text:
Many have asked what it was like to be the 2012 Libertarian candidate for vice president, along with Gov. Gary Johnson as our candidate for president.
I can say that on the one hand, it was a deeply humbling, uplifting, interesting and gratifying experience. On the other hand, believing that the governor and I were far more qualified than anyone else in the race, and seeing us almost completely frozen out of the national media and excluded from the national debates, it was eternally frustrating.
More specifically, I can tell you that it is a big country, which makes money overly important in elections. But considering that probably 75% of the voters had never even heard of us, I think we did quite well.
Probably the most interesting experience on the campaign trail was when I was invited to speak at the Harvest Festival in Monticello in upstate New York.
Almost literally we were back in time and participating in Woodstock. The place was filled with hippies, young and old, in tie-dyed clothes with peace symbols and long hair.
Our guide was a gentle, middle-aged man wearing a leather vest filled with metal emblems and badges who introduced himself by saying that his real name was David, but everyone called him "Trashy."
I spoke on the stage after Pete Seeger. It was a wonderful event. Yes, some marijuana was being smoked on the grounds, but people were completely well-behaved, with not a policeman in sight. It is not my lifestyle, but it was great to see people harmlessly enjoying themselves as they wished.
I also spoke at a lunch event in Spokane. Because I arrived a bit early, I had occasion to meet and get to know Jake, 3, whose mother brought him along. I used his name during my presentation by saying that my generation had made a financial mess of our country, that our children would have to pay it back, and that people like Jake were bankrupt. Of course, little Jake had no idea what the word bankrupt meant, but it sounded bad, so he started to cry.
So there I was making a 3-year-old cry. As I tried to dig myself out, I said that if he actually knew the bad financial condition he was in, he would have every reason to cry.
At another event, I met a young girl and asked her how old she was. She responded, "I'm pushing 4!" That made us laugh, a better result than with Jake.
I traveled so much that if I only flew on one airplane per day, it was an easy day. As a result, probably the hardest thing that I had to do on the campaign trail was remember my daily hotel room number. I had to develop the habit of writing it down and keeping the note in my pocket.
Some of the most fun times were spent at the Fourth of July Parade in Wasilla, Alaska; and eating at Varsity, 6 Feet Under and the OK Café in Atlanta, and at the Commander's Palace restaurant in New Orleans. Also fun was arriving late one night at the airport in Knoxville, and being welcomed by a TV reporter and a crowd with campaign signs.
I had lived my entire life without ever signing my name to a van, but I signed three of the "Governor Gary Johnson for President" vans during the campaign, as did many other people.
The most gratifying event involved three students coming up to me after my presentation at Stanford University, saying that they were never so excited about voting (although, upon reflection, I suppose they could have been excited to vote against me). That was immediately followed by the most sobering event when an athletic young man wearing Purple Heart and Bronze Star ribbons on the lapel of his suit came me up to me.
After saying that he had been in the Marines in the Gulf War, he looked right at me and said: "Judge Gray, please be our voice. Our troops are prepared to go where they are ordered and even sacrifice if we must, but please make it be important to our country's security."
I vowed that I would do everything I could to do just that.
Throughout the campaign, when people asked me for more information about the Libertarian philosophy, I referred them to two books. One is "Libertarianism in One Lesson," by my friend David Bergland, and the other is "Libertarianism: a Primer," by David Boaz. I also refer them to you.
At the end of the campaign, I flew into Albuquerque from Kansas City, and my wife, Grace, flew in from Orange County so that we could be together at the election celebration that evening. Since my plane arrived before hers, I was able to meet her at her gate with a hand-printed sign that said: "Grace, remember me? I'm your husband." Fortunately she did, and I am deeply grateful for her support throughout this whole process.
It was a long campaign, and I believe that all of us did our best. But it was also nice to have it over, and to return to my private life at home with my wife and family. I am deeply concerned about the direction of our country, but life is good.
JAMES P. GRAY is a retired Orange County Superior Court judge. He lives in Newport Beach.


text:
Hey there ladies & gents! We have a user that needs our help. While getting info about FastStone from someone around here a little while back... (Sorry I can't remember who exactly shared this info with us) I remember that someone mentioned a similar program for Mac Users to do batch converts. I unfortunately don't remember the name of said program and our fellow scrapper Joyce needs a program to convert files from psd to jpeg/jpg.
Does anyone off the top of their pretty little head remember what program this was and where she might find it?
Thanks in Advance for your assistance!

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Feeling a little lost? Looking for some direction in your life? Here are five unconventional ways to help you get where you're going.
YES! But How?
Guerrilla grafting, crop mobs, and other ways to make the fruits of your labor go further.
We could all see the sky as our ancestors once saw it just by turning off the lights, according to the International Dark Sky Association.
From mobile libraries to tiny libraries, how to get others to read the books you love.
Spoons, sardines, telephone charades, and other activities to put a boost in your get-togethers.
Tending your yard doesn't have to be noisy, irritating, or fuel-intensive. Here's how you can unplug.
Bats are mammals, shy creatures of the night, and fascinating to watch. They're also endangered by loss of habitat, disease, and pesticide poisoning. You can help by providing protection.
Low-cost and natural ways to care for your critters.
Clothes swaps are an attractive alternative to buying, given that the average American household spends $1,725 every year on apparel.
It's time for me to replace my refrigerator and I was wondering if I really need another as big as the last. I'd like to downsize or be rid of it altogether.
I've read that composting human waste is much more environmentally friendly than disposing of it in water-based sewage systems. Could I install a composting toilet in my home?
How can I make my own environmentally friendly potting soil?
My house gets too hot in the summer. How can I cool it down without using the A/C?
I'd like to start a garden, but buying plants can be expensive. I've read of propagating cuttings using rooting hormones. Is there a natural way to propagate?
Seed bombs are a favorite tool of guerrilla gardeners for planting flowers on derelict ground.


text:
HESPERIA — A family moving cross-country to California decided to stop in a Hesperia motel last Sunday night to rest.
They awoke the following morning to find the Penske moving truck that carried all of their belongings had been stolen.
San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies took a report and entered the truck into a national database that alerts law enforcement to stolen vehicles.
Sheriff's detectives received a tip Thursday that the inventory of the truck was in a storage unit in Gardena, authorities said.
They called the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for assistance.
L.A. County sheriff's deputies located the storage facility where they discovered and arrested two men.
Andy Monreal, 26, of Bellflower and Steven Ralph Garcia, 37 of Maywood were taken into custody without incident, authorities said.
With a search warrant in hand, San Bernardino County sheriff's detectives working the case along with gang detectives and L.A. County sheriff's detectives assigned to the Carson station began a search of the storage unit, said San Bernardino County sheriff's spokeswoman Susan
Detectives found about half of the stolen property, what was called a significant amount of drugs and a loaded firearm that had been reported stolen authorities said.
The rest of the stolen property remained missing.
Both Monreal and Garcia were booked into the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga.
Garcia was booked on suspicion of receiving stolen property, possession of a controlled substance while armed, being under the influence of a controlled substance while armed and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was being held in lieu of $90,000 bail.
Monreal, who authorities said was on Post Release Community Supervision out of L.A. County, was booked on suspicion of receiving stolen property, possession of a controlled substance while armed, being under the influence of a controlled substance while armed and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Authorities said he also had warrants in the cities of Bell and Downey. He was being held without bail.
The moving truck nor the rest of the victims' belongings had been recovered, authorities said.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Detective Bureau at the sheriff's Hesperia station, 760-947-1500.


text:
iMessages to Nowhere?
Apple said it's aware of a glitch in iOS7 that is disrupting some iMessage texts and is working on a fix to quell mounting complaints after the company released the biggest overhaul of its iPhone operating system in years.
Annoyed iOS users took to Twitter and Apple's message boards to report problems sending messages through iMessage, which provides free texting between users of Apple devices. It also converts those messages into SMS texts for non-iOS users.
The most frequent complaint is that messages appear to be sent, but later appear with a big red exclamation point indicating they did not go through.
The simplest and most often-suggested work-around by users is to restart the device. Another option being suggested is to disable iMessage, reset the Network Settings, and then turn iMessage back on. (To reset the settings, go to Settings → General Reset → Reset Network Settings.)
"We are aware of an issue that affects a fraction of a percent of our iMessage users, and we will have a fix available in an upcoming software update," Apple said in a statement. "In the meantime, we encourage any users having problems to reference our troubleshooting documents or contact AppleCare to help resolve their issue. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes impacted users."
The new iOS was released Sept. 18 to praise for its new look and features such as a new control center that functions like a dashboard for controlling an iPhone or iPad.
Since then, some users have complained about excessive battery use, typed letters that don't appear on the screen, and Apple's Siri voice-recognition service not recognizing requests. Apple released an iOS fix last week to tackle some security problems.


text:
Retrospectives are a frequently overlooked aspect of scrum. Perhaps this is because they are "non-functional", in the sense that they don't contribute directly to the output of the team. I maintain, however, that good retrospectives are the key to a highly functioning team.
A retrospective is a meeting where the team get to reflect on their current progress and process and decide how they can improve it.
It can mean absolutely anything … the team get to decide. Remember that the purpose of scrum is to build a team that can smoothly and effectively deliver business value on a regular basis. Anything which gets the team closer to this goal counts as an improvement.
It's also important to point out that it is the team themselves which decide how they can improve. People such as managers, IT directors, agile coaches and so on can make suggestions, but the team needs to take ownership of their process. This is what it means for a team to be "self-organising" … an agile term which is bandied around a lot and is often misused. The self-organisation of a scrum team is the main points of retrospectives.
Retrospectives, like a lot of things in agile, need to be judged on their outputs. A good retrospective will produce improvements that address important issues the team is facing. A poor retrospective will skirt around issues and address unimportant issues.
For instance, suppose a team is consistently releasing buggy software. A good retrospective will attempt to address the bugs, both in terms of fixing outstanding issues as well as attempting the underlying cause of the bugs. A bad retrospective would focus on other incidental issues, e.g. variable names not adhering to the agreed coding standards.
Poor retrospectives can happen for a number of reasons:
Some of these issues can be addressed by ensuring good communication between the team and the business. Some of these issues can be addressed by being careful with the retrospective meeting and its format. The retrospective meeting can be structured in such a way that it encourages the team to discover, explore and address their big issues.
There is no single format retrospective meeting, and there is no retrospective format which is best. Retrospectives can take many forms. In fact, the format of retrospectives should be changed from time to time, as this encourages people to think about their situation in new ways. A great resource for ideas about different formats is Agile Retrospectives, by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen. There are many other resources available on the web too.
Here is a retrospective which I often use for teams that are new to retrospectives. Please do not use this without thinking about it and deciding how it will fit your team.
Some sort of icebreaker activity. For instance, everyone gives one word that for them sums up the sprint. It can be accompanied by explanation or not. Questions are not allowed at this point, since people should be thinking rather than talking.
Look at the actions from the last retrospective. Decide which were completed, perhaps discuss how effective they were and decide which, if any, the team should carry on with.
Everyone writes post-it notes to fall into 2 categories - "What went well" and "What went not so well". The team gets 10-15 min to write the notes and then individuals take it in turns to stick them up onto a whiteboard. As they stick up a note they should introduce it to the team "I wrote xxx because I felt that ...". Some questioning is allowed here, but the point is really just to gather information. The use of post-it notes is a great equalizer and prevents dominant characters from dictating the course of the meeting.
The facilitator then looks to group up the post-it notes into topics / themes. For instance, there may be a number that relate to daily standup meetings. Put these in a clump.
The team now decide on actions to address the items that didn't work well. Start with the biggest clumps of post-its, since those are the issues that are causing the most pain. Generally it's not worth trying tackle all issues. When you have 4-8 actions then call time. There should be lots of discussion and brainstorming during this part of the retrospective. All actions should be specific and should have an owner who is prepared to take responsibility to see it implemented during the next sprint. If nobody volunteers to own an action, then throw it away because clearly nobody wants to see it implemented.
Actions which cannot be implemented by the team are not allowed, e.g. "business users must stop changing their mind". Actions which are vague (e.g. "improve communication") need to be explored more and made specific.
Scrum uses this term "backlog" – it has product backlogs and sprint backlogs and sometimes even technical backlogs – and the term really just means "a list of work". In common usage (i.e. outside of scrum) I think of a backlog as a bunch of stuff that you should have done already but haven't gotten around to yet. For instance "due to a computer problem, there is a considerable backlog at the airline checkin desk". So the term "backlog" can be slightly confusing, but as long as you think of "a list of work" then you'll be fine.
Now the product backlog is really just a list of work that could be done on the product (where "product" equals "your software project"). When the team does a sprint planning meeting, then they will take pick items from the product backlog and work out how they can deliver them.
It's a pretty well-established fact that developers can get side-tracked into building frameworks when they should be delivering application. In order to reduce this risk, scrum allows the product owner to exert some control over which items the team choose for their sprint by ordering the product backlog a way that highlights what needs to be done first. This helps the team to focus on the most important aspects and it tries to ensure that they don't get side-tracked into doing areas that they think are cool but deliver little business value.
One of the most common scrum problems is a poorly ordered backlog. This typically results in the product owner get annoyed with the team because they aren't focussing on the important items. Conversely, the team tend to get frustrated and disheartened because their work never seems to be appreciated.
Scrum leaves wide open the question about what exactly constitutes a backlog item, but it's becoming common to make use of user stories. These are short sentences that express what needs doing, the benefit of the new functionality and which types of user will be interested in it.
Now user stories are great, and a well-written one can express a lot, but fundamentally they are just a single sentence. And a single sentence is invariably too limited to fully express a piece of functionality. As a result, the user story should be beefed up with some extra detail. This extra detail can take the form of acceptance criteria, wireframes, screen mockups, additional descriptions or whatever. This detail should be captured in the product backlog and stored against the product backlog item.
It's important, however, to bear in mind one of the agile principles:
What this means with regards to product backlog items, is that you should try to have just enough detail. Aiming to have loads of detail for each product backlog item is to miss the point.
This becomes an issue when the team tries to plan a product backlog item into a sprint and simply gets stuck because they don't know what to do. The best way to deal with this situation is to actually talk to the product owner (get them into the sprint planning meeting) and have them explain. The additional can be captured if you like, but the important point is that the team should then be clear on what needs doing.
If the product owner is not available (a sad situation that happens all too often) then the team have a difficult choice. They can either put off developing the functionality which they have been told is important, or they can make some assumptions about what needs doing. Neither of these results is ideal.
To try and avoid this situation, the scrum master should be proactive and should be trying to get enough detail on upcoming stories before the sprint planning meeting starts.
One of the great features of a product backlog, is that adding an item on it does not actually constitute a commitment to delivering that item. After all, the product backlog is the list of work that could be done on the product. Whether or not a given backlog item gets delivered depends on the prioritisation process.
Once a product backlog item is planned into a sprint, then it gets removed from the product backlog.
The product owner is free to adjust any of the items on the product backlog at any time. He / she can remove items, change them and adjust prioritisation at any time. None of this will affect the team's current sprint, because the items that they are currently developing have been removed from the product backlog. Instead, these changes will be taken in consideration by the team at their next sprint planning meeting.
It's worth remembering that scrum does not actually give the product owner the ability to change product backlog items once the team has planned them into a sprint. The product owner can call an abnormal sprint termination, but this is not the same as changing the description of an in-progress piece of work.
Excel (or even Word) can be used for holding the product backlog, and there are a variety of commercial products out there which claim to make life easier. The important thing to bear in mind is that, as with any software tool, the tool must fit the process. This means that the product backlog must be easy to access and read, however it's stored.
This will be the subject of a number of future posts. Suffice it to say, that it is possible to make predictions about when the items on the product backlog will get delivered by the team. Concepts such as story pointing, team velocity and release planning are relevant. Of course all such predictions are subject to change … after all, this is an agile process we are talking about!
When a developer starts work on a new piece of code or application for a hobby project, they generally have a rough idea of the design and how long its going to take. Scrum has taken a pragmatic approach and designed the sprint planning meeting to fit exactly that; a dialog of essentially the what's and the how's.
The time within a sprint is fixed based on the iteration length, however people's time per iteration can change based on holiday and having resources allocated elsewhere. In order to scope out what PBIs we will put into the sprint, we need to calculate how much time we have to work with.
Assuming you have:
Then you have 80 hours of potential time this sprint to burn down tasks. A general rule on previous projects is that people are not machines and are not productive for 8 hours a day. Cutting this value down to 5 productive hours a day means you have 50 hours of potential time, it may look bad on your spread sheet but your project is more likely to succeed because of it.
Before a sprint can begin, a team needs to know what is going to be worked on. At the beginning of the meeting the product owner should bring in the prioritised backlog of work and work with the team to bring items into the sprint. This dialog needs to happen for two reasons:
Exploring the latter point further, a common scenario is:
The options are:
So even though the business priority puts the frontend first, its more economical from a technical perspective to reorder some of the tasks. This is what the initial part of the sprint planning meeting is about, optimising the way the team will work over the sprint and providing the best value possible to the business.
The last part of sprint planning is the estimation, which involves:
What you will find during this is a vast about of discussion which will encompass business logic, lots of conceptual design, some logical design and snippets of physical design. This entire dialog drives and shapes what will happen in your sprint, so its important to strike a good balance between allowing the team to communicate and time boxing the session so the team doesn't burn out.
After the team is satisfied about what the task involves, an estimate of the effort involved in hours should be assigned. All team members should pick a number, either on cards or their fingers and come to a consensus after a little more discussion. A good rule of thumb for the size of the tasks is that they should be small enough to be completed within a day; smaller tasks drive better more accurate estimates.
It's important that the product owner is available during this in case the team has questions about solutions they believe need approval from the business. They can also assist as an expert in the domain of the project along with business analysts during discussions around business rules and logic.
Once you have estimated enough tasks such that your availability figure is exceeded you are ready to begin your sprint.
In Scrum, iterations are called sprints and they are the most important rhythm in the project. They start with a sprint planning session and end with a sprint review and a sprint retrospective. Here are some further attributes of a sprint:
These two points play nicely into the concept of the Iron Triangle of software. Simply put, the Iron Triangle asserts that you can control two factors in the diagram below, but attempting to control all three will typically lead to failure.
What we can see is that we are fixing time and cost and as a result, it is scope which is variable. This is an important point and one that is not often appreciated. If your project has a scope which is fixed and cannot be changed, then Scrum may not be the best choice. Agile processes are good at adapting to changing and emerging requirements, not at hitting a fixed set of deliverables over a long time period.
And now to some more detailed points relating to sprints:
As I said at the start of this post, sprints form the basic rhythm of the project. As a result, they need to be regular and all the same length.
This is not to say that a project cannot change it's mind about sprint lengths. I've been on projects where the team has decided to vary the sprint length, with a view to improving it's velocity, and this was fine. However, irregular sprint lengths should not be something that the team has to endure.
A sprint should represent the maximum length of time for which requirements can be fixed. If business users cannot commit to 4 weeks of stability, then sprints should be 2 weeks. If business users cannot commit to 2 weeks of stability, then sprints should be one week. If business users cannot commit to 1 week of stability, then you have some big issues and applying Scrum to your software development is unlikely to address them!
I've never heard a good reason to have sprints longer than 4 weeks. And my personal preference is to have sprints of 2 weeks. In my experience, this has a number of benefits:
The team will typically focus a lot of energy towards the end of the sprint and having a few days off after the end of a sprint is very refreshing. The alternate situation is that the team finishes a sprint, possibly making a bit of a push to get over the line, and then has to start sprint planning the next day. I always find sprint planning to be the most demanding activity in Scrum, so starting it immediately after the end of a sprint feels a lot like unnecessary hard work!
This follows from my earlier point that scope is allowed to vary. The project team will, during sprint planning, use various techniques to work out how much work can be achieved during the sprint. This set of work becomes the goal for the sprint. However, the team may or may not actually get all of the work done. After all, as a famous physicist once said "Prediction is difficult … especially about the future".
A successful sprint is one in which the team delivers its sprint goals – this is the definition of success for a sprint. A successful team is one which regularly has successful sprints. Conversely, a team which regularly misses its sprints goals is unsuccessful and has issues that need to be sorted out. These issues can sometimes be identified and resolved during project retrospectives, but sometimes teams are either stubborn (refusing to change) or myopic (they fail to see the issues) or dumb (they fail to see the problem). In these cases, external scrum coaches can often help the team through their issues.
The situation can sometimes arise where business priorities shift dramatically during a sprint. In these cases it may be futile or even harmful for the team to continue with the sprint. If this is the case, then a sprint can be terminated. Any work in progress should be destroyed and not committed – we do not want half-finished work in the project and it is not clear when the team would complete this work (if ever).


text:
When your motel bed
has four large, plump, white pillows
so you try each one…
Somebody Said
He aquí los pensamientos aleatorios de un epistemólogo andante.
I dream of a world where chickens can cross the road without having their motives questioned.
피할수 없는 고통이라면 차라리 즐겨라
As of June, 2013, I have assumed a new identity: I am a cancer survivor. "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."
"A blog, in the end, is really not so different from an inscription on a bone: I was here, it declares to no one in particular. Don't forget that." - Justin E. H. Smith
재미없으면 보상해드립니다!
"All things are enchained with one another, bound together by love." - Nietzsche (really!)
Leviticus 19:33-34
Donc, si Dieu existait, il n'y aurait pour lui qu'un seul moyen de servir la liberté humaine, ce serait de cesser d'exister. - Mikhail Bakunin
Solvitur ambulando.
Did ya know that loneliness will kill you deader than a .357 Magnum?
Did ya know that?" - Andrew Sims (Rapper)
"Sometimes I wonder why I even bother to soliloquize. Where was I?" - the villain Heinz Doofenshmirtz, in the cartoon Phineas and Ferb.
Is seer periculeus voor de onbekende, om aan te doen. - Hendrick Hamel
"Do unto others 20% better than you would expect them to do unto you, to correct for subjective error." - Linus Pauling
Blogging online since 1965
- He aquí los pensamientos aleatorios de un epistemólogo andante.
Recent Posts
- Caveat: Poem #964 2019-03-22
- Caveat: Tree #78 2019-03-21
- Caveat: timelost 2019-03-21
- Caveat: Poem #963 2019-03-21
- Caveat: Tree #77 2019-03-20
- Caveat: ozward 2019-03-20
- Caveat: Poem #962 2019-03-20
- Caveat: Tree #76 2019-03-19
Recent Comments
- Bob Gehrenbeck on Caveat: There, in the calm of some Platonic dream
- David on Caveat: Prometheus
- Bob Gehrenbeck on Caveat: Art should be arcane
- Jared Way on Caveat: Tree #30
- David on Caveat: Tree #30
- My name is Jared Way. I was born in rural Far Northern California, and became an "adoptive" Minnesotan. I have lived in many other places: Mexico City, Philadelphia, Valdivia (Chile), Los Angeles. And for 11 years, I was an expatriate living in South Korea. In the summer of 2018, I made another huge change, and relocated to Southeast Alaska, which is my uncle's home.
- For many years I was a database programmer, with a background in Linguistics and Spanish Literature. In Korea, worked as an EFL teacher.
- In June, 2013, while I was in Ilsan in South Korea, I was diagnosed with cancer, and underwent successful treatment. That changed my life pretty radically.
- Currently, you could say I'm "between jobs," somewhat caretaking my uncle (to the extent he tolerates that) and getting adapted to life in rural Alaska after so many years as an urban dweller.
- These bloggings, then, have been my random jottings on the subject of my mostly pleasant life among the Quasi-Confucian Cyber-Industrial Paleolithic Peninsulites of Lower Far Siberia.
- I started this blog before I even had the idea of going to Korea (first entry: Caveat: And lo...). So this is not meant to be a blog about Korea, by any stretch of the imagination. But life in Korea, and Korean language and culture, inevitably have come to play a central role in this blog's current incarnation.
- Basically, this blog is a newsletter for the voices in my head. It keeps everyone on the same page: it has become a sort of aide-mémoire.
- For a more detailed reflection on why I'm blogging, you can look at this old post: What this blog is, and isn't.
- If you're curious about me, there is a great deal of me here. I believe in what I call "opaque transparency" - you can learn almost everything about me if you want, but it's not immediately easy to find.
A distillation of my personal philosophy (at least on good days):
I have made the realization that happiness is not a mental state. It is not something that is given to you, or that you find, or that you can lose, or that can be taken from you. Happiness is something that you do. And like most things that you do, it is volitional. You can choose to do happiness, or not. You have complete freedom with respect to the matter.
- "Ethical joy is the correlate of speculative affirmation." - Gilles Deleuze (writing about Spinoza).
Life Online
Like most people, I spend a lot of time online, although I try to limit it somewhat. Here is a somewhat-annotated list of the "places" where I spend time online.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Knowledge and News
- I spend about half of all my time online reading Wikipedia. It's why I know stuff.
- I get most of my world news from Minnesota Public Radio which includes NPR, BBC and CBC, depending on when I listen.
- Korean news: 네이버 뉴스
- Korean news in English, with a conservative bias thrown in for free: The Korea Herald.
- I use the Korean dictionary many times every day: Daum 영어사전.
- Humor and Tech News: The Register.
- Understanding our postmodern world: Television Tropes.
"Social Media"
- I don't really "do" social media. I have a membership at Facebookland but I never log in there. I don't like it.
- I have a membership at The Youtubes but I mostly use it for work. I also listen to music on youtube, frequently - I prefer it to typical streaming services, for example.
Humor and Cat Videos
- Cat videos and other internet novelties: Laughing Squid.
- I have no idea why, but I enjoy legal humor at Lowering the Bar
A Diversity of Blogs - I read these a lot.
- Economic and centrist politics: Marginal Revolution.
- "Rationalism" and vaguely libertarian politics: Slate Star Codex.
- Liberal Politics: Lawyers, Guns, Money.
- Some linguists: Language Log.
- Philosophy (with liberal political slant): Crooked Timber.
- Philosophy (with libertarian political slant): Bleeding Heart Libertarians.
- Korean culture: Ask a Korean.
- Excellent writing: Justin Erik Halldór Smith. Philosophy, random linguistic and political observations, expat life of a Californian of my generation.
- More excellent writing: Blogarach. This is the reincarnation of IOZ, which is referenced in many of my blog posts from years ago.
- Design history and bibliophilic pursuits: Ptak.
- Amateur visual arts: DeviantArt.
- Semiotics: New Savanna.
- Blogs of people I actually know
Geofiction - this has evolved into a significant "hobby" for me. I like to draw imaginary maps, and there is a website that has enabled this vice.
- I worked as a volunteer administrator for the site OpenGeofiction on and off for a few years. I created (but no longer maintain) the site's main wiki page: OGF Wiki. I am not currently working as administrator but I remain active on the site.
- The above work has required my becoming an expert in the Openstreetmap system. Openstreetmap is an attempt do for online maps what wikipedia has done for encyclopedias. I have considered becoming an openstreetmap contributor, but I feel that my current location in Korea hinders that, since I don't have a good grasp Korean cartographic naming conventions.
- Starting in April, 2018, I decided somewhat capriciously to build my own "OGF stack" on my own server. This was not because I intended to abandon the OGF site, but rather because I wanted to better understand the whole architecture and all its parts. I built a wiki on the Mediawiki platform (the same as wikipedia). This wiki has no content. I built a map tileserver and geospatial database, which contains a very low resolution upload of an imaginary planet called Rahet. And I built a wordpress blog, which is a separate, low-frequency blog intended to focus on my geofictional pursuits rather than this more personalized, general purpose blog. All of these things can be found integrated together on my rent-a-server, here: geofictician.net
TEFL - my "profession," such as it is.
- Online English Grammar reference Grammarist. Useful for settling disputes over grammar.
- I get ideas for debate topics from debate.org and from Intelligence Squared - Debates.
- Like most people, I spend a lot of time online, although I try to limit it somewhat. Here is a somewhat-annotated list of the "places" where I spend time online.


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This page will guide you through a typical, one size fits all, installation of MinGW. If you are new to MinGW, you may wish to refer to the MinGW page to learn which packages are required, and which tools are used to perform which tasks. For more advanced installation instructions, refer to HOWTO Install the MinGW (GCC) Compiler Suite.
New to MinGW? What you should first know
Are you new to Mingw? You know nothing about Unix? What is MSYS?
These are common questions for anyone starting out in the programming world. Reading this may help you.
Probably you reached here because you want a good and free compiler for Microsoft Windows.
And yes, here you have it. Don't get disturbed by so many technical subjects. By now, you don't need them.
Mingw uses the great GCC (GNU Compiler Collection). GCC was born in Unix world. Using it in Windows "as is" is not possible, because these Operating Systems (OS) differ in the way they manage data internally and externally. So many files from GCC must be adapted to be used in Windows. And this is what Mingw is for. Many thanks to all the people who donate this effort. Other approach is that from Cygwin: emulate Unix style. Cygwin emulates a POSIX layer and provides its own runtime libraries licensed as GNU GPL instead of working directly with runtime libraries already available on Windows or with less restrictive (non-GPL) licensing.
Download and extract
Because there are many things to use (compiler, linker, utils, API, etc.) you need to download several files:
|the compiler
|the Mingw Runtime system
|the Windows Application Programming Interface
|linker, profiling, windows resources, etc.
|which gathers all "things to do" to achieve your program
|a great debugger to look inside your app while it is running
The complete name for each file to download includes its version.
You can also download the MinGW-xxx.exe file, and let it download the rest, but probably it doesn't download the last version of each file. The new mingw-get intaller will improve this situation when it becomes available.
Files are compressed in Unix style: .tar.gz
Use an un-zip app (7-Zip is really good: www.7-zip.org) and extract all of it to your desired directory, usually c:\mingw. Caution: never install MinGW into any directory which includes spaces in its absolute path name.
Some sub-dirs are created. Some files may overwrite other ones. Usually they are license repeated files. No problem: just choose the newer over the older.
The basis
If you just learned to write some code and push the "run" icon you may get lost with so many new concepts. Well. Here's a bit of explanation:
You develop your app writing code and splitting it in some files. You also create icons. And perhaps new cursors.
- Each file you create (or re-use) must be analysed, understood, translated to machine-code and even optimized. That's work for the compiler.
- Your icons and cursors will be managed by the windows resources manager (winres.exe).
- All "translated units" (compiled) must be joined. Time for the linker.
- During execution, any app must communicate with OS (which is what really uses CPU, memory and other devices) using the Runtime system.
- To get the OS utilities (say a control, a dialogue, http services, etc.) API must be used.
You surely need special files with functions made by others: libraries. Typically these are the .dll files your app loads at runtime ("dynamic loading" or "shared linking"). But you can also make them part of your .exe file ("static linking"). You can find these special files (.a) in \lib dir.
By now (April 2010) your app will need the file mingwm10.dll. This file is for multi-threading and will not be statically linked into your .exe file. Multi-threading is an expert way of getting more from the CPU. It simulates (or uses) several cores working simultaneously.
All of this building process can be described in a file (say mybuild.file). And you can call it using mingw32-make.exe.
To run your app in a way you can pause it and look at some variables of your code (debugging), use gdb.
If you want to know where your app spends more time (profiling), use gprof. If you want to be alerted as to where to find an error in your code when a program you compiled with MinGW crashes, use a Just in Time debugger such as DrMingw.
Most of this utilities have "parameters" or "flags" or "command switches" when you invoke them. For example, you can ask gcc to generate code optimized for a special CPU, or tell it where to look for (include) other files. You can read gcc/cpp/gprof/etc. documentation on the web (i.e. http://gcc.gnu.org).
You call make (or each component, one by one) typing it in a command-box.
I'm sure you are asking "Good. But what about pushing the run button?"
For that you need an IDE (Integrated Development Environment). MinGW doesn't incorporate one. You can find many on the web. There are IDE's that include also compilers (as MS Visual Studio).
I recommend Code::Blocks (www.codeblocks.org). It's good and free. And it's built with MinGW :) If you also install MinGW, C::B can use it automagically, debugging included.
What is MSYS?
It is a Unix-like command line shell.
Unix has some utilities (configure, sed, grep, etc.) you can use in this "box".
Some people develop their apps preparing a make-file that only works well if it's invoked from a Unix shell.
MinGW Installation Notes
MinGW may have problems with paths containing spaces, and if not, usually other programs used with MinGW will experience problems with such paths. Thus, we strongly recommend that you do not install MinGW in any location with spaces in the path name reference; i.e. you should avoid installing into any subdirectory of "Program Files" or "My Documents", or the like.
No version numbering convention exists, for MinGW as a whole. Each package has its own version number, and the installer version number does not necessarily reflect the version number of any individual package which it installs.
Automated Installer
Note: The automated installer is now considered deprecated, and is currently unmaintained; it will not install GCC 4. You will get GCC 3 using this method. If you want to install the latest GCC release, use the Manual Installation method below.
A new automated installer currently in development, mingw-get, is planned to automatically install GCC 4. It will have both a graphical user interface (GUI) and a command line interface (CLI), either of which can be used to install all packages in GCC 4.
Download the latest MinGW-5.x.x.exe installer from sourceforge.net and run it. When prompted to choose which package you wish, if unsure or if you have never used MinGW before, we recommend choosing the "current" package (the default option). You will then be able to choose which components you wish to install:
- MinGW base tools: This required component is composed of binutils, the C compiler, the runtime libraries and platform API.
- ... compiler: These components each install a compiler for the programming language specified in the label of the component. Usually, you will at least want to also install the C++ compiler.
- MinGW make: This component installs make, a program capable of interpreting Makefiles. This component is highly recommended for those who don't want to also install MSYS (why not?); many IDE's require this functionality.
When choosing the "Destination Folder" for the installation, please do not choose any path that contains spaces in its absolute name, unless you have read the installation notes above and are willing to accept the possible consequences; if you are in any doubt, accept the default.
The installer will then download and install the components selected.
Manual Installation
As an alternative to the automated installer, you may install MinGW by manually downloading and uncompressing individual components.
Before proceeding, you are encouraged to consult the release notes for each individual package; links to these will be found adjacent to each package file entry, on the MinGW Download Page.
Download at least the following (or newer) packages from the MinGW Download Page; where two or more component packages are indicated, you need both / all of them. (Note that the package links provided here refer to current releases at the time of writing; these links may not necessarily be updated immediately, when new releases become available):
- binutils
- mingw-runtime (dev and dll)
- w32api
- Required runtime libraries for GCC (gmp, libiconv, MPFR and pthreads)
- gcc-core (bin and dll)
These are the minimum requirements for a working mingw-gcc-toolchain for C.
Optionally you may want to add any of the following additional languages; (for each which you choose to install, you need both the bin and the dll component packages):
- gcc-g++ (bin and dll) for C++
- gcc-objc (bin and dll) for Objective C
- gcc-gfortran (bin and dll) for Fortran 90
- gcc-java (bin and dll) for Java
- gcc-ada (bin and dll) for Ada
Note that the GCC versions of these files must match the GCC version of the gcc-core installed.
Optionally you may want to add any of the following additional utilities:
- mingw-gdb for debugger
- mingw32-make for make
- mingw-utils for MinGW Utilities
- MSYS for Unix-style commands and shell (see the MSYS page for installation instructions)
- msysDTK for Unix-style developer toolkit
You will also need a program that can extract .tar.gz files, (or in some cases .tar.bz2 and .tar.lzma and .tar.xz files), such as the GUI-based WinZip (not recommended), or 7-Zip, or the command-line tar, gzip and lzma and xz tools. Command line tools are provided by MSYS (recommended), or Google for 'gnu+tools+win32' to find some alternatives. The GnuWin32 project provides Windows-native builds of tar and gzip CLI tools. Mingw supplies a native and msys version of xz in its file archives. 7zip supports decompression of several formats including lzma and xz as well as tar and bz2 and zip. 7zip provides a GUI interface, but there's also a command line tool, 7za, found at the 7zip site. Syntax for using 7za is not exactly the same as tar, gzip, xz or some other standard command line utilities.
Create a directory (e.g. C:\MinGW), download all packages to C:\MinGW, for each package execute gunzip/untar package, and add C:\MinGW\bin; to your PATH environment variable:
C:\Documents and Settings\Owner> cd /d c:\ C:\> md MinGW C:\> cd MinGW
Download all packages to C:\MinGW
C:\MinGW> gzip -d -c binutils-2.20.1-2-mingw32-bin.tar.gz | tar x C:\MinGW> gzip -d -c mingwrt-3.18-mingw32-dev.tar.gz | tar x C:\MinGW> gzip -d -c mingwrt-3.18-mingw32-dll.tar.gz | tar x C:\MinGW> gzip -d -c w32api-3.14-mingw32-dev.tar.gz | tar x C:\MinGW> gzip -d -c gmp-4.2.4-mingw32-dll.tar.gz | tar x C:\MinGW> lzma -d -c libiconv-1.13.1-1-mingw32-dll-2.tar.lzma | tar x C:\MinGW> gzip -d -c mpfr-2.4.1-mingw32-dll.tar.gz | tar x C:\MinGW> gzip -d -c pthreads-w32-2.8.0-mingw32-dll.tar.gz | tar x C:\MinGW> gzip -d -c gcc-core-4.4.0-mingw32-bin.tar.gz | tar x C:\MinGW> gzip -d -c gcc-core-4.4.0-mingw32-dll.tar.gz | tar x C:\MinGW> set path=C:\MinGW\bin;%path%
The whole C:\MinGW subtree is fully relocatable which means there can be several different versions of the MinGW toolchain installed in parallel, e.g. in directories C:\MinGW-3.4.5 and C:\MinGW-4.4.0. Switching between these is merely a matter of renaming directories, assuming C:\MinGW\bin; has been added to the path. You can permanently add C:\MinGW\bin; to the path by opening the System control panel, going to the Advanced tab, and clicking the Environment Variables button.
Updating single packages (e.g. when there is a new version of the w32api) can be done by copying the new package to C:\MinGW and unpacking as above to overwrite the older version. This manual update also works with an initial automated install.
Manual Installation of GCC 4.5
The following are instructions for installing GCC 4.5 where they differ from GCC 4.4. This version of GCC has not yet been released and is only for testing purposes. Please refer to the release notes for detailed notes, including known issues.
- binutils
- mingw-runtime
- w32api
- Required runtime libraries for GCC:
- gcc-core (bin and dll)
These are the minimum requirements for a working mingw-gcc-toolchain for C.
Optionally you may want to add any of the following additional languages; (for each which you choose to install, you need both the bin and the dll component packages):
- gcc-g++ (bin and dll) for C++
- gcc-objc (bin and dll) for Objective C
- gcc-gfortran (bin and dll) for Fortran 90/95
- gcc-java (not yet available) for Java
- gcc-ada (bin and dll) for Ada
Note that the GCC versions of these files must match the GCC version of the gcc-core installed.
You may also want the following additional features:
- translations into languages other than English
- documentation
Optionally you may want to add any of the additional utilities that are available for GCC 4.4. Some information on Other Libraries and Tools to use with MinGW is also available.


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While browsing the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, this past week, we came across a few awesome Pontiacs to share with you all. Unfortunately, there weren't a ton, but what the show lacked in quantity, it made up for in quality. Check out our top 5 picks for coolest Pontiacs of the week and let us know what you think!
The beautiful '69 Firebird you see here is owned by Sid Tracy, and when it caught our eye on the outdoor show field, we couldn't pass up snapping some pictures of it. It's powered by a Mast Motorsports 540-horsepower LS3 and features one-off sheet-metal fabrication, Forgeline ZX3P center lock wheels, and a one-of-a-kind chin spoiler and side skirts. Inside resides an all-aluminum dash and interior panel cover, Italian leather-wrapped roll cage, and flush mounted glass. Troy Gudgel of BBT Fabrications in Champaign, Illinois is listed as the builder.
Trans Am Depot, of course, had a booth at SEMA this year to showcase its awesome concepts vehicles – remember the Judge on our cover a couple months ago? Yeah, those guys. They had the 6T9 GTO Judge on display along with a black Hurst Trans Am with T-tops. The company also creates 6T9 Trans Ams and 7T7 Trans Ams. You see, Trans Am Depot is the only company licensed and authorized to use the Trans Am moniker, meaning they have very high standards to live up to. We think they're doing a pretty good job of keeping the history alive and well.
A company called RMC or Restore a Muscle Car, in collaboration with Hermance Design, brought a creation nicknamed Banshee to the show. Built from a Camaro and designed to resemble a Pontiac Trans Am, the Banshee convertible held a steady crowd. According to the company, the Banshee "is like no other on the market" and is the "embodiment of what could have been." The build includes a body conversion package complete with injection molded front and rear fascia, an aluminum hood, ABS spoiler and shaker, fender insets and mirror accents. The option list includes such upgrades as a convertible top, T-top conversion, and supercharger, suspension, exhaust, and brake upgrade kits. Year One custom Snowflake wheels and custom paint, graphic, and interior options round out the substantial list.
Another awesome '69 Pontiac caught our eye in the show field as well. The orange Pro-Touring Pontiac GTO Judge owned by brothers Don and Darren Nickleson features a Butler Performance Pontiac 505 cubic-inch powerplant producing 665 horsepower. The "Judge Mental" GTO Judge is the perfect mix of show and go.
Check out our gallery and let us know which of these Pontiacs of SEMA is your favorite!


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John Yeoman and Quentin Blake: 50 Years of Children's Books
An exhibition celebrating Quentin Blake's lifelong collaboration with author John Yeoman
When, Where
Quentin Blake and John Yeoman have created more books together than Blake has with any other author, including Roald Dahl.
This exhibition will include his very first illustrations for children's literature, which Yeoman persuaded him to draw in 1960, as well as work from their latest collaboration and 10 projects in between.
The exhibition coincides with the re-issue of A Drink of Water (their first book) by Thames & Hudson, and the launch of All the Year Round (their latest book) by Andersen Press.
Important to know:
One ticket covers admission to all House of Illustration exhibitions that are open on the day. Buy exhibition tickets below.


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Louis J. Incognito, 72, of Mt. Airy, a retired computer programmer and community activist, died of renal cell cancer Jan. 25 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
Because of his illness, Mr. Incognito was forced to retire in 1998 from Professional Partners Group, where he had been a consultant to the General Accident Insurance Co. Prior to 2000, he had been involved in rewriting and installing the company's Y2K program. Other programs that he had written earlier are still in use today.
He began his career as a programmer with the General Electric Co., and had worked for Merck, Sharp & Dohme, and for Union Fidelity and Reliance insurance companies.
He had been active in his community for many years and had served as vice president of East Mt. Airy Neighbors. He was a regular volunteer at Mt. Airy Day until he became too ill to continue.
He was a member of several peace organizations for more than 40 years and participated in numerous marches and demonstrations. He wrote frequently on political and social issues for local newspapers and was an advocate for public education.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, he was a graduate of LaSalle College High School and what is now LaSalle University, where he was a mathematics major.
Mr. Incognito is survived by his wife, the former Sheila Kilian; sons Louis, Paul, David and Andrew; a daughter, Jodi Haasz; his mother, Angela; a brother, James, and nine grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25, at the Unitarian Society of Germantown, 6511 Lincoln Drive, in Mt. Airy. Memorial donations may be made to East Mt. Airy Neighbors, 7301 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19119. – WF


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Who would win in a fight, Zeus or Anubis? Hi-Rez Studios, the creators of Global Agenda and the upcoming Tribes: Ascend are taking a divine stab at the defense of the ancients genre with Smite, full-on arena battles between mythical gods.
Hi-Rez sure has their hands full these days, between running their free-to-play MMO shooter Global Agenda and steering the future of the Tribes franchise. Looks like the developer isn't averse to taking on more work, however, as they announce the development of Smite, a free-to-play online battle between mythical beings.
Powered by the Unreal 3 Engine, free-to-play Smite will allow players to take on the role of their favorite mythical gods (as opposed to the non-mythical ones) in online arena battles "inspired by" DoTA-style battles. It looks like the actual combat will lean more towards action than the point-and-click real-time strategy genre that spawned DoTA in the first place.
"As a studio and as gamers, we love competitive multi-player games that reward teamwork and strategy", says Todd Harris, Hi-Rez Studios COO. "With SMITE, we draw inspiration from DoTA-style RTS titles, but leverage the Unreal 3 Engine to introduce original action oriented combat mechanics, great graphics, and a mythology-themed setting.
Keep an eye on official Smite web page for more details on this latest clash of the titans.
And if you were curious, the answer is Anubis. Egyptian god of the dead or just a fuzzy puppy? Your choice!


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Smartplanet, 1/16/2013
When it comes to beauty, Mexican women want their cherry-red locks or bleach-blond highlights to be noticed, and their makeup to shout. Mexican men don't hold back when running gel through their hair. The liberal use of beauty products here is why L'Oreal, the Paris-based maker of colorants, makeup and hair products has just opened its largest colorant plant in the world here.


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For those of you who got hooked already by the magical kernel patch that went into 2.6.38 and seriously improved latency with high load, there is a special daemon now that takes it further: uLatencyD. And for the lazy Ubuntu people there is a ppa available, too:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:poelzi/ulatencyd-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ulatencyd
It works immediately and in my experience so far: veeery nice.
More Latency Tweaks for Desktop Users
Related Posts : kernel, latency, performance, tips
Categories: kernel, latency, performance, tips
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by Kellye Eversole and Angela Records
Whew! Just hours before the US would have been forced to default on debt, the stars aligned in Washington and the House of Representative passed, and President Obama signed a debt ceiling deal developed by the democratic and republican leaders in the Senate that ended 16 days of government shutdown and extensive furloughs of Federal employees. While I do not believe that it really had an impact on the ability of the Senate leadership to strike an agreement, I found it interesting that the salaries of Senate staff would have ended tomorrow, the 18th of October. In my view, the primary factor was that the majority of congressional members wanted to prevent the economic catastrophe and the embarrassment that would have resulted from a default.
Is the problem solved? Is there no longer a risk of another government shutdown? In a few words, things are okay "for now". Under the agreement, the government will be open until 15 January 2014 and the Secretary of the Treasury will have the authority until 7 February to use extraordinary measures to prevent a default on US debt. The "continuing resolution" (CR) continues government funding at the fiscal year (FY) 2013 levels after the sequestration was implemented (i.e., generally 5 percent less than the FY 2012 program levels). Between now and then, Congress and the President must approve another CR or appropriations legislation to prevent the government from shutting down again.
It's the 7th of October and at midnight the US government will enter its 8th day of shutdown. While many thought that the shutdown would be short-lived, this has not been the case. Indeed, it now appears as though the shutdown will last at least until the 17th of October – the date by which the US debt limit must be increased to avoid default on government loans. If you are curious as to how the government is (or is not really) operating during the shutdown, you can find copies of all agency plans here.
More importantly, APS has many members who serve on the staff of governmental agencies and many other members whose research or economic viability depends on access to Federal funding or the variety of regulatory activities that enable research and commercial activities related to plants and associated microbes, including plant pathogens. Who is minding these stores during the shutdown?
According to the contingency plans, most of the agencies have a handful (2-5) of employees at headquarters on call for emergency activities and most governmental websites have been shuttered. Here are a few more specific examples of the impact of the shutdown on employees at a few agencies.
· Out of approximately 10,190 staff within the research division of USDA (i.e., ARS, ERS, NASS, & NIFA), only 408 are working with 402 of these at ARS maintaining essential research facilities. This means that 96% of employees at these 4 agencies have been furloughed.
· APHIS receives some revenue from trust funds and user fees so it is not completely dependent on annual appropriation bills. For agricultural emergencies involving invasive pests and diseases, Commodity Credit Corporation mandatory funding is available. In addition, mandatory farm bill funding supports some pests and disease activities. In all, these non-appropriated funds will keep 3,037 APHIS employees working.
· The US Forest Service has furloughed almost 60% of its staff as you may have seen firsthand if you tried to visit a national park this past weekend.
· The National Science Foundation furloughed 1,970 employees and has kept 30 staff (slightly above 1%) to protect life and property.
It is hard to imagine what the financial toll will be on many of the governmental workers who will go without pay for at least one full pay period. Even if Congress enacts legislation to provide back-pay, no doubt many employees will have trouble making ends meet this month and they deserve our support.
What can you do? Contact your members of congress and tell them to pass, at least, a clean continuing appropriations resolution. If you are a governmental employee affected by the shutdown, remember that you can contact your members of congress as well provided you use your personal email and contact details.
This week, a multitude of Congressional hearings are being held on the President's FY 2014 budget request for the Department of Agriculture. USDA Secretary Vilsack appeared before the House agricultural appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday to defend the President's request, Undersecretary for Research, Education, and Economics (REE), Cathie Woteki, and the administrators within the REE mission area testified yesterday, and today, USDA Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, Ed Avalos, and the administrators within this mission area (including the Acting Administrator for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) is appearing before the subcommittee.
While the REE mission area receives less than 2% of the overall USDA budget, research was a major topic of discussion during the Vilsack hearing. Many scientific societies who place absolute priority on increasing funding for the USDA's flagship competitive grants program, AFRI, must have been disappointed that the focus of the discussions about research were on the importance of USDA's intramural programs and facilities funded through the ARS. The hearing illustrates the reality of the constraints under which we must operate if we are to increase funding for agricultural research broadly. As former Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O'Neil frequently said, "All politics is local". This came through loud and clear at the Vilsack hearing. The subcommittee members were concerned about cuts in funding for research in their districts and the fact that their research facilities were not on the priority list for infrastructure improvement funding.
Because of the need for members of congress to focus on the impacts that legislation and appropriations have on their own districts, the various budget proposals over the past 20+ years to increase competitively awarded funding at USDA by taking funds from ARS or formula funds that support land grant institutions and extension, have most been dead on arrival in Congress. This is why the APS Public Policy Board has consistently advocated for net increases in spending for the entire REE mission area and has opposed efforts that would rob Peter (e.g., ARS) to pay Paul (e.g., AFRI).
We have been criticized occasionally for taking this position but it is starting to pay off. This year, the President's budget request includes a "net" overall increase in funding for agricultural research. Included in the request is a significant increase in competitively awarded funding but it isn't taken out of the ARS budget. While there are certainly winners and losers in the President's budget request, the overall numbers should be our focus at this time. If we can hold onto the baseline and increase funding from there, overall research, extension, and education funding will rise (i.e., the whole boat will rise). The Administration deserves a big "thank-you" for requesting a net increase in funding for science at USDA.
The sequester has been implemented and there is no sign that it will be reversed for the current fiscal year as action on the FY 2013 continuing resolution is expected to proceed without addressing the 1 March 2013 sequester order. The order requires a 5.0 percent reduction in discretionary domestic spending which includes most of the science, extension, education, and regulatory programs of interest to plant pathologists. Because the cut is being implemented over 7 months, the effective reduction is about 9.0 percent for the remainder of the fiscal year.
In a memorandum to the heads of US agencies and departments, the director of the Office of Management Budget (OMB) suggested that money could be saved by "minimizing noncritical expenditures such as training, conferences and travel". While participation by governmental scientists in scientific society conferences was expected to be down already due to general, government-wide travel limitations, this will no doubt reduce participation even further.
The following chart depicts a rough outline of the cuts that some of the programs will sustain as a result of the sequester. The "sequestrable amount of budget authority" is the amount of funding within the program or account that is subject to the sequester. For virtually all of the programs listed in the chart, the "sequestrable amount" is equal to the total program funding.
FY 2013 Sequester Implemented 1 March 2013
US Department Agency/Account
Sequestrable Budget Authority (BA) Amount
Sequester Amount ($ in millions)
US Department of Agriculture
Economic Research Service (ERS)
National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS)
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) - Salaries & Expenses
National Institutes for Food & Agriculture (NIFA) - Extension Activities
NIFA - Research & Education activities
NIFA - Integrated Activities
Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) - Salaries and Expenses
US Department of Health & Human Services
Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Centers for Disease Control & Prevention - CDC-wide activities & programs
CDC - Toxic substances, environmental health, and disease registry
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
US Department of Homeland Security
Customs & Border Protection (CBP)
CBP Automation & Modernization
Border Security, Fencing, Infrastructure, & Technology
Science & Technoogy
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Science & Technology
Environmental Programs & Management
Registration & Expedited Processing Revolving Fund
Pesticide Registration Fund
Executive Office of the President
Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP)
Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR)
Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
US Department of State
Millenium Challenge Corporation
Global Food Security Fund
Agency for International Development (AID) - Operating expenses
Trade & Development Agency
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Space Technology
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Research & Related Activities
Education & Human Resources
Agency Operations & Award Management
Major Research Equipment & Facilities Construction
US Department Agency/Account
The sequester (i.e., across the board spending cuts) will be implemented today. Furloughs are not expected until April at the earliest, however, individual agencies may phase-in furloughs at different times and some may be able to avoid furloughs completely. The US Office of Management & Budget is expected to provide specific agency-by-agency details later today.
The sequester will be applied to program funding accounts. This will allow some flexibility to program managers although they won't be able to shift funds from one account to another. For example, the USDA-NIFA flagship competitive grants program, AFRI, will be subject to the same percentage reduction as the National Plant Diagnostic Network.
Negotiations between the President and republican and democratic congressional leaders will continue although it is doubtful a deal will be achieved. Several members of congress have introduced a variety of so-called "agency flexibility" bills that would grant some measure of flexibility for agencies to prioritize the cuts.
In the meantime, leaders of the House and Senate appropriations committees are piecing together an omnibus continuing resolution that would provide appropriations through September 2013. This legislation must be enacted by 27 March 2013 to keep the government operating; failure to enact a continuing resolution by that time will result in a government shut-down.
As the continuing resolution is considered, there will be some attempts to replace the sequester with specific funding cuts (e.g., Senate democrats proposed recently to eliminate direct farm payments as one means of raising funds sufficient to avoid a sequester). However, the path of least resistance for congressional democrats and republicans may well be to allow the sequester to stay in place.
Stay tuned for more information.
Over the past few years, in observing the US budget debates and its potential impact on agricultural research, extension, and education funding, I have felt as though I was constantly saying that the "sky is falling" and then the "sky did not fall" as a last minute deal was struck to delay severe budget cuts. Here we go again although it is extremely likely that there will be major reductions in budgets this year. By 1 March 2013, if a consensus is not reached, the $85 billion sequester (i.e., across-the-board budget cuts) will kick-in and all agencies will have no choice but to implement plans to reduce the annual budget of all spending programs by 5 percent. Since 5 months of the year have elapsed already, the effective percentage reduction would be about 9 percent. From a personnel standpoint, this could result in furloughs of up to 15 days between 1 March and 30 September for most government employees.
Do agencies have flexibility for allocating the percentage reduction? No. There are a lot of proposals being bandied about that would give the Secretary of Defense and potentially other heads of departments some flexibility, but it is unlikely an agreement will be reached in time.
Will Congress pass one of the proposals to avert/delay the sequester? There will be a lot of votes this week but it is unlikely that any one of them will be adopted by both houses of Congress and signed by the President.
If the sequester is delayed by 1 March, what is the likely timing of the delay? Right now, the government is operating on a continuing resolution that provided funding through 27 March 2013 for all agencies at the fiscal year 2012 level. If the sequester is delayed this week, more than likely it will be delayed no longer than the 27th of March.
What will happen by 27 March 2013? Some of the proposals being discussed right now would enact another appropriations legislation that would continue funding for the rest of the current fiscal year (FY 2013), include budget cuts of $85-115 billion, raise additional revenue, and cancel the sequester. Other proposals would keep the sequester and continue funding at or below the level provided under the sequester.
If Congress passes the FY 2013 appropriations legislation by 27 March, is that all of the budget negotiations for the year? Unfortunately, that legislation will only wrap up the current fiscal year. Congress must also pass appropriations legislation for the fiscal year that begins on 1 October.
Is there anything that APS members can do? Absolutely! Please contact your members of congress and encourage them to support an approach to addressing our budget deficits that recognizes the importance of making essential investments for the future such as in agricultural science, extension, and education programs.
If you have turned on your television or picked up a newspaper in the past month, you are likely aware that the United States is swiftly approaching the "fiscal cliff." Did you know that the fiscal cliff and its associated automatic spending cuts (sequestration) threaten to seriously impact agricultural science? The cuts are expected to reduce federal support of science by 9% or more, which is estimated at more than $15 billion.
Contact your Congressional representatives now and urge them to avoid sequestration and pursue a balanced, comprehensive deficit reduction plan that sustains the scientific enterprise. Click here to contact your senators. Click here to contact your House representative. Let Congress know your opinion at this critical time in American history!
Kellye EversoleAngela Records


text:
In the previous section, we saw how the
take Effect allows us to better describe a non-trivial flow in a central place.
Revisiting the login flow example:
function* loginFlow() {
while (Resort Unisex Bradley Handbag Medallion Blue Tote Shoulder Vera true) {
yield Shoulder Tote Unisex Handbag Medallion Vera Bradley Blue Resort take(Hansen Black Snow Warm Boot Ladies White Helly Black Stay in Equipe or 7FdOnOWUCx'LOGIN')
// ... perform the login logic
yield take('LOGOUT')
Blue Vera Medallion Unisex Handbag Shoulder Resort Bradley Tote // ... perform the logout logic
Let's complete the example and implement the actual login/logout logic. Suppose we have an API which permits us to authorize the user on a remote server. If the authorization is successful, the server will return an authorization token which will be stored by our application using DOM storage (assume our API provides another service for DOM storage).
When the user logs out, we'll simply delete the authorization token stored previously.
First try
So far we have all needed Effects in order to implement the above flow. We can wait for specific actions in the store using the
take Effect. We can make asynchronous calls using the
call Effect. Finally, we can dispatch actions to the store using the
put Effect.
So let's give it a try:
Note: the code below has a subtle issue. Make sure to read the section until the end.
import { take, call, put }Warm B Black Pu Women Funtasma Ankle Lining Boots Vic120 pqRnwZ8I from 'redux-saga/effects'
import Api from '...'
function* authorize(user, password) {
try {
Resort Tote Shoulder Bradley Handbag Vera Medallion Blue Unisex const token = yield call(Api.authorize, user, password)
yield put({type: 'LOGIN_SUCCESS', token})
return token
} catch(error) {
yield put({type: 'LOGIN_ERROR', error})
function* loginFlow() {
while (true) {
const {user, password} = yield take('LOGIN_REQUEST')
Unisex Tote Resort Medallion Vera Blue Bradley Shoulder Handbag const token = yield call(authorize, user, password)
if (token) {
yield call(Api.storeItem, {token})
yield take('LOGOUT')
yield call(Api.clearItem, 'token')
First we created a separate Generator
authorize which will perform the actual API call and notify the Store upon success.
loginFlow implements its entire flow inside a
while (true) loop, which means once we reach the last step in the flow (
LOGOUT) we start a new iteration by waiting for a new
LOGIN_REQUEST action.
loginFlow first waits for a
LOGIN_REQUEST action. Then retrieves the credentials in the action payload (
user and
password) and makes a
call to the
authorize task.
As you noted,
call isn't only for invoking functions returning Promises. We can also use it to invoke other Generator functions. In the above example,
loginFlow will wait for authorize until it terminates and returns (i.e. after performing the api call, dispatching the action and then returning the token to
If the API call succeeds,
authorize will dispatch a
LOGIN_SUCCESS action then return the fetched token. If it results in an error, it'll dispatch a
LOGIN_ERROR action.
If the call to
authorize is successful,
loginFlow will store the returned token in the DOM storage and wait for a
LOGOUT action. When the user logouts, we remove the stored token and wait for a new user login.
In the case of
authorize failed, it'll return an undefined value, which will cause
loginFlow to skip the previous process and wait for a new
LOGIN_REQUEST action.
Observe how the entire logic is stored in one place. A new developer reading our code doesn't have to travel between various places in order to understand the control flow. It's like reading a synchronous algorithm: steps are laid out in their natural order. And we have functions which call other functions and wait for their results.
But there is still a subtle issue with the above approach
Suppose that when the
loginFlow is waiting for the following call to resolve:
function* loginFlow(Bradley Tote Medallion Unisex Blue Resort Shoulder Handbag Vera ) {
while (true) {
// ...
try Unisex Resort Medallion Tote Vera Shoulder Handbag Blue Bradley {
const token = yield call(authorize, user, password)
// ...
// ...
The user clicks on the
Logout button causing a
LOGOUTWomen Boots Women Women Boots Boots Women Women Boots YxwPRq8C8 action to be dispatched.
The following example illustrates the hypothetical sequence of the events:
UI loginFlow
LOGIN_REQUEST...................call authorize.......... waiting to resolve
LOGOUT.................................................. missed!
................................authorize returned...... dispatch a `LOGIN_SUCCESS`!!
loginFlow is blocked on the
authorize call, an eventual
LOGOUT occurring in between the call and the response will be missed, because
Bradley Handbag Tote Resort Blue Medallion Shoulder Unisex Vera loginFlow hasn't yet performed the
yield take('LOGOUT').
The problem with the above code is that
call is a blocking Effect. i.e. the Generator can't perform/handle anything else until the call terminates. But in our case we do not only want
loginFlow to execute the authorization call, but also watch for an eventual
Tote Resort Handbag Vera Blue Unisex Shoulder Bradley Medallion LOGOUT action that may occur in the middle of this call. That's because
LOGOUT is concurrent to the
authorize call.
So what's needed is some way to start
authorize without blocking so
loginFlow can continue and watch for an eventual/concurrent
LOGOUT action.
To express non-blocking calls, the library provides another Effect: bags XL Compartment Leather Handbag Extra 2 Women Faux 3 Black Large Tote Ladies Designer Design Shoulder nqpRF0Wn. When we fork a task, the task is started in the background and the caller can continue its flow without waiting for the forked task to terminate.
So in order for
loginFlow to not miss a concurrent
LOGOUT, we must not
call the
authorize task, instead we have to
fork it.
import { fork, call, take, put } from 'redux-saga/effects'
function* loginFlow() {
while (Blue Vera Handbag Tote Medallion Bradley Unisex Resort Shoulder true) {
try {
// non-blocking call, what's the returned value here ?
const ?Shoulder Handbag Blue Resort Bradley Medallion Vera Tote Unisex ? = yield fork(authorize, user, password)
The issue now is since our
authorize action is started in the background, we can't get the
token result (because we'd have to wait for it). So we need to move the token storage operation into the
authorize task.
import { fork, call, take, put } from 'redux-saga/effects'
import Api from '...'
function* authorize(user, password) {
try {
const token = yield call(Api.authorize, user, password)
yield put({type: 'LOGIN_SUCCESS', token})
yield call(Api.storeItem, {token})
} catch(error) {
yield put({type: 'LOGIN_ERROR', error})
function* loginFlow() {
while (true)Unisa ks Unisa Women Kase Kase wO8Tq6z8 {
const {user, password} = yield take('LOGIN_REQUEST')
yield fork(authorize, user, password)
yield take(['LOGOUT', 'LOGIN_ERROR'])
yield call(Api.clearItem, 'token')
We're also doing
yield take(['LOGOUT', 'LOGIN_ERROR']). It means we are watching for 2 concurrent actions:
If the
authorizetask succeeds before the user logs out, it'll dispatch a
LOGIN_SUCCESSaction, then terminate. Our
loginFlowsaga will then wait only for a future
LOGOUTaction (because
LOGIN_ERRORwill never happen).
If the
authorizefails before the user logs out, it will dispatch a
LOGIN_ERRORaction, then terminate. So
loginFlowwill take the
LOGIN_ERRORbefore the
LOGOUTthen it will enter in a another
whileiteration and will wait for the next
If the user logs out before the
authorizeterminate, then
loginFlowwill take a
LOGOUTaction and also wait for the next
Note the call for
Api.clearItem is supposed to be idempotent. It'll have no effect if no token was stored by the
Unisex Resort Blue Bradley Vera Handbag Medallion Tote Shoulder authorize call.
loginFlow makes sure no token will be in the storage before waiting for the next login.
But we're not yet done. If we take a
LOGOUT in the middle of an API call, we have to cancel the
authorize process, otherwise we'll have 2 concurrent tasks evolving in parallel: The
authorize task will continue running and upon a successful (resp. failed) result, will dispatch a
LOGIN_SUCCESS (resp. a
LOGIN_ERROR) action leading to an inconsistent state.
In order to cancel a forked task, we use a dedicated Effect
import { take, put, call, fork, cancel } from 'redux-saga/effects'
// ...
function* loginFlow() {
while (true) {
const {user, password} = yield takeVera Shoulder Bradley Resort Handbag Unisex Medallion Tote Blue ('LOGIN_REQUEST')
// fork return a Task object
const task = yield fork(authorize, user, password)
const action = yield take(['LOGOUT', 'LOGIN_ERROR'])
if (action.type === 'LOGOUT')
yield cancel(task)
yield call(Api.clearItem, 'token')
yield fork results in a Task Object. We assign the returned object into a local constant
task. Later if we take a
LOGOUT action, we pass that task to the
cancel Effect. If the task is still running, it'll be aborted. If the task has already completed then nothing will happen and the cancellation will result in a no-op. And finally, if the task completed with an error, then we do nothing, because we know the task already completed.
We are almost done (concurrency is not that easy; you have to take it seriously).
Suppose that when we receive a
LOGIN_REQUEST action, our reducer sets some
isLoginPending flag to true so it can display some message or spinner in the UI. If we get a
LOGOUT in the middle of an API call and abort the task by simply killing it (i.e. the task is stopped right away), then we may end up again with an inconsistent state. We'll still have
isLoginPending set to true and our reducer will be waiting for an outcome action (
LOGIN_SUCCESS or
Fortunately, the
cancel Effect won't brutally kill our
authorize task, it'll instead give it a chance to perform its cleanup logic. The cancelled task can handle any cancellation logic (as well as any other type of completion) in its
finally block. Since a finally block execute on any type of completion (normal return, error, or forced cancellation), there is an Effect
cancelled which you can use if you want handle cancellation in a special way:
import { take, call, put, cancelled } from 'redux-saga/effects'
import Api from '...'
function* authorize(user, password) {
try {
const token = yield call(Api.authorize, user, password)
yield put({type: 'LOGIN_SUCCESS', token})
yield callHandbag Medallion Shoulder Resort Tote Blue Vera Bradley Unisex (Api.storeItem, {token})
return token
} catch(error) {
yield putTote Unisex Medallion Bradley Resort Handbag Vera Blue Shoulder (Resort Blue Vera Bradley Handbag Medallion Tote Shoulder Unisex {type: 'LOGIN_ERROR', error})
} finally {
if (yield cancelled()) {
// ... put special cancellation handling code here
You may have noticed that we haven't done anything about clearing our
isLoginPending state. For that, there are at least two possible solutions:
- dispatch a dedicated action
- more simply, make the reducer clear the
isLoginPendingon a


text:
At Axis in Sweden everyone attends an introduction program. We feel it is important that our new employees receive a presentation of how we work at Axis and whom you'll be working with. As an Axis employee you'll have a yearly review where you discuss with your supervisor possibilities and wishes for personal development and individual goals. This discussion leads to a specific plan that is followed up during the year.
Within the R&D area we have a career ladder. The career ladder is based on a number of defined criterias, that are need to be achieved, such as years of service and experience among other things, before the next step is taken. Apart from the "career ladder" there is also possibility to go on as a manager or team leader.
Axis wants to offer our employees a chance to change jobs or try a new area within the company. In our experience this is an efficient way of developing and satisfying good employees while we keep our experienced staff.


text:
What: Colorado Music Festival, Week 1
Sunday, June 30: Opening concert with pianist Behzod Abduraimov, 7:30 p.m., Chautauqua Auditorium, 900 Baseline Road, $12-$48. Talk Under the Tent with Katherine Bernheimer, program director, Boulder Jewish Community Center, "Hollywood's Golden Age of Symphonic Film Scores," 6:30 p.m.
Tuesday, July 2: Chamber concert featuring harpist Marguerite Lynn Williams, 6 and 8 p.m., eTown Hall, 1535 Spruce St., $27
Friday, July 6: Family Concert, "Oz with Orchestra," conducted by Wes Kenney, 7:30 p.m., Chautauqua Auditorium, $12-$48
Info: 303-440-7666 or comusic.org
When Colorado Music Festival conductor Michael Christie decided to begin his last full season with a program featuring music from film scores, he wanted to make sure it didn't have the flavor of a pops concert.
As part of Christie's "Rediscovered Masters" initiative, an effort to shed light on neglected music by Jewish composers, the conductor wished to highlight their significant contributions to American film music. In most cases, they also wrote a great deal of serious concert music.
"I wanted to represent two voices of these composers," Christie said. "I wanted to include something that wasn't an obvious piece by a film composer."
Thus, CMF's season opener at Chautauqua Auditorium tonight will include the Concerto for String Orchestra by Miklos Rozsa, who is primarily known for his epic MGM scores, including "Ben Hur." Christie said the work is a dramatic and serious piece that has little to do with Rozsa's film writing.
The ambitious concert also will include actual film music by Max Steiner: the Jungle Dance from 1933's "King Kong" and the familiar strains of "Gone with the Wind" from 1939. Kurt Weill's suite from "The Threepenny Opera," an earlier hybrid type, completes the second half of the program.
Before intermission, Christie continues another recent tradition of opening the festival with a Beethoven piano concerto. And tonight's program begins with the last and grandest of the five, the so-called "Emperor" Concerto. The soloist is pianist Behzod Abduraimov, a young artist whom Christie describes as a performer of tremendous depth with an "old soul."
"He performed Mendelssohn's First Concerto with me in Atlanta last year," Christie said. "He had such a command of the sound and the style that I asked him if there was anything he had not yet done but would like to do."
Abduraimov responded that no one had asked him to do the "Emperor," which fell into Christie's plans for opening the festival.
The pianist, who is from Uzbekistan but currently lives and studies in Kansas City, Mo., said Christie is a great collaborator who is easy to work with.
"He really understands everything about the music," Abduraimov said, "and he responds with sensitivity to all my requests."
Abduraimov said his life has changed dramatically since winning the London International Piano Competition at age 18. Now 22, he is successfully balancing a busy concert and recording schedule with learning new pieces.
"At my age, it's crucial to learn as much repertoire as possible," he said, acknowledging that the concertos that brought him attention will be frequently requested by orchestras.
He is excited to perform the "Emperor" for the first time, which he describes as a "majestic, original, and imaginative" concerto.
"My goal is to connect emotionally with the audience in whatever I play," Abduraimov said, "and I feel committed to bringing the composer's intention to the audience. I am looking forward to coming to Boulder, and I am honored to open this festival."
Week 1 continues Tuesday with the first of three chamber concerts at eTown Hall. Because last season's chamber concerts were hugely popular and the hall filled quickly, the CMF board has decided to present them twice, at 6 and 8 p.m.
Christie said the concerts will involve more musicians than usual so they will have the stamina to play things twice. And patrons can choose the time that works best for them.
Tuesday's concert spotlights an instrument Christie has wanted to feature in chamber music, the harp. CMF harpist Marguerite Lynn Williams will play in a solo role with the "Fantaisie" for violin and harp by Camille Saint-Saens and take an accompanying role in the Quintet for Harp and Strings by Arnold Bax. The string players will then close the concert with Beethoven's String Quartet No. 10, which, appropriately, is nicknamed the "Harp" Quartet because of its passages for plucked strings.
The CMF season is starting later than usual. Because the July 4 holiday is on Thursday, the usual Thursday-Friday festival orchestra concert will play only on Friday.
Christie said the idea of using the holiday to present a "family" concert will continue on the heels of last season's hugely successful Disney program.
"Audiences love film and musical programs that utilize the full potential of the orchestra, and the studios are catching on to this," Christie said. "With all these talented musicians, it doesn't make sense to just provide backup harmony, as has been done too often in the past."
Friday's program is a full screening of the other great 1939 classic "The Wizard of Oz," with the original orchestral track removed. The Harold Arlen score will be performed and synchronized live with the CMF orchestra. The original vocal tracks from Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley and the rest of the cast will remain in place, accompanied by the live orchestra.
"These composers really used the whole sound palette of the orchestra," Christie said. "This kind of project reaches out to families in a stimulating way and reaches people who might not otherwise go to an orchestral concert." said Wes Kenney, music director of the Fort Collins Symphony and director of orchestras at Colorado State University, will serve guest conductor Friday.


text:
Xbox Live's latest dashboard update also delivered an increase in the size of the USB hard drives the console will support. The Xbox 360 can now save to drives up to 32 gigabytes in capacity, double the old limit if 16GB.
Joystiq noted the capacity change and sought to confirm it with a Microsoft representative, who did: "The more our customers use their profile and download digital content, the larger the file size necessary to store that content and move it between consoles gets."


text:
Anniversaries are exciting times, and peanut farmers will have something special to look forward to when Farm Press Publications and its cosponsors celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Peanut Profitability Awards.
Since their inception, the Peanut Profitability Awards have honored 27 of the most efficient peanut producers in the United States. The winners have represented all of the states in the three principal peanut-growing regions — Virginia-Carolina, the lower Southeast and the Southwest.
"Each class of winners continues to impress us, and the 2009 class — our 10th — should be no exception," says Greg Frey, publisher of the Southeast, Southwest and Delta Farm Presses, which conduct the Peanut Profitability Awards. "This year's program will be even bigger with Mississippi growers becoming eligible to receive the honor."
One of the integral parts of the Peanut Profitability Awards are the cosponsors, which, in 2008, included BASF, EchoMuscle Fungicide (Sipcam ), Golden Peanut Company, John Deere, Provost/Temik (Bayer), Southern Peanut Farmers Federation, Syngenta and the Texas Peanut Producers Board.
The Peanut Profitability Awards Program began with the first Southern Peanut Growers Conference in Panama City, Fla., in 2000, and the two have grown together, says Frey. The 2008 conference was attended by growers and industry leaders from across the Peanut Belt.
The winners have seen monumental changes that required them to transition from a government quota program to a more market-oriented approach and endure sharply higher production costs. One of the aims of the Peanut Profitability Awards has been to recognize growers who have shown adaptability in the face of change and have continued to produce profitable crops.
"While achieving consistently high yields and grades is important, it's only part of the equation for maximizing profits. The elements of production cost and price are equally important factors," says Marshall Lamb, research director of the National Peanut Research Laboratory in Dawson, Ga., and an advisor to the Peanut Profitability Awards program.
Lamb, who designed the nomination form used to help determine the Peanut Profitability winners, said the form requires extensive reporting of data and considers both fixed and variable costs of production.
"We've had nominees in this program who had higher yields than most, but they did not correctly manage their cost structure. We're looking at per-unit costs, and how effectively farmers manage their cost structures," he says.
The awards program, he says, is based on a producer's entire peanut operation. "We're not talking about small plots in select fields. Rather, we look at the overall management of these growers. This includes yields, costs and marketing management for the entire farm, and most of our winners come from sizable farms," says Lamb.
Assisting with the awards program has been an advisory board comprised of Extension peanut specialists, county agents, economists and commodity group officials from the major peanut-producing states.
While recognizing deserving growers is an important aspect of the program, it's only one component. The Peanut Profitability Program also focuses on education and research. The Farm Press Publications accomplish this by publishing numerous articles on peanut production efficiency. Thus, farmers from across the Peanut Belt can learn from the production practices of growers who receive the award.
Farm Press will continue to publish articles focusing on peanut production efficiency leading up to the 2009 Southern Peanut Farmers Conference in Panama City, Fla., in July. Each article will bear a special 10th anniversary Peanut Profitability Program logo so that it can be recognized easily by readers.
The deadline for nominations for the 2009 Peanut Profitability Awards will be April 15. Growers may submit their nomination forms directly to the National Peanut Research Laboratory, or they may submit them to their county Extension agents, peanut specialists or economists.
Growers can access the nomination form via the Internet at southeastfarmpress.com and southwestfarmpress.com. In addition, it can be linked from various commodity group Web sites. To receive a hard copy of the form, call Farm Press headquarters at (662) 624-8503 or contact any member of the advisory board.


text:
Jim co-wrote this? I find it funny I didn't know that all these years. I wonder to what extent he contributed to the screenplay. The movie definitely has that silly, Ace Ventura vibe to it, though Ace Ventura is definitely the better movie. There is a hilarious reference to Jim in the movie. And I know Jim was in one of the SNL/Roxbury skits. It's a shame he wasn't in the movie himself. It would have been better.
"The script was written by a small committee of creditd and uncredited writers, including the two stars, uncredited Jim Carrey and uncredied co-producer Amy Heckerling."


text:
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