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World is changing so fast.
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Cephalon Loses Again In South Carolina, This Time in Contingency Fee Dispute, Says Janet, Jenner & Suggs, LLC
Jun 11, 2014, 08:00 ET from Janet, Jenner & Suggs, LLC
COLUMBIA, S.C., June 11, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- South Carolina's Fifth Circuit Court has ruled that State Attorney General Alan Wilson may employ private attorneys from outside the AG's office to assist in prosecuting cases under the South Carolina Unfair Trade Practices Act.
The ruling by Judge G. Thomas Cooper, Jr., granted the state's motion for summary judgment against Cephalon, a subsidiary of Teva Pharmaceuticals. Cephalon claimed that contingency fee arrangements with outside counsel violated the company's rights to due process under the U.S. and South Carolina constitutions, violated separation of powers and amounted to imposition of criminal penalties.
"Judge Cooper issued a well-thought out, well-reasoned decision dealing with all the defense contentions. Now that it has been dealt with, we can continue to pursue justice for the taxpayers of South Carolina, who have paid out tens of millions to Cephalon based on false information," said Gerald Jowers, of Janet, Jenner & Suggs, an outside law firm retained by the state.
"This is good news for state attorneys general across the country trying to recover illegally obtained profits from big pharmaceutical companies," said Ken Suggs, JJ&S partner who heads the firm's South Carolina office. "Many are, in these austere times, operating with budgets and manpower that make this kind of complex litigation difficult without outside firms to help."
Wilson filed suit against Cephalon on behalf of the state on June 2, 2011 alleging the companies unjustly enriched themselves at the expense of the State Health Plan by promoting drugs for unapproved uses. The suit further alleges the action cost the state millions of dollars in payments for medically unnecessary prescriptions. In 2008, Cephalon paid $425 million to settle a similar off-label marketing case brought by the federal government.
In February, the court rejected Cephalon's motion for summary judgment on statute of limitations grounds.
The case is State of South Carolina ex rel. Wilson v. Cephalon Inc., case number 2011-cp-40-3661. Judge Cooper's ruling is dated June 2, 2014.
Janet, Jenner & Suggs is a national firm noted for its expertise in pharmaceutical and medical devices cases, mass torts, birth injury and cerebral palsy cases, as well as commercial and environmental litigation. The firm has offices in Maryland, South Carolina, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, and West Virginia.
CONTACT: Teresa Kelly
For Janet, Jenner & Suggs, LLC
SOURCE Janet, Jenner & Suggs, LLC

subset: commoncrawl


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Partnering with Stand By Task Force (SBTF) – Typhoon Hagupit/Ruby in Philippines
As Typhoon Hagupit/Ruby threatened the Philippines, the Digital Humanitarian Network was activated to assist with response. Stand By Task Force (SBTF) took the lead in organizing volunteers to classify social media posts and images, and GISCorps assistance was requested for geo-location of the information so that it could be mapped. 15 GISCorps volunteers answered the call to assist and spent the next 4 days working to create mapping coordinates from the information, resulting in maps of damage reports and requests for assistance.
For more information and maps check MicroMappers' website at: http://www.micromappers.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3


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But leaders working on plans to revitalize the street want to turn the lights back on. This afternoon, representatives from architectural landscaping firms Confluence and Genus, Reynold Urban Design, the city of Des Moines and the Downtown Community Alliance (DCA) unveiled final plans on how they propose transforming the street from a public transit mall into an entertainment corridor.
Chief among their plans is adding more light to the area. Seven light-art projects are proposed for the street, projecting light through different places in the skywalk system and art onto the Des Moines Civic Center and Davis Brown Tower. Plans also call for replacing the dark brick paving from the sidewalks with lighter materials and adding large storefront windows that allow light to spill onto the street to brighten up the area.
Walnut Street will feature urban gardens, local and national retail shops, and parallel parking spots that wrap the street. Project leaders want the corridor to bridge the Court Avenue and Western Gateway districts, linking the areas through pedestrian-friendly walkways and entertainment options.
After the groups released preliminary concepts in mid-March, they took feedback and concern from residents to amend initial plans, including widening street corners to maximize space for pop-up retailers and food carts and bumping up parking options around Hub Tower and the Kaleidoscope at the Hub. Click here for a related story in the Business Record.
The firms revealed new details to the street's design during the 45-minute presentation as well. Wooden benches and fixtures will be added to make the street appear warmer. Four information kiosks will be placed at various points throughout the street. The 42-inch touchscreen monitors will give visitors a chance to access wait times at restaurants, buy tickets to upcoming shows and browse the street's history. And gates will be built so the city can easily close off the street to traffic for the high-volume events the DCA anticipates will happen.
Now that designs are completed, attention will focus on raising funds and marketing the street to retailers. The DCA has hired retail consultant Robert Gibbs to help lure big-name retailers to Walnut Street, which has about 100,000 square feet of open first-floor retail space. During a presentation in January, Gibbs told business owners and city officials that Des Moines has the potential to attract an additional 40 shops and restaurants. Click here for a related Business Record story.
No names have been released yet, but Glenn Lyons, president and CEO of the DCA, said new stores could open as early as the fall of 2014 once initial construction is complete.


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Fire Magic A430i-6E1P Aurora 24" Built-In Gas Grill with Rotisserie Backburner - Liquid Propane
Fire Magic
Availability: Please Call (877) 847-0050 for Availability
Product Code:FIRE-MAGIC-A430I6E1P
Price: $3,315.00
Free Shipping on all Orders!
DescriptionFire Magic Grills are finely crafted in the United States. They are constructed of all 304 stainless steel and includes hot surface ignition - simply push in the control knob, turn up the gas and light the grill. The stainless steel construction does not stop with the outer part of the grill. Inside are stainless steel "E" burners, stainless steel flavor grids and Diamond Sear Cooking Grids. Diamond Sear cooking grids are now standard on all Aurora Grills. They feature a unique trapezoid shape that allows your food to have more surface contact, giving you more even heat distribution and faster cooking times. Diamond Sear grids are also easier to clean and food releases much more easily with less sticking. The drippings hit the flavor grids below, which, while minimizing flare ups also create additional flavor by vaporizing the juices.The 24" x 18" (432 sq. in). grilling surface is ample for your backyard cookout! The primary cooking area features 50,000 BTUs independently controlled by two comfort touch heavy duty control knobs. The rear 13,000 BTU rotisserie back burner is perfect for preparing chicken on the heavy duty rotisserie kit.The light, easy lift hood opens and closes with spring assist. Inside are two halogen lights to illuminated your grilling surface even on the darkest night!This built-in grill head is Liquid Propane (A430i-6E1P). It is also available in Natural Gas (A430i-6E1N).
Tech Specs
- Net Weight (lbs.)
- 170
- Size (in.)
- 24 "
- Installation Type
- Built-In
- Fuel Type
- Liquid Propane (LP)
- Total Cooking Area (sq. in.)
- 432 "
- Type of Burners
- Standard
- Rotisserie
- Included
- Rotisserie BTUs
- 13000
- Rear Infrared Burner
- No
- Thermometer
- Yes, Digital with Meat Probe
- Sear Zone
- No
- Grill Light
- Yes
- Lighted Control Knobs
- No
- Grill Construction
- Stainless Steel
- Grate Construction
- Stainless Steel
- Assembly Required
- No
- Width (in.)
- 24 "
- Height (in.)
- 25 "
- Height (with Lid Open) (in.)
- 32.25 "
- Cutout Width (in.)
- 25.5 "
- Cutout Depth (in.)
- 19.5 "
Manuals and Guides
WarrantyFire Magic Grill Warranty:
- Fire Magic Cast Stainless Steel Burners, SS Rod Cooking Grids and SS Housings are warranted for as long as you own your Fire Magic Grill (Choice SS Burners are warranted for 20 years)
- Fire Magic Brass Burners, Brass Valves, Manifold Assemblies and Backburner Assemblies (Except Ignition Systems) are warranted for fifteen (15) years
- Fire Magic Electric Grills, Electric Grill Stainless Steel Cooking Grids and Electric Grill Stainless Steel Housing are warranted for ten (10) years
- Infrared Burners, Charcoal Stainless Steel Grills and Smokers (except for the charcoal pan, charcoal grid, wood pellet screen, thermometer and ash tray which are warranted for one (1) year) are warranted for five (5) years.
- Fire Magic Sideburners and all other Fire Magic Grill Components (except Ignition Systems and Electrical Parts) are warranted for three (3) years.
- Fire Magic Ignition Systems (excluding batteries) Electrical Components (including lights and thermometer) and Grill Accessories are warranted for one (1) year.


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St. Charles News
Local news for St. Charles, IL continually updated from thousands of sources on the web.
St. Charles news is powered by NewsRank ®
You Won't Believe What These 31 British Musicians Look Like Now
29 Instagram Posts That Prove Celebrity Kids Are Definitely Not Like Us
25 Actors Who Got Fired From Giant Roles
Which 29 Stars Don't Drink? The Answer May Surprise You
30 Celebrity Couples Who Got Married In Secret
51 Tragic Celebrity Deaths You Should Know About, But May Have Missed
Prime Vs. Decades Later: How Did These 1960s Counterculture Icons Hold Up?
48 Celebs Who've Been Nominated For Five OR MORE Oscars
We Found Them: The 27 Worst Alternative-Music Bands Of All Time
29 Music Stars Whose Kids Followed In Their Footsteps
18 Stars Who Have Actual Native American Heritage
Updated: Sat Mar 17, 2018 10:19 am
Copyright © 2018 Topix LLC


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No God In Sight by Altaf Tyrewala; Delhi: Penguin Books; 2006; pp. 171.
These are the tales of the ordinary, those who constitute life as it is. The grandeur upon which literature shapes itself, or attempts to come wrapped in, is not what comes alive in this Altaf Tyrewala endeavour. What is alive here is a morose way of observing individuals and the thousand and one banalities they are straitjacketed in. In a manner of speaking, when you meet all the Sohail Tambawalas, collide into the various identities of all these men bearing an identical name, you could be running into a myriad dark possibilities. For one of these innumerable Tambawalas is a terrorist, has been accused of being one. Another has a wife waiting in apprehension for him. Mistaken identities, or varied ones, are the stuff of the tales here.
And the tales branch out in very many directions before coming together once again to sketch a somewhat composite picture of life in Bombay (you could, in the manner of political correctness, even call it Mumbai). But it is life that is not lived on the broad avenues of the urban jungle. It subsists in the alleys and by-lanes where the struggle to eke out a living swiftly, and regularly, puts all possibilities of dreams to flight. Consider the case of Suleiman, the aggrieved Muslim who must now elicit an answer to the overwhelming question he places before his great-grandfather, the man who is father to his decaying Shazia-dadi. "What came over you? What mischief made you a bloody Muslim?"
It is a city of fear, the strands of which course quietly but insistently through men like Suleiman. Conversion has only deepened their anxieties and loosened their hold on the future. Of course Suleiman gets no answer. Some questions are too much of a rigmarole to be resolved with a credible response. The inability of Nawaz-'saab' to explain to Mr. Joshi and his culture-seeking son Abhay the precise meaning of the poetic thought -- Bukhara-e junoon shabo khayalon rooh maheer -- falls within the ambit of the queries that defy explanation. Nawaz's bubbling perspiration then leads him into an irreversible process of decline. His dead father's ill-fitting sherwani will not help him any. A dream of economic security, through peddling poetry, is thus brought to nought.
In these chronicles that define the mundane realities of the common herd, waiting is of the essence. Nilofer, the young woman in need of work, typifies the quiet desperation which eats away at the core of sensibilities. She waits at the door of a flat, expecting to be appointed as a maid. The wait fizzles into nothing. The sense of things not happening is what Altaf Tyrewala projects through his characters, each of whom takes centre stage, in turns as it were. Rina waits, even as she lets her hands run across the back of her lover, in anticipation of the sex she has turned into a matter of routine with him. But GK, the lover, is weighed down by ambition or ill luck or both. Balbir Pasha waits for him, for the team from Breaking News, dying to be spotted on television as a gallant police officer who has made a remarkable kill. All of them wait; and every desire gets to be nipped in the transition between a bud and a flower.
Take a few steps back and chance upon the sentimental Hamida. Marriage has been her ambition for years, and yet prospects of conjugal happiness have progressively receded for her. But she waits, for the one man she has wanted. Rafiq has explored her, has held her mouth in liplock for long minutes despite all the marriages he has gone through. Hamida understands his compulsions, and so keeps a firm lid on the probability of revulsion rising in her. She will be his fourth wife, or she thinks. She bides her time. Meanwhile, age begins to take its toll.
There is a plethora of expectations in the narrative. The chicken seller Jamal Seth plods wearily through his business of the day. What day? That for him and his friends begins in the evening as they go looking for erotic pleasures. Shakila, the woman in the black sari and white sleeveless blouse, will not disappoint them, not even when a power outage interrupts the gaiety of the evening. She gyrates, swings her left arm about and keeps the right one suggestively on her crotch. It is eerie, a disturbing image of no light and absent music and pointless simulated sensuality.
In the end, hollowness is all. There are gaping wounds all around, bodies in anticipation of embraces, youth in search of purpose. The Mahant visits Barauli for the second time in a month; and communal passions are stirred.
It is a scarred landscape. The skies promise nothing.


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Homeowners are more than twice as likely to die in a house fire if they do not have a working smoke alarm, warn West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service.
This year, the service is encouraging people to test their fire alarms on a weekly basis in a bid to save lives.
Jackie Boyle, community fire safety officer, said: "Your smoke alarm can only give you that vital early warning if it is working, so why not make a new year's resolution to test it weekly.
"Testing your smoke alarm is really very easy and could save your life."
Statistics show that two or three breaths of toxic smoke can be enough to render a person unconscious.
West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service provide home fire safety checks to give advice to homeowners and, if required, fit smoke detectors and other fire detection equipment.
Priority for the checks is given to those who are over 65 and living alone, immobile or disabled, or using a Community Alarm or Emergency Monitoring service such as Careline.
To request a home fire safety check call 0800 328 6487 or go to www.westsussex.gov/fire


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You run one of very few women-owned businesses in this industry. How can we bring in more women to the cloud computing industry, or the VAR industry? What advice do you have for them?
There are not enough women in my industry, and this presents a tremendous opportunity. From my personal experience, the most successful teams are made up of both women and men, because problem solving requires different perspectives and balance.
I think the entire channel is clearly missing out on the competitive advantages that come from employing women. We could start by getting the word out to every young woman on every college campus and every military installation in America, that there are amazing opportunities waiting for them in the field of technology. Industry leaders and company owners need to advertise, promote and pursue hiring. Leadership needs to authorize HR and talent teams to expand the scope of their search beyond computer science and engineering majors, to include the untapped talent in business, English, liberal arts, journalism or education. It seems to me that any woman who can perform in a grueling, hostile military environment surely has something to offer our companies.
My only advice is this: Technology permeates every aspect of our world, and it's not going away. It is a field that is built on ideas, opportunities, challenges and new ways to accomplish old goals. Our industry endeavors to make life better for every industry and every person on the planet. It is dynamic and ever-changing, made up of some of the most interesting and creative people in the world. And it doesn't matter what you studied in college; you can add value and apply what you've learned and what you love in a million different ways, and you can have a blast doing it.
How fast has your business been growing, what is driving business, and what has prompted growth?
We're only six months old, but what's driving the business is the need for speed. For cloud services, the winning ticket is how fast you get to market with subscription services and applications. It's all about retaining and growing your customer base, about increasing stickiness and revenue for the long term.
And that's exactly what Affinity provides. We turn your vision into a reality, and we do it quickly, with no headaches, no retainer fees, and no vendor biases.
Why are subscription services and applications necessary today?
The old notion was that companies gained competitive advantage by owning hardware or writing their own software apps. The world has evolved to an on-demand, ever-changing plethora of options and devices. Subscription services and applications delivered from the cloud provide the most scalable, cost-effective and secure platform.
How does Affinity Cloud Connections get paid?
Affinity is not an old-fashioned consulting company, a cloud services broker or a referral company. ACC offers several programs, but our primary revenue stream is a percentage of MRR after the customer is in market. Affinity is dedicated to achieving success with our customers because our revenue is tied to theirs.
NEXT: Watching The Trends


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Luxury 6 brm/bthrm lodge in Stonebridge. Near SDC. Check our rates!
Welcome to Fox Hollow Lodges! Luxury 6 Master Suite lodges in the beautiful Stonebridge Resort, located one Mile From SDC. Six bedroom master suites with cushy memory foam king beds and TV's in each bedroom and private/adjoining bathroom with tubs and showers. Each lodge will accommodate up to 22 guests with plenty of space to spread out with two living areas. One upstairs with a warm fireplace and plenty of comfy seating. Another, downstairs with more seating, a movie area and a game area as well. Upper and lower decks with plenty of seating if a rousing game of cards or a nice evening dinner are in your plans.
The swimming, basketball and playground area are a very short walk from your front door. So close that you could ring the dinner bell to call the kiddos in for the family dinner. So, come, be our guest at Fox Hollow Lodges. You will be glad you did!
Stonebridge offers many amenities that you and your family can enjoy during your stay at our lodge: swimming pools, playgrounds, volleyball, basketball, tennis, golf, walking trails, fitness center, and a pavilion area for large gatherings. You will love the scenery and nature that surrounds you as you relax and enjoy your vacation.
If you have your own boat or would like to rent one, Indian Pointe Marina is close by to enjoy a day out on the lake.
If you need more space or need alternative dates, please look at our additional Homeaway.com listings, #364423 (four bedroom lodge), #3912552 (six bedroom lodge), #4036159 (seven bedroom lodge) and #4036163 (seven bedroom lodge). All of these lodges are also located in Stonebridge Resort and our six and seven bedroom lodges are all close to each other for large gatherings. Between all of our lodges we can sleep over 100. For those guests who need multiple lodges during the peak season but do not need a full week, give us a call/e-mail and we will work do our best to accommodate your vacation plans!.
QUOTES: The fastest, most accurate quotes can be received quickly and accurately by clicking on the "Request to Book" button on our Homeaway.com/VRBO.com listing. After clicking on that button, enter your dates and the total $$ will be on your screen, and all without entering a credit card until you are ready to book. Our guests are important to us and we do work to make it as easy as possible to have all of the information at your fingertips. We hope to see you very soon!
Welcome to Fox Hollow Lodges!
- Guests Provide Their Own Meals
- Air Conditioning
- Heating
- Linens Provided
- Dishwasher
- Refrigerator
- Stove
- Oven
- Microwave
- Washing Machine
- Clothes Dryer
- Fireplace
- Television
- Satellite / Cable
- Parking
- Pets Not Allowed
- Dining Area
- Children Welcome
- Internet
- Towels Provided
- Non Smoking Only
- DVD Player
- Communal Pool
- Coffee Maker
- Toaster
- Boat
- Outdoor Grill
- Game Room
- Hair Dryer
- Dishes & Utensils
- Living Room
- Kitchen
- Minimum Age Limit For Renters
- Deck / Patio
- Dining
- Tennis
- Golf


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Love is a sweet feeling not a game,
please dont take dis on another way ..
you ll find better you ll find good..
baby now wen u feel alone no one can
understand.. .
its me who feel d love in your eyes
bcoz i know you eyes never lies.. .
sweetheart now m not in life.. .
hoping dis will take you too your high skies..
some hearts broken some hearts are in pain
dis or love story nd i was dreaming its never
going to end.. .
huh!! life changed and people leaves
cant say hows it feels.
This post was submitted by mysterious029.
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Programs & Organizations
Teach California
Credentialing and job information for prospective teachers.
California Commission on Teacher Credentialing
Promotes excellence and professional growth in educators who serve in California's public schools.
California Science Teachers Association (CSTA)
Represents science educators statewide and participates in reform initiatives and policy-making.
California Science Teachers Association (CSTA): Student Chapters
Provides a supportive network of pre-service teaching candidates.
California Science Teachers Association (CSTA): Payne Pre-service Teacher Program
Endows pre-service teachers with stipends for attending a conference and completing program requirements.
Science Education Community in the CSU
"Teaching commons" is a community of K-12 and university science educators.


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wow - interesting sherry. Thanks for the review of sorts.
I don't have a suxbox 360, or ever owned an original suxbox :P - but i have clocked halo 1 and 2. Thought 2 was disappointing because it really didn't add much to the first release. Thought that maybe halo 3 would bring something new and shiny, but it sounds like it was just new levels, some new guns and much of the same.
multi player games (especially online) are the way to go these days given they allow you to play a game against real people rather than AI. given you didn't comment on multi player, maybe the online of halo 3 is better than its predecessors...
Halo Series
Okay all you Gaming Geeks!!! Get in here!!
Oscar Presenter
Duffman can never die, only the actors who play him.
Oscar Nominee
I decided to give the game a go, having only played Halo 1 and not being impressed i wasn't expecting too much from the game, and as a result i have not enjoyed the single player experience so far (and i'm only up to mission 4).
Online is great, i love all of the various modes you can do battle in (oddball - which is basically a keepings off game, capture the flag and many others).
The servers have taken a beating since the game came out, various periods of congestion, where things don't load properly (gamer profiles) and sometimes the Bungie servers would freeze or not respond.
Cecil B DeMille Life Time Achievement
Halo 5 is coming.
never been into this series.
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This past Saturday, the top-ranked Alabama Crimson Tide hosted Georgia State in a midseason tune-up game for the Crimson Tide, where the Tide were able to clear up some of the kinks on their team and get ready for the full on slate of SEC opponents they have coming up.
It was a dominating effort by the Tide, which was expected as they won 45-3 in a game that they were better in every facet of, and rightfully so. Georgia State had no chance. The Tide put up 447 yards of total offense and allowed only 175 on defense, and got to see a whole host of young players get game action. The biggest news of the day was wide receiver DeAndrew White.
White, a junior wide receiver for the Tide, lined up in the red zone in the first quarter and the play went to him. What happened next was perhaps the catch of the year in college football.
White jumped up with the corner and somehow managed to reach around the receiver and make an absolutely incredible snag for the touchdown. What's equally as incredible as the catch was how high White jumped and how he was able to maintain possession of the ball all the way to the ground while battling with the defensive back.
This is no doubt a major candidate for that catch of the year in the 2013 college football season, as skills like this in the end zone are hard to come by. White only had four receptions for 45 yards on the day, but he will surely be talked about for the rest of the season and will be featured in every highlight video.
Erik Sargent is a college football writer for RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @Erik_Sargent, "Like" him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.


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Sanctuary Spa White Jasmine & Myrrh Candle 200g
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Sumptuous white jasmine & heady tuberose mingle with a heart of exotic incense & sensual spice enriched with a sweet oriental base of myrrh, vanilla & dark musk candle.
Relax, breathe and #LetGo
Candle 200g


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|Overview - Esther 6
|Ahasuerus, reading in the chronicles of the good service done by Mordecai, takes care for his reward.
|Haman, coming to sue that Mordecai might be hanged, gives counsel that he might do him honour.
|Complaining of this, his friends tell him of his final destiny.
Esther 6:10 (King James Version)
Then the king said to Haman, Make haste, and take the apparel and the horse, as thou hast said, and do even so to Mordecai the Jew, that sitteth at the king's gate: let nothing fail of all that thou hast spoken.
- Make haste
- Daniel 4:37 ; Luke 14:11 ; Revelation 18:7
- let nothing fail
- Hebrew suffer not a whit to fall.
- 2 Kings 10:10


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July 12, 2008
ANA to Scrap 2 International Flight Services
Tokyo, July 12 (Jiji Press)--All Nippon Airways is considering abolishing flights between Kansai International Airport in western Japan and Guam as well as those between Central Japan International Airport and Taipei sometime by March 2009, Jiji Press learned Saturday.
The move is part of the company's plan to streamline its flight operations in response to surging fuel costs, informed sources said.By ending its Kansai-Guam route, ANA plans to only offer China- and South Korea-bound services at Kansai, in order to focus on highly profitable business travels and boost the efficiency of its operations, according to the sources.
At Central Japan, it intends to close its Taipei route but to maintain flights to and from Guangzhou, southern China, and one other route, and to promote the use of the services by local companies, particularly by Toyota Motor Corp. group firms, the sources said.
On domestic flights, ANA will reduce the number of flights between Kansai and New Chitose Airport in Hokkaido since the utilization rate was low at 64.8 pct in fiscal 2007. The airline is considering scrapping or scaling down some 10 other domestic routes.
Japan Airlines , similarly, is considering abolishing several international services and about 10 domestic routes.END
(c) 2008 Jiji Press English News Service. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.


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Mostly speaking in terms of RBG/BG, It's the kind of talent i'd really like to take (missing the old version of sacred shield, if I remember well, it appeared at 30 % health automatically).
What would, from your point of view, in its actual form (a talent), what change could make it a reasonable and viable, not overpowered choice compared to Selfless healer ?
I personnally lie the " damage mitigation concept " better than the " healing " perspective, that's what I'm asking.


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Ubuntu 13.10 was not a spectacular release as far as Ubuntu's history of major eye-popping changes is concerned. There were many things that could have been added to Saucy. Mir, for example, was one change many Ubuntu fanatics were waiting for. But, in favor of stability, the only thing new that the release brought to the table was Smart Scopes. Also, there were a few changes here and there, but for those who were looking for a complete 'upgrade,' Saucy was disappointing at its best. That's not to say that the release was bad. In fact, it set a solid foundation for the next big release, and that is Ubuntu 14.04.
Read more ► [2]


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Tomorrow was probably a day schoolgirls of a century past, came to dread.
First of May….Petticoat Day. A day when prankish boys would try to lift the skirts and catch an innocent glimpse of a petticoat.
Petticoat, ask around today's youth…..how many do you think would know what a petticoat is, or was……
May 1st has been a day of celebrations since Pagan times…..with Beltane Feasts to rejoice in the coming of summer.
May was summer in Pagan times….. June's solstice was midsummer's mark.
May Poles and ribbons gave way to Christian adaptations of Mary's month; when the Lord's mother is crowned with flowers and the Rosary, Mary's prayer, is recited.
Communion is given to young children celebrating this milestone Sacrament, when little girls dress up in lace, and white, and crinoline petticoats……
Sometimes, the old ways have a way of meshing with the new……
The Pagan and the Christian…….
The Petticoats and the Communion dresses………….


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This piece originally ran in August of 2012
What happens when TSG reaches out to a bunch of nerds in high places who like numbers, triangle passes, Barcelona analogy misappropriations, Dax McCarty data, Roger Espinosa heat maps and deal in things called "machine learning" & "regression analyses?"
A massively data-erotic soccer column on game and player analysis that lies somewhere just left of Shelter Island and A Beautiful Mind, but well beyond Good Will Hunting.
Now our actors around the roundtable. NASA "Curiosity" seekers don't have squat on these guys. They are:
» Steve Fenn: Steve is a mathematics lunatic (complimentary) and tweets at the poignant handle Optahunt. Steve also now writes for TSG & Big D Soccer … when Opta Chalkboards are not online. Welcome Steve, the John Nash of these proceedings. (Follow on twitter)
» Rui Xu: Rui is currently in his second season as the Performance Analyst with Sporting Kansas City. He graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in Economics. Rui is like the Stu Ungar of this roundtable, pre-extracurriculars of course. (Follow on twitter)
» Alex Oshansky: Alex runs numbers for an investment fund in LA by day and makes soccer spreadsheets at night. This makes him the
Bernie Madoff Blue Horseshoe (about to become the) Warren Buffet of the soccer world. He already is here in this column. Alex also writes for TSG and also on his own blog, Tempo Free Soccer. (Follow on twitter)
» Devin Pleuler: Devin is a computer science graduate from Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, where he played on the men's varsity team as a goalkeeper. He's writes the Central Winger analytics column for MLSsoccer.com. He's a TSG alum and now a member of the MIT men's soccer coaching staff. So he's obviously Will Hunting here. (Follow on twitter)
TSG: Okay, what is the biggest misconception in what appears to be the growing market of data processing and statistical evaluation in soccer?
Xu: I think the biggest one is that I don't think we're going to get the granularity that we get in baseball, and I don't think it will surpass scouting in terms of importance when it comes to opponent scouting.
The BEST case scenario for soccer statistics is getting to where defensive statistics are in baseball., with Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) and Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), which are known to take a long time to stabilize, and are very iffy to use in small sample sizes.
Olshansky: I don't know if it it is a misconception exactly, but it seems like the analytical community is only just scratching the surface of what we can learn about soccer. The field is in a nascent stage, and I think some perspective regarding just how far there is to go is needed. Graham MacAree of SB Nation had a great treatise on the state of the field and what still must be accomplished.
For example, only recently have some analysts started to realize just how few crosses are actually completed (for some teams only 10%). What does this mean exactly? Is crossing now a bad strategy? It's just one example of how little we really understand.
Fenn: Underestimating the value of context. Biggest culprit within that issue is pass completion without adjusting for pass difficulty or value. Devin's recent Central Winger columns have been nice steps toward better understanding.
TSG: What is the one stat–in your expert opinion or through empirical review–that is the most mis-used stat in soccer?
Olshansky: I'm not the first one to say it, nor will I be the last, but possession % is still used far too often to denote who is outplaying whom. Devin has written about how it is often more a defensive statistic than an offensive one and is highly dependent on game situation.
Fenn: For me, the most misused is also the most used. Whether he actually said it or not, I agree with the Jonathan Wilson quote, "Goals are overrated." Again, context is key, and Sam Green's work on shot quality is a great way to gain better insight into scoring and goalkeeping.
Pleuler: Possession is undoubtably the most mis-used stat in soccer. Arguably, this is because it is significantly more nuanced and complicated than it is often made out to be. Since the number of possessions during a game is finite, it is in the best interest of the more efficient team to increase the rate of possessions. This is simply because there is less variation the larger the sample size. Conversely, after a team has scored, it's in their best interest to decrease the number of remaining possessions in the game. The less possessions, the less chances there will be for your opponent to score.
Barcelona does this by gaining and holding possession for long periods of time. Stoke does this by sitting deep in their own zone and becoming comfortable with their opponents possessing the ball for long periods of time. Barcelona and Stoke are attempting to do accomplish exactly the same thing and yet we view one style as artistic and the other as anti-soccer. One of these styles artificially inflates possession percentages, and one artificially deflates them. To talk about possession statistics without acknowledging this kind of context is really really bad.
Xu: By a GIGANTIC margin, possession percentage. First of all, it doesn't even describe what it claims to; it actually has nothing to do with 'time;' it's calculated using team passes divided by total passes. The data providers are using pass volume as a proxy for time in possession because it's easier to calculate. Graham Macaree has a great article on that here.
Secondly, nobody ever provides any context on possession percentage. Statements like "When the score is tied, the average team's possession percentage is 50%. When they're up by one, the average team's possession is 40%. When they're down by one, the average team's possession is 60%" are actually pretty easy to find, and they tell WAY more of the story than just possession percentage by itself.
Finally, it's unclear a) whether or not possession percentage is reflective of the scoreline at all, and b) whether possession percentage is reflective of the scoreline, or the scoreline is reflective of possession percentage. Did the team lose 1-0 because they had a lower possession percentage, or did they have a lower possession percentage because they lost? There are just too many unknowns and ambiguities for it to be as ubiquitous as it is.
Xu: Well, goal differential, but I'm guessing that's not what you're asking.
Essentially what you have to do is create an "expected goals" and "expected goals against" model, and compare that to your actual goal production to see if you're overperforming or underperforming
You do that by finding inputs that create goals. That's fairly simple: quantity of shots and quality of shots. Then you find inputs that create more shots and create better shots. For example, crosses increase the number shots that a team takes, but those shots tend to be of poor quality. 1-on-1 vs the goalie have a very high probability of scoring, but they don't happen that often. You find all of these, input them into an "expected goal differential model," and you 'll get a very, very good proxy for how good your team is actually playing.
Olshansky: I think if someone could create a concise and logical way to rate the quality of chances, that would be a very useful statistic. Soccer is a game that often comes down to maybe five chances per team per game, so the ideal metric would assess a team's chances of winning as: (average quality of chance X chances) – (opponent average quality of chance X chances). Of course there are a lot of factors that go into rating the quality of a chance, but I don't think this hypothetical statistic is a pipe dream.
Fenn: Chances created adjusted for shot quality for offense. Quality of shots allowed on defense. Any of our answers would have to stand up to rigorous testing before claiming "best proxy for winning," though.
Pleuler: This is a difficult question to answer because so many metrics are built directly on top of one another. Expected goals (and goals against) is perhaps the most obvious choice. But, you can't calculate expected goals without quantifying the quality of each goal-scoring opportunity. You can't accurately quantify the quality of a goal-scoring opportunity without quantifying the defensive pressure applied during that opportunity. You can't quantify defensive pressure unless you quantify defensive shape, game context, and a handful of other complicated metrics.
TSG: Ponder this:
Coaches tinker with line-ups all the time. If you employed a marketer or "business optimizer" in the role of coach, they might resort to a notion called A-B testing to improve the line-up. That is remove one player and replace him or her with another as a means of finding the best combination of players on the pitch. However there is a principle called multi-variate testing that allows for changing many variables at one time. Can this be applied to soccer in any way?
Fenn: Seems highly relevant to lineup selection and substitution patterns. Such analysis could shake up timing and nature of such decisions, which can be staid and predictable.
Xu: Yes, but with the caveat that you actually need to have a performance metric for the players in place. Right now, we don't even have a publicly available equivalent to batting average in soccer, let alone a true, accurate proxy for talent like WAR is in baseball.
Once you have that, you can start to do some pretty interesting things with multivariate analysis. I've mentioned a couple of times that I think synergy is an underrated aspect of soccer, so even if Player A is an absolute better player than Player B, it is possible that Player B has qualities that synergizes with his teammates, creating a better team overall.
Olshansky: Theoretically, yes. But I think we are still a long way off from having a model that could accurately assess multiple variables. Honestly, I don't even think we are at the point where someone could tell me how many fewer goals the LA Galaxy would have conceded if Omar Gonzalez had been healthy the entire year.
TSG: What new metrics are important or would you create? Do any of these (link) make sense?
Pleuler: Your metrics make a lot of intuitive sense, but they are mostly things that can be derived from base metrics that are already being collected. As a community, I think we are beyond the level of counting instances of particular on-the-ball events and should be looking at quantifying off-the-ball events. That's where the future is.
Fenn: Using Smart Soccer technology I'd create a metric for off-the-ball positioning relative to opposition, teammates, and the ball. Very easy for observers to be unable to fully and acurately appreciate or criticize contributions in this area.
Olshansky: First of all, I like the SSF (Stupid Stupid Foul) idea. I still cringe thinking about Fabian Johnson bringing down Marco Pappa when he had no support and two other US defenders seemed to have him covered.
I have been tinkering with, and quite like, the idea of a Forced Turnover (FTO) statistic for defenders. It's more than just winning tackles; it also includes clearances, recoveries, and interceptions. Would be interesting to see the MLS leaders in FTO.
Xu: Win/goal probability is the big one for me. Every single action on the pitch is trying to accomplish one (or both) of two actions: scoring a goal or preventing a goal. Therefore, every single action has a specific value to one of those two ends. I want to know those values. Unfortunately, that is an incredibly time-consuming endeavor because that would require watching every single MLS game and noting the position of the ball and every player on the pitch at every single moment of time, but it is certainly possible.
The benefit of a stat like WPA/GPA is that it automatically captures the entirety of a player's work. A lot of the concepts in your statistics are sound, but for me, I want to know all of a player's value so I can determine if he's overpaid/underpaid, etc.
TSG: One could argue that the real revolution in statistics is somewhat over now. Everyone–if they choose to spend the money–can dig deeper into "data." The real revolution will be in the coach or manager or general manager who can combine statistical data into metrics and optimize on a per game or per player basis. Is this valid?
Olshansky: Somewhat this is true. I think the biggest issue is figuring out what to make of all the data. The real competition going on is among people like Rui, who are tinkering on spreadsheets trying to find wins amidst the avalanche of OPTA and Prozone data.
There is a certain game theory aspect to teams starting to incorporate statistical analysis more: how have the A's done since their "Moneyball" halcyon days of the early 2000's? How are the Rockets doing? The problem is that as soon as any metric becomes useful other teams will replicate it, rendering that initial advantage useless. This will be interesting to see played out going forward.
Fenn: Generaly agree, but I think a big part is analysts making their work accessable to coaches and players. A brilliant theory doesn't help if it can't be put into practice.
Pleuler: The revolution in soccer statistics will undoubtably take just as much social engineering as real engineering – and we're very quickly reaching the threshold where the social barriers are just as daunting as the technical ones. But, this doesn't mean that very significant progress still needs to be made on the technical side. The "revolution" may be over – and that depends on how we define that word – but the hard work is undoubtedly still going on.
Xu: I'm not as sure about this one as I was when I was first starting this job. When I first started, I was confident that, like, baseball, you'd be able to develop conclusions using statistics quicker than using your eye, but that's not true in soccer at all. It takes maybe a game to tell that Lionel Messi is the best player on the pitch, whereas statistically, it might take a few for all of the noise to cancel out. It's actually pretty rare that I go to the coaches with something completely new about an upcoming team. Usually, I'm backing up an existing theory, or it's something they already had an inkling about.
The real advantage of metrics is in player evaluation and roster decisions, in my eyes. With performance analytics, you can put together a more efficient team, or you can evaluate if you're making the correct draft choices, or making the right transfer moves. Those are the macro-level decisions that really impact an organization.
TSG: Justifying it anyway you wish, who is your favorite player and/or what is your favorite stat about said player?
Olshansky: Vinnie Jones, he of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, holds the EPL record for quickest booking: 3 seconds. Art imitating life?
Xu: Aurelien Collin. Because, c'mon. Dude's crazy, and he's also an incredibly kind and generous person.
I don't know if it counts as a 'stat,' but I absolutely love looking at Roger Espinoza's heat maps for games. He worked really hard in the offseason on conditioning, and it shows in his work rate.
Pleuler: I very much like Dax McCarty of the New York Red Bulls. I always seems to find him creeping toward the top of the different types of analysis that I do. As for a favorite statistic about a player – I don't have one. It would probably be a bad idea for me to become attached to certain statistics because I want to be able to throw them away when I find something better. I do, however, think goalkeeper throw-ins are hilarious.
Fenn: Age is a stat, right? Good, then it's @InfostradaLive after Messi set the Barcelona goal record: "At 27, Alexander The Great overlooked his empire and wept bitter tears because there were no more worlds left to conquer. Lionel Messi is only 24." If this is hypocritical to my earlier context rant, I guess I'm like Private Joker's peace sign next to "Born to Kill." I think I was trying to say something about the duality of man. The Jungian thing.
TSG: Do you think there will ever be a single metric that accurately scores the full value of individual soccer players?
Pleuler: There already is a single metric that articulates the full value of a soccer player. It's salary. The problem, of course, is that our method of calculating salary it is far too dependent on subjective opinion. What further complicates the measurement of player value is that players are worth differently to different teams.
Fenn: The higher priority is lots of smaller metrics evaluating individual skills. With those a coach could target specific abilities needed for his team's style of play. Weighing and summing individual metrices would be my preferred approach to an overall player rating. Would such a metric definitively say if one player is better than another? Probably not, but it could be good enough to revolutionize transfer and salary pricing.
Olshansky: Accurately? I don't know. Probably some day, but the arc of time is not on the contemporary soccer analyst's side. I think it will take many more years of data, experimenting, etc. before a truly accurate individual metric system emerges. I do think a good approximation is not far away. At this point, the best statistics are only useful for comparative purposes by position and are most useful for attacking players, but I am hopeful that defenders may still yet get their full due.
Xu: I do. I think WPA/GPA gets very close, and we're not super far away from that. It'll be tough to break down in terms of a player's individual characteristics (aerial ability, tackling ability, finishing ability, dribbling ability, etc.), but it captures a player's totality, which is perfectly usable.
[end roundtable] Thanks guys.


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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Back home, everyone wants to know if it feels safe walking around at the Olympics, if athletes and fans are consumed with dread about a terrorist attack or lunatic bombing or something nobody ever thought could happen.
The answer, so far, is that it feels so safe, it's scary.
You can't take a step in any direction without seeing somebody in a brightly colored security uniform, armed and watchful and whispering conspiratorially into a phone headset.
Dogs are sniffing out trouble, military helicopters are hovering overhead, National Guard troops are wielding M-16s, and there are miles of yellow tape cordoning off buildings for bomb sweeps before the games begin. And that's just what's visible. Blending in surreptitiously with the crowds and athletes are security personnel no one is supposed to notice.
It's comforting and discomforting and, of course, absolutely necessary.
''After 9-11, we want to do everything we can to make people feel safe,'' says Christine Lassen, one of the many green-jacketed ''Event Services Specialists'' who look out for anything suspicious. ''I don't think anything will happen. I really don't. But, then, I hope I don't have to eat my words.''
If there's a soft side to the security it's in the pleasant way the guards and troops deal with fans, athletes and media as they negotiate around the detours and through the scanning devices.
''Everyone is always smiling and treating us very nice,'' French curling skip Dominique Dupont-Roc says. ''Every border of the athletes' village is protected, like a fort. It feels very safe, very good.''
No threat is treated as too trivial, not even a plastic grocery bag filled with fuses and electrical wire that was found Thursday near a downtown garage. Police blew up the package, which contained no explosives, and called it a ''hoax device'' that might have been planted deliberately and deviously to see how police would react.
''There's some concern it was like a trial run,'' said Craig Gleason, a police department spokesman.
The bag was found around noon by construction workers a few blocks from the main press center. Police evacuated two nearby buildings, and military helicopters scanned the area. The FBI and agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were called to the scene.
At the same time, and all through the night, Secret Service agents and bomb-sniffing dogs covered every inch of the Salt Lake Ice Center, while security guards kept everyone else from coming close.
The cost of security for these games is estimated at $310 million, and if nothing happens it will be worth every penny. The first big test is at the opening ceremony Friday night, where President Bush, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and three other heads of state join 55,000 fans and Olympians from 77 countries in the University of Utah football stadium.
''There is no margin for error,'' Secret Service agent Mark Camillo said. ''We don't get a second chance.''
All that can be done, everyone involved with security believes, has been done.
''We may not eliminate risk entirely because there is no such thing as an absolute fail-safe guarantee in Salt Lake City or anywhere else,'' Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said in a speech in Washington on Thursday.
The feeling on the streets of Salt Lake City is reminiscent of the way it was in Montreal at the 1976 Summer Olympics, four years after the massacre of Israeli athletes in Munich. In response to that attack, police snipers were stationed on downtown rooftops, military personnel guarded gates with automatic weapons, and everyone walked around feeling safe and nervous.
Olympic security over the ensuing years became less intimidating, less obvious, even after the bombing at Centennial Park in Atlanta in 1996.
Five months after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the souped-up security force of 16,000 from 59 federal, state and local agencies in Salt Lake City has brought back that same strange brew of emotions felt in Montreal -- peaceful but edgy. The troops and guns, themselves, are a constant reminder of the dangers that may lurk somewhere out there.
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Taran Ablitt is a freelance electronics engineer, theatre technician and web and software developer.
He graduated with a Bachelor of Production from the Victorian College of the Arts at the end of 2011 with a lighting major.
Taran has worked on a variety of productions in different types of theatre, including musical theatre. He has been a technical manager, lighting designer, automation engineer, and lighting and sound technician. He has created numerous pieces of custom theatre electronics, for his own shows and for clients.
He has developed websites, web based information systems and software, and can provide the hosting and management of domains, websites and email.
His résumé is available here.


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Joe Biden, tears in his eyes, says Ted Kennedy made us all bigger
An emotional Vice President Biden, who sat next to Teddy Kennedy in the Senate for more than 36 years, looked shaken and grief-stricken this morning as he talked about the man they called the Lion of the Senate.
As he told his wife, Jill, this morning, Biden explained, Kennedy had been there every step of his political life.
When Biden was a 29-year-old novice running for the Senate, Kennedy came to Delaware to campaign for him, corralling votes in Little Italy, where Biden said they rarely voted for a Democrat.
As a new senator, Biden lost his wife and daughter in a car accident that left his two sons clinging to life in a hospital. Biden said Kennedy called every day and often sent help. "I'd turn around and there'd be a specialist from Massachusetts, some doc I never even asked for," the vice president recalled.
Mostly, Biden said, he "restored my sense of idealism and my faith in the possibilities of what this country could do."
Wiping tears from his eyes, Biden said Kennedy's love of country and public service was "infectious when you were with him … you could just see it in nature of the debate. … He was never defeatist, he was never petty, he was never small." In the process, said the vice president, "he made everybody he worked with bigger, both his adversaries and his allies."
Think of it, Biden said, "one of most partisan, liberal men serving in the Senate had so many of his foes embrace him … they know he made them bigger, he made them more graceful."
Finally, noting that although Kennedy changed circumstances for millions of Americans with his legislative victories, his real legacy was to change "how they looked at themselves and how they looked at one another." Though others in public life might be admirable, said Biden, usually "at the end of the day it gets being about them." The unique thing about Kennedy, he added, is that "it was never about him, it was always about you."
With that, after apologizing to staffers at the Energy Department for going off topic at a briefing on recovery projects aimed at speeding energy independence, Biden walked off the stage, his head down.
-- Johanna Neuman
Photo: Biden and Kennedy at Barack Obama's 2009 inaugural. Credit: Reuters
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You can always count on Nancy Leson to know what's happening with the restaurants in town. She covered the news about The Chef in the Hat's new restaurant, Luc which will be a French bistro with a bit of a twist. Check out Nancy's post here He is looking for investors. Count on Chef Thierry to find original ways to make things work.
I ran into the chef last week when I tried to come in for brunch on a Saturday. Brunch is only Sundays. What was I thinking? Anyway Brunch is done for the summer.
We discussed his new restaurant and he told me that he will be grilling interesting cuts of meat outside. You will be able to come by and pick up food in a container and he will make food that will taste just as good when you take it home to warm up.
Sounds deLUCtious!
Click here for my events page at MyNorthwest.com or check out my other blog at Franticfoodie.com
I peaked into the kitchen
The kitchen at Rovers
This is how they tenderize the meat
FYI: We ended up having brunch at the lovely Madison Park Cafe, I had cheese blintzes. I love those.


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Send tips, links, and feedback to gbeato-at-soundbitten.com
September 27, 2002
O'Reilly vs. Snoop Dogg
I was wondering when the crack investigative team at The O'Reilly Factor would uncover the unholy Snoop Dogg - Muppets union: "What the heck is rapper Snoop Dog doing in a Muppet Christmas special?! Should a guy who has also been in porn films, was recently cleared of a murder charge and has a past filled with violence, really be appearing in a program designed for little kids?"
Well, maybe not. But while considering the question, it helps to have as much information as possible. So here's some things to keep in mind:
The incident that led to Snoop Dogg's murder charge occurred in August 1993, when his bodyguard shot and killed a man. The prosecution said it was murder, the defense said it was self-defense. In February 1996, a jury found Snoop Dogg and his bodyguard not guilty of murder.
Snoop Dogg (real name Calvin Broadus) has also had several other brushes with the law. They include a 1990 arrest and conviction for possessing cocaine with intent to sell; a 1993 arrest (or possibly two arrests) for felony possession of a handgun, resulting in a $1000 fine and three-year probation in 1997; a 1998 citation for misdemeanor marijuana possession. According to Reuters, this last incident occured when "Broadus approached sheriff's deputies backstage at the Universal Ampitheatre to report an altercation with a group of four to six men after his performance at the Def Comedy Jam. Broadus told the deputies that one of the men had slapped him, then fled...It was while taking the report...that the deputies smelled marijuana on Broadus..."
Obviously Snoop Dogg has not been a model citizen his entire life. But unless I missed an arrest somewhere, it's been almost 10 years since he's been arrested for anything serious -- and his last brush with the law (the 1998 marijuana citation) occurred when he was acting like a responsible citizen (who happened to be high at the time) by reporting an altercation to a police officer. (UPDATE: Snoop Dogg was also charged with marijuana possession in October 2001 after his tour bus was stopped for speeding in Ohio. In May 2002, Snoop Dogg pleaded no contest and received a $250 fine and a suspended 30-day sentence.)
And yet how does O'Reilly spin his criminal record? He says Snoop Dogg was "recently cleared of a murder charge." A murder charge is a serious thing, of course, and time doesn't diminish its seriousness. But if you know the incident occurred in 1993, why not say that instead of "recently"?
Of course, the question still remains -- how the heck did Jim Henson Productions get the idea that Snoop Dogg would be an appropriate guest on "A Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie"?
Well, maybe they watched the King of the Hill episode on February 25th, 2001. You know -- the one entitled "Ho Yeah" that featured Snoop voicing the character of a pimp named Alabaster Jones. Here's how O'Reilly's employer Fox promoted the episode on its website: "Tammi is a prostitute and everyone in town starts thinking Hank is her pimp. But real trouble ensues when her old pimp, Alabaster Jones, shows up looking for her..."
Why didn't O'Reilly complain about Snoop Dogg's appearance on King of the Hill? Well, for one thing, kids hate cartoons. Second, King of the Hill airs on Sunday nights at 7:30 pm, when kids are watching 60 Minutes. Third, it's OK for a rapper to portray a pimp, as long as he doesn't get a Pepsi commercial out of the deal. Fourth, it's not OK for a rapper to portray a funny, laid-back, affable guy who talk to frogs -- people might start thinking he isn't all bad...
One other final note about this infernal Muppet Christmas movie. What the heck is actor David Arquette doing in a Muppet Christmas special?! Should a guy who has also been in AT&T commercials, was recently a heroin user, and has a past filled with graffitti vandalism really be appearing in a program designed for little kids?
UPDATE: I haven't seen any news reports yet, but a message-board poster on another site reported that O'Reilly "got the movie CANCELLED. NBC pulled it because of O'Reilly discussing it on his radio show."
Posted by Greg Beato at 06:19 PM
September 26, 2002
The Human Touch
So Google News is the lethal asteroid, but who are the dinosaurs? Professional news operations? News-bloggers? Both?
Obviously, Google News needs news to work -- and its value increases the more news there is. If it becomes so popular that it starts putting professional news operations out of business, then its own value decreases: who needs a super-powered news aggregator when there's only a few dozen, or even a few hundred, sources to aggregate?
Even so, Google News could have a substantial impact on certain professional news operations -- namely, big ones with national or international presences that function themselves as aggregators (even if they're only aggregating the news that their widely deployed staffs assemble). Sites like CNN.com, USAToday.com, ABCNews.com, MSNBC.com -- i.e., sites that court daily, geographically decentralized, general-interest news consumers -- are theoretically the most vulnerable (along with pure aggregators like Yahoo.com), because they offer essentially the same functionality as Google News. But they're also amongst the best-branded, best-funded news organizations, so presumably they won't crumble too easily. Over time, though, it's probably likely that news organizations that actually generate news (rather than simply aggregate it) will grow increasingly specialized. USAToday.com isn't really necessary when smaller, regional operations are accessible via a single interface. To stay national or international, news organizations will need to start cultivating more emphatic brand values -- Foxnews.com (for enfranchised people who feel disenfranchised) and Nakednews.com (for perverts who want to stay semi-informed) seem better positioned than sites like CNN.com or MSNBC.com (where liberal bias may exist, but isn't explicitly marketed as a positive brand attribute).
And the news-bloggers, how will they fare? At first glance, they seem like unsuspecting brontosauri, happily stomping across the blogosphere even as the sky above them starts to darken. After all, as Jack Shafer wrote yesterday on Slate, "Google News software continuously crawls more than 4,000 Web news sources, looking for the most relevant articles from the most reputable sources." And while Comrade Reynolds may be able to equal that performance during the summer months, what about the fall, when school's in session?
In the end, though, I don't think Google News poses any great danger to news-bloggers either. In fact, if Google News really wants to succeed, it should probably hire some bloggers to flesh out its service. "Untouched by Human Hands" is the title of the Washington Post's piece on Google News. And the Google News site itself announces that "This page was generated entirely by computer algorithms without human editors. No humans were harmed or even used in the creation of this page."
But that's really the exact opposite of what people want these days. Blogs are popular because they're personal -- readers feel a connection with blog-authors that they don't feel with traditional media. They want their news man-handled like an 18-year-old beauty pageant winner at a convention of Bob Greene clones.
Plus, Google News is too efficient. It provides too many articles on too many topics. Algorithms are supposed to determine which of these articles you should spend your time on, but no algorithm can make the best choice every time. Human editors can't either, but they're much better at insisting they can.
Posted by Greg Beato at 04:15 PM
September 25, 2002
Word of Oaf: Bill O'Reilly vs. Ludacris
"I was single for a long time. I was all over the world covering wars and met thousands of women."
-- Bill O'Reilly
"I've got ho's in different area codes."
-- Ludacris
But the family also had enough money to send O'Reilly to private school, and then college (with a year abroad in England), and then college again. "You don't come from any lower than I came from on an economic scale," O'Reilly once told the New York Observer. "I fully realize that blacks in the ghetto, and all that, had a much rougher life than I had. But I started from ground zero. When I got out of B.U., I had not a nickel."
Here, you have to give O'Reilly his due: if you ask the average employer, "Hey, who are you most likely to hire -- a black from the ghetto, or a white guy with a master's degree from Boston University, the employer will reply, 'Whoever's got the nickel!'"
But is O'Reilly really the salt-of-the-earth type he plays on his very popular, very entertaining TV series? O'Reilly says his show on Fox News looks at "things from a blue-collar, workingman's point of view." To convey that view, O'Reilly says things like "corporate America, in my opinion, needs to rethink their responsibility to their country" and "I'm in the vanguard on television of our search-and-destroy mission about the elite media...They don't want to hear from [regular people]. They don't want to address our concerns..."
Interestingly enough, Bill O'Reilly is married to a woman named Maureen McPhilmy, vice president of DWJ Television, a company that specializes in producing commercials for big, rich, powerful corporate clients like Sun Microsystems and Kellogg's, and then passing these commercials off as genuine news stories on channels like Fox News. And, of course, O'Reilly makes a lot of money from one of the world's biggest media conglomerates to portray a regular guy -- $4 million a year, according to the Boston Globe.
So given the shaky foundation on which Bill O'Reilly's blue-collar, workingman's persona rests, his recent vendetta against 24-year-old Chris Bridges, aka Ludacris, is somewhat surprising. After all, Bridges appears to hail from relatively modest origins himself: he grew up in College Park, Georgia, a town of 20,000 near the Atlanta airport, where the median household income is $38,558. (O'Reilly famously exclaimed that his father, who retired in either 1978 or 1980 -- I've seen both listed -- never made more than $35,000 a year.)
Bridges attended Banneker High School, a public institution where the student body is 97% black. At the age of 8, he exclaimed to his mother, "Mom, I love music and whether I am in front of a microphone or behind it, I will be in the music industry." In pursuit of this dream, his mom says, he obtained "internships in radio and entertainment law." Eventually, he turned an internship at an Atlanta radio station into a job as a producer there. At the age of 21, he bought his first house. At the age of 23, he created his own record label and produced his first album. Now, at 25, he's a platinum-selling artist.
I'm not sure if Ludacris ever had to suffer the indignity of having only two sports coats to wear to school -- according to the Washington Post, O'Reilly frequently cites his own memories of such hardship -- but I'd say that he certainly qualifies as a hard-working, self-made man.
On a certain level, then, you'd think Bill O'Reilly would recognize Chris Bridges, aka Ludacris, as a kindred soul. But apparently that's not the case: on August 27th, during the "Talking Points" portion of his TV show, O'Reilly described Ludacris as "a man who is demeaning just about everybody, and is peddling antisocial behavior." O'Reilly then blasted Pepsi for using Ludacris as a commercial pitchman: "I'm calling for all responsible Americans to fight back and punish Pepsi for using a man who degrades women, who encourages substance abuse, and does all the things that hurt particularly the poor in our society." A day later, Pepsi announced that it was discontinuing its ad campaign with Ludacris.
It's true that Ludacris is probably not the best choice to serve as spokesperson for a large corporation that wants to convey hipness in a completely safe, antiseptic, non-controversial way. In addition to penning some funny, clever rhymes, he writes lyrics like "Move bitch, get out the way/Get out the way bitch, get out the way/OH NO! The fight's out/I'ma 'bout to punch yo...lights out." And: "I gotta big weed stash, pocket full of cash/Just seen a big ol' ass, it's Saturday/Sticky, icky, icky, icky/Sticky, icky, icky, icky."
But of course it seems fairly unlikely that Pepsi planned to use any lyrics like that in its commercials featuring Ludacris. And while O'Reilly argued that Pepsi was "rewarding" Ludacris for rapping about "anti-social behavior," the truth is that it was rewarding him for being popular with the demographic it wants to reach.
So why focus on Ludacris? If O'Reilly truly believes that celebrities shouldn't be rewarded for their anti-social behavior, why not target someone whose commercial appearances actually celebrate his real-life misdeeds? One good candidate, as hip-hop commentator Davey D. has already pointed out: temperamental basketball coach (and rape enjoyment counselor) Bobby Knight, who was fired from Indiana University for habitually assaulting folding chairs and players, then hired by Clorox to smash dishes against a wall in a Glad trashbag commercial.
Or how about Tonya Harding? After she approved of her boyfriend's plan to cripple Nancy Kerrigan, O'Reilly's then-employer Inside Edition reportedly paid her $375,000 to appear on O'Reilly's show. Back then, he was so enamored of the concept of rewarding anti-social behavior with big money -- aka "checkbook journalism," the practice of paying people like Joey Buttafuoco to share their sins with the news media -- that he wrote a glowing op-ed piece about it for the New York Times.
And then of course there's Britney Spears, whom Pepsi has employed for some time now as a spokes-dancer, most memorably in that creepy, almost Lynchian spot where Bob Dole barked at his cock ("Down, boy!") while Spears did her standard Tribute-To-The-Ladies-Of-Hooters crotch-grinding. But even though Spears has helped introduce the Vivid Girl aesthetic to her millions of prepubescent fans, O'Reilly thinks her call-girl-next-door persona is just "immature and silly."
"I don't feel Britney Spears is a threat to the nation," he said on his TV show. "She may not be a good role model, but I don't think she's going to do any permanent damage to anybody, whereas [Ludacris] is."
So what is it, exactly, about Ludacris that makes O'Reilly think such dark, dark thoughts?
While O'Reilly acknowledges that the 25-year-old rapper is "not as bad as [genocidal Cambodian dictator] Pol Pot," he does believe that Ludacris is pretty darn bad. According to O'Reilly, Ludacris is:
Plus he "hurts children." Given Ludacris' status as O'Reilly Enemy #1, I expected to find quite a bit of information detailing his arrest record, his criminal past, and his nefarious plot to subvert American values by turning schoolchildren into violent Communist junkies. So far, however, I haven't found anything like that -- except perhaps for one or two mentions of a mysterious institution known as the Ludacris Foundation. Allegedly created to "provide gifts, grants, and scholarships to Foster Care Shelters, Stay-in-School and High School athletics programs, Book Drives/Reading and Art Appreciation programs and many other initiatives," it sounds a hell of a lot like a drug-and-prostitution ring to me.
But other than that, what?
Given that O'Reilly heads up the most popular series on the most popular cable news network, he must have plenty of investigative resources at his disposal. And given that the FoxNews corporate slogan is "We report, you decide," I can only conclude that O'Reilly and his reporters did the in-depth background check that one would expect any responsible news organization to do if it were planning to describe someone as a dangerous, subversive individual who hurts children. And since O'Reilly has made no mention of Ludacris' criminal record or anything like that, I can only conclude that his investigation didn't actually turn up anything too damning.
Except for Ludacris' aforementioned lyrics, that is.
But even there, O'Reilly sees things that don't really exist. Indeed, O'Reilly repeatedly characterizes Ludacris as a decidely emphatic prosyletizer: "Take narcotics. Abuse people. Punch people. Hurt people." But I couldn't find any lyrics where he explicitly encourages people to do any of these things. He talks about his own drug and alcohol use, his own violent exploits, and his own misogynistic treatment of women, yes, but such blustery boasting isn't the same thing as insisting to others that they should do the same.
More importantly, O'Reilly seems to betray no suspicions whatsoever that (a) Ludacris' lyrics aren't necessarily based in fact, and (b) Ludacris' lexicon isn't necessarily literal.
When a guest on O'Reilly's show asked him if any hip-hop figure might make an acceptable Pepsi spokesperson, O'Reilly replied "Chubby Checker." Surprisingly enough, Chubby Checker is still alive and still performing regularly, but of course he's not a hip-hop figure by any stretch of the imagination, unless that imagination simplistically equates black skin with hip-hop. So what does O'Reilly's answer say? That he has either a deep ignorance or a deep contempt for the genre, or possibly both.
So perhaps O'Reilly doesn't realize that a hip-hop lyric should not be automatically interpreted as a deposition: it can be fictional, hyperbolic, metaphorical. Ludacris is a character that Chris Bridges invented. Like many rappers, he rhymes in a deliberately over-the-top, hyper-aggressive way. And for the record, he's actually mostly known as a comic presence - more crazy, bugged-out prankster than thugged-out gangster. "I grew up watching Richard Pryor, The Three Stooges and Dolemite," he explained to one interviewer. "I've always been the funny dude in my crew, so I wanted to put that humor into my lyrics."
(Memo to O'Reilly: has anyone taught more children to be violent than the Three Stooges? You need to stop those guys!)
Now, O'Reilly might not think that lyrics like "Just keep on pissin me off, like a weak kidney/And you will find your family reading your obituary" are particularly funny. But does he really think Ludacris murders anyone who gets on his nerves?
To promote his own show, O'Reilly uses similar (albeit not as clever) vocabulary. One of his favorite adjectives to describe his work is "hard-hitting." He talks about "hammering" Alan Iverson and other public figures. In a Playboy interview, he says he "slapped around" Jerry Falwell on his show. In the same interview, he says he "smashed" Michael Kinsley when Kinsley visited "The O'Reilly Factor," and follows up with this anecdote: "When I went home to the neighborhood, people who saw the show came up to me and asked, 'How come you didn't punch him?' I had to explain that he was in Washington and I was in New York and I couldn't go through the camera. They said, 'We would have fucking killed him.'"
(Memo to Ludacris: Wanna know how to get Bill O'Reilly off your back? Just make sure you identify Michael Kinsley as your target whenever you write a violent lyric.)
Clearly a double standard is at work here. When Bill O'Reilly uses violent imagery to promote his persona, it's marketing. And when Ludacris does it, it's a subversive threat to American values.
Similarly, when Bill O'Reilly writes a novel that includes plenty of sex and violence, it's harmless entertainment. But when Ludacris writes a rap lyric that includes plenty of sex and violence, it's "dangerous" advocacy of a destructive lifestyle. In 1998, O'Reilly published Those Who Trespass, a novel that stars, in the words of its back-jacket promo copy, "a low-profile killer, brutally sadistic and maddeningly professional." The story is further enlivened by a "triangle of erotic suspense." In truth, there is little eroticism and little suspense in this brutally generic and maddeningly delusional book. But there are passages like these ones:
"Costello tasted the salty flavor of blood running in his throat...The assailant's right hand, now holding the oval base of the spoon, rocketed upward, jamming the stainless stem through the roof of Ron Costello's mouth. The soft tissue gave way quickly and the steel penetrated the correspondent's brain stem."
"She tried not to stare at his crotch, even though she saw movement there."
"Then he slipped here panties down her legs and, within seconds, his tongue was inside her, moving rapidly."
"He was speaking hushed tones, telling her how much he enjoyed her body, using words that in polite conversation would have been vulgar, but in this context were extremely erotic. His hands firmly gripped her buttocks."
"Silence circled the room like a starving turkey buzzard."
"These TV guys really are pricks..."
And it's true that in Those Who Trespass, after depicting numerous sadistic murders, and explaining how the victims did kind of deserve it (because they were mean!), O'Reilly is careful to dramatize the fact that Crime Doesn't Pay.
Nonetheless, his comments about his book's success clearly suggest that he knows it's not the triumph of law and order that his readers are buying: "[My publisher is] telling me to write another one quick. Kill more people!" he exclaimed to the Dallas Morning News with apparent glee. So far, killing people in print has been a profitable undertaking for him: Those Who Trespass has had several printings to date, and Mel Gibson is planning to turn it into a feature film.
Which is great for O'Reilly: I, for one, believe that people should be allowed to pursue all kinds of different projects, for different audiences and different venues, and with different standards of decorum informing them. O'Reilly has proven that he can do a Fox News broadcast without blurting out sentiments like "His hands firmly gripped her buttocks," so I think he should be allowed to write erotic murder fantasies about killing his peers in the media world if that's what makes him happy. And since Ludacris has demonstrated that he can in fact write a rap song without using the words "bitch," "ho," or "motherfucker," then I think he actually can function as a commercial spokesperson.
But I know there are a lot of people out there who aren't as open-minded as I am. And those people are probably wondering why it's OK for Fox News to employ a man who brags about "slapping" and "slamming" his adversaries, and also enjoys day-dreaming about ways to murder characters based on real-life people he has known, while it's wrong for Pepsi to employ a man who engages in similar literary transgressions. The answer is simple, however: in America, we expect far more moral accountability from our soft drink manufacturers than we do from the news media.
Posted by Greg Beato at 12:52 AM
September 24, 2002
Music Wars
Kazaa figures out better way to rip off labels, musicians, song-writers: "the new Kazaa allows searches by 'playlist,' letting groups of songs be downloaded as a single item. The company touts this as a way for people to share diverse lists of songs by different artists, while warning against trading copyrighted works. In reality, this new option provides a new, simple way to download albums all at once instead of song by song."
Actually, people probably use that feature as intended -- especially if people are making Billboard 100 playlists and things like that. Many downloaders insist they're not really interested in entire albums anymore -- they just want the two or three best songs on an album. But cherry-picking like that is work -- and downloadable playlists make it less work. What the record industry must realize is that they're now selling convenience, not music. Opportunistic thieves like Kazaa realize this, and are creating services that fulfill this mandate.
Meanwhile, record companies are striking deals like this one: "RioPort, a music technology company, will begin selling digital tracks from Warner Music Group artists. The agreement, announced Monday, will let RioPort sell more than 30,000 titles from Warner Music's catalog online for as little as 99 cents a song. Warner Music, a subsidiary of media giant AOL Time Warner, will let these singles be burned onto CDs or transferred onto portable devices."
Memo to record companies: selling songs one at a time, for too much money, is not the best way to leverage your considerable advantage in the digital distribution domain, nor is it the best way to give fans what they really want.
Posted by Greg Beato at 10:00 AM
Behind the (Digital) Music
Informative piece from Amy Harmon about the challenges that face digital music services like Rhapsody and Pressplay. One of the biggest challenges: negotiating contracts with publishers (i.e., the people who wrote the songs or now own the song's publishing copyright, not the labels).
Posted by Greg Beato at 09:39 AM
September 23, 2002
Synergy Crisis
Married mediaphiles discuss corporate synergy. Conclusion: "Maybe entertainment executives should take a look at the new-urbanist principles -- not just the embrace of human scale, but also of sociability, of careful design, of the adherence to proven models while still allowing for calculated experimentation . . ."
Related thought: Are blogs the New Urbanism of contemporary media? Yes. Can they generate sustainable business models without sacrificing human scale and sociability? Developing...
Posted by Greg Beato at 09:43 AM
Copyright © 1997 - 2005 G. Beato
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Franchise Tax Board's Annual Taxpayers' Bill of Rights Hearing
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Sacramento – The Franchise Tax Board (FTB) invites the public to attend its annual Taxpayers' Bill of Rights hearing next week. This year's hearing will occur during FTB's Board meeting scheduled for:
|Wednesday, December 5, 2012
|Part of the Board meeting that begins at 1:30 p.m
|Franchise Tax Board
Gerald H. Goldberg Auditorium
9646 Butterfield Way
Sacramento, California 95827
The hearing provides taxpayers and tax practitioners a chance to present proposals to change existing state income tax laws and improve FTB's publications or services.
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Action Motor Sports
1355 E Lincoln Rd
Idaho Falls, Idaho
Idaho Falls, Idaho
We Carry: Polaris |
Get a Price Quote from a Dealer in your area
Action Motor Sports Reviews Write A Review
H. Vivlamore (I am a Customer)
Don't buy used sleds from Action online. Both 2008 sleds sold by Action to me as being in good condition were anything but. Action reply: "I should have new ! and how are they to know the engine is in bad shape." It was apparent on receipt the sleds were abused. Local dealer quotes so far are almost $4000 in repair. Stay away.
Ron (I am a Customer)
We purchaced a 2012 rzr from Action Motorsports in May and have had nothing but trouble with it. The machine will not start. The mechanics do not want to take the time needed to make our rzr dependable and the salesman (Greg) has laughed at me on the phone when I call for support. Action Motorsports have a very poor reputation amoung the atv enthusiasts I ride with. I must say, I was given plenty of warnings NOT to buy from them and now I am paying the price for not listening.
Note: They also push for an extended warranty. They cover the warranty in house so it is useless if you are not able to get them to perform the work.
Note: They also push for an extended warranty. They cover the warranty in house so it is useless if you are not able to get them to perform the work.
jerry (I am a Customer)
If this was the last place to buy anything I would not go there. Whatever you do never have this place work on any of your equipment. I can't stress that enough.


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| This article about lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender issues
Dyke is a slang term for a lesbian with certain qualities. Originally it was a derogatory label for a masculine or butch woman, and this usage still exists. However, it has also been reappropriated as a positive term implying assertiveness and toughness, or simply as a neutral synonym for lesbian.
The origin of the term is obscure, and many theories have been proposed. The first printed references come from 1920s novels connected with the Harlem Renaissance and suggest that the term was originally bulldyker, with dyke being a shortened form. For example, in the 1928 novel, "Home to Harlem", Claude McKay wrote:"[Lesbians are] what we calls bulldyker in Harlem. ... I don't understan' ... a bulldyking woman." From the context of the novel, the word was considered crude and pejorative at the time. There are several theories of the origin of "bulldyker". One is that it arose as an abbreviation of "morphadike", a dialect variant of "hermaphrodite", a common term for homosexuals in the early twentieth century. This in turn may be related to the late nineteenth century use of "dyke" (meaning "ditch") as slang for the vulva. "Bull" is also a common expression for "masculine" or "aggressive" (as in "bullish"), so bulldyke may have implied "masculine woman". According to another theory, bulldyker was a term used for bulls whose purpose it was to impregnate cows. Just as the word "stud" was first used for such a purpose and was later used for sexually promiscuous men or for others in reference to a man who was successful with women, the terms "bulldyker" and "bulldagger" were also taken from their original context and used for the same purpose. A man who was a great lover or successful with women was called a "bulldyker." "Bulldyking woman" and "bulldyker" became terms for women who looked like a "bulldyker", a male stud, and were assumed to perform the role, as well.
In Another Mother Tongue, Judy Grahn proposed that the word bulldyke might have arisen from the name of the Celtic queen Boadicea, but this theory is implausible
Increasing acceptance
In the late 20th and early 21st century, the term was reclaimed by many lesbians. Examples in the culture include the comic strip "Dykes to Watch out For" and the traditional Dykes on Bikes that lead pride parades.
Matters came to a head when the United States Patent and Trademark Office denied lesbian motorcycle group Dykes on Bikes a trademark for its name, on the grounds that "dyke" was an offensive word. In 2005, after a prolonged court battle involving testimony on the word's changing role in the lesbian community, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board permitted the group to register its name. (365gay.com)
"Dyke Marches" have become a popular Pride event nationwide. They are generally non-commercial, often in sharp contrast to corporate-sponsored pride events, and are usually inclusive of lesbian, bi, and trans women.
The term will sometimes have an adjective added to it, as in:
- Bulldyke or Bull dyke or Bulldiker or Bulldiger (also, earlier, Bulldagger) – more likely to present as butch
- Diesel dyke – more likely to present as butch who most likely drives a truck
- Baby dyke – a young, immature or recently out lesbian. Sometimes used in a pejorative sense within the LGBT community to refer to a lesbian who attempts to appear butch unsuccessfully.
- Femme dyke – a lesbian who presents in an (often stylized) traditionally feminine way.
- Lipstick Dyke variation on the pop-culture term "lipstick lesbian". Also known as a "doily dyke."
- Stealth Dyke lesbian who can pass for straight, or does not fit the 'dyke' stereotype.
- Trans dyke Transsexual or Transgender woman who romantically and/or sexually prefers females.
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Making My Own Rig: 3DMark and PCMark Vantage Benchmarks
Benchmarks 3DMark PCMark
This Vantage Marks are for a CPU and GPU that has not been overclocked. I will plan to clock them in the future.
PCMark 05 Vantage
Pretty much testing all aspects of the computer (from rendering graphics, website surfing, to HDD usage). I really don't know where my computer stands up compared to the average since they do not disclose the PCmark average for all computers tested. I just know that being able to install ET in 8-9 seconds is much much better than the time it took for my old computer and I am completely satisfied with what I got out of it XD.
Also I have just learned that here is a newer version of PCmark Vantage, but I have yet to try it.
3DMark Vantage
The XFX HD 5770 was able to bench a few more marks than the HD 5770 benchmark standard on the FutureMarks Website and was exactly on par with the ATI HD 4870. The GTX 260 beat out both cards by 400 marks. Not a significant difference but a difference nevertheless.
And just to pull your G-string, the most powerful card on the market the HD5970 was able to bench a massive 24k which easily put any of these cards into the dust. Even if you overclocked to the extreme and crossfired or SLI any of these cards, you wouldn't stand a chance against a default setting of an HD5970.
Review: The Final Costs of My Computer
- 80 mm Antec Fan 34 CFM - $6.70
- 80 mm CoolMaster Fan + Blue LED -$5
- 92 mm Yale Loon Fan -$4.50
- 92 mm GELID 40 CFM Ultrasilent - $8.99
- 120 mm Fan + Blue LED - Came with Case
- Logisys Case - $17
- 500 gb Seagate 7200 rpm SATA2 HD - $49.99
- Logisys Dual Red Cathodes -$6
- Antec Earthwatts 650W Power Supply -$59.99
- Samsung SH-S243D/BEBE 24X Black DVD Writer - $19.99
- Patriot Sector 5 4GB DDR3 -1333 CL 7-7-7-20 Dual Channel (2GB X 2) - $119.99
- AMD Athlon II X4 620 - $108.99
- XFX Radeon HD 5770 - $174.99
Total: $672.12 (Canadian Currency)
Thanks for reading this series of blogs. This is the last segment of Making My Own Rig. I will be doing more things in the future so keep your eyes posted for new entries.
I would like to give a big thanks to Number1Dad for giving me tips along the away and Thundercunt for helping me out with my fan flow and teaching me the basics of overclocking. I would also like to thank everyone who took some time to read my blogs