text:
Ancestry.com Infuriates Webmasters and Bloggers
Ancestry.com is harvesting data from many websites and blogs and putting them in their Internet Biographical Collection. When the collection first began showing up, it was a paid premium site (for what was posted freely on the Web elsewhere).
You can keep up with the controversy at AnceStories, CowHampshire, or GeneaMusings. [These links are to specific posts, but I'm sure you can keep up with the controversy at these and other genealogy blogs by going to the main blog.]
There are some historical and genealogical societies and some USGenWeb county sites which may be removing their data from the Rootsweb pages because of this. Rootsweb is owned by Ancestry.com's parent company The Generations Network.
Update (8/29): They've removed the collection for now.
Labels: Ancestry.com, copyright


text:
On Monday, March 28, the children of Los Pinos as well as staff members and dignitaries, were able to celebrate the opening of the Los Pinos bakery. The objective of this project is to produce and sell baked goods to the local market. This will provide revenue to support the program of care for children at Los Pinos.
The organization, Food for the Poor, contributed to the remodeling of the bakery building. The German Embassy in Guatemala provided funds for bakery equipment. Items purchased with this donation included 1 oven with a capacity of 14 trays, 1 mixer with a 20 liter capacity, 1 mixer with a 20 pound capacity, 100 trays, 3 racks with casters, 2 stainless steel tables.
The German Consul, Mr. Markuz Graetz, attended the opening ceremonies. Also present were the Municipal Mayor, Mr. Angel Kilkan; the Carpio's, directors of Los Pinos Peten; Anabela Alejos, director of ICC Development Department in Guatemala; Los Pinos school staff; office staff; parents and all the children.
Joel Carpio welcomed all those present and gave introductory comments for the ceremony. Then Mr. Kilkan spoke. He said that he admired the social work that Los Pinos had done for a long time for Guatemalan children. Then Mr. Graetz spoke. He enjoyed the special recognition from the 7th grade class who wrote "THANK YOU" in the German language. The children in first grade shared a typical song, and at the end of the program, a boy gave special thanks on behalf of all the children.
After the first part of the program was finished, Mr. Graetz cut the ribbon to officially open the bakery. Participants enjoyed refreshments of bread produced in the bakery and Jamaica juice. Before leaving the campus, the Mr. Graetz asked to see more of the children's village. Before visiting, he thought there would be only a small facility for the children, and he was impressed by the size and scope of ICC's work.
Joel Carpio took him on a tour of the gardens, pineapple plantation, papaya plantation, and the chicken house. Mr. Graetz was amazed to see how the staff are using the natural resources. Joel also took him for a visit to one of the children's home. Mr. Graetz was impressed with the Los Pinos project and said he would welcome another project proposal.
Thanks for reading!
Kent Greve
International Development Director ICC

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Park City Films Series chooses new executive director
Katharine Wang has worked with many nonprofit organizations in the Park City area including the Park City Foundation and the Wasatch Community Gardens.
She and her husband Canice Harte cofounded Waterbox, a lifestyle water bottle company based in Park City, and is well versed in fundraising.
Wang also loves film.
So, when the board of directors for the Park City Film Series, the locally based, year round non-profit art-house theater organization needed to choose a new executive director, it chose Wang.
"Her reputation in the community, coupled with her nonprofit experience and impressive business background, along with her passion for using film as medium for creating community dialogue convinced us she was the best fit for our organization," said Irene Cho, president of the film series board.
Wang, who is known as Katy by her friends, said she plans to build on the foundation the Park City Film Series has established over the years, and elevate the dialogue in the community around a variety of topics.
And with the Park City Film Series endowment fund that was established by Wang's predecessor Kim Page, Wang feels the future is wide open.
"The Film Series, right now, is poised to get to the next level in terms of where they fit in the strata of nonprofit organizations to take a leadership role," she said. "What we want to do is look to the future and find out how to expand upon our programming."
However, before Wang makes any commitment, she wants to look at the Film Series with a critical eye and see what types of changes will benefit the organization.
"I want to do a 360-degree assessment of the Park City Film Series in the immediate future," she explained. "I want to see how other people – our patrons, other nonprofit organizations, people in the film community – perceive us externally.
"I also want see how we, ourselves, see us internally and what niche is there that we can fill," she said.
The changes, when they do come, will not replace the offerings the Park City Film Series already has in place, Wang said.
It will continue to offer the weekly film screenings and provide a venue for special screenings and other events, she explained.
"What we do well is show those art-house films that we have programmed throughout the year," Wang said. "They have only gotten better the past few years and that will continue as is, but the board of directors certainly has a lot of ambition of where it would like the film series to go. And in terms of providing leadership, I would love to start some events to be not so amorphous."
One of the ways to do that will include looking at future partnership opportunities, and strengthen the partnerships the film series already has within the community, she said.
"I would like to look at all these ideas we have and find what makes the most sense and create at trajectory for the next three years and then talk to funders to see if they will support them," Wang said. "And when more new ideas come, we'll have a means to see where they fit within the arc of our story."
Another goal is to expand the audience demographic.
"I would love to bring in younger audiences and families into the films," said Wang, who has two daughters.
The key to achieving those goals is to be open minded to where those types of opportunities will take the organization.
"It's also about being strategic, because if we don't have a plan, it will be hard to achieve these goals," she said. "That's why we need to do that 360-degree assessment."
Wang, who has always been an avid reader, discovered the power of art films while growing up in New York City.
One year, she took a class in high school about existentialism and the teacher introduced a couple of films – Peter Weir's 1975 film "The Picnic at Hanging Rock" and Ingmar Bergman's 1957 film "Wild Strawberries."
"They complemented the things we were reading in class and they opened my eyes to the ability of film to express ideas in different ways that books could," Wang remembered. "Like many people my age, I grew up on 'Star Wars' and other megaplex films, but that was the first time I saw that films can be art."
Film, she found, had a certain capacity to introduce ideas that may be are disparate from the way people would normally think.
"It is also a good way to introduce a foreign culture into your life, but at the same time, make it accessible in such a short time," she said.
While attending Georgetown University, film once again found its way into Wang's education.
"I was an American Studies major, which is a liberal arts degree in American arts and culture, and one of my professors brought in films, TV shows and documentaries that gave the class an opportunity to look into a different slice of life that would be hard to articulate in a book," she said. "That was something that has always stuck with me, and everywhere I lived, I looked for the documentary film house or sought out film festivals."
During the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, Wang experienced another film-fueled epiphany.
"I'm half Chinese, although I don't look it, but I remember seeing one the films at the festival called 'Up the Yangtze' in the Cinemark Theater," she said. "I looked and noticed that people all around me were Chinese.
"I grew up in New York City and I am used to diversity that we don't necessarily have here ethically," Wang said. "That never happens in Park City. I'm never surrounded by Asian people, let alone Chinese people here, but it happened at that screening, and it was, again, that cultural opening of a different life.
"I am looking forward to seeing how the Park City Film Series can make a bigger difference in our community," she said.
For more information about the Park City Film Series, visit http://www.parkcityfilmseries.com.
Start a dialogue, stay on topic and be civil.
If you don't follow the rules, your comment may be deleted.
School district master plan process closing in on the 'Future of Learning' in Park City
The planning committee and the newly formed task forces will continue to work on the master planning priorities and will present to the Board of Education at its meeting Dec. 17.


text:
Guten Tag and welcome to our community for Bremen expats! Our unique InterNations Community makes life easier for those wishing to relocate to Bremen, answering all your queries on making your move as smooth as possible. If you're looking to move, you can contact our network of expats, in cities in 390 locations around the world, to find out all the information you require. Whether your enquiry relates to the paperwork, or to the social life in this beautiful German city, the answer is at your fingertips.
With InterNations, you never stand alone. Whether you move to another city or go on a business trip somewhere — our communities are there to make you feel at home wherever you are in the world. Feel free to also check out our other vibrant InterNations Communities like the ones in Dubai or Singapore.
Attend our monthly events and activities for Bremen expatriates to get to know like-minded expatriates in real life.
Get trustworthy advice and local insights from fellow members in our Bremen expat forums.
Bremen is a modern, industrial location, yet it is still steeped in history. It enjoys a small but thriving shipyard industry and is a buoyant food production center, with specialties including coffee, chocolate, beer, fish, sausages, meat products, and specialist bakery ingredients. Its many attractions include the UNESCO World Heritage town hall, Universum Bremen, Kunsthalle art gallery, and St Peter's Cathedral. Its restaurants are second to none, with local dishes on offer, such as pinkel, knipp, kale, and labskaus. There are many theaters, while the shops range from boutiques and department stores to glass-covered arcades and an antiques' market. There is something for everyone in this beautiful city.
InterNations is the largest global network for expatriates, with communities in 420 cities across the globe. Get to know fellow internationals in your city, before you're moving, or when traveling somewhere and never feel like a stranger. InterNations makes it easy for you to stay in touch with your expat friends, both online and offline, so you can grow your network of friends and contacts from all over the world. Whether they live in Riyadh or Brussels, InterNations allows you to be close to them even if they are miles away.
Our unique InterNations Community enables members to communicate with other expats on a safe, secure forum, adhering to our principles of trust, honesty, and politeness. In addition to getting all your questions answered, you can also meet expats in person at events at classy locations around Bremen. You can also join smaller groups of international people in our groups. Perhaps you would enjoy a sight-seeing tour of Bremen's Old Quarter, or a boat trip down the Weser River? If you don't see a group for your favorite hobby yet, you can always open your own!


text:
Don Felipe Gonzalez entered this curious world in 1927 in Sagrada Familia, a poor section of Guadalajara. It was not a good year to be poor in Mexico, seventeen years after the demise of the Porfiriata and a year into the Cristero war. His father was brutal, below animalic, and beat the family. Food was less abundant than they would have wished. Schools were close to nonexistent, even when they existed, which was seldom. Don Felipe was well positioned to become a useless, drunken, illiterate, bestial, dim, and wasted cabrn y pendejo.
Unsung, rode-hard-and-put-away-wet chamipion of civilization. Stubborn as twenty mules wired in parallel.
He missed this boat. An sister taught him to read, herself having learned from local nuns. From what I later learned of Don Felipe, this may have taken as much as fifteen minutes. He turned out to be beyond bright and to have, if not a photographic memory, something very close to it. He somehow got into a Catholic seminary at age ten, and stayed for four years. When he had to leave at fourteen, due to illness, he comfortably read both Spanish and Latin. Did I mention that he was smart?
One day his father tried to beat him once too often. This is dangerous with male children who get bigger while the father gets older. Don Felipe took the club away and announced that if the son of a bitch ever tried it again, he, Don Felipe, would beat him into marmalade. He then went off to apprentice himself as a machinist. Over several decades he managed to save enough to build a substantial house in Polanco, another poor section. This was pretty much unheard of for a poor worker who should have been illiterate. He married.
Violeta appeared. By this time they still weren't even almost economically middle class, but neither were they hungry or insecure.
Don Felipe was not an ideal father but, given the circumstances, pretty near. He did not suffer fools, gladly or at all, or suffer much of anybody else. He roared and bellowed a lot, but never hit anyone. He had been hit and, I suppose, had found it unsatisfactory. He taught Violeta to read. This may have taken an afternoon. I don't know. It assuredly did not take long. Teaching a very smart and interested little girl to read an almost perfectly phonetic language of only a couple of dozen letters is not a work of ages.
Violeta. Figured her kid wasn't going to grow up as a street-corner dirtball. Didn't, neither.
She reached high school and found that she liked to run. She found a nine-mile circuit around the city which, then, in the mornings had little traffic. She did this almost daily. You may find this implausible. I have done uphill mountain hiking with Vi. It isn't implausible. On her runs she carried a knife since bad things can happpen in slums. She would have used it, I promise.
She decided that she wanted a university education. Back then, it wasn't done, certainly not by girls, certainly not by girls from poor families in Polanco. Well, almost certainly. Don Felipe had no objections. She would have to work her way through, and set out doing so.
The results were curious. She worked as a maid cleaning the house of the Canadian ambassador, selling magical amulets at Plaza del Sol, and teaching Spanish at the US Consulate to whoever needed it. Natalia appeared, a collegiate accident. An American student would have killed it, but Vi doesn't believe in abortion. Not because she is Catholic. Because she thinks it wrong. So now she had a full course-load, three jobs, nine miles, household chores, and a baby. Oh, sweet life of ease….
This, you might think, gave Natalia a splendid chance to grow up as unhappy, half-educated, angry, and Prozac-addicted as an American latchkey. It probably did. Vi, however, is a nonconformist. She taught Natalia to read. Hoo-ah, thought Natalia , esto es buen juju. She began to read every book she could get her hands on. To this day she would read the New York phone book in cuneiform if nothing else were available.
At one point, Vi found herself without any income at all. I forget why. This was before she worked in the office of one of the big political parties, decided it was un nido de serpients, a nest of snakes, said to hell with it, and went to Ajijic to teach Spanish to gringos. Anyway, without income, perforce they stayed in their small apartment, living on very slight savings, beans, and tortillas. And they read. The International Book Fair, a big deal in Guad, was in swing. On the last day, prices drop hugely because the publishing houses don't want to pack up remainders. They bought some twenty books for ten pesos each, sort of a buck.
I guess Vi forgot to tell Nata that she was oppressed, exploited, pitiable, trapped in an impoverished and mistreated underclass, suffering from injustice and discrimination and prejudice and such. Apparently if you don't think you are in an underclass, you aren't. Natalia entered, as her mother earlier had, that social class that has nothing to do with money and everything to do with education, brains, morals, and manners. If, at a reception at the White House, I introduced Natalia as the daughter of the Mexican ambassador, on vacation from Harvard, there would be nothing in her bearing, her Spanish, her manners or, God knows, her schooling to indicate that she was a ghetto kid.
The diet of beans, books, and tortillas produced fascinating results. When Vi and I were preparing for a trip to Spain, we mentioned to Don Felipe that we would pass through Sevilla. "The capital of Andalucia. You ought to go to Tanger." We planned to, we said, and return thorough Granada. "You have to go to the Alhambra. It's where St. John of the Cross wrote his Meditations." Natalia's response was, "That's where Washington Irving wrote Tales of the Alhambra" How many American college grads have even heard of Andalucia? The Alhambra? Wasshington Irving? (Wasn't he the first president…?)
I had given up being surprised by Natalia. When she was sixteen, and on a kick of reading about crime and criminology, she had announced that she wanted to search Guad for a copy of Sexual Homicides, a scholarly book on serial killers by the FBI's old behavioral-sciences outfit at Quantico—all of which the kid knew. I found her the Kindle edition.
Pretty fair argument against abortion, I reckon. Photo: John Masquelier
What has this to do with American social policy? Lots. All of America's various underclasses–Amreindians, deep-city blacks, back-holler Appalachians, pney-woods crackers–have far more opportunities than did los Gonzalez. Free or subsidized housing, food stamps, medical freebies, libraries, universities slathering to find an American Indian as a student to demonstrate their essential goodness. If they don't take advantage of these, as generally they don't, it must be because either of innate shiftlessness, or condescending, self-admiring, feel-good social policy that creates an artificial shiftlessness. Take your pick.


text:
Teacher resources and professional development across the curriculum
Teacher professional development and classroom resources across the curriculum
Author: Esmeralda
Work: When I Was Puerto Rican
Bo Wu uses an inquiry approach to explore Esmeralda Santiago's memoir When I Was Puerto Rican. The students engage in a dramatic reading of several sections of the chapter "The American Invasion of Macún" and discuss Santiago's usage of dialogue and descriptive language. Sparked by their personal interests, the students develop and research topics based on the chapter. Using Santiago's work as a model, the students create timelines of their lives and write their own memoirs.
To prepare for the lesson, view The Expanding Canon video program 4, Part I. Online review the session 4 theory overview, strategies, information about the authors and literature, resources, and the downloadable print guide. Read Esmeralda Santiago's memoir, When I Was Puerto Rican.
Teachers will need the following supplies:
Standards for the English Language Arts
Teachers may want to show students the profile of Esmeralda Santiago from The Expanding Canon video program 4, Part II.
Day 1
1. Bo Wu begins her class by asking students to write predictions about Santiago's work in their journals. She then asks students to read aloud from the text. Two students read the dialogue and one reads the narration. Afterwards, the class discusses the importance of description in narration and the difference between direct and indirect dialogue.
2. Students write down responses in their journals and post these on the class Internet site.
3. Divided into small groups, students discuss issues and topics from their journal entries. Wu asks the groups to come up with a list of issues to explore further and to post this list on the class Internet site. She tells students that they are going to use these topics as a basis for writing their own memoirs.
4. Once students have generated topics for research, Wu asks students to share these topics with the class. Students lead the discussion, with Wu providing guidance to focus their topics for research purposes. For homework, Wu asks students to analyze how Santiago describes "The American Invasion of Macún" in the chapter by that name.
Day 2
1. Wu asks students to analyze Santiago's writing choices. She creates a graphic organizer for students by drawing a web with the words "American Invasion" at the center. As students propose ideas and information relevant to this topic, she writes their ideas around the words in the center. She also guides students to focus on evidence by asking questions such as:
2. Wu then asks students to write a personal story in response to Santiago's work. She asks them to begin by generating a timeline of events, including sensory experiences. This timeline functions as a graphic organizer for the students' stories. As Wu explains, "We'll use the timeline to help you explore and discover some of the stories in your life about the topic you have chosen." The timeline includes events, detailed with specific sensory experiences, as well as their connections to the larger events of history.
3. Students pick out two events in the timeline and research their cultural and historic background. Wu then asks students to write a short memoir that connects personal stories with the historic and cultural events they have researched.
© Annenberg Foundation 2017. All rights reserved. Legal Policy


text:
Local Taxes
- Litigation Fines and Fees Return - for tax period beginning 2/1/19 and thereafter
- Litigation Fines and Fees Return - for tax period beginning 1/1/18 - 1/31/19
- Litigation Fines and Fees Return - for tax periods beginning 11/1/16 - 12/31/2017
- Litigation Fines and Fees Return - for tax periods beginning 7/1/12 - 10/31/16
Property taxes are assessed and collected by the local governments. County assessors of property appraise real estate for assessment purposes. In addition, they assess tangible personal property used or held for use in a business. The county commission and city governing bodies determine local property tax rates. The property taxes are collected by county trustees and city collecting officials.
The State Board of Equalization establishes policies and procedures for local assessors of property and hears property appeals beyond the county level. The Division of Property Assessments, a division of the Comptroller of the Treasury, monitors the work of assessors to ensure proper procedures are followed, provide technical assistance during re-appraisal programs, and provide manuals and educational programs for use by assessors.
To calculate your property tax, multiply the appraised value by the assessment ratio for the property's classification; then multiply this sum times the tax rate.
The assessment ratio for the different classes of property is established by state law (residential and farm at 25 percent of appraised value, commercial/industrial at 40 percent of appraised value).
For more information, contact your local assessor of property or visit the Division of Property Assessments.


text:
Unfortunately, scheduling conflicts have kept us from attending Leo Apotheker's keynote today before the HP Analyst Summit in San Francisco. But yesterday, he tipped his cards for his new software vision for HP before a group of investment analysts. HP's software focus is not to reinvent the wheel – at least where it comes to enterprise apps. Apotheker has to put to rest that he's not about to do a grudge match and buy the company that dismissed him. There is already plenty of coverage here, interesting comment from Tom Foremski (we agree with him about SAP being a non-starter), and the Software Advice guys who are conducting a poll.
To some extent this has been little surprise with HP's already stated plans for WebOS and its recently announced acquisition of Vertica. We do have one question though: what happened to Converged Infrastructure?
For now, we're not revisiting the acquisitions stakes, although if you follow #HPSummit twitter tags today, you'll probably see lots of ideas floating around today after 9am Pacific time. We'll instead focus on the kind of company HP wants to be, based on its stated objectives.
1. Develop a portfolio of cloud services from infrastructure to platform services and run the industry's first open cloud marketplace that will combine a secure, scalable and trusted consumer app store and an enterprise application and services catalog.
This hits two points on the checklist: provide a natural market for all those PCs that HP sells. The next part is stating that HP wants to venture higher up the food chain than just sell lots of iron. That certainly makes sense. The next part is where we have a question: offering cloud services to consumers, the enterprise, and developers sounds at first blush that HP wants its cloud to be all things to all people.
The good news is that HP has a start on the developer side where it has been offering performance testing services for years – but is now catching up to providers like CollabNet (with which it is aligned and would make a logical acquisition candidate) and Rally in offering higher value planning services for the app lifecycle.
In the other areas – consumer apps and enterprise apps – HP is starting from square one. It obviously must separate the two, as cloud is just about the only thing that the two have in common.
For the consumer side, HP (like Google Android and everyone else) is playing catchup to Apple. It is not simply a matter of building it and expecting they will come. Apple has built an entire ecosystem around its iOS platform that has penetrated content and retail – challenging Amazon, not just Salesforce or a would-be HP, using its user experience as the basis for building a market for an audience that is dying to be captive. For its part, HP hopes to build WebOS to have the same "Wow!" factor as the iPhone/iPad experience. It's got a huge uphill battle on its hands.
For the enterprise, it's a more wide open space where only Salesforce's AppExchange has made any meaningful mark. Again, the key is a unifying ecosystem, with the most likely outlet being enterprise outsourcing customers for HP's Enterprise Services (the former EDS operation). The key principle is that when you build a market place, you have to identity who your customers are and give them a reason to visit. A key challenge, as we've stated in our day job, is that enterprise customers are not the enterprise equivalent of those $2.99 apps that you'll see in the AppStore. The experience at Salesforce – the classic inversion of the long tail – is that the market is primarily for add-ons to the Salesforce.com CRM application or use of the Force.com development platform, but that most entries simply get buried deep down the list.
Enterprise apps marketplaces are not simply going to provide a cheaper channel for solutions that still require consultative sells. We've suggested that they adhere more to the user group model, which also includes forums, chats, exchanges of ideas, and by the way, places to get utilities that can make enterprise software programs more useful. Enterprise app stores are not an end in themselves, but a means for reinforcing a community — whether it be for a core enterprise app – or for HP, more likely, for the community of outsourcing customers that it already has.
2. Build webOS into a leading connectivity platform.
HP clearly hopes to replicate Apple's success with iOS here – the key being that it wants to extend the next-generation Palm platform to its base of PCs and other devices. This one's truly a Hail Mary pass designed to rescue the Palm platform from irrelevance in a market where iOS, Android, Adobe Flash, Blackberry, and Microsoft Windows 7/Silverlight are battling it out. Admittedly, mobile developers have always tolerated fragmentation as a fact of life in this space – but of course that was when the stakes (with feature phones) were rather modest. With smart device – in all its varied form factors from phone to tablet – becoming the next major consumer (and to some extent, enterprise) frontier, there's a new battle afresh for mindshare. That mindshare will be built on the size of the third party app ecosystem that these platforms attract.
As Palm was always more an enterprise rather consumer platform – before the Blackberry eclipsed it – HP's likely WebOS venue will be the enterprise space. Another uphill battle with Microsoft (that has the office apps), Blackberry (with its substantial corporate email base), and yes, Apple, where enterprise users are increasingly sneaking iPhones in the back door, just like they did with PCs 25 years ago,
3. Build presence with Big Data
Like (1), this also hits a key checkbox for where to sell all those HP PCs. HP has had a half-hearted presence with the discontinued Neoview business. The Vertica acquisition was clearly the first one that had Apotheker's stamp on it. Of HP's announced strategies, this is the one that aligns closest with the enterprise software strategy that we've all expected Apotheker to champion. Obviously Vertica is the first step here – and there are many logical acquisitions that could fill this out, as we've noted previously, regarding Tibco, Informatica, and Teradata. The importance is that classic business intelligence never really suffered through the recession, and arguably, big data is becoming the next frontier for BI that is becoming, not just a nice to have, but increasingly an expected cost of competition.
What's interesting so far is that in all the talk about big Data, there's been relatively scant attention paid to utilizing the cloud to provide the scaling to conduct such analytics. We foresee a market where organizations that don't necessarily want to buy all that and that use large advanced analytics on an event-driven basis, to consume the cloud for their Hadoop – or Vertica – runs. Big Data analytics in the cloud could be HP's enterprise trump card.


text:
Follow RFF News on your cell phone. Text follow rff to 40404 you will receive txt messages with RFF News
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
one post on PTT said that he followed a team to Confucian temple at 8:55 ,then he waited 2hrs but he still didn't find any team coming out(and he believed this is last team)...then he went to Martyrs' Shrine,looked like all teams had checked in?and interview taken at Martyrs' Shrine.I found he used "她们 ...may mean last team was F-F team.
little people checked in at 7th
just saw amazing race teams in Taipei look likes pitstop is Mengjia Longshan Temple just saw black women check in and look happy!
team number 3
Team number 5.
Page created in 0.09 seconds with 34 queries.


text:
Tuesday, 24 July 2012
The monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam arrived India much before they reached the West. For instance, it is widely believed that Christianity reached the subcontinent only after the first European colonists; the Portuguese arrived India in the 15th century. However, long before Christianity reached many parts of Europe, it came across to India. According to strong traditions among the ancient Syrian Christians of Kerala, Christianity was introduced to India by St: Thomas, the Apostle of Jesus Christ in 52 AD who later established seven churches across Kerala. Contrary to popular belief, Islam came to India prior to the 11th century Muslim invasions with the Arab merchants who arrived Kerala for trade in the 7th century AD. Similarly, Judaism the oldest continuously practiced monotheistic religion has an Indian presence from very early times. If traditional accounts are to be accepted, India had a Jewish colony from the time of King Solomon (10th century BC)!
Most importantly, all the three religions trace their arrival in India to the Malabar region of Southern India which is currently the modern State of Kerala. Since ancient times Kerala has been the center of the Indian spice trade where Greeks, Romans, Jews, Arabs and Chinese came for grabbing their part of share. To be precise, the first Jewish, Christian and Islamic settlements of India were established in a place called Cranganore (modern Kodungallur) in Kerala. The oldest church in India is found in Palayur not far from Kodungallur purportedly constructed in 52 AD by St. Thomas. The oldest mosque in India and the second oldest mosque in the world to offer Jumu'ah prayers is the Cheraman Juma Masjid of Kodungallur and is constructed during the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad in 629 AD! Traditionally, Kodungallur had a Jewish synagogue even before St: Thomas arrived in 52 AD and it will then be the oldest synagogue in India.
Much has been written on Indian Jews, their unique culture and traditions. Among the three major Jewish communities in India, the "Kerala Jews" popularly known as "Cochin Jews" are the most ancient (2500 years ago) followed by the "Bene Israel" (2100 years ago) and the "Baghdadi Jews" (250 years ago). Recently two more communities have claimed Jewish ancestry viz. "Bene Menasheh" (1970s) from North East India and "Bene Ephraim or Telugu Jews" (1980s) from Andhra Pradesh. A small population of Jews had migrated to India during the Mughal, Portuguese, Dutch, French and British rule as well. Perhaps the Jewish refugees from Hitler's Anti-Semitic Europe were the last Jews to arrive India. In other words, Jews weren't a single emigration to India. At different times they arrived and settled peacefully in India where they never experienced any anti-Semitism from the native Indian community. In fact, it is said that out of the 148 nations where Jews have lived in, India is the only country where they were never persecuted by the natives.
Although Jews reached Kerala as early as 1st century AD, there were many different waves of emigrations later as well. Gradually, Jews of Kerala became organized into three distinct groups, but the different communities interacted very less among themselves. 1) 'Meyuhassim' (privileged) or Malabari Jews: the largest (85%) and most ancient group considered to have arrived in India as merchants during the period of King Solomon. 2). 'Pardesi' (foreigner) Jews: the second largest (14%) and recent group (from 16th century onwards) who migrated mainly from Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Spain and Germany. 3). 'Meshuhararim' (released): the smallest group (<1%) believed to be the slaves held by both Malabari and Pardesi communities who were converted to Judaism and later on released from their status as slaves. Based on skin colour, the Meyuhassim are called the 'Black Jews', the Meshuhararim-the 'Brown Jews' and the 'Pardesi'-the 'White Jews'. The arguments on who came first and who are more pure were often fought vehemently and each sect defended their claims. The Jewish population of Kerala numbered 2,400 at the height of their "mass" emigration to Israel in 1954. Today (2011), less than 40 Jews remain in Kerala-9 Pardesi Jews comprising of 6 women and 3 men; and less than 30 Malabari Jews.
In a strong caste-based Indian society, fair skinned Pardesi Jews managed to win a privileged position although they were a minority and newly arrived. Their European background, influence and wealth managed to push the majority of relatively poor Malabar Jews into an inferior position in colonial India. Unfortunately, even today for many in the west and to a great extent in India too, the existence of Kerala's ancient Malabari Jewish community and their heritage is far unknown. The famous Pardesi Synagogue in Cochin is perhaps the only monument that comes into the mind of many as far as Judaism in Kerala is concerned. Acclaimed to be the oldest (built 1568) synagogue in British Commonwealth, the Pardesi Synagogue is the only functional one in Kerala today. Did the Jewish community of Kerala leave anything more than this famed synagogue? The answer is a big yes. Judaism in Kerala is not only about the Pardesi Jews of Cochin and their synagogue in Mattanchery. In fact, there are seven synagogues, seven Jewish cemeteries; six Jew Streets, a 'Jewish Children's Play ground', at least two monuments and a few artifacts linked with extinct Jewish colonies in Kerala! This does not include the few existing Jewish homes and the many earlier Jewish residences converted into non-Jewish owned business buildings and private villas.
This blog will be an attempt to help people both inside and outside India to locate and learn about the known Jewish monuments of Kerala, that include synagogues, cemeteries and former Jewish residences. It will be equally pictorial and textual in format. One of the objectives of this blog is to help people in identifying all known Jewish monuments of Kerala through maps and photographs. Their left out synagogues and cemeteries are the physical landmarks that still stand in testimony to the vibrant and glorious heritage of Jews who claim at least 2000 years of strong and continuous bond with India. The big question is about the accessibility and identification of these monuments. Some of the cemeteries for example are so overgrown with weeds and turned into garbage dumping yards that even the locals have no clue about their existence. Most of the sites have no sign boards or maps available to pin point their exact location. The information from internet and other sources are also limited or at times misinformed when locating the monuments are concerned. I will try to get as many photographs as needed to help people understand these monuments and the blog will not be confined to the heritage of Pardesi Jews alone. For those synagogues that are disputed properties or lie in ruined state and are not accessible for the public I will only add photographs of the exterior. Some of the original Jewish artifacts from Kerala are preserved in Israel and what left here are the duplicates. In such cases, I will trace and append online links having the original photographs. All the trips I made to these heritage sites are through public transport systems and hence the directions provided will be for those who travel the hard way. Regarding the dates associated with the history of 'Kerala Jews', I have tried to incorporate the most popular views and need not always be the scholarly accepted ones. I shall be much glad if any one can contribute or provide details of additional monuments, sites or artifacts you think can be classified as part of Jewish heritage of Kerala.
Being also a photoblog, I will be concentrating more on the photographs taken from various Jewish monuments in Kerala. Not many sites are available online that go deep into the structural and historic details of these heritage units with photographs. However, we are lucky to have a few very enlightening resources. The "Friends of Kerala Synagogues 2011" (Prof. Jay A. Waronker, USA; Prof. Shalva Weil, Israel; Marian Scheuer Sofaer, USA; Isaac Sam, India and Tirza Muttath Lavi, Israel) maintain an excellent site on the synagogues of Kerala. I strongly recommend anyone interested in 'Jewish synagogues of Kerala' to go through their highly informative links. Whenever, I refer to their site, it will be acknowledged as 'www.cochinsyn.com'. The other very important site I recommend is the beautiful photo collection by Jono David in his 'Ha Chayim Ha Yehudim Jewish Photo Library'. He has photographs from many Jewish monuments of India. Although he has got wrong one of the synagogues (Mattancherry Kadavumbagam Synagogue) the site has largely helped me to identify the Jewish cemeteries in Kerala. Thoufeek Zakriya who introduces himself as a young Indian Muslim, hospitality management student and a calligraphy artist maintains a well informed and interesting blog discussing the History of Jews of Kerala. His 'Jews of Malabar' is rich with unique information and rare photographs. A site maintained by Isaac Solomon has a very good collection of photographs on 53 Jewish cemeteries of the Bene Israeli community in India . However, he has not included cemeteries of the Jews of Kerala. Other way round, the Bene Israeli community has a site on the 49 synagogues they had established in Israel. Another interesting link has 360 degree view on the interiors of 10 Indian Synagoues including four from Kerala. General and popular articles on the subject are freely available on internet. You can also read some very informative classic books and scholarly written articles about the Jews of Kerala. Unfortunately, most of them are expensive to purchase and some are out of print or stock.
The most important Jewish heritage structures in Kerala are the synagogues (Juda Palli in Malayalam), cemeteries and residences.
A. Synagogues
Today, there are 35 synagogues in India and 7 of them are in Kerala. The architectural style of Kerala synagogues differs from those in the west. These synagogues are strongly influenced from earlier Hindu religious buildings on its design and construction. They are characterized by high slope roofs, thick laterite-stoned walls, large windows and doors, balcony and wood-carved ceilings. A Kerala synagogue consists of a 'Gate House' at the entrance that leads through a Breezeway to the Synagogue Complex. The synagogue complex is made of a fully enclosed Azara or Anteroom and a double-storeyed sanctuary-the main prayer hall. Inside a typical double-storeyed sanctuary of a 'Kerala Synagogue' are:
1) A Tebah/Bimah: Located at the center of the sanctuary, Tebah is usually an elevated wooden platform or pulpit from which Torah, the holy book of Jews is read. 2) A Heichal (Ark): Represents the altar. It is a chest or cupboard in the synagogue where the Torah scrolls are kept. It is usually carved intricately and painted/gilded with teak wood. Unlike in the European Synagogues, where the ark is placed on the eastern wall, the synagogues in Kerala have the arks on the western wall facing Jerusalem. 3) A Balcony/Second Tebah: It is unique to the synagogues of Kerala. The balcony has two portions one for men and the other for ladies. Women's seating area is placed directly above the azara. 4) A Staircase: Leads to the balcony and is generally spiral in shape and made of wood. At times there are two staircases, one for men from the main hall inside the synagogue and the other for the ladies from a staircase room outside the synagogue; 5) A Jewish School: Is actually a classroom for Jewish children usually located behind the women's section on the first floor.
B. Cemeteries
Resting place of ancestors means a lot to the Jewish community. Sometimes they even carried tombstones from their old settlements while migrating to a newer place. The oldest Jewish tomb in India (dated 1269 AD) preserved in front of Chendamangalam synagogue is one such transferred from Kodungallur. Unlike Christian tombs in Kerala with Malayalam and English engravings, the Jewish graves have mostly Hebrew inscriptions. The Jewish year can be converted into modern Gregorian date if one can read the Hebrew letters. 'Reading Hebrew Tombstones' is an interesting site to read the Jewish tombs.
C. Jewish Residences
Today, most of the early Jewish homes sold to non-Jews are substantially modified or refurbished. However, there are a few features that still make them identifiable. Sometimes you can trace Jewish symbols like Menorah (candlestick) and Magen David (Star of David) on the walls, windows and roof tops. For example, a few residences in Mattancherry still maintain the Star of David (Magen David) despite being converted into shops or warehouses. The best way to locate the home of a residing Jew is to look for the Mezuzah on the door post. Nailed to the doorpost of a Jewish home, Mezuzah is a small container made of wood, plastic or metal having a piece of parchment with the most important words from the Jewish Holy Book, Torah. It is customary among religious Jews to touch the mezuzah on entering or leaving the home. A few homes in the Synagogue Lane of Mattancherry with mezuzah are the residences of the remaining 9 Paradesi Jews.
The Jewish monuments and artifacts I will be discussing in this blog are:
I Synagogues
1. Pardesi Synagogue, Mattancherry (1568)
2. Kadavumbagam Synagogue, Mattancherry (1130 or 1539)
3. Thekkumbagam Synagogue, Mattancherry (1647, only the building site known)
4. Kadavumbagam Synagogue, Ernakulam (1200)
5. Thekkumbagam Synagogue, Ernakulam (1200 or 1580))
6. Paravur Synagogue (750 or 1164 or 1616)
7. Mala Synagogue (1400 or 1597)
8. Chendamangalam Synagogue (1420 or 1614)
(The various speculated dates of establishment in parenthesis are taken from www.cochinsyn.com, coutesy Prof. Jay A. Waronker)
II Cemeteries
1. Pardesi Jewish Cemetery, Mattancherry
2. Malabari Jewish Cemetery, Mattancherry
3. Old Jewish Cemetery, Ernakulam
4. New Jewish Cemetery, Ernakulam
5. Paravur Jewish Cemetery
6. Mala Jewish Cemetery
7. Chendamangalam Jewish Cemetery
III Jew Streets
1. Jew Street Mattancherry (Jewish residences with Mezuzah and Magen David)
2. Jew Steet, Ernakulam (today all shops in non-Jewish hands)
3. Jew Street, Paravur (Twin Pillars)
4. Jew Street, Mala (Gate House and Breezeway of synagogue turned into shops)
5. Jew Street, Chendamangalam (used to be a Jewish Market or Judakambolam)
6. Jew Street, Calicut (identified in July 2011 as Jootha (Jew) Bazar)
IV Other Monuments & Artifacts
1. Tomb of Sarah (1269 AD), Chendamangalam
2. Kochangadi Synagogue Corner-stone, Mattancherry
3. Jewish Children's Play Ground, Mattancherry
4. Clock-Tower, Mattancherry
5. Sarah Cohen's Embroidery Shop, Mattancherry
6. Jew Hill/Judakunnu/Jewish Bazar, Palayur
7. Jew Tank/Judakkulam, Madayi
8. Koder House, Fort Kochi
9. Grand Residencia, Fort Kochi
10. Jewish Summer Resorts, Aluva
11. Jewish Copper Plates, Mattancherry
12. Syrian Copper Plates, Kollam
13. Torah Finial, Palayur
V Lost Jewish Colonies
1. Kodungallur (Thrissur)
2. Palayur (Thrissur)
3. Pullut (Thrissur)
4. Kunnamkulam (Thrissur)
5. Saudhi (Ernakulam)
6. Tir-tur (Ernakulam)
7. Fort Kochi (Ernakulam)
8. Chaliyam (Kozhikode)
5. Pantalayani Kollam (Kozhikode)
9. Thekkepuram (Kozhikkode)
10. Muttam (Alappuzha)
11. Kayamkulam (Alappuzha)
12. Dharmadom (Kannur)
13. Madayi (Kannur)
14. Quilon (Kollam)
15. Pathirikunnu, Krishnagiri (Waynad)
16. Anchuthengu (Thiruvananthapuram)


text:
The Zoo Walk offers individuals with ESML the opportunity to join a regular walking group and to socialize and build relationships with others in similar situations. Care partners are welcome but not required.
Summer session is every Wednesday, July 6th through September 21st.
Pre-registration is required. To register and for more information contact the Early Stage Memory Loss Coordinator at the Alzheimer's Association at 206 529-3868.
Cost: None
Sponsored by the Alzheimer's Association, Seattle Parks and Recreation and Greenwood Senior Center.


text:
We all anthropomorphize cars, but sometimes it gets a little nasty. Especially when you throw a rod.
What's the dirtiest-sounding thing you can think of in the car world? Whoever makes the first joke about blowing a head gets a thousand internet points.
(QOTD is your chance to address the day's most pressing automotive questions and to experience the opinions of the insightful insiders, practicing pundits, and gleeful gearheads that make up the Jalopnik commentariat. If you've got a suggestion for a good Question of the Day, send an email to tips at jalopnik dot com.)
Photo Credit: Tau Zero (thrown rod)


text:
As if I have time for hobbies; what with looking after Baby H, an army of kitties, work, household chores – who has time to do 'other stuff'?!
But sometimes that other stuff, even if it's just for 15 minutes a day (in my case!) is a really nice way to relax a little. So my new hobby is – Crochet. I squarely blame this new hobby on Bubblegarm who makes really beautiful blankets, hats and more! Now I am no where near as good but I am practising and learning!
My obsession is crocheting hats! Here are some of my first creations:
I used a basic beanie pattern then one for the ears and sewed them on. It took a few goes to get the ears on evenly! I also realised that H's head is pretty big for his age so I had to learn quickly to adjust the sizes accordingly.
I used a Wendy's Merino Wool for this one.
I also used a basic beanie pattern and did ear flaps with this one and some contrasting bright orange yarn around the edges and some ties:
I also added some detail to the top – it's supposed to be a dinosaur!
Then – because I got into Game of Thrones and Spartacus I made this helmet hat for H – I love this one, it has cute detailing for the ear flaps.
I also made this for my cousin who is 4 years old:
Then (dodgy phone pic) this puff stitch hat for my cousin, Megan (who you may remember from You Tube videos) – she is now 12!
It's so addictive!
Next up, I am working on some blankets, a granny square one which is taking forever as I only get a few done before I need to go and do something else, and a larks foot space invaders blanket for Mr C. I am hoping to do some tank tops for H as he wears baby gros so much, tanks are useful for keeping him warm without the fuss of sleeves.
In terms of tips – I am no crochet expert, I have only been doing this for a few weeks but I would say;
1. Learn visually if you struggle with patterns
I have always always always always struggled with reading patterns and I have numerous books and magazines I bought then gave up on quickly as I have never been able to comprehend them.
I like two You Tuber's in particular; Naztazia is the ONLY ONE I COULD FOLLOW to begin with and Crochet Geek after learning the basics.
2. Don't bother with fancy yarns at first
Buying yarns is SO addictive I tell ya – Deramores are brilliant by the way and the customer service is great.
I went to John Lewis and got my head turned by lots of fancy yarns and blends – but I didn't have the skill level to handle them. I believe natural yarns can fray more easily and it can be harder for a newcomer to use! The first yarn I bought was a fancy one with silvery threads through it and I struggled to handle it (still haven't used it yet!).
I like acrylic mix yarns. I obviously have only used a few kinds but I really like the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Yarns as they're so soft but nice to use. I noticed King Cole has cheaper massive 100g balls of yarn in different thicknesses and I like the yarns with different colours in them 'self patterning'.
3. Buy a crochet hook set
I got mine from eBay – a set of 14 for £5 including shipping. I also bought some wooden crochet ones (bamboo) but I am finding them harder to use. Also, I bought some with wider handles that make them easier to grip and they are my favourite now. I read that Bamboo is good for newbies as they have more grip then steel ones so if you want to experiment, eBay has tons of cheap ones you can buy to try!
4. Books?
I have bought a few books and I still find them harder to follow then learning visually although I am getting it more now it just takes longer! The best kiddy one I found was called Little Crochet (I bought up the other baby crochet books too and I am not as keen). Otherwise, the internet has TONS of free patterns, written and visual, you don't necessarily need to buy a book IMO.
So if I get a spare 10/15 minutes in the day, this is what I like to do before a certain fussy bum needs me again.
Do you have any little hobbies? Do you like crochet?


text:
This is a set of cheapish fair-trade pipe chimes bell tree jingly things. They're mostly played with a feather and recorded on an Edirol R1. I couldn't find any samples to use in a song, so I thought I'd buy a set, record them, and sell them on... but they've turned into a (mostly) window decoration now!
so cool
Thank you!!!!
thank you
Thank you very much
love it. smooth and clear. thank you.
Please log in to comment


text:
Only voter pressure will enshrine supermajority rule
Washington voters display something approaching an affinity for liberal politicians and an antipathy for tax increases. That quirk reasserted itself last November. The biggest statewide winner, with 64 percent approval, was Initiative 1053, which reimposed the two-thirds majority for tax increases. In a high turnout presidential year, the measure garnered nearly 1.9 million votes, passing in all 39 counties. Sen. Maria Cantwell came in second, with 60 percent, followed by President Barack Obama with 56 percent. Gov. Jay Inslee was elected with 51.5 percent.
I've referred to this as an Evergreen State predilection for liberals on leashes. For the last twenty years it protected taxpayers from tax hikes, while allowing them to elect candidates who generally reflected their values on nonfiscal issues. With last week's state Supreme Court decision that the supermajority requirement for tax increases is unconstitutional, the leashes are off.
The wonder is that it lasted so long. In a 2007 column, I wrote of Initiative 960, the supermajority requirement passed that year, "... it's likely that most members of the court ... think the initiative's restraints on legislative authority are unconstitutional. ... Expect the initiative's restrictions on legislative tax-raising authority to fall."
The court managed to duck the issue for nearly five more years. But the result was telegraphed like a heavyweight's roundhouse right. You could see it coming from the cheap seats. While the six justices rejecting the requirement took pains to say they were not passing "judgment on the wisdom of requiring a supermajority for the passage of tax legislation," their reference to the "tyranny of the minority" suggests otherwise. Groups applauding the ruling cheerfully parroted the line.
For 20 years, voters have been happy to let the tyrants keep their taxes down. The court says if they want to retain that protection, they'll have to amend the constitution as 13 other states have done.
The challenge here is that voters cannot amend the constitution by initiative. Constitutional amendments originate with the Legislature. It takes a supermajority of both chambers to put one on the ballot. A Senate committee has already approved a proposed supermajority amendment, but a two-thirds vote in the closely divided chamber is unlikely. And the House has said it won't even consider it. Legislators generally don't volunteer for restraints.
With lawmakers looking at a shortfall of more than $2 billion, including the cost of court-ordered increases in education finance, an easier path to higher taxes received a warm welcome from interest groups and liberal legislators. Still, tax hikes won't be easy in the present legislative environment.
The fiscally conservative Senate majority, two Democrats and 23 Republicans, won't be any more willing to raise taxes now that the standard has been lowered than they were when the bar was set high. House Democrats will also move cautiously, mindful of the clear message sent by the electorate just months ago.
Even so, the push for tax limitation will continue. In a sharp dissent Justice James Johnson refutes the "tyranny of the minority" argument, arguing that the supermajority requirement is "a powerful tool for combating abuse by a short-term majority." He concludes that the court's decision won't be the last word.
"If the history of this great state can teach us anything, it is this: the power of the people will prevail," he writes, noting voters can replace tax-hiking legislators and repeal unpopular levies. He calls a constitutional amendment "an even more commanding exercise of their power."
The statutory constraint imposed by the initiative had some advantages. The two-thirds requirement was in place for just two years, after which the Legislature could amend it with a simple majority vote. To keep it in place, voters had regularly to reenact it, reaffirming their desire to make it more difficult to increase the tax burden. A constitutional amendment is a different thing, more enduring, more restrictive and more difficult to enact.
Difficult, but not impossible.
After 20 years, voters understand how the supermajority requirement works. If they want it in the constitution, they first must elect a Legislature that will place it on the ballot. They should begin by making it an issue in the 2014 campaign.
The other alternative for voters wanting conservative fiscal policy: Elect fiscal conservatives.


text:
Trident, a qualitative analysis tool that can look at various low level metrics with respect to the Core, Memory and I/O to highlight performance bottlenecks during the execution of an application. Trident uses a three pronged approach in analysing a node's utilisation of hardware resources and to help a non system expert understand the stress on different parts of the system by a given job. Currently metrics such as memory bandwidth, core utilization, active processor cycles, etc., are being collected. Interpretation of the data in raw form is often non intuitive. Therefore, the tool converts these data into derived metrics that are then represented as a system wide extended Top-Down analysis that helps developers and site managers likewise understand the application behavior without the need for in-depth expertise of architecture details.
We describe the REANA reusable and reproducible research data analysis platform that originated in the domain of particle physics. We integrated support for running Common Workflow Language (CWL) workflows that originated in the domain of life sciences. This integration allowed us to study the applicability of CWL to particle physics analyses and look for synergies in computational practices in the two communities.
Over 8000 Windows PCs are actively used on the CERN site for tasks ranging from controlling the accelerator facilities to processing invoices. PCs are managed through CERN's Computer Management Framework and Group Policies, with configurations deployed based on machine sets and a lot of autonomy left to the end-users. While the generic central configuration works well for the majority of the users, a specific hardened PC configuration is now provided for users who require stronger resilience against external attacks.
CERN Document Server (CDS, cds.cern.ch) is the CERN Institutional Repository based on the Invenio open source digital repository framework. It is a heterogeneous repository, containing more than 2 million records, including research publications, audiovisual material, images, and the CERN archives. Its mission is to store and preserve all the content produced at CERN as well as to make it easily available to any outlet interested. CDS aims to be the CERN's document hub. To achieve this we are transforming CDS into an aggregator over specialized repositories, each having its own software stack, with features enabled based on the repository's content. The aim is to enable each content producer community to have its own identity, both visually and functionally, as well as increased control on the data model and the submission, curation, management, and dissemination of the data. This separation is made possible by using the Invenio 3 framework. The first specialized repository created is CDS Videos (videos.cern.ch). It has been launched in December 2017, and is the first step in the long-term project to migrate the entire CDS to the Invenio 3 framework. CDS Videos provides an integrated submission, long-term archival and dissemination of CERN video material. It offers a complete solution for the CERN video team, as well as for any department or user at CERN, to upload video productions. The CDS Videos system will ingest the video material, interact with the transcoding server for generating web and broadcaster subformats, mint DOI persistent identifiers, generate embeddable code to be reused by any other website, and store the master files for long-term archival. The talk will detail the software architecture of the CDS Videos as well as the infrastructure needed to run such a large-scale web application. It will present the technical solutions adopted, including the Python-based software stack (using among others Flask, IIIF, ElasticSearch, Celery, RabbitMQ) and the new AngularJS-based user interface which was exclusively designed for CDS Videos. It will also present our solution to a lossless migration of data: more than 5'000 videos from 1954 to 2017, summing up to 30TB of files, have been migrated from DFS to EOS in order to populate the CDS Videos platform. All this could be of high interest to other institutes wanting to reuse the CDS Videos open source code for creating their own video platform. Last but not least, the talk will detail how the user community at CERN and beyond can take advantage of the CDS Videos platform for creating and disseminating video content.
Honeypots are a fake system residing in a companie's or organization's network, attracting attackers by emulating old and vulnerable software. If a Honeypot is accessed, all actions are logged and any submitted files are being stored on the host machine. The current Honeypot at CERN is deprecated and does not provide useful notifications. The task of this summer student project is to identify well maintained and up-to-date open source honeypots, test and configure them and finally deploy them to convincingly resemble a CERN host in order to collect information about potentially malicious activity inside the GPN.
This presentation guides listeners through all the stages of publication life cycle at CERN Document Server, from the ingestion using one of the various tools, through curation and processing, until the data is ready to be exported to other systems. It describes different tools that we are using to curate the incoming publications as well as to further improve the existing data on CDS. The second part of the talk goes through various challenges we have faced in the past and how we are going to overcome them in the new version of CDS.
The Large Hadron Collider at CERN is producing 600 million collisions every second. Only 1 in a million collisions is interesting. It requires a fast programming language to analyze and filter this amount of data. Is Python such a language? No, it's not. Does it mean there is no place for Python in one of the largest scientific facilities in the world? Quite the contrary. The ease of use and a very low learning curve makes Python a perfect programming language for many physicists and other people without the computer science background. CERN does not only produce large amounts of data. The interesting bits of data have to be stored, analyzed, shared and published. Work of many scientists across various research facilities around the world has to be synchronized. This is the area where Python flourishes. And with CERN's pursuit to create and use open source software, many interesting projects were born. To facilitate the analysis of data, ROOT framework [https://root.cern.ch/] was created. It's a C++ framework focused on big data processing, statistical analysis, visualization and storage. It has been around for more than 20 years, but since nowadays more and more scientists have at least basic Python knowledge, the PyROOT project [https://root.cern.ch/pyroot] was born. PyROOT is a Python extension module that allows users to interact with ROOT from Python interpreter. It combines the ease of use of Python with the powerful capabilities of the ROOT framework. All the discoveries, small and big ones, results in thousands of publications that has to go through the whole publication workflow. For that purpose, a digital library framework called Invenio was created [http://invenio-software.org/]. It can be used to easily build your own fully customized digital library, institutional repository, multimedia archive, or research data repository on the web. Some examples of websites build with Invenio are: https://zenodo.org/, https://cds.cern.ch/ or https://analysispreservation.cern.ch/. Another of CERN's missions is to share the knowledge, and that can be done through various lectures, workshops and conferences. All those events can easily be organized with the help of Indico [http://indico-software.org/]. Indico comes also with a room booking module and can be easily integrated with various collaborative tools.
We present how a research data repository manager can build custom open data solutions to ingest, describe, preserve, and disseminate the open research environments, datasets and software using the Invenio digital library framework. We discuss a concrete use case example of the CERN Open Data and Zenodo services, describing technological challenges in preparing large sets of data for general public. We address the questions of efficient linking and sharing of large quantities of data without unnecessary duplication on the backend, the role of the file transfer protocols, as well as the means to visualise data to make it more accessible and interactive for general public. The technological challenges and discussed solutions can be applied to any research discipline outside the domain of particle physics.
CERN Document Server (CDS) is the CERN Institutional Repository, playing a key role in the storage, dissemination and archival for all research material published at CERN, as well as multimedia and some administrative documents. As the CERN's document hub, it joins together submission and publication workflows dedicated to the CERN experiments, but also to the video and photo teams, to the administrative groups, as well as outreach groups. In the past year, Invenio, the underlying software platform for CDS, has been undergoing major changes, transitioning from a digital library system to a digital library framework, and moving to a new software stack (Invenio is now built on top of the Flask web development framework, using Jinja2 template engine, SQLAlchemy ORM, JSONSchema data model, and Elasticsearch for information retrieval). In order to reflect these changes on CDS, we are launching a parallel service, CDSLabs, with the goal of offering our users a continuous view of the reshaping of CDS, as well as increasing the feedback from the community in the development phase, rather than after release.
LHCb has introduced a novel real-time detector alignment and calibration strategy for LHC Run 2. Data collected at the start of the fill will be processed in a few minutes and used to update the alignment, while the calibration constants will be evaluated for each run. This procedure will improve the quality of the online alignment. Critically, this new real-time alignment and calibration procedure allows identical constants to be used in the online and offline reconstruction, thus improving the correlation between triggered and offline selected events. This offers the opportunity to optimise the event selection in the trigger by applying stronger constraints. The required computing time constraints are met thanks to a new dedicated framework using the multi-core farm infrastructure for the trigger. The motivation for a real-time alignment and calibration of the LHCb detector is discussed from both the operational and physics performance points of view. Specific challenges of this novel configuration are discussed, as well as the working procedures of the framework and its performance.


text:
Publications by Dr. Vic Wood
Area Program Offers Affordable Option for Access to Health Care - Read More
Health Care Legislation Paves Way for Direct Primary Care Medical Homes to Compete in Ins. Exchanges - Read More
The Center for Health Transformation List Primary Care One in Best Practice Compendium - Read More
President Obama, ask the patient what they need! - Read More
Publications Archive
Doctors Urgent Care
Doctors Urgent Care provides medical care with the use of X-rays, labs and board-certified providers. Our providers have a variety of certifications from ambulatory medicine and family practice to physician assistants. Doctors Urgent Care practitioners are recognized as providers by all of the local insurance carriers. Doctors Urgent Care is the only recognized urgent care clinic in the area.


text:
Correspondences: Art and Music
In his 1902 essay "Musical Painting and the Fusion of the Arts," the critic Camille Mauclair compared the musical compositions of Claude Debussy to landscape paintings by Claude Monet and other Impressionist painters. "The landscapes of Claude Monet are in fact symphonies of luminous waves," Mauclair wrote. Debussy's music, he continued, "based…on the relative values of sounds in themselves, bears a striking resemblance to these pictures." According to Mauclair, "Harmony, value, theme, [and] motif" are "employed equally by musicians and painters."
The notion that close relationships exist between art and music gained currency in France earlier in the century, during what is usually called the Romantic period. The concept of "correspondences" emerged slightly later. Derived from the title of one of the poems in Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal ("The Flowers of Evil"), "correspondences" refers to the relationships among the senses and between the senses and the arts:
Like prolonged echoes mingling in the distance
In a deep and tenebrous unity,
Vast as the dark of night and as the light of day,
Perfumes, sounds, and colors correspond.
("Correspondences,"1857, second stanza, trans. William Aggeler, 1954)
In the 1890s, scientific investigations concerning perception had an impact on the work of visual artists. Neo-Impressionist painters such as Georges Seurat and Paul Signac responded to the color and optical theories of Charles Henry, Ogden Rood, and Michel Eugène Chevreul, among others. The relationship between sound and visual sensation, addressed from a scientific perspective by Charles Henry, became a major preoccupation for Symbolist artists and poets in their evocations of dream and subjective emotional states. Many avant-garde artists were intensely interested in synaesthesia, a rare psychosensory condition characterized by the fusion of information from one sense (for example, sight) with that of another (for example, hearing). The scientific literature on the subject and the experimental poems of Baudelaire and Stéphane Mallarmé (whose Afternoon of a Faun inspired Debussy's great orchestral work) led artists to explore color as sound and sound as color. Music, re-imagined as an inherently abstract art form, provided avant-garde artists, writers, and intellectuals with a powerful alternative to realist modes of representation.
Image Credit: Berthe Morisot. French, 1841–1895. The Mozart Sonata (La Sonate de Mozart), 1894. Oil on canvas. SCMA, Bequest of Mrs. Robert S. Tangeman (E. Clementine Miller, class of 1927). Photograph by Petegorsky/Gipe
Sound file: The opening stanzas of the poem The Afternoon of a Faun (L'Aprés-midi d'un faune) by Stéphane Mallarmé, recited in English and in French by Professor Mary Ellen Birkett, French Studies Department, Smith College. Produced by RBH Multimedia, Inc.


text:
WeWork + YouTube
A special offer for YouTube Creators to experience WeWork's workspace, community and services
WeWork gives creators the space to pursue their passions. To help YouTube influencers branch out, we're offering up to three months of Hot Desk workspace on the house, in select WeWork locations. Access begins from the date of sign up, so register early in the month to receive three full months! (Hot desks subject to availibility in select locations)
Hot Desks: at a glance
WeWork's Hot Desk plans give you the opportunity to connect with the WeWork community while staying true to yourself. Offered at a starting price of $220/month, Hot Desks are perfect for those who need flexible, 24/7 access to workspace, but not necessarily a private office, or even the same desk every day. With the Hot Desk plan, you'll pick a primary WeWork location, show up when you want, grab any open seat in the Hot Desk common area, and start working. A new seat each day means new conversations with future collaborators, with the peace-of-mind of always having an outlet for your computer, not having to buy coffee, and access to impressive conference rooms for your next big meeting.
- Accés
Accés permanent a la teva ubicació preferent.
- Ubicació
Tria les teves ubicacions preferides. Espai de treball diari en una altra ubicació: 50 $/dia
- Crèdits
2 included, with the ability to buy more.
*Credits can be used towards reserving conference rooms and workspace and for printing. You'll be able to purchase as many credits as you like. 1 credit costs $25.
- Complements
Conference Rooms: Starting at £20/hour
Mail & Packaging Handling*: £33/month
*24/7 Access is not available in Soho. Mail & package handling is available in all countries except the U.K.
Benefits of Working from WeWork
WeWork has over 160,000 members and over 240 locations in 50+ cities across the globe which offer:
- Beautiful, fully furnished collaborative workspace for companies of all sizes
- Fully equipped meeting rooms with advanced technology
- Spacious, unique common areas with coffee, tea, and fruit water
- Flexible space membership plans with conference room access and private workspace on demand
- Access to our mobile app and member network
*Using our mobile app and member network, you can leverage the strength of our diverse, global community no matter where you are. Change desks every day and meet your new neighbors; from the start, you'll see that our members are full of ideas that can help your business grow. 70% of our members have done business together!
See here for the full list of WeWork locations around the globe.
Tu centra't en el teu negoci i nosaltres ens encarregarem de la resta.
Termes i Condicions
Eligible WeWork locations subject to availibity and occupany


text:
* Big-hitting Johnson grabs three-shot lead
* Aims for his third win in a 54-hole event (Adds detail, further quotes)
Jan 7 (Reuters) - Dustin Johnson took control of the weather-hit Tournament of Champions in Hawaii on Monday with an awesome display of power hitting in the second round after the 2013 PGA Tour finally got under way.
Tied for the lead with fellow Americans Mark Wilson and Nick Watney when the opening round was completed at the Kapalua Resort earlier in the day, Johnson fired a sizzling seven-under-par 66 to surge three strokes in front of the pack.
Making the most of his prodigious length off the tee in breezy conditions, Johnson birdied the first three par-fives on the Plantation Course before eagling the last of them, the 18th, to post an 11-under total of 135.
His only blemish of the round came at the par-four 17th where he bogeyed the hole after running out of fairway off the tee after hitting a drive that was simply too good.
Defending champion Steve Stricker, who battled pain down his left side all day, was alone in second after carding a 67 with Masters champion Bubba Watson a further stroke back at seven under after a 69.
Reigning FedExCup champion Brandt Snedeker (70) and fellow American Keegan Bradley (69) were tied for fourth at six under in the winners-only field of 30.
"I hit the ball really well this afternoon," a smiling Johnson told reporters after coolly sinking a five-foot eagle putt on the 18th green in an event cut to 54 holes. "I'm pretty pleased with my play so far.
"It's been a long day, but I played really good from start to finish. I hit a lot of greens. I maybe missed three greens all day.
"I did everything pretty well ... drove it well, chipped it well, hit my irons good," added Johnson, who had opened with a 69 earlier in the day and twice drove the green on par-four holes.
"To shoot the score I did today, you've got to do everything well, other than my couple of three-putts."
The elite field of champions from last year's PGA Tour completed 36 holes on a marathon Monday at Kapalua after play had been abandoned on the previous three days because of strong gusting winds.
Scheduled to finish on Monday had the bad weather not intervened, the Tour's season-opener will instead conclude with a rare Tuesday finish.
Stricker won last year's title by three shots but for much of Monday he was unsure if he could finish after first experiencing shooting pains down his left leg a month ago.
"Nobody knows if it's a muscle with pressure on the sciatic nerve or if there's a problem with a disk," the 45-year-old American said. "I didn't have any expectations today. I didn't know if I was even going to finish 36 holes.
"I told one of the rules officials that I didn't know if I was going to be able to make it all the way around. Fortunately it didn't get any worse and that was the best part ... it just stayed the same all day."
Stricker, who holed out from 65 yards to eagle the par-five 18th in the second round after teeing off at the 10th, accepted the season-opening tournament was Johnson's to lose.
"He's such a good player and he's got length on his side and he's got a lot of talent," Stricker said. "It's going to be tough to make up three shots on him here. I wish I was feeling 100 percent."
Another good omen for Johnson is the fact that he won the last two events on the PGA Tour cut to 54 holes - the 2009 Pebble Beach National Pro-Am and The Barclays in 2011.
"I just happened to win those two events," he said. "I've still got 18 more holes of golf. It wouldn't matter if it was 72 holes or 54.
"Tomorrow is still the last round and there's 18 holes to play, so got to get the job done." (Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Amlan Chakraborty)


text: Warning: strpos(): needle is not a string or an integer in /home/allisona/public_html/kcocco/index.php on line 49 KCOCCO ~ photo - Google Glass Side Effects, Opti-Grab v.2? Google Glass Side Effects, Opti-Grab v.2? Tuesday, July 31, 2012, 12:23 AM - Tech Inventor Naven R. Johnson later version of Opti-grabThe "new' Google Glass The moment of inventionLet's not forget the side effects!FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a member of the Google Project Glass Explorer (Testing group) group and Steve Martin fan club. The opinions expressed in this post are not necessarily the views of anyone, including myself. | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink | related link Google Glass Glasses Specifications (Guessifications) Monday, July 30, 2012, 09:26 PM - Tech Below are some notes from Google Hangouts today with Google "explorers" (alpha developers) group and Glass team. Now that I have a better idea of specs... so many cool optons to hack!:Specs In the Glasses:- Gyro & Accelerometer- Bluetooth, WiFi, No cellular- Can pair with Android device- Microphone- Audio yes, not in ear (by design, freedom of body)- Track pad on side of glasses- Camera w/ Video- HUD simular to looking at TV across the room. (focal point is not 2 inch from face)Two tracks of Development:- Cloud Based API: Push message to glass and user can respond to cloud services.- Flash Hardware: Low level programming. Glasses have simular hardware to say Samsung phone (minus cell)Software that may be installed:- Google maps, navigation- Speech recognition- Google Search- Live stream video and photo have been demoed beforeRumor:- Sergey is using the $1,500 Glass fee to actually fly all explorers to Mountain View for a Glass hackathon, rumor v2 with option to sky dive onto campus. | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink | related link Google I/O 2012 - Cloud Platform & Big Data Friday, July 6, 2012, 11:50 PM - Tech Great experience at Google I/O 2012! Google rolled out some hot new tools and talks regarding Cloud platform, here are some I enjoyed:Google Compute Engine (IaaS): Urs Hölzle live demo of 771k core cluster and genome map, wow!Live build of Hadoop cluster on Compute Engine by Evan AndersonETL into Google BigQuery Building Data Pipelines at Google Scale by Michael ManoochehriGood talk Big Data: Turning Your Data Problem Into a Competitive Advantage ...but no video? they demoed a couple of Bi tools built on Big Query ... Bime analytics looks nice.. but did not cover ETL?Too many cool sessions not enough time, just starting to watch sessions I missed at conference.... | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink | related link Google I/O Road Trip Pictures Friday, July 6, 2012, 09:22 PM - Photo, Tech, Travel Arrive Petaluma CA, Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Bank 1,200+ seed varieties!Oysters grilling with the Claytons at Dillon Beach... yum!Heading into SF, CA on Gold Gate bridgeGoogle Glass (Glasses) ... mine are on order :) ... $1,500 :(Paul Oakenfold after party, good, not great, videoed by everyone in crowdStartup talk with Kevin RoseCrowdFlower office, Mission district Chris Van Pelt co-founder & Chief Awesomeness Officer (on business card, nice!)Royal Robbins's Wine Cafe Camp 4Post conference with the Yob's... Passing BIG boat on small boatHeading home on the salt flats ... Tree of life | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink | related link Ted.com Visualization & Interaction talks Friday, March 23, 2012, 04:12 PM - Tech Getting inspired this morning with a few Ted talks I hadn't seen yet:John Underkoffler point to the future of UI- Tech behind Minority ReportJoAnn Kuchera-Morin Demo: Stunning data visualization in the AlloSphereGary Flake: is Pivot a turning point for web exploration? Mar 2010- Zoom.it with API, REST, JSON, JS,... check out example: http://http://zoom.it/q5GT or embedded below..- Nothing terribly new with zooming here are some of my older projects 2005, 2006 and even earlier projects exporting Visio vector network diagrams and writing basic Flash UI... new, Zoom.it not Flash dependent... | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink | related link Back Next Links HomeContact MeStatsSNOW~ UT Avalanche Forecast SLC~ Cottonwood 24h report~ Skiutah Snow Reports~ Snowbird Snow Report~ Brighton Snow Report~ Solitude Snow Report~ Alta Snow Report ~ Powder Mountain ReportTECHNOLOGY~ SproutLoop.com~ SolarCue.com~ kcocco tech blog posts~ GlassNode.comLogin Most Recent Entries Power Practical USB Power MeterSolSource Solar Cooking Chicken stock in pressure cookerSolarCue Maker/Hacker ProjectBryce Canyon UtahCocco GardenThe Bug GuyGoogle Glass Side Effects, Opti-Grab v.2?Google Glass Glasses Specifications (Guessifications)Google I/O 2012 - Cloud Platform & Big DataGoogle I/O Road Trip Pictures Categories Photo Tech Travel Climbing Ride&Ski Food Search Calendar « December 2013 » MonTueWedThuFriSatSun 1234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272829303110/17/19 Archives View Archives 2013 December Power Practical USB Power Meter 12/17/13 October July April March 2012 August July March February January 2011 December November October September August July April March February January 2010 December September August April February 2009 October September August July June May April March January 2008 November October September August July June May April March February January 2007 December November October July June May April March February January 2006 December November October August July June May April March February January 2005 December November October August July June May April March February January Subscribe to Newsletter Email: Copyright © 2007, Kevin Cocco - Page Generated in 0.0561 seconds // Google Analytics


text:
Friday, December 04, 2009
Congressman Dan Burton & US Navy SEALs
And then he went all off track.
The point isn't whether or not it is right or wrong to have struck the terrorist.
The point isn't whether or not said terrorist is scum.
The point definitely has nothing to do with Attorney General Holder bringing GITMO detainees to New York for trial. And damn sure has nothing to do with Abu Ghraib.
Read the charges, they have to do with conflicting stories and possible interference with an investigation. The Navy is not saying it is right or wrong to hit a terrorist. The Navy is not saying that these men hit the terrorist. The Navy is not saying this POS, Ahmed Hashim Abed is a poor victim. The Navy is saying that an allegation was made and when they tried to get to the bottom of it, there was a problem.
This has nothing to do with Abed. This has everything to do with how the SEALs handle themselves and their fellow servicemen.
The system is in place to settle this matter. Let it go forward. Let the story see the light of day. These SEALs will have their day in court and that's how it is supposed to be.
Congressman Dan Burton spouting off at ADM Mullen about how he thinks Mullen should "do something about this" is ludicrous. For pity's sake Congressman, do a little research and look up "unlawful command influence". How would anyone be helped by having ADM Mullen, the CJCS squash this matter? If anything it would bring a bigger problem. It would look like these SEALs were guilty and needed help out of a jam. It would look like they couldn't stand up in the justice system and be vindicated.
The SEALs requested the courts martial. Let them have it.
If you want to help, the SEALs have a legal defense fund - write a check.
Navy SEALs Legal Defense Fund
Acct. #435020290711
c/o Bank of America
Ft Eustis VA 23604
8 comments:
Well said Maggie.
- 04 December, 2009 17:02
I have to disagree. Isn't this why the Geneva Convention took place? If the roles were reversed, and this happened to one of us in a foreign country we would be crying foul. I think in the same position as the SEALS, I would have acted the same way, but that doesn't make it OK. 2 wrongs don't make a right. Where is the professionalism and the military bearing we are known for the world over?
- 04 December, 2009 18:56
I think what Maggie is saying is that if wrongs were proven to be committed then those who committed them should be held accountable, and it would be wrong to just sweep it under the rug as the congressman is suggesting.
- 04 December, 2009 19:52
- BostonMaggie said...
I don't know what you are disagreeing with. The Geneva Conventions have nothing to do with that charges brought against the SEALs.
You ask where the professionalism and military bearing are? They are in this process. The fact that an allegation was investigated *at all* speaks to the fact that our military takes human rights more seriously than any other military in the history of the world.
You say you would have acted "in the same way". The same way as what? You have no idea what happened. None of us do. That is the point of the investigation.
You say "2 wrongs don't make a right". That is correct. But what "wrong" or "wrongs" are you talking about?
Go read the charges as brought. Only one is charged with assault - SO2 McCabe. They are all charged with interfering with the investigation - "making a false official statement"; "dereliction of performance of duty"; "impediment of an investigation".
So an allegation was brought. There was an investigation. Charges were brought. There was an offer of Captain's Mast (or Admiral's, depending on who was presiding). That offer was refused and a Courts Martial was requested instead. This process is ongoing. How does this involve or violate the Geneva Conventions?
And by the way, this happens to us all the time in foreign countries, so there's no "what if" there.
- 04 December, 2009 19:55
- BostonMaggie said...
Tom - Thanks! And thanks for the Tweets as well.
- 04 December, 2009 19:56
Thanks, Maggie. This story smelled fishy to me ever since I first heard it. It makes MUCH more sense if they're being charged with violations connected with the investigation, rather than smacking around a prisoner who wasn't actually all that much smacked around. No matter what the situation, nobody can be allowed to lie in an official investigation and get away with it.
- 04 December, 2009 22:04
Oh, and Maggie, can you provide a link to someplace we can read the formal charges? I tried a couple of web searches, and was drowned in news articles and blog posts.
- 04 December, 2009 23:37
- BostonMaggie said...
Official documents were supposed to be released yesterday, December 4th. But to my knowledge they weren't. So far everything we know is based on people who have seen the deocuments. As soon as I find them I will link them.
- 05 December, 2009 09:51


text:
Fab Capacity Back in the Black: Up 8 Percent
Fab Spending to Increase by 18 Percent in 2011, but Uncertain Outlook for New Fab Construction
By Christian Gregor Dieseldorff, SEMI Industry Research and Statistics, San Jose, California (December 7, 2010)
The latest edition of the SEMI World Fab Forecast predicts 8 percent annual growth in installed fab capacity for 2010, at least another 8 percent for 2011 and at least 9 percent for 2012. This projection is based on input of announced capacity plans and other analysis regarding needed fabs investments. After a change of -4.4 percent in 2009, installed capacity growth is expected to be level at about 8 percent in 2010 and at least 8 percent in 2011. A glimpse into 2012 shows a 9 percent increase at this point in time. These increases are modest compared to double-digit growth rates seen each year from 2003 to 2007. See Figure 1:
Figure 1: Worldwide installed capacity (without Discretes)
Examining capacity by region, World Fab Forecast data shows that Japan will maintain its leadership with over 23 percent share, followed closely by Korea and Taiwan with nearly 20 percent each. Japan is expected to lose some minor share of capacity (in single digits) in the next couple of years, while Korea will maintain steady growth of about 20 percent. The top five companies contributing to China's increased share by 2012 are: SMIC, Intel, TSMC, Hua Li and Promos. See Table 1
Table 1: Share of Worldwide Capacity by Region (without Discretes)
Looking at year-over-year capacity growth by industry segment, since 2004, the LED segment stands out (Figure 2). The LED industry has shown huge growth rates of installed capacity, in double digits for the past six years. In the past, the Memory segment capacity addition led growth, with growth rates twice as high as foundries. This changed dramatically in 2008. Through 2012, Memory capacity is expected to increase at about the same level as foundries. The growth rate for foundries may turn out to be larger than shown at this point in time as foundry companies such as TSMC may increase their capacity output plans due to stronger demand expectations.
Figure 2: Change of Installed Capacity by Industry Segment
Fab Spending and Fab Equipment Spending Up
Fab spending is expected to increase by 18.3 percent in 2011 and by 9.5 percent in 2012 as a result of on-going technology upgrades and continued capacity growth, especially for Memory, Foundries and MPU. While spending on construction projects declines, spending on Fab Equipment is forecast to rise 23 percent, reaching about $40 billion in 2011. With $40 billion in equipment spending (for Front End fabs, including Discretes, new equipment, and used equipment), 2011 will surpass the spending levels of 2007, showing the highest spending on fab equipment in the history of the SEMI's World Fab database. See Table 2:
Table 2: Fab Spending for Front End Facilities (including Discretes)
Without Discrete fabs, equipment spending is expected to grow by 23.6 percent, reaching about $37.5B in 2011. See Table 3
Table 3: Fab Equipment Spending Without Discretes
Without Discretes
For 2010, the industry segment with the most growth in equipment spending will be Memory, followed by foundries. This will change in 2011: foundries are expected to grow by more than 30 percent, while Memory will grow only 20 percent. The next largest growth segment is MPU, with about 33 percent in 2010, about 15 percent in 2011 and about 30 percent projected for 2012.
New Fab Construction
Total fab spending for 2011 is pulled down by an 11 percent drop in spending on construction projects. This trend will accelerate in 2012, with a currently uncertain outlook for new fab construction starts. See Figure 3. Clearly the construction outlook is impacted by uncertainty in what new LED fab projects are announced in the next two years. From 2007 to 2010, at least 12 LED fab projects began construction annually with 22 beginning in 2010.
Figure 3: Count of New Facilities Beginning Construction
In 2010, two new Memory fabs began construction, five new fabs for Foundries, two for Logic/MPU and 22 for Discretes. Remarkably, there are 21 LED fabs out of these 22 Discrete facilities. More than half of these new LED fabs began construction in China.
Some fabs undergo expansion projects and upgrades at the same time. However, this does not mean that capacity and equipment spending move together. In 2009, equipment spending for upgrades increased by 60 percent, while spending for capacity increases declined by 59 percent. In 2010, spending on expansion projects doubled, while spending for upgrades increased by 60 percent. For 2011, equipment spending for upgrades maintains this steady growth of more than 60 percent. However, spending for capacity expansions is expected to be much lower (about 9 percent).
Bleak Outlook for New Fab Construction
A sharp decline in new fabs being built — even ignoring LED fabs — in 2011 and 2012 raises concerns for the industry. The current focus is on upgrading and ramping existing facilities; however, it takes 18 to 24 months to plan, construct, equip, qualify, and ramp a new fab. The industry may not have enough capacity in the next two years, as new fabs slowly come on line. The Memory segment has seen a change in paradigm. Back in 2006, announcements of new fab plans surfaced almost every month. Some companies planned to build a new fab every year in order to meet demand. This all changed following the last economic downturn and the financial squeeze some Memory makers are experiencing.
It appears that many companies are hesitating, waiting for more proof that the market has stabilized. In the NAND market, one of the largest growth segments, new applications and electronic devices will result in increased demand. Lower prices for NAND will even accelerate this demand and stimulate continued growth. Back in early 2008, Eli Harari, former CEO of Sandisk, commented that "You need about six new fabs by 2011 to meet the forecasted demand for NAND." Where are these new fabs? All may change quickly, as the industry has shown its new agility.
Upcoming Industry Strategy Symposium
It's important to stay on top of the issues in an industry as agile as the semiconductor industry. One way to do that is to attend the SEMI Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS) on January 9-12 in Half Moon Bay, Calif. ISS features presentations from thought leaders and valuable networking. Offering perspective on numerous interrelated global industry and economic trends, ISS this year will deal with: managing capital efficiency, maximizing R&D investment choices, investing in future growth, establishing sound collaboration and risk mitigation strategies, and appreciating adjacent market opportunities. For more information, visit the Industry Strategy Symposium website at: http://www.semi.org/en/P011982. The Strategic Materials Conference is January 12-14, immediately following ISS at the same location (http://www.semi.org/en/EventsTradeshows/P039600).
SEMI World Fab Forecast vs. WWSEMS
The SEMI World Fab Forecast report uses a bottom-up approach as methodology, providing from high-level summaries and graphs; in-depth analyses of capital expenditure, capacity, technology and products; down to the detail of each fab; and forecasts for the next 18 months by quarter. These tools are invaluable for understanding how 2011 and 2012 will look, and learning more about capex for construction projects, fab equipping, technology level, and products.
The SEMI Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Market Subscription (WWSEMS) data tracks only new equipment. However, the World Fab Forecast and its related Fab Database reports track any equipment needed to ramp fabs, upgrade technology nodes, and expand or change wafer size, whether new equipment, used equipment, or in-house equipment.
San Jose, California
December 7, 2010