text:
Often Fighting Back is Worth the Time and Effort.
By Adele Abrams
These days, it may seem like almost an insurmountable obstacle to get citations vacated by Administrative Law Judges, especially if the mine operator is handling the case itself against a government attorney. However, a recent ruling by Administrative Law Judge Manning shows that there is sometimes light at the end of the tunnel.
In the February 2011 decision in Lehigh Southwest Cement Co., the mine operator's safety manager and safety coordinator challenged 12 citations and orders totaling $43,356 in proposed penalties and was successful in getting 6 of them vacated, some of the remaining citations reduced to non-S&S, and getting an additional Section 104(d)(2) order modified to a Section 104(a) violation. Total penalties imposed by the ALJ dropped to $10,647. It was unknown at press time whether MSHA planned to appeal to the Commission.
The citations/orders at issue were "plain vanilla" for the most part, although two were originally classified as "unwarrantable failure" violations under Section 104(d) of the Mine Act. That is to say, there were no accidents, injuries or near-misses involved and they were issued during a routine inspection. Despite this, several of the original assessments were quite costly – in excess of $2,500 per alleged violation. Because more mine operators are resorting to the contest process because of the large volume of MSHA citations being issued, and their impact on the mine's history of violations if simply paid despite disagreement with the allegations, it is useful to consider what arguments worked in this case, and the basis for the judge's determinations. So, let's focus on the citations/orders that were vacated in this case, and the Section 104(d) modification.
Lighting Up
The first, a Section 104(d)(2) order, alleged a non-S&S violation of 30 CFR §56.17001, because several light bulbs and fixtures in the company "break room" were not working. There had been reports to the operator about this, which MSHA used as the basis for a high negligence allegation. The standard requires that "illumination sufficient to provide safe working conditions shall be provided in and on all surface structures, paths, walkways, stairs, switch panels, loading and dumping sites, and work areas."
MSHA argued that there was insufficient illumination, but did not take any readings of light levels. There were two functioning light fixtures in the room, plus ambient light from the TV, windows and open doors. The room was used for breaks, but miners also changed clothes in the room and – because they put on safety gear there – MSHA claimed that made it a work area.
The company responded that the standard did not apply to the break room because it was not a work area, the lighting was adequate for the room, and that the subjective opinion of an MSHA inspector was not sufficient to establish a violation.
The judge vacated the order. Although he agreed that it was not a work area, he did find it was a "surface structure" falling within the cited standard. However, he said that in determining the sufficiency of light, the court had to consider what was being done in the area, and he credited testimony that miners often unscrewed bulbs to dim lights during breaks, and that the room was not so dark as to present a hazard to miners, considering the purpose of the room.
A highwall drop-off area that was not barricaded against entry was originally cited as an unwarrantable failure order, under "Rules to Live By" barricades and signs standard §56.20011. For this item, Lehigh argued that the hazards were immediately obvious to anyone in the mining industry, and that it had warning signs posted warning generally of hazards at the mine. The ALJ upheld the violation but downgraded it to non-S&S, because testimony indicated that miners did not randomly enter this area, there was no evidence that anyone had driven near the edge, and those who needed to work on the bench were aware of the edge. He noted, however, that the court must consider "erratic and unpredictable" human behavior. He found that while signs were present, they were too general to warrant vacating the citation. He also rejected MSHA's high negligence/unwarrantable failure allegations, holding that even though the mine had previously been cited under this standard, the instant violation had not existed for a long period of time, did not pose a high degree of danger, and was not an obvious violation – nor was there management knowledge.
Elevated Concern
Another vacated citation involved the elevated walkways standard, §56.11002, which MSHA cited as S&S with moderate negligence. The area cited, however, was a flat area by the parking lot and the stairway down the hill did have handrails. There was an area on the edge that had a drop-off that was not protected. The mine operator successfully argued that the cited area was not a "crossover, elevated walkway, elevated ramp, or stairway" within the meaning of the standard. The ALJ agreed that the standard did not apply; noting that there was a protected stairway of substantial construction available, and the area cited was level ground at the top of a hill. The language of the standard applies to structural walkways that are elevated above ground level, not the ground itself.
Lehigh also scored in defeating a guarding citation under §56.14112, involving a guard on a self-cleaning tail pulley on the rock stacker, which had been damaged on its corner, with about a 4-in. x 10-ft., long area exposed. Although there was no dispute about the damage, the mine operator put on testimony that an hourly employee had caused the damage accidentally earlier in the shift with a Bobcat. The judge held that the Secretary did not demonstrate that the guard was not constructed or maintained to withstand vibration, shock, and wear during normal operations. The Bobcat incident was not "normal operations" and, Judge Manning opined, "any guard will become bent if someone hits it with mobile equipment."
Next on the hit list were two citations involving spills of hydraulic fluid, cited under §56.4102, which provides that "flammable or combustible liquid spillage or leakage shall be removed in a timely manner or controlled to prevent a fire hazard." MSHA acknowledged that the oil in the cited areas looked fresh, but claimed that the fluid was highly flammable. In vacating the citations, the judge took note that the inspector could not pinpoint when the spillage had occurred, or that the mine operator was aware of it. He continued that there was no evidence that the fluid had soaked into the floor, and therefore there was no basis for the court to conclude that the operator had failed to remove it "in a timely manner." He relied on the Commission ruling in Lopke Quarries, 23 FMSHRC 705 (FMSHRC 2001), which held that "whether an operator fails to correct a defect in a timely manner depends entirely on when the defect occurred and when the operator knew or should have known of its existence."
Feeding Time
Another citation vacated was issued under Section 104(a) for an alleged violation of §56.11012, stating that a feed chute located on the reclaimer inside the clinker dome was not adequately guarded to prevent persons from falling into the chute. The chute was at ground level and had an opening that was 30-ft. across. There were three chains attached to either side of the opening, but the lower chain was broken. The inspector had classified this as S&S with moderate negligence (and a $5,961 penalty). In his testimony, the inspector said that the chute had been modified to allow for manual feeding and that the ground was unstable so someone could easily slip and fall.
The company representative testified that the only reason any miner would be near the feed chute was to check on the auto-lubers which automatically lubricate the equipment, and they do not need to walk by the opening to perform this task. The company had previously been told by one inspector that no guard was required because it was not a travelway, but another inspector had suggested chains be installed and the company had complied (without being cited). The company also presented evidence that the loader operator who dumps in this area is never close enough to the opening to create a hazard, and no employees hand-shovel material into the opening.
Judge Manning held that this was not a travelway within the meaning of the standard because miners do not regularly walk in the area. He relied on other decisions consistent with this position:
He cautioned, however, that if miners do begin walking in the area in the future, then the requirements of the standard would apply and a railing, barrier or cover would be required.
All in all, this was an excellent outcome for the company, even though six citations were sustained. The lessons to be drawn from this were that even where there is no dispute as to the characterization of cited conditions, MSHA still carries the burden of demonstrating that the precise language of standards was not satisfied and that the standard actually applies to the cited conditions.
Because so many MSHA standards are subjective, it is common these days to find the agency relying simply on the inspector's "belief" that something presents a hazard without going the extra mile to take readings or measurements. The operator also appeared to have brought case law to the judge's attention that supported their defenses – a step that pro se litigants often skip to their detriment. Finally, the operator presented credible testimony that was successful in rebutting some of MSHA's unsubstantiated assumptions about exposures or duration of violative conditions. The ALJ is ultimately vested with the power to weigh the respective credibility of each party's witnesses and – unfortunately – some of the judges with less experience than ALJ Manning may be tempted to automatically defer to the agency's inspectors. However, when you combine a good understanding of what regulations require, where they apply, reference appropriate case law and put on supporting testimony, this decision illustrates that it is still possible to get a good result and makes it worthwhile to go to trial over the most basic citations.


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I think in the English speaking world (and Japan as well in my experienced) there is a notable favouritism for the Theravada Pali canon when discussing Early Buddhism. The idea is that it is most representative of the Buddha's original teachings, life story and the development of the sangha.
However, there is evidence to suggest this might not be the case. The Mahāsāṃghika scriptures and Vinaya might be better representative of said details. Take for example the following point:
(Bart Dessein in "The First Turning of the Wheel of the Doctrine: Sar and Maha Controversy" in Handbook of Oriental Studies The Spread of Buddhism, edited by Ann Heirman and Stephan Peter Bumbacher (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 15.)"The Mahāsāṃghikas were involved in the first division of the Buddhist community in the second century after the demise of the Buddha, that is, the schism between the Mahāsāṃghikas and the Sthaviravādins. This schism was most likely invoked by the expansion of the root Vinaya text by the future Sthaviravādins, an expansion that was not accepted by the later Mahāsāṃghikas."
This isn't specifically suggesting the Sthaviravādins simply made up material and wanted to add it (though to some extent that might have been a possibility, which the early Mahāsāṃghikas were concerned about). There is also the account of Devadatta, which in the Mahāsāṃghika school differed considerably. He is simply seen as a virtuous monk. The Japanese scholar Dr. Nakamura Hajime was of the opinion, supported by numerous others incidentally, that the villainous stories about Devadatta were simply later fabrications.
This begs the question of what else on the Sthaviravāda side of the early canon was later fabrications. For example, did the Buddha really say that the Dhamma's longevity in the world would fall into demise five hundred years earlier for having admitted nuns? This is something Dr. Jan Nattier in her work Once Upon a Future Time Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline discusses. Essentially, this teaching is found in the canons of the Sarvāstivādin, Mahīśāsaka, Dharmaguptaka, Theravādin and Haimavātas schools, all of which belong to the Sthaviravāda branch of early Buddhism, though it is not found in the known canon of any school belonging to the Mahāsāṃghika branch. This quite possibly demonstrates a later fabrication, which raises some concern about using the Sthaviravāda canon as a gauge for authenticity concerning early Buddhism.
Consequently, if it could be demonstrated that the Mahāsāṃghika canon, largely preserved only in Chinese nowadays admittedly, is better representative of early Buddhist history, would this not render some contemporary Theravada claims on best representing early Buddhism as somewhat baseless?
Moreover, could this possibly have an influence on contemporary Śrāvakayāna Buddhology in the sense that Mahāsāṃghika conception of the Buddha, i.e., transcendental and supramundane, could be better appreciated and even adopted? Their conception of the Buddha was the precursor for the later Mahāyāna vision of the Buddha, but nevertheless it was based on pre-Mahāyāna literature just as legitimate, if not more than, the Sthaviravāda Nikāyas. It just used a clearly different interpretative approach.
Venerable Guang Xing in his work The Concept of the Buddha explains,
So, really what I am suggesting is that in a Śrāvakayāna context the Mahāsāṃghika scriptures and even ideas might be adopted in light of the fact they perhaps better represent early Buddhism. Some of material in the Pali canon which can safely be regarded as later additions (such as the purported account of the Buddha saying the Dhamma would demise five-hundred years earlier for having admitted nuns) might also be set aside as illegitimate. On a perhaps more volatile note, some of Theravada could possibly enjoy a more transcendental vision of the Buddha, as the Mahāsāṃghikas clearly did, without detaching from its Nikāya roots.The Mahāsāṃghikas' religious philosophy was based more on faith than on reason, and accepted whatever was said by the Buddha or, more precisely, whatever was taught in the Nikāyas and the Āgamas. As a result, they developed the concept of a transcendental (lokottara) Buddha based on the superhuman qualities of the Buddha, as discussed in Chapter 1 above. Two aspects of the Mahāsāṃghikas' concept of the Buddha can be identified: the true Buddha who is omniscient and omnipotent, and the manifested forms through which he liberates sentient beings with skilful means. Shakyamuni was considered but one of these forms. The true Buddha supports the manifested forms that can appear in the worlds of the ten directions. In Mahayana Buddhism, the former aspect – the true Buddha – was developed and divided into the concept of the dharmakāya and the concept of the sambhogakāya; the latter aspect – the manifested forms – was developed into the concept of nirmaṇakāya. Thus, the Mahāsāṃghikas are the originators of the idea of the nirmaṇakāya, and the manifested forms can have many embodiments. Furthermore, they also introduced the theory of numerous Buddhas existing in other worlds.

subset: commoncrawl


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Recent blasts of arctic air into the deep South caused some problems for travelers throughout the region, but hopefully provided some much needed breathing room for soybean growers in the Carolinas and Virginia.
As late as the first week in February, rust was still being reported on kudzu in south Georgia. In Cairo, Ga., located approximately 30 miles north of the Florida line, temperatures as low as 28 degrees F did not kill kudzu, which is a primary host for Asian Soybean Rust.
Though the jury is still out, it is hoped the recent waves of arctic air will push the freeze line for kudzu and other rust hosts further down into central Florida.
Rust didn't cause any significant problems in soybeans in North Carolina or South Carolina in 2005, though it was found in 23 counties in South Carolina and 18 in North Carolina — the northern-most counties were within 50 miles of the Virginia border.
"The worst thing soybean growers can do is take a cavalier attitude toward rust," says John Mueller, Clemson University soybean researcher. "We know soybean rust can cause significant economic losses to soybeans in our environment, and if conditions in 2006 are different than 2005, the disease could be a problem for us," Mueller adds.
Speaking at a recent South Carolina soybean production meeting, Mueller pointed out that rust was not found in the state until August in 2005, and not widespread until September. By September, much of the Carolinas plunged into an extended drought period, which further stopped the spread of rust.
Mueller points out two critical factors that made rust only a minor problem in 2005, may not occur in 2006. First, he says, there was no evidence of kudzu and other host plants providing a source of inoculum until March in the southern border states of Georgia, Florida and Alabama. That may not be the case in 2006, he warns.
Plus, given the option of managing drought or managing rust, a cheaper alternative may be to manage the disease. At any rate, Mueller stresses that growers in the upper Southeast can't count on a drought to provide a natural barrier to the spread of soybean rust.
In 2005 there were no dramatic movements of rust from Georgia and up into the Carolinas. In Brazil, dramatic movements of 200-300 miles per week have been recorded. "This is not Brazil," Mueller stresses. "We have about 100,000 acres of soybeans in the Florida Panhandle and 240,000 in Georgia, which provides for lots of gaps between production from south to north — that's not the case in Brazil. Plus, we don't have inoculum in the field year-round like they do there," Mueller explains.
Monitoring stations, which are scattered every 50 miles or so throughout South Carolina's 450,000 acres of soybeans, will be the early warning system for South Carolina growers.
"If rust will behave like it did last year — slow and erratic movements from field to field, our growers should have about a week's warning," the South Carolina specialist says.
"Rust was not detected in any soybean-producing state until after flowering and it was always detected first in earlier maturing cultivars. So, when soybeans begin to flower, we will step up our monitoring program, which will be a key to managing soybean rust in 2006, Mueller says.
The South Carolina scientist also urges growers to avoid basing management decisions on rumors.
Mueller puts out an electronic newsletter that provides the latest information on rust movement — accurate information he stresses. Growers, he says, should monitor the USDA rust Web site and subscribe to his electronic newsletter by contacting him at firstname.lastname@example.com.
If rust does become a threat to Carolina growers, Mueller says the fungicides available to treat it have provided good protection in tests throughout the Southeast.
Several triazole and strobilurin fungicides performed comparably across the multi-state tests.
In general, if rust is already present in a field, triazoles are the optimum treatment. If rust is in the area, but a preventative is needed, the strobilurins are the best bet. A shortcoming of the triazole family of fungicides is a lack of control on other soybean diseases, particularly frogeye rust.
Frogeye rust makes identification of soybean rust much more difficult because of the similarity of foliar damage. For that reason, growers may consider planting frogeye resistant varieties.
"My suggestion for growers is to budget for $20 to spray for rust and to avoid planting soybeans in fields that don't have the yield potential to support the extra $20," Mueller says.
With soybean carryover the highest on record, economists agree with planting fewer acres, regardless of the reason.
There is some promising news on the soybean rust front, according to Mueller.
Several soybean breeding lines have shown resistance to the disease. These lines are a long way from becoming recommended varieties, but the indication of natural resistance is promising.
Though sub-freezing weather and the Deep South aren't usually good bedfellows, a few strong blasts of arctic air may be just what soybean growers need to make a profit in what promises to be a challenging economic year for the crop.
e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


text: Why the hell is a dismembered pair of legs walking around willy nilly with a shopping cart? I'll tell you why…To draw awareness to homeless people, and the cutthroat world of cart-pushing. It was designed in 1993 by a college student who thought the concept of using robots for hazardous jobs could be applied to the most dangerous job of all, being homeless. The student rigged the cart together using a bunch of bike chains and a couple car batteries. We're not sure it serves any practical purpose—might be better if there were hands to put things in the cart. One thing the artist definitely got wrong though: homeless people do not spontaneously burst into flames. At least not in New York, they don't. [GizmoGarden via Make]


text:
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text:
Monday, February 22, 2010
Notre Dame Basketball
Advancing to the Sweet Sixteen is a huge deal for mid-majors while at Notre Dame it should be accomplished more than once every 23 years. Making THE TOURNAMENT should be a near annual thing in South Bend and there should be little doubt instead of watching Selection Sunday with crossed fingers every year. Mike Brey seems to have built teams that would win in the MAC and the Mountain West, but struggle against teams in the Big East. Even that is arguable since losses to bad teams have become commonplace the last few season (Loyola Marymount, Seton Hall at home this year, at St. Johns last year and at Seton Hall and Rutgers this year).
To compare Mike Brey to a football coach is to compare him to Bob Davie probably. Bob snuck into a BCS game where they got embarrassed, Mike snuck into the Sweet Sixteen and got embarrassed by Arizona. His basketball teams seem to not know how to win close games and with the players he recruits are regularly in close games. His reluctance to play freshman leads to sophomores barely being ready to play in the Big East. Harangody forced his way into the line up and Tory Jackson benefited from a marijuana suspension for KMac. He wasted Tim Abromaitis' sophomore season to a red shirt because he wasted his freshman season with minimal minutes. Does anyone really think Abromaitis wouldn't have been the difference between last years team being in THE TOURNAMENT as opposed to being in the NIT.
Jack Swarbrick may have waited a year to long to change his football coach and can't wait any longer with his basketball team. The expectations surrounding next years team will be as low as they get, perfect for a new coach. Young players and players that have gotten minimal minutes will surround Abro, Ben and Nash, hopefully a new coach will spring life into a program that is danger of falling back into the 90's disaster. Mike Brey sprung to his own defense by comparing his team to the worst ten years of Notre Dame basketball. That screams to me of desperation and trying to save his job. Mike Brey would be better served as a head coach of a mid-major where making the tournament is a big deal, if Notre Dame isn't careful they are close to becoming that school.
4 comments:
- Granger Irish said...
I am off of the Mike Brey bandwagon. I agree with your article. Brey lowers expectations in order to save his job. Should a Notre Dame coach ever say that 9-9 is a goal? He also mentions that he is doing bwetter than we did in the 90s. Notice, he doesn't mention what happened before that? That's because we were a power. It's time we get a coach in who doesn't buy the old excuses.
- February 25, 2010 at 6:21 PM
I bet you are back on the bandwagon now
- March 4, 2010 at 2:24 PM
- Granger Irish said...
I am still off of the bandwagon. The players have risen. Brey had nothing to do with it. He has been forced to play Scott more because of Harangody's injury. I root for Notre Dame. But, if the Irish get into the NCAA it will be "fool's gold". Brey is never going to have Notre Dame win big. The mediocrity will only be prolonged.
- March 4, 2010 at 4:24 PM
- Dascenzo said...
I assure you I'm not. I will always root for the Irish and I'm hopeful they make the tournament but I don't think Brey has a Final Four in him, let alone a championship. Which is kind of the point isn't it?
- March 5, 2010 at 4:07 PM


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Dubai: Left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha was the best-placed Indian at number five in the latest ICC Test Rankings issued on Tuesday, while Sachin Tendulkar was the only batsman to have found a place in the top-20 list.
Ojha dropped a place with 767 points, and so was Sachin Tendulkar, who was placed 18th with 669 points.
Seamer Zaheer Khan was ranked 14th in the bowlers` list with 652 points.
Pujara, who dropped a place, was ranked 21st with 665 points.
South Africa`s Hashim Amla moved within four ratings points of becoming the number-one ranked batsman.
Amla, who was declared man of the match in the Perth Test, moved up two places to third position with 875 ratings points following his match-winning knock of 196 in the second innings of the series-decider.
West Indies batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul is now the top-ranked batsman with 879 ratings points. Australia captain Michael Clarke, who made five and 44, slipped to second after regaining the number-one spot last week at the conclusion of the Adelaide Test.
Among the bowlers, Dale Steyn continued to lead the table. Vernon Philander moved up a place to jointly hold the second spot with Sri Lanka spinner Rangana Herath.
South Africa fast bowler Morne Morkel also moved up a spot to seventh.
For Australia, fast bowler Mitchell Johnson returned to the top-20 after moving up three places to 20th position.
The biggest mover in the bowlers` table is Mitchell Starc who now moved up 21 places to 53rd.
Jacques Kallis continued to head the all-rounders` table followed by Shakib Al Hasan in second and Shane Watson in third place.


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Bristol Blenheim
In 1936, the Finnish Air Force ordered 18 Blenheim Mk Is from Britain and two years later, they obtained a manufacturing license for the aircraft. Before any aircraft could be manufactured at the Valtion lentokonetehdas (State Airplane Factory) in Finland, the Winter War broke out, forcing the Finns to order more aircraft from the UK. A further 24 British-manufactured Blenheims were ordered during the Winter War. After the Winter War, 55 Blenheims were constructed in Finland, bringing the total number to 97 aircraft (75 Mk Is and 22 Mk IVs).
The Finns also received 20 half-completed ex-Yugoslavian Mk IV Blenheims captured by Germany, together with manufacturing tools and production equipment, as well as a huge variety of spare parts. Yugoslavia had ceased production of the Mk I and commenced a production run of Mk IVs just prior to the April 1941 invasion.
The Finnish Blenheims flew 423 missions during the Winter War, and close to 3,000 missions during the Continuation War and Lapland War. Blenheim machine-gunners also shot down eight Soviet aircraft. Thirty-seven Blenheims were lost in combat during the wars.
After the war, Finland was prohibited from flying bomber aircraft by the Paris Peace Treaty, with Finland's Blenheims being placed into storage in 1948. However, in 1951, five Blenheims were re-activated for use as target tugs, with the last flight of a Finnish Blenheim taking place on 20 May 1958.
Tikkakoski, Luonetjärvi
Click image to large version


text:
I need to write about this now because it has been festering in my brain for months. I belong to a group called Book Exchange in Multiply. For so many times, I've been seeing a post repeatedly sent by a particular member who's looking for writers but she is offering such low rates that they are really, really insulting.
Earlier tonight, I once again received an email notification where the person has posted a new ad: "Looking for Medical Article Writers". As someone who has written articles for Health Today magazine, I know how hard it is to come up with credible writeups that would really be helpful to readers. One needs to interview valid resource persons and do extensive research to ensure that the information given are correct.
So I was really annoyed when I read her offer:
Qualification: Must have a medical background for easy understanding.
Rate: $1/500 words
Word Count - 1,000
Workload: Daily
This means that if you write at least 4 medical articles a day, you can earn as much as 420 pesos a day. I will prioritize applicants with medical background but if you're not, you can still apply as long as you testify that you can write medical articles.
On her main page, she also wrote: "Though this is a rewarding part time job, I do not encourage everyone to apply out of dire need. This is not just a simple writing task. Every article we do is being posted to websites worldwide hence, a keen eye for "quality" is much needed. Patience and persistence in research is also required not to forget being creative.
If you want to venture in this job, you should accept the fact that you will loose patent to your originally written article the moment you submit it to the client."
Rewarding? Not a simple task? And lots of other requirements for the "very attractive" compensation of just one dollar per 500 words??? My goodness! That translates to just around P43.00! And for newbie writers, I doubt if they could come up with quality written work in an hour or less. But for the sake of argument, say you can finish a 500 or 1000 word article in an hour after much research and creativity. Are you willing to be paid P86.00 for that?!
This time around, I couldn't help myself. For the record, I don't know this person (she hasn't been indicating her real name in all her posts, just the pen name Pinaywebified) and this is not a personal attack. I am just criticizing her way of recruiting and paying people to write for her.
So I posted this reply under her post which I've been actually wanting to do for a long time:
"With all due respect, your rates are TOO LOW. Churning out words is not easy and it is insulting that you are only willing to pay that much for a 500 word article -- unless you don't expect good quality writeups.
Here in the Philippines, good articles go for P1.00 per word already. What you're offering people is P420 for four 1000-word articles?! My goodness, that is taking way too much advantage of people's time and efforts!
I know what I am talking about because I am a published magazine and newspaper writer and people in the publishing industry here don't take advantage of writers that way. Even students who submit articles to newspapers are paid fairly."
My point is, clients who give these kinds of offers and "writers" who allow themselves to be used this way are DEGRADING the profession. It sends out the message that "It's okay to abuse us. Use our talents, remove our bylines and copyrights, and pay us peanuts."
Darn it!


text:
- Guidelines
- Information for Students
- Adding a Proposal
- Google Summer of Code 2012 Project Ideas
- Project Ideas
- Core Clojure
- Clojurescript
- core.match
- core.logic
- core.matrix
- Mobile
- Tooling
- Enhancing Clooj IDE
- Refactoring feature for CCW & other IDEs
- Program analysis suite, based on Rich Hickey's Codeq
- core.typed
- Clojure in Clojure
- Piplin
- Data structures
Information for Students
These ideas were contributed by our developers and users. They are sometimes vague or incomplete. If you wish to submit a proposal based on these ideas, you may wish to contact the developers and find out more about the particular suggestion you're looking at.
Being accepted as a Google Summer of Code student is quite competitive. Accepted students typically have thoroughly researched the technologies of their proposed project and have been in frequent contact with potential mentors. Simply copying and pasting an idea here will not work. On the other hand, creating a completely new idea without first consulting potential mentors is unlikely to work out.
If there is no specific contact given you can ask questions on the general Clojure Google Group - http://groups.google.com/group/clojure
Adding a Proposal
Please follow this template. If you don't have Confluence access please submit your idea, following this template to the clojure mailing list with the subject prefix
[GSoC Idea].
Project title (heading level 3)
Brief explanation: A few sentences describing the problem to solved.
Expected results: What should the student have been able to produce at the end of the project. This includes things like tests and documentation.
Knowledge prerequisites: If a student needs to know something to be able to complete the project, be sure to list it.
Mentor: Add your name if you are developer who is willing to be a primary or secondary mentor for the project.
If you are not a developer but have a good idea for a proposal, get in contact with relevant developers first.
Google Summer of Code 2012 Project Ideas
Please see the Google Summer of Code 2012 for examples of project ideas.
Project Ideas
Please organise your project idea into a category below. Feel free to create new categories if needed.
Core Clojure
Lean JVM Runtime
Brief explanation: The current Clojure/JVM runtime is fully-featured, and can become even more fully-featured with projects like core.typed. However, sometimes it is important to have a leaner runtime that is less resource-intensive. This is ideal for instances where Clojure serves primarily as a library or in lean runtime environments like Google App Engine or Android where a quick startup is desirable. The goal of this project would be to create an alternative lean Clojure runtime and associated compiler. The compiler may be based either of the standard compiler or the ClojureScript compiler. Clojure vars would compile to static fields or methods. It will be necessary to find out which subset of the language makes sense (for example, vars would probably not really exist anymore).
Expected results: A lean Clojure runtime and compiler (well, some good progress to this end)
Knowledge prerequisites: A thorough understanding of Clojure and some familiarity with byte code generation for the JVM.
Difficulty: Hard
Mentor: Daniel Solano Gómez
Brief explanation: ClojureScript is in constant need of further optimization and optimizations which are likely to deliver across all the major JavaScript implementations. We need to assess the corners of ClojureScript which seem to lag too far behind Clojure on the JVM and see what can be done. This includes but is not limited to improvements to persistent data structures, function invocation, the EDN reader, and to code size. It would be extremely desirable to generalize the ad-hoc benchmarking that is in currently in place. A web based tool that graphs changes over time that continually run the tests a la Are We Fast Yet? would be extremely beneficial - we imagine highlighting changesets that cause regression with links to GitHub, etc.
Expected results: Improved performance and comprehensive benchmark suite that is available on and offline.
Knowledge prerequistes: A JavaScript performance nut. Experience with Clojure.
Difficulty: Medium
Mentor: David Nolen
Source Maps
Brief explanation: ClojureScript debugging is still significantly harder than it should be. Source Maps would greatly alleviate the difficultly. A considerable amount of work has been done, but there is more to do during emission in the compiler before the source maps we generate will be truly accurate. Even after Source Maps work, there's the question of step-by-step debugging. Perhaps it's possible to do this via a mixture of source maps and something via the Remote Debugging Protocol in Chrome. We could even imagine editing ClojureScript source in Chrome.
Expected results: Accurate source mapping in browsers that support.
Knowledge prerequistes: A JavaScript & Programming languages nut. Experience with Clojure.
Difficulty: Medium
Mentor: David Nolen
Extending dogfort for real world use
Brief explanation: Node.js provides a lightweight and fast server implementation, that's commonly used for real time applications. Although its possible to make clojurescript applications targeting nodejs, the current experience is far from pleasant. Partly due to node's heavy use of callback hell, and partly because most existing node libraries are heavily object oriented and imperative. Dogfort (https://github.com/bodil/dogfort) is a nice proof of concept , inspired by ring and compojure, that abstracts out quite a few of these issues.
- sessions
- cookies
- authentication middleware
- route filtering middleware
Mentor: Bodil Stokke
refactor and documentation
Brief explanation: core.match provides ML & Racket style extensible pattern matching to Clojure & ClojureScript. The project is in need of refactoring and extensive internal documentation. In order to aid debugging the pattern matrix transformations, a tool for stepping through the pattern compilation process would be very desirable.
Expected results: An core.match with fewer bugs and a code base that welcomes internal contributions and simplifies external extensions.
Knowledge prerequisites: Familiarity with at least one functional programming language that includes pattern matching as a feature.
Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Mentor: David Nolen
CLP(FD) enhancements
Brief explanation: core.logic now ships with a basic support for efficient constraint logic programming over finite domains. However this work could be taken considerably further. For example new constraints could be added that would allow core.logic to solve FD equations much, much more efficiently. It's also not clear precisely what kinds of classic FD problems core.logic excels at and on which ones we perform poorly on. It would be informative to take the problems found in mature solvers like GeCode and port them over to core.logic so a more disciplined comparison could be made. It would also be interesting to discover if core.logic can be made to defer FD constraint solving to external solvers like GeCode or JaCoP if that is desirable to the user.
Expected results: Improved performance and benchmark suite.
Knowledge prerequistes: Experience with Clojure, though significant functional experience in Common Lisp, Scheme, Racket, Haskell, OCaml, Scala is OK too if Clojure experience is lacking. Experience with Prolog or another language that supports constraint solving well is a big plus.
Difficulty: Hard
Mentor: David Nolen
Brief explanation: CLP(Set) would greatly widen the applicability of using core.logic for various forms of static analysis. It would also make core.logic programming more natural for more kinds of problems for Clojure programmers.
Expected results: Basic support for CLP(Set). If CLP(Set) work begins in earnest by core.logic developers, we expect the student to tackle the various significant subproblems we expect to encounter.
Knowledge prerequistes: Experience with Clojure, though significant functional experience in Common Lisp, Scheme, Racket, Haskell, OCaml, Scala is OK too if Clojure experience is lacking. Experience with Prolog or another language that supports constraint solving well is a big plus.
Difficulty: Hard
Mentor: David Nolen
Brief explanation: core.logic with probabilistic programming features would be a powerful extension to core.logic with a high degree of real world applicability.
Expected results: Basic support of CLP(Prob).
Knowledge prerequistes: Experience with Clojure, though significant functional experience in Common Lisp, Scheme, Racket, Haskell, OCaml, Scala is OK too if Clojure experience is lacking. Experience with Prolog or another language that supports constraint solving well is a big plus.
Difficulty: Medium-Hard
Mentor: David Nolen
NDArray Implementation in Clojure
Brief explanation: Clojure's core.matrix (https://github.com/clojure-numerics/core.matrix) provides a general purpose API for matrix / vector maths in Clojure, similar to Python's NumPY. An innovative feature of this API is that it is designed to support multiple back-end implementations via Clojure protocols, which allows various mature Java-based matrix libraries to be used in idiomatic Clojure code. However, we do not yet have a comprehensive N-dimensional Array (NDArray) implementation written in Clojure itself. This is important because a) It would become the de-facto standard matrix implementation for core.matrix and b) It has the potential become the base format for multi-dimensional numerics in Clojure and c) It would enable core.matrix to work "out of the box" without needing a separate matrix library implementation.
Expected results: At the end of the project, core.matrix should include a NDArray implementation written in Clojure that conforms fully to the core.matrix API and passes all relevant test suites.
Difficulty: Medium/Hard
Mentor: Mike Anderson (core.matrix maintainer)
Algebraic Expressions
Brief explanation: Clojure's core.matrix (https://github.com/clojure-numerics/core.matrix) provides a general purpose API for matrix / vector maths in Clojure, similar to Python's NumPY. There is an opportunity to research and implement a system for representing and optimising mathematical expressions so that they can be executed efficiently via core.matrix. There is significant opportunity to explore advanced features, e.g. finding solutions to systems of equations, compiling strategies for numerical optimisation, analysing expressions to determine opportunities for distributing or parallelizing computation etc. It is proposed that the solution should exploit core.logic for manipulating expressions / solving formulae. Some experimental implementation ideas exist at https://github.com/clojure-numerics/expresso
Expected results: At the end of the project, core.matrix should include a system for representing mathematical matrix expressions, and optimising them for efficient execution in core.matrix.
Knowledge prerequisites: Advanced Linear Algebra, Logic Programming (core.logic), Experience with Clojure
Difficulty: Hard
Mentor: Mike Anderson (core.matrix maintainer)
Incanter support
Brief explanation: Clojure's core.matrix (https://github.com/clojure-numerics/core.matrix) provides a general purpose API for matrix / vector maths in Clojure, similar to Python's NumPY. Incanter is a Clojure-based, R-like platform for statistical computing and graphics. Historically, Incanter used some legacy matrix code that bound it to specific matrix implementations, and it would be a great improvement to have full core.matrix support in Incanter. However core.matrix is relatively new and does not yet have all the features required to meet Incanter's needs. The goal of this project is to make this integration happen, which will unify two of the major projects in the Clojure numerical computing space.
Expected results: At the end of the project, core.matrix should include support for all functionality required to support Incanter, and there should be a patched version of Incanter that uses core.matrix as the primary matrix library. Ideally, Incanter should adopt the core.matrix version as the master branch going forward (subject to approval with Incanter project leads).
Knowledge prerequisites: Linear Algebra, Statistics, Experience with Clojure
Difficulty: Medium
Mentor: Mike Anderson (core.matrix maintainer)
API Contract Validation
Brief explanation: Clojure's core.matrix (https://github.com/clojure-numerics/core.matrix) provides a general purpose API for matrix / vector maths in Clojure, similar to Python's NumPY. An innovative feature of this API is that it is designed to support multiple back-end implementations via Clojure protocols, which allows various mature Java-based matrix libraries to be used in idiomatic Clojure code. However, this presents the challenge of validating that different back end implementations adhere to the contract implied by the core.matrix API. The goal of this project is to implement a robust system for specifying and validating these contracts, so that any core.matrix implementation can prove that it correctly supports the API, and any defects / regressions can be detected and understood. The problem is interesting because of the variety of options in the core.matrix API that the implementations may support (e.g. double vs int arrays, arrays of different dimensionality, optional linear algebra features, ability to fallback to default implementations etc.) - so it is not simply a case of pass / fail but understanding what combination of features an implementation supports and validating these.
Expected results: At the end of the project, core.matrix should include a robust system for declaring and validating API contracts. This should have been tested successfully against all internal core.matrix matrix implementations, and at least one external core.matrix implementation (e.g. vectorz-clj).
Knowledge prerequisites: Linear Algebra, Test-Driven Development, API Design, Experience with Clojure
Difficulty: Medium/Hard
Mentor: Mike Anderson (core.matrix maintainer)
Android UIs as Clojure data
Brief explanation: Android currently allows developers to declare their user interfaces using sets of parallel XML files. While this is a valid and practical approach, that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. For example, the current approach means common snippits of XML may be duplicated and keeping different XML files synchronized can be troublesome. Also, there is no really easy way to query and manipulate an Android UI at runtime. Some ideas of how to ameliorate these issues include: Using a Clojure data structure with embedded logic or pattern matching to help solve the XML hell. This data structure may be used at runtime to instantiate a UI or at compile time to generate XML. Also, by extending Clojure's data structure protocols to Android's UI classes, it might be able to query and manipulate Android UIs as plain old Clojure data.
Expected results: Library and tools for manipulating Android UIs as Clojure data
Knowledge prerequisites: Android, core.match
Difficulty: Medium
Mentor: Daniel Solano Gómez
Enhance Neko for Android
Brief explanation: The original lein-droid and Neko projects gave a possibility to conveniently develop Clojure for Android (further CFA) projects, but Neko as a main library still lacks the maturity. Not all necessary UI elements are wrapped to be used in neko.ui's code generation facilities, some macros (like for defining an Activity) still do not cover all the use cases. Also, new Android 4.0-specific features (like ActionBars and Fragments) were beyond the scope of last year's work. UI being on the most paramount sides of mobile development, it would be nice to conceptually change the way to think of it besides simply wrapping it for Clojure. On way it can be improved is leveraging Clojure's data manipulation capabilities (like destructuring or core.match) to handle the UI. There are already similar attempts in Neko, like destructuring Intents or neko.data.sqlite, and doing this for UI could really improve development experience. Finally there still are issues untackled on the toolchain side. Auto-completion and go-to-definition features, which most Clojure users are used to, are currently unavailable in CFA due to platform peculiarities and need a dedicated effort to be implemented. Since this would most propably be made on the nREPL side, both nrepl.el and CCW could leverage these features thereafter.
Expected results: Neko as a library for full-blown and mature Android development.
Knowledge prerequisites: Android, Clojure for Android
Difficulty: Medium
Mentor: Zach Oakes
Enhancing Clooj IDE
Brief explanation: Clooj (https://github.com/arthuredelstein/clooj) is already a good IDE for Clojure beginners to start with, if they do not already have a preferred development tool set. It is the easiest to install. There are ideas for enhancements in the Issues tab of the project.
Expected results: An enhanced version of Clooj that fixes existing issues, adds new features, etc.
Knowledge prerequisites: The student would need to know or learn Clojure, and something about GUI development using Java Swing, the GUI library currently used by Swing.
Mentor: Arthur Edelstein, the developer of Clooj, would be an ideal mentor, if he has the time and interest in doing so. No one has yet approached him with this possibility that I am aware of.
Refactoring feature for CCW & other IDEs
Brief explanation: Counterclockwise ( code.google.com/p/counterclockwise/ ) is the de facto Clojure plugin for Eclipse. It currently lacks any Clojure-specific refactoring feature, while Eclipse already provides a generic Framework for Refactoring. The idea would be to create refactorings for Clojure code.
Expected results: A handful of common refactorings implemented, integrated with the Eclipse Refactoring Framework. A simplified integration layer for adding more refactorings in the future. Clojure the language will be used to write the refactorings. As few java as possible. Everything that is not IDE related separated in a "headless" layer so that it can be reused in other contexts (other IDEs, command line, leiningen plugin, etc.).
Knowledge prerequisites: The student would need to already know Clojure. Existing experience with Eclipse development would be a plus, since it's a framework with kind of a barrier to entry.
Mentor: Laurent Petit, developer of Counterclockwise.
Program analysis suite, based on Rich Hickey's Codeq
Brief explanation: Rich Hickey, inventor of Clojure and Datomic, created Codeq (http://blog.datomic.com/2012/10/codeq.html) as a prototype framework for program analysis. It harvests multiple information sources (eg, Git metadata, source code), and stores the results in a graph database (eg, Datomic). The results are thus available for querying, processing, visualization, etc.
Although Codeq is very promising, it is only a proof of concept, lacking analyzers, a control framework, and presentation tools. Turning Codeq into a production suite would be a substantial software engineering effort, with corresponding visibility. The student would extend the base that Codeq provides, producing a compelling and robust example of the power of this approach.
Expected results: The suite should be ready for "drop-in" installation in typical Clojure shops. It should do continuous harvesting of code bases. It should extend the current Clojure analyzer to harvest names of called functions and methods, use of global state, etc.
Stretch goals might include other analyzers (eg, Java), queries for common use cases, analysis and visualization software, etc.
Knowledge prerequisites: Interest in mechanized program analysis. Experience with Clojure.
Difficulty: Medium
Mentor: Rich Morin (mechanized documentation enthusiast), Tom Faulhaber (author of Autodoc, clojure.pprint, etc.)
Improve and document core.typed
Brief explanation: Optional type systems are more effective when only a small subset of code needs to be tailored to its needs (3-6%). Currently several important Clojure idioms are not understood by core.typed.
Documentation for core.typed is sparse, making the transition to it much harder than necessary for users.
Expected results:
Type check more expressions and idioms:
- More complete multimethod support
- eg. multiple dispatch
- Completed:
Support for function keyword arguments
- More core functions/methods assigned types
- Completed:
Should understand common control flow idioms across body expressions (in progress) eg. function preconditions, assertions bound to throwaway locals like _
- Improve Java method inference for method calls that the Clojure compiler does not already infer
- Completed:
Namespace management tools eg. typed-require, typed-use, typed-load
- Contract generation from types
- Useful for preserving static type invariants when using typed code from untyped code.
- More comprehensive handling of complex operations
- eg. assoc, dissoc, update-in, assoc-in, get-in
- Be able to successfully type check the current ClojureScript compiler
- Design "Wrapper" types
- eg. SQLSafeString
- Might not fit with core.typed
- Better design metadata types
- especially for `with-meta`
- Add support for Clojure Records
- implement correct behaviour for when all base keys are dissociated (a record loses it's type)
- Completed:
Design solutions to correctly handle macros with complicated expansions. especially `for`, `dotimes`, `doseq` etc.
- Design a type generalising scheme to help better guess the type of loop variables
- eg. (loop [a 1] ...) ; a should probably be Long, not the type (Value 0)
- harder: (loop [a nil] ...) ; should be (U nil (Seqable Any)) ?
- Design a sound solution for boxed/unboxed positions
- Often doesn't make sense to give a function a primitive return.
- eg. `int` should probably be something like `(MaybePrimitive int)`
- Target Clojure 1.5 boxing semantics
- Understand common higher-order functions in non-higher-order contexts
- eg. juxt, every?, comp, partial, etc
- Investigate and (perhaps) prototype an implementation of Alms type inference
- The algorithm is described in Chapter 6 of Jesse A. Tov's PhD dissertation.
- Comprehensive user guide
- Untyped -> typed migration guide
- Code examples
- Complete typed CLJS compiler
Knowledge prerequisites:
- Reasonably complete knowledge of core.typed or Typed Racket internals
Mentor: David Nolen
Student: Ambrose Bonnaire-Sergeant
Previous GSoC Student Partiticipation: Typed Clojure (GSoC 2012, Clojure organisation)
Mentor-Student relationship:
- 2011 - core.match + core.logic development & docs
- 2012 - Mentor-Student for Typed Clojure GSoC 2012
Clojure in Clojure
Complete CinC implementation
Brief Explanation: After the success of the CLJS compiler, rewriting the JVM compiler in Clojure has been on the menu for a while now. CinC has made a great start, but needs work to be a viable alternative to the JVM compiler.
Expected Results: Reliable alternative Clojure compiler to clojure.lang.Compiler
Knowledge prerequisites: Good Java and Clojure knowledge. Previous work with compilers a plus, especially CLJS.
Mentor: Aaron Cohen
Delta-cycle simulator for Piplin
Brief explanation: Piplin is a hardware description language written in Clojure. In order to better support intermixing arbitrary Clojure code with hardware simulations, the simulator needs to be able to propagate signals between Clojure-land and simulation-land within a cycle, until the values converge to a fixed point. This will enable better integration of plain Clojure tests and integration with existing Verilog simulators.
Expected results: Delta cycle capabilities added to the simulator; an API for running arbitrary code during delta cycles; an example module demonstrating the usage of the API; tests and a 2-3 paragraph design document ensuring that the API can be used after GSoC
Knowledge Prerequisites: Verilog or VHDL, comfortable with Clojure
Mentor: David Greenberg
Hardware libraries for Piplin
Brief explanation: Piplin is a hardware description language written in Clojure; however, although it's core functionality is finished, it could use many libraries: 8 bit CPUs, video displays, random number generators, ethernet ports, I2C ports, serial ports, etc. This project will attempt to implement some reusable libraries to accelerate hardware development in Piplin.
Expected results: A module with SPI functionality, and one of: an ethernet module, an 8 bit CPU module, or an I2C module. These modules should come with tests and docstring documentation and be released to Clojars. They should be tested on an actual FPGA to verify that they work.
Knowledge Prerequisites: Verilog or VHDL, comfortable with Clojure, basic knowledge of the aforementioned protocols
Mentor: David Greenberg
Data structures
RRB-Trees (flexvec)
Brief explanation: Polishing https://github.com/clojure/core.rrb-vector (newly in Clojure Contrib, previously https://github.com/michalmarczyk/flexvec), the Clojure implementation of persistent vectors with support for efficient slicing and concatenation, based on Bagwell, Rompf, "RRB-Trees: Efficient Immutable Vectors", EPFL-REPORT-169879, September, 2011.
Expected results: Optimized implementation of concatenation (to replace the current high-level implementation using Clojure's seq functions extensively), full test coverage (currently there are (separate) probabilistic tests in place for concatenation and slicing, however a complete test suite for the basic vector operations, as well as concat-after-slice etc. is needed), performance tuning (e.g. fixing performance degradation arising when flexvec vectors of different element types are used in the same JVM; the overall performance profile needs to be closer to that of c.l.PersistentVector – this requires major profiling effort and possibly tweaks to the compiler), ClojureScript version (using whichever method of code sharing becomes standard during Clojure 1.6 development cycle if that happens prior to end of the GSoC period), transients.
Knowledge prerequisites: Familiarity with algorithmic details behind RRB-Trees, experience with Clojure and ClojureScript performance tuning.
Mentor: David Nolen


text:
Too many 3D movies coming out?
Recently most of the movie previews I have been seeing have mostly been for 3D movies. Most of the movies I don't think need to be in 3D at all. Some movies are good in 3D, but I think due to recent popularity of movies like Avatar in 3D the movie studios are pushing out way to many movies in 3D that probably shouldn't be. Some movies have even went as far to advertise as in 3D but only had about 15 mins of actual 3D in the movie such as Harry Potter.
Does anyone else think the majority of 3D movies coming out are a bit overkill and should studios continue to focus on making sub par 3D movies? Whats the last good and bad 3D movies you have seen or expecting will be good/bad in 3D?
Yawn. o_o
toy story 3 was amazing
wearing 3d glasses with regular glass is SO MUCH FUN
its the best way to look cool
Well that's where the money is right now. Hollywood follows the money. Yeah it's a bit overkill but meh. There is always the option to see it in 2D if you don't want to pay extra.
The last 3D movie I saw was "The Last Airbender" not worth the extra cash. "Avatar" was however. I can't imagine watching without the 3D imo. I think the animated owl movie "The Guardians of Ga'hoole" looks promising. I've seen the trailers in 3D it looks gorgeous. I think 3D is better implemented in an animated movie rather a regular actor movie.
"Siempre imaginé que el Paraíso sería algún tipo de biblioteca"- Jorge L. Borges
Yes they are. I wish they'd stop though, it's not attracting people to see the movie any faster.
They're trying too hard. In fact it makes me not want to go out for a movie. At least the 3D improved from those red and blue glasses. I hate those things >:(
It's because 3D is finally making its move into homes. So it probably isn't going to decline any, just like people and their complaints about the expense of HD when it was first coming out. And the complaints of DVD when it first came out. And the complaints of color when it first came out. I'm sure people that do market analysis have declared predictions of when nearly everyone will have 3D in their homes. It's going to become as "normal" as are regular "Blu-ray" releases presently.
Unfortunately to get 3D done right, they need to have it in mind from the start, like Avatar. Adding 3D later is easy, but rarely looks great. As 3D becomes more important, people will focus on doing it correctly more.
I really think it's a waste of time and money. I haven't seen a movie in 3D yet and don't plan
on it. I think it's a load of crap!
Square Biz :)
i mean really whats the point of 3-D movies i mean shouldnt you be happy that you are just watching the movie
3-D movies is really pointless if you ask me
oh and other thing things like the DVDs coming out on blu-ray and HD tv i mean come on lol
i just want to watch it and thats it shesh
'One day your life will Flash before your eyes, Make sure it's worth watching'
I cant wait for the vampire movie that will be in 3D! *Sarcasm*
I'm sure they are making one.
there is a big push on this "new technology" hell t.v.'s even play movies in 3d now... to be fair i can not watch a damn thing in 3d so to me it's a big waste of money but meh to each his/her own I suppose desu.
going black friday shopping tonight at 12am wish me luck everyone.
I know I noticed that too
really not all movies have to be 3D
but I guess people liked if they didnt they wouldnt put them in 3D anymore
my weakness will not shater my spirit
Yeah there is to many 3D movies, but i guess ppl like n such since it's different... There's 3D glasses, 3D movies, and 3DS what else 3D porn?
zzzz 3d.....................
bored as hell
The bullshit part about it is that most 3D movies coming out right now aren't even shot in 3D. Studios pay third pay companies to make the movie into "3D" and the end result is usually shit.
Get at me
piranha 3D (if i remember correctly) was made for 3D/shot in 3D. Christmas Carol back in november was pretty good
However there are lots of badly done 3D movies. I work @ a movie theatre and we do checks every 1/2 hr, You can tell what's supposed to be in 3D w/o glasses cause it's blurry, but sometimes I forget which movies are in 3D because there are whole scenes that aren't!!. Some times... it's a waste, i usually just watch them in regular 2D (if available)


text:
Winners of the 2003 Peanut Profitability Awards are aggressive growers who choose not to cut corners in achieving efficiency and high yields.
"Whenever inputs are needed, these three growers don't hesitate," says Marshall Lamb, economist with the USDA National Peanut Research Laboratory and advisor for the Farm Press Peanut Profitability Program. The awards were presented during an awards breakfast at the Southern Peanut Growers Conference in Panama City, Fla. This marks the fourth year of the awards program.
Honorees for 2003 include Mike Newberry, Arlington, Ga., Southeast Region; Roger Neitsch, Gaines County, Texas, Southwest Region; and Ricky Kneece, Pelion, S.C., Virginia-Carolina Region.
The survey completed by all nominees for the Peanut Profitability Award requires that growers lists all variable costs for their entire farm, including such things as seed and irrigation, explains Lamb.
"And then we take it one step further. We've found that it's one thing to make good returns above variable costs, but good growers also must be very efficient in the management of fixed costs. So we take an equipment inventory of the farm and the peanut enterprise.
Farm as whole
"We're able to break that down and find out how much each piece of equipment costs per acre for the peanut operation. We look at returns over total costs for the entire farm and not just one segment in one field, as in some other award programs. We look at the farm as a whole, and returns to the farm as a whole. We believe that is the only fair way of doing it," says the economist.
Contests that look at one small section in a field can be misleading," notes Lamb. "Farmers have a very complex job of juggling all of these variable and fixed costs throughout the year. This truly is a profitability program because we're looking at the entire farming operation," he says.
One of the nominees for this year's award — a runner-up to the eventual winner — actually had a higher return over total costs, he says. "But the winner had lower fixed costs, and that was the result of better management of equipment costs. The deciding factor was how the nominees handled fixed costs."
No direct or counter-cyclical payments from the new peanut program were included in the judging criteria, says Lamb. "We didn't think it would be fair to compare growers with base with those who don't have base. We looked at the current year's production and the returns to the entire peanut farm as an average over total costs."
High yields and efficient production are seen as essentials for continued profitability in peanut production, agree the three Peanut Profitability Award winners. The honorees shared their production philosophy during a grower panel session immediately following the awards breakfast.
"We really don't have any secrets," says Southeast winner Mike Newberry. "We're fortunate in southwest Georgia that we have a climate and land that are perfect for peanut production. That's why we've been producing them for years, and that's why we'll continue to produce peanuts."
Newberry says he looks forward to producing peanuts under the new government program. "I can honestly tell you that I never dreamed a few years ago that I'd be sitting here with such a positive attitude about peanuts."
Peanut farmers will have to understand the new system, he says, which includes a marketing loan, loan deficiency payments and repayment rates. "It's important to retain ownership as long as possible. We also may start doing some selling and shelling, where we do some of our own shelling and maximize profit potential," he says.
"We now have more products in our arsenal of crop protection materials than we've had in a long time," says Newberry. "We have an array of fungicide products, and, hopefully, they'll be priced more competitively."
Newberry adds that in the future, he'll take a "hard, cold look at seed peanuts" and evaluate the potential returns against the added costs.
Texan's view
"We have to maintain yield and quality, and we have to grow a profitable crop to stay in business," says Roger Neitsch of Gaines County, Texas.
Neitsch says he'll stick closely to his four-year rotation to maintain high yields and efficiency. "We've grown peanuts on my farm for 21 years. We've crowded our rotation schedule a time or two and always paid dearly for it."
He says minimum-tillage helps reduce fuel and labor costs. It also helps protect seedling peanuts from blowing sand in the spring. "We have good soils in west Texas, but we have a lot of sand and a lot of wind. Planting into wheat or old crop residue holds the soil and protects the plants," he says.
Water, says Neitsch, remains his limiting factor. "We can't grow peanuts without irrigation. We average 15 inches of rainfall a year, so dryland peanuts are not practical."
Although he has seen research that indicates no benefit from nitrogen fertilization, Neitsch says he's afraid not to fertilize. "I see results. We apply 120 units of nitrogen, about 60 units of phosphorus and 15 to 20 units of sulfur."
New to marketing
Marketing is a new aspect of peanut production, he says. "We've never had to market peanuts in the past. We knew we had a market and a set price for quota peanuts, and if we didn't sign a contract for additionals, we didn't grow them. Now, we have to market well if we expect to get the most for our labor. Profits are not going to fall into our laps," he says.
Ricky Kneece of Pelion, S.C., also favors minimum-tillage in his peanut production. "We'll plant a wheat cover crop, harrowing it in during the fall and killing it in the spring. We went completely strip-till this year and planted into old crop residue. We're trying to minimize our labor, time and equipment. This is the best looking peanut crop we've had in the past three to four years," he says.
Kneece's cropland is characterized by large, flat fields. "We get a lot of blowing sand in the spring, but we usually can plant peanuts late enough to avoid damage."
Good quality will help to sell peanuts, he says. "Last year, we sold a lot of peanuts right out of the field. But we stored some and the price went up four weeks after harvest. It may not always pay to store peanuts, and we don't have enough space to store all we'd like, but we like to have the option."
e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
It comes as a surprise to some people to discover that the Hollywood film industry is not the biggest in the world. Since 2004 Bollywood holds that title. Centered around Mumbai (Bombay), this film community produces more than 1,000 films a year, with worldwide ticket sales of over three billion. Hollywood, on the other hand, produces around 500 films a year, with a worldwide audience of 2.6 billion. This is where the comparisons that favor the subcontinent end, however. In terms of revenue and cultural influence, Hollywood seems almost unassailable.
Indian films are an acquired taste. Most Westerners have neither the background nor the patience to develop t heir palate for them. So what Bollywood has been searching for in recent years is a crossover film.
"Salaam Bombay" (1988), "Mississippi Masala" (1991), "Monsoon Wedding" (2001) and "Bend It Like Beckham" (2002) proved that there was a Western audience for an Indian story, albeit an expatriate one. But, made for $10 million and with a worldwide gross of nearly $100 million so far, "Slumdog Millionaire" is the film that mirrors best the voracious Western appetite for Indian literature. It helps, of course, that it has been nominated for and has won several prestigious international film awards, including 10 Oscar nominations. Referring to social welfare programs in a number of cities in India, the film's producer, Christian Colson, said, "A portion of the box-office proceeds will be donated to the Slum Welfare." Within the year I would like to know who has seen the loot and how much they received. And I hope the real slum dwellers were not just extras.
I was distinctly uncomfortable watching what is supposed to be a feel-good film. Why? First the story.
Set in Mumbai, India's most populous city, "Slumdog Millionaire" offers insight into the complexity of modern India, with its simmering religious tensions and social inequities. It begins in a windowless room in a police station, or perhaps a military headquarters, where Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), a slightly built 18-year-old slum dweller, is being slapped and tortured by waterboard by two men in uniform. The attack on Jamal that confronts the viewer is disorienting. Who are these men? What do they want to know? What is Jamal's crime that he is being tortured in this way?
Jamal, it turns out, is one answer away from winning 20 million rupees (US $415,000) on India's phenomenally popular television quiz show, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" But neither the quiz show host, Prem Kumar (Anil Kapoor), who is responsible for Jamal's arrest, nor the police inspector (Irrfan Kahn) who supervises the torture is prepared to believe that Jamal has won his money fairly. How could a lowly slumdog win millions of rupees without cheating?
The answer is contained in the film's structure, in which each of the 12 multiple-choice questions answered correctly by Jamal becomes the occasion for a series of flashbacks that tell the story of Jamal's short but extraordinary life and the key moments that have brought him to where he is now.
Jamal (played by three different actors at ages 7, 13 and 18) and his older brother Salim (Madhur Mittal) are Muslim street urchins who scavenge the mountainous rubbish dumps and steal in the streets to support their meager existence, finding joy in evading the police, who search the canals, markets and rooftops for them on mopeds and on foot.
The two brothers are very different. Jamal is openhearted and dreamy, not street-savvy like Salim, who subordinates his better self to the needs of survival. Sometimes they attend school. But when their mother is killed by religious fanatics who raid their shantytown, the boys are forced onto the streets to live by their wits. There Jamal befriends an orphaned girl, Latika (Freida Pinto), whom he cares for and later comes to love.
Like Dumas's three musketeers, the children are one for all and all for one. But this is tested when they are inveigled into joining a predatory, Fagin-like gang of soulless thieves. Only Salim's quick thinking saves them.
Salim becomes hardened by what he has seen, and he hungers for wealth and power. As they grow older, conflict and rivalry between the two brothers leads to betrayal, and Jamal becomes separated from both Latika and Salim. Like Orpheus searching for Eurydice, Jamal finds Latika only to lose her again, this time apparently forever. In defiance of fate—or perhaps in pursuit of it—Jamal tries his luck on India's most watched television show, in search of a miracle.
In this adaptation to the screen, by Simon Beaufoy ("The Full Monty"), from Vikas Swarup's novel Q&A, the cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle ("Dogville," "The Last King of Scotland") plunges the viewer into a depiction of modern India that is stylistically novel. Mantle's camera zooms in and out, creating mosaics of faces and places. But the emphasis is on the unfolding drama, moving backward and forward in time, grounded excitingly in cutting-edge photorealism, farce and fable.
This is Danny Boyle's best film since "Trainspotting"; it marries the conventions of music video clips with the best of modern Indian cinema. During the end credits we even have the obligatory Indian dance sequence.
There are two major problems with "Slumdog Millionaire." The first is the conceit of the story. I could never properly relax into a tale about a boy who can barely read moving through the rounds of a quiz show because almost every question plays into an experience out of his incredibly tragic past. I like my fantasy served straight up. And the narrative structure is too episodic, cutting between the torture scenes, the quiz show and Jamal's life story.
While it is visually transfixing and often emotionally powerful, I found the film too busy. Some of the dialogue in English is not easy to understand, which matters in a crossover piece.
My most serious concern, however, is the way in which the deprivation in Jamal's life is presented as entertainment. Elements within "Slumdog Millionaire" made me feel as I were watching "poverty pornography." I use the term pornography here in its strictest sense. Derived from the Greek porni (prostitute) and graphein (to write), it originally referred to the description of a sex act with a prostitute. The word prostitution itself has come to mean the giving of one's time and talent to a demeaning activity. Danny Boyle visually describes the tragedy of the Indian underclass, the rapaciousness of the Mumbai underworld and the brutality of the Indian police force without any moral voice stating how evil all this is within the story.
Boyle has been stung by such criticism. "'Slumdog Millionaire' is not a documentary," explains Boyle, adding that it "should be seen as a film which salutes Mumbai's breathtaking resilience, a city in which poverty is never seen as a curse and the poor hardly ever resent it." Neither reason can justify the human tragedy we see on the screen, especially in a country whose economy has grown so dramatically in the last 20 years.
Social inequity and humiliating poverty should be a springboard for all countries to have a good, long, hard look at the world we have created, not something to which we dance along at the end.
Listen to a discussion of the best picture nominees for 2008.


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School closing studied
Niskayuna board weighs closure of elementary school
An overflow crowd urged the Board of Education to explore other cost-saving measures instead of closing any of the five elementary schools in town.
The audience included parents of past and present Birchwood students.
Board members have estimated they would save $415,000 by shutting an elementary school. But one man who addressed the panel during the public portion of the meeting said it's not worth "disrupting kids and families."
"In my mind, no elementary school should be on the chopping block," he added. He challenged school leaders to do something radical to close the estimated $2.6 million budget shortfall. Niskayuna is scheduled to receive about $18.3 million in state aid, said school officials.
Superintendent of Schools Susan Salvaggio gave a presentation in an attempt to answer questions she received from residents.
"This is a serious moment for Niskayuna; there can be no question about that," she said during her talk about the strategic planning and school configuration. She highlighted the importance of Niskayuna academic programs, staffing and facilities.
Generally, Salvaggio said elementary schools are underutilized and that students are inequitably distributed in classrooms. Closing one of the district's two middle schools won't work because the remaining middle school won't be able to accommodate all the students.
When she got to the slide that read 'which elementary school' to close, Salvaggio cautioned that "this is the place in the presentation that it becomes incredibly difficult." On redistricting, the schools chief said that about 524 students districtwide would be affected if Birchwood was shuttered.
The board had not made a decision late Tuesday night.


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Chair Korman will call the meeting to order.
Chair Korman will seek approval of the minutes from the January 17 meeting.
Proposed Action: Approval. Motion and second required.
Chair Korman will offer opportunity for open comments concerning items on this agenda.
Open Comments: No motion required.
The purpose of this item is to present a list of tenure nominees for university faculty. The President, Provost and the University Promotion and Tenure Committee have reviewed these nominees and are making a recommendation for approval to the Board of Trustees.
Twelve (12) nominees are being recommended based on a traditional review of their credentials.
Provost Workman will address the committee and present this this item.
Proposed Action: Approval. Motion and second required.
The purpose of this item is to submit, for approval, a proposed new degree program. The College of Arts and Sciences proposes to transition the Bachelor of Art in Art History concentration to a stand-alone Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History in the Department of Art and Design.
This new degree would reform and update UNF's current Art History program; thus bring Art History in line with national standards. The proposed new degree is also consistent with the current State University System (SUS) strategic planning goals, including access to and production of degrees, building world-class academic programs, and meeting community needs.
Estimated demand for the proposed program, based largely on current enrollment numbers, includes about 69 students enrolled in the concentration and 63 students with minors in Art History. Though no systematic survey has been done, inquiries from students indicate they are dissuaded from enrolling in the current program because of the heavy studio art requirements; therefore, the proposed degree program is likely to attract these added students. Additionally, MOCA, Jacksonville has been interested in art history classes, especially in the offering of a museum studies course.
Because this proposal is seeking to transition the Art History concentration of the Bachelor of Arts in Art to a stand-alone degree program, there will be no change in Education and General Funds to support the program. Also, this proposal will not have an impact on other programs or resources and no additional faculty of resources will be required.
Provost Workman will address the committee and present this item.
The purpose of this item is to present, for approval, the termination of the Bachelor of Arts in Music. Since this degree's inception, two new degrees – Bachelor of Music (B.M.) and the Bachelor of Music Education (B.M.E.) – have been instituted, both of which incorporate performance as an essential and widely accepted element. Because the Bachelor of Arts in Music does not include the performance element, which is considered to be a necessary component to any respectable baccalaureate-level degree in music, there are no students enrolled in the degree and it has ceased to serve a role in the Department of Music's curricular offerings.
Since the Department of Music's faculty are engaged in the offerings of the two new degrees, B.M. and B.M.E., none would be affected by the proposed termination of the Bachelor of Arts in Music degree.
The purpose of this item is to present, for approval, the termination of the Masters in Human Resource Management. The last degree for this program was conferred in summer 2006 and, because of a lack of adequate enrollment, this program was inactivated.
Because the Masters in Human Resource Management suspended admissions about 10 years ago, there will be no need to accommodate students or faculty, gender and racial distribution of students, and faculty will not be affected. There will be no potential negative impact of the proposed action on the current representation of females, minorities, faculty and students.
The Coggin College of Business added a Human Resource Management concentration to the MBA curriculum in fall 2002. Enrollment was monitored in the MBA concentration and there was not sufficient student demand to justify reactivating the Masters in Human Resources management.
The purpose of this item is to seek approval for (1) limited access status and (2) approval to exceed 120 credit hours to degree for the Medical Laboratory Sciences concentration of the Biology major.
The College of Arts and Sciences Biology department is seeking limited access status for the Medical Laboratory Sciences concentration of the Biology major. The program can only accommodate 30 students. The Biology department plans to initiate the Medical Laboratory Sciences program in fall 2012.
Closure of medical laboratory science training programs over the past several decades, combined with increased demand for trained personnel, has resulted in a nationwide shortage of qualified medical technologists to staff clinical laboratories. The facilities, equipment and personnel required to properly train these students is limited and health care organizations with which we are affiliated can only accommodate a limited number of students at any given time. Because this clinical experience is a requirement for licensure and completion of the program, the administration is proposing limited access status. The proposed limited access is not anticipated to impact the current diversity.
Approval to exceed 120 credit hours to degree for the Medical Laboratory Sciences concentration is necessary to be in compliance with the National Accrediting Agency Clinical Laboratory Sciences. The university is seeking approval to exceed the 120 credit hour limit by five semester hours, bringing the total number of hours required for this specific concentration to 125 credits.
The purpose of this item is to present the annual report addressing the requirements of the Florida Educational Equity Act (FEEA), Gender Equity in Athletics, and the Equity Accountability Program (EAP) statutes. Each state university is required to maintain an annual equity plan for appropriate representation of women and minorities in senior level administrative positions, within tenure track and non-tenure track faculty and within faculty granted tenure. In addition universities are required to monitor student participation in programs or courses where certain protected classes are underrepresented and to ensure that provisions of non-discrimination laws are adhered to and educational resources are equitably distributed.
This report must be approved by the university President and the university Board of Trustees and submitted to the Board of Governors through the Office of the Chancellor.
Cheryl Gonzalez, director of Equal Opportunity Programs, will address the committee and present this report.
Proposed Action: Report. No motion required.
Dean Hallblade will describe new library projects and services with a focus on UNF Digital Commons. Dean Daniel will discuss urban education initiatives in the College of Education and Human Services.
Chair Korman will adjourn the meeting.
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ORLANDO, Fla. — John Hines of Middle Island, N.Y., born into a family of military veterans and inspired by the message of Patriot Golf Day, that ignited a passion to build a model local fundraising campaign, was presented today with the 2011 Patriot Award.
Hines, 53, a 14-year member of The PGA of America, is the first member of the Metropolitan PGA Section to receive the Patriot Award. The PGA head professional at Baiting Hollow Club in Baiting Hollow, N.Y., Hines was honored at the 95th PGA Annual Meeting at the Hilton Orlando in Orlando, Fla.
Originated in 2008, the Patriot Award is presented by The PGA of America to PGA Professionals who personify patriotism through the game of golf and demonstrate unwavering commitment and dedication to the men and women who have valiantly served and protected the United States of America.
The PGA Annual Meeting also honored the Colorado PGA Section, recipient of the Herb Graffis Award for exemplary achievement in player development.
The balance of The PGA of America Awards will be presented Thursday, Jan. 26, during the 59th PGA Merchandise Show at the Orange County Convention Center's Chapin Theater in Orlando. The program also will honor the following recipients:
– Don "Chip" Essig IV of Indianapolis – PGA Golf Professional of the Year
– Mary Bea Porter-King of Kapaa, Hawaii – PGA First Lady of Golf
– Mike Malaska of Gold Canyon, Ariz. – PGA Teacher of the Year
– John Rogers of Chambersburg, Pa. – Horton Smith Award
– Robert "Bob" Dolan Jr. of Chevy Chase, Md. – Bill Strausbaugh Award
– Rick Grayson of Springfield, Mo. – PGA Junior Golf Leader
– Brian Bain of Brookline, Mass. – President's Plaque
– David Hutsell of Baltimore, Md. – PGA Professional Player of the Year
– Sonny Skinner of Sylvester, Ga. – Senior PGA Professional Player of the Year
– PGA Merchandisers of the Year – Jeffrey Kiddie of Newtown Square, Pa. – Private Facilities; Susan Roll of Carlsbad, Calif. – Public Facilities; Hill Herrick of White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. – Resort Facilities.
"Our 2011 national award winners reflect the best values and qualities of our Association," said PGA of America President Allen Wronowski. "By their career work, our recipients have left an impact among their Section peers, their respective communities and influenced others throughout the country. They are inspiring to juniors as well as aspiring professionals, which is a tradition in our profession. We are very proud to declare that PGA Professionals are the experts in the game and the business of golf."
Born in Queens, N.Y., and raised in Port Jefferson, N.Y., Hines attended Flagler College in St. Augustine, Fla., and turned professional in 1979. He began his golf career that year by taking an assistant professional position at Harbor Hills Country Club in Port Jefferson. From 1981-1982, he served as first assistant professional at Colonie Hill Golf Club in Islip, N.Y., and competed from 1981 to 1989 on the Space Coast Tour in Florida. Hines served as a PGA assistant professional at Crab Meadow Golf Club in Huntington, N.Y., from 1988 to 1989.
He would spend a five-year period in private business, and returned to the golf industry in 1994 at the former Fox Hill Golf Club, now Baiting Hollow Club. In 1997, he earned PGA membership and was named PGA director of golf at Baiting Hollow Club. Over the past 11 years, Hines has battled from the effects of chronic rheumatoid arthritis, which sidelined him from an active competitive career.
Hines served on the national PGA Education Committee; and since 2010 has been a member of the PGA Disabled Golfers Committee. He was the recipient of the Metropolitan PGA Horton Smith Award in 2008, and the 2010 Section Patriot Award. He is the son of a retired Marine; has a son-in-law who is a retired member of the U.S. Army who served three tours in Iraq; a nephew who served two tours of duty in the Persian Gulf and has two uncles in the Marine Corps, one who served on the Color Guard in Washington, D.C.
"I was accepting a Horton Smith Award at our Metropolitan PGA Meeting, the same day that Major Dan Rooney's video address was played," said Hines of that 2008 meeting. "When he gave his speech about the origin of Patriot Golf Day, I was sitting with my two sons in the audience. It lit a nerve. With my family having so many veterans, it was something that touched me deeply. Our family service record goes back to World War I, and I had three uncles, and my dad, who served in World War II. We have had someone from the family serving in every conflict since World War I."
For Hines, there was no hesitancy to deliver his passion to his club members at Baiting Hollow Club and to the Metropolitan PGA Section Board of Directors. In 2009, the Section raised nearly $125,000, the largest increase in Patriot Golf Day contributions and largest per capita total that year. In 2010, the total funds raised reached nearly $170,000.
Baiting Hollow Club raised $20,000 in 2009, and boosted the fundraising efforts to a $35,000 total a year later. That year's Patriot Golf Day event featured 40 veterans, with 40 playing golf in the event, including honoring veterans from World War II through the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of the veterans arrived in a Blackhawk helicopter, two Humvees, and two armored personnel carriers. Hines partnered with Brig. Gen. Raymond Doyle, and together they inspired a four-member scramble event, where Baiting Hollow Club members played with a veteran at an entry fee of $125.
Hines encouraged the Metropolitan PGA to host Rooney, along with a family representative that had lost a spouse in service, and whose children received Folds of Honor scholarships.
"My belief is that we need to make sure that we touch everyone we can," said Hines. "Without those who sacrificed so much, where would we be? The least that we can do is to make sure we reach out our hand to help those they have left behind."
The future for supporting our veterans through golf, Hines said, is just beginning. "We can all do more, and develop a national tournament to take care of them."
Hines lives in Middle Island, N.Y., and has two sons John and Taylor. Hines has three stepchildren, Kelly, Brandy and Travis.
About The PGA of America
Since its founding in 1916, The PGA of America has maintained a twofold mission: to establish and elevate the standards of the profession and to grow interest and participation in the game of golf. By establishing and elevating the standards of the golf profession through world-class education, career services, marketing and research programs, The PGA enables its professionals to maximize their performance in their respective career paths and showcases them as experts in the game and in the multi-billion dollar golf industry. By creating and delivering world-class championships and innovative programs, The PGA of America elevates the public's interest in the game, the desire to play more golf, and ensures accessibility to the game for everyone, everywhere. As The PGA nears its centennial, the PGA brand represents the very best in golf.


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I am a great fan of akki rotti and I love all it's variations. I recieved an email from Savita Keshav, who had given me a new variety of akki rotti. She was kind enough to get me photographs too.. Here is Savita Keshav's delicious and finger licking sihi kumbalakayi akki rotti :
"Sihi kumbalakai akki rotti (Makes 12 small sized akki rotti)
1. Rice flour 6 cups
2. Grated sweet pumpkin 2 cups
3. Finely chopped green chillies 6 - 8
4. Cumin seeds 1 - 2 teaspoon
5. Finely chopped coriander leaves 1 tablespoon
6. Salt to taste
7. Hing (aesofotida) 1/2 teaspoon
1. Mix all the above ingredients together with water to make dough of toothpaste consistency.
2. Take a lemon ball size of dove and spread it on a non stick pan with your hand so that the thickness is even.
3. Cook the rotti until light brown. Pour 1 teasoon of oil around the rotti.
4. Serve hot with a dollop of butter and tomato chutney."