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June 3, 2010
Kiaran McLaughlin
Dale Romans
Nick Zito
THE MODERATOR: Thank you for coming. Obviously thank Nick Zito, trainer of the morning line favorite Ice Box and impressive Dwyer winner, Fly Down; Dale Romans, trainer with First Dude, incredible race in the Preakness, 7 and 2 morning line and Kiaran McLaughlin, trainer of Uptowncharlybrown. So basically, it's going to be fairly informal.
Q. Nick, being from New York, how important is the Belmont Stakes?
NICK ZITO: I've been asked that question a lot, and for some reason, I keep getting more tense. I guess it's getting, you know, to me a little bit because you're growing up here and you start realizing how much the Belmont Stakes means. It's a Triple Crown race. It's certainly one of the most historic races in the world, mile and a half, and you have to prepare your horse, if he has not won one before. It's a blessing, no question, but it would be great.
Q. Nick, when you've won this race before, you basically came in under the radar, how different of a feel is this? Do you like this feeling, or do you prefer the other?
NICK ZITO: Well, I think for me, you're right if you're a long shot, you just figure, well, let's just hope they run well and get back to the barn; and if you lose, you salute the winner and that's about it.
But when you have two horses that have a chance, you know, it's a little different feeling. But you know, Dale's horse I think is going to get a lot of action. I actually like Kiaran's horse, because I think he's got him now, and also, he was sneaky good earlier in the year, and so these are horses that you have to reckon with.
But they have, you know, favorites, and to put everything in the proper perspective, the "favorite" means you're supposed to do well. But we know in racing, and in sports, that doesn't always work out that way.
So is there pressure? Yeah, but I always go back to real life, you know, when you think about real life, it ain't so bad.
Q. You've always been someone on the lookout for a good omen or a positive dream, have you had anything this week which would indicate, well --
NICK ZITO: Basically, tell the truth, and I've had a couple of weird dreams, if you can say. I don't know what they mean but maybe it will all workout.
I mean, Look, if the Man upstairs -- God controls a lot of stuff, and again, whatever happens, happens. I've had a few nice dreams and a few whatever dreams. I don't know what they mean but we'll see what happens.
I know one thing, I hope it works out okay. Thanks for asking.
Q. For all three of you, and in regards to training over the Belmont track, bringing a three-year-old over here for the mile-and-a-half track surface, how important is it to have that experience over the track heading into Saturday, for all three of you?
KIARAN McLAUGHLIN: Uptowncharlybrown came from Tampa, and I think it's similar and a little bit different track but here at Belmont, it's nice to train on the track you are going to run on and let him get used to it. But we train here every day, Nick and I do, and it's a great place to train, a great facility, and it's nice that they are working over it and getting used to it.
But I don't think it's a race that you have to have works over or a race over. It's a good racetrack, mile and a half, and it's not like a Delaware Park where you don't know if you are going to handle it or not. Usually most horses can handle this track.
DALE ROMANS: I brought my horse in early because Churchill is a little different than this racetrack. It has a little bounce this year. They are keeping it a little firmer and I wanted to make sure we got up here in time to train on the sandier, deeper racetrack and also let him get used to going around that mile-and-a-half oval, they are on their left lead a lot longer than they will be on most other racetracks.
Definitely it's not going to hurt to be here. I know Nick is training in Saratoga, but he's got the luxury of having a trip over the racetrack, and Saratoga is also a deep, heavy racetrack. But I just didn't think training at Churchill would have benefitted as much as getting up here.
NICK ZITO: I feel the same way as these guys. I think the main thing is that you have to have the horses ready to go the mile-and-a-half. I think it will all work out with the best horse; whoever the best horse is on Saturday, that's how it will work out.
Q. Your thoughts on the pace scenario, you figure to be an important part of that, the mile and a half and how do you see that playing out?
DALE ROMANS: All the press keeps telling us we'll be on a solo lead, and I hope you're all right, and with a slow pace. But things never workout really like they should on paper and if somebody else decided to change their game plan and send from the inside, we are in a good spot from the outside to sit right off them and we won't have any problem doing that. But if there isn't enough space, we will be willing to go like we did in the Preakness, and hopefully not as fast, and just see what happens.
Q. Going mile-and-a-half -- does the jockey have the clock in his head going correctly?
DALE ROMANS: I think he'll know how his horse feels under him, and as long as he's nice and relaxed like he was in the Preakness, that was the key. He was going fast but he was relaxed and comfortable and not fighting him and that's why I think he had some horse to kick home with. And whatever he's doing, if he's on the lead, as long as he's relaxed and comfortable, I'll be happy with it.
Q. General Belmont question and Triple Crown question. First thing about the Belmont, in the last ten years, only three horses have come back to actually win a race after winning the Belmont: Point Given, Birdstone and Summer Bird. Is the race just a too demanding race? Also, the Triple Crown in general, your thoughts on the Triple Crown now, does it need a change, or should it stay the same way to honor the 11 who accomplished it?
DALE ROMANS: Real quick, I'll say the Triple Crown should never change. I mean, that's -- there's too much history behind it. A great horse will come along and win it sooner or later and I don't think they should change one thing about it. I don't know how they feel.
NICK ZITO: I feel the same way but to answer your question about why those horses don't win, I feel the same way Dale does about the Triple Crown, it should be tough.
But I think one of the reasons is if you do that study, see if anybody was leading up to the Triple Crown and see how many horses ran in the first two, because the demands of the Triple Crown now are very, very tough.
I'm sure Kiaran and Dale will tell you, because I know I have plenty, too, horses that we thought were going to make the Derby or going to make the Preakness or going to make the Belmont, never even got close, because the demands of it now are so tough; the preparations are tough. The horses you run against are tough, and I think that's the main reason.
And of course, you know, it's a broken record now, but it looks like you're going to have 20 all the time in the Derby unless, God forbid, something happens the week of the Derby. That's about the only -- and I think that's a tough thing today, you know, they keep saying about changing the Triple Crown, well, why don't you change the number of starters in the Derby, which is not going to happen, and that's what makes it so tough, because you're competing against 20 horses, not seven, not eight, not nine, not ten; 20, and that's very tough on a horse mentally besides physically.
You know, you look at Super Saver, and you heard what Todd said, he said, we don't usually do this, but we won the Derby. You know, you come up short.
So I think that's one of the reasons why they -- and don't forget, it's a mile and a half race.
KIARAN McLAUGHLIN: Two thoughts. I'll be different than them. One is the horses to win after the Belmont, a mile-and-a-half, we didn't have too many mile-and-a-halves to point to Belmont; if you really had a horse that went the mile and a half or a long distance, most had to run a mile and eight and a mile and 16. Now with the marathon and the Breeders' Cup, at least you have a chance to run a mile and a half, you might have a better chance of winning a few races. If you win the Belmont, there will be some better races out there going a mile and a half.
I think Wayne came up with dates, but I will go against them and say I would love to see the first Saturday of May, Memorial Day for the Preakness and July 4 for the Belmont. There's three days, two holidays there with big crowds, anyway, and we would have four weeks in between and then five weeks for the Belmont, and maybe we would have a field size that stayed together and horses competing in all three races.
And I think that they should have the bonus situation again that would give us some incentive to run, like Nick said, when Todd won the Derby, he didn't want to run back in two weeks. We hardly work a horse back in two weeks, but you feel the pressure of doing it for the Triple Crown.
But if you space them out; if the Triple Crown winner today is worth 40 million, is he worth 35 million if you spread him out for four weeks? At least you would have a chance to keep the field together and maybe have some rivalry between some horses but that's just my personal opinion.
Q. Nick, could you tell us what your two horses are showing you, and are you going into this the way you want?
NICK ZITO: Well, they are both showing me that I think after this race, Saturday, they will still be around hopefully by the end of the year, which getting back to Terry's question, I'll glad about that. I feel confident that both horses are getting better, and I think that's important because Saturday, you get some more racing. So I like what they are doing. They are getting better and I'm happy with that.
Q. Do you have to deal with the 59 owners or does Bob handle them for you?
KIARAN McLAUGHLIN: We send one e-mail every day, and he forwards it to 59 people. So it's not been too difficult. I had a little bit of experience with West Point and Team Valor, also, but they are very good, no problem.
Q. Have you made any changes with this horse and was this race kind of the goal as soon as he came to your born?
KIARAN McLAUGHLIN: Yes, it's the goal that Bob had and maybe Alan had for him. He covers a lot of ground. They thought he would get the mile and a half. We don't know that until Saturday afternoon.
You know, every trainer does things a little different, so, yes, there's been some changes, but they did a great job with the horse and we just hope that he wants the mile and a half. And we have a different team of people looking after him now, different feed program and different things that we have done, different blacksmiths. Overall, we just hope that he wants the mile and a half. They did a great job with him.
Q. I have a question about jockeys in the race. All three of you have jockeys that are familiar with Belmont Park. We have seen some jockeys come in here not having ridden here, and maybe give questionable trips to the horses. How much of a factor is it that all three of you have jockeys that know the track?
NICK ZITO: I think it's important if you ride here every day, or mostly every day. All three jockeys ride here, so I think it's very, very important, because you know, you're in the groove. You get in a little zone, too, a couple of days before, or the day before or that day, it's always good. It's always good.
I remember that day, only won one Derby, Dale will tell you, Kiaran, I don't know, from Kentucky, but I remember, I couldn't believe how many races he would ride on Derby day. If there was 13 races, he would ride all 13. So you want to be in the group when you're riding.
DALE ROMANS: It's a unique racetrack, a mile and a half and a unique race going into a mile and a half. I think it's an advantage to us to have a rider that's been here and ridden over this racetrack a lot.
KIARAN McLAUGHLIN: Ditto what they are saying. I'm just glad that Bob Hutt was a fishing buddy of a very good rider, because he said he wanted Rajiv because they had gone fishing together in the past. I said, I'm just glad that it's a top rider, so it worked out well. Rajiv is an excellent rider and we are happy to have him.
Q. For all three, could you maybe talk about the different ways that you would train a horse to go longer? Do you gallop them longer or are there certain things you would do versus training a horse to sprint?
NICK ZITO: Well, I think we do it every day. I don't think you could pinpoint one -- this is my opinion. If daily worked his horse a mile, and Kiaran worked this horse three quarters and I worked my horse seven-eighths, if they were prepared correctly that month, I don't really think the workouts mean anything that way. I think it's the every day thing you do.
And Kiaran brought out something interesting, he had just gotten his horse and he said believe it or not, we changed the feeding program; that's a plus, probably. We changed the blacksmith. That's probably a plus.
You do little things every day, and you might say, well, how does that -- what does that got to do with the horse going a mile and a half? It has a lot to do with it because it's your every day performance, and we all train horses, they all go out and train. They backtrack a certain way, they gallop a certain way, but it's the every day thing I think that's more important. I mean, if that's my secret, that's my secret.
DALE ROMANS: I would agree with him and there's not a whole lot that you can do that's different, especially coming off three weeks from the Preakness to the Belmont, just want to keep them happy, nature makes them fast, we just have to make them fit and they look pretty much fit after running the Preakness. Just want to get them going a little further and get them used to the racetrack.
KIARAN McLAUGHLIN: And a lot of it is in their pedigree and type of horse. Nick has been very successful in buying Triple Crown horses as yearlings. He guys them -- I don't personally buy any yearlings, but I feel like he's one of the best at it. And he's always in the Triple Crown races with purchases.
So he buys that type with pedigree and what he's looking for is not the Henny Hughes look that is very fast. And Henny Hughes was a sprinter because the way he's made and he was just fast. We didn't train him that much different than any other horses. We just knew he didn't want a mile and a half.
Q. Nick, given your past history of winning the race, was there any part that was rooting for Super Saver to win the Preakness?
NICK ZITO: Absolutely. Absolutely. I told somebody and he said why, and I said, well, No. 1, Todd is from Dallas and I don't think he knows much about pizza. That's No. 1. But it would have been an unbelievable story because -- just the fact of going -- I knew I was going to have a horse in the race, so it would have been great. I'm sure Dale and Kiaran feel the same way; they would like to be the spoiler.
And let's face it, it's great for racing. I would say all of us in this room are racing fans, first. So you would love to see the Triple Crown. Of course, if we weren't going to win the Preakness, we would have loved to have seen Super Saver win. I'm sure Kiaran and Dale feel the same way. It would be great. But no, it would have been exciting but it didn't happen.
Q. Sorry for the naĂŻve outsiders question, but why is this said to be a trainer's race? What makes it a trainer's race?
DALE ROMANS: Well, it's a stamina race because you've got to be able to make the mile and a half. You don't have to get as lucky as you do in the Derby. The best horse is going to win, the horse that's best prepared. It's not that we can make them win it, but we can cost them the race, I believe, you know, overdo or underdo something.
NICK ZITO: That's probably as good as you can say it. Just a very demanding race, mile and a half, period, you break them in front of the stands and they have to go around. It's a very long race.
DALE ROMANS: You look at the history of this race, it's been great trainers that won it.
Q. The case could be made that Ice Box, if things had broken differently, could have won the Derby; do you subscribe to that and do you feel like the Derby got away?
NICK ZITO: You know, I always hate making excuses, but you know, if he would have got a break, and Jose saw all of those horses outside of him, maybe if he went around, you know, we could have seen all it a little different because he was really rolling and would have been okay.
But I think you learn. I'm a little older than these gentlemen, and I think you learn how to be content. And I would have loved to have won the third Derby and I would have loved Ice Box to be a Derby winner, but it didn't happen. It was Super Saver's day, and you know, you just have to learn how to be content. You know, hopefully you get the third leg of the Triple Crown and that would be good enough.
It's not going to be easy, I know, it's a mile and a of had a race and never easy but he really was ripe for the Kentucky Derby and he could have easily been the Derby winner and didn't happen and that's the way it goes.
Q. When you talk about how unique it is to have a mile and a half race and thinking about how the industry has involved where the types of horses, you say if a horse can get a mile and a half, they are kind of a throwback-type of horse; does that reflect negatively on the industry that we don't have these types of horses? Or do you guys think there should be more marathon types of runners?
NICK ZITO: I would like to answer that question for one reason. You know, Kiaran brought out a good point. I don't want the Triple Crown to change. I'm almost like 50/50 because I see what he brought out. He wants the game to survive. However, think about this. The Derby is run in Louisville, Kentucky, mile and a quarter. Then you go two weeks, okay, you go to Baltimore and that's a mile and three-16ths. It's shorter. Now you come to Belmont Park, which is called what the test of champions, a mile and a half, and you get to break in front of the stands where there will be, I promise you somebody in the apron, maybe not today but there will be Saturday, there will be a lot of people rooting when they leave the gate.
Maybe today they won't, but there will be a lot of people there Saturday, and that's a great experience, horses breaking in front of a crowd, going around a whole track, a mile and a half, and it's called the test of champions.
They have been breeding horses for a couple hundred years in America, and that was the idea; to try to get them to go that far, try to get them to go that way. It's a beautiful thing, the Triple Crown, there's nothing like it. I mean, it may put more gray hairs your head, but it's the best thing in sports I think. It's just as good as anything we have got in sports.
DALE ROMANS: You know, it would be great to have more marathon races. There's nothing better than a good marathon race in America.
This crop may be one of that's starting to trend back the other direction, if you look at the crop: 44 starters in Triple Crown races in three races, that's pretty phenomenal, 35 horses the week before the Derby were still wanting to get into the Derby. We had 12 come back in the Preakness and 12 come back in the Belmont, and even on the filly set, 14 starts in the Oaks and 13 going into Acorn on Saturday.
This is a hearty group of horses and even with the changes, no horse running in all three of them, we had big full fields, the two-year-old champions ran a lot last year and comes back and wins the Preakness this year which is unusual. This is a good group of three-year-olds, fillies and colts, and hopefully we have a lot to look forward to out of them and maybe we are turning the tables a little bit back the other direction.
KIARAN McLAUGHLIN: That's a good point. It's an interesting point, and I like that. The problem with American racing over the last few years is two-year-olds in training, a $16 million horse is selling. People have commercialized it so much, people want the fast ones like the Henny Hughes, the fast ones, that can sell commercially.
But like I said before, Nick's been buying the yearlings that can go a mile and a quarter for a long time very successfully. So it's two different types of horses and people. But commercially people want speed and maybe some of the homebred. I know the Maktoum family would love to have the mile and a halfers because the Darley is a mile and a half, and Sheikh Hamdam said to me more than once: Wow, I wish you had more of an endurance-type stallion that we could breed to America and we can't really find many. Dynaformer was one that he liked, but there wasn't that many that he really liked at once that could go the mile and a quarter, mile and a half.
THE MODERATOR: I'd like to thank these three gentlemen, three of the best trainers racing. Really appreciate their time.
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text:
This Article From Issue
March-April 2007
Volume 95, Number 2
Page 171
Useless Arithmetic: Why Environmental Scientists Can't Predict the Future. Orrin H. Pilkey and Linda Pilkey-Jarvis. xvi + 230 pp. Columbia University Press, 2006. $29.50.
What happens when an immature and incomplete science meets a societal demand for information and direction? The spectacle is not pretty, as we learn from Useless Arithmetic, a new book that describes a long list of incompetent and sometimes mindless uses of fragmentary scientific ideas in the realm of public policy. The troubling anecdotes that authors Orrin H. Pilkey and Linda Pilkey-Jarvis provide cross diverse fields, including fisheries management, nuclear-waste disposal, beach erosion, climate change, ore mining, seed dispersal and disease control. Their extended examples of the misuse of science are both convincing and depressing. The book is a welcome antidote to the blind use of supposedly quantitative models, which may well represent the best one can do, but which are not yet capable of producing useful information.
Unfortunately, the impression of the issues one gets from the book is sometimes misleading. The authors' target is "mathematical modeling" as practiced in science. Examples abound of theories being applied grossly beyond the limits of their demonstrable usefulness, leading to absurd results or producing "answers" to questions that are themselves absurd (What will be the hydrological cycle in Yucca Flat one million years in the future?).
But are fisheries management and nuclear-waste disposal scientific problems? The authors' examples are not really problems of science but of the application of science to a practical end (a definition of engineering); politics, economics, the legal system and even psychology are involved. When science is not ready to answer specific questions, but the political universe insists that policies must be put in place (How large a catch can the fishery sustain? Is malaria in Africa a greater problem than HIV? How rapidly will this beach erode?), the outcome is almost inevitable: Someone will rush forward claiming that the answer is at hand, and the political system, driven to cope with a public threat or desire, will likely implement some insupportable policy. When the science is incomplete, one enters the world of P. T. Barnum, medical nostrums and the carnival.
This story is a very old and very complicated one. The authors do a good, readable job of explaining the large variety of assumptions that go into the quantitative description of numerous complex physical systems. But the stories do confound science with its applications. Poor Lord Kelvin is yet again raked over the coals for having calculated the apparent age of the Earth without having accounted for natural radioactive decay (then unknown). The anecdote is offered up as though it represented a serious scientific failure. It is, instead, a nice example of successful science: The best physics of the day produced an estimate of the age of the Earth that clearly contradicted the ever-more-convincing estimates from geology and evolutionary biology. Although the model itself was, with hindsight, incomplete, lacking not only radioactive decay but also interior convection (as Philip England and colleagues have noted in the January 2007 issue of GSA Today), the assumptions and details of the calculation were there for all to see, understand and debate—and still are, more than 100 years later. Presenting this story in the context of the book's attempt to demonstrate mathematics being used to bring about bad public policy is not very helpful. Building a geothermal power plant on the basis of Kelvin's model would have been poor engineering, but as science, his calculation cannot be faulted.
What is new in the mix is the availability of complicated computer models. Before cheap, large, fast computers existed, "mathematical modeling" was indistinguishable from the construction of mathematical "theories" describing particular phenomena. Calculations were commonly done by scientists who had a grounding in differential and partial differential equations—a grounding that was often based on fluid dynamics, electromagnetic theory, Schrödinger's equation and the like. Those scientists (like their counterparts today) were familiar with a wide range of approximate and asymptotic methods. Lord Kelvin himself is a good example.
With modern computers, it is now possible for a graduate student or a practicing engineer to acquire a very complex computer code, hundreds of thousands of lines long, worked over by several preceding generations of scientists, with a complexity so great that no single individual actually understands either the underlying physical principles or the behavior of the computer code—or the degree to which it actually represents the phenomenon of interest. These codes are accompanied by manuals explaining how to set them up and how to run them, often with a very long list of "default" parameters. Sometimes they represent the coupling of two or more submodels, each of which appears well understood, but whose interaction can lead to completely unexpected behavior (as when a simple pendulum is hung on the end of another simple pendulum). One hundred years in the future, who will be able to reconstruct the assumptions and details of these calculations?
Pilkey and Pilkey-Jarvis could have done more to help the nonscientist reader distinguish bad computer models from bad science. In the right hands, the crudest of models leads to deep insights (for example, Kepler's elliptical orbits). Few nonscientists seem to understand how science is done, its ambiguities and its use of consensus—a word that has come, remarkably, to be pejorative in some lay usage, whereas scientists recognize that almost all of science is an evolving working consensus.
The book does, very sensibly, advocate the use of order-of-magnitude estimates, basic principles, constant testing against observations and qualitative judgment. Any good scientist or engineer, using a complex model, would attempt to compare in detail her order-of-magnitude estimates with the model result and with whatever actual observations are available. Weather-forecast models are at least as complicated as any described. These models produce very useful forecasts out to about 10 days because several generations of meteorologists have been able to make detailed comparisons between the models and observations, hour to hour and day by day. The time horizon is short, and the economic and other consequences of failed forecasts are apparent to all. After 50 years of numerical weather forecasting, a great deal has been accomplished.
When the model is, however, being used to predict an outcome decades to thousands of years in the future, testing that is analogous to what weather forecasters do becomes impossible. One can attempt instead to replicate previous time-histories, subject as they are to incomplete and poorly understood observations often made under very different conditions than those predicted for the future; moreover, doing so raises complicated issues of statistical independence. Such models then call for the most sophisticated of users, who can separate the reliable elements from the likely flawed ones. If an amateur using a chain saw manages to damage himself or someone's property, one does not condemn the saw—rather, one might express the need for users of such power tools to have proper training and to understand where and when those implements should be employed.
Bad science can be done with simple models as well. The authors, who gleefully point at others' published errors, themselves fall into the trap of quoting mistaken concepts and ideas in which no computer model is used at all (for example, the false alarm of the failure of the oceanic wind-driven circulation). An annoying feature of the book is the unreferenced employment of provocative statements from outsiders, either as straw men to be knocked down or as support for the authors' point of view.
An analogy may be made to the plight faced by astronomers, who ultimately managed to distinguish themselves, at least among other scientists, from astrologers. Astrologers provided welcome predictions of what was going to transpire in human lives. Are models of fisheries, beach erosion, climate and the like analogues of astrology, or of astronomy—or perhaps of something of both? Astrology led to astronomy. What will come next in large-scale computer simulations?
Politicians must make and implement public policy even when science cannot provide truly skillful forecasts. Society has to make decisions in the face of major uncertainty about the outcome. More discussion of that necessity and how to cope with it would have been welcome in this book. As it is, the authors usefully raise the alarm about the misuse of poorly understood models and the illusion that because those models are complex, they must be meaningful. In the wrong hands, the best of models can be grossly misleading. To find many examples of that, read this book.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Anyway, the key thing which ONS and CDK and Jmol share, is that they use an Open Notebook. Not every Open Source or Open Data project does. Actually, many scientific Open Source are not open Projects! They are more like the Cathedral than the wished-for Bazaar (see The Cathedral and the Bazaar). So, Open Source (science) projects are certainly not ONS projects by default!
Now, the CDK actually is ONS, it is a Bazaar. The notebooks we use include:
- open project via mailing lists
- open methods/results via subversion
- informal reporting via blogs (e.g. Rajarshi, Christoph, Thomas, mine)
- informal reporting via CDK News
Unfortunately, I do not create work at a workbench myself, so I do not produce new knowledge myself, other than extracted from existing data. That's really a shame, and I really do hope that Jean-Claude or Cameron will send me a box to measure solubilities (see here, here, and here, here for first data exploration), even though I cannot participate in the challenge. (hint, hint :)
From Cathedral to Bazaar in Life Sciences
One Cathedral we ran into with Bioclipse was BioCatalogue, which will serve as website where people can annotate and categorize (web) services. While the project has been around for a while, the website was rather uninformative. Fortunately, the projects is going to open up, and be more Bazaar-like. For example, they now started a wiki and a mailing list. I hope these efforts will continue, so that I can contribute from my point of view!
The EMBRACE Registry is a project with similar goals and a rather nice outcome (which I learned about on Monday). It is actually anticipate to be replaced by or merge with BioCatalogue. So, all data I entered, cheminformatics workflows (look, no 'o'), will later be available from BioCatalogue too. That is already my first contribution to BioCatalogue. One enormously interesting feature of the Registry, is that is allows uploading of code to test the service. This will mean the Registry will not only poll if the service is still online (by checking the WSDL file), it will also test if the service behaves properly. Now, immediate thoughts are mashups with MyExperiment. Each WSDL entry in the Registry points to MyExperiment workflows that use them, and the workflow page would indicate the status of all used WDSL services. This integration was already anticipated long before I thought about it, as the involved Cathedrals were nicely located in the same floor in Manchester.
Below is a screenshot from the EMBRACE Registry for the ChemSpider WDSL entry for a workspace I uploaded about a year ago to MyExperiment:
BTW, ChemSpider has an Advisory Board of which I am member, but it is also a classical (and intentional) Cathedral project. We do share common interests though, which makes us collaborate.
Why Important?
One recurrent theme in Open Source is given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow. This surely applies to science as well. The difference between the two is that in current science the eyes only inspect with a delay of at least 6 months. Current practice is that research is finished (delay), and when decided publishable written up a paper (delay, and loosing valuable information in the process, as you can read in my blog all the time), and published (even more delay). ONS changes that, and so do Bazaar-like open source projects, such as the CDK, Jmol and Bioclipse. They bugs are present, whether we like it or not, not just in source code, but in science too. Theories get overthrown, but why should we like the long delays current scientific good practice? Hate it! Work around it. Use the Bazaar. Use ONS!
Now, ONS actually needs Open Source, allowing them to deal effectively with the data they produce; to allow extraction of new scientific knowledge from the measurements. If Rajarshi and Pierre would not have made their efforts, other could not easily join in, leading to those much hated delays. Bugs should be shallow, and openness allows us to make those bugs visible. We can prove that there is a bug, without having to reproduce data ourselves, leading to those nasty delays again. Just copy the data, compare it to your own, do your analysis.
One recent project in open source chemistry dealing with making bugs visible, is the web page set up by Andreas Tille for the DebiChem project. His page summarizes the bugs listed for the chemistry in Debian (which includes the Blue Obelisk projects Avogadro, BODR, CDK, Chemical MIME Data, Kalzium and OpenBabel):
This data analysis helps the projects being analyzed.
This brings me to a last topic, for this blog: packaging using Open Standards. In order to allow those eyeballs to spot bugs, it is of the utmost importance to package your results in Open Standards, and not just one, but likely many. For Open Source projects this ultimately means Distribution Packages (deb or rpm). If that goal has been achieved, you know your results can be read by anyone. Software should be installable (make, ant, cmake, etc), and Data should be readable (no PDF, but RDF, XML, JSON, or whatever standard). Preferably not Excel, as this is too free format (as Rajarshi also indicated), but with some added conventions it may do well. Blue Obelisk project are generally doing well in terms of packaging.
For the CDK, which already is reasonably well packaged, I am currently working on Eclipse and Maven2 packages. The former is already being used by Bioclipse, while the second aim at Jumbo (which has just seen a new release. Jim, I'm happy to see the CMLDOM/Jumbo split!), CDK-Taverna, and possibly a third (Paula, what for do you plan to use it?). The POM export is not fully working yet, but with four research sites involved in this Open Project, I'm sure we'll work it out.
The bottom line is, scientific progress would benefit so much from a Bazaar approach. And the key thing is not collaboration; that's something you can do in a Cathedral-like fashion too. No, the key thing is to be Open and allow anyone, even your worst nightmare, to comment on what you do. Let him prove you wrong, openly, that is.
OK, there it is. My open notebook entry for this week. Now you know what I have been up to this week.


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Every afternoon my abuela (grandmother) walks down the squeaky steps leading to our kitchen. When she hops into that apron, I know it's my cue to run for cover.
Making up her own recipes is how my abuela relieves her stress. She puts all her worries behind her when she takes on her mission: What's for dinner?
With a dash of this and a sprinkle of that her creations are ready. I admit that my abuela performs miracles. She stretches her budget by mixing leftovers with fresh foods, is obsessed with cooking pork in every meal, adds plenty of grease and oil—and people savor every last taste. I think it's disgusting.
My abuela is always talking about how to save a dollar. She's collected a huge stack of rusty, beat-up cans of food from the church pantry. She also frequents the tons of 99¢ stores that have opened in my neighborhood. My grandmother brings home 99¢ juice, sodas and junk foods that taste like complete crap and have no nutritional value.
I get angry and frustrated with this woman. Why is she so hard headed? She talks about saving a dollar, but if we have enough money for Direct TV and all the HBO channels she orders, I think we can afford some healthier, fresher food, instead of eating like it's hard times.
But if I complain to my abuela, she looks at me with disappointment and says, "Well, you don't know what it is to not have. It's called survival."
Like many people in my neighborhood, my abuela comes from a really poor background. Putting food on the table was an everyday struggle in her family. Every bit of food was considered a blessing.
Moving to the U.S. from Panama has been a big transition for her. Every day she sees food going to waste, while people in poor countries are starving. I understand my grandmother's attitude, but at times she acts as if we're standing directly on the poverty line, when I know that we could spend our money on food if we saved it somewhere else.
I think what we put in our bodies should be one of my family's biggest concerns. I began feeling conscious of how I eat last spring, when I started noticing how depressed and moody I was.
A friend told me that "You are what you eat" is not just a saying, but that what you eat really can affect your performance in everyday life. If you're eating a lot of sugary foods, your mood can swing wildly, or if you're eating too much you can feel drowsy and bored.
At that time, my face was breaking out and my stomach was never agreeing with me. I would wake up nauseous, and get severe headaches that left me looking like an insane witch by the end of the day. I know what's healthy and what isn't, but I was constantly eating junk at fast food restaurants or running to the corner store for a pint of Haagen Dazs every time I felt depressed.
Over the summer, I joined a nutrition workshop. When I began reading the nutritional facts on the back of cartons, I started thinking about the vitamins, fat and protein that each food has to offer. I stopped going to the corner store for candy every time I had spare change.
Then we got to buy a week's worth of healthy food. I took my healthy week seriously. I drank tons more water and ate more veggies. I started using substitutes for sugar, like honey and fruits. Whenever I had an urgent craving for a sweet, crispy, layered cheese danish, I settled for a granola bar or a tall glass of vanilla soy milk.
My first time drinking soy milk was not easy. When I tasted it, I immediately spat it out. But because I felt it was a step toward improving my health, I began to drink a glass each day. My taste buds adapted. The more I drank it, the better it began to taste.
Now I'm a soy fan. Every time my abuela goes to the supermarket, I beg her to buy me soy milk. Sometimes she'll refuse and say it's too expensive. So I put aside money to buy my soy milk every week.
Though healthy eating took an adjustment, I was feeling great! No more of that oily feeling I would get when I ate greasy foods. After an icy glass of soy milk, I felt like I could take on the world.
I also began taking nature walks around a big park, enjoying Earth's green kingdom. It felt good to take care of myself. I loved thinking about healthy foods nourishing every inch of me. I felt like I was doing myself a favor, so I vowed to continue to eat healthier.
But eating healthy in my neighborhood—Brownsville—is a challenge. My neighborhood is grim, with worn down and torn looking houses and projects surrounded by nothing but fast food restaurants, Chinese take-outs and fried chicken spots filled with miserable obese people.
Sure the food is cheap. There's a bargain everywhere you go. But you're only getting what you pay for—unhealthy processed and fried food. The Kennedy Fried Chicken place even gives out free sodas with every meal. Why can't they give out bottled water or juice for a change?
I know why people eat in those places. If you're looking for a meal that fills you up for cheap, you can go to Wendy's and buy up the dollar menu—the more the merrier—or eat at the Chinese restaurants. You can buy only junk if you're hungry without much in your wallet.
As much as I want to stay healthy, I hate having to stretch $5
to buy a meal. Sometimes I buy an Ensure and a banana nut muffin, or a veggie slice from the pizza store, and find myself hungry in an hour.
I'm proud of myself for trying to eat healthy despite my budget. But my abuela has been quite upset with my new diet. She feels my new way of eating healthy is a cry of hunger, because I've lost a little weight. She looks at me and says, "Pauline, why is your face so pale? You look so skinny! The only piece of fat you got there is that little bump called a behind."
Not so thrilled with the comment, I leave the room as she laughs up a storm. My grandma defines healthy people as those with meat, and glowing skin and hair. In her eyes, I'm bony and making a fool out of myself by not eating the food she serves. Food is food. There is no such thing as bad or good. You eat when you have and starve when you don't.
For now, my abuela laughs and figures I'll learn. But I long for the fresh taste of organic fruit on my tongue. Opening my refrigerator brings me back to the cold taste of reality: Bread full of mold, a pack of nearly rotten sausages, microwave dinners, and of bunch of God knows what decaying in a plastic container for who knows how long.
Eyes see, brain picks up data, stomach growls in response. With that I go to bed, another night of an unsatisfied stomach. I lie in bed wishing it would all go away: Poverty, my neighborhood, my grandmother's cooking, my headache.
Maybe I'm ungrateful or stubborn. (Why can't I just give in and eat unhealthy food like everyone else does? Hey, at least there's more on your plate.) But my anger bursts like a cannon scattering balls of depression. Why is my neighborhood such a threat to our health? Why are healthy foods out of reach of the poor? We all know people who are suffering because of their eating habits—they're dealing with diabetes, high cholesterol, or hypertension.
As darkness falls, my stomach's growling leads my mind through twists and turns. "You're hungry," I tell myself. "Get something to eat. That's better than no food at all."
Finally I scurry down to our kitchen, ignoring the tall tower of dishes in the sink and the mountains of crumbs and the stains splattered about the kitchen counter. Opening the refrigerator door, a silhouette gleaming in the light catches my eye. It's a box of soy milk. Abuela must have bought it for me!
I pick it up with relief and remember the discussion I had with my abuela days ago about my newfound love of soy. Usually our discussions end with the "I'm the adult and you're the child" theme, but to my surprise, she listened for a change.


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Gossner Foods is a growing family business with three locations across the western United States. With a combined 120 years of cheese making experience, state of the art equipment, and a team of dedicated employees; Gossner Foods is a leader in the dairy industry. What began as a strictly Swiss cheese plant, has expanded until now over 30 varieties of cheeses, and also UHT (Ultra High Temperature) shelf stable milk in a variety of flavors.
One ounce of Swiss Cheese has 7.88 g. of fat. Swiss is a low-fat cheese when compared to cheddar, which has 9.4 g. of fat.
One ounce of Swiss Cheese provides 16 percent of the daily protein that a 130 lb. person requires.
Calcium helps to build strong bones and teeth, as well as helping to maintain healthy blood pressure.
Gossner Foods is a family owned business. In 1966 we started our own factory, using just the milk from our own dairy. But as time went by we started to get more farmers and continued to grow. We would love for everyone to learn more about how our amazing products is made, and why we feel like our products are so special. Stop by our store, or call us to set up a guided tour.
Nestled in beautiful Northern Utah, the Logan location is home to the original Gossner Foods plant. Because of the demand for the high quality Swiss, cheese plants were added in El Centro, California and Heyburn, Idaho. Between the three plants, nearly 1,900,000 Pounds of BST free milk is made into great tasting cheese daily. The original location remains the heart of the Gossner Foods Corporation, with the majority of packaging and distribution happening here. The Logan location is also home to the UHT milk plant, where Grade A milk is specially packaged on state of the art equipment, to give it a longer shelf life.
What began as a strictly Swiss cheese plant, has expanded until now over 30 varieties of cheese carry the Gossner name. When you see a Gossner label on your favorite cheese, you can rest assured that you are purchasing the highest quality product. In addition to our array of cheeses, Gossner Foods also processes UHT (Ultra High Temperature) shelf stable milk in a variety of flavors. This milk, which is aseptically packaged, can sit on the shelf for months without refrigeration and is ideal for food storage, camping, and school lunches!


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Whether positive or negative, CrossFit elicits an emotional response from fitness professionals. It is personal, which is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The brand, which is generating significant buzz these days, has actually existed for more than a decade and has become both popular and profitable. Emotion aside, CrossFit offers lessons for its big box competitors, but it also has lessons to learn itself before its growth dilutes its brand.
CrossFit does the following exceptionally well:
- Brand management. CrossFit is both a noun and a verb. Clients are CrossFitters who go to CrossFit to CrossFit. It even has its own language, calling its workouts WODs (workouts of the day), which participants champion, but critics abhor. It insinuates some elitism and exclusivity, but this fortifies the community.
- Loyalty. Loyalty is to people, not to things or places. Trainers run CrossFit boxes, greeting clients when they arrive, pushing them to their limits and cleaning up after. The system is transparent and minimalist.
- Internal continuing education. All CrossFit trainers must go through the same certification. CrossFit now offers 11 specialties, but trainers are taught just one way to execute each specialty.
- Multiple finish lines. Every workout is measured and managed. All WODs lead to The Games, CrossFit's annual world competition with local and regional qualifiers.
- Shift from where and with what to how and with whom. The CrossFit box can be a parking lot, a garage or a warehouse, and it can consist of only bars, bells, bands and boxes. Its focus is on the challenge, results and athletes. No bells and whistles. No mirrors. No complaints about televisions not working on ellipticals.
For its participants, CrossFit is a way of life. It is a community built around discomfort, challenge and competition that yield fierce camaraderie. No two boxes look the same, but a transplanted member from California to New York can quickly assimilate into the new group because each box has a shared experience. Although the physical integrity of the big industry boxes may be more uniform or even identical across the country, the expected experiences of the members are not. The camaraderie and training are not unique to CrossFit, but CrossFit is doing what its competitors in the fitness industry are not–creating an intense loyalty that, in business, translates to results, referrals and retention.
CrossFit reports having close to 6,000 affiliates worldwide. All CrossFit affiliates must have trainers who are at least Level 1 certified, paying $1,000 for the weekend seminar that is neither nationally accredited nor recognized at any other gym. CrossFit then has strict guidelines on using its brand for marketing on affiliate websites, requiring a $3,000 annual fee as of 2011 (that is nearly $18 million generated annually in brand management alone). Once the brand started growing, elite coaches saw an opportunity for them to work with CrossFit to grow their audiences (and grow their wallets) beyond their own niches. With 11 specialty certifications, CrossFit is competing with everyone without excelling in any one domain.
The exponential horizontal growth in affiliates dilutes the program design and increases the risk of physical injury.
Despite its flaws, CrossFit remains popular and profitable. Some of the big boxes in the industry are trying to create CrossFit-like programs. What their corporate offices fail to grasp, however, is that the success of CrossFit is not just about the program but rather the community.
As mid-size gyms continue to diminish, the choices will narrow between a big box that has everything you want and a small box, such as CrossFit, that has only what you need. In order for the big boxes to compete, they need to realize and communicate that CrossFit did not create a new fitness program; it built a fitness community that the big boxes are missing.
How to Draft Off the CrossFit Buzz
Here are five areas that big box clubs can improve upon to play off CrossFit:
Audience. Most trainers cannot identify their ideal clients, let alone the target audience of a club. Is the target Baby Boomers, Millennials or someone else? Decide this, then modify sales presentations, physical activity readiness questionnaires and follow-ups for each generation to leverage their differences in emotional and rational responses.
Front desk enthusiasm. Gym virgins experience high anxiety entering the club. Veterans want to jump right in to their routine. To both, the front desk is a barrier to entry. Waiting causes stress. Using someone's first name generates a smile. The front desk should be the happiest, most perceptive and most expedient group of people anyone has ever met.
Group fitness. Most gyms schedule all new members for a complimentary personal training session that is really just a sales pitch that few people show up to hear. Instead, gyms should schedule all new members for a month of group fitness classes, as group fitness participants have the highest proven retention rates. Personal trainers should instruct these classes and use them as teasers for one-on-one and small group training. Offer fewer class options at more skill levels.
Workshops. Big boxes are so focused on production that teaching is often neglected. Offer a mix of free and paid workshops for members on a weekly basis. Ideas include yoga, powerlifting, kettlebells, circuit training, running and nutrition. Additionally, have staff lead each other in workshops in their chosen specialties or bring in a guest instructor for a seminar.
Connection between programs and competitions. Competitions are a great way for members to bring guests and increase referrals. They challenge and reward members and showcase the facility and its staff. Fee-based training can be programmed specifically to train members for the competition.
Christine Hannon, founder of The Art of Strength, is a fitness writer and trainer based in Columbus, OH. She has worked for several national gyms and now advises small fitness businesses in Columbus on program design and communications. Hannon leverages more than a decade of classical ballet with recent powerlifting competitions to encourage women (and their husbands) to lift heavy. Hannon brings to the fitness industry her experience from Army ROTC, living abroad and working on a U.S. Senate campaign. She uses this experience to not only train her clients but create grassroots change and leadership for healthier corporations and communities. She puts innovation and customer experience at the forefront of her business. Hannon is a certified personal trainer through the National Academy of Sports Medicine and through Personal Training Academy Global. She can be reached at [email protected].


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From the design of the first breathing regulator for Project Mercury, to a full suite of hardware and cutting-edge pneumatic subsystems for the ISS, Cobham has engineered some of the most complex, challenging space components in existence today. Cobham builds ultimate reliability into life support...
Many of the world's best known aircraft, including the F-35 and all Airbus platforms, feature Cobham technology. From internet in the sky through to jamming and missile guidance for the latest fighter aircraft, Cobham has an innovative suite of avionics, communication and navigation products for an...
From lightweight composite CNG tanks for automotive, to wireless coverage in the world's tallest building, Cobham has a variety of land based solutions for commercial and defence applications. Our advanced Ground Penetrating Radar detection, and secure communications support security forces and...
Cobham's maritime communications provide reliable communications in the toughest maritime conditions. We provide satcom and radio for the Volvo Ocean Race and microwave and radar technology for the AEGIS class cruiser. Cobham also offers an innovative range of safety and survival equipment, includi...
Cobham provides high performance, wideband and super wideband transmitters, receivers and integrated transceivers with high gain, excellent VSWR, a low noise figure and fast switching.
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Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions Inc.


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This is going to be a quick post as I have to go teach this afternoon and then rehearse with the IU Southeast Orchestra tonight. But I had come across what's called a "pogo cello" just a bit ago. The wikipedia entry for the instrument states:
The pogo cello was created in the 1950s in Brooklyn, New York by a chemist, Mack Perry, the husband of a music educator, Sylvia Perry. Perry patterned it after a similar instrument called a bumbass (boombas, boomba, or boom bass) also known as a stump fiddle (or stumpf fiddle). Pogocellos were manufactured in Brooklyn and Far Rockaway, New York and in New Jersey. The pogocello was sold in the United States for decades as a musical instrument for children, but many adults also bought them for themselves.
Pogocellos have been seen in marching bands in Iowa and in the Mummers' parade in Philadelphia, PA on New Year's Day. Similar instruments may be found today in Australia, Czechoslovakia and in Sweden (a Devil's fiddle or Devil's stick) and in other countries, for example at Oktoberfests. They have been played in blues, soul, bluegrass and other kinds of musical groups. Television show host, Garry Moore, played one on his show in the 1950s. Since 1975 the Gloucester Hornpipe and Clog Society, an American traditional music group which plays Celtic, French Canadian, Appalachian, nautical, and other kinds of folk music, has featured a pogocello made by woodcarver Rita Dunipace, and pogocello player David "Doc" Rosen.
A great video describing and demonstrating the instrument:


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The following information corresponds with the article "The Trait Debate." You can find the article in Farm Journal's 2013 Seed Guide issue.
What's the best way to gain valuable farmer insights? Just ask them. Here are four farmers explaining, in their own words, why they prefer to plant seeds with or without biotech traits.
Kyle Stackhouse
Plymouth, Ind.
I believe in the push toward non-GM crops. I began looking into planting non-GM corn and soybeans several years ago, and the switch has suited my farm operation well. There is a financial incentive to grow identity-preserved crops, and it is prudent to scrutinize yields in that case. However, in this time of proliferation of GM products, the odds are if a hybrid or variety makes it to the sales floor in the non-GM form, it usually yields well. As innovations in this area are made, I'm working to become completely non-GM. Currently, my corn acres are evenly split between GM and non-GM hybrids, and my soybean acres are 40% GM and 60% non-GM.
Nathan Baker
Waldron, Mich.
GM crops might not end world hunger, but it's a step in the right direction. Traited corn offers an insurance policy against corn borer, rootworm, cutworm, ear worm, etc. Reducing insect damage helps increase yields. Better drought tolerance helps increase yield, and, shortly, we'll see enhanced nitrogen use not only increase yields but also reduce the amount of inputs.
Yes, $250 for a bag of seed corn is expensive, but it's about the value it creates for me. I'm willing to pay more for seed knowing that I won't have insect issues, and if I have a weed outbreak I can use Roundup to save the crop.
Franz Neff
Durant, Iowa
We've been growing conventional hybrids for a long time. We've tried other transgenics but weren't as happy with them, so we've been growing conventional hybrids. One of the economic reasons we grow conventional crops is because of the premiums. We have better yields than people with triple stack. We try to change the mode of action in herbicides every two years. We don't use Roundup. We don't have resistant weeds, and we have better fertility with non-GMO.
I'm not putting down a company, and I don't mind if other farmers use technology. We just have really good non-GM hybrids, seed cost is 50% less and we get 35¢ to 70¢ premiums for conventional corn.
Jason Scott
Burrows, Ind.
On our farm, we plant solely GM corn and soybeans. There is a simple philosophy behind our decision: it eliminates plant stress. The key to unlocking yield potential is removing stresses and allowing the plant to reach its full potential. Plant stress comes from numerous areas: weather, moisture, insects, weeds, fungus and other diseases and animals feeding on them. Modern GM corn in a seed bag comes in one easy package with the tools to combat many of those stress points.
Soybean trait development should accelerate in the coming decade, much like corn did in the previous 10 years. Limiting disease and combating current weed resistance will help push up yields for U.S. farmers.


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Artifacts from 200-year-old shipwreck dock in Galveston
They hope items retrieved from 4,300 feet down can identify shipwreck
When the exploration vessel Nautilus docked Thursday morning in Galveston, it carried about 60 artifacts from a 200-year-old shipwreck.
The wreck, its identity and origin still unknown, remains in about 4,300 feet of water some 150 to 170 miles off Galveston.
"What we have just completed is the deepest documentation, recovery and excavation of a shipwreck in U.S. waters," said James Delgado, one of eight marine archaeologists aboard the Nautilus.
Delgado, based in Silver Spring, Md., is director of maritime heritage for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's office of national maritime sanctuaries.
Eventually, the artifacts will be displayed in a Texas museum yet to be designated, researchers said.
More photos: Check out some of the artifacts
The Nautilus crew left the approximately 84-by-25-foot shipwreck on the ocean floor and retrieved artifacts with a remotely operated vehicle, Delgado said.
During their weeklong trip on the Nautilus, the researchers also visited two other shipwrecks within about five miles of the primary one and conducted the first remote video surveys of those sites, said Jack Irion, an archaeologist with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
All three wrecks were found at the same time in early 2011 by Shell workers conducting an oil and gas survey for a proposed pipeline in the company's Monterrey development tract, Irion said.
"Our thought is they may have been sailing together as a small convoy," Irion said.
Finding them is exciting, he said.
"We can't think of another single site of deep water like this that has the possibility of three vessels in convoy possibly sinking at the same time," he said. "It's extremely unsual."
Looking for context
Among the archaeologists onboard the Nautilus was Missouri City-native Chris Horrell, who now lives in New Orleans, where he is the federal preservation officer with the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
"This is not just an artifact-collecting project," said Horrell. "It's one in which we are trying to provide some context to the Gulf Coast's maritime history and heritage, its maritime culture."
From Galveston, the artifacts will go to Texas A&M University's Cultural Resources Laboratory at the Riverside Campus in College Station, where they will undergo a lengthy preservation process, said Amy Borgens, the state marine archaeologist with the Texas Historical Commission in Austin.
"My major role is documenting and cataloguing the artifacts and stabilizing them for transport, so we have a record of the artifacts as recovered," Borgens said. "Once they're transported, the lab will create a new record that documents the process they go through."
Possibly a privateer
Among the 60 artifacts are four to six different styles of firearms, said Borgens.
"That's not uncommon in this region," she explained. "These muskets were in keeping with the kind of arms you would find on privateers."
A privateer was a ship with a crew that had been issued a commission by a government, giving it permission to attack and capture certain vessels, such as merchant vessels from enemy nations, said Frederick Hanselmann, chief underwater archaeologist at The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University in San Marcos, which helped coordinate the project.
One of the things that intrigues him most about the project, Hanselmann said, is the way objects can help make our shared past tangible.
"The leather shoe sole we recovered could have been on the shoe of some poor individual who went down on the ship," he said. "The porcelain plates that had knife marks on them speak out to us as archaeologists. What we tried to do was excavate and recover artifacts that would give us a broad picture of life on that ship."


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I've never had Cincinnati Chili before and it hasn't been until recently that I've even been tempted to try.
But when Bon Appétit featured a story about different regional chili recipes, it wasn't the Squash and Black Bean California-inspired Chili that caught my eye, it was the thinner Cincy Chili, customarily served over spaghetti that had me add chili to next weeks menu. Proud? Not exactly. But totally honest.
It was delicious. And although you may scoff at the idea of adding cocoa and cinnamon (like the Taster), I promise it doesn't taste sweet. 🙂 I wasn't initially crazy about serving it over spaghetti, but with all of the appropriate toppings it was an amazingly filling meal. Best served with a salad.
Cincinnati Chili – 4 hearty servings – inspired by Bon Appétit
- 2 white onions, chopped (reserve 1/2 – 1 cup for topping)
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 1.5 lbs ground beef (I used 90% lean)
- 2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 Tbsp hot chili powder
- 1 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 2 Tbsp tomato paste
- 2 cups beef broth
- 4 servings spaghetti (I used a quinoa/corn pasta)
- shredded cheese for topping
- 1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
Chop onions and garlic. Don't forget to reserve some onions for topping the chili.
Heat olive oil in large pot…… add onions; saute until tender, about 8-10 minutes. Add garlic; stir for about 1 minute.
Add ground beef; cook until brown, breaking into pieces, about 10 minutes.
Add all spices, apple cider vinegar and tomato paste. Stir until fragrant, about 1 minute.
Add broth; bring to boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for about an hour.
Serving Options:
In Cincinnati, there are 5 different options for serving.
- Plain
- Two Way: Chili and Spaghetti
- Three Way: Chili, Spaghetti and Cheddar Cheese
- Four Way: Chili, Spaghetti, Cheddar Cheese and Onions
- Five Way: Chili, Spaghetti, Cheddar Cheese, Onions and Kidney Beans
But in my house, the Five Way is the only way to go. I just can't imagine it any other way.
The real question is fork or spoon? We went with forks but any Cincy people know what it is served with? Or does it depend on how you order it?


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Trade Is Also Key to Influence in East Asia
By James Hookway and Natasha Brereton-Fukui
The security equation in East Asia is shifting to trade as well as military power, with the U.S. showing signs of a growing interest in economic issues to achieve its goals in the region.
Since the Obama administration began its vaunted pivot to Asia in 2009, Washington has beefed up its military relationships with old allies such as the Philippines and Japan and launched fresh ones with new partners such as Vietnam. Many countries around East Asia welcomed Washington's renewed interest in this part of the world after a decade focused on the Middle East and Afghanistan. Senior Obama administration officials repeatedly laid out their argument that to secure a healthy relationship with China, Asia's vibrant economies also need to have a strong relationship with the United States.
Now, as Secretary of State John Kerry flies into Brunei for a security forum this Sunday, the tussle for influence among the countries circling the South China Sea is turning to trade.


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At-home kit tests for top 10 allergies, including cats
- Kit tests for 10 most common allergens
- Company says test is meant to be affordable%2C accessible
- Allergist urges caution about basing decisions on results
If you've been itching to find out whether you have allergies, an at-home test may be an option.
MyAllergyTest is now a widely available at-home allergy test with Food and Drug Administration clearance for 10 common allergens — substances that can cause the immune system to overreact in some people. The kit tests for Bermuda grass, cat, cedar, egg white, house dust mites, milk, mold, ragweed, Timothy grass and wheat.
The test is among an expanding array of do-it-yourself diagnostic and tracking tools. In addition to at-home pregnancy tests, there are devices to monitor blood glucose levels, blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
MyAllergyTest is for people who are curious about their allergy triggers, the company says. Users are given tools to prick a finger to collect a few drops of blood, which they mail in a special vial to the company. Users receive their confidential results in the U.S. mail or by logging on to a secure website a few days after the lab receives the sample.
The test, from ImmuneTech in Foster City, Calif., has received clearance from the FDA.
"The idea is based on affordability and accessibility to a broader population," says ImmuneTech CEO Lisa Elkins.
The over-the-counter test, with a suggested retail price of $49.95, may appeal to those who are unemployed and don't have health insurance, Elkins says.
"We never advocate that it takes the place of a physician's advice or care, but the reality is that allergy affects a large portion of the population," she says. "It remains largely undiagnosed or self-diagnosed but is a serious condition that can lead to chronic illness, such as asthma."
The test results first provide the cause of the allergy or allergies. A personalized MyAllergyPlan report offers guidance to help manage those allergies. For example, a person who is allergic to ragweed is advised to avoid mowing the lawn.
After people find out what triggers their allergies, they can prevent or treat them, the company says. The plan provides a physician finder to locate an allergist and links to allergy management products. The company recommends that an adult administer the test for those younger than 18.
Linda Cox, president of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, urges caution.
"It is important that a health care professional be involved in interpreting results and directing patients with their allergy or allergy-like symptoms," says Cox, a board-certified allergist in Fort Lauderdale. She says people may have difficulty understanding the results, which may lead to inappropriate decisions.
The kit tests for 10 allergens, but people may have reactions to many other substances, Cox adds.
The company says testing for 10 allergens is a reasonable first step that keeps the cost of the test affordable. It says it is working on adding allergens to give consumers the option to request more testing.
MyAllergyTest received FDA approval for the original lab instrument in 2003. The FDA gave it over-the-counter clearance in 2006.
Before 2013, MyAllergyTest was available on a limited basis online for research to universities, through health care screeners (workplace wellness and health fairs) and a limited number of physicians. It was also available at a limited number of Meijer stores in the Midwest. It is now available nationally at major retailers and pharmacies including Meijer, Walgreens and Walmart.
The price includes the at-home test collection kit, lab fees, confidential results and a personalized allergy management plan. It is covered under Flexible Spending Accounts and Health Savings Accounts.
Four USA TODAY staffers who tried the test had various reactions.
• One, who did not think she had any allergies, said results showed she has a very low allergic response to cats and ragweed. She says she is satisfied with the test because she knows she has some sensitivities.
• Another tester, who has mild asthma, says she takes over-the-counter medication (Allegra) to deal with pollen, dust and animal dander. She says the test confirmed "mild" allergies to dust mites and cats, but it provided no information on her main concerns — dogs and most tree pollens, such as oak trees, which are abundant around her home. She said she didn't think the test was worth the cost.
• A third staffer mailed in a blood sample but got a return e-mail saying she did not send in enough blood. She declined to retake the test.
• The fourth tester says the company should improve the kit's funnel to make it easier to collect the blood. But she says she is satisfied with the test, which indicated she is not allergic to the 10 allergens.


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This is a very special cake that I made for my sister's baby shower. The shower had a farm theme, and so I wanted to do something bright and cheerful.
The sheep and pigs figures are from a book I had recently purchased, Debbie Brown's 50 Easy Party Cakes, a book that I still look at all the time! I absolutely love Debbie Brown's work. She is so talented at modeling figures from fondant and gumpaste, and her work always looks so polished and professional! I was inspired by her work, and this cake was my first attempt at 3-D modeling with fondant. If you are intimidated by 3-D modeling, her books are the perfect first step. She lays out all of the pieces and gives you a step by step on how she constructs her figures.
The little sheep peeking out from the bushes are so cute and remind me of spring. To cover the cake drum I rolled out white fondant and embossed it with an embossing wheel. I then wrapped the edge of the cake drum in a cute red and white gingham ribbon.
This cake has a lot of details, but any of the figures could be used individually as a centerpiece or cake topper. This little chick would look just as cute on top of a cupcake.
Cows are my sister's favorite animal, so the cake definitely had to have a cow. The rectangle portion of the barn is cake and the roof is molded rice krispie treats.
Here is a top view of the cake. My amazing husband made the tree for this cake all by himself!


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Found 8 software entries
from category: Encryption & File Protection
Found 8 software entries
from category: Encryption & File Protection
DiskLock 2.x
Disk and folder locking app
FileGuard 3.x
Welcome to FileGuard, the powerful and easy-to-use Macintosh security program. It provides automatic and transparent protection of data, as well as protection for all volumes, folders, applications and documents on your Macintosh.
GPGTools (Leopard and Tiger)
MasterKey II
MasterKey II allows you to remove passwords from FileMaker II and FileMaker Pro 1.0 files.
NTS TunnelBuilder
Drop a file on this application to quickly encrypt it, or decrypt previously encrypted files. Supports both QE's original encryption format, and a text-based one, suitable for sending in the body of email messages. Supports self-decrypting...
Sentinel is a file encryption utility. It offers two encryption algorythms: DES or SuperCrypt.
yEnc TZ 1.13
To date, Macintosh Repository served 1000539 old Mac files, totaling more than 179302.3GB!
Downloads last 24h = 1089 : 185696.6MB
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