text:
Markus "Notch" Persson's legendary game, Minecraft.
A technical demonstration of liquid simulations for the voxel genre, Liquid Cubed is a WIP project developed by a coder and his brother with the free time they have on the weekends. There aren't any particular objectives in the game, but you are able to build dams, pump water, drain lakes, and otherwise experiment with the liquid system within the building area.
The algorithm used for the liquid simulation was developed over two years in a modified version of Infiniminer. After Minecraft's wild success, we thought it was about time we built a standalone "proof-of-concept" in the hope that the algorithm could be integrated within Minecraft, but unfortunately more work will have to be done before this can become a reality.
We've e-mailed Markus "Notch" Persson (creator of Minecraft) on several occasions regarding integrating the algorithm into Minecraft, but for the moment it's not a feasible option. Aside from Minecraft's more pressing development issues, without our algorithm having A) proof of internet support, B) a stable framerate in an "infini-world", and C) proof of compatibility with MC's lighting, it doesn't make much sense to throw another wrench in the works, does it?
In the meantime we will work to improve the system so it can run harmoniously in a similar blockType environment! UPDATE: Please read the news below (3/23/11) for an important update on this.
While we're still finishing up our "Warcraft vs Starcraft" WC3 mod, progress on Liquid Cubed will be slow and steady with new public builds being made available about every week or so. Plenty is planned to reach the goal of the liquids being "super effective!", below is the current priority-feature list: UPDATE: Please read the news below (3/23/11) for an important update on this.
Version 1.0.4c
Size: ~6.88mb
Date: 3/23/2011
Liquid Cubed was built for rapid prototype development, and although we may switch to DirectX or OpenGl if/when the opportunity arrives, for now the game is built under XNA, requiring XNA 3.1, DotNET 3.5, DirectX 9.0c+, and a Shader 2.0 3.0 videocard. Legacy ATI video cards currently aren't supported, but with Zarat's help we're working on a solution.
Please report any bugs or suggestions on the forums here.
If you can't get the game to run, first check to make sure you meet the requirements, and then follow the instructions in this forum thread to confirm the necessary software has been installed. If it still fails to run, follow the thread's instructions to retrieve your computer's dxdiag.txt so we can attempt to decipher the problem.
We've shared in everyone's excitement for Liquid Cubed's prospects in Minecraft; however, the further we've developed progressive systems and parsers (with much still left to do), the more we've recognized that the modifications to Minecraft's rendering engine would be a very large operation.
In combination with Minecraft's advanced stage of development and Mojang's goals for the game's release, we've concluded integration in the end is unrealistic at the present time. We'd be willing to consult with Mojang regarding the liquids if they were interested, but up to this point they are not, and we have to move on.
We first fell in love with the freedom of voxels in Zach Barth's Infiniminer back in 2009. A whole slew of limitations forced upon games were suddenly broken with Infinimer's concept "everything matters", and it was nothing short of brilliant. The real inspiration for us however, came from the game's infamous lava.
While expanding upon the concept of a more advanced liquid algorithm, we spent the next couple years modding Infiniminer off-and-on with many other little hair-brained ideas. Having contemplated adding "constructable flying blimps" in the Fall of 2009, we were led to an even crazier string of thoughts:
"...What if you could walk around a starship you built from stem to stern, power conduit to warp engine, and every part of the ship actually matters?"
"...What if you could suck people out into space, blast apart a ship's power arteries, cut a ship in half, work together with your buddies to hold off a boarding party, raid derelict vessels for parts, and land on procedurally generated planets to force the locals into digging up gold for your intergalactic conquest!?"
At the time, the wishful ramblings of a 'pure voxel starship' game seemed ludicrous, and since 2009 we've added quite a bit to the wish-list for a "Starship: Infiniminer". But after testing the necessary components in Liquid Cubed, gaining several years of experience within the voxel environment, and building a plan that will support the long-term development, we believe we're capable of pulling off this ambitious concept.
What will follow for the tentatively titled "Blockade Runner" should be familiar to those already experienced with agile indie projects: Rapid development builds, the indie-funding-formula "pay less now for alpha", and a team forgoing the publisher's capital investment to ensure the bold vision is never lost to 'market appeal'.
Full-time work on Blockade Runner by Nathan has already begun, with an in-development version of the game being prepared for release on April 11th . The six month plan is to focus on multiplayer with build-able, crew-able, functioning, "living" starships using cellular automata. This will then lead to further development sprints reaching procedurally-generated stations, planets, and beyond.
More information on Blockade Runner will be available as the new ZanMgt website is unrolled during the next few weeks.
We'd like to thank everyone for their support for Liquid Cubed. Your help and suggestions have been an enormous blessing and are very much appreciated. Although we're disappointed in having to cut Liquid Cubed short of meeting our stated goals, we're very excited about the future and hope you'll join us in the development of Blockade Runner!
In the meantime, please enjoy Liquid Cubed 1.0.4c!
– Aaron Harris,
Creative Director, ZanMgt
Rejoice! When the line tool accidentally flies off you can now revert the mistake! Press CTRL+Z to undo the last tool events, press CTRL+Y to redo the tool events.
Note that water will not be affected by undo (although you can undo a water conversion).
You can alter the default number of undos inside the Settings.xml. Some of the tools can take up more RAM than others, so use discretion when altering the number of undos (100 should really be more than enough).
A superior form of sealing the water polygons was constructed in the past two weeks. This was to resolve a coding issue as well as provide a solution for dynamic and smooth water, which will now be carried onto Blockade Runner.
A parsing mechanism that works in combination with the polygon sealing now helps to reduce the GPU load considerably. Liquids closer to the player will update their visual status faster than the liquids in the distance.
If you do something absurd (a floor of water across the sky), you might see some absurd results. In this case, water floating in the air for longer period of time, but this parser is meant more for slower machines.
The special effects for water dissolving in the 16x16x16 course is now available in the larger courses as well. You can press the "L" key to cycle through the different levels of the special effects.
We had listed Shader 2.0 as a minimum requirement, but after reviewing the amount of instructions we were sending to the GPU, Shader 3.0 is unfortunately the lowest Liquid Cubed can use as a minimum requirement.
Blocks can now be created in the air without having to build off of a block. With the Line tool, this allows you to fire a line from where you're standing to where you're looking.
Undo functionality was a "fun feature" added in this version of Liquid Cubed. Even though all new development is focused on the new game, I still wanted to share the ranking results of everyone's combined prioritization lists for those who are interested:
Thanks for prioritizing: Ludsoe, CMD Keen, Nukepb, Nick650, Duartel, and SairenSA!
A. (-1.3) More Blocks
B. (-2.7) Improved Liquids
-- (+5) Undo Functionality
C. (+0.7) Perlin noise terrain
D. (+2.2) Walking/swimming/collision
E. (+3) Some More Tools
F. (-2.2) Re-designed interface
G. (-1) 2D Sprite Critters
H. (-4.3) HD Visuals
Line tool, Dot Tool, Floor Tool, and Convert Tool are part of the requested features, while drastically reduced map filesize prepares Liquid Cubed for...
Improved performance, distance fogging, bug fixes and more in this update!
Vertical pumps are the new toys, but under the hood work has been done to allow us to improve the range and performance of the liquid engine.
Custom themes by editing .PNGs, height maps are now editable, graphical fixes, reduced file size, and more in this update!
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The Undo ability, a new parser to reduce the memory of water for slower computers, and active dissolves in larger courses make up the brunt of this update...
Line tool, Dot Tool, Floor Tool, and Convert Tool are part of the requested features, while drastically reduced map filesize prepares Liquid Cubed for...
Improved performance, distance fogging, bug fixes, and more in this update! *** Please be sure to check the requirements / known issues below! ***
Vertical pumps are the new toys, but an under-the-hood upgrade will allow us to expand the system substantially in the future. *** Please be sure to check...
Custom themes by editing .PNGs, height maps are now editable, graphical fixes, reduced file size, and more in this update! Please be sure to check the...
Large scale courses, improved rendering system for greater performance, and many other new additions are included in version 1.0.3 of Liquid Cubed. Please...
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Nice idea, i love liquid simulators.
why not make ur own voxil based game? you guys seem VERY skilled :D
Lol they have XD
Search up "Blockade Runner" there's a page on Moddb or you could check out their website XD
ok yes it looks like minecraft thats the only thing thats like minecraft is the blockyness
Wow a hater came through and voted down all the comments.
He probably thinks this is a ripoff of minecraft... which it isn't.
Could this work with SwiftShader 3.0 demo Somehow?
I need to know because i have everything else, but i dont think i have pixel shader whatsoever.
It's possible that it might. You can use the wikipedia chart here En.wikipedia.org to see if your video card supports pixel shader 2.0/3.0
Otherwise you might need to borrow someone else's PC to give it try.
ok.. i got my brothers computer, but when i start it, it comes to a blue wavy screen, now what?
plz answer
alright, i have a quick question, i am getting a new computer soon, so, this is the video card: ATI Radeon HD 5450 graphics with 1GB VRAM, so, will that one work?
That should do fine. The wavy lines are likely from the legacy ATI videocard.
Ohhh k thanks for the info, ill be playing soon :D
I just got my new comp set up, ill be playing in minutes :D
Only registered members can share their thoughts. So come on! Join the community today (totally free - or sign in with your social account on the right) and join in the conversation.


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Due to high demand orders are going out a little later than normal. Please be patient 👻 it's Spooky Season!!!
PreOrder Rainbow Death Head Moth Hair Slide
Death Head Moth Leather Hair Slide
The design is original artwork by me, Angela Hartshorn.
The hair slides are laser cut leather. They are then hand dyed and hand painted.
Comes with wooden hair stick.
Please note: Each piece is hand painted/dyed so colors might vary a little. Hair stick with either be black or brown.
The hair stick is about 6" long.
The hair slide is shipped via USPS and is insured.
Items are shipped within 1-2 weeks. If you need it sooner, please contact me for expedited shipping.
If the hair slide is marked "Made to Order" please allow 2 to 3 weeks for it to be made, depending on the time of year.
Please email me about international shipping.

subset: commoncrawl


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After getting off to a bumpy start, True Tori never managed to fully convince people of its authenticity. So perhaps it's fitting that last night's "reunion" episode rang just as false as the rest of the season, with a little bit of staged drama, fake viewer-submitted questions from nonexistent Twitter accounts and Dean McDermott singing an original song based on his cheating scandal.
First of all, it was weird to refer to last night's episode as a "reunion," with host Brooke Anderson (fittingly, an Entertainment Tonight correspondent) announcing that Tori and Dean would "reunite" in their living room to discuss everything that's happened. Wasn't that the entire premise of the actual show? And these people live together. Are they reuniting for the first time since 20 minutes ago?
They did address the "rumor" that the show was fake, which they denied. But then the reunion trudged on with its bizarre tone similar to that of Caesar Flickerman interviewing the tributes of the Hunger Games. When dark subject matter is highly-produced to maximize its entertainment value it lends the situation a surreality that's at once off-putting and engaging.
In a one-on-one with Tori, Brooke established that, later in the show, they would be asking Dean if he ever cheated with any other women beside the elusive Emily Goodhand. But after a few commercial breaks, Tori walks into her own living room to have an impromptu chat with Brooke to tell her that she just isn't ready to ambush Dean like that. It's supposed to feel like a behind-the-scenes, insider peek at how the reunion was being made, but it just felt like a scene.
Later, Brooke read four different viewer-submitted questions, supposedly sent in from people's Twitter accounts.
The first was credited on the screen as being from @2RedSoxGirl16, a user that doesn't exist. But since the "2" and the "@" button are the same, I figured that might be a typo. I was right! @RedSoxGirl16 is real. Except that the only time she ever tweeted was to ask Tori and Dean a question.
Interestingly, of the 20 people whom RedSoxGirl16 follows on Twitter, one of them is Ryan Sommer—a veteran of reality television production (he's worked on several Kardashian shows) who has been tweeting up a storm about True Tori for the past month. His Twitter handle is @RySommer, which brings us to the next viewer-submitted question.
This one was supposedly submitted by Elaine Rona, with the Twitter handle @2RySommer. That account doesn't exist, but it's very similar to Ryan's handle.
The next question was submitted by @NicoleyBlais, which is a real account, but its only two tweets are questions for Tori and Dean.
The fourth question was submitted by someone named Lisa Valentine with the handle @Lisav1234. That account does exist, but its credited to a woman named Lisa Vargas who only tweeted twice, both over a year ago.
How sloppy is that? When you have the press breathing down your neck about faking aspects of your life and your TV show, why wouldn't you be more careful? At least lie better. Were the real questions that horrible that they couldn't be asked?
The show then turned in a completely different direction, showing Tori and Dean in their backyard with some guy playing the guitar while Dean sang a very Goo Goo Dolls-esque song about his affair and his marriage that includes the lyric: "Broken trust for a dance with lust." Tori looked on, giving reaction shots.
And this is why these people are unbelievable.


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Anthos Config Management
Automate policy and security at scale for Kubernetes clusters on-premises, on GKE, and on other public clouds.
Secure and compliant
Anthos Config Management allows platform operators to reduce security risks by defining a fully customized set of governance controls and ensuring they are consistently applied across environments. Anthos Config Management also continuously monitors environments to ensure their desired configuration is in place and no violations of governance controls are present.
Simplified and automated
Anthos Config Management gives your platform operators the tools they need to define, store, change, deploy, and enforce configuration and usage policies without deep Kubernetes expert skills and without having to build their own tools/templates from scratch using open source components.
Consistent and scalable
Anthos Configuration Management ties together environments and provides an auditable, version-controlled system for managing the fleet-wide configuration that underpins a modern application platform. This enables multiple teams to innovate quickly within secure and properly configured environments provided at scale by the platform administrator.
Policy Controller
Policy Controller enables the enforcement of fully programmable policies for your clusters. These policies act as "guardrails" and prevent any changes to the configuration of the Kubernetes API from violating security, operational, or compliance controls.
Config Controller
Config Controller is a hosted service which brings you Config Connector, Config Sync, and Policy Controller for you. Config Controller lets you manage more than 180 Google Cloud resources the same way you manage other Kubernetes resources, with continuous monitoring and self-healing.
Define configs
Take advantage of a Git repository to create a common configuration that can be applied to the Kubernetes clusters in your fleet. You can manage configuration for any Kubernetes API, including policies for the Istio service mesh, resource quotas, and access control policies.
Enforce configs
Roll out configs to clusters all over the globe, ensuring that your desired state is quickly reflected and actively maintained. Policy Controller comes with a full library of pre-built policies for common security and compliance controls.
Prevent pushing bad configurations with built-in validators that review every line of code for valid syntax and conformance with custom policies—before it gets to your repository.
Common configuration formats
Easily migrate existing definitions with native Kubernetes configuration formats, such as YAML or JSON, to store your multi-cluster policies.
Bring the power of source control to config management
Stage your configuration changes in separate branches, collaborate on code reviews, and easily revert clusters to their last healthy state.
Customize environments
Flexibly configure different policies for groups of clusters or namespaces. For example, you can apply different quota levels to staging versus production resources.
Apply custom rules
Write and apply custom rules not covered by native Kubernetes configuration objects to meet your organization's unique security and compliance requirements. Custom rules allow you to inspect updates to your Anthos infrastructure and reject changes that don't comply with your policies.
Active monitoring and auditing
Prevent configuration drift with continuous monitoring of your cluster state, using the declarative model to apply policies that enforce compliance. Continuously audit your Anthos environment to identify clusters that don't follow your organization's custom rules.
A single place for resource configuration
Manage the configuration of Google Cloud resources and services, like Cloud Storage or Identity and Access Management, from within Anthos Config Management through its Config Connector integration.
Pre-built policies
Policy Controller brings a ready-to-use library of pre-built policies for the most common security and compliance controls. You can establish a secure baseline easily without deep expertise and Anthos Config Management applies these policies across platforms.
Learn more about Anthos
Take the next step
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Philosophy and Methodology
GDP is fine for counting things like washing machines. But it is quite useless for counting other basic indicators of the quality of life.
InflationGlobal EconomyTaxes and Spending
Africa is in no position to bring a halt to economic activity. Urban poverty and huge debts present an apparent choice between rampant disease and mass impoverishment.
Free MarketsProtectionism and Free Trade
Politicians and pundits have a blind spot when it comes to international economic transactions. They ignore a portion of trade! In particular, they ignore trade in claims on future income—that is, stocks and bonds.
Big GovernmentDecentralization and SecessionStrategy
"Whenever a single definite object is made the supreme end of the State…the State becomes for the time inevitably absolute." We cannot allow combating a virus to overwhelm all other values in society.
Big GovernmentHealthLegal System
Why are governments so enthusiastic about shutting down businesses when other less draconian measures are available and prudent? The answer lies in the fact that governments can act with near impunity and want to maximize their power.
Philosophy and MethodologyPraxeology
Quantitative methods can't be applied to human action, which is purposeful and not a mere reflex. For this reason, mathematical formulas can only describe events, never explain them.
"Financialization" is the process by which a normal economy is transformed into a fragile economy centered around financial firms. Central banks and government bailouts are to blame.
Booms and BustsInflationMonetary Policy
Central banks are driving asset price inflation in stocks and real estate. That means people holding those assets get richer. But everyone else just gets higher prices.


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Consume this
This Christmas season and this Great Recession combine to focus media attention on this critical question: Are Americans spending enough? News anchors breathlessly report Black Friday receipts, trends in online shopping, and FedEx shipping loads. If only people would stretch their budgets, use their credit cards more, take a fling or two, and buy! then the economy would start up, employers would hire more people, and wed be on our way back to prosperity and full employment. Even sober economists agree.
At the same time, many of us (sometimes the same people) worry that all that buying is highly wasteful and highly polluting. Making, shipping, and shopping for all those goods are literally ruining the planet. Critiques of consumption as being immorally wasteful go back centuries (see this earlier post). So, is spending our salvation or our doom?
Consumer revolution
Historians have often written about the coming of modern consumer society, which they typically define as a society in which the mass of people, not just the elite, buy luxury goods like leisure clothes, furniture for entertaining people, and special treats (in the 18th century, tea and sugar). Scholars have disagreed about when this consumer society emerged, some placing it around the mid-20th century, some about 50 years earlier, some yet earlier, on and on, all the way back to 1700s and even before that. Some have argued that it was the widespread demand for such baubles in the 1700s, not new mechanical inventions, that generated the industrial revolution in England and the U.S.
Americans have valued such consumption for ages. Part of the complaint the Revolutionaries had against the British monarch was that he impeded trade and twisted the system on behalf of British exporters; Henry Ford boasted that his wages allowed average workers to buy cars themselves; Herbert Hoover ran on A chicken in every pot; two cars in every garage; the New Deal pushed Americans to buy homes, toasters, and other appliances to move the economy; and so on. American unions, according to one line of interpretation and in contrast to European unions, cut a deal, blessed by government, with major firms: Well give you labor peace and free rule over the workplace; you give our members high wages so they can buy the goodies of the American Dream. In other words, the argument is that the American unions traded workers control of their labor for a pottage of consumer trinkets.
Yet, Americans have for ages also felt guilty about consumption. The Puritans were so down on luxury and display that they barred Christmas celebration and gifts. What we now call sustainability was a theme in back-to-the-land movements of the 1800s as well as the 1970s. Social reformers and intellectuals have long pleaded that Americans should seek the unencumbered simple life (see, e.g., here). The climate crisis has made the pleas all the more urgent. but not, it appears, more heeded.
An out
Is there a third way between spending binges to drive the economy and penny pinching to save the planet? One way might be to shift the spending away from todays baubles the plasma TVs, SUVs, disposable toys, and such to recyclable, less polluting goods. Moral entreaties to make that transition dont work much, but focused taxes such as energy tariffs could.
A broad, long-term strategy would be to move Americans spending from private to public goods, so that fewer dollars go into newer-bigger-better commodities and more dollars go to, say, infrastructure repair, park maintenance, K-12 education, and public preschools. That would require considerably higher taxes and a larger government as well.
Other democracies have gone this route. And the average citizen of those countries probably lives better (certainly lives longer) than the average American does. But public goods have not been so popular here. The politically effective slogan that you know better how to spend your money than Washington does means: You should be able to buy the new dishwasher or car or game system you want rather than have the government use your money to hire more employees or prettify a park. Americans are hearty consumers, but getting them to consume pubic goods via government is a hard sell.
In this context, we have to decide whether to root this season for more spending or less spending.
Cross-posted from Claude Fischers blog, Made in America: Notes on American life from American history.


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What's New
Legal information update
App Description
/!\ IMPORTANT - GOBLIIINS 2 IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH iOS 8 /!\
The Goblins take on another terrific brain busting adventure
The King's son, the Prince Buffoon, has been kidnapped by the evil Amoniak. Two talented goblins volunteer to find and rescue the price. It is your job to help them on their way.
Gobliins 2 offers a mix of elements of adventure and puzzle gaming. The puzzles in Gobliins 2 are unusual and challenging, and lots of fun. Each puzzle must be solved before you can progress to the next level. It's a great adventure game, featuring amazing graphics and sound effects. It contains funny sequences that will make you laugh all the way through the game. The game is challenging and frustrating at times, but gamers who enjoy solving twisted, logic puzzles will love working their way through its various worlds.
In Gobliins 2, you are given control of a team of two goblins, each with a unique skill. Each goblin has completely different attributes and can take advantage of completely different items. You touch the goblin and lead him through the task you desire him to complete. All of the levels/puzzles take up only a single screen but are filled with all sorts of challenging puzzles and traps, all of which must be completed using both of the goblins' special skills.
•Original story line and lots of crazy scenarios
•Updated controls for a better accuracy on iPhone!
•Amazing brain-busting puzzles
•2 playable Gobins: Fingus the shy one and Winkle the brave one
•Use your objects in the inventory to solve the puzzles.
•Original hints to help you through the game
•Crazy music, fun sounds that keep the charm of old school games :-)
Gobliins 2 uses ScummVM software protected by GNU GPLv2 license. For more information, please go to http://www.dotemu.com/en/gpl
App Changes
- March 31, 2011 New version 1.0.1
- January 04, 2012 Price decrease: $2.99 -> $0.99
- January 07, 2012 Price increase: $0.99 -> $2.99
- June 30, 2012 Price increase: $2.99 -> $4.99
- October 03, 2012 Price decrease: $4.99 -> $2.99
- November 22, 2012 Price decrease: $2.99 -> $0.99
- November 26, 2012 Price increase: $0.99 -> $2.99
- October 12, 2013 Price decrease: $2.99 -> $0.99
- October 21, 2013 Price increase: $0.99 -> $2.99
- November 29, 2013 Price decrease: $2.99 -> $0.99
- December 03, 2013 Price increase: $0.99 -> $2.99


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Rush Limbaugh – Wed, November 28th, 2012 Morning Update
Hat Tip: BB
By: Jen Alic of Oilprice.com
As Washington hunts ill-defined al-Qaeda groups in the Middle East and Africa, and concerns itself with Iran's eventual nuclear potential, it has a much more pressing problem at home: Its energy grid is vulnerable to anyone with basic weapons and know-how.
Forget about cyber warfare and highly organized terrorist attacks, a lack of basic physical security on the US power grid means that anyone with a gun—like disgruntled Michigan Militia types, for instance–could do serious damage.
For the past two months, the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has been tasked with creating a security strategy for the electric grid and hydrocarbon facilities through its newly created Office of Energy Infrastructure Security. So far, it's not good news.
"There are ways that a very few number of actors with very rudimentary equipment could take down large portions of our grid," warns FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff. This, he says, "is an equal if not greater issue" than cyber security.
FERC's gloom-and-doom risk assessment comes on the heels of the recent declassification of a 2007 report by the National Academy of Sciences.
The National Academy of Sciences on 14 November warned that a terrorist attack on the US power grid could wreak more damage than Hurricane Sandy. It could cause massive blackouts for weeks or months at a time. But this would only be the beginning, the Academy warns, spelling out an "end of days" scenario in which blackouts lead to widespread fear, panic and instability.
What they are hinting at is revolution—and it wouldn't take much.
So what is being done to mitigate risk? According to FERC, utility companies aren't doing enough. Unfortunately, FERC does not have the power to order utilities to act in the name of protecting the country's energy infrastructure. Security is expensive, and more than 90% of the country's grid is privately owned and regulated by state governments. Private utilities are not likely to feel responsible for footing the bill for security, and states may not be able to afford it.
One key problem is theoretically a simple one to resolve: a lack of spare parts. According to the National Academy of Sciences, the grid is particularly vulnerable because it is spread out across hundreds of miles with key equipment not sufficiently guarded or antiquated and unable to prevent outages from cascading.
We are talking about some 170,000 miles of voltage transmission line miles fed by 2,100 high-voltage transformers delivering power to 125 million households.
"We could easily be without power across a multistate region for many weeks or months, because we don't have many spare transformers," according to the Academy.
High-voltage transformers are vulnerable both from within and from outside the substations in which they are housed. Complicating matters, these transformers are huge and difficult to remove. They are also difficult to replace, as they are custom built primarily outside the US. So what is the solution? Perhaps, says the Academy, to design smaller portable transformers that could be used temporarily in an emergency situation.
Why was the Academy's 2007 report only just declassified? Well, its authors were worried that it would be tantamount to providing terrorists with a detailed recipe for attacking and destabilizing America, or perhaps for starting a revolution.
The military at least is preparing to protect its own power supplies. Recently, the US Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $7 million contract for research that demonstrates the integration of electric vehicles, generators and solar arrays to supply emergency power for Fort Carson, Colorado. This is the SPIDERS (Smart Power Infrastructure Demonstration for Energy Reliability and Security), and the Army hopes it will be the answer to more efficient and secure energy.
Back in the civilian world, however, things are moving rather slowly, and the focus remains on the sexier idea of an energy-crippling cyberattack.
Last week, Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) urged House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) to pass a bill—the GRID Act–which would secure the grid against cyberattacks.
"As the widespread and, in some cases, still ongoing power outages from Superstorm Sandy have shown us, our electric grid is too fragile and its disruption is too devastating for us to fail to act," Markey wrote. "Given this urgency, it is critical that the House act immediately in a bipartisan manner to ensure our electrical infrastructure is secure."
This bill was passed by the House, but has failed to gain any traction in the Senate.
FERC, of course, is all for the bill, which would give it the authority to issue orders and regulations to boost the security of the electric grid's computer systems from a cyberattack.
But it's only a small piece of the security puzzle, and FERC remains concerned that authorities are overlooking the myriad simpler threats to the electricity grid. These don't make for the easy headlines, especially since they are not necessarily foreign in nature.
Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/US-Power-Grid-Vulnerable-to-Just-About-Everything.html
By: Jen Alic of Oilprice.com
Hat Tip: BB
By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton
Purchase at Amazon.com
I always enjoy Dick Morris and I greatly enjoyed Here Come The Black Helicopters! by Dick Morris & Eileen McGann. Morris speaks from experience having been a leading liberal in the Clinton camp; he knows one when he sees one and is not afraid to call them out by name and intent.
I felt a great deal of anger when Morris was maligned after the last election. He had predicted a landslide for Romney, which did not occur. I can relate. However, he said he made a mistake and owned his prediction. The Left of course, twisted his words horrifically. There are a couple of things you learn in politics… You will be more wrong than right most of the time and liberals project consistently. You also learn that things are never what they seem to be in politics or warfare. Morris has learned the political ropes the hard way and does not shy away from warning on issues that endanger all of us. That is one of the definitions of a good and brave soul.
Here is Harper Collins Publishers description of this excellent read:
Warning: Our national sovereignty and our freedom are in grave danger.
Stealthily advancing, the globalists and socialists at the United Nations, and in the United States itself, are trying to dilute our national sovereignty, undermine our democratic values, and mandate massive transfers of our wealth and technology to third world countries. They want to create a "global governance" where binding and critical decisions are made by the UN and international commissions, instead of by our elected officials.
They want to make us citizens of the world, and it means the end of annoying democratic institutions. Economic prosperity will be punished. All countries will be equal, rich and poor, large and tiny, free and enslaved. The Lilliputians will rule the giants.
The globalists dismiss democracy as obsolete and surrender us to rule by civil service experts: bureaucrats who are elected by nobody and accountable to no one. They want Congress to ratify a series of treaties and global initiatives that will give them control of the Internet, the seas, our carbon emission policies, our welfare system, and even outer space. They will hobble our ability to go to war and send our wealth to third world dictatorships.
They'll attack anyone who tries to stop them.
Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in May 2012, Hillary Clinton mocked those fighting for American sovereignty as "the black helicopter crowd," belittling those who value freedom and US sovereignty. Ironically, Clinton's sarcastic putdown comes strikingly close to the truth.
They call it "global governance." We call it the end of freedom. The homogenization of America. The day when the virtual black helicopters land.
So, watch out, the black helicopters are metaphorically on the way.
We live in perilous times where monstrous change lies in wait for the world to turn. There are many, many threats out there and from within, but the UN has their evil claws in just about all of them. Agenda 21 may be the greatest threat to humanity we have ever faced – it is certainly the greatest threat to our sovereignty and freedom as a nation and as individuals. This book takes a hard and intriguing look at these threats. It's not a conspiracy, when the UN lays it out there for the world to see. It's not a threat, but a promise when our emboldened Marxist-in-Chief is hell bent on making us global citizens and doing away with the Constitution and our freedoms. We have to fight this hellish future laid out for us and renew the enlightenment of capitalism and the Republic.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to be any part of a 'global' community. I don't want to be ruled and serve as a slave. We have to stop the UN and the Marxist Globalists from:
Read Here Come The Black Helicopters! and give it as a gift. This information is critical to our freedom and the book is a terrific read. Time is getting shorter and the battle of our lives lies ahead of us – arm yourself mentally and physically.


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News Media Must Take A Moral Stand
"Five minutes for Hitler, five minutes for the Jews."
That, according to legend — and a Facebook page for alumni of The Miami Herald – was the routine response of an eighties-era editor whenever some hapless reporter was working overly hard to bring "balance" to a story where none should exist, where the moral high ground was clearly held by side or the other. I don't know who the editor was, but that riposte brims with a wisdom sorely lacking in modern news media, obsessed as they are with the fallacy of journalism without judgment.
Take as Exhibit A Gerard Baker, editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal. In a Sunday interview with Chuck Todd of "Meet The Press," he explained why his paper declines to label Donald Trump's manifold falsehoods as lies.
"'Lie,'" he said, "implies much more than just saying something that's false. It implies a deliberate intent to mislead." It is better, he argued, to report a given Trump claim, juxtapose it with the facts and let the audience make up its own mind. Otherwise, he said, "you run the risk that you look like you are…not being objective."
Besides, he added, Hillary Clinton also spoke some untruths, but media were not so quick to label her a liar.
Of course, the plain fact is that Trump is a liar – and a fantastically prodigious one at that. Baker's preferred method of handling this would be like reporting on each individual drop of water that falls, but never mentioning the storm.
And likening Trump's untruths to Clinton's is like likening Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's scoring to Zan Tabak's. Abdul-Jabbar is the leading scorer in NBA history. You've probably never heard of Tabak, though he also played in the NBA and, once in awhile, scored a basket.
Baker's is a mindset that has become all too common. With the obvious exception of certain partisan news outlets, some reporters, fearful of being tagged for "bias" on contentious issues, seek to safeguard themselves by ritually quoting a source from Side A and another from Side B while avoiding even painfully obvious conclusions. They call this "fair and balanced." It's actually gutless and dumb.
Five minutes for Hitler, five minutes for the Jews.
And then what? Five minutes for ISIS, five minutes for Charlie Hebdo?
Yes, these are outlandish examples. They are also logical extrapolations.
The plain fact is, journalism without judgment – moral judgment – cannot exist. If you doubt it, try a thought experiment. You're a news manager on a day when the mayor is cutting the ribbon on a new hospital and there's been a mass shooting at the mall. What's your top story? Is it the shooting? Why? Won't the hospital directly impact more people? If you go with the shooting, what angle will you take? What resources will you commit? What answers will you demand?
Congratulations, you just committed multiple acts of moral judgment.
Yes, news media must strive to be fair, to hold all sides to rigorous account, to offer a balanced view. But occasionally, there comes a point – subjective, but no less real for that – when pretending to moral equivalence between those sides is a lie, an act of journalistic malpractice.
In these perilous times, with authoritarianism coming to the White House and bizarre untruths infesting our national discourse, that is a sin we can ill afford. No one ever had to remind Cronkite or Murrow of the need to speak the truth when the truth was plain and the moral imperative clear. No one should have to remind this generation of journalists either.
There are two sides to every story, goes the axiom. But you know what?
Sometimes there's only the one.
IMAGE: U.S. Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump is shown on video monitors as he speaks live to the crowd from New York at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. July 19, 2016. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni


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Journal EntriesThis recurring website feature highlights articles from The GASB Report, the GASB's monthly newsletter. The current article appeared in the September 2012 issue.
New Edition of An Analyst's Guide Now AvailableThe newly updated, revised, and expanded edition of An Analyst's Guide to Government Financial Statements is now available. Unlike the other editions in the GASB's user guide series, An Analyst's Guide to Government Financial Statements is geared toward more experienced and frequent users of governmental financial statements. In addition to introducing and describing the information that can be found in governmental reports, the new edition updates and combines the current guide with the GASB's guide to notes and supporting information to create—for the first time—a comprehensive guide to the complete comprehensive annual financial report.
In addition to introductory and background material, the new edition of the guide features separate chapters on:
- The government-wide statement of net position
- The government-wide statement of activities
- The governmental funds statements
- The proprietary and fiduciary funds statements
- Related note disclosures and supporting information.
New Editions of the What You Should Know Guides Also Available
With new editions of the original user guides now published and a brand new guide on business-type activities on the way later this year, the process of fully updating and expanding the user guide series is nearly complete. Introduced a decade ago, this series introduces state and local government financial reports to a broad, non-accountant audience using a minimum of accounting jargon.
When governments began issuing new financial statements following the requirements of GASB Statement No. 34, Basic Financial Statements—and Management's Discussion and Analysis—for State and Local Governments, the GASB took the initiative to assist users in understanding the information contained in the revamped financial reports by publishing the original editions in its user guide series. These guides quickly became essential reading for financial analysts and other users. Now, the GASB has revamped, updated, and expanded the series, which in addition to An Analyst's Guide to Government Financial Statements, includes the following titles:
- What You Should Know about Your Local Government's Finances
- What You Should Know about Your School District's Finances
- What You Should Know about the Finances of Your Government's Business-Type Activities (available later this year).
- Annotated examples of a host of financial statements, notes, and schedules
- A storyline designed to help the reader understand the concepts
- An introduction to basic financial ratios used to analyze government finances
- Helpful boxes and sidebars further exploring issues raised in the text
- An overview of governmental accounting and financial reporting
- An extensive glossary of terms.


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Product Details
Thrive Alive B1 is a highly effective, safe, affordable, and easy to apply general purpose plant tonic. The professionally balanced formulation contains vitamins, hormones, macro and micronutrients. Thrive Alive B1 is an original Canadian vitamin B1 formulation, and it continues to stand alone, unequaled in quality, consistency, and strength. Thrive Alive B1 protects our plants from transplant-related shock and will greatly contribute to the correction of nutrient deficiencies, while promoting vigorous root development for both cuttings and established root systems. Green Formula is natural and organic. Red Formula is fortified with Alpha-Naphthalene Acetic Acid (root enhancement) and Kinetin (Growth Enhancement)
Additional Information


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|"be consistent"
Re: Re: Re: Re: A Guide to Installing Modulesby mirod (Canon)
|on Dec 29, 2001 at 18:53 UTC ( #135112=note: print w/replies, xml )
|Need Help??
I found at least one good reason to do this: if the code you are writing tests whether a module is available (through an eval { require Module;} and defaults to a less-than-optimal-but-acceptable behaviour if the eval returns an error. Then you need to test both cases, with and without the module. A workaround is to wrap the eval in a test controlled by an environment variable, so when testing you can pretend that the module was not here. This is not perfect (the module could be imported by an other part of yur code or by an other module) but it is usually the easiest way to "desinstall" a module.
In Section Tutorials


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Hemorrhoid surgery is the removal of swollen veins around the anus.
Hemorrhoid surgery is often done in an outpatient clinic or your doctor's office, with little or no anesthesia.
Hemorrhoids can be surgically removed using a special stapler or sutures (stiches). After the hemorrhoid is removed, you may have stitches that dissolve on their own and gauze packing to reduce bleeding.
- Other treatments may include:
- A shot into the hemorrhoid to reduce swelling (sclerotherapy)
- A rubber band around the hemorrhoid to cut off its blood supply
- Shrinking the hemorrhoid with heat, or freeze it with liquid nitrogen
- Minor surgery to treat the hemorrhoid (hemorrhoidectomy)
Smaller hemorrhoids may not need surgery.
Why the Procedure is Performed
Most small hemorrhoids can be managed with lifestyle changes and diet. Your doctor may recommend hemorrhoid surgery if lifestyle and diet changes and medicines have not worked.
Risks for any surgery are:
- Bleeding
- Infection
Risks for hemorrhoid surgery are:
- Leaking a small amount of stool (long-term problems are rare)
- Problems passing urine because of the pain
Risks for any anesthesia are:
- Reactions to medications
- Breathing problems, pneumonia
- Heart problems
Before the Procedure
Always tell your doctor or nurse:
- If you could be pregnant
- What medicines you are taking, even those you bought without a prescription
Several days before surgery, you may be asked to stop taking aspirin, ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin, naproxen (Aleve, Naprosyn), warfarin (Coumadin), and any other drugs that make it hard for your blood to clot.
On the day of the surgery:
- If you are having general anesthesia, you will usually be asked not to drink or eat anything after midnight the night before the surgery.
- Take any medicines your doctor told you to take with a small sip of water.
After the Procedure
You may have a lot of pain after surgery as the area tightens and relaxes. You may be given medications to relieve pain.
Gradually return to your normal activities. Avoid lifting, pulling, or strenuous activity until your bottom has healed. This includes straining during bowel movements or urination. To avoid straining, you will need to use stool softeners. Eat more fiber to ease bowel movements. Drink 8 to 10 glasses of water a day.
Soaking in a warm bath (sitz bath) can help relieve pain. Sit in 3 to 4 inches of warm water a few times a day.
You should have a complete recovery in about 2 weeks.
Outlook (Prognosis)
Most people do very well after hemorrhoid surgery. You will still need to take steps to help prevent the hemorrhoids from coming back. Eating a high-fiber diet, drinking plenty of water, and avoiding constipation may help.


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Summer beckons in the northern latitudes. As temperatures warm, beachgoers will flood sandy coasts, carrying bags of potato chips and sandwiches. Picnics will sprout in parks supplied with pink watermelon wedges and soda pop. Feasts ripe for people, and undoubtedly bugs too. In mere seconds flies and bees can swarm, but how do they sniff out food so fast? Knowing how to fly could be the reason, according to new research from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology.
Their findings challenge an old theory on when insects first evolved olfaction. Bugs share an ancestor with crustaceans, which lack the physical machinery typically tied to a sense of smell. Scientists presumed that when this oceanic predecessor moved ashore approximately 480 million years ago it developed the olfactory hardware for sifting aromas that permeated through its new air-based environment.
"Not true. They kept the old way of smelling for a long time after," says evolutionary neuroethologist Bill Hansson, who led the recent study published in eLife. To draw this conclusion, Hansson's team examined two of the most primal insects left on the planet: bristletails (Lepismachilis y-signata) and firebrats (Thermobia domestica).
Bristletails look like a cross between bite-sized shrimp and spiders. Their origins date back 390 million years to the early days of "insectdom". Firebrats came 60 million years later; they resemble silverfish, those flat, metallic-shaded bugs that enjoy zipping around bathtubs and basements.
Previous research on insect olfaction has focused primarily on insects with wings, such as fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster). Bristletails and firebrats are wingless, but close relatives of the fruit fly, so Hansson and his team decided to draw an evolutionary picture of insect olfaction by comparing the three species.
Smelling in fruit flies starts with their antennae, which house smell sensory neurons coated with olfactory receptors (ORs) – protein "satellite receivers" that detect scent molecules. ORs are the present-day gear for smell. They are seen in most terrestrial mammals and insects with a sense of smell. ORs don't work alone. Another receptor, called Orco, partners with ORs and tunes their response to odors. Orco, however, has never been shown to detect odors on its own.
The researchers scanned the bristletail genome and found no traces of ORs or Orco. Bristletail antennae, however, did respond to odors, albeit mildly relative to fruit flies. Bristletail antennae did accommodate a high density of ionotropic receptors. Thought of as a more ancient form of chemosensation, these proteins were recently implicated in the primitive smell system seen in dragonflies. Using electron microscopy, Hansson's team looked at the architecture of sensilla, tiny cuticles on antennae that house sensory neurons. They found that the olfactory sensilla of bristletails, in general, lack the structure of modern insects.
Moving down the evolutionary road, firebrats were more bizarre. They had a stronger reaction to the same bouquet of aromas, but still lacked ORs. Firebrats did possess three copies of an Orco-related gene that were only produced by olfactory sensilla.
The results raise a bevy of questions such as: do firebrats represent an intermediate olfaction system where Orco plays a previously undefined role? The findings, however, argue that ORs and modern smell took time to develop.
"It can't have been the actual movement onto land itself that was the key change in their lifestyle," says Richard Benton, a sensory evolution scientist at the University of Lusanne, Switzerland, who was not involved with the study.
Hansson theorizes that OR development was urged on by plants growing taller. As food resources moved upwards, insects developed wings and needed a way to find their meals. Supporting his hypothesis, his team examined and detected ORs and Orco in a fourth species, the leaf insect Phyllium siccifolium.
"Walking leafs represent a primitive form of modern, flying insects," Hansson says. "We show that many tens of millions of years probably passed before the OR-Orco way of smelling developed. Indeed, we do not find it in any non-neopteran [non-flying] insect."
Benton echoes this sentiment, though with a grain of temperance. "Additional species are needed to really reinforce this point, but it's a great start," he says. "It should inspire more research into non-classic insect models, which will help fill the evolutionary picture of this sensory system.
Images courtesy of Bill Hansson.


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in the bests credit card companys
Check out how this utensil makes you the best at slicing potatoes in 10 minutes. You didn't even know you needed this item until you saw the video of how it works and realized that you're going to use it a lot at outdoor parties or even fancy dishes.
This innovative way of cutting potatoes can be used to create delicious potato sticks!
- It is a product to cut the potato in a whirlpool;
- It's quick and easy to learn to use;
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- It's great to have one to complete kitchen utensils.
- Material: stainless steel + plastic;
- Color: as the picture shown;
- Size: Stainless Steel Stick: 8.66"/22 cm.
- Due to manual measurement, the size may have an error of 1-2 cm;
- Due to different monitor, the color may have difference.
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"What's New? How Is the World Treating You?"
In 1939 Johnny Burke (1908-1964) composed the music and Bob Haggard (1914-1998) wrote the lyrics for the hit song "What's New?" whose first line serves as the title of this blog. To listen to Linda Ronstadt (born 1946) perform "What's New?" with Nelson Riddle (1921-1985) and his orchestra (Asylum, 1983), click here. A new window will open, allowing the music to play in the background.
Check this web page for occasional posts containing news and commentary, mainly about events in Central Europe. To read the article of your choice, either click on the title that appears in the table of contents or scroll down the page.
For news and commentary from the most recent past quarter, click here. For earlier quarters in the year or previous years, see the Introduction and Index for "What's New?"
Table of Contents for the Fourth Quarter of 2015
Sorry, there are no entries for this quarter.


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An upcoming Android-powered phone from HTC and Verizon will support both CDMA and GSM, according to documents leaked in the past few days by the Federal Communications Commission.
As a result, the HTC PD42100 will likely be what's known as a "world phone," since its support for both standards will effectively allow it to operate anywhere on the planet. Users of the new device will be able to tap the CDMA network in the United States, for example, yet they'll also be able to piggyback off of regional and national GSM carriers in other parts of the world.
Also supported by the device will be EV-DO Rev. A 3G, Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n/), and Bluetooth, according to the leaked documents. Taken together, such broad support could make the device an ideal one for business travelers.
Android 3.0?
Following a similar leak last month about what appears to be the same phone, the FCC documents also reveal a horizontal slider form factor combined with a full QWERTY keyboard.
With a 4-inch touch screen, the new, red handset looks to be a big one, and Verizon Wireless branding is visible. It also appears to feature a rear-facing camera with single-LED flash, a removable battery and microSD memory expansion capability.
Previous rumors have suggested that the device will feature a 1.2 GHz processor along with Android as the operating system. Which Android version will be used isn't clear, but given that the device isn't expected until early next year, Android 3.0, or "Gingerbread"–which is due in October– doesn't seem out of the question.
Though it appears to have passed FCC testing, there's been no mention of pricing on the device so far.
International Roaming
HTC has already enjoyed considerable success with its Android-powered EVO 4G, Droid Incredible, Desire and Google-branded Nexus One.
Its alignment with Google's Android, in fact, helped the company achieve 33 percent year-over-year growth recently, including the second-quarter net profits of $269 million it reported in July.
With the new PD42100 device, however, the company seems to be focusing squarely on global business travelers. By using a device that can roam internationally, travelers would no longer need to rent a mobile phone in the countries they visit.
Research in Motion's enterprise-focused BlackBerry device also supports global roaming.
Android on Top
Android, however, is quickly gaining ground in the mobile operating system arena. The Linux-based platform grew by close to 20 percent over the past year, according to market researcher Quantcast, accounting for 25 percent of mobile Web consumption by the end of August.
Research in Motion's operating system, by contrast, fell by 1.6 percent in the past year, while Apple's iOS fell by 11.4 percent.
Analyst firm Piper Jaffray, in fact, expects Android to control more than half of the smartphone market within the next five years, leaving Apple's iPhone with between 20 percent and 30 percent.
Besides contributing to that growth, an Android-powered world phone could also further spur the Android Market, since developers could find a much broader reach for their applications. There are currently more than 100,000 apps in the Android Market.
Follow Katherine Noyes on Twitter: @Noyesk.


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Thursday, 23 April 2009
More fun with the kids Part 1
A nurse in the UK trains for about 3-4 years at uni. I think I doctor is 5-6 years initially. Untrained cadets and carers have zero years of training. Some have NVQ's. I did 4 years at university and then took a licensing exam to qualify as a nurse. I was taught about how to nurse a patient with diseases and treatment plans diagnosed and ordered by doctors. I took microbiology, anatomy and physiology etc to help me understand what I need to know. I have a professional registration and accountability.
First of all, the cadets are not allowed to do the majority of things that need to be done during the course of a shift. They do not have a professional license and cannot be held responsible for any errors. Everything they do is on the registration of the RN that they are working with that day.
They do not have knowledge behind patient conditions, treatments, drugs, doctors orders etc. On my general ward, and many general medical wards throughout the country (hell the world even), the majority of staff on duty are indeed kid types rather than actual nurses. The actual nurses cannot even remember the names of all their patients because they are so overloaded. This is not an NHS only phenomenon.
The kids can do a few things. They can bedbath a patient. They do this as quick as they can. The do not notice changes in condition or plan nursing care around the patients needs.
"Ah", says Nurse Anne as she is bathing a patient "His mobility is impaired, his skin integrity is at risk he needs to be repositioned frequently. His sacrum is breaking down already. He needs an airmattress. Oh look, His left side is showing a dense weakness and there was no weakness yesterday, no history if a stroke. The doctors have been treating him something else entirely.
The doctors might want to know about this now instead of 2 days from now when they do rounds. Can he swallow without choking? I need to make sure he eats safe foods and that he can swallow safely first! He doesn't need aspiration pneumonia on top of everything. He is due to have medications this morning and damn is he tachycardic. O2 sats and temperature are fine. Hmm. He just failed the safe swallow test I gave him using a teaspoon of water. Really fucking failed it, but he is alert. Left side of his face is droopy. He is hypertensive and tachy and cannot swallow his little digoxin pill, or any other meds. He might need a cannula to have his meds/fluids IV since he cannot swallow so I will get that sorted as I call the medic etc etc etc". Shit, I better put a Nil by Mouth sign above his bed so that the tea lady doesn't give him any. He'll fucking inhale that stuff right into his lungs. I could go on for 3 pages about that guy alone. There are many nursing care tangents that I could branch out onto about this fictional patient of mine. It's not my job to diagnose what has happened to this guy, even though it is pretty obvious. I am here to notice changes in condition, make medics aware of changes in condition, and plan nursing care around all that.
But when kids bath all the patients they just do it quickly and run to the next patient. They don't pick up on this stuff. They would bathe a patient as I described above and then throw sandwiches that are hard to chew and swallow at him for lunch and run to the next patient. I am so tied up with all the constant bullshit that I have no choice but to delegate basic care to kids. It fucking sucks. It is like working blind when I don't provide basic care to my own patients. I cannot relay to you here how scary this is for me.
I spend the whole morning with drugs and ward rounds, and phone calls from relatives and at about 12:30 a medic comes across one of my patients with a one sided weakness, facial droop, no history of stroke and a plate of hard sandwiches and half drunk cuppa on the table at the far side of the bed. He sounds chesty too. "When did he get like this?" says the medic. Damned if I know says Anne. I had so many meds to give this morning (took 2 hours), so many rounds (1 hour), discharges (very complicated, angry screaming daughter who wanted her dad out now so the whole thing took forever), constant phone calls from relatives, social workers etc etc (every 10 minutes for 4 hours) and one emergency over the last 4 hours that the kids bathed the patient. The cadets and I walked onto the ward at 0800 into all this plus 15 patients who needed full assistance with morning hygiene and each one takes 10-25 minutes each to do the bare minimum. The morning hygiene and 10 bed baths were the only thing the kids could help me with. Now Anne looks like a tit.
The kids can fill in intake and output charts. If someone has a cup of tea then you record the amount on the intake section. If they pee, you record the amount on the output section. It ain't rocket science and it sounds lame but it is extremely important. People are on fluid restrictions because their NA level is fucked. They may be in heart failure. They may be going into pre renal failure due to dehydration. I need to know their Intake and output and more importantly, the doctors need to know.
But try getting a kid to remember to fill in these charts after they have handed out drinks or taken a bedpan away. It's like pulling fucking teeth.They are in such a rush to get onto the next patient (and avoid complaints from prima donnas who take it as a personal insult when they are made to wait) that they do not document the one thing that they are allowed to document. I want to do it all myself. I do not have eyes on the back of my head. If I did all the care myself I would know if someone has passed urine etc. But I cannot be there every time someone needs to pass urine. It's physically impossible. The kids can be there, it is one of the only things they are allowed to do. But they don't really understand why we are measuring and recording, so it's not all that important in their minds.
I am tied up with too many IV drugs that need to be mixed and given, 3 angry relatives on the phone, a new admission who says she cannot breathe and a patient discharge as well. The kids cannot help me with any of that. But the weights need to be done now. That is something that they can do. They can weigh a patient and write down the number. I have asked them to do it. It's important. They are not going to do it. They don't seem to understand why weighing patients is important. Heart failure patients are weighed. It is always the last thing on the cadet's short list of jobs. Granted that the kids have many call bells ringing all the time, the nurse is tied up with bullshit and the cadets don't want to get bitchslapped by patients who think that they are being made to wait on purpose.
Here comes a consultant showing up on the ward round, seeing the incomplete charts and asking the registered nurse if she is to stupid to fill in a fluid balance chart or a weight chart. "Are these nurses to retarded to document whether or not someone has a wee" he whispers to his junior medic in a gentle yet astonished tone with a posh accent. We heard him. LOL.
Some kids can take blood pressure, heart rates and temperature (obs). They have been asked by me to check obs on all 15 of my patients please. They did 8 of them only. I didn't find out that they only took obs on 8 patients until hours later. They didn't tell me about the pyrexia in bed 31.
"Why did you not take obs on all the patients" says Nurse Anne. "Well the other patients were already done on the last obs round 4 hours ago so we skipped them". Nurse Anne slams her head into a wall. The obs are done every 4 hours to look for changes in condition!!!!
Why didn't I do my obs myself? I wanted too. Again, it is a chance at assessment missed and I feel blind. If I stop at the end of a bed to look at the obs chart all the other patients in the bay start shouting "nuuurse". I need to rely on shitty obs being flagged up for me sometimes. I don't have a fucking choice. At the time that this set of observations were due I was knee deep in bringing a rare surgical patient back from theatre (rare because we don't get a lot of surgical patients), arranging pain meds for a dying cancer patient, taking an admission, and was outnumbered by angry relatives wanting to speak to a nurse. The surgical patient was so hypotensive that I cannot believe they let him out of recovery.... and this is with IVF running fast, and that was taking my time and causing the hospice patient to wait and wait and wait for her next prn dose of pain killers. The kids couldn't help me with anything that was happening during that moment in time....except for that set of observations, bedpans and intake and output charts.
Enter Tara. She's the new kid in town and she is about 17. She is my latest ward kid and she really really doesn't want to be here. Most of the kids work hard and try hard even if they fuck up occasionally. Tara refuses to do things because "it is too disgusting". Tara has no interest in going to nursing school. Maybe she did when she first started, but once she got on the ward and reality set in she changed her mind. But she won't quit. She stands in the middle of the ward and refuses to do anything. We had to get management to get rid and get rid they did (they do come through for us sometimes). But there were a few weeks when things were rough. I was on shift with Tara many times with a full on load of 10-15 patients and only little Tara and maybe another cadet or HCA to help. .
I need to go now. I'll put part one in the title and finish the story about Tara later. I don't know how these get so long.
20 comments:
I have a daughter who is recently qualified and working on a ward with staffing problems though not as badly staffed as yours - she happily does bed baths and other basic care despite being told you don't have to do that, but so she can see skin condition etc. Not very long ago, while covering for a much more senior (in years)colleague she looked after a patient whose heels were black - NOT with dirt. Said colleague had been heard to insist very loudly the day before that she could "guarantee that patient's skin is like baby's". The patient was terminal, very poorly - and a query had been made why she wasn't on an air mattress. We never knew that gangrene could appear overnight. It's not just the kids who miss such things - but they sure don't help the situation.
- 24 April 2009 at 06:22
- Nurse Anne said...
Hi There,
I think the truth is that we all miss things down to the fact that we are rushing through the baths etc like we are on an assembly line.
I doubt those heals went black overnight. But they can go black quick. Sounds like they were forgetting to look at heals.
- 24 April 2009 at 08:29
- Brian said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- 24 April 2009 at 10:51
I am sorry to hear that you have had that many bad experiences with HCA's. But I am a bit annoyed that you seem to tar us all with the same brush...
I have been a HCA for about five years now, with a brief pause in which I worked as an Occupational Therapy Assistant. And I have come across so many caring and lovely Assistants that it really feels like a kick in the gut to read things like this. I initially found your blog when I was looking up articles on nursing stress, because believe it or not, HCA's experience it, too. We are regularly finishing shifts late or start early because we are needed, without pay, out of sheer goodwill - just like you. To say that HCA's all try and wash people as quick as possible and then rush off to the next patient is not true. There might be black sheep among us but that is the same for Nurses. On the Elderly ward I work at, 70 percent of the time it is HCA's who draw the Nurses' attention to changes in the condition of the patient. If they feel clammy. If they are developing sores. If their mobility seems to have gone worse all of a sudden. If they have difficulties swallowing. If their cough has gotten worse and they start coughing up things. Usually we ask the Nurses to have a quick look, but then proceed to collect and send samples off to Microbiology ourselves. If it is minor dressings, we put them on. We do bloodsugars. We try very hard and actually care about our job being well done. And it really hurts sometimes when you read stuff like this.
I have been in situations where at the end of the shift, just before Handover, the Nurse came over to ask us how the patients had been during the day and if there is anything to report - because she herself had only seen them when doing Obs and handing out medications, the rest of the day being taken up by arranging discharges and chasing social workers. So if we are pretty much the eyes and ears of the qualified staff, but yet get told that we are not to write in the patients notes about things we have noticed, then what are we to do? Often you do not get to speak to the Nurses all day. If you take a typical Monday, 30 patients, four carers, alot of them needing assistance of 2, the Nurses tied up first with medications and then with the ward round, later completing paperwork, doing obs, then IV's, then talking to relatives all the time...
If things do not get handed over from HCA's to Nurses, imho it is not necessarily because the HCA does not understand the importance, because they lack the opportunity. We work bloody hard and have had our fair share of shifts without breaks, too, because we were so busy washing, toileting, and helping to feed patients plus cleaning beds doing the menus for the next day doing the tea round doing the weights etc. and at the same time try to spare ten minutes to sit with a patient who is dying but has no relatives in sight.
I understand that a Nurses job is very demanding, but please dont make it sound like HCAs have it easy. It really isnt like we rush to wash patients, just so we can have an extra cup of tea and sit around having a chat.
If I ever tried to do this, it was due to the stress put on us: You will get a telling off from the dinner lady if you are late to serve lunch (because you did your bed baths right) then get told off if you hold her up for too long (because you took your time helping patients eat) you get told off if the bed is not chlor cleaned within an hour of the discharge of a patient, because the Acute Medical Unit wants to send someone up as A&E is about to burst, Nightstaff tell you off if you have not totalled up the menus for the next day even if it was because you were having very poorly patients that took up your time...
Maybe I should stop ranting, as I know that if someone has made up their mind there is no changing it, but one can hope that you will stop making these generalisations. After all, you say you were a HCA once - what were you like?
- 5 February 2010 at 07:34
- Amanda said...
I live in the US, and work as an RN in an acute care in-patient rehab facility focusing mainly on hips, knees and strokes(with everything else thrown in to boot).
We have some really great Patient Care Techs(That'd be the HCA's) who are wonderful, but just as overwhelmed as the RNs. Everyone is overwhelmed, with no less than 9 patients at any time, usually 12-14 for the PCTs and 12 for the RNs.
The PCTs who care are good, and I love all of them a lot. The ones who don't, I'd like to shove out a window. Even when they are good, though, things can be missed, because we're all too busy. A lot of things are missed, even by nurses who are acting as PCTs because there weren't enough PCTs that night.
A good PCT makes a nurse's job somewhat bareable, a bad PCT makes a nurse's life hell.
- 22 February 2010 at 09:30
I work as an RN in the ED in Canada. I know how frustrating it is to work with staffing problems. We are a 32 bed ED and most often have 85-90 patients at one time in our department, with about 20-25 of our beds being used for admitted patients. We try not to miss things, but when you have one RN for 16 admitted patients, chances are that in a 12 hour shift, something will get missed. We often depend on our senior assists to help us, often times just to help us turn our patients every 2 hours. I find them to be helpful, observant, and aware of the importance of notifying the RN of changes, no matter how subtle. In all honesty, our larger struggle is with the ward nurses who feel that 25 admitted patients in an ED hallway is more acceptable than opening a closed bed on their unit in order to accommodate an admission. I hope you are able to convince your senior managers that patient health and safety is a reason to improve your budget for better staffing and if you do succeed, please give your formula to those of us who are also struggling with adequate staffing issues.
- 14 May 2010 at 20:21
- UCL Med Student said...
Wow, just reading that I got stressed.
I know necropost but ouchie.
Sounds crazy.
- 14 July 2010 at 12:08
I've met some brilliant HCA's, mind, in my 3 years as a student. Many of them were more helpful than some of my RN mentors at teaching me basic skills, what to look out for and where to record information. My mentors were up to their necks in discharge forms and family complaints and interrupted drug rounds!
- 30 May 2011 at 07:18
Yes there are some wonderful conscientious, hard working HCA's who actually care about their patients which is why it is a shame that the antics of a few 'black sheep' spoil things. Like the HCA who used to pull up a chair and sit on the ward, alongside the visitors, night after night when they were attempting to have some precious private time with their husbands, wives, or parents. She would brag about how she loved being "a nurse" adding "it is all I ever wanted to do". The visitors, who were very polite, simply smiled tolerantly. They would not have smiled had they known that when their precious relatives were frantically pressing their buzzers for drinks or bedpans this HCA wasn't on the ward then (where she should have been, monitoring, observing and responding to patients' needs) but taking numerous unofficial breaks in the ward kitchen, drinking tea, gossiping and reading Chat magazine because the professional nurses were so frantically busy that they didn't notice she was missing. Oh yes, and foolishly they trusted her.
- 3 June 2011 at 11:15
I have been nursing now for 3months as a newly qualified nurse on an acute medical unit. I have developed a permanent left twitching eye due to stress and survive on 4 - 5 hours sleep a night due to my mind racing as soon as my head hits the pillow. I regulary work at least 1 hour over my shift every day just to catch up with the endless paperchase of careplans, risk assessments, etc.. I have one drug error on my file already due to a doctor writing a medication on a kardex which looked like a totally different med to the one prescribed. Today I had a patient sent to me from A&E with a temperature of 33.4C and scoring 6 on a Mews. I spent the next half hour frantically phoning around A&E, ITU, equipment pool, co-ordinator, bed manager and ward managers for a bear hugger (which I never got). Bleeped SHO, HO,and finally got my patient seen by the consultant who was carrying out a ward round. My patient died 2hours after being admitted to my care. I finished my shift at 16.30 instead of 14.45. I did my best for my patient but i feel I let her down. I go home most shifts feeling like this. My other patients in the bay were upset and distressed. One was crying, not because my patient had died but because she had been waiting for an hour for my assistance to help her to get on her bed. Not wanting to risk a complaint from a relative I strained my own back trying to get her onto her bed alone. I then had to listen to her complain about staff ignoring her requests. I profusely appologised to her to for leaving her sat in her chair. Inside I was shouting [YOU WANTING TO LIE ON YOUR BED DOES NOT RATE HIGH ON MY LIST OF PRIORITIES AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME]!
- 8 September 2011 at 17:01
Most HCA's are very kind and caring people who do the job to the best of their ability but through no fault of their own there are times when they lack vital knowledge. Here is a simple example. An HCA was sitting in a chair next to a patient's bed, giving one-to-one care. She was watching the television, which was blasting out at full volume only a few feet from his face, the screen flashing in his eyes even though he had severe brain damage. She just shrugged her shoulders and accepted it when he declined her offer of a drink by mumbling incoherently and pushing the cup away. She didn't realise that the very low volume of urine in the patient's catheter signified that there was a problem i.e. he was becoming dangerously dehydrated, so naturally she didn't feel the need to inform someone immediately.
- 29 October 2011 at 14:08
Managing a group of patients. Next job give a particular patient enteral feed after which I need to confirm that the patient's sacral area remains intact. Go into room and find first-year student,(who had been allocated to the team working on the other half of the ward that day)about to commence feeding my patient. Surprised I tell her I need to do this particular task and ask why she suddenly decided to have a go. "Oh the healthcare assistant ordered me to do it" she replies. Irritated, I remind her that I am in charge and the healthcare assistant is supposed to take orders, not give them. Unfortunatgely some HCAs are so used to being given a free rein and the freedom to 'do their own thing' that they forget that they are support staff who are obliged to work within clear boundaries.
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- 21 May 2013 at 16:58
I'm one of those 'kids' you talk about, a HCA on an elderly medical ward. Thank you for your support and appreciation for all the hard work we do- it really means a lot.
Maybe you have worked with a few HCAs who are lazy and incompetent but, as you know, the majority are not. Our job is thankless enough already without you telling the world how useless you think we are.
'The kids can do a few things. They can bedbath a patient' you say. Are you purposely omitting the majority of our workload? I find that as offensive as you find your uncle telling you you're a saint for cleaning up poo all day (as said in an earlier post).
On my ward, the HCAs are responsible for all the basic patient care: bathing, feeding, 2 hourly turns, making them comfortable, minor dressings, fetching commodes/ bed pans,making beds, cleaning, obs, bms, fluid balances, stool charts, dealing with various bodily fluids, taking samples and dip sticks etc, and generally keeping an eye on patients. We, just like you, do all this whilst stopping patients pulling out cannulas and catheters, escalating when there's a change in a patient's condition, putting out crash calls, preventing falls, and performing first aid when this fails, calming down the ones who scream or get aggressive, and quite often failing and getting hit, scratched, sworn at- for trying to help, as well as running to other wards for you to fetch bags of saline or extra care plans, calling doctors and bed manager and clinical support for you, linnen runs, pharmacy runs, path lab runs, finding the folders and other bits and bobs you loose ten times a day. We try our very best to get all of this done and we care a great deal about the quality of the care we deliver but, just like you, we sometimes won't get everything done. There simply isn't always enough time in the day to do all this, multiple times a shift, for upwards of 20 patients. Here's a question you should ask yourself when next you feel like calling us lazy: When was the last time you saw a HCA sat down?
Our job may be less skilled than yours, but it is by no means easier and without us, you would be lost. Could you imagine trying to do all that and still keep up with your nursing duties? I thought not. And may I add that we do this, over long hours, often coming in early and leaving late, doing extra shifts with less than an hours notice because of how ridiculously short staffed we all are, for little more than minimum wage?
Also, just because we do not have a degree, does not mean that we are completely uneducated.We all went to school and I guess the majority went to college also. I have a multitude of GCSEs and A levels behind me which do help with some aspects of my job, but are not necessarily needed because, as you say, I am not a nurse. However, we do note the patient's skin condition and general wellness as we are doing our rounds. It doesn't take a degree to see when a patient's sacral sore is worsening or to know how to prevent this, we can tell if a patient is getting sob or they're having difficulty swallowing or their general condition in worse than it was last time we saw them. It's our job to look for these signs and let you know so you can do something about it, but we're not allowed to document it anywhere official because we are not qualified to do so (so please, start bloody listening to us instead of relying on the notes). If it wasn't for us, you wouldn't notice half the time because as a nurse you get wrapped up in more important things due to your ever expanding workload.
We understand how demanding your job is and we appreciate you greatly. It really is disheartening to read that you do not feel the same about us. We may be 'just' healthcare assistants, but our role is vital. We deserve the same level of appreciation and thanks as you do, but we receive that even less often than you do: as is evident from this post, we don't even get it from the very staff we are working so hard to assist.
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text:
T-Mobile USA data that was posted to the Internet over the weekend is genuine, but the company was not hacked, the U.S. carrier said Tuesday.
On Saturday, hackers posted what appear to be logfiles taken from T-Mobile's network to the Full Disclosure mailing list, claiming to have hacked the carrier. "We have everything, their databases, confidential documents, scripts and programs from their servers, financial documents up to 2009," they wrote.
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There's also no information that any customer information was compromised, T-Mobile said.
A company spokeswoman declined to say what the data was or exactly how the data was obtained, citing a pending investigation.
The hackers who claimed to have broken into the carrier said that they were trying to sell the data to the "highest bidder." That may prove difficult, however, as e-mail sent to the firstname.lastname@example.com address they listed on Full Disclosure is now being returned as undeliverable.


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