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Jorgen Pedersen Gram
Quick Info
Nustrup (18 km W of Haderslev), Denmark
Copenhagen, Denmark
BiographyJorgen Gram's father, Peder Jorgensen Gram, was a farmer and his mother was Marie Magdalene Aakjaer. After completing two parts of his primary school education, Jorgen entered the Ribe Katedralskole secondary school in 1862. He graduated in 1868 and began his university education.
In 1873 Gram graduated with a Master's degree in mathematics. This degree was of a higher level than the present British/American Master's degree and more on a par with today's British/American Ph.D. Gram had published his first important mathematics paper before he had graduated. This was a work on modern algebra which appeared first in Tidsskrift for Mathematik but, in 1874, Gram published a fuller account of the same material in French. This fuller version appeared in Mathematische Annalen under the title Sur quelques théorèmes fondamentaux de l'algèbre moderne Ⓣ. This work provided a simple and natural framework for invariant theory.
In 1875 Gram was appointed as an assistant in the Hafnia Insurance Company. Around the same time he began working on a mathematical model of forest management. We give more details below of this research interest which Gram followed for many years. His career in the Hafnia Insurance Company progressed well and soon he was promoted to a more senior role in the company. However his work for the insurance company led him back into mathematical research. He began working on probability and numerical analysis, two topics whose practical applications in his day to day work in calculating insurance made their study important to him.
Gram's mathematical career was always a balance between pure mathematics and very practical applications of the subject. We have already mentioned the very practical applications to forestry which he continued to study at this time, and his work on probability and numerical analysis involved both the theory and its application to very practical situations. He published a paper on these topics On series expansions determined by the methods of least squares and for this work he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science in 1879. This degree, equivalent to today's British D.Sc., is at a higher level than a doctorate. Gram later published this work in the Journal für Mathematik and it proved to be of fundamental importance in the development of the theory of integral equations.
The year 1879 was important for Gram in another context, for on 30 September of that year, he married Dorthe Marie Sørensen who was the daughter of a blacksmith. Also in 1879 Gram published the second of his four papers on forestry which all appeared in Danish Forestry Journals. The first had appeared in 1876, a year after he began this research, and it presented a mathematical model for maximising the profit in managing a forest. The paper was written in Danish and failed to be noticed outside his own country. In fact Gram never gained the international recognition for this work which he deserved but German researchers, unaware of Gram's contributions, published their own results on the same problems. There is little doubt that their work was far less satisfactory than that of Gram's yet because it was readily accessible it was the Germans and not Gram who gained international acclaim. Gram extended his work on forestry in later papers. After the 1879 paper he published two further papers in 1883 and 1889. These papers included developments of his forestry model which he was able to make in the light of experiments on trees which he carried out over a number of years. He work in this area was later widely used.
Gram's work on probability and numerical analysis led him in a natural way to study abstract problems in number theory. In 1884 he won the Gold Medal of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences for his paper Investigations of the number of primes less than a given number which he published in the journal of the Society. Gram had corresponded with Meissel on this topic and in 1885 Meissel travelled to Denmark and met with Gram. It was 1885 that Meissel published his work on the number of primes less than so the two had much to discuss on the topic. Gram also worked on the Riemann zeta function. Zeuthen writes in [1]:-
His brilliance and scientific training together with his practical skills made his contributions to pure and applied mathematics very significant.Although he continued to work for the Hafnia Insurance Company in more and more senior roles, Gram founded his own insurance company, the Skjold Insurance Company, in 1884. He was the director of this company from its founding until 1910. From 1895 until 1910 Gram was also an executive of the Hafnia Insurance Company. On 9 April 1895 Gram's wife Dorthe died. Gram married again just over one year later on 15 May 1896, his second wife being Emma Birgitte Hansen. From 1910 until his death in 1916 Gram was Chairman of the Danish Insurance Council. It was through his work for the insurance companies that Gram became close to another Danish mathematician, Thorvald Thiele, who worked as an actuary.
Despite not teaching mathematics in a university and as a consequence never having any students, Gram still managed to influence the next generation of Danish mathematicians in a very positive way. He often lectured in the Danish Mathematical Society, he was an editor of Tidsskrift for Mathematik from 1883 to 1889, and he also reviewed papers written in Danish for the Jahrbuchs über die Fortschritte der Mathematik Ⓣ.
Gram received honours for his mathematical contributions despite being essentially an amateur mathematician. The Danish Academy had awarded him their Gold Medal in 1884 before he became a member, but in 1888 he was honoured with election to the Society. He frequently attended meetings of the Society and published in the Society's journals. For many years he was the Treasurer of the Danish Academy.
Gram is best remembered for the Gram-Schmidt orthogonalisation process which constructs an orthogonal set of vectors from an independent one. He was not however the first to use this method. The process seems to be a result of Laplace and it was essentially used by Cauchy in 1836.
Gram met his death in a rather strange and very sad way. He was on his way to a meeting of the Danish Academy when he as struck and killed by a bicycle. He was sixty-five years old when he met his death in this tragic accident.
References (show)
- H G Zeuthen, Jorgen Pedersen Gram, Dansk Biografisk Leksikon VIII (Copenhagen, 1936), 269-271.
Additional Resources (show)
Other websites about Jorgen Gram:
Cross-references (show)
Written by J J O'Connor and E F Robertson
Last Update March 2001
Last Update March 2001


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tl;dr: the open license ecosystem assumes that sharing can't (or even shouldn't) happen without explicit permission in the form of licenses. What if "post open source" is an implicit critique of that assumption – saying, in essence, "I reject the permission culture"? If so, license authors might want to consider creating options that enable people to express that opinion.
A few months back, James Governor said:
younger devs today are about POSS – Post open source software. fuck the license and governance, just commit to github.
— James Governor (@monkchips) September 17, 2012
While the actual extent of "POSS" is debatable, there is definitely an increase in the amount of unlicensed code out there. This post suggests 20+% of the most-watched github projects are unlicensed. The pushback against licensing isn't specific to software, either – at least some sharing musicians are deliberately spurning Creative Commons (via Lucas) and Nina Paley has been obliquely making the same point about the licensing of her art as well.
A few months back, I pointed out that the lack of licensing led to confusion and so was great for lawyers. That post was accurate, but slightly glib. Here, I want to grapple more seriously with the rejection of licensing, and provoke the licensing community to think about what that means.
A dab of history and context
In the US, prior to the 1976 Copyright Act, you had to take affirmative steps to get a protectable copyright. In other words, you could publish something and expect others to be able to legally reuse it, without slapping a license on it first.
Since the 1976 Act, you get copyright simply by creating the work in question. That means every blog post and every github commit is copyrighted. This restrictive default, combined with the weakness of fair use, leads to the "permission culture" – the pernicious assumption that you must always ask permission before doing anything with anyone's work, because nothing is ever simply shared or legally usable. (This assumption is incorrect, but the cost of acting that way can be high if you make a mistake.)
"POSS" might be more than just bad hygiene
It is easy to assume that the pushback against licenses ("post-open source") is because licensing is confusing/time-consuming and people are lazy/busy. While I'm sure these are the primary reasons, I think that, for some people, the pushback against licenses often reflects a belief that "no copyright should mean no permission needed". In other words, those people choose not to use a license because, on some level, they reject the permission culture and want to go back to the pre-1976 defaults. In this case, publishing without a license is in some way a political statement – "not every use should need permission".1
Fixing(?) the politics of our licenses
If some "no license" sharing is a quiet rejection of the permission culture, the lawyer's solution (make everyone use a license, for their own good!) starts to look bad. This is because once an author has used a standard license, their immediate interests are protected – but the political content of not choosing a license is lost. Or to put it another way: if license authors get their wish, and everyone uses a license for all content, then, to the casual observer, it looks like everyone accepts the permission culture. This could make it harder to change that culture – to change the defaults – in the long run.
So how might we preserve the content of the political speech against the permission culture, while also allowing for use in that same, actually-existing permission culture? Or to put it more concisely:
What would a "license" that actively rejects the permission culture look like?
A couple of off-the-wall options:
- Permissive+political preamble license: The WTFPL license ("Do WTF you want") has been floating around for ages, and using it makes the point that (1) you want people to use your code and (2) you're irritated that they even have to ask. Adding a brief "I hate that I have to do this" preamble to a permissive license like CC-0 might serve a similar purpose, while providing more legal certainty than WTFPL. (And of course such a preamble could also be used with a strong copyleft, like copyleft-next.)
- Fair Use supplement: Fair use is the traditional safety valve for copyright, but it is hard to know if a particular use is "fair." So a "license" could be written that, instead of formally licensing under specific terms, instead aims to provide more certainty about fair use. Some ways this could be done would include broadly defining the fair use categories, explicitly accepting transformative use as a factor in the fair use analysis, or asking courts to interpret ambiguity in favor of the recipient instead of the author. It is also possible to imagine this as a supplement to the existing fair use clauses in modern licenses (CC-BY 3.0 Sec. 2, GPL v3 Sec. 2, MPL 2 Sec 2.6), laying out a strong vision of fair use to help guide and protect anyone relying on those clauses.
- "What People Actually Think Copyright Is" license: most Americans2 think that personal use of copyrighted materials is legal under modern copyright law. So a license that focused on personal use might work better than the more nebulous "non-commercial". As a bonus, since commercial interests will clearly be unable to use the content, getting it "right for lawyers" may be less of a concern.
Careful readers will note that the last two options are unlikely to be OSI-open or FSF-free. For the purposes of this exercise, that's OK- OSI, FSF, and CC's iron-clad assumption that licensing is good is what I'd like to provoke people to think about here.3
Conclusion, and provocation
I don't offer these license ideas as a comprehensive survey of what an anti-permission-culture license might look like, or even a good survey. Instead, take them as a provocation: are we – particularly authors and evaluators of open licenses – part of the problem of the permission culture? Are we actually responding to the people who use our licenses, if one of their desires is to push back against the need to license? Can we be more creative about expressing distaste for the permission culture, without gumming up the works of sharing too much? I think that, if we think critically, we can, and perhaps we should.
- Another motive, that I won't go into here but which also deserves serious discussion for license authors, is simply that the values encapsulated in our licenses are taken for granted by younger developers who have always had a plentiful, healthy free-as-in-beer code commons. Both the permissive and copyleft communities would do well to argue the case for their licenses (not just their overall philosophies) better than they currently do. [↩]
- per Jessica Littman, Digital Copyright, p. 117 [↩]
- If it wasn't already obvious, this post is obviously not made with my OSI hat on – OSI continues to firmly endorse the Open Source Definition. [↩]

subset: commoncrawl


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Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
At long last, the time has come, traveler. After deep dives in Athena, Wilhelm, and Nisha, our quartet is finally complete. In fact, with the fourth playable character, Claptrap, the party is more complete than it's ever been.
Claptrap is a character that people either love or hate, which carries through to his appearance in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. You're never far from his one-liners, and many of his abilities will have a direct impact on other players.
I'm not just talking about buffs and heals. Claptrap can mess with your party in weird ways thanks to his active ability. VaultHunter.exe is one of the most random elements I've seen in an RPG since Final Fantasy VII with Cait Sith's gambling-based limit breaks.
When you activate VaultHunter.exe, Claptrap assesses the situation. Are you alone or with friends? Is one of your allies fighting for their life? How many enemies are nearby? The result triggers one of many different abilities that mimic any of the other playable characters from across titles.
I gunzerked, dropped a turret, went into showdown mode, and went a little crazy like Krieg. Some of the results are new, including a huge bomb, a flood of Torgue grenades getting tossed automatically, and one that will likely earn the ire of your teammates. One vaultHunter.exe result makes the entire party bounce uncontrollably, but with the benefit of reflecting bullets.
If you find Claptrap annoying as an NPC, you will likely despise playing alongside him. I absolutely loved the randomness of the active ability though, as it seemed to recharge quickly, though that could have been tuned for demo purposes.
I opted for the skill tree that caps off with Claptrap looking for some love from his friends. He can ask for a high five. If granted (via a punch to the face), he and the team get a buff for being such best buds (called "I Love You Guys"). If denied, Claptrap gets a different set of bonuses as thumbs-down icons fill the screen (aptly named, "Screw You Guys").
Many of you have asked some sensible questions about how Claptrap functions mechanically. He's shorter than the other vault hunters (he's the Odd Job of the bunch). He does require oxygen (no, we don't get it either). When he "runs," he doesn't have a look bounce, creating the effect of rolling quickly on his one wheel. He can also jump and climb ladders. He functions like any other vault hunter in terms of core mechanics, but everything is thematic and flavorful.
Claptrap might just be the biggest writing and designing accomplishment the Borderlands team has ever pulled off. He's fun to play, exactly as maddening to listen to, and you get to punch him in the face.


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(2) Aftermarket Paddles (1) Aftermarket Scraper Bar. Toro: CCR2000, CCR2450, CCR3600 and CCR3650, PowerClear 210R, 221QR and 421QR. Toro: Power Clear 621 and Quick Clear 6053 snowblowers. Scraper Bar Replaces OEM#. Toro: CCR2000, CCR2400, CCR2450, CCR2500, CCR3000, CCR3600, CCR3650 and CCR3675. Established in 1970, EPR Distribution specializes in a wide variety of products and parts ranging from Landscape Equipment and Parts to Sporting Goods. The best products, the best prices! Our team works hard to find you the best deals and provide you with a wide selection of products. Friendly, accessible customer service! Our dedicated and friendly customer service agents are here to help you with all your questions and concerns. Feel free to send us a message directly and one of our agents will get back to you as soon as possible. However, we cannot guarantee the cancellation. California Prop 65 – This product can expose you to certain chemicals, which are known to the State of California to cause cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm. Powered by SixBit's eCommerce Solution. The item "Snow Blower Rotor Paddles 99-9313 Scraper 55-8760 Kit Toro CCR 2000 2450 3650″ is in sale since Thursday, October 13, 2016. This item is in the category "Home & Garden\Yard, Garden & Outdoor Living\Outdoor Power Equipment\Snow Blowers". The seller is "eprdistribution" and is located in Elgin, Illinois. This item can be shipped to United States.
- Type: Paddle Bar Kit
- Brand: Replaces Toro
- MPN: Replaces 99-9313 55-8760
- UPC: Does Not Apply


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This morning, our fish team went to a small boatshed in Breaker Bay on Wellington's south coast to pick up a great white shark. Not your normal morning mission and a bittersweet one at that as these creatures are endagered animals and a protected species. The shark had been ensnared in a fishing net and was dead by the time the fishermen had pulled it in.
It took 6 of us to lift it into the truck and being that close to an animal gives you a true sense of what a beautiful and perfectly made for purpose these creatures are. The shark is 2.7 metres long so its tail fin didn't quite fit as you can see in the picture below. We had to carefully wrap the fin up for the trip back to Te Papa's laboratories.
Back at Te Papa, the team were able to give the specimen a wash and have a closer look. Andrew Stewart, Te Papa's Fishes Collection Manager, says that the shark is an immature male and a rare specimen as the shark was on the cusp of moving from fish as its primary food source to marine mammmals.
When we rolled the shark over to clean its underside, the scientists noticed small parasites which they collected for identification.
These parasites were even found inside its mouth, buried into its gums and on its tongue. Andrew says that remora fish feed on these parasites – this shark is its own fully-functioning eco-system!
The teeth look quite sharp and pointy but the points weren't sharp to touch. The sides of the teeth are serrated and I was pretty happy a strong person was holding up the jaw when I took these photos!
The shark's nose and head are covered with jelly-filled sensory organs that look like freckles. These organs help it to sense electromagnetic pulses given off by its prey. I was amazed at how soft and velvety its skin felt, until I went against the grain and then it felt quite raspy.
The shark will be frozen in our freezer to maintain the specimen's integrity until further plans are confirmed.


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The Purveyors of Violence: The NY Times in Falluja
"Things are almost back to normal here. We have teachers and books. Things are getting better."
-- New York Times,
"Vital Signs of a Ruined City Grow stronger in Falluja," March 26, 2005
"I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today—my own government."
-- Rev. Martin Luther King
Cameras aren't allowed in Falluja. Neither are journalists. If they were then we would have first-hand proof of America's greatest war crime in the last 30 years: the Dresden-like bombardment of an entire city of 250,000. Instead, we have to rely on eyewitness accounts that appear on the internet or the spurious reports that sporadically surface in the New York Times and Associated Press. For the most part, the Times and AP have shown themselves to be undependable, limiting their coverage to the details that support the overall goals of the occupation. For example, in the last few weeks both the NYT and the AP ran stories on the alleged progress being made in Falluja. The AP outrageously referred to the battered city as "the safest place in Iraq," a cynical appraisal of what most independent journalists have called nearly total destruction. One can only wonder if the editors at the AP would approve of similar security measures if they were taken in their own neighborhoods.
The NYT also ran a lengthy story, "Vital Signs of a Ruined City Grow stronger in Falluja", which portrayed Falluja as a city 'on the mend' after a healthy dose of imperial medicine: "Classes have started again two months ago and the cheerful shrieks of children can be heard in the hallways." This was just one of the more contemptuous quotes lifted from the NYT story of "rebirth" from the epicenter of American devastation. The quote was accompanied by a picture of a Marine in full combat gear bending over to tie the shoe of a seven or eight year old Iraqi boy; a threatening image used to convey the spirit of American generosity.
The truth about Falluja is far different than the bogus reports in the AP and Times. The fact that even now, a full 6 months after the siege, camera crews and journalists are banned from the city, tells us a great deal about the extent of America's war crimes. Just two weeks ago, a photographer from Al Aribiyya news was arrested while leaving Falluja and his equipment and film were confiscated. To date, he is still being held without explanation and there is no indication when he will be released. This illustrates the fear among the military brass that the truth about Falluja will leech out and destroy whatever modest support still exists for the occupation. Journalists should realize that Falluja may turn out to be the administration's Achilles heel; a My Lai-type atrocity that turns the public decisively against Bush's war.
The fairytales in the Times and AP are typical wartime propaganda; no different from the fabrications about Jessica Lynch's heroics or the Dear Leader larking about in Baghdad with a plastic turkey in tow (Bush's "surprise" Thanksgiving day visit). The articles suggest that the administration has settled on a strategy for concealing the unpleasant facts about the obliteration of the city. Along with an active disinformation campaign featured in the nation's leading newspapers, the administration has put together a PR operation to shape public perceptions. This explains why the State Department's number two official, Robert Zoellick, popped up in Falluja last week for a photo-op at a bread making factory and a water pumping station. Zoellick's visit was supposed to draw attention to the progress being made in Falluja's restoration. Instead, his plans were disrupted by threats to his personal safety and he was hustled off to a fortified military compound in the center of town. There he was beset by the city's tribal leaders' complaining about the dismal pace of reconstruction.
Zoellick's appearance was intended to highlight the alleged return of 90,000 Fallujans to the city and the reparations that have been made to the city's water system. In fact, there's no way to verify the administration's claims about the numbers of returning residents, and its doubtful that there have been any measurable improvements to the water treatment plants, sewage facilities, electrical grid or hospital, all of which were intentionally bombed during the siege.
Zoellick's "confidence-building" trip turned out to be just another in a long list of bungled public relations gambits. If anything, it only further proved that the US still has no control over the security situation on the ground, and that the majority of Iraqis were better off under Saddam.
The Bush administration claims that the military is slowly providing compensation to the people whose homes were destroyed during the Falluja offensive but, again, there's no independent source that can verify those claims and it seems inconsistent with the existing policy. Zoellick summarized the Bush policy succinctly in his remarks to the Fallujan leaders, "I know it won't be easy. There will be many days of frustration, even threats. We can help, but YOU have to make it happen."
Zoellick's comments are little more than a distillation of the Bush ethos, "You're on your own," the underlying theme of "compassionate conservatism."
It's doubtful that anyone in Falluja is so naïve that they believe the administration will actually help out with the reconstruction. Two years have passed since the initial invasion and Baghdad is still limited to three or four hours of electricity per day. The problems with water and sewage systems are equally grave. Only one in five Iraqis has access to clean water and there are still many places in Baghdad where raw sewage can be seen on the city streets. As a result there have been reports of outbreaks of cholera, diarrhea and other more obscure water-borne illnesses.
Falluja is undoubtedly doomed to the same fate as Afghanistan. The media will create the illusion of improvement for the American public, celebrating the meaningless trappings of democracy (sham elections, claims of sovereignty, and the writing of a constitution) while the nation remains fractured and under the brutal rule of the regional warlords. Afghanistan is a lawless, drug colony run by gangsters and narco smugglers. By any standard of measurement, our involvement there has been a complete failure.
The real Afghanistan bears no resemblance to the flourishing democratic republic that graces the pages of American newspapers.
Falluja and the rest of Iraq can expect the very same treatment. There is no Plan B; the Bush strategy for toppling regimes and replacing them with the Neoliberal model is a cookie cutter approach to governance, a one-size-fits-all formula for global rule.
In Naomi Klein's article "The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," Klein points out that there really is no intention on the part of the US to rebuild Iraq or anywhere else for that matter. When the State Department gets involved, through its Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), "the mandate is not to rebuild any old states, but to create 'democratic and market-oriented' ones." That entails selling off "state owned enterprises that created a nonviable economy" and, thereby, "changing the very social fabric of a nation."
There it is! Deregulation, privatization and control of resources, the same model applied over and over again. The real goal is a radical, fundamental change to the system; "shock therapy," the all-purpose antidote prescribed by the global banking and financial establishment. These changes are facilitated through their political surrogates in the Bush administration, and executed by their own private security apparatus (a.k.a. the US Military). After Iraq has passed through this vicious transition from semi-socialist government to deregulated capitalist colony, it will be entered into the new world order of American protectorates, stripped of its resources and subjected to the tyranny of foreign rule. All government properties and services will be controlled by multinational corporations and all assets will be held by the foreign lending institutions that own the majority shares of the Iraqi National Bank.
The NY Times: "Our business is selling war; and business is good."
The real story of Falluja will never appear in the pages of the New York Times; the banned weapons, the bloated corpses, the thousands of dead animals killed by illicit chemicals, the wasteland of rubble and ruined lives. The magnitude of the crime simply won't fit within the paper's glib account of benign intervention. Rather, the Times is focused on promoting a credible story of "rebirth amid the ruins," of lives patched together by a kindhearted father in Washington and his heavily armed disciples.
They're wasting their time. The cruelty of the siege and the vastness of devastation will eventually be brought to light and the Time's feeble apologetics will amount to nothing.
The Times remains the command center of the imperial chronicle, the indispensable shaper of the colonial digest. Its pages furnish the muddled logic for the invasion of defenseless nations, the rationale for continued repression, the requisite smokescreen for American war crimes, and the dubious justification for the ongoing occupation. Their work in Falluja is just one of many services they carry out as the information annex of the defense establishment. They perform subtler assignments others as well. They continue to be an invaluable cog in the machinery of state terror, executing their function with extraordinary skill.
Mike Whitney lives in Washington state, and can be reached at: firstname.lastname@example.com.
Other Articles by Mike Whitney
* Screw You, Paul


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JasmineJasmine (Jp. Name: Mikan)
Hometown: Olivine City, Johto
Jasmine is the Gym Leader in Olivine City. Also running the Lighthouse in Olivine with her Ampharos, Jasmine manages to juggle both managing the Lighthouse and the Gym with help from her aids. Jasmine is a really kind person who truely cares for her Pokémon. However with this care for her Pokémon, she does not like it when her Pokémon get ill. Focusing on Steel types, Jasmine is a tricky Gym Leader for trainers to beat.
Jasmine has worked up the ranks and become the Olivine City Gym Leader.
Pokémon on Team
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Earlier this week I was asked an interesting question by Digiday. "What's More Important: Native Ads or Programmatic Buying?" I thought the question was a bit conflated – it's not either or. It very much depends on how you define the terms.
My response is below. Check the story for the opinions of many others in the industry as well.
If I had to wager a guess, I'd have to say that programmatic will be a larger force, but only if you take "native" to mean the native units at domain-specific platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and the like. But it's very important to define your terms here because in five years time, I think you will be able to buy all of these "native" units across a unified "programmatic" platform — and that platform has not yet been built. We are, as an industry, heading in that direction, and it's a very exciting one. When programmatic merges with native and is fueled by data and a transparent, objective framework, everyone wins.
For more on this, check my earlier posts What Should the Ads Be Like? and The Evolution of Display: Change Is Here, For Good.


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Every week, the Comics Page introduces you to brand-new graphic novels by the world's best artists and writers. Manga, superheroes, indie comix — we'll cover them all as our editors select the best the exploding comics world has to offer.
Aaron is a hyper, creative, nerdy kid whose imagination frequently gets the best of him. Can he ever find a friend in the nightmare known as middle school?
All week on the Comics Page, we're excerpting Aaron Renier's "Simple Machines," a delightful short story of middle-school angst and imagination, from Stuck in the Middle: Seventeen Comics From an Unpleasant Age, an anthology just published by Viking.
"Simple Machines," by Aaron Renier
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five
Tomorrow: Destroying cars and wreaking havoc.


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Gas fumes are a problem. Ask nearly any first gen Miata owner and they will have a gas fume story. Some are less smelly than others. Some rarely stink. Some always stink. But it's just a fact of life. If you have an early Miata, you've smelled gas in your trunk. Hell, sometimes it happens to NBs too.
Fortunately, there's a few things you can do about it. Unfortunately, there's a lot of possible causes. This post will address a couple and their possible solutions.
1: Spare tire
This is what the forums always talk about. The spare tire can out-gas and cause a fuel-like smell. The fix is to either remove it or wrap it in a plastic trash bag and seal it up.
In 12 years of ownership, I've never had a spare in Sharka. Bucky has always carried a spare, since 2001, and his trunk has no fuel smell. The tire is not my problem. But it's always discussed in forums, so I had to include it first.
2: The big tank fill hose in the trunk.
This is the other low hanging fruit. Behind the metal cover on the left hand side of the trunk (port side, US driver's side, etc) is a huge hose. It is sealed to the tank on one side and the metal filler pipe on the other by hose clamps. Make sure these clamps are tight.
I tried this fix about 3 months ago. I unbolted the panel and inspected stuff. My hoses were all healthy and the clamps were tight. I didn't think to take a photo for this blog post. It's just a hose with some clamps anyway. No photo necessary.
3: Exhaust heating up the tank.
This is the main point of my blog post. Heat. Heat and the management of it in relation to the gas tank.
Check out that exhaust. It runs right under the fuel tank. There's actually some space between them… maybe 2″ or so. It doesn't TOUCH the tank, but it gets quite close. And there's no shielding anywhere. I think the factory exhaust includes some shielding on the pipe. Aftermarket ones? Nope. No chance.
When Geoff (stoly) and Steve (r2limited) were here in NM visiting me, I started to form a theory. While driving around in the mountains, we were all plagued with fuel smells and a lot of pressure in our tanks. A lot. All three cars. All three were NAs, but all three were rather different. However they all had aftermarket exhausts…
Heat + gas tank = tank pressure? Hmmm. A theory. It formed.
So, I researched my theory. It turned out many V8 conversion guys were having crazy problems with fuel tank pressure and fumes. The fumes were forcing most to refuel after only a half tank or even 100 miles of driving. A fuller tank has more fuel mass and heats up more slowly. And two exhaust pipes and V8 heat levels will indeed warm things up. A few of them recommended this particular heat shield. I hit Jegs and picked one up.
Thermotec sells several of these. They do a 1′, a 2′, and a 3′. I bought the 3′ after measuring the midpipe. It seemed like it would probably be mostly covered by a 3′ and I thought I could always cut it down if I needed.
I didn't expect this shield to be quite this nice. Fiberglass cloth with nice metal brackets. And on the other side is a reflective barrier that's sort of quilted onto the fiberglass. Really really nice. I guess I expected just some stick on stuff that resisted heat. In fact, I'd already tried some stuff like that.
Also, this shield will fit damn near any pipe you can throw at it. Sharka has 2.5″ pipe. I think a 4″ pipe would be no problem. They ship huge hose clamps with this shield.
Really not much to it. The hose clamps are, as previously mentioned, huge. I used a power driver to fasten the hose clamps down. I started out with a screwdriver and my forearm was burning after just one clamp.
The heat shield runs the length of the midpipe. Almost from the cat all the way back to the muffler. It provides shielding not only for the exhaust, but also for the differential. And that's GOTTA help. It's just gotta.
I've only driven a handful of miles since installing this piece. I'll update this post when I have some concrete data on the effectiveness of this mod.
-Update: 10/2014-
I have no definite proof that this shield is the magic bullet fix, but I've had ZERO problems since installing it. Well, until recently. I've started to have a bit of fumes in the trunk and excessive tank pressure after a long drive. BUT! I've not cleaned my tank valves (as seen below) since posting this article. Probably about time for a cleaning.
The heat shield has been a great addition. I highly recommend picking one up for anyone with a tank pressure or fume problem.
4: The valves on top of the fuel tank.
This is another possible problem area. The gas tank has these little valves in the top. One is designed to keep fuel from splashing out in the event of a roll. The other is a sort of one-way check valve designed to let pressure from the tank out to the EVAP system to eventually burn though the motor. That's the idea anyway. After 15+ years, how many of these valves on the NA Miatas are still functional?
Sharka's is actually functional. At least it was a few years ago. I've already had this apart to clean once. I didn't blog about it back then, but it worked great. This time, I brought my camera.
If you have a soft top, this isn't the easiest job in the world. You have to put the top up to get enough room to roll back the carpet. You also have to sort of crouch behind the seats. It sucks. Having no top or a bikini top makes life really nice.
If you ever wondered, this is how you change the fuel pump as well. It's the larger item beside the valves in the top photo.
There's really nothing to it. The anti-roll valve is held in place by four small screws. The check valve just has hose clamps holding it in place.
By the way, manual transmission Miatas have one check valve. Automatic cars have two. And I think CA-spec cars have a network of three valves? Very strange. I once saw a photo of one. Looked like a maze designed to keep fuel vapor from ever leaving the tank.
The little valve works exactly like a PCV valve. It should rattle when you shake it. You should also be able to blow through it in one direction but not the other. When I removed Sharka's it didn't rattle. I could also blow through it both directions.
A little carb cleaner fixes it right up. I just sprayed a small bit in each side and then shook it up a little bit and drained the cleaner onto the rocks in my front yard. Then I filled up each side of the valve and let it sit propped up in the corner of my garage for maybe 10 minutes. Nothing to it.
After letting it sit, the valve once again rattled when I shook it. It also let me blow though in only one direction. Success!
The anti-rollover valve should also rattle when you shake it. Mine seemed fine. Still, I gave it a tiny cleaning with the carb cleaner while I was waiting for the check valve to un-stick.
5: ????
I'm sure there are other ways to deal with gas fumes and excess pressure in the fuel tank, but I'm not remembering any off the top of my head. Anyone out there reading along know of any? If you do, please share. I'll either update this post with them or make a whole new one.
One more thing….
The plastic carpet pins that hold the carpet in place on top of the rear package tray are the devil. They suck. They will magically evaporate while you're trying to remove them, regardless of your skill or what awesome specialty tool you're using.
The things I'm holding in my hands are small plastic fasteners designed for keeping the plastic interior panels attached to their metal bodywork frames. They are AWESOME replacements for the evil, crumbly, awful carpet pins. I've had these holding my rear package tray carpet in place for at least 5 years. They work perfectly. And I can remove and install them as many times as I want and they just keep on working.
If you ever have to roll back your carpet for any reason, I highly suggest swapping out your broken carpet pins for these bad boys.
Update!!! 2/1019
After way too many years, I've finally solved the fuel tank pressure problem and fuel smell. Check out the blog post and scrutinize your white check valve that I mentioned cleaning above. For me, it was the culprit.
I chose to swap it out with a piece of straight hose. A new valve from your Mazda dealer might be a better choice. However, anything that keeps that pressure from building up has gotta be an improvement.


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Prof. Kevin Howley is Editor of Media Interventions
March 20, 2013
Kevin Howley, associate professor of communication and theatre at DePauw University, is editor of Media Interventions. Published by Peter Lang, "This collection of essays, the first book-length treatment of its kind, explicates the concept of 'media interventions', which are herein defined as activities and projects that secure, exercise, challenge or acquire media power for tactical and strategic action," notes a synopsis.
Dr. Howley and 2011 DePauw graduate Brandon Butler are also co-authors of an essay published in the book, "Guerrilla Newsfare: Conservative Activism, Stunt Journalism, and Media Power."
"Few if any recent books in media studies take on habitual terms of media analysis as successfully as does Media Interventions," states James F. Hamilton, associate professor at the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. "By calling into question essentializing, habitual divisions between 'radical' and 'mainstream,' the authors develop a compelling case for reconsidering the terrain of media practice as hybrid and contingent. Essential reading for more fully understanding the complexities of today's media landscape."
Learn more, and order the book, at the publisher's website or at Amazon.com.
Professor Howley is the editor of the textbook, Understanding Community Media and authored Community Media: People, Places, and Communication Technologies. He recently contributed a chapter to Popularizing Research: Engaging New Genres, Media, and Audiences.Back


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Fatty Foods Get You High
Fatty foods, new research indicates, have affect your brain in a similar way to marijuana, activating brain chemcials called endocannabinoids that "produce a drug-like feeling." This feeling—like marijuana!—then encourages you to eat more fatty foods, of course.
Scientists apparently hope to use this discovery to make drugs that could help prevent people from overeating. This is why science is stupid. Cool scientists would use their knowledge of endocannabinoids to amplify the effect of fatty foods on the brain, and create french fries that get you as high as quality marijuana. Hamburgers that makes television funnier! Ice cream that makes jam bands tolerable! The possibilities are endless!
(Apparently another way to activate endocannabinoids is to engage in "50 minutes of vigorous running on a treadmill or riding a stationary bike." Which, ha, okay Jack LaLanne, that's definitely how I want to get high.)


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Double Crust Pie Dough
3 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
6 tablespoons ice water
2 pints blueberries
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
To make the crust, in a large mixing bowl, stir together flour, sugar and salt. Work the butter in, using a pastry blender or your fingers, until pea-sized lumps form. Sprinkle in the water, 1 tbsp. at a time, stirring gently with a fork after each addition and adding only enough of the water to form a rough mass.
Using floured hands, pat the dough into two smooth, flattened discs. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the freezer for 20 minutes before rolling out.
Meanwhile, stir together blueberries, sugar, lemon juice and cornstarch until well combined.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Roll one dough disc out thinly on a floured surface, using a rolling pin, and fit into a 9-inch pie plate, place on a cookie sheet; fill pie shell with blueberry mixture. Roll out additional dough disc and top blueberry mixture; trim and flute edges. Brush the pie with a little bit of cream or milk, if desired. Sprinkle with coarse sugar, if desired.
Bake for 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degree and bake an additional 35-40 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely on a wire rack.
Makes 9 servings


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Two weeks with MirTuesday, July 9th, 2013
Mir has been running smoothly on my laptop for two weeks now. It's an all-Intel Dell XPS, so the driver stack on Ubuntu is very clean, but I'm nonetheless surprised that the system feels *smoother* than it did pre-Mir. It might be coincidence, Saucy is changing pretty fast and new versions of X and Compiz have both landed while I've had Mir running. But watching top suggests that both Xorg and Compiz are using less memory and fewer CPU cycles under Mir than they were with X handling the hardware directly.
Talking with the Mir team, they say others have seen the same thing, and they attribute it to more efficient buffering of requests on the way to the hardware. YMMV but it's definitely worth trying. I have one glitch which catches me out – Chromium triggers an issue in the graphics stack which freezes the display. Pressing Alt-F1 unfreezes it (it causes Compiz to invoke something which twiddles the right bits to bring the GPU back from it's daze). I'm told that will get sorted trivially in a coming update to the PPA.
The overall impression I have is that Mir has delivered what we hoped. Perhaps it had the advantage of being able to study what went before – SurfaceFlinger, Wayland, X – and perhaps also the advantage of looking at things through the perspective of a mobile lens, where performance and efficiency are a primary concern, but regardless, it's lean, efficient, high quality and brings benefits even when running a legacy X stack.
We take a lot of flack for every decision we make in Ubuntu, because so many people are affected. But I remind the team – failure to act when action is needed is as much a failure as taking the wrong kind of action might be. We have a responsibility to our users to explore difficult territory. Many difficult choices in the past are the bedrock of our usefulness to a very wide audience today.
Building a graphics stack is not a decision made lightly – it's not an afternoon's hacking. The decision was taken based on a careful consideration of technical factors. We need a graphics stack that works reliably across a very wide range of hardware, that performs predictably, that provides a consistent quality of user experience on many different desktop environments.
Of course, there is competition out there, which we think is healthy. I believe Mir will be able to evolve faster than the competition, in part because of the key differences and choices made now. For example, rather than a rigid protocol that can only be extended, Mir provides an API. The implementation of that API can evolve over time for better performance, while it's difficult to do the same if you are speaking a fixed protocol. We saw with X how awkward life becomes when you have a fixed legacy protocol and negotiate over extensions which themselves might be versioned. Others have articulated the technical rationale for the Mir approach better than I can, read what they have to say if you're interested in the ways in which Mir is different, the lessons learned from other stacks, and the benefits we see from the architecture of Mir.
Providing Mir as an option is easy. Mir is a very focused part of the stack, it has far fewer tentacles and knock-on consequences for app developers than, say, the init system, which means we should be able to work with a very tight group of communities to get great performance. It's much easier for a distro to engage with Mir than to move to SystemD, for example; instead of an impact on every package, there is a need to coordinate in just a few packages for great results. We've had a very positive experience working with the Qt and WebKit communities, for example, so we know those apps will absolutely fly and talk Mir natively. Good upstreams want their code widely useful, so I've no doubt that the relevant toolkits will take patches that provide enhanced capabilities on Mir when available. And we also know that we can deliver a high-performance X stack on Mir, which means any application that talks X, or any desktop environment that talks X, will perform just as well with Mir, and have smoother transitions in and out thanks to the system compositor capabilities that Mir provides.
On Ubuntu, we're committed that every desktop environment perform well with Mir, either under X or directly. We didn't press the 'GO' button on Mir until we were satisfied that the whole Ubuntu community, and other distributions, could easily benefit from the advantages of a leaner, cleaner graphics stack. We're busy optimising performance for X now so that every app and every desktop environment will work really well in 13.10 under Mir, without having to make any changes. And we're taking patches from people who want Mir to support capabilities they need for native, super-fast Mir access. Distributions should be able to provide Mir as an option for their users to experiment with very easily – the patch to X is very small (less than 500 lines). For now, if you want to try it, the easiest way to do so is via the Ubuntu PPA. It will land in 13.10 just as soon as our QA and release teams are happy that its ready for very widespread testing.


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You Give Me A Heart On Wine Cup
Regular price$28.00
Shipping calculated at checkout.
- Free Shipping over $99!
These wine cups are made from stainless steel, and have a permanent image. Even though these are deemed top rack dishwasher safe, we recommend that you hand wash these to leave a lasting effect and to avoid any rusting if cups are left in the dishwasher.
* Holds 10 oz
* Vacuum sealed plastic lid with a hole in the top
* Image is printed on both sides


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In Theaters: September 22, 2017
On DVD/Blu-ray: December 12, 2017
Based on 230 votes and 92 reviews.
Even more stupid than the first one.
Holy cheese (mozzarella) Batman! Pretty hollow movie. Action scenes, although extremely far fetched were the only things worth of attention. And why so many F-bombs?? Pfffff
Truly crazy. Great film, filled with lots of action. Doesn't focus enough on story but still worth a watch!
Rated it 3 stars only because 2.5 stars option not available. The car chase at the beginning was totally far fetched and unrealistic. So were most of the fight scenes . An overweight, 70 year old Elton John doing moves that would make Jackie Chan proud was ridiculous at best. Far too much and unnecessary use of the F- bomb. I thought that a Kingsman was supposed to be a gentleman. Should have been titled Crudeman . The meat grinder scenes were gruesome. While there was plenty of action and some good laughs as well as an interesting plot, overall a farce compared to the first one. Even Johnny English was better .
I loved the first movie and hoped this one would be as charming and clever but it didn't follow through. While this one looked great I felt it actually had too much action. Wasn't a fan of the plot and Halle Berry might be the worst actor of all time. I hope they make a third and redeem themselves :)
Too unbelievable. Too violent and too hard to follow. Very disappointing
This movie was fantastically amazing. Was worth seeing twice. I would watch again and I will when it comes out on iTunes. Was just as good as the first if not just a bit better. You should see this over justice losers


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Back at the beginning of last month, I felt the need to go and photograph some Red Deer as it has been a while since I have done them in the autumn. The majority of previous deer photography efforts have been done in the large expanses of the London Parks with Bushy Park being a particular favourite. However, herds of deer can be found closer to home so instead of taking the long drive south, I headed just over an hour eastward to visit Lyme Park for the first time.
Lyme Park has large herds of both fallow and red deer but it was the latter that I felt this sudden seasonal need to photograph. So I headed over there for an afternoon and early evening session to see gauge the lie of the land and photography prospects. Lyme Park is a big place and covers around 1500 acres but has the advantage in that it has quite a few hills within its landscape, being on the edge of the Peak District, which I hoped would provide some attractive settings.
High above and behind me I could hear the occasional roar of a distant stag. It sounded like it was coming from the top of the steep and long hill that rose up behind me.
Certainly from where I was sitting there was no sign of any deer but they had to be up there somewhere and more importantly outside of the restrictions of the 'sanctuary'. I decided it was worth investigating as the action in front of me was non-existent.
Climbing a boggy path, up a steep long climb with full wildlife photo kit and too many clothes on during a warm sunny autumn afternoon is not the most comfortable of pastimes. As I climbed I could see a dry stone wall cutting across the summit in front of me. I hoped the occasional stag roar was coming from my side of this high wall and not beyond, otherwise my efforts were likely to prove fruitless. As I got higher I stopped to watch and just saw what looked like in the distance a couple of female deer moving across the front of the wall. Seeing how nervous these deer were I decided to take a very slow and cautious approach and used a perpendicular wall as cover until I reached the summit wall, which I then very slowly and quietly eased myself along towards the deer. This was a small group of females, the harem of a large solitary stag. The stags at this time of year really are magnificent animals. My efforts were rewarded with some photographs of the group.


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InShot – Video Editor & photo Editor V1.625.261 For Android
InShot – Video Editor & Photo Editor APK – Best FREE HD Video Editor and Video Maker with blur background and no crop, adding music and video effects!
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InShot is a powerful video maker and vertical video editor, it is incredibly easy to use. It's great for cutting, trimming and splitting a long video into small video clips. The blur tool also helps you blur background for your videos and photos. With InShot you can easily add music, texts and stickers on your video. Fast/Slow motion feature is super fun. Most importantly, InShot is a free HD video editor, helps you export videos without losing quality. Meanwhile you can share your videos to Instagram, IGTV, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Messenger in just one click. You can also edit videos for Tik Tok.
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When he brought up the reboot of Tomb Raider he's working on with Iron Man writers Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, we wondered about the decision considering the reaction to the previous two movies starring Angelina Jolie. (Ironically, King also produced Jolie's directorial debut In the Land of Blood & Honey, which will be released by FilmDistrict next month.)
He gave us some idea on the direction they plan to take, which is definitely more along the lines of Casino Royale or Batman Begins:
"Listen, the box office, they weren't disasters but I find it interesting that the story that we're telling is really the story before she became Lara Croft, so it is a character piece. It does have a lot of really great characters, but it's a lot of action and a lot of fun, and for me, it's something very different. I've not really done a movie like that before, but I really gravitated to rebooting this franchise and we're going to give it a shot."
Considering how two of the best studio action movies this year, Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class and Rupert Wyatt's Rise of the Planet of the Apes, took a similar approach, it certainly seems like a smart way to go, and here's hoping King is able to find the right director and ever-important actress soon to get this thing rolling forward.
Look for the rest of our interview with King soon. Hugo comes out in many places on Wednesday, November 23.


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Today is an important day for Orly Taitz in Mississippi. The hearing on motions to dismiss and for judgment on the pleadings from all of the plaintiffs, the Mississippi Democratic Party, the Secretary of State of Mississippi, the Hawaii Defendants, President Obama et al. is scheduled for 1 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-6).
The case hasn't gone well for her so far. I can only assume that Taitz filed suit in Mississippi because she thought the political climate there would be more amenable to attacks against a black President. Wrong! Like most birthers, Taitz believes that her prior losses were due to drawing the wrong judge, not because of lack of merit in her cases. Not only did this case, Taitz v. Democrat Party of Mississippi, become largely moot because of her own actions, she encountered unexpected strength in the opposition, from attorneys Begley and Tepper, and she drew a very competent federal judge, Wingate. Wingate ruled against her pro hac vice admission to practice in Mississippi. Orly's other Plaintiff's have not held up their side of the suit. Tepper seems motivated to do more than just get this settled in the defendants' favor, but also to recover costs, and as to Taitz' one-woman legal jihad against the President, shut that whole thing down.
TAITZ LOSES SUIT(case)
So today is the big day when 9 months of labor come to a head—and Orly has lost her luggage. Do people still check luggage for an overnighter? Apparently Orly does. Airlines warn you not to put anything critical in checked luggage, things you cannot do without, like medications, legal papers and your black lawyer dress. Orly says she will have to appear in Court in jeans and without her papers.
Sources indicate that there will be extensive Obot reporting from Mississippi and we'll look forward to that, I hope later today. This lost luggage will have a significant impact on one of the most important aspects of the hearing, the fashion report. I hope everybody brought coats; it's 34 degrees in Jackson this morning.
- The Fogbow "boots on the ground thread"
- Reality Check Radio special edition at 9 PM EST
Following is an opposition motion to the dismissal filed by Taitz on Nov. 14.
MS ECF 69 – 2012-11-14 – TvDPM – Plaintiff Opposition to Obama Et Al Joinder in Motion for JoP


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Ensuring the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed"
Senior Lecturer on Law
Harvard Law School
Judge Nancy Gertner is a graduate of Barnard College and Yale Law School where she was an editor on The Yale Law Journal. She received her M.A. in Political Science at Yale University. She has been an instructor at Yale Law School, teaching sentencing and comparative sentencing institutions, since 1998. She was appointed to the bench in 1994 by President Clinton. In 2008 she received the Thurgood Marshall Award from the American Bar Association, Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, only the second woman to receive it (Justice Ginsburg was the first). In 2010 she received the Morton A. Brody Distinguished Judicial Service Award. In 2011 she received the Massachusetts Bar Association's Hennessey award for judicial excellence, and an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Brandeis University. She has been profiled on a number of occasions in the Boston Globe, the ABA Journal, Boston Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal. She has written and spoken widely on various legal issues and has appeared as a keynote speaker, panelist or lecturer concerning civil rights, civil liberties, employment, criminal justice and procedural issues, throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. Her autobiography, In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate, was released on April 26, 2011. Her book, The Law of Juries, co-authored with attorney Judith Mizner, was published in 1997 and updated in 2010. She has published articles, and chapters on sentencing, discrimination, and forensic evidence, women's rights, and the jury system.


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Hütte | Accommodation in beautiful coastal setting.
Here at Garnanäs Farm are the real possibilities for wonderful nature experiences and fantastic fishing.
Here you can take a walk and enjoy nature, for those interested in birds is possible to see a large number of species of both land and sea birds.
For fishing fans Garnanäs a paradise year round. Here are opportunities to fish a variety of species, including pike. Pike fishing is according to many anglers among the best in Sweden.


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Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Rabab El-Mahdi & Philip Marfleet - Egypt: The Moment of Change
The authors of this collection of essay's published in 2009 are all political activists, if not revolutionary socialists. But they cannot have foreseen the events that have shaken the Middle East. The book though, is not dated by recent events. If anything it is even more relevant and I would argue, it is a crucial read for all those trying to understand the Egypt Revolution. Revolution is a process - and what happens is dependent on what has gone before. Egypt: the Moment of Change is about what has gone before.
Each chapter of the book looks at a particular aspect of Egypt's history and political/economic situation. All of them come together to give a unique picture of why the revolution broke out and who the major forces are. Egypt as a society is dominated by one key economic factor - the continued attempts to open up the economy to the free market. Pushed, over the past two decades by a variety of "economic advisers", who mostly hailed from Washington, the Egyptian state has been quick to sell off assets - state companies, land and so on, to outside investors. Such profiteers have helped drive up the cost of living for ordinary people, making the very richer even richer, and the majority of the people poorer.
Here is the contradiction that is so visible to the visitor - high security compounds and shopping malls - which allow in the rich, but deny access to the poor. It's why Egypt has experienced a variety of strikes and protests over the years. The corruption, the rising price of food, lack of access to jobs and drinking water combine to create a society bubbling over with indignation.
Various forces have sought to push this process forward and hold it back. The Trade Union movement up until 2011 was very much one of state unions. These existed to close down workers action, prevent strikes and form deals with the bosses. Union officials were little more than hired functionaries of the state, and many did very well out of this relationship. Various democracy organisations have exploded onto the streets over the years. The Kifaya movement (meaning Enough) in 2004 did a lot to prove the state was not all powerful. Many brave men and women suffered indignation, brutality, torture and sexual assault because they dared to call for change. The chapter on these movements by Rabab El-Mahdi is particularly interesting because it shows how much the global movement against the Iraq War and in support of the Palestinian people helped to encourage things.
But economic factors aren't the only reason for this uprising. This repressive state, with its allegiance to the US and it's failure to stand up against oppression in the wider Middle East, in particular the question of the Palestinians and the US War on Terror, has been part of generating wider discontent and radical ideas.
The repression that Mubarak's state forces imposed on those prepared to stand up for something different is horrific. But it certainly wasn't the result of a few rotten apples. Aida Seif El-Dawla's chapter on state repression puts torture as an endemic and central part of the repressive process - on that exists and is supported at every level. Combined with the huge amounts of corruption amongst state functionaries and this leads to enormous brutality, often with little or no evidence.
But this state force effectively melted away in Tahrir Square. The police proved ineffectual at stopping a real mass movement. The army, itself a bloated and influential body, swollen on US "aid" dollars, were also unable to make a difference. But this must in part be due to the close links between a mass conscript army and the ordinary people of Egypt.
The struggles for land, against repressive taxation and corrupt landlords, the mass strikes that have shaken Egypt over the last five years have a common root. Those who argue today that Mubarak's fall was simply to do with the use of twitter or facebook, misunderstand the social processes that developed over years, involving many different actors, which culminated in the overthrow of the dictator. Mubarak's downfall is not the end of the story. The Egyptian Revolution has a longer road to travel. The struggle for justice and democracy, or access to water and decent food, for proper wages and the right to organise at work, will not be won by dispensation from a benevolent army council - it will have to be fought for. The Egyptian people have shown over the years that they are up to this task. We can wish them well and be inspired for our own struggles for justice.
This short book is an invaluable resource for all those wanting to get to the bottom of the process. It comes highly recommended and should be required reading. I hope they write a follow-up which details the revolutionary year of 2011.
Further Reading
A more detailed review from Socialist Review is here.
Socialist Worker (UK) continues to have unrivalled coverage and analysis from Egypt and the wider Middle Eastern struggles. Editor Judith Orr's eyewitness accounts were inspirational. Further analysis pieces will no doubt follow, though this article by Alex Callinicos on whether the revolution was a coup or not, is particularly useful.
For more on the mass strike movement prior to 2011 this article from the IS Journal by one of the contributors to Egypt: The Moment of Change, is very useful. An interview with an Egyptian socialist one the strike movement from 2007 is also interesting, in particular because it looks briefly at the relationship between socialists and the Muslim Brotherhood in various struggles.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Terry Pratchett - Unseen Academicals
This is perhaps most obvious with football and in his latest Discworld novel, Terry Pratchett satirises the process extremely well, adding in his usual comic mix of magic and chaos. Pratchett has the eye for a good opportunity for satire. In my opinion football is worthy of this, not least because of the way that it is already fairly funny. It's million pound players, who seem to have little of worth to say, the entourage of glamorous wives who follow these players around and gather such bizarre press attention. The strange customs of the fans and the odd little traditions. All of these are stretched and distorted by Pratchett.
In the novel, football is a mass participatory sport, enjoyed mostly for the opportunities for fighting between the groups of fans. Huge crowds swell the streets, there are limited rules to the actual game and the state (via the medium of Ankh-Morpork's Watchmen) have little or no control on match-days. Games are the occasion for much anarchy and revelry. Much like the original football "matches" here in Britain.
Such anarchy needs to be brought under control and the city's leader Lord Vetinari does what rulers have done through the ages. He brings the game under his wing, offers it reward and respectability and fashions order from chaos. No matter that the games has lost its real roots, it is now a method of control and profit.
Pratchett does all this well. By setting up the comic figures of the city's Wizards as a new football team the story has some roots. This unlikely idea is designed to attract those readers who already have pictured the new players as over-weight, lazy academics. But this need to be in the know may well confuse newer readers.
Here again is a criticism I've previously made of Pratchett's more recent novels - because they come across as formulaic, they aren't as amusing as they used to be. There are fewer laugh out loud moments in Unseen Academicals. The characters all have their predetermined parts to play, and us regular readers will come to expect them to have their walk on parts sooner or later. There are a host of new individuals, but they seem to flit onto the stage and leave without leaving us with much.
Pratchett is a brilliant writer. We'll all continue to read his books even though they are now weaker than they were, not simply out of loyalty but also out of genuine love. But there does seem to be something increasingly missing from them.
Related Reviews
Pratchett - Wintersmith
Pratchett - Thud
Pratchett - Going Postal
Pratchett - Colour Of Magic
Monday, February 14, 2011
Antony Beevor - D-Day; The Battle For Normandy
The battles themselves are described in gruesome detail, as is the nature with Beevor's writing. He doesn't shirk from the horrors of battle, nor does he fall into the trap of describing a generic "bad" enemy and "good" allies. So we hear about the killing of POWs by the Germans and by the British, Canadian, American and other allied forces. Of course, Beevor is quick to point out that there was a particular brutal response from some of the German forces - the massacres of entire villages in response to resistance fighters for instance - by the SS in particular.
At the top of the story is the relationships between the various allied leaders. Here the differing styles and emphasises has the most impact. It's clear that there were real personal clashes between say the Americans and British had a lasting impact. The British General Montgomery comes across as a real barrier to the further development of the front in the crucial weeks after the invasion. Beevor does point out that Montgomery took on the hardest and most entrenched enemy forces, and the contribution of the British certainly helped the Americans elsewhere. But there is no doubt that there is a lasting anti-Montgomery prejudice from the official American military histories.
The liberation of Paris and the particular role of the insurrectionary resistance fighters in the capital forms the end of the chapter. The story of the particular factions involved in this is fascinating, as is the clear fear from the allied leaders of a Communist inspired revolutionary take over. Here Beevor is astute enough to also argue that this was a fear for Stalin, who had now moved so far from the politics of international revolution that he had no interest in such an outcome on the Western Front.
Beevor's conclusion is the invasion of Normandy was a crucial point in World War Two. Not particularly because it changed the outcome of the conflict - that had already been decided outside Stalingrad, but because it allowed the United States in particular, and to a much lesser extent Britain and France a voice in the post-war carve up of Europe. This is an important argument, challenging the more common idea that it was the West that won the war. It is because he makes such realistic appraisals, despite their likely unpopularity amongst sections of his readership, which makes Antony Beevor such an excellent military historian.
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
Eleanor Burke Leacock - Myths of Male Dominance
Eleanor Burke Leacock's collection of essays, Myths of Male Dominance (Collected Articles on Women Cross-Culturally) is one of the most important works for those who argue that the way we live our lives today is not the natural order of things. Leacock's articles are a powerful defence of the Marxist notion of "Primitive Communism" - the idea that in humanity's past, our societies were egalitarian, private property was unknown in a general sense and class differences nonexistent. Most interestingly, this means that there were also differences in the way that men and women related - monogamy has not always been the natural way of doing things, men have not always been dominant in relationships or society, and different attitudes to sexuality have been far more common that most commentators would have us believe.
Leacock's own research was centred on a Canadian tribe called the Montagnais-Naskapi. These were people who, in their hunter-gather past had lived in a "primitive communist" society. What is almost unique about them, is that this lifestyle had been extremely well documented by the Europeans who encountered them. The Montagnais had lived by collected the fruit and berries of their local area, as well as hunting the plentiful game at different times of the year. European traders arrived in the 1600s and began to trade goods, with the Montagnais in exchange for vast quantities of furs - beaver and the like.
This caused a fundamental transformation of Montagnais life. From a society were private property was almost unknown, were decision making was a collective process and status in society was not based on property or any form of economic power, the Montagnais were transformed into a people were private property (in this case the animal traps and the associated areas of rivers / land) formed part of their lives. This introduction of private property changed all the other relationships in their society, as did the cynical and regular interference of Jesuit missionaries. The Jesuits who documented the lives of the indigenous people, also attempted to introduce more European things - like leaders, monogamy, physical beating of children and so on. Prompting one Montagnais to say "You Jesuit's love only your own children, we love all of them".
By the time Leacock was able to live with the Montagnais, a surprising amount of their earlier social relations still existed. She describes how hard she found it to understand the collective decision making process as someone who has only lived in a society with leaders and social hierarchies.
These experiences and the documentary evidence of a people with a completely different set of relations of productions to those we see in the vast majority of the world today shape most essays in this book. Leacock looks at the role of women in Montagnais society - and similar societies around the world, family relations and so on. She also look critically at the ideas of two of the thinkers who have most often dominated this form of discussion for the left - Lewis Morgan and Fredrich Engels.
Collected here is her introduction to Lewis Morgan's classic book of anthropology - Ancient Society. The book itself informed Engels' own work (as well as Marx) in particular, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. Leacock wrote a classic introduction to this as well, of which sadly only part is in here.
Rather impressively, Leacock also includes articles and critical responses from other anthropologists - together with her reactions. This is of great interest, in part because she is a born polemicist, but also because it is fascinating to see her ideas tested, and passing the test.
For anyone with an interest in ancient cultures, this is a fascinating book. However it should also be required reading for everyone who wants to argue, or dares to believe that the "natural" relationships that we experience under capitalism are anything but natural.
Related Reviews
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
Edward Vallance - A Radical History of Britain
What is good about this book then, is the sense of rescuing a hidden history. The moments in Britain's past when men and women took it on themselves to attempt to change their world. Sometimes this was in small ways - local protests and uprisings. Sometimes they tried to overturn the whole world order. And we should learn this history - the story of the Peasant Revolt of 1381 has its lessons for today (don't trust the ruling class when they are forced to negotiate) for instance. To bring the stories of the English Revolution, the Levellers and the Diggers, the struggle for the vote, the battles for rights and justices is an important task. I hope that many people learn about these struggles from Vallance's book and take the time to delve deeper.
That said, the book itself is an immense disappointment. In part this is because the book is so large in its scope. Important points of history often receive only the briefest of mentions (more on that later) and sometimes Vallance (as with his discussion on the English Revolution) sticks to a very mainstream retelling of the history.
Another problem is the author's focus. All too often this radical history is a history of key figures or big names. I rarely felt I was hearing the voices of the ordinary people most affected by what was going on. That's not to say that people like Tom Paine, the Pankhurst's or the leading names of the Revolution aren't important. But moments of great radical change come because there are social forces moving, and they move because of other factors.
Why did women want the vote? What made people join Cromwell's forces? How come people marched to Trafalgar Square to demand the right to assemble in the 1890s, but not 10 years before hand?
To be fair, Vallance might say he wasn't writing a "People's History". That's a point, but by definition a radical history has as it's focus, changes to the system that are in the interests of the ordinary people at the bottom of society, rather than those at the top. But even so Vallance is selective in his choice of important radicals. William Morris gets a few pages, the Pankhurst's get whole chapters. King Alfred, rather bizarrely gets a good chunk. But there are strange omissions - George Lansbury gets a couple of oblique mentions, despite putting himself at the head of one of the largest radical revolts in recent history. John McLean gets a passing mention (Scotland is barely discussed) and Communist MPs like Phil Piratin or William Gallacher, who lead real mass movements, aren't discussed.
Perhaps these references reflect my own orientation on the history of Britain as seen through the eyes of a Trotskyist. But what about such figures as Owain Glyndŵr or William Wallace who must surely fit into the broadest definition of radical. Even Gordon Brown is referrenced more times than William Wilberforce (a figure that most liberal historians would consider fairly radical - Wilberforce that is, not Brown). Actually it's a great crime that the entire struggle against Slavery is missing.
Then there is the detail. It shold be said that the book gets worse the closer we get to contemporary times. The earliest chapters, particular those on the Peasants Revolt and the periods around the French Revolution are well written, though the chronic lack of references makes it difficult to learn more. The chapter on the English Revolution is very complex and difficult. If you don't know anything about this particular period, it is not a good place to start at all, painted as it is as a battle dominated by religious arguments.
But because Vallance doesn't start from what's happening in wider society, but begins with the individuals at the head of movements he comes unstuck. The struggle for Women's liberation for him, is dominated by the arguments between the militants and the rest of the movement. He concludes that militant action fails to deliver and becomes a hindrance and ends up with a position that implicitly argues that the Suffragettes had to wait for a more friendly government to arrive. No to a point this is true, but what Vallance misses is that the radical militancy stemmed from a movement that had failed to mobilise the mass of working people into it's orbit.
Had the working class movement used its powers to force change, then the battle would have been shorter. The tragedy of the Suffragette movement was that much of it was dominated by a Middle Class leadership who, while brave enough to go to jail and risk their lives, were terrified of wider social unrest that could have forced the governments to listen. Breaking windows gets media coverage, but it doesn't frighten the forces of the state and the descent by sections of the movement into even more radical acts reflects the frustration of this.
Vallance also fails to grasp the wider situation. For him, the involvement of women in the workforce during the First World War was something that came and went, with little lasting impact. He argues that most of the jobs they did were ones that they had before the war, which I don't think stands up to scrutiny (munitions work?) Yet he also misses the way that this changed perceptions of women's roles and their perceptions of themselves - once lots of people had seen women driving buses then they weren't easily going to be able to put them back in their pre-war boxes.
If this wasn't the case, why did so much effort have to be put into forcing women back into their pre-war roles. The creation of women's Trade Unions and involvement of women in the wider union movement on an unprecedented scale certainly changed the working class movement. So by looking superficially, Vallance fails to grasp the real changes in society that were happening.
After the Suffragettes, Vallance has a chapter on the fight against Fascism (which devotes barely 2 pages to the question of Cable Street and the battles against the British Union of Fascists). He doesn't explain why fascism failed in Britain, but was successful elsewhere. Even if you don't believe (as he doesn't) that Cable Street was particularly important, surely the debate deserves more than he offers here. There is nothing here about the Second World War, or even the post-war battles against fascists and the later NF.
But radical history apparently stops for Vallance with World War Two, but even his post 1900 history is severely wanting. The 1926 General Strike gets less than one page. The Great Unrest is by-passed, as is Red Clydeside and the 1919 strikes ("Britain on the Brink of Revolution"). The Russian Revolution apparently had no impact here - the Communist Party being irrelevant. Other missing moments are New Unionism (the Match girls get a couple of paragraphs) and George Lansbury's 1921 refusal to impose Tory economic policies on the poorest sections of British society. I could go on. In fact I will, because students of more recent radical history will be amazed that the mass movements against Apartheid, Racism and Fascism in the 1970s are missing, the union militancy that did for Edward Heath, the Miners Strike, CND, Wapping, the Poll Tax and finally the Stop the War movement of the last decade.
Actually to be fair, Vallance salutes the anti-Iraq war movement in his last paragraph, though he doesn't name it. But he ignores the fact that it also opposed war in Afghanistan. Now I might not expect Vallance to write a work of history that keen readers of Socialist Worker would appreciate, but to miss out the Miner's Strike and CND in a work on the radical history of Britain, is a bizarre error. This is a problem, because arguably the struggles of the 20th Century have shaped our culture, politics and social structures far more than those of much earlier times.
The problem is of course, the one that has beset liberals for decades - the question of the Labour Party. Ultimately this is a history that is about the struggle to get the Labour Party to office, through the enfranchisement of the poorest in society. This means of course, that criticism of Labour is frowned upon and more recent radicalism is brushed under the carpet because it might show Labour in a worse light. Thus the culmination of radical history for Vallance is the building up of the Labour party into a party fit to govern. Towards the end of his book he explicitly says this, arguing that few in Britain's radical history wanted to level out things. In other words, British radicalism is a different beast to that of France or Russia - it is not about building a new world, but creating a nice capitalism, overseen by a friendly government.
By concentrating more on the earliest period of radical history (important though they are) you end up with a book that will be appreciated by Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband. You can look left wing and radical by informing the masses about Wat Tyler and Tom Paine. But don't let on about how Labour failed the miners, or how the TUC has failed the organised working classes time and again. To do that, might have ramifications today, and we can't risk the next General Election can we?
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Police used a pulley system on Wednesday to remove a suspected 9/11 plane part from between two buildings near the World Trade Center site, and the medical examiner said no potential human remains had been found there.
About six officers raised the jagged, 255-pound metal piece, which contains cranks, levers and bolts. They took it over a three-story wall, lowered it into a courtyard, and carried it through a basement. Onlookers across the street took pictures as they loaded it onto a truck headed to a Brooklyn police facility.
The part was discovered a week ago, wedged in a narrow space between an apartment building and a mosque.
In 2010, the mosque prompted national debate about Islam and freedom of speech because it's located just blocks from ground zero.
Authorities believe the rusted wing part is from one of the two hijacked airliners that brought down the trade center on Sept. 11, 2001.
The 5-foot piece is a trailing edge flap support structure, police have said. Located close to the body of the plane, the part helps secure wing flaps that move in and out and aid in regulating plane speed.
Boeing officials told police the part came from one of its 767 airliners, but it isn't possible to determine which one. Both hijacked planes that struck the towers, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, were Boeing 767s. American and United have had no comment.
Filed Under: Aerospace + defense


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TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--NEXON Co., Ltd. (3659.TO) ("Nexon"), a worldwide leader in free-to-play online games, today announced an agreement with Valve Corporation, a leading entertainment software and technology company based in the United States, to publish Dota 2 in Korea and Japan.
Dota 2, developed by Valve with legendary designer IceFrog, is the sequel to the genre defining game that has become one of the most played games in the world and a leading title at e-sports tournaments around the world.
"We are very excited about working with Valve to publish Dota 2 and build on the worldwide momentum of the highly successful franchise. We look forward to providing players in Japan and Korea the opportunity to experience this exciting new game," said Min Seo, CEO of Nexon Korea Corporation.
Gabe Newell, President of Valve Corporation, said, "Nexon, a company with whom we have a long and strong relationship, was clearly the right choice as a publisher to successfully deliver Dota 2 into the Korean and Japanese market. Partnering with Nexon will allow us to deliver Dota 2 to a massive audience of Asian gamers via a premium service."
In Dota 2, the primary objective is for teams to destroy their opponents' fortified strongholds by controlling a "Hero" character. Powered by the updated Source engine, Dota 2 will deliver amazing high quality graphics, advanced matchmaking and more while maintaining the perfect game balance aspects of its predecessor. Dedicated franchise fans can look forward to seeing the masterful work of famed Dota developer IceFrog, who is also contributing to the development of DOTA2.
NEXON Co., Ltd. http://company.nexon.co.jp/
NEXON Co., Ltd. ("Nexon") (3659.TO) is a worldwide leader in free-to-play online games. Founded in Korea in 1994, Nexon developed one of the world's first graphics-based massively multiplayer online games. Nexon also pioneered the concept of microtransactions in the free-to-play business model, setting a new standard in which play is free, and users have the option to purchase in-game items to enhance their experience. Nexon currently services more than 60 online games in more than 100 countries and since its founding, Nexon has generated more than 1.3 billion player registrations. The Company is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan and its shares are listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Valve Corporation
Valve Corporation is a game, software developer headquartered in Washington Bellevue since 1996. In 1998, FPS game, 'Half-life®' was released and drew attention of gamers worldwide. Since the launch, 'Half-life ®', received over 50 'Best PC Game of the Year', and the year of 1999, 2001, 2005, the bestselling game magazine worldwide, 'PC Gamers', awarded the game as the "Best PC Game ever". Valve become recognized for its development capability by introducing 'Counter-Strike ®', 'Half-Life 2', 'Team Fortress 2', 'Portal 2'. Approximately 70 million copies of these titles were sold worldwide. Not only with its game titles, Valve is also known as the developer of popular 3D 'Source ®' game engine and services its online platform 'Steam ®' for 50 million users worldwide. Valve is currently under development of 'Dota 2'.
Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=50470763&lang=en


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