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Police are investigating the possibility of arresting those involved with AKB48 idol Tomomi Kasai's recent child breast fondling photo shoot scandal for child pornography offences, because the boy touching her breasts "looked European."
According to media reports, the child welfare division of the Tokyo police force has been questioning editorial staff with Kodansha in relation to possible child pornography or child abuse offences connected to their recent withdrawal of a highly controversial photograph.
The photo, which supposedly depicts a "foreign child" covering Kasai's breasts with his hands, was withdrawn along with the rest of the magazine before it reached distributors, but this did not stop it being leaked and used to fuel a series of accusations of child pornography against the parties involved.
Police are said to be investigating whether this non-publication of the offending image warrants charges of distributing child pornography, an unsurprisingly serious if at times narrowly defined offence under Japanese law (and an interesting one considering the photograph was subsequently widely reproduced online and in newspapers without censure).
Child pornography charges would rest upon courts finding the images "incite lust," and would attract a maximum sentence of 5 years, as would charges of child prostitution, another possible offence.
Police say the fact that the boy pictured appears to be white is the driving force behind the investigation: "we have taken into account that a boy of European descent was used, as punishments for child pornography offences there are more severe than in Japan and it may become an international issue" – apparently indicating it would have been acceptable to use a mere Asian child.
When the photo first surfaced, many were quick to point out that if the genders were reversed and Kasai were a man having a little girl touch her, she would likely face rapid arrest and public ruin – although others have pointed out that images of women breast-feeding young boys (such as Time's famous cover, or even a scene in top US fantasy drama Game of Thrones) enjoy sacrosanct status even in the US.
Still others doubt the image is anything more than a crude Photoshop in any case – although whether any of this will help Kodansha and AKB48 is another matter.


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Words by Sean Moeller // Illustration by Johnnie Cluney // Recording engineered by Mike Gentry
She's doing that. He's doing something other. That one's doing wrong and another is unaware that they're being done wrong. It's a mélange of inappropriate behavior, ultimately acknowledged as shit happening, but then again, it always does and it always will. This is where the Toronto band Zeus seems to have its head wrapped on its debut full-length, "Say Us," an album that's about love being robbed or love being schemed or abused and the softening of the offenses as we're always forced to put up with many of the transgressions or we'd just always wind up sad and lonely. There's more proof that no one's anywhere near perfect on "Say Us," than most records and there's even more indication that all of the imperfect bodies deserve one another. People are cheating left and right and never fully learning their lessons and then its all a matter of concealment, what can be kept from others and what can be leaked out as acceptable half-truth. In the end, there is real love somewhere in the quagmire, but it's disillusioned and sometimes so faded that there's not much good in it any more.
However, it's kept alive. It's sullied little heart is kept beating, connected to the life support machines that give it all of its lines and energy. There are more rotten women on the record - made by these four men who serve as the permanent backing back of Canadian troubadour Jason Collett and sometimes backing band of Bahamas - but the men take plenty of liberties with threats of getting even, cheating themselves right back to even. The women affect the men in ways that make their stomachs churn and they begin to think about revenge, the same way that Chinaski always sought to even the score in all of Bukowski's drunken, lover's revenge poems. One man in "The River By The Garden," sings, "My heart keeps breaking every morning and my eyes are sick of crying," and he thinks about how little consideration his cheating girl gave to the ability that she had to hurt, to maim, and yet he's giving all kinds of thought to the amount that he could in turn hurt her. He intends to and she won't see it coming.
Zeus creates music that feels as if it's taken from the bedroom and placed in a barroom, allowed to get a little liquored up and pretty soon the accusations and the heresy starts to fly. You start finding out about what rumors are true, who's sleeping with whom and who's most hurt, most affected by all of it. It's a no-holds-barred exploration of what happens when the naughty parts tingle and stray. People get caught up in the prickers and the barbed wire and they take their cuts and gashes, just dressing them or hiding them under long sleeves and pant legs when they get back from their recesses in the wilds, back to where they were supposed to be all along. They sing on "Marching Through Your Head," "You've been untrue to your own heart and it's been marching through your head," so it's obvious that it's all known wrongs and poor judgments, but there's just no getting around it. Our transgressions are our most lasting impressions.

subset: commoncrawl


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Paul – 23% – Romney – 20% – Gingrich – 14%
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, December 19, 2011
A new survey conducted by Public Policy Polling shows that Ron Paul now leads in Iowa just two weeks ahead of the crucial Republican primary, while Newt Gingrich's campaign is in free fall.
"Newt Gingrich's campaign is rapidly imploding, and Ron Paul has now taken the lead in Iowa. He's at 23% to 20% for Mitt Romney, 14% for Gingrich, 10% each for Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry, 4% for Jon Huntsman, and 2% for Gary Johnson," reports PPP.
Support for Gingrich has dropped from to 27% to 14% in just two weeks.
The figures illustrate how Gingrich is likely to fade into the distance before the crucial primary takes place on January 3rd. The numbers also show that Paul's fiercest rival is clearly Romney, meaning all energies should be directed to pointing out that, like Gingrich, Romney is a big government RINO Republican who supported a system almost identical to Obamacare.
Paul's supporters describe themselves as more "solidly committed" than Romney's, at 73% to 68%.
Paul's aggressive work in Iowa has impressed voters, with 22 per cent believing he's run the best campaign in the state, compared to just 8% for Gingrich and 5% for Romney.
Gingrich's decline in Iowa has undoubtedly been influenced by powerful Paul campaign ads attacking Gingrich over his big government tendencies.
"Negative ads over the last few weeks have really chipped away at Gingrich's image as being a strong conservative- now only 36% of voters believe that he has 'strong principles,' while 43% think he does not," reports Public Policy Polling.
Although Paul's support nationwide is significantly lower than both Romney and Gingrich, a victory in Iowa and a good performance in New Hampshire would be the perfect tonic for Paul to build momentum in other states going forward.
Two out of the last three winners if the Iowa primary, George W. Bush and Bob Dole, have gone on to be victorious in securing the Republican nomination.
Right as Ron Paul's campaign peaks and he sweeps into the lead in Iowa, the corporate media and establishment neo-con Republicans have gone all out in a final effort to denigrate his candidacy.
Prior to last week's debate in Iowa, Fox News pundit Chris Wallace ludicrously asserted that if Ron Paul is successful in Iowa, the results "won't count".
This was preceded by attacks from neo-con talking heads like Rush Limbaugh, who erroneously claimed Ron Paul was the least likely to defeat Obama when he is in fact the most likely to beat Obama in a head to head above all the other Republican candidates.
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.


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This week, our holy week, we walk with Jesus from his glorious procession into the city to his death on the cross, from "Hosannah!" to "Crucify him."
Lent comes to a climax in Jerusalem, the city of contradictions: a place of worship and idolatry, great faith and horrific scandal, light and darkness. In contrast to Jesus' faithfulness we find massive betrayal. Consider: Judas who sells out the Lord; chief priests who fake a trial, disciples who sleep and then run away, Peter who denies him, Pilate who condemns him knowing his innocence, and soldiers and crowds who mock him. Here is an irony: The people reject Jesus and choose Barabbas, whose Aramaic name literally means "son of the father." Opting for the false son while rejecting the true Son of the Father aptly represents the whole sinful human condition.
Jesus' witness of faith in the utter darkness of the Passion aligns well with today's reading from the Letter to the Philippians, which extols Christ's self-emptying unto glory. It is widely believed that Paul is quoting an already known hymn to Christ. Paul's preface to this hymn is not part of the Lectionary selection. This is unfortunate, because here Paul pleads for us to imitate the Lord. He begins, "If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy…have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus" (Phil 2:1-5). Then begins the hymn, "who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave." The hymn goes on to show the cross as Jesus' ultimate expression of humility and obedience. The result of such self-emptying is that "God greatly exalted him [that]…every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord."
Usually this hymn is understood to refer to the Son's pre-existence and the renunciation of his divinity so as to enter fully the human condition, even unto death. It could, however, be read as highlighting a contrast between Adam and Jesus. Adam, born in the form of God (Gn 1:26-27) wanted to reach out to equality with God by pride and disobedience (Gn 3:5ff), leading to our fall. Jesus, in contrast, displays humility and obedience, leading to his exaltation and our salvation. The most illuminating approach to the passage brings both interpretations together. As both new Adam and pre-existing Son, Jesus emptied himself and embraced Adam's condition of slavery and mortality in order to free us from both.
If we take seriously Jesus' radical self-emptying, witness of absolute faith and experience of the cross, then we should rethink the common assumption that Jesus always knew exactly what would happen to him—that he would die for our sins and then rise gloriously triumphant a day and a half later. Of course the post-Easter church puts such foreknowledge on his lips. But if Jesus saw all, then Gethsemane makes less sense, as does his experience on the cross. If he truly and completely emptied himself, as Paul writes, then he had to trust God radically, especially in the darkness. If he saw the script, then Good Friday amounts to a very bad day, knowing he would soon be glorified.
Seeing Jesus in true darkness and radical faith makes the cross fully real. It also guides us in our own times of darkness and loss. Haven't we also felt lost? Derided by friends or colleagues? Felt abandoned by God? So did the Lord Jesus—and in Jerusalem, no less. This week we walk with him there during his last days.


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A northwestern Davidson County man led a deputy with the Davidson County Sheriff's Office on a chase early Saturday morning, according to arrest warrants.
A northwestern Davidson County man led a deputy with the Davidson County Sheriff's Office on a chase early Saturday morning, according to arrest warrants.
Jeffrey Charles Smith, 45, of 8071 Hampton Road, has been charged with felony possession with intent to manufacture, sell and deliver marijuana, driving left of center, failure to burn headlamps, felony flee/elude arrest with a motor vehicle, speeding, reckless driving-wanton disregard, possession of an open container of alcoholic beverage in the passenger area, possession of drug paraphernalia, felony maintaining a vehicle/dwelling/place for controlled substance and resisting public officer. He was placed in the Davidson County Detention Center under a $25,000 secured bond.
Sgt. C.G. Stilwell of the Davidson County Sheriff's Office, according to an arrest report, stopped Smith in his vehicle on N.C. Highway 150 North near Frye Bridge Road in reference to suspicious activity. The arrest warrant further stated that after Smith was stopped by the deputy, he fled from the traffic stop.
Stilwell alleges in arrest warrants that Smith operated a motor vehicle on N.C. Highway 150 at a speed of 86 miles per hour in a 45-mph zone and maintained a 2000 Ford F-150 for keeping and selling marijuana. The deputy alleges Smith was in possession of 1.8 ounces of marijuana and failed to use his headlamps/rear lamps while operating his vehicle between sunset and sunrise.
Capt. Casey Tarleton of the sheriff's office said the chase went for about two miles. He said the sheriff's office had Smith stopped at the Exxon in the 7000 block of N.C. Highway 150 North, but Smith fled from the deputy after giving him his driver's license.
"When the officer went back to the (patrol vehicle), he just took off," Tarleton said.
Tarleton said there was no property damage or injuries that occurred in the chase. He said the chase ended at another business in the 4000 block of N.C. Highway 150 North, where Smith was arrested. Tarleton said deputies blocked in Smith so he could not leave the business.
Tarleton said Smith submitted to a Breathalyzer test. Those results were not readily available with the sheriff's office. The N.C. Highway Patrol assisted in administering the alcohol-level test.
Smith has a court date of March 13.
Darrick Ignasiak can be reached at 249-3981, ext. 217, or at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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The Path to Violence
|Episode Description
|Saturday, Feb 23, 2013 - 2:00 AM
Ever since the wake-up call that was Columbine, schools and law enforcement have developed multiple strategies to prevent attacks. Indeed, the horror of Newtown needs to be seen in a context that's not defined by defeat. Remarkably, more than 120 school assaults have been thwarted in the past ten years. D
|More The Path to Violence on PLUS (MT)
Saturday, Feb 23, 2013 - 2:00 AM


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'Mario Kart 7′ is Just Like the Mario Kart Games — But That's Fine With Us [REVIEW]
You've got to hand it to Nintendo– they are king at making the same game over and over again while adoring fans — us included — squeal with delight. You sell yourself again and again to us, claiming you're different but you're always the same. You


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This is a sponsored post for McCormick. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
A double decker dessert that is both a cookie and a brownie! McCormick calls them Crownies but you might know them as Brookies. Or maybe you don't know them at all. Let me introduce you. . .
Chocolate chip cookie dough is baked on top of brownie batter. Cookie + Brownie = Crownie. Two bake sale favorites combined into one irresistible treat. I adapted this unique concept from McCormick and used they're peppermint extract in the brownies for a subtle hint of mint.
You get a soft, layer of fudgy brownie topped with a thick, chewy chocolate chip cookie with subtle notes of mint shining through. The two together make a heavenly treat. The next time you get hit with a sweet tooth craving you won't have to decide between two different desserts! You can have a brownie and a cookie!
Looking for more bake sale recipes? Treats to tuck into lunchboxes or after school snacks? McCormick's got you covered! Their extracts make it easy to turn every day desserts into something extra special.
Raspberry Brownies – Add 4 teaspoons McCormick Raspberry Extract to brownie mix and 2 teaspoons to chocolate frosting for a fruity alternative to this bake sale staple. Garnish with a raspberry.
Orange Kissed Brownies – For citrus-infused delights, add 1 tablespoon McCormick Orange Extract and chocolate chips to brownie mix and 1 teaspoon of the extract to chocolate frosting. Top with an orange slice.
*Toasted Almond Brownies– For a nutty flavor, use 1/2 teaspoon McCormick Almond Extract in the brownie mix and 1/4 teaspoon in the chocolate frosting. Add colorful sprinkles on top.
Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Cookies – Draw a crowd with the warm, inviting essence of cinnamon. Add chopped walnuts for a subtle crunch.
I made brownies from scratch but feel free to use a box mix to save time as directed in the original recipe.
Chocolate chip cookie dough is baked on top of brownie batter. Cookie + Brownie = Crownie. Two bake sale favorites combined into one irresistible treat.
- Heat oven to 350° F. Grease a 9" x 13" baking pan with butter or line with parchment paper.
- Melt butter and chocolate together using the chocolate setting on your microwave.
- In a large bowl whisk eggs then add both sugars, vanilla, peppermint and salt. Whisk until combined.
- Stir in the chocolate mixture then fold in flour. Pour batter into pan and spread evenly.
- Bake 15 minutes.
- In a medium bowl mix flour, baking soda and salt together. Set aside.
- In a large bowl beat butter and both sugars together on medium speed until light and fluffy. On low speed beat in the egg and vanilla.
- Gradually beat in flour mixture on low speed until well mixed. Stir in chocolate chips.
- Drop cookie dough by tablespoonfuls evenly over the brownie. (Batter will spread during baking.)
- Bake 20 to 25 minutes longer or until cookie top is golden brown around the edges and set in the middle. Remove to a wire rack and sprinkle the chocolate chips on top. Wait 10 minutes then spread from edge to edge with a butter knife.
- Cool completely then cut into bars with a chef's knife, wiping clean after each cut.
Concept and cookie layer adapted from McCormick
Brownies adapted from Saveur
Copyright ©2013 Cinnamon Spice and Everything Nice by Reeni Pisano All Rights Reserved
This is a sponsored post for McCormick. All thoughts and opinions are my own.


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STOCKTON - With Election Day a month away, San Joaquin County was home to one of the most competitive Congressional races in the country, even though the challenger to an established incumbent had never held elected office.
STOCKTON - With Election Day a month away, San Joaquin County was home to one of the most competitive Congressional races in the country, even though the challenger to an established incumbent had never held elected office.
It was 2006. The challenger, a wind-energy consultant with a Ph.D. in differential geometry named Jerry McNerney, went on to beat seven-term Republican Richard Pombo.
In 2012, the tables have turned for McNerney, 61, a Democrat who is facing a challenge from Ricky Gill, a 25-year-old making his first bid for elected office. But the graduate from Princeton University and University of California, Berkeley's law school has local and national support and a campaign account that makes him a contender. McNerney says he has experience - in Congress and in life.
"I know what it's like out there," said McNerney, who added that he'd owned a small business and taken out a second mortgage to help pay for college for his three children.
He admits becoming a congressman had a steep learning curve. "I spent 10 years working on a math Ph.D, and I finally got kind of good at it," he said. "It takes a long time to learn this business, too. It's not something you learn overnight."
In 2004, McNerney was an unknown when son Michael nudged him into politics. The younger McNerney was in the Air Force and saw on his absentee ballot that no Democrats were running against Pombo, Rep. McNerney said.
"He sort of played on my philosophy of public service, like: 'Hey! You need to serve this community by giving people a choice,' " McNerney said. He entered the primary race as a write-in candidate. Pombo won in November.
Pombo looked vulnerable in 2006. Democrats were split in the primary. The national party did not support McNerney until after he won the primary. Former President Bill Clinton came to Stockton to stump for McNerney. President George W. Bush came to support Pombo.
McNerney won, wresting one of the seats Democrats needed to take control of Congress that year, earning him the nickname "dragon slayer." He won again in 2008. When Republicans took back the House in 2010, McNerney held onto his seat by a 1-percent margin.
Since 2010, however, district boundaries have been redrawn. McNerney was elected to the 11th, which includes part of Stockton and San Joaquin County, stretching into Alameda, Contra Costa and Santa Clara counties. The new 9th District overlaps much of the old district but is more compact and centered solidly in San Joaquin County. It has all of Stockton, Lodi, Lathrop and Mountain House, a large chunk of eastern Contra Costa County and Galt in Sacramento County.
McNerney's support in his first victory was galvanized in the Bay Area, but he's a "harder sell" in the more conservative east, even though the new district has a higher proportion of registered Democrats, said Bob Benedetti, director of University of the Pacific's Jacoby Center for Public Service and Civic Leadership. "At best, it's a wash. At worst, it will hurt him," he said. "I think it will be a tight race."
McNerney's opposition have seized on the Bay Area connection. "He's a Bay Area politician, who's really out of touch with the Ninth District," said Daniel Scarpinato, a spokesman from the National Republican Congressional Committee. And Gill has been campaigning hard on his own strong ties to San Joaquin County, where he was born and raised.
McNerney pledged to move from Pleasanton to Stockton to live in the new district. When a Record investigation questioned whether McNerney had actually made Stockton his home, his campaign said he was in transition. In recent interviews, McNerney said he lived in Stockton.
"I'm here. I'm committed," he said. "I had a choice; I could have stayed in the Bay Area. ... The Tri Valley is a great place, (but) I don't think it needs as much help."
At last count, Democrats had a registration advantage of nearly 10 percentage points in the new 9th District. It voted Democrat for president in 2008 and governor in 2010, but most of the national political handicappers are calling the race a toss up or "leaning" Democrat, said Keith Smith, an associate professor of political science at Pacific. "What it means to be a Democrat in the Central Valley is a little bit different than what it means to be a Democrat in the Bay Area," he said. Still, McNerney is a centrist, Smith said. Compared to California House members from both parties, McNerney's voting record shows him to be the most moderate, Smith said.
Recently, McNerney was one of a small group from his party voting against a Democratic amendment that would have extended the Bush tax cuts, but only for people making less than $250,000 a year. He then voted with Republicans to extend all the tax breaks for another year. McNerney said his vote drew ire from liberal groups, but that he opposed the Democratic amendment because it had an estate-tax provision that would hurt farmers.
McNerney said people in San Joaquin County have gotten to know him the past six years, and they know his accomplishments, like pushing for construction of a new medical facility for veterans in the county. He counts veterans issues, along with protecting the Delta and improving the economy as his top three issues.
Some frustration at the struggling economy was apparent at a recent workshop hosted by McNerney at Lincoln High School. Offering advice for homeowners facing foreclosure and first-time homebuyers looking to enter the market, the workshop is one way to help individuals and the county recover, he said.
Carmen Guidry of Stockton was there, too. She'd been to other workshops during the two years she has fought to keep her home. "I did everything I was supposed to do to get a (loan) modification. I'm getting kicked out of my house."
She said the government is not doing enough. But she's still voting for McNerney, she said. "He supports the veterans."
She said she knows that first hand. Her husband is a Vietnam veteran, and McNerney's office has been responsive when they've gone there for help.
Contact reporter Zachary K. Johnson at (209) 546-8258 or email@example.com. Visit his blog at recordnet.com/johnsonblog.


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Select Page
If you have purchased a vehicle from a Nevada dealer, you may be able to complete the registration online without a trip to the DMV! You can transfer your current license plates or get new standard plates through the mail. Be sure to get insurance before you begin.
Online Registration - Start Here
License plates and the registration and sticker are mailed separately.
Sorry, but you must visit a DMV office to register your new vehicle if:
Private Party Sales
Nevada Dealers
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or our Bathroom Slippers outgeek 1 Pair Home Bath Slippers Lightweight EVA Non Slip bath Sandals for Adult Pink kijgCLrF
. Make an appointment!
Dealers submit their sales information to the DMV online and issue what is called an Electronic Dealer Report of Sale (EDRS). Use the control number and last 4 digits of the Vehicle Identification Number to register online or create a MyDMV account.
Some additional restrictions apply. Motor homes and trailers cannot be registered online. Vehicles 26,001 pounds and over are registered through the Motor Carrier Division. Certain license plate styles such as Professional Firefighter and antique/classic vehicles cannot be transferred. See the complete list below.
Important: If you choose to transfer your current license plates, your new registration will be credited for the unused portion of your old registration. A $6 transfer fee applies.Important:
However, if you choose to get new standard license plates, the unused portion of your old registration will not be credited unless you first cancel your current registration. You may cancel your current registration online through MyDMV prior to registering the new vehicle.
Credits from other registrations or other sources may not be applied during an online registration.
Residents of participating counties will have the option to make a $2 donation to the Complete Streets Program in their county. This program promotes the retrofitting of roads to benefit pedestrians, bicyclists, disabled persons, and motorists. The donation is voluntary, non-refundable, and is in addition to any other applicable registration fees.
Complete Streets programs: Carson City | Douglas | Clark | Washoe
You must obtain liability insurance from a Nevada-licensed carrier in the exact name(s) which will be on the registration and title. The effective date of the policy must be equal or previous to the registration date. Coverage is verified electronically with your insurance company.
Motorists who do not maintain Nevada liability insurance are subject to a registration suspension, reinstatement fee/fine, possible SR22 requirement and driver's license suspension.
Out-of-state insurance is not accepted. See Vehicle Insurance Requirements . You must present a Nevada Evidence of Insurance card at registration and carry one in your vehicle at all times.
You must register in person at a DMV if any of the following apply.
If you are not already using Vundle, and want to use it:
Step 1 : Add this to the top of your
Step 2 : Run this in the terminal:
In order to get the capabilities of VimClojure beyond just indentation and syntax highlighting, you'll need a Nailgun client. It can be downloaded . For completeness, the Nailgun homepage is .
For OSX and Linux, expand the archive, and run:
This will produce a standalone executable,
, which is the Nailgun client.
For Windows users,
is provided pre-built in the archive.
In either case, once you have the Nailgun client executable, put it somewhere, either on the sytem path, or in a directory accessible by Vim, e.g.
. You'll need to remember this location for the "Configuring VimClojure" step below.
Properly setting up the project classpath and running the Nailgun server has historically been one of the trickier aspects of getting started with VimClojure. Fortunately, two things have happened. The Clojure community has pretty much settled on
as its de facto build tool and Daniel Solano Gómez has developed the
Bikkembergs Men's FendEr 2078 Trainers Blue Black Black/Yellow 925 DOlRA8
plugin which makes starting a Nailgun server from a Leiningen-based project a piece of cake.
So, for Leiningen 2 based projects add
[lein-tarsier "0.9.4"]
to the
vector of your
profile located in
. For example:
This setup is covered in more detail in the
COOLCEPT Women Fashion Party Boots Platform Stiletto High Heels Winter Shoes Black CoW08imgv
Once the plugin's installed and you have lein-tarsier, you can configure VimClojure in your
file. Here's a configuration with all the bells and whistles:
Note the setting for the Nailgun client on the last line.
See the VimClojure help for more details on these settings and more.
Most VimClojure shortcuts are initiated with Vim's "local leader", (
:help maplocalleader
). The default value is
(backslash), but can be configured as follows:
will be assumed throughout this tutorial for consistency.
Let's go through the process of creating a simple project to demonstrate some of VimClojure's capabilities. Because this author is a little lazy, we'll use the same example as the emacs tutorial. That is, a simple command-line argument parser.
First, we'll need a new project:
Now we need to start up Vim as well as the Nailgun server. If you're using console Vim, I suggest running each in its own console.
In console 1:
and in console 2
If you're using gvim, just start gvim and then run the Nailgun server:
Now we can start editing code (see
below for tips on effectively editing Clojure code in Vim). Let's add a simple test. Execute
:e test/command_line_args/core_test.clj
, enter insert mode and add the following to the file:
Speak to a representative concerning substance abuse treatment or request printed material on alcohol or drugs.
Call (888)-893-0561
The information available at AddictionResource.com is not a substitute for professional medical help.
This site complies with the HONcode standard for trustworthy health information:Gadea Women's 40570 Open Toe Heels Gold Atenea Canela Canela DtxY10s
© 2014 - 2018 Addiction Resource


text:
Scientists have been trying to automatically translate languages for almost as long as computers have been in existence. So why is it so hard?
Earlier this year, the Malaysian Ministry of Defence unveiled its glossy new website, designed to show off its military prowess and high standards to the world. Unfortunately, nobody had bothered to check the English translations.
One section said that the Malaysian government had taken "drastic measures to increase the level of any national security threat" after the country's independence in 1957. Another page suggested women should not wear items that "poke out the eye", an apparent translation of a rule that women should not wear revealing clothing.
Initially it was just sniggering Malaysians who passed the gaffes around on social media, but the chortles soon became global, triggering the Defence Minister to admit that the ministry had used the free online tool Google Translate. He subsequently ordered the new military site to be removed.
The episode was embarrassing for the Malaysian ministry, but it also provides an object lesson in the limitations of today's machine translation technology, which despite billions of pounds of research and massive demand from businesses, politicians and the military, not to mention tourists, is still only stuttering along.
According to Phil Blunsom, a lecturer and machine translation researcher at the University of Oxford, the field has made a lot of progress. But a time when a computer can match the interpretive skills of a professional is "still a long way off".
So why is it so hard to automatically translate texts?
Scientists and academics have been trying to automate translation for almost as long as computers have been in existence. In the 1940s and 1950s it was widely assumed that once the vocabulary and the rules of grammar of a language had been codified, it would make automated translation easy, according to Dr Blunsom. But attempts to make computers learn languages in this way over the next forty years were largely unsuccessful, unless the range of words they were expected to translate was very limited.
"The main problem is that language is too complex," explains Philipp Koehn, a machine translation researcher at the University of Edinburgh School of Informatics. "Language is always ambiguous, so you can't always use rules, and new vocabulary is always coming in, so you need someone to continually maintain those rules." What it boils down to is that there are simply too many possible rules for them all to be written down, and there are also too many exceptions to those rules, he adds.
Then in the 1980s, computer giant IBM carried out pioneering research into the use of words in sentences. Specifically, its researchers examined the relative frequency of different groups of three words occurring in a sentence. For example, they noted "going to go" occurs far more frequently than "going too, go" or "going two go". So although the three phrases sound almost identical, the first is statistically most likely to be correct.
This apparently simple insight had huge repercussions, opening up a new statistical approach to translation.
"The vast majority of research into machine translation is now pursuing the statistical approach," says Dr Blunsom.
Online services such as Google Translate and Yahoo! Babel Fish both use statistical machine translation techniques – although Yahoo!'s system is best described as a hybrid approach that makes heavy use of rules, as well as statistics.
More than words
The statistical translation approach works by analysing parallel corpora – bodies of text that have already been translated from one language to another. Put simply, the translation system looks out for a word or phrase in one language, that crops up whenever a word or phrase appears in the other language. If it spots "un chien noir" in French every time the phrase "a black dog" occurs in English, then it stores these two phrases together in a "phrase table".
The system also analyses large amounts of text in individual languages and makes a note of the frequency that certain words or groups of words follow others. It uses this to build a "language model", which is employed to help make sure that sentences are put together with words in an order that is statistically likely to be correct, and also to help decide between different choices of words – especially when a source word can have more than one meaning.
"Essentially, we are translating using probabilities to find the best solution," says Dr Blunsom. "The computer doesn't understand the languages or know any grammar, but might use statistics to determine that 'dog the' is not as likely as 'the dog.' What we are doing is a larger-scale version of what was done with the Rosetta Stone."
To improve the ability of computers to make these kinds of decisions requires massive numbers of source texts.
"It depends on the languages concerned, but we usually need at least 30 million words or one million sentences," says Dr Blunsom. And fortunately for the machine translation researchers, huge parallel corpora are freely available in multiple language pairs, thanks to organisations like the European Union and United Nations, which use human translators to generate documents in multiple languages to distribute among their member states.
These kinds of texts allow systems to easily translate between common languages – say German and English, or Italian and French. But it becomes more difficult when the translation involves less widely spoken languages.
Step forward search giant Google, which is trying to solve this problem. Despite high-profile gaffes like those in Malaysia, its proprietary system is state of the art. It is able to hoover up vast amounts of information from the web and can currently translate between 63 commonly spoken languages.
But it is also hunting and harvesting parallel corpora from the web in less widespread languages – such as Tamil, Armenian and Basque – wherever it can find them.
"There are plenty of translations into many languages that all sorts of people have done and placed on the web. Some are high quality translations, and some are not, but we use both types because what's important is the sheer volume of data we get," says Franz Och, one of the world's leading machine translation experts and the man who heads up Google's machine translation group.
"Mistranslations are not such a problem, as not everyone makes the same mistakes," he says. News reports of the same story in different languages are also valuable: although these are not parallel corpora, they usually contain enough common information to be of use to machine translation systems.
English: Premier lingua
The vast repository of information that Google is able to sort through means it can pull off another trick: translating between two languages where parallel corpora do not exist, say between Arabic and Welsh. In situations like this, it turns out that English is the key.
"A long time ago, it was thought that the best approach to translation was to go via some symbolic meaning representation language – an artificial inter lingua that was an idealised way of representing meaning," says Dr Och.
"I guess that this was wrong. English is turning out to be the great inter lingua replacement."
English works well because of its prevalence on the web. Machines can translate from Welsh into Arabic using English corpora as an intermediary step. This is less accurate than when languages can be translated directly, because errors multiply during each translation process. But with many language pairs, there is no alternative but to use this method, according to Dr Och.
However, parallel corpora and inter-language replacement only get you so far. Language is so complex that models need to take into account other factors. For example, in some languages words are gender specific – the word for a male cousin is different from the one for a female cousin, for example – so a good system has to be able to look forward or back in an English text to see if it can find a reference to "he" or "she" to determine the appropriate form of the word when it translates it, which is not a simple process.
Things also tend to go wrong when you go beyond simple sentences to more complex ones. "If you use a metaphor or any poetic language, then things get much more difficult," says Dr Blunsom. "If you use a pun that the system has not seen before, then it will just translate it literally."
The vagaries and origins of different languages also mean that some things cannot be expressed – a concept known as untranslatability. Throw in some neologisms or the use of portmanteau, and subtle meanings are totally lost.
Google vortex
Google's techniques also bring in another more obscure problem – the "Google time loop". This happens when the search firm finds what appears to be new parallel corpora, but is in fact is a piece of text that has been translated using Google's own service. "We try to detect if a translation that we find is one of our own, because it can cause problems," Dr Och explains. "It means that we would get stuck in the past – it can reintroduce old mistakes, as finding them again appears to reaffirm that they are correct." As a result, the search firm has had to develop its own bespoke range of algorithms just to try and detect its own translations, Dr Och reveals.
But as researchers grapple with these problems, every advance takes us one step closer to the idea of a universal translator. These mobile devices, a common feature of science fiction, allow speech to be translated on the fly, with no need to be in front of a computer. Perhaps the most famous depiction is the Babel Fish, a surreal invention of the late novelist Douglas Adams, and the inspiration of the name of Yahoo!'s translation engine. In his book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Adams described a small, yellow creature that, when inserted into the ear, translated alien languages instantly.
However, the reality of creating such a device presents even bigger challenges than just translating text.
"Spoken language is actually quite different from the written word, because sentences contain 'ums' and 'errs'," says Bill Byrne, a reader in Information Engineering at the University of Cambridge. "They may also have false starts, and reference things that were said earlier with phrases such as 'like I said.' Then of course there are some spoken languages that don't have a written form at all," he says, adding that researchers are only just beginning to figure out how to grapple with problems like these.
But several devices have been developed over the years, including one used by the US military in Iraq that stored around 2500 unique phrases and allowed soldiers to communicate – albeit in a basic fashion – with the local population.
But perhaps the nearest thing to a Babel Fish that is currently available is Google's Translate smartphone app. This builds on its web tool and can currently recognise speech in 17 languages.
To carry out a translation, a person speaks into the phone with the app running. This is recorded, and the speech clip is sent over the internet to Google's speech recognition servers. This processes the sound and transcribes it into text, allowing it to be run through the company's existing web tools to produce a translation. This is then passed to a text-to-speech system, which produces an audio file that can be then sent back over the internet to the phone. This all happens in a matter of seconds.
It is not perfect – background noise and regional accents can mean it gets muddled, and it often mistranslates ambiguous terms – but as it depends on examples to learn, Google says that the quality should improve.
However, there is one thing that currently holds this back from being a truly universal, mobile Babel Fish: it needs an internet connection to work, as even the most powerful smartphones cannot hold and process all of the necessary data to translate effectively.
"The language models we have developed are so big that they are stored on many different computers and involve many, many gigabytes of tables," explains Dr Och.
Even if the computing power of smartphones continues its onward march, it will be many years before the phone in your pocket can work as a Babel Fish by itself.
Dr Och, perhaps sensibly, will not be drawn on if and when a true Babel Fish-like device may be built. However, he says, there may be unforeseen consequences if they are successful.
"The end effect could be that everyone gets to know, understand and like each other better, and I get the Nobel Prize. But don't forget that in Douglas Adams' book, people who used the Babel Fish ended up understanding how much they hated each other."
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Salem town manager defends contract for Town Hall work
SALEM — Though accused of improperly awarding a contract for the renovation of the lower section of the Town Hall last year, Town Manager Keith Hickey stood by his decision at the start of Monday night's Board of Selectmen's meeting.
Hickey said he wasn't out of line when he hired RAM Construction for the $34,825 contract, though his actions have been publicly criticized.
The majority of complaints voiced by residents were due to the fact that one of the subcontracted companies is owned by the husband of Salem Finance Director Jane Savastano.
"I thought this would be the appropriate time to bring this issue forward and talk about it publicly," Hickey said Monday night. "We want people to understand the process and the bigger picture."
During last year's budget season, the board voted to close the former Mary Foss School and remodel space that was once a state Division of Motor Vehicles office for use by several social service agencies displaced by the closure.
With a new fiscal year beginning Jan. 1 and no funds available to keep the Foss School open beyond that time, Hickey said he needed to act fast. Under current town policy he is authorized to waive the usual bidding process during emergency situations, he said.
"The goal was to move outside agencies to other places by year's end," Hickey said.
By early December, Hickey said he had obtained bids from two nearby vendors — RAM Construction and L & B Construction Management.
Both companies were asked to provide documentation, at which time Hickey said the lower-priced bidder asked if they could subcontract with Atlantic Power & Design for the project, noting that Mark Savastano is that company's owner.
Hickey said it was permissible provided that Savastano's firm was licensed and insured, but said he did ask for the bid to be submitted directly to avoid public conflict.
"I wanted to keep that separation to maintain some integrity in the process," Hickey said. "Time was of the essence."
RAM Construction was awarded the contract, which came in about $5,000 cheaper than the one proposed by L & B on Dec. 18. The Salem Caregivers charity moved into Salem Town Hall in early February.
"I accepted, reviewed and approved the selected vendors," Hickey said. "No one in the finance department had any knowledge or involvement of my approval of this contract."
Board members supported their town manager.
A locksmith by trade, Hargreaves said he himself had been accused of acting improperly by simply selling an item to RAM Construction officials.
"At no time did my company step foot in (Town Hall) to install anything," Hargreaves said. "But my name is still getting thrown around."
"I don't think anything inappropriate was done," Chairman Everett McBride, Jr. agreed.


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Folder1: Military Intelligence Division, Military Intelligence Service; Folder2: Military Intelligence Division, Military Intelligence Service; Folder3: Ships and Aircrafts, Fletcher Pratt, Buel W. Patch, Society for the Prevention of WW3, Inc. , Carnegie Endowment For International Peace, the US news, the American Jewish Distribution Committee; Folder4: the new York times, life magazine, news week, public library of Youngstown & Mahoning county, National Broadcasting Company, Inc. , the US News
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UR 87/68 University Libraries -- War Information Center Pamphlets
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Received from the Pamphlet Office at the War Information Key Center (University of Toledo Library), which had received the publications from the U. S. Department of Education between 1940 and 1946; transferred to the Canaday Center in 1993.
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Sunday, December 16, 2012
That's that
thank you for visiting this blog, it was fun. most of the action is currently on Facebook though, so if you'd like to keep following, here are the spots: Asaf's Realist page, and Tomer's Tropical Toxic page. take care, and see you around.
5 comments:
I'm not on Facebook. A few years ago, Facebook sent me an e-mail that said: We notice you don't have a Facebook account. Here's a list of some of your friends who are on Facebook. It was a fairly accurate list, so I decided I would never join Facebook, because I already have too little privacy on the Internet.ReplyDelete
I'll miss reading your updates.
Will miss this blog. Thanks for all the sharing, both of you.ReplyDelete
- Anonymous2:43 PM
If you'd like to keep following Tomer via an RSS reader, add http://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?format=atom10&id=106016059434044ReplyDelete
Here's a handy tutorial for getting RSS feed addresses from facebook pages. http://blog.cometdocs.com/how-to-follow-a-facebook-page-via-rss-feed
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Rut prediction analysis and hunting tips for the remainder of the season.
By Charles Alsheimer
I received an email two nights ago from Wayne Laroche (he's hunting in northern Maine) asking for my assessment of this year's rut — specifically he wanted to know if I thought the majority of the breeding was over. So, here goes:
For starters, all of my research does (6) were done breeding on Nov. 17. The first one bred on Nov. 1 and the last two on Nov. 17, with the peak-breeding Nov. 14.
As far as the wild herd around my farm, I killed a nice buck on Nov. 17 as it "dog trotted" two does around one of our food plots. I might add that neither doe left the plot and the buck did not aggressively pursue either doe, (Also, there was a 2-1/2 year-old buck in the plot at the time and he paid no attention to what was going on) an indication that both does had been bred, and out of estrus for some time.
Thus, I believe from my camera data, our enclosure does breeding dates, what I'm seeing in the wild, and data shared with me from across North America (by many of you) that 90 percent of the breeding was over by this past weekend (Nov. 18) which is a full week earlier than last year, when the full moon hit on Nov. 10.
As many of you know, this is exactly as Wayne and I predicted it would take place in the data we provided for the 2012 Deer & Deer Hunting calendar, and in my Lunar Rut predictions for the September issue of Deer & Deer Hunting magazine.
A quote I received the other day from Dr. Dave Samuel (one of the most respected deer biologists in North America) pretty much sums up this year: "You nailed it this year my friend."
What can we expect moving forward?
As of right now you will be seeing does back on prime food sources, without fear of being mugged by a buck, yearling bucks wandering around aimlessly, and mature bucks hitting food hard in an attempt to put on weight they lost (mostly at night).
Hit the food sources if you want to kill a buck. Also, in short order, the best time of the day to hunt a food source will be midday and the last two hours of daylight (for stand hunters). Deer need to eat every 4 to 5 hours and most mature bucks are bedding just before dawn — thus they need to hit food by midday, then bed until an hour or so before dark, before feeding again.
Also, most mature bucks are now very exhausted from the rut. Yesterday, when I caped and skinned my buck there was zero fat on him (he dressed 185 pounds, which means his pre-rut weight was about 220 pounds), so he had been running and breeding hard since the full moon hit on Oct. 29.
To recap, it is important to repeat that what Wayne Laroche and I have now been doing for 15+ years is not rocket science. Though it will never be 100 percent accurate (nothing is), it is now easy to figure out when the northern rut will kick in and go hot-to-trot.
For science to be science, it needs to be observable and repeatable and as a result of these 15 years of data collection we now have the repeatable lunar cycles, and more than overwhelmed with observable data — to the point that we are now be able to predict how the northern whitetail rut will play out —again, this isn't rocket science. That said, next year will be very similar to 1999, 2002, 2010. These are all years when the second full moon after the autumn equinox fell on or slightly after Oct. 21.
This kind of year (2013) takes a heavy toll on bucks (especially mature bucks) because they'll run themselves ragged for over a month as they search for does that can enter estrus over a month long period.
As I've said for many years now, thanks to all of you — from Maine to Saskatchewan — I appreciate your rutting insight and the data. Wayne and I could not have done this without your help.
Deer & Deer Hunting's whitetail calendars are indispensable for helping you make the most of your time in the woods – and for a limited time, you can save 40 percent when you purchase them together!
The Whitetail Calendar Value Pack includes deer activity and rut predictions, based on years of lunar cycle research, straight from experts Charles Alsheimer and Wayne Laroche. Use the deer moon phase calendar to see what days the deer will be seeking and chasing, so you can time the rut for the best time to hunt in 2013. In addition, you get stunning glimpses into the world of the whitetail. From tranquil summer days to the excitement of the rut and the frosty days of winter, take a journey through whitetail country with these incredible photos.
This product is available for a limited time only. Order it today.


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In this lush, lurid adaptation of the 1957 Tennessee Williams one-act, Elizabeth Taylor and Katharine Hepburn play a seemingly insane, young New Orleans debutante and the wealthy aunt who wants to lobotomize her. Dr. John Cukrowicz (Montgomery Clift) is a gifted Chicago brain surgeon stymied by the primitive operating conditions at the New Orleans asylum where he works. Society matron Violet Venable (Hepburn) offers a solution in the form of a million-dollar grant -- as long as Cukrowicz will treat her niece, Catherine (Taylor). Catherine, it seems, has been institutionalized since the sudden death of her cousin, Violet's son, Sebastian, overseas the previous summer. As the young doctor tries to get to the bottom of what happened to Catherine, Violet's steely demeanor and devotion to Sebastian present a formidable barrier. Catherine herself doesn't offer much help, her recollections jumbled by medication and the trauma of Sebastian's demise. Under pressure to seal the deal and cut into Catherine's brain, Cukrowicz's principles (and attraction to the young woman) prevent him from proceeding until he uncovers what actually happened to Sebastian. In his memoirs, Gore Vidal claims to have written the screenplay for Suddenly, Last Summer single-handedly, although Williams took half the credit. Vidal toned down the original play's allusions to pedophilia, cannibalism, and incest, but the film nonetheless provoked heated controversy. As for the cast, an unhappy Hepburn reportedly was threatened by the attention lavished on Taylor by director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, whom Hepburn had hired to produce The Philadelphia Story two decades earlier. Mankiewicz, for his part, allegedly hated Clift, whose drinking and partial paralysis from an auto accident prevented him from working more than half a day at a time.~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Writer: Gore Vidal
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift, Albert Dekker, Mercedes McCambridge, Gary Raymond and Mavis Villiers
Sorry there are no upcoming showtimes for Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)


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Plans by broadband company LightSquared for a nationwide 4G satellite network took a substantial hit Feb. 14, when the Federal Communications Commission said it would not allow the network because it interferes with Global Positioning System communications.
FCC's ruling came on the heels of a National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) report essentially agreeing with earlier tests concluding that LightSquared's LTE network interfered with GPS transmissions and saying there was "no practical way" to solve the problem at the moment, the New York Times reported.
The commission now plans to propose rescinding the conditional waiver it had granted LightSquared to start building the network.
Related stories:
LightSquared: GPS interference is device-makers' fault
Proposed 4G network threatens vital GPS services, Congress told
The dispute over LightSquared's proposed network and GPS signals goes back at least to May 2011, when a test, ordered by the FCC, at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., found that the network's cellular signals took out GPS receivers used by first responders.
The network operates in the L Band of the radio frequency spectrum, at 1525 MHz to 1559 MHz, which is adjacent to the bands used by GPS and the Global Navigation Satellite System.
In September, government and industry officials supported the test findings in testimony before a House committee, saying the network — which could generate billions of dollars and, among other things, bring wireless broadband to rural areas that currently don't have it — should not be allowed until the interference problems are settled.
LightSquared has contended that the problem stems from improperly designed GPS receivers, and offered to reduce power and limit the radio frequency spectrum its network would use to mitigate the problem.
"This is an issue of responsible receiver design," Jeffrey Carlisle, LightSquared's executive vice president for regulatory affairs and public policy, said during the hearing. "We are going to make a major investment in infrastructure," of $14 billion over eight years, "but will do nothing to degrade GPS."
However, other industry and government officials have said that redesigning GPS receivers to accommodate LightSquared's network would be prohibitively expensive.
The Federal Aviation Administration, for example, is in the process of transitioning its air traffic control system from radar to GPS. The Transportation Department has estimated that making adjustments to accommodate LightSquared's network could cost $72 billion and delay the program by 10 years — and might not eliminate interference anyway.
In addition to police and emergency crews, other government organizations make extensive use of GPS signals, including NASA, the Defense Department, the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
After the FCC's announcement Feb. 14, LightSquared officials disagreed with the NTIA's tests, and saying that the FCC's rulings "disregard more than a decade of regulatory orders, and in doing so, jeopardize private enterprise, jobs and investment in America's future," the Times reported.
The FCC has issued a call for public comments on the NTIA report, with comments due by March 1.
About the Author
Kevin McCaney is a former editor of Defense Systems and GCN.
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Part of the problem with this is not that the GPS receivers are not compliant. It is the fact that the POWER that is going to be used by the ground network will totally obliterate the GPS signals even with filtering. The FCC allowed them to use a frequency band that was originally designated to work at very LOW power for SATELLITE communications. This is another boondoggle that was brought about by this administration and the taxpayers will probably be left paying them to go away. Press releases have said that Light Squared has been working this program for TEN YEARS...and it is speculation on my part, but they waited until they had an FCC Commission staffed with political hacks instead of knowledgeable people and an administration willing to lean on the Commission to let them have the use permits. Wireless broadband is not going to be the answer; instead wired infratstructure in urban and suburban areas linked to LOW power wi-fi and then possibly the wireless broadband transmitters out where they can't interfere with anything.
It looks to me like what is best for either party is not what is best for the country as a whole. Lightsquared seems willing to work with the FCC and the GPS community to work out a near-term compromise as long as the FCC enforces long-term replacement of receivers that violate existing rules. The FCC and GPS equipment manufacturers need to take their lumps and comply.
This is a simple equation: The ongoing value and investment of GPS outweigh the value and investment of LightSquared in the particular piece of spectrum. They can succeed by moving their signal elsewhere in the available spectrum. Blaming the existing reality sounds immature and shrill.
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Alright guys, I'm looking to get into race kiting, but also be able to use my same gear for screwing around a bit, just blasting around. Board-wise, I have a line on a cheap RRD Krace 70, I'm pretty sure I'll be set with that for a while. Kites, I'm looking at getting a 15 Edge, 12 Catalyst, (I've found both of these used) and then a 19 Edge later on and maybe a 9 Catalyst or Edge. Wind where I kite is generally mid-teens, so I'd probably go with the 15 from 10-18, 12 Catalyst from 18-25, 9 Cat above that, and the 19 Edge from 5-12. Does this sound like a good quiver? I'm 185, do those wind ranges see about right? I'm not looking to be competitive at all for at least a year or so, I just want to get on the water having fun and getting used to a new board/kites. I'm trying to get on the water with the board and first two kites for ~$3000.
If anyone has any similar kites/boards for sale, PM me I'd be interested.


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Volusia-Flagler tourism continued to claw its way back from the depths of the Great Recession in 2012, and officials and hoteliers are hoping to keep the momentum alive in 2013.
Volusia-Flagler tourism continued to claw its way back from the depths of the Great Recession in 2012, and officials and hoteliers are hoping to keep the momentum alive in 2013.
Some signs suggest that could happen, but it won't be easy.
Both counties saw improvement in 2012, but faltering consumer confidence, higher gasoline prices and economic uncertainty could derail progress in the coming year.
"I think most destinations are looking toward a difficult 2013," said Jeffrey Hentz, president and CEO of the Daytona Beach Area Convention & Visitors bureau, which markets Daytona Beach and the surrounding area as a tourist destination.
"The economy could go in reverse," he added. "Unless you're in a market that does a lot of international business, you have to be very concerned — especially if you're a blue-collar market like we are."
Still, Volusia tourism exits 2012 in better shape than when it entered. The county's bed-tax revenues, which are collected from hotel and short-term rentals, increased for the second consecutive year in fiscal year 2011-12, which runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, to $14.4 million from $13.5 million in fiscal year 2010-11.
In Flagler County, bed-tax revenues topped $1.5 million in fiscal year 2011-12, up from $1.27 million in fiscal 2010-11.
Area hotels and condos also showed improvement in both occupancy and average daily room rates.
"We've been on an old-fashioned roll," said Evelyn Fine, president of Mid-Florida Marketing & Research, which tracks tourism in Volusia County. "Not only has occupancy gone up, but we have seen an increase in (average daily room rate), as well. That means not only are people coming, they're spending more (for their rooms)."
Hentz attributed the growth to an improving national economy, falling gas prices — about 80 percent of visitors to the Daytona Beach area drive there, he added — and travelers who are just now taking vacations they put off during the recession.
But gas prices have recently crept up, and consumer confidence, which hit a four-year high in October, has wavered in the face of uncertainty surrounding potential federal tax hikes and spending cuts known as the fiscal cliff.
"There's a lot of uncertainty right now with the fiscal cliff and people not knowing what their taxes are going to look like next year," said Blaine Lansberry, vice president of sales and marketing with Staed Hotels, which operates the Best Western Plus Aku Tiki Inn and Bahama House hotels in Daytona Beach Shores. She added that she nonetheless expects slow improvement in 2013.
Tourism officials are hoping that revamped advertising campaigns, new marketing strategies and events scheduled for 2013 will help shield the area if things go awry.
"We're looking to new messaging — a new brand for Daytona Beach," Hentz said, referring to the "Seize the Daytona" advertising campaign to be rolled out early next year. "We're also going to do more targeted marketing."
Hentz added that group events like Rejuvenate Marketplace, a meeting of more than 400 meeting planners that will convene at the Ocean Center in late October, will bring travelers to the area.
Other Ocean Center events, such as a cheer and dance competition and fire-rescue conference in January, are expected to draw large crowds, but director Don Poor said the center's sales team has its work cut out for it in 2013.
"I'm cautious, and I'd love to be optimistic," Poor said.
Despite the uncertainty, Kerry Mitruska, director of sales and marketing at the 323-room Plaza Resort & Spa in Daytona Beach, is looking forward to 2013. The new year will bring facility improvements and an uptick in group bookings, he said.
"I think we're pretty well set up for 2013," Mitruska said. "We have a good base of group business already on the books. We're ahead of pace going into 2013."
Like the Daytona visitors bureau, the Southeast Volusia Advertising Authority, which promotes an area that includes New Smyrna Beach, Oak Hill, Port Orange and Edgewater as a tourism destination, is also due for a branding overhaul in 2013, said Tim Hamby, the organization's executive director.
The ad authority next year will unveil a new website and launch an advertising push that will include new interstate billboards, Hamby said.
"I think it will be (effective) in making our area a destination — not just a place you check out while you're in Central Florida," Hamby said.
Like Hentz, Hamby said he is greeting 2013 with guarded optimism.
"I think the Southeast Volusia area would be able to withstand a soft economy better than a lot of the competition," Hamby said. "We are a strong drive market. There are a lot of day-trippers and getaway visitors (who have to plan) staycations and shorter-term stays. We're in a good position to receive those kinds of people."
West Volusia is looking to sports for business in 2013. Renee Tallevast, executive director of the West Volusia Tourism Advertising Authority, which promotes an area that includes DeLand, Orange City, Deltona, DeBary and Cassadaga, expects DeLand-based Stetson University's new football program, which starts next autumn, to draw visitors to the area. In addition, the ad authority is working to attract other sporting events to the area, Tallevast said.
"We're going to have a little bit of a rocky road to start off because we had a few major (summer) sporting events this year that we won't have next year," Tallevast said, adding that she hopes new sports prospects will offset the loss.
Tourism efforts in Flagler County head into the new year with a new name and logo, and riding a wave of confidence and steady increases in bed tax collections,
"It was another banner year," said to Georgia Turner, vice president of tourism development at the Flagler County Chamber of Commerce & Affiliates. "We reached $1.5 million in bed tax collections, and that's really major for us."
In addition to reaching that milestone, through September, Flagler County's bed-tax collections have increased for 21 consecutive months in year-over-year comparisons.
But increased revenue was only part of the tourism story for Flagler County in 2012.
"We completed our strategic plan for the next three years," she said. "And as a result of that repositioned ourselves as Palm Coast and the Flagler Beaches with a new logo."
With the beginning of 2013 just around the corner, Turner said there are several new things poised to happen to enhance the county's tourism effort and continue the positive momentum.
"We've been collecting visitor information all year in order to have a year-long visitor profile and economic impact study that shows what happened in 2012," she said, adding that the report will come out in January.
Though area hotels saw solid gains in 2012, some shops that cater to tourism weren't as fortunate, said Paul Politis, president of Gator Beach & Sport, across from the Ocean Walk Shoppes on North Atlantic Avenue in Daytona Beach.
"I don't think the bed-tax collections tell the whole story," Politis said. "I don't think it was a good year by any standard retail-wise ... I can safely say we're not where we should be."
Politis said business was nearly flat in 2012 and that the past five years have been the most difficult since his family opened the store in 1982. And, he's worried about 2013.
"The biggest thing is consumer confidence and people actually spending," he said. "There's a lot of uncertainty in the marketplace. And, that translates into, 'Hey honey, we're not going on vacation this year."


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Fr. Frank Pavone, International Director of Priests for Life and an official of the Pontifical Council for the Family at the Vatican, applauded the document released by the U.S. Catholic Bishops, "Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics," the purpose of which is to bring even more clarity to, among other things, the Church's long-standing position on Catholic politicians and abortion.
In a statement from Rome today, Fr. Pavone said: "For those who are Catholic, there can no longer be any doubt: There is simply no way to be Catholic and "Pro-Choice," when the choice in question involves the taking of innocent life.
Those who hold that there is more than one Catholic position on abortion are mistaken and need to stop misleading others.
"In reality, the Catholic position is the only position that promotes authentic human freedom of choice. It recognizes that 'Choice' has an obligation to 'Truth.' If Catholics want to govern, then let them govern all the people--- that includes the youngest members of the human family.
"In the course of my travels throughout the United States, few questions have been asked of me with such urgency and consistency than that of how to address the scandal of politicians who call themselves Catholic, and yet permit the legal destruction of innocent babies.
"Priests for Life has addressed this question in the past in communion with the Bishops. We therefore welcome this new statement and pledge the active cooperation of thousands of our priest members throughout the country to see that this document is known and applied."


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This white paper shows how InfiniFlash presents significant performance improvements over standard HDDs, and a choice of flash-accelerated solution architectures to resolve many scale-related issues related to traditional HDD-based deploymnet models for Hadoop.
Deriving value and key insights from growing amounts of structured and unstructured data is now critical across myriad diverse organizations. At the same time, cloud applications in particular are driving unprecedented data growth, and a need to apply new techniques and technology to achieve effective large-scale and hyperscale big data infrastructure. While Hadoop deployments have been very successful to date, actually delivering Hadoop at scale based on existing deployment models brings a host of challenges that can impact both performance and the critical ability to scale.
While these challenges are significant, Hadoop technology itself is undergoing rapid and dramatic change to address them. With Hadoop 2.x, the platform has transitioned to be considerably more flexible, allowing innovation from across the Hadoop community. Network technology too is evolving quickly, delivering ever-increasing bandwidth and fundamentally redefining how Hadoop can be deployed. Building on these trends, flash technology now represents a new frontier in accelerating big data storage at scale–either by augmenting traditional spinning media, or by replacing it entirely.
Ideal for hyperscale Hadoop deployments, the InfiniFlash™ system delivers both high performance and capacity in an all- flash storage array. The system provides a choice of both direct-attached and object-based storage models in a high-density fault tolerant architecture that demonstrates dramatically improved reliability and reduced service requirements over spinning media. A building-block approach to infrastructure means that even very large hyperscale deployments can be scaled out predictably. Beyond providing new levels of capacity and performance, InfiniFlash provides total cost of ownership (TCO) that is highly comparable to Hadoop deployments based on traditional hard disk drives (HDDs).
When compared to typical HDDs deployed in Hadoop infrastructure, the InfiniFlash system provides:
Hadoop and its original DataNode model was designed to provide both data storage and analytics capabilities. While this model fit well with the technology and expectations of the time, it is beginning to strain with regular computational performance gains and the growth of storage capacity without an accompanying growth in storage performance. Hyperscale deployments in particular need the flexibility to take advantage of new technologies without arbitrary limitations that restrict either scale or performance.
Large-Scale Hadoop Challenges
Hadoop was originally designed with the fundamental assumption of data distribution across compute and storage, with data placement as close to compute as possible (striving for co-locality of compute and data). It was also designed with the notion that all jobs were created equal with respect to compute and data storage needs. While these assumptions may have been accurate for initial Hadoop deployments, the model can start to fail with cluster growth and asymmetric growth in processor performance relative to storage performance.
Data Distribution Across Compute and Storage
Designed with local storage on each DataNode, the original Hadoop model works well when there is an approximate 1:1 core-to-spindle ratio. This ratio was a fair assumption several years ago when the number of processor cores roughly approximated the number of drives available in an enterprise rack-mount server. Since that time, however, available processor core counts and speeds have continued to increase thanks to Moore's Law, while the number of physical spindles in a given number of rack units cannot increase significantly. Growing the number of cores without appropriate throughput or IO Operations Per Second (IOPS) starts to slow performance as Hadoop jobs start to contend for I/O resources.
The Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) is intended to provide streaming data access, ideally maintaining the maximum I/O rate of the drive. Unfortunately, HDDs have an upper limit of aggregate throughput regardless of queue depth, and latency and performance both suffer as queue depth increases. Moreover, typical Hadoop practices can interfere with streaming data access. Standard Hadoop deployments partition the HDDs to at least two partitions, with one EXT3/4 partition providing space for HDFS, and a second partition used for logs, temp files, and transient MapReduce files. The result is that although most of the I/O is comprised of large sequential reads, streaming is often violated by temp file changes, MapReduce shuffle data, and by data writes due to rebalancing or extract transform load (ETL) operations.
In most deployments, HDFS writes to full and very few deletes ever happen. Data scientists are notorious for wanting to keep all their results data because they never know when they will need them again. If the cluster is constrained with search or other specific tasks generating new data, older unused data can result in necessary periodic purging. These purges add to the list of streaming data access violations. At scale, Hadoop operations architects often complain about "long tail jobs" or ETL batch failures due to network bandwidth issues, or cluster slowdowns caused by these issues.
Data Locality to Compute
In a perfect world, Hadoop clusters are sized and data is evenly distributed across those nodes. Jobs would then be scheduled and sized appropriately to evenly distribute the MapReduce processes, thus ensuring a balanced job execution. In reality, unless it is brand new, most Hadoop deployments rapidly develop data distribution issues.
All Jobs Are Not Created Equal
Hadoop performance can be very deterministic for batch-oriented jobs such as search, where a new dataset is typically spread across a fixed number of servers for processing. However, ad-hoc usage of a growing cluster by independent data scientists can create other performance issues. Data scientists typically want to assign the most available resources to process their data, but they typically do so without any insight into the data locality issues listed above. As a result, they may well schedule 1500 MapReducers against a dataset that is distributed across only 500 DataNodes due to space constraints in a growing cluster. The result is that 1000 of the MapReducers will have to stream data across the network from the 500 DataNodes, potentially impacting performance.
Of course, sharing a cluster in such a situation can be problematic for performance. Beyond the performance impact from the network access, running jobs can be impacted by streaming data access requests for MapReducers running on other physical servers. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that traditional Hadoop clusters grow with both compute and storage simultaneously, even though jobs are typically bound by either compute or storage resources.
Hadoop Technology at an Inflection Point
Most of the issues above stem from the traditional Hadoop deployment model, with a network of servers with locally attached storage. This model was chosen for Hadoop both to provide data locality, and because of practical limitations in network throughput. Fortunately, a number of technology advancements and trends are contributing to an inflection point that makes alternative Hadoop deployment models possible. In fact, these trends and innovations fundamentally change the ways that Hadoop can be deployed.
As a manufacturer of flash memory, SanDisk is in a unique position to deliver end-to-end flash-accelerated solutions with full integration, performance, and reliability. SanDisk can innovate at all layers of the hardware and software stack, from unique flash-based building blocks through software, shared storage systems, and application solutions.
InfiniFlash™ Technology
Illustrated in Figure 1, InfiniFlash is a high-density "just a bunch of flash" (JBOF) all-flash storage system architected to deliver massive scale and quality of service (QoS). As a scale-out, high density, all-flash system, InfiniFlash is designed for high capacity, high density and maximum efficiency, making it ideal for Hadoop deployments at scale. Unlike SSD-based devices, InfiniFlash is based on a new flash form factor, resulting in a platform that can deliver compelling TCO with space and energy savings in a fault-tolerant architecture with low servicing requirements. Characteristics that make InfiniFlash ideal for hyperscale Hadoop deployments include:
Figure 1: InfiniFlash by SanDisk provides up to 512TB of high-performance flash storage in only 3U.
A Choice of InfiniFlash Models for Hadoop
Those deploying Hadoop at scale need the flexibility to design innovative infrastructure that meets their unique needs. For some, traditional direct-attached models make the most sense. Others are beginning to explore data tiering, object storage, and other mechanisms. The InfiniFlash system is offered in a choice of models to help enable flexible deployments:
Software Stack
The InfiniFlash software stack (Figure 2) is designed to provide both performance and flexibility for a wide range of flash-accelerated applications. Software development kits (SDKs) offer both platform-focused control path services as well as application-specific data path optimization services to supported hyperscale applications. Ceph and OpenStack SWIFT based block and object services are offered as a middleware layer for major applications. Ceph in particular has been transformed by SanDisk for flash performance with over a 10-fold improvement for block reads and a five-fold improvement for object reads. Hadoop can interact with InfiniFlash either through traditional direct-attached models, or via Amazon S3 support provided through Hadoop 2.x.
Figure 2: The SanDisk software stack provides maximum flexibility to enable InfiniFlash deployments.
Flash-Based Solution Architectures for Hadoop Deployments
The InfiniFlash system can be integrated with Hadoop 2.x in a number of different solution architectures, depending on the needs of the organization. The sections that follow detail several alternative approaches. All of these architectures are designed to be deployed as repeatable building blocks that can be scaled out to facilitate large Hadoop deployments.
Traditional Symmetric HDFS with Data Tiering
Most traditional Hadoop deployments are deployed with relatively uniform storage on DataNodes, which can cause many of the issues described above. Just as data tiering has merit in the enterprise, some hyperscale organizations are evaluating tiered models for Hadoop (http://www.ebaytechblog.com/2015/01/12/hdfs-storage-efficiency-using-tiered-storage/). The flexibility of Hadoop 2.x and new archival models are demonstrating that data tiering can be accomplished by retaining only highly-active data on high-performance storage, while migrating less active data to more cost-efficient storage. InfiniFlash can work well in these more traditional environments, bringing performance, capacity, and throughput to accelerate Hadoop while low-activity data is migrated to a lower-performance HDD-based storage tier. Figure 3 illustrates a traditional three-replica Hadoop deployment with the compute tier for each replica provided by an InfiniFlash IF100 system directly attached to eight DataNodes. In this example, the HDD tier might be implemented cost effectively via a larger-capacity 60-disk server. In this illustration, 40% of capacity is provided by InfiniFlash with the remaining 60% provided by the HDD-based servers, though this could be easily adjusted as needed.
Figure 3: For traditional Hadoop models, InfiniFlash IF100 provides flash acceleration with low-activity data migrated to cost-effective HDD-based data tier.
Deploying data tiering with InfiniFlash acceleration for high-activity data presents several distinct advantages:
Hadoop on Object Store with InfiniFlash Primary
Building on the strengths of traditional models, InfiniFlash IF500 can be deployed with Hadoop as a flash-optimized object store. Figure 4 illustrates a model in which a disaggregated compute farm runs Hadoop compute jobs only, with all data access streamed over the network from a Ceph-based object store. In this solution architecture, two servers attach directly to the InfiniFlash IF500 system, with Ceph providing the data tiering capability to migrate replicas to attached HDD-based storage.
Figure 4: A flash-optimized object store disaggregates Hadoop compute resources from storage for greater flexibility.
Disaggregating Hadoop compute resources in this fashion brings distinct advantages that have simply not been possible before:
Taking the object store model to the next level, InfiniFlash can also support high-performance Hadoop installations that eliminate HDDs entirely. In this solution architecture, all three replicas are maintained on InfiniFlash, with erasure coding providing low-overhead redundancy and data integrity. Figure 5 illustrates an all-flash object store with two servers attached to each InfiniFlash IF500 appliance.
Figure 5: An all-flash object store with erasure coding eliminates HDDs entirely from the Hadoop deployment.
Deploying an all-flash object store presents several additional advantages:
To evaluate the cost effectiveness of flash-accelerated Hadoop architecture, SanDisk has performed analysis that evaluates TCO across the three solution architectures as compared to traditional HDD-based three-replica Hadoop. SanDisk's price reduction roadmap allows for further InfiniFlash cost improvements not shown in this average model. In addition to performance gains, and the ability for flash to resolve many of the issues encountered with traditional Hadoop deployments, all three flash-accelerated architectures demonstrate compelling TCO when compared to traditional HDD-based Hadoop (Figure 6). Despite a slightly higher cost of acquisition, all three InfiniFlash architectures are much more cost effective when three-year TCO is taken into account.
Figure 6: Flash-accelerated Hadoop compares favorably with HDDs in a three-year TCO calculation for a 200PB Hadoop cluster.
Importantly, performance benefits and operational and maintenance costs are not included in these models. To give some idea of the impact of flash-accelerated Hadoop, Figure 7 shows the dramatically reduced number of racks required to host a 200PB flash-accelerated Hadoop cluster using each of the three solution architectures as compared to standard HDD-based Hadoop. The density and low power profile of InfiniFlash can contribute greatly to savings in terms of real estate, power and cooling in the data center.
Figure 7: Flash-accelerated Hadoop requires dramatically fewer racks, and provides commensurate savings in power and cooling.
With the combination of Hadoop 2.x, rapid improvements in network bandwidth, and flash technology, organizations deploying Hadoop at hyperscale can now begin to free themselves from HDD-based Hadoop scalability issues. InfiniFlash presents significant performance improvements over standard HDDs, and a choice of flash-accelerated solution architectures resolves many scale-related issues related to traditional HDD-based deployment models for Hadoop. Replacing spinning media with innovative solid-state InfiniFlash systems from SanDisk along with data tiering and object storage can literally redefine how Hadoop is deployed at scale–with TCO comparable to HDDs.
1 As compared to 200 IOPS HDD.
2 1TB = 1,000,000,000,000 bytes. Actual user capacity less.
3 Results based on internal testing. Results available upon request.
4 Test results available here: http://www.sandisk.com/assets/docs/increasing-hadoop-performance-with-sandisk-ssds-whitepaper.pdf
Che siate una società Fortune 500 o una startup di cinque persone, SanDisk ha soluzioni che vi aiuteranno a sfruttare al meglio la vostra infrastruttura.
Sia che desideriate porre alcune domande iniziali o siate pronti a discutere una soluzione SanDisk su misura per le esigenze della vostra azienda, gli addetti alle vendite SanDisk sono pronti ad assistervi.
Ci impegniamo a rispondervi tempestivamente, compilate il seguente modulo.
Grazie. Abbiamo ricevuto la vostra richiesta.


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Skip to comments.Ancient Corncobs Unlock Riddle
Posted on 10/14/2003 3:41:39 PM PDT by blam
Ancient corncobs unlock riddle
By MIKE TONER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Prehistoric populations in the American Southwest transported corn over long distances -- and used networks of "farm to market" roads that enabled them to support large cities in areas that were unsuitable for agriculture.
New studies of ancient corncobs show that large urban complexes like Chaco Canyon that thrived a thousand years ago in New Mexico imported corn from fertile farmlands that were 50 miles or more from major population centers.
Archaeologists have long wondered how the sophisticated Chaco civilization, which built huge multistory dwellings in the high desert of north-central New Mexico, thrived in such an arid climate. The answer, in a word: imports.
Earlier research established that the Chaco people hauled by hand a quarter-million logs from the slopes of the Chuska Mountains, 50 miles to the west, to erect their "capital" city, a site now known as Pueblo Bonito. Until now, however, the question of how they fed themselves had remained a puzzle.
"This is the first time we have been able to document the importation of a food crop," said archaeologist Linda Cordell, director of the University of Colorado Museum. "It's clear that these people had a highly coordinated system for planting, harvesting, storing and distributing food. This society was infinitely more complex than anyone ever imagined."
At its height, Pueblo Bonito is thought to have supported between 6,000 and 12,000 people. Excavations of the largest building have found hundreds of rooms, turquoise ornaments, unusual cylindrical jars, finely crafted spear points and icons of tropical birds from Central America.
Beyond the central city, a network of roads led to outlying villages that were scattered across more than 23,000 square miles of the San Juan Basin.
In the past, archaeologists had assumed that a more equable climate between the 9th and 12th centuries enabled the people of Pueblo Bonito to grow their food nearby. Tree ring analysis, however, suggests the climate has changed little in the last thousand years.
The latest findings, reported Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that prehistoric Americans were as adept at importing their food from distant locations as later cultures.
Maize, the ancient forerunner of modern corn, was the dietary staple of the Chaco culture. Because the cobs found at Pueblo Bonito contain distinctive ratios of trace elements from the crop's water source, scientists have been able to trace them to two widely separated regions -- both 50 miles from the central city. In one crop growing region, along the floodplain of the San Juan River, there are hints that the ancient farmers may have built many miles of ditches for water diversion.
The latest discovery attests to the value of preserving archaeological resources, no matter how insignificant they may seem. Corncobs used for the latest analysis were excavated from Chaco Canyon in the late 1800s and preserved in a museum collection.
Archaeologists say trace element analysis of preserved plant materials elsewhere in the Americas -- from seeds of foodstuffs to the grass used for baskets -- may open a new window on prehistoric cultures that left no written records, enabling them to link ancient population centers with the resources they used.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this ping list.
Spiritual guidance? (Give us corn and we won't eat you)
Exactly! Something very nasty was brewing down there and a lot of archaeologists seem to need to be dragged kicking and screaming to the obvious conclusion.
That's seems to be pretty much always the case. I suspect grant money has something to due with it.
It gets even stranger, Dr Nancy Yaw Davis makes a compelling case in her book The Zuni Enigma that the Japanese replaced the American Indians in that area.
The Zuni language and blood type is unlike all other American Indians. The Japanese were on a search for the center of the earth and decided that they had found it there.
"For many years, anthropologists have understood the Zuni in the American Southwest to occupy a special place in Native American culture and ethnography. Their language, religion, and blood type are startlingly different from all other tribes. Most puzzling, the Zuni appear to have much in common with the people of Japan. "
Lawrence Keeley tells a very interesting story in his book War Before Civilization (which I highly recommend) about getting a previously denied grant by changing the word "fortifications" (implying warfare) to "enclosures" (implying a peaceful purpose) in his grant request. The illustration he provides showing the distribution of arrow heads that he found around one of the "enclosures" shows just how rediculous the peaceful interpretation is.
See also the movie, Ravenous .
Likewise, it would be interesting to see if there was a DNA match between Aztecs and earlier inhabitants of the region (ie, pre-Anasazi). That would seem to help validate or help invalidate the MeCHA claim that the ancestral homeland of the Mexican people is in the southwestern U.S.
Just updating the GGG info, not sending a general distribution.
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- Dr. Michael V. Novia
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Ratings for Dr. Michael V. Novia
Dr. Novia is not only an excellent surgeon, he is one of the most caring physicians I have ever encountered. He performed breast reduction surgery for me and helped me overcome chronic neck and back pain. The care I received exceeded my expectations in every way. I was fearful of surgery and Dr. Novia made the entire process very clear and comfortable. I got beautiful results and I have never felt better.
I had a breast reduction surgery done by Dr.Novia in August of this year and could not be any happier with the INCRDEIBLE results than I am. I feel very athletic and my self confidence has sky rocketed!!! His office staff and he himself are very easy to deal with, wonderful to talk to, incredibly helpful and dependable. I had done years of homework and having this surgery was a very big decision for me. The looks I now have are wonderful. My friends can not believe this could have been done, seeing the before and afters. As I followed close instructions by Dr.Novia regarding pain medications, this entire procedure of a breast reduction was completely painless. I would be glad to speak to anyone who is condsidering breast reduction surgery. Dr. Novia is a very likeable man and easy to talk to. He has a wonderful reputation in town and works with two known cancer doctors in his office. He has a reputation of being very concise and it proved to be accurate.
I had a wonderful experience with Dr.Novia. I had a breast reduction and he and his staff worked hard on my behalf with my insurance company to have it covered successfully. Dr.Novia was extremely professional and I always felt well taken care of. The results of the procedure are beautiful. He took great care to make the cuts and lines look very straight and proportioned. Dr.Novia called the night of the surgery to be sure I was recovering well and from thereon afterwards, the aftercare of the surgery was thorough and professional. I'm extremely pleased with the results! The whole experience for me was a very positive one, and I would highly recommend Dr.Novia as a provider and a surgeon who cares for his patients and works hard to achieve high quality results! Thanks again Dr.Novia!
Fabulous Doctor!! I highly recommend Dr. Novia! He is so kind and loves his job! I had a breast augmentation and couldn't be happier!! Love love love him! His staff was gracious, the nurses were beyond helpful and compassionate! I am so happy that I chose him to do my surgery! You know right when you meet him that he is a great person in and out! My husband loved him and he was there for me day and night and the staff is always available and ready to answer any question any time of day!! Great experience and a great Doctor make for an overall great result!! :) Thanks so much Dr. Novia for being your best and not just going through the motions!! You are fabulous!
Dr. Novia is amazing, my procedure turned out better than I could have imagined.. My breast are BEATIFUL... I LOVE THEM AND SO DOES MY HUSBAND.
I was fortunate enough to have Dr Novia as my Plastic surgeon after being diagnosed with breast cancer. He did an excellent job and was extremely, knowledgeable confident and caring
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