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Drew Magary's Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo runs every Thursday during the NFL season.
On Tuesday, I wrote a post shitting on Roger Goodell and I got a lot of responses similar to what commenter Planeis wrote:
Not to be the voice of reason or anything, but Goodell can't solve this. He's doing what the owners want.
Now, this is true. Throughout the whole ref lockout, Goodell was just Jerry Richardson's little meat puppet and I have trouble arguing against that. And I'm sure that Goodell was a minor actor in the agreement made last night. The problem is... if Goodell's sole job is to do whatever the owners want (and it is), then what fucking purpose does he serve? Why is he even there? Why not fire him, pocket his $10 million salary (Holy shit, he makes $10 million for being a lifeless hunk of meat and now I want to kill myself), and just leave things to a random lawyer already on your payroll? What Goodell is doing isn't commissioner-ing. In fact, I'm not sure that any sports commissioner can actually be a commissioner anymore.
Drew Magary writes for Deadspin and Gawker. He's also a correspondent for GQ. Follow him on Twitter @drewmagary and email him at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Back when sports teams were worth less than six figures and owners really didn't give a shit about them, the idea of having a league commissioner made sense. You could appoint someone to be the governor of your sport and have him deal with meting out discipline, engaging in PR efforts, and making sure your sport was never integrated. A commissioner could do all those things back then. He could preside over a sport with some semblance of authority.
That's no longer possible. NFL teams are now billion-dollar enterprises. Owners have a far more vested interest in making sure their personal economic welfare is more carefully protected than the welfare of the sport overall. And so it's an antiquated notion to think that a league commissioner can have any real sway over the 32 men who pay him $10 million a year to do their bidding. Pete Rozelle was an ambassador for football. Roger Goodell is not, and I don't know that creating another Rozelle is possible when so much money is involved.
It takes a unique skill set to be able to boss around a bunch of rich dickheaded sports owners, and Goodell certainly doesn't have it. David Stern used to have it, but he's been reduced to being a petty and vindictive legal pit bull. And Gary Bettman never had any kind of stately authority over hockey to begin with. The only commissioner left who feels like a true commissioner is, remarkably, Bud Selig, and I think the only reason MLB owners listen to Selig is because they're too distracted by his jowls to push back against him.
In the current sports environment, a commissioner is now little more than a league's personal Baghdad Bob, someone who is pushed out in front of the public and forced to tell you that you didn't see what you saw, to spin a shit situation in your favor as much as you can. The Lakers didn't get fucked over on the Chris Paul deal. Golden Tate had simultaneous possession of the ball. We're making football head-injury free. The official job of commissioner is now to be a professional bullshitter, and since most people see right through said bullshit, I don't know why leagues continue with the facade of having a commissioner in the first place.
If we go by past examples, the ideal sports commissioner is one who can do multiple things. He can get owners to do his bidding. He can get players to do his bidding. He can negotiate. He can enforce rules and punish miscreants. He can speak eloquently to the public on the state of his sport. He can call out names during a live draft. Roger Goodell sucks at ALL OF THESE THINGS. All of them. He can't do any of the tasks that we—perhaps unfairly—expect from a sports commissioner. And I don't think anyone can. Someone asked me who should replace Goodell if the league ever fired him. And the correct answer is no one. Enough with keeping up appearances. Ditch the whole commissioner thing and split up the job. Hire a lawyer, a lobbyist, a spokesman, a discipline czar, and a marketing guy to do all the things that Roger Goodell is so fucking terrible at. The idea of a commissioner should left in history's dustbin. This past month has proven it.
The Games
All games in the Jamboroo are evaluated for sheer watchability on a scale of 1 to 5 Throwgasms.
Five Throwgasms
Giants at Eagles: It's a miracle that no major brawls happened during the ref lockout. If they hadn't made a deal yesterday, then I promise you this would have been the week. A night game in Philly? Against a division rival? With those fans? PEOPLE WOULD HAVE DIED. Of course, there's still time for Andy Reid to cause a riot all on his own, and let's all pray that happens.
Four Throwgasms
Patriots at Bills: One of the more enjoyable things about the ref lockout was watching the perpetual sideline creep. If you've ever been on a football sideline, you know that it can be the worst seat in the house. There is only so much room in the front row, and so players and coaches are constantly tempted to get closer and closer to the edge of the sideline to get a better look, especially if something crazy happens. I remember there was a thick white line on the sideline and all the players would edge right up against it and then lean forward for a closer look, as if they were looking over the edge of a building. The refs always warned us to get back, but invariably we would start testing the limits again soon afterward, moving even closer than we did before. Then the head coach would get pissed at EVERYONE and scream at the whole team to get the fuck back. It's way fun.
Bears at Cowboys: Everyone raved about SportsCenter the night after the Packers fiasco, so I tuned in to ESPN the next morning, but by then ESPN was back to being fucking horrible again. They had Herm Edwards on and Herm was Herming up the studio, screaming at M.D. Jennings to bat the ball down, conveniently ignoring the fact that Golden Tate was stationed underneath Jennings, waiting for him to do precisely that. Blaming Jennings for not batting the ball down is like blaming an assault victim for getting punched in the face. "Maybe you shouldn't go to bars late at night!" I don't know what the point of Herm Edwards is. He's worthless. God forbid ESPN learn that they got record ratings because people enjoyed hearing opinions that weren't pre-formulated in a Lynn Hoppes brainstorm session.
Three Throwgasms
Browns at Ravens: They already announced that Gene Steratore is the ref tonight, but I feel like they missed a golden opportunity not trotting Hochuli out there. They could have done a slo-mo shot of Hochuli running out, with "Big Guns" by Skid Row blaring in the background. And then Hochuli would botch a call because he's still getting his sea legs and someone would get stabbed. That would have been great.
By the way, Ravens linebacker Paul Kruger looks like a meth dealer. For real, he's like a mug shot come to life.
Vikings at Lions: Christian Ponder wore a light purple sweater to the press conference after beating the 49ers. It will SHOCK you to learn that no man can pull off rocking a light purple sweater. He looked like some kind of D-grade lavender superhero.
Titus Young's jersey says "Young Sr." on it. I know he does this because there's another Young on the roster, but I also like the idea of making sure that you don't confuse this Titus Young with a one-month-old baby.
Saints at Packers: The sad thing about Monday Night's disaster is that Mike McCarthy was still forced to bite his tongue after his team got screwed. I wish he had come out to the podium with an effigy of Goodell and burned it in front of the rolling cameras. The NFL has so successfully managed to suppress actual opinions over the years that even the most galling scenario still can't get coaches like McCarthy to say what they're really thinking. I'm glad Aaron Rodgers and the o-line were around all week to openly say THIS FUCKING BLOWS.
I think head coaches are almost brain damaged, in a way. They're so into football and winning games and shit that the rest of their brain stops functioning properly. They can't talk to their wives. They answer the iron. They're basically Helen Keller unless there's game tape on.
Redskins at Bucs: I went to a restaurant last week and I ordered a veal chop, and before the entree arrived, they brought out the steak knife and set it down on the table for me. I can't begin to tell you how exciting it is when that steak knife arrives at the table. ZOMG MEAT IS NEAR! I think every restaurant should indicate on the menu if an item will include special utensils brought to the table to cause you unreasonable excitement. Bring me a steak knife or a lobster bib and I become engorged instantly.
Titans at Texans: One day we'll have an answer as to how Chris Johnson became so terrible so quickly. I mean, he doesn't look fat. He looks to be relatively in shape. He's not hurt. Even if he's lazy and unmotivated, I'm still amazed that he can drop off THAT badly. Only Albert Haynesworth put on a more impressive display of outright sloth on a football field. Gus Johnson now says the cops can run Johnson down in five seconds flat.
By the way, the scab refs so thoroughly overshadowed everything else about the NFL last week that we barely talked about the Lions completing a fucking Hail Mary against the Titans last week to tie the game. Holy shit!
You see, Herm Edwards? Batting the ball down ain't as easy as it looks.
Niners at Jets: In case you missed it, Fox has now given Tony Siragusa an on-site "man cave" during games. He's gonna CRUSH so much pussy in that cave, you guys. And any chick not blowing the Goose can GTFO. MAN CAVE ROOLZ BITCH. They don't even bother putting Goose in a suit anymore. He comes to every game dressed like he wants to fix the toilet.
Chargers at Chiefs
Panthers at Falcons
Two Throwgasms
Seahawks at Rams: A couple weeks ago the Texans were playing in a driving rainstorm and any time I flip to a game being played in a downpour, I'm always irrationally amazed. ZOMG LOOGIT ALL THAT RAIN! SO RAINY! MY GOODNESS! Half the time, I'm staring at the rain more than the actual gameplay, as if I'm in the middle of a Bon Iver video.
When you're a parent, rain ruins everything. All your ideas for going to a playground or taking a trip to some outdoor park get destroyed instantly. All you can do is A) Go to the mall, B) Go to a movie with 50,000 other parents, or C) Stay home and go clinically insane by 1 p.m. Rain is the worst.
Dolphins at Cardinals
Raiders at Broncos
Bengals at Jaguars
One Throwgasm
Pregame Song That Makes Me Want To Run Through A Goddamn Brick Wall
"40:1", by Sabaton. Reader Joel explains:
Sabaton are a Swedish metal band who have the unique niche that EVERY single song is about WAR. This one is about the Battle of Wizna, where about 700 Poles held off nearly 40,000 Nazis. Poland was conquered shortly thereafter (the whole calvalry vs Panzers strategy didn't work so well), but it inspired a song that makes me want to kill Germans.
I like any band whose frontman looks like a former WWF Intercontinental Champion.
Embarassing iTunes Library Track I Own That Will Not Fire You Up
"Alright," by Jamiroquai. When I was single, I used to blast this on my stereo and picture myself seducing any number of hot women with my silky dance moves. I imagined myself living in a fancy Miami penthouse, with any number of tasteful art deco couches and a closet full of crisp linen suits, because secretly, it's a lot of fun to imagine that you're a high-class douchebag. Then I would drink ten beers, play Mario Golf 64 for four hours, jack off, and then fall asleep. I was a real catch back then.
Nazi Bill Simmons Lock of the Week!
Lots of sports sites, to demonstrate the arbitrary nature of gambling, like to have animals and random celebrities pick games to see if they can outwit their expert counterparts. There's no reason we at Deadspin can't also get in on the fun. So we've asked a fictionalized, Nazi version of popular sportswriter Bill Simmons to pick one game a week for us. Take it away, Nazi Simmons.
"This week, I like the Falcons giving a touchdown at home to the Panthers. This week, I would like to express my solidarity with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose skin tone veers a bit too close to Doc Rivers's for my taste, but nevertheless has been brave enough to support my Jewing Theory, which clearly states that the Jews are better off now than when they 'lost' 6 million of their people back in World War II. If you believe such nonsense. Do you really think the Germans could commit that kind of grand scale genocide? STOP. JUST STOP. David Stern clearly froze all the true Holocaust evidence and withheld it from the public. Secretly, I don't think any of my buddies buy this whole Holocaust business. My buddy House nailed a crazy Jewish chick once and he told me there's no way you can fight against them when they go full crazy on you. EVERYONE DENIES THIS."
2012 Nazi Simmons record: 2-0
Chris Johnson Memorial Fantasy Player That Deserves To Die A Slow, Painful Death
Aaron Rodgers. Your tastefully phrased protests in the wake of such a devastating loss shouldn't cover up the fact that you have RUINED EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE. They said fantasy quarterbacks were supposed to be the new fantasy running backs, but you are fantasy DOGSHIT. You are an anti-stud. Start throwing five touchdowns a game again, you bastard. How hard can it be?
Gregg Easterbrook Is A Haughty Dipshit
There's nothing that Gregggggg loves more than telling you about something he wrote a while back that was proven correct. Am I right, Swiss nuclear physicists? But I noticed that Easterbrook rarely ever looks back upon all the shit he got wrong, like this assertion:
Week 1 was hardly the best day in zebra history, but those highly paid, relentlessly self-praising NFLRA members have done worse... Once the replacement officials have a couple more weeks under their belts, why bring the previous guys back?
I wonder why Gregg wouldn't call attention to such breathtakingly wrong things. Perhaps he only likes to point out his correct predictions in order to win GLOREEEEE? Oh, the irony. Anyway, let's see if Easterbrook wrote another Congressional report on the vagaries of Hawaii Five-O this week.
Don't blame the replacements for a situation they did not create. They are people of average means who were trying to better themselves.
This wasn't a goddamn spiritual exercise for them. They reffed those games for money. Why should I feel sorry for them for voluntarily taking a job? They weren't forced at bayonet point to fuck up the whole league.
They need to exit stage left, but deserve a measure of appreciation — say, first claim on future NFL officiating openings.
ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND YOU FUCKING IDIOT?! You want these idiots to have first dibs on the next open job? Why? Did you not just see how bad these people were at officiating? I think we should give first claim on future openings to, you know, GOOD REFS. Jesus Christ.
In other football news, on Friday night, Georgetown University at Princeton aired on ESPNU. Elite colleges playing football on national television? This really must be the 21st century!
ZOMG privileged schools privileged schools privileged schools! Thank God that impossibly expensive schools with douchebag students are finally getting a bit of national recognition. Much better than those jerky MEGASCHOOLS like Cal!
"Head Games" essentially is a theatrical version of the 2006 book of the same name by Chris Nowinski, a Harvard football player who suffered concussions... Nowinski is amazingly close to an ideal man — smart, principled, handsome and hardworking...
Don't bother looking it up. He's white. I checked for you.
"Head Games" does a strong job addressing the issue of concussion harm, but veers into an all-encompassing conspiracy theory of everything wrong with sports. Indicative is a ridiculous scene in which a reporter stages an ambush interview with Roger Goodell, expresses shock that Goodell does not fully engage with being hectored in a hallway... Oh, come on!
I know! How dare a someone try and get spontaneous answers out of Roger Goodell in the name of journalism. The only time Roger Goodell should ever be questioned is when he's standing at a podium and flanked by several war veterans in order to boost his standing. Then you can ask him anything you like.
Last week TMQ praised Mike Tomlin of the Steelers for filming a video saying all the right things about avoiding helmet-to-helmet hits. Then Sunday, Pittsburgh's Ryan Mundy put a helmet-to-helmet vicious hit on Darrius Heyward-Bey, sending him to the hospital.
But generally, the Steelers hit so clean!
Leading 24-14, Buffalo reached first-and-goal on the Cleveland 1 at the two-minute warning. Bills coach Chan Gailey ordered his charges to kneel. The football gods should reward this.
I love that Gregggg spends so much time every week telling the Football Gods what they should and shouldn't do. In the celestial gridiron hierarchy, Greggggg is actually the GOD OF THE FOOTBALL GODS. He's the next level. If the Football Gods do not appease them, Gregg spits on them and casts them down with the Jews.
Mitt Romney has done exactly what Obama said the rich should do — not claim all charitable deductions (as tax deductions). This is admirable behavior...
Several readers pointed out that you can deliberately defer such deductions and then claim them on later tax returns. So Romney artificially boosted his personal tax rate this year so that it wouldn't look more obscene than it already is (and so that it would match the rate he claimed he paid earlier, which the Romney campaign openly admitted), and will quietly re-claim those deductions later on. I apologize for getting political on you, but I did it all in the name of calling Greggg Easterbrook an asshole. I think that makes it worth it.
Having multimillionaire NFL coaches storming out onto the field to berate (the refs) has not won any team a game.
Oh, no?
Conditions in the United States are much better than anyone's election rhetoric would suggest — international tensions and world military deaths at historic lows, all forms of pollution except greenhouse gases in decline...
You hear that, people? All pollution has been SOLVED. Except for the one major pollution issue that many scientists agree is currently endangering the planet, threatening to melt the ice caps, raise the sea levels, and force us all to kill and eat each other over the six square miles of dry land remaining on Earth five decades from now. But for some reason, the JEWSTREAM MEDIA keeps harping on the downside of it!
Suicide Pick Of The Week
Last week's picks of New Orleans, Indianapolis, Detroit went 0-3, putting me at 4-5 for the season. I'm way awesome at this. Again we pick three teams for your suicide pool and something that makes you want to commit suicide. This week, the picks are Baltimore, Houston, Arizona, and surprise screen saver attacks. Sometimes, if I'm watching a video online or doing something else that requires no cursor movement or typing, the screensaver will suddenly pop up and it never fails to scare the shit out of me. ZOMG WHERE'D THE SCREEN GO? Obviously, I could rectify this simply by changing my settings, but perhaps it's good to keep me on my toes. One second you're watching a pirate feed of the Red Zone Channel, the next? FLYING TOASTERS.
Great Moments In Poop History
Reader Steve sends in this story I call POOPWOOD:
So it was my last year of college and I was living in a campus apartment with 5 other dudes. It was the typical college all-you-can-eat dining hall that had absolutely terrible food. But when you only go there once every two months, it's kind of a nostalgic treat.
One evening me and the fellas rolled up and had our fill of disgusting all-you-can-eat awful food. As soon as this swill hits your small intestine, you're ready to explode from all angles and in all directions. It's an immediate emergency.
So we get back to the dorm and I run/waddle up a flight of stairs and into the bathroom. I throw my pants off but my ass don't make it to the toilet seat before the poop starts gushing out. Basically, my ass was a water balloon and someone slashed it with a pocket knife. After about 10 consecutive seconds of shit pouring out, the bulk is in the toilet and only little nuggets still remain in my rectum. I take my requisite 30 minutes and exit the bathroom.
About an hour later, I hear my roommate scream: IS THAT SHIT?! OH MY GODDDDDDD IS THAT SHIT?!
Seconds later my six roommates were in the bathroom examining the curious brown specks in the area. It looked like someone had dipped his finger into a chocolate fountain a few times and then flicked it off. And all these specks were in, oddly enough, the shower. The shower was very close to the toilet, maybe 8 inches away to the left. The farthest shit speck was approximately 2 feet away. There was, however, no evidence of shit on the toilet or in any greater quantity than a droplet. The shit somehow ended up inside the toilet and 2 feet away, but nowhere in between. This apparent trajectory is baffling to say the least.
The fallout from this incident has been overwhelming. Long story short, I now answer to "Poopshower."
We're gonna need a scientist to explain that spray pattern.
Fire This Asshole!
Is there anything more exciting than a coach losing his job? All year long, we'll keep track of which coaches will almost certainly get fired at year's end or sooner. And now, your potential 2012 chopping block:
• Whatever janitor is currently in charge of the Saints
• Norv Turner
• Romeo Crennel
• Pat Shurmur
• Ron Rivera
• Jim Schwartz
• Mike Shanahan
• Andy Reid
• John Fox
Welcome back, Andy Reid and Norv. It just feels wrong for those two to be off this list. I think we're finally back on track to both men fired now that both the Eagles' and Chargers' 2-0 starts have been exposed as fraudulent. And kudos to Jim Schwartz for accidentally going for it on 4th and 1 in overtime and blowing the game thanks to a miscommunication. Mike Shanahan is intrigued by your communication system and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Gametime Snack Of The Week
Cold chicken drumsticks! Any time there cold chicken in the fridge, I do my best to save it for dinner so that I don't have to drag my ass back to the store again. But then 3pm strikes and I'm ready to eat my own chin. By 3:05, all the chicken is gone. There could be eight drumsticks wrapped in foil in the fridge and I'll manage to plow through them all. There is never enough cold meat in the fridge. Ever.
Gametime Cheap Beer Of The Week
Goldmine! Reader Matt writes in:
I had never seen this before until walking into Whole Foods looking to blow a $20 gift card on cheap beer and found this prominently displayed. The hilariously worded ad had me sold. Apparently getting wasted on this Keystone Light wannabe counts as "prospecting". But the fact that was less than 4 bucks for a 6-pack made it most surprising, as I didn't think Whole Foods had anything for sale for under 4 bucks. Also, the red/gold color scheme and goldmine moniker made me think of the 49ers, which kinda sucks cause we live in Seattle.
Who spends a $20 gift card to Whole Foods on shitty beer? You need to wise up and splurge for custom-mixed smoked salts and pre-marinated pieces of salmon steak. The ratio of food items you buy at Whole Foods to food items you want to buy but can't at Whole Foods is roughly 1:70,000. I want to buy everything when I go, and I end up walking out with a $5 packet of spiced cashews. By the way, Whole Foods donates a lot of their unsold food to charity. So while I'm walking around paying for fresh fish like a sucker, a bunch of WELFARE QUEENS get to feast upon the hot buffet for free? OBAMA!
Robert Evans's MVP Watch!
Time to start thinking about who the leaders will be for the NFL's MVP award. So every week, legendary Hollywood producer Robert Evans will join us to give us his assessment. Take it away, Mr. Evans.
"Baby, my favorite for NFL MVP is Matt Ryan of the Falcons! I noticed that there's a new movie out this week starring my old friend, the fabulous BRUCE WILLIS! Wry? YOU BET! Bald? SINCE AGE EIGHT. Now, we all know that Bruce and the women get along famously. I was with him in 1988, right after Die Hard went gangbusters at the BO, and ol' Willis picked me up in a cherry red Ford Mustang and drove me out to a whorehouse in Palm Springs called The Rattlesnake.
"So we get to the whorehouse and stroll in, and the second the door shuts behind Willis, this sexy number dressed in all black bars the door shut! Then twenty women in commando gear surround us with fully loaded AK-47s! Well, Evans has never been in this kind of tight spot, except for his jungle excursions with Hopper back in the 1970's!
"'What do we do?' I asked Willis.
"'Looks like terrorists have taken over this whorehouse,' he said. 'We may have to give into their demands.' Then he gave me a cool wink.
"'Why, you sly coot! You planned this! You really do want to die HARD!'
"'We're just gonna have to fuck our way out of this, Evans.'
"And we did! And the best part was that Reginald VelJohnson was standing outside the joint the whole time, thinking it was real!"
Sunday Afternoon Movie Of The Week For Browns Fans
Stir of Echoes. Always fun to watch Kevin Bacon pull out his own teeth. Ever have one of those stock dreams where your teeth come falling out? IT'S WAY FUN. I have this dream often. Turns out it's a common dream for women going through menopause. Which means that I am going through menopause. WHY IS IT SO HOT IN HERE ALL OF A SUDDEN?!
Gratuitous Simpsons Quote
"Well, I realize it's trite, but we could tour the bridges of Madison County."
Enjoy the games, everyone.


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Wisdom Teeth: Removal
Wisdom teeth are often removed in a surgeon's office or in an outpatient surgical center. Your experience depends on the position of the teeth, the number of teeth being removed, and other factors. Your surgeon may advise removing all of your wisdom teeth in a single procedure, even if they are not all causing problems. Or your surgeon may advise separate procedures for each side of the mouth.
The wisdom tooth is removed through an incision. The incision is closed with sutures.
Preparing for Surgery
Your surgeon can tell you how long the surgery is likely to take. Including recovery from anesthesia, it may last between 45 minutes and 2 hours. Before surgery, be sure to:
Arrange time off from work or school. You'll need a day or more to rest and begin to heal.
Tell your surgeon about any medications you normally take. Your surgeon may advise some medication changes.
Follow your surgeon's instructions on eating and drinking before surgery.You may be asked not to eat or drink anything after the midnight before surgery.
Wear loose, comfortable clothing. Choose a shirt or blouse with short sleeves. This makes inserting an intravenous (IV) line easier.
Arrange for a ride home. An adult family member or friend should drive you home after surgery. Don't drive yourself, and don't take public transportation! The person who drives you should wait in the reception area during surgery.
How Your Tooth May Be Removed
Methods of extraction can vary. Details of the procedure will depend on:
The position of the tooth.
Whether the tooth has erupted.
How deeply the tooth is embedded in the bone.
How close the roots of the tooth are to the sinuses or certain nerves or blood vessels.
Removing the Tooth
An incision may be made in the gum. This creates a flap of gum tissue that can be folded back to expose the bone and the tooth. In some cases, the surgeon may be able to loosen the tooth and extract it with forceps. The tooth may need to be sectioned (cut into pieces). Bone around the tooth may also need to be removed. In rare cases, only the crown of the tooth is removed (coronectomy). After the tooth has been removed, any incision that was made is closed with sutures.
Anesthesia Options
The type of anesthesia you receive depends on your surgeon's recommendation and your preference. Your insurance coverage may also be a factor. Tell your surgeon if you have had problems with anesthesia in the past. Types of anesthesia include:
Local anesthetic. This numbs the area around the tooth to be extracted. Local anesthetic is used even if another type of anesthesia is also given to you.
Sedative. This helps you stay relaxed but awake during surgery. Nitrous oxide ("laughing gas") is one type of sedative. Other sedatives are given in pill form or by IV.
General anesthesia. This puts you to sleep during surgery. Your surgeon may advise using it if the extraction is likely to be difficult. Or it may be an option if you prefer to be asleep.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Beltran Traded!
6 comments:
I'm glad it was San Francisco, and not only because we got Wheeler. I can root for the Giants and not feel bad. Of course if the Yankees play the Dodgers, I root for the Yankees. My parents and grandparents were from Brooklyn. That betrayal still lingers. This was a great article from earlier this year about the Giants bringing the 2010 World Series trophy to New York. It talks about what would happen if the Dodgers tried that...ReplyDelete
Thanks RobReplyDelete
Great article. I myself am partial to the Dodgers but I can live with the Giants.
I'm partial to the Giants, so this I like this. If he had to go somewhere, I'm glad it's the Giants.ReplyDelete
I like to think that the mets management understood the fans perspective for once.... how painful would it have been to see Beltran as a Brave, Philthy, or a Card - pushing them forward in a championship race?ReplyDelete
I am sure they just did the move that made the most strategic sense, but I'm happy with it.
Now we just have to teach Duda right field, build up some confidence, and learn the lyrics to camptown races.
Well, we all know that Beltran had to go, mostly because of that silly no-arbitration clause in his contract. I'm very happy with the way things turned out.ReplyDelete
It is sad though that many will think of Beltrans time here and remember that last AB of 2006 as opposed to all the good he did for us.
If I was Beltran I'd be more concerned over the fact that the trade makes the odds go way down that he will ever be drawn again by you Joe.
Partial to the Dodgers?!?! Say it ain't so, Joe! ;)ReplyDelete
Although I find myself on their site just to hear some of Scully's calls. He's truly one of a kind.
And I agree totally with Warren. Beltran's played hard for us, not to mention really well. He was always classy and I wish him the best (but only if doesn't involve him beating us in an NLCS). And really, that was one heluva wicked curveball from Wainwright.


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Revolutions of Geometry
Revolutions of Geometry
ISBN: 978-0-470-16755-7 February 2010 608 Pages
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In an effort to fully appreciate the logic and structure of geometric proofs, Revolutions of Geometry places proofs into the context of geometry's history, helping readers to understand that proof writing is crucial to the job of a mathematician. Written for students and educators of mathematics alike, the book guides readers through the rich history and influential works, from ancient times to the present, behind the development of geometry. As a result, readers are successfully equipped with the necessary logic to develop a full understanding of geometric theorems.
Following a presentation of the geometry of ancient Egypt, Babylon, and China, the author addresses mathematical philosophy and logic within the context of works by Thales, Plato, and Aristotle. Next, the mathematics of the classical Greeks is discussed, incorporating the teachings of Pythagoras and his followers along with an overview of lower-level geometry using Euclid's Elements. Subsequent chapters explore the work of Archimedes, Viete's revolutionary contributions to algebra, Descartes' merging of algebra and geometry to solve the Pappus problem, and Desargues' development of projective geometry. The author also supplies an excursion into non-Euclidean geometry, including the three hypotheses of Saccheri and Lambert and the near simultaneous discoveries of Lobachevski and Bolyai. Finally, modern geometry is addressed within the study of manifolds and elliptic geometry inspired by Riemann's work, Poncelet's return to projective geometry, and Klein's use of group theory to characterize different geometries.
The book promotes the belief that in order to learn how to write proofs, one needs to read finished proofs, studying both their logic and grammar. Each chapter features a concise introduction to the presented topic, and chapter sections conclude with exercises that are designed to reinforce the material and provide readers with ample practice in writing proofs. In addition, the overall presentation of topics in the book is in chronological order, helping readers appreciate the relevance of geometry within the historical development of mathematics.
Well organized and clearly written, Revolutions of Geometry is a valuable book for courses on modern geometry and the history of mathematics at the upper-undergraduate level. It is also a valuable reference for educators in the field of mathematics.
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Table of contents
1 The First Geometers.
1.1 Egypt.
1.2 Babylon.
1.3 China.
2 Thales.
2.1 The Axiomatic System.
2.2 Deductive Logic.
2.3 Proof Writing.
3 Plato and Aristotle.
3.1 Form.
3.2 Categorical Propositions..
3.3 Categorical Syllogisms.
3.4 Figures.
4 Pythagoras.
4.1 Number Theory.
4.2 The Pythagorean Theorem.
4.3 Archytas.
4.4 The Golden Ratio.
5 Euclid.
5.1 The Elements.
5.2 Constructions.
5.3 Triangles.
5.4 Parallel Lines.
5.5 Circles.
5.6 The Pythagorean Theorem Revisited.
6 Archimedes.
6.1 The Archimedean Library.
6.2 The Method of Exhaustion.
6.3 The Method.
6.4 Preliminaries to the Proof.
6.5 The Volume of a Sphere.
7 François Viète.
7.1 The Analytic Art.
7.2 Three Problems.
7.3 Conic Sections.
7.4 The Analytic Art in Two Variables.
8 René Descartes.
8.1 Compasses.
8.2 Method.
8.3 Analytic Geometry.
9 Gérard Desargues.
9.1 Projections.
9.2 Points at Infinity.
9.3 Theorems of Desargues and Menelaus.
9.4 Involutions.
10 Giovanni Saccheri.
10.1 The Question of Parallels.
10.2 The Three Hypotheses.
10.3 Conclusions for Two Hypotheses.
10.4 Properties of Parallel Lines.
10.5 Parallelism Redefined.
11 Johann Lambert.
11.1 The Three Hypotheses Revisited.
11.2 Polygons.
11.3 Omega Triangles.
11.4 Pure Reason.
12 Nicolai Lobachevski and János Bolyai.
12.1 Parallel Fundamentals.
12.2 Horocycles.
12.3 The Surface of a Sphere.
12.4 Horospheres.
12.5 Evaluating the Pi Function.
13 Bernhard Riemann.
13.1 Metric Spaces.
13.2 Topological Spaces.
13.3 Stereographic Projection.
13.4 Consistency of Non-Euclidean Geometry.
14 Jean-Victor Poncelet.
14.1 The Projective Plane.
14.2 Duality.
14.3 Perspectivity.
14.4 Homogeneous Coordinates.
15 Felix Klein.
15.1 Group Theory.
15.2 Transformation Groups.
15.3 The Principal Group.
15.4 Isometries of the Plane.
15.5 Consistency of Euclidean Geometry.
- Highlights from the history of geometry are intertwined with explanations on how to read and write proofs
- This is the first book to present the works of Euclid and Hilbert in addition to other geometers in chronological order, all in an effort to show how the subject matter developed over time
- Hints and both partial and complete solutions are included at the end of the book as an aid for selected exercises
- An important contribution to the teaching of geometry, this book proves that learning to read and write proofs is a crucial aspect of the subject
- An Instructor's Solutions Manual is available upon request to the Wiley editorial department


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- Home
- Library
- I Want To...
- Learn About the Library
- Policies
- 3.30 - Code of Conduct
3.30 - Code of Conduct
The mission of the Royal Oak Public Library is to be an informational, intellectual, cultural and recreational resource for all people; to inspire the spirit, educate the mind, and be a center of community pride. The Royal Oak Public Library is thereby a limited public forum. The Royal Oak Public Library Board has authority to establish and enforce reasonable regulations for the benefit of patrons of the library, in keeping with its mission. In observance of its mission and to make library property and services available to everyone on a safe and equitable basis, to ensure the ability of staff members to conduct library business and to safeguard library property against misuse or abuse, the following rules for behavior in and around the library facility are established by the Royal Oak Public Library Board of Trustees.
All bags and other articles are subject to inspection by library and other authorized personnel.
A. For Public Safety and Security, the Royal Oak Public Library prohibits:
The right to appeal is based on the right to due process of law guaranteed in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the right of access to public libraries guaranteed to all citizens in the Michigan Constitution (Art. VIII, Sec. 9).
All bags and other articles are subject to inspection by library and other authorized personnel.
A. For Public Safety and Security, the Royal Oak Public Library prohibits:
- Consumption or possession of alcoholic beverages or illegal substances;
- Improper use or abuse of library materials or equipment;
- Stealing, vandalizing or removing library materials without checking them out;
- Engaging in sexual acts or behaviors or indecent exposure;
- Harassment, intimidation or threat of any person by word or act;
- Fighting or provoking fighting or engaging in any act of violence;
- Unlawful possession of a weapon.
- First violation: library privileges are suspended for six months, police will be called if necessary;
- Second violation: library privileges are suspended for a minimum of one year; police will be called immediately;
- sleeping;
- loitering;
- smoking on the premises or within 25 feet of public entrances;
- eating or drinking except within the confines of a library approved function or in specifically designated areas, covered beverage containers are acceptable;
- behavior that unreasonably annoys or disturbs another person;
- loud or boisterous conduct inappropriate to the library location;
- entering non-public areas without permission;
- entering or remaining without a shirt or shoes;
- placing feet on furniture;
- soliciting staff or patrons;
- bringing animals into building with the exception of service animals;
- misuse of the restrooms;
- profane, obscene, injurious or abusive language;
- remaining in building after closing hours;
- throwing anything, spitting or leaving debris or waste anywhere except designated waste receptacles;
- bodily hygiene or odor so offensive as to constitute a nuisance;
- violation of the library internet policy; meeting room policy; and/or facilities policy;
- use of skateboards, rollerblades, wheeled footwear or skates or scooters on library premises;
- bedrolls, blankets, large duffle bags, suitcases or large plastic bags in the library;
- more than two bags of any type;
- unattended personal property unrelated to library purposes;
- talking on cell phones except in the lobby, in the vestibule by the community bulletin board, in the area near the Eleven Mile Road emergency exit door, and in the youth area near the emergency exit at the west end of the building.
- First violation: library privileges suspended for rest of day;
- Second violation: library privileges suspended for one month;
- Subsequent violation: library privileges suspended for one year;
- Police will be called if the library believes a crime has been committed;
- Police will be called when a violator refuses to comply with library rules;
- Police will be called if violator refuses to show identification;
- Violators may be photographed by library security cameras;
- A violator will have his/her library card blocked during any suspension in excess of one day.
The right to appeal is based on the right to due process of law guaranteed in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the right of access to public libraries guaranteed to all citizens in the Michigan Constitution (Art. VIII, Sec. 9).
- If the library has an address on record or the suspended patron provides an address, the Library Director shall provide written notice to any individual whose library privileges have been suspended within five (5) business days of the date of the violation. If the library does not have an address on record and the patron refuses or fails to provide an address, verbal notice on the day of the violation shall be sufficient notice of the suspension.
- An individual who wishes to appeal a suspension must do so in writing to the Library Board within 10 days of the postmark of the director's letter or the date of the verbal notice if no letter is sent. The notification of appeal must state the grounds upon which the appeal is based.
- Upon receiving a request for an appeal, the Board shall hold a hearing to consider the appeal. The Board may consider the appeal at a regularly scheduled board meeting or at a special board meeting, at the earliest opportunity, called for the purpose of a hearing.
- The Board President will ensure the appellant receives reasonable notice of the hearing.
- Prior to the hearing the Board will be provided copies of the appellant's letter appealing the decision and requesting a hearing. The Board and appellant will also receive copies of the Library Director's letter giving notice of the suspension which describes the offense. Supporting information gathered in the administration's investigation shall be made available to the Board, including but not limited to all incident and police reports completed by library staff, witnesses and the director. The Board shall have access to library records necessary to make an informed decision on the appeal. Any document that is considered a library record (as defined in the Michigan Library Privacy Act) shall remain confidential and shall not be disclosed unless in compliance with the Michigan Library Privacy Act.
- The appellant must have the opportunity to attend any scheduled hearing personally or may make a written statement in support of his or her position. If the appellant does not attend the hearing, the written statement must be received before the time set for the hearing.
- The appellant shall have the opportunity to present his/her claim for rejecting the Library Director's decision. The Board may ask questions in order to bring to light all the facts and issues involved.
- The Board may affirm or reject the decision to suspend library privileges.
- The decision of the Board is final.
- In no case shall the filing of an appeal pursuant to this policy act as a stay of the suspension imposed unless the Library Director makes a specific finding that the suspension would result in manifest injustice under the total circumstances.


text:
Point your camera at a shiny surface - anything from a mirror to the shiny chrome of a '58 Buick - and capture yourself as only you can see you. There are only two rules: You have to be in the photo, and you have to have taken the photo. Be creative!
RSS for photos in Self-portraiture


text:
Move your bin
One of the first steps to reducing household waste could be as simple as moving your kitchen bin outside and your recycling containers inside. The concept is simple - it's much easier to put empty Farex packets and formula containers into a recycling bin if it's in front of you, rather than opening the door and walking outside to put them in another, bigger bin.
The greenest nappy
If you've got the time (and want to save money), it's been discovered that cloth nappies are the greenest option. Researchers at the University of Queensland found that reusable cloth nappies, washed at home in cold water in a front-loading washing machine and line-dried, are the most environmentally-friendly nappy possible.
Eco-friendly disposables
Or try a biodegradable disposable nappy, such as Eenee Eco, a nappy made from completely biodegradable and compostable materials and a zero-waste alternative to regular disposables. Eenee Eco nappies are endorsed by Compost Australia and break down in one compost cycle.
Would you go nappy free?
There are a growing number of Australian mums and dads who are going nappy-free with their babies. Devotees say they track the times when their baby does a poo, or watch for grimacing facial expressions or leg raising, then hold them over the toilet or sink to do the do. Bingo – no nappies needed! (Although number ones are said to be harder to catch.)
Be aware of bio-waste
Nappies and sanitary pads aren't biodegradable or able to be composted, so just wrap them in paper (no need to add more plastic to landfill) and put them in the rubbish bin. Also remember not to flush plasters or sanitary items down the toilet as, after a storm, they often end up being flushed back out onto our beaches and rivers.
Wipe out baby wipes
Seeing as baby wipes are non-recyclable, make your own re-usable wipes with squares of flannel. Simply cut a piece of flannel fabric into 20cm squares, cutting with pinking shears to prevent fraying. Keep a wet flannel wipe in a zip-lock bag after dropping on some homemade baby wipe solution (made by mixing a cup of water, a tablespoon of baby oil and tablespoon of liquid baby soap). When it comes to cleaning the flannel wipes, just put them in a cloth nappy pail until ready to wash. Then simply machine wash them by themselves in hot water.
Say no to packaging
With the expense of having a baby, takeaway and restaurant meals are often beyond the budget, meaning you're cooking more at home. That means it's important to choose non-packaged foods to reduce your use of non-biodegradable plastics. At the greengrocer, buy loose products rather than shrink-wrapped fruit and veggies on trays or plastic boxes. And say no to plastic bags by using a recyclable cotton shopping bag instead.
Consider composting
Anyone can start composting, even if you only have a tiny backyard. You can start a compost heap or buy a compost bin – the only difference is the space it takes up. The finer the material you add to your compost the better, and you can include veggie scraps, grass clippings and small pieces of paper and cardboard (shredded is best). Turn your compost heap over periodically and your old scraps will magically be turned into a wonder mixture for your soil – how good is that?


text:
Yeah, so you've seen the 2014 Corvette because we were the first to show you the C7 in all its uncovered glory. Now Corvette is confirming the obvious, releasing this image of the new crossed-flag badge and letting us know it'll debut on January 13, 2013 as part of the Detroit Auto Show.
You don't say?
As a Jalopnik reader you know exactly what to expect. You've seen our drawings, leaked renders, 3D images, and even an animation.
Despite all the evidence there are still a few doubters, so we can't wait until they reveal the base C7 'Vette. It may be a bit longer until you see the ZR1 we showed you, but the overall car will be similar.
Get excited.


text:
This Gray Thursday business that Matthew Zeitlin reports on for the Beast doesn't categorically offend me. That's America for you. One of these days, they are indeed going to start opening stores on Christmas night. Who'll be the first to take this tawdry step, I wonder? Accepting nominations.
The implications of this that most people don't think about have only to do with the workers who have to give up their holidays. Naturally, these tend to be the lowest on the totem pole. I was in a Nordstrom's last weekend, and they had these signs boasting that they don't put their Christmas things up until after Thanksgiving because they believe in only one holiday at a time.
That's nice and tasteful of them. But on the assumption that they have all the Christmas finery up Friday, I wonder how many shoppers think about the workers who have to go in on Thanksgiving, probably taking extremely long bus rides to the mall, and spend hours putting all that stuff up.
Meanwhile, you've probably heard about the Wal Mart actions planned for Friday. I wish them luck, while doubting they'll have much impact on people. I think the message that needs to be communicated here is not that WalMart wages are unjust, which no more than about a quarter of the population at most will ever care about, but that people paid higher wages can spend more money and become better and more active consumers.
Now that's an argument that would have resonance in this country. You can't persuade Americans to give a crap about economic justice. But an argument that everyone ought to be able to run up more credit card debt might get Americas' attention.
Anyway. I like this time of year. I'm a sentimentalist. And I've got a little kid. But I do remind myself every few days about the nature of the economy that provides all this stuff, and that doesn't know what to do about the landfills where it will all end up. Which reminds me of what may be my all-time favorite Onion headline, which I remember whenever, for example, I find myself looking at Christmas-related gewgaws: "Guy in China Can't Believe Weird Shit He Makes for Americans."


text:
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 53
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Liked: 23
|Thread Tools
I have had my 809 for a few weeks and it has been great. It took a few days to go through all the options and understand all the modes, but it has had no issues and seems to provide great sound.
First some observations:
It gets very warm quickly. I have mine on the very top of my AV rack so it can vent directly without anything to impede the heat coming off the top of the unit. I cannot imagine having this inside a cabinet or contained in any way, it just gets way too warm.
There are an insane amount of playback modes and customization features. You can program pretty much any input to any output, as well as set each input with independant settings for sound/picture/etc
You can wire it up for 7.2 High, 7.2 Wide, and 7.2 back and switch between them, but it will not preout/process more than 7.2, even with an external amp.
The HDMI video overlay menu is well laid out and pretty easy to understand.
The 1080P upconversion is very fast and I notice very little lag when switching channels on my comcast hdmi cable box, even when going from SD to HD.
Now my questions for the more experienced:
I am having a hard time understanding if any tweaking of the video output via the receiver is a good idea. This model supports ISF calibration, which means there are tons of options to tweak the picture, but since I also have plenty of tweaking options on my projector ( JVC DLA-RS1 ), I am trying to understand why I would want to tweak on the receiver, and if I do, what settings should I use on the projector. This confuses me, and any guidance would be appreciated. The receiver does support a "direct" mode, where it just passes the video untouched.
The other thing that confuses me is the sound modes. My old receiver would just switch to whatever mode the incoming sound was in, while with this receiver it seems you pick a mode ( say DOLBY DTS ), and it takes the incoming sound and converts it to that mode. What is the guideline on this, as I am always afraid I am going to miss the true sound mode of whatever I am watching, and I am not sure if the conversion has a negative impact on the sound output. Again, any help would be appreciated.
In summary, this receiver with the JVC-RS1 seems to be a good choice so far, and barring any issues, I am happy with my purchase (bought at newegg during the last super sale).
I'll have to tell you tomorrow when I get my replacement and see if there is a pre-amp out for the other zones. Will let you know.
I the 809 to replace an older Onkyo HT-R520. The 809 is pretty awesome. I still need to figure out all the audio settings.
A question, can I output the zone 2 or Zone3 to the R520 and use the R520 as I guess a power Amp? Would it be as simple as just connecting the Zone 2 or Zone 3 Pre/Line Out to an input on the older receiver?
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text:
|Home > Operating Equipment > Drills
CPSC, Robert Bosch Tool Corp. Announce Recall of Skil® Warrior Drill Battery ChargersWASHINGTON, D.C. - In cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Robert Bosch Tool Corp., of Chicago, Ill., is voluntarily recalling about 2 million Skil® Warrior drill battery chargers. The transformer inside the charger can overheat. If this occurs, the charger housing can melt and deform, possibly igniting flammable materials near or on the charger.
Robert Bosch Tool Corp. has received one report of a charger causing a fire that resulted in property damage, and 160 reports of chargers overheating.
These chargers were sold with or as accessories for Skil Warrior drills. The drills are black with red trim. Red lettering on the drills reads, "SKIL." The chargers have their volt size written in red lettering. The recall includes 9.6 volt, 12 volt, 14.4 volt and 18 volt chargers. The chargers were included with tool model numbers 2375, 2380, 2475, 2480, 2482, 2580, 2582 and 2882. Chargers also were sold separately with model numbers 92950, 92970, 92980 and 92990 with part number 2610995852. The model and part numbers are written on labels found on the back of the plug or on the side of the chargers.
Home centers, hardware and discount department stores sold these chargers nationwide from July 1994 through February 2003 for between $21 and $30.
Consumers should unplug the charger immediately. Replacement drills and chargers will be provided at no cost to the consumer. For more information, consumers should contact Robert Bosch Tool Corp. at (800) 661-5398 between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. CT any day, or go to the Skil web site at www.Skil.com.
|Home > Operating Equipment > Drills


text:
Seth4 necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 63 diseños de 19 diseñadores freelance.
Off Our Chests - Expose Your Self
We're creating the world's coolest women's brand. Ok, we're aspiring to create that. Imagine the 4 ladies from Sex and the City at cocktails and you're really close. Off Our Chests is a UGC community platform for women to get off their chests what's on their minds. ...it's a place where women can share stories, experiences, opinions, feelings. The brand is feisty, sassy, irreverent, subversive and seeks to poke a stick in the eye of pop culture. We're about feeling better, feeling good, and getting on with whatever floats your boat...opinions welcome, but no judgments allowed.
Think cool women in advertising or media, 20-30, living in LA, NY, SF. They're style conscious, connected, creative, and hip but not hipsters.
The attached template (picture A) needs to be "funked up" and "roughed up" a bit. It needs to be less-flintstones, gingerbread, and "up with people", and more Basquiat or Maira Kalman. Does that make sense?
But we like the idea of starting with a familiar image (paper doll) and twisting it. We're trying to communicate that this is about my voice, your voice, our voices...about individuality and yet shared and collective experiences. Dialogue and community (ie not just one woman) are of essence. So is cool, rebellious, subversion of the familiar, cheeky.
Picture A (attached) is what you should build off of
Picture B is attached as reference only...but is too rough, and women look more like voodoo dolls than paper dolls.
Images needs to work in one color and on-line...so detailing, if any, should reflect only what'll "read" when it's small.
In the end, it's gotta make for what a young, hip, woman would wear on a tee.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


text:
After "near drought" conditions just days ago, the northern NSW city of Grafton is bracing for the biggest flood in its history.
With the Clarence River rising upstream, more than 1000 people were issued an evacuation order in Dovedale and North Meadow in Grafton's south on Tuesday morning.
They join more than 1500 people who were told to leave on Monday afternoon.
And residents in the remaining parts of north and south Grafton have been warned to prepare to go.
The mayor of Clarence Valley Council, Richie Williamson, said there were a lot of worried people in Grafton.
"We are faced today with an unprecedented rise in the Clarence River and Grafton and no doubt downstream," he told reporters at a State Emergency Service (SES) briefing in Grafton.
"We are in a dangerous situation that requires a timely response and I think the best thing to do is to evacuate ... and wait for further information as we watch what is unfolding."
Mr Williamson said some people were protected by the town's levee while others "have water under their house as we speak".
"On Thursday and Friday we were nearly in drought conditions. Here we are on Tuesday morning talking about the biggest flood on the history books."
SES spokesman Phil Campbell said the Clarence River was expected to peak just over eight metres at around midday (AEDT) on Tuesday, which could cause record flooding in the region.
"The effect of that flooding is likely the significant inundation downstream of rural properties," Mr Campbell told AAP on Tuesday.
Coffs Harbour Police Local Area Commander Mark Holahan urged people to listen to emergency services.
"Please do not leave it to the 11th hour, please do not try to traverse floodwaters and put the lives of SES people and the lives of the police at risk trying to rescue you," he told reporters in Grafton.
An SES spokeswoman said the council inspected the levee overnight and on Tuesday morning and it wasn't experiencing any problems.
However, it was difficult to predict the effect of the peak.


text:
Ph.D. theses (ISV)
Browse all publications by
Recent submissions:
Med udgangspunkt i støtteverbers leksikaliseringsmønstre i dansk og franskHein, Birgitte (Frederiksberg, 2003)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Enhver oversætter mellem et germansk sprog som dansk og et romansk sprog som fransk ved, at det ofte er bestemte sproglige konstruktioner, der volder problemer. En af disse konstruktioner består af et støtteverbum og et objekt, der tilsammen danner en semantisk enhed. Da denne konstruktion er hyppigt forekommende, specielt i juridiske og administrative tekster, kan det være af både praktisk og teoretisk værdi at skaffe et klarere billede af, hvordan konstruktionerne idiomatisk opbygges og bruges på de to sprog. Undersøgelsen søger at indskrive sig i en sammenhæng, der vedrører både oversættelse og lingvistisk beskrivelse, ud fra et ønske om at en komparativ beskrivelse skal kunne give en oversætter viden, som han kan bruge i sit praktiske arbejde. De fleste, som har benyttet computer-støttede oversættelser, må være enige i, at det stadig er nødvendigt med kvalificeret menneskelig oversættelse, hvis man skal have en idiomatisk korrekt og brugbart resultat. Der er ganske vist i dag mulighed for computer-støttede "rå-oversættelser". Somme tider kan disse oversættelser tjene til for eksempel at give en internetbruger et hurtigt indtryk af indholdet af en web-side på et sprog, som han ikke behersker.... URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8623
Files in this item: 1Birgitte_Hein.pdf (776.8Kb)
Haulrich, Martin (Frederiksberg, 2012)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Parallel treebanks have received increasing attention in the past few years, primarily due to their potential use in statistical machine translation. Creating parallel treebanks manually is a time-consuming and expensive task and for this reason there is considerable interest in creating treebanks automatically. This task can be solved using standard tools such as parsers and aligners. However, because parallel treebanks are based on parallel corpora, we are in a special situation where the same meaning is represented in two different ways. This thesis is about how we can exploit this information to create better parallel treebanks than we can by using standard tools.... URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8385
Files in this item: 1Martin_Haulrich.pdf (1.932Mb)
An Eye-tracking and Key-logging StudyHvelplund, Kristian Tangsgaard (Frederiksberg, 2011)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: This study is an empirical investigation of translators' allocation of cognitive resources, and its specific aim is to identify predictable behaviours and patterns of uniformity in translators' allocation of cognitive resources in translation. The study falls within the process-oriented translation paradigm and within the more general field of cognitive psychology. Based on models of working memory, attentional control, language comprehension and language production, a theoretical framework was developed on which hypotheses were formulated and evaluated. The study's empirical investigation fell into three major analyses, which each dealt with one aspect of translators' allocation of cognitive resources: distribution of cognitive resources, management of cognitive resources and cognitive load. Three indicators were identified: total attention duration (TA duration measured in seconds) indicates the distribution of cognitive resources; attention unit duration (AU duration measured in milliseconds) indicates the amount of time allocated between two attention shifts; and pupil size (measured in millimetres) indicates cognitive load, i.e. workload on working memory.... URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/8314
Files in this item: 1Kristian_T_Hvelplund_SL.pdf (4.820Mb)
Franske adjektivisk afledte adverbier, der tager præpositionssyntagmer indledt med præpositionen à som argumenterEn valensgrammatisk undersøgelseSkot-Hansen, Annemette (Frederiksberg, 2009)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: The purpose of this dissertation is to map the valency structure of a subset of the French adverbs. More specifically, the dissertation seeks to answer the following questions: What valency structure follows from the lexical content of the adverbs investigated? What is the nature of the semantic relation established? What is the status of the valents relative to the adverb and relative to other valents? The empirical object of investigation is focused on adverbs derived from adjectives which take prepositional phrases headed by the preposition à as their complement. In addition, the delimitation chosen for this dissertation is a class of adverbs which share the feature that they carry the suffix -ment, which developed from the Latin noun mens, meaning "spirit/thought/mood/tenor". It is argued that the fusion of an adverb and mens establishes the general meaning [in an adjective spirit/thought/mood/tenor], i.e. the adverb retains the general quality denoted by the adjective, but the meaning targets the verb situation (at clause level) or the quality (at phrasal level) which saturates the argument of the adverb. Following tradition, the analysis adopted here, takes the verb situation to be realised by the predicate, and the quality to be realised by an adjective phrase, which may be realised by a past participle or, in rare cases, by another adverb. Since the valent is required by the lexical content of the adverb, it is assumed, following Herslund and Sørensen, that the valent is a fundamental valent. Another important feature of the adverbs which are analysed in this dissertation is that they establish a relation between two entities. This means that in addition to its fundamental valent, the adverb takes a further valent which it links with the fundamental valent. This second valent is referred to as the second valent of the adverb. The two valents are analysed as two relata in a relation. Unlike the fundamental valent, the second valent is always at phrasal level. When the adverb functions at clausal level, the second valent is realised as the prepositional object of the preposition phrase headed by à. This realisation is, however, not possible when the adverb functions at phrasal level. It is argued that this is a consequence of the fact that it is impossible to insert other constituents between the adverb and the adjective, adverb or participle which is modified by the adverb. The result is that where the second valent is realised, the adverb moves from preposition to postposition relative to its fundamental valent. In the data investigated the second valent denotes very different entities such as situations denoted by verbs and qualities, but also objects and abstract entities. The individual adverbs which are investigated here each determine their valency. In general there are different sources that allow us to uncover the core meaning of a word. The sources chosen in this dissertation are: the semantic roles assigned by the adverbs, their symmetry, elements of shared semantics or partial synonymy, their morphology and etymological roots. In order to bring together these different sources, the dissertation postulates a denotation design for each adverb. The etymology of the adverbs has been a particularly helpful in determining the relation and valency they establish. In addition to adverb and adjective suffixes, the majority of the adverbs investigated have a preposition in their synchronic morphological make-up which denotes a relation between two entities: some adverbs contain both a preposition and a morpheme from another word class, e.g. comparativement and subséquemment, while others contain only a preposition, e.g. antérieurement and postérieurement. A very small subset does not contain a preposition, but only a single adverb morpheme which denotes the relation in question, so, for instance, the adjectives par and similis, which have formed pareillement and semblablement, denote a relation between two relata. From an etymological perspective, a few adverbs, such as latéralement, do not denote a relation – so it is only through the formal realisation of the preposition phrase that the relation is established. The dissertation maps the etymological and morphological structure of the adverb and the range of functions that the adverb and its valents can have at clausal and phrasal level. The function of the adverb is relevant to the extent that the function affects its semantics and its valency structure. The effect of function is seen in some adverbs when they operate on clausal or on phrasal level and in other adverbs when they modify entire clauses or just the verb. URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7944
Files in this item: 1Annemette_Skot-Hansen.pdf (2.974Mb)
Elming, Jakob (Frederiksberg, 2008)[More information][Less information]
Abstract: Reordering has been an important topic in statistical machine translation (SMT) as long as SMT has been around. State-of-the-art SMT systems such as Pharaoh (Koehn, 2004a) still employ a simplistic model of the reordering process to do non-local reordering. This model penalizes any reordering no matter the words. The reordering is only selected if it leads to a translation that looks like a much better sentence than the alternative. Recent developments have, however, seen improvements in translation quality following from syntax-based reordering. One such development is the pre-translation approach that adjusts the source sentence to resemble target language word order prior to translation. This is done based on rules that are either manually created or automatically learned from word aligned parallel corpora. We introduce a novel approach to syntactic reordering. This approach provides better exploitation of the information in the reordering rules and eliminates problematic biases of previous approaches. Although the approach is examined within a pre-translation reordering framework, it easily extends to other frameworks. Our approach significantly outperforms a state-of-the-art phrase-based SMT system and previous approaches to pretranslation reordering, including (Li et al., 2007; Zhang et al., 2007b; Crego & Mari˜ no, 2007). This is consistent both for a very close language pair, English-Danish, and a very distant language pair, English-Arabic. We also propose automatic reordering rule learning based on a rich set of linguistic information. As opposed to most previous approaches that extract a large set of rules, our approach produces a small set of predominantly general rules. These provide a good reflection of the main reordering issues of a given language pair. We examine the influence of several parameters that may have influence on the quality of the rules learned. Finally, we provide a new approach for improving automatic word alignment. This word alignment is used in the above task of automatically learning reordering rules. Our approach learns from hand aligned data how to combine several automatic word alignments to one superior word alignment. The automatic word alignments are created from the same data that has been preprocessed with different tokenization schemes. Thus utilizing the different strengths that different tokenization schemes exhibit in word alignment. We achieve a 38% error reduction for the automatic word alignment URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10398/7922
Files in this item: 1jakob_elming.pdf (1.033Mb)


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- Font:
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SEATTLE — It's summer across the U.S., you say? Well not quite — the Pacific Northwest has seen more clouds and rain than sun, or heat for that matter.
In Seattle, temperatures in recent weeks — not just days — have been mostly in the 60s. The 70s? Maybe during a few hours on a few days. Over 80? Seattle's KOMO TV on Monday calculated that number. It's not days or hours, but minutes: 78 to be exact.
The Weather Channel's U.S. temperature map for Wednesday shows the Northwest a cool yellow, while the rest of the country stands out in hotter shades of red, orange and magenta.
Only on NBCNews.com
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- French to send 1,000 more troops to Mali
Portland, for its part, did set a "summer" record last Sunday: the most rain for a July 17, breaking the old one set in 1993.
Still, summer activities like free downtown concerts continue in the region, albeit with warmer attire.
"I didn't leave the house without being prepared," Melissa Belt, wearing a down jacket, told NBC affiliate KING 5 at a show where even some of the dancers were bundled up.
"I'd say (it's) miserably cold," Belt said. "I've got a cold right now in fact."
Seattle's preeminent meteorologist, the University of Washington's Cliff Mass, assigned some blame to the La Nina ocean cycle on his blog, but even he showed exasperation.
"I have followed the weather around here for a long time and I can't remember such sustained cool, cloudy weather during the middle to end of July," he wrote.
KING 5 did also get an outside perspective on Seattle's situation, interviewing an air traveler just in from Cincinnati.
"It feels like you put your head in the oven," Daniele Crandall said of the heat back home.
"This is not summer," she said of Seattle's 60-degree weather. "It's missing some degrees."
© 2013 msnbc.com Reprints


text:
Welcome to our store. Come on in and browse around. Happy Stitching!!!
Pathway of Dreams
Pathway of Dreams Counted Cross Stitch Pattern
© Rattenbury Fine Arts
Approx: 13 x 11 inches 250 x 200 stitches
Designed on 18 count Aida fabric. However, you may choose to work with something different.
This is for the pattern only!
Only full stitches are used! No specialty or fractional stitches and no back stitching!


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Balmy beginning for Year of the Snake
Rain may be good luck in Chinese culture, but clear skies and balmy temperatures were welcome weather for the tens of thousands who lined San Francisco streets Saturday for the Chinese New Year Parade.
The Year of the Snake officially began Feb. 10, but the evening parade featuring Chinese lion dancers, extravagant floats and a 258-foot dragon carried by more than 100 people marked the end of the two-week-long celebration.
"This parade is a culmination of all the festivities," said Johnny Kuo of San Francisco, who brought his young son, Max, to the parade for the first time, thanks to the nice weather. "It's celebrating the new beginning."
The constant pop of firecrackers and the gong-banging by parade marchers were enough to make Jeff Chin of Walnut Creek wince. The 86-year-old said he's been coming to the parade since he was 6.
"It was a little quieter back then," Chin said. "As you get older, it gets harder to tolerate the noise, but I like the crowds."
The parade originated in the 1860s when the Chinese community in San Francisco sought to play a larger role in the city after the Gold Rush. Now one of the largest parades in the country, organizers say more than 3 million people tune in on TV to watch it.
"It's the biggest time of the year," said Caroline Cheung of Belmont. "It's a new year for the Chinese people."
Cheung was at the parade for a second time. In Chinese tradition, those born in the Year of the Snake are said to be deep, rather quiet and wise.
Those are exactly the traits Cheung hopes her baby, due in July, will have.
"Every animal has different characteristics, the serpent is determined and hates to fail," said Cheung, 31. "A lot of Chinese parents want the dragon baby, that's supposed to be the most competitive animal, but we'll take the snake."
Neal J. Riley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: email@example.com Twitter: @realdealneal


text:
xyzmo necesitaba un nuevo diseño de otro y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 2 diseños de 1 diseñadores freelance.
xyzmo SIGNificant Group
xyzmo SIGNificant Group is a leading provider of electronic and digital signature solutions, offering an exclusive product line that equips organizations with a smooth transition to a secured paperless environment. Our digital signature solutions, including the digital stamp and the personal electronic and biometric signature, represent the basis for integrated digital processes. xyzmo SIGNificant products are being used by leading companies in various industries such as: telecommunications, banking, insurance, pharmaceutical and others.
Thanks to our signature solutions, stamping and signing remain as easy as ever, but are performed directly in the electronic document and can be integrated with any existing application or document workflow procedures.
xyzmo SIGNificant is a private company based in Ansfelden, Austria with international offices in the United States and Germany. xyzmo SIGNificant is the internationally leading supplier of comprehensive digital signature solutions for the safeguarding and optimization of business processes. Originating from an almost 100-year tradition in stamps and signature signing, we possess the competency to carry these processes over to the digital world in a user-friendly manner.
Audience: Any kind of business that is in the need to (electronically) sign documents.
The skinning feature serves two business purposes:
- Adopt the software look to the CI of the customer
- Adopt the software look to the CI of the reseller who is selling the product under his own brand.
The focus of this design procect is to "show off" this feature.
Create a cool looking and fully functional "skin" for our product "SIGNificant Client" (a windows based application). You are able to customize colors, logos and button graphics.
You are free to use any colors, graphics and logos you wish to use.
Limitation: the design has to fit into the means offered by the skinning feature included in the products. Non-functional screens are NOT accepted.
Preparation steps:
1) download and instathe SIGNificant Client: http://partner.xyzmo.com/Portals/0/…elease.exe
2) follow the attached Admin Guide, chapter 6: "Skinning"
Attached files:
- Admin Guide (explains how to create & configure a skin)
- default skin (this is how the software looks like per default)
- mySkin (this is a example for a customized skin)
Contact & Help
If you've any further questions contract me via email (firstname.lastname@example.com) or skype (steirer2)


text:
This document contains information for an outdated version and may not be maintained any more. If some of your projects still use this version, consider upgrading as soon as possible.
2.4.6 (2011-10-17)
- Security: Cross-site scripting on anchor links
- Security: Possible SQL injection for MySQL when using far east character encodings
- Security: SQL injection in Folder::findOrMake() parameter (used mostly in author-only CMS through
- Security: Privilege escalation from
ADMINfor users access to the CMS (through
- Security: Potential remote code execution through serialization of page comment user submissions
Upgrading Notes
Security: User-uploaded files searchable when using FulltextSearchable
The FulltextSearchable default configuration includes all file names in the
assets/ folder.
While this is desired in most cases, it can lead to unexpected public visibility of data,
e.g. when uploaded through users. For example, CVs uploaded to a recruiting site most likely shouldn't be searchable.
Option 1: Disable file search completely (through
Option 2: Exclude file search from individual files by setting the
File.ShowInSearch database property to
This property has been added in the 2.4.6 release. You can apply this retroactively to all files with this SQL statement:
UPDATE `File` SET `ShowInSearch` = 0;
Please note that all these files are still exposed through the webserver if the path is known,
regardless of the
ShowInSearch setting. To fully secure uploaded files,
you can apply protection on a webserver level (e.g.
web.config configuration).
Alternatively, you can proxy these files through your own permission control system
rather than exposing them directly through the webserver (e.g. with the "securefiles" module).
One common way to allow user-uploaded files is the "userforms" module. This module has been altered to mark all uploaded files with
ShowInSearch=0 by default.
Security: Cross-site scripting (XSS) on anchor links
Anchor links (
<a href="#">) are automatically rewritten by the SilverStripe
template parser to work with the
<base> tag, which is a prerequisite for the framework.
This applies to all links passed through
SSViewer::process() with the 'rewriteHashlinks' option enabled,
which is the framework default. Most commonly, these links will be created through the "Content"
field in the CMS, but any links inserted through template placeholders are vulnerable.
Modern browsers automatically fix basic XSS attacks through built-in XSS filters,
the vulnerability has only been confirmed in Internet Explorer 6 and 7 so far.
When upgrading to this SilverStripe version, please ensure to flush all template caches
by using the
dev/build/?flush=all URL.
Thanks to Michael Best and Stefan Schurtz for reporting.
Security: Possible SQL injection for MySQL when using far east character encodings
MySQL databases with a client set to certain far east encodings (SJIS, BIG5, GBK, GB18030, and UHC)
can be vulnerable to SQL injections through usage of the
[addslashes()](http://php.net/addslashes) method.
These character sets are not supported by SilverStripe,
and not a default setting for MySQL - so its unlikely that you're affected.
By default, any 2.4.x installation sets the connection character set
to UTF-8, which doesn't have this vulnerability. Please check that
you have the following command in your
If this value isn't set, the default encoding in MySQL will apply
(which is usually "latin-1" or "ISO 8859-1", so not a vulnerable multibyte character set).
See shiflett.org for further details on the exploit. Thanks to Tim Spencer for reporting.
Security: Page comments cookie possible vulnerability through unserialize()
Only applicable if any page allows comments (through the
SiteTree.ProvideComments attribute),
and SilverStripe is of version 2.4.x (the feature wasn't present in 2.3, and has been extracted from trunk).
PageCommentInterface_Form->postcomment() method stores user data for re-submission
through cookies (in case the first submission fails due to a validation error).
The data is stored via
unserialize(), making it potentially vulnerable
to improper method invocation or property injection. While we are not aware
of any active vulnerabilities, the serialization has been replaced with a more secure JSON format.
Thanks to Tim Klein for reporting.
Note: The commenting functionality has been moved to a new "comments" module in trunk, which has the same bugfixes applied.
Features and Enhancements
- 2011-10-17 6d6fdd2 Added SSViewer::getOption() as a logical counterpart to SSViewer::setOption() (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-09-28 ad13f80 Updated Windows installation documentation on using PHP Manager which takes out most of the PHP configuration effort. (Sean Harvey)
- 2011-09-15 bb757d1 Allow editing of new File.ShowInSearch flag through AssetTableField (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-09-15 83ad8d4 Added File.ShowInSearch flag to mirror the existing SiteTree.ShowInSearch flag - e.g. useful to limit visibility of user-uploaded files. Enforced in MySQLDatabase->searchEngine(). (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-05-26 9d344a0 Allowing filtered arguments on specific functions like mysql_connect() in SS_Backtrace (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-02-11 c6992f3 Adjusted from-source documentation to github and piston (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-02-07 8bd01d6 Added sapphire/docs (migrated from https://github.com/chillu/silverstripe-doc-restructuring) (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-02-02 590dbb5 Made it possible to attach utility links to a ComplexTableField beyond just exporting (e.g. printing). (ajshort)
- 2011-10-17 16c3235 Escaping base URLs for anchor links rewritten by SSViewer::process() with the 'rewriteHashlinks' option enabled (which is a framework default, and necessary because of the use of a <base> tag). Also added escaping for base URLs rendered through the 'php' variation of 'rewriteHashlinks' (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-09-28 7805e3e i18n::include_by_locale() assumes a themes directory always exists and causes error if that's not the case. Some projects don't require any themes, like pure applications. (Sean Harvey)
- 2011-09-15 b5ea2f6 Consistently using Convert::raw2sql() instead of DB::getConn()->addslashes() or PHP's deprecated addslashes() for database escaping (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-09-15 73cca09 Consistently using Convert::raw2sql() instead of DB::getConn()->addslashes() or PHP's deprecated addslashes() for database escaping (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-08-31 af0bf45 fixing random changing of access tab radio buttons when refreshing the CMS with a URL such as /admin#Root_Access in Firefox. (Julian Seidenberg)
- 2011-03-22 01f5b3d Fixed MigrateSiteTreeLinkingTask not working correctly when CLRF newlines being used (Sean Harvey)
- 2011-03-21 fef7c32 Fixed SQL injection in Folder::findOrMake() parameter. Exploitable through Upload::, although unlikely to be set via user input. (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-03-09 de1f070 Avoid privilege escalation from EDIT_PERMISSIONS to ADMIN through TreeMultiselectField (in Member->getCMSFields()) by checking for admin groups in Member->onChangeGroups() (Ingo Schommer)
Minor changes
- 2011-09-07 01b08a5 removed incorrect getter/setter statements. (Will Rossiter)
- 2011-08-20 0ef4161 fixed syntax error in FormAction example. (Will Rossiter)
- 2011-08-11 62ed138 documentation fixes from comments provided by the community. See below for a list of fixes: fixed typo in Email documentation. updated link for tutorial code to be relative now that bug #6408 is fixed removed 2.3 related docs from 2.4 docs folder fixed typo with Orientation documentation * updated old task url for images/flush (Will Rossiter)
- 2011-05-19 1704e42 Return empty string from SQLQuery->sql() if SELECT is the default value, and no FROM is set (moved logic from DB-specific implementations) (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-03-21 4c1866c Updated contributing guidelines (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-03-21 551bc5d Improved patch documentation (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-03-08 e9f20cf Documentation fixes (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-03-08 5d87f29 Added fix to test troubleshooting docs about PHPUnit 3.5 missing MockObject class (Sean Harvey)
- 2011-03-03 cc0f62c Fixed title escaping in 'built in page controls' documentation (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-02-25 ff63ba9 Fixed broken i18nTest on Windows because of newline character differences (Sean Harvey)
- 2011-02-25 b559b9b Fixed broken CSVParserTest on Windows because of newline character differences (Sean Harvey)
- 2011-02-23 918d9cb Added docs/ contributing notes (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-02-22 8ad630d formatting changes and fixes to original document formatting (Michael Andrewartha)
- 2011-02-21 201506e Added deprecated SapphireTest->assertType() in order to support PHPUnit 3.5 or newer, but stay backwards compatible to PHPUnit 3.4 (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-02-16 f15f083 Updated 'from source' docs (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-02-14 994f7a3 Fixed blackcandy github links in docs (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-02-14 629aa9b Removed reference to additional CSS download in tutorial 4, moved to the silverstripe-installer project (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-02-12 753a454 Fixed spacing in docs (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-02-12 5bfc722 Removed duplicated 'additional requirements' from docs (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-02-07 d23aeb2 Fixing image links in docs/en/tutorials/ (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-02-04 900b0a7 Fixed an empty utility container adding extra padding to the bottom of table fields. (ajshort)
- 2011-02-02 9e49d04 Only show the CTF utility bar if there are utilities available. (ajshort)
- 2011-10-18 96bee47 MINO Switching 'rewriteHashlinks' sanitization from Convert::raw2att() to strip_tags() to make the resulting PHP more portable when mode is set to 'php' (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-09-08 d15e850 SECURITY Using JSON instead of serialize() to stringify user data in PageCommentsInterface (Ingo Schommer)
- 2011-08-26 0f91fb8 Changes error reporting level to explicitly exclude E_DREPRECATED and E_STRICT, rather than xor. (simonwelsh)
- 2011-08-26 9ffa903 Adds missing semicolon for PHP5.4 support. (simonwelsh)
- 2011-08-24 8342f6b Removed references to Language Chooser Widget until it can be updated to work with the new translation model. (simonwelsh)
- 2011-08-22 d8c6bda Removed profanity (Adam Rice)
- 2011-06-09 1f0277b Add some missing CZ translations in cms javascript (Ladislav Kubes)
- 2011-06-09 5d3ddaf Add some translation in cms core (Ladislav Kubes)
- 2011-06-09 46090cf fix language namespace (devel)
- 2011-06-09 5f3dde5 Add some CZ translations (devel)
- 2011-03-09 f3ac573 Small text changes, added api links, cont. updating images for tutorials, fixed tutorials from member feedback (Michael Andrewartha)


text:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation weighed in this week on the Jammie Thomas file-swapping case, where the judge has asked for public comment on whether just making a file available for download on a P2P network should count as copyright infringement. In its filing (PDF), the EFF goes for the jugular, seeking to show that the RIAA's entire approach to file-swapping cases is flawed.
Not only does the Copyright Act not grant a "making available" right, the EFF said, but trade groups also shouldn't be allowed to claim that an actual distribution took place based solely on downloads from their own investigators. Together, this two-part theory would effectively eviscerate the RIAA's current legal campaign by making it nearly impossible for copyright holders to show that infringing distributions to the public have taken place over P2P networks.
"Making available"=="distribution"?
To tackle the first part of the equation, the so-called "making available" right, the brief makes an argument based largely on "the plain language of the Copyright Act and applicable precedents" (this was the same approach taken earlier in the week by a group of copyright scholars).
It claims that the right "to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public" granted in the Copyright Act means that an actual distribution must be proven. This is a more demanding standard of evidence than simply showing a judge that copyrighted files exist in a user's shared file folder on a P2P network.
One of the key parts of this claim is that Congress showed in other laws that it could be quite clear about granting a "making available" right when it wished to do so. The fact that the Copyright Act doesn't include such language should be taken as an obvious sign that just attempting to distribute a work cannot be considered copyright infringement, said the EFF.
The EFF points to several high-profile court cases in support of its argument, including Atlantic v. Howell and London-Sire v. Doe, both of which Ars has covered in painful detail if you're curious about the backstory. Even in the recent Elektra v. Barker, which did support the idea of a "making available" right for copyright holders, the EFF notes that the judge's support was "weak."
"While the Elektra court suggested that an offer to distribute might violate the distribution right, the court hesitated to 'equat[e] this avenue of liability with the contourless "making available" right proposed by [plaintiff record companies]'," noted the EFF.
In other words, if you want to sue, you need to show that the plaintiff actually transferred the files in question.
MediaSentry=="the public"?
So RIAA investigators just have to download the file instead of peeking into a shared folder, right? Sure, it's a bit more resource intensive, but it's not big deal.
Not quite, says the EFF in its brief; downloads by MediaSentry and other investigators don't count, either.
"It is axiomatic that a copyright owner cannot infringe her own copyright," says the brief in its concluding section. "By the same token, an authorized agent acting on behalf of the copyright owner also cannot infringe any rights held by that owner. Accordingly, where the only evidence of infringing distribution consists of distributions to authorized agents of the copyright owner, that evidence cannot, by itself, establish that other, unauthorized distributions have taken place."
Clearly, the EFF knows that this argument strikes at the very heart of the current approach to suing file-sharers. "Plaintiffs may complain that they cannot overcome this evidentiary hurdle," says the brief, but it does point out that the RIAA could pursue a different strategy of suing based on the reproduction right rather than the distribution right.
Using this method, the RIAA would need to sue someone, take a look at the music on their computer, then try to convince a judge that at least some of this was reproduced without authorization or a fair use defense. The EFF suggests "examining and comparing defendants' computers and CD collections to determine which songs a defendant legally owned and, if need be, contending with the fair use claims that may arise with respect to legally owned material."
Such a method would be quite different from the one currently pursued by the music industry, it would pose plenty of problems of its own, and it would take more work than the current method. One imagines that these difficulties don't especially bother the EFF.
We've been talking all along as though the EFF was the only group involved in the brief, but three other organizations actually signed on to the filing: Public Knowledge, the US Internet Industry Association, and the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA).
The CCIA, in particular, is an interesting signatory because its membership includes AMD, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and other heavy hitters in the tech world. Many of these groups deal with copyrighted material generated by others (nearly everything Google does, for instance, involves other people's copyrights), and none of them are keen on rightsholders gaining even more leverage for lawsuits. Thus, the brief points out that the "making available" theory has already been used to sue both Google and XM Radio.
"If this outcome or allowed to stand, it would set a dangerous precedent for copyright law," said Ed Black, CCIA's boss, in a Friday statement. "Before you hold someone responsible for an offense, in this case distributing protected songs, it's probably a good idea to prove they actually committed the offense."
International law
The entire argument advanced here is controversial, though; other groups, like the Progress and Freedom Foundation, also filed briefs this week arguing that US copyright law does grant a "making available" right that is "expressly required by nine binding international agreements—two treaties and seven bilateral or multilateral Free Trade Agreements."
The brief is penned by the PFF's Thomas Sydnor, who last showed up on Ars after taking on Lawrence Lessig with what our own Julian Sanchez called a "hyperbolic and stunningly dishonest screed, remarkable less for any contribution it makes to the debate over intellectual property and more for the fact that a well-funded Washington think tank saw fit to publish it."
This time around, Sydnor's argument steers clear of the bizarre commie-baiting evinced in his last work, tending instead toward the wonky. He argues that Congress, two presidents, the Register of Copyrights, and the head of the US Patent and Trademark Office all signed off on various treaties over the years that offer a "making available" right, and all agreed that US copyright law already granted such a right.
The "Charming Betsy" principle is trotted out to argue that judges should not interpret US law in such a way as to undermine international obligations.
However the judge rules on these issues, it's clear that Minnesota will once more become a copyright hotspot. Depending on the ruling, Jammie Thomas could even get a whole new trial, and the media circus could be back in town for a second engagement. The last time around, the case generated national headlines and thong underwear; who knows what wonders a new trial might hold?


text:
Useful Links for Alumni
- Career Development Center
- Library
- Pittsburgh Playhouse
- Student Center Membership (Gym)
- Refer a Student
- Request Transcripts
- Submit a Class Note
- Volunteer
Where are our
Point Park Alumni?
To find out, check out our alumni map.
Connect with Point Park and fellow alums!
Welcome to the Office of Alumni Relations at Point Park. We're here to provide alumni with a variety of ways to connect and reconnect to each other, to our current students, and to the University.
From local and regional alumni events, to special benefits and services, the Alumni Relations office is your source for staying in touch with Point Park. Be sure to visit us often. We look forward to hearing from you!
Have you signed up for the Alumni App?
Connect with fellow alumni near and far
The Point Park Alumni App is a great way to keep in touch, create new friends, and/or network with your fellow alumni. The alumni app provides secure access to features such as an alumni directory, nearby map, professional information from LinkedIn, and social media streams.
The entire app is accessible exclusively to fellow Point Park alumni and it is free. To learn more and/or download the app, visit the Point Park Alumni App page.
Upcoming Events
Check out — and RSVP for —the great events we have planned for alumni. We'll have more alumni events around the country coming soon! Details are on our Events page.