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Customized control – In situ TEM of curable alloys
EMheaterchips are DENSsolutions latest development. These brand-new, MEMS-based sample holders for in situ TEM measurements are customized and offer unprecedented control over the experiment. In combination with different in situ holders (single tilt, double tilt, 30° and 70°), they offer a great variety of options, for example 3D reconstruction of nanostructures.
- Sub-Angstrom resolution over the full temperatures range (RT to 1300 K)
- Real-time feedback control
- Very fast temperature setting time
- Ultra high temperature stability
Read the application note for more information on the thermal behavior of nanostructures in aerospace aluminum.


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Limit Theory: An Infinite, Procedural Space Game
11 :: The Final Stretch and the Super-Secret Tech Demo
10 :: Carriers and the Meaning of Limit Theory
9 :: "It's Too Big to Be a Space Station..."
8 :: Next Stretch Goal and the NPC Contact System
7 :: Tactical Interface Tech Demo
6 :: "That's no Moon...it's a Stretch Goal!!"
4 :: Success, Stretch Goals, and Music
1 :: Badges, Banners, and a Budget
Video Updates
Space can be cold, dark, and lifeless. But not here. Here, in the many universes of Limit Theory, space is luminous, vibrant, and rich with opportunity. Step into an open-world, sandbox universe in which you can explore, trade, pirate, mine, escort, hunt, defend, build, and more.
In brief, Limit Theory is:
- An open-world space simulator / RPG
- A sandbox game : No story, no restrictions.
- Completely procedural : A completely new universe is only a button-click away.
- Infinite : The game universe has no boundary.
- Third-Person or First-Person : Command your ship from within or without.
- Deep and intelligent : Engage in far more than just combat or trading.
- Twitch-Based : Aim and fire weaponry directly, as you would in a shooter.
- Approachable : Intuitive controls and slick interfaces ensure that playing will never feel like a job.
- Strategic : Command an entire fleet when you amass enough cash to purchase more ships.
- Extensively-Customizable : Outfit your ship, fleet, and space stations with whatever equipment you choose.
- Single Player : A universe built just for you, that no one else will ever get to see (unless you choose to share it with them!)
- Beautiful and Atmospheric : Gaze in awe at a universe as diverse, vibrant, and uniquely-atmospheric as your dreams.
Sound like something you might want to play? Then read on.
Enjoy your Freedom Among the Stars
Like any good space sim, Limit Theory offers you the chance to explore a vast universe, prospect and mine minerals in asteroid fields, take jobs as a patrolman, escort, bounty hunter, courier, etc, or become a pirate and hijack convoys.
Command a Fleet ... Or Many.
When you've acquired enough wealth, hire other pilots and purchase more ships. Customize and outfit your fleet with whatever weaponry and equipment you desire, then fly alongside your armada in combat, or send them off to explore, trade, or conquer while you attend to other affairs. No restrictions are placed on the number of ships that you can own. A wealthy player can play the game much like an RTS, achieving victory from afar.
Build Your Empire.
Buy or construct buildings on planet surfaces as well as stations in space. Acquire mines, factories, trading outposts, and more. Set up production chains to build guns, munitions, or even new ships. When hauling goods for a profit gets old, why not try manufacturing the goods instead?
Interact with a Living Universe.
Experience a rich variety of interactions with an artificial intelligence that actively explores, trades, works, and lives just as you do. Just because the game is single player doesn't mean you'll be alone. Take jobs, strike deals, and become friends with the inhabitants of the universe. Need an escort to get you through a particularly dangerous stretch of space? Call up the mercenary that you met last week on a station a few systems away. Need just a tad more ore to get the furnaces of your new factory cranking? Call up your old pals from your days as a miner, and offer them a nice price for finding what you need.
A rich social interaction system is key to making Limit Theory more than the average single player experience. With the ability to keep track of and build relationships with the non-player characters that you meet in the universe, a whole new world of gameplay opens up, allowing for a wealth of creative ways to achieve success without ever having to arm your missile bays! (Although, to be realistic, you'll still probably end up doing so a few times...)
In a universe of such freedom, how will you spend your time? Here are just a few of the possibilities:
You are a Merchant. You have explored the farthest reaches of the universe, and know exactly where and for what price anything can be bought. For the right price, you can move anything. You supply what is demanded, and demand what you deserve - which is substantial...because you do so much more than move goods. You supply the universe.
You are an Admiral. You command a ship that dwarfs everything in sight. Frigates and cruisers hover about you, pretending to offer protection, but you don't need it. At the first sight of an enemy, hundreds of bolts carrying terrawatts of energy pour out of your ship, vaporizing the unwanted presence in seconds. Slowly and steadily, you drift from system to system, steamrolling those who oppose your authority. You conquer the universe.
You are an Explorer. You move quickly between systems in a nimble ship. With a keen eye and even keener sensing technology, you pick up all the details that everyone else misses. Selling ore locations to miners, enemy ship locations to warring factions, and uncharted system locations to aspiring empire-builders, you broker your knowledge to those that are ignorant of the beautiful and bountiful universe around them. You uncover the universe.
You are a Pirate. That's what they call you, but you prefer to think of yourself as an "opportunist," because, when the opportunity arises, you can and will take what you want, unlike those bound by the chains of law. Your home station resides in dense, unscannable clouds of dust. In this dark blanket of matter, you are untouchable by the arrogant hands of the law. You exploit the universe.
You are a Wingman. You fly alongside hulking ships that make your fighter look trivial. But you aren't. You are critical. You know where and when the ambush will come - you've seen it a thousand times before. You know that they'll go for the engines first, and that, while they're doing so, you'll acquire a perfect lock on their fuel tanks. The pirates think it will all be over in a few minutes. They're wrong. It'll be over in seconds, but not how they anticipate. You protect the universe.
You are a Miner. You can spot the shimmering reflection off of asteroids a lightyear away. You know the color and composition of each and every raw ore that the generous galaxy provides. In the deepest, darkest corners of space, you harvest that which will become warheads, turrets, and even ships. You are the very heart that pumps blood through the arteries of the universe. You create the universe.
You are Everything. Life is not black-and-white, and neither is your career. You can't devote your life to one profession. And that's fine, because Limit Theory won't make you. All of the above are options - but you won't find a checkbox for selecting which life to lead. The universe is yours for the taking, and your time therein will be whatever you choose to make of it.
It's Infinite.
No matter how far out into the universe you delve, you will never find an edge. The algorithms behind the universe have been designed very carefully, such that they are mathematically-guaranteed to generate universes of infinite size, each and every time. What's more, each universe has a unique number associated with it - a "seed" - that defines it entirely. By sharing that seed number with someone else, you can both explore and experience the exact same universe!
It's Totally Procedural.
Well, almost...the music and sound effects will be hand-made. But everything you see will be procedural. Planets, nebulae, stars, asteroids, ships, stations, textures, and so on. Thanks to cutting-edge procedural generation technology, Limit Theory will have the ability to keep providing you with new experiences. No matter how long you play, there will always be more to explore, see, learn, and conquer!
Every mission, every event, and every asset that you encounter in game will be unique - and it won't be the same next time you play. You'll never "beat" the game, nor will you ever know it like the back of your hand. When you feel that it has become too familiar, all you must do is click "New Game," and you will once again be completely lost.
It's All About the Interaction.
LT will focus heavily on bringing the universe to life with a deep and powerful AI engine that includes advanced, high-level planning. You aren't the only one trying to make your way in the universe, and your path will regularly cross with others that are trying to do the same - for better or for worse.
It's All About You.
Limit Theory will not offer a story, a campaign, or a guiding direction of any sort. You are unique, so isn't it best that you craft your own unique story, rather than live out a pre-fabricated one?
Here are some screenshots from the current prototype. They're straight out of the game, except for the small border and logo text at the bottom.
Limit Theory is far from a wide-eyed dream! After only three months of full-time work, I've brought LT from a mere idea to the well-underway game that you see here. Furthermore, much of the three months was spent developing core engine technology, since the engine is being built from scratch.
At this stage, much of the graphics technology has been completed, most of the core engine is in place, and many of the procedural algorithms are well underway. Gameplay is the largest part of what remains, and I fully intend to make gameplay my burning focus for the rest of the development process. Gameplay is king, I recognize that! Limit Theory will not be about graphics (although they will be good!). It will be about gameplay. Deep, rich, engaging gameplay, just like the space sim genre deserves.
The planned release date is Early 2014. That may seem like quite a while, but I'm not interested in making unrealistic promises, and, to be realistic, LT is going to take a lot of work. But if my work so far represents only three months, can you imagine what another year-and-some will do, especially given that much of the engine heavy-lifting is finished?
I hope you'll help me find out where the project will be in a year!
Hi! I'm Josh Parnell, the one-man team that's going to bring you Limit Theory! I'm a passionate game programmer with a particular love for graphics, space, procedural content, and open worlds. I guess you can see why I'm excited about this project :)
I currently study computer graphics at Stanford, but that doesn't stop me from working 40 hours a week on LT. I absolutely love working on the game - expanding the features, making it more beautiful, and discovering new algorithms for creating bigger and better content to fill the universe.
I grew up playing games like the Elder Scrolls series (Morrowind will always have my heart!!), the Egosoft X series, Freelancer, and various Star Wars titles. All of them inspired and left me with a burning desire to someday build my own world - free, open, procedural, and infinite. So I devoted myself to studying graphics and procedural generation technology. And here I am, years later, finally ready. I'm ready to realize my dream. I'm ready to bring you a space sim that will inspire and excite you - and allow you to live out all those grand sci-fi adventures!
I definitely feel most at home when I'm engulfed in my code. I've been coding since I was 10 (that was 10 years ago, for those who are wondering..), and since then, c++ has become just about as much of a first language to me as English! Going for a week without coding makes me uneasy. Good thing I've always got LT to work on these days :)
I love taking on projects that seem insurmountable. Perhaps the most exciting thing in the world for me is taking on something that seems impossible, hammering away at it for hundreds of hours, and ending up with a beautiful result. As an example, I did this last year when I won the grand prize at the 2012 Stanford Rendering competition by writing a GPU-accelerated renderer (using MC path tracing) from scratch. Here's the award-winning image produced by said renderer:
That's exactly what I intend to do with Limit Theory. I have pitched you something that probably sounds impossible, or too hard for one young developer. And it seemed like that to me too, when I first started. But now, I can see that Limit Theory is just like any of my other projects: it will require extreme devotion, untold hours, and endless perseverance, but it is very much possible.
"Judge me by my size, do you? And well you should not. For my ally is the force, and a powerful ally it is." ~ Yoda
I may not have the name, but I promise you, I have the passion! Please, I urge you, don't judge me by my lack of reputation. Judge me by what you see here. Judge me by the quality of this content. Keep in mind that I have far fewer distractions than high-profile game designers. That being said, I also have far fewer resources...which is why I need your help!
Give me a chance, and I will give you a universe :] (Well, actually, infinitely many universes...!)
[ $20 + ] The Game.
Good choice. Get a downloadable, DRM-free copy of the game so that you can hop into your ship and start exploring the endless universe(s) the day it comes out.
[ $30 + ] The Soundtrack, The Book.
Download the maximum-quality version of the Limit Theory Original Soundtrack (composed by yours truly), as well as a digital copy of "Architecture of a Universe," the making-of book with development shots, commentary, and details concerning the technical magic that makes Limit Theory possible.
[ $40 + ] The Hitchhiker's Maps
The universes of Limit Theory are big. Infinitely so. If you're going to make your way around, it sure would be nice to have a map. We've got you covered. The Hitchhiker's Map will give you information concerning the starting regions of a handful of different universes. You'll see planets, space stations, asteroid fields, jump gates and jump holes, and more.
With these digital maps in hand, you'll start with a leg up on finding your fortune in the stars!
[ $50 + ] The Hitchhiker's Guides
Maps are good, but insider information is even better. Many Bothans died to bring you this detailed information. The Hitchhiker's Guide, much like the Hitchhiker's Map, will give you a wealth of information concerning a handful of universes. Unlike the maps, however, these guides will include detailed planetary economic data, planetary point-of-interest data (including goods bought/sold, ships manufactured, etc), locations of rich ore fields, optimal trade routes, faction dispositions, and more.
[ $60 + ] The BETA.
Be the first to explore the infinite expanse of the Limit Theory universe(s). You'll get access to a closed BETA well before the game's official release. Voice your opinion, and you may just have a significant impact on the game!
[ $75 + ] The Prototype(s).
If you can't wait long enough for the BETA, that's okay...because at this tier, you'll receive exclusive access to a PRE-ALPHA combat prototype/playable demo, coming in early 2013. You'll be among the first players in the world to experience the epic fleet combat of Limit Theory! You'll also get the chance to provide me with feedback, so if you don't like something, you'll be in a good position to get it changed long before release.
While I'm only officially promising one prototype, there's a lot of cool technology in Limit Theory that I want to show off and have tested by real players. I anticipate releasing more than one prototype, because there's a lot more than just combat that needs early testing! At this level, you get access to any and all prototypes that I decide to release.
[ $100 + ] The Discs.
Get your hands on a shiny new copy of both the game and the soundtrack on custom CDs. At this tier, you will get the custom discs in sleeves. These are only available through this Kickstarter offer, so your CDs will be truly limited-edition!
[ $150 + ] The Box, The Credits.
Not only will you get a physical copy of the game and soundtrack, but also a custom physical game box, adorned with beautiful Limit Theory artwork. But that's not all. Open up that box, shove that CD in the drive, run the game and click "credits"...and what do you know? There you are. Your name, immortalized in Limit Theory history under "supporters."
[ $200 + ] The Map, The Signatures.
Included in your physical Limit Theory box, you will find a physical map of Universe 3827, the default starting universe for new players (of course, since the universe is infinite, the map cannot be complete!) Never take a road trip to a foreign system without a map in hand! While other players wander around in the (metaphorical) dark, you'll be whipping across systems, doing business as you please without ever having to wonder where you are. Note that this map will show at least twice as much as the Hitchhiker's Map version (and of course, it's physical)!
Moreover, you will also find that both the map and box have been signed by your dev team (me)!
[ $250 + ] The T-Shirt.
CDs and boxes and maps are all good and well...but when you want to show off your support in a flashier, more stylish way, you're going to need a shirt. Not just any shirt, though. You're going to need something that says "hey, I'm all about unbounded space exploration, and that's why you should come over here and talk to me." How better to do so than by having a little slice of an infinite universe slathered across your chest?
In all likelihood, there will be multiple awesome designs to choose from by the time I'm ready to ship the shirts, so it's entirely likely that you'll end up looking even cooler than you're imagining right now as you picture yourself in this extravagant cosmic drapery.
[ $300 + ] The Poster, The Signature.
Okay, so your chest is covered, your disc drive is full, your box shelf is boxed, and your map shelf is mapped. But what about your wall? It's probably feeling a little left out in the cold. But you can fix that. How about adorning it with a large, signed, numbered Limit Theory poster, printed on high-quality, glossy poster paper?
Get your hands on an ORIGINAL, ONE-OF-A-KIND "idea sheet" from the development process, signed and dated by me. I write down all of my best ideas regarding technical features as soon as they come to me. You will receive a laminated, one-of-a-kind element from this set of notes! Unfortunately, I only have a limited number of grand ideas...lucky for you, that means you'll own a truly-unique piece of LT history (and possibly have the blueprints of a technological aspect of the game that has not been publicly disclosed)! I'll also include a historical explanation of whatever is on the tech report, and summarize how and why it was such an important achievement. Unlock secrets ranging from the algorithm for constructing a universe of guaranteed-infinite size, to the mechanisms that allow AI players to formulate and pursue high-level goals and aspirations!
Note that higher-level tiers include one schematic each.
[ $500 + ] The Physical Book
Get a printed, hardcover, limited edition copy of "Architecture of a Universe," signed and numbered by me, including a personal message of thanks.The book will be of the utmost quality, printed on high-grade, premium paper with a hardcover. It will also include extra content not found in the downloadable version, most likely in the form of extra details concerning the magical secrets behind Limit Theory technology!
[ $1,000 Exclusive ] The Custom Edition.
I will write a CUSTOM VERSION of Limit Theory JUST FOR YOU! In it, I will include a small-to-medium feature of your request that did not appear in the publicly-released version. I will be willing to extend the code by a few thousand lines for your personal edition, which will result in a cool new feature for you and only you to play with! Of course, you could also just request a bunch of minor cosmetic changes (like having your name appear on menus, changing the appearance of lasers, nebulae, or planets, or perhaps making the NPCs have Star Wars names...), since those take very little time.
[ $1,000 + ] The Elder Council.
I've given you all that I have to offer in the way of physical goods. But it's not the end. At this level, you gain membership to the Limit Theory Elder Council, a VIP group of high-tier backers that will be given special privileges, including regular interaction and meetings with me, as well as exclusive content updates that will not be released to the general public. Such updates will include videos of new features, work-in-progress screenshots, and perhaps even playable demos!
As a member of the council, your word will be taken very seriously, and I will make suggestions made by council members a top priority. Your words will carry significantly more weight than the average forum-goer's, and, as such, you'll be given a special rank on the Limit Theory forums to identify you as a member of the council.
In addition to being able to voice your opinion individually, the council will also get chances to vote as a collective on features that should be prioritized, major game design decisions, and general matters of high importance.
Finally, your status in the Limit Theory credits will be upgraded from "supporter" to "Elder Council." Your name will, of course, be more prominent than those of the non-council supporters.
Can I Pledge Without Kickstarter?
Yes, I've set up a PayPal page for doing so here. Unfortunately, due to limitations with PayPal, I can only offer one tier, so you will only be able to select the $20 tier. Please note that you WILL be refunded if you pledge via PayPal and we do not meet our Kickstarter goal!
Will it be on Mac/Linux?
If we hit the stretch goal, then yes, definitely! Otherwise, I will make porting an immediate priority after release, but cannot guarantee a Mac/Linux port. However, the codebase is completely portable, so I wouldn't anticipate any problems doing so.
Can you Land on Planets?
Very much so. In fact, much of the deep gameplay will involve planet activity. More information to come in future Kickstarter updates!
What About Space Stations?
Yes, of course there will be landable space stations that will, like planets, be the core of much deep gameplay. Conceptually, they aren't much different from planets, except that they have a different aesthetic and can be destroyed.
Are Planet Landings Seamless?
You decide! Right now, the plan is to have a transition between space and planetary surfaces. But if you'd like to be able to fly straight from space to the planet surface, without ever having to see a loading screen or fade-out, then help me hit that stretch goal! The goal will be announced when we get closer to the appropriate level.
Can You Get Out of Your Ship and Walk Around?
No, not this time around. Someday, whether in an expansion, LT II, or whatever. This is one of my most revered dream features, but I have been realistic in choosing what I can and can't implement within a reasonable time frame, and I don't feel comfortable that I could do justice to this feature in a reasonable amount of time.
What Engine Does the Game Use?
I have written the engine from scratch using C++ and OpenGL. I felt that it was the right choice for several reasons. First, it allows me to develop my own unique style - something that games using prefab engines often fail to create. Second, and most importantly, the engine is designed completely around procedural paradigms, and this influences the architecture of the engine in many ways. Every file is written with "everything procedural" in mind.
What Does the Name Mean?
The founders of the Ancient Colony were idealists. They conjectured - long before the advent of space travel, long even before the rise of technology - that all limitations are merely illusions. Physical, mental, emotional...every limit is simply a misunderstanding. A failure of the mind. Anything and everything can be overcome with the right thought, the right idea, the right insight. This philosophy became known as Limit Theory, and it prevailed throughout the ages. It was idealistic and unrealistic, but it drove them forward. It pushed them to distant lands, to the corners of the Ancient Planet, into space, and, ultimately, to the furthest reaches of the universe. Limit Theory is the theory that limits do not exist. It is not only the philosophy of the Ancient Colonists, but also of your developer. The game is the ultimate embodiment of the Limit Theory ideal - that one can be, and should be, free of all limitation.
How Will you Distribute?
The usual: Steam, Desura, proprietary online download system (if necessary).
Why Isn't There an Option to Have In-Game Planets/Stations/Systems/... Named After Backers?
I thought long and hard about this one. It seems to be the norm for Kickstarter projects these days, to have backers included in the game in some way more than just the credits. While I am eternally grateful to my backers, I feel that I must place the utmost importance on creating an immersive experience. Backer names will no doubt seem out-of-place, perhaps even jarring, to players in the game world. In addition, the naming systems in the game use a system that is far more complex than a simple random list, so that names have certain characteristics based on faction and region. There's simply no way to integrate backer names into the game without breaking the immersive, procedural experience that I want Limit Theory to be! But you can certainly get a shout-out in the credits!
Risks and challenges
Limit Theory is a large undertaking..I won't deny it! I certainly wouldn't blame you for questioning whether a single young programmer could fulfill what may seem like a AAA-grade promise. But the key difference here is in assets. Limit Theory has no assets - they are procedurally generated - which means all I really have to worry about is algorithms and gameplay.
Since Limit Theory is totally procedural, I don't have to spend day after day modeling new ships or painting new background textures. When I spend a day working on a procedural algorithm, not only does it enhance the quality of one asset, it enhances the quality of EVERY asset of that kind in the game. This is really an incredibly efficient development process. The problem of building an entire game of assets becomes the problem of building an algorithm to construct a single type of asset. It's this sweeping simplification of game development that allows me to work quickly enough to build Limit Theory as a one man team.
Now, you might be skeptical. You might think that everything will look the same after a while, perhaps because you've seen poorly-done procedural content before. But that's not the way it has to be. That's not a fundamental property of PCG. Procedural algorithms can be as complex, diverse, and varied as the author allows them to be. Since they are at the heart of Limit Theory, you can rest assured that I will be spending countless hours advancing and tuning the algorithms to make sure that they produce high-quality yet diverse content.
So there you have it. At the risk of sounding ludicrous, my claim to you is that building Limit Theory is easy. I build an algorithm for planets, ships, background nebulae, asteroids, stations, etc...and then I build the gameplay. I recognize that the latter, in particular, is quite a complex task, which is why I have allotted over a year for it.
With procedural algorithms and an endless supply of coffee by my side, I will face the challenge of building Limit Theory, and I can't wait to show you the result :)Learn about accountability on Kickstarter
Funding period
- (32 days)

subset: commoncrawl


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Crossbar API
Tvärslå (trans. Crossbar) is a Nordic translation dictionary managed by the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. It consists of multiple merged dictionaries and allows users to translate between Danish, English, Finnish, Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, and Swedish. Users can access Crossbar programmatically using SOAP calls. Crossbar and all of its documentation are provided solely in Swedish.


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0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.
Sometimes I'm convinced that they don't want anyone to buy their games...
I just have to say I FINALLY finished Arcadia Garden, and I gotta yell! For whatever reason that area drove me batshit crazy
Quote from: Bytor on May 03, 2012, 02:21:54 PMI just have to say I FINALLY finished Arcadia Garden, and I gotta yell! For whatever reason that area drove me batshit crazyThe level design of dungeons in this game is simply terrible.They are: archaic, confusing, too big for their own good and completely unrealistic.Just wait till you hit the first area of the last dungeon of the Future Arc. They basically toss you in this huge complex without any hint of where to go, tons of possible ways to try blindly and you can't backtrack your steps.
Klyde, you my friend are definitely a masochist, lol ;) this area is driving me freaking crazy!
About 70 hours in this game. At the last dungeon. New requests just keep popping up...Are these scripted, or are the generic item requests randomized? There are a few quests with key items I have yet to complete.Probably about time to finish this game off, but it seems every turn there is a new event or side quest that opens up!


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Difference between revisions of "Lappeenranta"
Revision as of 18:12, 18 November 2014
City of Lappeenranta [2] (population 70,000) is the economic and cultural center of southeast Finland situated near the border of Russia and at the southern edge of the Saimaa, the largest lake (system) of Finland. Its culture and dialects are strongly part of Eastern Finland, although it administratively belongs to the Province of Southern Finland. Lappeenranta has a colourful, 360-year history influenced by its location in the border dividing western and eastern cultures.
Get in
By car
Two highways, 6 and 13 pass through Lappeenranta. Bus companies operate frequently to Helsinki and other cities, even Saint Petersburg in Russia. Highway 13 extends to the Russian border, some 25 km from the city center, where the Nuijamaa border station is the busiest border crossing in Finland. Russian tourists usually use this pathway to come to the city either by bus or a car.
By train
The main railway station of Lappeenranta connects the city to the rest of Finland with fairly modern trains, operated by VR [3]. The travel time to Helsinki is currently 2 - 2½ hours (EUR 41.30 as of end-2011). Trains to Saint Petersburg and Moscow stop at a smaller station in Vainikkala, located near the Russian border, about 30 km from the city center. There are connection buses[4] from Lappeenranta City to Vainikkala railway station.
By bus
Lappeenranta travel centre offers connections to other parts of Finland and to Russia. There are direct connections by bus to Helsinki, Jyväskylä, Kouvola, Joensuu, Kotka, Mikkeli, Porvoo and Imatra. Foreign lines extend to Saint Petersburg and Vyborg. More information about bus connections from Matkahuolto.
Low-cost expressbus service from Lappeenranta to Helsinki is provided by Pohjolan Liikenne.
By air
The airport is located perfectly only 2 km from the center. It is the oldest in Finland established in 1918. Air Baltic flies to Riga, Ryanair has routes to Weeze near Düsseldorf, Girona near Barcelona and Bergamo.
There is a local bus connection number 4 from railway station and center of Lappeenranta to the airport. It serves once an hour. Timetables are available from Lappeenranta city website[5].
By water
Lappeenranta is a popular destination for boaters within the Saimaa lake area. Some cruise boats operate from Lappeenranta to other destinations within the lake area. Lappeenranta is connected to the Gulf of Finland through the Saimaa canal. Visa free (remember to always check the current situation) cruise boats operate from Lappeenranta to Vyborg, Russia through the canal. The canal is also popular among boaters, and private boats occasionally come from as far as Southern Europe.
Get around
Everything is within walking distance at the center. Even the airport is within walking range if you do not have much luggage, but taxi or local bus is probably preferable.
Getting further to the suburbs is easy by bus. There is a graphical route planner[6] to find timetables.
Some mid-range and budget hotels are present. Local student housing foundation, LOAS [13], offers affordable accommodation during the summer months for tourists.
Stay safe
Lappeenranta is a safe city very accustomed to foreigners. Lappeenranta is the second most popular destination in Finland, mainly due to Russian shopping tourists, but also many other nationalities visit during summer months.


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King Neches awaits his festival coronation
All hail the king… Congrats to longtime Knight of the Neches Bill Benning, who was unmasked at the Beaumont Country Club as King Neches LXIV this past Tuesday afternoon, April 17. Another great honor was bestowed on a well-respected member of our community as James McNicholas was named NRF Citizen of the Year. During the month of April, senior girls and boys will enjoy the social season that our town has come to know as the Neches River Festival. The theme for this year's festival is "Shades of the Aegean" with Doug McMakin serving as president of the NRF and Heather Petkovsek and Elizabeth Waddill doing an outstanding job as social chairmen.
Terrific time … Superheroes took center stage last Thursday evening as the "Gift of Life" Program's Champagne & Ribs: The Superhero Party packed the Cowboy Harley-Davidson parking lot to honor well deserving gentlemen Darrell Jacob, Mark Kubala and Mickey Shuffield as "Gift of Life" Justice League Honorees. Led by Super Event Chairs Pat Avery, Lee Ann and Terry Garth, Becky and Joe Holland, the annual event was a super success with more than a 1,000 guests in attendance. Enjoying the sizzling ribs, all-you-can-eat mouthwatering delicacies prepared by the by the Golden Triangle Chapter of the Texas Chefs Association, tons of bubbly and the sensational music of the Mid-Life Crisis Band were the likes of Dana and Slate Babineaux, Brenda and Charles Vessels, Charlene Dauphin, Penni and Ray Woodard, Danny Oliver, Mary Jane Garth, Ty Abshire, Harriet Garth, Judy and James Black, Iris and Jerry Nathan, Carol and Gerald Eddins, Terri and Glenn Morgan, David Bernsen, Taylor McSpadden, Cade Bernsen, Christy and Mike Persia, Jaime Hensley, Lou Huber, Lindsay and Steve Zummo, Katie Whitney, Mandie and Garrett Peel, Gail and Kerry Moncla, Kellan Shaw, Becky and Rodney Ames, Carol and Mike Hebert, Allison and Mike Getz, Marie Bando, Julie and Alan Coleman, JoRita and Steve Lyle, Lindsay and Hubert Oxford IV, Sheri and Eddie Arnold, and too many more to mention. Kudos to Norma Sampson and the staff of Julie Rogers "Gift of Life" Program for orchestrating this "party of the year"!
One man's trash … Kelly High School is holding its fifth annual Another's Treasure Super Sale this weekend with fabulous fines for friends and family. It all begins at 7 a.m. at Kelly High School, 5950 Kelly Drive, Beaumont. This one-day sale is one of the largest of its kind in the area and is a major fundraiser for the school. You'll find clothing from infant to adult, books, furniture, jewelry, artwork, tools and equipment, electronics, kitchen goods, holiday, collectibles and more! Call (409) 866-2351, ext. 108.
Bountiful bash … The Oaks Historic District Neighborhood Association hosted its annual Preservation Bash in the home and on grounds of the beautiful estate of Mary Olsen and Jeff Fritz this past Saturday evening with a terrific crowd. Seen in the crush perusing the many silent auctions items, as well as quaffing the clever cocktails and nibbling the divine desserts were Virginia and Ralph Jordan, Karleen Golias, Pam Brocato, Kelly and Mike Johnston, Ellen Schulz, Paula and Joey Blazek, Jennifer Pate, W.L. Pate, Suzanne Pate, Eric Bender, Elena Sandovici, Summer Lydick, Marc McDonald, Sheryl and Syd Boyd, Alex Rodriguez, Ken Berryhill, Larry Boner, Annette and Scott Holtemyer, Bethany and Elliott New, Bridget Miller and Matt Murphy.
Such a worthwhile difference … May has been declared "Older Americans Month" recognized by proclamation in both the Beaumont and Port Arthur city councils as well as the Hardin County and Jefferson County commissioners courts. Therefore, the one organization that services the most seniors in Southeast Texas, Nutrition and Services for Seniors, is celebrating older Americans who have made Southeast Texas a better place to live. On May 10 at 11:30 a.m., this organization will host the first annual Deliver the Difference benefiting Meals on Wheels at the Beaumont Country Club. The luncheon will honor some that have contributed to improving the quality of life in our city — namely Donald H. Taft and Charlie H. Weinbaum. Honorary chair of the event Betty Leaf will also be recognized for her contributions to community, most specifically to Nutrition and Services to Seniors. A social with music will kick off the event with lunch and recognitions to begin at noon. Tickets are $40, and all proceeds will go to Meals on Wheels. For a reservation for the May 10 luncheon, call (409) 832-4455.
News of I do's … Amy Morgan and Ryan Pyburn were the honorees as several friends hosted a wedding shower in their honor. The camouflage theme party was held at Camp Klein (home of Katharine and Brad Klein) along with "Fishermen" hosts Clark Baker, D'awn and Jeff Beaver, Casey McDermand and "Hunters" hosts Cindy and Jamie Dishman, Cathy and John Hawa, Becky Marino, Christy and Mike Persia. Enjoying the evening were Teri and Glenn Morgan, Terri and Tim Humble, Matthew Morgan, Cassie LaMendola, Michael Morgan, Kim and Mark Bellard, Kate Bellard, Mickey Phelan, Lauren and Wilson Hawa, Renee and Scott Smith, Trent Marino, Caroline Robbins, Katie O'Neill, Katie and Jeff Beaver, Hollis Smith, Annie Dishman, Heather and Bobby Beaver, Becky and Joe Holland, andAnn and Kyle Hayes to name a few. The precious adventurous couple will exchange their wedding vows in June. Congrats!
Candles and cakes … Belated best to Tressa Hilton. B-day wishes to Adele Wells, Jef Russell III, Lauren Lewis, Belinda Hickman, Allison Getz, Ellen Petit, Leslie Edwards, Nancy Neild, Dorothy Ann Conn, Rodney Ames, Brandon Gouthier, Mark Frasher, Jim Thompson, Carole Bailey, John Paul Phelan, Holly McMahan, Jude Reese, Sarah Kirksey, Brandi Gaitan and John Ross. Until the next RSVP!


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The Environmental Working Group recently published a� 2011 Bottled Water Scorecard that surveys 173 bottled water brands in an effort to find the source of the water, as well as if any further water purification is done.
Here are just a few surprising facts from the bottled water scorecard:
- 18 percent of bottled water brands do not reveal their source.
- 32 percent of bottled water brands surveyed do not provide info on water treatment.
- Less than 1/4 of brands surveyed comply with California's labeling law.
- Aquafina and Dasani received a D; Fiji and Evian received a C.
Want to see how your favorite brand of bottled water stacks up? The EWG has a long, comprehensive list of bottled water brands on its bottled water scorecard. The brands are judged on their transparency (including source, purification and testing) as well as any advanced treatment. Under these metrics, no brand scored greater than a C overall. Filtered tap water received an A, which was the highest score the EWG provided.
The EWG published a similar bottled water scorecard in 2009. For the most part, bottled water brands did not become any more transparent in the year's time between the two scorecards. Still, the EWG hopes that the survey will lead to stronger standards for bottled water brands.


text:
Joe Rocket Dover Leather Vest
By Urban Rider From Canada
|Shipping Destination
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Delivery Information
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text: Our very first yard sale finds for the future nursery – a set of Pottery Barn Kids Wooden Alphabet Blocks (with a letter, a corresponding word, or image on each side) and 2 Pottery Barn white wood frames, all at a fraction of retail price. Normally, we wouldn't even consider more Pottery Barn stuff, considering our history there, but these were an exception. There was lots of other baby/kids stuff, but not much that really suited our taste or aesthetic. But, you never know. We've been advised many times that yard sales (and craigslist) are the way to go for cheap and still-useful baby goods.


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The Philips LHH1000 DAC, did not come with a TDA1541A S1 single crown chip. Philips units had the TDA1541A chip.
For some reason, Philips also claimed their model 960,a single cd player, also had this same chip.
I had the Philips 960 and called Philips about the chip. They sent me the correct chip, a TDA1541A S1 single crown, after pointing it out in a review.
I still have the review of the Lhh1000 in Stereophile,June 1989,Vol.12 No.6
I also have both the Marantz CD 12 transport/dac and the Philips Lhh1000 transport/dac. The flip down cover at the bottom of each dac, shows exactly what chip is used.
Philips LHH1000 CD player
The LHH1000, which was launched at the recent Las Vegas CES, represents the top of that new Philips line. Made in Japan by the Philips-owned company that manufactures much of the product sold under the Marantz brand (footnote 1), the LHH1000 is a two-box CD playercomprising the LHH1001 transport and LHH1002 D/A converterthat is intended to retail for $4000. (The combination preceded, and is identical to, the limited-edition Marantz CD12 that is sold in Europe and Japan.) Included in the price is a fairly large remote control, the LHH1003/RC, withat lasta rational layout of different-sized buttons. This is fully equipped to handle other Philips video and audio products. It can also "learn" the codes used by your other remotes, rendering it the only one you'll need to use.
Externally, the LHH1000 came as a bit of a surprise to these jaded eyes, over-familiar with plain black or brushed-aluminum boxes. Each enclosure is finished in an almost white, anodized finish, with greenish-gray endcaps (made from zinc alloy, I believe) painted with a nubbly, crackle finishan attractively utilitarian styling with shades of military-surplus radio equipment, nicely set off by subdued blue fluorescent readouts. Internally, the units are constructed to audiophile standards. The transport uses Philips's top CDM-1 mechanism, which is fabricated from diecast aluminum, compared with the plastic CDM-4 mechanism which appears in less expensive and less well-specified players. The loading tray, too, which is made from metal, has a reassuringly solid feel to it.
The only obvious front-panel controls are Play, Stop, and Track Select (forward and back). A swing-down front-panel carries all the programming controlsincluding Philips's Favorite Track Selectionand less-often-used playback controls (although I do feel that Pause should be on the main panel). However, as with most CD players, all commands will be most often used from the remote control. The player is fitted with one optical and two coaxial outputs, each carrying the standard, multiplexed-stereo, serial data stream. An adaptor is provided to enable the LHH1001 to play 3" CD singles.
The LHH1002 D/A unit visually matches the transport, with an identical swing-down panel concealing the headphone socket and volume control and the source selection and digital-tape source/monitor switches. Four serial data inputs are provided, two optical, two coaxial, while there are two digital tape loops, again one optical and one coaxial. Inside, the entire left-hand side of the unit is devoted to power supplies, with three potted toroidal transformers feeding a number of voltage regulators and ELNA Cerafine audiophile-grade electrolytic smoothing capacitors. The digital and audio circuits are individually shielded with copper-plated Faraday cages; the castings that comprise the chassis are also copper-plated, and all bolts used to fix power transistors, etc., are copper.
D/A Conversion
As might be expected, the LHH1002 features Philips's 16-bit, 4x-oversampling D/A chip set, but with the latest version of the digital filter chip, the SAA7220/B (which, as explained by Peter van Willenswaard in last month's "Industry Update," has a revised offset of less than 1%, footnote 2), and the top-grade dual-DAC chip, the "Golden Crown" TDA1541A S1.
A note on this Philips chip: the bottom 10 bits control transistor switches on the silicon die, each bit switching twice as many transistors as the one below it. Thus the 16th Least Significant Bit switches one transistor, the 15th LSB two transistors, all the way up to the 10th LSB which switches 512 transistors. Provided all the transistors carry the same current when turned on, this arrangement will accurately produce a current output from the DAC proportional to the values of the 10 LSBs in the input word. Matching between the on-chip transistors cannot be maintained to an accuracy better than this, however, so the six Most Significant Bits are handled in a different manner. Again, they switch transistors controlling currents, but now the sizes of currents are controlled by resistors. Matching is arranged by switching the current-controlling resistors between each transistor switch at a very high frequency. Any errors in the individual currents controlled by each transistor will therefore be averaged out between all the switches by this "Dynamic Element Matching."
There will still be intrinsic errors in DAC linearity due to the tolerance in the alignments of the various masks during the IC production process. As further fine-tuning of the DACs is not possible, Philips has adopted a grading process to pick out those which offer the best performance. When the finished doped and etched silicon wafer emerges from the semiconductor plant, it carries many dozens of individual DACs. A computer-controlled tester, consisting of 28 needle probes, then connects to the appropriate pads on each raw DAC die, providing power and supplying serial data from a CD player. From what I saw, this appears to be a simple go/no-go test. If a DAC fails to work, the result being no analog music output, it is marked with a paint spot. Automatic machinery then slices the wafer into the individual dies and mounts those that passed the initial test in the familiar 28-pin DIL plastic package. At this stage, the finished TDA1541 ICs are graded by a computer-controlled test station into three classes: R1 (R for "Relaxed") is guaranteed only to have a differential linearity error (DLE) of less than 2 LSBs from bit 1 to bit 16. This grade will be used in inexpensive players and supplied to some third-party manufacturers. The standard grade is guaranteed to have a DLE of within 1 LSB from bit 1 to 16; this is used in Philips's own reasonably priced players. A small proportion of DACs meet a more stringent performance standard, having a DLE of less than 0.5 LSB for bits 17, less than 1 LSB for bits 815, and less than 0.75 LSB for bit 16; these are termed the "S" grade and are stamped with a small crown.
Footnote 1: With the exception of the US, where the Marantz company is owned by the Dynascan Corporation, Marantz in the rest of the world is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Philips. To make things more confusing, the American Marantz company used to buy its products exclusively from the Philips-owned Marantz company. With the exception of the expensive Philips-brand CD players and amplifiers, and their Marantz equivalents, which are made by Philips-owned Marantz in Japan, nearly all other CD players sold under the Marantz, Philips, and Magnavox brands are made by Philips in Hasselt, Belgium or in Juarez, Mexico. Confused? I was.
Footnote 2: The original filter had a deliberate offset built in to move the zero-crossing point of the signal away from the point where all the bits change value at the same time (see Stereophile passim). Unfortunately, this offset was in the same direction as an intrinsic low-level error in the DAC chip, which lead to the 6dB level error at 90dB ubiquitous in the first generations of this chip set.
The Philips LHH1000 DAC, did not come with a TDA1541A S1 single crown chip. Philips units had the TDA1541A chip.
Yes, for some unknown reason, under the filp down cover, it said TDA 1541A ,but in fact the chips used in the lhh1000 dac IS the S1 version. I recently opened the cover and checked.
And despite its age, it's still quite capable, and it is now the oldest digital product in my home and it's still working flawlessly...
I have a Extemely Rare DAC/Transport Combo from Cambridge Audio. The DAC 3D/A Converter ( It´s NOT the normaly DAC 3 from Cambridge audio!) and the CD3M Transport The DAC uses 4 TDA1541A S1 Chips in paralell Syncron Mode.
it is THE BEST sounding Cmbo I have heard to date. And by a wide margin.
I'm very curious which system sounds better. Has anyone experiences with it?


text:
Mustard Tulip Bucket
sold out
Mustard Tulip Bucket
These large buckets are great for storage around the house or to pack up for a day at the beach. They are constructed with a sturdy cotton canvas interior and hold their shape well whether adding some pattern to a storage area or collecting goods from the farmer's market. They make a great nesting pair with the smaller buckets and are coveted as gifts.
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text: Woven Storage Basket Berber Product info All of our authentic woven storage basket are handpicked at one of our trips to Morocco. Traditionally used as bread storage baskets but you can use this eyecatcher to store small items or use it as a vibrant pot for a plant. These baskets look great in a group so pick some bold colors and make a statement with these fashionable decorative accessories. Each one is completely unique, and varies in size. Materials Ethically Handmade in Morocco Size/H20 X W15 cm Made from coiled reed wrapped in colorful wools €29.95 Color Black Availability: In stock x x SKU: WSBB_46 Qty: Add to Cart


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Before there were presentations, there were conversations, which were a little like presentations but used fewer bullet points, and no one had to dim the lights. A woman we can call Sarah Wyndham, a defense-industry consultant living in Alexandria, Virginia, recently began to feel that her two daughters weren't listening when she asked them to clean their bedrooms and do their chores. So, one morning, she sat down at her computer, opened Microsoft's PowerPoint program, and typed:
**{: .break one} ** FAMILY MATTERS An approach for positive change to the Wyndham family team **
On a new page, she wrote:
***{: .break one} ** **·**Lack of organization leads to confusion and frustration among all family members. **·**Disorganization is detrimental to grades and to your social life. **·*Disorganization leads to inefficiencies that impact the entire family. **
Instead of pleading for domestic harmony, Sarah Wyndham was pitching for it. Soon she had eighteen pages of large type, supplemented by a color photograph of a generic happy family riding bicycles, and, on the final page, a drawing of a key—the key to success. The briefing was given only once, last fall. The experience was so upsetting to her children that the threat of a second showing was enough to make one of the Wyndham girls burst into tears.
PowerPoint, which can be found on two hundred and fifty million computers around the world, is software you impose on other people. It allows you to arrange text and graphics in a series of pages, which you can project, slide by slide, from a laptop computer onto a screen, or print as a booklet (as Sarah Wyndham did). The usual metaphor for everyday software is the tool, but that doesn't seem to be right here. PowerPoint is more like a suit of clothes, or a car, or plastic surgery. You take it out with you. You are judged by it—you insist on being judged by it. It is by definition a social instrument, turning middle managers into bullet-point dandies.
But PowerPoint also has a private, interior influence. It edits ideas. It is, almost surreptitiously, a business manual as well as a business suit, with an opinion—an oddly pedantic, prescriptive opinion—about the way we should think. It helps you make a case, but it also makes its own case: about how to organize information, how much information to organize, how to look at the world. One feature of this is the AutoContent Wizard, which supplies templates—"Managing Organizational Change" or "Communicating Bad News," say—that are so close to finished presentations you barely need to do more than add your company logo. The "Motivating a Team" template, for example, includes a slide headed "Conduct a Creative Thinking Session":
***{: .break one} ** **·*Ask: In what ways can we. . . ? —Assess the situation. Get the facts. —Generate possible solutions with green light, nonjudgmental thinking. —Select the best solution. **
The final injunction is "Have an inspirational close."
It's easy to avoid these extreme templates—many people do—as well as embellishments like clip art, animations, and sound effects. But it's hard to shake off AutoContent's spirit: even the most easygoing PowerPoint template insists on a heading followed by bullet points, so that the user is shepherded toward a staccato, summarizing frame of mind, of the kind parodied, for example, in a PowerPoint Gettysburg Address posted on the Internet: "Dedicate portion of field—fitting!"
Because PowerPoint can be an impressive antidote to fear—converting public-speaking dread into moviemaking pleasure—there seems to be no great impulse to fight this influence, as you might fight the unrelenting animated paperclip in Microsoft Word. Rather, PowerPoint's restraints seem to be soothing—so much so that where Microsoft has not written rules, businesses write them for themselves. A leading U.S. computer manufacturer has distributed guidelines to its employees about PowerPoint presentations, insisting on something it calls the "Rule of Seven": "Seven (7) bullets or lines per page, seven (7) words per line."
Today, after Microsoft's decade of dizzying growth, there are great tracts of corporate America where to appear at a meeting without PowerPoint would be unwelcome and vaguely pretentious, like wearing no shoes. In darkened rooms at industrial plants and ad agencies, at sales pitches and conferences, this is how people are communicating: no paragraphs, no pronouns—the world condensed into a few upbeat slides, with seven or so words on a line, seven or so lines on a slide. And now it's happening during sermons and university lectures and family arguments, too. A New Jersey PowerPoint user recently wrote in an online discussion, "Last week I caught myself planning out (in my head) the slides I would need to explain to my wife why we couldn't afford a vacation this year." Somehow, a piece of software designed, fifteen years ago, to meet a simple business need has become a way of organizing thought at kindergarten show-and-tells. "Oh, Lord," one of the early developers said to me. "What have we done?"
Forty years ago, a workplace meeting was a discussion with your immediate colleagues. Engineers would meet with other engineers and talk in the language of engineering. A manager might make an appearance—acting as an interpreter, a bridge to the rest of the company—but no one from the marketing or production or sales department would be there. Somebody might have gone to the trouble of cranking out mimeographs—that would be the person with purple fingers.
But the structure of American industry changed in the nineteen-sixties and seventies. Clifford Nass, who teaches in the Department of Communication at Stanford, says, "Companies weren't discovering things in the laboratory and then trying to convince consumers to buy them. They were discovering—or creating—consumer demand, figuring out what they can convince consumers they need, then going to the laboratory and saying, 'Build this!' People were saying, 'We can create demand. Even if demand doesn't exist, we know how to market this.' SpaghettiOs is the great example. The guy came up with the jingle first: 'The neat round spaghetti you can eat with a spoon.' And he said, 'Hey! Make spaghetti in the shape of small circles!' "
As Jerry Porras, a professor of organizational behavior and change at Stanford Graduate School of Business, says, "When technologists no longer just drove the product out but the customer sucked it out, then you had to know what the customer wanted, and that meant a lot more interaction inside the company." There are new conversations: Can we make this? How do we sell this if we make it? Can we do it in blue?
America began to go to more meetings. By the early nineteen-eighties, when the story of PowerPoint starts, employees had to find ways to talk to colleagues from other departments, colleagues who spoke a different language, brought together by SpaghettiOs and by the simple fact that technology was generating more information. There was more to know and, as the notion of a job for life eroded, more reason to know it.
In this environment, visual aids were bound to thrive. In 1975, fifty thousand overhead projectors were sold in America. By 1985, that figure had increased to more than a hundred and twenty thousand. Overheads, which were developed in the mid-forties for use by the police, and were then widely used in bowling alleys and schools, did not fully enter business life until the mid-seventies, when a transparency film that could survive the heat of a photocopier became available. Now anything on a sheet of paper could be transferred to an overhead slide. Overheads were cheaper than the popular alternative, the 35-mm. slide (which needed graphics professionals), and they were easier to use. But they restricted you to your typewriter's font—rather, your secretary's typewriter's font—or your skill with Letraset and a felt-tipped pen. A businessman couldn't generate a handsome, professional-looking font in his own office.
In 1980, though, it was clear that a future of widespread personal computers—and laser printers and screens that showed the very thing you were about to print—was tantalizingly close. In the Mountain View, California, laboratory of Bell-Northern Research, computer-research scientists had set up a great mainframe computer, a graphics workstation, a phototypesetter, and the earliest Canon laser printer, which was the size of a bathtub and took six men to carry into the building—together, a cumbersome approximation of what would later fit on a coffee table and cost a thousand dollars. With much trial and error, and jogging from one room to another, you could use this collection of machines as a kind of word processor.
Whitfield Diffie had access to this equipment. A mathematician, a former peacenik, and an enemy of exclusive government control of encryption systems, Diffie had secured a place for himself in computing legend in 1976, when he and a colleague, Martin Hellman, announced the discovery of a new method of protecting secrets electronically—public-key cryptography. At Bell-Northern, Diffie was researching the security of telephone systems. In 1981, preparing to give a presentation with 35-mm. slides, he wrote a little program, tinkering with some graphics software designed by a B.N.R. colleague, that allowed you to draw a black frame on a piece of paper. Diffie expanded it so that the page could show a number of frames, and text inside each frame, with space for commentary around them. In other words, he produced a storyboard—a slide show on paper—that could be sent to the designers who made up the slides, and that would also serve as a script for his lecture. (At this stage, he wasn't photocopying what he had produced to make overhead transparencies, although scientists in other facilities were doing that.) With a few days' effort, Diffie had pointed the way to PowerPoint.
Diffie has long gray hair and likes to wear fine English suits. Today, he works for Sun Microsystems, as an internal consultant on encryption matters. I recently had lunch with him in Palo Alto, and for the first time he publicly acknowledged his presence at the birth of PowerPoint. It was an odd piece of news: as if Lenin had invented the stapler. Yes, he said, PowerPoint was "based on" his work at B.N.R. This is not of great consequence to Diffie, whose reputation in his own field is so high that he is one of the few computer scientists to receive erotically charged fan mail. He said he was "mildly miffed" to have made no money from the PowerPoint connection, but he has no interest in beginning a feud with an old friend. "Bob was the one who had the vision to understand how important it was to the world," he said. "And I didn't."
Bob is Bob Gaskins, the man who has to take final responsibility for the drawn blinds of high-rise offices around the world and the bullet points dashing across computer screens inside. His account of PowerPoint's parentage does not exactly match Diffie's, but he readily accepts his former colleague as "my inspiration." In the late nineteen-seventies and early eighties, Gaskins was B.N.R.'s head of computer-science research. A former Berkeley Ph.D. student, he had a family background in industrial photographic supplies and grew up around overhead projectors and inks and gels. In 1982, he returned from a six-month overseas business trip and, with a vivid sense of the future impact of the Apple Macintosh and of Microsoft's Windows (both of which were in development), he wrote a list of fifty commercial possibilities—Arabic typesetting, menus, signs. And then he looked around his own laboratory and realized what had happened while he was away: following Diffie's lead, his colleagues were trying to make overheads to pitch their projects for funding, despite the difficulties of using the equipment. (What you saw was not at all what you got.) "Our mainframe was buckling under the load," Gaskins says.
He now had his idea: a graphics program that would work with Windows and the Macintosh, and that would put together, and edit, a string of single pages, or "slides." In 1984, he left B.N.R., joined an ailing Silicon Valley software firm, Forethought, in exchange for a sizable share of the company, and hired a software developer, Dennis Austin. They began work on a program called Presenter. After a trademark problem, and an epiphany Gaskins had in the shower, Presenter became PowerPoint.
Gaskins is a precise, bookish man who lives with his wife in a meticulously restored and furnished nineteenth-century house in the Fillmore district of San Francisco. He has recently discovered an interest in antique concertinas. When I visited him, he was persuaded to play a tune, and he gave me a copy of a forthcoming paper he had co-written: "A Wheatstone Twelve-Sided 'Edeophone' Concertina with Pre-MacCann Chromatic Duet Fingering." Gaskins is skeptical about the product that PowerPoint has become—AutoContent and animated fades between slides—but he is devoted to the simpler thing that it was, and he led me through a well-preserved archive of PowerPoint memorabilia, including the souvenir program for the PowerPoint reunion party, in 1997, which had a quiz filled with in-jokes about font size and programming languages. He also found an old business plan from 1984. One phrase—the only one in italics—read, "Allows the content-originator to control the presentation." For Gaskins, that had always been the point: to get rid of the intermediaries—graphic designers—and never mind the consequences. Whenever colleagues sought to restrict the design possibilities of the program (to make a design disaster less likely), Gaskins would overrule them, quoting Thoreau: "I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad."
PowerPoint 1.0 went on sale in April, 1987—available only for the Macintosh, and only in black-and-white. It generated text-and-graphics pages that a photocopier could turn into overhead transparencies. (This was before laptop computers and portable projectors made PowerPoint a tool for live electronic presentations. Gaskins thinks he may have been the first person to use the program in the modern way, in a Paris hotel in 1992—which is like being the first person ever to tap a microphone and say, "Can you hear me at the back?") The Macintosh market was small and specialized, but within this market PowerPoint—the first product of its kind—was a hit. "I can't describe how wonderful it was," Gaskins says. "When we demonstrated at trade shows, we were mobbed." Shortly after the launch, Forethought accepted an acquisition offer of fourteen million dollars from Microsoft. Microsoft paid cash and allowed Bob Gaskins and his colleagues to remain partly self-governing in Silicon Valley, far from the Microsoft campus, in Redmond, Washington. Microsoft soon regretted the terms of the deal; PowerPoint workers became known for a troublesome independence of spirit (and for rewarding themselves, now and then, with beautifully staged parties—caviar, string quartets, Renaissance-period fancy dress).
PowerPoint had been created, in part, as a response to the new corporate world of interdepartmental communication. Those involved with the program now experienced the phenomenon at first hand. In 1990, the first PowerPoint for Windows was launched, alongside Windows 3.0. And PowerPoint quickly became what Gaskins calls "a cog in the great machine." The PowerPoint programmers were forced to make unwelcome changes, partly because in 1990 Word, Excel, and PowerPoint began to be integrated into Microsoft Office—a strategy that would eventually make PowerPoint invincible—and partly in response to market research. AutoContent was added in the mid-nineties, when Microsoft learned that some would-be presenters were uncomfortable with a blank PowerPoint page—it was hard to get started. "We said, 'What we need is some automatic content!' " a former Microsoft developer recalls, laughing. " 'Punch the button and you'll have a presentation.' " The idea, he thought, was "crazy." And the name was meant as a joke. But Microsoft took the idea and kept the name—a rare example of a product named in outright mockery of its target customers.
Gaskins left PowerPoint in 1992, and many of his colleages followed soon after. Now rich from Microsoft stock, and beginning the concertina-collecting phase of their careers, they watched as their old product made its way into the heart of American business culture. By 1993, PowerPoint had a majority share of the presentation market. In 1995, the average user created four and a half presentations a month. Three years later, the monthly average was nine. PowerPoint began to appear in cartoon strips and everyday conversation. A few years ago, Bob Gaskins was at a presentations-heavy conference in Britain. The organizer brought the proceedings to a sudden stop, saying, "I've just been told that the inventor of PowerPoint is in the audience—will he please identify himself so we can recognize his contribution to the advancement of science?" Gaskins stood up. The audience laughed and applauded.
Cathleen Belleville, a former graphic designer who worked at PowerPoint as a product planner from 1989 to 1995, was amazed to see a clip-art series she had created become modern business icons. The images were androgynous silhouette stick figures (she called them Screen Beans), modelled on a former college roommate: a little figure clicking its heels; another with an inspirational light bulb above its head. One Screen Bean, the patron saint of PowerPoint—a figure that stands beneath a question mark, scratching its head in puzzlement—is so popular that a lawyer at a New York firm who has seen many PowerPoint presentations claims never to have seen one without the head-scratcher. Belleville herself has seen her Beans all over the world, reprinted on baseball caps, blown up fifteen feet high in a Hamburg bank. "I told my mom, 'You know, my artwork is in danger of being more famous than the "Mona Lisa." ' " Above the counter in a laundromat on Third Avenue in New York, a sign explains that no responsibility can be taken for deliveries to doorman buildings. And there, next to the words, is the famous puzzled figure. It is hard to understand the puzzlement. Doorman? Delivery? But perhaps this is simply how a modern poster clears its throat: Belleville has created the international sign for "sign."
According to Microsoft estimates, at least thirty million PowerPoint presentations are made every day. The program has about ninety-five per cent of the presentations-software market. And so perhaps it was inevitable that it would migrate out of business and into other areas of our lives. I recently spoke to Sew Meng Chung, a Malaysian research engineer living in Singapore who got married in 1999. He told me that, as his guests took their seats for a wedding party in the Goodwood Park Hotel, they were treated to a PowerPoint presentation: a hundred and thirty photographs—one fading into the next every four or five seconds, to musical accompaniment. "They were baby photos, and courtship photos, and photos taken with our friends and family," he told me.
I also spoke to Terry Taylor, who runs a Web site called eBibleTeacher.com, which supplies materials for churches that use electronic visual aids. "Jesus was a storyteller, and he gave graphic images," Taylor said. "He would say, 'Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow,' and all indications are that there were lilies in the field when he was talking, you know. He used illustrations." Taylor estimates that fifteen per cent of American churches now have video projectors, and many use PowerPoint regularly for announcements, for song lyrics, and to accompany preaching. (Taylor has seen more than one sermon featuring the head-scratching figure.) Visitors to Taylor's site can download photographs of locations in the Holy Land, as well as complete PowerPoint sermons—for example, "Making Your Marriage Great":
***{: .break one} ** **·**Find out what you are doing to harm your marriage and heal it. **·**Financial irresponsibility **·**Temper **·**Pornography **·**Substance abuse **·*You name it! **
When PowerPoint is used to flash hymn lyrics, or make a quick pitch to a new client, or produce an eye-catching laundromat poster, it's easy to understand the enthusiasm of, say, Tony Kurz, the vice-president for sales and marketing of a New York-based Internet company, who told me, "I love PowerPoint. It's a brilliant application. I can take you through at exactly the pace I want to take you." There are probably worse ways to transmit fifty or a hundred words of text, or information that is mainly visual—ways that involve more droning, more drifting. And PowerPoint demands at least some rudimentary preparation: a PowerPoint presenter is, by definition, not thinking about his or her material for the very first time. Steven Pinker, the author of "The Language Instinct" and a psychology professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says that PowerPoint can give visual shape to an argument. "Language is a linear medium: one damn word after another," he says. "But ideas are multidimensional. . . . When properly employed, PowerPoint makes the logical structure of an argument more transparent. Two channels sending the same information are better than one."
Still, it's hard to be perfectly comfortable with a product whose developers occasionally find themselves trying to suppress its use. Jolene Rocchio, who is a product planner for Microsoft Office (and is upbeat about PowerPoint in general), told me that, at a recent meeting of a nonprofit organization in San Francisco, she argued against a speaker's using PowerPoint at a future conference. "I said, 'I think we just need her to get up and speak.' " On an earlier occasion, Rocchio said, the same speaker had tried to use PowerPoint and the projector didn't work, "and everybody was, like, cheering. They just wanted to hear this woman speak, and they wanted it to be from her heart. And the PowerPoint almost alienated her audience."
This is the most common complaint about PowerPoint. Instead of human contact, we are given human display. "I think that we as a people have become unaccustomed to having real conversations with each other, where we actually give and take to arrive at a new answer. We present to each other, instead of discussing," Cathy Belleville says. Tad Simons, the editor of the magazine Presentations (whose second-grade son used PowerPoint for show-and-tell), is familiar with the sin of triple delivery, where precisely the same text is seen on the screen, spoken aloud, and printed on the handout in front of you (the "leave-behind," as it is known in some circles). "The thing that makes my heart sing is when somebody presses the 'B' button and the screen goes black and you can actually talk to the person," Simons told me.
In 1997, Sun Microsystems' chairman and C.E.O., Scott McNealy, "banned" PowerPoint (a ban widely disregarded by his staff). The move might have been driven, in part, by Sun's public-relations needs as a Microsoft rival, but, according to McNealy, there were genuine productivity issues. "Why did we ban it? Let me put it this way: If I want to tell my forty thousand employees to attack, the word 'attack' in ASCII is forty-eight bits. As a Microsoft Word document, it's 90,112 bits. Put that same word in a PowerPoint slide and it becomes 458,048 bits. That's a pig through the python when you try to send it over the Net." McNealy's concern is shared by the American military. Enormously elaborate PowerPoint files (generated by presentation-obsessives—so-called PowerPoint Rangers) were said to be clogging up the military's bandwidth. Last year, to the delight of many under his command, General Henry H. Shelton, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued an order to U.S. bases around the world insisting on simpler presentations.
PowerPoint was developed to give public speakers control over design decisions. But it's possible that those speakers should be making other, more important decisions. "In the past, I think we had an inefficient system, where executives passed all of their work to secretaries," Cathy Belleville says. "But now we've got highly paid people sitting there formatting slides—spending hours formatting slides—because it's more fun to do that than concentrate on what you're going to say. It would be much more efficient to offload that work onto someone who could do it in a tenth of the time, and be paid less. Millions of executives around the world are sitting there going, 'Arial? Times Roman? Twenty-four point? Eighteen point?' "
In the glow of a PowerPoint show, the world is condensed, simplified, and smoothed over—yet bright and hyperreal—like the cityscape background in a PlayStation motor race. PowerPoint is strangely adept at disguising the fragile foundations of a proposal, the emptiness of a business plan; usually, the audience is respectfully still (only venture capitalists dare to dictate the pace of someone else's slide show), and, with the visual distraction of a dancing pie chart, a speaker can quickly move past the laughable flaw in his argument. If anyone notices, it's too late—the narrative presses on.
Last year, three researchers at Arizona State University, including Robert Cialdini, a professor of psychology and the author of "Influence: Science and Practice," conducted an experiment in which they presented three groups of volunteers with information about Andrew, a fictional high-school student under consideration for a university football scholarship. One group was given Andrew's football statistics typed on a piece of paper. The second group was shown bar graphs. Those in the third group were given a PowerPoint presentation, in which animated bar graphs grew before their eyes.
Given Andrew's record, what kind of prospect was he? According to Cialdini, when Andrew was PowerPointed, viewers saw him as a greater potential asset to the football team. The first group rated Andrew four and a half on a scale of one to seven; the second rated him five; and the PowerPoint group rated him six. PowerPoint gave him power. The experiment was repeated, with three groups of sports fans that were accustomed to digesting sports statistics; this time, the first two groups gave Andrew the same rating. But the group that saw the PowerPoint presentation still couldn't resist it. Again, Andrew got a six. PowerPoint seems to be a way for organizations to turn expensive, expert decision-makers into novice decision-makers. "It's frightening," Cialdini says. He always preferred to use slides when he spoke to business groups, but one high-tech company recently hinted that his authority suffered as a result. "They said, 'You know what, Bob? You've got to get into PowerPoint, otherwise people aren't going to respond.' So I made the transfer."
Clifford Nass has an office overlooking the Oval lawn at Stanford, a university where the use of PowerPoint is so widespread that to refrain from using it is sometimes seen as a mark of seniority and privilege, like egg on one's tie. Nass once worked for Intel, and then got a Ph.D. in sociology, and now he writes about and lectures on the ways people think about computers. But, before embarking on any of that, Professor Nass was a professional magician—Cliff Conjure—so he has some confidence in his abilities as a public performer.
According to Nass, who now gives PowerPoint lectures because his students asked him to, PowerPoint "lifts the floor" of public speaking: a lecture is less likely to be poor if the speaker is using the program. "What PowerPoint does is very efficiently deliver content," Nass told me. "What students gain is a lot more information—not just facts but rules, ways of thinking, examples."
At the same time, PowerPoint "lowers the ceiling," Nass says. "What you miss is the process. The classes I remember most, the professors I remember most, were the ones where you could watch how they thought. You don't remember what they said, the details. It was 'What an elegant way to wrap around a problem!' PowerPoint takes that away. PowerPoint gives you the outcome, but it removes the process."
"What I miss is, when I used to lecture without PowerPoint, every now and then I'd get a cool idea," he went on. "I remember once it just hit me. I'm lecturing, and all of a sudden I go, 'God! "The Wizard of Oz"! The scene at the end of "The Wizard of Oz"!' " Nass, telling this story, was almost shouting. (The lecture, he later explained, was about definitions of "the human" applied to computers.) "I just went for it—twenty-five minutes. And to this day students who were in that class remember it. That couldn't happen now: 'Where the hell is the slide?' "
PowerPoint could lead us to believe that information is all there is. According to Nass, PowerPoint empowers the provider of simple content (and that was the task Bob Gaskins originally set for it), but it risks squeezing out the provider of process—that is to say, the rhetorician, the storyteller, the poet, the person whose thoughts cannot be arranged in the shape of an AutoContent slide. "I hate to admit this," Nass said, "but I actually removed a book from my syllabus last year because I couldn't figure out how to PowerPoint it. It's a lovely book called 'Interface Culture,' by Steven Johnson, but it's very discursive; the charm of it is the throwaways. When I read this book, I thought, My head's filled with ideas, and now I've got to write out exactly what those ideas are, and—they're not neat." He couldn't get the book into bullet points; every time he put something down, he realized that it wasn't quite right. Eventually, he abandoned the attempt, and, instead of a lecture, he gave his students a recommendation. He told them it was a good book, urged them to read it, and moved on to the next bullet point. ♦


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Exchange Add-Ons: Stripe
The Stripe Add-on is a premium payment gateway add-on for Exchange which allows customers (U.S and Canada residents only) to checkout using Stripe. We love Stripe because it is easier to use and setup than Paypal with great documentation and features.
You'll first need to setup an account at Stripe.com.
Once you sign up, you'll receive an email to confirm the email address you used and when the email address is confirmed, you'll be given a chance to activate your account.
To activate your account, you'll need to fill out the Stripe application with your company and banking information. Once you've completed the application, your Stripe account is active.
To start using Stripe with Exchange, you'll first need to install and activate the Stripe add-on in your site's plugins and then enable it in Exchange.
Once the add-on is enabled, you should see a gear symbol next to the Enabled button where you'll need to enter some information about your Stripe account
In your Stripe dashboard, go to Your Account > Account Settings in the top right of the screen.
From there you'll find your API Keys.
You'll take copy those keys and paste them into your Exchange Stripe settings.
Also in your Exchange Stripe settings, you can edit how will your purchase button and enable the Stripe test mode so that you can make test purchases on your site.


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NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks dropped on Friday, pulled lower by a selloff in consumer discretionary stocks as bellwether names Amazon.com and Ford Motor fell in the wake of their quarterly earnings.
Amazon (AMZN.O) was the S&P 500's worst performer, down 9.9 percent to $303.83, and other high-flying sectors dropped along with it. Social media names slid, with Twitter (TWTR.N) losing 7.1 percent to $41.61, and the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index .NBI falling 2.4 percent as investors once again shied away from riskier sectors. The Global X Social Media index ETF (SOCL.O) tumbled 5.3 percent, its second-worst performance since its debut in November 2011.
Still, even with Friday's decline, the S&P 500 finished nearly flat for the week. The benchmark index remained within 2 percent of its all-time intraday high.
Amazon's stock declined a day after the company reported a jump in quarterly revenue, which was offset by sharp increases in spending.
Ford Motor Co (F.N) shares fell 3.3 percent to $15.78 after the No. 2 U.S. automaker reported first-quarter earnings that missed expectations. The company's results were hurt by higher warranty costs in North America.
The two weighed on the S&P index of consumer discretionary stocks .SPLRCD, which dropped 1.7 percent and ranked as the worst-performing sector of the day.
"What that says is people are using any strength at all to raise some cash because they think the market is going to test lower," said Ken Polcari, director of the NYSE floor division at O'Neil Securities in New York.
Investors continued to pay attention to geopolitical strife over Ukraine, creating some nervousness heading into the weekend. U.S. President Barack Obama and four European allies agreed on Friday that Russia failed to live up to terms of the Ukraine peace accord, and would coordinate on a response to "impose costs" on Russia, the White House said.
While the situation has taken a backseat to corporate earnings recently, investors remain on edge over the possible result of escalating tensions. Visa Inc (V.N) said late Thursday that U.S. sanctions on Russia were hurting its card transaction volumes. Visa's stock dropped 5 percent to $198.93 and weighed on the Dow.
On the upside, Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) earnings topped analysts' forecasts, while investors were cheered by the software company's new emphasis on mobile and cloud computing. Microsoft's stock edged up 0.1 percent to close at $39.91.
The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI fell 140.19 points or 0.85 percent, to end at 16,361.46. The S&P 500 .SPX dropped 15.21 points or 0.81 percent, to 1,863.40. The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC tumbled 72.777 points or 1.75 percent, to 4,075.561.
For the week, the Dow fell 0.3 percent, the S&P 500 dipped 0.1 percent and the Nasdaq lost 0.5 percent.
While companies are clearing a lowered bar for earnings, estimates have been improving. Profits are now seen rising 3.3 percent this quarter, down from the 6.5 percent growth rate estimated at the start of the year, but above the low of 0.6 percent seen last week, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Healthcare names were among the biggest gainers after LifePoint Hospitals Inc's LPNT.O results. The stock advanced 6.3 percent to $56.87, while Tenet Healthcare (THC.N) jumped 9.1 percent to $46.11 and Community Health (CYH.N) climbed 6.6 percent to $39.92.
In the latest economic data, U.S. consumer sentiment rose to a nine-month high in April, according to the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan index. But the U.S. services sector expanded at a slower rate.
Volume was modest, with about 6.26 billion shares traded on U.S. exchanges, slightly below the 6.57 billion average so far this month, according to data from BATS Global Markets.
Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the New York Stock Exchange by a ratio of 2 to 1, while on the Nasdaq, five stocks fell for every one that rose.
Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Nick Zieminski and Jan Paschal


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Interswitch is an Africa-focused integrated digital payments and commerce company that facilitates the electronic circulation of money as well as the exchange of value between individuals and organisations on a timely and consistent basis.
The company started operations in 2002 as a transaction switching and electronic payments processing company that builds and manages payment infrastructure as well as deliver innovative payment products and transactional services throughout the African continent.
Interswitch is uniquely qualified to offer training and advisory services in the e-payments and e-business industry. We advice clients on how to get the best return from their investments in electronic payments, and train to bridge identified gaps in knowledge, learning and development.
Our vast knowledge and experience in e-payments consistently sets us apart from other e-payment training providers. No matter how big you are, public or private, and in what industries or sectors you do business, we can help you work smarter and reach your goals. Have a look at the services we offer. And let's talk
Interswitch is an organization with a strong commitment to compliance and ethics. Our written standards and policies cover general guidelines for conducting business consistent with the highest available standards of conduct.
Interswitch is committed to maintaining an environment where open, honest communications are the expectations not the exception. We want you to feel comfortable enough to report any concern as a client/customer or approach your line manager or management staff with questions including instances where you believe violations of standards or policies may have occurred
EthicsPoint will send the information you provide to us in a format that protects your confidentiality. We take all reports about compliance and ethics matters seriously. We will look into each report and follow up appropriately.
Whistleblowing hotline - 0800REPORT21SW (08007376782179).
Interswitch Financial Inclusion Services Limited (IFIS) is the division of the Interswitch group which has the responsibility of making financial services more inclusive especially to the unbanked population of Nigeria.
In response to the concern that the majority of Nigerians are either underbanked or unbanked, the division was set up to drive inclusion through nationwide deployment of agent networks known as Paypoint Agents.
The Paypoint agents carry out financial services in their neighbourhood on behalf of Interswitch. These financial services include Bill payments (PHCN, LAWMA, DSTV), Funds Transfer, Airtime recharge, Cash deposit and withdrawal among others.
The Paypoint locations are built in partnership with existing businesses who have already been recording considerable footfall. The agents are raised through a standard process which involves proper documentation and adequate training -this makes it possible for the agents to be able to serve the customers in neighbourhood adequately.
Latest Update
Date: 3 September 2019
Interswitch Limited: Establishment of a NGN 30 billion Debt Issuance Programme by Interswitch Africa One Plc
Interswitch Limited (the "Sponsor" or "Interswitch"), via the incorporation of a special purpose vehicle, Interswitch Africa One PLC ("Issuer") registered a debt issuance programme (the "Programme") with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Nigeria ("SEC") on 24 June 2019 to explore strategic options for its business, which may include the possibility of issuing debt securities to institutional investors and the general public. - Read More...
Get updated on the recent News and Product releases at Interswitch
Explore the News Hub


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AZ, Braised, Buckwheat, cabbage, Carrot, Casey La Rue, Chestnuts, lemon, Phoenix, pickled, Pork Shoulder, Private Chef, pudding, Salad
December 2012 Exercise – Casey La Rue, Private Chef, Phoenix, AZ
Braised Pork Shoulder & Pickled Chestnuts, Carrot, Buckwheat Salad, Cabbage & Lemon pudding
Do you want to DEEP PLATE? CLICK HERE!
Happy Holidays!


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This Week at Physics
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Event Number 2807
Thursday, November 1st, 2012
- R. G. Herb Condensed Matter Seminar
- Nonlinear and nonreciprocal effects in magnetic garnet films
- Time: 10:00 am
- Place: 5310 Chamberlin
- Speaker: Pradeep Kumar, Michigan Technological University
- Abstract: The talk consists of two parts. In the first part, the lattice-imperfection and compositional origins of the nonlinear optical response in RF sputter deposited magnetic garnet thin films are discussed based on experimental findings. The experimental results establish that lattice mismatch strain drives the second harmonic signal in bismuth-substituted yttrium iron garnet (Bi:YIG) films, in agreement with theoretical predictions. This study also elaborates on the influence of the filmaEuroTMs constitutive elements and finds the nonlinear response to increase with yttrium concentration.
The second part of the talk addresses a novel effect, namely nonreciprocal optical Bloch oscillation, recently proposed and developed by us [1, 2]. Our work has established a comprehensive theoretical basis for the implementation of nonreciprocal and unidirectional optical Bloch oscillations. The model system we developed consists of one-dimensional waveguide arrays in silicon-on-insulator platforms with magnetic garnet cover layers. An optical force is introduced into the array through geometrical design, pushing the beam sideways. Laterally displaced photons are periodically returned to a central guide by photonic-crystal action, producing beam revival in the central guide. The unidirectional Bloch oscillation effect allows the implementation of on-chip optical isolation, a technologically important function in photonic integrated circuits [3].
[1] M. Levy and P. Kumar, Optics Letters Vol. 35, Issue 18, page 3147-3149 (2010)
[2] P. Kumar and M. Levy, Optics Letters Vol. 36, Issue 22, page 4359-4361 (2011)
[3] P. Kumar and M. Levy, Optics Letters Vol. 37, Issue 18, page 3762-3764 (2012)
- Host: McDermott
- Add this event to your calendar
- Nonlinear and nonreciprocal effects in magnetic garnet films


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The functional difference is that the start screen steals the focus of my display, whereas the start menu does not. Some people will find this to be a trivial distinction, and others (like myself) consider it critical. I have a hard enough time staying on task as it is.
The start menu let me find what I want quickly, without obscuring whatever I was working on. It was very good at finding something, then going away. The Start Screen wants you to hang around.


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Advanced cancer
A diagnosis of advanced cancer can be very hard to understand and accept. If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with advanced cancer, you may feel overwhelmed, like you can't take it all in or that it's just a bad dream. You might not be sure that you understand what the doctor meant. Advanced cancer is defined as cancer that is unlikely to be cured. Healthcare professionals may also use the terms secondary, metastatic, terminal or progressive cancer to describe it.
Most people living with advanced cancer experience a wide range of feelings and emotions as they come to accept the diagnosis. These feelings can be overwhelming at first, but most become more manageable as you get used to the diagnosis and start to make plans and decisions.
Shock and disbelief – It's difficult to hear that cancer can't be cured, and you may not want to believe what you've been told. Many people say they feel numb or like they're walking around in a fog.
Anger – It's normal to feel angry and frustrated. Your anger could be directed anywhere. You might feel angry with the person who has told you the treatment hasn't worked. You might also direct your anger at your family and friends. Some people question their faith.
Sadness, loneliness and isolation – Finding out you or someone you love has advanced cancer usually leads to a deep sense of loss. While family and friends may want to be close to you, you may not feel like you want to be around people as you come to terms with the diagnosis. You may feel isolated, as if no one could possibly understand what you're going through.
Guilt – Some people diagnosed with cancer feel guilty for leaving loved ones behind or causing sorrow. Some people worry that they should have gone to the doctor earlier or fought harder against the disease. Loved ones may feel guilty that they haven't done enough.
Fear – It's normal to feel very scared of advanced cancer. People with advanced cancer may fear:
- being in pain and suffering
- being left alone or dying alone
- becoming a burden
- losing control of the body and needing others' help
- losing dignity
- the unknown and the future
- leaving loved ones behind
Moving forward
Accepting the diagnosis and adjusting to life with advanced cancer often takes time. Acceptance doesn't mean giving up. Rather, acceptance allows you to take control of your life and focus on what's most important to you. Many people find that as they become more accepting of the situation, some positive feelings help to balance the difficult emotions.
As you move forward, you may connect more deeply with people in your life, spend more time with them and tell them how important they are to you. Some people go back to visit places that had special meaning in their life or go on a trip they've wanted to take for many years. You may try to talk to or visit old friends that you have lost contact with over the years. You may want to heal a relationship that has been difficult or awkward, clear up past arguments or misunderstandings and talk about hurt feelings to find peace with someone again.
Some people find it helpful to do a life review, which means looking back on your life and perhaps talking about it with another person. This can be an important part of remembering the many ways in which your life has meaning and value. Life reviews can be hard work. They take honest and deep reflection on who you are and how you came to be that person.
For some people, being diagnosed with cancer leads to spiritual discovery. This deeply personal process may continue or change when you have advanced cancer.
There is no way of knowing or predicting how long someone will live with advanced cancer. Some people may live much longer than expected, while others may die sooner than expected. Doctors may be able to guess at a timeline based on what they know about a person and the type of cancer, but it's not an exact science.
How can you stop cancer before it starts?
Discover how 16 factors affect your cancer risk and how you can take action with our interactive tool – It's My Life! Presented in partnership with Desjardins.


text: We had our doubts about the latest in the long chain of hideously obvious Christmas movies (not everything can be Elf). But a new batch of Rise of the Guardians starring Hugh Jackman, Alec Baldwin, and Baby Kirk have turned our head around, for now. Santa is some sort of aggressive old Eastern European, the Easter Bunny is a pissed off, elongated monster and the Tooth Fairy has a bird entourage. Oh, and Yetis! So yeah, we're now officially looking forward to this holiday flick.