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TGIF! Fridays mean chatting, friends and - oh yeah! - maybe a little scrapping at Connie's Friday night Speed Scrap at Gotta Pixel. Hope to see you there!
Not available at 8pm tonight? Don't fret - you can still participate. Layouts are due at 12noon tomorrow and Connie will post the instructions in the forum. Imagine that - a speed scrap on YOUR schedule! Gotta love our Speed Scrapping Ninja!


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Lebron James, Baby & Slim From Cash Money, Terrell Owens, & More On New BO's - "The Rise Of America's New Black Overclass" [Full 38 Min Episode]
Catch this new series on CNBC
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BALTIMORE -- Does you club offer fitness programming to girls ages 9 to 12 years old? You might want to. The incidence of girls being overweight was greater at age 9 to 12 than it was in later adolescence, and girls who were overweight during childhood were 11 to 30 times more likely to be obese in young adulthood, according to a recent study published in The Journal of Pediatrics.
Researchers studied the prevalence and incidence of overweight in African-American and Caucasian girls, and examined associations between adolescent overweight and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors. Using data from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Growth and Health Study (NGHS), annual measurements were taken from 1,166 Caucasian girls and 1,213 African-American girls ages 9 to 10, and 18 years.
Rates of overweight increased through adolescence from 7 percent to 10 percent in the Caucasian girls and from 17 percent to 24 percent in the African-American girls. Overweight was significantly associated with increased percent body fat, sum of skinfolds and waist circumference measurements, and unhealthful systolic and diastolic blood pressure, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglyceride levels, according to the study. Researchers found that a relationship between CVD risk factors and overweight was present at age 9.


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Instapaper Starred Items
- "Windows 8 is a disaster. Period."
- The 35 Best Times Someone On Facebook Thought 'The Onion' Was Real | Thought Catalog
- Anatomy of a password disaster - Adobe's giant-sized cryptographic blunder
- MacBook Pro with Retina Display redefines the concept of a 'pro' laptop Review | Macworld
- Apple's MacBook Pro Is Just One Point Short of Perfection - State of the Art - NYTimes.com
Site Sections
Tag Archives: iPad
Fighting Stupidity with Stupidity
Cory Doctorow wrote a piece on why he won't be buying an iPad (which extends to why you shouldn't either. I don't agree with his article, but the vehement arguments against some of his have been equally asinine. Joel Johnson … Continue reading
Posted in Technology Tagged analogies, iPad Leave a comment


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Hot stuff: the making of BepiColombo
6. A life in the Sun
ESA's materials experts needed to predict the end-of-life condition of all the materials in question. How might specific mission-critical properties change after years of intense solar glare? Would reflective coatings discolour, MLI crack, solar arrays lose electrical performance or thermal emittance – the crucial ability to radiate away heat?
"Total exposure will be something like 100 000 equivalent Sun hours," explains Christopher. "Traditionally we boost illumination levels for accelerated lifetime testing. But a move up from 11 solar constants to 30 or 40 is not so easy.
"The accuracy is uncertain, due to non-linear effects – the materials might unexpectedly fail for some unknown reason."
End-of-life estimates for Venus Express offered a starting point: the five-year-old mission remains in good health, showing the team's original estimates had been broadly accurate.
7. Less air for more precise testing
In such an extreme environment, everything degrades, like plastic left out in the Sun. But precisely how critical properties degraded over time in orbit needed to be exactly understood.
For example, it was found that when test items were removed from their vacuum chamber then their subsequent exposure to air would induce chemical interactions with radicals within the material.
"These radicals are basically degradation products, so this alters the state of degradation," says Christopher. "A day later when a measurement is done, their condition could be very different. So if we extrapolate from these results we would get a performance curve, but the real curve would end up being much worse.
"So we set up a system to make measurements while still in vacuum, saving us time and letting us assess changes much more reliably."
8. Testing to breaking point and beyond
ESA needs to be sure that its chosen materials would function reliably for years on end.
"We are going to the limit of a material's performance, seeing what happens when it breaks down," Christopher adds. "The result is a wealth of information that could be of interest to many other industries as well."
The programme continues to qualify all the materials needed for the mission, currently standing at around 75% complete.
The MLI covering the bulk of the spacecraft's surface is foreseen to be a woven ceramic fabric. There are multiple layers kept apart by spacers, designed to be as light as possible – some of the layers have less than a tenth the thickness of printer paper, just 7.5 micrometres across.
"The result is much lighter than metallic foil but also more brittle," says Christopher. "Now we need to look at processing issues: how to stack it, what shapes can it fit around and how to handle it without damage and release of particles."
9. A way to save the solar arrays
Solar cells became the single most challenging material question. Dramatic degradation in solar cell performance was detected: just one simulated month saw a 20% power loss.
"This failure brought the mission to the brink of cancellation," recounts Christopher. The effect was due to a combination of material degradation from ultraviolet radiation and high temperatures driving down cell efficiency.
A combination of protective coatings and carefully solar array tilting offers a workable solution. If the solar arrays directly face the Sun then they would heat up and fail. So instead they stay tilted at an optimum angle. Their power production stays lower, but so does the temperature.
The main antenna also requires protective coatings, though for a different reason. It is made of thin titanium for maximum performance: it needs to perform highly accurate radio science experiments to determine how spacetime curves around the Sun.
By itself it would warm up like any other metal in the Sun – to as high as 700°C. But temperature-driven deformations have to be prevented. A specially-tailored coating should keep its temperature 300°C lower while allowing electromagnetic signals to pass through freely.
10. Spacecraft-level testing has begun
A test model of Japan's MMO arrived in the Netherlands in mid-September 2010 for testing in the Large Space Simulator (LSS) at the ESTEC Test Centre, the largest vacuum chamber in Europe. The LSS's Solar Simulator was carefully adjusted to attain 10 solar constants, its light beam being brought into much tighter focus.
"To safely remove the resulting heat from the chamber walls we installed an extra thermal shroud with a more than six times greater flow of liquid nitrogen than the existing system," explains Alexandre Popovitch, overseeing modifications. "That required around 5000 litres of liquid nitrogen per hour of each two-week test."
There were two sets of tests, one with MMO free-spinning – as it will operate during its active life – then one with an ESA sunshield that will keep it cool as it rides as a passenger to Mercury.
This summer, test models of Europe's BepiColombo spacecraft will go through the same experience. Follow-up versions incorporating any lessons learnt will be ready for evaluation in 2012, with the launch of BepiColombo scheduled for 2014.
The materials team, meanwhile, is looking forward to ESA's Solar Orbiter mission – destined to venture even closer to the Sun.


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|Norris Ford
|901 Merritt Blvd., Baltimore, MD 21222
|Norris Honda
|925 Merritt Blvd., Baltimore, MD 21222
|Norris Acura West
|8559 Baltimore Natl. Pike, Ellicott City, MD 21043
|Chesapeake Ford
|8540 Pulaski Highway, Baltimore, MD 21237
|Chesapeake Truck Ford of DC
|8400 Westphalia Rd., Upper Marlboro, MD 20774
|8400 Westphalia Rd., Upper Marlboro, MD 20774
|Carquest of Maryland
|See Website for Locations
|Vermeer Mid Atlantic
|See Website for Locations
Norris Auto Group serves Baltimore, Columbia, Ellicott City and Easton, MD. At the Norris Auto Group, our goal is simple. We want to be the best family of dealerships in the Baltimore and Washington area. We have the best selection of new, used, Certified Pre-Owned and Bargain vehicles including cars, trucks, SUVs and vans in Maryland.
Baltimore, MD Area Dealerships
Norris Auto Group serves customers in and around Baltimore, Dundalk, White Marsh, Parkville, Bel Air, Towson, Timonium, Catonsville, Ellicott City, Columbia, Westminster, Glen Burnie, Laurel, or Annapolis, areas.
Car Manufactures Norris Auto Represents
Choose from a family of manufactures at our dealerships, Acura, Ford and Honda.
Norris sells the following models
Sedans: Acura TLX, Acura ILX, Acura RLX, Honda Accord, Honda Civic, Ford Fusion, Ford Taurus
Fuel Savers: HondaAccord Hybrid, Honda
Fit, Ford
Focus, Ford
Fusion Hybrid
Sporty: Honda Civic Hatchback, Ford Mustang, Ford Mustang Convertible, Ford Mustang GT, Ford Shelby Mustang
SUV's: Acura RDX, Acura MDX, Honda CR-V, Honda Pilot, Ford Edge, Ford Escape, Ford Flex, Ford Explorer, Ford Expedition
Mini Vans: Honda Odyssey, Ford E-Series, Ford E-150, Ford Econoline Van
Trucks: Ford F150, Ford F-150, Ford F-250, Ford F-250 Super Duty, Ford F350, Ford F-350 Super Duty, Ford F-450, Ford F-550, Ford Transit Connect, Ford Transit Connect Wagon
Service, Parts and Accessories at Norris Auto Group
Schedule a Service Appointment at any of our dealerships.
Order Parts and Accessories or print Parts/Service Coupons online.
Our dedicated internet sales team are just a click away for Trade-in Value appraisals and Finance Applications for a hassle-free buying experience.
Our experienced sales staff is eager to share its knowledge and enthusiasm with you. We encourage you to browse our online inventory, schedule a test drive and investigate financing options. You can also request more information about a vehicle using our online form or by calling 877-760-3410.
If you don't see a particular vehicle, click on CarFinder and complete the form. We will gladly inform you when a matching car arrives. If you'd like a see a vehicle in person, click on Dealership: Directions for step-by-step driving instructions to our site, or give us a call. We look forward to serving you!


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Resources for Action
Beyond the Program
Who is looking after your community? Who is making sure your neighborhood is not being exploited or overused? Involve yourself in the happenings of your community and educate yourself enough to know who the people are that make the decisions. By involving yourself you can be a very powerful individual. Educating yourself about your local government and local organizations can make you a more effective activist. This provides a solid foundation of information to justify your argument or stand on a particular issue. The resources section of this Website is designed to help you effectively voice your opinions allowing politicians and leaders to know you're watching their actions and concerned with your community.
Ways to Get Involved
You can get involved in your community by attending city council meetings, planning commission meetings, state assembly and senate meetings, by joining committees that deal with issues of concern, by writing letters to leaders and politicians, and by joining organizations which deal with issues of concern. To obtain a list of scheduled meetings you can visit the headquarters of the organization holding the meeting you wish to attend and many organizations provide meeting dates and times on the internet as well.
Contact Your Representative
Use the following links to contact various government officials.
- The President of the United States of America
- United States House of Representatives
- United States Congress
- California Governor
- California Assembly Members
- Sacramento City Mayor and Other Contacts
Let Your Voice Be Heard!
An effective way to let your voice be heard is through writing letters. This method can be used to convey your opinions and concerns about almost any issue to representatives and officials. There are several key things that must be included in a letter to make it as effective as possible.
- Start the letter off by thanking the person you are writing to for past votes or actions they may have made that you are in agreement with.
- The letter needs to be well thought out and presented in a manner that is professional.
- A good letter will have proper grammar and will be concise with only one topic (more than one topic can be confusing and make the letter too long.)
- Ask for something specifically, such as a yes vote on particular bill.
- Spell the name of the person you are writing to correctly, misspellings are often overlooked and can take away from the effectiveness of your letter.
- Include your thoughts in your own words, do not be over-emotional or threatening.
- When possible try to personalize your message writing a story that makes your letter stand out.
- Mention your involvement in local organizations and groups.
- If you are writing about a specific bill, address it by name, so your reader knows exactly what you're talking about.
- When writing a letter to your Congressmen or House Representative about a specific bill, remember that bills are voted for at scheduled times and it is important that you get your letter in before that time.
- If for some reason you cannot get your letter in on time you can try calling your representative or sending them a telegram, try to avoid emailing, or faxing them.
- Close the letter by thanking the reader for their time and asking for a reply. Be sure to leave a clear address or way for that person to reply to your letter.
- It is a good rule of thumb to contact that person again after the bill has been voted on, either thanking them for their support or voicing your concern about their vote. This lets that leader know that their actions are not going unnoticed and certainly not forgotten.


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William Wilkins
Edward Hodges Baily
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
The architect William Wilkins was at the height of his career when this was modelled. He had completed important commissions at Downing, King's, Trinity and Corpus Christi Colleges, and was currently supervising the construction of University College London, as well as working on the National Gallery and Royal Academy project for Trafalgar Square (these both opened in the late 30s, the Royal Academy remaining in the eastern part of the gallery until 1868). [Continued below]
Photograph and text by Jacqueline Banerjee
Courtesy of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge


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Last month, former NFL agent Benjamin Geller was charged with one count of wire fraud. This month, Geller pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud.
According to the New Orleans Times Picayune, the guilty plea came on Friday in federal court. Geller was accused of spending roughly $500,000 in life insurance proceeds generated by the death of former Saints defensive lineman Frank Warren, who passed in 2002.
Geller was wiring diminished payments to Warren's family, keeping the rest. Suspicions first arose in 2009.
Sentencing is set for September 12, at which time Geller faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. The decision to accept responsibility absent a trial should help Geller receive a more favorable punishment.


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Radu Negulescu needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 61 designs submitted by 22 freelance designers.
We need a clean & professional logo for an online shop specialized in auto parts.
We are looking for something stylish and new to reflect our fresh start.
Ratings System:
2 star and below - not really what I'm looking for.
3 star - getting closer but need revisions or a different take on your design
4 star - design is being considered
5 star - I really like the design and will make the final selections from these
Auto Gold
We don't have a clear picture of what we want so you have complete freedom :).
Take as a guide the following points:
- As a symbol please use a stylized car.
- Gold color ( single or in combination with other color ) - unobtrusive - smooth
- Some web 2.0 influences
- Smooth typefaces
- Clean & Simple
- Eye catching logo
- Clipart ( Please don't use cliparts )
- Boring
- Serif typefaces
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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Talkin' Football
Thanks to all of you readers, I once again have several topics rattling around in my head.
Since it is football season I happened to recall a photo of the GHS football team taken in the late '20s. How many remember the uniforms worn by our athletes at that time? The helmets resembled headgear worn by airplane pilots during WWII. I can't imagine they afforded much protection to the head.
Shoulder pads, etc., appeared to be pretty scrimpy too. Does anyone recall the amount of injuries that were suffered in those days? Since I grew up in Small Town USA, which was only large enough to have an 8 man football team for several years, I am not too familiar with the sport, but I wonder if the football was "pigskin" in those days, or if it was even the same size as it is now.
Since many of the young men of the area were farm boys, I thought about practice and actual play times.
Were these times worked around the fact that many of the players were rural, or had a need to work part time? I am sure that there are some readers out there that have memories to share.
Gwen welcomes your memories at 367-5582.


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At the top of our list of recipes we like to make when the weather gets really hot is gazpacho. The cold soup, from the Andalusia region of southern Spain, is a wonderful midsummer treat. Our favorite version is loaded with fresh tomatoes, filled with chunky bits of green pepper and onion, and adorned with an assortment of crunchy minced vegetables.
Originally made by Arabs living in Spain (gazpacho means "soaked bread" in Arabic) gazpacho was a concoction of garlic, bread, vinegar, water and oil, which was pounded by hand to make a sort of garlic soup. The bread gave it body, and the vinegar gave it zing. Years later, after Columbus brought the first shipment of tomatoes and sweet peppers back from the New World, they were mashed into the mix.
Depending on the recipe, gazpacho can be thin and liquidy or practically solid. In addition to so-called salad ingredients, it can have anything from raisins to green beans. Some recipes also call for potatoes. Gazpacho is not necessarily vegetarian; there are versions with small pieces of fish or meat, and hard-cooked eggs are sometimes used as a garnish. In Spain, cooks from Malaga make white gazpacho with almonds and grapes (no tomatoes) and those in Granada season their soup with cumin. There are even gazpachos that are served hot in winter.
Our recipe is ridiculously simple. We soak a few cubes of bread in water, whirl them in the processor with tomatoes and a handful of vegetables, pour the whole thing into a bowl and stir in tomato juice, oil and vinegar. For cooks in a hurry, the bread can be left out. The soup will taste the same with or without it, but bread makes it a bit thicker. We feel cooler just thinking about it!
1 cup stale French bread cubes, crusts removed
Cold water
3 cups diced peeled tomatoes (about 1 1/2 pounds)
2/3 cup diced green bell pepper
2/3 cup peeled and diced European cucumber
1/3 cup diced red onion
2 garlic cloves, pressed
1 1/2 cups tomato juice
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Minced green bell pepper and cucumber, for garnish
1. In a small bowl cover bread with water; let stand 5 minutes or until bread is soft. Squeeze out water.
2. In a processor, combine bread, tomatoes, pepper, cucumber, onion and garlic; process to a coarse purée. Pour into a large bowl; stir in tomato juice, oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Cover and chill 4 hours or until cold. Ladle into bowls and garnish with minced pepper and cucumber. Serves 6.
Recipe by Jean Kressy.
Per serving: 180 calories, 6g fat, 5g prot., 27g carbs., 3g fiber, 580mg sodium.
Look for Relish magazine, celebrating America's love of food, each month in the Tooele Transcript-Bullein. For more Relish recipes and to sign up for our newsletters, log on to relish.com
Photo credit: Mark Boughton Photograph / styling by Teresa Blackburn


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Capcom & Clover, Over and Over: Former Clover Head Atsushi Inaba on a Post-Capcom World
October 23, 2006 Page 1 of 3
Atsushi Inaba is the renowned head of Capcom's now-dissolved Clover Studio, which was responsible for the original titles Steel Battalion, Viewtiful Joe, Okami, and God Hand, among others. We were able to interview him at the Tokyo Game Show, though we later learned he had already left Capcom, perhaps to pursue work on his own.
We spoke with Inaba about his colorful history, as well as the particular flavor of games made in the southern regions (Kansai) of Japan's main island, Honshu. Inaba also had some interesting words regarding Capcom's future, even though we were not yet fully aware of his departure, having heard only rumors at that point. Regardless of his current status, I personally feel that we will hear from Atsushi Inaba and his partner-in-design Hideki Kamiya again in the near future.
Gamasutra: When did you join Capcom?
Atsushi Inaba: 1998, so eight years ago.
GS: And where were you before that?
AI: Before that I was at SNK.
GS: And what did you do there?
AI: I was on the Samurai Showdown team. I was doing programming work.
GS: Did you have another industry job prior to that?
AI: Yeah, before SNK I was at Irem.
GS: What did you work on there?
AI: Right after I entered Irem, the company downsized, so I worked on the last R-Type game, but it was a quick descent from there.
GS: So that was R-Type Leo, I guess. You were part of the group that left with Nazca and joined SNK? (Note: Nazca is the team that made In the Hunt and Gunforce when they were with Irem, and went on to do Metal Slug for SNK.)
AI: You're pretty well informed. That's all correct, I went from Irem to Nazca to SNK. This is really nostalgic talk for me, actually!
GS: Do you keep up with people from SNK? Or do you watch their progress at all?
AI: Well basically I didn't enjoy working at SNK at all, so I have absolutely no interest in what they're doing now! (laughs)
GS: When you joined Capcom, what kind of game did you want to make?
AI: Well when I was at SNK, I looked in Famitsu and saw that Capcom was hiring for Resident Evil, and thought man, I'd love to work on the next Resident Evil if I could get out of here. I really wanted to work on the series. But during the interview, they asked if I would want to be on any other teams, and if there was anything else I was interested in, and I said no. Just Resident Evil.
GS: Which was that?
AI: It was Resident Evil 3. And I actually did get on the Resident Evil 3 team, but when I joined there was a Resident Evil 1.5 project, which actually became Resident Evil 3. When the PS2 came out, the Resident Evil 3 team's name was changed to the Resident Evil 4 team. That didn't go so well, so we thought – "what can we do with this," and Devil May Cry was the result. So I never wound up being involved in a released Resident Evil game.
Page 1 of 3


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Last updated: May 30, 2014
The Strategic Plan: Interview with Eric Green, M.D., Ph.D.
The Strategic Plan: Interview with Eric Green, M.D., Ph.D.
February 9, 2011
On February 9, 2011, the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) unveiled the strategic plan for the future of human genome research called Charting a course for genomic medicine from base pairs to bedside. The plan, to be published in Nature, Feb. 10, 2011, describes a course for advancing genomic knowledge, applying the knowledge to advance medical science and to improve human health. In an interview, NHGRI Director Eric D. Green, M.D, Ph.D., talks about the strategic plan. Provided here are video sound bites from the interview with Dr. Green.
Video Sound Bites
Sound Bites by Eric Green, M.D., Ph.D.
Director, National Human Genome Research Institute
Bethesda, Maryland
|Clip #
|Running Time
|Quotes (Text)
|MPG File*
|MP4 File**
|1 minute
7 seconds
So our strategic plan probably has multiple audiences. For starters, the genomics community is a community of scientists I think that for many years that followed a series of strategic plans as sort of a vision if you will about what the most compelling opportunity in genetics and genomics for the next set of years. But I think there is another audience, as well. I think those audiences include students. Students both in the basic sciences and clinical sciences and individuals who are thinking about the future clinical medicine. But also students in law, students in ethics, students in sociology public policy. Genomics is perfusing many areas in society, as well as science, and the next generation of scholars need to be much more aware of what happening in this field. I also think the audience includes those of us in the institute we need to think about what the most compelling opportunity in genomics are and how we want to tailor our program to maximize the benefits and the opportunity. So having that document prepared by us is really created an opportunity but think critically about what we should be doing as an institute.
|1 minute
34 seconds
Then in 2003, it was very clear with the end of the human genome project that there were some very exciting things that can be done having in hand, sequence the human genome, and incredible opportunities but we wanted to have a more articulated vision of what those opportunities might look like in the next five to ten years. And so at that point once again the genomics community got together under the leadership of our institute and put together a strategic vision. And that 2003 strategic vision has guided us well really taken advantage of incredible things that one might do, having the first look of the human genome sequence and pursuing some of the things that were very compelling at the time. Seven years or so later, a lot of things have changed. And it was time once again that the genome community think critically argue debate and re articulate a vision for genomics research with a vision that is much more acute now that we sort of enter the second decade of this new century. And so this one, that we are publishing, will be the 2011 Vision for Genomics Research by NHGRI is much more clinically oriented, thinking much more about clinical applications of genomics and many ways more expansive than the earlier visions were, but at the same time starts to get us closer to the kinds of promises that were made originally when the human genome project was first envisioned.
|1 minute
58 seconds
And so we describe these five domains, some of which that have been very active this past decade, but others are more far reaching, but nonetheless, we want to think about research agendas that will really inform us and make us more sophisticated in those domains. It starts at the most proximal end of that progression by simply understanding the structure of genomes, sounds like what we did in the Human Genome Project and certainly included activities that have been going on since the Human Genome Project. But then it's about understanding how the human genome works and advancing our knowledge of genome function and that was very importantly and certainly was a major emphasis of our strategic vision starting right when the genome project was completed. The third domain starts to apply that knowledge of genomics to advance our understanding of human disease. And here is the progression that in many ways the fields of genomics is most aggressively pursuing really using the tools and technology of genomics to better understand molecular basis of disease. The fourth domain then moves you from having that knowledge of disease to actually changing medical science by advancing how you approach medical science. There you start to see clinical applications but you can't stop there, and this was one of the key things we heard from our colleagues in genomics community and members of the biomedical research community who has had experience in taking discoveries all the way to the bedside. Now there is even a fifth domain that one needs to contemplate and that's actually demonstrating effectiveness of these advances to the actual delivery of healthcare. Just because you have a medical advance doesn't mean that it's actually going to prove to be effective when actually executed in the healthcare delivery study. You need to actually have a research agenda that studies that last area if you're ultimately going to have an impact on clinical care.
|1 minute
47 seconds
This is a global effort and it's really important just to recognize that many of those things we're talking about will not be just confined to the genomics community. Genomics is perfusing all areas of biomedicine. This is I think fantastic and most importantly many of the things that we talk about in our strategic vision will be carried out by other fields of study. Some cases in partnership with us, and some cases they don't even need to be in partnership with us. The way you execute it is we'll figure out what we do best as an institute. We'll work with our colleagues here at NIH at other institutes to think of what we can do with partnerships and there are some things that we expect other agencies, other organizations, and other countries to jump in and help as well.
One of the other reasons for describing the strategic vision around five domains is also to help predict where you might see development in the coming years. Just in the past decade for example, we have seen spectacular advances in understanding the how the genome works and how it functions and certainly how the structure of genomes. We think that in the next decade is going to bring additional advances and understanding how the genome works to levels of details that are critically important in many ways previously unimaginable, but at the same, the next decade we will see a big spike in our knowledge of the molecular basis of human disease. And they'll be some advances that will fall into the domains related to advancing medical science, and demonstrated the effectiveness of health care, but we don't think that they will be hot areas in the next decade realistically they'll be examples..but we have to be realistic here, those advances actually changing medical care, sometimes that takes decades. We think they're going to happen, but we have to be cautious in predicting that it will all happen in great numbers in the next ten years
|51 seconds
This is a transitional point in genomics in many ways, I firmly believe that we had to wait for the right time to really believe that we knew enough and that we had the tools and technology in hand to start that transition. And much of this being catalyzed by technological advances especially in DNA sequencing methods that have seen a complete change in the cost models of sequencing genomes such as the cost of genome sequencing have been plummeting for the past four years. And as a results of that what seemed way out there and decades away now all of sudden seems to be in reach and as a result it creates new opportunities and puts us into a new landscape that was previously unimaginable and quickly puts us into an arena where clinical applications become very realistic.
|57 seconds
I think the sense of urgency is as much as a realization that this can truly change the practice of some aspects of medicine and you can point to very specific examples and I think the one's that you are going to see are most clear in the next two or three years because we are already seeing it in cancer, for example. Cancer is a genomic disease and the fact that we can now use these powerful new sequencing technologies and comprehensively catalog genetic changes that take place in a tumor and have that information point to the best path forward for treating a given individual is very compelling. And while there are a handful of examples where that's the case so far, we have in place we think programs that will reveal many opportunities for making that progression in different types of cancer in the next five years. And that make one feel very urgent because you feel like this truly can make a difference.
|46 seconds
I think it's part of the essence of genomics, technological advances. A and so far in the past five years for example, the real push in technology has been Iin the area of DNA sequencing so we could sequence genomes very cost effectively. Now that just creates a new bottleneck that has to be dealt with and we need new technological approaches to solving those. For example, when you can sequence genomes very inexpensively it results in a massive accumulation of data. So much so that it actually overwhelmed investigators which overwhelmed clinicians so we need technological advances to deal with all that data to make that information interpretable to reduce it to practice it in a clinical setting that all requires major technological advances.
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Once upon a time, probably when the Genome Project was first envisioned, we thought it was all in our genes - if we just understood the gene sequences, we would understand all of human biology. Now we know that genes are maybe less than a third of all the functional parts of the human genome. There are all these non-coding sequences that are so functionally important and it turns out a lot of those contain variants that are conferring risks for common genetic diseases. We barely have our heads around that, and then you hint that it's not all about the A's, G's, T's and C's because we now know that there's all this epigenomics going on where DNA is being decorated with different chemical groups and that has a language in itself and that language can be changed an altered in disease. And then if you get away from DNA, then there is environmental contributions as well. Those are important. All of this is being studied, but technologies are available for some more than others. And so we are strong right now. Our technologies for studying DNA, including for epigenomics, where we are hoping to get better technologies, where we will be able to monitor the environment and being able to punderstand exposures - all these things are being pursued. They all need to come together to really take full advantage of what could possibly happen in genomics and human genetics with these new opportunities that we see before us.
|1 minute
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So a lot depends on what you mean by personalized medicine. I's not going to happen all at once. I would contend that it's already starting to happen. I think you will see an increasingly growing lists of genetic tests that are relevant as part of standard of care. I think you will see interdiagnostic tests developed and implemented for disorders such as cancer before you see for lots of other disorders. Already we are seeing individuals going to get their genome analyzed not through their doctor's office but through companies directly. I think you'll see a progression were at some point that it might be done more in doctors' offices but there are a lot of steps before we could get to see that routinely. So I don't think it will be a year or a moment that all of this will happen. But what we want to do at NHGRI is facilitate and establishment of a research agenda that will help us answer many questions that need to be answered affectively before we can really think about implementing this on a large scale. But we think we have a much better idea of what some of those questions are now we want to build a research program to help answer those questions.
|30 seconds
I'm absolutely satisfied, I think there have been spectacular advances in the field I think what we tried to describe in the strategic plan is not only a capturing of what we've done so far but to show the confluents of all these things that have happened the far reaching set of things that can now be approached for the first time and the compelling reasons why we want to go there because of the applications it can have for medical care.
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Michelle Picard is skating hard in Sochi, after seeing the ice for the first time at the Winter Olympics on Saturday, coming off the bench to help her team as it seeks a gold medal in women's ice hockey.
The 20-year-old defenseman played 11 minutes and 30 seconds spread over 14 shifts during the team's 3-1 victory over Finland. During the first period, Picard took the puck into Finland's end, taking a shot on net and forcing a pad save by the goalie, resulting in a juicy rebound opportunity.
Picard, who wears No. 23, was one of five defensemen for Team USA who helped stymie the Finnish attack in the first Olympic game for the Americans during the initial round of play. The U.S. was scheduled to play again at 5 a.m. today against Switzerland. The team's final group-round game on Wednesday at 7:30 a.m. Both games are scheduled ot be broadcast live on NBCSN.
"Overall, I think they played great on Saturday," said Picard's older brother, Tim Picard, who was excited to stay up late watching the live broadcast at 3 a.m. from his home in Massachusetts. "It's good to get the first one done with, clear some of the nerves and build confidence. The Finland goalie is the best in the world and has beaten the U.S. before, so it was good to get that early goal and take some of the pressure off."
Picard's brother said that he would have "woken the neighbors" if his sister's first period shot went in.
"She did a great job stepping up into the play to get that scoring opportunity," Picard said. "Too bad the rebound was out of her teammates' reach."
Regardless of the group round results, Team USA will move on to another round, but if it comes in first or second place in the group, it will skip quarterfinals and proceed directly to the semifinals. Four teams in a second, lesser-ranked group are competing for two spots in the quarterfinal round.
Prior to Saturday's game the NBC hockey analysts said Picard and the rest of the Team USA did not participate in the opening ceremonies held the day before in Sochi. The players told broadcasters they wanted to stay focused on the next day's game.
Back in her hometown, the city put out an electronic sign at Taunton Green on Sunday, with well wishes for Picard and the team. Message read, "Good luck Michelle," "Picard #23 Olympic," and "Hockey go USA."
Taunton Mayor Thomas Hoye Jr. said earlier in the week that the city is behind Picard, calling her an inspiration for young athletes in the community.
Michelle Picard grew up playing in Taunton at Aleixo Arena, before later attending the Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, where she could play high school hockey. Picard now attends Harvard University and plays defense for the Crimson.
Before joining the Olympic women's hockey squad last year, Picard also won several medals with the U.S. U-18 youth national team, including a gold medal at the World Championships in 2011.


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LocationMelbourne, Australia
Project TeamMichael Drescher, Jesse Linardi, Dana Goldberg, Oliver Ingram, Georgia Cannon
CollaboratorsASA Building Consultants, Adams Consulting Engineers, Energylab, Brighton Pools
ContractorElement Constructions Pty Ltd
Area450.0 m2
Project Year2011
Text description provided by the architects. The A-G House reinterprets classic mid-century California Modern design principles to suit the Australian design vernacular, creating a contemporary home for a young at heart – three generational family. The varied requirements of three generations of family living together shaped the brief from the clients.
Three wings are connected via a functional spine, whilst the archetypal Australian backyard is reoriented to the front of the house in the form of a central, alfresco entertaining area that merges seamlessly with the indoor living space. Each of the spaces is open and clean-lined, dominated by a tactile finishes palette of stone, glass and warm timber. Within this framework, each wing reflects the personality of its inhabitants through custom designed joinery and fittings and furniture selections.
Blue stone, a quintessentially Victorian material, wraps through vertical and horizontal planes to form warm and tactile kitchen benches and bathroom vanities. The internal blue stone flooring also continues through to outside living areas where, in conjunction with extensive use of glazing, it acts to further dissolve the barriers between inside and out – from generation to generation.
The family's Italian heritage places importance on the role that cooking plays in their personal and social lives. Separate cooking facilities are provided in the Grandmother's wing, her daughter's wing and in the outdoor area connecting the generations. Each kitchen was designed to suit its primary inhabitants' cooking style whether it be restrained and clean or open and chaotic.
Designed to provide a place for every kind of family interaction from exuberant get togethers by the pool, to individual study nooks for quiet contemplation, the A-G House sets a new benchmark for contemporary, Australian, family homes.


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[Game] Umineko - Spoilers, Theories, Interpretations
This thread is for the readers of the visual novel, Umineko no Naku Koro ni. Its purpose is to allow free discussion of theories and speculation over the story, based on all media (VN, manga, anime, extra tips etc).
Thus, this thread serve as the best place for everyone who wish to discuss with the latest pieces of information that can help to solve the mystery of Umineko no Naku Koro ni.
If you didn't finish the most recent Episode of the VN, there is a very high chance that you will be spoiled pretty badly as result! Please read the game thread of the last Episode you have read.
Since posters are expected to be familiar with the game, there is no real need for spoiler tags, but feel free to include them if you so wish.
If you don't know how to use a spoiler tag, please read the BB Code FAQ.
Spoiler tag examples
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Finally, please remain on-topic. If you prefer to post your impressions and comments about a specific game (sort of a review and the likes), please post in their respective game thread.
Umineko no Naku Koroni - Ep. 1 Legend of the Golden Witch
Umineko no Naku Koroni - Ep. 2 Turn of the Golden Witch
Umineko no Naku Koroni - Ep. 3 Banquet of the Golden Witch
Umineko no Naku Koroni - Ep. 4 Alliance of the Golden Witch
If it's going to be End of the Golden Witch, I think it's indeed about the true identity of the golden witch.
However, knowing it's true form is just one of the steps for a complete victory. It can't be the end yet.
But we already suspected that Beatrice isn't the culprit, maybe knowing it's ture form is just more than one step away from solving the mystery
Can it be that Beatrice resigned as the Golden Witch and joined Battler
and then someone came and took her place as the Golden Witch and carried on with the game?
Great~Then we won't have any troubles with beating the bad witch~
Could be the birth of the Golden Wizard Battler Kihihihihihihhihi >D .
Yeah, I dunno, XD .
Yeah I can imagine Battler beating Beatrice, then growing old realizing that he misses Beatrice a lot, become crazy and then create a sadistic game involving the murder of his own family to revive the witch and see her again.
Ahahahah that sounds like Kinzo to me ;)
Kinzo=Old Battler :heh:
Umineko no Naku Koro ni on wikipedia
Links to other Umineko threads in AS Forums:
original doujin games
Umineko no Naku Koroni - Ep. 1 Legend of the Golden Witch
Umineko no Naku Koroni - Ep. 2 Turn of the Golden Witch
Umineko no Naku Koroni - Ep. 3 Banquet of the Golden Witch
Umineko no Naku Koroni - Ep. 4 Alliance of the golden witch
Umineko no Naku Koro ni - Translation Project
Umineko Image Thread (wallpapers, fan art, gifs, etc.)
Umineko Avatar & Signature Request Thread
Umineko music discussion (OP/ED, game soundtracks, dramaCDs etc.)
Umineko music videos
Umineko no Naku Koroni - manga thread
damn Ryukishi07, trolling us again D:
I can't help but think that it's Bernkastel with different clothing, as if she directly decided to step into the game and take control of it.
[edit] Nope it's not Bern, it's a new character. Same eye color as Beato though.
Bern has different color eyes
So is Bernkastel going to be a game piece this time?
edit. Just noticed the eyes so it's not Bern.
Did you guys notice the hand and the pool of blood at the right corner of the painting? The girl is basically sitting at a scene where a murder has been committed...
Wait... Look at the portrait from Teapot's link.
IN the corner... Is that a hand?
Edit : too slow
So this mysterious girl is a new piece on the gameboard... where the hell that image leaked from? And yet there's no doubt it's a Ryukishi's work. The setting seems to be the parlor of the Ushiromiya's mansion.
I really don't think it's Bern, but seeing her now I'm not sure anymore she's a young Chiyo.
Spoiler for Ep 4 details:
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The Alice in Wonderland World of Charity Valuation
Published 08/01/2011
If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what it is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?
-Alice in Wonderland, Disney movie (1951)
Unobservable inputs are inputs that reflect the reporting entity's own assumptions about the assumptions that market participants would use in pricing...
-The accounting profession's version of Alice in Wonderland, FASB Standard No. 157
In the wonderful world of charitable gifts-in-kind (GIK) where lives are saved and suffering is lessened, nonprofit executives can fully utilize their creative abilities when measuring the value of the donated goods they receive such as medicine, food, clothing, books, and other materials that flow through a charity's financial statements. Charities that place high values on GIK donations can falsely appear to be spending a higher percentage of their funds on programs than other groups that receive mostly cash contributions. Donors who rely on these charities' claimed program percentages when making giving decisions might think they are giving to highly efficient organizations when in fact most of their cash donations are being spent on overhead.
This past June the American Institute of Philanthropy obtained Feed the Children's (FC) fiscal 2010 audited financial statements and was surprised to see this charity admitting that $544 million in deworming pills, which accounted for 45% of its total fiscal 2009 income, would now be valued at only $21 million based on the new accounting guidance it is using. This means that in 2009 FC had valued its pills at least 24.9 times higher or 2,490% more than in 2010. AIP made multiple requests to the group for a per-pill breakout of how it valued its drugs. FC finally disclosed to us that the very same mebendazole deworming pills that it valued at $9.07 in 2009 were now being valued at $.35 in 2010. FC said that its valuation methodology followed standard industry practice for each of these years.
Just imagine if a for-profit company or mutual fund had overvalued its income by a similarly unreasonable amount—investors would be outraged and demand a thorough investigation by regulatory authorities with a public accounting of what had occurred. Yet many American charities have been bending reality for quite some time by greatly exaggerating the value of their GIK without much notice from the public, the media or government regulators.
What makes the GIK valuation issue all the more troubling is that charities are not required by the IRS or their outside auditors to disclose what specific products they receive and distribute, or at what prices they value these items. For example, say Charity A and Charity B receive and distribute exactly the same amount and type of aid to the same geographic area in a given year. Because Charity A has inflated the value of these in-kind goods, it can report that its program spending is much higher than Charity B's, and will also appear to be larger and more efficient. This is unfair to Charity B which is being made to look comparatively less efficient simply because it is being more honest and reasonable when valuing its GIK. If charities were required to shine light on the details of their GIK, the public would be able to compare valuations and determine which ones are reasonable and which are inflated. Charities placing unreasonable values on donated medicines and other aid would readily be exposed.
A number of charities, including Feed the Children, defend the inflated values they formerly placed on medicines like deworming pills by saying that they were merely following earlier accounting guidance which allowed them to value these items based on U.S. prices. They argue that the new accounting guidance no longer allows them to use the typically higher U.S. prices, and this accounts for the drastic drop in their GIK income and expenses. AIP is not buying this argument and strongly believes that these charities should not have been using U.S. prices in the first place. Worms are not a medical problem in the U.S., and the 500 milligram mebendazole deworming pills that are used to help people in the developing world cannot even be legally sold here because they lack FDA approval. Any FDA-approved deworming pill for humans sold in the U.S. would be priced extremely high compared to the drugs that are available in the developing world. Charities that used the old accounting guidance as a free pass to value their GIK unreasonably high were not following the spirit of these rules.
Don't be confused by a charity's explanation of how it is now valuing in-kind donations. For example, FC's fiscal 2010 audit says that international GIK "are valued based upon the estimated wholesale market value of the items within the countries that represent the principal market of use." The principal market of use is not the end use market or the place where GIK is given to poor or needy people, such as Ethiopia or the Philippines. Rather, it is the market, real or hypothetical, where its value can be maximized. So even when a drug is available for purchase in a poor country at a cheap price, a charity can value it at an expensive price based on what it would be priced at in an active market or an imaginary one. This makes sense for valuing investments or for-profit business inventory but does not make sense for valuing a charity's GIK. So while the new guidance offers some improvements, it will not prevent some charities from continuing to value GIK unreasonably high.
One charity, Brother's Brother Foundation (BBF), should be commended for recognizing that it needed to lower the value it placed on its pharmaceutical donations before the new accounting rules required it to do so. In 2009 BBF set an example by using significantly lower valuations and calling for other charities to do the same. BBF's income was reduced to $266 million from the $623 million at which it would have been reported under its old valuation method, according to the charity's audit. BBF has paid a price for its honesty. Before implementing its valuation change BBF received publicity for being among the top spots on lists of America's largest charities. It has since been kicked down from 6th to 59th on the Chronicle of Philanthropy's Philanthropy 400 list primarily because it is being more honest about how it values its GIK donations.
Some charities inflate the contributions they report receiving by waving a wand and magically turning a purchase into a donation. This is how some nonprofit executives say off the record how it can be done: charities like to receive donations of certain types of products whose values are easy to inflate. When a charity is not successful in soliciting donations of such products in large volumes directly from donors or companies it will purchase them instead. The charity will then claim that what they paid for these products was simply a "handling fee" and that the products themselves were donated. Of course, these supposed "handling fees" often exceed what a person would pay on the open market to purchase the goods in question. By calling these transactions "donations" instead of purchases, this frees up the charity to wildly inflate the value of these products in its financial reporting.
Some charities have other tricks up their sleeves for using GIK to inflate their contributions. One scenario, as told off the record to AIP by charity executives, is for a charity to buy very cheap and low quality medicine made in India and flow the purchase through a European company. The European seller can be referred to as an "anonymous donor" on the charity's tax form. As a condition of the sale, the charity can require that a receipt be provided that values the Indian products at expensive European prices. The difference between the European value and the purchased Indian value boosts on paper the reported value of a charity's income, thereby making it appear to be larger and more efficient than it actually is.
Real World Examples of the Alice in Wonderland World of GIK
In 2010 the Canadian Revenue Agency revoked the charitable registration of The Orion Foundation, a bogus AIDS charity purporting to help Africans. It bought medicine for 30 cents per unit and valued it at $11.50 per unit, making enough purchases to issue $91 million dollars in donor receipts. The auditors could not tell if the medicine was actually received, used, or distributed in Africa.
MAP International in 2009 reported that it was distributing donated drugs from Operation Blessing to the African nation of Ivory Coast. The GIK consisted of two shipments each of 7.5 million deworming pills worth nearly $80 million each. In other words they were claiming that a pill that can readily be bought from multiple sources for as little as 2 cents is worth $10.66. This valuation is absurd on its face because, according to WHO (World Health Organization), it would represent over 60% of total Ivory Coast government spending on health in 2009.
AmeriCares in its 2009 audit counts as program services expense $42 million dollars worth of GIK that it never distributed. Accounting rules allow charities to write-off expired or unusable GIK and count it as a program expense.
In 2008 a person who identified herself as a former employee of Feed the Children called AIP's president and told him that she bought 2 cent deworming pills from a Dutch company that the charity valued at $12 per pill. Based on the volume purchased this amounted to a $300+ million "donation" of medicine to the charity. Two officials at the charity disputed this, including spokesperson Tony Sellars, who called it "a total inaccuracy and a nice story."
Charities are willing to speak in general terms about the complex valuation schemes they have utilized to value their GIK. They are rarely, however, willing to disclose the actual dollar amount they used to value specific types of donated goods that account for major portions of their income and expenses. For example, Feed the Children placed a value of $544 million on the mebendazole deworming pills it received from one unidentified source in 2009, which accounted for 50% of its total GIK. Yet FC, like most charities, does not publicly disclose in its financial reports at what price it valued each pill. Only after AIP asked them a number of times did they disclose this information. Even the highly regarded humanitarian charity World Vision would not disclose to AIP the price at which it valued its deworming pills. Unless you know the exact amount being used to value a product it is impossible to determine if the valuation is reasonable. It is analogous to buying a car and having the salesman go on and on about what a great deal he has for you without telling you the actual selling price of the car. He can talk until he is blue in the face about how his price beats the competition, it's a special sale, it's marked down from the sticker price, etc… but unless you know the actual selling price you do not have a way of verifying whether or not you are really getting a fair deal.
Charities have been using pharmaceutical pricing guides that determine average wholesale prices (AWP) based on an honor system of unconfirmed reports on prevailing prices. People in the field joke that AWP really stands for "ain't what's paid." Some pharmaceutical companies have been sued for fraud for reporting AWP prices to the government to obtain inflated Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements for pharmacies and doctors. A partner at a major accounting firm told 2010 AICPA conference attendees that the drug pricing guide nicknamed the "red book," which has been frequently used by charities, valued deworming pills at $12 to $16 each even though she could go online and buy the same pills for ten cents. She said that some prices in the red book may be fine but that it is the responsibility of the charity's accountant to determine if the book's listed prices are reasonable.
Even charities following the new FAS 157 accounting guidance have wide latitude in how they choose to value GIK. FAS 157 was primarily written to provide guidance to for-profit companies on valuing investments and other business assets; it does not even mention GIK. It does not make sense for non-profits that receive donated goods for free and give them out to people who are too poor to pay for them to base GIK valuations on a framework designed for businesses to maximize the fair value of their assets.
Another accountability black hole exists with respect to how charities are allowed to report their international aid distributions on their tax forms. When a charity makes a grant or distributes aid within the U.S. worth $5,000 or more it is required to disclose the name and address of the organization that received it. However, a charity distributing international aid is allowed in its public disclosures to hide the name and address of the foreign recipient and only disclose the major region of the world, for example, Africa, South America, or Europe, where it is distributed. Such aid is described by charities in only very general terms such as "medical supplies," "household & educational items," or "building materials." This lack of disclosure is very convenient for any charity that wants to wildly inflate the value of its GIK because it knows there are no public records that an independent watchdog or donor can use to determine whether its valuation of an in-kind grant is reasonable or was even received by the reported recipient. (AIP has pressed the IRS to begin requiring charities to disclose the names of their international grantees and to accurately and specifically disclose GIK.)
The Breast Cancer Charities of America (BCCA) states in its 2009 tax form that it made a GIK grant of over a million dollars to Water Missions International (WMI) of Charleston, SC. The grant, which accounted for 92% of BCCA's total program expenses in 2009, was reported by the charity to consist of $908,400 in "medical supplies" and $100,000 in "water purification systems" in Honduras. This disclosure presented a rare opportunity for AIP to attempt to verify an international GIK grant.
AIP contacted WMI and spoke with its VP of Finance, Cynthia Pennington, to confirm that the charity had received the in-kind goods BCCA claims to have granted for WMI's programs in Honduras. Pennington had never heard of BCCA and told us that while WMI does provide aid in Honduras, it does not collect or distribute any medical supplies there or anywhere else. She also said that WMI does not accept donations of water purification systems from other charities because her group deals only with specific, proprietary systems designed to serve more than 25,000 people. This is interesting considering that BCCA's executive director, Erica Harvey, told AIP that WMI is a charity her group regularly works with.
AIP contacted BCCA to get to the bottom of this discrepancy. It turns out that BCCA had paid freight costs of about $5,000 to send a container to Honduras containing supplies owned by multiple charities. According to WMI, the container included WMI's shipment of its own water equipment to its international office. BCCA took credit for the value of WMI's water equipment in its financial statements simply because it paid to ship it to Honduras. As for the medical supplies, these were donated to BCCA by another charity and were not delivered to WMI but to an employee of WMI's international office for a non-WMI project. Therefore, BCCA should not be taking credit for donating these items to WMI. It is AIP's view that BCCA, which was in its first year of operation at the time the alleged grant was made, was attempting to gain credibility with donors by claiming to have a working relationship with WMI.
The following year BCCA's reported GIK quadrupled to $4.3 million, according to its 2010 tax form. It no longer provided breakouts, however, of who received these medical supplies or how they were used since all the grants in 2010 were outside the U.S. and charities are exempt from publicly disclosing this information. BCCA did not respond to AIP's question about who received these GIK medical supplies and how they were valued.
Charity Services International (CSI) arranges for the collection and distribution of GIK for BCCA, according to its 2009 tax form. CSI's web site says that it is a small business that offers turn-key GIK services. Two of the benefits that CSI lists for its charity clients are: "Receive high value donations of items whose value is booked as revenue" and "Reduce fundraising percentages by booking large gift values for a low service fee." CSI is not shy about offering "high" and "large" value GIK to boost a charity's reported income and improve its fundraising ratio.
When AIP questioned an IRS official about why it would require disclosure of domestic grant recipients but not foreign ones, the response was that charities were concerned that this information could lead to terrorist attacks against a charity or its grant recipients. AIP appreciates that some charities operate in dangerous places such as Iraq or Somalia where it might be advisable to conceal the identity of grant recipients. But if a charity is providing aid to organizations in Japan, Haiti or other non-terrorist hotbeds, AIP believes there ought to be disclosure of the recipient organization.
Fortunately, many charities have begun lowering their inflated GIK valuations, due in part to new accounting rules. (The chart above shows the change in medical GIK from fiscal '09 to '10 for six major charities.) But unfortunately, even with the new accounting guidance, we do not know whether most charities are now reasonably or consistently valuing in-kind goods because charities are not required to disclose the value of the specific goods they receive and distribute. For instance Feed the Children drastically lowered its deworming pill valuations in 2010 but is still inflating its valuations by over 17 times what the pills could readily be purchased for from multiple suppliers. Therefore, AIP strongly urges donors to follow the cash and subtract out in-kind goods when calculating efficiency ratios.
The good news is that as a user of AIP's Guide, you have not been fooled by a charity's inflated GIK valuations. Among major charity evaluation agencies, only AIP's rating methodology excludes GIK from its financial ratios. AIP strives to give donors a clearer understanding of how a charity spends its money to help them avoid being misled by a group that pumps up its program ratio and lowers its fundraising ratio through unidentified and overvalued GIK.


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The agency won the business following a pitch against CheethambellJWT and M&C Saatchi.
Mother's capture of the business follows the decision to call a pitch last month. The incumbent agency DLKW Lowe, which created last year's "best trips last a lifetime" campaign, decided not to repitch.
Paul McClenaghan, the Halfords group commercial director, said. "We have started on a journey to reposition Halfords as a provider of expert help and services. Working with Mother is yet another important step towards this transformation.
"Our aim in the agency pitch process was to find a partner who can bring our new proposition alive for customers. We are impressed by Mother's inspirational ideas for this next important step in the evolution of Halfords brand."
Sara Tate, the head of brand and new business at Mother, said. "The Mother Team has been greatly impressed by the ambition and desire of Halfords to transform their brand and business. They are enthusiastic and great to work with. We are looking forward to going on a great journey with them."


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Boston's new Millennium Tower
Boston's new Millennium Tower
The Milllennium Tower in Downtown Crossing is illuminated in the Boston skyline by a full moon.
The top of the 60-story Millennium Tower.
A view from a condo on the 51st floor.
The tower looms behind the wing of the restored former Filene's department store that is now named the Burnham Building.
The upper floors of the tower that contains 442 condos.
The lounge area with marble fireplace for the residents of the tower.
Pedestrians in Downtown Crossing surround the Burnham Building.
The exercise room for the residents of the tower.
The junior Olympic pool.
Reflections of a building on the windows of condos that offer residents beautiful views.
Shops on the lower level of the Burnham Building on Washington Street.
The view and reflection of the city from the 51st floor.


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Israeli army kills Palestinian militant in raid
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli army killed a Palestinian militant from the Islamic Jihad group during a raid to arrest him in the West Bank on Tuesday, the military and Palestinian officials said.
Israeli troops returned fire after Palestinians threw fire bombs and shot at them as they tried to apprehend the suspect from the violent group in Jenin, the army said. Shots hit the wanted man while he tried to flee the scene and he later died of his wounds in the hospital, it added.
Palestinian security official Khaled Abdel Aziz named the man killed as Islam Tubasi. He said 3 other Palestinians were wounded in the firefight. Islamic Jihad claimed Tubasi as one if its members. The Iranian-backed militant group has killed dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks over the years.
"The military will review the circumstances of the shooting that led to the death of the terror suspect," Military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said.
Last month, two Palestinians were killed in clashes during an arrest raid in Jenin.


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Original URL: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/20/byd_f3dm/
Chinese automaker launches plug-in hybrid
PRC punts plug-in
Posted in Science, 20th December 2008 04:43 GMT
'Leccy Tech If you've been waiting for the Chevy Volt or Toyota's as-yet unnamed offering before you buy a plug-in hybrid automobile, you'll need to sit tight until their planned 2010 releases. If you must have a plug-in right now, however, you'll need to move to China. That'd be the PRC, not Taiwan.
Chinese carmaker BYD Auto began selling their F3DM plug-in hybrid this week. Retailing for 149,800 yuan (about £14,700 or $21,900 at today's exchange rates), the F3DM is the world's first mass-produced plug-in.
But what exactly is a plug-in hybrid automobile? One straightforward definition comes by way of those ageless automotive gurus Click and Clack, who explain that "gasoline-electric hybrids [such as the Toyota Prius] use electricity to supplement a gasoline engine, whereas...plug-in hybrids...use a gasoline engine to supplement electric power."
Exactly from what type of battery the F3DM uses to supply that electric power, however, remains a wee bit vague. Some reports refer to the F3DM's "lithium-ion" batteries, while Matt Hardigree of Jalopnik - who has actually ridden in a BYD hybrid - says that BYD uses "ferrous (iron) oxide" battery technology.
Half the price of a Chevy Volt and available today - in China
Although BYD (which, by the way, stands for "Build Your Dreams " - yes, in English) Auto's website isn't completely clear on whether the F3DM's batteries are lithium-ion or ferrous-oxide, the company does build ferrous-oxide batteries and less-than-humbly extols its own "masterpiece" Fe3 technology. We're siding with Hardigree.
BYD Auto claims that the F3DM's range is 100km (about 62 miles) on electrical power alone. If you need to travel further, you can kick in the 1.0 liter gas engine to recharge the batteries. Or you can stop at a "special charge station" and stretch your legs for 10 minutes while the batteries are pumped back up to 50 per cent of their total capacity.
It goes without saying that the current number of "special charge stations" hovers around zero, so you'll want to drive home for a non-gasoline-assisted recharging session. BYU Auto says that a full recharging takes about seven hours. The F3DM charges at 220 volts. There's no word yet from BYU Auto whether a 120-volt version will be available when the company begins shipping the F3DM to the US in 2010. (No UK plans have yet been announced).
Also not yet known is what modifications, if any, that the F3DM will need to pass the relatively stringent US safety regulations - relative to those in China, that is - and whether any additional range-limiting weight gain will occur due to any needed safety upgrades.
If the thought of a Chinese-made car being of high enough quality to sell like hotcakes is a bit of a stretch for your imagination, remember that Warren Buffett - he of the fabulously successful Berkshire Hathaway investment fund - bought a 9.9 per cent stake in BYD a mere three months ago.
And Buffy didn't get rich by being wrong about such things.


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Andrew Breitbart loathed the "institutional left," and what he called "the Democrat media complex." A son of Brentwood who cut his sharp online incisors working alongside blogging pioneers Matt Drudge and Arianna Huffington, Breitbart went on to forge an eponymous website and persona as one of the fiercest voices of the right. His mission appeared cut short March 1, when he died of heart failure. Breitbart was just 43.
But an unlikely crew of friends and associates — his oldest childhood friend, a pair of Harvard-educated lawyers, a financier/filmmaker who served in the Navy and a musician pal who reinforces the fallen leader's voice as the website's "minister of culture" — scarcely paused after the loss. Just three days later, with the blessing of Breitbart's widow, Susie, they launched a redesigned Breitbart.com website.
In the months since, Team Breitbart has worked feverishly — with up to 100 posts a day on "verticals" dubbed Big Hollywood, Big Government, Big Journalism and Big Peace — to make the site the go-to destination for conservatives.
PHOTOS: Andrew Breitbart - 10 media moments
"We are going to be the Huffington Post of the right," said Steve Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart News Network. "That is our focus every day."
That's a tall order in a crowded field — including the Weekly Standard, World Net Daily and the Daily Caller — which, at least for now, each draw more readers than Breitbart.com according to the rating service comScore.com. Still, the site's readership has been up as much as 30% some months this year. ComScore put Breitbart's traffic in June at 1.1 million unique visitors. Sprawling Huffington Post attracts more than 38 million visitors.
Regardless of size, Breitbart.com can find its way to the center of the political conversation. When aides to Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney said recently that the time had come to "vet the president," for some observers that echoed a Breitbart.com series of anti-Obama hits, "The Vetting." Lefty websites quickly chided that the Romney campaign had gone "the full Breitbart" — all attacks all the time.
PHOTOS: Notable deaths of 2012
Breitbart made his name by sowing outrage. He promoted the hidden-camera videos that helped take down the liberal community activist group ACORN. He exposed the sex-charged online romp of the now ex-Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner. He hyped a video that left the misleading impression that an Agriculture Department employee was giving a speech defending racism. In fact, she was condemning it.
Now Breitbart's crew spends a good part of each day, stretching to 12 hours and more, channeling their fallen leader. Why counterpunch against questions regarding Romney's unreleased income taxes and offshore investments when you can beat up on President Obama, the man Breitbart called an "unrepentant radical"?
"You just try to infuse the site with the spirit of the guy, from people that knew his DNA and knew what he wanted," said Bannon, 58, a former Naval officer and one-time Goldman Sachs vice president who met Breitbart at a conservative film festival. "You cannot replace Andrew Breitbart. The conservative movement does not have a lot of warriors. He was a combination of Marshall McLuhan and Falstaff."
Befitting its namesake, who liked to Rollerblade to confrontations with liberal demonstrators, the website makes its headquarters in funky offices in West Los Angeles — once the purported home of the rapper Master P's video productions and, later, site of a renowned poker game.
Larry Solov, who grew up next door to Breitbart, leads the operation. In 2007, on a trip to Israel, Breitbart asked his best friend to chuck his corporate litigation career and become the site's chief executive. "He said 'Let's change the world. Let's grow a business,'" recalled Solov, 44. "It was a surprisingly easy decision."
In the days before he died, Breitbart had been working to re-launch his site — expanding to a staff of about 20 and revamping the design. He spoke in February at a convention of conservatives and promised a new video bombshell and renewed scrutiny of the president.
Breitbart.com has followed its namesake's words as a road map — particularly in the more than 50 stories in "The Vetting." A few of the nuggets have popped up in major news outlets, but none has made big news.
The much-hyped video turned out to be of Obama as a law student, giving a speech in which he supported Derrick Bell, a left-wing Harvard law professor who saw racism as endemic to America. In the video, Obama hugged Bell.
"After all this fuss, we are left with no bombshell and no cover-up," wrote Paul Janensch, a former newspaper editor who teaches journalism at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.
Where the Breitbart coverage tries to suggest a fabric of deception around Obama, critics instead see an overweening anti-Obama narrative. The website runs a picture of the young state senator wearing a Revolutionary War-style coat in a Fourth of July parade. Breitbart.com suggests 15 years later that this is "proof of hypocrisy," since some Democrats would come to mock tea party activists for wearing similar garb.
Obama declines, like most candidates, to release his academic records. Breitbart.com speculates he might have done worse on the SAT test than George W. Bush, based on the average Columbia University transfer student's score in the year of Obama's arrival.
A blogger for theAtlantic.com called the series "utterly pointless — it misleads more often than it clarifies." The conservative blogger Jon Fleischman defended the postings, in an interview, as "through the roof" in originality. But even the Wall Street Journal's online media blogger called most of the Obama series "pretty banal."
The failure of most of the website's stories to get much bounce does not reflect their weakness, said Bannon. "Andrew would have blown these stories up to the sky," he said. "Other people don't have that kind of electric personality, that charisma, but it doesn't mean that the quality of the work is not there."
PHOTOS: Andrew Breitbart - 10 media moments
Devotion to the founder permeates the staff. Editor in Chief Joel Pollak, a 35-year-old Harvard Law grad and one-time congressional candidate in Illinois, made his name as a conservative scrapper thanks to YouTube video of his confrontation with liberal Congressman Barney Frank.
"Minister of culture" Jon Kahn, 44, a film- and songwriter, sometimes performed his songs at events where Breitbart spoke. Managing Editor Alex Marlow, 26, thrived as a conservative blogger at famously liberal UC Berkeley. As the site's first full-time employee, he relishes the ability of a small shock force to reach a big audience.
Editor-at-Large Ben Shapiro entered UCLA at 16 and co-authored his first book ("Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth") at 20.
Can their site be sustained for the long run? Breitbart.com's operators said they have more than adequate backers and capital for now. (They declined to detail the financial underpinnings.) Solov said the animating spirit of the Breitbart name should not be underestimated. "This," he said, "is a long play."
"Does this thing have a bright, promising future as a business? Not based on what we are seeing right now," said Alan Mutter, a San Francisco-based media analyst. Many ad-based websites have struggled as a few giants soak up most of the business and the endless space for online promotion drives down ad rates. But Mutter added that there are big-money backers willing to fund such sites on both the left and right.
The operators concede that the political content can make some big brand-name advertisers skittish. But ads for the likes of Nissan, JetBlue and Oracle find their way to Breitbart.com. A number of ads appear targeted for political sites generally. That can lead to incongruities. One banner last month asked Breitbart readers to sign a birthday card for President Obama.
Twitter: latimesrainey


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Swine Flu Strikes Cats and Ferrets! What's Next?
If you were planning on taking a feline friend to Des Moines on a sightseeing trip to see whatever the hell is in Des Moines, stop. Cats (well cat, singular actually) there are being struck by the vicious porcine plague.
The Associated Press reports that a 13-year-old cat was lethargic, had trouble breathing and had a loss of appetite. When it was taken to the vet, bang! Swine flu. The unnamed cat is now recovered. "This may be the first instance where we have documentation that transmission occurred involving cats or dogs, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Tom Skinner told the AP.
The report also casually mentions that two ferrets - one in Oregon and one in Nebraska - had the swine flu, "but they died." Because apparently no-one cares about ferrets and they're allowed to die without making news. Let's all take a moment to remember them please.
I'm waiting for the Glenn Beck animal swine flu vaccination backlash. And also for a wild panic about millions of cats dying that is not really justified.


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ALL BALL NERVE CENTER — "What we do when we assume no one is paying attention demonstrates our true character."
That's the first sentence in a letter to the editor from yesterday's Washington Post, and the story that accompanies it sure makes it sound as if the Wizards got a heckuva person in rookie F Otto Porter Jr.
The letter comes from a Post reader named Michael Stein…
On Friday, during a very stressful week for Washington, I looked to escape the madness for 30 minutes on what was a warm fall afternoon. I was reading The Post and eating a quick lunch at a table outside a local sandwich shop while a disheveled homeless man sat nearby, persistently and unsuccessfully asking anyone who walked by if he or she could "spare a sandwich."
After about 25 minutes, Otto Porter Jr., the Georgetown basketball star and the Washington Wizards' newest first-round draft pick, drove up, hopped out of his car and entered the shop. Mr. Porter soon exited with his sandwich and drink — but also with a sandwich, a bag of chips and a drink for the homeless man. Mr. Porter then sat down next to the man, and they both enjoyed their sandwiches while making small talk.
USA Today's For The Win reached out to the Wizards to confirm the veracity of the story, and a Wizards spokesperson told them, "Otto's generosity and character speak for themselves."
Yes, they certainly do.
(via FTW)


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The OpenAjax Alliance has announced approval and availability of OpenAjax Hub 2.0 as an industry standard for more secure Web 2.0 mashup applications. Advances in security in Hub 2.0 can help protect enterprise mashups from malicious intent, giving IT staff greater confidence in adding these features to their Web sites.
The major addition to Hub 2.0 is a JavaScript Library for Secure Enterprise Mashups created to better protect widgets and mashups from hackers and malicious intent. It addresses concerns among IT managers that may have inhibited adoption of mashup software within companies.
"OpenAjax Hub 2.0 is a major step forward for the OpenAjax Alliance towards its mission of promoting Ajax interoperability," says the OpenAjax Alliance's David Boloker. "In order to realize the potential for mashups across the industry, there needs to be standards. Hub 2.0 defines a key industry standard for how widgets can be isolated into secure containers and then how widgets can talk to each other through a mediated messaging bus."
Hub 2.0 isolates third-party widgets into secure sandboxes and mediates messaging among the widgets with a security manager. For example, suppose a Web site includes a third-party calendar widget. That widget itself might be malicious or might become malicious if its code has vulnerabilities that allow a site to hijack the widget. Malicious widgets could transmit hijacked data to a scamming web site or piggyback user credentials to read and write from company servers. Hub 2.0 prevents attacks by isolating untrusted widgets from the main application and other widgets, and by preventing access to user credentials. It protects against widget hijacking due to its features around careful widget loading and unloading and message integrity.
The OpenAjax Alliance is an organization of vendors, open source projects and companies using Ajax that are dedicated to the successful adoption of open and interoperable Ajax-based Web technologies. OpenAjax members include more than 100 organizations including Adobe, the Eclipse Foundation, Google, IBM and Microsoft working towards the mutual goal of accelerating customer success with Ajax.


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You all have probably already addressed this. If so, I could not find it by searching. And Bleeding Edge is OCX Memory right. Since I have some good ol OCZ 3700 Gold DC 2x256 Dual sided memory I figured I could get these questions answered intelligently here.....
I have read Intel's Intel® 875P Chipset Memory Configuration Guide White Paper dated April 2003. In discussing the 875P Chipset as used my Asus p4c800e-deluxe, the article states:
"The MCH supports the following modes of operation:
1. Virtual Single-Channel (VSC) or Single-Channel Mode.
2. Dual-Channel Lock Step mode (DS). (DS Linear Mode)
The 875P chipset also supports a special mode of addressing dynamic addressing mode. ALL the above-mentioned modes can be enabled with/without dynamic paging mode."
I understand single channel, virtual single channel, dual channel linear mode; ...but what is dynamic addressing and/or paging mode??
Intel states: " When the MCH is configured to operate in this mode, Front-Side Bus (FSB) to Memory Bus address mapping undergoes a significant change compared to that of in a linear operating mode (normal operating mode). In non-dynamic paging mode, the Rank selection (Rank or ROW
indicates the side of a DIMM) via chip select signals, is done based on the size of the ROW. For example, for a 512-Mb 16MX8X4b will have a ROW size of 512 MB, selected by CS0#, and only four open pages can be maintained for the full 512 MB. This will lower the memory performance (increases READ latencies) if most of the memory cycles are targeted to that single ROW resulting in opening and closing of accessed pages in that ROW."
Beyound this point is unknown territory for me. Is intel addressing DRAM configurations on a DIMM as having something to do with "Dynamic Paging Mode" If so, does that mean DIMMs that are not DRAM configured in a certain way are incapable of Dynamic/Paging Mode?
When I boot my Asus P4c800e-d with 875P chipset and 2x256 PC 3700 OCZ double side DIMM modules, the bios screen says "Dual Channel, Linear Mode".
How do confirm or configure that the system operates in Intel's "Dynamic Paging/Dynamic Addressing Mode" ?
thank you.


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Have you ever wondered what Krav Maga Self Defence system is about, but haven't had an opportunity to try a Reality-based, Raw and Effective Self Defence training that challenges you both physically and mentally? Have you ever tried a "Krav Maga" or "Self Defence" class elsewhere, but were not convinced that training you received would increase your chances of SURVIVAL in case of a VIOLENT attack?
Then, don't wait any further and Book a Free Trial Krav Maga class with KRAV FIGHTER to experience a Realistic Krav Maga Self Defence training like no other.
If Auckland, New Zealand is your permanent place of residence, and you're seriously interested in authentic and realistic Krav Maga & Self Defence training, to register please follow the instructions at KRAV FIGHTER Website.
Krav Maga is a Self-Defence system originally developed in Israel for the military and later for civilians. It was born from the need for a system that is and applicable for everyone. Techniques are sourced from various forms of martial arts and modern fighting sports.
It is best known for its primary focus on training under conditions that simulate real world situations, for its simplicity and for its effectively brutal counter attacks. Krav Maga is used by the Israeli Defence Forces (regular and special forces), law enforcement and security personnel, and intelligence organisations around the world.
Your first class with KRAV FIGHTER is free to for you to experience Krav Maga, our way of training and to get to know the students and instructors of our wonderful team. We will meet you after the class to answer any questions you may have and to review all of the membership options we offer for training.
Free after hours parking is available at the bottom-most level of the parking structure. Find us on Google.


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Nov 17, 2004
Nov. 17, 2004
CAMBRDIGE, MASS. - Last week, the NEWMAC announced the 2004 Field Hockey All-Conference Team with Deanna Lentz and Cheryl Texin collecting First-Team awards. This was the first time in the program's history that it has received multiple First-Team honors.
Lentz earned her second consecutive First-Team selection, adding to her Second-Team honors in 2002. She led Tech's attack with 29 points on 12 goals and five assists. Texin made her first appearance on the All-Conference Team after tallying four goals and five assists for 13 points while anchoring a defense that allowed 37 goals.


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|Austin, Texas
|High School:
|Residential College:
2012-2013: Earned Winter Academic All-Ivy recongition ... Finished 21st in 3m diving at the Ivy League Championships ... Received the William Leeming Jelliffe Award, which is awarded to the senior who has shown the greatest progress and development in swimming or diving ability and outstanding leadership during his college years ... Finished third in the 1m diving against Brown
2011-2012 (Junior): 3-meter: Best finish in the event was against Brown, fourth with a score of 261.15… Finished ninth at HYP with a score of 216.50… 1-meter: Finished 23rd at the Ivy League Swimming and Diving Championships with a score of 207.95… Best finish in the event was against Brown, fifth with a score of 228.83.
2010-2011 (Sophomore): 3-meter: 3rd vs. Navy (222.68)... 6th vs. Cornell (223.27)... 8th vs. Penn/Dartmouth (183.95)... 9th at HYP (220.25)... 5th vs. UConn (224.32)... 4th vs. Brown (238.43)... 1-meter: 6th vs. Cornell (234.07)... 5th vs. Brown (200.32).
2009-2010 (Freshman): 3-meter: Sixth against Southern Connecticut… 1-meter: Sixth against Southern Connecticut… Eighth overall against UConn.
Personal: Undeclared major…Member of Pierson College.


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Trading for a Better Climate
Concerns over climate change took center stage at this year's World Bank annual meetings. The message was clear: there doesn't have to be a tradeoff between economic growth and a cleaner, healthier environment.
"We can make the right choice and still see robust growth," World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said during the opening panel discussion, October 8.
With the next United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference set to get underway in Warsaw in just a few weeks, Kim and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde have now clearly laid out the economic case for shifting development strategy into a greener gear.


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Jason Mraz is excited to announce his "Tour is a Four Letter Word" North American Tour. In an effort to make sure his fans get first access to tickets and to the best seats at the affordable prices that Jason has set, we are implementing new ticketing practices. Many of the venues on the tour will utilize Paperless Ticketing for the seats closest to the stage that are most commonly resold at extravagant premiums by scalpers. For these seats only, instead of receiving tickets before the event, the credit card used to make the purchase will serve as your ticket. If you bought the ticket(s), you'll have to present your credit card upon entry to the venue and you will have to accompany your guest(s). Paperless tickets are only transferable using Ticketmaster TicketExchange where tickets can only be sold at no more than 20% above the face value of the ticket. It is very important to review all the policies of Paperless Ticketing before completing your purchase – details and a helpful FAQ can be found here. Even in the venues where Paperless Ticketing is utilized, regular tickets will still be available for purchase, but the locations of those seats will be further from the stage. Additionally, there will be some restrictions on the number of tickets you're allowed to purchase, so be sure to read everything carefully!
In some venues where we play there is an existing subscription ticket system in place. We have worked closely with these venues to get their promise that the seats sold on subscription that fall into our Paperless Ticketing prime areas will be restricted from transfer and will require the season ticketholders to pick them up at the box office on the night of the show and immediately enter the venue. We apologize for any inconvenience to these fans also, and thank them for helping us try to implement a fair system for distributing tickets at a reasonable price for all interested fans.
Finally, there will be a one-time opportunity for each show to support the Jason Mraz Foundation. We will set aside 20 packages supporting the Foundation that will be available on www.jasonmraz.com/vippackages for $250. Each package will include one front row ticket*, a pre-show meet & greet with Jason, and a special gift bag. This money will go directly to the Foundation to support its work. These tickets are limited to 2 per person or household and must be picked up at the box office by the person who purchased them.
*Ticket will be in front row in most venues. In some markets where 20 front row seats are not available, other arrangements for premium seating have been made. Please check the description on each ticket page.
Nothing means more to Jason than YOU, his fans, and he wants the best seats to go directly to YOU and not to scalpers. These new policies are meant to ensure that you're given the best seats and the best experience at the prices set for the tour, not at inflated prices. Enjoy the show!