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From D&D Wiki
|This material is published under the OGL 1.0a.
Axiomatic: An axiomatic weapon is lawfully aligned and infused with the power of law. It makes the weapon law-aligned and thus bypasses the corresponding damage reduction. It deals an extra 2d6 points of damage against all of chaotic alignment. It bestows one negative level on any chaotic creature attempting to wield it. The negative level remains as long as the weapon is in hand and disappears when the weapon is no longer wielded. This negative level never results in actual level loss, but it cannot be overcome in any way (including restoration spells) while the weapon is wielded. Bows, crossbows, and slings so crafted bestow the lawful power upon their ammunition.
Moderate evocation [lawful]; CL 7th; Craft Magical Arms and Armor, order's wrath, creator must be lawful; Price +2 bonus.
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Gmorning, Gnight!: Little Pep Talks For Me and You by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jonny Sun
Hardcover – Random House – Oct 2018 – 201 pages
Good morning. Do NOT get stuck in the comments section of life today. Make, do, create the things. Let others tussle it out. Vamos!
Before he inspired the world with Hamilton and was catapulted to international fame, Lin-Manuel Miranda was inspiring his Twitter followers with words of encouragement at the beginning and end of each day. He wrote these original sayings, aphorisms, and poetry for himself as much as for others. But as Miranda's audience grew, these messages took on a life on their own. Now Miranda has gathered the best of his daily greetings into a beautiful collection illustrated by acclaimed artist (and fellow Twitter favorite) Jonny Sun. Full of comfort and motivation, Gmorning, Gnight! is a touchstone for anyone who needs a quick lift.

subset: commoncrawl


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Demystifying WebLogic and Fusion Middleware Management --- by Glen Hawkins, Senior Director, Product Management
By R A Sanyal on Apr 16, 2013
This week, we are going to switch gears and talk about something that is near and dear to everyone responsible for running applications and middleware in their environment and that is monitoring and management with specific emphasis on the Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control solution.
Often, this particular topic is dismissed early in the architectural discussion and doesn't rear its (sometimes ugly) head until development is fairly far along on a new application and planning their deployment or worse, problems in production begin to impact the overall service levels of an application to the point that the end-users are complaining or top line revenue is being lost because of poor performance or reliability problems. The result is that the inexperienced will treat monitoring and management of their middle tier and their application system as a whole as an afterthought, while those that are more experienced or forward looking will tackle it from day one.
So, let's start with some common pitfalls or myths that people run into when considering or planning the deployment of their management along with some discussions on each of these points:
I think that most that have attempted this in the past have learned the error of their ways. Most tools such as administration consoles like the WebLogic Administration Console are designed to get the product up and running and for general configuration and administration purposes of a single domain. They are not intended as a solution to monitor and manage many domains (possibly even multiple versions of those domains) as well as the entire application infrastructure (i.e. Databases, Hosts, Message Queues, Service Buses, etc) at once. And, they routinely don't provide any historical metrics or real 24/7 diagnostics. No administrator wants to be in a situation where a problem occurred an hour ago and they no longer have any information on it because they only have real-time data. You need both real-time and historical monitoring and diagnostics capabilities.
In addition, administrators routinely want to be able to answer the usual question that comes up when everything was running fine one day and fails to perform on the next, which is "what has changed". You need historical information to refer to at all tiers of the application including the host as well as visibility across the stack including both monitoring and configuration data to answer that question.
Possible answers could be that the end-users have increased, the way the end-users were using the application has changed (i.e. that marketing event you didn't know about changed behavior), application changes, WebLogic domain changes, JVM changes, a patch was applied, or someone even may have started running something new on the machine or impacted the OS.
Correlating these changes and coming to a quick conclusion is key to ensure optimal application service levels in a production environment for your end-users. That means that you need a full stack 24/7 real-time and historical monitoring solution that can also provide meaningful diagnostics and and track/compare configuration standards across the entire application system stack which is something that only Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control is able to provide in the case of the Oracle stack.
This one is quite simple at the end of the day, especially for those that have been pulled into a war room in regards to a production application emergency with all the finger pointing and frustration that routinely ensues. The various team members responsible for the different portions of an application system almost always need to collaborate to resolve problems. By using separate tools, collaboration can be slow and frustrating.
A single pane of glass with different roles and privileges mitigating who can see what allows everyone to speak the same language. At the end of the day, when a fire drill arises, communication and collaboration will allow you to pull through, which is greatly enhanced with the correct solution.
Oracle's Enterprise Manager Cloud Control solution was designed to promote this level of communication between roles with flexible dashboards providing different views of the application to different team members and diagnostics that can provide meaningful diagnostics such as bi-directional navigation between JVM threads and Oracle database sessions which goes well beyond just isolating SQL calls and the Middleware Diagnostics Advisor which provides recommendations diagnostic findings for WebLogic stack to quickly cut down on your time to resolution as opposed to raw metrics which force you to piece together fragments of the story from completely separate tools.
I think this particular myth tends to surprise those that are new to application and middle-tier management. In development environments, particularly during the QA and load testing phases for most applications, the environments are usually so well controlled and, as they are not in production, you can more easily reproduce errors and attempt to resolve them in these environments. However, in production environments, it becomes extremely difficult to reproduce issues as the load, network, application environment, and overall intermittent behavior of all of the tiers can challenge even the most technical operations person including those who developed the application in the first place.
We routinely see issues reported by end-users in production environments where monitoring is minimal. Often, hours, days, even weeks are spent trying to reproduce issues or waiting for them to happen again if they are intermittent and no historical monitoring and diagnostics is available in the environment. The bottom-line is that you need to be able to diagnose problems in the production environment itself.Within Enterprise Manager Cloud Control, both historical and real-time metrics are available 24/7 across all tiers and they are correlated together. Let me provide a quick simple example of a possible root cause analysis scenario where an application is perhaps degrading in performance over time. Memory analysis tools by themselves are not able to pinpoint the problem, but it is clear that there is a buildup of referenced objects on the heap (i.e. possibly falling under the high level classification of a "memory leak" like issue, but then again there are possibly other causes). The historical solution might be to attempt to restart servers on a regular basis trying to maintain high availability as you do, but that will not get you closer to finding the real issue and it is a band-aid at the end of the day that may very well fail when and if capacity increases for your application.
Let's say we start with getting a notification from Enterprise Manager Cloud Control that a critical alert has occurred on the Work Manager – Pending Requests metric indicating there is a buildup of requests in the application. This an early indicator and the Request Processing Time alert likely soon to follow if the trend continues, so let's jump in and diagnose the problem.
First, let's look at one of the higher level customizable dashboards in the product to see the lay of the land:
We can see from our WebLogic application above (just a simple Medrec example in this case) that all of our servers look like they are up and running, some of our heap and other metrics look high, but not unreasonable with the exception of some of our JVMs which show some DB Wait locks in red in the right-most bottom table. This is a sure indicator that the pending requests that we were alerted to earlier are likely associated with calls of some kind to the back-end database. If I click on the JVM in question, I can take this down a level.
Now we are on our JVM target home page within our WebLogic Domain hierarchy (many more metrics and capabilities there that we won't go into in this blog, but I will provide links below to see those capabilities) where we can see a bit more detail and filter on anything to our heart's delight by clicking on the various hour glasses to search on methods, requests, SQL, thread state, ECID (a transaction ID in FMW), and other criteria, which will filter the graphs further down the page which show thread breakdowns by many of these dimensions. I could also immediately create a diagnostic snapshot of the data to look at later if I so desired. I can also click on the Threads tab (next to the highlighted "General" tab above) and look at historical thread data or play with the timeframe, but we can see just by looking at this that we were correct about the threads in the DB Wait state and it has been going on for some time now. Let's navigate from historical to JVM live threads (collected every 2 secs using native thread sampling as opposed to byte code instrumentation) to try to determine the root cause of why so many threads are stuck in the DB Wait state.
Looking above, it is apparent that we are running an SQL prepared statement originating from a front-end request from the "/registerPatient.action" URL. I could then click on the "SQL ID" to actually bring myself to the SQL in question within a tuning screen, but the route of more interest is to click on the DB Wait link highlighted in the lower half of the screen for one of the threads. This will take me into a read-only view of the actual Oracle database session itself.
Here we are in the database session itself. As an operations person or developer, my options are obviously very restricted, but I can see that there is a blocking session ID. Better yet, I can now click on that blocking session ID and see that something that is entirely outside of my WLS container or JVM is causing contention and I can now communicate with my DBA to address the problem. This could have been just as easily a badly tuned SQL statement or perhaps indicated an index problem. Likewise, I could have discovered that my threads were locked by one another or a Network Wait or even File IO. There are a multitude of possibilities, but because I have a tool that can see across these tiers, I can quickly diagnose the issue and I am speaking the same language as my DBA. DBAs can also drill back up by the way from SQL statements to the JVM and WLS container (also in read-only mode obviously), so they can be proactive about maintaining the application. This is just one simple example of how Enterprise Manager Cloud Control facilitates this type of communication between roles as there are many other similar features from the dashboards which can be tweaked per role giving the appropriate visibility for the various team members or the incident management that is designed to allow teams to collaborate or even work with Oracle Support via the WebLogic Support Workbench if necessary.
It is true that most Java transaction tracing solutions create overhead because of byte code instrumentation. There is certainly a time and place for this type of diagnostics which can be very detailed and rich in its analysis. Within Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control, we do have an optional advanced diagnostics feature that provides this functionality. Overhead is routinely much lower than just about any other solution out there, and it is indeed able to run 24/7 without incurring much overhead. For many, the little overhead required is reasonable and well worth the enormous amount of visibility you get by being able to track individual or groups of transaction through each tier of your application isolating problems based on the actual payload.
However, for those who prefer to not use byte code instrumentation, the entire example provided above does not require any. It simply uses the stack metrics collected from the Enterprise Manager Cloud Control agent, which sits on the host (not in the WLS container and thus out of process) and the JVMD agent, an extremely lightweight agent (just a war file) that uses native code sampling (no byte code instrumentation and thus no restart of the managed server). The bottom-line is that you can get a ton of visibility without incurring any noticeable overhead and decide where and if you want to also trace transactions on an individual basis. This type of flexibility ensures that all diagnostics needs are met.
Alright, so that was my last myth to dispel for this blog. I could go on for quite some time and show the many other capabilities of the Enterprise Manager product such as the earlier mentioned Middleware Diagnostics Advisor, log viewing and alerting, the multitude of dashboards, thresholds, lifecycle management, disaster recovery, and patch automation features that span the full capabilities of Oracle's solution for WebLogic and Fusion Middleware management, but perhaps there will be time for another blog on those topics later.
For now, I will leave you with some resources to help you leap beyond the myths.
Additional Resources
Free Online Self-Study Courses from Oracle Learning Library (OLL)
WLS Performance Monitoring and Diagnostics
WLS Configuration and Lifecycle Management
Coherence Management
Real User Experience Insight


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Licensed practical nurses (LPNs) and licensed vocational nurses (LVNs) are nurses that care for sick, disabled, injured or convalescent patients under the supervision of a registered nurse or physician. LPNs are licensed by their state and must pass the National Council Licensure Examination, or NCLEX-PN, which is administered by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts excellent job growth for LPNs?21% growth between 2008 and 2018, with the best LPN job opportunities expected in nursing care facilities and in-home healthcare services. In 2008, the median annual salary for LPNs was $39,030.
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Day 18 | 10.17.15
The Zookeeper's Wife. Escaped lions... #zookeeperswife #jessicachastain
Official Trailer: Focus Features and Niki Caro Present The Zookeeper's Wife
"There are many ways that someone can be brave and strong. I think that Antonina shows that compassion is an incredible form of strength."
"Jessica carries this elegance with her, reminding me of an actress from the 1930s or 1940s. Sometimes I would get transfixed by how perfectly she inhabited the period."
"Daniel is an actor of great charm who transmits intelligence on-screen in a way that is mesmerizing. But he could also show the menace that Heck was capable of.""
"Johan is dynamic, and can express so much with just a look. He is soulful."


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Thursday, 10 January 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
NEW YORK (Reuters): Huawei Technologies Co Ltd. boosted smartphone display size and resolution on Monday with two new devices aimed at challenging much bigger rivals, including Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. and Apple Inc.
The Chinese phone maker, which is pushing to expand its brand beyond its home country, unveiled the Ascend D2 and Ascend Mate devices on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It said the Ascend D2 would have a high-definition screen with 443 pixels per inch compared with the most advanced Samsung and Apple phones, with resolutions closer to the 300 pixels per inch range.
The Ascend Mate device has a 6.1 inch display, which will make it the biggest-screen smartphone in the world, according to Huawei. Samsung's biggest smartphone to date, the Galaxy Note II has a 5.5 inch display. Huawei's head of consumer electronics, Richard Yu, said the company is hoping its latest smartphones will offer an alternative for people who have to carry around their tablet computer, laptop, smartphone and camera all at once.
"Our idea is whether we can have one thing for all that," Yu said.
The company plans to start selling the Ascend D2 in China in January and in Japan and other countries later on. The Ascend Mate will sell in China in February and in the rest of the world in the following months.
Huawei also expects the phones to go on sale in Europe and said it is in talks with US operators about selling them there. It did not announce prices for the devices.


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Scotland make third World Cup trip
A round-up of the final day's action in the Super Six stage at the World Cup Qualifiers in New Zealand on January 30, 2014
Scotland clinched their third World Cup berth in dramatic fashion with a tense three-wicket win over Kenya with three balls to spare at Hagley Oval on the final day of the Super Sixes in Christchurch. Rob Taylor, who came into the match with only 56 runs in six matches at the tournament, entered at No.8 and hit three fours and a six on his way to an unbeaten 46 off 37 balls to take Scotland over the line and back to the World Cup for the first time since 2007.
Kenya won the toss and elected to bat first, posting a very competitive 260. Alex Obanda produced 89 at the top of the innings to lay a solid platform. Captain Rakep Patel made a vital contribution with 38 in the middle order but Scotland made life difficult on themselves with 24 extras, including 14 wides.
Matty Cross scored 55 to get Scotland's chase off to a positive start but his wicket in the 20th over was followed a short time later by the run-out of Freddie Coleman to generate a bit of tension. Stand-in captain Preston Mommsen took his time getting set, striking only one four on his way to a half-century off 81 balls. The wickets of Michael Leask and Richie Berrington swayed momentum Kenya's way making the score at 169 for 6 at the start of the 38th, but Mommsen counterattacked by striking a six and three fours in the space of seven deliveries to get Scotland back on track.
Mommsen finally fell for 78 with Scotland needing 35 off 25 balls and only three wickets in hand knowing by this point that only a win would take them through to the World Cup as Hong Kong's speedy win over PNG allowed Hong Kong to pass Scotland on the net run-rate tiebreaker. Scotland entered the final two overs needing 18 to win but a wide by Nehemiah Odhiambo was followed by a six off the bat of Taylor to bring the equation under a run a ball, and a World Cup berth was in sight. Taylor sealed the match with a pair of twos on the second and third deliveries of the final over, earning Scotland a return visit to New Zealand next year and dashing Hong Kong's dream of qualifying for the World Cup for the first time.
"It is absolutely awesome, we have worked really hard to get to this position and to actually get over the line is unbelievable. The feeling is immense," Mommsen said after the game. "We've had a bit of an absence, so to get back in there is unbelievable. The dressing room is very, very happy to say the least."
Khurram Khan once again steered UAE to a total that couldn't be overhauled in a 36-run win over Namibia at Rangiora to clinch the UAE's second World Cup berth and first since 1996. UAE won the toss and elected to bat first as Khan (49) was one of three players to get into the 40s without reaching 50 in UAE's total of 263. The score was 216 for 5 with two balls to go in the 45th but Louis Klazinga wiped out the tail, taking four of the last five wickets to fall, as Namibia bowled out UAE with one ball remaining in the innings.
Namibia got off to a slow start in reply as captain Sarel Burger crawled to a half-century, eventually getting dismissed for 54 off 102 balls. Amjad Javed claimed 3 for 35 while Khan completed his solid all-round display with 2 for 45 to restrict Namibia to 227 for 9 in their 50 overs.
"You can't describe in words the feeling. I've been playing for UAE since 2001 and it is an amazing feeling to help my team to qualify," Khurram later reflected. "It's a great achievement. It's been very, very hard to make it this far. Most of us are part time cricketers - we are not professionals. This is for everyone who trusted us and believed in us."
Hong Kong completed a furious charge to a three-wicket win over Papua New Guinea at Bert Sutcliffe Oval in a valiant effort to overtake Scotland on net run rate, but did not get the extra help they needed from Kenya to vault into the top two on the Super Sixes table. PNG won the toss and elected to bat first as Geraint Jones made his first major contribution of the tournament to top score with 82 for PNG in their total of 255 for 8. Haseeb Amjad finished with 3 for 70 in 10 overs to extend his tournament tally to 20 wickets, the most in the tournament.
Irfan Ahmed spearheaded a frenetic chase with 90 off 82 balls including four sixes before he was dismissed in the 29th over with the score on 193 for 3. Mark Chapman anchored Hong Kong after Irfan's departure with 64 off 50 balls as other batsmen fell around him while attempting to slog their way to the target as quickly as possible to eclipse Scotland's net run rate. Chapman was run-out 11 runs short of the target but player-coach Mark Wright and Amjad finished the job, with Hong Kong reaching victory on the first ball of the 37th over after Wright swatted a ball to the mid-wicket boundary.
Scotland and UAE will now contest the tournament final at the Bert Sutcliffe Oval on Saturday. The winner will join England, Australia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, New Zealand and Afghanistan in Group A at the 2015 World Cup while the loser will slot into Group B alongside South Africa, India, Pakistan, West Indies, Zimbabwe and Ireland.


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But there is something we can and must do: We must learn all the lessons we can.
Here are some:
1. The gulf between the decent and the indecent
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older brother, once told an interviewer before a Golden Gloves boxing competition: "I don't have a single American friend. I don't understand them."
The reason Tsarnaev didn't understand Americans was not primarily cultural. Tsarnaev came to America when he was 14 or 15, an age when the vast majority of immigrants to America have assimilated quite successfully
Rather, the reason was that the indecent don't understand the decent, just as the decent don't understand the indecent.
One of the greatest insights I learned as a young man came from reading Viktor Frankl's seminal work, "Man's Search for Meaning." Frankl was a Jewish psychoanalyst who survived Auschwitz, where nearly every member of his family, including his wife, was murdered. His conclusion: "There are two races of men in this world but only these two. The race of the decent man and the race of the indecent man."
Those "races" do not understand one another. But more important than understanding the indecent is overpowering and, when necessary, destroying the indecent.
2. Any religion or ideology that is above good and evil produces enormous evil.
For tens of millions of Muslims today, Islam is beyond good and evil: The infidel may be decent, but that is of no importance to the radical Islamist. For example, to become a "more religious" Muslim, Tamerlan Tsarnaev gave up boxing, marijuana, tobacco and even not wearing a shirt in the presence of females. Tsarnaev believed Islam forbade those things -- none of which is an evil. But when it came to the greatest evil -- murder (of non-Muslims) -- his religion was not only silent, it was enthusiastically supportive.
Likewise, communists in the Soviet Union, China and elsewhere -- and their many supporters in the West -- raised the creation of egalitarian society and industrialization above good and evil. And Nazism elevated race above good and evil. The environmentalists who oppose vitamin A-injected rice in the Third World place their agenda above good and evil.
Unfortunately, most religious and secular ideologues find preoccupation with human decency boring. The greatest moral idea in history, ethical monotheism, doesn't excite most people.
3. A victimhood identity produces cruelty.
The Tsarnaev brothers' primary self-perception was that of being Chechen victims, and that plus their religious convictions allowed them to blow up men, women and children with a perfectly clear conscience. Even when victimhood status is objectively true -- which it was not for these brothers, who were among the spectacularly fortunate few to be able to live in freedom and with unlimited opportunities -- nothing provides people with as good a reason to commit atrocities as does a victim mentality.
4. Happiness is a moral issue.
Happiness is not an emotional state so much as it is a moral imperative. In general, those who act happy make the world better and those who act unhappy make it worse. This is equally true in the micro and macro realms. It is not surprising, therefore, that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was described by a cousin, Zaur Tsarnaev, in this way: "He was never happy, never cheering, never smiling."
5. Boys will be bad men if they had no good men.
It is apparent that the younger brother Dzhokhar was deeply influenced by his brother, Tamerlan, who was seven years older. All of us who have an older brother, especially with a large age gap, know that he has a god-like status in the eyes of a young boy.
If good men do not inspire boys, bad men will. Without good older men in boys' lives, those boys are likely to grow up and do bad things. See our inner cities for further confirmation.
6. Universities and the left generally continue to deny any link between Muslim terrorists and their Muslim beliefs.
Just as in previous acts of Islamist terror, the left in general, and university professors in particular, continue to argue that it is wrong -- actually bigoted -- to associate these terrorists' religious beliefs with their terrorism.
Michael Eric Dyson, Georgetown professor of sociology: "So you take one part of the element, that he's Muslim. But he also might have listened to classical music. He might have had some Lil Wayne."
MSNBC host Melissa Harris- Perry: "I keep wondering is it possible that there would ever be a discussion like, 'This is because of Ben Affleck and the connection between Boston and movies about violence?' And of course, the answer is no. ... Our very sense of connection to them is this framed-up notion of, like, Islam making them something that is non-normal."
Zaheer Ali -- Harvard graduate, recipient of Columbia University's Merit Scholars Graduate Fellowship, recipient of the Social Science Research Council's Mellon Mays Pre-Doctoral Research Grant -- on MSNBC: "It isn't Muslim that is a common thing here, it's people who are alienated."
Professor Brian Levin -- director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino (formerly associate director of the Southern Poverty Law Center) -- to Bill Maher:
"Look, it's not like people who are Muslim who do wacky things have a monopoly on it. We have hypocrites across faiths, Jewish, Christian who say they're out for God and end up doing not so nice things."
Bill Maher's response: "That's liberal bullshit."
And that's what our children are routinely taught.


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Keidel: All Eyes On A-Rod And Home Debut At Yankee Stadium Tonight
By Jason Keidel
>>More articles
New Yorkers are born with the arrogant certainty that when God created the Universe, he started with Times Square. The rest of the trivial landscape came sometime between Day 2 and Sunday.
It's gibberish, of course, but the eyes of America are indeed on the five boroughs these days, particularly the Bronx - the vortex of the steroid galaxy, at least to the Baseball Gods - where a certain, biblically humbled slugger will make his home debut tonight at Yankee Stadium.
No matter your motivation, chances are you will tune in at least for part of the soap operatic return of Alex Rodriguez: A-Rod to many of you, Alex to his few remaining friends, and "Mr. Rodriguez" to his eternally irritated GM, Brian Cashman.
Ticket sales and TV ratings have sagged all season for the Bronx Bombers, who have largely bombed this season, but have spiked since Rodriguez limped back to the lineup. The change in interest speaks to the more macabre side of the human spirit, and how many are there to cheer and jeer can't be quantified.
But there is an element of voyeurism to the whole thing. Pharmacy racks are stacked with rags devoted to our darker impulses. The National Enquirer doesn't report on the dad who drove his son to soccer practice, unless he smoked marijuana in the car.
There's nothing more gripping to the masses than to watch the epic fall of a disgraced icon. The world is giving A-Rod the finger while he plunges into purgatory, to a furious chorus of betrayed fans who thought he was the white night of a new era.
At first we forgave his more superficial malfeasance - the sunning in Central Park, the illegal poker games with Spider-Man and DiCaprio, telling Esquire that his former BFF (Derek Jeter) was overrated, smooching his reflection in the mirror, flying a stripper around the nation while married, and defecating on the 2007 World Series by announcing his contract status...
Because he was supposed to bring clean veins to the game, his bat doubling as an eraser over the tainted stats of his juiced-up predecessors. McGwire, Sosa, and the fraudulent Summer of Sammy left a wretched taste on our tongues for a decade, and we looked up to A-Rod as the avatar of fair play.
How's that going?
Who would have thought that Jose Canseco would be the bard of the steroid era? Love or loathe his methods, Canseco has been right about everyone on the business end of his book and beyond. Barry Bonds had a two-inch treatise written about his 'roid regimen, all the way down to the dosage. Yet you didn't see one libel suit.
And now A-Rod is just another name on the endless list of bandits who have hijacked our pastime, synthesized the record books beyond repair. Ironically, he made his 2013 debut last week, on the very day his 211-game suspension was announced. You can't make this stuff up.
There's something to be said for karma. Teams that try to buy pennants tend to find a way to foul it up. Look at the Yankees, who were muscled into making A-Rod another contract offer in '07 after he announced during the World Series that he was opting out. No one offered half as much as the Yankees wound up paying him. Had they just let him walk, the Yankees' future would be exponentially brighter, cheaper, better.
You'll notice that the Yankees have won just one world championship since they became the Evil Empire - an infamous moniker spawned in 2003 by the Red Sox brass after the Yanks bought the gifted Cuban pitcher Jose Contreras. And ever since then, A-Rod has been the face of Pinstriped Pride and peril, of voracious capitalism, of Gordon Gekko gone wild. Turns out you can spend your way into relevance, but not into royalty. Just ask Alex Rodriguez.
But he will be there tonight, in the Bronx, to an unsympathetic home crowd, and an even less empathetic world. Alex Rodriguez chose his lot, his No. 13, and his position, the Hot Corner, where he has presided on and off the diamond his entire life.
Feel free to email me: email@example.com
Twitter: @JasonKeidel
Sports Stories You May Also Be Interested In
for more features.


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The Internet is a wealth of information on everything, including health care products. On the other hand, there's a lot of bad information and products out there. At HealthySolutions, we only deal in the top of health care products. We only link to the best private label vitamin manufacturers you can find and we only want you to do business with quality supplements manufacturers as well. Supplement manufacturing can be treacherous, and as such you should only trust qualified manufacturers. So shop around on the Internet for the top supplement manufacturer you can find and afford before you do anything else. An untrusted supplement manufacturer that uses improper supplement manufacturing procedures won't be found at www.healthysolutionsweb.com.
HealthySolutions for Vitamins
If you need vitamins, HealthySolutions has you covered. If you are looking for a better brand of vitamin, visit the www.healthysolutionsweb.com and look for a top vitamin manufacturer. You will find them on our site, and we can also facilitate your connection with private label vitamin manufacturers if you need something harder to find. Don't cause yourself bodily harm or waste your money by buying a vitamin created by a second-rate vitamin manufacturer; visit HealthySolutions instead and find the great products you need.
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Open house pick of the week: Salt lake
If you've been reading this blog for a while, you may notice that I like to check out realtor Matt Brummel's renovated listings. He has other properties available, but I'm intrigued with the investment properties he renovates to sell, usually older condo units transformed into contemporary works in about a month.
His latest project is in Salt Lake's Sunset Lakeview condo, a three-bedroom, two-bathroom unit. It was built in 1972, so probably needed some sprucing up, but Brummel again went over the top in creating a dream home.
"I bought this condo with a business partner/client of mine who does interior design and development for resort-type properties. I feel like I learned the most on this project (my fifth) because of him," Brummel says. "We picked all the materials and colors together and tried to give it a real simple, yet 'rich' feel.
"I actually had multiple offers on this property the week before we listed it just through word of mouth, and they continue to come in," he adds. "It truly shows how hot this market is and how badly buyers want all new, move-in ready homes."
Some of the renovations include new, ceramic-tile flooring and soft Berber carpeting, a new front-loading washer and dryer with pedestals for extra storage, customized closet systems and designer lighting fixtures throughout.
The unit comes with two parking spaces; common area facilities include a pool, rooftop party area and game room. (Click here for details.)
"My investment properties are unique in that my decisions are made from a homeowner perspective, not an investor," Brummel says. I'll be watching for his next project, although all he would say is that it's a town home in East Oahu.
This condo will be open on Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m. Happy house hunting!
Money talk: $329,000 fee simple
Contact: Matt Brummel, Coldwell Banker Pacific Properties, 808-748-3495, email@example.com


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Cash-strapped jails begin charging inmates for snacks – even room and board
Shades of Charles Dickens, critics say the controversial measures create debtors prisons
| Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
A basic tenet of criminal justice holds that an offender should pay for his crimes.
So in these recessionary times, inmates are finding their pocketbooks lighter than ever as a growing number of jails and sheriffs departments exploit that principle to counter rising costs and budget cutbacks.
In Florida, for example, which has the nation's third-largest prison system, authorities have found a new way to make sure an inmate pays his debt to society - increasing the price of chocolate buns, among a host of other items from its jail canteens, by 244 per cent.
All profits made from the snack shops – about $30 million in 2008 – are ploughed straight into the general fund of a state grappling with a $6 billion budget deficit.
"We have sympathy but it's tough on everyone," says Gretl Plessinger, spokesperson for the Florida Department of Corrections. "Prices are going up everywhere."
Elsewhere, charging inmates for their bed and board seems to be the way to go.
Missouri's Taney County has just spent $27 million on a new state-of-the-art jail with facilities that might rival anything found locally through an online hotel search.
The nightly tariff is a competitive $45, full board, and although the room service might lack a few of the luxuries of the outside world, county leaders are determined that their 'guests' pay their own way.
"It doesn't make sense that our citizens should have to pay for the irresponsible behavior of others in these tough economic times," says Jeffrey Merrell, the prosecuting attorney for Taney County, which began billing inmates seven weeks ago.
"It just makes good common sense to require those serving time in the jail to pay for the time and services spent," he says. "Although we may not be able to recoup every dollar spent to house all of our inmates, every dollar that can be collected provides some bit of relief for the taxpayers."
Not surprisingly, inmates and their families are not happy at having to dig deeper in their pockets to bail out states and counties that no longer have the funds to maintain jail services at pre-recession levels.
The Florida Department of Corrections has received more than a hundred letters and emails from inmates' families complaining about the price hikes.
"It's like we're a private ATM for the corrections department and they know there's nothing we can do about it," says the wife of one inmate serving a life sentence at Florida's Martin County Correctional Institute.
The woman, who asked to remain anonymous because she feared repercussions for her husband, said she can't afford to send him more than $40 a week. But that, she claims, is quickly swallowed up by the new higher rates on essential items such as sunscreen for when he works outside tending the prison grounds.
"It's crazy. It doesn't leave them enough money to be able to afford to eat properly," she says. "What they've done is sly. They reduced portion size at mealtimes to save money, leaving the men hungry, then made it sound like they were doing them a favor by increasing the amount they could spend in the canteen from $50 to $75 a week. Then they turn around and jack up all the prices. They make them pay 99 cents for a packet of Ramen noodles. You can get 10 of those for that price in the supermarket."
Other price hikes in Florida's 137 detention facilities, which came into effect in late March and which Ms. Plessinger blames on a change of supplier, include a 150 per cent rise in the cost of Hersheys chocolate and Snickers bars to 89c, a jump from 61 cents to $1.49 for a Mrs Freshley's chocolate iced Honeybun and a 275 per cent increase in a small bag of Doritos chips to $1.29.
Florida calculates it can improve its bottom line without resorting to directly billing inmates. But that concept, while not new, is quickly gaining popularity around the country as the recession continues to bite.
This week, legislators in New Jersey joined their counterparts in Pennsylvania in proposing the introduction of daily fees of about $10 to $15 to offset the estimated annual $38,700 cost of an individual's incarceration.
Georgia lawmakers have discussed a $40-a-day fee for inmates deemed able to afford it, and one of the nation's highest prisoner tariffs, $60-a-night, was recently approved in Springfield, Oregon.
Others are taking a piecemeal approach to raising money from detainees, rather than a pay-per-stay. Some examples: in Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio's prisoners pay $1.25 a day for their meals; weekend-only inmates pay a fee in Virginia's Hanover and Caroline Counties, contributing $29,000 a year to the running costs of Pamunkey jail; and in Ware County, Georgia, fees are deducted from inmates' accounts for medical and dental expenses, as long as they have at least $10 to their name.
Major Roger Paxton, head of corrections in Ohio's Richland County, asked commissioners to consider a $30 booking fee and medical and other charges to help Sheriff Steve Sheldon close a $500,000 budget gap.
"We had to lay off 14 employees," he says. "We have to look at all potential sources of revenue to offset the costs we pay and to be able to do the job we're supposed to do."
Not every cash-strapped county sees prisoners as cash cows, however. Deputy Tom Erickson, the sheriff's spokesman in Johnson County, Kansas, says authorities there rejected the idea.
"We looked at a pay-to-stay charge but there were a couple of issues," he says.
"Firstly, the return on the investment is very low, we figured it would come close to 20 per cent. You'd have to hire a full-time person to administer it, and pay their salary and benefits, and come out losing money or just breaking even.
"Then if somebody doesn't pay, what do you do? Do you issue a warrant for them, have them arrested again, put them back in jail? You've created a debtors' prison, and that's neither wanted nor needed. For us, it wasn't the right thing to do."
Civil liberties groups have begun raising questions about the legality of charging inmates for room and board.
In 2006, a Georgia county had to repay money to some inmates who had been made to pay for the time they had been incarcerated before their conviction.
Critics say the idea of expecting prisoners to pay is absurd.
"They're typically poor people anyway from poor families, and when you take $45 a day from them that's money that doesn't go for groceries or rent," says Sean O'Brien, formerly Chief Public Defender in Kansas City, Missouri, and now an associate professor of law at University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School.
"In abstract, it sounds good, user fees for prisons, but it's a ridiculous notion. Really it's a poor person's tax. Some counties are lukewarm to it and others have rejected it because they know they're never going to get it. You can't get blood from a turnip."
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.


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By David Crane defrev (at) gmail (dot) com All photos contained in this article were taken by DefenseReview.com, and are copyrighted. DefenseReview.com owns the copyright on these photos. The photos were shot with a Canon PowerShot S90 10-megapixel digital camera (still camera with video capability). February 23, 2010 DefenseReview plans to run two custom-built tactical AR carbines (AR-15 carbines) through …Read More »
Tag Archives: daniel defense omega x 9.0
Daniel Defense LITE and Omega-X Rail Systems for Tactical AR-15 Carbines/Rifles
By Mike Chung July 14, 2009 As a long time black rifle enthusiast, I've bought and tried out many AR-15 related products for my own consumption. With the recently increased interest in the AR-15 rifle/carbine platform, dozens of "accessory" companies have sprouted. Anyone that's into quality knows that a good chunk of these items on the market are junk, but …Read More »


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March 01, 2019
Heather Benjamin
July 25, 2017
Lisa Frederick, Houzz
May 24, 2017
Michelle Jeresek, Houzz
February 10, 2017
Christina Huynh
April 12, 2016
Ashley Katz
April 11, 2016
April 04, 2016
Amy Hedgepeth
September 04, 2009
Willem Maas
No flooring product has zero impact on our planet, but some materials are better than others. This buyer's guide will help you choose the most environmentally sound and healthy floor that meets your... Read more
Victoria Schomer
You can avoid exposure to toxic dust and fumes by using a good dust mask that filters out particulates and a respirator that filters out chemical emissions. The National Institute for Occupational... Read more
Lili Wright
Green materials and ecological design are the cutting-edge ways to implement sound health and hygiene practices, ensuring that clean water, clean air, and healthy habitats remain available for all... Read more


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Trucks and Skulls NITRO HD
- Publisher: Appy Entertainment, Inc.
- Genre: Racing
- Released: 18 Nov, 2010
- Size: 111.0 MB
- Price: FREE!
- App Store Info
Description"Winner 2010 Best App Ever Award -- Best iPhone Action Game! This is the physics puzzler you've been waiting for! Smash NITRO-BURNING MONSTER TRUCKS into piles of GIANT SKULLS!
Demolish skull fortifications on Hell's Highway, The Haunted Wastelands, Industrial Armageddon, The Moon, Demon Town, Iceopolis, and the dark forests of Truckylvania! Rev up your engines to launch your trucks, then tap to make them pull stunts and EXPLODE as they crash into buildings and fortresses to destroy lurking, leering skulls. It's a heavy metal, post-apocalyptic, shovel-load of outrageous FUN!
Here's what reviewers are saying about Trucks and Skulls!
"… Trucks & Skulls is Angry Birds stuffed inside a Molotov cocktail of high octane fuel with a fuse consisting of Axl Rose's bandana dipped in old engine oil, lit and thrown onto iPhone and iPod touch." -- Pocketgamer
"Angry Birds for Dudes … highly recommended." -- IGN (iPhone Game of the Month)
"Trucks and Skulls is a smashing success on virtually every level; it's a true iPad killer application." -- Slide-To-Play
Now with over 300 levels! Plus users with an email address can join our free Level of the Month Club!
Trucks and Skulls NITRO is easy to play and loaded with explosions, collapsing buildings, wicked cool art, and the most epic collection of Monster Trucks ever!
DOOMSTONE -- Use this armored semi truck to smash down concrete and steel defenses!
DIVEOSAURUS -- This one man rocket needles through the narrowest gaps, and twists and turns to bring down death from above!
INSANERATOR -- Bloated, loaded with fuel, and explodes on a hair trigger!
THRUSTMONSTER -- Fast, furious, and won't take ""no"" for an answer!
BOMBZILLA -- Your buzz-bombing bunker-buster, arcing high above the fray and dropping hellbombs on target!
TRICLOPS -- The truck that flies into the air, and then bursts into a hail of deadly missiles!
PLUS, now you can purchase awesome truck mods to unleash Hot Rod trucks, Zombie trucks, Bling trucks, Dragon trucks, and Goth trucks, all with unique looks, sounds, and abilities!
Trucks & Skulls NITRO HD for the iPad contains all the excitement of the iPhone version with the added Mega-Bonus of a Fully Featured Level Maker that lets you create your own levels!
Command BRUTE FORCE and EXPLODING TRUCKS to solve the most diabolical physics-based puzzles ever! Smash into obstacles that shatter, explode, and cartwheel through the air. Bank your trucks on bumpers to reach new heights of destruction! Blow up those mocking skulls to clear the level, but watch out for volcanoes and BUBBLING LAVA PITS! That's right, Trucks and Skulls NITRO is LOADED with lava... because EVERYTHING is BETTER with LAVA!
At Appy Entertainment, we're deadly serious about stupid fun! Get TRUCKS and SKULLS NITRO -- the crazy, explosive physics-based puzzler from the creators of FaceFighter! Rev up your trucks and blow those skulls sky-high today!
Recommended iOS 5.0 or later.
What's New in Version 2.3.1Trucks & Skulls reaches its explosive climax with the final episode — Trucksylvania! Plus, dominate the leader boards with sick scores thanks to the new Super Charger!
Fixed minor bugs.


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So many typefaces. So little time.
The BBOFC is an expansive collection of carefully crafted typeface pair samples. The font pairings in BBOFC will inspire you and give you back time you need for your design projects. Use the combination examples straight out of the BBOFC in your next project, with other typeface software, or use them as a springboard for your own creativity. However you use the BBOFC, it's bound to inspire and is a trustworthy companion to consult for all kinds of design projects and general study of typography.
- 370 packed pages of combination ideas
- Dozens and dozens of the most popular typefaces of all time
- Uses many of the top classic typefaces you already own
- Affordable, practical, inspirational
Typefaces you know and love
Our independent research, coupled with several other sources, yielded a matrix of the most popular fonts in graphic design history. We took over 50 of top typefaces and combined them amongst themselves, yielding over 350 typeface pairings. These ideas are yours for the taking, ready to implement with little fuss if need be. They are also a great starting place for creating your own combinations with typefaces you may own that are not in the BBOFC. Either way, you have a great head start with the BBOFC.
Think of the BBOFC like this: it's a sketchbook with some ideas filled in for you. The final masterpiece is up to you.
Fantastically faster than fiddling with fonts
In order to try fonts on your system, you have 1) find the font in your font manager, 2) activate the font, 3) go back to your design app, 4) re-select the text, 5) wade through the font list until you find what you just activated, and finally 6) re-adjust the point size. To create a typeface pairings, you have to do this twice,if not multiple times, to get what you are after. The BBOFC can greatly reduce if not eliminate this cycle for some projects.
A titanic typeface tutoring tour-de-force
With so many classic typefaces for graphic designers to peruse, it's impossible to spend time with the BBOFC and not learn something new about a typeface you my already know well. And what about those other classic typefaces you've heard about, read about, seen in passing, but never got up close and personal with or have seen in unexpected pairings? The BBOFC is a great tutor because the first page of each font chapter is focused on just one classic typeface. Perfect!
Buy It Now!
Amazon • B&N • PDF eBook (40% off retail) at the BonFX Store
Click on a sample for a close up…
Frequently Asked Questions
Take a few minutes to read the FAQ. We want you to get to know the BBOFC as the brainstorming or type sketchbook tool it was designed to be. If you want to learn about combining through examples and find your own inspiration along the way, then this is a great resource for you! Read on to find out more.
Why do I want The BBOFC?
If you love typography and typefaces, you will want this book. It is a working historical record of incredibly influential typefaces from many critical times in graphic design history. It is very easy to enjoy the pleasure of seeing so many wonderful typefaces in relaxed conversation with each other on the sample pages. There is no UI to fiddle with, no flaky font substitution or activation from font manager programs or buggy software or fickle fonts to slow down the inspiration process. Just use the table of contents to get to a typeface chapter, or simply peruse.
What is this book about?
The BBOFC is an inspiration resource for creating great looking combinations of typefaces and fonts for design projects using a carefully selected library of classic typefaces. While there are principles to help designers put together functional and pleasant combinations, nothing beats simply seeing them work together on a page on screen or in print. It takes time to create the samples in order to evaluate them. The goal of this book is to give you back some time, and have fun while learning about typefaces in the process.
Who is this book for?
It is for professional designers, students, and hobbyists alike. Students will learn the names and visual characteristics of some of the most popular typefaces in all of graphic design history. Professionals will find inspiration and save valuable time in the process. In most cases, a designer has to sort through a typeface collection using a type manager application (like Suitcase Fusion), turning individual fonts on and off for use in their design program. After locating and activating a font in the type manager, they then have to flip back to their design application and apply the font to a selection of text. There might be something therapeutic in this slow process for some people, but it does take a lot of time. The BBOFC is a little aid to speed that process up.
Is this meant to be a visual guide or a set of rules?
The BBOFC is not meant to provide a formulaic set of type ideas. It is primarily meant to be a learning tool and a time-saving and inspirational resource for designers. While many combos may work right out of this book, many others serve as examples of contrast. Some examples have more harmony than others, and some have more discord than others, as presented.
It is important to note that no attempt was made to fine tune each type sample to best match another type sample. This was done so that all the type samples would remain consistent from page to page, to help the designer become familiar with the same text, same font size, same leading, etc., from page to page, to help form a mental picture of not only the samples in the book and how they relate, but perhaps how another font on their computer system might work with an example they are familiar with.
Again, while some combinations of fonts with their respective tracking and leading as shown in each sample might work as-is, they may also be greatly improved by carefully optimizing their individual attributes for even better results. I leave the fine-tuning of those attributes up to you!
What is this book not?
- It is not intended as a showcase of typography. It is a tool. A workbook. A sketchpad. Your favorite layout application document captured 350 times in the process of trying different typefaces on for size. It is a whiteboard, chalkboard, napkin, conversation, a walk in the wild Typographic Forest. It is like a color chip ink sample book for selected classic typefaces.
- It is not a manifesto of formulaic results. It is conversation amongst classic typefaces. You will find some great ideas right off, and you will come across other ideas not useful at the moment, and you will come up with your own great ideas. If this conversation sounds interesting to you, this is a resource you'll enjoy.
How were the typefaces chosen?
They were selected by collating several independent sources of research to come up with a list of the most popular typefaces in history. There are various reasons why some typefaces made the list that seem to indicate a bias or preference on the part of the author, but that is not the case. While the list is not exhaustive, the list accurately reflects that all of the typefaces have great popularity and continued high usage in modern design.
Why did you design such a busy layout for the sample pages?
See the previous question for more detail. In a nutshell, we needed to cram a lot, but not too much, and not too little information on each page of pairings combinations. Yes, there is a lot going on. No, you don't want to emulate this layout for your next newsletter. But yes, you get a wide variety of practical ideas for each font and each page, all without having to fiddle with any software. Think of it like a sketchbook for ideas, and you'll have a perfect understanding of the layout.
Are you promoting old typefaces versus new ones?
It would seem that because many new and popular typefaces are not included in this work (like the ever-popular Gotham by HF&J), that there is a bias against new typefaces designed by living type designers over and against old typefaces designed by generations of past type designers. This is not the case. There is simply a logistical, mechanical, and numerical limit to what we could include in a work of this nature. Think of it: 100 fonts times 100 fonts would be a book 10,000 pages long.
Should designers buy new typefaces?
Yes. The typefaces included in this book are all classics (or darn near close) and widely used. But you must expand into current type design vocabulary in order to be the best designer you can. Please support the work of living typographers. Do yourself and them a favor and purchase new, relevant work. Expand your typographic repertoire and make pairs out of old and new typefaces.
How do I use this book?
You must interact with this book. It is a dialogue. It is a resource. Each "chapter" is prefaced by a header and body combination using the same typeface. Subsequent pages for each chapter leave the header font in place while changing the body typeface among a range of options that will give the designer either a literal working combo, or an inspiration to take to their layout program. Either way, a lot of time can be saved by browsing the pages of this book first before fiddling with and drudging through large type libraries and cumbersome font management programs. You'll get to a bottom line faster with the heavy lifting done my merely flipping through these hundreds of typefaces.
Hey! Wait a sec! You can't just put any old two typefaces together!
This has been said many times. If you feel that strongly about it, this is not the book for you. However, your audience will be viewing your work primarily from an aesthetic point of view. This book makes no attempt to assert nor expound on any philosophical platitudes about the deeper meaning of typography. That is the rightful subject of other tomes. The BBOFC does the best job it can with the typefaces it is intentionally delimited to. To that end, this book celebrates the fun of getting inspired, and the beauty of getting decent design work finished, which is what most of us want.
What principles did you use to create the all this?
In general, the method I used was to first look for a basic relationship between the x-heights of each typeface. Secondary attention was paid to glyph width. Tertiary attention was then paid to peculiar chemistries between individual fonts which was usually a bold font as a header copy from one typeface and a regular weight font for body copy from another typeface. That said, if I found particular ideas interesting, I tossed the method out the door. One thing is for sure that you'll notice as you flip through the book: not all pairings are created equal!
Are all these ideas really useful?
All the ideas are useful in some way. Some are ready to go to print. Just copy the basic info for point size and leading right out of the book, but do you own tweaking to the different attributes. Even less-than-apparently-useful ones are quite instructive regarding the personality of a typeface or font. If you know you don't like a pairing, you might think about why by zooming in a little and really coming to a conclusion you can articulate. When you can do that, you've really learned something about a typeface or font.
For instance, you may be ambivalent about Stone, but negative about Stone Italic, especially combined with Helvetica. Perhaps the Helvetica brings out the worst in Stone Italic, in a way you didn't see before, and now you can put your finger on why. Once you are able to do that, you have further developed your own visual vocabulary regarding typography in general.
Why didn't you include [insert favorite typeface] in your list?
We had to draw the line somewhere. If we had included the next ten or fifteen fonts from our list of one-hundred typefaces, this book could have approached five-hundred pages.


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Who needs enemies when you have friends like Paris Hilton! The hocialite called in yesterday morning to the Chet Buchanan and the Morning Zoo show on Vegas' KLUC-FM and laid a fierce verbal tush whoopin' on Kim Kardashian -- calling her "disgusting" and saying her butt "looks like cottage cheese stuffed in a trash bag." WTF? Pot, meet the trampy kettle!
It's nice to know Paris has grown since spending time in the slammer. Classy.
UPDATE: Paris Hilton has apologized to Kim Kardashian, telling InTouch she was just joking. Mmm'kay!
"I was just joking around and I made a stupid joke, I felt really bad afterward, so I contacted Kim and apologized. It was a silly thing to say. Kim's hot!" Apparently Kim accepts the apology and says, "Paris and I have been friends since we were kids and I'm glad she made the effort to say she's sorry." Media whoredom at it's best people!


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Theater review by Helen Shaw. New Ohio Theatre (see the Off-Off List). By Lynn Rosen. Codeveloped and directed by Shana Gold. With ensemble cast. 1hr 30mins. No intermission.
If anyone could play the rapping, omniscient DJ-cum-narrator in Lynn Rosen's Goldor $ Mythyka, it would be Bobby Moreno. As he spins preshow tunes, throwing signs to his favorites in the house, our expectations cautiously rise. (Our spirits have been wobbly since we saw the faux-concrete set, because theater is notoriously dreadful at faking street cred.) But the lighthearted Moreno makes us hope, so…damn you, Bobby Moreno.
In fact, damn everybody, since they all bring their charismatic best to Rosen's self-sabotaging drama about gamers turned folk-hero bandits. Delicate comic talents Garrett Neergaard and Jenny Seastone Stern play Bart and Holly, lovers who start taking their Dungeons & Dragons role-playing literally. They blush and stammer as employees of an armored-car company; then they fling themselves body and spandexed soul into their titular alter egos, who have a taste for real-life robbery. Rosen, unfortunately, seems uncomfortable writing in High Nerd ("Let us run to the Island of Flaming Desire!")—her interest in gaming seems theoretical, her geek-badge in doubt. Her ambitious chronological structure also fails, since she hasn't quite got the knack of time-hopping while also keeping our interest tethered.
There is, to be fair, sly metahumor in the lyrics she gives Moreno, her one-man hip-hop chorus—so it's unfortunate that director Shana Gold cranks the pace and gimmickry to a humor-and-comprehension-killing level. The fable takes the initiative in discussing serious stuff like the economy and escapism, but is drowned out by a cluttered production full of unnecessary noise.—Helen Shaw


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Researchers warn of a new attack which can be carried out in less than 30 seconds and potentially affects millions of laptops globally.
As Intel was rushing to roll out patches for Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities, security researchers have discovered a new critical security flaw in Intel hardware that could allow hackers to access corporate laptops remotely.
Finnish cyber security firm F-Secure reported unsafe and misleading default behaviour within Intel Active Management Technology (AMT) that could allow an attacker to bypass login processes and take complete control over a user's device in less than 30 seconds.
AMT is a feature that comes with Intel-based chipsets to enhance the ability of IT administrators and managed service providers for better controlling their device fleets, allowing them to remotely manage and repair PCs, workstations, and servers in their organisation.
The bug allows anyone with physical access to the affected laptop to bypass the need to enter login credentials—including user, BIOS and BitLocker passwords and TPM pin codes—enabling remote administration for post-exploitation.
In general, setting a BIOS password prevents an unauthorised user from booting up the device or making changes to the boot-up process. But this is not the case here.
The password doesn't prevent unauthorised access to the AMT BIOS extension, thus allowing attackers access to configure AMT and making remote exploitation possible.
Although researchers have discovered some severe AMT vulnerabilities in the past, the recently discovered issue is of particular concern because it is:
- easy to exploit without a single line of code,
- affects most Intel corporate laptops, and
- could enable attackers to gain remote access to the affected system for later exploitation.
"The attack is almost deceptively simple to enact, but it has incredible destructive potential," said F-Secure senior security researcher Harry Sintonen, who discovered the issue in July last year.
"In practice, it can give a local attacker complete control over an individual's work laptop, despite even the most extensive security measures."According to the researchers, the newly discovered bug has nothing to do with the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities recently found in the microchips used in almost all PCs, laptops, smartphones and tablets today.
Here's How to Exploit this AMT Issue
The attacker then can log into Intel Management Engine BIOS Extension (MEBx) with a default password.
Here, the default password for MEBx is "admin," which most likely remains unchanged on most corporate laptops.
Once logged in, the attacker can then change the default password and enable remote access, and even set AMT's user opt-in to "None."
Now, since the attacker has backdoored the machine efficiently, he/she can access the system remotely by connecting to the same wireless or wired network as the victim.
Although exploiting the issue requires physical access, Sintonen explained that the speed and time at which it can be carried out makes it easily exploitable, adding that even one minute of a distraction of a target from its laptop is enough to do the damage.
"Attackers have identified and located a target they wish to exploit. They approach the target in a public place—an airport, a café or a hotel lobby—and engage in an 'evil maid' scenario," Sintonen says.
"Essentially, one attacker distracts the mark, while the other briefly gains access to his or her laptop. The attack doesn't require a lot of time—the whole operation can take well under a minute to complete."Along with CERT-Coordination Center in the United States, F-Secure has notified Intel and all relevant device manufacturers about the security issue and urged them to address it urgently.
Meanwhile, users and IT administrators in an organisation are recommended to change the default AMT password of their device to a strong one or disable AMT if this option is available, and never leave their laptop or PC unattended in a public place.


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DELVECCHIO, THOMAS (Tommaso), innkeeper and founder of a natural history museum; b. 1758 on the shores of Lake Como in Italy, son of Pierre Delvecchio and Catherine Buti (Bufi); d. 5 May 1826 in Montreal.
Thomas Delvecchio and his brother Pierre (Pietro), along with the Bonacinas, Rusconis, Doneganis, and Rascos, were among the first Italians to settle in the province of Quebec. These families, which arrived in the late 18th century and for the most part came originally from Lombardy, were probably endowed with the business acumen commonly attributed to people from that region, since they soon carved out a place for themselves in Montreal in trade, the hotel business, and speculation in real estate.
The Delvecchio brothers made their mark in particular as inn- and tavern-keepers. The exact date and the circumstances of their arrival in the colony are not known, but when on 23 Jan. 1797, at Lavaltrie, Lower Canada, Thomas married Thérèse Chevalier, the 15-year-old daughter of innkeeper Michel Chevalier and Marguerite Brault, he gave his age as 38 and identified himself as an innkeeper and resident of Pointe-aux-Trembles (Montreal).
Delvecchio probably settled in Montreal shortly after his marriage. His first child was baptized there in the parish of Notre-Dame in 1799. In 1812 Delvecchio was running an inn on the Place du Vieux-Marché, now the Place Royale. This establishment, which was called the Auberge des Trois-Rois because its façade boasted a large clock with three figures that struck the hours, was one of the most popular in the town.
As a prosperous innkeeper Delvecchio was a respected member of the small Italian community in Montreal. In 1791 he was godfather to one of the children of merchant Carlo Rusconi. Upon Rusconi's death in 1796 and that of his wife a short time later, Delvecchio became the guardian of their four underage children, a responsibility that he is said to have carried out scrupulously. As another mark of his compatriots' esteem, in 1800 he was chosen, along with his brother, to serve as Giuseppe Donegani's executor.
At the end of 1822, perhaps to reinvigorate his establishment at a time when customers were being increasingly attracted to the new market on the Place Jacques-Cartier and reportedly deserting him, Delvecchio announced that he intended to set up a museum of natural curiosities. On 14 Aug. 1824, "after many efforts, expenses, and trips (again lately in the United States)," he announced the opening of the Museo Italiano at No.4, Place du Vieux-Marché. For a sum between 30 sols and one Spanish dollar, based on the number of persons, visitors could admire a large natural history collection of stuffed quadrupeds, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and fish. They could also see wax figures of a South American Indian family and some Philadelphia and Montreal beauties, as well as automatons, musical instruments, and many other curiosities, among them "a lamb with eight legs, a pig with two bodies in its lower part, four ears, and eight legs, and a ram's head with four horns." The museum premises were not spacious, but they were well laid out and music was played during the tours. Delvecchio was at pains to point out that nothing to be seen there "is in the slightest degree contrary to morality or decency, so that the most religious persons . . . may see the curiosities without qualms. Smoking will not be permitted in the exhibition hall, and neither indecent speech nor indecent conduct will be allowed."
This sort of museum – devoted to the arts and sciences as well as to the most varied "curiosities," the most famous one in North America being Charles Willson Peale's in Philadelphia – probably appealed to the public. Although the first in Canada, Delvecchio's museum was not the only one for long. Soon after the Museo Italiano was inaugurated, Pierre Chasseur*'s natural history collection and the museum of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec opened one after the other at Quebec. In 1827 the Natural History Society of Montreal inaugurated its museum.
The Museo Italiano does not appear to have made its founder rich. In a notice dated 20 Jan. 1826 Delvecchio announced that if the public showed no greater interest in it, he was going to close the museum and sell the collections at the start of the navigation season. Strangely enough, the Montreal Herald published this announcement again on 6 May 1826, the day after Delvecchio's death.
The inventory of Thomas Delvecchio's estate reveals that the innkeeper was reasonably well off. The assets in his house and museum were worth £1,115, and there was £361 in cash. He also owned a house on Rue Saint-Jacques and two lots on the Place du Vieux-Marché, one having a two-storey house with a vaulted cellar and a shed, the other a three-storey house and stable built in stone. In addition a total of £845 was owing him. The estate went to his wife and four daughters (the couple reportedly had had eight children). In a will drawn up the day before he died, Delvecchio bequeathed £500 to his daughter Marie-Christine in accordance with her marriage contract, and he gave instructions for a like amount to be paid to each of his daughters when they married. The rest of his assets went to his wife on condition that she not remarry. His son-in-law, Pierre-Cajetan Leblanc, took over running the museum, and in 1842 he was on Rue Saint-Paul, engaged as well in the grocery business. The collections of the Museo Italiano were ultimately dispersed in 1853.
ANQ-M, CE1-51, 8 mai 1826; CE5-6, 23 janv. 1797; CN1-134, 4 mai 1826, 7 févr. 1827. La bibliothèque canadienne (Montréal), 1 (1825): 53–55. Canadian Spectator (Montreal), 21 Aug. 1824. Montreal Gazette, 8 May 1826. Montreal Herald, 6, 10 May 1826. Quebec Gazette, 28 Oct. 1819. Scribbler (Montreal), 12 Dec. 1822. Giroux et al., Inv. des marchés de construction des ANQ-M, 1, nos.1093–95; 2, no.1334. Lebœuf, Complément, 3e sér.: 32. Montreal directory, 1842. W. H. Atherton, Montreal, 1535–1914 (3v., Montreal and Vancouver, 1914), 2: 130–31. L.-P. Audet, Le système scolaire, 5: 283. J. I. Cooper, Montreal, the story of three hundred years (n.p., 1942), 63. Kathleen Jenkins, Montreal, island city of the St Lawrence (New York, 1966), 259. J.-C. Marsan, Montréal en évolution: historique du développement de l'architecture et de l'environnement montréalais (Montréal, 1974), 130, 135. Giosafat Mingarelli, Gli Italiani di Montreal; note e profili (Montreal, [1967]), 12–15. Robert Rumilly, Histoire de Montréal (5v., Montréal, 1970–74), 2: 134, 141, 164. A. V. Spada, Les Italiens au Canada (Ottawa et Montréal, 1969), 54, 62–64. P. G. Vangelisti, Gli Italiani in Canada (Montreal, 1956), 63–64. F.-J. Audet, "Les Donegani de Montréal," BRH, 47 (1941): 66–67. Raymond Duchesne, "Magasin de curiosités ou musée scientifique? Le Musée d'histoire naturelle de Pierre Chasseur à Québec (1824–1854)," HSTC Bull. (Thornhill, Ont.), 7 (1983): 60, 75. É.-Z. Massicotte, "Noms de rues, de localités, etc., à Montréal," BRH, 30 (1924): 175–77; "Scènes de rues à Montréal au siècle passé," Cahiers des Dix, 7 (1942): 279.
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Cite This Article
Raymond Duchesne, "DELVECCHIO, THOMAS," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 6, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed September 25, 2023, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/delvecchio_thomas_6E.html.
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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – About 18 people involved in an Internet cafe scheme, including some high-profile people from Jacksonville, are hoping to bond out of jail in Seminole County on Thursday following some commotion in court Wednesday.
Fraternal Order of Police President Nelson Cuba and FOP Vice President Robbie Freitas are among those facing racketeering charges in the federal investigation. Investigators say they received more than $571,000 through a shell corporation during an 18-month period in connection with the investigation into gambling centers throughout Florida.
Bond for Cuba and Freitas was set at $500,000 at Thursday's hearing.
They were booked into the John E. Polk Correctional Facility in Seminole County earlier this week. Their bond hearing initially began Wednesday before being stopped.
Bonds for Jerry Bass (pictured, irght), head of Allied Veterans of the World, and Kelly Mathis the organization's attorney and accused mastermind in the $300,000 scheme, were each set at $1 million.
"Mathis is not a ringleader. Mathis was the lawyer for organizations who were trying to establish how to legally conduct business," said attorney Mitch Stone, who's representing Mathis. "He was advising, he was litigating, he was counseling, he was doing the things that attorneys do for clients. And it's a pretty scary day in America if your lawyer is subjected to being prosecuted for representing your interests."
Stone filed a motion to reduce Mathis' bond.
Other conditions of the bonds are the suspects must turn in their passports and cannot leave the state.
IMAGES: Faces of those arrested
Mark NeJame, a prominent Orlando attorney representing Internet cafe owners Tony Parker and Amir Waheed, said his clients getting arrested is wrong.
"They've been fighting it in civil court for years, never been shut down," NeJame said. "These places are not underground. They pay their taxes, they have employees."
Attorneys were in the middle of trying to get Mathis released on bond Wednesday, saying he was not a flight risk, when all of a sudden a judge different than the one hearing the argument barged in and said the hearing was over.
Attorneys said they'd never seen anything like that happen before and their clients have the right to a fair first appearance within 24 hours.
"This is a completely illegal process, what happened in this courtroom today," said attorney Mitch Stone, who's representing Kelly Mathis. "They're entitled to a meaningful first appearance within 24 hours. That was not done. My client has been in jail for 30 hours. We tried to have a meaningful hearing today, and the judge who signed the no bond warrant came in and shut the hearing down."
Mathis was one of the 18 people scheduled for a bond hearing in the federal investigation.
"I know some of them personally," Stone said. "They're doing business and legally working within the courts. This process today is the only illegal thing that I know of. What just happened in this courtroom, that's the only illegal thing."
Those who choose to post bond will have to prove the money they use to post bond is "clean money" and was not obtained illegally.
Sheriff John Rutherford and the FDLE at a news conference Wednesday afternoon announced a coordinated effort involving federal, state, county and local law enforcement agencies that resulted in arrests and search warrants involving 49 illegal gambling centers in 23 Florida counties.
The investigation called Operation Reveal The Deal began in 2007, Rutherford said.
He said that's when the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office began an investigation of a potential criminal enterprise. By September 2008, Rutherford said, the investigation had uncovered potential illegal activity on the part of Cuba.
By 2010, it became clear that Cuba (pictured, right at Thursday's bond hearing) was not part of the original enterprise under investigation, but was possibly tied to a second separate criminal enterprise with multiple entities that appeared to be shell companies, Rutherford said. He said further investigation revealed that some of those companies were affiliates of Allied Veterans of the World.
Rutherford said that at that time, he ordered a separate investigation into the activities of Cuba, Freitas, Allied Veterans and its affiliates.
The investigation found they received more than $571,000 through a shell corporation called Enzyme Consultants and from an Internet cafe in Yulee over the course of a year and a half. The two withdrew cash weekly, attempting to avoid detection by removing amounts just below mandatory federal reporting requirements, investigators said.