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New exhibit in Albany highlights trail-blazing women in honor of Women's History Month (video)
ALBANY >> Women's History Month debuted at the Capitol Monday with Gov. Andrew Cuomo opening a new exhibit on trail-blazing women and advocates announcing a final push to win passage of his 10-point "Women's Equality Agenda."
The agenda Cuomo announced in his State of the State speech in January includes measures addressing human trafficking, pay equity, non-discrimination against pregnant employees, and sexual harassment. Cuomo also included the Reproductive Health Act, which faces opposition from pro-life groups who see it as an unwarranted expansion of abortion access laws.
"The governor's commitment to pay equity, extending protections against sexual harassment to all of New York's workers, and protecting a woman's right to make her own private health care decisions will undoubtedly help level the playing field and ensure that all New York's mothers, daughters, sisters and wives can fully and equally participate in society," Donna Lieberman of the New York Civil Liberties Union said at a press conference on the bills.
Supporters expressed confidence the entire package of bills would pass the Legislature before the session is over in June.
After the press conference, the advocates from NARAL, the League of Women Voters, YWCAs, and labor unions went to see Cuomo for a tour of the new exhibit outside his office.
The displays have information on famous New York women such as pioneering garment workers union leaders Lavinia Waight and Louise Mitchell, who formed the first womens' labor union in New York City in 1825; and Kate Mullany of Troy, who formed a union of women collar laundry workers in 1864 while just 19 years old. The union lasted for six years, far longer than other early unions composed of women.
Also honored in the exhibit is Frances Perkins, who was state industrial commissioner under Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt, then became secretary of labor and the first woman cabinet member in history when FDR won the presidency. Belva Ann Lockwood, who was born in Niagara County, is also honored as the first woman permitted to practice law before the Supreme Court. She ran for president in 1884 and 1888, becoming the first woman to be nominated by a party.
"New York's women have always been trailblazers in the pursuit of equality and justice in our nation," Cuomo said in a press release announcing the opening of the exhibit. "As the birth place of the women's rights movement in 1848, it is important that we continue that tradition by working toward achieving women's equality in all areas of our society. Through organizing efforts, governmental action or shattering glass ceilings in professions historically dominated by men, the women featured in this exhibit represent the very best of our State's tradition of national leadership in advancing equality and economic justice. I encourage all New Yorkers to visit this exhibit at the Capitol and share in the recognition of these extraordinary women."
The exhibit honorees are:
o Lavinia Waight, co-leader of the first garment workers' strike
o Louise Mitchell, co-leader of the first garment workers' strike
o Jane Hunt, Seneca Falls Convention organizer
o Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, only woman to earn a Congressional Medal of Honor
o Belva Ann Lockwood, pioneering female attorney and political activist
o Rose Schneiderman, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory workers' advocate
o Belle Moskowitz, social reform activist and advisor to Governor Al Smith
o Frances Perkins, first female member of the U.S. Cabinet, served as Secretary of Labor under Presidents Roosevelt and Truman
o Eleanor Roosevelt, influential First Lady and Human Rights activist
o Pauline Newman, organizer of the women's labor movement in New York
o Kate Mullany, founder of the Collar Laundry Union in Troy, New York
o Luisa Moreno, immigrant workers' rights advocate
o Mary McLeod Bethune, African American community rights activist.


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One of the most talked-about studies presented at CROI 2008 was authored by Caroline Sabin and colleagues on behalf of the large, international D:A:D cohort.1 It focused on the impact of specific antiretrovirals on heart attack risk in HIV-infected patients. I had the chance to catch up with Jens Lundgren, M.D., Chief Physician and Director of the Copenhagen HIV Programme, where the D:A:D cohort is based. He'll summarize the data and discuss the ramifications of the results.
Bonnie Goldman: Dr. Lundgren, can you please summarize your study?
Jens Lundgren, M.D.
Jens Lundgren: We looked at the nucleoside analogs to see whether the nucleoside analogs were associated with an altered risk of a myocardial infarction, or heart attack. Before we started the analysis, our assumption was that, if anything, it would be the two thymidine analogs, zidovudine [AZT, Retrovir] and stavudine [d4T, Zerit], that would be the culprits. The analyses, as they turn out, show that that was not the case. Zidovudine and stavudine were, in fact, not at all associated with that, which really surprised us, because we thought that both those drugs had been associated with dyslipidemia, insulin resistance and diabetes, which are obviously intermediate to an excess risk of cardiovascular disease. So we thought that that should then be happening, but we didn't see that.
I think what we were even more surprised about was that, in proper diligence of analyzing this, we also tested some of the other drugs, assuming that they would, at least, be negative. But we found something different. We then spent four months trying to disentangle what this means, and what these signals are describing. At the moment, we have been able to show that this associated risk with the use of abacavir [ABC, Ziagen] is true, as long as you take the drug. If you go off the drug, that excess risk disappears, suggesting that it has something to do with the drug while it's in your body that may be associated with an altered risk of cardiovascular disease.
|Click to enlarge
For additional images from this study, click here.
If these associations are biologically real, what are the biological explanations? We don't know, but it has something to do with the drug itself, as opposed to something where it sort of leaves permanent damage, also after it discontinues.
I think it's very important to underline that this study is an observational study. It's not a randomized trial. Therefore, the interpretation of the findings needs to be more cautious. Because an observational study cannot prove definitively causality between a drug and a given outcome like myocardial infarction. Clearly, people need to make sure that they appreciate that limitation of the study design when they are reviewing the data. We have, of course, done that, as well, and thought long and hard about whether we can identify reasons other than the drug itself that could explain these associations. I must say, we are not able to come up with a proper alternate explanation. That leaves, of course, the possibility that this could be a biologically true effect.
Bonnie Goldman: Isn't it true, though, that patients were put on either ddI [didanosine, Videx] or abacavir because they might have had risk factors for heart disease and it was assumed that the other drugs might have exacerbated these risks?
Jens Lundgren: We checked for that possibility quite carefully. Indeed, there was, at least in some patients; it appears that those who started using abacavir were at slightly higher risk of cardiovascular disease. But we checked for that in our analysis. What you do is: Statistically you then start to adjust for those factors, and if that was the explanation, you would then expect the association with the drug to disappear. It didn't. It didn't affect it at all.
Also, if it was that explanation, one would think that the risk shouldn't go away when you stop the drug, because then it's a subgroup of the patients with a given increased risk that you're studying. That risk will continue after they stop taking abacavir. However, that's not really consistent with what we are finding -- that it is this so-called channelling bias.
Of course we can't exclude the possibility that this is the explanation, if there were factors that we are not aware of that were leading to preventive use of these drugs. But I think we have done the best we can to understand and appreciate whether that's the explanation, and I must say that we haven't found support for that.
Bonnie Goldman: Could you describe the risk? The numbers are a little difficult to understand.
Jens Lundgren: That's the problem, right? When you translate complicated statistical analysis of something, it's hard to know what it means. The number itself is a 90% increased risk. So what does that mean? Well, it means that we can all predict our underlying cardiovascular risk. There's the Framingham equation, and there are other equations that have been developed to predict risk. These predictions essentially formulate which proportion of a given population that lives in the next 10 years will get a heart attack. Some people will have a very low risk; less than 1% will develop a heart attack in the next 10 years. Other populations will have a very high risk, a 20% or 30% risk.
This 90% increased risk needs to be placed into context with the underlying risk. If your underlying risk is low, say ½%, and then you add 90% on top of that, that's still less than 1%. So that's really a trivial problem, I would say, compared to all the other things that we have to worry about in our lives.
On the other hand, if you take a patient with an underlying risk of 20% or 30%, and then you add 90% to that, then it becomes a real deal. At least that's our take on it at the moment -- that in people with a high underlying risk of cardiovascular disease, that's where you at least should start to consider whether this is the right drug to use.
Bonnie Goldman: Could you characterize the 20% Framingham risk for somebody who doesn't check for those risk factors in a patient? Would it be someone who is overweight?
|Click to enlarge
For additional images from this study, click here.
Jens Lundgren: I would say that, if you haven't checked it, it's about time that you start -- not only because of this study, but because I think that it is pivotal information to have when you are assessing preventive strategies. Because we know that there are many modifiable risk factors, like smoking, cholesterol levels, diabetes and hypertension, that you could do something about. So you need to do that.
But anyway, to answer your question directly: A patient who is a male of 45, 50 years of age, a patient who smokes, a patient who is diabetic, those are the sorts of patients that you would think about.
Bonnie Goldman: Tell me a little bit about the cohort. It consists of 33,000 patients?
Jens Lundgren: It's actually a collaboration of cohorts that has been ongoing since 1999. It was put together by a group of physicians, statisticians and other good people that were concerned about what would happen if we continue to use these drugs for a long period of time. So it's a rather unique collaboration internationally, in which we focus very much on quality, the quality of the data that we put into the database. Each of the cohorts does their own research. We then merge the data into one common database. And we cull it to issue other endpoints, to make sure that we get it right.
Bonnie Goldman: Are there other HIV medications that you found that increase the risk?
Jens Lundgren: That's an ongoing project. We published in the New England Journal of Medicine in April 2007 that the protease inhibitor drug class was associated with an increased risk.2 But that was studying a class of drugs, not individual drugs. So we are currently working on studying which drugs in the protease inhibitor class are potentially the explanation for this, but we haven't got there yet.
Bonnie Goldman: Are there any plans for a randomized study now?
Jens Lundgren: I would love to do a randomized trial. As a matter of fact, I would love to see many more randomized trials to assess these issues. Of course, the issue about randomized trials is that these have to be very large, and they need to be long-term. And therefore, randomized trials cost a lot of money. But if we can generate the funds to do these trials, I think that's absolutely the best way to go. Because that provides much more definitive information about these issues.
The problem of course is that there are many different permutations of drug combinations that you can start to compare. And if each one of them requires a 10,000-patient study, you're going to use billions of dollars. So although that's the sort of state-of-the-art and the preferred way of doing it, it may not all happen. As a matter of fact, there are very few randomized studies that include several thousand patients. The biggest one in recent times is the SMART study that included 5,400 patients.3 That's a little bit of our dilemma at the moment, since we want to get these drugs on the market. We want to get them quickly on the market, because they help people to survive. And we should not put too much of a blockage from a regulatory point of view, before they are released into the market.
But as a consequence, the studies that are done to prove effect, what you call biological endpoint studies, are not clinical endpoint studies. So you rely on these relatively small-sized studies to fully describe the benefits and the risks of the drugs. And clearly, that may or may not be the case. Certainly, our study, which we're now reporting, raises the question of whether we actually have good enough information from the randomized trials that are used to get the drugs on the market to really ensure that we fully understand the benefits and the risks of using these drugs. I think that's a fundamental dilemma that we have. I think it is an important area of discussion, given the fact that we have to use these drugs for the rest of a patient's life. This is not a short-term treatment we're talking about, of course. It's decades of using these drugs. We need to understand -- I need to understand which drugs are causing which problems in my patients so I can start to talk to my patients about these problems, and make sure that we address them as proactively as we can. I think that's the challenge that we are faced with.
Bonnie Goldman: I think this study, as well as other studies at the conference, are showing that you have to look at the full health history of a patient before even prescribing HIV medications, because of all these factors. Because certain drugs will have this problem. And particularly with a combination of three, it's kind of an art to figure out which regimen will not cause issues.
Jens Lundgren: But isn't that amazing? Five years ago, we were all upset about CD4 cell count and viral load, and we still should be, of course. But now we're starting to discuss underlying cardiovascular risk. It's a new mindset. I think it shows the maturity of the field. We're getting into a more mature understanding of the issues.
|Click to enlarge
For additional images from this study, click here.
Of course, we all appreciate that these drugs are saving lives. They should be used, but they should be used appropriately. We are doing the right thing, irrespective of what drugs we're using, of course, but the challenge becomes: Can we do better? Back in '96, '97, you needed the randomized trial of 100 patients to show a benefit of a new drug. I mean, it was trivial. It was obvious that this works. Now we talk about several thousands of patients. If you look at cardiovascular research, they started off with a small number of studies, because the benefits were obvious. But now they also do very large studies. So I think that's where the field has to move, because that's where the research questions now reside, and these large studies are needed to answer those questions.
Bonnie Goldman: I'd like to further discuss the abacavir link. Was there any link seen with the duration of the use of abacavir?
Jens Lundgren: No. That was one of the surprises, because that's what we found when we studied the protease inhibitors -- that the longer you had been on, the bigger the problem became. But it was a very different signal that we found with abacavir. It appears that there is a fairly immediate onset of excess risk that is then maintained at a similar level, irrespective of how long a time you have actually used the drug -- not a higher and higher risk the longer you've been using it. It disappears, as I mentioned, once you go off the drug.
Bonnie Goldman: That was true with ddI, as well.
Jens Lundgren: It looks like that's true for ddI. I would say that if you're used to looking at large numbers and many results and so forth, there are some results that, although they are statistically significant, you are [less] comfortable about than others. That's not to [discredit] what we have been reporting, but I'm more comfortable about the abacavir signal than the didanosine signal. It's a stronger signal, and therefore, I'm more confident about it.
Bonnie Goldman: Tenofovir [TDF, Viread] and FTC [emtricitabine, Emtriva] were not compared in this, because not enough patients were taking it, I understand?
Jens Lundgren: There are a lot of patients now taking tenofovir, but that's not going to cut it. You also need to have been using the drugs for a reasonable period of time.
Bonnie Goldman: When you say "reasonable," what do you mean?
Jens Lundgren: That depends on how many patients are on it. The more patients on it, the shorter period of time you need until you can start to analyze it. So I suspect that we will, within the next year or two, be able to look into tenofovir, as well. But I don't think it is helpful to put out preliminary findings. That's certainly not how we have gone about reporting our findings. We want to report findings when we're confident in the results. And we're just not confident in the tenofovir results yet. There's only one way to fix that, and that is to wait a little bit, and have a little bit of patience. But I can guarantee you that we will report it when we feel confident, as we did with this.
Bonnie Goldman: I see you've put out a position statement by the D:A:D Steering Committee.4 Why did you decide to do that?
Jens Lundgren: I think I can reflect the mood of the steering committee quite precisely by saying that we essentially didn't believe it. We've tried over three months -- from October, when we first saw this, until December -- to disprove what we have found.
Bonnie Goldman: Meaning your results were surprising to everybody.
Jens Lundgren: Yes. We just couldn't believe it.
Bonnie Goldman: Because it was counterintuitive.
Jens Lundgren: Not counterintuitive. Because I wouldn't say that there's evidence that it would not be, but it was highly unexpected. And therefore, you start to then worry: Did we err? Did we do something wrong in our analysis? These are huge statistical programs that deal with these huge datasets. There are many things that can go wrong in that process.
But with due diligence -- three months -- we came up with the same signal. So we said, we're not going to sit on this anymore. We're going to put this out there. But we knew -- at least, we suspected -- that people would get word about this. An abstract is about two hundred, three hundred words. It's a very limited space in which to explain this. And of course, what we would hate to see would be that people reacted in what I would characterize as an irrational manner with regards to this report. For example, "Oh, I can't take these drugs anymore. I need to drop that drug." That would be terrible.
We felt, as a group, that we had a certain responsibility. That was why we put this position statement up. So that people at least have the opportunity to read and understand where we're coming from, what we have found, and our thinking around this -- including the limitations of the study, our take on this, as well as some advice on how to discuss the results with their treating physician.
Bonnie Goldman: What do you think the biggest misunderstanding will be about this study?
Jens Lundgren: I'm concerned about a couple of things, which we are obviously trying to prevent. The first thing is that people will be angry or frustrated. That would just be terrible.
Bonnie Goldman: Meaning, clinicians and patients will just say all HIV drugs are problematic.
Jens Lundgren: Yes, and being very pessimistic about the whole thing and so forth. That's not the point here. The point is that the scientific process means that you identify something. You report it to your colleagues in order to allow for discussions with them, to allow for colleagues to then look at their own dataset, and, whether or not they find something like this, to allow for a consensus at some point. It takes time, but the scientific process starts by us reporting a new and novel finding like this. People just need to understand that this process takes time to resolve itself. It will resolve itself. I can guarantee you, whether it takes a year or two years, it will. There will be studies done. There will be analyses done to try to understand what the biological mechanism is, if any, and so forth. This will stimulate a lot of research.
The purpose is not to make people's lives miserable, but to help in the longer run to understand what this all means.
|Click to enlarge
For additional images from this study, click here.
The second concern would be people not appreciating relative and absolute risk. These are difficult and complex things to think about. With respect to this 90% increased risk, people said, "Wow, that's a big risk!" But, as we talked about earlier, it depends on your underlying risk. If your underlying risk is low, a 90% increased risk remains low.
Bonnie Goldman: Under 1%.
Jens Lundgren: In that given example, right. But we are not used to discussing these issues. I don't think we, as a physician and patient community, have spent enough time understanding the difference between relative risk and absolute risk, which depends on the individual. We need to have more discussions about that so people can understand that, and can intuitively react to that. I hope we will avoid that confusion.
Somebody was saying, "So, we need to switch all our patients away from abacavir?" I said, "Heavens, no. That would be the last thing I would be suggesting that people should do." But there are certain subgroups of patients -- those with high underlying risks -- that you want to focus on and consider carefully. Why is this patient on abacavir? Do they have any other drug options left?
I hope that people will reflect, ask questions, and have discussions. If people have other questions about the study, we're very happy to discuss that and provide clarity. Our purpose here is to try to provide a transparent reporting of our findings. We're reporting them in complete honesty through the process we used, and they are here to be discussed.
Bonnie Goldman: A few more questions about the study population: Was this an older population? What was the average age?
Jens Lundgren: When the patients came into the study a couple of years ago, they were around 38 to 40 years old. They have obviously grown older, as a consequence of the study continuing. So they are now 43, 44, 45 years old. But that's the typical HIV population.
Bonnie Goldman: Right. It's an older population that has a higher risk, in any case.
Jens Lundgren: The risk gradually grows as you age. Cardiovascular disease is an age-related risk. That's when you see the heart attacks: in your 50s, if you are a male. That risk is delayed by around 10 years if you're female. That's how cardiovascular risk behaves in the background population, in the general population, and certainly, it reacts in the same way in HIV patients.
Bonnie Goldman: So, if I'm a 25-year-old HIV-positive male, or I'm a clinician with lots of patients in their twenties ...
Jens Lundgren: This is irrelevant. There are many, many other issues in 25-year-olds that are much, much more important to focus on.
Bonnie Goldman: Than this possible risk.
Jens Lundgren: There are many, many other things that you need to put into consideration. But clearly, if you are talking to a 55-year-old male who smokes, you need to have a serious discussion with this person. Not only about abacavir, but also about not smoking. Maybe he should exercise more. Maybe he should be put on a statin to lower his cholesterol level. Maybe we should check his blood pressure? Is that OK? Is it elevated? Do we need to treat that? Those with HIV are affected by all the other diseases that the general population is affected by. We know that. If we think a little bit more carefully about this: hypertension is a problem; diabetes is a problem in an older population, especially if they are obese.
These factors behave in the same way if you are infected with HIV, as opposed to not infected. HIV is not protecting you from all these problems.
Bonnie Goldman: Are you making any changes with your patients?
Jens Lundgren: I will carefully talk about the results with certain patients and then come to a joint conclusion about possibly switching meds. But I would say that's a decision between me and my patient. I just need to make sure that the patient understands what the findings are.
Bonnie Goldman: But would you talk to only the older patients, and those with higher risks? Or would you also talk to the patients who are just infected?
Jens Lundgren: I would certainly focus my attention on the older patients. In the younger, I would probably be much more focused if they are smokers, for example. I mean, why don't you quit your smoking? That's good advice. I think it's very helpful, not only for your cardiovascular risk, but a variety of others. Fifty percent of the HIV population that we are studying are smokers. So that's a real health problem. That would probably be my main discussion point with the younger patient population. It would be the same with older patients, but I may want to add, "Why don't we switch this drug, if we have other viable options?"
Bonnie Goldman: I want you to tell our audience a little bit about this amazing cohort of 33,000 people, in many countries. How did it start?
Jens Lundgren: It started as a consequence of discussions that a small group of us had with the European Medicine Evaluation Agency, the MEA, which is the European equivalent of the FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration]. We were slightly concerned that, although it was great that all these drugs came about, in '96, '97, the randomized trials that were the basis of getting them on the market were very small, and very short-term. We were concerned that there was not a plan to monitor and assess what would happen in the longer run when you're using these drugs. We started to get interested in the metabolic problems, the dyslipidemia, etc., and there were a lot of reports coming out from '97 to '99. So we got together and discussed this and agreed that this is something that needs to be focused on.
Bonnie Goldman: Who got together?
Jens Lundgren: We were a group of people that got together in parallel with a discussion between me and Professor Ian Weller from University College, London, as well as the European Medicine Evaluation Agency. There was a quite famous meeting in March 1999 at the MEA in London, where this was put on the table as a problem that needed to get attention. Then we got all the cohorts together. We surveyed essentially the world for who was able and had an existing cohort that provided good quality information. Then we discussed these cohorts together.
There is a very good international network, among cohorts, particularly in Europe, but also in the United States and Australia. We agreed that we need to team up, because these are going to be relatively rare events. None of the cohorts could, by themselves, address this question.
So we teamed up as a group. Eleven cohorts got together, merged our respective databases, agreed on a common platform of data collection of the myocardial infarctions and other outcomes. Then it sort of evolved itself.
The primary focus to begin with was myocardial infarction, but now we're moving into liver disease; we're moving into non-AIDS-defining malignancies; we're moving into chronic kidney failure. These events that are of concern at the moment, but where we still don't really know exactly how big of a problem this is. So we are trying to develop this into a more comprehensive surveillance system, to make sure that we are able to identify emerging safety problems.
Bonnie Goldman: I understand the entire HIV-positive population of the Netherlands is included in this cohort.
Jens Lundgren: There are national cohorts with very good infrastructure and very good data quality in Holland. In Switzerland, for example, also, there's an extraordinarily strong group. There are other areas where not necessarily all patients are involved, but a fat chunk of the patients are involved, in various cohort studies. We needed a lot of patients. We could calculate that, before we even got the study started, we needed a lot of patients in order to have enough endpoints to start saying something about this. It wouldn't be enough to have a couple of thousand, so we needed a lot of patients.
But the trick here, if you want to get a study like this going and get it sustainable, is to make sure that the people who are involved in collecting the data are providing good quality data, and are able to follow the patients over a long period of time. This is a chronic disease; therefore, long-term follow-up of patients is vital to maintain the integrity of these studies. There are a lot of good groups out there, who are doing a lot of work. There are over 200 clinics around the world who are participating in D:A:D. So there are a huge number of people who are involved. If they see a patient with myocardial infarction, then they report that finding into the cohort that then reports it to us in Copenhagen, which is the coordinating center. It's a huge international network, which has now been in existence for eight years. I hope we can continue to do this sort of work, because I find this to be very important. We are obviously a big group that is in consensus on that, and want to focus on this as an area of research. Not the only one, but one area of research.
Bonnie Goldman: Very interesting. Dr. Lundgren, thank you very much.
Jens Lundgren: You're welcome.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
- Sabin C, Worm S, Weber R, et al, and the D:A:D Study Group. Do thymidine analogues, abacavir, didanosine and lamivudine contribute to the risk of myocardial infarction? The D:A:D study. In: Program and abstracts of the 15th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections; February 3-6, 2008; Boston, Mass. Abstract 957c.
- The D:A:D study group. Class of antiretroviral drugs and the risk of myocardial infarction. N Engl J Med. April 26, 2007;356(17):1723-1735.
- Strategies for Management of Antiretroviral Therapy (SMART) Study Group, El-Sadr WM, Lundgren JD, et al. CD4+ count-guided interruption of antiretroviral treatment. N Engl J Med. November 30, 2006;355(22):2283-2296.
- The D:A:D Steering Committee. Position statement on recent use of abacavir and didanosine, but not of thymidine analogues, is associated with risk of myocardial infarction. Copenhagen HIV Programme. February 4, 2008.

subset: commoncrawl


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Announcing 'The Zedcade'
Okay, so, glossing over the catastrophic failure of the IndieGoGo campaign for a minute (I might write something about that at some point, I dunno), let's move on.
I managed to purchase the Android exporter for Multimedia Fusion 2, which means I'm launching a full-frontal assault on the Android market with my usual style and finesse (ahem).
I've gone ahead and set up a dedicated blog just for my Android games, which you can find here.
I'm hoping to release a game a week over twelve weeks, to give myself a bit of a 'jumpstart' on the platform. I've already released two, which you can find on the Play store.
So yes, onwards and upwards. No time for dwelling on our failures, and all that.
Reasons To Donate #5 – Because Look At What Else $10 Can Buy You
Click Here To Watch An Informational Video Of Some Guy Rambling For About Fourteen Minutes In His Kitchen
The lowest tier you can pledge to BitJackers and still receive a reward is $10 (you can, if you want, donate less and I won't stop you, but I mean… you're not going to get anything other than maybe a 'thanks' on Twitter), which will get you a lovely DRM-free direct download of the finished game that is yours to keep forever and ever. Burn it to a CD (do people still do that?), drop it on a flash drive, hell, seed it on PirateBay for all I care. It's yours, do what you want with it.
Now I know, times are hard. That $10, you probably had to work pretty hard for it. It's your 'leisure money', that you can spend on any number of enjoyable activities, as you should. Why then, should you choose to give it to me? Because it's a damn sight better than some of your other game-related options.
For $10, you can purchase:
About 98% of a used copy of The Sims 3: Town Life Stuff
One of those little Skylander figurine things (probably not one of the more popular ones, I'm guessing)
Two thirds of a map pack for Black Ops 2
Whatever the hell THIS monstrosity is
So there you have it. There are much worse ways to spend your hard-won $10, and I'd be honoured and privileged if you were to pledge them to me.
Reasons To Donate #4 – Because It's Going To Look Spectacular
Click Here To Go To The Project Page And Pledge Your Life Away
See all these images? These aren't BitJackers. BUT! They ARE all examples of work by the artist I have on board for the project, a man by the name of James Biddulph. He lives locally, and produces some of the best pixel art I've ever seen. All I need is the funds to pay him.
Looks amazing, right? Top-drawer stuff. But that's not all! Oh no. Some of you might be aware of a recently released flash game, garnering a fair bit of press coverage, called Tax Evaders. It's a Space Invaders clone with a political message about capitalism (I think). James also did the artwork for that, and I think that ALSO looks pretty bloody fantastic.
Basically, if I hit the target, BitJackers will look like an amazing wonderland of cyberpunk-themed gorgeousness, because the guy involved is brilliantly talented at what he does. Reason enough to push at least $10 my way, wouldn't you say?
Reasons To Donate #3 – Because I Am All About Customer Satisfaction
Click Here To Go To The BitJackers IndieGoGo Page And Throw Money At Me
Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know that I can act like a moron, pretty much all the time. I'm publically goofy, because I prefer people to know 'me', rather than some corporate identity I've made up under some misguided notion of 'professionalism'.
In the spirit of that, I've been tweeting ridiculous things I'd be willing to do, in order to get people to pledge to the BitJackers campaign. One of these was what you see above.
Well, somebody took me up on it.
Only for $1, which would mean mailing them a physical photo would end up costing more than the amount of money they've actually pledged, but not to go back on my word, I decided to take these photos.
I did this because a) it's goofy, b) it made me smile and c) because I am all about making people happy. When they pledge to me, when they give me money, when they show me support in any fashion, I like to give back to them in a way that I'd appreciate from someone else. Hence, meat.
This actually has very little to do with videogames, but everything to do with me as a person. I hope these photos of meat will bring you a great understanding of me, on a personal level.
Reasons To Donate #2 – Because Crowdfunding's Getting A Bit Silly, Now
Click here to go to the BitJackers Campaign page on IndieGoGo
Far be it from me to tell someone they shouldn't 'follow their dreams' with every fiber of their being. Hell, that's what I'm doing. I think crowdfunding is a great avenue for that, giving opportunities to people who would otherwise never get a look in.
Stuff like this, though… Not so much. It's not just this kid and his Titan, either.
Crowdfunding as a whole has had a few… 'issues'. I wouldn't feel comfortable going into too much detail, because I don't want to look all judgemental and what-not, but if you're a follower of crowdfunding campaigns, especially within the games industry, you've undoubtedly seen one or two that are just… iffy.
BitJackers is not iffy. It's actually very straightforward, honest, open and pretty simple. As I said in the pitch video and accompanying text, the Arcade mode is done. As a backer, there is no risk to you at all, other than "OH MY GOSH, ZED HAS MET HIS UNTIMELY DEMISE AT THE HANDS OF A ROGUE BUS DRIVER!" or something.
BitJackers is, to toot my own horn a bit, 'one of the good ones'.
Reasons To Donate #1 – Because I Can't Art
Check out the BitJackers IndieGoGo Campaign Page
See this? See what I'm 'capable' of? I recently saw coverage of an AMAZING-looking game, all drawn in ball-point pen, so I thought "Okay, we'll give that a go". This is where I ended up.
I think we can all agree, I shouldn't be allowed to draw things. For this reason, I need money. Otherwise BitJackers is going to look AWFUL.
Have I mentioned that James BIddulph, the guy I've got on board to do all the game art and such, also did the same for the recently released Tax Evaders? So you know there's some good quality lined up, here. I just need to be able to pay the ludicrously talented man for his time.
The BitJackers – A Plea For Funds
So I just realised, the campaign's been live for a couple of days, yet I've not updated my site. This shouldn't come as a shock, because I'm really bad at updating my site. If you're coming here from the campaign page, hello! I'm Zed. I don't update very often – I'm awful at it. WordPress scares and confuses me.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go to the BitJackers campaign page. There's a video and a whole bunch of text to explain what it's all about, which I contemplated just pasting here, and then thought "Nah, they don't want to read the same thing twice." So just go there, instead. Please.
And definitely please watch the video – I can't even begin to tell you how long that thing took to make. Something like six attempts, and so many hours of editing, and then even MORE hours of uploading. Just.. I mean… I hate making videos. Absolutely hate it. That, and printing things. It's 2013, and we still haven't streamlined the printing process to an easy, manageable form.
But I digress.
I think I WILL be writing more updates, but they won't be directly ABOUT the project, other than "reasons why you should donate", which I've just started doing on Twitter, for the unfortunate sods who happen to follow me there.
So yes, that's BitJackers, I'm Zayne, hello, please give me money.
Ludum Dare 24 – My Entries
It's Ludum Dare time again, around the rather difficult theme of 'Evolution', and that means new games coming from me, straight to your entertainment-box. Yes, games.
For a lot of people, making just one game in the space of 72 hours is a massive achievement (and so it should be). Me? I had to be different. Of course I did. So I made two. Read the rest of this entry
The Talking Zed – Episode 01 – 'Flibble'
'The Talking Zed'? Get it? Like 'The Walking Dead' but diff– Oh, nevermind.
I COULD have written a blog post, but I thought "bugger it, let's make a video". So here's a video, in which I wear a shirt and talk at the camera for a bit. Read the rest of this entry
'Flibble' is out. More later.
It's late and I'm tired, so I'll write a more in-depth… thingy tomorrow, but for now, just go LOOK AT IT. And buy it. Definitely buy it.


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Hats embodying the shapes of animals, or decorated with auspicious symbols, were worn by Chinese children to protect them from evil spirits and to ensure their future successes. Animals were understood to bestow unique abilities such as strength and power, and would also protect the child by virtue of these same qualities. Worn mostly by boys between the ages of one month and five years, these hats were given to mark special occasions during the child's development. They were worn for festive events, such as a child's birthday, New Year's celebrations, or for the Dragon Boat festival. There were several types of hats: a first month cap, given when a child reaches one month old; an open crown cap, also worn in infancy, and; a dog head cap to mark the first birthday. Other hats include the wind hat, tiger hat and scholar hat, which was given to older children to ensure future social and political success.
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Find information about flood management programs in place to assist the citizens of Gloucester County.
As the state's lead conservation agency, DCR protects what Virginians care about – open space, clean water, natural habitat, safe infrastructure and access to the outdoors.


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Curry may combat Alzheimer's
Here you go, grandad, get your laughing gear round this phal
US researchers have isolated a compound in turmeric - commonly used in the UK's national dish chicken tikka masala and other more deadly curry concoctions - which "may help stimulate immune system cells that gobble up the brain-clogging proteins that mark Alzheimer's disease", Reuters reports.
Dr Milan Fiala of the University of California Los Angeles and colleagues note in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they'd already shown that curcumin "may affect the brain cells of Alzheimer's patients", but wanted to pinpoint the "precise factor" responsible.
They eventually fingered bisdemethoxycurcumin, and blood samples from Alzheimer's patients demonstrated that it "boosted immune cells called macrophages to clear a protein called amyloid beta, which clogs the brains of Alzheimer's patients and kills brain cells".
But before you set out a platter of steaming phal in front of grandad, note that the researchers are not certain if it's possible to eat enough curcumin to kick off a positive reaction, despite previous studies indicating that robust curry consumption can combat Alzheimer's. They did, however, suggest that "bisdemethoxycurcumin was active at a level that could easily be achieved by infusion".
The team concluded: "Our results may provide an entirely different direction to therapeutic opportunities in Alzheimer's disease through the repair of the functional and transcriptional deficits of Alzheimer's disease macrophages by curcuminoids." ®
Curcumin - the principal curcuminoid (a polyphenolic compound) in turmeric - appears to be a bit of a winner. Researchers have also found that, in rats at least, it can also help prevent the formation of tumours. Oregon State Uni has a detailed analysis of the compound and its possible uses here.
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MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Islamist rebels blew up a car bomb and gunmen attacked a national intelligence site in Somalia's capital where suspected militants are held, in an assault on Sunday that left at least 12 people dead.
Three soldiers and two civilians were killed along with seven militants, including the suicide bomber who detonated the vehicle packed with explosives, government officials said.
After the initial blast, gunmen stormed the compound but did not reach the underground cells where suspected militants were being detained, Security Ministry spokesman Mohamed Yusuf told reporters at the site.
One intelligence officer, who identified himself only as Nur, told Reuters the gunmen had entered one building, forcing security personnel to fight room-to-room to clear them out. "All the attackers perished in the end," Nur said.
"It seems their target was to cause a mess here and thus free their militant colleagues held in the underground cells, but that will not happen," Nur said.
Some of the attackers wore stolen uniforms of the security forces, the Information Ministry said in a statement, adding that all the militants were killed with 45 minutes of the attack starting. It said the two civilians killed had been passers-by.
Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab's spokesman for military operations, told Reuters the group was behind the attack, the latest in a series of raids in Mogadishu in recent months, including a July assault on the presidential compound.
"For a long time innocent Muslims have suffered in the dungeons of that prison, subjected to torture and humiliation," he said in a statement, adding the raid was "in retaliation and as just punishment for the apostate criminals."
Abu Musab said 15 members of the security forces were killed. Al Shabaab's death toll after attacks is usually much higher than the numbers given by officials.
The presidential compound, which is situated near the national intelligence site, was also attacked using what has become a familiar tactic: a vehicle tries to blast its way through perimeter security and gunmen charge in afterwards.
The president was not present during the July raid.
Al Shabaab, which wants to impose its own strict version of Islam, controlled Mogadishu and the southern region of Somalia from 2006 to 2011. It was driven out of the capital by peacekeeping forces deployed by the African Union.
African forces launched a new offensive this year to drive the Islamists out of towns and other areas they still control. Several centres have been retaken, but al Shabaab remains in control of some towns and swathes of countryside.
Additional reporting by Feisal Omar in Mogadishu; Writing by Edmund Blair in Nairobi; Editing by Rosalind Russell


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Schiller, Friedrich von
Schiller, Friedrich von, 1759–1805, German dramatist, poet, and historian, one of the greatest of German literary figures, b. Marbach, Württemberg. The poets of German romanticism were strongly influenced by Schiller, and he ranks as one of the founders of modern German literature, second only to Goethe.
Sections in this article:
- Introduction
- Life
- Work
- Bibliography
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: German Literature: Biographies


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Finalist for Vancouver Island Better Business Bureau Award! Yipee!
We just learned last week that we are one of five finalists for the Torch Award–an award given to businesses on Vancouver Island in salute of their commitment to ethical business practices and community. There were 138 island businesses nominated for 12 award categories, with 52 finalists. We'll know next Friday, May 14, if we are the winner in the hospitality category, but the honor of the nomination is a privilege. Thanks to our guests and business friends who may have nominated us!
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Judge revokes Lindsay Lohan's probation
More court trouble for LiLo.
A Los Angeles judge revoked Lindsay Lohan's probation today and scheduled a hearing that could result in more jail time.
Lohan, 26, was not in court. She didn't have to be; attorney Shawn Holley represented her. Lohan is said to have jetted off to London and Dubai with rock group The Wanted and her rumored boyfriend Max George.
The ruling came as Lohan faces misdemeanor counts of reckless driving, lying to a police officer and obstructing an officer from performing duties after an accident in which her Porsche slammed into the back of a dump truck in June, reports AP.
Lohan told police in Santa Monica that her assistant was driving, but detectives have reason to believe that isn't true and that actress was behind the wheel as she headed to a movie set. Lohan was on probation at the time after previously being convicted of two DUI charges and the misdemeanor theft of a necklace.
A probation violation hearing was set for Jan. 15, when she Lohan is expected to be formally charged with the three misdemeanors stemming from crash. A judge could sentence the actress up to 245 days in jail, reports AP.
Outside the courtroom, Holley told E! News that Lindsay is not required to appear at the next hearing, and the attorney plans to have the entire situation resolved so that Lohan will never have to appear. But, notes E!, Lohan will have to turn herself in for booking at some point. (Mug shot time!).
Meanwhile, Lohan also is due back in New York court Jan. 7 for an arraignment into her alleged assault of Tiffany Mitchell.


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Well, Rebelscum has another "411" up at their site, this time detailing the exclusives for the next year. If true, it looks like a whole heck of a lot of them again, and once again...I feel for completists.
Clone War Gunner = one of the two clones in the gunships with the big guns in the first episode of season 2 of the cartoon?
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This beautiful piece adds contemporary flair to your living room setting. Crafted from various wood solids, the minimalist piece showcases a unique 'S' shaped design that features two large and two small shelves for storage. Available in multiple finish options, this elegant accent piece will give your modern living room an added style dimension.
The Contemporary Alder Contemporary Cocktail Table with Storage by Aspenhome at Reeds Furniture in the Los Angeles, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Agoura Hills, Oxnard, Calabassas, Malibu, California area. Product availability may vary. Contact us for the most current availability on this product.
Enhance your home with the fresh and casual designs from this collection collection of accent and entertainment furniture. Constructed from Alder and Poplar solids with select veneers, the collection offers sturdy pieces for the living room, office, and entertainment space. TV consoles, bookcases, and occasional tables present open shelving to store and display your possessions, with vertical dividers creating striking geometric designs. Combinations of open and closed backs on select items play with space and dimension. Perfectly at home in a casual suburban abode or a downtown loft, this collection provides fresh silhouettes with a natural rustic allure for functional pieces with warm contemporary style.
The Contemporary Alder collection is a great option if you are looking for Contemporary furniture in the Los Angeles, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Agoura Hills, Oxnard, Calabassas, Malibu, California area.
These images are representative of this group as a whole and may differ from this item.
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This item has been tagged as: Living Room Furniture, Accent Furniture, Occasional Furniture, Cabinet, Cabinet Tables, Storage Tables, Small Storage Cabinet, Chairside Cabinet, Short Cabinet, Accent Cabinet, Commode, Cocktail Tables, Lift – Top Cocktail Table, Storage Table, Cocktail Coffee Table, Cocktail Table with Storage, Coffee Table, Lift – Top Coffee Table, Coffee Table with Storage, Couch Table, Magazine Storage, Sitting Room Tables, End Table, Chairside Table, Coffee and End Tables, Furniture End Tables, Accent Table, Lamp Table, Pedestal Table, Hall Tree, Storage Hall Tree, Hall Tree with Storage, Coat Rack, Hall Tree Coat Rack, Entry Hall Tree, Hat Rack, Hall Trees with Benches, Bench and Hall Tree, Clothes Tree, Hall Tree Furniture, Entry Furniture, Foyer Furniture, Sofa Table, Furniture Sofa Table, Console Table, Sofa Console Tables, Sofa End Table, Secretary Desk, Table Desk, Wine Rack, Wine Glass Rack, Wine Storage, Wine Bottle Storage, Wine Storage Rack, Wine Bottle Rack, Cabinet Wine Rack, Wine Glass Storage, Wine Storage Cabinet, Larder, Kitchen Storage, Dining Room Storage, Occasional Tables
Nothing on this page may be copied or reproduced without explicit permission.


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Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Recently, Elyse, of Elyse's Confectionary Creations, posted a
delicious-looking coffee cake that she adapted from Baked. I wanted to try it, but coffee cakes are too big for a family of two where one person doesn't eat desserts. So I adapted the recipe for muffins.
My first adaptation including reducing the fat content by subbing banana for part of the fat. The muffins were good, but not great. I decided to try again. This time, I subbed applesauce for part of the fat and used fat-free yogurt for part of the sour cream, with a little cream added.
I also added "coffee essence," a flavoring I use a lot of. It's coffee brandy with instant coffee granules added. I store it in the fridge in a little jar. And, since I won a bag of Ultragrain flour recently, I decided to try it. (Ultragrain flour is 30% whole wheat and bakes up just like all-purpose flour.) These muffins were the bomb! Not only is the flavor divine, the texture of these muffins is tender and soft and the crumb topping is nicely clumped for a soft crunch. There's plenty of chocolate in these babies, too. I highly recommend these muffins. Thanks, Elyse, for a great recipe.
Crumb-Topped Chocolate Cinnamon Swirl Muffins
Adapted from Elyse's Confectionary Creations and Baked
Rating: 10 out of 10
1/4 cup Ultragrain flour (or all-purpose, if preferred)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp. sea salt
1/3 cup pecans
1/3 cup chocolate chips
3 Tbsp. butter
Combine flour, sugar, and salt in food processor and pulse till mixed. Add pecans and chocolate chips. Pulse till fully ground. Add butter and pulse until combined. Refrigerate.
CHOCOLATE-CINNAMON SWIRL: 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. Hershey's Special Dark cocoa (or natural unsweetened, if preferred)
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup chocolate chips
Combine all ingredients in small bowl; set aside.
1-3/4 cup Ultragrain or all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. sea salt
1/4 cup (1/2 stick)butter, melted and partially cooled
1-1/8 cups sugar
1 large egg
6 oz. fat-free vanilla yogurt + 2 oz. heavy cream OR 8 oz. fat-free vanilla yogurt
3/4 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. coffee essence*
1/2 cup applesauce
Preheat oven to 400F. Spray a 12-cup muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray; set aside. In medium bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. In small bowl, whisk butter and sugar together; add egg, yogurt, cream, vanilla, coffee essence and applesauce and whisk till well combined and smooth. Pour over dry ingredients and stir with spoon or spatula till barely combined. Place a rounded Tbsp. in each muffin cup. Divide chocolate cinnamon swirl ingredients evenly among cups, using about 2 tsp. for each. Top with remaining muffin batter. Divide crumb topping among muffins, pressing in slightly. Place in oven and immediately reduce heat to 325F. Bake 18-20 minutes, or till a toothpick inserted in muffin returns with just a few crumbs. If you hit chocolate, reinsert toothpick carefully and don't go all the way down -- remember there's a pocket of melting chocolate down there. Cool muffins in pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to finish cooling.
9 comments:
- Elyse said...
Judy, your adaptations sound fabulous!! You have me wanting to get into the kitchen to try these muffins right now. I mean, they are just gorgeous!! You are such a stellar recipe maker/adapter!! I was just about to make myself some dinner, but I may make some muffins instead!
- March 18, 2009 at 9:46 PM
- Barbara Bakes said...
I love that it has a sweet topping and a swirl!
- March 18, 2009 at 11:16 PM
- Sam Hoffer / My Carolina Kitchen said...
Judy, your muffins look yummy. It's my breakfast time right now so I'll be right over. I wish I lived next door.
- March 19, 2009 at 6:05 AM
- Debbie said...
Judy they look delicious. I love the combo of coffee, cinnamon and chocolate!
- March 19, 2009 at 9:07 AM
- Sophia Lee said...
gosh, those are just too scrumptious looking! I'm drooling all over! lovely combo of flavors!
- March 19, 2009 at 1:04 PM
These look so good - I'd just eat the tops though - that's the best part!!
- March 19, 2009 at 4:10 PM
- Talita said...
Yummm... delicious! I almost can smell these muffins in the oven! Fabulos!
- March 20, 2009 at 1:52 PM
- Katrina said...
These look great!
- March 20, 2009 at 5:59 PM
- Donna-FFW said...
yes, Judy I almost missed this one, thank you for pointing it out, it is right up my alley. I am adding this to my must try list!Thank you soo much!
- March 20, 2009 at 9:53 PM


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TSM Economices of Scale
Visits (12791)
While I am not trying to start a blogfight with fellow blogger Scott Waterhouse from EMC, his latest post about TSM is just distasteful. Quick recap:
"So does TSM scale? Sure! Just add more servers. But this is not an economy of scale. Nothing gets less expensive as the capacity grows. You get a more or less linear growth of costs that is directly correlated to the growth of primary storage capacity. (Technically, it costs will jump at regular and predictable intervals, by regular and predictable and equal amounts, as you add TSM servers to the infrastructure--but on average it is a direct linear growth. Assuming you are right sized right now, if you were to double your primary storage capacity, you would double the size of the TSM infrastructure, and double your associated costs.)"
I talked about inaccurate vendor FUD in my post [The murals in restaurants], and recently, I saw StorageBod's piece, [FUDdy Waters]. So what would "economies of scale" look like? Using Scott's own words:
So, I have demonstrated how savings through economies of scale are achieved using IBM Tivoli Storage Manager. Adding one more person in each case is cheaper than the first person. The situation is not linear as Scott suggests. But what about larger deployments? IBM TS3500 Tape Library can hold one PB of data in only 10 square feet of data center floorspace. The IBM TS7650G gateway can manage up to 1 PB of disk, holding as much as 25 PB of backup copies. IT Analysts Tony Palmer, Brian Garrett and Lauren Whitehouse from Enterprise Strategy Group tried IBM TSM v6.1 out for themselves and wrote up a ["Lab Validation"] report. Here is an excerpt:
The majority of Fortune 1000 customers use IBM Tivoli Storage Manager, and it is the backup software that IBM uses itself in its own huge data centers, including the cloud computing facilities. In combination with IBM Tivoli FastBack for remote office/branch office (ROBO) situations, and complemented with point-in-time and disk mirroring hardware capabilities such as IBM FlashCopy, Metro Mirror, and Global Mirror, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager can be an effective, scalable part of a complete Unified Recovery Management solution.
technorati tags: IBM, Tivoli, Storage Manager, TSM, TS7650, TS7650G, TS3500, Scalability, deduplication, economies+of+scale, Scott+Waterhouse, EMC, Symantec, NetBackup, backup, software, solutions, disk, tape, optical, drive


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HOUSTON — After making a habit of late comebacks this season, the Oakland Athletics enjoyed building an early lead and holding onto it.
Chad Pinder hit a three-run homer and Khris Davis added three RBIs as the A's jumped on Lance McCullers Jr. early and cruised to an 8-3 victory over the Houston Astros on Wednesday night.
The A's lead the majors with 67 runs in the eighth inning or later and entering the game they'd scored the winning run in the eighth or later in nine of their last 21 wins.
"Not always coming back from behind and just winning a ballgame when we were ahead. We can do that, too," Davis said with a smile.
Davis, who extended his career-best hitting streak to 13 games, put the A's up 2-0 with a double in a three-run first. Pinder made it 6-0 when he connected off McCullers (10-4) for his ninth homer in the fourth.
Oakland manager Bob Melvin said this was a much-needed win after his team rallied from a 4-0 deficit to tie it in the ninth on Tuesday night before losing 6-5 on a bizarre play in the 11th inning.
"It shows you the grit these guys have," he said. "That's a demoralizing loss to be able to come back as far as we did last night and get beat in the fashion that we did. … To be able to jump on their starting pitching right away showed me a lot from these guys to just move past what happened (Tuesday)."
Oakland starter Chris Bassitt (2-3) yielded five hits and three runs in five innings for his second straight win after losing his first three decisions.
Yuli Gurriel drove in two runs for Houston, and Tyler White hit a solo homer that cut the deficit to 6-3 in the fifth.
McCullers allowed four hits and six runs while walking five in four-plus innings for his first loss since May 26. It came after a stellar outing last time out, when he whiffed a career-high 12 while permitting just three hits and a run in seven innings of an 11-4 win over the White Sox.
"You could just tell he was battling himself," manager AJ Hinch said. "He just didn't have it. … So, little bit of mechanics, a little bit of approach but more of it just he just couldn't throw the ball where he wanted to."
Things went wrong for McCullers quickly when he walked two batters with one out in the first. The A's took a 2-0 lead when both runners scored on the double by Davis. A single by Stephen Piscotty sent Davis to third and he scored on a sacrifice fly by Matt Chapman.
McCullers plunked Chapman to start the fourth before walking Mark Canha. Oakland pushed the lead to 6-0 on the homer by Pinder to left field.
Bassitt retired nine of the first 10 batters he faced, and the Astros didn't get a hit until Alex Bregman's single with nobody out in the fourth. Jose Altuve singled before Gurriel's two-run single cut the margin to 6-2.
Emilio Pagan worked two scoreless innings after Bassitt's exit.
Marcus Semien doubled with one out in the sixth and scored on a two-out triple by Davis to push the lead to 7-3. Oakland made it 8-3 on an RBI single by Josh Phegley in the ninth.
Astros: INF Marwin Gonzalez sat out after taking a cleat to the left wrist Tuesday night. He is day-to-day. … SS Carlos Correa (back stiffness) ramped up his activity and said he's feeling good and believes he is inching closer to a return.
Athletics: Piscotty exited in the middle of the fifth inning after being hit by a pitch on the left wrist in the top of the inning. The team said his wrist was bruised and Melvin said X-rays were negative.
Houston optioned reliever Ken Giles to Triple-A Fresno, a night after he appeared to curse at Hinch when he was lifted from the game. Despite that, the Astros insisted the move was about baseball and not the right-hander's behaviour.
"We need to get his pitching right," Hinch said. "He's had an up-and-down season. He's had signs that things are good. He's had some bad games. He's had some meltdowns. But we need to get him right. He's not right and we've got to get him right mentally and physically to make sure he's a good contributor to a 'pen."
Left-hander Cionel Perez was recalled from Double-A Corpus Christi to take Giles' roster spot and allowed two hits and a run over 1 2/3 innings in his major league debut.
Bregman was named to the Home Run Derby field on Wednesday night. He will be the fifth Astros player to compete in the contest, joining Lance Berkman and Jeff Bagwell, who made four appearances each, Moises Alou and Glenn Davis.
"I've watched it a bunch," Bregman said. "I don't know if I've ever dreamed about being in it but definitely looking forward to it."
Oakland RHP Trevor Cahill (1-2, 2.77 ERA) will come off the disabled list to start against Charlie Morton (11-2, 2.83) in the series finale Thursday. Cahill has struggled on the road this season, going 0-2 with a 5.66 ERA. Morton has won four of his last five starts.
More AP baseball: https://apnews.com/tag/MLBbaseball


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Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care treating nine bear cubs
First there were three black bear cubs. Then four, then six. With eight cubs in for treatment and eventual release as of last weekend, things were getting busy at Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care in South Lake Tahoe.
A ninth bear cub, "Brockway," was dropped off at the wildlife rehabilitation center on Monday by California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
"He came from Brockway Summit. He was found next to his dead mom," said Tom Millham, who runs Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care with his wife, Cheryl, and a team of volunteers. "Other than that, we don't know a lot about him."
The wildlife rehabilitation center treated 11 bears, its most ever, a couple years ago, but not all of them were in at the same time.
"The most we ever had at one time was nine, so this matches it," Millham said about the nine cubs. "I'll say this, we've never had this many this early in the year."
Some of the bear cubs were orphaned when their mothers were hit by cars. One cub's mother is believed to have been killed by poachers. "It's a matter of Fish and Wildlife getting them and turning them over to us," Millham said.
Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care is the only wildlife rehabilitation center in California authorized to treat bears. The little cubs are hungry: Costs to feed them are adding up and could total nearly $12,000 by the time they are put into hibernation and released.
Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care didn't expect to see so many cubs at once and is asking people for some financial support. When the cubs are eating at full capacity in about a month it will cost $100 per week to feed each of them, Millham said.
Donations are the only source of funding for the nonprofit wildlife rehabilitation center to feed and care for animals.
It is also trying to move forward with a long-envisioned plan to relocate and expand its facility on a lot near the corner of Pioneer Trail and Al Tahoe Boulevard in South Lake Tahoe.
Donations can be made through Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care's website, http://www.ltwc.org, or its Facebook page.
Support Local Journalism
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Capcom will bring a new Onimusha game to browsers this summer, it said Friday in a press release.
Onimusha Soul, to be released "for PCs and smartphones," will be out on June 28 in Japan. Here's how the developer describes it, as translated by Capcom's official website:
"Onimusha Soul" is a Sengoku simulation RPG based on the characters that appear in "Onimusha" series. Each player is a daimyo (feudal lord) of one of the warring states. Players use their powers to achieve the growth of their respective states and train military commanders as they fight with other players. "Onimusha Soul" also allows players to enjoy an original story.
The game is easy to play as it offers two unique advantages of browser games. There is no need to download or install the game data. In addition, the game features an unprecedented level of community and social elements. For example, players can be grouped separately based on Japan's 47 prefectures to enjoy a variety of cooperative game playing or fight players in other prefectures. Furthermore, the development engine uses "Unity 3D" to generate graphics that are far more attractive than the images of conventional browser games. Overall, "Onimusha Soul" was created to appeal to a broad spectrum of game players. Capcom plans to distribute this title for use on PCs and smartphones.
In other words, it's... nothing like Onimusha.
Capcom Announces Entry in the Growing Browser Game Market [Capcom]


text:
Letter to House on Fiscal Cliff Deal
January 01, 2013
Dear Representative:
On behalf of the more than three million members of the National Education Association (NEA), we urge you to VOTE YES on the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, passed early this morning by the United States Senate on a strong bipartisan basis. NEA believes it is long past time to put people ahead of politics. Congress must step up and do the right thing to help middle class families before it is too late. Votes associated with these issues may be included in the NEA Legislative Report Card for the 112th Congress.
We are very pleased that the deal would generate significant revenue by asking the wealthiest individuals to pay their fair share. For too long, the burden of deficit reduction has fallen on those least able to make sacrifices. This deal begins to address the need for a more balanced approach by allowing tax cuts to expire for the highest earners. At the same time, it extends tax cuts for millions of families who cannot afford to take another hit. Extending these tax cuts will ensure that families have more money to spend on things like clothes, cars, furniture, and food. In turn, this spending will generate greater profits for businesses and will increase consumer demand, leading businesses to invest and hire more workers.
We also support the extension of unemployment benefits. The cost of living continues to rise, while far too many workers, including educators, still find themselves unemployed. Protecting unemployment insurance is critical to ensuring family stability and, consequently, the well being of thousands of children in our public schools.
We are also very glad the deal includes extensions of critical tax credits for low-income and middle class families, including the child care tax credit, earned income tax credit, and the American Opportunity Tax Credit, which will continue to allow lower-income students to pursue their dream of higher education. We also strongly support the extension of the educator tax deduction – a provision that recognizes the great sacrifices made by educators who reach into their own pockets daily to ensure their students have the materials, resources, food, and other basics necessary to learn. Finally, we are glad that the deal would extend the Qualified Zone Academy Zone (QZAB) tax credit to help modernize America's schools.
We are very disappointed that the deal delays the impending sequestration cuts, rather than eliminating them completely. We strongly urge Congress to reassess this issue in early 2013. The deep, arbitrary cuts to discretionary programs would be devastating to the programs and services that ordinary Americans depend on, including education, transportation, public safety, medical research, and environmental protection. Discretionary programs provide the long-term investments that spur economic growth, yet, they have borne the entire brunt of deficit reduction. In fact, funding for discretionary programs, including services like education, benefits for veterans, and transportation already took a $1.5 trillion hit in last year's Budget Control Act and recent funding bills.
These cuts, even if delayed, will mean fewer educators, students crammed into already overcrowded classrooms, shorter school weeks, 4-year-olds cheated out of early childhood education, and dreams dashed for aspiring college students. The impact will be harshest on the students who are in most need of help and can least afford to take more hits, including students in high poverty communities and students with disabilities.
It is time for Congress to put politics aside and do what is right for our nation. We urge you to put America's families first by voting YES on this proposal.
Mary Kusler
Director of Government Relations


text:
Isilon adds snapshots, makes play for mainstream NAS
Users and analysts say Isilon's new snapshot features are a challenge to NetApp, but the NAS cluster specialist still has a way to go to compete in the enterprise.
Isilon Systems Inc. has released an update to its OneFS software for clustered network attached storage (NAS) that includes snapshots, bandwidth provisioning and improved failure tolerance. Users and analysts said the new features are a big step for Isilon toward giving Network Appliance Inc. (NetApp) a run for its money in the enterprise NAS space, but that certain features, especially backup using NDMP, still need improvement.
Taneja Group senior analyst Brad O'Neill said the addition of new software features, especially snapshots, are "critical" for Isilon to make inroads into the enterprise NAS space.
"Snapshots are a really big thing. No way can they sell into the enterprise NAS environment or the larger customer base they want to reach without snapshots," O'Neill said.
The new SnapshotIQ allows for up to 1,024 snapshots on the cluster, and the snapshots are performed in a way similar to NetApp's method, which stores only changes to files and uses very little CPU, as opposed to Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) and EMC Corp.'s snapshot option, the Business Continuance Volume (BCV).
"It's great to have more granular backups than daily writes to tape," said David Kirchhoff, manager of information technology and senior geophysicist at Brigham Exploration Co. Previously, Kirchhoff said he had been doing host-based snapshots on a per server basis using Windows Volume Shadow Copy.
"That worked OK, but it was very cumbersome," Kirchhoff said. He added that the Isilon snapshots allowed him to set snapshot policies and schedules down to the file level, according him more flexibility than Shadow Copy in terms of which particular files he backs up and how often.
Moving toward a new customer base
Meanwhile, at least a few users not from Isilon's traditional high-performance computing playground have begun to pick up the system, including the county of San Bernardino, Calif., and broadcasting giant Clear Channel Communications.
According to Greg Robinson, solution architect for Clear Channel Communications, the company uses a 24-node, 35 terabyte (TB) Isilon cluster to store data from a farm of servers that host radio station Web sites. Robinson said the company also uses the cluster for files from EMC's EmailXtender email archiving software using SyncIQ, Isilon's replication software, and it is looking into adding a cluster in Denver for disaster recovery of corporate data.
Robinson said he had previously used EMC's Celerra NAS systems but had had difficulty upgrading capacity and experienced issues with file system scalability. He admits he's not the stereotypical Isilon user, but that the ability to add storage and throughput to the Isilon system won him over. Clear Channel is still using EMC for its primary storage area network (SAN) storage and plans to keep it that way.
"Even if Isilon added block-level access, in the form of iSCSI, I probably still wouldn't use it," Robinson said. "I don't think iSCSI is really an enterprise play, and we wouldn't have a use for it."
Robinson also said he missed one aspect of the Celerra clusters he had been using -- ease of use with NDMP. With the Celerra clusters, metadata could be transferred quickly to his Legato backup server over IP, while the backup data itself could be sent speedily through Fibre Channel (FC). Currently, Robinson said, the Isilon system has InfiniBand interconnects between nodes, but it still uses Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) out the back end, making NDMP for backups "not worth it" and not something he's using after trying it for a short time around a year ago.
"I would like to extend that InfiniBand performance to clients, namely my backup client," Robinson said. "I can still do my backups to tape from the cluster, but I could get better performance out of it."
Kirchhoff said he had been having problems getting NDMP to work at all with his Legato backup server.
"Legato supports NDMP but has not certified it with Isilon," Kirchhoff said. "They just need to get together and get the protocols and versions [right] so it will work better."
Currently, according to Kirchhoff, Brigham is backing up from a Network File System (NFS) mount on a separate Solaris 8 server. "It works fine, but NDMP would probably be faster," he said. "I'm not losing any functionality for backups, just some speed." That speed will become more important next year, when a new 3D land survey over 180 square miles of northern Texas and southern Oklahoma gets integrated into the San Antonio-based oil and gas exploration firm's storage system. The extremely dense data associated with that study, Kirchhoff said, will probably mean his Isilon cluster will have to at least double in size -- as will his backups.
Reached for comment with regard to the NDMP issue, Isilon spokesman Lucas Welch confirmed that Isilon does not yet have certification with Legato, but that it was in the process of qualification with both Legato and CommVault, and it already has been certified with Symantec Corp.'s NetBackup. "Isilon's customers have multiple ways of backing up and restoring their data," Welch added. "NDMP is just one option among several."
"Isilon's not quite ready yet for general purpose NAS," according to Tony Asaro, analyst for the Enterprise Strategy Group. "The core of the market is still not using them -- engineering development departments may have a home directory on Isilon, but the rest of corporate America isn't going to store their mission-critical data on their system."
Taneja Group's O'Neill added that if Isilon is casting an eye toward the enterprise NAS space, its technology should ideally also support block-level access as NetApp's NAS/SAN systems do. Archiving and compliance features would also be a plus, he said.
"Their scalability and performance story is awesome," O'Neill said. "They've already been able to make hay against NetApp in the high-performance computing market, and the work they've already done with NAS is not trivial."
Specifications on the new software
OneFS version 4.5 will now allow Isilon's IQ clusters to scale up to 96 nodes, with one petabyte possible under a single file system. According to Isilon founder and chief technology officer Sujal Patel, previously the biggest clusters in actual implementation belonged to MySpace.com, at 53 nodes. But, he said, many of Isilon's customers, who traditionally have been at the very bleeding edge of performance and capacity requirements, have surpassed cluster limits every time they've been raised.
With aggregate throughput, the new capacity ceiling for clusters means that the maximum performance for the IQ system has been raised to 10 gigabytes per second (GBps). Isilon has added greater failure tolerance to the system; now, up to three or four nodes (depending on a user's licensing of the software) can fail without downtime. Patel said the new failover design had been designed with the same storage overhead -- some 20% to 25 % of capacity -- as one- or two-node failover designs.
Lastly, the new SmartConnect feature allows users to zone bandwidth to portions of the cluster and to direct different traffic streams to different nodes of the cluster by virtualizing their IP addresses.
"This creates a DNS [domain name system] delegation zone and balances all the IPs by throughput," Kirchhoff said. "That's good, because it means that all the traffic isn't coming in on one specific IP address or node of the cluster."
The addition of the feature also quells some competitors' attempts to muddy the waters around Isilon. Clustered NAS newcomer Crosswalk Inc. came out swinging against Isilon this past April, calling its method of breaking up the file system through one node a bottleneck.
SmartConnect is available starting at $4,950 per node, and SnapshotIQ is available starting at $2,950 per node.


text:
Whole Foods Market will open a new location in Shrewsbury.
The Shrewsbury location at Lakeway Commons on Route 9 will be 50,000 square feet and employ approximately 175 full- and part-time "team members." Whole Foods Market Shrewsbury will open mid-2016.
In addition, Whole Foods Market announced it will open a location in Bedford, N.H.
"We have been eager to respond to strong demand for stores in Central Massachusetts and New Hampshire for a long time," said Laura Derba, Whole Foods Market's regional president. "Finding the perfect location in Shrewsbury, as well as going from zero locations in New Hampshire to three in two years has been truly exciting for us."
Whole Foods Market currently has 35 operational stores in the North Atlantic region, with an additional five in development, plus Shrewsbury and Bedford.
Founded in 1980 in Austin, Texas, Whole Foods is the leading natural and organic food retailer. As America's first national certified organic grocer, Whole Foods Market was named "America's Healthiest Grocery Store" by Health magazine.
Meanwhile, on the national front, Whole Foods is getting ready to launch its first national marketing campaign and expand home delivery as it looks to fend off bigger players muscling into the organic and natural foods category.
The company said the marketing campaign this fall will explain to customers what makes it different and why it's better than other supermarkets.
''We believe there are real and substantive differences in the company and in the values and the foods that we sell,'' said Walter Robb, co-CEO of Whole Foods, during a conference call with investors.
In addition, he said, the company is partnering with third parties to offer home delivery in 12 to 15 major markets, with plans for a wider rollout over time.
In coming weeks, Whole Foods also said it will test a new loyalty program, with plans to roll it out widely in time for the winter holidays next year.
The efforts come as Whole Foods struggles to spark slowing sales growth.
Whole Foods sales at established locations rose 3.9 percent in its latest quarter, helped by a shift of the timing of Easter, it was reported Wednesday.
A year ago, the figure had climbed 7.5 percent.
The problem is that Whole Foods is contending with traditional retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Kroger Co. and even drugstores. They have significantly expanded and increased their organic and natural food offerings.
To appeal to a wider range of customers, the company is trying to change its pricey image, which has led to it being dubbed ''Whole Paycheck'' by some.
Looking ahead, Whole Foods expects sales at established locations to rise 4.1 to 4.4 percent for the year, down from its previous forecast of 5 to 5.5 percent.
It also trimmed the high end of its earnings per share forecast by 2 cents, and now says it expects to earn $1.52 to $1.54 per share.
For the quarter, the company said it earned $151 million, or 41 cents per share, which is 2 cents more than Wall Street expected.
A year ago, it earned $142 million, or 38 cents per share.
Revenue rose 10 percent to $3.38 billion, but missed Wall Street forecasts for $3.4 billion.
Shares of Whole Foods fell 5.4 percent Wednesday to $36.99. The stock is down more than 32 percent over the past year.
Contact Craig S. Semon at firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Export 10 results:Author Type [ Year]
Filters: Author is Andrei Dabravolski [Clear All Filters]
"Fast and Flexible X-ray Tomography Using the ASTRA Toolbox", Optics Express, vol. 24, no. 22, pp. 25129-25147, 2016. Download paper (8.34 MB)
"Projection-based polygon estimation in X-ray computed tomography", 6th International Conference on Optical Measurement Techniques for Structures and Systems (OPTIMESS), pp. 41-50, 2016. Download paper (615.72 KB)
"Towards In Loco X-ray Computed Tomography", Department of Physics, 12/2015.
"Adaptive zooming in X-ray computed tomography", Journal of X-Ray Science and Technology, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 77-89, 2014. Download paper (3.77 MB)
"Conveyor belt X-ray CT using Domain Constrained Discrete Tomography", Sibgrapi conference on Graphics, Patterns and Images, pp. 290 - 297, 2014. Download paper (3.45 MB)
"Dynamic Angle Selection in X-ray Computed Tomography", Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, vol. 324, pp. 17-24, 2014.
"A Multiresolution Approach to Discrete Tomography Using DART", PLoS ONE, vol. 9, issue 9, 2014. Download paper (6.13 MB)
"A multiresolution approach to the Discrete Algebraic Reconstruction Technique (DART)", 2nd International Congress on 3D Materials Science, 07/2014. Download abstract (59.52 KB) Download presentation (1.72 MB)
"Adaptive Zooming in X-ray Computed Tomography", 1st International Conference on Tomography of Materials and Structures (ICTMS), Ghent, Belgium, pp. 5-8, 2013. Download full paper (633.7 KB) Download poster (1.18 MB)
"Dynamic Angle Selection in X-ray Computed Tomography", 1st International Conference on Tomography of Materials and Structures (ICTMS), Ghent, Belgium, pp. 27-30, 2013. Download full paper (447.03 KB) Download presentation (682.25 KB)


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text:
Howdy and happy spring. Did you know it's really not just spring, but halfway thru spring? Either way, the winds knocked over my pea trellises, and the rain has beaten up my fava beans. The ducks and chickens are destroying my carefully made beds. Nature is against me! But I can't complain, this rain means more salad mix, plumper radishes, better germination for my carrots–I hope.
So, sorry about the canceled farm stand. I want to schedule another one but it's getting crazy around here. Here's where I'll be in the next few days and weeks:
March 26 Hayward Main Library, 2pm. Hayward chose Farm City as their community read!
March 28 Salt Lake City, Westminster College, 7pm public talk
March 31 Alameda Public Library, 7pm. Alameda chose Farm City as their community read!
April 1 San Francisco's Booksmith, 1644 Haight Street 6:30pm. I'll be there doing the Bookswap! Buy tickets here. I'll be dressed as a donkey.
April 3, Urban Farm Tour, Biofuel Oasis 9:30-2pm. I'll be guiding the tour with Serena Barlett, to buy tickets, go here.
April 6, Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo 5pm-7pm. Farm City is Cuesta's book of the year! Woot!
April 7, SLO, Steynberg Gallery, 11-1:30pm.
April 13, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, 7pm
April 17, Teaching Raising Chickens class at the Biofuel Oasis, 2pm-5pm.
April 19, Minnesota, M State-Moorhead, 4pm free public lecture
April 28, Seattle, Washington Hall, part of the Essential Arts Art and Agriculture program, 7pm
May 14 Hayward Ochoa Garden. Remember how Farm City was chosen as Hayward's community read? The librarians and Hayward Public schools are working together to do a garden work day on May 14, 10am-1pm. I'll be there, hoe-ing.
See ya!


text:
Katt Williams Pounded On His Chest: Footage Of Katt Williams & His Crew In A Fight At Young Jeezy Concert In AZ!
Young Jeezy Concert Phoenix Az Aug 24, 2011 . Submitted by Ethan-
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text:
The Big Picture: Alumna Sets the Scenes that Make the Movies
On the seventh floor of an aging West 52nd Street building, on folding tables, corkboards and floors, they are creating. Above, Debra Schutt '77 poses with her Emmy award for "Outstanding Art Direction" that she won in 2011. On Craigslist and eBay, with items from prop shops and pickers, they are setting the scene. On a laptop, at the fabric store, in discussions that float around this corner of the cavernous floor, they are building a character.
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text: Going back to the original post, surely Niall Ferguson deserves a mention. Has anyone ever bothered to read any of his books? Can't say that I have, but I did watch an interview with him on the Wall Street Journal website that was shockingly bad. I'm yet to hear or read anything from him that is insightful about China, which could be a bit of a problem given that it's become something of an obsession for him.


text:
At the Intel Developer Forum in Taiwan, an Intel chief took an opportunity to piss all over one of the company's biggest mobile competitors. "The shortcomings of the iPhone are not because of Apple," he said, "The shortcomings of the iPhone have come from ARM." What shortcomings are those, exactly? "Even if they do have full [Internet]capability, the performance will be so poor." So in other words, by "the shortcomings of the iPhone," Intel means "slowish javascript rendering." For a solution to these problems, Intel makes and unexpected and revolutionary recommendation: "If you want to run full internet, you're going to have to run an Intel-based architecture." Oh!
It's worth noting here that Intel was not promoting a specific product with these statements, and offered no direct performance comparisons to its own processors. Secondly, it appears as though they either haven't used an iPhone or any of its competitors, at all. No, an iPhone doesn't have the processing power to render pages as fast as a desktop computer might, but to imply that browsing is the iPhone's weakness is kind of silly. Original story author ZDNet's Suzanne Tindal, notably a "Guest of Intel" should have framed this as what it is: an unprompted, stock-fluffing pissing match, initiated by the big guy. [ZDNet]