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New Arrivals and Restocks from Dataobscura/Blue Oasis
New arrivals, along with some restocks, from Canada's Blue Oasis/DataObscura, just added to the Hypnos Online Store.
| Jacob Newman and Devin Underwood – The Vivid Unmapped
(Blue Oasis/Dataobscura category)
(Price: $13.99) Description by Jacob Newman and Devin Underwood:
"Fresh, free-flowing immersive dreamscapes in a minimal contemporary style. Rich with details, textures and treatments, The Vivid Unmapped also exhibits a rare delicacy throughout its various moods and sonic excursions. If you enjoy music like Entia Non and offthesky you are in for a real treat.
What started out as a collaborative experiment quickly transformed into something much larger. As we continued to work together we became more and more comfortable with the project, allowing the album to take on a beautiful lush environment filled with non-conflicting sounds even with the presence of multiple tracks of field recordings, guitars, synths, piano, effects, and more. The idea of sleep, dreaming, and hypnagogic states soon became a focus and direction for the project, with the songs representing many of our oneiric feelings."…
| Robert Davies – Pond
(Blue Oasis/Dataobscura category)
(Price: $13.99) Another deep pastoral exploration from Robert Davies. This time consisting of four longer, 15 minute pieces. A work inspired by lines from Thoreau's Walden. Possibly the most meditative and serene of Robert's albums to date. A work of subtle changes and consistent moods that functions well as both background ambiance and immersive mental landscapes…
| Robert Davies – Whispering Grove
(Blue Oasis/Dataobscura category)
(Price: $13.99) Possibly his most perfect pastoral album to date. Music that brings romantic visions of languishing within secluded bowers of intoxicating scents and lush humid overgrowth. Crafted with an unassuming simplicity and deftness, this is an album guaranteed to transport you…


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PopUps: Is Ariana Grande Teasing a Madonna Collaboration for New Album?
Ariana Grande and Madonna fans are freaking out over a recent tweet made by the "The Light is Coming" singer.
Grande took to Twitter Wednesday and shared a black-and-white photo of herself looking shocked - her hand covering her mouth - as Madonna stands in front of her with a big grin. The singer wrote, "thank you @Madonna...u know why." She also added a heart emoji and an emoji of the Golden Gate Bridge, which she's often used when posting about new music, Billboard notes.
Fans were quick to speculate that Madonna will be featured on a new track from Grande, who has a new album called "Sweetener" out on August 17.
In other Grande news, the singer surprised fans again on Wednesday when she revealed her next single "God is a Woman" will be dropping Friday - a week earlier than she previously announced.
This story is part of our special report titled "PopUps." Want to read more? Here's the full list.

subset: commoncrawl


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Dooney & Bourke is world renown for creating classic designs, and this NC State Wolfpack Triple-zip crossbody purse is one of the most sought after silhouettes in the fashion industry.
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If you're like thousands of other job seekers, you may dream of earning the big bucks without having to deal with the extreme stress that goes hand-in-hand with top-paying jobs. Of course, a high-salary, low-stress job sounds too good to be true. Or is it?
IN PICTURES: World's Greatest Investors
Believe it or not, you don't have to take on a heart-pounding career as a brain surgeon, airline pilot or stock broker to bring home some serious bacon. As a matter of fact, some of the highest-stress jobs pay surprisingly scanty salaries. Just think about police officers, firefighters and social workers. These folks have quite possibly the most nerve-racking jobs in the world, yet most of them earn less than $45,000 a year. What about combat soldiers who face death on a daily basis? They typically earn less than $30,000 a year.
In other words, high stress does not always equal a hefty salary, or vice versa. Fortunately, there are plenty of laid-back career choices that pay quite generously. (If you want to switch careers, you may not have to go back to school to do it. Find out how, in Sell Your Skills, Not Your Degree.)
- Physical Therapist
Although physical therapists (PT) work in the notoriously stressful medical field, they enjoy some unique advantages over ER nurses and doctors. First of all, PTs have flexible hours and generally aren't expected to work nights. Secondly, many physical therapists are self-employed - which means they don't have to deal with the stress of a boss breathing down their neck while they work. Plus, as the massive Baby Boomer generation continues grow older and face new physical challenges, PTs are constantly flooded with patients. As a result, physical therapists rarely suffer from dry spells.
To top it all off, physical therapists can earn anywhere between $50,000-105,000 a year. Now that's therapeutic.
- Computer Software Engineer
If you're a tech geek seeking a relatively low-pressure career, you may want to check out the software engineering field. Software engineers design and test a variety of different types of software, from computer games to operating systems to business applications. These days, many software engineers can work from home, since their jobs can be done from practically anywhere. Software engineers also bring home steep salaries, normally ranging between $54,000-130,000 a year. There's nothing nerdy about that. (For some examples of the great work software engineers do, check out 6 Financial Apps You'll Love.)
- Civil Engineer
Civil engineers design and build our nation's infrastructure, from public buildings and roads to water supply and pollution control systems. Obviously, these projects aren't pressure-free, but civil engineers generally work in teams, which helps alleviate some of the stress. As a bonus, these experts also enjoy long deadlines. As a matter of fact, most engineers have a few years to design and plan out a project before the construction company even breaks ground. Even less stressful? Civil engineers don't have to work too hard to hunt down jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, civil engineers are expected to see a 24% spike in employment growth over the next 10 years - well above average for all U.S. occupations. Civil engineers bring home a respectable $50,000-115,000 a year.
- Massage Therapist
Massage therapy is an extremely low-pressure, relaxing career for most people. (As long as the thought of touching a stranger's back doesn't drive your stress level through the roof, of course.) Not only are most massage therapists self employed, but they also get to smell soothing aromatherapy scents and listen to calming background music or ocean sounds all day while they work. Because many massage therapists work part-time, yearly salaries vary wildly in this field. However, most of these massaging masters charge by the hour. On average, they earn between $10-35 an hour.
Of course, if you take on plenty of clients, you could easily earn a salary of $45,000 or more. That kind of cash will certainly not rub you the wrong way. (Sound relaxing? Check out 10 Office Exercises To Combat Stress And Weight Gain for tips on how to stay relaxed in your workplace.)
- Technical Writer
In this high-tech age, new groundbreaking tools, mobile devices or innovative gadgets are released on practically a daily basis. Obviously, someone has to write about these ingenious doodads and complicated thingamabobs. That's where technical writers come into play. Although they sometimes face tight deadlines, technical writers typically enjoy flexible hours and a comfortable, quiet workspace. Quite a few of them have an enviable 10-second commute - from their bedroom to their desk. Because all they need is a phone and a computer with an internet connection, many technical writers work from home.
What's more is that technical writers are extremely high in demand. As technical companies continue to release pioneering new products, someone has to transform their complex technical-ese into everyday language the average customer can comprehend. Technical writers generally earn between $47,000-98,000 a year.
Lower Your Stress; Raise Your Salary
So, it turns out that you don't have to risk life and limb, save lives or suffer from stress-induced stomach ulcers to make a decent salary. From sales managers and graphic designers to college professors and training consultants, there are plenty of rewarding, angst-less jobs out there that come with generous salaries. (For tips on how to land your dream job, see Top 2010 Job-Hunting Tips.)
Still feeling uninformed? Read this week's financial news highlights in Water Cooler Finance: Buffett's Armed and Greece Keeps Falling.


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Michelle Alton 8/27/2012 8:20:28 AMHAD to be Chihuly! Wow! You've really done a brilliant job of captureing these beautiful "bladders." #1482774
Connie J. Bagot 8/27/2012 9:44:20 AMThese are beautiful! Lovely color and I totally love the shapes and the way you have caught the repetition of them. #10292453
Claudia Kuhn 8/27/2012 9:53:05 AMCool! Great colors and detail Kathy. There was a whole ceiling of Chihuly's work in one of the hotels in Vegas, but hard to photograph #10292457
John Connolly 8/27/2012 1:45:19 PMIncredible light, color and detail here Katherine! What an amazing image, I think we might see this one again! #10292716
David Phalen 8/27/2012 7:07:31 PMHis work is so beautifully and you have captured it perfectly!! #10293026
Phillip R. Connolly 8/28/2012 5:33:17 PMWhat a great subject, Katherine! I love the way the light reacts with it! Beautiful!
Phil #10294285
Inge S. Lasmana 9/7/2012 2:55:48 PMVery beautiful colors and details. #10313365
A small section of a 6' hanging sculpture at the Chihuly Glass Garden, Seattle, WA
Exif: F Number: 5.3, Exposure Bias Value: 0.00, ExposureTime: 1/50 seconds, Flash: did not fire., ISO: 800, White balance: Manual white balance, FocalLength: 90.00 mm, Model: NIKON D300S
Uploaded on 8/27/2012 8:18:46 AM
Camera: Nikon D300s Digital SLR Camera
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Power Mate .325" Rim Sprocket System
Replaces OEM :
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Please Note : Use with OMK37517 bearing
Brand : OREGON Power Mate
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text:
It was the summer of 2001, and computer programmer Michael Phipps had a problem: His favorite operating system, BeOS, was about to go extinct. Having an emotional attachment to a piece of software may strike you as odd, but to Phipps and many others (including me), BeOS deserved it. It ran amazingly fast on the hardware of its day; it had a clean, intuitive user interface; and it offered a rich, fun, and modern programming environment. In short, we found it vastly superior to every other computer operating system available. But the company that had created BeOS couldn't cut it in the marketplace, and its assets, including BeOS, were being sold to a competitor.
Worried that under a new owner BeOS would die a slow, unsupported death, Phipps did the only logical thing he could think of: He decided to re-create BeOS completely from scratch, but as open-source code. An open-source system, he reasoned, isn't owned by any one company or person, and so it can't disappear just because a business goes belly-up or key developers leave.
Now if you've ever done any programming, you'll know that creating an operating system is a huge job. And expecting people to do that without paying them is a little nuts. But for the dozens of volunteer developers who have worked on Haiku, it has been a labor of love. In the 11 years since the project began, we've released three alpha versions of the software, and this month we expect to release the fourth and final alpha. After that we'll move to the beta stage, which we hope to get out by the end of the year, followed by the first official release, known as R1, in early 2013.
Even now, anybody can install and run the operating system on an Intel x86-based computer. Many of those who have done so comment that even the alpha releases of Haiku feel as stable as the final release of some other software. Indeed, of all the many alternative operating systems now in the works, Haiku is probably the best positioned to challenge the mainstream operating systems like Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. For both users and developers, the experience of running Haiku is incredibly consistent, and like BeOS, it is fast, responsive, and efficient. What's more, Haiku, unlike its more established competitors, is exceedingly good at tackling one of the toughest challenges of modern computing: multicore microprocessors. Let's take a look at why that is, how Haiku came to be, and whether the operating system running on your computer really performs as well as it should.
First, a little history. In 1991, a Frenchman named Jean-Louis Gassée and several other former Apple employees founded Be Inc. because they wanted to create a new kind of computer. In particular, they sought to escape the backward-compatibility trap they'd witnessed at Apple, where every new version of hardware and software had to take into account years of legacy systems, warts and all. The company's first product was a desktop computer called the BeBox. Finding no other operating system that met their needs, the Be engineers wrote their own.
Released in October 1995, the BeBox didn't last long. BeOS, on the other hand, quickly found a small yet loyal following, and it was soon running on Intel x86-based PCs and Macintosh PowerPC clones. At one point Apple even considered BeOS as a replacement for its own operating system. The company eventually released a stripped-down version of BeOS for Internet appliances, but it wasn't enough. In 2001, Palm acquired Be for a reported US $11 million.
Even as the sale of Be was being finalized, Phipps launched the Haiku project, which back then was known as OpenBeOS. (The name changed a few years later; see box, "What's in a Name?")
From the start, Phipps decided that the project's singular focus would be to replicate the last official release of BeOS, known as R5. In hindsight, this was a stroke of genius. Open-source efforts, generally done for fun in people's free time, can sometimes fizzle out or get sidetracked without ever releasing anything tangible. Haiku has avoided this fate because the developers all believed in the goal of replicating R5.
Still, Phipps and those who joined him had their work cut out for them. An operating system is extremely complex, especially one as comprehensive as BeOS, whose various layers and applications had all been designed from the ground up to work together. Some of the most gifted engineers in Silicon Valley had developed the software over the course of more than 10 years. Re-creating such a system with an all-volunteer crew working in their free time was a crazy idea. But then, that's how Linux came to be, as well as the Free Software Foundation's GNU software, from the Gnu C Compiler to GnuCash, an accounting program.
Much like the layers of a cake, a computer system consists of the hardware, an operating system that manages the hardware, and the applications that run within the operating system, such as Web browsers, document editors, and fun things like games. The operating system is also the means by which programmers give instructions to the hardware.
Fortunately, BeOS had been written in a modular fashion, making it relatively straightforward to develop, test, and then replace each component of BeOS with its open-source equivalent. A few pieces of BeOS had already been released by Be as open source, such as the Tracker and Deskbar, which are equivalent to Windows' Explorer and Taskbar and to OS X's Finder and Dock. One of the first chunks of code that the volunteers tackled was the screen-saver kit, which has a very simple function but also a lot of moving parts. Among other things, it has to constantly monitor activity on the keyboard and mouse, load the screen-saver settings at the right times, and ask for a password when the screen saver is turned off. Once all the parts had been nailed down, Phipps replaced the BeOS screen saver with the open-source version, and much to everyone's surprise and delight, it worked. More important, it was a proof of concept that showed the developers they could replace each module in BeOS and know it would be fully compatible.
In 2008 we reached a milestone. Haiku, like any piece of software, is written in source code; to convert the source code into binary instructions that the computer can process, you need to compile it. The breakthrough was that we were finally able to compile the Haiku source code from within Haiku itself; programmers refer to that feat as "self-hosting." This step is critical in the development of any operating system, because without it, the OS will always be dependent on other systems.
Even as the development was getting under way, Phipps was working to create an organizational home for Haiku, eventually establishing Haiku Inc. as a nonprofit organization in 2003. In addition to overseeing the project and taking in donations, Haiku Inc. holds the copyrights to and the trademarks of the Haiku website, logo, and of course, the source code. All Haiku source code is now licensed under what's called the MIT License, which allows full and free use of the code by pretty much everyone, including private companies and other open-source projects.
Of course, the Haiku team also has to be mindful of not infringing on BeOS's patents, which are still in force. In general, we maintain a friendly relationship with the Japanese software company Access, which now owns the rights to BeOS; for example, the company allows us to post BeOS documentation on our website, and it has never challenged any of our efforts to replicate BeOS technology. Would Access or some other corporation that thinks it has a right to our code choose to sue a small open-source project like ours? Financially, it wouldn't make much sense, and it would also generate a lot of bad publicity. But we'll just have to wait and see. Given the current frenzied state of intellectual property litigation in the United States and elsewhere, no software project can be considered completely immune from legal troubles.
In 2007, Phipps announced he was leaving the project for personal reasons, and a new group of people took over Haiku Inc. Much as Phipps had anticipated at the outset, the loss of one leader hasn't doomed the project. I'm currently the treasurer and, along with the other executives of Haiku Inc., sit on its board of directors. We've kept the momentum going, and at their latest gathering in Düsseldorf, Germany, in early April, Haiku developers worked on the imminent alpha release.
At this point, we've replicated BeOS R5 so precisely that legacy BeOS applications, now more than 10 years old, can run on Haiku. When the project first started, many thought this sort of compatibility would be impossible. And in many key areas, Haiku has surpassed its predecessor. For example, Haiku supports more languages than BeOS did and is more amenable to internationalization in other ways as well. It can also handle modern video cards, newer processors, and wireless network access, and it supports more memory than BeOS could.
And in terms of programming, Haiku makes it much easier to design user interfaces for applications, because it has a built‑in layout tool that lets you automatically place icons and other widgets on the screen. With BeOS, developers had to specify each minute detail of the layout, aligning buttons with check boxes by hand, for instance. These and other enhancements have allowed Haiku to remain relevant, despite the lightning-fast pace of innovation in computer hardware and software.
Even so, you may be wondering: With Windows, Mac OS X, hundreds of versions of Linux, and numerous mobile operating systems, does the world really need Haiku?
Yes, it does, for many reasons. Much as in nature, computer viruses flourish in a monoculture, and because so many of us use Windows computers, Windows viruses find plenty of victims. Further, if one operating system has a monopoly, its creators have little reason to improve their software. (Competition from the Mozilla Firefox browser is, after all, largely what prompted Microsoft to update Internet Explorer.) And diversity promotes interoperability because it compels software developers to create code that plays well with others. When there's very little competition, there's no incentive to do so.
But Haiku does more than just expand the gene pool of operating systems. One of the first things people notice about it is that it doesn't feel anything like Windows or OS X or Linux. It's unique. Linux, for instance, is based around a core—called a kernel—that was originally designed for use in servers and only later modified for desktop systems. As a consequence, the kernel sometimes gives short shrift to the user interface, which Linux users experience as annoying delays when their computers are doing especially taxing things, like burning a DVD or compiling code. Haiku's kernel has always been for a desktop system, and so it always gives priority to whatever is happening by way of its graphical user interface.
In between the kernel and the graphical user interface is what's known as the application programming interface, or API. An API is what application developers use to access other software systems, and the design of that API can affect both the developers and the eventual users of their software. Haiku has just one API. Linux, by contrast, has hundreds of APIs and about as many user interfaces, so you can't just switch seamlessly from one version of Linux to another. The version you use can greatly alter the appearance of your computer screen, the way programs boot and execute, and various other things, all of which make it quite difficult to develop software that consistently runs well on all Linux systems.
All of Haiku's components are designed to work together from the ground up; that includes its applications, like the media player and the Web browser. Its source code even uses a consistent style, something developers really appreciate because it allows them to quickly get up to speed. A developer writing code for Haiku can be confident it will run and act the same way on all Haiku installations. Even though Haiku is open source, there will always be only one official version. All this combines to provide a remarkably consistent user experience.
What really sets Haiku apart, though, is its efficiency and speed. On my three-year-old desktop computer, Haiku boots up from a cold start in 10 to 15 seconds, and when running it uses only about 170 megabytes of RAM. Compared with other operating systems, it's great at maximizing available computing resources. Haiku feels fast and responsive even when running on older systems that would otherwise be considered obsolete because they can no longer handle the inefficiency and bloat of other operating systems.
Much of Haiku's efficiency and speed is a direct result of its BeOS legacy. BeOS was designed from the start to make full use of threads, which in computing terms represent sequences of executing code. Much as fabric consists of many threads woven together, an operating system is made of threads that all have to share time on the processor. Generally, there is one thread for each application and one for the operating system's user interface as well. The problem is that the user interface in particular needs more than one thread. Those "application is not responding" messages in Windows and the "beach ball of death" in OS X—which most of us experience with some regularity and frustration—are a direct result of using just one thread for the user interface. When that thread gets too backed up with work or has another problem (like a slow network), the whole application interface locks up.
That didn't happen on BeOS, and it doesn't happen on Haiku. Where BeOS drove ahead of other operating systems of its time (and where Haiku is still ahead of contemporary operating systems) is that each individual application uses many threads. The core of the application itself has one thread, and each window the application creates has a thread. While this can make the code a little more complicated to write, the result is that applications almost never lag or lock up.
This highly threaded system means that Haiku can make great use of multiple processors or CPU cores, which are now ubiquitous. The Haiku kernel allows each thread to run on its own core or processor—even threads within the same application. Adding more threads for other tasks, such as retrieving data from a network, is also straightforward. Other operating systems make use of multiple cores only when running many applications at the same time or when a particular application has special multithreading code added to it. But this multithreaded code is difficult to write, and so most applications don't have it.
Haiku simplifies the process of writing multithreaded code by hiding most of the thread interaction so that the developer doesn't need to worry about it. A big part of what makes this work is the extensive use of message passing. Let's say Thread A and Thread B in an application both want to retrieve a piece of data from Thread C. Instead of directly accessing that data, Threads A and B each pass a message, which is placed in a central message queue and dealt with in a specified order. Without that mechanism, the two threads would attempt to access Thread C simultaneously, creating a deadlock, in which they both just wait endlessly. With Haiku, messages can be passed within an application and also to other applications. Haiku's message-passing code thus manages all the complexities of threading so that the developer doesn't have to.
The main reason that BeOS used multiple threads was because the BeBox was conceived of as a media platform. One of BeOS's marketing monikers, in fact, was "the media OS." While that might have been a bit of hype, the system was very good at handling multimedia. In a typical product demo, a BeBox would play half a dozen different videos at the same time, with no lag or frame dropping, while the system still remained responsive. The efficiency of the system also allowed for low latency in audio processing. While Haiku still needs work in these areas, it is well ahead of many other systems.
Another advantage that Haiku has over other operating systems is that it makes extensive use of a database-like file system, which allows any file to have various attributes associated with it. These attributes can then be indexed and queried just as in a contemporary database. For example, each e-mail message in Haiku is stored along with attributes such as the subject, the sender's name and address, and the recipient's name and address. From the operating system's file manager, known as Tracker, you can search on any of these attributes. Attributes also let you extract the song information from MP3 files and then easily organize and search your music library through Tracker. Entries in Haiku's address book, known as People files, consist almost entirely of attributes.
Having your operating system organize your e-mail and address book offers a huge advantage: You're no longer tethered to just one program to manage your e-mail or your contacts. Anyone who has ever tried extracting old e-mails from a bloated Microsoft Outlook mail file will understand the beauty of this approach. Instead of having your e-mail locked into a proprietary format that's accessible from only one program, Haiku lets you use whatever program you want—you can even use multiple programs on the same set of e-mails. Similarly, Haiku's People files can be edited and managed by various programs and can even be edited from within Tracker. No other operating system has so successfully implemented a database-like file system.
For all its capabilities, Haiku does lack some key things that users have come to expect. For example, most operating systems today have interfaces that are hardware accelerated. That allows fancy graphics like window shadows, transparent window borders, and thumbnails of window contents to be handled in a fast, efficient way using video cards. Users of mainstream operating systems also have a huge array of applications to choose from. Haiku at the moment is limited to the few applications created specifically for it or left over from BeOS.
And like other open-source operating systems, Haiku suffers from a lack of hardware drivers. Modern video cards, printers, and other components are complicated—they're like miniature computers in their own right, and they require complex pieces of software, called drivers, to work. The driver acts as a bridge between the operating system and the hardware. But these days there are so many types and brands and models of hardware that it's hard for open-source developers to keep up.
Fortunately, Haiku can build off work already being done by the thousands of developers who work on Linux, FreeBSD, and other open-source operating systems. Haiku already makes use of FreeBSD's network- and wireless-card drivers through a special translation interface. Work is also under way to incorporate the new Gallium3D system, which looks to be the future for video-card drivers on Linux.
What's more, many of Haiku's strengths will likely never be matched by the leading operating systems, or at least not anytime soon. Linux applications aren't designed for multithreaded use to the same extent as Haiku's and thus can't take full advantage of modern multicore hardware. With its Snow Leopard release of OS X two years ago, Apple added a new technology, called Grand Central Dispatch, that makes it easier for applications to use multiple threads. But there's still just one thread for the application's user interface, and so the "beach ball of death" persists.
The latest release of Windows 7 is a big improvement over its predecessor, but it still has many issues, such as widespread interface inconsistency and just plain information overload. The control panel alone is enough to give a user a migraine. Windows is also huge: A bare-bones installation of Windows 7 Ultimate will consume 20 gigabytes of storage. Even if you include the dozens of free applications that come with Haiku, installing the operating system will cost you only about 700 MB—one-thirtieth the real estate required for Windows 7. And as for being a free and open system, neither Windows nor Mac OS will ever be either.
Ultimately, Haiku represents a different way of viewing your personal computer. If you think that software shouldn't be riddled with bugs and incompatibilities and inefficiencies, if you hate being forced to swap out your hardware and software every few years because "upgrades" have rendered them obsolete, and if you find that the idea of using an operating system that's fast, responsive, and simple is refreshingly novel and appealing, then maybe, just maybe, Haiku is for you.
This article originally appeared in print as "The Dawn of Haiku."
About the Author
Ryan Leavengood is a computer consultant in Boynton Beach, Fla., who specializes in Ruby on Rails website development. He first became involved in the open-source effort to create the Haiku operating system in 2003 and is now the group's treasurer. No operating system is perfect, he notes, but "some are really imperfect. I figured any operating system I worked on couldn't be worse than what I was already using." When Leavengood isn't programming, he and his wife, Francesca, tend to their four cats, one St. Bernard, and a garden of native Florida plants.


text:
Sketchfest with The Midnight Show
(posted by t.j. peters)
Vodpod videos no longer available.
"Hey, whaddya know, it's The Ten-Thirty Shoooow!!!" So that's not normally how Eric Moneypenny's calling card introduction begins, but for the trip to Sketchfest it would have been more accurate. The Midnight Show had hour-and-a-half early performances on Friday and Saturday night during last weekend's edition of the San Francisco Sketchfest, both of which I was fortunate enough to attend. Unfortunately, since the shows ended at approximately 11:30 PM as opposed to their usual 1:00 AM, I had additional time to do more and remember less in the hours leading up to the next morning. However, I did manage to come away with a few select memories, which I'll share with you now in this extended, two-night coverage blog entry.
Friday Night
Part One – Tomotel!!!
Think about the Tomo Hotel like this: You know your favorite anime? Well you hate it now. Don't like anime? Well then you just killed yourself. From the hardwood print carpet to the five foot clearance hanging lamps, every room in this Japantown paradise is like a living version of Katamari Damacy. To help put this in perspective, please take a moment to review the following mural, which was adjacent to my bed.
Why do those police officers have dogs printed on them? Are the dogs also police officers? Wait, are those even police officers? Could they be train conductors? Are the dogs also train conductors? Eh, doesn't really matter. They live in a city of façade building fronts and are about to be destroyed by a giant robot, anyway.
Even if I didn't stay up until 5 a.m. or later every night of the trip, I still wouldn't have gotten any sleep because of that thing.
Part Two – Rubix Club
I will never solve a Rubix Cube and it upsets me. I will never solve a Rubix Cube blindfolded and it's less upsetting to me. I will never solve a Rubix Cube blindfolded in a crowded, noisy bar and it definitely does not upset me. I will never solve a Rubix Cube blindfolded in a crowded, noisy bar while drinking beer and I wouldn't expect that Jesus Christ himself could accomplish such a feat.
Notice the inverse relationship between the difficulty of the Rubix Cube scenario and my feelings towards not being able to accomplish it. Now take the inverse of that and look what you get – the two fucking guys I saw who were solving Rubix Cubes blindfolded in the crowded, noisy bar while drinking beer! What?!
I have to hand it to them, though. As far as "showing your true colors" goes, these guys absolutely pave the way (and then twist it on a pivot mechanism until each side is a solid color). I think it might serve people well if we all brought our obscure personal interests to the bar. The knitting needles, ping-pong paddles, and ball gags would help us figure out at a glance who we're interested in. Personally, I would avoid the Rubix Cube guys, though. Despite the fact that there were two completed Cubes on their table, I never saw either of them complete one. Just like the guy who wears a fake Rolex or a shirt that's too small to make his muscles look bigger, these two fools only brought the Cubes to scam on some bitches.
Part Three – Honestly, This is Not Funny
In a sketch titled "Philip Seymour Hoffman Calls in Sick for Work", James Adomian plays the Oscar-winning actor as a pretentious, froggy-throated prima donna, hollering on the phone to his boss (or agent), Gary. At the height of his brilliantly over-acted excuse- which we find out by the end is all a lie- Hoffman screams, "I'm a truth teller, Gary!" in reference to his craft. The irony is perfect and it always gets a laugh out of me, as it did to Friday night's crowd.
I point out this sketch to use as sort of a scientific control. The subject of the experiment, then, occurred thirty minutes earlier in John Ennis's monologue. In what I consider to be one of the most earnest moments I've ever witnessed, Ennis delivered a seven minute speech about The Midnight Show that was, in a word, truthful. I don't mean truthful in the sense that I believe his words were factual (though I do), but rather that he meant every word he said. In an annotated version, I'll paraphrase:
It's so exciting to work with these guys. I've been really lucky to host their show more than once. It's like getting to play tuba with The Beatles. . . I'm fucking serious! These guys work so hard! They moved into a house together, so when they wake up in the morning they're surrounded by each other! Isn't that fucking amazing? . . . And thank you [to the audience] for doing yourself a favor and coming out to see this show because pretty soon, when they're in the TV shows and movies you love, you're going to look back and remember coming to The Purple Onion tonight.
Result: Some awkward laughter and lackluster applause as Ennis jubilantly leapt off stage.
Now I understand that the purpose of a monologue is to warm-up the audience and set the tone for the show, but in this instance I could have really cared less. Frankly, it pissed me off that the rest of the crowd couldn't embrace what they were being given. Ennis riffed honestly. He was an actor shedding away the character and speaking the truth. And so, looking back to the control, here's the question I've been asking myself since Friday night. Why is it funny to watch a character who's full of shit call himself a truth-teller, but off-putting to a watch someone genuine actually tell the truth? Honestly, I have no idea.
Saturday Night
Part Four – Straight Line to Union Square
The plan sounded simple enough. We'd grab a bite to eat, and then meet up with a couple people at Union Square. We'd heard it's pretty cool there. Little did we know, all the 3G coverage in the world couldn't save us.
Before I take you along on a recreation of our travels, take a moment to study the map below, tracing our route from "A" to "B" and so on.
The journey began with what I now consider to be a warm up, though at the time it felt like a cross-country trek. We walked seven blocks (which does, in fact, suck when you're hungover and without your sunglasses) from the Tomo Hotel ("A") to point "B". I should have known that things weren't going to go well when my buddy Hark translated the directions he received as, "the Doughboy on Quay," when we were headed to The Crepevine, just past Clay Street. Somehow we made it there.
After breakfast, we officially started "moving toward" Union Square. You'll notice that Union Square can be reached on a straight line from Sutter – the street out hotel was on – and that we blew past it and continued another six blocks to "C". It was at this point that we actually decided to consult a map. Unfortunately, the one we looked at was not topographical. Had it been, we would have noticed that after continuing to "D" and making a left, the next twelve blocks would be an eighty degree uphill climb.
It didn't take long for morale to get low. We started shedding travelers at the same rate as our sweaty clothes. (If it makes it sexier for you, please feel free to picture any or all of us completely naked.) The excuses for abandonment started off strong with reasoning such as "I've got to fix the DVD before the show," but eventually devolved to departing statements like, "I'm gonna go pee over here." I wish I would have been as smart. (Note: Once again, notice that after walking the first six blocks from "D" to "E" we had traveled an approximate total of twenty-seven blocks, yet were only one block away from our hotel.)
This trend continued. The next five blocks from "E" to "F" were at least downhill, so we all had the pleasure of working out a new set of muscles, especially if you (me) were wearing heels. Once at "F", a brief period of dawdling and toying around with the idea of walking the wrong direction passed before we moved south, taking us another six blocks to "G".
"G" brought us once again to Sutter Street, six blocks from the Tomo Hotel and eight more yet to Union Square. We had officially traveled about forty-four blocks, roughly three and a half miles, and at no point reached even the halfway point between our hotel and Union Square. So what was the next step?
"Fuck it, let's go somewhere else." Which we did. . . in a cab.
Part Five – A Picture is Worth About 2,000 Words
The above photo was taken outside The Purple Onion on the night of the Friday show. If you're interested in taking a little glimpse at the rest of weekend, check out this photo gallery I put up on Flickr.
Part Six – What's Behind the Curtain?
I watched The Midnight Show perform on two consecutive nights with different hosts and altered set lists on a small, unfamiliar stage. On night one a large contingent of the crowd was old enough to remember the first time they saw Woody Allen at The Purple Onion. Night two came with a heckler and a pony-tailed douchebag (not me) who thought his off-the-cuff zingers deserved to be part of the show. Regardless of these obstacles, The Midnight Show fucking brought it both nights. Their energy from beginning to end was relentless and it translated not only to the laughs from the audience, but to the ones coming from "backstage."
I refer to the backstage in quotes because, really, there wasn't one. Seeing as The Purple Onion is a room built for stand-up, the only place the dozen-or-so member cast could gather was a little alcove that led to the bathrooms. At best, four or five of them could fit back there (six or seven if anyone was on the can), so most of time the cast was spilling out into the back of the main room.
Now I've seen TMS plenty of times at this point and I've always been able to feel their energy, but this time was different. When the lights went down and the opening began with the blaring punk rock of The Bronx, the audience would have been better served turning their seats around. Like a college football team getting ready to charge out of the tunnel, The Midnight Show jumped, thrashed, and stared each other in the eyes with a confidence that only comes from being truly talented. The only thing missing was a sign for them to tap that read "Perform Like a Champion Today." And the beauty of it was, the energy didn't die after the introduction. As members went to and from the stage, it was as if they were passing a torch that carried that energy, and this went on throughout the entirety of their show. By the end, the audience was holding the torch.
The Midnight Show comes ready to work, but they also understand that it takes more than simply showing up to make some noise; they bring heart. It's this dynamic that sets them apart from other comedy groups. What they've created is both professional and sacred. They do it for themselves, they do it for each other, and they do it with a purpose. Because of this, as they grow in strength and popularity, it will only be a matter of time before they are widely known, and people will say about their talent in a plain, almost obvious tone, "Hey, whaddya know, it's The Midnight Show."
My name is t.j and I road blogged this.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Book your tickets for The Midnight Show's monthly performances at UCB-LA by clicking here.
And check out the rest of San Francisco Sketchfest's schedule by clicking here.
The Road to Sketchfest with The Midnight Show
"I'm going to eat you," he pronounced in raspy, slurred English. "I'm going to eat you and your family." As far as we knew, those were the only words Adam (or Aaron, or whatever . . . it really doesn't matter cause that dude was fucking crazy) was capable of speaking. At one point he asked me for a lighter, but as I recall he did so using a series of hand gestures and indecipherable grunts. Verbalized or not, it turned out he actually needed a cigarette, which I promptly gave to obtain amnesty in the event that he grew hungry for me and my loved ones.
After the seven hour drive that included rural routes, Roman candles, unexpected snowfall, and Disney sing-a-longs, the Sketchfest trip officially began at the International Sports Club, which is where I met up with The Midnight Show and, eventually, the above referenced Dr. Lecter. The night had many high points, I must say, most of which were strange and depraved for various reasons. And surprisingly, "I'm going to eat you" guy wasn't the creepiest individual encountered. The following scenario was told to me by Hal and Joe of The Midnight Show, which I'll translate in language simple enough for a monosyllabic cannibal to understand:
Man masturbates in street. Hal and Joe view from afar. Man shows no signs of stopping. Hal and Joe appreciate man's commitment. Man is interrupted by very rude pedestrians. Hal and Joe wonder if it's a citizens' arrest. Man discovers that citizens are police officers. Hal and Joe feel bad for man. Man feels very arrested.
Just to clarify, that's a story about a man openly masturbating on the sidewalk. In theory, he was walking along, possibly to or from home (our witnesses claim he didn't appear to be homeless), and thought to himself, "Here's good." Then he masturbated. So there's that story.
I'd like to think that as I continue to report on this weekend there won't be any more anecdotes involving threats to my life or public indecency, but that's obviously a pipe dream. Might as well openly disrespect inevitability and propose a bold toast with my Day Two one o'clock cocktail: Here's to nothing even remotely weird happening for the rest of the trip! Try me, San Francisco.
My name is t.j. and this blog is parked in SF.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Tickets are still available for The Midnight Show on Friday (featuring John Ennis, Mr. Show) and Saturday (featuring Trevor Moore, The Whitest Kids U' Know). Make it happen.
Burning the Midnight Oil at Sketchfest
(posted by t.j. peters)
Today I journey. I've packed all the essentials: one pair of underwear, a book of Mad Libs®, a road trip apple pie, all the Burger King® gift cards I accrued over the holidays, and my inalienable, Patch Adams-esque passion for orphans. Just as these items are packed in my suitcase, I am too essentially a piece of luggage in the cargo deck of sketch comedy group The Midnight Show as we travel to the San Francisco Sketchfest.
For the better part of their year and a half run at the UCB Theatre L.A., I've been attending The Midnight Show on the first Saturday of every month – starting at (roughly) midnight – and for a smaller percentage of that time, had the pleasure of chain smoking and drinking whisky on the front porch of the "Midnight Mansion", the veritable Bat Cave where most of the group resides. Now, as a fan and a friend, I'm looking forward to a long weekend of TMS's break-neck sketch comedy at Sketchfest.
If you're in the San Francisco area and want your weekend to matter, here's a reason to check out The Midnight Show:
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And if balls falling out of jean shorts isn't your fancy, then go fuck yourself. However, alternatively, please do no fuck yourself while watching those fancy balls fall out of their jean shorts. Instead, occupy your perverted mind with one of the smartest sketches I've ever seen:
Vodpod videos no longer available.
I'm serious, folks. Tickets are still available for Friday (featuring John Ennis, Mr. Show) and Saturday (featuring Trevor Moore, The Whitest Kids U' Know), so do yourself a favor and check it out. As for me, though I plan to document the trip as accurately as possible, my hope and intention is to report based on the fragmented reality left over from what will surely be a very fun weekend. Check back in the days to come for my Sketchfest updates.
My name is t.j. and this blog is on wheels.
- An Interview with Brian Firenzi of 5secondfilms
- Sketchfest with The Midnight Show
- The Road to Sketchfest with The Midnight Show
- Burning the Midnight Oil at Sketchfest
- Choose Your Own Adventure: An Interview with DC Pierson of DERRICK
- Resolving Non-Conflict: An Interview with Sketch Comedy's The Birthday Boys
- February 2010 (1)
- January 2010 (3)
- August 2009 (1)
- June 2009 (1)
- April 2009 (1)
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text:
rembrandt, IA
More regularly than not auto accident lawsuits settle quickly � several months at the precise most, and there is no need for a lawsuit funding. The irritated gathering gets the settlement reward they are normal and everyone continues ahead. Regardless, various auto accident lawsuits don't settle quickly, and they postpone for quite a while, all over there years. The focus when this happens the outraged gathering is habitually left to bear the most since the harms they persevered as a result of the pile up has surrendered them unable to work, to get a pay, and to care for their families.
Setback hoodwinked people can secure settlement loans against a mixture of distinctive sorts of mischances at any phase of the strategy. In case you have beginning late gotten a lawyer, confirming a settlement offer, or have beginning starting late settled your case, you can fitting a legitimate credit against your suit.


text:
DrXico necesitaba un nuevo diseño de botón o icono y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 48 diseños de 16 diseñadores freelance.
We need a nice character to become "Mr Brief". "Mr Brief" is the teacher that guides the user trough a series of questions helping him to create an understandable Brief.
"The Brief"
I'm developing an eLearning application for a Market Research Company. The app is about how to create a Brief. Their clients will enter the site and the Character "Mr Brief" will guide the user through the process.
In the main screen, the user will be welcome with six boxes that explain each process of the Brief. "Mr Brief" will be there pointing at each box showing with the Mouse Over Action a little explanation of each process.
In the inside, in each screen, "Mr Brief" will be in the right column with suggestions and one link to "Need more help?" which goes to a screen with more detailed information about that particular screen.
The Market Research Company is full of young hype people, they are trendy, techie and open in a conservative way. Their clients are usually young Market Managers in their early thirties.
Current logos used by the company
People who works in this company 1
People who works in this company 2
Main Screen Diagram
Inside Screen Diagram
Inspirational Color Palette
They liked the character style used in the screen examples, although it looks like downloaded from Google Images.
- Flexible - Vector illustration, easy to edit and change postures (sitting, standing, leaning)
- Fun and friendly
- Bright color, volume.
- Cartoon style
- Cool, Trendy
- EPS or AI file
- Downloaded from Google Images type of thing.
- Too realistic.
- Clip Art


text:
Ford Claims Focus Electric More Efficient Than LEAF
Published: 05-Mar-2012
Ford Motor Co. (F)'s Focus electric car, going on sale in the first half of 2012, was certified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to offer the equivalent of 105 miles (169 kilometers) per gallon of gasoline, the automaker said today.
The battery-powered compact car has an EPA rating of 99 mpg equivalent in highway driving and 110 mpg equivalent in city driving, Ford said in a statement. The EPA established the mpg equivalent as a measure of the average distance traveled per unit of energy consumed so car buyers can compare electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids to conventional gasoline-powered autos.
The Focus Electric tops Nissan Motor Co.'s battery-powered Leaf, which is rated 99 mpg equivalent, and General Motors Co. (GM)'s Chevrolet Volt plug-in, which is rated 94 mpg equivalent, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The EPA rated the Focus Electric as having a driving range of 76 miles on a single charge, while the Leaf has a 73-mile range, according to Ford.
The starting price for the Focus Electric is $39,995 and it is eligible for a $7,500 federal tax credit, said Wes Sherwood, a company spokesman. The Leaf starts at $35,200.
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text:
The honey bees' exile is almost complete. You can carry them from hive to hive, the child thought & that is what he tried, walking with them thronging between his pressed palms. Let him be right. Let the gods look away as always. Let this boy who carries the entire actual,
Kevin Young
Kevin Young was born in 1970 in Lincoln, Nebraska. He received his BA from Harvard University in 1992, where he studied poetry with Lucie Brock-Broido and Seamus Heaney, and his MFA in creative writing from Brown University in 1996.
His poetry collections include Brown, forthcoming from Alfred A. Knopf in April 2018; Blue Laws: Selected and Uncollected Poems, 1995-2015 (Alfred A. Knopf, 2016); Book of Hours (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), winner of the 2015 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets, given for the most outstanding book of poetry published in the United States each year; Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels (Alfred A. Knopf, 2011); Dear Darkness: Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 2008); For the Confederate Dead (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007); Black Maria (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005); Jelly Roll: A Blues (Alfred A. Knopf, 2003); To Repel Ghosts (Zoland Books, 2001), which was a finalist for the James Laughlin Award; and Most Way Home (Steerforth, 1995), selected for the National Poetry Series and winner of the Zacharis First Books Award from Ploughshares.
About Book of Hours, judge A. Van Jordan wrote:
"As if walking through a gallery of grief, reverie, and transcendence, Kevin Young's Book of Hours exemplifies what poetry can do in the world when language works at its full power. The poems in this collection hold emotion taut on each line while allowing for the nimbleness of language to drape over them, bringing tension between the heart and the mind, as Young consistently surprises us with profound elegance. Kevin Young is a master poet who has offered us a transformative curation of life, death and the ways in which we deal with it all in Book of Hours."
Young's book of nonfiction Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News (Graywolf Press, 2017) was longlisted for the National Book Award. He has also edited several anthologies, including The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing (Bloomsbury, 2010), Blues Poems (Everyman's Library, 2003), and Giant Steps: The New Generation of African American Writers (2000), as well as a selected volume of poems by John Berryman for the Library of America. He is also the author of The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness (Graywolf Press, 2012), winner of the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize and the PEN Open Award.
About Young's work, the poet Lucille Clifton said, "This poet's gift of storytelling and understanding of the music inherent in the oral tradition of language re-creates for us an inner history which is compelling and authentic and American."
Young's awards and honors include a Stegner Fellowship in Poetry at Stanford University, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. He has taught at the University of Georgia, Indiana University, and Emory University, where he was the Charles Howard Candler professor of creative writing and English and curator of literary collections at the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library. He is the director of the New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the poetry editor of The New Yorker. He lives in New Jersey.
Selected Bibliography
Brown (Alfred A. Knopf, 2018)
Blue Laws: Selected and Uncollected Poems, 1995-2015 (Alfred A. Knopf, 2016)
Book of Hours (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014)
Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels (Alfred A. Knopf, 2011)
Dear Darkness: Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 2008)
For the Confederate Dead (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007)
Black Maria (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005)
Jelly Roll: A Blues (Alfred A. Knopf, 2003)
To Repel Ghosts (Zoland Books, 2001)
Most Way Home (Steerforth, 1995)
Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News (Graywolf Press, 2017)
The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness (Graywolf Press, 2012)


text:
The other day I was reading Psalm 124 during my morning prayer time. As often happens when I'm reading Psalms or other Old Testament books, I saw Jesus in this short Psalm, specifically in the last two verses:
7Our soul has escaped as a bird from the snare of the fowlers;
The snare is broken, and we have escaped.
8Our help is in the name of the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.
Psalm 124:7-8 (NKJV).
Each of us is ensnared by our sinful nature just as a bird becomes trapped in the fowler's snare. We cannot free ourselves from this snare no matter how hard we try. To struggle alone attempting to free ourselves only causes damage. Our situation is hopeless.
But in verse 7 we find hope. This verse says, "The snare is broken." This sentence is written in classic passive voice where there actor of the sentence is not named. But verse 8 tells us who the actor is. It is the Lord who is our help.
The snare of our soul is broken by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, and by His blood "we have escaped."


text:
patterns > SweaterBabe Knitting and Crochet and 2 more...
> #128 Kimono Sleeve Sideways Cardigan and Cowl Set
#128 Kimono Sleeve Sideways Cardigan and Cowl Set
buy it now or visit pattern website
Pattern Gauge: 25 sts = 7" 18 cm and 19 rows = 4" 10 cm in Cable Lace St patt on larger needle.
Here's a modern take on the twin set! A kimono sleeve cardigan knit sideways and a matching cowl.
The cardigan is knit from the centers out to the ¾ length sleeves in four parts, so the kimono sleeves extend naturally from the body. Ribbed waistband, cuffs, front bands, and collar are picked up and knit afterwards.
The beautiful cable and lace pattern stitch looks great running sideways.
The cowl is knit separately, featuring the same gorgeously textured cable lace pattern stitch. Loop it twice around your neck for effortless chic.
Looks great as a set or worn separately, as your mood and the weather dictates!
The chocolate brown shade of this yarn, with its silk content, makes it a luxuriously yummy and very contemporary twin set!
Cowl pattern can also be purchased separately. This pattern includes BOTH the Cowl and the Cardigan.
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text:
I was on Kindleboards reading about the reaction to my last blog post where I shared my numbers.
During the discussion, someone brought up all the writers who have given up. It reminded me of a blog I wrote back in 2005, called Quitting. It's worth reading. Go do it. You might also want to check out the comments, because I drop a lot of my philosophy about what it takes to succeed. Keep in mind, when I wrote this, I was netting about $25k a year writing.
I realize some may consider that successful, but it wasn't enough to satisfy me. And it's a big part of the reason I kept working my butt off.
I can now earn $25k in two weeks, or sometimes in a single week.
So, has my attitude changed since 2005? Do I think differently now?
I've said for years now that ebooks are forever, and forever is a long time to find your audience. It took me twenty years, from writing that first novel to making good (not great) money.
Are you willing to work for twenty years without pay? Without success (whatever your definition of success is)? Are you willing to keep at it, keep trying, keep learning, keep experimenting, when you may not have anyone to encourage you but your dog?
Did you take my True Grit Quiz back in 2006? A lot of the questions no longer apply to the self-pub revolution, but the theme remains.
I wrote a million words before I made a dime, and another million before I made an average US income. Once I did catch a break, I signed books at 1200 bookstores in 42 states. And my wife still had a fulltime job, and we still made so little we got a tax refund every year. I was on the phone earlier today with a bestselling erotica author, and we were joking about how poor we were (she had ketchup soup for dinner, I lived in a basement apartment and couldn't afford both food and electric heat in the winter and woke up one morning to find my shampoo had frozen in my shower).
Now we're each making an unbelievable amount of money.
Because we didn't know how to quit.
If you can quit, you should. Most of the people in this business do poorly. It's brutal, unfair, and ridiculous. No one can figure it out, because it doesn't make sense.
The odds are against you succeeding. That's because success is an unreproduceable phenomenon. (I keep linking to my blog posts from years ago to prove an important point. Many who have discovered this blog have only begun reading it in the last few years, since I made a name for myself self-publishing. But looking back on what I did before I self-published is like going back in time to see me before I became who I am now, and that provides some pretty powerful insights. I didn't burst onto the scene a ready-made millionaire. Dues were paid. Go and see for yourself.)
If you can quit, quit. Save yourself years of depression, worry, broken dreams, shattered hope, and emotional pain.
Now, if you can't quit, if you're driven, if you refuse to accept anything other than your definition of success, then you have no one to blame but yourself for all the hell you're enduring.
But my money is on you eventually succeeding. Maybe it will take a year. Maybe twenty. Maybe fifty. But if you can't quit, success isn't simply attainable--it's inevitable.
I used to say that there's a word for a writer who never gives up... published.
These days, anyone can publish. It doesn't require hard work, talent, or luck.
But there is still a word for a writer who never gives up... successful.
I'm an overnight success. It just took twenty years for that night to finally come.
How many years are you willing to put in?
Sunday, October 13, 2013
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Innocent Muslim Mother Of 5 Beaten To Death In Hate Crime! (California)
"The Woman Has died due to the Injuries Sustained, confirmed dead on March 24th 2012 Innocent muslim mother of five beaten nearly to death, with doctors saying there is no chance of Survival. Assailants broke in to her home, and savagely beat her leaving her body in a pool of blood to be discovered by her 17 year old daughter, with a note saying "go back to your own country, you're a terrorist" El Cajon - A woman found beaten in the head with a tire iron, was hospitalized. Shaima Alawadi, 32, a mother of five, was found unconscious by her 17- year-old daughter on Wednesday around 11:15 A.M. A note telling her to "Go back home", was found at the residence. A family friend Sura Alzaidy, told the San Diego Union Tribune about the note, which authorities did not disclose. The note told the woman and the Alawadi family to "Go back to your own country. You're a terriorist". The woman is of Iraqi descent." Submitted by @Alsamaray_
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8. Does the Common Core lead to a national curriculum?
"To make standards meaningful, they have to be integrated with changes in curriculum, assessment, and pedagogy."1 The words of Jay P. Greene, professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas, regarding the Common Core are proving prophetic, because implementing the Common Core is requiring states to substantially alter their curricula.2
School officials have recognized the need for massive curriculum changes since 2011 when 64% of the officials surveyed by the Council of Chief School Superintendents Officials (CCSSO), one of the authors of the Common Core, said that their states would need completely new or significantly revised math curriculum in order to implement the Common Core. Fifty-six percent responded identically concerning their English language arts curriculum.3 As of 2012, 29 states had developed new curriculum aligned to the Common Core.4
Though the implementation of the Common Core is supposed to be "state-led," the continued involvement of the federal government and the authors of the standards indicates that the Common Core is intended to realize a national curriculum. The federal government is prohibited by three sets of laws from prescribing a national curriculum, but the Department of Education has paid other organizations to do what it cannot.
The consortia receiving millions from the federal government to write standardized assessments are also being paid to produce curriculum guides for their 42 member states. The Performance Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) consortium stressed in its application for a supplemental Race to the Top award that it would develop "model instructional units" for teachers. It received $15.9 million to fund these efforts.5 U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan affirmed that "PARCC…will be developing curriculum frameworks."6 Similarly, the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium promised to build "curriculum materials…to support states' transition to the Common Core State Standards" and was rewarded with $15.9 million.7 The efforts of the federal government to develop curriculum models confirm the analysis of two members of the Common Core Validation Committee who refused to sign the standards: the Common Core is "a laudable effort to shape a national curriculum."8
The groundwork for a national curriculum is also being laid by groups of states and private organizations collaborating to develop common curricula. In an effort funded by the Gates Foundation, the states of New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Colorado have started creating an open-source "platform" that will allow teachers to download and share resources aligned to the Common Core. The platform will be available to all states in 2014.9 Additionally, Achieve, one of the organizations that advised the National Governors Association (NGA) and CCSSO during the drafting of the Common Core, has partnered with those same groups to produce model curricula for the states.10
Implementation instructions for the states written by the authors of the Common Core suggest that a national curriculum is the goal of the standards. NGA recommends that "States and districts…share the costs of developing new curricula and instructional tools and not each develop their own at greater expense for each."11 The Common Core, Inc., calls for cooperation between the states to ensure that math standards are "translated into textbooks, workbooks, diagnostic tests for teacher use, and other classroom materials that enable teachers to bring the curriculum into the classroom in a relatively consistent, effective way" (emphasis added).12
The Department of Education acknowledged in its announcement of Race to the Top that standards are supposed to affect curriculum.13 Those who support the Common Core also recognize that standards are intended to mold curriculum.
Kathleen Porter-Magee, a fervent supporter of the Common Core, explains, "While one could choose to pit those two policy advancements against each other (standards versus curriculum), a much more logical way to view it is that while strong standards provide a solid foundation, you still need to build the schoolhouse."14
One of the main arguments for implementation of the Common Core is that it will increase the ability of families to move from one state to another without interrupting their child's education. But completely uninterrupted education is only possible if the same material is taught at the same time across the entire country.
Academic standards are meaningless if they do not shape the curriculum used. If this movement to nationalize curriculum continues, it will endanger the ability of homeschools and private schools to choose their own curriculum.
Former deputy general counsel of the Department of Education Robert S. Eitel and former general counsel Kent D. Talbert warn, "Left unchallenged by Congress, these standards and assessments will ultimately direct the course of elementary and secondary study in most states across the nation, running the risk that states will become little more than administrative agents for a nationalized K–12 program of instruction and raising a fundamental question about whether the Department is exceeding its statutory boundaries."15
Document updated August 22, 2013
1 Lindsey Burke, "Publicizing the Hidden Costs of the National Standards Push," Education Notebook: Heritage Foundation, accessed June 7, 2013, http://links.heritage.org/hostedemail/email.htm?h=ec4d3bd2a208dbd824288c7fa9ecb9c4&CID=9795639416&ch=2E03C8C87B70F318B54BE93A9A394F60 .
2 As part of being members of a consortium or receiving Race to the Top funding, states are bound to implement all of the Common Core standards and may supplement the list with only 15% of their own standards. "Notice Inviting Applications," Federal Register 75 no. 68 (April 9, 2010): 18171, accessed June 10, 2013, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2010-04-09/pdf/2010-8176.pdf .
3 Common Core State Standards: Progress and Challenges in School Districts' Implementation, Center on Education Policy, September 2011.
4 Moving Forward: A National Perspective on States' Progress in Common Core State Standards Implementation Planning (Education First and Editorial Projects in Education, Inc., February 2013), 7, accessed June 10, 2013, http://www.edweek.org/media/movingforward_ef_epe_020413.pdf .
5 PARCC Proposal for Supplemental Race to the Top Assessment Award (Performance Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, December 23, 2010), accessed June 11, 2013, http://www.edweek.org/media/parccsupplementalproposal12-23achievefinal.pdf ; Joseph Conaty, Race to the Top: SBAC Award Letter (U.S. Department of Education, September 28, 2010), accessed June 11, 2013, http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-assessment/sbac-award-letter.pdf .
6 Arne Duncan, "Beyond the Bubble Tests: The Next Generation of Assessments," Department of Education, September 2, 2010, accessed June 11, 2013, http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/beyond-bubble-tests-next-generation-assessments-secretary-arne-duncans-remarks-state-l ;
7Supplemental Funding Scope: Overview Table (SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium, January 16, 2011), accessed June 10, 2013, http://www.smarterbalanced.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Smarter-Balanced-Supplemental-Funds.pdf ; Conaty, SBAC Award Letter, http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-assessment/sbac-award-letter.pdf .
8 Sandra Stotsky and Ze'ev Wurman, "Common Core's Standards Still Don't Make the Grade: Why Massachusetts and California Must Regain Control over Their Academic Destinies," A Pioneer Institute White Paper no. 65 (July 2010): iii, accessed June 11, 2013, http://pioneerinstitute.org/download/common-cores-standards-still-dont-make-the-grade/ .
9 Tabitha Grossman, Ryan Reyna, and Stephanie Shipton, Realizing the Potential: How Governors Can Lead Effective Implementation of the Common Core State Standards (National Governors Association, 2011), 24, accessed June 8, 2013, http://www.nga.org/files/live/sites/NGA/files/pdf/1110CCSSIIMPLEMENTATIONGUIDE.PDF .
10 "Model Course Pathways in Mathematics," Achieve, accessed June 10, 2013, http://www.achieve.org/mathpathways .
11 Grossman, Reyna, and Shipton, Realizing the Potential, 25, accessed June 8, 2013, http://www.nga.org/files/live/sites/NGA/files/pdf/1110CCSSIIMPLEMENTATIONGUIDE.PDF .
12 Craig D. Jerald, Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring U.S. Students Receive a World-Class Education (NGA, CCSSO, and Achieve, 2008), 26, accessed June 8, 2013, http://www.achieve.org/files/BenchmarkingforSuccess.pdf .
13 See Federal Register 74 no. 221 (18 November 2009): 59836, http://www2.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/finrule/2009-4/111809a.html .
14 Kathleen Porter-Magee, "No Love for Common Core? Why Tom Misses the Mark with His Critique," Thomas B. Fordham Institute, February 17, 2012, accessed June 11, 2013, http://www.edexcellence.net/commentary/education-gadfly-daily/common-core-watch/2012/no-love-for-common-core.html .
15 Robert S. Eitel and Kent D. Talbert, "The Road to a National Curriculum: The Legal Aspects of the Common Core Standards, Race the Top, and Conditional Waivers," A Pioneer Institute White Paper no. 81 (February 2012): 15.
- What is the Common Core?
- Is the Common Core already being implemented?
- How is the federal government involved in the Common Core?
- Does the Common Core have a philosophical bias?
- Does the Common Core provide for individualized education?
- Is there any evidence that centralized education works better than decentralized education?
- Will the Common Core impact homeschools and private schools?
- Does the Common Core lead to a national curriculum?
- Does it matter that testing is being aligned with the Common Core?
- Does the Common Core include a national database?
- Who supports the Common Core and why?
- Who opposes the Common Core and why?


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Chockfull of specialty roasters, skilled baristas and enough geeky gadgets to keep even the nerdiest coffee drinkers happy, San Francisco's bean scene is a haven for coffee quality. From where to score a taste of the city's coffee history to where to get the best coffee show, here are our picks for 12 of the city's must-visit spots.
Most knowledgeable baristas: Four Barrel (pictured)
Want to get schooled in coffee origins, roasts and brewing methods? Then head to Four Barrel in the Mission, where coffee-obsessed baristas happily engage café-goers with their breadth of coffee factoids, all while crafting some of the best cappuccinos, espressos and pour-overs in the city. They even offer coffee classes geared toward helping you brew your best at home. 375 Valencia St., San Francisco; 415-252-0800;fourbarrelcoffee.com
Best flair: Blue Bottle
No doubt about it: The folks at Blue Bottle are geeks … and thank goodness. With a handful of locations around the Bay Area, it'd be easy to make each one just like the next, but every Blue Bottle outpost has its own personality—from the showcase of their five-burner siphon station at the Mint Plaza location to the custom pour-over drip bar at the alleyway kiosk on Linden St. But what you will find at each location is skilled baristas with a keen eye on quality. And if you're interested in trying their coffee geekery at home, you can buy their roasted beans along with a number of fancy brewing gadgets from several of their locations. Multiple locations around San Francisco; bluebottlecoffee.net
Best people-watching: Café La Boheme
You never know who you're going to meet at this Mission neighborhood café, which has kept coffee drinkers of all sorts happily caffeinated since opening in 1975. And their drinks and food menus are just as eclectic, offering everything from Turkish coffee, wine and beer to falafel, empanadas and paninis. 3318 4th St., San Francisco; 415-643-0481; cafelabohemesanfrancisco.com
Best coffee + donuts: Dynamo Donut and Coffee
Who can deny the blessed union of coffee and donuts? Certainly not Dynamo Donuts, which serves Four Barrel coffee alongside donut flavors like molasses/Guinness/pear and Campari/grapefruit, and their signature maple/bacon/apple. 2760 24th St., San Francisco; 415-920-1978; dynamodonut.com
Best hole-in-the-wall: Grand Coffee
The former concessions area for the neighboring Grand Theater, for what Grand Coffee lacks in space it makes up for in flavor, with Four Barrel espresso drinks (served with a palate-cleansing side of seltzer, no less), summery refreshers like egg cream soda, and tasty provisions from local purveyors like Bike Basket Pies, Fearless Chocolate and Knead Patisserie. 2663 Mission St., San Francisco; 415-206-1238; grandcoffeesf.com
You drink coffee, they drink tea (or wine, or beer): Ma'velous
It's the café conundrum we've all experienced: You want a killer cup of coffee while you're friend is in the mood for something else. Thanks to Ma'velous, everyone's happy. A stellar roster of beans—including Stumptown, Ecco Caffé and Intelligentsia in the permanent lineup, and Scandinavian microroasters Coffee Collective and Tim Wendelboe as special guests—are brewed via pour-over, siphon, cold brew (among other brewing methods), while other equally delicious imbibe-ables include a great selection of craft wines, local beers and premium teas. 1408 Market St., San Francisco; 415-626-8884; maveloussf.com
Best coffee and bites for those on the go: Piccino Coffee Bar
Located three doors down from their intimate, Italian-style café, the Piccino Coffee Bar serves Blue Bottle espresso drinks alongside homemade breakfast bites and lunchtime sandwiches all ready for grabbing on the go. 807 22nd St., San Francisco; 415-824-4224; piccinocafe.com
Best place to pick up a good book: Readers Café
Put down the iPad for a minute and get bookish at Readers Café, the coffee shop/bookstore in the Fort Mason Center at the marina. By ordering your latte (made with Blue Bottle beans) at Readers, not only are you satisfying your coffee fix, you're also supporting San Francisco's public libraries, which receive proceeds from the café. Building C, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco; 415-771-1011; readerscafe.org
Best blends: Philz Coffee
If you're looking for an easygoing, no-frills neighborhood café with a reliably good cup of coffee, Philz is the place. Blends are the house specialty with a wide array to choose from combining specialty beans from around the world. 3101 24th St. at Folsom St. (with 6 other locations around the Bay Area), 415-875-9370; philzcoffee.com
Best latte: Ritual Coffee Roasters
Like the name implies, you'll want to make your visits to Ritual a regular thing. The flagship Mission neighborhood shop is known for crafting one perfect drink after another. Topped with seamless rosettas and hearts, Ritual's velvety lattes combine seasonally rotating espressos with milk from local Clover Farms—one will never be enough. 1026 Valencia St., San Francisco (additional locations in Flora Grubb Gardens and Napa); 415-641-1011; ritualroasters.com
Best kiosk: Sightglass Coffee
With no space to linger but plenty of delicious coffee to spare, Sightglass serves up decadent lattes and single-origin Chemex brews of their freshly roasted, micro-lot beans all from a teeny cart that's nestled next to a larger space they're busy building into a full-sized café and roastery. 270 7th St., San Francisco; 415-861-1313; sightglasscoffee.com
Most creative way to start you day: Trouble Coffee Company
Want a coconut to go with your coffee? This quirky little café scores big on creativity for their "Whole Damn House" menu, which includes a cup of coffee (brewed from Ecco Caffé beans), a thick piece of white toast slathered with butter and cinnamon sugar, and a whole young coconut. It's the ultimate power breakfast! 4033 Judah St., San Francisco; troublecoffee.com
For more on the cocktail scene in some of San Francisco's finest restaurants, check out "Dinner & Drinks" in our May/June 2011 issue.


text: Antti Palosaari wrote: > Hi, > This patch adds driver for Sigmatek DVB-110 USB DVB-T stick. Stick has > based on hardware of Qtuantek QT1010 tuner, Zarlink ZL10353 (Intel CE > 6353) demodulator and Alcor Micro AU6610 DVB-T USB controller. HW is > rather similar as used in MSI Megasky GL861. > > Currently, the driver works only in USB 2.0. In my understanding USB 1.1 > is also supported by hw but I cannot test it due to lack of USB 1.1 > port. Device supports only isochronous mode transfers. There is also > eeprom in usb-controller (at least in address range 0x80 - 0xbf) for > storing data, eg. firmware. Anyway, firmware loading is not used / > required by the device. > > There seems to be at least one unknown I2C device in address 0xa0, > probably remote control or GPIO. Windows drivers reads registers from > 0x00 to 0x07 from this unknown address. > > Driver is based on gl861 module in current megasky development tree. > Tuner has a lot of problems to lock with megasky qt1010 module with this > hardware at least broadcasting standards used in Finland. I will try to > fix this later... > > Feedback, bug/success reports are highly welcome. > > Best regards > Antti Palosaari Antti, Please provide a sign-off for your patch, as described in README.patches and README.HG, in the top level directory of the mercurial repository. Regards, Michael Krufky


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This cure is nothing to sneeze at.
Chronic sneezer Caileen Wendel, 22, said she suffered from debilitating days-long sneezing fits that sent her to the emergency room more than 40 times over a period of five years -- until one doctor figured out how to cure her in less than five minutes.
"He gave me my life back, he really did," the bubbly blonde told NBCPhiladelphia.com.
Wendel was suddenly struck with the ailment when she was a senior in high school and had endured a litany of doctors visits, blood work, neurological consultations, CAT scans and psychological screenings in an effort to find a cure for her mystery affliction.
But it turned out her 40th time at the emergency room would be the charm.
A doctor at St. Mary's Hospital in Langhorne, Pa., took a leap of faith.
"He said to me, 'Do you mind if I try something?' And I said, 'Go right ahead; it's worth a shot," Wendel's mom, Patricia, said.
Dr. Larry Geisler gave her the prescription drug Reglan, an anti-nausea and migraine fighter, combined with Benedryl. Caileen was cured within five minutes.
"I don't know if it's a fix-all, but it happened to work and it worked for Caileen," Dr. Geisler said.
The doctor said he hoped it would work on other patients like 12-year-old Lauren Johnson, who shared her story of compulsive sneezing with the "Today" show about a month ago.
Caileen said the cure has changed her life.
"They treat me like I'm a real person and that I'm not crazy," she said, "and to be able to stop something that I have no control over is probably one of the best feelings in the world."


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NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Discovery Communications Inc. DISCA, -0.92% DISCB, +9.85% DISCK, -0.71% said Friday it agreed to buy SBS Nordic from ProSiebenSat .1 Group in a deal valued at $1.7 billion. The Silver Spring, Md., company said the deal includes 12 television networks in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. "The deal also expands Discovery's brand portfolio by adding general entertainment, scripted and sports programming to the company's suite of services for the first time," the company said. The transaction is expected to close early next year. Separately, Discovery said its board of directors approved a $1 billion increase to its existing stock repurchase program.
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text:
Welcome to the Riptide (1969) guide at TV Tome.There is no editor for this show. If you would like to be the editor look here for details.
Add this episode to your queue to receive more information about
The McQuade Myth and we will let you know when it becomes available.


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15 September 2011
Major finding of Transport Select Committee report is a red herring
The AA has welcomed the Transport Select Committee report "Out of the jam: reducing congestion on our roads" but questions whether one of the major findings is a red herring.
Amongst a host of measures, the report calls for a tougher driving test, which the AA accepts might be needed on road safety grounds but argues it would do little to reduce congestion. Even the most experienced driver may be caught out by some of the hazards that can cause a road incident, such as breakdowns, faulty lights, ice and snow, potholes and poor drainage, spilt diesel and road debris, deer, or unsighted and wandering left-hand drive lorries.
The report alludes to drivers causing congestion by accidents/incidents and 'inappropriate road use' including road rage, undertaking, and bad lane discipline. Whilst it is true that some congestion is caused by inappropriate driver behaviour the AA questions whether a tougher test would actually change this behaviour.
Whilst the AA would agree with the committee that there is a need for people to learn to drive, not just to pass the test, so much of how they behave after their test lies in their attitude to driving, not in the toughness of the test. Too many drivers choose to forget what they have learned and drive how it suits them.
For some this means they drive in a risk taking way that they believe impresses other people or which is "fun" to them. Others are very happy to ignore traffic rules if it helps them get to their destination faster. The ways to tackle this lie in using education - from junior school on - to instil the right attitudes in drivers. But there is also a role for enforcement and education later in the driving career. People who drive badly need to feel there is a risk of action being taken against them.
Drivers tend to hog the middle lane because they are inconsiderate rather than because they don't know the rules of the road. Some drivers get involved in road rage because they have anger management problems not because they don't know the highway code
Edmund King, AA President
The AA supports measures to improve access to traffic information, publicise changes to the Highway Code, roll-out of a free Highway Code app, reducing the time roads are closed after incidents and further regulation of streetworks.
Commenting, Edmund King, AA President, said: "This report contains some good suggestions to reduce road congestion. The report did not consider road building but we believe it could have placed greater emphasis on junction improvements and traffic light phasing.
"We do question why the first recommendation in the Committee's press release for reducing congestion is a tougher driving test. Whilst a tougher test might be needed on road safety grounds it would do little to reduce congestion. In terms of getting out of the jam a tougher test is a red herring.
"Drivers tend to hog the middle lane because they are inconsiderate rather than because they don't know the rules of the road. Some drivers get involved in road rage because they have anger management problems not because they don't know the highway code."
(30 September 2011)


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The Age Of Metal recently conducted an interview with guitarist Mikael "Routa" Karlbom of Finnish metal marauders FINNTROLL. You can now listen to the chat using the Mixcloud player below.
FINNTROLL's sixth album, "Blodsvept", will be released via Century Media Records on the following dates:
* Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Norway: Friday, March 22
* Spain, Italy: Tuesday, March 26
* Sweden, Hungary: Wednesday, March 27
* Rest Of Europe: Monday, March 25
* Australia, New Zealand: Friday, March 29
* USA, Canada: Tuesday, April 2
The follow-up to 2010's "Nifelvind" was recorded at Sonic Pump Studios in Helsinki and was mastered by Mika Jussila at Finnvox Studios. FINNTROLL's Henri "Trollhorn" Sorvali and his bandmates produced the album themselves, while the CD cover artwork was handled by FINNTROLL guitar player Samuli "Skyrmer" Ponsimaa.
"Blodsvept" track listing:
01. Blodsvept
02. Ett Folk Förbannat
03. När Jättar Marschera
04. Mordminnen
05. Rösets Kung
06. Skövlarens Död
07. Skogsdotter
08. Häxbrygd
09. Tva Ormar
10. Fanskapsfylld
11. Midvinterdraken
Check out the cover artwork below.
In regards to the new album, FINNTROLL commented on their studio blog: "Combining our trademark sound with even more influences from non- traditional genres in metal music, we have created 11 songs which show you everything we want to offer. And boy, wasn't that one of the hardest tasks for some time. After all, how do you keep your sound fresh, yet familiar, after 6 albums and 15 years?
"At some point, we were afraid that the songs are not melodic enough. Then we started to fear they became too melodic. Then we let the songs rest for a while and molded them more in a way that the non-melodic stuff got something to hum with, and the cheesy pop songs were arranged more stripped and aggressive. We were confident, yet sometimes scared what will people think of the stuff we've been doing so hard. What if they hate it? That would be fine, but if they would hate it because the material was uninspiring, boring and done-to-death, that would be a huge disappointment. So, we kept pushing and tried to keep it fresh all the time, while still having the 'this has to be FINNTROLL because no other band sounds this insane' — grinning going on."


text:
Opportunities of Lasers for Scalable Manufacturing of Solar Energy Devices
Published on
Production costs, module conversion efficiencies, and adoption in commercial rooftops continue to be the most critical issues for solar energy technology. The industry continuously seeks technologies that offer scalable and high speed solar device production to replace costly conventional processing steps. The present generation of large scale processes has limitations related to low speed, high cost and performance of the devices. Laser material processing technology promises to satisfy these needs for many steps along the value chain in many ways. In the 21st century, lasers could be used as an excellent tool for solar cells, such as patterning, surfaces texturing, dopant diffusion, contacts fusion, annealing, crystallization, etc.
Cite this work
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Stewart Center, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN


text:
Wow! What a great start to SCGS Jamboree. This is the second year for a DNA day. I attended last year but didn't understand very much. Since then I did my DNA tests, both mitochondrial and autosomal. I had my results. I just didn't know what to do with them. Well, now at least I know where to start.
The session I watched with CeCe Moore explained DNA mapping to help discover your ancestors. Now I know why I want to have my mother and sister tested.
Diahan Southard gave case studies for Y-DNA, mtDNA and atDNA.; those were very interesting, although I need to find some more people connected to me before I can use some of the techniques.
Lunch was fun. A friend from Mesa who flew in for the DNA day was at the table. And, then across from me was a woman I was sure I knew. But I just assumed it was from Jamboree sometime in the past. Well, Ellen was from Maryland, and we had met originally at GRIP. And we're going to be in the same DNA class next month. What fun!!
With the keynote session beginning at 8 am and the last speaker session ending at 6 p.m. with a one-hour open discussion period for an hour after that, it was a long, but stimulating day.
Thank you Southern California Genealogical Society, SCGS, and the International Society of Genetic Genealogy, ISOGG, for cohosting this event and providing such a wonderful educational opportunity.


text:
August 29, 2004
Comment on File No. S7-25-99
SEC Broker-Dealer Rule Exemption
I urge the SEC to WITHDRAW and not just amend this rule proposal. I believe the rule is harmful to consumers because it creates two different standards of conduct for persons offering financial planning services: a higher fiduciary standard for registered investment advisers RIAs and a lesser one under NASD suitability rules. The rule also exempts, in effect, brokers from being required to disclose conflicts of interest in connection with the offer of financial planning services.
Allowing brokers to infer that they have a fiduciary relationship to a client, when in fact they do not, is the kind of thinking that has caused many scandals in our profession and undermines public confidence in financial advisors.
Those of us who accept fiduciary responsibility and act as agents of our clients ought to be clearly differentiated from salespeople who are working for the interests of a warehouse or other financial institution.
Thank you.