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Hello and welcome to "WHO'S ON THE SHELF?" with yours truly, Nonnie Jules! Since we are a book club, we had to offer something that included a book shelf. A lot of interviews merely cover an author's work or an individual's career stories. Here on this "SHELF," we get down and dirty and ask the questions no other interviewer dare ask. We ask the questions that you want to open up a book and find the answers to on your favorite authors and fellow book club members, but no one has dared to cover them. WE get personal! Because when you sit on the RRBC "SHELF", YOU are an open book!
Today I have with me on the "SHELF" my fellow board member, Nicholas Rossis!
NJ: Before we really get started, how does the "SHELF" feel to you? Is it comfy?
Nicholas: Yes, thanks for asking! I did bring an extra cushion, if you want one.
NJ: Oh, no thank you, hon. I have plenty of in-grown cushion to keep me comfy on this SHELF. So, how about we start by confirming whether or not the name we know you as, is your birth name or a pen name?
Nicholas: It's my full name. IN fact, it's fuller than my full name. You see, I was baptized as Nicholas Chris, but back then you could only register the one name, so I'm officially registered as Nicholas alone. Well, not alone (I am married, after all), but you know what I mean. Anyway, no one knew about the second name. When I had to choose a pen name, I liked the idea of displaying publically what had been hidden away all this time. Much like my writing.
NJ: Interesting. So, tell us where you were born. Do you still live there now? If not, what city and state are you calling home these days?
Nicholas: Athens, Greece. I returned here in 2000, after a stint in Edinburgh, Scotland.
NJ: Now, i'm pretty quick, so some of my questions are going to be quick and straight to the point. Married or single?
Nicholas: Happily married to Electra, my childhood sweetheart of over 20 years.
NJ: WOW! And I thought I had been hitched for a long time. Do you and Electra have any kids?
Nicholas: Not yet. We're but kids ourselves, after all.
NJ: Nicholas, you and I aren't too far apart in age and honey, I hate to break it to you, but I haven't been a kid for a long, long, loooooooooooong time. And I have two kids who constantly remind me of that. Do you guys have any pets? If so, what kind?
Nicholas: That beauty you see above in the picture with me is our Meli (Greek for "honey"). She's the sweetest dog I've met. We also have two cats; mercifully, they have all learned to share the same roof. I confess to playing favorites with Perro (he's a cat with remarkably dog-like behavior, hence the name), while Electra is more partial to Basta (he's single-mindedly stubborn, which explains his name).
NJ: Your favorite food?
Nicholas: Ooh, that's a toughie. I'm a bit of a foodie and love both to eat and cook – and have been blessed with an excellent cook of a wife. Which is only fair, as my mother is notoriously a poor cook. Her recipe for soup seemed to be something like, "boil water, empty can of tomato paste, simmer, serve hot." So, back to your question: pretty much anything by Electra, but especially her Moussaka. Sadly, this traditional dish takes her too long to prepare, so we don't enjoy it as much as I'd like (Honey, if you're reading this, feel free to take it as a hint. No pressure).
NJ: I don't think you should be concerned as to whether or not Electra's reading this, I think you should be worried whether or not your MOM is reading this! You are too brave…to tell the world she is a horrible cook. Shame on you, Nicholas! Moving on, what is your favorite color?
Nicholas: Light blue. The color of the Athenian sky or the Aegean sea.
NJ: Favorite sport…
Nicholas: I'm not exactly a sporty type, probably because I seem to have been born lacking the antagonistic gene. I do love my Tai Chi, though, and practice daily. Although I'm not sure if it should be described as sport or meditation!
NJ: I'm not an expert or anything, but I think we're safe in labeling Tai Chi as meditational. What's your favorite TV Show?
Nicholas: There's so many, but I'll have to go with Fraiser. I know it's been over like forever, but, I still consider the writing brilliant. Almost as brilliant are Gilmore Girls and Friends. Don't judge.
NJ: -_______- Gilmore Girls? (clears throat uncomfortably) uuuuuuh, OK. Your favorite actor?
Nicholas: Please don't make me choose! There's just too many! Alright, if I have to choose, I'd go with Paul Newman. Even if you ignore his many, many movies or philanthropy, this is a guy – no, a Hollywood STAR – with stunning looks, who stayed devoted to his family for fifty years. Not to mention he served in the US Navy and actually fought in the Pacific. Now, how cool is that?
NJ: I'm gonna have to take your word, that it's cool. So, are you a couch potato or workout nut? Be honest.
Nicholas: I believe I've made it plenty clear that I'm not exactly the workout nut. It's a small miracle that I'm in a good shape, as I honestly don't do anything about it, apart from trying not to stress. It's only life after all, as the song goes.
NJ: Biggest pet peeve that makes you want to punch somebody in the nose? (For the record, NJ does not condone violence but she does believe in being honest, so she has to admit that there are times when she feels that some friendly nose-punching is in order. She also feels that she is not alone in those "feelings").
Nicholas: Ha ha! I don't remember punching someone in the nose, or anywhere else for that matter, since I was a kid. Having said that, disrespect annoys me. No matter how it manifests…from cruelty to animals to disrespect towards nature, people with disabilities or the under-privileged, it warrants a good spanking. Or a punch in the nose, in this case.
NJ: Awwww, thank you, Nicholas. You have a serious reputation for being such "a nice guy," by you letting the world know that sometimes even you feel like nose-punching, you just helped a lot of people to be honest in their feelings. You made me proud! 🙂 So, are you Neat or Messy?
Nicholas: Is there an "all of the above"box I can tick? I like my things neat, but not too neat. There's got to be a bit of chaos there, too.
NJ: Facebook or Twitter?
Nicholas: LOL – definitely Twitter, as I can easily spend an entire day on Facebook and then wonder where the day has gone! Twitter is more gentlemanly in that way.
NJ: Name two of the most supportive people you've met on either Facebook or Twitter? Hurry and give us their names so we can become their friends.
Nicholas: Nat Russo is one of them. A wonderful author with a great book and he's an amazing person. Rayne Hall helped me a lot when I first joined Twitter, and she taught me the ropes, so to speak. Her books on writing also taught me so much, plus she's quite the writer herself!
NJ: If my memory serves me correctly, Rayne was one of the first people I met when I got on Twitter. She and another friend (Maura Jortner) and I used to laugh it up together. We've lost contact, though but I'm so glad you mentioned her! OK, here's the big question: Nonnie Jules or WonderWoman? Be honest!
Nicholas: LOL – obviously Nonnie. I mean, it's hard enough keeping up with her, can you imagine the kind of energy WonderWoman would require?
NJ: Well (sitting up straighter in her chair), in some parts, I'm known as WONDER WOMAN, so thank you! Now, everyone knows the names Mark Twain and Stephen King but how about you give us two names of some INDIE authors that you favor:
Nicholas: There's just too many! I did mention Nat and Rayne, so I'll add MPax, whose sci-fi work is amazing, and Peyton Reynolds, whose fantasy books are an inspiration to me. Also, Effrosyni Moschoudi, Ryan Schneider and Elle Boca, among so many, many others!
NJ: Whoaa, wait a minute…I asked for two! I'm glad we didn't sign you on as the Treasurer at RRBC because it seems you have a problem COUNTING! I counted 5 people up there! (Composing myself again). OK, so tell us what is it about TWO of these INDIE authors that you've come to like?
Nicholas: Their exemplary writing and pacing. Also, I've bee lucky enough to get to know some of them on a personal level, too. and they're all so helpful and friendly. But that's something I've come to associate with INDIE authors in general – the way I was welcomed into the community is incredible!
NJ: Name TWO of your favorite INDIE books…
Nicholas: It's hard; there's so much wonderful work out there! I hear a lot of complaints about the poor quality of INDIE work – mainly from traditionally published authors; what's come to be known as the "tsunami of crap" argument. And yet, the majority of books I've read match or surpass traditionally published works. Anyway, if I had to choose just two (NJ: You do), I'd say, off the top of my head, Nat's Necromancer: Awakening and Peyton's Auguries of Dawn. I'm avoiding naming books by people who are closer to me, to make sure I remain objective. Although I'm not really objective, as both are fantasy writers, which is my preferred genre.
NJ: ONE good INDIE book you read that was so good you want the entire world to read it…
Nicholas: This is getting harder and harder (thick beads of sweat now streaking down his forehead). If by world you mean fantasy/sci-fi readers, and since I've already mentioned Nat and Peyton, then I'd have to say MPax's Backworlds. Any book in the series, really! If, on the other hand, then ANTics by Dakota Douglas, was a gem of a book, and one I'd happily donate to every children's library! (NJ: This proves this guy really does have a problem with counting and numbers. Didn't I ask him for ONE good INDIE book? And, I even put the ONE in big, bold letters!)
NJ: What was so great about both books?
Nicholas: Both have wonderful writing, superb pacing and memorable characters. Most of all, good stories!
NJ: After you read books, do you post reviews?
Nicholas: Almost always. Definitely more often since becoming an author myself, as I have come to realize what a great gift reviews are.
NJ: What do you think readers should base their reviews on?
Nicholas: More than anything, the feel the book left them with. I don't believe in reviews that break down a book and award points to characterization, pacing, writing, typos, etc. and then come up with a grand total. It just seems too technical to me, too sterile. When I read a good book, I get excited, and I want my review to reflect that passion.
NJ: Are you one of those who are afraid to be honest in their reviews lest the author gets upset with you, or is honesty your best policy, especially in reviews?
Nicholas: A bit of both, to be honest. My policy is that I focus on what's good about the book in public, and will contact the author in private to explain what didn't work, in my opinion. I also remind myself that one man's medicine is another man's poison, to quote from Hippocrates. I have come across books that have glowing reviews but are just not my cup of tea. I have also come across books that must seem terrible to others but somehow resonated with me.
NJ: Read any poorly written books lately?
Nicholas: I was given a book to review that was so poorly written, I sent it back with the simple advice to find a decent copy editor before re-submitting it. There's no point in publishing a hurtful review if the problems in the book can be relatively easily fixed. In this case, the author was not a native English speaker, and that was painfully obvious. Any half-decent editor would be able to turn this book from a two-star to a a four-star one, as the actual story was pretty good.
NJ: Nicholas, are you an author?
Nicholas: So I've been told! Plus, it says so on my blog's ABOUT page. Would that page lie?
NJ: I don't know your page that well to being able to say that it's an honest page or a liar, but after this interview, I'll go check it out to see. How long have you been writing?
Nicholas: Fiction? I published my first short story in 2009, and PEARSEUS, my first novel, in October, 2013. I had been writing before that, of course; in fact, my Professor had suggested I turn my PhD thesis into a book, something I haven't done so far, preferring fiction instead.
NJ: What books have you written?
Nicholas: My latest book, THE POWER OF SIX, is a collection of my best six science fiction short stories. PEARSEUS is my epic fantasy series. The first book is entitled, Year 18: The Schism.
You can read my second book, Rise of the Prince, and since you don't actually need to have read the first one, that's the one I'd start with. Or you could buy both books at a discount here.
Finally, any Greek readers can download for free my translation of the Tao Te Ching on my Istomedia website.
NJ: Do you have a blog or website you'd like us to visit?
Nicholas: Yes, I blog on NicholasRossis. I post almost daily, mostly about publishing, book marketing and writing.
NJ: Name three great online resources or organizations that every author should belong to:
Nicholas: You mean, besides Rave Reviews Book Club? Because that would be my number one choice. In addition to that, I'd have to say the Self Publisher's Showcase, run by Paul Martin and the Independent Author Network. I don't know if Irene's Book Oasis qualifies as an organization, but she's a great supporter of INDIE authors. Then, there's a score of wonderful information on writing and self-publishing , available on blogs and websites.
NJ: Since you're sitting on the SHELF, you're obviously a Rave Reviews Book Club member. So, what do you think of the club?
Nicholas: I think it's a great idea, run energetically by a group of amazing people. The concept is brilliant and it seems to be working wonders, judging from my personal experience.
NJ: Have you come across any other online entity like it?
Nicholas: I have come across various attempts at promoting reviews for authors. Most focus either on paid-for reviews, or review-swapping. Bookvetters is an interesting exception to that rule, having built a kind of "blind" review system. However, in addition to encouraging reviews, Rave Reviews Book Club also promotes authors – heavily! Having watched the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes to make this possible, I truly believe that no other online entity has managed to combine the two – reviews and promotion – as seamlessly or effectively as the RRBC.
NJ: This SHELF is getting hard on my hiney, so we're going to wrap this interview up now. Any final words?
Nicholas: Want my cushion? No? You might, cause this will take a minute. I just want to say that one of the greatest concerns aspiring authors have is how their work will reach the public. It used to be that publishers acted as gatekeepers, deciding whom to publish and whom to reject. Authors had no real way to circumvent this, and were forced to submit to publishers' judgment.
With the advent of e-books and self-publishing, the situation has changed dramatically. There is, however, a new challenge: I read that some 1,500 books are published daily on Amazon; that is an astounding number. It is particularly hard for INDIE authors, as we need to be our own publicist, editor and promoter. So, if you look at it rationally, you should probably give up any hope of pursuing a career as an author. And yet, I am having such a great time doing it, I don't really care. I'd love to be able to live off my books, but even if I don't, I've found this roller coaster of a journey so infinitely satisfying, that I would do it all again in a heartbeat..
So, my advice would be this: If you're in it for the money, don't even bother. There are plenty of other jobs that pay a lot more and require far less of your time. If, however, you love writing and are held back by your fear of failure, take the plunge. Dare to open your wings and fly. One of the most pleasant surprises I've had since starting to write is the discovery of a whole community of wonderful people, like the Rave Reviews Book Club. They will generously support you and offer their advice and assistance, and I've come to realize that there's an astonishing number of people who share my passion for books. More than anything, writing is – and should be – a labor of love.
NJ: Thank you so much, Nicholas. That was simply beautiful! You have made our first day on the SHELF, a really, pleasant one! To my guests, please support Nicholas by picking up a copy of one of his books (or all of them) and by visiting his blog stops on his tour which ends on Saturday. You can find his line up here, and be sure and connect with him on Facebook and Twitter (@Nicholas_Rossis). Have you joined Rave Reviews Book Club yet? Well, here's your chance! And since Nicholas was on the SHELF today, tell them he sent you! Make it a great day, my friends. We'll see you next week, right here on the SHELF!!!


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Unique painted piece. To some, mythological Lilith is the beautiful bearer of disease and death. To others she is Lamia, seductress, stealer of children. She is also Adam's first wife. In today's turbulent times, the myth of Lilith seems an apt starting point. Taking myths surrounding feminine icons like Lilith, Lamia and Danae as her inspiration, Holden's latest body of work explores aspects of duality: beauty and destruction, the flesh and the spirit, order and chaos. This juxtaposition of opposites is echoed in her multi-layered compositions, which sample imagery from early studio photography, classical painting and consumer culture. The final pieces are a blend of analogue and digital imaging, photography and painting, where Holden exploits her media and materials to full potential. The artist frequently takes her own image as the basis of the image. Integrating the digital artifacts randomly generated by the repeated layering process into the final composition, her portrait becomes obscured, iterating the artist's ongoing interest in notions of identity, alternate personas and constructed reality. Lisa Holden is a British-born artist based in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
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subset: commoncrawl


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2014 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour underway in China
Last week's season-opening US$150,000 FIVB Fuzhou Open got things go in resounding fashion Italy, Brazil and the Netherlands won the men's medals and the United States, Brazil and China captured the podium in the women's competition. The FIVB Fuzhou Open was the season opener for the 2014 FIVB World Tour and the first of seven double-gender FIVB Open tournaments on the 20014 calendar.
Winning the first FIVB World Tour gold medal in the history of their country, Italy's seventh-seeded Daniele Lupo/Paulo Nicolai were impressive in defeating Brazil's sixth-seeded Alison Cerutti/Bruno Oscar Schmidt as the new South American team captured the silver medal. The men's bronze medal in Fuzhou went to Netherlands' 12th-seeded Jon Stiekema/Christiaan Varenhorst upset Latvia's 2013 FIVB World Rankings leaders Aleksandrs Samoilovs/Janis Smedins.
On the women's side at the FIVB Fuzhou Open USA's fourth-seeded three-time Olympic gold medalist Kerri Walsh Jennings and 2012 Olympic silver medalist April Ross took home the gold over Brazil's 30th-seeded tandem of the legendary Juliana Felisberta Silva and new teammate Maria Antonelli. China's top-seeded Xinyi Xia/Chen Xue won the bronze medal over fifth-seeded Brazilian sisters Carolina Salgado/Maria Clara Salgado.
The three podium duos in each gender have taken the opening lead in the 2014 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour point and money standings. Gold in each FIVB Open event in 20014 earns $11,000 for the team to split with $8,000 split by each silver medal team and $6,000 split by each of the two bronze medalists.
The top three teams in each gender also receive 500, 450 and 400 points respectively to start the 2014 FIVB World Tour as the top three point leaders in their respective genders.
Statistically, in men's action, Brazil's Alison/Schmidt and Italy's Lupo/Nicolai were both 6-1 (85.7%) in the FIVB Fuzhou Open, Canada's Sam Pedlow/Grant O'Gorman was 5-1 (83.3%), while Brazil's Emanuel Rego/Pedro Salgado and compatriots Alvaro Filho/Ricardo Santos were both 4-1 (80%).
For the women in Fuzhou, USA's Walsh Jennings/A. Ross were a perfect 100 percent 7-0 to start the season while Brazil's Juliana/Antonelli were 6-2 (80%) and China's Fan Wang/Yuan Yue were 4-1 (80%).
Based in Lausanne, Switzerland as the international governing body for the Olympic sports of Beach Volleyball and Volleyball, the 2014 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour calendar features a record purse of US$10.2 million with a season that extends from late April to mid-December competing at 21 venues in 18 countries. This year's FIVB World Tour includes a record 10 FIVB Grand Slam events, the inaugural Grand Slam Finale and 11 FIVB Open Tournaments throughout the world, helping expand the door for development of the sport even further.
The 10 FIVB Grand Slam competitions, all double-gender, have eight with $800,000 in total purses while both The Hague, Netherlands and the Long Beach, Calif., USA event will have $1 million each in prize money, the most in FIVB Grand Slam history.
The 11 FIVB Open tournaments in 2014, seven double-gender, two men only and two women only, will have $150,000 total purses for the double gender events and $75,000 for the single-gender competitions.


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Q&A with Sophomore Swimmer Dane Stassi
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The 2012 season, his first at UC San Diego, was a solid, if somewhat less than ideal experience for current Triton sophomore Dane Stassi. He qualified for the NCAA Division II Swimming & Diving Championships but lost a significant amount of training time in the lead up due to illness and ended up finishing fifth in the 200 butterfly and 13th in the 100 butterfly. This season has been relatively smooth sailing for the 6-4 sophomore from Irvine and that's reflected in his results from last week's 2013 NCAA Championships in Birmingham, AL. Stassi won the 200 butterfly in school record time of 1:45.12 and was seventh in the 100 fly at 48.27. In the aftermath of the national meet, where the Triton men finished seventh and the women third, Stassi spent time talking about the high intensity atmosphere of the NCAA Championships, personal observations from the meet and what lies ahead.
Q-Do you think the average sports fan has a sense of the type of pressure competitors at the NCAA Swimming & Diving Championships face? What makes that event unique from a pressure perspective?
STASSI- As far as pressure goes I think it differs for everyone. I had a conversation with my fellow teammate Nick Korth a week or two before we left and we talked about how a lot of people are just happy to qualify for NCAA's where Nick and I were in a position where we were expected to win or place very well in our events. So there is definitely pressure in that sense but at the same time you're the top seed in the country for a reason, so it doesn't become too overwhelming.
In general, though, everything a collegiate swimmer does throughout the whole year is based on qualifying and swimming your best at the NCAA Championships. People actually call it "The Meet," which helps explain why there's so much strain on virtually every competitor.
Q-As the top qualifier and top seed coming out of the prelims, what kind of pressure did you feel leading up to the finals of the 200 butterfly in Birmingham? How did you deal with it?
STASSI- I didn't really feel too much pressure I just wanted to get my finals swim over with to be honest. I was ahead by over a second going into finals so I wasn't too worried. I knew some guys were planning on swimming faster at night but at the same time so was I.
Q-Describe that race. What was the key to victory? What were your feelings as you were celebrating in the pool, post-race?
STASSI- I've swam who knows how many 200 butterflys this year so to me it was just another 200 fly. As far as victory goes it's swimming it smart. A few guys in the final took it out way too fast and then died off. It is not a quick race, you have to know how to pace it. I was happy as hell when I touched watching my team, the coaches, the parents, and the alumni all go crazy was a pretty cool feeling.
Q-In a sport where training is essential and nearly year-round, where do you draw your motivation? How difficult is it to maintain that level of work over that period of time?
STASSI- I love the sport, I've been doing it since I was four so it's all I've ever known. It can be hard at times to train but at the same time you have 26 other guys who are training with you, guys you can fall back on, guys that are experiencing the same stuff you are.
Q-So, was it all worth it when you hit the wall first in Alabama?
STASSI- Well, a win is incredible but there are so many other things that make it worth it. Some of my best friendships have come from this sport. I know it's pretty cheesy but honestly sports in general, not just swimming, I think teach you way more than just a classroom ever could. While the win is nice there are many other factors out there that make it worthwhile.
Q-It may be a bit early for this, but what's in the future for you as far as swimming? What's the next mountain for you individually and the team collectively to climb?
STASSI- I have World Trials in June in Indianapolis, so I hope to swim fast there. As far as the team goes we have Speedo Grand Challenge in May. Other than that it's a brief period of rest until we hit the grind again.
As a team, the men didn't do as well as we'd expected and when we were watching the women accept their third place trophy, one of my teammates, Alex Merrill, said, "we're not going to be standing here next year, we're going to be back up on that podium," which I think speaks for all of us.
Personally, I've won the 200 fly so I'll be looking to improve my standing in my other events, the 100 fly as well as the 50 and 100 free.
Q-At an NCAA Championship event, is it all business or is there an opportunity for outside activities? What were your impressions of Birmingham?
STASSI- We showed up on Sunday the competition started on Wednesday so we got to see quite a bit of Birmingham. The people were incredibly nice. It's hard to beat Southern hospitality.
Q-One of the most exciting races at this year's Championships was the 200 breaststroke in which your teammate, Nick Korth, the 2011 champion, came within 16/100ths of a second of running down Grand Canyon's Eetu Karvonen in a photo finish. Were you able to watch that race? How would you describe it?
STASSI- I watched it, hands down my favorite race of the entire meet. Nick works crazy hard and does so much more outside the pool to better himself as an athlete. Eetu looked in control for the first half and then Nick just turned it on and started to run him down. You know he didn't place first but he shattered the NCAA record and his time ranks incredibly high in Division I, far higher than my 200 fly time does. Nick should be incredibly proud of what he did. He didn't get the win but like I said before there is so much more than just a win.
Q-From your perspective, what were some other notable Triton NCAA moments in 2013?
STASSI- My second favorite event was Anji Shakya's 200 free was really fun to watch. She won an NCAA title which was great and it was a really close race. The girl from Drury was pushing her to the finish. (Teammate) Olivia Fountain and I were jumping up and down in the warm-up pool and getting so loud that the television cameras were turned on us.
Q-What separates UCSD Swimming & Diving from other top programs in the country?
STASSI- Well, we are really close with our divers and our dive coach which from what I hear is not the norm. We also train together meaning guys and girls, which creates an amazing family atmosphere.
Q-You have a fairly unique pre-race routine. What does it consist of and how did it develop?
STASSI- I slap the living hell out of myself. I try to cause as much physical pain as possible, it really triggers that fight or flight response and floods adrenaline throughout my body. I honestly don't remember how it started but I've been doing for quite a while now.
Q-What are your first recollections of swimming? What made you gravitate to it as a competitor and what keeps you going?
STASSI-I still remember learning how to swim with floaties around my arms. I absolutely love the water. If I'm not swimming then I'm likely at the beach. Too many reasons to name as to -why I've stuck with it.
Q-What is the most significant thing that your coaching staff brings to our performance?
STASSI- Their passion is pretty unreal. Each coach loves the sport almost more than we do. Even on minor sets during practice you will catch Coach (Matt) Macedo yelling or cheering you on.
Q-The 200 butterfly is considered one of swimming's toughest events? Is there one event that even you would not want to swim?
STASSI- I hate the 200 backstroke. It's something I used to swim and I hated it so much. It makes your quads burn worse than any other physical activity. Also the mile it's a 15-minute race, no thank you.
Q-On the atypical day when you have no practice or classes, what's likely to be on your agenda?
STASSI- Sleep in and probably waste half the day. Eat and then eat some more. Then I usually do errands like grocery shop, laundry or catch up on studying.
Q-Speaking of classes, what have been a couple of your favorites at UCSD?
STASSI- Anyone who has had Dr. G (Galderisi) for a Poli Sci class knows how awesome he is. Hendrickson is pretty cool for History too.
Q-You've listed body surfing as one of your favorite hobbies. What's the best body surfing beach in San Diego? Orange County?
STASSI- From what I've heard Birdrock is really good in SD for body surfing I usually go to Scripps. In Orange County, definitely Irvine Cove.
Q-You're a political science major with designs on law school. What do you hope to be doing 10 years from now?
STASSI- Not really too sure yet! Probably working for a law firm.
Q-When you're finished swimming at UCSD, what do you hope you'll be remembered for?STASSI- My god-awful puns that I tell every day. On a more serious note if people hear my name and it carries a positive connotation, that's all I could ask for.
Previous Q & A Articles
Munira Gesner (Fencing) March 6, 2013
Julius Espiritu (Swimming and Diving) February 24, 2013
Kirsten Willmon (Softball) February 17, 2013
Sebastian Brady (Men's Volleyball) February 7, 2013
Daisy Feder (Women's Basketball) January 21, 2013
Craig Elsten (UCSD Athletics Broadcaster) January 14, 2013
Beth Dong (Women's Swimming & Diving) December 3, 2012
Tyler McGrath (Men's Basketball) November 15, 2012
Danielle Dahle (Women's Volleyball) October 26, 2012
Jessica Wi (Women's Soccer) October 10, 2012
Elena Inouye (Women's Cross Country) October 1, 2012
Josh Stiling (Men's Water Polo) September 15, 2012
Alec Arsht (Men's Soccer) August 28, 2012
Amber Hawthorne (Women's Volleyball) August 13, 2012
Kristin Jones (Women's Soccer Assistant Coach) June 24, 2012
Nick Howe (Men's Track & Field) May 13, 2012
Kris Lesovsky (Softball) March 16, 2012
Danny Susdorf (Baseball) March 6, 2012
Sarah Lizotte (Women's Water Polo) February 9, 2012
Charity Elliott (Women's Basketball) January 31, 2012
Alex Henley (Women's Swimming & Diving) January 17, 2012
James McCann (Men's Basketball) December 29, 2011
Emily Osga (Women's Basketball) December 19, 2011
John Butler (Men's Water Polo) November 28, 2011
Lauren Demos (Women's Volleyball) November 8, 2011
Cory Wolfrom (Men's Soccer) October 26, 2011
Ellen Wilson (Women's Soccer) October 1, 2011
Brian Donohoe (Men's Water Polo) September 4, 2011
Roxanne Brunsting (Women's Volleyball) August 19, 2011
Jon Pascale (Men's Soccer) August 4, 2011
Vincent Nguyen (Tennis) July 1, 2011
Patti Gerckens (Softball) May 26, 2011
Blake Tagmyer (Baseball) May 11, 2011
Theresa Richards (Women's Track & Field) April 27, 2011
Austin West (Men's Tennis) April 17, 2011
Drew Lawyer (Men's Crew) April 11, 2011
Keith Okasaki (Men's Golf) March 26, 2011
Matt Herman (Men's Swimming & Diving) March 12, 2011
Hanalei Crowell (Women's Water Polo) March 5, 2011
Camille Gaito (Softball) February 23, 2011
Tim Shibuya (Baseball) February 8, 2011
Carl Eberts (Men's Volleyball) January 31, 2011
Neda Nguyen (Women's Swimming & Diving) January 24, 2011
Amy Bianchini (Fencing) January 14, 2011
Lauren Freidenberg (Women's Basketball) January 3, 2011
Christian Hatch (Men's Basketball) December 24, 2010
Blake Langland (Men's Swimming & Diving) November 27, 2010
Sarah McTigue (Women's Soccer) November 8, 2010
Brandon Yee (Men's Soccer) October 11, 2010
Bryce Madsen (Men's Water Polo) September 23, 2010
Annette Ilg (Women's Soccer) September 9, 2010
Ricci Luyties (Women's Volleyball Head Coach) August 24, 2010
Kevin Messey (Head Athletics Trainer) July 7, 2010
Dan O'Brien (Baseball Head Coach) June 18, 2010
Christine Merrill (Women's Track & Field) June 14, 2010
Vance Albitz (Baseball) May 11, 2010
Erik Elliott (Men's Tennis) May 3, 2010
Kelly Fogarty (Women's Track & Field) April 23, 2010
Liz LaPlante (Women's Tennis Head Coach) April 15, 2010
Kirby St. John (Baseball) March 24, 2010
Dan Perdew (Men's Swimming) February 28, 2010
Calvin Ross (Men's Volleyball) February 20, 2010
Nicole Saari (Softball) February 4, 2010
Brad Kreutzkamp (Women's Water Polo Head Coach) January 18, 2010
Tyler Acevedo (Men's Basketball) January 4, 2010
Dr. Cliff Kubiak (UCSD's Faculty Athletic Rep) December 18, 2009
Chelsea Carlisle (Women's Basketball) December 9, 2009
Carianne Cunningham (Women's Swimming) November 23, 2009
Elena Inouye (Cross Country) November 6, 2009
David Morton (Men's Water Polo) October 28, 2009
Juan Pablo Carillo (Men's Swimming) October 19, 2009
Sara Spaventa (Women's Soccer) October 10, 2009
Karen Reis (Women's Volleyball) October 2, 2009
Daniel Pavitt (Men's Soccer) September 23, 2009
Daniel Anderson (Cross Country) September 11, 2009
Peter Gresham (Men's Water Polo) September 2, 2009
Alexia Zatarain (Women's Soccer) August 24, 2009
Elaine Chen (Women's Volleyball) August 12, 2009
Jared Kukura (Men's Soccer) July 30, 2009
Dawn Lee (Former Women's Soccer Standout) July 8, 2009
Rob Mamula (Director of Athletic Performance) June 18, 2009
Garrett Imeson (Baseball) June 8, 2009
Leon Baham (Men's Track & Field) May 21, 2009
Kristyn Lesovsky (Softball) May 8, 2009
Kazumi Negishi (Men's Tennis) May 5, 2009
Laiah Blue (Women's Track & Field) April 16, 2009
Ryan Andre (Men's Crew) April 2, 2009
Josh Tanner (Baseball) March 24, 2009
Anju Shimura (Women's Swimming) March 7, 2009
Stephanie Bocian (Women's Water Polo) February 20, 2009
Lauren Chastain (Softball) February 5, 2009
A.J. Maulhardt (Men's Basketball) January 28, 2009
Annette Ilg (Women's Basketball) January 22, 2009
Steven Hardy (Men's Swimming) January 13, 2009
Frank Fritsch (Men's Volleyball) January 5, 2009


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Super Rugby
Waratahs coach not ruling out Beale return
March 27, 2013
Kurtley Beale could return home to the Waratahs in 2014, but it would be on strict terms © Getty Images
New South Wales coach Michael Cheika has left the door open for Kurtley Beale to return home to Sydney - but strictly on Waratahs' terms.
While Cheika insisted his priority was on retaining key players, including code-hopping Israel Folau, and that he had made no contact with Beale, he said the troubled Wallabies star was an obvious talent.
"There's no doubt about the guy as a player," Cheika said on Tuesday as Beale and his Melbourne teammate Cooper Vuna returned to Australia after being sent home from the Rebels' South African tour following their weekend altercation in Durban.
"He's a superbly skilled player and I can see that. (But) I've never had anything to do with him. I wouldn't know what his interaction with a person like me would be, but that would only come if I met him one day and talked to him," Cheika said. "For me, it's a moot point at the moment because he's not a person I'm talking to. The main guys I'm talking to are my own players that I'm re-signing."
With Beale's future with the Rebels and Wallabies in the balance, pending the outcome of separate disciplinary processes being conducted by the Rebels and the Australian Rugby Union, Cheika said it was too early to say if the 24-year-old backline ace would be back at the Tahs next season.
"Obviously he's had a rough weekend so I'm not sure where that's going to fall," Cheika said.
Ex-NSW and Australian teammates have made no secret of their desire to have Beale back at the Tahs.
"Players are different because they're mates with him, they've hung out with him and they know him very well," Cheika said.
Asked if Beale - who has a history of alcohol-related misdemeanours - would fit back in at the Waratahs, Cheika said: "I wouldn't have a clue. We've got certain values that go with our organisation that mean on-field and off-field behaviour and everyone has to apply to those values.
Vuna's fate is expected to be decided within the next couple of days but, with the accusations against Beale more serious, his case will take considerably longer to complete.
After making a surprise appearance at Waratahs training on Tuesday, rugby league legend Brad Fittler said Beale had the talent to make a successful code switch.
"Kurtley, he is from rugby league," Fittler said. "He is a pretty good athlete. He'd be good. He is a good athlete in general. He would be good at most sports if he started it young enough."
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text:
Passport To The Corner Office
Everyone dreams about running a major corporation. But getting to, and staying in, the corner office isn't easy. Change is constant, decisions can turn on a dime, and there's always someone angling or conspiring to get your job. To sustain long-term success requires ambition, street smarts, diplomacy, self-esteem, and a strong educational foundation.
In Passport To The Corner Office, award-winning business editor and writer R.J. King shows you how to prepare for — and maintain — success in the corporate, civic, and political world. Whether you've chartered a course to lead an executive team, a digital startup, a research laboratory, or a charitable foundation, Mr. King offers proven methods from hundreds of interviews with change leaders throughout the world to grasp, take hold, and drive success in any job or assignment.
For the first time, Passport to the Corner Office offers students, professionals, and future CEOs proven tools to achieve success in any career field. Combining simple-to-understand business principles with real world applications, learn how to create game-shifting innovations, breakthrough systems, and incremental daily improvements in your professional and personal life.
The book also offers a Corporate Resource Guide that covers business etiquette skills, successful networking tips, a formal dining guide, and a comprehensive listing of what to tip service providers such as a maitre d', a manicurist, or an executive driver. In addition, there are interview techniques for employers and job recruits alike that will empower and monetize positive change for years to come.
3D Office Image Courtesy of:
The Stanislav Orekhov Studio, Moscow


text:
The Grateful Dead was an American band born out of the 1960s San Francisco, California psychedelic movement, that played music together from 1965 to 1995. Despite relatively little popular radio airtime, while on tour the Grateful Dead enjoyed a cult–like following from a fan base that numbered in the millions. Still today, some ten years after dissolution, the band remains popular according to online music services, such as last.fm. This article presents a comparative analysis between 1,590 of the Grateful Dead's live concert set lists from 1972 to 1995 and 2,616,990 Grateful Dead listening events by last.fm users from August 2005 to October 2007. While there is a strong correlation between how songs were played in concert and how they were listened to by last.fm members, the outlying songs in this trend identify interesting aspects of the band and their present–day fans.
1. Introduction
2. The Grateful Dead concert behavior
3. The Grateful Dead usage statistics
4. The relationship between concert and usage behavior
5. Conclusion
1. Introduction
The Grateful Dead was an American band which, despite relatively little popular radio airtime, enjoyed a cult–like following from a fan base that numbered in the millions (McNally, 2002). The Grateful Dead originated in San Francisco, California in the early 1960s and toured the world playing concerts until the untimely death of the foreman and lead guitarist Jerry Garcia in 1995. Concert tours were the primary source of revenue and exposure for the band, which played over 37,000 songs live in some 2,300 concerts over its 30 year career (Lundquist, 1996–2007). Throughout the years, the Grateful Dead accumulated a large repertoire that included over 450 unique songs (Lundquist, 1996–2007). The band's success and continuity across multiple generations of music listeners is perhaps due in part to its fundamentally eclectic nature. The band utilized many song writers, composers and singers, and this resulted in a broad diversity in sound. Robert Hunter and John Barlow were the primary lyricists for scores written by Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir, respectively (Dobb, 2007). While Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir were the primary singers as well, other singers included Ron McKernan, Brent Mydland, and Phil Lesh. Moreover, its eclectic nature can be seen in the large number of graphic icons used to represent the Grateful Dead. These icons include skeletons, roses, dancing bears, terrapins, etc. Perhaps the most famous and recognizable image is the "Steal Your Face" icon in Figure 1 that was released as the album cover art to the live 1976 Steal Your Face album (Grateful Dead, 1976).
Figure 1: The Grateful Dead "Steal Your Face" icon.
The history of the Grateful Dead's album releases (13 studio albums and 77 live albums) further reinforces the band's emphasis on concerts. More live albums are released regularly as high–quality recordings of good performances are discovered in the Grateful Dead concert archive. For the band and for the fans, the performances of the Grateful Dead emphasized diversity in the live music experience. In any given show, the concert set list, the improvisations, and the mood of the band all varied. In each concert, all of these factors came together to create a unique experience for the fans. Perhaps even more astounding than the Grateful Dead's prolific concert performances is the dedication that fans (known as "deadheads") had to the band's music (Grushkin, 1983; Adams, 1998; Sardiello, 1998; Pattacini, 2000). The typical deadhead was not a passive consumer of recorded studio albums, but an active concertgoer that traveled with the band from concert to concert, city to city, and country to country.
Some 10 years after the Grateful Dead dissolved, the band's music is still heavily listened to as evinced by statistics gathered from the popular online music service known as last.fm [1]. Last.fm's "audioscrobbler" is a recommendation software that works with popular computer music players such as iTunes or Winamp. Whenever a song is played using, say, iTunes, the plug–in reports this activity to the last.fm server where it is aggregated. From August 2005 to October 2007, there were over 2.5 million Grateful Dead song usages recorded by last.fm. With 72 percent of the users of last.fm under the age of 35 [2], the popularity of the Grateful Dead, a generation of fans later and 10 years after the band's dissolution, is still very strong.
In specialized literature, the recent popularization of online music services has been addressed by a number of different perspectives. Recent work has covered, for example, the phenomenon of online music piracy (Kasaras, 2002), the impact of novel online music business models on independent music (Pfahl, 2001) and on the the emergence of music celebrities (Volz, 2006), and the decline of music specialty stores (Zentner, 2008). Yet, despite the recent proliferation of dedicated online music services, their content has mostly been analyzed to study and improve music retrieval (Zentner, 2008, for example) and recommendation algorithms (Knees, et al., 2007, for example). This article employs music usage data in a novel manner: to compare online patterns of usage aggregated from online music services to offine patterns of music performance in live sets.
The Grateful Dead's popularity on present–day online music services and the exceptional dedication of fans during the concert tour years are the primary motivations behind choosing the band for the study presented here. In the next section, the available set list data is summarized and presented with an analysis of the concert behavior of the band. In the following section, the usage data from last.fm is presented with an analysis of the listening behavior of last.fm members. Finally, a comparative analysis of the concert and listening behavior is delineated.
2. The Grateful Dead concert behavior
Concert set lists provide the raw data from which to study the concert behavior of the Grateful Dead [3]. The data gathered include 1,590 set lists for concerts from 1972 to 1995, with 28,904 individual song plays. A typical, unmodified set list is presented below:
Table 1: Example of a Grateful Dead set list.
Winterland Arena, San Francisco, Calif. (31 December 1977)
Music Never Stopped
Tennessee Jed
Funiculi Funicula
Me and My Uncle
Jack Straw
Friend of the Devil
Lazy Lightnin'
Sugar Magnolia
Scarlet Begonias
Fire on the Mountain
Wharf Rat
Not Fade Away
Around and Around
One More Saturday Night
Casey Jones
Blank lines divide the set list into four components. The first component is the concert venue and location along with the date that the concert was played. The second component is the first set list in the sequence in which the songs were played. For example, "Friend of the Devil" was played immediately after "Jack Straw" in the above example. The third component is the second set list, which is known for fewer songs and extended improvisational sessions. Furthermore, the second set of a Grateful Dead concert is known for "blending" of songs in which there exist fewer pauses between the end of one song and the beginning of the next; that is, the second set was often a large medley of sorts. Second set medleys often featured pairs of songs that were almost always played together. For example, "China Cat Sunflower" almost always preceded "I Know You Rider", but never in the opposite order. Also, "China Cat Sunflower" was very rarely played with a different song following [4]. The fourth and last component, which is usually the shortest, is the encore set list. The Grateful Dead were known to typically play concerts in this three set form.
A basic measure, calculated using many concert set lists, is to simply count the number of times a given song is played over all concerts. This ranked list of songs is a rudimentary "greatest hits" list, but also a histogram of concert plays sheds light on the distribution of these counts. Did most songs get approximately the same number of concert plays, or did the band play a small set of favorite songs interspersed with less popular songs to provide variety? Table 2 shows the raw counts for the 15 most played songs. Note that of the 1,590 concerts analyzed, 1,386 of those concerts included the "Drums" improvisational rhythm sequence, which typically appeared in the second set of most concerts. The Grateful Dead very often used "Drums" in the second set to bridge two songs that would not otherwise be simple to link as a medley. Figure 2 presents a histogram denoting the number of songs that were played a given number of times. In summary, many songs were played only a few times and few songs were played many times.
3. The Grateful Dead usage statistics
The online music service last.fm tracks how registered members enjoy music by what songs they play on Internet radio or through a computer music player plug–in. The last.fm service maintains a database of the listening behavior of its registered members. From this database, the last.fm service is able to recommend songs and artists to its members based on the listening behavior of similar members. This service is analogous to Amazon.com using historical purchasing behavior to recommend products to customers. Table 3 lists the top 15 Grateful Dead songs listened to by last.fm members. These data were gathered from August 2005 to October 2007 and include 2,616,990 unique listening events. Figure 3 presents a histogram of the listening counts of songs. In summary, just as in the concert behavior of the Grateful Dead, many songs were listened to a few times and a few songs were listened to many times.
Table 2: The top 15 Grateful Dead songs played in concert from 1972 to 1995. song times played "Drums" 1,386 "Playing in the Band" 651 "Sugar Magnolia" 494 "Not Fade Away" 486 "The Other One" 438 "Jack Straw" 437 "Trucking" 427 "Me and My Uncle" 412 "Looks Like Rain" 407 "Promised Land" 407 "I Know You Rider" 406 "China Cat Sunflower" 403 "New Minglewood Blues" 398 "Around and Around" 395 "Tennessee Jed" 390
Figure 2: A histogram of the number of songs played given number of times in concert. Most songs were played only a few times and very few songs were played many times. (The vertical axis was trimmed from its maximum of 150 in order to preserve diagram clarity).
4. The relationship between concert and usage behavior
The last.fm music service records listening behavior of songs that have appeared in some published form, such as studio albums, singles, and recordings of live concerts. The Grateful Dead deviated from the standard model of releasing studio albums, in that the band's primary revenue stream was through concert performances, even from the start. The Grateful Dead produced 13 studio albums and 77 live albums. The band's first live album, Live/Dead, was released in 1969 [5]. This and nearly all other live albums were simply recordings of particular live concerts and therefore preserved the set list song order of those concerts. Thereby the present generation of listeners is exposed to the same concerts, with the songs in the same order, as the previous generation. Thus, if a last.fm listener were to listen to any one of the many live albums, he or she would be, in fact, replaying concert history and contributing proportionately to the number of songs listened to as times played in concert. This notion is further reinforced by fans that created digital renditions of their favorite concert tapes [6]. Given that there are currently five times more live albums than studio albums, one may expect that last.fm users would primarily listen to recordings of concerts and that the usage data would be directly correlated with that of the set list data. However, as shown in this section, there are significant deviations from a perfect correlation. Reasons for these deviations may include the fact that listeners can replay only their favorite songs from live albums, may prefer studio albums to recordings of live shows, and are able to make compilations of tracks ("playlists") that differ from the live and studio productions.
Table 3: The top 15 downloads of Grateful Dead songs on last.fm from August 2005 to October 2007. song times used "Friend of the Devil" 143,988 "Sugar Magnolia" 124,736 "Trucking" 122,877 "Casey Jones" 102,449 "Box of Rain" 88,340 "Uncle John's Band" 82,431 "Ripple" 80,629 "Touch of Grey" 71,270 "Brokedown Palace" 54,675 "Candyman" 54,344 "Fire on the Mountain" 48,516 "Franklin's Tower" 45,404 "Scarlet Begonias" 42,137 "Dark Star" 39,953 "China Cat Sunflower" 36,479
Figure 3: A histogram of the number of songs listened to a number times from last.fm data. (The vertical axis was trimmed from its maximum of 200 in order to preserve diagram clarity.)
Figure 4 plots each song in a two–dimensional space. Each song is provided a coordinate in this space, where the horizontal coordinate is the number of times the song was played in concert and the vertical coordinate is the number of times the song was listened to by last.fm members. Given that each song has two associated values (horizontal and vertical coordinates), it is possible to form two vectors of these numbers and to measure the correlation of these vectors to determine how strongly their values are related. The analysis reveals that the listening behavior of last.fm members is strongly correlated with the concert behavior of the Grateful Dead (a measured correlation of 0:763 where 0 is uncorrelated and 1 is perfectly correlated) [7]. Since the data are not perfectly correlated, it is valuable to examine songs which are exceptions to this trend.
The solid curved line in Figure 4 shows regions for which songs display a strong correlation [8]. The two dashed lines represent the 40th–quantile and 75th–quantile of concert plays. These quantiles were subjectively chosen in order to provide a discussion of songs that are noteworthy outliers from the trend. Finally, the two closed polygons labeled A and B represent the interesting outlying songs. Polygon A encapsulates songs that were heavily listened to by last.fm members, but played few times in concert by the Grateful Dead. On the other hand, B encapsulates songs that were heavily played by the Grateful Dead, but less listened to (and possibly overlooked) by last.fm members [9].
Figure 4: Grateful Dead concert plays vs. last.fm usage. Unfortunately, not all song names could be displayed due to severe overlapping of the labels. In order to remedy this situation, in the more dense regions, song labels were randomly removed.
(To see a full-scale version of Figure 4, click here)
Polygon A encapsulates those songs that were heavily listened to by last.fm users but not heavily played by the Grateful Dead in concert. Many of the songs in polygon A are old classics that did not persist due to either changes in the band or to the band's extremely prolific period of songwriting in the early 1970s. For example, although the song "Mister Charlie" was played for the last time in concert on 26 May 1972 at the Strand Lyceum in London, England, it was featured on the Europe '72 album [10]. This album reached a peak spot of 24 on the Billboard pop albums chart in 1973. Thus, while not being played much in concert during the band's lifetime, "Mister Charlie" remains popular with fans because it appeared on a much celebrated album. Similar arguments can be made for "Sage and Spirit" and "Blues for Allah" which, while technically difficult and therefore generally avoided in concert, are songs that were released on the Blues For Allah LP [11] which reached spot 12 on the Billboard charts for pop album in 1975. "Good Morning Little School Girl" was primarily sung by Ron McKernan, whose untimely death in 1973 caused the song to be removed from the Grateful Dead concert play list except for a few special appearances in the late 1980s and early 1990s [12]. However, "Good Morning Little School Girl" is the opening track of the Two from the Vault album [13] that contains a live recording of the 24 August 1968 Shrine Exhibit Hall performance of the Grateful Dead. Although Jerry Garcia was the primary singer of "Death Don't Have No Mercy", the song had a similar concert fate as "Good Morning Little School Girl" and was also released on the Two from the Vault live album. Two from the Vault reached position 119 in 1992 on the Billboard charts [14]. Likewise, "Hard to Handle", like "Good Morning Little School Girl" was another Ron McKernan specialty that was dropped after his death, except for being played during the New Year's Eve show of 1982 in Oakland, California. Finally, "Cryptic Envelopment" provided a medley prelude to the popular "The Other One" and only later in the band's life was "The Other One" separated from "Cryptic Envelopment" and preceded by "Drums". It is worth noting that 28 of the 77 live albums of the Grateful Dead include "The Other One" while only seven include "Cryptic Envelopment".
Polygon B encapsulates those songs that were heavily played in concert throughout the Grateful Dead's career, but for various reasons, were less frequently listened to by last.fm members. "Drums" is perhaps the most salient of this collection of songs at the extreme of the boundary. "Drums" is an all–drum improvisational piece that usually appeared in the second set of a Grateful Dead concert. Usually appearing with "Drums" was the full sonic spectrum improvisation of "Space" which included all band members. Both "Drums" and "Space" found a stable home on the Infrared Roses album [15], but unfortunately, due to the esoteric nature of these improvisations, Infrared Roses has been less well received by the general public and thus received no popular awards and did not make it on any music charts. Furthermore, to compound the situation, the Grateful Dead provided unique names for Infrared Roses tracks and thus, when played by last.fm users, are not associated with the typical "Drums" and "Space" songs of the concert set lists. It is interesting to note the songs "Saint of Circumstance", "Victim or the Crime", "Lost Sailor", and "Greatest Story" in the bottom left of polygon B. All of these songs were created by the song writing duo of Barlow and Weir and sung in concert often by Bob Weir. While these songs were played extensively in concert, they received relatively little attention from last.fm users.
Finally, the extreme upper right of this plot is important as "Trucking" and "Sugar Magnolia" represent not only the most popular songs in terms of times played in concert, but in terms of times listened to on last.fm. "Trucking" is on 25 of the 90 released Grateful Dead albums and "Sugar Magnolia" is on 32 of those albums. Both "Trucking" and "Sugar Magnolia" were also well received publicly. "Trucking" reached position 64 in 1971 and "Sugar Magnolia" reached position 91 in 1973 on the Billboard pop singles charts. Also in this area is "Touch of Grey". "Touch of Grey" was the only Grateful Dead song with an accompanying music video and in 1987, reached the top 10 Billboard single's chart. By comparison to produced greatest hits albums, Table 4 lists the songs that were released on the 2003 Very Best of the Grateful Dead compilation. Of these songs, 12 out of the 17 songs are in the top right quadrant (these songs are marked with an * in Table 4), meaning that they were both played and listened to heavily by the Grateful Dead and their fans, respectively [16]. A similar situation exists with the Skeletons from the Closet greatest hits album for which eight out of 11 songs are in the top right quadrant [17] (Table 5 presents the songs on the album) [18]. Of particular importance is "Box of Rain" (on Very Best of the Grateful Dead) by Phil Lesh and Robert Hunter. This song, written after the death of Phil Lesh's father, is not only the last song ever played by the Grateful Dead in concert [19], but also unique in that it is one of the few songs for which Phil Lesh was the primary singer. In summary, the upper right hand quadrant of this diagram is ripe for creating compilation and greatest hits albums as it reflects both what the band as well as present day fans appreciate.
Table 4: The tracks of the Very Best of the Grateful Dead greatest hits album [20]. Upper right quadrant songs in Figure 4 are marked with *. Number Track name 1 "Trucking"* 2 "Touch of Grey"* 3 "Sugar Magnolia"* 4 "Casey Jones"* 5 "Uncle John's Band"* 6 "Friend of the Devil"* 7 "Franklin's Tower"* 8 "Estimated Prophet"* 9 "Eyes of the World"* 10 "Box of Rain"* 11 "U.S. Blues" 12 "The Golden Road to Ultimate Devotion" 13 "One More Saturday Nigh"* 14 "Fire on the Mountain"* 15 "The Music Never Stopped" 16 "Hell in a Bucket" 17 "Ripple"
Table 5: The tracks of the Skeletons in the Closet greatest hits album [17]. Upper right quadrant songs in Figure 4 are marked with *. Number Track name 1 "The Golden Road to Ultimate Devotion" 2 "Trucking"* 3 "Rosemary" 4 "Sugar Magnolia"* 5 "St. Stephen" 6 "Uncle John's Band"* 7 "Casey Jones"* 8 "Mexicali Blue"* 9 "Turn on Your Love Light"* 10 "One More Saturday Nigh"* 11 "Friend of the Devil"*
5. Conclusion
The Grateful Dead was an American music phenomenon that influenced multiple generations of music lovers. For 30 years, the Grateful Dead made a career out of an unrelenting worldwide tour schedule. Unlike most other bands, the fans of the Grateful Dead followed the tours around the world for months or even years at a time. It is now 43 years since the band's inception, and with the use of online music providers and services, it is possible to track the listening behavior of the many Grateful Dead fans remaining in the world today.
This article presented an analysis comparing the popularity of Grateful Dead songs as identified by both how many times they were played in concert and how many times they were listened to by members of the last.fm online music service. The results presented here indicate a strong, but not perfect, correlation between concert plays and fan listens. These results suggest that the music choices of its online community of listeners reflect very well the live concert tradition of the Grateful Dead phenomenon, even after their dissolution. Those songs that existed as outliers to a perfect correlation were analyzed to understand what made these songs deviate from the model. These deviations can be understood by changes in the band, by live performance album releases, and by the very nature of the songs themselves.
There is much to be learned about American concert tour culture and the bands that bring this culture to fruition (Black, et al., 2007). Perhaps more than any other band, there exists large amounts of Grateful Dead data that go beyond set lists to include lyrics, chord progressions, concert reviews, and history. Many books have been published about the Grateful Dead and albums continue to be released 13 years after the band's final concert in 1995, confirming that the Grateful Dead have made a profound impact on American rock music.
About the authors
Marko A. Rodriguez, Theoretical Division, Center for Nonlinear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545.
Email: marko [at] lanl [dot] gov
Vadas Gintautas, Theoretical Division, Center for Nonlinear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545.
Email: vadasg [at] lanl [dot] gov
Alberto Pepe Center for Embedded Networked Sensing, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095.
Email: apepe [at] ucla [dot] edu
The authors would like to thank Anil Bawa–Cavia of last.fm for providing the Grateful Dead raw usage data, Jerry Stratton for providing the set list data, and the Grateful Dead for doing what they do best.
1. last.fm is available at http://www.last.fm/.
2. Source: last.fm internal Web statistics, courtesy Anil Bawa–Cavia.
3. Set list data obtained from http://www.cs.cmu.edu/People/gdead/setlists.html. The data were cleaned to remedy various typographical alterations (e.g., "Trucking" and "Truckin'" are the same song), to fix various spelling errors (e.g., "Warf Rat" and "Wharf Rat" are the same song), and to fix various abbreviations (e.g., "China Cat" and "China Cat Sunflower" are the same song).
4. A similar pattern exists for other song pairs such as "Scarlet Begonias" and "Fire on the Mountain", "Saint of Circumstance" and "Lost Sailor", and "Cryptic Envelopment" and "The Other One".
5. Grateful Dead, Live/Dead, music album, November 1969.
6. Prior to the advent of the Internet and the easy distribution of digital audio files, Grateful Dead concert tape trading was an extremely popular way of disseminating the Grateful Dead's live experience. In fact, the band encouraged this (Getz and Dwork, 1998–2000). Many tapes have now been digitized and shared online by fans.
7. A Spearman p rank–order correlation reveals a correlation of p=0.763 with a p–value < 2.2 X 10-16, where p=-1 is inversely related, p=0 is unrelated, and p=1 is correlated. The p–value indicates the probability of such a correlation occurring randomly; the p value for this correlation indicates that, at random, this correlation would five times out of 1015 (Sheskin, 2004).
8. Specifically, the line represents a linear regression model that predicts usage in terms of concert plays. The data were fit to a line; the line appears curved because the values on both axes are plotted on logarithmic (base–10) scale to preserve diagram clarity.
9. A random sample of songs were removed from this diagram to preserve clarity as to ensure that song labels did not overlap. Furthermore, while A and B occupy regions outside of their quantile delimitations, this is to ensure that song labels were encapsulated.
10. Grateful Dead, Europe '72, music album, November 1972.
11. Grateful Dead, Blues for Allah, music album, September 1975.
12. It is worth noting that "Mister Charlie" was also primarily sung by Ron McKernan and was not performed by the band after his death.
13. Grateful Dead, Two from the Vault, music album, May 1992.
14. "The Eleven" and "Cryptic Envelopment" are also on Two from the Vault.
15. Grateful Dead, Infrared Roses, music album, November 1991.
16. "Eyes of the World" and "Estimated Prophet" are not displayed as they were randomly removed to preserve diagram clarity.
17. Grateful Dead, Skeletons from the Closet: The Best of Grateful Dead, music album, February 1974.
18. "Mexicali Blues" is not displayed as it was randomly removed to preserve diagram clarity.
19. The final Grateful Dead performance took place at Soldier Field on 9 July 1995 in Chicago. Jerry Garcia died exactly one month later on 9 August 1995.
20. Grateful Dead, The Very Best of Grateful Dead, music album, September 2003.
Rebecca G. Adams, 1998. "Inciting sociological thought by studying the deadhead community: Engaging publics in dialogue," Social Forces, volume 77, number 1, pp. 1–25.http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/sf/77.1.1
Grant C. Blck, Mark A. Fox, and Paul Kochanowski, 2007. "Concert tour success in North America: An examination of the top 100 tours from 1997 to 2005," Popular Music and Society, volume 30, number 2, pp. 149–172.http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03007760701267698
David Dodd (annotater), 2007. The complete annotated Grateful Dead lyrics. New York: Free Press.
Michael M. Getz and John R. Dwork, 1998–2000. The deadhead's taping compendium: An in–depth guide to the music of the Grateful Dead on tape. Three volumes. New York: Holt.
Grateful Dead. The Very Best of the Grateful Dead, music album (September). [n.p.]: Grateful Dead.
Grateful Dead, 1992. Two from the Vault, music album (May). [n.p.]: Grateful Dead.
Grateful Dead, 1991. Infrared Roses, music album (November). [n.p.]: Grateful Dead.
Grateful Dead, 1976. Steal Your Face, music album (June). Los Angeles, Calif.: United Artists.
Grateful Dead, 1975. Blues for Allah, music album (September). Los Angeles, Calif.: Grateful Dead.
Grateful Dead, 1974. Skeletons from the Closet: The Best of Grateful Dead, music album (February). Burbank, Calif.: Warner Bros.
Grateful Dead, 1972. Europe '72, music album (November). Burbank, Calif.: Warner Bros.
Grateful Dead, 1969. Live/Dead, music album (November). Burbank, Calif.: Warner Bros.
Paul Grushkin, 1983. Grateful Dead: The official book of the dead heads. New York: Quill.
Kostas Kasaras, 2002. "Music in the age of free distribution: MP3 and society," First Monday, volume 7, number 1, at http://journals.uic.edu/fm/article/view/927/849, accessed 21 December 2008.
Peter Knees, Tim Pohle, Markus Schedl, and Gerhard Widmer, 2007. "A music search engine built upon audio–based and Web–based similarity measures," SIGIR '07: Proceedings of the 30th Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval, pp. 447–454.
Madhu Lundquist, 1996–2007. "The setList program: Grateful Dead setlists and listener experiences," at http://www.setlists.net/, accessed 21 December 2008.
Dennis McNally, 2002. A long strange trip: The inside history of the Grateful Dead. New York: Broadway Books.
Melissa McCray Pattacini, 2000. "Deadheads yesterday and today: An audience study," Popular Music and Society, volume 24, number 1, pp. 1–14.http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03007760008591757
Michael Pfahl, 2001. "Giving away music to make money: Independent musicians on the Internet," First Monday, volume 6, number 8, at http://journals.uic.edu/fm/article/view/880/789, accessed 21 December 2008.
Robert Sardiello, 1998. "Identity and status stratification in deadhead subculture," In: Jonathon S. Epstein (editor). Youth culture: Identity in a postmodern world. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, pp. 118–147.
David J. Sheskin, 2004. Handbook of parametric and nonparametric statistical procedures. Third edition. Boca Raton, Fla.: Chapman and Hall/CRC.
Ian Pascal Volz, 2006. "The impact of online music services on the demand for stars in the music industry," WWW '06: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on World Wide Web, pp. 659–667.
Alejandro Zentner, 2008. "Online sales, Internet use, file sharing, and the decline of retail music specialty stores," Information Economics and Policy, volume 20, number 3, pp. 288–300.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infoecopol.2008.06.006
Editorial history
Paper received 21 November 2008; accepted 15 December 2008.
"A Grateful Dead analysis: The relationship between concert and listening behavior" by Marko A Rodriguez, Vadas Gintautas, and Alberto Pepe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non–Commercial–Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
A Grateful Dead analysis: The relationship between concert and listening behavior
by Marko A. Rodriquez, Vadas Gintautas, and Alberto Pepe
First Monday, Volume 14, Number 1 - 5 January 2009
A Great Cities Initiative of the University of Illinois at Chicago University Library.
© First Monday, 1995-2019. ISSN 1396-0466.


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I'm in favor of more than 1 IR spot - you shouldn't have to drop a player because you're desperate to get a temporary replacement for him.
We can always try to hold a live draft for one league and the usual post draft for the other. I think it'll be more fun to have 2 different teams.
A part of me likes two different drafts, but I also think it would be interesting to see how the two different formats fare with the exact same rosters. I'm a little torn on this I guess.
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Canon FD lenses (also lenses with the FL or R mount)
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Steven2 necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 116 diseños de 26 diseñadores freelance.
We are looking for a fun, alternative and unofficial mascot for the Univesity of North Dakota's hockey team. The college was required to drop the name "fighting sioux" hockey and will soon retire the Native American image they are presently using as a mascot. Our alternative image is the Suhaki (soo-ha-kee) an endangered antelope. We plan to use the image on promotional products to support the hockey team and promote a fun environment at hockey games. The mascot must be designed so that it can appear in a variety of settings, and may be animated.
College hockey fans of the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux Hockey Team.
The suhak (suhaki) is an antelope which lives in Russia and China. You will find several images if you Google "suhak". The image should be a cartoon-like drawing so that the expressions may be altered on various T-shirt promotions. The image may wear a green and white hockey jersey (see fightingsioux.com) but no existing name or logo may appear on the new image. The image should not be too serious, as the purpose is light-hearted and fun.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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Dalí: a genius on the Costa Brava
There are several destinations in Spain which are key to understanding the work of the master of surrealism Salvador Dalí. In Catalonia, the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres the Salvador Dalí House-Museum in Portlligat and the Púbol castle; in Madrid, the permanent collection of the Reina Sofía National Art Museum also has some outstanding works.
Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres
Salvador Dalí House-Museum in Portlligat, on the Costa Brava
Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres
Discover the work of Salvador Dalí, one of the great geniuses of the 20th century, in the land of his birth and the source of inspiration for many of his creations: the Costa Brava. Come to this area of Catalonia, in northeastern Spain, and explore the places where this master of Surrealism lived and worked. Unusual places where you can enjoy and get to know Dalí's unique universe.
This route is in the province of Girona, in northern Catalonia. Its long coastline inspired great artists such as Picasso, Klein and Marc Chagall, but it was surely Salvador Dalí who brought international fame to this corner of the Mediterranean. Its landscapes of pine groves, fishing villages, small coves between cliffs, and the wild, transparent sea were at the heart of many of their works. As soon as you see its villages and beautiful locations you will see that the memory of Dalí, the great international ambassador of the Costa Brava, is alive and well to this day.
The route could get underway in Figueres, the town where the brilliant artist was born and died, and where you will find the Dalí Theatre-Museum. The genius' great legacy is not to be missed, with its towers with egg-shaped tops and the huge dome beneath which lie the artist's remains. It is the world's largest surrealist object, and is home to more than 1,500 works, truly emblematic Dalí pieces such as The Spectre of Sex-appeal, Galatea of the spheres and Port Alguer. This huge venue was designed by Dalí down to the last detail, and sums up the artist's career. You will be captivated by its unique atmosphere where, besides paintings, there is jewellery made of gold and precious stones, optical montages, photographs, sculptures and holograms as you never would have imagined.
The next stop is just 36 kilometres away, in Cadaqués, one of the most picturesque villages on the Costa Brava. This is where you will find the Salvador Dalí House-Museum, in a place called Portlligat. This structure of small white fishermen's houses was the artist's main refuge, his workshop and his habitual residence. This is where he painted most of his great works. Enter this labyrinth of narrow corridors, dead ends, rooms decorated with the brilliant artist's personal objects and mementos, and windows that look out onto the bay of Portlligat. Dalí fell in love with this typically Mediterranean scene on account of its light and landscape. Don't forget to book the date and time of your visit in advance - admission is limited to small groups: this is an excellent way to discover the more private, intimate side of Dalí.
Back in inland Girona, you will find the Gala-Dalí Castle House-Museum, in Púbol, with its garden of surrealist elephants, the swimming pool surrounded by busts of composer Richard Wagner, and the crypt where Gala, the artist's muse, is buried. A mysterious, romantic atmosphere surrounds this medieval castle that was completely restored by Dalí. Discover the paintings and drawings that the artist gave to Gala as gifts, its patios and fountains, and explore the rooms designed by the artist himself: they are unusual rooms with a predominance of medieval and Baroque decoration, the perfect reflection of this universal figure's creative power.
This is Dalí's world: personal, surrealist, unique. A visit will leave you anything but indifferent - not to be missed. Summing up, this is a different way to discover the Costa Brava, a region of sunshine and culture, with spectacular places such as the Empúries Roman ruins. So now you know: Dalí awaits you… in Spain.
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This has come up on the rules board, and while I think I'm right (Who doesn't always think that, admit it!) I wanted to ask for an Official Ruling(tm)(R)
If you use the feat that allows you to reduce damage but increase accuracy on an attack like Paralysis or Grapple, would instead of damage decreasing, would the efficaciousness of that power or attempt go down? Same with trip attacks, etc. Wouldn't the same thing that reduces the damage of a straight punch make it easier to resist the grapple or the trip attack?
+accuracy/-Damage feats
These questions about M&M's first edition were posed to Steve Kenson--and then he answered them! Steve's now providing official answers to second edition questions, but we've archived this forum for you to search.
2 posts • Page 1 of 1
+accuracy/-Damage feats
Hello, my name is Rivalsan, and I'm a MinMaxaholic. Twelve step programs don't work for us. We keep trying to find a way to do it in ten steps. Or less.. I bet I could squeeze it down to.. *sigh* (Crowd: Hi, Rivalsan)
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"Officially" those feats in M&M only affect damaging attacks, but I use a house-rule along the lines you describe and find that it works well.
Steve Kenson - firstname.lastname@example.com
Green Ronin Publishing
Green Ronin Publishing
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Dec. 4, 2006
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The MIT women's fencing team went 2-3 after facing strong competition at the Brandeis University Invitational on Sunday. The Engineers (7-3) defeated Vassar College (22-5) and Boston College (15-12), but fell to St. John's University (22-5), Cornell University (18-9), and Yale University (18-9).
The foil team put together the best record of the day as it finished at 24-21. Its best outing was an 8-1 decision against Vassar which helped lead MIT to its overpowering victory. Cordelia Link paced the Engineers with an 11-4 record while Nancy Hua posted an 8-7 mark. Lindley Graham (4-9) and Chun Li (1-1) rounded out Tech's efforts.
Both the sabre and epee squads posted records of 18-27. Yushin Chen led the sabre corps with an 8-7 ledger, followed by Hareem Ahmad (5-6), Laura Evans (5-10), and Heather Pressler (1-3). Rookie Stephanie Shin posted a team-best mark of 9-6 in epee action. Joanna Tong finished the day with a total of 6-9, which was bolstered by tallies of 3-10 and 0-2 from Zhenya Gu and Stephanie Couch.


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(CNN) -- The Department of Homeland Security insists the Real ID Act is an essential tool to fight the war on terror, but critics say it's an overly intrusive measure that raises privacy concerns.
The act aims to weave driver's licenses and state ID cards into a sort of national identification system. States must begin issuing new federal licenses by May 11, 2008, unless they receive an extension. The cards would be mandatory for all "federal purposes." People in states that don't comply with the new rules will have to use passports for federal purposes.
The following provides requirements of the act, signed in 2005:
Who must get one?
Anyone with a driver's license or state ID who is an American citizen or legal alien, or who has permanent resident status, a nonimmigrant visa, protected status, asylum or pending application for asylum.
What must federal driver's licenses contain?
Name, address, date of birth, gender, driver's license or state ID number, photo, signature and security features to prevent tampering and counterfeiting. The data must be stored on a bar code.
When do they go into effect?
May 11, 2008, but states can request an extension to January 1, 2010.
Where will the information be kept?
States are charged with storing your personal information and digital photo for seven to 10 years. The states also are charged with protecting the information and running security clearances.
Why do I have to get one?
The Real ID Act of 2005 passed as part of an emergency military spending and tsunami relief bill. The act is aimed at "improved security for driver's licenses and personal identification cards."
How do I get one?
Complying states' department of motor vehicle offices will require you to show up before May 10, 2013, and provide a photo ID, birth certificate, proof of Social Security account and proof of residence.
What if I live in a noncompliant state?
No federal agency will accept your state-issued driver's license as a valid form of ID. You will need to use a passport at federal buildings and parks, and for domestic air travel. E-mail to a friend


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Browse Ice Storage Bins
$3,145.00/EAHoshizaki - B-1300SS - 1,275 Lb Stainless Steel Ice Storage Bin
Call 855-847-5587 or Chat for price.
While a few ice trays, or even a small dispenser, might do the trick in the residential kitchen, when it comes to commercial applications, you need ice storage bins doing the heavy lifting for you. Great for both the intimate eatery and the always-busy commercial kitchen, ice storage bins are designed to hold enough ice to keep your cups cold and your customers happy – all day, every day. From a few hundred pounds to over a thousand, capacities vary as much as aesthetics, and finding the right ice storage bins to fit your back line is important.
Exclusive offers and product updates will be arriving to your inbox soon.


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Janie Grackin
Welcome to JanieGrackin.com
Janie Grackin is a Master Storyteller and Family Life Educator. Working with major associations and Synagogues around the world, Janie brings the Jewish experience to life through Storytelling, Family Education, and Professional Development Programs. Janie's spirit brings the joy of Judaism into your Temple and into your heart.
On this site you can learn how to bring Janie into your community and enrich your Jewish heritage.
Please visit us monthly for new features on Jewish holidays, history and Torah on Janie's Blog.
Book Janie! Organize events and programs conducted by Janie Grackin.
Check out my schedule of upcoming events.
Capture the richness of our Jewish experience in books, CDs, and programs from Janie.
Next page: Bio


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Shop For TiresBack To Tire Brands
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Graduates of for-profit colleges like University of Phoenix are less likely to get a job than their traditional school counterparts. And even if they get a job, they don't make as much money.
The industry is booming despite public reservations about the institutions' effectiveness, according to a study by Kevin Lang and Russel Weinstein at Boston University. They say that students gain nothing from going to a for-profit institution:
There are large, statistically significant, positive effects of obtaining certificates/degrees from a public or not-for-profit institution among those starting in associates degree programs. We find no evidence that students gain from obtaining any certificate or degree from a for-profit institution.
And because students at these colleges don't make enough to support themselves, they're much more likely to default on loans:
Students at for-profits account for nearly half of all student loan defaults but only about 12 percent of post- secondary students. Between 2000 and 2010, the private sector share of federal student aid money grew from $4.6 billion to more than $26 billion, about one quarter of all federal student grants and loans.
The study adds fuel to the fire started by the U.S. Department of Education. They said that if the colleges want federal funds, they'll have to prove they help students get jobs.
Here's a graph showing how the earning power of for-profit graduates is less than that of traditional students:


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Janine Geredes is the kind of person many of us love to hate. No matter how much the Northern California woman eats, she never gets fat.
While the rest of us obsess over every morsel passing through our lips, convinced we'll pack on the pounds if we let our guard down for just one moment, Geredes worries she'll become unappealingly bony if she doesn't eat enough.
"I've always had to work to keep weight on," says Geredes, 43, who is 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighs 118 pounds. "When I was a growing up I was teased for being so thin. But now, people are always saying, 'I wish I could eat like you. You stay so thin. You must work out a ton.' I don't.
"My son and daughter are the same way. I've always figured it was genetic."
As it turns out, Geredes may be right.
Scientists now say they have discovered the "skinny" gene. And they've found this lucky batch of DNA in a variety of animals, according to a report published Tuesday in the journal Cell Metabolism.
"This gene is in every organism from worms to humans," says the study's senior author, Dr. Jonathan Graff, an associate professor of developmental biology and internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. "We all have it. It's very striking."
Graff and his colleagues had been hunting for a gene that might naturally keep people thin. Eventually, they turned up a promising candidate in a gene that controls fat formation.
Svelte flies rediscovered
And in an interesting twist, Graff notes that this gene was originally discovered by a graduate student at Yale University more than 50 years ago. The student, Winifred Doane, was studying fruit flies and noticed that some were particularly fat while others were quite skinny. Doane, now a professor emeritus at Arizona State University, traced the differences in fly fitness to a single gene that she named "adipose."
But after publication, Doane's study languished and was forgotten until Graff started searching for more information on the gene that had caught his attention.
Graff borrowed some of the descendents of the skinny fruit flies from Doane to take a closer look at their genetics. Sure enough, fruit flies with efficient copies of the adipose gene were very thin. Those with poorly functioning copies were pudgier.
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If there was one good copy and one bad one, the flies were medium weight.
"The gene was more like a volume control rather than an on/off switch," Graff says.
Graff and his colleagues wondered how good copies of the gene would impact survival in the wild. So they subjected the skinny flies to famine-like conditions. Not surprisingly, they did poorly. From an evolutionary perspective, this gene is the one that helps animals do well in affluent times — very much like the situation in western countries today, says Graff.
"In times of plenty, these super skinny, sleek and fast flies can easily get away from predators," Graff adds. "But in times of shortage, they don't make it."
The Texas scientists next wanted to know whether the gene worked the same way in more complicated animals. After proving that they could make worms fat by deleting the adipose gene, the researchers turned their attention to mammals.
First they experimented with single cells in a test tube. When the gene was deleted from ordinary cells, they transformed themselves into fat cells. The cells actually became plump as they accumulated fat droplets, Graff says.
Mice engineered to have efficient versions of the adipose gene were much sleeker than normal counterparts. In fact, they had one-third the body fat of wild mice, says Graff.
Biology of a supermodel
"That would be a big difference in humans," he explains. "The average woman has about 25 percent body fat. Reducing that by a third would take her down to about 9 percent. That's super lean — a supermodel kind of thin."
Obesity experts say the new results are exciting.
"This is so cool," says Dr. Louis Aronne, a clinical professor of medicine and director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Program at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City.
Theoretically, Aronne says, you might be able to come up with an obesity treatment that mimics what this gene does.
It would be interesting to look at this gene in populations prone to obesity, like the Pima Indians, adds Eric Ravussin, a professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La. Earlier research by Ravussin showed that the Pimas, who live in Arizona and Mexico, become obese only when they live in an environment where food is plentiful and exercise lacking.
Like the beginning of any big advance, the research prompts as many questions as it answers, both experts say.
This gene appears in cells all over the body, Ravussin says. This means that scientists will need to carefully look for side effects when they change levels of the gene or the protein it encodes.
Still, Aronne says, the new study "emphasizes how much closer we are to unraveling the mysteries of body weight regulation."
But that doesn't mean people should wait for a pill to cure obesity, he adds. That's a long way off, even with the new research.
Linda Carroll is a health and science writer living in New Jersey. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Newsday, Health magazine and SmartMoney.
© 2013 msnbc.com. Reprints


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If you follow us on Pinterest you know we can't resist a good wedding inspiration board and we're always creating new mood boards based on some of our favorite wedding suites. We thought we'd bring some of those inspiration boards to the blog and do a regular feature showing how you can style your wedding based on your invite. Once you decide on your invitation it can really be the anchor for all of your wedding decor and design-- from the wedding flowers to the bridesmaids dresses. Today we're showing off one of our favorite invitations for a summer or spring wedding, La Vie En Rose. We just added this suite to our collection and we love the pretty elegant feel of this floral invitation. La Vie En Rose is a versatile design that can be perfect for a rustic outdoor wedding or a more formal affair.
If you go the rustic route for decor this dessert table is a great addition, it's casual and cool with just some burlap and vintage pieces added to the table. We would carry the soft pink color from the invites to the treats and think these pink heart cookies would pair lovely with the feel of a La Vie En Rose wedding.
This line up of bridesmaids in mix and match colors and floral dresses is a lovely way to keep a variety of colors in your wedding decor and not commit to just two or three colors. And what bridesmaid doesn't love getting to chose her own dress? Flowers picked fresh from the garden and roses in mason jars and vintage bottles would pair well with the original floral wedding design.
To see more wedding inspiration check out our Pinterest boards. To see the full La Vie En Rose wedding suite head here. To view all of our floral wedding invitations click here.
Is there a particular design on our site you'd like us to create a mood board for? Let us know in the comments and we'll feature it here next.
The image of the flowers is from Style Me Pretty, the bridesmaids dresses were found via 100 Layer Cake as was the pretty dessert table.