text:
Research for the 2009-2010 Holiday season indicates that that consumer spending on store gift cards is projected to fall by approximately 7% as compared with previous years. While sales of store-specific prepaid gift cards are expected to decline, sales of general purpose cards are expected to rise by 3% over the sales figures for general purpose cards during the 2008 season.Store gift cards include cards specific to one retail stores. Restaurant gift cards are also considered to be store gift cards. The defining characteristic of a retail or store gift card is that it can only be used to buy the brand / store items that it was purchased for.
General purpose gift cards, on the other hand, are sold by major credit card companies including Visa, MasterCard and American Express. These general purpose gift cards can be used anywhere where credit cards are accepted.
The waning popularity of retail cards may be based on a number of possible factors. An uncertain economy has driven many stores to order lower-than-normal inventories, so consumers may be afraid that desired items will be out-of-stock after the Holidays when it comes time to use that gift card.
Furthermore, if a retailer goes out of business, Consumers may be left holding a worthless retail store card. This happened to millions of consumers when Sharper Image and Linens and Things went out of business, resulting in a loss of approximately $100 million dollars to consumers. While Title IV of the Credit Card Accountability and Responsibility and Disclosure Act will put an end to this risk, it will likely not go into effect until at least 2010.
These factors coupled with the fact that people may be more prone to practical purchases in a tough economy, are leading some to read for the general purpose cards and leave the retail cards on the shelf.


text:
Yesterday, I wrote a web-app named Memecached. It is a service which allows you to quickly generate a meme and publish it in real-time. It went viral for quite a few hours after I tweeted about it and posted it on Hacker News, with hundreds of memes being shared, sometimes a new meme every three seconds!
Memecached is extremely lightweight. The server is tiny, written entirely in exactly 50 lines of Javascript using node.js. It uses MongoDB as the data store and now.js for real-time, remote method invocation.
Using it is fairly trivial – you open the page, and the latest N (25 by default) memes are streamed back and populated into the webpage. On the left is a collections of meme templates – you can click any one, enter the top and bottom text, and hit publish to see it reflected on each open client.
Some Code
On the server side, the now.js initialization didn't work normally as sometimes the client – my chrome browser – would not perform a handshake (I've reported this in the now.js issue here: , so I had to fiddle around with the options till I found that xhr-polling seemed to work.
var everyone = require("now").initialize(server, { socketio: {'transports': ['xhr-polling'] }} );
Publishing a meme involves validating the meme document, inserting it into mongo, and the passing it to all clients with:
// publish meme everyone.now.publish = function(meme) { if(meme.name && meme.text.line1 && meme.text.line2) { db.collection('memes', function(err, collection) { // add a date field and save meme.date = Date.now(); collection.insert(meme, function(err) { if(!err) everyone.now.receiveMeme(meme); }); }); } };
Retrieving a recent memes' list is a trivial matter of looking up the last 25 in the 'memes' collecion:
// retrieve the latest few memes of a name. If there is no name, retrieve a mixture everyone.now.getRecent = function(memeName) { var client = this; console.log("retrieving"); db.collection('memes', function(err, collection) { if(memeName == undefined) { collection.find( {}, { sort: [[ "date", "desc" ]], limit: 25 }).toArray( function(err, docs) { client.now.getContent(docs); }); } else { collection.find( {"name": memeName}, { sort: [[ "date", "desc" ]], limit: 25 }).toArray( function(err, docs) { client.now.getContent(docs); }); } }); };
How it works
All meme template images are stored on Dropbox.
- When a new meme is published, the server takes a JSON object from the client, containing the meme
text. No image whatsoever.
- The received meme object is inserted into the mongo collection
memeswith a date timestamp added to it. The object is also sent to all connected clients immediately so that they may update their timelines. This also means that no further database queries are required to retrieve new memes.
- When a client connects, the last few (25) memes are queried from the database and sent back. This can further be optimized by having an in-memory queue of the most recent memes, in addition to the database.
- All meme generation is done entirely client-side, by drawing the text over the images using Canvas. The client doesn't have to download images, and the server doesn't have to handle them at all.
How to run
- First, run
mongodto start the Mongo daemon.
- Next, run the server:
node app.js
- Point your browser to
- Bask in Memetic paradise.
Things to do
- Upvotes/Downvotes: This should be a ten-minute job. Just add two new keys to the 'schema' of the doc.
- Sharing: Memes are rendered in Canvas. Need to get the dataUrl() and allow the user to save the image to a file.
- Line breaks: There need to be line breaks in a meme phrase. Right now, extra long sentences will make the font shrink too much to be visible.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Risen Review
The Short Version: Risen is an incredibly long and boring RPG that is damn near torture for any sane person to play (on Xbox 360). Only Hardcore RPG'ers willing to forgive a list of bugs, glitches and poor design choices a mile long need apply. Why anyone would subjugate themselves to Navigating an unforgivably backward-ass Map & Quest Interface in this Grindfest – that on occasion looks as if it was developed in 1999, for little to no reward is beyond me. Especially when there are far superior RPG choices out there. Do yourself a favor and stay far away from this one! Or at least wait for a bargain bin price to satisfy your morbid curiosity.
The Video Review:
What you'll Like:
• Massive amount of Content, over 60+hours, but will you even want to play through it all?
• Surprising amount of Dialogue, and your main character has a voice, I like that fact.
• Some of the Spells are fun for a few minutes.
What you'll Hate:
• Its Incredibly Boring throughout the entire game – No real "Epic feeling moments".
• Awful Interface. Map & quest screens are nearly useless and buried under too many button presses.
• The game is filled with Broken Quests, Glitches, Bugs, and Framerate hitches (every time you kill an enemy). Unforgivable.
• Combat is underwhelming – Block, mash button, Push enemy up against wall, block, mash button. Rinse Repeat.
• Crude graphics and Pathetically Sloppy Textures.
Final Verdict:
Terrible Game!
Issue your own Final Score Above!Risen Review,
Leave A Reply Cancel reply
184 thoughts on "Risen Review"
March 31, 2010 at 6:18 pm
God, but I love the Internet. Everybody hates everyone's opinion, marvelous. Snarling pack of wolves, I tell ya.
You know what's truly wondrous, though? In a lot of ways, I find this review to be overly negative. The cool part about that is that it doesn't bother me. Why not? Because it's funny! Remember funny? Guys, Joe is an entertainer. It's what he does. Yes, he's here to evaluate games, yes he's here to advise purchases, but he's here to make you LAUGH, too. This is his opinion, it's not going to be wholly objective, half his persona is based on being ANGRY. If you feel one of his reviews is being a little negative, that's because it is! It wouldn't be funny if it wasn't!
It's comedy. Don't take it so godamned seriously.
March 31, 2010 at 8:17 pm
@Captain Scrambles
Heh wait and see the last one's punctuation xD
But then again it's not my mother tongue so..:)
PS. No i m not a German trying to promote his national developer:P
March 31, 2010 at 11:57 am
Great review as always, Joe. I've been watching your reviews for a while now and this is the one I'd really want to comment on. I don't agree with most of your review other than the fact that the Xbox 360 port is terrible. It's pretty much a golden standard to buy Eastern European games on the PC because that's where they're going to be best – especially old school RPGs.
This game is pretty much a slightly worse but far more stable version of the Gothic games – specifically Gothic 1 and 2. They're hardcore on the difficulty but also heavy on rewards and progression. Going into the game with a mindset from playing most modern western RPGs will result in frustration and general insanity. Much like a person going from Call of Duty to STALKER – you'd be ripping your hair out and smashing your head into your keyboard within the first 20 minutes.
Risen does nothing wrong, just different. You have to level up to get your learning points then head to a trainer to level up your skills. It's a system where you have to think hard on what kind of character you want to play and what faction you want to join. You can't be master of everything, destroyer of worlds. You can master magic, melee or try out a jack of all trades all while balancing increasing your stats and skills.
Risen is a game that doesn't give you anything and everything you get is taken. To learn your boundaries you really have to talk with the NPCs and listen to what they have to say. The same with quests, they tell you where to go and what to do. That sweeping job that the guy gave you, I never did. He never gave it to me because of the way I approached that level. I joined up with the faction and not sent there as punishment and I behaved inside the Monastery. Had I acted up in there, I would have been sweeping the epic floors.
Unlike Gothic, Risen doesn't dish out as much for rewards like you criticized the game for. The game was terribly lopsided that way. In Gothic 2, I remember killing skeletons that could two shot me by carefully blocking and attacking them to death to be rewarded with a Two-handed dragonslayer sword – the rest of the game was cake. It is also harder to become extremely powerful in Risen, also something toned down from Gothic. In Gothic 2, you started out as crap, much like in Risen, except by the mid game, you were killing orcs and shadow beasts left and right with sword or magic while in Risen, you still struggle against the lizardmen from beginning to end.
Overall, I'd give Risen a 7/10. The first 3/4s of the game are great, but the last bit was pretty crappy. I also agree with the lock-on system – it's pretty bad. It could use some modern day conveniences – such as dialogue skipping and the like, but I found the game to be really enjoyable. It's a niche game for a niche RPG market.
If you want a game that would appeal to what you said in the beginning of the review – Check out the Gothic Universe. It comes with all the Gothic games. Install Gothic 2 and Night of the Raven expansion, then a fan patch and you're set to go. Gothic 2 will reward you for your daring exploration and questing. It's just as hard, but the progression is far better as are the rewards. Plus you can't get stuck working for a faction, you choose all of it. (Wizards are extremely powerful in Gothic and tons of fun, I recommend trying one out)
March 31, 2010 at 10:23 am
We like it that way und you like it the other way: nonstop hack and slash without knowing why, just rushing from one questmarker to the next. Why bother with a RPG game if you are too impatient to enjoy.
March 31, 2010 at 4:51 am
Good thing I watched this. No Cheese is no Buy for anything under 10$.
March 30, 2010 at 10:07 pm
hey joe how come your still censoring part of your videos but allowed the word fuck 3 times in the review?Seems kind of retarded but good shit anyways
March 29, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Why do you Capitalize every Other word? It's Really annoying And distracting, And you Can't really Fault game-Makers for Overlooking small Details when You can't Even write A paragraph.
March 29, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Now there…why all the hatred? Sure the game probably sucks on Xbox and it is a quite "delicate" RPG genre that not everyone will like, just like its predecessors(Gothics), but isn't that review a bit unfair?
Now don't take me wrong i don't mean that it's unfair from a technical point of view, but it kinda goes against the objectivity a reviewer should review a game with. I believe that your frustration took over you and it resulted into making this review look more like a draft than a decent critique over the game. For example you pointed out some pretty random positive aspects of the game(such as hardcore herbalism,cooking, branch wielding) and completely missed out stuff like challenging battles(the wall push has been fixed, and you could always not use it if you wanted to play it fair just like you can or can not lets say…nuke boost in certain games), the simple yet practical crafting system(blacksmithing, alchemy) or the several paths you can take in game. On the other hand even the negative part was not convincing enough for a demanding gamer. For example not only was it unnecessary to look at your map while near an aggressive-moth hive just to prove that the map interface was lame but it also kinda insulted me as a mature gamer(i was like "for real…do i have subdue myself in believing half that crap?") who has been supporting you all this time just because you made reviews from a gamers perspective unlike many magazines and game-sites.
As far as questing is concerned i find it hard to believe that dealing weed was an issue since drugs and other equally repulsive actions(mindless killing,prostitution, extremely chaotic moral choices etc,etc) tend to be ignored when encountered in some other games…maybe in the name of a more famous publisher/developer or because of intense advertising that tends to create a set opinion about a game even before its release.
Finally i would like to complain about Joe's frustration, which distorted (in my opinion) the review's content, being also affecting the comment responses in a matter that would be best described from what Björn said earlier "I do however respect your opinion on the game Joe but it seems from some of your comments towards us fans that you do not share this respect". I 'm not under any circumstances asking to be spoiled just for being a subscribed fan of the show that even bothered to check the full video at the site…nope none of this if that's the impression you might get. I just hoped that Joe would be able to realize that this being a "Gothic school" game, it has a pretty mature fan community which supports and enjoys it, and i expected some respect towards those having a more positive opinion about the game.
To sum up, yes the Xbox version has a lot of issues(especially the graphics are unacceptable and downgraded compared to the pc version), the dust piles quest is lame…but then again it's just a tiny part of the game(come to think of it i can name a pretty popular game that had me gathering and digging through turds for quest items quite a few times) and the combat glitch(now fixed) can lower the challenging level, yet i can't accept half the review's content as in-depth reasons to "jump of a cliff" or something. So i believe that as soon as the video keeps gamers away from the Xbox version, it serves the purpose that Joe had in mind when making it, but demolishing the game and placing it near or lower than G.I Joe and DragonAge awakening is too far.
Sooo..that's it, i hope that some people will bother reading all of it and lets hope that in the future each game will be reviewed where it is supposed to be played.(Let's leave the port versions to some 50-maned popular magazine which will be able to spare the manpower and time on them and keep the juice to independent shows, made from gamers for gamers, like this one)
February 1, 2013 at 6:28 pm
Mr. Angry Joe is the most HONEST reviewer out there. Think about it. He has an opinion and YOU have yours. Period.
March 29, 2010 at 11:40 am
Hey, Joe, ever play Gothic? Same developers (I believe) made this game. Gothic is quite old but it's amusing that it seems they haven't had any evolution of their games over the last decade. Gothic was an amazingly fun game cause it was one of the first with a rather huge open world, interesting characters, vast replayability and whatnot, but this seems like.. well ya. It seems they've been steadily degrading in quality and adding more quantity (quantity of world size, of quests, of talking, etc).. what a shame :\
March 29, 2010 at 11:35 am
Well I'll start by saying that if not for some corp drama/copyrights this would normaly be titled "gothic 4" and it is not hard to see the familiar "nameless hero" that was there in the 1-3 games of the series.The similarities are everywhere,both in good and the bad things.
I'll agree to the good stuff Joe pointed out,and some of the bad ones,mainly the graphics and animation issues-character movement should have been improved from gothic 1,but the animations seem almost the same…About interface,map etc I really don't know how the xbox port was,since I played it on pc-3 times completed,to see all possible outcomes/dialogues- usually the rule is that sutch games are way better on pc as ports are sloppy at best or significaly easier-see dragonage xbox combat for example- but in pc the interface was far from a hinderance,especialy if you had played the previous games.
As for the "no real epic feeling moments"…Really?..Yes you DO begin as a nobody in rugs,who can have his ass handed to him by a pair of wolves,but why is that a negative thingie?Do we have to be Chuck Norris in all rpgs?And the questlines in the start ARE very mundane since you try to gain the trust of the factions of the game world,working your way from the bottom,but from the middle and up things really turn around.If you look into it you will even see some quite epic "sideline" quest chains,something that other rpgs today lack-sure they are not Oblivion level but they are ways above D.A:O sidequests (the later ones mostly made me feel as if I was doing quests in wow..I blame E.A:p)As for the "weed" quest you mentioned as if it was a bad thing…well it's part of a murder investigation chain if I remember well and that was in all pretty decent…and remember that you don't play a knight in the shinning armor but rather the gothic "nameless" hero who is abit of a duce…Was it really THAT shocking to do?:P
The combat system isn't that bad…yes the "stuck to the wall" glitch should have been fixxed before release…but otherwise it is a quite decent real-time system that keeps you focused-or you die.As for the difficulty,as Crogan said above,it is MEANT to be hard…Which especialy today is not a bad thing…
Bottomline…the xbox port dunno…but you just don't play crpgs in a console….The pc version at least in my book,is deffo a 7/10 maybe a 6 counting some tecnical issues.It is good and plentyful content,worth the money you pay for it-unlike some other games of the genre today-a little hard if you are used to easymode stuff and different that most games in its style…but that doesn't mean it is a "terrible game" or a game to "make you want to jump off a cliff….A gothic fan could give it a 9 or 8-that would be too much-
but it earns a 7-in Joe's scale-,at least on the pc-where it is ment to be played.
Soz for length,looking forward to other comments/responses.
March 29, 2010 at 8:58 am
You probably figured it out but…
If you want to really apritiate this game you must first play Gothic then Gothic II. And those games are more for the story and combat then it is on loot.
P.S. I suck at writing.
March 29, 2010 at 8:04 am
Seems the opinion on this game are very black or white.. Although everyone seems to agree that the console port is regrettable. Most player reviews ive read have been either a 3 or lower or a 8 or higher. It would appear its a game thats simply not for everyone but very enjoyable for some. I havent played it myself but from what ive gathered i think i would probably enjoy it on a pc. It seems every genre of gaming is leaning more and more towards instant action and just because the god damn box office says that Avatar is the best movie ever made doesnt make it so (reffering to joes comment on how history will judge this game). Cinema has more or less established that the less we have to think and the less complex characters are the more we like it, that dont change the fact that there still is a community of people looking for something else. Not that i know anything about characters or story in this game but ive also heard a lot of my peers bashing this game for characters and story praising films like avatar for the same thing. I do however respect your opinion on the game Joe but it seems from some of your comments towards us fans that you do not share this respect.
March 29, 2010 at 7:32 am
RPG? *falls asleep*
March 29, 2010 at 7:09 am
I had fewer problems with the german PC version of the game but I can see why it might suck on the xbox. I guess the controls aren't as good as they should be because I remember the melee combat system to be quite tactical, challanging but also well executed. The boring dialogs might be a result of a bad translation (I remembered the dialog to be pretty humouros even though the main story lacked a bit in comparison to the gothic games which PB developed earlier)
Lastly the game is meant to be hard. One step in the wrong direction and you're dead. Thats an oldschool rpg mechanism thats mostly appreciated by very few players nowadays since most other sandbox games use scaling elements which I personally don't like. So it's a matter of taste. The graphics weren't pretty on the pc as well – but on the other hand they are not the focus of my personal taste. I can't agree with the rating remembering the game I have played but I can understand how a botched translation and a bad port can turn this game into a boring mess… in the end dialog is the most important point in any rpg.
March 29, 2010 at 4:31 am
I played this game when it was released and PC. Returned it to the shop.
Dude what went wrong with this s***? it's not THAT difficult to do a decent game.
March 29, 2010 at 2:58 am
Sad to see Pirana Bytes bringing out something so poor, the Gothic series was decent…this thing doesn't seem to be xD.
The Xbox version is probably so poor cause this is their first PC to Xbox360 port…but when the game is already weak chances are a port won't go well.
You should just pop in Oblivion for a few minutes Joe so you can enjoy a really good RPG for a moment so you can get over this disaster.
March 29, 2010 at 1:08 am
Yeah , I played this on the PC, and its pretty terrible.
Am I the only one who sees similarities in the plot with the Gothic 2 expansion Night of the raven
(A Don lives in the swamp with his bandits, there are ruins , tombs and stone plates(tablets), there's also a pirate story with burried treasure)?
Also the "Boss battle" in the end is probably the most unepic, unimaginative thing I have seen as far as boss battles go.
I guess the PC version is better , at least with better graphics and some of the bugs removed , but the quest tracker thing is just unforgivable.
Even if all those things are improved in the PC version, just don't buy it.
Or if you're really curios about it, wait a while till it's very cheap or rent it, it isn't worth the 40 bucks or 20 for that matter.
March 28, 2010 at 10:55 pm
New lighting? It was odd at first to see you under cool lights rather than the warm lights you had before. And since they were more towards the bottom it made me think you had the fridge open for some reason.
I bet this comment made no sense.
March 28, 2010 at 10:45 pm
The note about everything seeming like prison fight, had me laughing a bit there Joe. From what has been said here, I doubt I will be purchasing this game at all. It had potential, but everything was just executed in the wrong fashion. Better luck next time I guess. I might just have my eye on Dragon Age as of now.
March 28, 2010 at 9:37 pm
[…] See the article here: Risen (RPG) Xbox 360 Game Review | AngryJoeShow […]
March 28, 2010 at 9:20 pm
The fact there is an achievement called "Idiot" for dying 3 times or more by falling off cliffs is just..wow.
Yea I had no interest in this game and even LESS now. I have Negative interest! :O
March 28, 2010 at 9:15 pm
Just like STOL ,which I also realized after a 10 day free trial, Risen seems like a big pile of "Meh". I'll stay away……far away. Thanks for the tip Joe.
March 28, 2010 at 8:42 pm
Hey Angry Joe , what is the name of the song you use at the end of most of your videos.It sounds like metal and it says GOOOOOOOO this is the end of the line.
I d appreciate it
March 28, 2010 at 8:33 pm
It's a piranha bytes game, gothic type, you love it or you hate it. The story is good, the dungeons are really good in my opinion and the final armor kicks ass. So I loved it, and i'm waiting for Risen 2.
Sad to see that joe is a "gothic hater", personally i really hate the fact of the poor xbox porting, that sucks.
March 28, 2010 at 8:24 pm
Best word I think can describe this game, "Sloppy." It's just all around a sloppy effort from what I saw. The only reason I can logically think of as to why this game was produced is, maybe the developer had a bunch of left overs from a much better game and decided to dress them up a little bit, throw in some cheap programing, and ta-da! There you go, a cheaply made piece of cattle puke. Well Joe, to get over the trauma or dealing with that game ley me give you some humble advice; go play some more Battlefield BC2 and kill something, kill a lot of somethings…lol. Great review.
March 28, 2010 at 7:59 pm
Amazing review Joe. Just like always, I agree with your scores even though I haven't played it yet. I won't either.
March 28, 2010 at 7:39 pm
Sound likes they did a horrible job on the 360 port.
March 28, 2010 at 6:53 pm
March 28, 2010 at 6:31 pm
Hi Joe! I see you've got quite a number of reviews on the site. Did you try to get your reviews on sites like gamerankings and Metacritic? I'm sure this will bring you a lot of views. According to Gamerankings guidelines, they require that you have 300 archived reviews and that you do at least 15 reviews a month, but from what I've seen they include fairly new websites like giantbomb.com which currently has only 4 editors and only published 267 reviews in the past two years since its launch. I would also suggest that you expand your written reviews by including parts from the script you use in the videos. Best of luck.
March 28, 2010 at 6:05 pm
I agree. Game is catastrophe. I enjoy play first…hmmm….1hour , then 3 wolves come and my head was..omg are these epic wolves for finishing quests ?
So i started to run, and my run was finished with 5 wolves and 5-6 butterflies monsters…
Yea very "funny" game. NOT. GAME SUCKS !!
March 28, 2010 at 3:56 pm
For once, I disagree with Joe 100%. I think this game is freaking awesome.
It feels so much like the Gothic series, which I loved.
March 28, 2010 at 3:06 pm
i think its a pretty good game .. Like ya the first few hours are boring , but after u actually get into it later on its great! Also i have played both and in my opinion if ur gonna get this game get it for the pc. It is better on that, rather then the 360 because it was made for the pc. Then like a year after the game was rereleased onto the 360 .. Which in my thoughts was pointless, cuz of the shitier graphics, bugginess, and sometimes framrate problems. Now to end this off ill say ya its boring for the first like few hours but then it starts to get real good, and ya if anyone else is thinking of geting it.. try to find the pc version under atleast 40 bucks.
P.s. It is only a single player game and is pretty long, my first playthough was about 64 or 67hours(1 of those) and another thing is that in this game u will die alot ..like alot in the begining and it may frustrate u.
Lastly, if u do play this game i think its good to like play some of ur own music because it kinda makes the game a little less borig!
March 28, 2010 at 1:56 pm
I've played Risen two times on PC (fighter and mage), and i liked a lot, it's a waste that on xbox is bad. RPG must be played with a mouse and not with a damn joypad, FPS also, playing with a joypad is a pain in the ass!
March 28, 2010 at 9:19 pm
I agree that FPS should only be played with a mouse and keyboard, but many great RPG's like Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger were on the SNES and NES. 🙂
March 28, 2010 at 12:10 pm
Well, I havent played this game, and from what you have said I probably will never play it, but I was curious and went to other review sites, and the average is like a 6/10, just saying.
I agree with your review of this game. It looks like junk but hey the PC version is probably a hell of a lot better.
March 28, 2010 at 3:16 pm
Its always important to remember that a lot of sites treat a 7 as average, so a 6/10 is generally below average and is equivalent to a 3 or 4/10 on Joe's scale.
I was interested in the game but when the reviews came out last year and everybody kept saying the same thing, that its boring, I completely lost interest.
No I do have to sort of disagree with Joe on this review and that's about the "hardcore" statement. I don't feel that having to do everything yourself is hardcore, its boring and tedious. Collecting the components is one thing, that's normally a by-product of fighting or looting, actual fun game mechanics. For me personally hardcore is having food as a diminishing necessity (Krondor: The Betrayal), endurance levels on equipment, party tactics (A mages ability working with a warriors ability to create a new and more powerful attack). Excessively tricky conversations without "get out clauses" (Baldurs Gate had a tavern which when you entered had a man who blamed heroes for the death of his son and if you didn't talk him down he'd kick off and you'd have to kill him and lose a fair bit of reputation. The game didn't have threaten or persuade options and didn't mark out the best option. You had to read what was being said and react accordingly). Having to swap out weapons and not rely on an uber weapon. Baldur's Gate 2 had some ridiculously powerful weapons but you'd have to swap between them as many enemies were weak to a certain element or in the case of trolls could only be killed by a certain weapon.
There are lots of hardcore RPG elements in games, picking berries and sweeping floors is not one of them.
March 28, 2010 at 11:59 am
This concole port isn't just bad – it's f*ing horrible!
I loved Gothic I and Gothic II… and this game is from the same developers, Piranha Bytes. They're a company which grew big in making PC games.
Why they released a version on xbox too is what I don't understand.
But to be fair: All games from Piranha Bytes are ABSOLUTLY NOTHING for the common gamer who wants to start a game and be entertained immediately. In Risen as in Gothic, you have to work for your entertainment. You have to figure out what you have to do… and that's a thing a generic game like Oblivion hasn't.
Gothic and Risen just feel more… naturally.
They both are filled with objects (literally stone after stone) and were not build in a editor like Oblivion.
March 28, 2010 at 11:29 am
Please Joe review Metro 2033!!!. I really liked this game and I hope there will be a sequel. There's a lot of achivments and an alternate ending also. Only bad point is that it's too short for a game that is only a singleplayer. I'd give it a 8.5/10
March 28, 2010 at 11:05 am
The PC version is way superior. It has better graphics,the controls are decent and it reminds me gothic 1 and 2.
March 28, 2010 at 9:01 am
yep joe the pc version is indeed better
but i didn't find the game borring the way i played it
it was a nice little story, of just a guy set in a medival era and who has a mystery to solve
March 28, 2010 at 8:44 am
I love Risen, and I think it's one of the best RPGs to date along with Gothic 1, 2 and 3. I love how it is challenging, doesn't have clear moral choices and doesn't have any meters indicating whether or not you're good or evil. I love it for how it doesn't have a stupid fucked up Oblivion level scaling system nor any other retarted design choices that Oblivion is filled with. The dialoque and voice acting are mostly really good and the world is just perfectly designed.
What I would like to say about the review is that yes, the Xbox 360 version is horrible. PC version is a lot better technically and I have finished Risen 4 times and not encountered a single really bad bug. What comes to controls, they are great and very natural on PC version. And I don't even have to mention the graphics, they are far superior to the xbox version.
There is one thing that really pisses me off with bad (good ones too I guess) Risen reviews. The quest tracker. Seriously, how hard it is to think for two seconds and actually listen to the directions of the NPCs? Quest trackers in RPGs usually push me away from them because they break immersion really hard. I hope Piranha Bytes keeps doing what they do best, great oldschool RPGs. Because atleast they seem to be trying to keep away from the fucked up Oblivion trend where everything is given to the player right away accompanied with cookies and milk.
Right, that went off to be a bit of a rant, but hey, so was the review!
March 28, 2010 at 1:00 pm
what did you do vote your comment a 5 star? Im sorry to say it but your a minority most people would rather play oblivion or any other rpg rather then even touch the box it comes in
March 28, 2010 at 8:29 am
Hi Jo, im from Germany and this Game its from German Creators.
This Game isn´t Boring! I like it on the PC its great. The XBOX Version is Shit.
But another Question: Why hate Americans that Game so mutch? In Germany a hole Comunity love that Game, but in America everybody hate it.
March 28, 2010 at 6:24 am
the PC version is better…also boring…but it looks better 😀
March 28, 2010 at 6:05 am
Joe, you might be a little to harsh (or the xbox version is really that bad 😀 ).
The PC Game is not that bad. I had almost no technical issues, the graphics is very nice, most of the quests were ok, although nothing memorable.
As a mage running backwards and throwing fireballs will get you out of any trouble 🙂
The game becomes indeed boring in the last 2 (or 3?) chapters…
It may not be the next Gothic but there are far worse games out there 🙂
March 28, 2010 at 5:21 am
I looked up some videos of the PC version of this game and they were WAY SUPERIOR on the graphics department. Also the hitching on the death blows was gone. You might wanna check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2PaduvpYPA
March 28, 2010 at 5:44 am
I HATE shitty console ports…so very much.
March 28, 2010 at 4:47 am
i remember my little brother buying this, i nearly slapped the fool as my shit game senses started tingling DX
March 28, 2010 at 4:45 am
The Graphics remind me of The Simpsons – Hit & Run on PC…
But that was 2003, and this is in 2010!
Very Poor…
March 28, 2010 at 4:18 am
Oh My God,they actualy have this crap on X-Box?The control is so ass,that i didnt thoink,that its possible to control with joystick.
March 28, 2010 at 3:57 am
Risen reminds me of two worlds… which is a terrible thing for this game. Two worlds is the rated the worst xbox 360 game, just google "bottom 10 xbox 360 games" and there will be a site claiming it. I would never buy shit like this again
March 28, 2010 at 3:50 am
Alas, another video game comes with great ideas poorly executed. Far too many games have fallen into this trap. A good survival game like that is hard to come by, and the fact that it moves on into a more "epic" quest storyline sounds great. However obviously it isn't done well. That cave wall line graphics was horrible, and the background fading and re-appearing when you jumped from that ledge is just sloppy. I'm tempted to play it just to see a bit, but I think I'll stay on the safer side of things for now. Thanks again Joe, and I feel so bad for this game.


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Arts of Asia
The Museum's collections of Asian art span nearly five millennia and encompass the cultures of China, the Himalayas, India, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia.
In 2007, the Museum launched an initiative to create dedicated galleries for the collection, beginning with a gallery for the arts of Korea. Galleries for the arts of India, China, and Japan followed in 2009, 2010, and 2012 respectively. Houston's Asian communities, as well as international museum and foundation partners, generously supported the construction of the galleries and purchased of works of art.
Since 2007, the novel installation of ancient, modern, and contemporary objects in the same room has engaged visitors in a dialogue that conveys transnational and global narratives within the ancient and modern worlds. The display of fragile textiles, lacquers, and works on paper changes every few months, allowing the Asian art department to create focused installations and to showcase more works from the collection.
This collecting department illuminates the specificity and diversity of form, iconography, and techniques in the Asian continent that result from local and global transmission of ideas, religion, and philosophies such as Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Taoism. Learn more about this collection below.
Collecting Areas
Arts of China
The Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Arts of China Gallery connects China's ancient artistic and technical achievements with contemporary society and current art practice. Objects ranging from the Neolithic period to the present day are exhibited within the monumental, site-specific installation Odyssey by contemporary artist Cai Guo-Qiang. Highlights include bronze inlaid with silver dating from the 13th to 5th century BC; jade carvings; a limestone sculpture of the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara from the late 6th to early 7th century; an exceptional selection of Ming and Qing dynasty imperial ceramics; and Xu Bing's late-20th-century masterpiece, A Book from the Sky.
Arts of India
The Nidhika and Pershant Mehta Arts of India Gallery, dedicated to the growing collection of Indian and Southeast Asian art, includes outstanding examples of painting, sculpture, and photography: Gandharan Buddhist sculpture from the 1st to 4th centuries; 6th-century Gupta sculpture; 13th-century Chola bronze sculptures; 16th- to 17th-century miniature Indian paintings depicting varied scenes, from the daily life of the Mughal court to tales from the ancient, epic books of the Ramayana and Mahabharata; an ornate mid-18th-century ivory flywhisk; large-scale stainless steel sculpture by contemporary artist Subodh Gupta; and photographs by Dayanita Singh.
Arts of Japan
The collection comprises Buddhist sculptures, contemporary ceramics, and works on paper that include 17th- to 19th-century hanging scroll paintings, illustrated books, woodblock prints, and lacquer. Contemporary installations and video are also on view.
Arts of Korea
The Arts of Korea Gallery opened with a spectacular, long-term loan from the National Museum of Korea and AmorePacific Museum of Art in Seoul. Showcasing Korea's 5,000 years of art and culture are works such as Neolithic vessels; 7th-century gold jewelry and bronze Buddhist sculptures of the Silla dynasty; 12th-century celadon ceramics of the Goryeo dynasty; 17th-century Buddhist sculpture of the Joseon dynasty; and 16th- to 17th-century stoneware and porcelain ceramics. Contemporary sculpture, works on paper, and videos are also exhibited.
Special Collections
The Portal Project
Providing a unique context for the Asian art collections, the Portal Project launched in 2005. The project invites renowned contemporary artists to create site-specific installations for the galleries to activate an architectural experience and generate a dialogue with the objects on display.
Do Ho Suh was commissioned to create a portal for the Arts of Korea Gallery. He proposed a 1:1-scale Korean gate modeled after an 18th-century-style Korean courtyard gate designed by his father, Modernist painter Suh Se-ok. In contrast, Do Ho Suh's gate is made of translucent high-grade acrylic in negative space, an ambitious project fabricated using advanced technology.
For the Arts of China Gallery, Cai Guo-Qiang proposed Odyssey. The monumental, 42-panel gunpowder drawing was created in a Houston warehouse with the help of more than 100 volunteers. The rendering of a Chinese landscape and garden magnifies the visitor experience in the gallery and resonates with the works of art on view.
- Cai Guo-Qiang: Odyssey
- Elegant Perfection: Masterpieces of Courtly and Religious Art from the Tokyo National Museum
- RED HOT – Asian Art Today from the Chaney Family Collection
- Tradition and Innovation in Korean Art
- Treasures from the National Museum of Korea
- Unrivalled Splendor: The Kimiko and John Powers Collection of Japanese Art
- Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Korean Artists
Patron Group
Friends of Asian Art
Friends of Asian Art is dedicated to the acquisition of major works of art, ancient to modern, from China, India, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia. Members of this group also attend important lectures by collectors, artists, and scholars in the field of Asian art.
Join Friends of Asian Art
Special Programs
E-book: Tradition and Innovation in Korean Art
In 2013, the Museum received a grant from the National Museum of Korea to invite three senior scholars of Korean art to give lectures and docent training related to the works of art on loan from the NMK. The grant included the development of an e-book, and Tradition and Innovation in Korean Art is now available, free of charge, as a PDF, ePub, .mobi file, and via iTunes. The Museum also offers this e-book to the Houston Independent School District.
Korea Day
In 2014, the Museum received a grant from the Korea Foundation to support Korea Day in November of that year. Three senior scholars of Korean art gave lectures in conjunction with the exhibition Treasures from Korea: Arts and Culture of the Joseon Dynasty 1392–1910. Korea Day also included an array of family programming and a performance of music and dance by artists from the National Gugak Center in Seoul.
The MFAH Collections
To explore all of the Museum's works of art, search the collection.


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As someone who thrives in situations of great discomfort, I thought I'd tackle the often-thorny issue of who to invite to your wedding. I imagine this is difficult for every would-be groom and groom (or bride and bride, or groom and bride, as the case may be) but I think this is especially tricky for us theater people, who have so many more friends, colleagues, peers and associates than normal people with normal jobs. The following is the criteria of guidelines that Rafael and I created when figuring all this out.
The Magic Number
The first thing you need to figure out is how many people you want at your wedding. If I were writing a wedding-advice book, I'd write something diplomatic here, like "there are different size weddings for different people and you and your sig other should figure out what kind of wedding you want." But I think that's ridiculous. This is what my research revealed: most people with weddings of more than 150 were unhappy. That's the truth of it. Everyone I asked, and I asked many people, told me that 125 is the number to shoot for. Let me also point out that if you're planning on serving a meal at your wedding, which has become the norm, it's basically impossible to do that for less than 200/head unless you're doing the reception at a restaurant, so you do the math: that's already 25K right there. The 125 number also makes sense to me because, like the host of any good party, you're going to want to spend a few minutes with each guest and at a certain point, that becomes impossible.
The Must-Haves
Certain people are must-haves, and I suggest you start there: family members, friends you've known forever without whom you couldn't imagine the thing. Close your eyes and think about whose absence would cause you actual pain. Start by making a list of those people. (Also, close your eyes and imagine whose presence would cause you actual pain. Make a list and make sure none of those people are invited).
Pay To Play
Next, if your parents are paying for the event, ask them if there's anyone they'd like to invite. It's the decent thing to do. And you might even be pleasantly surprised - our next door neighbors growing up and the parents of a dear childhood friend of mine were on my parents' list, and they're both couples that I'd be delighted to have in attendance.
Now, you've got a list of everybody who has to be invited. This is where it gets tricky.
The Hard Part
Now, you and your fiance should make a list of everyone they'd like to have there. Anyone at all. This could be a long list, much longer than the number of people that can actually be accommodated by the wedding. Put anybody you'd like on that list - let it be whimsical. Then the two of you should work your way through the two lists. It's important to do this together, because some of the questions are not about the relationship you (singular) have with an individual, but rather about the relationship that you (plural) have - after all, this is about you (plural), not you (singular). (If English had a second person plural, like every other language, we'd all be saved many parenthesis).
Here are the questions Rafael and I asked ourselves:
Do we both have a relationship to the individual?
Obviously, it helps if the someone is someone to whom we're both connected.
Another question, which sounds stupid in its simplicity, is: have you met the person? A childhood friend of Rafael's was passing through New York yesterday, and we all made a point of re-arranging our schedules so that we could have lunch because I wanted to spend time with someone who was going to be at my wedding. In my ideal world, I wouldn't meet anyone new at my wedding, but knowing that's somewhat inevitable, Rafa and I are doing the best we can to meet all the people who've slipped through the cracks.
Have we spent one-on-one time with the individual?
As someone for whom one-on-one interactions are the source of major anxiety, this point helps me incredibly.
Have we been to their home?/Have we had them over to our home?
|A picture of our living room. Doesn't it look cozy?
What are your actual feelings about the person?
It was helpful for me to hear, from Rafael, about which of my friends he felt made him feel most welcomed into their lives, and around whom he felt most comfortable. I appreciated being able to share with him the same.
Also - do you like the person? Again, I know this sounds stupid, but you shouldn't invite someone you don't like to your wedding. That would be weird.
How long have you known the person/how long are you planning on knowing the person?
This is a key one to me, and oddly revealing: I'm inviting more people from high school than I am from college, something I would've never predicted at any point in my life. Inviting someone just because you've known them a long time or you went to their wedding ten years ago is a terrible idea. But inviting someone who has always been in your life and suspect will always be in your life is a great idea. Do that.
Notable Sub-Categories:
1) Children
Rafael and I decided against inviting children. I tell people "We wish we could, but we just can't afford the extra head count," and there is truth in that, but also, I don't want kids there. When you're getting married at our age, everybody's got kids, and I don't want a crying baby ruining my ceremony or my reception becoming all about little Bobby's finicky eating ways and would the caterer mind preparing a portion of the salad that doesn't have nuts or cheese but does have extra dressing on the side? Screw you, little Bobby. This is my day, not yours.
|Rafael and his cousin Adrianna's daughter, whom we plan on exploiting for her adorability as a flower girl.
2) The Exes
Don't go there. I just can't imagine it's worth it.
Exception: Linsay Firman, my last ex-girlfriend, the mother of my god-daughter, is someone who made my must-have list. Being on the must-have list trumps the ex- thing.
3) People Getting Married Around The Same Time You Are
|Vadim and Leslie!
It's like being on the same hall freshman year. Invite those people. It's fun.
4) +1
If a guest is dating someone when we came up with our invite list, Rafael and I decided that they should be allowed to bring that someone, even if we hadn't even met them (I think there's only one of those, and we're planning on remedying that before the big day).
If, however, you've just started dating someone, especially someone we haven't met, or you just want to bring a +1 for the hell of it, no can do. Each person costs hundreds of dollars, and more importantly, the idea that your +1 is taking the place of a friend or colleague that I'd like to invite but can't because we're short on spaces is just crazy to me. I've gone to many weddings by myself in my single years. It's fine. Make friends. My friends are, after all, the coolest people in the world. Or get drunk and threaten someone. That's fun, too.
5) Those Special Someones
For all the blogspace I've dedicated to writing about the logical criteria of whom you should invite to your wedding, here's the truth of it, or at least, the truth of it for me (which is the same thing in this blog). A handful of people whom do not fit into any of the criteria were invited anyway.
As I try to articulate why these people are important to me, I can't quite, except to say that at different times in my life, they have been there for me in unexpected ways, above and beyond, saved from something or myself, given me an extraordinary opportunity, or restored my faith when it was gone. Those people go on the list.
Now What?
Now look at the amount of people you want to invite, and compare that with the amount of people you can invite. Each wedding book has a different equation about how to deal with this, but the basic wisdom is to invite 10 percent more than you actually accommodate, planning that some people will have closing nights or puking children or other obstacles that will prevent them from attending.
Distribution is also important, here. Because I'm in a deeply social industry and desperate for approval in a way that Rafael is not, he has agreed to let the amount of "my" people outnumber "his" people. This also means, however, that if we get to invite more people to our wedding, I'm going to insist that those slots go to Rafael, because I don't want the proportion to get ludicrous. I'm not marrying myself, after all (that's illegal in most states). I'm marrying Rafael, and I'd like the parties present to be as equal as possible.
But There Are People I Want To Invite But Can't!
Tell me about it, kid. If it's any consolation, that's exactly what casting a play is like. Especially when you live in a city whose unsung resource is its rich casting pool.
|This, like trying to figure out the "right" number of people to invite to your wedding, is impossible.
You see the problem?
I think one of the impetuses for this post was a desire to exorcise my feelings of guilt and anxiety about having so many people whom I want at my wedding and not being able to invite them. And I remember what it's like to not be invited to a wedding for which I was expecting an invitation, and the hurt that causes (the party in question in that incident was someone I'd help move apartments three times, back in our early 20s, when you were allowed to ask your friends to help you move. When I wasn't invited to that wedding, I remember thinking that my lower back had really been taken advantage of).
|Dear Joss Whedon: I love you.
The Take-Away
Anyone's who's put on a play knows that making a choice means eliminating hundreds of others, and planning a wedding is no different. If you have a swing band that means you can't also have a Lady Gaga impersonator and a sixteen-piece band flown in from LA, as the older couple from the midwest sitting next to me and Rafael at dinner a few weeks ago did when their daughter got married (I can't make this stuff up).
The guest list is the same way - you're simply not going to be able to have everyone there whom you'd like, nor everyone who'd like to be there. The important thing, in some way, is that it doesn't really matter. Your wedding might be the last time, or the first time, or the only you ever see some of your guests. In a few years, Rafael and I might wish we had invited more people from my gay soccer team, or one of the plays I've been developing with one of the many playwrights whom I love could get picked up and after the trenches of rehearsal we'll become bffs and I'll regret not having invited him/her to my wedding. And who cares? Life goes on. It might be the most important day of your life, but it's just one day.


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The Maker
Impeccable handcraftsmanship, exquisite designs, and unparalleled quality define Indecrafts as a design house. An expression of India's rich culture, handicrafts, and design aesthetics, Indecrafts was incepted in the brass city of Moradabad, under the flagship of the 25 year old company, RR International. The collection comprises of essentials for the home, designed in-house, and acclaimed for their timeless beauty and versatility. As eclectic as they are refined, handcrafted pieces by the brand will bring beauty and form to any room.View more details


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The harmful well being dangers of meat, as it is produced as we speak, are nonetheless broadly ignored. Regardless of latest World Well being Organisation proof and warnings that eating processed meat will increase the risk of most cancers, many people still do not wish to learn about the real dangers of meat consumption. Reducing the quantity of meat you and your children eat would be the reply to avoiding immediately's widespread diseases and weight problems. The reply may be very easy. The system is designed and capabilities to make up for the unwillingness of individuals to pay the taxes immediately necessary to pay for healthcare for the aged and poor. The system is designed and supposed to create a cross subsidy: these with medical health insurance (whose care is sponsored by the employer deduction and exclusion from earnings provisions of the tax code) make up for taxes they might in any other case must pay for the aged and poor. The money purchaser, who has no political clout, is the one who is not hidden behind a tree, hiding (so to talk) from the tax man.
Respiratory difficulties: This is a robust one for me to explain. It was the second debilitating symptom I had which began in 2008. I name it asthma only for simplicity, however it is not asthma in the conventional sense. My pulmonologist has additionally known as it reactive airway illness. I have had irregular pulmonary function checks and at occasions have required inhalers which … Read More


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Homer Glen, IL
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Tweets abound: A man and his Twosome Place spring strawberry drink. Sweet!
— Cloud cover by: Stephe, Managing Editor ^@@^
A Twosome Place, a desert cafe chain known all over South Korea for its traditional European-style deep-roasted coffee and sweet treats, posted a sweet tweet today when Rain made a stop at the Chungjeongro location for a taste of the new spring strawberry latte.
Trivia question: What does Rain and A Twosome Place have in common? They're both sponsored by the massive CJ Group conglomerate. Birds of a feather…
I like their shout-out to "LA Song", too: 라~라라라라~~♥ (La~la la la la~~♥) So cute. 🙂 ^@@^
(Source credit: 투썸플레이스 / @atwosomeplace, 1/17/2014.)


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ROME (AP) — Abandoned by an ambitious party rival, Italian Premier Enrico Letta announced Thursday he is resigning after losing essential support for his battered, 10-month-old coalition government.
Hours earlier, Matteo Renzi, the 39-year-old leader of Letta's Democratic Party, rallied party executives to an overwhelming vote for a change of command in the premier's office. The Florence mayor is a fast-rising star in Italy's political firmament and has been maneuvering for months to become an unusually young premier.
Renzi said it was time for "radical change" in order to pull economically stagnant and politically unstable Italy out of its "quagmire," insisting that Italy needs more decisive leadership than Letta has offered.
Milan's market barely reacted to the development, and was down by barely 0.17 percent.
Even in a country known for its political tumult, the last several years have been bumpy. Renzi would be the fourth premier since late 2011, as the country scrambled to regain the confidence of skeptical markets with tough austerity measures.
Making no comment on his bitter defeat, Letta said he would formally hand in his resignation on Friday. He has defended his short tenure, insisting in a last-ditch pitch to fellow Democrats on Wednesday that Italy's economy has just started growing again, even if slowly.
President Giorgio Napolitano, who has staunchly opposed calling for new elections, could conceivably ask Letta to try to win a vote of renewed confidence in Parliament to make the legislature, and not the Democratic Party, the arbiter of the premier's fate. But without most of his Democrats, the largest party in Parliament, Letta's chances of commanding a legislative majority appeared doomed.
Napolitano would likely ask Renzi to try to form a coalition solid enough to command a working majority in Parliament that could quickly enact pressing electoral reform and measures to create jobs, especially with youth unemployment hovering around 40 percent.
Those consultations will bring Silvio Berlusconi, the scandal-tainted former premier, back onto center-stage. Berlusconi's center-right Forza Italia party is Italy's second-largest party after the Democrats, and his lawmakers' backing will be crucial to Parliament's effectiveness.
Forza Italia said Berlusconi will lead his party's delegation to the presidential palace to confer with Napolitano.
Only last month, he made a deal with Renzi to back electoral reform. Both Renzi and Berlusconi are betting that overhauling the voting system so that the ballot box will yield clear winners, instead of the frequently fragmented coalitions it has so far.
Whether Renzi's power grab might alienate potential voters is a big unknown. Renzi told his party's executives he realizes there is a "risk he could be burned."
One of the Democratic leaders who opposed Renzi's gambit, Pippo Civati, said after the showdown: "I might be in the minority" but the party should "give the word back to the citizens" at the ballot box to determine who governs them.
Civati also worried that Berlusconi could do an about-face on the reform deal, robbing Renzi of his main potential achievement. "Let's hope Berlusconi doesn't want to change is mind," Civati said.
In response to critics who see him shamelessly going after power, Renzi insisted pulling the plug on the government wasn't about "the oversized ambition of Renzi." Just a week ago, Renzi has said he wasn't interested in taking Letta's place through a power play.
Italian voters could be irked that they aren't picking their government's leader at the ballot box. Letta didn't run for office, but was asked by Napolitano to try to end weeks of political stalemate that resulted from inconclusive elections exactly one year ago.
The last candidate for premier to be elected was Berlusconi in 2008. But the 2011 financial market crisis forced him to resign, and Napolitano then tapped economist Mario Monti to lead a non-elected government of technocrats. A year later, Monti's government collapsed after Berlusconi quit supporting him.
Renzi also might be handicapped by his experience in Parliament — zero. Before serving as Florence mayor, he was president of Florence province, a relatively minor post.
London-based analyst Wolfango Piccoli said "markets are likely to react positively to Renzi" becoming premier, because they figure "the pro-reform and straight-talking politician will re-ignite reforms."
A Berlusconi protege, Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, who stuck with Letta's government even after Berlusconi defected, took a wait-and-see attitude toward a potential Renzi government.
"Either you do the big things or if you are going to do the little things, it's better to have elections," Alfano told reporters. "We're not in love with Parliament lasting until 2018," when elections are formally due, Alfano said.
He called it "Kafkaesque" that on Friday, the national statistics bureau was set to unveil figures backing up Letta's contention that during his embattled tenure Italy's economy had returned to growth after years of dismal performance. Still, Alfano likened the battered Letta government to "a ship caught between the waves of a tempest."
Colleen Barry in Milan contributed to this report.
Follow Frances D'Emilio at www.twitter.com/fdemilio


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The final plan is to then sort out the contents and with felt applique on the spine the general contents, for example, knitting.
We have been busy washing the carpets and sorting out cupboards. All is beginning to get into order.
I am looking forward to getting back into sewing properly. I have been doing a lot of mending lately, turning up trousers, mending zippers, sewing buttons etc. My next sewing project is turning a doona into sofa cushions for my niece.


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ORLANDO, Fla. — There may be no "Justice for Barb" at Universal Orlando's haunted house based on the Netflix hit, "Stranger Things," but the beloved, ill-fated character does appear in grand, gory style.
The "Stranger Things" house is one of 10 haunted houses built for this year's Halloween Horror Nights, the most haunted houses ever in 28 years of celebrating all things horror at the Orlando theme park resort. "Stranger Things" haunted houses also are at Halloween Horror Nights celebrations at Universal parks in Hollywood and Singapore, running from mid-September to the beginning of November.
Patrons walking through the "Stranger Things" haunted house follow the plot contours of the first season. There's the shed where Will disappears, the Byers home where letters on the walls and Christmas lights help Joyce communicate with her missing son, the hellish Upside Down world, the lab where the malfeasance begins and even Eleven's frozen waffles. Oh yeah, there's a monstrous Demogorgon seemingly around every corner, ready to scare the bejesus out of you.
"Boom, a Demogorgon pops out and tries to get you. But he misses you so he tries to get you again over here," said Patrick Braillard, creative development show director at Universal Orlando, walking recently through the haunted house — which is really a maze of rooms in a back-lot studio at the theme park resort.
Tongue firmly in check, he added, "There's just one Demogorgon hunting you."
Actually, there are multiple performers playing the looming monster at any given time in the house. Adult, female performers play the four Bar Mitzvah-aged-boy leads. Other performers play Nancy, Steve, Sheriff Hopper and Joyce. Different characters populate the house at different times of the night so patrons walking through it get different experiences.
Netflix and the show's vendors worked with Universal to make sure the bed sheets and the wallpaper in the Byers house was the same as in the TV show.
And, of course, there's Barb. Unfortunately for fans, Barb's fate in the haunted house is no different than in the TV show.
"Hashtag, 'Justice for Barb,'" Braillard said.


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SimpleCrypt algorithm details
This page explains in more detail the format used by the Simple_encryption code. The encryption and decryption code works from a QByteArray to a QByteArray. The options to use QString are just provided for convenience. The first two sections detail how the stings and byte arrays correspond for both the plaintext and the cyphertexts. Then, the format of the binary QByteArray cyphertext is detailed.
String plaintext encoding
If a QString is used as the plaintext to encrypt, this string is encoded to a QByteArray by using the UTF8 codec. If a QString is requested as the result if a decryption action, the binary plaintext resulting from the decryption is interpretted using the same codec to construct a QString.
String cypher text format
SimpleCrypt can work with both QString and QByteArray cypher texts. The QString format is build on top of the QByteArray format. The QString is constructed from the QByteArray by creating a base64 encoded version of the binary cypher text, and using the ASCII codec to create a QString from this.
For decryption, the reverse happens. The QString is translated into a binary format using the ASCII codec, and then the resulting QByteArray is decoded using the base64 codec into a binary cyper text.
Binary cypher text format
The binary cypher text (represented in a QByteArray), consists of a header and a payload section:
|Payload. This section is encrypted.
The header of the cypher text contains two fields: a version number, and a field with flags.
The version number is a char. The current version number is 2.
The flags is a single byte bitfield. Each bit represents a flag that describes how the payload is to be interpreted.
|Compression. If set, compression has been applied to the plaintext before encryption
|Protection Checksum. If set, a CRC16-CCITT checksum, encoded in a quint16, has been used to protect data integrity.
|Protection Hash. If set, an SHA-1 cryptograhpic hash (20 bytes long) has been used to protect data integrity.
Bits 1 and 2 should not be set at the same time. If bit 1 has been set, bit 2 is ignored.
Bits 3 to 7 are reserved for future use.
The payload data block's contents are encrypted with a eight byte (quint64) key. They key is split up in eight chars, which are used consecutively starting again from key char 0 after key char 7 has been used. The QByteArray is encrypted by replacing each byte in the array with the value of that byte itself, XOR-ed with the key char, XOR-ed with the result of this operation for the previous byte in the QByteArray or 0 for byte 0 of the array. This operation can be reversed by XOR-ing the resulting cypher text byte again with both bytes that were used for the encryption phase.
This results in the following encryption schema:
|key byte
|XOR value 2
|the value 0
|the result of this operation for byte 0
|the result of this operation for byte 1
|the result of this operation for byte 6
|the result of this operation for byte 7
|the result of this operation for byte 8
|N mod 8
|the result of this operation for byte N-1
The idea is that using the result of the previous byte as part of the key for this byte makes it impossible to use a simple attack that analyzes the cyphertext as 8 separate cyphertexts, each with its own 1-byte key. This is an attack possible on the basic vigenere-type cipher.
Decrypted payload
Once the payload data has been decrypted, it may need further processing before the plaintext is available and verified. What processing is needed, depends on the flags that are set in the header of the cyphertext.
In case the Protection Checksum flag has been set, the layout of the decrypted payload looks like this:
|A random one byte number. This number is ignored after decryption.
|A quint16 containing a CRC16-CCITT checksum value of bytes 3-N.
|(Compressed) plaintext.
In case the Protection Hash flag has been set, the layout of the decrypted payload looks like this:
|A random one byte number. This number is ignored after decryption.
|A 20 byte SHA-1 crypographic hash of bytes 21-N.
|(Compressed) plaintext.
On decryption, the checksum or hash value must be checked by recalculating it for the (compressed) plaintext, and comparing that value with the data in the corresponding bytes of the decrypted payload. If they do not match, an error flag is set, and the decryption algorithm must return an empty byte array. If a wrong key is used, it is very unlikely that a checksum will still match. It is far more unlikely that the SHA-1 hash will still match. Note that the random leading number is not used for calculating the checksum or the SHA-1 hash.
If neither of the Protection flags were set, the layout is simply:
|A random one byte number. This number is ignored after decryption.
|(Compressed) plaintext.
Rationale for using a leading random number
The SimpleCrypt algorithm uses the result of the encryption of the previous character as part of the encryption of the current character. That results in a situation that even if you have the same character at byte 0 and byte 7 of the plaintext, they will be most likely be encrypted to a different cyphertext. That makes it much harder to figure out the key used in the encryption if the attacker has the opportunity to feed in his own plaintext and can then see the resulting cyphertext. For byte 0 of the bytestream however, this is not possible. A (known) 0 value is used instead of the value of the previous byte. That leads to a weakness, especially if no Protection flags and no compression are used. The number of characters that are likely to be at the beginning of a password is not so big, thus reducing the amount of possibilities. That leads to an effective reduction in the key strength of several bits. Note that that is a loss of about an order of magnitude in strength.
Putting a random number in front of the string makes it effectively impossible to use such heuristics to reduce the key strength, because there is no predictor for the random number in front (though, the situation is less than ideal, because of the use of the pseudo-random number generator. Achieving true randomness is very hard and well outside of the scope in SimpleCrypt.)
Note that also the use of either of the Protection modes and the use of compression add to the security of the cypher, as both decrease the predictability of the plaintext.
If the Compression flag is set, the data in the examples above is compressed using {{{1}}}. The used compression level is 9 (maximum). On decryption, the data must then be uncompressed using {{{1}}}.
The resulting binary plaintext is the data retreived from the decrypted payload or, if used, by the (de) compression step above.


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|Date reviewed:
|September 2019
|Review frequency:
|To be reviewed by:
|Caty Heffern (Deputy Head)
Who are 'Looked After' Children?
Under the Children Act 1989, a child is looked after by a local authority if he or she is in their care or provided with accommodation for more than 24 hours by the authority. They fall into four main groups:
• children who are accommodated under a voluntary agreement with their parents (section 20)
• children who are the subjects of a care order (section 31) or interim care order (section 38)
• children who are the subjects of emergency orders for their protection (sections 44 and 46)
• children who are compulsorily accommodated. This includes children remanded to the local authority or subject to a criminal justice supervision order with a residence requirement (section 21).
The term 'in care' refers only to children who are subject to a care order by the courts under section 31 of the Children Act 1989 - they may live with foster carers, in a Children's home, in a residential school, with relatives, or with parents under supervision. Children who are cared for on a voluntary basis are 'accommodated' by the local authority under section 20 of the Children Act – they may live in foster care, in a Children's home or in a residential school. All these groups are said to be 'Looked After Children' (LAC). They may be looked after by the schools local authority or may be in the care of another authority but living in the schools LA.
This policy has been developed in consultation with Derby City Council's Looked After Children and Care Leavers Policy. (See Appendix 1)
Lees Brook Community School is committed to promoting the educational achievement and welfare of students in public care.
The school's Governing Body is committed to providing quality education for all its students based on equality of access, opportunity and outcomes. This policy includes requirements set out in "Statutory guidance on the duty on local authorities to promote the educational achievement of looked after children under section 52 of the Children Act 2004" (Nov 2005) and associated guidance on the education of Looked After Children. The school's aim is to contribute towards achieving the five outcomes of Every Child Matters, the Government's aim for every child, whatever their background or their circumstances. The five outcomes are:
· Stay safe
· Be healthy
· Enjoy and achieve
· Make a positive contribution
· Achieve economic well-being
The school will:
• ensure that its policies and procedures are followed for those Looked After as for all children
• ensure that all Looked After Children have access to a broad and balanced curriculum
• provide a differentiated curriculum appropriate to the needs and ability of individual students
• ensure that Looked After students take as full a part as possible in all school activities
• ensure that carers and social workers of Looked After students are kept fully informed of their child's progress and attainment
• ensure that, where practicable, Looked After students are involved in decisions affecting their future provision.
The school will have a designated member of the senior leadership team and the Governing Body will have a designated governor with responsibility for Looked After Children.
Designated Senior Leader for Looked After Children: Katie Heffern
Designated Governor for Looked After Children: Reverand Ward
See Appendix 2: Roles and Responsibilities
1 Admissions
The Governing Body endorses Derby City Council policy. The Council, as the Admission Authority for Community and Voluntary Controlled Schools, believes that admissions criteria should not discriminate against Looked After students. This stance is also endorsed by the Derby City Admissions Forum. Due to care placement changes, Looked After Children may enter school mid-term. It is vital that they are given a positive welcome. If necessary, additional support and pre-entry visits will be provided to help the new student settle in.
2 Inclusion
This policy recognises that all students are entitled to a balanced, broadly based curriculum. The school's Looked After Children policy reinforces the need for teaching that is fully inclusive. The Governing Body will ensure the school makes appropriate provision for all Looked After students.
3 Allocation of Resources
The Governing Body will ensure that the school allocates resources to support appropriate provision for LAC in order to meet the objectives set out in this policy.
4 Monitoring the progress of Looked After Children
The social worker for the Looked After student should initiate a Personal Education Plan (PEP) within 20 days of the student joining the school or entering care, and ensure that the young person is actively involved. It is vital that the school assesses each Looked After student's attainment on entry to ensure continuity of learning.
The school monitors and tracks the achievement and attainment of all students at regular intervals. Looked After Children will require their PEP to be reviewed, according to their needs, as initiated by the reviewing officer or social worker, and the young person's views should be sought by the Designated Teacher and noted on the PEP.
See Appendix 3: Derby City Council's guidance on PEP forms
5 Record Keeping
The Designated Senior Leader will know who all the Looked After Children in school are and will have access to their relevant contact details including parents, carers and social worker. The Designated Senior Leader will also know about any Looked After Children from other local authorities. It is important that the school flags Looked After Child status appropriately in its information systems so that information is readily available as required.
6 Staff Development
The school will encourage staff to attend courses that help them to acquire the skills needed to support Looked After Children. Part of the Designated Senior Leader's role is to develop awareness of issues associated with Looked After Children.
7 Partnership with Parents/Carers and Care Workers
The school firmly believes in developing a strong partnership with parents/carers and care workers to enable Looked After Children to achieve their potential. Review meetings are an opportunity to further this partnership working.
8 Links with External Agencies and Organisations
The school also recognises the important contribution that external support services make in supporting Looked After Children. Colleagues from the following support services may be involved with individual Looked After Children:
• Looked After Children teams
• educational psychologists and others from Local Authority SEN services
• medical officers
• school nurses
• Education Welfare Officers
• Social care worker/ Community care worker/ Residential child care worker
• Youth Offending Service
• School-age parents' officer.
Policy Review and Evaluation
The school considers the Looked After Children policy to be important and it will undertake a thorough review of both policy and practice each year. The outcomes of this review will inform the school's Strategic Development Plan.
APPENDIX 1: What Look After Children Say
• "I would like to have a say as to whether I move school or not."
• "Money should not be the most important thing when deciding if I should move schools."
• "I would really like to have a chance to visit the school before I start."
• "I would like my school work and achievements to be passed on to my new school and not forgotten about."
• "I would have liked a buddy or peer mentor when I moved to my new school to help me get settled."
• "We want to be treated as normal. We don't want to be pitied or treated differently."
• "I'd like to be able to choose a particular teacher to talk to – not just the designated teacher."
• "I want to keep my life private. I don't want people knowing everything about me unless I say so."
• "I don't want my teachers hearing embarrassing/personal details about me and my family at review meetings."
• "I want my own copy of school reports and I want my parents to have a copy."
• "The head of year is extremely important in passing on 'need to know' information to individual subject teachers."
APPENDIX 2: Roles and Responsibilities
Looked After Children (LAC) are one of the most vulnerable groups in society and it is nationally recognised that there is considerable educational underachievement when compared to their peers. For example, they may experience:
• a high level of disruption and change in school placements
• lack of involvement in extra curricular activities
• inconsistent or no attention paid to homework.
This may result in:
• poor exam success rates in comparison with the general population
• under-achievement in further and higher education.
These issues may also affect adopted young people.
The Designated Senior Leader will:
· be an advocate for LAC within school
· give regard to the impact of relevant decisions for LAC on both the LAC and the rest of the school community
· know who are all the LAC in school, including those in the care of other authorities, and ensure the availability of all relevant details from school record-keeping systems as required
· attend relevant training about LAC
· act as the key liaison professional for other agencies and carers in relation to LAC, seeking advice from the LAC team when appropriate.
· ensure that LAC receive a positive welcome on entering school, especially mid-year and, if necessary, offer additional support and a pre-entry visit to help the new pupil settle
· convene an urgent multi-agency meeting if a LAC is experiencing difficulties or is at risk of exclusion
· keep PEPs and other records up to date and review PEPs at transfer and at six monthly intervals
· ensure that care and school liaison is effective including invitations to meetings and other school events
· ensure confidentiality on individual children, sharing confidential and personal information on a need to know basis, bearing in mind the wishes of the individual pupil
· act as the key adviser for staff and governors on issues relevant to LAC
· actively encourage and promote out of hours learning and extra curricular activities for LAC
· ensure a speedy transfer of information, records and coursework, where appropriate, when a LAC transfers to another educational placement
· report to the Governing body on LAC in the school and inform of relevant policy and practice development
· prepare reports for Governors' meetings to include: the number of LAC on roll and the confirmation that they have a Personal Education
· contribute information to LAC reviews when required
· arrange a mentor or befriender (adult and /or pupil) to whom the young person can talk, possibly through the learning mentor scheme or through Connexions, particularly when the pupil is new to school
· ensure that any Special Educational Needs are addressed in conjunction with the SENCO and in accordance with the Code of Practice for SEN. LAC are six to eight times more likely to have a statement of Special Educational Needs than the general school population.
The majority of children who remain in care are there because they have suffered abuse or neglect. The Every Child Matters: Change for Children programme aims to improve outcomes for all children. To date, the outcomes achieved by Looked After Children have been unacceptably poor and the Government is committed to addressing this disparity. As corporate parents we all have a part to play in this by vigorously applying the principles of good parenting by:
· agreeing with the social worker the appropriate people to invite to parents' evenings etc.
· attending governor meetings as appropriate – such as the admission, disciplinary and exclusion of Looked After Children
· giving priority to education
· listening to children
· providing stability and continuity
· taking corporate responsibility
· promoting inclusion
· raising standards
· intervening early
· promoting early years experiences
· celebrating success.
Personal Education Plan (PEP)
· their attendance compared to other pupils
· their attainment (SATs/GCSEs) compared to other pupils.
· the number, if any, of fixed term and permanent exclusions
· the destinations of students who leave the school
The school will ensure the actions of its staff will be consistent with good practice. They will:
· have high expectations of the educational and personal achievements of LAC.
· keep the Designated Teacher informed about a LAC's progress.
· follow school procedures
· positively promote the raising of a LAC's self esteem.
· ensure any LAC is supported sensitively and that confidentiality is maintained
· be familiar with the school's policy and guidance on LAC and respond appropriately to requests for information to support PEPs and review meetings.
· liaise with the Designated Teachers where a LAC is experiencing difficulties
· give only official exclusions and only use exclusions in line with the school's exclusion policy, and relevant national guidance, being mindful to the difficulties this may create in the care placement
· contribute to regular liaison with social care colleagues and other appropriate professionals and keep carers fully informed at all times
· ensure that all LAC have an appropriate PEP that is completed within 20 days of joining the school or of entering care (see Derby City's guidance on PEPs in Appendix 3) and ensure that the young person contributes to the plan
The Governing Body will ensure it actions will be consistent with good practice. It will:
• ensure that the admission criteria and practice prioritises LAC according to the DfE Admissions Code of Practice
• ensure all governors are fully aware of the legal requirements and guidance for LAC
• ensure there is a Designated Teacher for LAC
• liaise with the Headteacher, Designated Teacher and all other staff to ensure the needs of LAC are met
• nominate a governor with responsibility for LAC who links with the Designated Teacher
• receive regular reports from the Designated Teacher.
• ensure that the school's policies and procedures give LAC equal access in respect of: admission to school, National Curriculum and examinations, both academic and vocational, out of school learning and extra curricular activities, work experience and careers guidance.
• annually review the effective implementation of the school policy for LAC.
• ensure that the Designated Teacher is invited to the exclusion meetings of LAC.
The Local Authority will:
• lead the drive to improve educational and social care standards for LAC
• ensure that the education for this group is as good as that provided for every other Derby City student
• ensure that LAC receive full time education in a mainstream setting wherever possible
• ensure that every LAC has a school to go to within 20 days of coming into care or of coming to Derby from another authority
• make sure that each LAC has a PEP according to national guidance
• ensure that every school has a Designated Teacher for LAC and that these teachers receive appropriate information, support and training
• provide alternative educational provision where appropriate
• ensure that appropriate support is provided whenever possible
• work with others to provide smooth transitions at the end of the Foundation Stage and Key Stages 1, 2 and 4 and at any mid-phase transfer
• identify a designated officer who has responsibility for championing the education of LAC
• be vigilant and proactive in identifying the special educational needs of LAC and work collaboratively with other services and agencies to meet those needs.
• keep appropriate records, confidentially as necessary, and make these available to other professionals/ parents/carers/pupil as appropriate
• make extra copies of reports available when required.
Local Authority contact numbers for the Education of Looked After Children are:
Graeme Ferguson
Virtual Headteacher
Children in Care Team
(A) Initiating a Personal Education Plan on a child's entry to care:
The school will receive a Personal Education Plan from Children &Young People's Department with the first two pages completed. (Personal Education Plan: Details pages 1&2)
The school will:
· complete the education sections of the PEP (PEP Cumulative Record pages 3&4 and PEP Plan pages 5&6) in consultation with the social worker/carer/parents/child as appropriate
· discuss the plan with the child/young person, encouraging them and recording their comments in box on page 6
· inform the school nurse that the young person has entered public care or that a young person in care has joined the school
· keep the original completed PEP in the student's school file and use it as a working document.
· make a photocopy of the completed PEP and send it to the Reviewing Team in the envelope provided within 20 school working days. The team will then distribute the PEP to all relevant people.
(B) Statutory Care Plan Review meetings
It is a statutory requirement that PEPs are reviewed every six months. Before the Statutory Care Plan review, the school will update the PEP by:
· Recording any additions to the Cumulative Record (pages 3&4)
· Reviewing the targets and actions from the last PEP meeting; these will either be on the PEP Plan (pages 5&6) or PEP Plan/Review form (pages 7&8)
· Completing a new PEP Plan/Review (pages 7&8). The school should be sure to record any changes here as well as setting new targets and recording any comments from child/young person (on p8).
· Taking a copy of the PEP (and any attached information) to the review meeting or, if not attending the meeting, sending it to the Reviewing Team
· Putting a copy of the PEP Plan/Review form (and any updated information) with the original PEP in the child's/young person's school file.
The school should also consider:
· If the child/young person has Special Educational Needs, it may wish to hold the PEP and IEP reviews together to minimise paperwork and time.
· If the child/young person moves to another school, the completed PEP, including the review documents, should be forwarded with the child's school file in the normal way to the receiving school.
For fuller explanations please refer to the DfE "Guidance on the Education of Children and Young People in Public Care".
In the event of any queries or problems advice and guidance should be sought from the appropriate person in the Reviewing Team (currently Margaret Maughan, Derby 717100)


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I thought it was about time I added some recent recordings of some new Electroacoustic pieces I have been writing. This piece incorporates various live sampling methods and is to be performed by a cellist and a separate performer with a laptop (or tapes and a stand-alone live sampling device). The piece has a meditative quality, regularly pausing for thought as natural and artificial reverbs are allowed to die away. The performers have this in mind as they approach the time-space notation, which allows them to respond to each other, shortening or extending the bars as required by the venue and atmosphere. This piece was originally written for a performance at the The Monk Club on 11th April 2013 in Richmond by Alice Purton (Cello) and was subsequently recorded with Lily Thornton (Cello) and myself (Electronics).
If you would like to perform this piece, please contact me to obtain the score, MaxMSP patch and audio samples.


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Unfortunately; and I think the opinion must be stamped with a large "MAYBE."(See prior related posting.) RLUIPA Defense blog reports on the decision.
Objective coverage of church-state and religious liberty developments, with extensive links to primary sources.
Thursday, June 04, 2015
7th Circuit Keeps RLUIPA Suit Against Chicago Alive
In World Outreach Conference v. City of Chicago, (7th Cir., June 1, 2015), the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals breathed new life into a RLUIPA case that has been in litigation for 9 years. The court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the city of Chicago as to claims against the city for damages because of delays in granting licenses to World Outreach so it could operate a former YMCA building for its religious purposes. World Outreach argued it lost some $591,000 that it could have made by housing Hurricane Katrina evacuees in the building. The court's opinion by Judge Posner included comments about the power of aldermen in Chicago politics. Judge Cudahy concurred with one of the shortest and most cryptic opinions ever:
Posted by Howard Friedman --PermaLink: 7:20 AM


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Despite delays at the border, Café Coyote has been selected as the first restaurant in the United States to pour Pacifico on tap. Café Coyote is located in the historical district of Old Town in San Diego, California and has been family owned and operated for more than 21 years. Pacifico is the perfect drink for the cuisine of Café Coyote, which has been selected as the Best Mexican Restaurant in San Diego for four years–and the timing is perfect for the upcoming Cinco de Mayo celebration Fiesta Old Town from May 2nd – 5th. Why wait? We invite you to come in and try a complimentary glass of Pacifico draft during our pre Cinco De Mayo Taco Tuesday celebration on May 4th between 3:30pm until close — this offer is only for the first five people to tell the manager on duty the secret password: VivaMexico.
The Pacifico Brewery was established in 1900 by German settlers who created a pilsner style beer with a clean and hearty flavor from the choicest hops, barley, yeast and water from the springs of Mazatlan. Purchased by the Grupo Modelo in 1954, Pacifico has expanded to include seven state-of-the-art breweries throughout Mexico. The import of Pacifico to the United States has increased to more than 5 million cases annually — a testament to its popularity and compatibility with all types of food.
Celebrating its 21st anniversary, Café Coyote Old Town continues to be a landmark of the San Diego's Historic Old Town Community and is a favorite of locals and visitors alike. Relax and select from over "120" tequilas for your fresh frosty Margaritas prepared by our master bartenders. Watch Mexican Tortilla Ladies make fresh tortillas to accompany your meal the traditional way "a mano" (by hand). Listen to strolling Mariachi's fill the flower scented air with festive Mexican music in our colorful outdoor courtyards. Splashing Fountains add to the atmosphere in the Esplanade framed by Spanish architecture with colorful Mexican murals and décor. Savor traditional Mexican food made from authentic fresh ingredients prepared from Regional Recipes by Mexican Chefs.
Café Coyote is also excited to launch its Taco Tuesday celebration calendar — giving you a preview of the upcoming gourmet tacos featured each week. Taco Tuesday showcases nine traditional and specialty tacos for $2 — a great bargain to enjoy with family, friends and colleagues. Café Coyote's tequila ambassador, Mario Marquez (click here to read Mario's latest blog post), also offers drink specials–including crowd favorites such as the Coyote Gold or Pineapple Chipotle Margaritas.


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How to comply with functional safety standards without compromising either speed of development or innovation is addressed in this 60-minute Webinar. Delivering on all three is a challenge in an increasingly complex embedded software development environment, especially with ISO 26262. The Webinar also describes how this challenge can be met with an agile model-based design process that leverages intelligent centralized management.
An audience Q&A follows the technical presentation.