avant-gardists include Elliott Carter, Milton Babbitt, György Ligeti, Witold Lutosławski, and Luciano Berio, since "their modernism was not conceived for the purpose of goading an audience."
Whereas the avant-garde has a significant history in 20th-century music, it is more pronounced in theatre and performance art, and often in conjunction with music and sound design innovations, as well as developments in visual media design. There are movements in theatre history that are characterized by their contributions to the avant-garde traditions in both the United States and Europe. Among these are Fluxus, Happenings, and Neo-Dada.