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African Iron Production and Iron-Working Technologies: Methods
Summary and Keywords
Iron production was a particularly important precolonial African technology, with iron becoming a central component of socioeconomic life in many societies across the continent. Iron-bearing ores are much more abundant in the earth's crust than those of copper, and in Africa, iron was recovered from these ores using the bloomery process, until the importation of European iron in the later second millennium eventually undermined local production. Although smelting was most intensively focused in regions where all the necessary components of a smelt were plentiful—iron ore, ceramic, fuel, and water—frequent occurrences of small-scale, local iron production mean that iron slag and associated remains are common finds on archaeological sites across Africa.
The archaeological remains found on iron production and iron-working sites can provide detailed information about the past processes that were undertaken at these sites, as well as the people involved with the technologies both as practitioners and consumers. A variety of analytical approaches are commonly used by archaeometallurgists to learn more about past iron technologies, particularly those methods that explore the chemistry and mineralogy of archaeological samples. By interpreting the results of these analyses in conjunction with ethnographic, historical, and experimental data, it is possible to reconstruct the techniques and ingredients that past smelters and smiths employed in their crafts, and address important questions concerning the organization of production, the acquisition of raw materials, innovations and changes in technological approach, and the environmental and social changes that accompanied these technologies.
Keywords: iron, technology analysis, microscopy, chemistry, archaeometry
A Brief Introduction to the Role of Iron in Africa
Iron has played a significant role in the sociocultural, economic, and environmental spheres of many African communities, past and present, not only for utilitarian items, but also in the creation of symbolic, artistic, and ornamental objects. Prior to the development of smelting technologies that could extract iron metal from an ore, iron was available only in isolated naturally occurring forms, predominantly nickel-rich meteoritic iron in areas of the Nile Valley and the Red Sea coast. The rarity of this metal, perhaps in conjunction with its hard and brittle qualities, meant that it was predominantly used to make ceremonial or decorative items. This "iron from the sky" was highly prized, appearing in the archaeological record almost exclusively in burial contexts.1
At some point in the first millennium bce,2 evidence for iron-smelting technologies began to appear in several core regions (including—but not limited to—the Great Lakes region of eastern Africa, and the northwestern Sahara). In a continent where copper minerals were spatially limited yet where iron ores were near ubiquitous, the ability to obtain iron metal from an ore was a development of profound consequence, and in time these technologies spread to all corners of Africa.3 The adoption of iron-smelting technologies, although gradual, was revolutionary.
Iron became and remained a highly valuable material in those communities that produced and used it. The malleability and strength of iron—transformed into tools, weapons, jewelry, or something else entirely—meant that the control of iron production became embedded in negotiations of power and prestige, and iron became a cornerstone of social, economic, and political life. Certainly, by the end of the first millennium AD, iron had become an everyday material across most of the continent, important not only for its physical properties and applications in agriculture and domestic life, but also for the symbolic role it played in the rituals and customs of many African societies.4
Making and Working with Iron
Iron-working technologies broadly include both the winning of iron from an ore (smelting) and the processing and shaping of smelted iron metal into a finished object (smithing). The process begins with the sourcing and extraction of raw materials, including clay, water, and tempering materials to make the furnace structure and the tuyères; charcoal and iron-rich ore minerals to charge the furnace; and also—as needed—sand, fluxes, or traditional medicines to encourage a successful and productive smelt.
Different techniques for mining were used across the continent, dependent on the nature of the ore deposit itself.5 Surface collection of ore outcrops—as documented in modern and historical examples—was no doubt also widespread in the past, as was the collection of alluvial ores (such as magnetite-rich ore sands, see Figure 1) from the beds or banks of rivers. However, neither of these methods would leave much evidence for ore collection in the archaeological record.
The extraction of subterranean iron ores at either open faces or through the digging of pits is more likely to leave a recognizable trace, though it is also possible that more recent mining for the same or associated minerals might have obliterated the marks of earlier mining episodes.
Once ore has been procured, charcoal prepared, and clays obtained and shaped into furnaces and tuyères, smelting can begin. "Bloomery" or "solid-state" smelting is the process of iron production most commonly encountered in the archaeological record (so-called because the iron remains solid throughout the process, growing as a "bloom" of iron rather than melting as in a blast furnace), and it was practiced across much of precolonial Africa. The principals of bloomery iron smelting are generally well understood, and have been discussed at length elsewhere.6
Iron smelting comprises two fundamental chemical and physical events that need to occur together in order to separate iron metal from a host rock. Iron oxides contained within an ore have to be physically removed from the surrounding rock (or gangue) minerals. These iron oxides must then also be chemically reduced to elemental iron, by removing the oxygen atoms that are combined with the iron in its oxidized state. Bloomery smelting thus operates at a temperature below the melting point of iron (1540°C), requiring a temperature high enough only to melt the gangue minerals to enable them to separate from the unmolten iron oxides. This generally requires sustained temperatures of around 1200°C, though this is dependent on the composition of the gangue.
In order for these chemical and physical events to successfully take place, three conditions have to be met: (1) a high enough temperature to melt the gangue minerals and facilitate their separation from the iron oxides, (2) a means by which to physically separate the molten gangue from the residual iron, and (3) a carbon-rich reducing environment to separate the oxygen and iron atoms. The smelting operation takes place within a furnace designed to meet these criteria, but there is much variation possible in furnace configuration beyond these essential requirements.7
Air, and thus oxygen, is introduced to the furnace either through forced draft using bellows and tuyères (ceramic pipes that channel air into a furnace or smithing hearth), or by natural draft taking advantage of prevailing winds or utilizing the chimney effect, that is, the updraft movement of hot air. This enables the fuel (usually charcoal) to burn, with carbon monoxide produced as a byproduct of the incomplete combustion of the carbon-rich fuel. This oxygen-hungry carbon monoxide reacts with the iron oxide, combining with its oxygen atoms to form carbon dioxide and reducing the iron oxide to the successively lower oxides of magnetite and wüstite, which are in turn reduced to metallic iron (see Figure 2).
Not all of the iron oxide in the ore ends up as iron metal. Some of the unreduced iron oxide combines with the molten gangue minerals, as do varying proportions of technical ceramics, fuel ash, and any fluxes that have melted into the smelt. Together this ends up as the waste product of the process: slag. However, while the smelt is still progressing, the forming liquid slag plays an important role by encasing the solid particles of iron and preventing them from reoxidizing as they move within the furnace. This protective slag coating also limits the diffusion of carbon into the forming bloom, avoiding the inadvertent production of brittle cast iron.
Furthermore, the molten slag also provides a medium within which these iron particles can coalesce, allowing them to gradually combine into a spongy mass of iron bloom.
The furnace, in addition to containing the reaction process described above, must also provide a way to physically separate the slag from the iron bloom. In the case of pit furnaces, the molten slag drips into a pit dug beneath the furnace, which is often packed with plant material in order to provide a support for the charge. Alternatively, the slag can be periodically drained from the furnace (termed "slag tapping"), resulting in slag with a characteristic flow-like structure.
The timescale of this process may extend over one day, or several days, and may even require a period of re-smelting (such as the two-stage primary and secondary smelting technologies documented in Malawi and Tanzania8). The end result is a solid and malleable "bloom" of iron metal. This impure and heterogeneous bloom of iron initially contains a considerable amount of slag and charcoal inclusions. In order for this material to be forged, it first needs to be consolidated by repeatedly heating the bloom to a yellow heat in order for the slag to re-melt, and hammering it on an anvil to expel the trapped slag, air, and other inclusions. This is known as bloom refining.9 Once this has taken place—in itself a considerable process, with appreciable losses in weight and size—the resultant iron billet will have become workable and is ready for smithing (to be worked into an iron object).
Smithing hearths are generally—though not always—smaller than smelting furnaces, and are often devoid of the superstructures that many smelting furnaces have.10 Air is usually introduced into a hearth using a tuyère and bellows, and a blacksmith will use various hammers, tongs, quenching bowls, and anvils to work the iron (see Figure 3).
Fluxes may be used to encourage welds to join, and like smelting processes, amulets and medicines are often also present in or around the hearth. The process of shaping iron into a usable object combines many smithing techniques. Exposing the iron metal to repeated episodes of heating, cooling, and hammering alters its microstructure and thus mechanical properties, and allows the blacksmith to exert control over the hardness, brittleness, and toughness of the object as required.
Investigating Past Iron Technologies
Walking survey forms the basis of most archaeological fieldwork and serves both to indicate the distribution of sites across a landscape and to identify locations that hold particularly high potential for excavation. The robust nature of slag and the sometimes vast scale of production remains mean that iron production sites are generally easy to locate.11 Geophysical survey techniques such as gradiometry or resistivity can additionally be used to guide excavation strategies, to explore the depth and distribution of sub-surface remains—for example, to estimate the volume of slag present at a site, as at Meroe, Sudan12—or to locate buried furnace structures. This last aim presents certain challenges in that it can be difficult to distinguish the signals of iron-rich slag and furnace remains from those related to natural iron-bearing deposits.
Establishing the extent of archaeological remains is key for estimating the scale of production of an iron-smelting site. Sites range from very large industrial production activity (such as the extensive iron production sites in Bassar, Togo, Meroe, Sudan, or the regions of Mema and Dogon, Mali13) to localized smelting on a much smaller scale (such as smelting within settlement sites of northern Zimbabwe, or pastoralist smelting on the Laikipia Plateau, Kenya14). Establishing a secure chronological framework is also critical for understanding the intensity and duration of production activity at these sites, and can contribute toward understanding the impact of smelting on local resources and environments, and the relationship between estimated outputs of metal, local populations, and trade.15
In the course of investigating the remains of iron production and iron working, it is likely that a very broad range of archaeological materials will be encountered. The most common artifact present on all iron-processing sites—whether smithing or smelting—is likely to be slag (Figure 4), followed closely by the remains of ceramic items, including furnace structures and tuyères, as well as fragments of unreduced ore and iron objects.
Charcoal will often be present, and sometimes other plant remains and traces might also be found.16
The remains of smelting and smithing activity can appear similar, both macroscopically and microscopically. Both processes would likely result in tuyères, furnace bases, and slag in evidence at archaeological sites, and thus attributing remains to either of these processes can require judgment and experience, especially if the remains are fragmentary.17 Observations about the scale of the remains, the size of slag blocks, the nature of furnaces or hearths if present, and the presence of plano-convex hearth bottom slag or hammerscale—both diagnostic of smithing activity—contribute to these interpretations of site function. Sites where smithing has been carried out would also potentially contain large immobile anvil-stones.
Materials on which to undertake an analysis of iron production and iron-working technologies might include discarded raw materials, technological debris and waste products, and artifacts in various states of completion. The archaeometallurgist has a suite of tools drawn from the physical sciences at their disposal to study this range of artifacts, specifically from the fields of chemistry and mineralogy. These methods provide data that can build a reconstruction of the technical aspects of the processes: the ingredients that were used, the working temperatures, the tools that were used, and so on. However, a holistic study of iron production and working technologies also requires a consideration of the sociocultural contexts that framed these actions (e.g., the choices of techniques or ingredients, the symbolic or cultural meanings embedded within the materials selected for use, or their methods of application). As much as there are technical constraints as outlined above, there is always room for cultural choice and variability.
Slag is a particularly valuable asset for archaeometallurgists, and importantly, it is one that tends to be very well preserved archaeologically. Encased within slag—in its chemistry and microstructure—is information regarding the raw materials that were introduced into the smelt (the compositions and contributions of the ore charge, fuel, fluxes, and any ceramics that melted into the slag) and how the slag formed (temperatures, cooling rates, atmospheres).
Encased upon and throughout the slag is further macroscopic and microscopic information about the structure and operation of the furnace (e.g., slag tapping or non-slag tapping, the shape of the furnace structure that the slag solidified against (see Figures 5 and 6), or the use of plant materials in the furnace structure or as fuel (see Figure 7). Together, these strands allow the reconstruction of the chemical and physical environments of the furnace.
Ceramics, in the form of tuyère fragments and furnace wall fragments, are also common at metallurgical sites. These ceramics would have had to be able to function within the challenging high-temperature environment of the furnace. Analysis of these ceramics provides information on the techniques used to form them, how they were fired and used, and the types of clay and tempering materials that they were made from. Analysis of the techniques used in their manufacture and compositional groups can give an idea about the organization of production and the spread of technological ideas, and can be fed back into the slag analyses to better understand the ceramic component of the slag melt.
Fragments of unreduced ore found at smelting sites can be useful for corroborating data derived from analyses of slag remains as to which ore or ores were used within a smelt.18 By undertaking compositional analyses, it is possible to understand what minerals may have contributed to iron and slag formation from the ore. However, ore pieces found on a smelting site may not necessarily be representative of that used in past smelts, so these interpretations must be carefully considered.
Iron objects are a final category of material that can provide information about smelting and smithing technologies. The working methods of the blacksmith, the carbon content of the metal, and the chemical-physical conditions that the iron was exposed to as it was worked are preserved in the microstructure of the item. The hardness of the iron can also be estimated by using a Vickers microhardness tester, which applies a specific force to a very small area of the surface of a mounted and polished sample. The width of the indentation that is left behind can be measured under the microscope and used to calculate the hardness of the metal. Analysis of inclusions of slag remaining within the microstructure of objects made from bloomery iron also has the potential to link artifacts back to specific smelting technologies, such as those that used unusual ores with distinctive chemical signatures.19
Before undertaking any kind of analysis, it is first necessary to define the purpose of that analysis and the questions it hopes to address. Analysis can be a destructive and costly endeavour (both in terms of price and time), so it is important to tailor the analytical approach to the desired research outcome. There are many and varied questions that a researcher might want to ask of iron production remains. They might be as basic as determining what process an artifact derived from or how it had been used, or they might be as complex as assessing variation in technological practice within and between multiple metallurgical sites. However, sometimes it is impossible to address a desired research question with a given dataset. Equally, although it is preferable to ascertain research direction before data collection begins, it can in some circumstances be necessary to undertake research that is instead driven by the availability of a specific assemblage of archaeological material. This can be a significant constraint on a research agenda, as can be the availability and accessibility of analytical equipment, personnel, and funding, or curatorial restrictions on destructive sampling or the portability of archaeological items.
In general, there are three main categories of archaeometric techniques relevant to archaeometallurgy:
• Optical/imaging analysis: qualitative microstructural analysis, undertaking a visual identification of mineral phases present within a sample and their different proportions. These methods are experience based, in that a researcher's interpretation of a given sample is based on prior knowledge of similar samples. These methods include optical microscopy (both petrographic [thin-section] and metallographic [reflected light]) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM).
• Elemental analysis: identifying and quantifying the elemental composition of a sample. These methods include SEM spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF), neutron activation analysis (NAA), inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry or optical/atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-MS/ICP-AES/OES), atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS), and particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE).
• Structural analysis: exploring the compounds present in a sample by analyzing the crystalline structures within a sample. These methods include Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD).
However, investigations of iron production generally use these techniques in two ways: 1) to understand what a sample is formed of (i.e., its bulk chemistry or overall composition), and 2) to understand how it formed (i.e., its microstructure).20
Bulk Chemical Analysis
X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy
XRF analysis operates on the principle that primary X-rays can be used to irradiate and excite the atoms of a prepared sample, which consequently emit X-ray photons (termed secondary or "characteristic" X-rays), the energies of which are specific to the atoms from which they originated. A spectrometer—either energy dispersive (EDS) or wavelength dispersive (WDS), with the latter providing lower limits of detection and higher precision—measures the energy of the photons and counts how many there are of each energy, thereby not only identifying the elements present within a sample but also estimating how much of a particular element is present.
XRF analysis is suitable for the analysis of tuyère,21 slag, furnace wall, and ore. It is relatively simple and inexpensive compared to other techniques, and thus is widely used. It provides reasonable major and minor element analysis, but it is not very sensitive so tends to have poor detection limits for trace elements. Light elements, those lighter than sodium, cannot be detected. This includes carbon—iron's primary alloying element. The lighter the element, the worse the detection limit.
This method requires the removal of material from the sample to be analyzed.22 The material is then milled into a powder and made either into a pressed pellet (which is better suited to major element analysis) or a fused bead (which is best suited to minor and trace element analysis). Ideally both methods would be used on each sample. In the case of slag, which is inherently heterogeneous, the larger the sample the better, to account for internal variability. A few hundred grams might even be required, depending on the nature of the material.
Particle-Induced X-ray Emission
In contrast to XRF, where X-rays are fired at a sample to result in emitted secondary X-rays, PIXE instead uses a beam of protons to excite the sample and emit characteristic X-rays. Detection limits are low, and the beam can be used outside of a vacuum, which gives more flexibility of use (although this necessarily impacts upon sensitivity).
Neutron Activation Analysis
During NAA, samples are irradiated with neutrons, and the intensity of radioactivity characteristic for each element is measured. It is better suited than XRF for trace elements, as it is sensitive, precise, and accurate. It can be used on samples removed from archaeological items, or on small objects themselves: it is a nondestructive process, and no preparation is required. However, this method is steadily declining in popularity despite these advantages. The process itself is time consuming and expensive, as there are few suitable facilities where NAA can be conducted. A further consideration is that the samples—or the objects themselves—remain irradiated for some time after analysis, which can demand the implementation of inconvenient handling protocols.
Inductively Coupled Plasma Spectrometry
ICP spectrometry is a versatile technique, specifically targeted toward the analysis of trace elements, with good detection limits, sensitivity, and precision. One particular strength is the large number of elements it can detect. ICP-MS has a much higher sensitivity than ICP-OES, and although analyses traditionally cost more, this is becoming the most prevalent form of ICP analysis. Samples for both techniques are dissolved, usually in an acid, and this solution is sprayed into a chamber of argon gas and heated to between 8,000 and 10,000˚C. The characteristic wavelengths of the photons that are emitted are quantified using either an optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES, which converts the measurement into elemental concentrations) or a mass spectrometer (ICP-MS, which detects the positively charged ions that are also emitted and can therefore also provide measurements of isotopic ratios of some elements).
ICP spectrometry measures many elements (between twenty and fifty) simultaneously, and thus it is a very fast analytical technique. Nevertheless, the protocol for sample preparation introduces some drawbacks, as the sample needs to be dissolved in acid. A balance needs to be struck between the dissolution of as many relevant elements as is possible, with minimal contamination and as few safety concerns as possible. For some elements, a particularly high dilution is necessary, which results in higher detection limits. Other elements might be lost completely in the sample decomposition. For these elements, it is wise to use a further analytical technique (e.g., AAS) to corroborate the ICP results.
Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy
AAS is also a solution-based, destructive method that requires solid samples to be dissolved, but it can measure only one element at a time. The sample solution is vaporized and passed through a flame, which heats the solution to a temperature that forces the molecules to decompose to individual elements, approximately 2,000–3,000˚C. A beam of light—at a wavelength characteristic of the element to be analyzed—is passed through the vapor, some of which is absorbed. The intensity of the light after it has passed through the vapor is measured and compared to its initial intensity; this can then be used to estimate the concentration of that element in the original sample. The process needs to be repeated for each individual element that is to be analyzed.
Each of these techniques provide elemental analyses of the sample being studied. In the case of metals, this is sufficient, but for silicate materials (e.g., ceramics, slag), the elements have to be converted to oxides by stoichiometry post-analysis. In many cases, this is not problematic. For elements with several valences (and thus oxidation states, for example, iron), this means that the oxidation state(s) must be either estimated based on prior knowledge of that sample type, or investigated further, using XRD or microstructural analysis to understand the mineralogy of the sample.
X-ray Diffraction
XRD analysis requires a powdered sample to be irradiated, from which the resultant diffracted X-rays are detected and plotted as peaks that can be compared with known diffraction patterns of a reference database of mineral species. This enables the identification of crystalline structures, and thus the identification of mineral phases. This is especially useful when researchers are seeking to identify mineral phases that cannot be recognized microscopically, or to understand the proportions of, for example, the different oxide states of iron occurring within a sample. However, the sensitivity of XRD analysis depends on the complexity of overlapping diffraction patterns, or if a sample, for example, includes phases with poor crystallinity. Iron-rich phases in particular—common in slag—can be difficult to interpret as they generate many overlapping peaks.
Microstructural Analysis
Optical Microscopy
A primary means by which to examine almost all of the materials associated with iron production and iron-working technologies is microscopy. Standard optical microscopes can generally provide up to 1000x magnification, and camera attachments mean that high-quality digital images can be easily produced. By studying samples of slag, tuyère, ore, and iron metal under the microscope, it is possible to observe and identify the mineralogical compositions of those samples and their internal microstructures (i.e., the sizes of the crystal structures and how they are distributed across a sample). By comparing this with published examples of different minerals, and building on the experience of the person undertaking the analyses, it becomes possible to estimate the conditions under which those samples formed. For ceramics, this means understanding the type and size of any tempering materials, and the extent of vitrification, and the clay composition itself, and how the clay had been worked (see Figure 8).
For slag, the size and distribution of the various phases that make up the slag can provide detailed information about how the samples were formed and what conditions they had been subjected to (e.g., heat, pressure, cooling rates), as well as preliminary estimations of the chemical composition (see Figure 9).
For iron objects, an examination of patterns of grain growth, texture, and grain deformation across the sample gives an idea of the alloying components of the metal, the temperatures it had been exposed to, and the ways in which it had been mechanically deformed (see Figure 10)23.
Reflected light microscopy is used for samples known to be composed primarily of opaque minerals: metals, many ores, major constituents of slag. The sample surface is illuminated from above, and light reflects back up to the eyepiece of the microscope, revealing the mineralogical microstructure of the sample (see Figure 12). Samples are prepared by being cut from an artifact and set in a resin block. Then the surface of the mounted sample is ground and polished until it is very smooth and highly reflective (see Figure 11).
In comparison, transmitted light microscopy is used for samples that are non-opaque once ground to a thickness of thirty micrometers (as prepared as a thin-section).
Light is shone through the sample, and in doing so interacts in characteristic way with different minerals depending on their color, refractive index, and optical symmetry (see Figures 13 and 14). Observations of the optical properties of these minerals enable their identification.
Scanning Electron Microscopy
Electron microscopy is able to produce images of samples prepared for optical microscopy at much higher magnification. It operates on the principle that an electron beam directed at a prepared sample under vacuum will excite the surface of the sample and cause electrons and X-ray photons to be emitted from it. Detection of the emitted electrons is used to generate optical images of the sample surface. Secondary electrons (SEs) are low energy, and so only those emitted from atoms nearest to the surface will reach the detector. As such, raised areas of the sample are more likely to produce SEs that can be detected, and therefore an SE image will generally reflect the topography of the sample. This can be useful, for example, in assessments of the vitrification of ceramics used in high-temperature processes.24 Backscattered electrons (BSE), of higher energy, are a result of the interaction of the incident electron beam with the nucleus of the atoms, and their intensity is related to the average atomic number of the different phases of the exposed sample area.
BSE imaging thereby provides a visual representation of the chemical make-up of the sample, which can be useful in determining the distribution of phases across a sample (see Figures 15 and 16). However, it is most useful when used in conjunction with electron probe microanalysis.
Electron Probe Microanalysis
The high-resolution imaging capabilities of electron microscopy and the qualitative data it produces can be supplemented with electron beam microanalysis to determine elemental compositions of specific areas of the samples. This produces a more detailed understanding of the internal chemical make-up of the samples and the distribution of elements across different phases. Detection of the emitted X-ray photons, as measured and counted by a spectrometer, provides a chemical analysis of selected areas of the sample, as each element produces photons of a characteristic energy. Again, there are several options for how the photons are measured, with implications for the accuracy and sensitivity of the analysis. Wavelength dispersive spectroscopy (WDS) is much more sensitive, particularly for trace element analysis, than energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS).
This technique is particularly useful when dealing with heterogeneous materials such as slag, as specific areas of interest within the sample can be pinpointed and analyzed for elemental composition. As well as being used to confirm the chemical composition of crystal structures identified through optical microscopy, this technique can also characterize those that are otherwise unidentifiable. With regards to samples of ceramic material, this method also allows for the generation of a more accurate chemical analysis of clay matrices. This is important as a bulk chemical analysis will include the compositions of any inclusions or temper (such as quartz or slag); a targeted chemical analysis of the matrix alone will facilitate an understanding of the properties of the clay itself.
Similarly, this kind of microanalysis is able to provide chemical signatures of slag inclusions trapped within iron objects (see Figure 17), which can be useful if trying to link iron objects to slag systems.
Laser-Ablation ICP-MS
As a microprobe application of ICP-MS, laser ablation negates the need for time-consuming sample digestion in acid, and removes any risk of contamination associated with such methods (although samples still have to be flat and small enough to fit in a sample chamber—less than four cubic centimeters). A laser beam is directed at the surface of a sample, targeting and vaporizing an area of interest. Although this method does not account for sample heterogeneity (unless LA-ICP-MS is undertaken on a powder pellet or fused bead), it does allow for the elemental analysis to reflect spatial differentiations across the sample itself. Limits of detection are, however, worse than for traditional ICP-MS, and it is not possible to generate fully quantitative data using this technique.
Making Sense of the Data
Interpreting Chemical Data
For all of these analytical methods, an important factor to be considered prior to any interpretations of the data is an assessment of how reliable the analytical instrument is. The operating parameters should be checked by calibration, that is, compared to standards of known composition, preferably prepared for analysis in the same way as the analyzed samples have been. Normalization of the results to 100 percent permits easy comparisons to be drawn within the dataset and with other datasets, but can mask problems with the analyses, so it is important to consider results in both normalized and un-normalized forms.
Once reliable data has been collected on the chemical compositions of samples, the more meaningful work—the interpretation—can begin. Various methods of multivariate analyses can be used to explore the relationships between chemical and mineralogical variables and to reveal patterns of compositional variation within a dataset.25 In order to gain a basic understanding of how a smelting system might have operated, one can plot the chemical compositions of slag samples in a ternary diagram to facilitate comparison with equilibrium phase diagrams (see Figure 18).26
These can be used to determine estimated temperatures and conditions under which the slag formed, providing a guide to the minimum operating temperatures of a furnace firing episode.
These estimations can feed back into interpretations of the associated ceramic materials, in terms of the temperatures that they would have needed to withstand, and the contribution of these ceramics to the slag melt dependent on their estimated refractory qualities. Furthermore, it is also possible to correlate information from these diagrams with the results of any microstructural analysis.
Experimental Archaeology and Ethnoarchaeology
Experimental archaeology and reconstructions of iron technologies have played a significant role in the development of researchers' understanding of how iron production and working technologies operated in the real world. These encounters—either through undertaking experiments themselves, or observing traditional metalworking activities—have encouraged archaeologists and archaeometallurgists to go beyond a theoretical appreciation of chemical and physical processes, allowing them to experience the material, operational, and socioeconomic constraints—often unexpected—that acted upon past technologies. Both approaches have tended to focus primarily on iron smelting, but some studies have also explored mining and smithing technologies.27
It is certainly true that "our ability to imagine what people in the past thought was worthwhile is always limited by what we think is worthwhile."28 It is not possible to completely overcome this limitation—people are products of what they already know, in the same way that past metalworkers were also a product of what they knew and believed—but both experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology go some way to addressing the issue by providing a challenge to prevailing ideas.
Experimental archaeology offers an opportunity to test new hypotheses on production processes or the behavior of different materials, in the lab or in the field. It allows researchers to apply a more hands-on approach to problem solving, putting themselves in the role of the metalworkers that they are trying to understand. It also provides a platform through which different variables can be explored in order to produce results that best match excavated archaeological materials. However, iron technologies are complex undertakings, and before meaningful experiments can be undertaken it is necessary to build the experience and know-how of the processes in question: a path that requires a considerable investment of time, energy, and dedication. Nevertheless, this learning process and the development of a series of experiments can prove invaluable in itself by encouraging new perspectives on how technologies may have been carried out in the past—particularly, perhaps, when working outside, using "authentic" tools and methods, and dealing with an unpredictable environment.
Both experiments and reconstructions carry with them the risk of failure, and it is in this failure that new and novel ideas are often generated, stimulating fresh ideas of how past technologies operated, and constructing new hypotheses that can be tested.29 For example, Schmidt's series of reconstructions of iron smelting in Tanzania30—some of which failed, some of which succeeded—documented the disagreements and negotiations between the master smelter and his team, demonstrating the role that personal interactions play in shaping the acquisition of material resources and how smelting activity is carried out.
Ethnoarchaeological studies of iron production in Africa over the past decades, and historical accounts of smithing and smelting activity recorded in the 19th and 20th centuries have been instrumental in informing archaeometallurgists working within the continent, as well as those working elsewhere, of the extensive social and symbolic frameworks that surrounded metalworking practices. These intangible aspects formed a fundamental part of past metal working technologies, but can be difficult to address archaeologically. By documenting such symbolic behaviors through ethnoarchaeological methods (interviews, reconstructions, and so on) it can become possible to provide further detail to archaeological interpretations.
As methods by which to more fully understand past iron production processes, experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology can address a wide scope of questions, ranging from aspects of furnace design and construction, slag formation, operational parameters, social influences on production, sequences of activity, raw material selection and preparation, and the symbolic and performative aspects of production processes. However, their limitations and reliability have to be carefully considered.31 Ethnoarchaeological data depends on the reliability of individual sources or historical accounts, and the inherent biases that they contain. These methods are heavily influenced not only by the context in which the observation or reconstruction was undertaken, but also by the personal relationship between the researcher and the subject—factors such as trust, representation, mutual understanding, and respect. How representative a single reconstruction or interview (or set of interviews or reconstructions) can be in terms of understanding the technology of a region should also be considered, as should the fact that reconstructions today are generally far removed from being undertaken in earnest to produce iron. Since the last smelting industries in Africa drew to a close in the mid-20th century, there are very few individuals surviving that have first-hand experience of mining or smelting technologies. Smithing technologies, on the other hand, are still being undertaken in some places, or have ceased relatively recently. An ability to sufficiently assess the reliability of ethnoarchaeological data relies on an honest and open presentation of the methods of data collection by the researcher. The need for detailed reporting of experimental archaeology is similarly important and allows for the results to be relatable to archaeological data. The authenticity of "traditional" methods and tools should be scrutinized, and there should be explicit discussion of the levels of scientific control maintained over variables, especially if researchers are working in a nonlaboratory environment.
Materials generated through both ethnoarchaeological reconstructions and experimental archaeology are often examined by the chemical and microstructural methods described below, allowing easy comparisons with archaeological materials. Furthermore, measurements of the mass of inputs (e.g., ore, clay, charcoal, bloomery iron) versus outputs (e.g., slag, bloomery iron, worked iron) can be used to infer the consumption rates of raw materials in relation to archaeological sites.
Understanding African Iron Technologies: Final Thoughts
The intention of any archaeological analysis is to try and understand the people that left traces of their past actions and behaviors. Explorations of iron production and iron-working technologies are well suited to understanding the material demands and needs of past populations, as chemical and microstructural analyses can provide a secure framework for the reconstruction of the physical actions and material choices of past craftspeople. Understanding why they made these choices is a more difficult endeavour. Analytical investigation of iron production remains can explore how something was made and used, and what raw materials may have been involved, yet it is the interpretation of this data which allows archaeometallurgists and archaeologists to consider more nuanced questions as to the technologies and material culture as a whole, and why processes were undertaken in the way that they were: What knowledge or experience was required for different processes? Can changes be seen over time? Were there constraints on raw material selection? What sociocultural influences were there on technological choices? Only by striving to understand the wider contexts of the production and consumption of iron objects can more detailed questions about the societies that drove these production activities and the individuals who implemented them be explored.
Further Reading
Brown, Jean. Traditional Metalworking in Kenya. Oxford: Oxbow, 1995.Find this resource:
Chirikure, Shadreck. Metals in Past Societies: A Global Perspective on Indigenous African Metallurgy. New York: Springer, 2015.Find this resource:
Cline, Walter. Mining and Metallurgy in Negro Africa. Menasha: George Banta, 1937.Find this resource:
David, Nicholas, and Carol Kramer. Ethnoarchaeology in Action. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2001.Find this resource:
Dungworth, David, and Roger Doonan, eds. Accidental and Experimental Archaeometallurgy. London: The Historical Metallurgical Society, 2013.Find this resource:
Herbert, Eugenia. Iron, Gender, and Power: Rituals of Transformation in African Societies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.Find this resource:
Humphris, Jane, and Thilo Rehren, eds. The World of Iron. London: Archetype, 2013.Find this resource:
Killick, David. "What Do We Know about African Iron Working?" Journal of African Archaeology 2 (2004): 97–112.Find this resource:
Pleiner, Radomír. Iron in Archaeology: The European Bloomery Smelters. Prague: Archeologigky Ustav Avcr, 2000.Find this resource:
Pollard, Mark A., C. M. Batt, B. Stern, and S. Young. Analytical Chemistry in Archaeology. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2007.Find this resource:
Roberts, Ben, and Chris Thornton, eds. Archaeometallurgy in Global Perspective: Methods and Syntheses. New York: Springer, 2014.Find this resource:
Rostoker, William, and Bennett Bronson. Pre-Industrial Iron: Its Technology and Ethnology. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 1990.Find this resource:
Schmidt, Peter. Iron Technology in East Africa: Symbolism, Science, and Archaeology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.Find this resource:
Scott, David. Metallography and Microstructure of Ancient and Historic Metals. Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Trust, 1991.Find this resource:
(1.) Daniela Comelli et al., "The Meteoritic Origin of Tutankhamun's Iron Dagger Blade," Meteoritics and Planetary Science 51 (2016): 1301–1309.
(2.) The precise timing of the inception of iron production in different regions of Africa is much debated. See discussion in Stanley Alpern, "Did They or Didn't They Invent It? Iron in Sub-Saharan Africa," History in Africa 32 (2005): 41–94; and David Killick, "What Do We Know about African Iron Working?" Journal of African Archaeology 2 (2004): 97–112.
(3.) However, not all communities practiced iron-working technologies. David Killick, "Cairo to Cape: The Spread of Metallurgy through Eastern and Southern Africa," Journal of World Prehistory 22 (2009): 399–414; and Augustin Holl, "Early West African Metallurgies: New Data and Old Orthodoxy," Journal of World Prehistory 22 (2009): 415–438.
(4.) Eugenia Herbert, Iron, Gender, and Power: Rituals of Transformation in African Societies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993); S. Terry Childs and William Dewey, "Forging Symbolic Meaning in Zaire and Zimbabwe," in The Culture and Technology of African Iron Production, ed. P. Schmidt (Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 1996), 145–171; and Pierre de Maret, "The Smith's Myth and the Origin of Leadership in Central Africa," in Randi Haaland and Peter Shinnie, African Iron Working: Ancient and Traditional, eds. R Haaland and P. Shinnie (Oslo: Norwegian University Press, 1985), 73–87.
(5.) See Walter Cline, Mining and Metallurgy in Negro Africa (Menasha, WI: George Banta, 1937); Jean Brown, Traditional Metalworking in Kenya (Oxford: Oxbow, 1995); and Shadreck Chirikure, Metals in Past Societies: A Global Perspective on Indigenous African Metallurgy (New York: Springer, 2015).
(6.) Radomír Pleiner, Iron in Archaeology: The European Bloomery Smelters (Prague: Archeologigky Ustav Avcr, 2000); and William Rostoker and Bennett Bronson, Pre-Industrial Iron: Its Technology and Ethnology (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 1990).
(7.) See examples in Cline, Mining and Metallurgy; Brown, Traditional Metalworking.
(8.) Nikolaas van der Merwe and Donald Avery, "Science and Magic in African Technology: Traditional Iron Smelting in Malawi," Africa 57 (1987): 143–172; and S. Davison and P. N. Mosley, "Iron-smelting in the Upper North Rukuru Basin of Northern Malawi," Azania 23 (1988): 57–99.
(9.) Peter Crew, "Bloom Refining and Smithing Slags and Other Residues," Historical Metallurgy Society: Archaeology Datasheet No. 6, March 1996.
(10.) See Brown, Traditional Metalworking.
(11.) See discussion of survey method in Louise Iles, "Iron Production in Uganda: Memories of a Near-Forgotten Industry," in Reanimating Industrial Spaces: Conducting Memory Work in Post-Industrial Societies, ed. H.Orange (Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2015), 158–175.
(12.) Jane Humphris and Chris Carey, "New Methods for Investigating Slag Heaps: Integrating Geoprospection, Excavation and Quantitative Methods at Meroe, Sudan," Journal of Archaeological Science 70 (2016): 132–144.
(13.) Philip de Barros, "A Quantified, Chronologically Controlled, Regional Approach to a Traditional Iron Production Centre in West Africa," Africa 56 (1986): 148–174; Humphris and Carey, "New Methods"; Randi Haaland, "Man's Role in the Changing Habitat of Mema during the Old Kingdom of Ghana," Norwegian Archaeological Review 13 (1980): 31–46; and Caroline Robion-Brunner, Forgerons et Sidérurgie en Pays Dogon, Vers une Histoire de la Production du Fer sur le Plateau de Bandiagara (Mali) Durant les Empires Précoloniaux (Frankfurt: Africa Magna Verlag, 2010).
(14.) Shadreck Chirikure and Thilo Rehren, "Iron Smelting in Pre-Colonial Zimbabwe: Evidence for Diachronic Change from Swart Village and Baranda, Northern Zimbabwe," Journal of African Archaeology 4 (2006): 37–54; and Louise Iles and Paul Lane, "Iron Production in Second Millennium AD Pastoralist Contexts on the Laikipia Plateau, Kenya," Azania 50 (2015): 372–401.
(15.) See ORE article by Shadreck Chirikure, "Documenting Precolonial Trade in Africa."
(16.) For example, see Louise Iles, "The Use of Plants in Iron Production: Insights from Smelting Remains from Buganda," in The Archaeology of African Plant Use, eds. C. Stevens, S. Nixon, M. Murray, and D. Fuller (San Francisco: Left Coast Press, 2014), 267–274.
(17.) Hans-Gurt Bachmann, The Identification of Slags from Archaeological Sites (London: Institute of Archaeology, 1982); and Vincent Serneels, "Quantification of Smithing Activities Based on the Investigation of Slag and Other Material Remains," in Archaeometallurgy in Europe (Milan: Associazione Italiana di Metallurgia, 2003), 469–478.
(18.) See Louise Iles, "The Exploitation of Manganese-Rich 'Ore' to Smelt Iron in Mwenge, Western Uganda, from the Mid Second Millennium AD," Journal of Archaeological Science 49 (2014): 423–441.
(19.) Stéphanie Leroy et al., "The Medieval Iron Market in Ariège (France). Multidisciplinary Analytical Approach and Multivariate Analyses," Journal of Archaeological Science 39 (2012): 1080–1093; and Maxime L'Héritier et al., "Characterization of Slag Inclusions in Iron Objects," in Recent Advances in Laser Ablation ICP-MS for Archaeology, ed. Laure Dussubieux et al. (New York: Springer, 2016), 213–228.
(20.) See A. Mark Pollard et al., Analytical Chemistry in Archaeology (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2007); and A. Mark Pollard and Carl Heron, Archaeological Chemistry (Cambridge, U.K.: Royal Society of Chemistry, 2008), for an in-depth discussion of these methods.
(21.) In the case of ceramic material, it is important to note that this method provides a bulk chemistry of the clay including any inclusions or tempering material. This bulk chemistry is important for understanding the ceramic contribution to the slag melt, but in order to fully characterize the fabric of the ceramic, any bulk chemical analysis should be carried out in conjunction with petrographic and/or microprobe/SEM-EDS analysis.
(22.) Portable XRF—though nondestructive—has limited use in iron metallurgy as it is poorly suited to the analysis of heterogeneous slags and ores, in addition to being insensitive to iron's primary alloys. For further discussion, see Ellery Frahm and Roger Doonan, "The Technological versus Methodological Revolution of Portable XRF in Archaeology," Journal of Archaeological Science 40 (2013): 1425–1434.
(23.) David Scott, Metallography and Microstructure of Ancient and Historic Metals (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Trust, 1991).
(24.) Marcos Martinón-Torres and Thilo Rehren, "Technical Ceramics," in Archaeometallurgy in Global Perspective: Methods and Syntheses, eds. Ben Roberts and Chris Thornton (New York: Springer, 2014), 107–132.
(25.) See, for example, Michael Charlton et al., "Measuring Variation in Iron Smelting Slags: An Empirical Evaluation of Group-Identification Procedures," in The World of Iron, eds. Jane Humphris and Thilo Rehren (London: Archetype, 2013), 421–430.
(26.) Andreas Hauptmann, "The Investigation of Archaeological Slag," in Archaeometallurgy in Global Perspective: Methods and Syntheses, eds. Ben Roberts and Chris Thornton (New York: Springer, 2014), 91–106.
(27.) See, for example, S. Terry Childs, "Social Identity and Craft Specialization among Toro Iron Workers in Western Uganda," Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 8 (1998): 109–121.
(28.) David Dungworth, "Experimental Archaeometallurgy: Hypothesis Testing, Happy Accidents and Theatrical Performances," in Accidental and Experimental Archaeometallurgy, eds. David Dungworth and Roger Doonan (London: Historical Metallurgical Society, 2013), 11–16.
(29.) Dungworth, "Experimental Archaeometallurgy," 15, describes an early bronze casting experience in which he repeatedly checked whether the bronze was molten prior to casting. It was only later that he realized that his inexperience and the frequent checking behavior that it resulted in had led to cassiterite (tin oxide) forming in the microstructure of the final objects. Serendipitously, this led to a re-evaluation of explanations of cassiterite in archaeological bronze artefacts.
(30.) Peter Schmidt, Iron Technology in East Africa: Symbolism, Science, and Archaeology (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997).
(31.) Nicholas David and Carol Kramer, Ethnoarchaeology in Action (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2001).


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As the Bears prepare for this weekend's trip to San Francisco, we asked Matt Barrows, the 49ers beat writer for the Sacramento Bee, for his candid personal scouting report. Here are four things you need to know about the Niners before Sunday's prime time kickoff.
1. The 49ers are still winning, despite a pile-up of off-the-field issues.
Need a refresher on some of the tumult that the 49ers have experienced in recent months? Here's a quick sampling of some of the bigger headlines:

subset: commoncrawl


text: I ran the TACC benchmarks myself, and the config files are posted at http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/namd/wiki/index.cgi?NamdAtTexas Part of the performance difference may be due to differences between the 2.6 released and newer cvs versions of NAMD, but even the released amd64 binary ran really fast at TACC. There may be some special sauce in the servers or OS that I'm not aware of. -Jim On Wed, 22 Aug 2007, Kevin Ball wrote: > Hi Dow, > > On Wed, 2007-08-22 at 09:52, Dow Hurst DPHURST wrote: >> Jim and Kevin, >> Why would the 4 core point on the performance benchmark be reversed between >> the 2.66GHz and 3.0GHz? I'm pretty sure that the Lonestar NAMD was >> compiled with the Intel compilers. I don't know what was used on the >> Cambridge Darwin cluster. Both machines are Intel Woodcrest dual cores and >> dual physical CPUs per node. > > I believe this is likely due to my lack of knowledge in regards to > tuning the Intel compilers. If whoever submitted the TACC results would > be willing to send out their configuration files that would help resolve > this question. Thanks! > > -Kevin > >> >> Both Infinipath clusters listed on the performance benchmark have the best >> scaling for the apoa1 benchmark between 128 to 512 cores. >> >> Sure seems if SDR is good enough for an Intel Clovertown based cluster that >> that would be more cost effective. The Woodcrest and Clovertown are priced >> about the same. >> >> Thanks for your comments! >> Dow >> >> __________________________________ >> Dow P. Hurst, Research Scientist >> Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry >> University of North Carolina at Greensboro >> 435 New Science Bldg. >> Greensboro, NC 27402-6170 >> dphurst at uncg.edu >> Dow.Hurst at mindspring.com >> 336-334-4766 lab >> 336-334-5122 office >> 336-334-5402 fax >> >> -----Jim Phillips <jim at ks.uiuc.edu> wrote: ----- >> >> To: Kevin Ball <kevin.ball at qlogic.com> >> From: Jim Phillips <jim at ks.uiuc.edu> >> Date: 08/22/2007 12:25PM >> cc: Dow Hurst DPHURST <DPHURST at uncg.edu>, beowulf at beowulf.org >> Subject: Re: [Beowulf] latency vs bandwidth for NAMD >> >> >> Those NAMD results are up now ("Cambridge Xeon/3.0 InfiniPath" at >> http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/namd/performance.html). My opinion is >> that SDR is sufficient for NAMD, but I haven't had a chance to see if >> there is any benefit to DDR. I did hear that the new TACC Ranger cluster >> with 16 cores per node will use SDR. I assume that on larger clusters the >> switch is more likely to be the limiting factor than the card (I know >> precious little about either). >> >> -Jim >> >> >> On Tue, 21 Aug 2007, Kevin Ball wrote: >> >>> Hi Dow, >>> >>> The QLE7240 DDR HCA is not available yet, but we do not expect that it >>> would have any substantial advantage on NAMD as compared to the QLE7140 >>> (SDR), because we don't believe that NAMD requires substantial pt to pt >>> bandwidth from the interconnect. >>> >>> The TACC cluster is not using QLogic InfiniBand (IB) cards, but I >>> believe they are SDR IB cards from another vendor. >>> >>> Just last week I submitted a result to the folks at UIUC with results >>> on a similar cluster with the QLE7140. It has not yet shown up on their >>> results page, but in essence, the scalability is similar until around >>> 256 cores, at which point the results diverge with the QLE7140 cluster >>> dramatically outperforming the TACC cluster at 512 cores. >>> >>> I expect the QLE7140 results will show up in the next week or so on >>> that website, (http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/namd/performance.html) so >>> you can compare to TACC performance at that time. On that site you can >>> also see performance with a number of other machines, including an SGI >>> Altix with much higher pt to pt bandwidth yet worse scaling than IB, >>> which is part of why I don't think DDR will improve results. >>> >>> If you are interested in other MD codes, we have found advantages on >>> codes like CHARMM and GROMACS as well. Some of thsee are detailed in a >>> white paper on our website: >>> >> http://www.qlogic.com/documents/datasheets/knowledge_data/whitepapers/HSG-WP07005.pdf >> >>> >>> Fair notice: I work for QLogic on the InfiniPath product line. I >>> have tried my best to make what bias I have open and clear. >>> >>> -Kevin >>> >>> >>> On Fri, 2007-08-17 at 14:03, Dow Hurst DPHURST wrote: >>>> I'd like to get advice on how latency affects scaling of molecular >> dynamics >>>> codes versus total bandwidth of the interconnect card. We use NAMD as >> the >>>> molecular dynamics code and have had Ammasso RDMA interconnects. Right >>>> now, we have a chance to upgrade and add nodes to our cluster using >>>> Infiniband. I've found that NAMD was coded to be latency tolerant, >>>> however, I'd like to scale up to 64 cores and beyond. I'm going blind >>>> reading IB card specs, performance benchmarks, and searching Google. >> I'd >>>> love some advice from someone who knows whether a consistent very low >>>> latency IB card, such as the Infinipath QLE7140, is better/worse for >> NAMD >>>> than a higher latency but higher bandwidth card such as the QLE7240? I >> can >>>> tell that Lonestar at TACC has great NAMD performance but I can't tell >> what >>>> IB card is used. I imagine that switch performance plays a large role >> too. >>>> Thanks for your time, >>>> Dow >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org >>>> To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit >> http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org >>> To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit >> http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf >>> >> >> >


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CORNWALL — While consumers throughout the country continue to recover from the frenzied shopping experiences that were Black Friday and Cyber Monday, leaders of the Cornwall Congregational Church are quietly organizing what could appropriately be called "Alternative Saturday," a Dec. 1 opportunity for people to purchase the gift of basic necessities for people struggling just to survive.
The Cornwall Church on Route 30 is referring to the event as its second annual Alternative Market, which will give shoppers an opportunity to check out several local, statewide and international aid organizations in need of funds to help people who are hungry, homeless, persecuted and/or ill.
Shoppers will be able to make a donation to the organization(s) of their choice in the name of a recipient who, as they celebrate the holidays, will have the satisfaction of knowing they helped someone in a very basic and tangible way, noted Betsy Stine, secretary of the Cornwall Church's Mission Committee. It's a perfect gift for the person who thinks he or she has everything.
"As you get older, gifts and more things don't mean as much," Stine said.
Some of the local groups to be represented at the Alternative Market will include Habitat for Humanity (which is building some homes in Cornwall), the Community Meals of Middlebury and the Meals on Wheels program that delivers food to homebound seniors.
Those looking to make their mark in more distant lands can contribute to other causes, such as Nomadicare, which delivers health services to rural Mongolians under the leadership of county resident Sas Carey; and Aman Children's Home, which offers shelter and other services to homeless children in Ethiopia and Kenya. Representing the latter charity will be Middlebury College students Brook Mengesha and Evelyn Rotich, who hail from Ethiopia and Kenya, respectively.
The market will run from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. At the same time, children of the congregation will be making and offering for sale Christmas tree ornaments to benefit Tenzin Kinchok, a 12-year-old Tibetan child whom the church has been sponsoring since 2003. The young girl lives in the Tibetan Refugee Self-Help Center in Darjeeling, India.
Helping charitable causes is nothing new for the Cornwall church, which has an active mission that has supported such organizations as the local summer lunch program, landmine detection dogs, fuel assistance, the Heifer Project, the Vermont Food Bank, the local food shelf, foster children, Helping Overcome Poverty's Effects (HOPE), the John Graham Emergency Homeless Shelter, and Committee On Temporary Shelter in Burlington.
Mengesha and Rotich raised around $300 through the Alternative Market last year and they are pleased to be able to return for this year's event.
"(The $300) was definitely more than we expected," Rotich said during a phone interview. "It was great."
Funds gathered from the market helped provide shelter, food, clothing and school supplies for very poor children in Ethiopia and Kenya, according to Rotich, who is majoring in economics and psychology at Middlebury.
It was an experience that allowed the two young women to lobby for their cause beyond the college campus.
"We were able to meet a lot of people and make a connection," Rotich said.
Anyone seeking more information on the Alternative Market may call 349-0995 or 462-2012.
Reporter John Flowers is at [email protected]


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Wohoo! Got around to doing Pinks Quiz, I know I hardly post at the moment. After season and the wedding, I shall make an effort to post daily! It will be one of my new years resolutions!
1. Who introduced Turkeys to Europe?
My guess would be the British, but I have no clue.
2. What is Gammon?
Cured pig meat, traditionally the hide leg which is deboned.
3. What are the three main ingredients of the cocktail Cosmopolitan?
Vodka, triple sec, cranberry juice and lime juice
4. What are Mince pies filled with nowadays?
dried fruit, apples, some spices, and alcohol.
5. What is a Bundt cake?
Well, it's actually rather simple. A bundt cake is a cake baked in a bundt pan. The bundt pan is a cake pan which is shaped in a distinctive ridged ring shape. This cake was such a craze when I lived in the USA, you would walk into any bakery type place or food place and you always had the option of a million different flavors of bundt cake.
6. Where did Panforte originate from?
Italy, it's a dessert very similar to fruit cake.
7. What is sprue?
The first pickings or "thinning" of the asparagus is known as the sprue
8. What is fresh coriander called in America?
Cilantro – one of my favorite herbs to use! The freshness is so unique!
9. In which country is stollen a traditional Christmas cake?
10. What is Chami?
From my understanding it is a sort of Filipino type dish. But I am not 100% sure about this.


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Express. Home of the Daily and Sunday Express.
Puncheon wins it for Palace
Jason Puncheon ended the Tottenham penalty-miss argument with a coolly-taken strike as Crystal Palace saw off Stoke 1-0 at Selhurst Park for their first Barclays Premier League win in four matches.
Southampton loan-man Puncheon's embarrassing penalty miss in the 2-0 defeat at Spurs last week sparked a war of words with former Palace boss Neil Warnock.
The 27-year-old reacted angrily to Warnock suggesting he would never have allowed Puncheon to take spot-kicks, launching an ill-advised Twitter tirade.
Warnock threatened legal action as the spat spiralled, before Palace boss Tony Pulis calmed the situation by backing Puncheon for further set-piece duty.
Pulis was desperate not to concede a Premier League double to former club Stoke, especially two days after turning 56.
Puncheon's finish was all the sweeter for the context, after a first half devoid of end product to add to that horror-show penalty.
It was enough to set Palace up for their first league win since Boxing Day, and condemn Mark Hughes' Stoke to their fifth consecutive winless Premier League clash.
Vindicated for investing in Puncheon, Pulis' strict safety-first policy of 10 men behind the ball also paid handsome dividend, carrying Palace out of the relegation zone.
Yannick Bolasie's accurate cross brought the game's first chance but Marouane Chamakh could not contort to connect and that was enough of a distraction to unsettle the better-placed Joel Ward, who failed to steer his header on target.
Danny Gabbidon's miscued clearance had Julian Speroni catching breath for half a second, but the ball drifted safely behind.
Jonathan Parr's incisive ball set Bolasie free down the left again, but this time there was no final ball.
Marc Wilson had Stoke's first chance from a well-worked Charlie Adam free-kick, only for Speroni to parry the header round the post.
Adrian Mariappa's dangerous cross begged for a powerful header, but Adlene Guedioura could not connect.
Missing loan man Cameron Jerome had to be a moot point once the system was set to accommodate his absence, but Palace struggled for final-third cohesion after their bright start and mediocrity descended upon Selhurst Park.
At the other end, Erik Pieters fired in a poor ball for Stoke, who maintained profligacy in possession.
Finally Adam broke the malaise with a pinpoint lofted ball into the area for Jonathan Walters, but the Stoke midfielder was so shocked he lost his footing and failed to power into the header, gifting Speroni an easy save.
Pulis was probably purring at Palace's regimented rearguard and two pristine banks of four as both sides consulted goalscoring for dummies at the break.
Palace's half-time drills in and out of training cones neatly sums up Pulis' demanding methodology.
His players were warm by the restart then, but Stoke still started the sharper. Walter's astute knock-down handed Adam a wide sight on goal just outside the Palace box, but the former Liverpool man dragged his low effort wide.
When the first goal came, Palace were almost as surprised as Stoke.
So flustered by that penalty miss last weekend, Puncheon personified calm as he bided his time and produced a neat drive to beat Jack Butland in the Stoke box.
Mariappa's one-two with Bolasie had carried Palace within range once again, but it was Southampton loanee Puncheon who carved out his own opening under pressure in the area.
Walters then wasted a half chance by taking too much interest in wrestling Jonathan Parr and not enough in heading towards goal, his innocuous effort symptomatic of Stoke's toothless attack.
Adam once again fought to take matters into his own hands, but a fine 25-yard strike just drifted wide of Speroni's left post.
Replacement Steven Ireland fired over after Peter Crouch's knockdown as the visitors tried to up the ante.
Had Bolasie kept his footing to meet a low near-post cross, the hosts would have doubled their advantage. The ball ricocheted off his back to fall for Chamakh, but the former Arsenal man could not find a team-mate in the ensuing scramble.
Stoke's desperation manifested in concerted pressure, but again no tangible goal threat.
Butland was then forced to deny Joel Ward, Puncheon and Chamakh as Palace stole clear from another fruitless Stoke attack.
Late jitters saw Palace's back four creep deeper and deeper, much to keeper Speroni's annoyance.
Parr's break yielded a first-time shot from replacement Aaron Wilbraham but he could not hit the target.
Ryan Shawcross went down in the area as the seconds ticked down but, rightly, there was to be no penalty.
Butland then denied Puncheon at the other end, before Stoke wasted their final opportunity with the ball spilling out of play.
Speroni fired into the air to signal jubilant final-whistle celebrations from Palace, with boss Pulis even shaking hands with counterpart Hughes.


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It's that lovely time of year, television fans. In the US, their Summer is over, Autumn has come around again and therefore all those rich actors who earn butt loads per episode are back from their exotic holidays (which their butt loads of money paid for) and forced to go back to work for our petty entertainment.
Sucks for them, but fantastic for us. Particularly for us Aussies who have excellent viewing coming up, without the impending doom that is winter (sorry US!)
As readers will know, Vampire Diaries started up last weekend, Dexter is scheduled for only ten days away (but who's counting?) and even Archer (sorry, I don't have anything on Archer on this website, but if you're interested send me a line) started last week.
And now Gossip Girl has arrived. Hurray! Well…almost. The premiere for Season Five is scheduled for September 26th in the US, so if you're a savvy internet goer (read: illegal downloader) you can access it the next day. Yes!!
So far, Season Five will be set in both New York AND Los Angeles (read above information about sunny holidays rich people go on) and there has been a whisper that Dan and Blair may get back together…which Chuck suitably does NOT like at all.
Check out the trailer and let me know what you think. I'm particularly interested in what you think about Liz Hurley going all cougar on the beautiful Nate (seriously, how can she "hook up" with Chace Crawford and then go home to Shane Warne? It is beyond me).


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Full version, Basic version, Tiny version
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The first line of text should be 'square' 'triangle'. The small-caps font should match the second text element.
The second line of text should be 'square' 'triangle'. The second line is used to ensure that the order of font specification does not effect the selection of these fonts.
The third line of text should be 'square', 'diamond', 'square', 'diamond'. This shows that the correct font is selected when a font in the list does not support the variant required. Note that the fonts provide no x-height so scaling (allowed by CSS) cannot be used to simulate a small cap from a regular font.
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Senna Leaf Tea and It's Wonderful Benefits
The question is, what are senna leaf tea health benefits? For centuries, senna leaf has been used in making herbal teas, for purging and in managing weight loss. The components that makes senna work for these things are anthraquinone derivatives along with their glucosides that functions as a local irritant on the colon, as mentioned in Livertox. This active components promote peristalsis and evacuation of unwanted things inside the bowel.
Furthermore, it also enhances the intestinal fluid accumulation and increases the moisture content of stool by making some sort of reaction in the colon inhibiting electrolyte and water reabsorption.
Constipation Issues? Take Senna Tea
Everyone should observe if they are experiencing less than three bowel movements per week or if the stool is harder than usual. This signifies constipation, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center. Many factors may contribute to constipation and some are stress, chronic disease, lack of exercise, or certain medications. Some people advise senna leaf laxative tea for constipation as it readily and rapidly fixes the issue of hard and infrequent bowel movement. But go talk to a doctor first before making your own decision.
Drink Senna Tea for immediate Weight Loss
Most instant weight loss products involve the feeling frequent bowel movement making the person have the need to eject whatever is in it. This is how does senna tea work for weight loss. Thus, the body resorts to using the reserved fats, calories, proteins and carbohydrates to replenish whatever nutrients the body needs. In effect, the person loses weight immediately. But this is not advisable in the long term as experts have strongly stated that they are against long-term use of senna in whatever reason it may be.
Where to Find Organic Senna Leaf Tea
Some health food store or online stores sell the herb, or a ready to use teabag for easier preparation. This is where to buy senna tea for diet and detox. Some people drink senna tea once in a while for body detox which cleanses the body from the toxins that could result to illnesses and irregularities. The Diet Spotlight has some pretty good review of senna.
Watch this video about Senna Herb Tea Health Benefits and Side Effects
The post What is Senna Tea? appeared first on Senna Leaf Tea.


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Content Writing
Presupuesto €8-30 EUR
I am looking for an experienced freelance Content Writer to help me with setting up a crowdfunding campaign to pull off an event for dancers in São Paulo, Brazil. It would be amazing if you are a native Brazilian Portuguese speaker, but native English speaker works fine too. Then I will have it translated myself.
Because I'm working with a very small budget (I'm not yet a big organization) I want to pull of a crowdfunding campaign to collect money in order to be able to fully execute the event as I want it to be. For this I would love to use your writing skills! Does this sound interesting till now and would you like to support this project? Yes? Then continue reading. No, then you can stop reading and I wish you a very nice day and good luck with your future projects! :)
- are having experience with content writing for commercial purposes; or with crowdfunding itself, even better!
- have a blog or other material where I can see your work;
- preferably are known in the field of arts;
- are able to deliver within a time span of 2 weeks.
I am happy to pay a fixed priced and my budget is negotiable.
25 freelancers están ofertando el promedio de €42 para este trabajo
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I would be happy to help you with this paper. Your requirements on this web content are clear so far but, still I have some questions, If you don't mind. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I will Más
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I am a native English speaker with 3+ years of experience as a copywriter. You can see my work on [login to view URL] (my personal blog) and on [login to view URL] (my personal site). Let's talk! I would love to h Más


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Eric Rieger, alias name (HOT TEA) completed this larger than life installation at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts very recently. It is so large in fact that it spans over two floors, and you can actually lie underneath the hanging mass. The installation is titled Letting Go, and the piece is compiled of orange and yellow colored string 84 miles in length meaning to represent the artist's interpretation of the sun. As a former MCAD student, being right next to the MIA, I so wish I could teleport back to my art school days to see this in person.
Below is an statement directly from Mr. Rieger:
At least once in our lives we have all had to let go of something we truly love. Whether it be a pet, personal object or in some cases, loved ones. This piece is my interpretation of the sun. The sun brings life and also represents happiness, warmth and energy. When letting go of something or someone we truly love, sometimes it is okay to celebrate their lives along with mourning. This piece represents the warmth and love I have received from those I have had to let go of.
Letting Go will be on view through Septmeber 2 at MIA. (via)


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Getting the best out of your banking is as easy as 1, 2, 3.
The A-Z Review is all about you. Whether you want to buy a house, go on that well deserved holiday, save for your retirement or just make it simpler to manage your money day to day, an A-Z Review is about making your banking work for you.
What does an A-Z Review involve?
- Understanding what's important to you
We want to get to know you and what's important to you, so we can understand how to help you achieve your goals.
- Reviewing how you bank
Everyone forms different banking habits over the years. A few changes to the way you organise your banking could make a real difference to making the most of your money.
- Identify options to suit you
Once we understand your lifestyle, aspirations and future plans, we'll work with you to get your banking sorted.
An A-Z Review takes 15 minutes and is a free one-one-one discussion in branch with an ANZ Personal Banker – invest in your future and book your
A-Z Review online today.


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Nixle/Emergency Texting System
How to subscribe and setup Nixle
To subscribe to our messaging system within Nixle, create an account by following the link:
Once you are finished with this process,
- Click "Settings"
- Click "Search for more Agencies, Community Groups & Neighbors"
- Type "University of Rio Grande Campus Police"into the search box
- Click "Go"
- Check the box where it says "Subscribe to University of Rio Grande Campus Police"
- Click the "Subscribe to Selected Agencies"
Message Publishing
Our police department and other local municipal agencies use Nixle as a publishing system. Messages are created and assigned a priority level ensuring important information reaches you in a timely manner.
Receiving Messages
Enter your mobile phone number to receive messages by SMS (text message). You can also choose to receive emails, or simply view the messages by logging into your Nixle account.
You decide!
Information available:
- School delays
- Closing announcements
- Dangerous/suspicious people on campus
- Gas leaks/water breaks/hazardous materials


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Woman charged more on medical bill for asking "too many questions": Fair?
A Minnesota woman is reportedly unhappy with her doctor after she was allegedly charged extra for asking too many questions.
Susan Krantz of Minnatonka, Minn. visited her doctor recently for an annual physical, and when looking at her itemized bill, noticed an unusual charge of $50.06, CBS Minnesota reports.
"Even as a registered nurse, I can't figure out what this is," she told CBS Minnesota.
- Doctors unveil "Choosing Wisely" campaign to cut unnecessary medical tests
- Routine check-ups provide no health benefits, study finds
When she followed up with the Park Nicollet Health Services, she was unhappy with the company's response.
"You can be charged an extra office visit if you ask too many questions," she said. "I said I don't understand that, because isn't that what this visit is for?"
Park Nicollet told CBS Minnesota that medical services need to be coded for insurance purposes, so if the doctor feels his or her work goes beyond the original nature of a visit -- such as a check-up -- it gets coded. Krantz reportedly had raised concerns about hip pain at her physical.
The company also told the station the total amount billed to the insurance provider is the same as if it were one appointment, it's just "broken out separately on the invoice."
However Krantz wants to spread the word to let others know to check their receipts for hidden charges.
Should patients be wary of asking their doctors too many questions out of fears of extra charges?
"I think this woman did exactly what she should have done," Angela Mattie, chair of the department of healthcare management and organizational leadership at Quinnipiac University, tells CBSNews.com.
Mattie says people need to be "active consumers" in their health care, actively involved in their medications, medical histories, and discussions with doctors on what procedures they get.
She notes primary care doctors especially are pressed for time on visits, so if a patient comes in for a routine visit and raises concerns about something else with related issues, it may take time away from their primary care duties, and they code it as such. Mattie adds however this likely wouldn't impact the co-payment a patient pays for the visit.
"Of course the patient should be warned beforehand that they're going to get this charge," notes CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook.
LaPook says these coding charges occur because of what he calls "perverse incentives."
"In this country, doctors are paid for doing stuff to patients instead of providing health," he said.
For example, as an internist and a gastroenterologist, LaPook can talk about medical history and spend time with a patient to figure out what's going on, but in theory, he'd get paid more for performing a procedure. He notes some institutions, including Cleveland Clinic, have doctors that work on salary so they aren't paid through this incentivized coding system.
"That may not be the only solution but we have to figure out a way where doctors are now encouraged for providing health for the patient rather than just doing stuff and ordering procedures."
He also encourages calling an office manager to inquire about fees.


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DNS records are basically sets of instructions that help connect your website to the outside world. The following five practices make these records harder to hijack and easier to recover if they are compromised, thereby reducing the damage attackers can cause. When DNS records are hijacked, a company must be able to get them back as quickly as possible because once the malicious records hit the caching servers, it becomes much harder to undo the damage.
1. Use best practices for credentials that allow changes to be made to DNS records.
Your whole service is only as secure as the security of the password to your DNS registrant account. Ensure that access to accounts used to update DNS records is limited to as few people in your organization as possible. Make sure to use hard-to-guess passwords, and avoid reusing passwords at all costs.
[ Here's why you shouldn't buy Android apps from off-brand sites. Read Hack 99% Of Android Devices: Big Vulnerability. ]
2. Revisit the choice of DNS provider regularly as you grow.
Many companies, particularly start-ups, frequently choose DNS registrants and DNS service providers based on a combination of their pricing and the ease of setup and use. Sometimes that means the DNS provider doesn't have much information about the owner other than a username and password used to identify the account. In cases of social engineering attacks or compromised passwords, it might be hard to reclaim the domain.
As companies grow, they should revisit their choice of provider every few months to make sure that it's capable of handling the level of security the company needs. Popular and high-profile services might be targeted by hackers with agendas -- and not every provider is capable of handling the heat that comes with popularity.
3. Make use of SSL certificates.
DNS hijacking can effectively be used to perform man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks. In a MITM attack, the attacker diverts the user to a malicious server he controls. The malicious server then sends the user's request to the original server and sends the server's response back to the user. This setup allows the attacker to steal the information being passed back and forth, inject malicious content into responses before sending them back to the user, or both.
This is one of the highest risks associated with DNS hijacking and can cause a lot of damage in the form of stolen credentials and injection of malicious content.
To arm yourself, enforce validation of SSL/TLS certificates and use certificate pinning in mobile apps and rich clients. Certificate validation means the attacker must get a certificate tied to the stolen domain before being able to carry out the MITM attack. Pinning certificates in mobile and rich clients will take this restriction even further by ensuring the attacker will need access to the pinned certificate's private keys before being able to carry out the attack. This will reduce the risk of a MITM attack, which means the DNS hijack will do much less prolonged damage.


text: On Mar 21, 2006, at 12:35 PM, David Mathog wrote: > Charlie Peck <charliep at cs.earlham.edu> wrote > >> I think clusters like the one Eric wants to build have /significant/ >> educational value, both in the building and the use. How else does >> one >> learn to do parallel/distributed programming if not on a cluster, even >> a "toy" one? Sure the single AMD64 will be more powerful but it won't >> provide an opportunity to learn about message passing, speedup, >> efficiency, problem decomposition, etc. > > Interesting question that, how else might this be done? > > I wonder if one couldn't set up a single modern computer, > with a fast CPU and tons of memory, as N virtual machines, for > instance using VMware, and then run a sort of virtual cluster? > Obviously there wouldn't be any performance advantage to doing > this but it might allow the subject to be taught when a real > clusters isn't available. Certainly, but the network performance would be very skewed since it will be done as memcpy()'s rather than actual packets passing through stacks and hardware. This would make the scaling, speedup, etc. fairly inaccurate. charlie


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One of the best value west of Park Avenue! 55 East 72nd Street is an intimate white glove building close to Central Park, top schools and boutique shopping. With a semi-private landing, this prewar classic six is on a high floor in mint condition. It has been beautifully renovated and receives an abundance of light. The hand painted entrance gallery leads to a well proportioned living room with beautiful moldings, beamed ceilings and a wood burning fireplace featuring a striking marble mantel. The dining room has dual exposures and leads into a windowed granite kitchen featuring top appliances. The maid's room is located off the kitchen with a powder room. The apartment has new windows, through the wall air conditioning and a washer/dryer. Both bedrooms have marble tiled en-suite baths. The building offers a 24 hour doorman, live-in superintendant, private storage and a roof deck..


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5.2+/-acres wooded lot in the much desirable Ridges at Franklin Forest with beautiful views of the Cumberland mountains. This development is adjacent to Franklin State Forest. The State Forest offers over 6000 acres to hunt on as well as miles of hiking trails. Equestrian Pursuits: The Cumberland Plateau is horse country, and The Ridges has been...5.20 Acres : $25,000
5.2+/- Acres Near Franklin
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I wish I were a child again, so I could experience the DeKalb Public Library's Harry Potter party Aug. 27 through the eyes of a child.
The DeKalb library was among 15 libraries nationwide to win party materials from Scholastic to mark the 15th anniversary of the U.S. release of the first Harry Potter book, which will be released with a new cover illustration by Kazu Kibuishi on the day of the party.
From 3:30 to 8:30 p.m. Aug. 27, the library's downstairs hallway will be decorated as Platform 9¾, the magical platform at King's Cross Station in London that Hogwarts students used to find the train to school. The library's main room will be transformed into the Great Hall, complete with snacks, and a staff member who resembles Harry Potter will make an appearance, complete with the famous lightning-shaped scar.
Patrons can participate in a trivia contest and a photo booth that will produce wizard trading cards, which is similar to the booth the library featured at Star Wars Days in April. NIU STEM representatives will lead a potions class, as well.
The library is supplementing the $100 they received from the Scholastic contest to extend the Potter events throughout the month: They screened the first Harry Potter movie Saturday and will show the second one at 2 p.m. Saturday in the lower-level meeting room. For details on related craft projects and other events, visit dkpl.org/events.
Edith Craig, the library's communications manager, assured me that Potter fans of all ages would enjoy the party. She said she'd attend if she wasn't working at it.
"We've done all of our promotion from teens, tweens and children, but just with the movie we had an equal amount of adults and children," Craig said. "It's been 15 years since Harry Potter has come out. I love Harry Potter; I'm going to the party."
And so are members of Northern Illinois University's muggle quidditch team. (For those sad souls who haven't devoured the Potter books, muggles are nonwizards, and quidditch is a sport similar to soccer that is played midair on broomsticks.) Darcy Tatlock, the library's tween coordinator who wrote the Scholastic contest application, invited the 30 or so quidditch team members who have been active this year, team President Micah Haji-Sheikh said.
Haji-Sheikh, a 20-year-old DeKalb native about to start her junior year at NIU, remembers her parents reading the first four Potter books to her and her brother when they were children. She insisted on reading the fifth book to her brother herself and, years later, joined the quidditch team after seeing a poster at the Rec Center.
Haji-Sheikh identified with the Slytherin House, which values ambition, cunning and resourcefulness, and adopted the character of Narcissa Malfoy, who is the mother of Potter's arch enemy Draco Malfoy, for the quidditch field. She recently attended QuidCon 2013, a quidditch convention in Seattle.
On Tuesday, I played around on Pottermore, an interactive online community that features new writing by Potter author J.K. Rowling, and had a wand (12.25 inches long, unbending, beech wood with unicorn strand at its core) select me. I also was virtually sorted - as I suspected I would be - into Ravenclaw, which has a house tradition that values intelligence, knowledge and wit.
If you're ready to acclimate your children into the world of wizardry, Pottermore seems appropriate for tweens, and Scholastic has reading club materials available at hpread.scholastic.com. If you're interested in joining NIU's quidditch team, email Haji-Sheikh at firstname.lastname@example.com.
For her part, Haji-Sheikh seemed as confounded as I was that Potter's U.S. franchise was 15 years old. She said: "It's like, 'Wait? I'm how old now? And it's been around for how long?' "
• Jillian Duchnowski is the Daily Chronicle's news editor. Reach her at 815-756-4841, ext. 2221, or email firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Another 3 titles have joined the ever expanding Xbox Backward Compatibility program, including Red Faction: Armageddon, Raiden IV and Gyruss.
Posted 1 year ago by Dave Horobin, 35 comments
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Motorola/Google lost a bit of ground in their patent litigation against Microsoft when the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington invalidated or dismissed thirteen of Motorola's patent infringement claims. The litigation claims that Microsoft infringed on sixteen of Motorola's patents with the Windows Phone and Xbox 360 systems.
Judge James L. Robart granted Microsoft's motion for summary judgment and that the claims were invalid as indefinite under U.S. patent law.
The ruling doesn't end the dispute between Microsoft and Motorola/Google. However, the remaining claims could be ruled invalid under the application of the law. There's no time frame on when the Court will rule on the additional patent claims. The motion ruled on today was filed ten months ago and hopefully, the remaining claims will be ruled on sooner than later to put an end to this patent war.
You can find the full brief on Judge Robart's ruling here.
Source: ZDNet


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- Premier League
Saha told he can leave Sunderland
Sunderland striker Louis Saha has been told he can leave the club in January, with manager Martin O'Neill claiming that he could join a South African side.
Saha, 34, arrived at the Stadium of Light on a one-year deal last summer, but has not made a single start this season and was left on the bench for the FA Cup third round defeat against Bolton.
The former Manchester United man has grown unhappy at his bit-part role under O'Neill and the manager told Shields Gazette that he would be allowed to leave.
"As of today, we have told Louis he is free to speak to other clubs and to leave if he can fix himself up somewhere," he said. "We have come to an agreement whereby we will cancel the remainder of his contract, shake hands and go our separate ways.
"That said, we are still a bit short in terms of numbers, and Louis may stay with us until the end of the month until such time as - hopefully - we have strengthened the squad a little more. But we agreed that he could go as early as today, if he wishes to.
"I have heard that there is some interest in South Africa for Louis, and it might be of some interest to him."