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The mother of a schoolboy killed by a polar bear "would not have let him go" on the Arctic expedition without believing he would be properly protected, an inquest has heard. Horatio Chapple, 17, was on an adventure holiday to the remote Svalbard islands in August 2011, along with a teenager from Jersey, Patrick Flinders, when he died.
The Eton pupil from Salisbury, Wiltshire, was sleeping in his tent when the bear went on the rampage, inflicting fatal injuries to his head and upper body. Four others were hurt before the bear was shot dead at the camp site, where the group, known as Chanzin Fire, had been staying.
Horatio's parents, GP Olivia and surgeon David Chapple, told an inquest in Salisbury today that they had been concerned about polar bear attacks before their son went on the trip.
They examined a risk assessment document with Horatio before he left for the expedition in July 2011 and believed a number of safety precautions would be in place to protect him.
Both parents understood Horatio would be equipped with a pen flare, with a working trip wire around his camp site and a weapon available to a trip leader in case of an attack.
However, the expedition did not have enough pen flares - devices which shoot flares up to 50 metres to frighten approaching bears - and only team leaders were equipped with them.
There were also a shortage of stakes for the tripwire, the device's trigger and tripwire itself - as well as mines to be situated around the perimeter of the camp site.
"We believed that the staff at BSES would do as they said and act responsibly to protect the children under their care," David Chapple told the hearing.
"We were never told the bear trip wires only sometimes work. The risk assessment refers to flares being available to all members of the expedition.
"If this had been implemented then Horatio would have at least had some time to defend himself other than with his bare hands."
Mr Chapple said a risk assessment suggested that a bear watch would take place at the camp, adding to the measures of pen flares, trip wires, training and a weapon to protect the group.
A report by Sir David Steel published today said BSES should have had a bear watch at the time of the incident, to provide the group with advanced warning of the bear.
Mr Chapple said he had previously discussed how to handle a polar bear attack with his son, following Horatio's training weekend with BSES in April 2011.
Horatio assured his parents they would use a "tough" German World War II weapon to shoot the bear, which was "quite difficult" to use but worked in the cold weather.
The inquest heard the threat of serious injury from a polar bear was assessed as being three on a scale of one to three - the highest - while risk of encountering a polar bear was two out of three.
"The steps within the section I believed at face value, that they were going to do as they had undertaken to do in the risk assessment," Dr Chapple said.
"Otherwise, no parent or nobody would want to go on an expedition where a risk was categorised as likely yet the planning wasn't there.
"I believed and trusted the things that were listed, otherwise I wouldn't have let him go."
Dr Chapple said she was "more anxious" than her husband and son and went through every detail in the risk assessment to reassure herself about the group's protection.
"The trip was an expensive trip, I believed that they would have proper equipment," she said. "I thought Horatio would have a bear flare, I thought they would have things like bear spray.
"I believed that the camp would be protected by trip wire. I was naive, I had no idea how a camp side should be set up at that stage.
"I didn't know there was the possibility that a trip wire may or may not work. I didn't know they were so fraught with difficulty."
Richard Payne, chief leader of the expedition for BSES, said trip wires had first been used at camp sites in Svalbad on a previous summer expedition in 2010.
"My intention was that all young explorers and leader would have a pen flare," Mr Payne told the inquest.
"It was only when we landed at base camp, which is 40-50km from the airport, that I discovered there wasn't enough pen flares to equip everybody on the expedition.
"I took the decision that I would equip the leaders of each group and the doctors with pen flares."
Mr Payne said he had changed the original trip wire from fishing line to a heavy duty braided fluorescent cord as the previous system was "going off too easily".
Equipment for the trip wire was put into a box along with four tonnes of equipment, which was loaded onto a vehicle and then a boat without being checked, he said.
When the box was unloaded the day before Horatio and the rest of the expedition arrived, equipment for the trip wire was found to be missing.
"There was a shortage of stakes on to which the trip wire mechanism is attached," he said. "There was a shortage of the small brass sear, which is a trigger for the device.
"There may have been some shortage of the trip wire itself."
Mr Payne said he met with base camp leaders to come up with a solution and decided to use a safety pin in the device to act as the trigger.
The camp sites were also changed to be triangular in formation to make up for a lack of mines, with Horatio's group having three mines instead of four situated around their site.
Assistant Coroner for Wiltshire and Swindon Ian Singleton asked: "Were you satisfied with the safety aspect of the trip as a whole?"
Mr Payne replied: "The three mines was the only downside, otherwise I was happy."
He added: "I have been camping in the Arctic for over 52 weeks and in all that time I haven't had a single polar bear encounter.
"I have never seen one and to have one in that area at that time of year and for it to behave as it did was totally out of character."
He said BSES had "completely revamped" its standard operations procedure for polar regions since the incident.
Mr Payne said he had since led three groups - separate from BSES - in Svalbad and made sure he was equipped with two rifles, two signal flares and pen flares for every member.
BSES have not conducted any expeditions in polar regions in the three years since Horatio's death, he added.
Mr Payne admitted during the inquest that the tripwire system was "inconsistent" and there were missing parts, but he insisted that it did not fail to safeguard the groups which were made up of a total of 73 youngsters and 16 leaders.
But he added: "It (the system) was compromised in that we didn't have enough of the equipment."
However, Mr Payne said the tripwire was an alarm system, and not a defence system.
He said: "The whole system is designed to give you an alert for you to wake up and do something about it. It's not a defence, it's not going to kill an intruder, it's going to alert you."
Mr Payne also admitted that the tripwires were not working perfectly and one of the leaders had adapted one using a paper clip to make the trigger-mechanism more sensitive.
He continued: "It was a paper clip and it did improve the system, and I had no reason to doubt that was the case."
Mr Payne said that the alternative system of carrying out bear watches had been put in place at the base camp after a recent sighting of a polar bear in the region, but nothing had been seen for the week that they had been held.
He also said that a second rifle would have improved safety, but said: "There weren't any additional rifles to be had in July and August, but it could be safer in the event that one rifle was disabled or damaged - in an ideal world there would have been two weapons in each fire."
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ENERGY: IGNITE Foam midsole for high-rebound cushioning and energy return
COMFORT: Breathable and flexible knitted textile upper for lightweight, form-fitting comfort. A moulded EVA sockliner hugs the arch, improving comfort
FIT: evoKNIT upper for a sock-like slip-on fit
Three-colored knitted textile upper and crackled tooling
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Martyn Pig
by Brooks, Kevin
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The surprising departure of Google+ chief Vic Gundotra has ignited uncertainty and speculation about the product's future, including its place in the workplace Apps suite.
Even before Gundotra's resignation last week, the company's plans for Google+ in the enterprise were unclear. While Google makes it possible for Apps admins to turn on Google+ for their domain users, the social networking site isn't a core, supported component of that email and collaboration suite.
Google has added some IT admin and developer features to Google+ and to its Hangouts video/audio communications component, but the product isn't a full-featured enterprise social network like Microsoft's Yammer and IBM's Connections, or an enterprise unified communications (UC) system like Microsoft's Lync and others from Cisco, Avaya and Alcatel-Lucent.
Now Google's tentative, slow march to take Google+ to the enterprise has been compounded by the firestorm over Gundotra's abrupt exit, which has triggered speculation that the product's scope could be significantly scaled back because it didn't become a viable Facebook competitor in the consumer market.
Analysts say Google needs to make a clear statement regarding its plans for Google+ in general and for the enterprise customers in particular.
"They need to be very clear on product road map, both in features and timing, in order for people to trust that Google+ is not the next Google Reader," said Constellation Research analyst Alan Lepofsky, referring to the popular RSS manager Google discontinued.
For TJ Keitt, a Forrester Research analyst, the message from Google is overdue. "They should have discussed the future of Google+ as part of Google Apps a while ago," Keitt said.
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking and Microsoft in particular is moving aggressively to make up the ground it ceded in the cloud email and collaboration market when Google jumped ahead and released Apps about 7 years ago.
"Google had a great chance to make some inroads into the enterprise by combining Gmail/Calendar, Google Apps, Drive and Google+ with a 2 to 3 year lead on Microsoft," Lepofsky said.
Now, Microsoft has put together a compelling offering with Office 365, Yammer and OneDrive. "Advantage Microsoft," Lepofsky said.
Google didn't immediately comment on what its current plans are for Google+ in the Google Apps suite.
The search giant had lofty expectations for Google+ when it launched the social networking site almost three years ago. CEO Larry Page, Gundotra and other high-ranking executives said Google+ would tie together most Google products by giving them a common social and identity layer.
Soon after Google+'s launch, the company started tying the product aggressively to many of its other web applications and services, a strategy that prompted complaints from users who felt forced to adopt the product and link it with other Google activities.
So far, Google+ hasn't undermined Facebook's position as the world's largest social networking service.
The speculation and reports following the news of Gundotra's exit have been very pessimistic. Quoting anonymous sources, technology news sites Re/code and Techcrunch separately reported that Google+'s staff and main features -- like its activity stream, photos and Hangouts -- may be spun off and attached to other products.
Asked for comment, a Google spokeswoman said via email that the announcement last week "has no impact on our Google+ strategy -- we have an incredibly talented team that will continue to build great user experiences across Google+, Hangouts and Photos."
If reports that Google+ will be broken up into pieces are true, the activity stream is likely to end up in some form in Apps so that the suite can stand up competitively against Office 365 and Yammer, according to Forrester's Keitt. He also said it's likely Hangouts will be a core part of Apps, given Google's moves to strengthen its offerings for workplace video conferencing.
In February, Google launched a hardware bundle called Chromebox for Meetings that is designed to work best in conjunction with Apps, and the company also co-developed with Vidyo software that links Hangouts with legacy video conferencing systems.
Juan Carlos Perez covers enterprise communication/collaboration suites, operating systems, browsers and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Juan on Twitter at @JuanCPerezIDG.


text:
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If you want to re-adapt music or you need some special effects for your project, please, contact me by email: firstname.lastname@example.com not hesitate to contact me if you have any question. I will reply your question/request within 24hrs.


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Silver Market: Why CME Must Raise Margin Requirements By 30%
By Dian L. Chu
Apr 25 2011 11:14AM
If you think the crude oil market has gone totally out of control in the past month or so, observe the Silver market, which has basically gone parabolic in the week of April 17, going from $41.75 on April 15th to $46.69 on April 21st--a 12% move in 5 trading days, topping off the move with a 5% move on Thursday (See Chart).
As Silver is a thinly traded market, one thing the CME could do is to raise margin requirements for Silver speculators; otherwise risk is setting up the silver market for an record-setting crash, which could impact many other markets in the process of correcting, especially other commodities like Gold and Crude Oil.
A Silver Contagion
We are not talking about a 5% correction setting up at these levels for silver, we are talking in terms of a 20% down day that poses a contagion effect to markets in general.
The reason the contagion risk in the Silver market is that while Gold is going up half a percent to one percent, Silver is logging in 3.5% days routinely (See Chart below). Well, what goes up, must come down... eventually. So, when this market breaks, it is going to break hard to the order of 10% easily.
That kind of market selling will not occur in a vacuum, especially since commodities have been trending up as a group, i.e., the same hedge funds and banks are trading all the risk-on commodities as well, like Gold, Copper, Crude Oil, Wheat, etc.
In other words, if Silver gets a 10% down day, which it almost will for sure, and if it isn`t cooled off considerably with proper margin requirements instituted by the CME, then, the rest of the commodities will be forced to overshoot to the downside as well.
ETF Trading & Portfolio Rebalancing
There are a couple of reasons for this. With the advent of commodity funds, silver is part of the basket of commodities in the funds. Also, because traders will not want to fight the tape, shorts will come in and take advantage of the selloff in Silver to push other commodities down through ETF trading vehicles.
Moreover, the same banks and hedge funds trading silver are also involved in the major commodity groups as well, and they will be liquidating other positions to keep their portfolios balanced with regard to risk. So expect a lot of portfolio rebalancing to take place if the Silver market drops 10% in a day across many hedge funds.
Price & Margin Out of Balance
The CME routinely sets margins based upon contract prices. So, if Silver goes up $10 more in price, then the ratio of margin to price goes down. In order to realign margins with the higher price, CME would raise the margins.
The reason this becomes a problem is that if price gets too far out of balance with margin requirements, the risk goes up, because traders will not be properly sized with regard to risk for a potential correction, and many trading accounts could be devastated due to overleverage.
Black Silver Swan
In addition, if Silver speculators are all heavily leaning towards one direction as the action of recent silver price movement suggests, then, there is an increased risk of a major market dislocation, thus creating a 'black silver swan' day. That's exactly the kind of event that exchanges try to prevent from occurring, as it is extremely unhealthy for markets, and bad for business.
It is obvious to anyone observing the Silver market that it is overheated to the Nth power. The longer CME ignores the problem, the worse the consequences will be down the line. When all the other risk-on commodity trades are putting in 1% days, and Silver is putting in 5% days, then you know the longer this goes on, the higher probability that this trade and market could end very badly.
Flash Crash 2.0?
As the very real possibility of a 20% two-day correction is moving towards becoming a very real probability, it could bring down a lot of other markets in the process. Remember, we had the flash crash around this time last year? Well, if the Silver market isn`t cooled off, it could potentially be one of the catalysts for another broad flash crash this year.
Raise Margin Requirements by 30%
The easiest way for the CME to lessen the probability of an epic crash in the Silver market, and the subsequent public and regulatory inquisitions, would be to raise margin requirements by at least 30%, as the starting point.
Actually, the CME could be a little late based upon the manner in which silver speculation has gone bizzerk, especially over the last trading week--the market has simply become parabolic. The CME could have raised margin requirements once Silver broke $40 an ounce, and without a doubt they should have raised margin requirements on the 14th of April, before this latest 12% weekly move.
The longer the CME fails to address the problems in the Silver market to rein in excessive speculation, the more risk there is of an extreme market crash.
Silver A Screaming Short
With gold/silver ration setting new 28-year low record almost everyday in April, it looks like the necessary elements are already set in motion for another horrid crash and burn contagion scenario--but this time originating from Silver--due to the interconnected nature and electronic evolution of modern day markets. Any intervention effort by that time
Dian L. Chu, M.B.A.,
C.P.M. and Chartered Economist
She blogs at www.econmatters.com.


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Robert Fischer says
If your language doesn't lead people to re-discover point free programming at least in the small, then the language really isn't taking function manipulation and functional language type conceptions seriously.
Thus Fischer has finally recognized that Scala is functional.
val double : Int => Int = 2 * // point free function definition List(1,2,3) map double /* removes one point from List(1,2,3) map {x => double(x)} */
Thank you Robert for finally getting to the truth.
Oh, the Underscore
Now, Robert may object because I didn't combine map and double into one super function, mapDouble. Okay
val mapDouble : List[Int] => List[Int] = _ map double mapDouble(List(1,2,3))
Crap, there's an underscore. Is it a "point"? Good question. And the answer is no. In fact, what it is is a hole in the expression. Oleg Kiselyov, somebody who actually knows about functional programming, says they're related to delimited continuations and what could be more functional than delimited continuations?
Also, Erlang Remains Unfunctional
For some reason Fischer really hates on Erlang. Point-free is definitely not Erlang's strong suit at all due to it's ability to overload on arity. I don't know why the Erlangers don't go picket his blog.
Post Script on Converses
David MacIver points out (correctly) that my post assumes that a statement implies its converse. To that I say "pffft, write your own damn parody, David!"


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Our Verdict
Nokia's E73 Mode smartphone doesn't differ radically from its predecessor (the E71), but it has one great advantage: The new phone sells for just $70 when purchased through T-Mobile (along with a two-year contract), making its price tag far more appealing to consumers than the $500 that an unlocked E71 went for in 2008.
We gave the E71 a favorable review back then. Though we had some reservations about it, but by far the biggest one was its price. At $70, the E73 seems like a lot of phone for the money. It even looks kind of like a BlackBerry.
A Serious Phone
Physically, the E73 feels slim and sturdy. It's wrapped in a shell of hard, matte-black plastic, and you won't find any wobbly plastic buttons on it. In my hand, the 4.5-ounce E73 felt solid and substantial–like a real piece of technology, not a plastic toy.
The 3mm headphone jack and power key are situated on the top edge of the phone. On the right side are the volume keys and a voice command/mute key. On the opposite (left) side you'll find the USB slot and a microSD card slot. The speaker and a 5-megapixel camera occupy the back.
Voice Functions
Voice calls on the E73 had adequate volume but lacked the sound quality I've heard on other new phones. During my test calls, I could easily understand the voice at the other end, but it had a brassy, bleating quality. My voice, I was told, sounded clear but somewhat thin and tinny.
I heard no jitter or delay during my test calls while connected over the T-Mobile 3G network from work. At home, however, I had significant trouble getting and keeping a solid 3G connection. T-Mobile elegantly addresses this common problem, however: The E73, detecting the spotty 3G connection, automatically failed over to the Wi-Fi connection in my apartment.
Another utilitarian addition to the E73 is a preloaded visual voicemail service (contributed by T-Mobile), which can automatically transcribe your incoming voice messages for you.
Keyboard and Navigation
Initially, I worried that the E73's slim design would constrict the width of the keyboard too much to permit easy typing. But after using the keyboard awhile I found that the keys' rounded tops compensated to some extent for their thinness. So typing was easier than I expected it to be, though I found myself using my thumbnails to do all the work.
Above the keyboard Nokia supplies various physical buttons that give you tactile control over such operating-system functions as the home screen, contacts, calendar, and messaging; theE73 also provides dedicated "soft keys," corresponding to the menu prompts, at the lower part of the screen on both sides.
The Symbian OS supports two separate desktop setups, so you can easily switch back and forth between "home" mode and "work" mode by clicking an icon on the home screen. That's why Nokia calls this phone the Mode.
Browsing the Web
The S60 (Webkit-based) browser does a reasonably good job of displaying Web content in a very small (320-by-240 pixel) space, and it provides some fairly intuitive tools for navigating in the absence of a touchscreen. To get around on a page, you either brush your thumb across the optical navigation ring at the center of the phone or depress one side of the ring to move incrementally in that direction on the page. The navigation ring lets you scroll quickly through the Web pages that you've opened in the current browsing session, which I found helpful. The Page Overview feature shows you the whole Web page and gives you a red square that you can move around to target the part of the page you want to zoom in on.
On the downside, the phone seemed to take a long time to begin receiving data from the Web (a characteristic known as "high latency"); and when the packets started coming in, they arrived slowly. Also, the processor in the phone seemed to have trouble rendering graphics-heavy pages quickly.
Setting Up E-Mail
Setting up my personal Gmail account on the phone was a breeze. I just entered the appropriate mailbox settings (four of them), and the phone displayed my account. I tried to set up a client for my work e-mail in Google Apps, too, but had less luck with that effort. You might need a little help from your IT person to get this done. Failing that, a T-Mobile support call might be in your future.
GPS Navigation
I was fairly impressed with the Telenav GPS service suite that comes preloaded on the phone. Out on the street, I tested several walking and driving routes; in each case, the service connected quickly with the GPS satellite overhead (even when the sky was overcast), and quickly rerouted me when I diverged from a specified route.
When I attempted to enter addresses by voice, the phone had no trouble understanding the city I wanted, but it took me two or three tries to get it to understand specific street names. Typing the information into the phone works, too, and this method wasn't too much of a hassle.
Overall, the navigation menu structures are intuitive, but I found it hard to tell which menu selection I was hovering over–a difficulty attributable to the odd black-and-white color scheme used in the dropdown lists. Finally, the E73's speaker isn't loud enough to provide audible directions when there's street noise around.
Apps Aren't Us
The phone comes with a basic set of apps, including Google voice search, YouTube, Ovi Maps, Telenav, Where (local search), and Facebook.All of these apps were nicely optimized for the phone's small screen and menu-based navigation.Finding additional practical or fun apps, however, wasn't easy. The Ovi app store pales in comparison to the apps stores for iPhone and Android. And though you can find a few useful apps like Vlingo (mobile voice recognition for messaging) and Bloomberg News, other favorites like the New York Times, NPR, and Scrabble are nowhere to be found. The look of the Ovi store on the E73's screen doesn't exactly entice you to hang around searching for apps, either.
The music player uses an iPod style of organizing media–by genre, artist, album, song, and other criteria–and simplifies the task of forming playlists from the phone's music files. I had little trouble using the navigation ring button to browse, locate, and play music. The sound quality of the audio files wasn't great, but it was adequate and definitely loud enough: I give Nokia props for building a powerful little amplifier into the E73 and for including a simple eight-band equalizer.
High-quality YouTube videos streamed over the T-Mobile 3G network were predictably blurry and pixelated, with a few stops along the way for buffering. Not fun. Though image quality improved when I watched the video over a Wi-Fi connection at home, the E73's small screen precludes watching anything more than short videos like news and viral stuff.
On two occasions when the video stream stopped (while on Wi-Fi), the whole OS hung, forcing me to remove and replace the battery to start up the OS again.
Improved Camera
The E73's 5-megapixel camera is a nice improvement over the E71's 3.2-megapixel offering. In fact, the photos I shot with the E73 compared well with photos I shot with the 8-megapixel camera on the HTC EVO 4G phone. The E73's images were a bit grainier and less sharp, but the colors were true and the lighting levels were accurate. The video I shot with the E73 looked nice, too. You can share both pics and video via the Ovi app on the phone.
Nokia built a front-facing camera into the phone, but it didn't include any native videoconferencing software on the phone; the currently available videoconferencing apps are hard to use and don't communicate terribly well with other types of clients such as Skype. At some point, this function may become usable on the E73, but it's not a factor now, and the small size of the E73's screen makes me wonder how practical videoconferencing on this phone will ever be.
Bottom Line
Nokia's E73 Mode is an old-school smartphone, with no large touchscreen and no sexy OS. Nevertheless, users with utilitarian needs will find that this phone performs basic tasks (calling and messaging, GPS navigation) well and makes a respectable effort at handling the fancier stuff (Web browsing, video streaming).
If you are coming from the BlackBerry tradition and aren't enamored with today's new wave of touchscreen phones, you may find a solid communication tool in the E73–and at a nice price, thanks to T-Mobile.
[Ginny Mies is a assistant editor for PCWorld.]


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Many companies spend a small fortune and deploy a small army to secure themselves from the many security threats lurking these days. But all those efforts can come to naught when making any of these common mistakes. The results can range from embarrassing to devastating, but security experts say that all are easily avoidable.
And almost all can be done without spending one more dime.
Here are the 10 most common security land mines that experts say you need to avoid.
1. A slip of the finger reveals the company secret
Many of the most prevalent security issues are the result of small technological habits that can easily be avoided.
For instance, imagine how many inadvertent data loss events could be eliminated if more users were instructed to turn off the e-mail address "autofill" feature in Microsoft Outlook and other messaging systems, said Steve Roop, senior director of marketing and products at Symantec.
"When employees are quickly addressing their e-mails, they inadvertently tab and select the wrong name in haste. The employee thinks he is sending an e-mail internally to Eric Friendly, but autofill instead sent it to Eric Foe," Roop said. "We've all done this. [But] if the e-mail contained sensitive data about a proposed merger or acquisition, then the secret is out."
As much as 90 per cent of all information leakage events are tied to inadvertent e-mail foibles, including the autofill accidents and mistakes in handling encryption or misinterpreting usage policies, Roop said. Just the simple act of turning off something like autofill could save businesses a lot of headaches at no extra cost, he said.
2. People give away passwords and other secrets without thinking
More often than not, users — not outside intruders — are responsible for coughing up the passwords and personal data that allow attackers to break into their computers and their employer's networks to wreak havoc and tarnish their names.
Despite all the education people have been given about phishing, spyware programs, and hacked Web sites, many users are still willing to hand out their data whenever it is requested without checking to ensure that they aren't be duped or misled, said Dave Marcus, security research and communications manager at McAfee. "People assume the legitimacy of sites as presented; this is fundamentally incorrect in a Web world," Marcus said. "The easiest way to steal someone's identity online is simply to ask them for it."
3. A trusted partner ends up not being so trustworthy with your data
Another common security error is found among users who assume that it is fine to send sensitive information such as human resources data to business partners or outsourcing services providers, Roop said. This land mine is made worse when the messages are sent unencrypted.
"The land mine is making the assumption that the person at the HR outsourcer isn't going to send the spreadsheet anywhere else or store the data improperly on their unsecured laptop," he said. "This land mine is true whenever sensitive data is shared via e-mail as part of a business process with third parties."
4. Web-based apps can be portals to leaks and thieves
A common behaviour that leads to a lot of security problems includes the use of Webmail or allowing workers to access music-downloading and file-sharing services from the company network, said Marcus.
Such Web-based apps bypass your security filters, as in the case of Webmail, or open a channel to the outside that may carry viruses or worse into your organization.
And if your employees take work home, these risks are magnified. If they use your computers and also do personal activities over the Web, those computers could be compromised, Marcus said. If they bring the data home — via e-mail or a thumb drive — they risk it getting lost or stolen.
All of these problems can be avoided fairly easily through enforcement of policies that require the use of secure mail clients over VPNs or encrypted channels (in the case of e-mail), or not allowing users to install apps on their work computer or copy data to removable media (in the case of taking work home). Much of this can be managed through security policies and systems management apps. One difficult channel to block is the use by employees of e-mail to send themselves data, though encryption can help.
5. Hoping the worse doesn't happen only makes it worse
Nobody wants to have a data breach, but you need to act as if one will, advised Kevin Mandia, chief executive of Mandiant, which specializes in post-breach analysis services and software tools. Every organization can take steps to lessen the impact of a breach once it happens. Unfortunately, most companies wait until it is too late to test or even create their response strategies, he said.
Every company should record the data flow, from who had access when to what systems used the data. But few do, Mandia said. "There's no question, the most common error we see is failure to document what happened," he said.
"People hire us and the first thing we ask for is any related documentation that people already have. Most often, people will hand terabytes of data and no formal documentation. Technicians stink at it, and lawyers don't mandate it. So in almost every incident, we go in and ask them what happened and the response is the sound of crickets chirping."
6. Avoiding or diluting response leadership makes breaches worse
Companies also seriously inhibit their ability to respond to breaches by failing to appoint a single leader or small team to spearhead efforts to respond to incidents and chase down important details.
In many firms, the process devolves into a game of pass-the-buck, while others involve so many people in the breach response effort that they actually become a hindrance to the related investigation.
"We often respond and no one is in charge, no one wants to be, and as a result, no one knows what dedication of resources to give the incident in terms of money, tools, or technologies, and no one person individually can balance their day job with the amount of resources needed to handle a major incident," Mandia said.
"On the flip side, some companies now bring too many people to the decision-making table while still trying to respond. We show up and we're immediately briefing 12 people — and 10 don't need to be there," he said.
7. Handling breach details sloppily tips off the perp
Another common problem is that companies typically fail to establish a "need to know" approach to breaches, which makes it harder to carry out baseline investigations as workers find out about an incident and immediately try to protect their own interests.
If insiders are involved in the problem, they also gain the advantage of knowing that the gig is up and may stop telltale behaviour useful to investigators — and often try to cover their tracks, Mandia said.
8. Trusting "silver bullet" technology hides real threats
As regulatory measures that involve IT and data security interests continue to multiply, businesses have invested a lot in technological solutions to plug the holes. But companies commonly believe that installing a specific technology or meeting some individual aspect of a regulation is a silver bullet or a quick fix. It's neither.
"The biggest problem I see is people thinking that simple things like deploying anti-virus [software], patching, and running vulnerability scans are actually what it means to be compliant. They're not approaching it from a risk management standpoint — they're just checking the boxes," said Mike Rothman, an analyst with Security Incite.
Companies often compound this fools' paradise by auditing their limited security fixes and taking a passing grade as confirmation that no more work is needed. "People often think that once they have a positive audit, they're done," Rothman said. "Then the bad guys prove to them that they're not."
9. Spending unthinkingly wastes resources you might need for important threats
Another compliance-related security trap that companies frequently fall into is spending the same effort or expense to protect IT systems with wildly different levels of importance to their organization's security and success, Rothman said.
"Some people make the mistake of treating all security issues equally, and spend the same amount of time and money defending an old application that only five people use that they spend on an online application used by all of their customers," he said.
That approach not only wastes money, but it also can leave more important problems to later consideration — or maybe none at all, once the budget has dried up. "Security people often don't know how to prioritize," Rothman said. "They should look at what happens if something specific breaks and look at how to drive spending from there."
10. Don't save the wrong data
In another common scenario that spells disaster for both security and compliance interests, many companies that process credit and debit cards inadvertently leave transaction logging systems on that store account information. This logging can lead to customer data breaches and PCI (Payment Card Industry) audit failures.
"Naturally, they don't realize they are storing the data a hacker or malicious employee would need to create fake plastic credit cards," said Symantec's Roop. "This is the cardinal sin of PCI compliance. We actually saw this example at a [recent] prospect. It is a big land mine that most likely will result in a failed PCI audit."
Even companies not collecting card data need to make sure that they only save the information they actively need to do business, Roop said. Keeping anything on hand that could be misused by attackers without a clear need to store that data is asking for trouble, he advised. And if it must be retained, then be sure to build a protection method for it as well.
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String Lights In The Bedroom
There's no denying our love for string lights. They're typically seen in backyards or outdoor weddings because they create an ambiance like no other. String lights create an atmosphere that we just can't help but want to be in and around. So, why not add them in your bedroom?
Sure, they could get real tacky real quick — but when done right the look is quite magical. If you're not a fan of haphazardly draping them over a footboard — DIY Ideas suggests incorporating them into a headboard.
To create an inviting space, pair string lights with sheer white curtains and hang around the bed. The combination will create a slightly enclosed and super romantic ambiance.
• DIY Headboard Ideas, DIY Ideas
• Lights On Twigs, This Tiny House
• Greening The Bathroom, Lighting The Home, Re-Nest
• Romantic String Lights, Ellmania
• Pink and Light All Over, Elizabethhh
Image credit: as linked above


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Selling national forest land is just a bad idea
The proposed sale of U.S. Forest Service land to find money for counties who have lost revenue from declining timber sales is just a bad idea, a product of the Bush Administration's fiscal indulgences rather than well thought-out land management policies.
The Secure Rural School and Community Self-determination Act was enacted in 2000. It provided counties with national forest land money to make up for the revenue lost from declining logging revenues. Schools had traditionally received 25 percent of the money from timber sales in the national forests. As the public clamored for less logging in the forests and more recreational uses, revenues to counties declined significantly. This act provided a federal payment to compensate for the lost logging dollars.
The law expired in September, and the Bush appointees proposed selling off about 309,000 acres in more than 40 states. The money would be used to make the payments to the affected counties, providing a short-term method of financing this act but leaving the country with less land in its national forests.
Due to several factors — the November elections no doubt played a part — Congress did not come up with a good way to help the rural counties who depend on this money. Unless the new Congress develops its own plans, the Bush Administrations's 2007 budget recommends that more than 6,000 acres of national forest land in Western North Carolina be sold off. Almost half is in Macon County.
The compensation to counties is extremely important and represents a fair trade. Citizens from throughout the country come to this region to enjoy the wilderness. It provides horseback riders, hunters, anglers, hikers, campers and others a respite. Since it is public land, however, the counties receive a minuscule payment in lieu of taxes from the federal government. In reality, the taxpayers in these Western North Carolina counties with national forest land are paying higher property tax rates because of the thousands of acres tied up in public lands.
Related Items
This is why a percentage of the timber sales money went to the counties, it's why the payment in lieu of tax program was developed, and it's why the Secure Rural Schools Act was passed in the first place.
The sale of the 309,000 acres is intended as a way to continue to fund the Act. But all we're talking about is $100 million, a small amount in the larger scheme of the federal budget. The problem is that this administration has run up ever-increasing deficits to pay for the Iraq war and to finance tax cuts for the rich, and so it is looking for a quick fix to help meet its obligations.
The reason this is important now is that if Congress does not act to renew the act when it convenes in January, the payments to rural counties will stop. Western North Carolina's recently elected freshman congressman Heath Shuler made preserving these payments to counties an early campaign issue. We hope he gets to Washington and starts work on keeping this program in place.
Congress needs to simply renew the act without selling off national forest land that is everyone's heritage. Instead, we need to protect national forest land that increasingly will be valuable for its intrinsic rather than its market value. Keep the land and fund the program.


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Rick Santorum endorses Mitt Romney, the man he once described as the "worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama." The presumptive nominee impressed the former senator from Pennsylvania with his "deep understanding" of the connection between social and economic issues.
If the endorsement was neither surprising nor resounding, it's probably good enough to begin uniting the social conservatives for a tough campaign ahead. A thermometer stuck into the bubble of rhetoric over Santorum's head would reveal the air as pretty tepid, but the white-hot anger that drove the Santorum campaign was gone.
Santorum said his meeting with Romney cleared the air and persuaded him that the governor would work hard to overturn Obamacare if the Supreme Court does not. He was persuaded that Romney economic policy would preserve and strengthen the family. The two men not only agreed to oppose abortion and gay marriage, but to work to lower taxes, reduce the national debt and make government smaller.
This was not earthshaking news, but it goes to the heart of what's expected from conservatives in November -- to make the moral link between economic and social issues, which would unite Republicans, not splinter them. The Santorum rhetoric has often spilled over the top, especially when he talked about birth control and the separation of church and state, and mocked the value of a college education for young people from blue-collar families. But on the economy, the issue essential to attracting independents, the two have much in common.
No matter how it's stated, the issue most on the minds of most American voters is the economy -- and lack of jobs. Even the stupid, in the famous campaign formulation, should see that. The case for growth is fundamentally a moral debate that goes to the heart of what we think is right and wrong. Arguments over moral positions evoke the culture wars of the 1990s and often focus on parochial, social issues, but Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, makes a strong case to Republicans for framing economic policy as a conservative moral issue, one that goes to the nation's roots in individual freedoms and free enterprise.
In his new book, "The Road to Freedom," he argues that it's a mistake for conservatives promoting an economic agenda to make a narrow defense of efficiency and material wealth. Instead, he says, conservatives should appeal to the ideals and virtues inherent in "earned success," in the individual accomplishment, equality of opportunity and necessary fairness that is required to make the system work.
We don't live in a perfect world, but individual liberty and personal responsibility, crucial to free enterprise, have the force to make lives better for everyone. Breaking down barriers to entrepreneurship, which generates jobs, is one of the most important economic moral imperatives.
The recession identified blame and exposed the greed and corruption of those who benefitted from the housing bubble, who received big bonuses on Wall Street and the corporations bailed out by the rest of us, but Brooks reminds us that the same free enterprise that can run amok can also make us more socially responsible.
America remains a generous nation; charitable donations add up to about $300 billion annually, with 75 percent of that contributed by ordinary men and women. No other nation comes close to matching those numbers. Those who believe in, and work in, the free enterprise system give considerably more than those who don't.
While illegal immigration gets our attention, we ignore the destructive immigration policy that expels talented foreign students who earn degrees here and then are sent home when their visas expire. Recent research concludes that for every immigrant we educate in science, technology and mathematics or engineering, the nation can expect the return of two new jobs for other Americans.
Brooks offers hard proposals from a moral base, such as entitlement reductions, major changes in Social Security, including raising the age of eligibility, means-testing and changing the formula for raising benefits based on wage inflation. If debt is a moral issue at the individual level, it is also one at the national level, because debt steals from future generations.
"The Road to Freedom" may be more Bible than blueprint for economic reform, but it can start a necessary debate over changing the way we discuss economic reform. Liberals want more stimulus, higher taxes and still more borrowing. Conservatives want tax reform, less government spending and fewer obstacles to entrepreneurs. Conservatives have the facts and data, but they must add the moral dimension. We "grow" the economy, or we "grow" the bureaucracy. It's as simple as that.


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Labor Market Information
The Labor Market Information Division (LMID) is the official source for California Labor Market Information. The LMID promotes California's economic health by providing information to help people understand California's economy and make informed labor market choices. We collect, analyze, and publish statistical data and reports on California's labor force, industries, occupations, employment projections, wages and other important labor market and economic data.
Labor Market Information Resources and Data: Home | By Customer | By Subject | By Geography | Data Library | Online Services


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B&R I/O systems are versatile and easy to use. With IP20 and IP67 protection, this is true in any combination, both inside and outside the control cabinet. And they also support all standard fieldbus systems. Complete flexibility regarding topology makes it possible for the I/O system to be optimally adapted to the machine. Standard I/O can be mixed with safe I/O, and decentralized intelligence is embedded in the I/O system so that things like condition monitoring can be easily implemented.
Inside the control cabinet
The very compact X20 system offers a wide range of different modules and is especially efficient to wire and maintain thanks to its 3-slice design.
Outside the control cabinet
The X67 system is compatible with the X20 system and can be combined with it as needed. In addition, the IP67 protection makes them especially well-suited for harsh environmental conditions.
Directly integrated valve manifolds
The XV System allows valve terminals to be directly integrated in the I/O network. This results in fewer I/O modules and less wiring, which also reduces machine manufacturing costs.


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PITTSBURGH — Two sisters of an Iowa state representative have been found dead of apparent gunshot wounds in the Pittsburgh home they shared, and police are investigating the case as a double homicide.
The bodies of 44-year-old Susan Wolfe and 38-year-old Sarah Wolfe were found Friday afternoon in their basement after they didn't show up for work, authorities said. Police found Sarah Wolfe's car around 1:15 a.m. Saturday parked nearly a mile away.
Sarah Wolfe was a psychiatrist for Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, and Susan Wolfe was a teacher's aide at Hillel Academy in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood.
Pittsburgh police Lt. Daniel Herrmann said they don't have a motive for the killings, and there were no signs of forced entry. Family members, most of whom live in Iowa, said they're still trying to figure out what happened.
A sister, Mary Wolfe, is an Iowa Democratic state representative who lives in Clinton. Her website says she is the oldest of eight children, six girls and two boys.
On her Facebook page Saturday night, Rep. Wolfe thanked friends, neighbors and colleagues for their support.
"We are so grateful," she wrote. "Heartbroken, but grateful."
Dr. Claudia M. Roth, CEO of Western Psychiatric, said in a statement that she mourned the loss of both lives and said Sarah "was known as a very compassionate, warm, caring and bright physician who was praised by patients, families, staff and colleagues."
Sarah Wolfe purchased the home in the East Liberty neighborhood on Dec. 3 for $210,000, Allegheny County records show. Susan Wolfe had recently moved from Iowa to Pittsburgh to live with her sister.
The medical examiner's office has not released causes of death, but police say it appears the women had been shot.
Neighbors said the area is normally quiet and safe.
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This spring the World Health Organization (WHO) celebrated the early completion the 2015 development goal of bringing improved drinking water to an additional two billion people since 1990.
"Today we recognize a great achievement for the people of the world," United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said at the occasion. "The successful efforts to provide greater access to drinking water."
The feat was a landmark in securing what the U.N. General Assembly declared in 2010 was a universal human right: "access to safe and clean water." In an effort to improve health and quality of life across the world between 1990 and 2015, the U.N. established eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG). One of the sub targets was to "halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation."
And by early 2012 only approximately 800 million people around the globe still relied on "unimproved" water sources such as streams, ditches or unprotected wells, which are the most likely places for contaminated water. Pipes, boreholes and protected wells are much more likely to prevent contact with dangerous pathogens, chemicals or sewage runoff.
But just because water is pouring out of a spigot does not mean that it is safe to drink. In poorer areas, where infrastructure and sanitation are often much worse, even sources of water that have been "improved" are frequently at risk for contamination by human and animal feces, according to recent analyses.
Improved but not necessarily safe
One report, published earlier this year in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, analyzed water quality test data from five countries (Ethiopia, Jordan, Nicaragua, Nigeria and Tajikistan) and found that many sources of "improved" water failed the safety test. When these improved waters were tested and compared with survey data about where people got most of their water, the estimates for the populations that have access to safe drinking water fell by 16 percent in Nicaragua, 15 percent in Nigeria, 11 percent in Ethiopia and 7 percent in Tajikistan. (Jordan, which primarily uses public utilities to pipe water, remained at a relatively high percentage.) Additionally, the study authors noted, the number of people who had access to safe—and not just improved—water in 1990 was likely much lower than previously estimated, which means that the 2015 target is even farther away than estimated by the current rubric.
Extrapolating from these five very different countries spread over three continents to the rest of the globe is difficult. But one group of researchers at the Gillings School of Global Public Health's Water Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill took a shot at it in their March International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health paper. They estimate that some 1.8 billion people—28 percent of the population worldwide—was using unsafe water as of 2010. That is far more than the 783 million (or 11 percent) estimated by WHO and UNICEF to have access to improved water sources. The researchers acknowledge that their "estimate is imprecise," but "the magnitude of the estimate and the health and development implications suggest that greater attention is needed to better understand and manage drinking water safety." And other experts in the field agree that their estimate is a good ballpark figure for the true disparity.
This disjunction could have large implications for public health planning. In many water-insecure places, diarrheal disease is still a leading cause of death—especially for children, of whom some 1.5 million succumb to these infections. Most of those illnesses result from contact with bacteria, viruses or parasites, often through unclean water. A recent study in Environmental Health showed that access to clean water could reduce childhood mortality by 1.17 deaths per 1,000 children, which is a large number of preventable deaths for the millions of children who lack access to improved water—and millions more who apparently lack access to fully safe water supplies.
These preventable diseases also cost countries dearly in lost productivity. Poor sanitation can demand high environmental cleanup costs, and are a major drag on economic growth, notes Jaehyang So, manager of the Water and Sanitation Program at the World Bank.
Global challenge
Gathering data about the type of water source—tap, drainage ditch, borehole, etcetera—is a lot easier than performing formal water quality tests, which is one of the reasons the U.N. goals focused on improving water sources.
"The problem is that there is not really any good, objective water quality test" that can easily be performed in remote areas of developing countries, says Stephen Gundry, professor of environmental engineering at the University of Bristol who co-authored the WHO Bulletin paper.
The U.N. is not blind to this disparity. Many experts at the organization "have let Mr. Ban know in no uncertain terms that his office has badly understated the scale of the drinking water crisis," environmental analyst Roger Harrabin wrote earlier this month in his column for BBC News.
"These targets are set in a very political environment," says Sanjay Wijesekera, chief of the U.N. Children's Fund's (UNICEF) Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Programme division. And once the goals are established, he and others working on the challenges are tasked to try to help as many countries as possible meet them.
One of the biggest breakdowns between improved and safe water occurs almost imperceptibly over time. Creating an improved water source does vastly increase the odds that water will be safe. But if pipes, wells and other improvements are not maintained over time, they can become damaged or compromised, allowing bacterial contamination in.
With the focus on installing pipes, wells and other improvements, localities and organizations have not always kept up the gains they have made. Wijesekera points out that UNICEF programs, such as those in eastern and southern Africa, emphasize sustainable water improvements. These initiatives have an annual sustainability check to make sure facilities have both technical and financial support to keep them running safely. But as Gundry notes, continued maintenance often does not garner extra credit or funds, allowing once-safe installations to fall into disrepair.
All of these new pipes and wells "have been very effective in bumping up the numbers" for the MDGs, Gundry says. But the bottom line is that U.N. officials "focused on an indicator that doesn't tell the whole story," he notes. "They just accepted that an improved source is a safe source, which it isn't, of course."
Additionally, many people still have to transport water from a source back to their homes—a period when contamination can occur. Contamination is likely "somewhere along the way," Wijesekera says, from unsanitary containers or handling. The World Bank's So notes that some 40 percent of home water samples studied in India that were clean upon collection had been contaminated by the time they were ready for consumption at the home. But measuring those levels on a broad scale would mean testing water in homes, which is even more difficult than the area testing.
Wijesekera notes that there are numerous pilot programs around the globe that are testing in-home treatment technologies. But these can also be a burden on those who use them, so the hope would be to eventually have water piped much closer to home—if not in the actual premises.
Portable potable test
One of the reasons that the U.N. relies on improved sources as a measure of drinking water access rather than actual safety is that the latter is much more difficult to assess than counting wells and spigots. "It just isn't feasible to do bacterial tests," Wijesekera says.
"Over the last 20 years, there has not really been the capability in most developing countries to test water across the country," Gundry notes. For traditional, standard tests, water samples need to be kept below 4 degrees Celsius after collection until they are delivered to a lab where they can be cultured and examined under a microscope for microorganisms, such as Escherichia coli. To maintain that cool temperature, technicians need ice, which is often unobtainable in remote villages that do not have electricity. And labs are often ill-equipped and far away. "The barriers to getting samples in developing countries are fairly insurmountable," Gundry says.
Many groups are trying to tackle this problem. The challenge, Wijesekera says, is to make a test that is affordable, quick and can be used easily by people in the field who are not water quality experts.
Gundry and his colleagues have developed one possible solution. Called Aquatest, it is a compact, field-ready tool that provides a simple reading about the presence of E. coli within about 24 hours. They now have some 20,000 devices out in the field being used globally, and they are looking for a commercial partner to help increase production and distribution. But this and other devices will likely need much more evaluation before the U.N. and others can confidently mandate this sort of on-site water safety testing worldwide to truly get a bead on global access to safe water.
New focus on safety
Those at the U.N., WHO, UNICEF and other organizations are already starting to discuss how assessments might change after the 2015 MDG deadline has passed and the international community sets new targets. Gundry and others are hopeful that water safety will garner higher priority.
In the absence of better water safety data, Wijesekera notes that improved measurement of water sources is at least the best indicator that they currently have. And it underscores the progress that has been made in delivering protected water supplies to more people.
Nevertheless, whether there are 800 million or 1.8 billion people who lack safe water, the scourge of preventable deadly diarrheal and other waterborne diseases will continue to plague too many.
As Wijesekera points out, even the current WHO statistics "draw attention to the unfinished agenda" of improved water reaching another 800 million people and safe water reaching some one billion more. "It's not just enough to make progress on a broad front," he says. But many of these people are among the poorest 20 percent on the planet and can be "the hardest to reach—physically and politically," he notes.
And those who are falling into the gap, who have improved but unsafe water, are likely going to be difficult to help as well, especially without widespread, affordable water quality tests. Moving people from surface water collection to a new, protected well is much easier to see as progress than repairing a old well's housing. As the development community continues to focus on installing new pipes and drilling new wells for the large number of people with unimproved water sources, those whose infrastructures had been improved but are now failing often fail to get as much aid and attention.
To So and her colleagues at the World Bank, water safety is inseparable from sanitation—access to which lags far behind clean water. The need for clean water is apparent to almost everyone, she notes, but in many areas where open defecation is still the norm, the demand for sanitation is just not there yet. And where proper sanitation is scarce, any vulnerable water sources are much more likely to become contaminated.
By the U.N.'s development goals, sanitation is not expected to meet the target improvements by 2015. By the World Bank's count, poor sanitation—and its subsequent contamination of water supplies—costs India some $53.8 billion each year (some 6.4 percent of the country's entire gross domestic product), not to mention untold number of deaths and illnesses. And as a threat to safe drinking water, So says, "sanitation is the big crisis." Further, simply plodding toward its 2015 target is keeping millions in jeopardy of unsafe water. "Improvements cannot be 'slowly but surely,'" So says. "It's taken way too long for the world to get rid of a simple problem."


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PHOENIX -- Michael Beasley says his marijuana issues are a thing of the past, and that he's ready to show the Phoenix Suns that their support for him is warranted.
The 6-foot-10 forward signed a three-year, $18 million contract with Phoenix on Friday, then faced questions about his past head-on at a news conference.
"I realize 10 minutes of feeling good is not really worth putting my life and my career and my legacy in jeopardy," he said, "so I'm confident to say that part of my career, that part of my life, is over and won't be coming back."
In June 2011, Beasley was ticketed for possessing marijuana and speeding in a Minneapolis suburb. He also has acknowledged that while playing for Miami, he twice violated the NBA's drug policy and entered a treatment facility in 2009.
Beasley credits working with former NBA player Norm Nixon for getting his priorities straight.
"I've really realized my potential," Beasley said. "I've really realized what I can do."
Suns general manager Lance Blanks was effusive in his praise of Beasley's honesty as well as the unquestionable talent he brings to the rebuilding Phoenix organization.
"Regardless of his past and regardless of any thoughts that people may have," Blanks said, "we are excited, I know I am excited, to embrace everything he is about and most importantly wants to be as a Phoenix Sun."
Blanks and coach Alvin Gentry talked of Beasley's infectious personality.
"You're around him and you want to embrace him and you want him to do well," Gentry said. "I think everybody here will be pulling for him."
Beasley, the second overall pick in the 2008 draft, played his first two seasons with Miami and the past two with Minnesota. He became a free agent when the Timberwolves declined an $8 million option to keep him.
There is no doubt that Beasley brings immense talent, whether he plays the small or power forward position. The former Kansas State player has averaged 15.1 points per game in his four NBA seasons. He has 10 career games of 30 or more points, nine of them the past two seasons, topped by a career-high 42 against Sacramento on Nov. 10, 2010.
The Suns sent Beasley a text shortly after midnight the day that contact with free agents was allowed and followed up with a trip to Los Angeles. The attention was a major factor in Beasley choosing Phoenix.
"I'd like to thank the organization for believing in me," he said, "giving me another chance, a better opportunity to grow as a person and a player. Like Lance said, I kind of want to take my past head-on. What happened, it happened. It happened in a growing process. I'm still a young man. I'm still learning today. The mistakes I made in the past are hopefully behind me. Hopefully, the Suns organization can be patient with my growing process. I'm just excited to get a start, excited to play basketball."
After playing in the more rigid systems of Miami and Minnesota, Beasley looks forward to running the court with the up-tempo Suns.
"The run-and-gun style of offense is something that not just myself but a lot of NBA players dream of playing in," he said. "But what really drew me was that I was No. 1 on their list. That really made me feel good as a person. Phoenix is the first and only team I met with this summer.
"Once the meeting was over, once the day was over, I felt good about coming to Phoenix and I didn't have to meet with any other teams. I really feel like they are sincere in everything they say. ... It makes me feel good that someone actually believes in me and someone is willing to give me a chance."


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Beverage Manufacturers and Distributors Using Fishbowl Inventory Solution to Integrate with QuickBooks
Beverage Manufacturers and Distributors Using Fishbowl Inventory Solution to Integrate with QuickBooks
Orem, UT -- (SBWire) -- 11/14/2012 --There are thousands of small and midsized beverage manufacturers ranging from wine makers to bottled water. Increasingly these firms look to Fishbowl to manage their manufacturing operation. Fishbowl Inventory (http://www.fishbowlinventory.com) is the most requested inventory management solution for seamless integration with QuickBooks, and is a popular standalone solution for organizations or enterprises looking to track assets. For users of QuickBooks it provides the same advanced features, flexibility, and mobile management control larger organizations require.
Manufacturers benefit in many ways by using Fishbowl's Manufacturing Option. Fishbowl provides several competitive advantages, including configurable bills of materials, instructions, and stages; tracks tens of thousands of parts and integrates with QuickBooks.
As manufacturers grow and expand their product line, increasingly complex processes must be coordinated. Fishbowl simplifies processes by automatically generating manufacture orders, work orders, bills of materials and other essential documents when customer orders arrive. Each bill of materials can include detailed instructions, multiple stages of production, and other features to make every manufacturing job more efficient.
Complex products often require thousands of parts to function properly. To avoid production delays and ensure high-quality products, manufacturers use Fishbowl's Manufacturing Option; it makes the task of finding parts and products easier. By simply entering a product number or scanning a barcode, Fishbowl shows manufacturers where to find it, how many are on hand, and when to reorder. An organized warehouse maximizes efficiency by storing parts and products for specific jobs close together. With multiple locations, it also helps manufacturers identify which locations to store certain items.
Fishbowl Enterprise is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution for SMBs with a robust feature set that allows Fishbowl to provide organizations with all the components required to meet their inventory and business management needs as well as to cloud accessibility,
Fishbowl offers custom reports, custom shopping cart integrations, custom data integration, and database-related application linking and eliminates data entry errors. With simple features of barcode scanning, companies easily receive inventory into systems or records as it comes off the carrier vehicle, make adjustments to quantities being received, and easily enter tracking information in real time. Fishbowl software significantly increases accuracy and worker productivity.
Mary Michelle Scott, President
Media Relations Contact
Mary Michelle Scott
View this press release online at: http://rwire.com/179984


text:
Panther women taking step forward
MIDDLEBURY — The Middlebury College women's hockey team stands at 7-2-1 after posting a win and a tie in two home games this past weekend. The Panthers will take on defending NCAA Division III champion Amherst twice on the road this weekend.
On Saturday, a battle between a pair of NESCAC teams ranked in the top 10 nationally, No. 6 Middlebury and No. 9 Trinity, ended in a 1-1 tie despite the Panthers' 24-17 shots advantage.
Trinity had a great shorthanded bid in the first period, but Panther goalie Alexi Bloom (16 saves) made the stop on Celia Colman-McGaw. Trinity's Alexa Pujol (23 saves) and Middlebury's Bloom each denied of pair of scoring opportunities later in the period, leaving the game scoreless after one.
Anna McNally scored her team-leading fourth goal of the season for Middlebury 4:50 into the second period. A long pass from Heather Marrison fed McNally, who put home her own rebound after Pujol denied her initial breakaway bid. Trinity tied the game at 9:28, when Domi Di Dia scored on the power play.
On Friday, Middlebury blanked Wesleyan, 9-0, as the Cardinals dropped to 2-7, 0-5 NESCAC.
Ten players earned points for Middlebury, including a hat trick and an assist for Maggie Melberg.
Jamie Harisiades added two goals and two assists, Madison Styrbicki had a goal and three assists, and Maggie Woodward, Grace Waters and Lauren Greer also tallied.
Becca Shaw made eight saves in goal for Middlebury, picking up her first win of the season. Ashleigh Corvi made 26 stops through two periods for the Cardinals, while Nicole Bonneau earned 11 saves in the third.


text: Hello Dali, Actually that is a very good question. One that confuses many beginners for very valid reasons. Basically it is a difference in how people view how to write the 5 handshape that you were referring to, which is more specifically the hinge handshape. When you have you hand facing yourself and the fingers hinged towards you, do the look like they go to the left or the right, in or out? In reality, it is neither, but the problem comes when you are writing it on a flat paper, so it could be either. So how do we solve this? This is where the two different ideas come along and thus confusing new writers like yourself. As you noticed, the Spanish have it so that the white hands goes out while the black hands go inward. This is because the symbols have the thumbs on the side of the palm that you would expect in real life; outward when the palm faces you, and inward when it doesn't. Then you noticed that the "crazy" Americans (I can say that because I am one and I am being a little humorous here. Wink.) have it so that the hinge is drawn in one direction whether it is black or white. This is because of the general philosophy that held by many Deaf individuals that have worked with Val over the years (including myself) and have influenced her also to subscribe to it. This philosophy is that all signs have a center and the hands are written flowing to its center. So it makes it so that the hinge handshapes always turn inward regardless. I hope that this helps you understand why there is a difference that you notice. So it is really that both are readable to the reader that understands this. My suggestion is that you pick one that you feel is most comfortable and most common with those that you write with. Adam PS If you really don't know which to go with, go with always having the hinges going inward because that is how the ISWA is set up and it is easier to remember, but that is my biased opinion. ;-) On Jul 1, 2010, at 6:59 PM, "Dali balti" <livingtabernacle at YAHOO.FR> wrote: > Hello every one! > I have a small question which might be easy for all of you but it is so embarrassing for me!!! > when dealing with five fingers, and specially when the palm of the hand is facing me, I discovered that many people use different shapes which make me puzzled! > for instance, when I used the Spanish manual which was translated into English for SignWriting teachings, in the list of the symbols, when dealing with 5 fingers (white - not black and not half-half), and when the thumb is touching the other fingers: the handshape direction of the fingers is opposite to the other black handshapes, the Spanish manual do teach so, you can see the handshapes (example to give). But in other french and american dictionaries, the 5 fingers are having the same directions whether black or white! > I do not know if I have well explained my point of view! > I have listed an example : http://www.signbank.org/SignPuddle1.5/searchword.php?ui=4&sgn=49&sid=4563,4564,4322,2335,3726,5206&search=donner&type=any > > the fingers here, should be turned to the left as it is written, or to the right since the thumb is not in the right direction????? or is it up to the signer to choose?????? > please help me I am so confused? > > > >


text:
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Door bookshelf
I got this old door from Tara, cut it up and made a shelf for my boys overwhelming pile of books they don't know how to read yet. When I was cutting it up a guy drove by my house and asked if I knew what I was doing with the saw. I said "No... why, is knowing what you're doing a requirement with power tools?". He just laughed and drove away. The thing I don't get is why men always seem to think I don't know my way around a garage? I'm not out there in my heels. I don't close my eyes and look away when I use a saw. What's the deal?
6 comments:
Unbelievable. UNBELIEVABLE!ReplyDelete
Sooooo adorable!ReplyDelete
What a fun idea. I hear ya, why do guys think power tools are just for them?ReplyDelete
Perfect! For half a door anyways.ReplyDelete
LOL Gotta love the 'men-folk' who feel threatened by a woman wielding a power tooland encroaching upon THEIR territory, 'the garage'. My favorite such story was when I bought my 4" belt sander years ago. The big and burly MALE cashier at the hardware store commented, "Your husband is going to LOVE this!" I replied, "I'm buying it for ME." Complete silence.ReplyDelete
Looking forward to further exploring your blog. always fun to meet like-minded folks.
love your blog-you girls crack me up...you sounds just like me & my 4 sisters!! lol.ReplyDelete
*ps: where in az are you? we're in mesa. you up north?


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The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography's "Life of the Week" post this week is a biography of Lady Charlotte Guest, the translator of the Mabinogion, including the four mabinogi proper, as well as the three Welsh tales, and the four Arthurian romances, as well as several other tales, including the prose Taliesin fragment from the sixteenth century, edited by Patrick Ford as the Ystoria Taliesin in 1991.
Lady Guest's translation, with the accompanying notes, is actually quite wonderful; it was the first translation I ever read, and it still remains well-worth reading. It has become fashionable to sneer at her—and imply that she wasn't responsible for the work. She was; I've seen some of her handwritten notes, and while she has, quite understandably, Victorian sensibilities, she had a scholarly frame of mind. I wish that her notes from the first editions were still printed; they are well worth reading, and in fact her translations of the four romances, particularly Gereint (the Welsh version of the tale Chretien called Erec et Enide) inspired Tennyson's take in Idylls of the King.
You can read more about Lady Charlotte Guest here and here. Angela V. John has written a solid biography: Lady Charlotte Guest. An Extraordinary Life
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Sometimes, cleaning up your code makes it slower even when it shouldn't. For example, you might extract code from a function and make it a separate function. Maybe the compiler should inline your code, but it doesn't, or it does but the result still isn't the same as the original single function. This is an abstraction penalty: you use the programming language to structure your code with additional abstractions, and you pay a performance penalty.
Grouping variables into structs or objects is a common source of abstraction penalties. For example, converting local variables nscoord x, y; to nsPoint pt; may prevent the coordinates from being placed in registers, in some compilers. Or the coordinates may need to be placed in memory if you pass an nsPoint to another function instead of two nscoords.
That aside, there's a much worse abstraction penalty associated with objects in common "safe" languages such as Java or C#: they require heap allocation and garbage collection. (I'm ignoring C# structs for now for reasons that will hopefully become obvious.) And despite what people will tell you, garbage collection is still slower than stack allocation, often by a lot. When I was doing serious Java programming a few years ago, the way to make Java code fast was still to avoid using objects or manually recycle them to avoid allocation and GC costs. And the problem is that a whole lot of language features are tied up with objects --- interfaces, casting, information hiding, code reuse. I suspect one of the biggest performance issues switching from C++ to Java or C# may be that in C++ you can stack-allocate objects, but in Java and C# you can't. Just look at all the places where Gecko uses nsAutoString or nsAutoTArray to good effect.
The problem is of course that in a safe language, you can't just hand out pointers to stack-allocated objects like candy, because someone might store one away in a dark place and then later, long after the method has returned, start using it as a dangling pointer. This cannot be allowed.
What the world needs is a type system that allows references to stack objects to be given out, but restricts their usage so that no-one can use them after the objects are destroyed. Fortunately many such systems exist. A whole family of "region calculi" have been developed, for example. However, I prefer "ownership types" as a more intuitive and generally useful framework; in particular I like Boyapati-style "explicitly parametric ownership types".
These work by adding an "ownership parameter" to each class type. These parameters are a lot like generic type parameters, but they denote the "owner" of the object. The basic rule is that an object cannot outlive its owner. This rule is enforced by the typechecker. Here's an example of how this can work:
class Vector<O@P> {
(O@P[])@this array;
int size;
Vector() { array = new (O@P[100])@this; }
void add(O@P o) { array[size++] = o; }
class Iterator<O@P, Q> where Q <= P {
Vector<O@P>@Q inner;
int i;
Iterator(Vector<O@P>@Q inner) { this.inner = inner; }
O@P next() { return inner.array[i++]; }
void f() {
C@method c1 = new C@method(), c2 = new C@method();
C@method c3 = g(c1, c2);
C@R g<R>(C@R c1, C@R c2) {
Vector@method v = new Vector@method<C@R>();
return new C@R();
void h<R,S>(Vector<C@R>@S v) where S <= R {
Iterator@method iter = new Iterator@method<C@R, S>(v);
while (C@R c = iter.next()) { ... }
This code creates two objects, puts them into a standard growable vector class, then passes the vector to another function which uses a standard iterator to iterate over the vector. What's cool is that the compiler knows a lot about the lifetimes of these objects. In particular the objects which are @method, i.e., owned by "the current method", cannot outlive the method --- even though we pass these objects to other methods and even store references to them in other objects.
These properties are enforced in two ways. The main constraint is that code can only refer to objects whose owners are in scope. For example, you cannot declare C@R glob; and set glob = c1; in g to "leak" a reference to c1 --- the correct R is not in scope at the global level.
Similarly, an object like Vector that takes ownership parameters can only take parameters that "outlive" the object itself. This guarantees that fields of the object cannot become dangling references. In some cases, such as Iterator, we need to add "outlives" constraints to its ownership parameters; Q <= P would be read "P outlives Q". The semantics of ownership mean that "P outlives method" for all in-scope ownership parameters P.
Given the code above, the compiler could, using only local reasoning,
- Stack allocate c1, c2, v and iter
- Allocate space for g's result in f's stack
- Inline the array object directly into Vector --- the compiler knows that the array object cannot outlive its Vector, and because there is only one assignment, it cannot die before Vector either.
Therefore the above code requires no heap allocations at all. ("Inlining" objects into their containing objects is another important optimization, much like stack allocation, that common safe OO languages do not support.)
It's important to note that although a really good compiler could discover these optimizations in Java, for example, using escape analysis, there are major problems leaving it up to the compiler. The primary problem is that escape analysis is expensive and fragile and compilers don't do it very well. A secondary problem is that if you change your program so that escape analysis no longer works, the only way to tell is that your performance gets mysteriously worse. With explicit type constraints, you get a compile error instead. That's especially useful here because quite often when you create objects in a method you expect them to be method-local, and it would be great for the compiler to check that for you and give you an error if you're wrong (instead of generating code that's slow in Java or crashy in C++).
Another note is that although the annotation burden appears large, the code can be slimmed down considerably using sensible default ownership parameters and other shortcuts such as local type inference:
class Vector<O> { // O contains @P
O[] array; // fields default to @this
int size;
Vector() { array = new O[100]@this; }
void add(O o) { array[size++] = o; }
class Iterator<O, Q> where Q <= O@ {
Vector<O>@Q inner;
int i;
Iterator(Vector<O>@Q inner) { this.inner = inner; }
O next() { return inner.array[i++]; }
void f() {
// local objects default to @method
var c1 = new C(), c2 = new C();
var c3 = g(c1, c2);
C@R g(C@R c1, C@R c2) {
Vector v = new Vector<C@R>();
return new C@R();
// implicit type and ownership parameters
void h(Vector v) {
var iter = new Iterator(v); // infer type parameters
while (var c = iter.next()) { ... }
There are even more tricks we can pull! For example, we know a @method object can't be accessed by other threads, so we can easily remove locking from it. In a transactional memory system we would know not to log accesses to it. When a method containing a @method object returns, we know the object must die, so we can deterministically run a destructor at that point, giving us the handy C++ pattern of using destructors for general cleanup on method exit. And when an object is about to go out of scope, we can often easily prove that the method's reference to the object is the only outstanding reference ("uniqueness"). In that case we are allowed to safely change the owner of the object to something else (which is never normally allowed)! This may require copying, depending on what optimizations have been performed. For example:
C@R f<R>() {
var c1 = new C@method(), c2 = new C@method();
var c = ... ? c1 : c2;
// may copy the object from our stack to elsewhere
return (C@R)c;
Tragically, this stuff doesn't really exist yet in a usable language, nor has anyone proven it to work programming at large scales. Sigh...


text:
Man Wins Against City in Fight for 'Flower Potty'
William Terry has fought the battle of the abode since last winter when city officials sent him a citation for his toilet-turned-flower-pot and asked him to remove it promptly. Disgruntled, Terry argued that he was merely recycling an otherwise useful object and went around town taking pictures of other unsightly planters he'd noticed.
The judge ruled in Terry's favor since the city code definition of rubbish is so broad, it would apply to most containers used to house flowers.
Terry's flower potty is currently used to house yellow daffodils and he'd like to add an additional porcelain throne to his yard.