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Dudes and dudettes. Girls and boys. Ladies and gentlemen. Males and females. Is this starting to get annoying? I hope not, because it's time for New iOS Games Tonight, and it would be kind of a bummer if I killed your motivation to read it in the very first paragraph.
In case you didn't know, Wednesday nights are typically when most big-name games are released on the App Store. This week is no different, with releases from mobile juggernauts like Halfbrick and ZeptoLabs in the pipeline. If neither of those names mean anything to you, then perhaps a game starring none other than the TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES will excite you. Who doesn't love them?
Fish Out of Water – From the folks who brought you Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride, Fish Out of Water is a game about skipping fish across the ocean. It's simple in theory, but the real complexity comes from the different powers of each fish in the game, as well as the sea creatures who judge your skipping abilities at the end of each run. And did we mention achievements? There will be achievements!
Cut the Rope: Time Travel – More Cut the Rope is always a good thing. In Time Travel, players will be tasked with feeding candy to Om Nom as well as a variety of his ancestors, ranging from Pirate Om Nom to Egyptian Om Nom. Needless to say, they're pretty freakin' adorable.
Ark of Sinners Advance – Action-platformers are all over the App Store, but Ark of Sinners Advance has the potential to be one of the better ones available. Not only does it have an interesting story to tell (which I won't spoil here), but it looks to have a control scheme that allows you to slash away at enemies with the slightest of ease. Consider us interested.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Rooftop Run – It's a little odd to see the Ninja Turtles in an endless runner, but here we are. However, in all fairness, it looks like Rooftop Run will also place a heavy emphasis on combat, which is a little closer to what those rambunctious turtles are all about. It remains to be seen whether pizza will be a pivotal part of the game, but I'm assuming it will. Yum.

subset: commoncrawl


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Christina Battista is saving up to buy a bicycle. A few credits short of a bachelor's degree in psychology at Rhode Island College, she needs a bike to get to class. And she has her eye on a particularly expensive bicycle--a recumbent model--because she can't use her arms.
Luckily for her, she lives in one of 15 states now offering Cash & Counseling, a Medicaid program that allows disabled or elderly beneficiaries to use Medicaid dollars to buy goods and services that will help them live at home and in the community rather than in an institution.
Some might be surprised to learn that Medicaid money is being spent on bicycles, not to mention washer/dryers, BlackBerrys and other items that participants have bought through the program. But according to recent studies, such purchases are worth it: Cash & Counseling participants are healthier and happier than those in other home-care programs and less likely to be admitted to hospitals or transferred to long-term-care facilities.
With baby boomers aging and an increasing number of disabled people coming onto Medicaid rolls, many states are looking for ways to rebalance the way money is spent in their long-term-care programs. The aim is not only to provide services that people prefer but also to veer toward less expensive home and community care and away from more costly nursing home and other institutional care. That rebalancing act is creating a lot of interest in the experiences of the 15 Cash & Counseling states.
Between 1998 and 2003, three states--Arkansas, Florida and New Jersey--piloted demonstration programs for Cash & Counseling. By 2004, the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services allowed every state to apply to add this home-care option to its Medicaid package. Twelve more have signed on so far, and those numbers are likely to grow. The 2006 Deficit Reduction Act made it even easier for states to add self- direction to their existing personal or home and community-based services.
The allure for states, both those in the program and those who may sign up, is the ability to provide better care without spending more money--or perhaps even saving money--on the long-term-care side of their Medicaid ledger. Based on the track record of demonstration states, savings are likely to materialize--but it may take a while for them to show up.
When Arkansas compared costs for participants in traditional home- care plans against costs for those in the self-directed program, they got mixed fiscal news. In the first year, Cash & Counseling participants ran up bills for personal-care services that were almost twice as high as those in the traditional plan--largely because participants in self-directed care had access to a greater portion of authorized home-care services than those in traditional care. At the same time, thanks to this improvement in delivery of services, they stayed healthier than the control group and that showed up in fewer admissions to the hospital or transfers to nursing homes.
Year one's decline in hospital and nursing home costs did not, however, make up for the upswing in spending for personal-care services. Year two's costs came close to a draw. Although data are not yet available, the year-two findings suggest that states could see savings if self-directed patients continue to thrive at home and avoid institutionalization.
Although the cash side of the program has been capturing attention, the 15 Cash & Counseling states are finding that the key to success lies in the other half of the equation: To succeed, the program needs effective counseling.
Cash & Counseling is as straightforward as its title. Participants get a monthly cash allowance of some of the Medicaid money allotted for their care. They can use it to make adaptive home repairs, hire aides--friends, family members or professionals--for help with personal care, and save for big-ticket items, such as recumbent bicycles. There is also a no-can-do list. The cash can't subsidize the rent or grocery bills or be blown on tobacco, booze or lotto tickets.
Participants receive help managing the money. The counseling ranges from simple budgeting advice to more sophisticated assistance with state and federal employer taxes and regulations. Participants may also need guidance with the fine points of being an employer, such as how to fire an aide.
Cash & Counseling can be an added twist on existing Medicaid offerings. But New Mexico went one step further. The state revamped its long-term-care program and incorporated the self-directed program as its centerpiece.
The first step was taken in 2004 with the creation of a cabinet-level Department of Aging and Long-Term Services, which worked with health and human services agencies to craft a Cash & Counseling variation it dubbed Mi Via--Spanish for My Way. The second step called for representatives of various disabled and elderly groups--with roots in native, Hispanic and Anglo communities--to forge consensus about how the program could best serve their constituents' needs. At first, the elderly community and the younger disabled populations were at odds over the goals and limitations of self-direction. Older folks wanted more focus on dealing with impairments, while younger people tended to be concerned with engaging in life. It took two years of meetings, but the factions finally agreed on ways to integrate alternative sources of assistance.
The stakeholder group also wanted to make sure that people throughout the state who could benefit from Mi Via would know about it. Toward that end, they took it on the road, literally. Instead of relying solely on static brochures or Web site information, the program put on a traveling road show--a two-act theatrical called "Mi Via: Who's in the Driver's Seat?" The show played in venues throughout the state and starred a Mi Via participant, Tony Chavez, who played himself as he explored the differences between Cash & Counseling (in which the protagonist drives) and the traditional personal-care model (in which our hero sits in the backseat).
Chavez, whose disability--a brain injury--left him in need of a driver, had introduced the motorist's metaphor at the stakeholder discussions. Today, Chavez, with help from a BlackBerry purchased with his Mi Via allowance, counsels others in the program.
New Mexico's overhaul is paying off in terms of rebalancing long- term-care spending. The state's aging and long-term-care department reports that 70 percent of Medicaid funding for long-term care goes to home- and community-based services. In 1995, home-care spending was less than 10 percent.
New Mexico also provides, as do all state Cash & Counseling programs, fiscal employer agents. These FEAs help participants manage the purse. They administer the financial paperwork, such as paychecks and purchasing documents, and handle all of the back-office complexities, such as taxes and compliance with Medicaid regulations. They can also provide common sense financial guidance. For instance, FEAs from Public Partnerships, a company that provides FEA services to several state programs, uses a budget planner, "Family Friendly Report," that is available in English, Spanish or pictogram. It helps participants track how much has been budgeted for particular expenses, how much has been spent and how much money is still available to be spent.
Comprehensible money management tools such as these help resolve one issue that makes some state officials uneasy about Cash & Counseling: Will participants squander the money? After all, they are given an allowance--a monthly Medicaid allotment--with very few strings attached.
So far, there has been little evidence of misuse of funds. In part, that's because the program is just beginning to move out of its demonstration phase and pilot programs have a way of looking good-- they're small and carefully controlled. But a survey in the three demonstration states reinforces the notion that participants in the program take their fiscal responsibilities seriously. The survey found, for instance, that participants were uneasy about handling lump sums of cash and hungry for counseling help.
States with self-directed programs have been responding to this need. Most have encouraged or even mandated a personal representative for participants who may find self-direction a challenge. For these folks, says Rhonda Richards, senior legislative representative of AARP, "the counseling and other support services become even more important."
With so much riding on the support mechanisms, it makes sense for states to be cautious about ramping up enrollment. A slow rollout, says Dianne Kayala, Rhode Island's Cash & Counseling director, allows a state to "deal with issues as they develop rather than have a crisis." She also suggests that as states implement their programs, they employ more counselors than they think they'll need.
Striking a balance between a heavy regulatory hand and a flexible one is probably the biggest challenge. While there are dangers in too much autonomy, Kevin Mahoney, the Boston College professor who devised Cash & Counseling and is director of the national program, suggests that self-direction will not prosper if burdened by too many rules. People in the program have chronic needs, he says, and are good at solving the predictable daily problems of their own long-term care--how to get to school with just the right bike or what modifications to make to roll a wheelchair through the backyard.
But rules are on the way. CMS is at work spelling out guidance for those states that adopt Cash & Counseling under provisions of the Deficit Reduction Act. Mahoney says he is working with CMS to keep the program as flexible and expansive as it can be.
Kevin Mahoney, Cash and Counseling's national director, identifies the key factors that make the self-directive program effective:
- The advantage of personal control offers both practical and psychological benefits ("I'm in the driver's seat").
- The flexibility of the program allows participants to use Medicaid money more efficiently. For instance, traditional services usually offer blocks of time during business hours; Cash & Counseling is perfect for those who need only 10 minutes of help early in the morning.
- Although independence is the byword, the program is more about family and community intervention than rugged individualism. Because the program allows payment to family and friends, many can now provide time and help that was previously unfeasible financially.
This last point may turn out to be the most important. A recent study released by the Urban Institute foresees a growing shortage of long- term-care workers as baby boomers age. Cash & Counseling opens a whole new labor market. Often, when the person they were caring for passes away, Cash & Counseling assistants decide to help other participants. Iowa, for one, is taking advantage of this phenomenon by building a network to make these connections.


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We sure take our feet and ankles for granted, don't we?
That is, until the Millenium Falcon breaks our ankle, or a foul ball clips our right foot. Ouch.
When your feet are painful, you're miserable. Your lifestyle is instantly affected – pain forces you to dial back or give up walking, running, dancing, standing, or your favorite sports. Prolonged pain might even cause you to go from star athlete to couch potato.
It's appropriate to visit the ER if you have an unusual amount of pain in your feet or ankles, especially if the pain is sudden and intense, is accompanied by bleeding or swelling, or if your foot and ankle have been involved in a trauma like a fall down the stairs. Or if you tried to break a cement block in half with absolutely no martial arts training.
For less painful events, like a suspected fracture, or wounds that won't heal, many people choose to see their primary physician, which may or may not be a good choice, depending on that physician's field of expertise.
And for even less worrisome injuries, like a minor sprain, or minor heel pain, some seek no medical attention at all – which is never a good idea, as both injuries can develop into more complicated conditions, especially for athletes.
Which doctor is expert in treating foot and ankle problems?
When you have trouble with your ears, you should see an ENT. Trouble with your knees, an orthopedist. When you have pain or discomfort in your feet, toes, or ankles, you should see a podiatrist.
Podiatrists and podiatric surgeons are trained exclusively in the treatment of foot and ankle disorders – they do nothing but study the foot and ankle, it's diseases and deformities. After all, 1/4 of all of the bones in your body are in your feet, and there are many conditions unique to this area of the body. That's a lot of ground to cover in med school. If they choose to be a podiatric surgeon, they complete further schooling to study surgical techniques to correct these problems.
In 99% of cases, a podiatrist can resolve your ankle, toe, or foot problem much faster than a general physician. Podiatrists are also expert at spotting the early signs of diseases you can easily overlook, like diabetic foot disorders, rheumatoid arthritis and cardiovascular disease.
Without your feet in good working order, your life can be…. well, challenging. Don't take them for granted.


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The Sydney Institute - September 2, 2013
At the turn of the last century a new nation was born. Crafted in the Antipodes from the colonies of Britain. As inspired by the new democracy in North America as it was loyal to its imperial sovereign. In the 112 years since, we have built one of the most successful, peaceful and wealthiest nations on earth.
Not without fault or cost. For too long we denied the rights of the Aboriginal people. We have not always been good custodians of the land. We persisted with the idea of White Australia, long after we knew it was wrong.
But today we are a peaceful, wealthy, resilient and energetic nation, with every reason to be optimistic about our future.
As we look around the world we know that this future is not guaranteed. Our future will be forged in the suburbs of our cities, in the regions and in the Parliaments of our nation.
It will be imagined and contested by the next generation who offer themselves as leaders. I enter this election confident of where our best future lies.
I believe that our future prosperity and security lies squarely within the Asia Pacific.
We have it within our grasp to build an economic powerhouse an open trading nation that is truly integrated with the nations of this region.
A prosperous, stable, outward-looking democracy. Reconciled with its Aboriginal people, confident as a new Republic but proud of its British ancestry.
A country as good at tackling inequality as it is at generating wealth.
A country that can foster a new generation of entrepreneurs who are as conscious of their obligation to community and the environment as they are of their obligation to their shareholders.
A country that that does not see our social, cultural and religious diversity as a threat but as an essential part of our national identity.
This future can be built by leaders who are economically literate, socially progressive, engaged with the region, entrepreneurial by instinct and committed to prosperity with equality.
I believe that Australia needs the Australian Labor Party to build this future. I believe the Australian Labor Party needs leaders who can make this future happen.
By way of introduction
For those who know little about me, I was elected to Parliament in 2010. This followed a long career as a community worker, a lawyer and a union official.
In many ways I have the archetypal background for a Labor MP. I grew up in a large Catholic family in the industrial heartland of Wollongong.
I did not follow the same path as many who came before me into the steelworks or mines of the Illawarra. There were a few reasons for this. The year I left school the steel industry and mines were plunged into a recession. Thousands lost their jobs. The capacity to take up a trade of your choosing that had been the path of my older friends disappeared.
Luckily, I was a good student. My parents had always impressed upon us the importance of education and hard work. I finished school, worked as many casual jobs as I could find, travelled the country and then went to University.
My political conviction was born of this early experience. I saw first hand the devastation caused by mass unemployment. It is not just the poverty wrought by loss of livelihood, but the loss of hope, of optimism, and the waste of human potential. I determined that I wanted to make a difference. I did not then know how.
I have been lucky to find work which was an expression of my personal values.
When I joined the Labor Party it was because I believed that community organisations needed to work with and within political parties to pursue their objectives. I had no idea that I would one day become an Member of the Australian Parliament.
Labors contribution to the Australian Identity
It is customary to recite the achievements of our Party as a prelude to an exploration of the new frontiers.
For good reason.
Political movements draw strength, inspiration and identity from their past, purpose from future.
For over 100 years Labors contribution to Australia has been to build a prosperous but fairer nation: by providing employees with rights at work, the creation of a social safety net, by providing access to health care and education and by building the economic infrastructure that the private sector could not or would not build itself.
Labor legislated against discrimination, gave land rights to the first Australians and legislated to protect our environment.
These were powerful, new ideas producing hard won reforms, the result of tough political battles. Often the first battleground was within the Party itself.
The important point to make is this: once Labor adopted a position on these issues it gave the idea an opportunity to enter the political mainstream. Only a major political party can achieve this. The reason is simple: Government in Australia is the battle between the major parties for the middle ground.
This middle ground is not fixed but it moves with the political tides. But unlike the oceans tides once a shift has occurred we never return to the same place.
When Labor adopted the idea of a National Disability Insurance scheme we argued the case and succeeded in convincing not only the nation but our political opponents that this must happen.
Other examples abound Medicare, native title, industrial awards even Paid Parental Leave which Tony Abbott once famously said would occur over his dead body is now firmly in the mainstream.
The same can be said of our economic reforms opening up our financial markets, reforming trade and tariffs, establishing occupational superannuation and share market reforms like franking dividends.
Labor argued the case to bring these ideas into the mainstream.
Once the middle ground has been established, the reforms endure and the bitter political battles that preceded them fade from memory;
Labors enduring contribution to Australia's social and economic fabric has been to shift the marker of the middle ground through landmark reforms which define a nation.
New Frontiers
Can I turn to the new frontiers for Progressive Politics?
The fight for equality, a Republic, building national productivity and addressing Climate Change will feature strongly. Marriage Equality is another. On this I will not linger for one reason. The debate has been won in the community. It is just taking a while for the message to get through. It will happen.
Id rather spend a few moments addressing three issues that I believe the Left does not spend enough time talking about but should.
Our role in the region
The first is our role in the region: Australias future prosperity and security lies within our region. Our economic, cultural and security will be built on enduring and reciprocal relationships which focus on long term mutual benefits, not short term opportunism.
In this I would like to emphasise our relationship with Indonesia one of our nearest and most populous neighbours. Our relationship with this fast growing nation will in part define our place in the region.
This is not a foregone conclusion.
We need look only at the debates around foreign investment and our engagement with Asia to see where threats may lie. Our generation of leaders still has work to do to shift the common sense on this. To remain an open trading nation we have to convince a sometimes reluctant nation that there is more to be gained than lost.
We need to deepen the understanding of the importance of our relationship with Asia Pacific nations. We also need to do more to assist the economic and social transitions that occur. This is critical in regions like my own which have benefited from the growth in education services but suffered from decline in manufacturing.
On this last point the need to assist regions through economic transitions - the fight for equality is the handmaiden of economics and business.
A worker who loses his or her job because their employer cant compete with low priced imports is little interested in Adams Smiths theory of comparative advantage. Without a job they benefit little from the cheaper consumer goods on offer. They become a willing ear for simple slogans. In this election there are plenty on offer.
I would also make the point that we should not think that the rhetoric from one policy silo like immigration does not spill over to other areas. It does. The emotive resonance from one statement can have unintended consequence for the acceptance of other policy.
Small business
The second issue I wish to talk about is our relationship with small business. It can and should transcend the campaign driven transactional exchange of request and policy concession.
Labor was born of the aspiration of working people our name reflects that. But our Party needs to recognise that the way we work has changed. In increasing numbers, we are now working in small businesses, or running them.
Labor has to extend its gaze to this new world of work and apply our traditional values of equality and fairness to the needs and aspirations of this world.
We have much to offer.
For a Party formed on the idea of the dignity of work it should be common sense that a small business is not just a means of making a living and generating wealth it is also an expression of aspiration and creativity by the individuals involved;
For a Party formed on the idea of that individuals who bargain collectively can overcome the imbalance of power between Labour and Capital it should be common sense that the same imbalance exists between the small and large businesses today.
For a Party that is committed to ensuring the tax burden is distributed so that those with more pay proportionately more than those with little it should be common sense to see that our Tax system should be both efficient and fair to small businesses.
For a Party that is committed to building and providing the infrastructure and service that the private sector cant or wont we should be natural partners of the small businesses that rely on our roads and rail, our NBN and the graduates of our schools TAFES and Universities.
Labor is building the infrastructure of the future the NBN will connect fibre optic cable to 93% of Australian homes and businesses.
But with this project, we are also building equality. We are building equality between cities and regions;
Equality between high and low-income families;
Equality of access to markets between big businesses and small businesses.
That is why it is a Labor project and why it took a Labor Government to conceive of it and to build it.
Small businesses and entrepreneurial enterprises will thrive and prosper through fibre optic connectivity to the ideas and markets of the Asia Pacific region and the world.
With the National Broadband Network, the next big thing for our economy will quite likely be lots of little things. Small enterprises founded on big dreams and able to reach out to the world beyond;
The Progressive Entrepreneurs
The third and final point I make is about progressive entrepreneurs.
It is folly to assume that those who work in business are unyielding in their support of one side of politics over another.
I know of many successful entrepreneurs who firmly believe in generating social wealth, yet who are appalled by the intellectual paucity of Australias political debate. They believe in marriage equality, in Australia as a republic, and in the fair treatment of asylum seekers. They also believe in climate change and the use of sensible market based solutions to reduce carbon emmissions.
They do not believe that their success rests on the exploitation of those beneath them. They believe in equality and fairness.
Their politics embraces the future, not the past.
I do not believe they have a natural place in the Conservative Coalition of today.
Over the next 10 years Labor must and will extend its gaze and embrace the entrepreneurial innovator and the progressive thinker.
As we extend our gaze - these are the people that I would seek to give a voice to in the Australian Parliament.
Thank you.


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What is viewa?
viewa is an augmented reality app that brings content to life in amazing ways. You can read more about viewa here. If you have viewa on your device already you can trial some content here, here and here.
What is viewa's compatibility?
Requires iOS 4.3 or later. Compatible with:
- iPhone 3GS
- iPhone 4
- iPhone 4S
- iPhone 5
- iPod touch (4th generation)
- iPod touch (5th generation)
- iPad 2 Wi-Fi
- iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G
- iPad (3rd generation)
- iPad Wi-Fi + 4G.
- iPad (4th generation)
- iPad Wi-Fi + Cellular (4th generation)
- iPad mini
- iPad mini Wi-Fi
Requires 2.2 -4.1
NOTE Phones with an ARMv6 processor are NOT supported as this hardware does not support augmented reality functionality 😦 Devices must have an ARMv7 processor. Not sure what this means? Here is a list of devices by processor that you may find helpful.
NOTE 2 If your viewa app crashes on start-up you may need an SD card for additional memory to run ancillary Android apps.
Please note that your device needs a camera in order to use viewa.
We will update this website with any future releases.
I am holding viewa over an image and nothing is happening. Help.
- Are you in the correct channel? The channel button is on the bottom left, next to the main viewa menu. Ensure that the channel you are in corresponds with the magazine or image you are looking at.
- Are you holding your device over the correct image? Read the viewa caption carefully and ensure you are viewa-ing the correct image on the page.
- Are you holding your device too close to the page? viewa is an image recognition device and it needs to be able to pick-up the entire image or page as per the caption near the viewa logo. The logo is there to tell you that there is extra content – scanning it alone will not activate the content.
- Is the image in focus on your camera screen? viewa tracks images very well from a wide range of angles and distances. The image must be in focus on your screen in order for viewa to work.
- Are you connected to the internet? Check your wifi or 3G signal. If your connection is not strong viewa may run a bit slower. If you are not connected to the internet viewa will not work.
- What is the date of publication? Unfortunately we cannot keep all viewa activations live forever. Most actitvations will be live for one to three months. Most publications will state a live date on the viewa page.
How do I save items in viewa and where do they go? And how do I share items?
NOTE We have updated viewa and removed the "My Items" section from the app. This content now goes directly to your phone. This will make it much easier for you to save images as your homescreen or wallpaper and you won't have to go into the app whenever you want to access content that you have saved.
Fullscreen images
You can save and share any fullscreen images that appear in your viewa app. Here are the steps:
1. Scan the page
2. When you see the fullscreen image there will be an square icon in the upper left hand side with an arrow. Click this.
3. You will be given the options to:
- Save
- Share on Facebook
- Share on Twitter
4. Once you are done you can press the "x" button in the upper right hand side to exit from the image and bring you back into scanning mode.
5. Your items will be saved on your phone.
You cannot save audio player items to your device, however, when in fullscreen mode you can press the rectangle with an arrow icon in the upper left hand side and you will be given the options to:
- Like on Facebook (with the "heart" like icon)
- Share on Facebook
- Share on Twitter
This will include a URL to the item. You can email to yourself if you would like to access later and enjoy 🙂
Hover buttons/in page effects
Hover buttons and other magical inpage effects cannot be shared or saved. You can take a screengrab if you would like to share the magic. Here's an article with some suggestions on how to screengrab on Android and a how-to for iPhone screengrabs.
Video currently cannot be saved to your phone or shared. We are working on a priority update to share fullscreen video and will notify when this has been rolled out.
Google maps and other URLs
A browser window will open in the viewa app. Press the rectangle with an arrow icon in the upper left hand side and you will be given the options to:
- Like on Facebook (with the "heart" like icon)
- Share on Facebook
- Share on Twitter
NOTE: when a Google map launches you will be asked if you would like to share your current location. This is a prompt coming from Google maps. It will allow you to access their features such as generating directions from your location to the suggested points on the map. This is optional and will not affect the map loading. For more information on Google Maps and your location see Privacy and My Location on Google.
How can I use viewa for my brand?
Oh, how flattering. Please contact our viewa team. You can also download a .pdf of our viewa media kit (3MB).


text: geek Future Shop – Boxing Day Sale buzz, December 23, 2007 It may be the final weekend before Christmas, but the stores want to remind you to save some for after Christmas. Future Shop has a flyer out this weekend advertising their big sale for the 26th, but their website has – with even BIGGER deals. Read more 1 Comment


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Sharpen Your Sense of Flavour
OK, bear with me - this may be our most puzzling post yet. And it comes from a Montreal/France collaboration with an acronym meaning "Unidentified Food Object" (hence the amusing logo) and, like it's namesake, it's something strange and exciting and out of this world.
What you're looking at in the four test tubes above look like double-thick crayons. But instead of being made of wax and pigment, they're made of a careful formulation of agar-agar (the seaweed-based food product that acts as a solidifier) and flavour - in this case basil, soy and porcini mushroom, lemon and salt and hot pepper and garlic respectively. The unidentified object on the right is something perhaps more familiar: a pencil sharpener.
They come in a handy pack that converts neatly into a stand for your countertop:
Now, here's where it gets REALLY interesting:
When it comes to finishing a dish, you're probably used to sprinkling a little salt, grinding a little pepper, crushing a couple of chillies, grating a little parmesan, zesting a little lemon, squeezing a little lime, shaving some truffle.... Well, get ready to add a couple of new verbs to your culinary actions. You're going to really sharpen the accents to your dish by twisting the chosen flavour stick in the sharpener for that final flourish of finishing flavour.
Come into the store to check it out and ask for a demonstration. Then be prepared to welcome these friendly and flavourful aliens into your kitchen!
It's a new frontier in cooking and OCNI is inviting you to boldly go...!


text:
It was a pleasant late winter day on Friday, 3rd February 1928, when members of the 7-member Indian Statutory Commission, led by Sir John Simon, arrived at Bombay on the west coast of India.
Members of the Commission were confronted by protesters waving black flags. Few would have imagined then, but the forces they inadvertently set in motion that day would have a profound impact, the effects of which continue to haunt the sub-continent to this day.
Government of India Act, 1919
As we have seen earlier, Indians expected greater devolution of powers from the British rulers after the end of the first world war, to which they had contributed more than a million soldiers. The British government, unwilling to grant any substantial concessions, enacted the Government of India Act, 1919.
The act resulted in a bicameral legislature consisting of the 145 member Legislative Assembly (of which 103 would be elected) and the 60 member Council of State (of which 22 were elected). The right to vote was subject to several restrictions, due to which the voter base for the Legislative Assembly was restricted to 9,09,874 voters in 1920 (representing roughly 1% of the then population of India).
Largely unnoticed at the time was Section 41 of The Act, which mandated the creation of a commission to conduct an inquiry into the system of Government, the growth of education and the development of representative institutions in India. This commission was to be constituted after 10 years from the enactment of The Act, which meant that it was due in December 1929. The British government decided to advance it by 2 years with dubious intentions, as we shall see.
India in 1927
By 1927 the struggle for independence (insofar as there was any struggle still underway) was all but dead. The period between 1920-22, when the Non-Cooperation Movement briefly threatened to bring an end to British rule, were but memories of another time. Having withdrawn the Non-Cooperation Movement in the face of multiple outbreaks of violence (more about that at a later date), M.K. Gandhi had gone into semi retirement from active politics. Without his unifying leadership, the national movement was drifting like a rudderless ship. Only a handful of underground revolutionaries were still active.
By late 1927, the British rule seemed more secure anyone could have possibly imagined in the heady days of the early 20s. India, it seemed, was destined to remain under the British yoke for the foreseeable future…
…until the British government gave the virtually dead struggle a new lease of life.
The Simon Commission
Elections to the British House of Commons were due in 1929. The Conservative Party, which was in power in the late 20s, faced the prospect of losing power to the Labour Party in the 1929 elections . The Conservatives feared that a Labour government would be more sympathetic to Indian demands and thus likely to concede far greater reforms than they were willing to countenance.
In order to forestall that possibility, the Conservatives decided to advance the constitution of the Commission to ensure that its work would be completed before the 1929 elections. And so on 8th November 1927, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin announced the constitution of the statutory commission.
If Indian leaders were astonished to hear the announcement, their surprise soon turned to indignation when Baldwin announced that the commission would consist of 7 British members of parliament. In other words, the commission that was to help prepare the future constitution of India did not contain a single Indian member. Whether it was due to arrogant disregard for Indian opinion or plain incompetence, the composition of the commission was bound to be unacceptable to any self-respecting Indian.
The Indian Response
All political parties in India, irrespective of their ideology, unanimously decided to boycott the commission. The situation was aptly summed up by Tej Bahadur Sapru in his presidential address at the annual session of the All-India Liberal Federation
I do not think a worse challenge has been thrown out ever before to Indian nationalism… if our patriotism is a prejudice and if the patriotism of of the seven members of parliament is to be treated as impartial justice… we are not going to acquiesce in this method of dealing with us. Neither our self-respect nor our sense of duty to our country can permit us to go near the commission.
With one ill-advised decision for short term gains, the Conservatives had strengthened the hands of the very forces they sought to forestall.
The Congress in Action
The 42nd annual session of the Indian National Congress was to be held at Madras between 26th and 28th December 1927. the party- energised by the unexpected developments of November- moved a proposal to adopt dominion status as its ultimate goal, which was in keeping with the general mood of the moderate faction led, among others, by an eminent lawyer from Allahabad called Motilal Nehru.
The younger section led by Motilal's son, a 38 year old lawyer called Jawahralal Nehru, opposed the resolution and moved a counter-resolution demanding complete independence (while they abstained from voting). Unexpectedly perhaps, the resolution was passed unanimously.
The Congress Boycott
With its cadre spread right down to the grassroots (owing to structural changes initiated in the early 20s), the involvement of the Congress took the proposed boycott to an unprecedented level. There was a complete hartal in every city across India on 3rd February. The commission was greeted by protesting crowds waving black flags and carrying banners with the words "Go Back, Simon" wherever it went.
On 16th February, Lala Lajpat Rai moved a resolution in the Legislative Assembly calling for a refusal to cooperate with the commission (his tryst with the commission would ultimately lead to his tragic death later that year). The resolution was passed by an overwhelming majority of the elected members. Extraordinarily, the passing of the resolution was accompanied by cries of "Bande Mataram" in a chamber usually known for its loyalty to the British rulers.
The 'Nehru' Constitution
Secretary of State for India, Lord Birkenhead had thrown down a challenge calling on Indians to produce a constitution having the general support of the people of India. This was back in July 1925. While announcing the constitution of the statutory commission, he renewed the challenge.
I have twice invited our critics in India to put forward their own suggestions for a constitution. That offer is still open.
Indian leaders decided to accept the challenge. After a series of deliberations, it was ultimately decided to entrust a committee under the chairmanship of Motilal Nehru. The committee's report was placed for consideration at the All Parties Conference in Lucknow in August 1928. Lack of unanimity resulted in the 'Nehru Constitution', as it came to be known, being placed before a representative convention in Calcutta on 22nd December.
The Muslim League and a section of the Khilafat Committee, led by a prominent Bombay lawyer called Muhammad Ali Jinnah, proposed certain amendments to the communal settlement proposed in the Nehru constitution which were rejected after an acrimonious debate. Prompting Jinnah to withdraw from the convention in protest.
The disillusioned Jinnah threw in his lot with the Aga Khan and Sir Muhammed Shafi. The joint front demanded, among other things, separate electorates for Muslims in statutory bodies.
An Uneasy Decision
The last days of December saw Congress delegates from all corners of the country converge for the annual session in Calcutta. It soon became evident that the party was deeply divided between the faction whose ambitions for the immediate future were restricted to dominion status and the extremists, whose immediate demand was nothing short of complete independence.
M.K. Gandhi proposed a compromise, suggesting that Dominion Status be laid down as the immediate objective, subject to the Nehru constitution being accepted in its entirety by the British parliament within a year. The left-wing extremist faction led by the party's rising stars Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose (who enjoyed an excellent relationship back then) strongly opposed the proposal. The amendment was lost by 973 votes to 1350.
For the time being at least, the country's largest political party had declared dominion status (akin to Australia or Canada) as its ultimate objective. The ball was now firmly in the court of the powers that be in Westminster.
Congress Proposes, Westminster Disposes
The Viceroy of India, Lord Irwin, issued a statement on 31st October 1929, that the natural issue of India's constitutional progress was the attainment of dominion status. The declaration was widely appreciated by Indian leaders. But the drama was far from over.
The new government formed after the 1929 elections was an unstable coalition, largely dependent on the Liberal Party. With the Conservative Party as well as Liberal Party opposed to it, the new government was unable to proceed with the proposal to work towards dominion status. When Gandhi, Nehru and others met him on 23rd December 1929, Lord Irwin was unable to give any assurances, whereupon M.K. Gandhi declared that he was all for complete independence. It was the tipping point for the hitherto moderate Gandhi who would declare
I have burnt my boats
- As expected, the 1929 elections brought the Labour party to power, albeit in coalition with the Liberal party
- Gandhi's declaration in favour of complete independence marked his return to the vanguard of the struggle for independence after a 7 year hiatus
- Jawaharlal Nehru was elected as president of the Indian National Congress at the Lahore Session in last week December 1929
- During the Lahore Session it was declared that Sunday, 26th January 1930 would be पूर्ण स्वराज्य दिवस (day of complete independence)
- M.K. Gandhi launched the Civil Disobedience Movement in March 1930
- Jawaharlal Nehru became an unwavering supporter of Gandhi, resulting in a parting of ways with Subhas Chandra Bose, whose admiration of Gandhi was never unconditional (Bose too would become Congress president in the late 30s)
- Nehru would go from strength to strength, becoming one of the most prominent Congress leaders in the 30s. He went on to become the first prime minister of independent India, serving for a record 17 years
- The twentieth anniversary of the पूर्ण स्वराज्य दिवस (day of complete independence) was chosen to be the day on which the constitution of independent India came into force. 26th January has, ever since, been celebrated in India as Republic Day
- One of the members of the Simon Commission, Labour Party leader Clement Attlee served as Prime Minister from 1945 to 1951, in the course of which his government would grant complete independence to India
- Disillusioned with the Congress, Muhammad Ali Jinnah completely threw in his lot with the Muslim League. His demand for seperate electorates for Muslims would prove the tipping point in the chain of events that ultimately led to the creation of Pakistan
- Lord Irwin, whose name changed to Lord Halifax became the secretery of state for foreign affairs in 1935. In his new avatar as Lord Halifax, he would be instrumental in executing prime minister Chamberlain's policy of appeasement of Hitler, leading to the infamous Munich Agreement in 1938 that paved the way for Hitler's bloodless annexation of Czechoslovakia.
- Bipan Chandra & Others, India's Struggle For Independence, Penguin India Books, 1989
- R.C. Mazumdar & Others, Struggle for Freedom, The History and Culture of the Indian People (Volume Eleven), Bhavan's Book University, 1969


text: A People's HistoryRoss Caputi, Richard Hil, and Donna MulhearnDetailsDescriptionThe Iraqi city of Fallujah has become an epicenter of geopolitical conflict, where foreign powers and non-state actors have repeatedly waged war in residential neighborhoods with staggering humanitarian consequences. The Sacking of Fallujah is the first comprehensive study of the three recent sieges of this city, including those by the United States in 2004 and the Iraqi-led operation to defeat ISIS in 2016.Unlike dominant military accounts that focus on American soldiers and U.S. leaders and perpetuate the myth that the United States "liberated" the city, this book argues that Fallujah was destroyed by coalition forces, leaving public health crises, political destabilization, and mass civilian casualties in their wake. This meticulously researched account cuts through the propaganda to uncover the lived experiences of Fallujans under siege and occupation, and contextualizes these events within a broader history of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Relying on testimony from Iraqi civilians, the work of independent journalists, and documentation from human rights organizations, Ross Caputi, Richard Hil, and Donna Mulhearn place the experiences of Fallujah's residents at the center of this city's recent history. Reviews"This groundbreaking work cuts through thick veils of propaganda to reveal the experiences of the victims, with depth of research and a sensitivity that is uniquely perceptive—and with powerful lessons for solidarity work and the struggle for 'peace with justice,' not only in the tortured land of Iraq."—Noam Chomsky, Laureate Professor of Linguistics and Agnese Nelms Haury Chair at the University of Arizona AuthorROSS CAPUTI is a PhD student in history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.RICHARD HIL is adjunct professor in the School of Human Services and Social Work at Griffith University's Gold Coast Campus.DONNA MULHEARN is an activist, writer, journalist, and eyewitness to the 2004 attack on Fallujah. Related Subjects: General InterestHistory: World and Area StudiesMilitary History, Cold War, and Veterans Studies A volume in the series: Culture and Politics in the Cold War and Beyond


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Small Power: An Introduction
The following is part 2 in the series of posts pulling off of my M.A. thesis, posted here. In this post, I present the second two theoretical contributions: small power. I argued in the previous post that small states do not have hard power options and argue in this post that soft power is an inappropriate tool for understanding small state foreign policy behavior. Rather, small power presents new possibilities.
In the absence of hard power capabilities, we may assume that soft power is the default option. Joseph Nye's definition is simple enough: "It is the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments. It arises from the attractiveness of a country's culture, political ideals, and policies." He goes on to say that the basic logic is to get others to want what you want. A country with a relatively large population, territory, resources, economy, military force, and social stability might be able to coerce other nations into working with it to achieve its own security objectives. However, a state that has managed to cooperate with other states because of shared interests has proven itself adept at exercising soft power. Generally, international soft power is produced through three different spheres: 1) culture; 2) political values; 3) foreign policy. All three are combined to further a given state's interests and its attractiveness to other states.
The literature on soft power is primarily concerned with the United States of America, and serves as an oppositional voice to the connection between American military power and the country's foreign policy. The concern of many articles on soft power is to point out alternatives to hard power as a way to achieve U.S. security goals and foreign policy objectives.
Although soft power is a useful analytical concept, it has some notable limitations in its application to small state foreign policy. First, large and small states will approach power projection in very different ways. For example, Nye observed the connection between soft power and democracy, when he pointed out that "soft power is a staple of daily democratic politics." It may be that democracies are more adept at utilizing their soft power resources, as a result of their familiarity with political concession making at home. It seems likely that larger powers, such as the U.S. or regional actors such as the E.U. may be more familiar with soft power as a PR-campaign. For smaller states, however, it may actually be the reverse: democracy is a source of soft power, not a teacher of it. In other words, small states might be able to use democracy to attract international partners, not as a way to train themselves for other modes of power projection. Second, while larger states might be able to depend on the attractiveness of their culture, smaller less-well-known countries will have to restrict themselves to the later two options (i.e. political values and foreign policy). Third, the concept of soft power assumes that hard power is an available option, as indicated by Nye's concept of "smart power" as the ideal combination of the two, which any global power must harness to remain on top. When hard power is not available, the projection of softer resources is not necessarily soft power; rather it is the only power available.
By combining what we know about soft power, with the previously presented two-sided definition of small states, we can begin to refer to some small state-specific power, which I will call small power. Small power is an analytical concept for understanding how small states will make themselves appear more attractive for partnerships with larger, often extra-regional powers as part of an effort to discourage threats from other states, often their neighbors. Working within the modes of asymmetry and behaviors that I have previously laid out to identify small states in today's international system, the concept that small states will almost invariably engage in some sort of specialized balancing behavior has already been established. Small power is thereby defined as the power to affect the international system by attracting the attention of larger, less-threatening powers in an effort to balance against the role of a threatening state. Small power is tailored for states that have limited economic and/or mineral wealth and without clear geo-strategic advantages. Small oil-producing states, for example, can leverage their natural resources in their foreign relations, and strategically located states can leverage their territory for foreign military installations. What can a state leverage to make itself an attractive partner, when it has neither economic nor strategic incentives?
Small states have utilized a number of strategies to increase their small power resources. A number of states have volunteered a symbolic number of military personnel to peacekeeping operations (ex. Georgia, Mongolia, and Poland are three prominent examples of small states currently contributing troops to U.S. operations in Afghanistan), others have worked to build records of consistent adherence to international norms, and still others have sought to act in line with regional interests to help foster stability (ex. South Korea and Thailand).
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Analysis, Thoughts, Ideas
This blog will be an online publishing site for smaller analytical projects, news stories that I find relevant to small state foreign policy and indigenous autonomy, as well as a testing ground for new ideas and new projects that I may pursue.


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Professor and Director, Institute for Internet Security
Chairman, TeleTrusT – IT Security Association Germany
Norbert Pohlmann studied Electrical Engineering, specialized in Computer Science in Aachen, and has written his doctoral thesis on "Possibilities and Limitations of Firewall Systems".
He was founder and Managing Director at the start-up company KryptoKom. After the merger with Utimaco Safeware AG he was a member of the Utimaco Safeware AG management board from 1999 to 2003.
Since 2003 Norbert Pohlmann has been a Professor in the Computer Science Department for distributed systems and information security and since 2005 he is director of the Institute for Internet Security – if(is) at the Westphalia University of Applied Sciences Gelsenkirchen, Germany.
He is a founding member of the IT Security Association TeleTrusT, which is devoted to the establishment of trusted IT networks and systems, and has been a member of its board since 1994 and chairman of the board since April 1998.
In 1997 Norbert Pohlmann won the city of Aachen's Prize for Innovation and Technology.
For five years he was a member of the Permanent Stakeholders' Group of the ENISA (European Network and Information Security Agency).
He is a member of the academic council of the Association for Data Protection and Data Security: GDD. He is also a member of advisory board of the ISP Association eco which is the largest ISP Association in Europe. Norbert Pohlmann is also a member of the steering board: Task Force IT Security from the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology.
In 2011 he was Professor of the year in the category Computer and Engineering Sciences.
Numerous publications, lectures and seminars on the subject of information security testify his expertise and commitment to this subject.
From March to June 2013 Norbert Pohlmann will be Visiting Professor at Stanford University, Department of Computer Science.


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President Julius Maada Bio visited the northern district headquarter town of Makeni to talk on the Free Quality Education. He also commissioned a hospital project, delivered ambulance service and warned against user-fee, preached peace and love and thanked the massive crowd of Sierra Leoneans who welcomed him at the Wusum Field.*
He was accompanied, among others, by Chief Minister Prof David Francis, Information Minister, Mr Mohamed Swaray, and Chairman of the Sierra Leone People's Party, Dr Prince Harding.
Brought to you by State House Media and Communications Unit within the Office of the Press Secretary, below is a video clip that captures the day's event and features the Minister of Political and Public Affairs, Amb. Foday Yumkella, Press Secretary and Presidential Spokesman, Yusuf Keketoma Sandi, and most importantly, residents of Makeni who gave some dispassionately touching testimonies:


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Managua (Agenzia Fides) - "Dialogue is not the space needed to crush the other, but where everyone can express their ideas, listen and choose the best option, for the good of the community that always seeks the common good", said Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, Archbishop of Managua, interviewed by journalists after celebrating Sunday mass.
The Cardinal, invited to comment on the words of the Holy Father at the Angelus ("since February 27, important talks are underway in Nicaragua to resolve the serious socio-political crisis that the country faces. I accompany the initiative with prayer and encourage the parties to find a peaceful solution for the good of all as soon as possible") strongly reiterated some concepts. First of all dialogue is the only path. But this dialogue, added the Archbishop of Managua, must be sincere in order to achieve the common good. That is why he stressed the role of control that citizenship must have in order to prevent the dialogue from being distorted and therefore failing to give fruits of justice, freedom and peace for Nicaragua.
Also Bishop Baez, Auxiliary Bishop of Managua, wanted to emphasize the interest of the Holy Father, who according to Baez, has always followed the Nicaraguan crisis, and insisted on the strength of prayer: "Prayer will make this moment that seems difficult productive, which seems sterile". He therefore urged Nicaraguans not to lose hope simply because the expected results have not yet been achieved. "A Christian must learn historical patience and wait, but must neither anticipate the times imprudently" advises the Bishop in the declarations sent to Fides.
Mgr. Báez asked to have confidence in the special envoy of the General Secretariat of the OAS, Luis Ángel Rosadilla, and for the Apostolic Nuncio in Nicaragua, Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, who act as witnesses at the national dialogue table. The Bishop also recalled that dialogue must be transparent: "It cannot be a dialogue that hides the will of the most powerful that could be behind it. Everything must be done so that there are no hidden agreements behind people".
In conclusion, Mgr. Báez defined the maximum period of 90 days agreed by the Daniel Ortega regime with the Civic Alliance to free political prisoners (see Fides 21/03/2019) as "excessive": "I personally think it is an excessive period, it is too long".
The socio-political crisis in Nicaragua began on April 18, 2018, with protests against the reform of the pension system, which was followed by other violent street protests and harsh government repression. According to independent humanitarian organizations, there have been at least 325 deaths since April 2018. The OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights speaks instead of more than 500.
Although National Dialogue seems to restart with the presence of a representative of the OAS, there is still a lot of tension due to the large number of political prisoners, more than 600. (CE) (Agenzia Fides, 25/03/2019)
AMERICA/MEXICO - Priest threatened with death, but the Church does not stop in defense of the rights of the population
AFRICA - Africa more reactive to Covid-19 than other continents, but a strong health, economic and social impact is feared
AMERICA/CHILE - Bishops: "we expect willingness and commitment from political authorities and social leaders in order to reach a social pact"
AMERICA/COLOMBIA - The Church is concerned about the situation of armed conflicts during health emergencies
OCEANIA/PAPUA NEW GUINEA - The diocesan center of Bougainville transformed into a quarantine reception facility


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It's thats time of the year! Holiday beers are back, and in the November/December 2016 issue, contributing editor Joshua M. Bernstein has the backstory on perennial favorites like Sierra Nevada's Celebration, Deschutes' Jubelale and more. Read the story here, and then dig in to this list for the rest of his holiday beer recs.
Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale
Chico, CA and Mills River, NC, 6.8% ABV
This pine-forward, citrus-scented IPA's secret is freshly harvested Chinook, Cascade and Centennial hops. The beer's been a boldly festive standby since 1981.
Brasserie Dupont Avec les Bons Voeux
Tourpes, Belgium, 9.5% ABV
The Belgian brewery once reserved this Christmas ale ("with our best wishes") for its best customers; today, everyone can savor this hazy golden looker, layered with flavors of lemons, peppercorns, apples, and cloves.
Troëgs Independent Brewing Mad Elf
Hershey, PA, 11% ABV
Honey, heaps of cherries and a nice, spicy Belgian yeast strain make Mad Elf a wine-like, fruity indulgence suited for sipping beside a fire.
Lagunitas Brown Shugga' Ale
Petaluma, CA, 9.8% ABV
Back in 1997, Lagunitas added brown sugar to a batch of misbehaving barley wine, accidentally creating a sweet new holiday tradition.
Schloss Eggenberg Samichlaus Classic
Vorchdorf, Austria, 14 % ABV
Samichlaus—Swiss-German for Santa Claus—is brewed every December 6, then lagers for 10 months. The muscular, vinous elixir (14 percent ABV) is ideal for cellaring.
Hardywood Park Craft Brewery Gingerbread Stout
Richmond, VA, 9.2% ABV
Richmond's Hardywood deploys Virginia ginger and wildflower honey, plus Vietnamese cinnamon and Madagascar vanilla beans, in its creamy ode to Christmas cookies. The Christmas Morning variant thrums with coffee beans.
Southern Tier 2XMAS
Lakewood, NY, 8% ABV
Sweden's spiced glögg inspires Southern Tier's rich holiday seasonal, laced with orange peel, figs and spices, including cardamom and ginger.
Deschutes Brewery Jubelale
Bend, OR, 6.7% ABV
Each year, Deschutes selects a different artist to create the label for its long-running winter warmer, redolent of toffee and chocolate and pleasantly bittered with Pacific Northwest hops. Occasionally, Deschutes releases imperialized versions of Jubelale.
Great Lakes Brewing Company Christmas Ale
Cleveland, OH, 7.5% ABV
In Cleveland, festivities don't start with decorating a tree; they begin with a glass of this robust, deceptively potent ale warmly spiced with honey, cinnamon and ginger. Pro tip: A Great Lakes vet devised Thirsty Dog's similarly spiced 12 Dogs of Christmas.
Anchor Brewing Our Special Ale
San Francisco, CA, Varies
For the 42nd formulation of its beloved seasonal rite, Anchor nosed the ABV north a smidgen and knocked down the spicing, making it better suited for aging.
Give the gift of Imbibe this holiday season. Gift subscriptions are only $19.95 each after your first $21.95 gift subscription purchase, plus you'll receive a free download of our Holiday Punch Guide, AND through 12/31, $1 of every online subscription order goes to the Red Cross! Click here for details.


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I couldn't miss the chance to practice my drawing!
Damages undead.Final Fantasy V description
Requiem (レクイエム, Rekuiemu?) is a recurring ability in the series. It often appears as an ability of the Sing skillset, though it has also appeared as an ability apart from the skillset. It generally deals damage to Undead enemies.
Appearances Edit
Final Fantasy IV Edit
Requiem is an ability of the Bardsong command, exclusive to Edward in the Game Boy Advance and PlayStation Portable ports while equipped with the Requiem Harp. It is used as part of Edward's Lunar Trial, and it is used to force the spirits during the trial to rest.
Final Fantasy V Edit
Requiem is an ability of the Sing skillset, usable initially by the Bard job until the character learns the Sing ability. It inflicts massive damage and the Sap status effect to all undead enemies, but will do nothing to any other type of enemy.
Final Fantasy X Edit
Damages all enemies.Description
Requiem is Seymour's Overdrive. It can only be seen during the second battle against Sinspawn Gui, when Seymour is a playable guest.
Final Fantasy X-2 Edit
Requiem appears in the International and HD Remaster versions, usable by Seymour when he joins the party. It is a non-elemental physical attack that hits all enemies. The Gun Mage's Blue Bullet ability Cry in the Night, learned from an Oversoul Mega Tonberry, uses the same animation as Requiem.
Final Fantasy XI Edit
Foe Requiem is a series of songs of the Light element available to Bards. Players have access to seven Foe Requiems in total, though at one time game data existed for Foe Requiem VIII. If the spell hits its target, Foe Requiem deals damage over time, akin to the Poison status.
Foe Requiem VII, for example, deals 7 HP damage every 3 seconds. Foe Requiem's potency can be increased through flutes that specifically enhance the song, and its accuracy and duration is affected by the player's Charisma as well as their Magic Accuracy.
Final Fantasy XIII Edit
Requiem is an enemy ability that blasts a single target with darkness. It is used by Orphan (first encounter).
Final Fantasy XIV Edit
Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift Edit
Requiem is an ability of the Song skillset, exclusive to the Bard class, also exclusive to Hurdy. It is initially mastered on Hurdy, has a range of 4 tiles, and inflicts heavy non-elemental damage to Undead enemies. When used on an Undead that has 0 HP, it will exorcise them from the battlefield, removing them completely.
Final Fantasy Dimensions Edit
Deals damage to all undead enemies.Description
Runic Requiem is the level 12 ability for the Bard class, requiring 340 AP to learn. At the cost of 34 MP, the user will inflict non-elemental damage to all Undead enemies.
Final Fantasy Dimensions II Edit
Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera OmniaEdit
Theatrhythm Final Fantasy All-Star Carnival Edit
Final Fantasy Airborne Brigade Edit
Final Fantasy All the Bravest Edit
Requiem is the ability that is used by the Bard during battle.
Final Fantasy Record Keeper Edit
Final Fantasy Brave Exvius Edit
Damage and undead killer to all enemiesDescription


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Most companies take measures to protect their IT data, and with good reason. However, the increasingly critical role of IT in business models tends to increase the vulnerability of enterprises to disasters.
To help you evaluate your company's risk level in event of a disaster, we have drawn up a questionnaire that addresses four areas related to IT security. This short survey will help you have a better idea of the consequences of a disaster on your operations, business, human resources, and your supply chain.
Answer the following questions and determine your risk level!


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Designers think everything done by someone else is awful, and that they could do it better themselves, which explains why I designed my own living room carpet, I suppose.
– Chris Bangle
Wednesday, we had out first class meeting of Professor Elmore's A-341 Supporting Teachers for Instructional Improvement.
Much of the class was directed toward establishing class norms and getting a general sense of whom we were learning with. While I loved it (we were moving around, meeting one another, having purposeful conversations and reporting out), it was one question that stuck with me as the defining moment of the class.
In describing what would drive our teacher observations for the class, Elmore asked, "If you were a student in this classroom and you did what the teacher asked you to do, what would you know how to do?"
The simplicity of the question reminded me of why I'd been drawn to apply to the course during shopping.
What's more, Elmore wasn't asking us to make judgements about the legitimacy of any of what we observed. He was asking us to observe.
Admittedly, this will be difficult for me. I'd imagine it will be difficult for everyone in the class.
I like the idea. I like the shift in focus from what the teacher is doing to the student experience.
As Elmore pointed out, the process starts not from a standpoint of "Here's what should be going on here!" but one of "What's going on here?" And, it starts from moving to the perspective of the student.
Starting out in the classroom, I asked myself, "Would I want to do the assignment I've just created?" It was a simplistic question.
Moving forward, I'd collected student responses to hundreds of assignments and had a better idea of the varying perspectives in my classroom. As a result, I felt I was designing assignments more likely to pique my students interest.
It wasn't until moving to SLA and working with the unit planning template of Wiggins and McTigh's Understanding by Design that I was asked to unpack where I wanted my students to head in what they were able to know, do and understand as a result of their time in the classroom.
Sparks of Elmore's question could be seen in my review of student work, assessing how closely the students had come to reaching my goals for the unit.
This isn't quite the essence of the question.
The question asks for a more complex and paradoxically more simplified observation.
When designing the flow of a given class period, what knowledge or abilities was I helping my students to have at that class's end?
I wonder how classes would change if all teachers stepped into their classrooms tomorrow, mindful of that question.
Moving forward with the course, I'm curious to see and hear the variety of responses my classmates and I have to that question as we observe the same classes.


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FHFA Estimates Eligible Borrowers for Principal Reduction Plan.
In early 2016, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced a new principal reduction plan to specific qualified borrowers, and there's been much debate since the announcement on who those eligible borrowers would be. At one point, the borrowers needed to have loans owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Then, the FHFA Read More


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|About this Recording
NBD0007 - ADAMO, M.: Little Women (Houston Grand Opera, 2000) (Blu-ray, HD)
Mark Adamo (b. 1962)
Opera in Two Acts
Jo – Stephanie Novacek
Mark Adamo
While Mark Adamo has composed a substantial folio of chamber, choral and orchestral music, the Philadelphia-born composer-librettist's principal work has been for the opera house. Commissioned for a 1998 première by Houston Grand Opera, Little Women, after the novel by Louisa May Alcott, was the first opera for which Adamo composed both music and libretto; it has been nationally telecast on the PBS series Great Performances, released on CD by Ondine Records, and heard in over 70 national and international engagements from New York to Mexico City, Minneapolis, Adelaide, Tel Aviv, Calgary and Tokyo, including two for which Adamo served as stage director. His second opera, Lysistrata, or The Nude Goddess, after Aristophanes, was commissioned and introduced to comparable critical acclaim by Houston Grand Opera for its fiftieth-anniversary season in March 2005 and made its East Coast début in March 2006 at New York City Opera, where Adamo was composer-in-residence from 2001–2005. In January 2009, San Francisco Opera announced it had commissioned Adamo to compose both score and libretto for an opera entitled The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, of which the company plans a première in June 2013.
Adamo's first concerto, Four Angels: Concerto for Harp and Orchestra, was introduced by the National Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin in June, 2007; the slow movement of the concerto, Regina Coeli, appears on Eclipse Chamber Orchestra's recording of Adamo's orchestral work for Naxos (8.559258), which includes the first recordings of his Late Victorians, his symphonic cantata for singing voice, speaking voice, and chamber orchestra: Alcott Music, from Little Women, for strings, harp, celesta, and percussion; and the Overture to Lysistrata.
Choral work includes Cantate Domino, commissioned by the Choral Arts Society of Washington and introduced at the Kennedy Center in 2000: Garland, for Francisco Nuñez and the Young People's Chorus of New York, introduced in 2006; and No. 10: Supreme Virtue, recorded by Seattle's Esoterics and released in spring 2008.
Mark Adamo began his education at New York University, where he subsequently taught composition; as a freshman in the Dramatic Writing Program, he received the Paulette Goddard Remarque Scholarship for outstanding undergraduate achievement in playwriting. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Music Degree cum laude in composition from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where he was awarded the Theodore Presser prize for outstanding undergraduate achievement in composition. His music is published by G. Schirmer.
Composer's note on Little Women
Little Women, that indispensable chronicle of growing up female in post-Civil War New England, has most often materialized on screen (and onstage) as the romance of a free-spirited young writer torn between the boy next door and a man of the world. Closer reading of Louisa May Alcott's novel revealed to me a deeper theme: that even those we love will, in all innocence, wound and abandon us until we learn that their destinies are not ours to control. So I shaped a libretto in which Jo's love for her sisters regained the power it wielded in the original novel; and imagined a finale in which Jo at last accepts that even sincerest love and strongest will cannot stave off change and loss.
Jo's journey called to mind the Buddhist suggestion that a lesson unlearned will present itself over and over again, in slightly different guise, until at last the pilgrim makes progress and grasps the point. It suggested to me a score in which, amid a riot of inflection and colour, one could clearly hear Jo's music of stubbornness and resistance tangling with and at last yielding to an ardent but unstoppable music of change. In fact, I wanted two scores: a character music which made the emotional journeys of the characters everywhere clear and traceable, in bold relief against a narrative music as distinct as I could make it from the thematic foreground.
So, Jo's resistance theme and Meg's and Laurie's change theme, among others, are written in a free lyric language of triad and key. But those moments driven by language and story, rather than music and psychology, take a kind of dodecaphonic recitativo secco—crisp and terse, made from the twelve tones of the horn melody in the Prologue, designed to distinguish the flavor of the non-thematic dialogue. That melody also gave Jo the makings of her exuberant scherzando sections in her Act One scena, "Perfect As We Are." This long solo, which portrays Jo's divided feelings by disrupting her longlined F-major cantilena with careening dodecaphonic comedy, best exemplifies what I dreamed for this piece: a music in which even the most unlike materials could fuse into a single music if the ear is sensitive and the design is sound.
I am surprised, and humbled, by the critical and popular embrace Little Women has enjoyed in the twelve years of its life. The list of those who have been generous to this work is endless; but for the truths of love and courage I have tried to reflect in this piece, I would like to thank above all my parents, Julie and the late Romeo Adamo, to whom Little Women is lovingly dedicated.
The attic of the March house: Slanting light of a dark afternoon
A shimmer of strings, a tumble of voices (Four little chests…): Jo, twenty-one but feeling older, sprawled on an ancient sofa, scribbles an elegiac poem until her childhood friend (and would-be lover, once) Laurie appears in the attic doorway. Delighted, but uneasy—Laurie's just returned from Paris, where he's married Jo's younger sister, Amy—Jo presses him: he hasn't just married Amy to remain close to Jo, has he? Worse: in loving Amy ("she's loved beyond compare, loved, loved beyond belief") Laurie has fallen quite out of love with Jo: can she forgive him? Jo claims relief and good cheer, though a grieving orchestra, oddly, belies her: Laurie, oblivious and exultant, proposes a return to their easy rapport of years ago. Wasn't their relationship "perfect as it was?"
This phrase maddens Jo, and deranges the scene: in scathing self-reproach (Couldn't I un-bake the breads?) Jo mocks the very idea of trying to stop time from changing the ones she loves, and the opera spirals back in time to show us what she means.
Act I
Scene 1: The attic, two years ago
Jo and her three sisters—distracted Meg, ethereal Beth, and peppery Amy—bicker and shout as they make a clubhouse of the attic (Again we meet to celebrate) and games of their household chores. Inducting Laurie as an honorary member of 'The Barristers Club', they launch a game of Truth or Fabrication? while sorting and folding their laundry. The game reveals that Meg's lost glove may actually be part of some deeper secret: that Amy's taunting of Laurie is anything but hostile; that Jo's devotion to her sisters far outweighs her ambitions for her own writing or the very thought of a husband; and that Beth's calm good humour hardens into brittleness at the very suggestion that her health is unsound. Alma, the girls' mother, summons them to supper: as they go, the close harmony of their last club-song strophe (Long may our comrades prosper well) seems to affirm their intimacy.
Laurie, lingering, taunts Jo with the knowledge of where Meg's glove is: his tutor, John Brooke, keeps it as talisman of his love for the older girl, which she may indeed return. Jo, curiously intense, scoffs at the notion that her sister and confidante would "go filling her head with lovering rubbish". Laurie, equally intense, reminds her, "Things change", before leaving her alone. Jo, disturbed, starts to rewrite her latest fictional melodrama, but can't shake Laurie's hint that Meg might soon be leaving the family. As she edits 'The Curse of the Coventries', Jo argues with an absent Laurie that Brooke or no Brooke, she and her sisters remain Perfect as we are.
Scene 2: The path in front of the March house, weeks later
John Brooke walks Meg home in the October twilight. Meg offers to teach him Rigmarole, a storytelling game, while Jo acts out 'The Curse of the Coventries' for an approving Laurie. Brooke's Rigmarole story (There was a knight, once) is so clearly modeled on his own feelings for Meg that Laurie, overhearing, exults (though he's less amused when Brooke compares him to a colt!) An appalled Jo bursts in and all but chases Brooke off, hounding Meg with protests: ("He's twenty-eight! He's got one foot in the grave!") as they retreat into the house.
Inside, an oblivious Beth, at her piano, rewrites her musical setting of verses from Pilgrim's Progress (She that is down need fear no fall) while Amy sketches a portrait and Alma and her husband Gideon discreetly argue. Jo marshals the entire family to plead with Meg to reject Brooke. Meg, quoting from Jo's own "Perfect as we are" music from Scene 1, convinces Jo that rejecting Brooke was her plan all along. No sooner has she given her word than Brooke, arriving unannounced, overwhelms Meg with a bluntly ardent proposal ("Marry me! I love you"). Jo, hidden in the parlour, hisses discouragement; then Cecilia March, the girls' arch and glamorous aunt, sweeps in. Scorning Brooke's profession and suspecting his motives ("He knows you've got wealth in the family"), Cecilia only hardens Meg's resolve; to her own surprise, Meg pledges herself to Brooke. The family congratulates the new couple while Jo, devastated, hears only a haunted memory of the club-song atop an orchestral cortège (Interlude).
Desperate, Jo accuses Meg of abandoning her. Meg, appeasing Jo as best she can, can reply only Things change, Jo. Her billowing confession of love for Brooke only wounds Jo more deeply. An implacable Jo withholds forgiveness; Meg, equally implacable, leaves Jo to her anger. Laurie, wordless, tries to console Jo; she, suspicious, shrugs him off. Amy shows Laurie her finished portrait, about which he says exactly the wrong thing; Jo seeks comfort with a sympathetic Beth as October snow begins to fall.
Scene 3: The March garden, the summer of the following year
While Alma nervously prepares for Meg's wedding, Amy shows her new sketches to an appreciative Cecilia, and Jo, still resentful, glowers throughout. Meg and Brooke decide to use as their own wedding vows the ones Alma and Gideon wrote for their own ceremony years ago. As the parents, assisted by Beth, teach them to the young couple (We stand together), a feverish Laurie accosts Jo, and, to Meg's music of change, confesses his desire for Jo ("It's time things changed, Jo, between us"). Jo, to her Perfect as we are music, resists: Amy, eavesdropping, overhears their argument, as the vows are sung in the distance (Sextet). Finally, furious, Jo spurns Laurie; he, stung and enraged, flees. Amy, bursting into view, accuses Jo of heartlessness before running off to follow Laurie. Jo, regrouping from the second person in her life to abandon her for love, strategizes (to the music of her Prologue aria): if she gives Laurie time and absence, he'll change back from a new and unwelcome lover into the friend she's always cherished. Struck by an idea, she retreats to the house as Beth, overwhelmed by heat and weakness, collapses at the piano. Meg's cries for help for Beth go unheeded as the act concludes.
Act II
Scene 1: The publishing offices of 'The Daily Volcano', a fiction tabloid based in New York City, one year later
Dashwood, the wry publisher of the New York sensation sheet, grills Jo as to why she's come to town. She tells her story and demands to know if he'll buy 'The Curse of the Coventries'. Unmoved, he offers her twenty-five dollars for an edited version; Jo, tough as ever, insists on "Thirty dollars, and two free copies; I have sisters at home".
Triumphant, Jo returns to her boarding house, and writes to her family, which, while loving as ever, is pulling apart under pressure (Letter Scene). Meg and Brooke are struggling with sleeplessness and temper as the parents of twins; Laurie has abandoned Concord for Oxford; Amy is studying art in Europe under the sponsorship of Cecilia; and Beth's continued denial of her failing health convinces no one but herself. Even Jo finds herself distracted by the offer of light supper and the opera by a new acquaintance at her boarding house, Friedrich Bhaer, as the scene ends.
Scene 2: Jo's boarding house, late that night, after the opera; the March parlour, at midnight; a sunny lane on the campus of Oxford, mid-afternoon
Jo and Bhaer trade histories and spiritedly argue points of taste while, in Oxford, Amy delicately sounds out Laurie on how much or little he still feels for Jo. Meanwhile, a haunted Beth, doggedly composing at midnight, at last acknowledges the defeat that awaits her and, wordlessly, rages and mourns in ever-more-dissonant strokes at the piano. Jo, playfully chiding Bhaer for the same aesthetic stiffness she thinks she sees in her father, challenges him to recommend a worthier art than the melodrama she unashamedly enjoys. Bhaer responds by reciting in the original German a poem of Goethe's (Kennst du das land?). Jo, impressed by his grandeur but not his unintelligibility, requests a translation. Bhaer's English rendering (Do you know the land?) is, as Brooke's Rigmarole was, a confession of love under a mask of storytelling. Jo, moved despite herself, is distracted by a desperate telegram from Alma: Beth has taken a turn for the worse. Rejecting Friedrich's support, Jo flees back to Concord.
Scene 3: Beth's bedroom, three sleepless nights later
Beth dozes in a throne of pillows as her family keeps vigil. A disheveled Jo bursts in: Beth bids her family leave the two of them alone. Frantic, Jo plumps pillows and prattles about a possible restorative trip to the seaside before Beth, with a hint of her old force, silences her. She urges Jo to accept her impending death ("Have peace, Jo") which Jo resists until she recognizes, in Beth's music, the same leitmotif of change that formed Meg's and Laurie's utterances of a year ago. "Mother and Father: you're all they've got now. Promise me you'll take care of them", Beth insists, and Jo accedes. Relieved, spent, Beth drowses; Jo drowses beside her. When Jo awakes, Beth has died. The orchestra finishes the chorale Beth did not complete as Jo remembers the vanished harmony of her sisters' voices.
Scene 4: The path in front of the March house, the following spring
Jo, a wraith in a dark dress, sweeps the front steps while Cecilia baits her with Amy's latest letter, which relates that she is now, at last, "loved beyond compare, loved, loved beyond belief" by Laurie. A weary Jo accepts the news, and pressed by Ceclila, admits that Friedrich Bhaer seems to have abandoned her as well; no letters from him have arrived. Strangely satisfied, Cecilia announces to Jo that she's revised her will to leave Plumfield, her orchard estate, to Jo: her death will render Jo independent for the rest of her life. Stunned, if grateful, Jo asks why: and Cecilia, in a seductive minuet, urges Jo to use her pending wealth and power as she, Cecilia, has done—to isolate herself from the pain that loving others (like Meg, Laurie, Beth) is bound to inflict (You, alone). Jo recognizes Cecilia's music as a nightmare transformation of her own Perfect as we are theme: appalled at this aural vision of her possible future, she rejects the stunned Cecilia and flees to the attic.
Scene 5: The attic
"What endures?" Jo asks no one, flinging herself on the sofa: and the same shimmer of strings and tumble of voices ("Four little chests") brings us back to the very moments in which the opera began. Laurie, as before, enters the attic, apologizing to Jo and suggesting, innocently, that they two go back to the "perfect way it was"; but this time Jo demurs. "The happy old times can't come back, and we mustn't expect it", she tells him. Relieved, admiring, Laurie leaves her in peace. Overwhelmed by feeling, Jo calls on her memories of the sisters of her girlhood ("Barristers! It's quarter past!"), and ghostlike, they materialize. In forgiveness and gratitude, she celebrates what they were and releases them to what they are now (Let me look at you); they join in harmony a final time before disappearing forever.
Unexpectedly, the attic door opens a third time: it's not Laurie but Friedrich, in town by chance and eager to see her. "Is now the good moment?" he asks. "Now is all there is", Jo realizes: she extends her hand to him as the opera concludes.
Mark Adamo
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Road Paving
Columbia Borough PAVE 2014 Map
Columbia Borough PAVE 2018 Map
Above are links to street mapping that compare how far the Borough has come with the maintenance of streets within the last few years. The 2014 map contains the rating assigned to each street when a conditions assessment was completed in October 2014. The 2018 map captures all of the projects completed within the Borough between 2015 and 2017 and those projects scheduled to be completed in 2018.
The Borough is happy to report that 75% of Borough streets are currently rated in Excellent or Good categories. That is an increase of 12% since the initial assessment in 2014. Another impressive stat is the mileage of streets categorized as poor fell from 8% to 3%. Poor streets are the most expensive to repair considering they typically require extensive base work.
The Borough is also happy to report by the end of 2018 12% of all streets will have been paved with 62% being the worst streets in the Borough.
(note: a visual re-assessment of streets was not completed for this mapping. Any street that may have deteriorated (dropped a category) since 2014 was not factored. )


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This time the limited palettes are from the Glam Nude range so it was expected to see 2 rather natural and neutral palettes.
In contrast to the regular range of the Glam Nude Eyes the limited palettes come in white instead of black cases. I prefer the white ones as they look somehow prettier and more cheery than black.
Each palette contains a satin cream base (top right) which actually works really well as it´s not greasy and enhances the lasting-power of the shadows nicely.
The texture of the powder shadows is excellent, very smooth and with nearly no fall-out during application. The pigment is there and the colors have a beautiful glistening finish. Only the shade at the bottom right has a bit of finely milled glitter.
N-6 Rose Pink Fur: My favorite palette, a lovely array of rosey-brown colors that look so feminine and sweet. The colors aren´t too red so they look really pretty and flattering!
N-7 Blond Fur: A warmer golden/bronze palette. The main bronze color (left side, middle) has an intense metallic finish. Even though the palette is quite warm I like it a lot. The colors work nicely with my complexion and eye color.
Overall great eyeshadow palettes, even though I consider them neutral they are more special than the usual bland browns and golds found in other neutral play-it-safe-palettes.
The Lash Blossom (Volume) Mascara Curl Separate Film Type Mascara (what a name!) comes in a limited white tube. I thought it´s a regular comb-type mascara but unfortunately it has that coil-shaped plastic I am not particularly fond of.
The texture is too wet and heavy so the result for me are lashes that don´t look curled, are stuck together and just don´t look good.
Removal is easy with waterproof-makeup remover.
BK002 is a pretty blackened brown but since the formula totally sucks I am not really going to use this.
This is N-6 but with the Heroine Make mascara:


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Tiny Web Proxy And Content Filtering Appliance On CentOS 6 (Version 1.4)
This small HOWTO will show you how to set up a small virtual machine to speed up and secure your home / small enterprise web surfing network using CentOS 6, Squid 3.1 and QuintoLabs Content Security 1.4 applications deployed in a VMware Virtual Player running on Windows 7 x64 as a host operating system. This howto is targeted at novice users and may sometimes seem too thorough for more advanced gurus.
See previous versions of this HOWTO for examples of creating similar virtual appliances running on Debian 6 or Ubuntu 10.04 Linux.
Step 1. Download and Install CentOS 6
Go to http://www.centos.org and get the latest i386 based ISO image of CentOS 6 (CentOS-6.0-i386-minimal.iso). Although the usual recommended version for a modern server is x64 but as we are trying to create a small virtual machine the i386 will suffice for our purposes.
Start up the VMware Virtual Player and create a new virtual machine with the following hardware parameters: name - virtual-proxy, hard disk - 8Gb. Press the "Customize the hardware" button and delete the floppy, USB controller, printer and sound card, set the amount of memory to 512Mb. Switch the network adapter from "NAT" mode into "Bridged". Point the virtual CDROM to the ISO image that you have downloaded earlier and start the virtual machine.
Follow the steps of the CentOS install wizard mostly accepting the defaults. Configure machine hostname as "proxy" and root password as "[email protected]" (without quotation marks). Now wait a little until the installation is complete and then reboot the system.
Step 2. Perform post install configuration of CentOS
CentOS 6 deployed in VMware Player does not have network subsystem enabled by default. In order to set the static IP address and enable networking we need to modify the scripts located in the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts. So start the root terminal and open the script file in vi.
NOTE: The provided above settings (IP addresses) are valid for my environment that connects to the ISP using the LinkSys Wireless N Broadband Router (with custom dd-wrt firmware) that has a DHCP server build in that gives out internal IP addresses from the 192.168.1.* private subnet. Your router may give other addresses so please beware :) !
cd /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/
vi ifcfg-eth0
Add these lines to the ifcfg-eth0 file:
BOOTPROTO=static NETMASK=255.255.255.0 IPADDR=192.168.1.4 ONBOOT=yes
Then save the file (ESC + : + wq) and exit vi. Next we need to set the gateway settings in /etc/sysconfig/network configuration file. Open the file...
vi /etc/sysconfig/network
... and add this line:
Save the file and exit vi. Now we need to set the DNS server settings that are stored in /etc/resolv.conf. Open the file...
vi /etc/resolv.conf
... and add the IP address of the DNS server that runs on router:
nameserver 192.168.1.1
Now restart your network subsystem by typing
/etc/init.d/network restart
in the root terminal or by just restarting the virtual machine. After restart confirm that the network functions correctly by typing in the terminal (there should not be any errors in the outputs on these commands):
ping -c 3 192.168.1.1
nslookup google.com
Before we do any further installation it is recommended to update the freshly installed system with the latest security patches that may have come out after ISO has been released. So type in the root terminal and reboot the virtual machine after update completes.
yum update
Step 3. Install VMware tools
It is recommended to install VMware tools in a virtual machine to make it perform faster and enable some useful host integration features (like easy click out of the VM and clipboard sharing). As we are building the console only server this might not be a thing of the first priority but still here are the detailed instructions on how to do it.
Select Virtual Machine -> Install VMware Tools from the VMware player interface, wait until VM mounts the virtual ISO disk and type in the root terminal:
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt
cp /mnt/VMwareTools-8.4.6-385536.tar.gz /root
cd /root
taf -xvf VMwareTools-8.4.6-385536.tar.gz
cd vmware-tools-distrib
Follow the installation wizard mostly pressing Enter (i.e. accepting [yes]). Then reboot the VM.
Step 4. Install Squid Web Caching Proxy
Next we need to install the latest version of Squid proxy server. In order to do that type the following in the root terminal
yum install squid
All squid related packages are downloaded from the Internet and installed automatically.
The only thing to do is to let the external users from our home network to access the Squid. Open the Squid configuration file by typing
vi /etc/squid/squid.conf
and add the following line
visible_hostname proxy
Also check that http_access allow localnet and acl localnet src 192.168.0.0/16 are present in the config file.
Now make Squid proxy service autostart on system boot by typing
chkconfig squid on
in the command prompt. Reboot your VM or just start squid for the first time manually:
service squid start


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Supporting the propagation of Dhamma and accruing great merits.
Pa-Auk Meditation Centre (Singapore) promotes the learning and practice of Samatha and Vipassanā meditation, based on the teachings of the Buddha as taught by The Pa-Auk Tawya Sayadaw. We endeavour to provide a conducive environment and the necessary support for the learning and practice of meditation under the guidance of qualified meditation teachers. Our primary activities include the following:
Your generous donation will go a long way in supporting the propagation of the Dhamma. May all the merits thus accumulated be the supporting condition for the realization of all your noble aspirations!
By Monthly GIRO
To make a monthly donation to PAMC's General Fund by GIRO:-
1. Please download and complete the GIRO form.
2. Then submit or post the completed form to the Centre at 15 Teo Kim Eng Road Singapore 416385.
The monthly GIRO donation will be deducted from your bank account at the beginning of every month after approval from your bank.
By Cheque or Interbank Transfer
You can make a one-time donation to PAMC's General Fund:-