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> So....my question is, is it always necessary to retrieve a record > before doing save() in order to make it update a record which > already exists? If so, would I do something like: No. Your could do the following. User user = new User(); data.getParameters().setProperties(user); // much easier user.setNew(false); user.save(); // save() UserPeer.doUpdate(user); // or use the peer Try that. Eric
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
Does anyone know any specific or explicit example of a set of $256$ points so that no $10$ are the vertices of a convex $10$-gon? Thanks in advance.
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It seems that Erdos and Szekeres claimed an inductive construction for an example, but it is based on $g_{k,1}(1)=g_{1,l}=0$ and $g_{k,l}$ linearly depends on $g_{k,1}(1)$ and $g_{1,l}(1)$, which means all $g_{k,l}$'s are $0$. But then how would that become a valid example? Anyone knows? Thanks. – alicay Jan 10 '13 at 8:03
If the one who edited the question is the same as the OP, he should flag for moderator attention to request merging his two accounts. – Julian Kuelshammer Jan 10 '13 at 21:03
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
I have a database that has a table of Ingredients I and a table of Recipes R. The two tables have a many-to-many relationship, as one recipes uses many ingredients and one ingredient is used in many recipes. I have a third cross-reference table that uses the cross-reference validation pattern to enforce my many-to-many relationship, and is done using string foreign keys (instead of integers).
Assuming I have a collection of ingredients C outside of my database, how can I query Recipe table R for every recipe that can be made using ONLY the list of ingredients supplied in C?
Other things to consider
1) Speed will (of course) be a concern eventually, but correctness is what I'm stuck on at the moment.
2) The collection of ingredients C might be very large (~100 ingredients).
Any answers or even just pointers in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.
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What is the DB/Version? – Chandu Jul 25 '12 at 21:15
@Chandu, I haven't figured out any of that yet, I'm just working on this system as a hobby so I haven't laid out any specifications yet. For now, you can just assume the current stable MySQL 5.5.25 . But really, any answer you can provide I will try and port back to MySQL (or whatever DB I decide to use) – pghprogrammer4 Jul 25 '12 at 21:51
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1 Answer
up vote 5 down vote accepted
One way is to write:
select ...
from R
where ID not in
( select R_ID
from RI
where I_ID not in
( select I_ID
from C
That is: start with C. Select all recipe–ingredient cross-references where the ingredient is not in C. This gives you the set of all recipes that cannot be made using only ingredients in C. Then, select all recipes that aren't in that set.
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Good catch on my answer. I read the question to fast. I missed the point about only recipes that can be made with ONLY those ingredients. – RThomas Jul 25 '12 at 21:27
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
For a project I'm working on, I send queries to StackExchange and transform the JSON result into POJOs using jsonschema2pojo maven plugin. The problem is quite simple : that plugin always name the wrapper class Data and its contained data Item, when I would like wrapper to be named *Wrapper and the contained class Answer for a call to the answers endpoint (as an example).
Well, anyway, how could I rename the Data class to AnswerWrapper and the Item class to Answer ? I know the folder they're in, the package used to define, and so on. The only missing thing is a tool/plugin/java application to perform that operation. I was directed to JRefactory, but the downloaded JAR doesn't look like it can provide the operation I want (and its lack of doc makes it unusable).
So, is there any more modern/efficient solution ? (or at least some I could integrate in my maven build) ?
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Maybe not the easiest solution but one that would fit nicely with your requirements would be to actually add functionality to the maven plugin to support customizing the names of the generated classes. It would of course include building your own version and maybe submitting a patch to get it included in the mainline.
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Yes, my immediate thought was "this is something the plugin should allow you to configure". – Duncan Nov 1 '12 at 15:57
indeed a nice solution, but a long development that would drive me away from current work – Riduidel Nov 1 '12 at 17:23
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
I know that a lot of Y2K efforts/scare was somehow centered on COBOL, deservedly or not. (heck, I saw minor Y2K bug in a Perl scripts that broke 1/1/2000)
What I'm interested in, was there something specific to COBOL as a language which made it susceptible to Y2K issues?
That is, as opposed to merely the age of most programs written in it and subsequent need to skimp on memory/disk usage driven by old hardware and the fact that nobody anticipated those programs to survive for 30 years?
I'm perfectly happy if the answer is "nothing specific to COBOL other than age" - merely curious, knowing nothing about COBOL.
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If we learned anything from the Y2K bug, it's that we need to look forward and keep in mind the 2038 bug :) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem – Mark Rushakoff Sep 23 '09 at 1:03
Or the Y1C problem (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y1C_Problem) :D – RCIX Jan 2 '10 at 11:25
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10 Answers
up vote 4 down vote accepted
Yes and No. In COBOL you had to declare variables such that you actually had to say how many digits there were in a number i.e. YEAR 99 Declared the variable YEAR such that it could only hold two decimal digits, so yes it was an easier to make that mistake than in C were you would have int or short or char as the year and still have plenty of room for years greater than 99. Of course that doesn't protect you from printfing 19%d in C and still having the problem in your output, or making other internal calculations based on thinking the year would be less than 99.
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It was 80% about storage capacity, pure and simple.
People don't realize that the capacity of their laptop hard drive today would have cost millions in 1980. You think saving two bytes is silly? Not when you have a 100,000 customer records and a hard drive the size of a refrigerator held 20 megabytes and required a special room to keep cool.
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Having programmed on (1) Sinclair Z80 with cassete tape as the only storage device; (2) 8088 Zenith laptop with 2 750K floppes as the ony storage device; (3) Early IBM mainframe knockoff with 4K memory chips and punched cards/tape for storage - having done all that, I can honestly say that I fully understand the sentiment of storing 2 digits per year :) – DVK Sep 23 '09 at 13:13
100% correct. Add to this that when the decision was made to use a 2 digit year they knew there would be issues in the year 2000, but when most of this was coded, 1980's, 70's and even 60's, the thought was that the application being written would not be in use for 20, 30 or 40 years. – tonyriddle Sep 24 '09 at 20:55
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It seemed to be more a problem of people not knowing how long their code would be used, so they chose to use 2 digit years.
So, nothing specific to COBOL, it is just that COBOL programs tend to be critical and old so they were more likely to be affected.
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Was there something in Cobol intrinsically making it susceptible to Y2K issues?
Programmers1. And the systems where COBOL programs run2.
1: They didn't design forward looking 30 years. I can't blame them really. If I had memory constraints, between squeezing 2 bytes per date and making it work 30 years latter, most likely I would make the same decision.
2: The systems could have had the same problem if the hardware stored the year in two digits.
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Are you implying that non-cobol programmers have intrinsically longer worldview? :) – DVK Sep 23 '09 at 1:33
No. I'm implying that programmers have intrinsically small worldview. Would you have foretold COBOL's survivability? – voyager Sep 23 '09 at 5:06
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Fascinating question. What is the Y2K problem, in essence? It's the problem of not defining your universe sufficiently. There was no serious attempt to model all dates, because space was more important (and the apps would be replaced by then). So in Cobol at every level, that's important: to be efficient and not overdeclare the memory you need, both at the store and at the program level.
Where efficiency is important, we commit Y2Kish errors... We do this every time we store a date in the DB without a timezone. So modern storage is definitely subject to Y2Kish errors, because we try to be efficient with space used (though I bet it's over-optimizing in many cases, especially at the enterprise overdo-everything level).
On the other hand, we avoid Y2Kish errors on the application level because every time you work with, say, a Date (in Java, let's say) it always carries around a ton of baggage (like timezone). Why? Because Date (and many other concepts) are now part of the OS, so the OS-making smart dudes try to model a full-blown concept of date. Since we rely on their concept of date, we can't screw it up... and it's modular and replaceable!
Newer languages with built-in datatypes (and facilities) for many things like date, as well as huge memory to play with, help avoid a lot of potential Y2Kish problems.
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I like your asnwer, though I'm not sure "lack of complicated datatypes/libraries" can be counted as a COBOL specific feature. – DVK Sep 23 '09 at 1:50
DVK, definitely not. I don't think that Assembler programs from the same time period avoided the Y2K bug more than Cobol programs of the time. – Yar Sep 23 '09 at 1:54
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It was two part. 1- the age/longevity of Cobol software, and 2- the 80 character limit of data records.
First- Most software of that age used only 2 digit numbers for year storage, since no one figured their software would last that long! COBOL had been adopted by the banking industry, who are notorious for never throwing away code. Most other software WAS thrown away, while the banks didn't!
Secondly, COBOL was constrained to 80 characters per record of data (due to the size of punch cards!), developers were at an even greater pressure to limit the size of fields. Because they figured "year 2000 won't be here till I'm long and retired!" the 2 characters of saved data were huge!
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Question is, was any of the reasoning COBOL-specific? E.g. was COBOL still 80-character constrained with data records once punch cards stopped being used? – DVK Sep 23 '09 at 1:49
The 80 character COBOL limit stuck around for a very long time after punch cards for backwards compatibility, and the fact that screens were made 80 characters wide as well! COBOL was for some reason, just picked up by banks, mostly due to its easy to use syntax at the time, and its power. The alternatives at the time were not very plentiful (FORTRAN, C, etc) very confusing, and didn't lend themselves to the type of required transactions. The 80 character limit was a design decision made at a time when it made sense, and stuck around for long enough it caused this problem. – Erich Sep 23 '09 at 2:08
Was it somehow hard-coded in the language? or merely the non-enforced standard that everyone used? I assume the former. – DVK Sep 23 '09 at 2:24
80 columns had nothing to do with it. That was just the coding format and code could be continued on the next line. The size of data records could be, and was much larger. – Duck Sep 23 '09 at 2:33
@Duck - Thanks! – DVK Sep 23 '09 at 13:14
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It was much more related to storing the year in data items that could only hold values from 0 to 99 (two characters, or two decimal digits, or a single byte). That and calculations that made similar assumptions about year values.
It was hardly a Cobol-specific thing. Lots of programs were impacted.
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There were some things about COBOL that aggravated the situation.
• it's old, so less use of library code, more homegrown everything
• it's old, so pre-internet, pre-social-networking, more NIH, fewer frameworks, more custom stuff
• it's old, so, less abstract, more likely to have open-coded solutions
• it's old, so, go back far enough and saving 2 bytes might have, sort of, been important
• it's old, so, so it predates SQL. Legacy operating software even had indexed record-oriented disk files to make rolling-your-own-database-in-every-program a little bit easier.
• "printf" format strings and data type declaration were the same thing, everything had n digits
I've seen giant Fortran programs with no actual subroutines. Really, one 3,000-line main program, not a single non-library subroutine, that was it. I suppose this might have happened in the COBOL world, so now you have to read every line to find the date handling.
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To summarize - it's the age, stupid! :) – DVK Sep 23 '09 at 2:26
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COBOL never came with any standard date handling library.
So everyone coded their own solution.
Some solutions were very bad vis-a-vis the millennium. Most of those bad solutions did not matter as the applications did not live 40+ years. The not-so tiny minority of bad solutions cause the well-known Y2K problem in the business world.
(Some solutions were better. I know of COBOL systems coded in the 1950s with a date format good until 2027 -- must have seemed forever at the time; and I designed systems in the 1970s that are good until 2079).
However, had COBOL had a standard date type....
....Industry wide solutions would have been available at the compiler level, cutting the complexity of any remediation needed.
Moral: use languages with standard libraries.
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COBOL 85 (the 1985 standard) and earlier versions didn't have any way to obtain the current century**, which was one factor intrinsic to COBOL that discouraged the use of 4-digit years even after 2 bytes extra storage space was no longer an issue.
** Specific implementations may have had non standard extensions for this purpose.
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
I have created a shopping cart price rule programmatically. The rule seems to have been created and works fine. But sometimes on opening the frontend section or page which contains this code for creating the rule, I get the error --- Invalid method Mage_SalesRule_Model_Rule::applyAll(Array ( ) )
I have used the following code for creation of the shopping cart price rule. Can someone please help me remove this error from my magento site.
Here is the code ---
$date = new DateTime();
$couponcode = substr(md5($date->getTimestamp()),-10);
$shoppingCartPriceRule = Mage::getModel('salesrule/rule');
$name = "Discount Rule - 20% Off"; // name of Shopping Cart Price Rule
$websiteId = 1;
$customerGroupId = 1;
$actionType = 'by_percent'; // discount by percentage(other options are: by_fixed, cart_fixed, buy_x_get_y)
$discount = 20; // percentage discount
$cardCondition = Mage::getModel('salesrule/rule_condition_product')
try {
} catch (Exception $e) {
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
I found I could generate XDocument object from html by using SgmlReader.SL. https://bitbucket.org/neuecc/sgmlreader.sl/
The code is like this.
public XDocument Html(TextReader reader)
XDocument xml;
using (var sgmlReader = new SgmlReader { DocType = "HTML", CaseFolding = CaseFolding.ToLower, InputStream = reader })
xml = XDocument.Load(sgmlReader);
return xml;
Also we can get src attributes of img tags from the XDocument object.
var ns = xml.Root.Name.Namespace;
var imgQuery = xml.Root.Descendants(ns + "img")
.Select(e => new
Link = e.Attribute("src").Value
And, we can download and convert stream data of image to BASE64 string.
public static string base64String;
WebClient wc = new WebClient();
wc.OpenReadAsync(new Uri(url)); //image url from src attribute
wc.OpenReadCompleted += new OpenReadCompletedEventHandler(wc_OpenReadCompleted);
void wc_OpenReadCompleted(object sender, OpenReadCompletedEventArgs e)
using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
while (true)
byte[] buf = new byte[32768];
int read = e.Result.Read(buf, 0, buf.Length);
if (read > 0)
ms.Write(buf, 0, read);
else { break; }
byte[] imageBytes = ms.ToArray();
base64String = Convert.ToBase64String(imageBytes);
So, What I'd like to do is bellow steps. I'd like to do bellow steps in one method chain like LINQ or Reactive Extensions.
1. Get src attributes of img tags from XDocument object.
2. Get image datas from urls.
3. Generate BASE64 string from image datas.
4. Replace src attributes by BASE64 string.
The simplest source and output are here.
• Before
<img src='http://image.com/image.jpg' />
<img src='http://image.com/image2.png' />
• After
<img src='data:image/jpg;base64,iVBORw...' />
<img src='data:image/png;base64,iSDoske...' />
Does anyone know the solution for this?
I'd like to ask experts.
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up vote 3 down vote accepted
Both LINQ and Rx are designed to promote transformations that result in new objects, not ones that modify existing objects, but this is still doable. You have already done the first step, breaking the task into parts. The next step is to make composable functions that implement those steps.
1) You mostly have this one already, but we should probably keep the elements around to update later.
public IEnumerable<XElement> GetImages(XDocument document)
var ns = document.Root.Name.Namespace;
return document.Root.Descendants(ns + "img");
2) This seems to be where you have hit a wall from the composability point of view. To start, lets make a FromEventAsyncPattern observable generator. There are already ones for the Begin/End async pattern and standard events, so this will come out somewhere in between.
public IObservable<TEventArgs> FromEventAsyncPattern<TDelegate, TEventArgs>
(Action method, Action<TDelegate> addHandler, Action<TDelegate> removeHandler
) where TEventArgs : EventArgs
return Observable.Create<TEventArgs>(
obs =>
//subscribe to the handler before starting the method
var ret = Observable.FromEventPattern<TDelegate, TEventArgs>(addHandler, removeHandler)
.Select(ep => ep.EventArgs)
.Take(1) //do this so the observable completes
method(); //start the async operation
return ret;
Now we can use this method to turn the downloads into observables. Based on your usage, I think you could also use DownloadDataAsync on the WebClient instead.
public IObservable<byte[]> DownloadAsync(Uri address)
return Observable.Using(
() => new System.Net.WebClient(),
wc =>
return FromEventAsyncPattern<System.Net.DownloadDataCompletedEventHandler,
(() => wc.DownloadDataAsync(address),
h => wc.DownloadDataCompleted += h,
h => wc.DownloadDataCompleted -= h
.Select(e => e.Result);
//for robustness, you should probably check the error and cancelled
//properties instead of assuming it finished like I am here.
EDIT: As per your comment, you appear to be using Silverlight, where WebClient is not IDisposable and does not have the method I was using. To deal with that, try something like:
public IObservable<byte[]> DownloadAsync(Uri address)
var wc = new System.Net.WebClient();
var eap = FromEventAsyncPattern<OpenReadCompletedEventHandler,
() => wc.OpenReadAsync(address),
h => wc.OpenReadCompleted += h,
h => wc.OpenReadCompleted -= h);
return from e in eap
from b in e.Result.ReadAsync()
select b;
You will need to find an implementation of ReadAsync to read the stream. You should be able to find one pretty easily, and the post was long enough already so I left it out.
3 & 4) Now we are ready to put it all together and update the elements. Since step 3 is so simple, I'll just merge it in with step 4.
public IObservable<Unit> ReplaceImageLinks(XDocument document)
return (from element in GetImages(document)
let address = new Uri(element.Attribute("src").Value)
select (From data in DownloadAsync(address)
Select Convert.ToBase64String(data)
).Do(base64 => element.Attribute("src").Value = base64)
.Select(s => Unit.Default);
//select doesn't really do anything as IgnoreElements eats all
//the values, but it is needed to change the type of the observable.
//Task may be more appropriate here.
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It's incredible! I really appreciate your response. I tried to understand your code and implement in my app(WP app). I'd like to ask a question. About DownloadAsync method, I cannot use Observable.Using method because of bellow error. ----- The type 'System.Net.WebClient' cannot be used as type parameter 'TResource' in the generic type or method 'System.Reactive.Linq.Observable.Using<TSource,TResource>(System.Func<TResource>, System.Func<TResource,System.IObservable<TSource>>)'. ----- I didn't see this error WPF app. Do you have any solution for this? – Shingo Tada Jan 21 '12 at 15:21
@ShingoTada I assume you meant Silverlight, where WebClient does not implement IDisposable. In that case, get rid of the using call, but leave the rest of the code in that method. – Gideon Engelberth Jan 21 '12 at 22:37
In your IObservable<byte[]> code, should the first usage of wc be wc =>? – Justin Morgan Jan 25 '12 at 14:59
@ShingoTada After looking some more, I realized the Silverlight WebClient is more different than just not implementing IDisposable. I updated the answer with a starting point for Silverlight. – Gideon Engelberth Jan 26 '12 at 3:49
@JustinMorgan Ah right, failed translation from VB. – Gideon Engelberth Jan 26 '12 at 3:50
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
Bill Bryson's book, The lost continent: travels in small-town America has an unusual first paragraph opening style. It has the equivalent of a long equal sign, followed by the first three words in small caps.
enter image description here
A typical opening chapter is shown below:
enter image description here
If you observe the two lines are exactly drawn at an ex height. What is a good way to define a macro for this in LateX? As I was in mathmode tonight, I tried the code below, which of course is not working properly.
\def\lettrinerule{$=\!=\!=\!=\!=\!=\!=\!=$ }
\lettrinerule{\scshape i drove on}, without
I am also interested to hear of any other books using unusual first paragraph openings, other than drop caps.
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3 Answers
up vote 16 down vote accepted
\settoheight{\dimen0}{\scshape #1}%
\vbox to \dimen0{\hrule width 5em\vfill\hrule}\kern.5em
The \noindent is probably unnecessary. Adjust to suit. You can modify the thickness of the rule by saying heigth <dimen> after each \hrule command.
enter image description here
A more LaTeX way would be
that produces the same result.
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You could use leaders to replicate something over a pre-specified length:
enter image description here
% \makebox[#1]{\leaders\hbox{{=}\kern-2pt}\hfill\kern1ex}%
{\scshape #2}%
\chapter{A chapter}
\lettrinerule{i drove on}, without the radio or much in the
way of thoughts, to Mount Pleasant, where I stopped for coffee.
I had the Sunday \emph{New York Times\/} with me---one of the greatest
improvements in life since I had been away was that you could
now buy the \emph{New York Times\/} out of machines on the day of
publication in a place like Iowa, an extraordinary feat of distribution---and
I spread out with it in a booth.
I've commented out the \leader approach, but the results are very similar. I found that using \rule is looks slightly better on-screen, since leaders tend to show a visible overlap (although not in print), which may distract readers.
In both of the above choices, you can modify the length of the leader by the optional argument to \lettrinerule[<length>]{<phrase>} (default for <length> is 10em). As in your example, <phrase> is typeset using \scshape.
This is just a basic implementation, and therefore doesn't require (nor produce) anything fancy.
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You can easily draw something like it using TikZ;
\newcommand{\letterinerule}{\tikz[baseline]{\draw[very thick] (0,1pt) -- +(2cm,0) (0,6.2pt) -- +(2cm,0);}\ }
I adjusted the horizontal placement to replicate how the book in your example had its lines.
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
The following document infinite-loops:
LaTeX displays
> the character ,.
,->\show ,
,\allowbreak \show 0
l.113 \allowbreaks{$,$}
If I type I\show into it's prompt, it gives me
> the character ,.
,->\show ,,
\allowbreak \show 0
l.113 \allowbreaks{$,$}
That is, the token that it's expanding it a character, not a macro. How is this possible?
If I comment out the breqn line, it works fine. I'm using pdfTeX, Version 3.1415926-1.40.10 (TeX Live 2009/Debian).
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It runs without error with my texlive 2010 installation – David Carlisle Feb 7 '12 at 23:48
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1 Answer
up vote 6 down vote accepted
When you say \detokenize{,}, the comma becomes a character of category code 12, so \show, will show the meaning of this character.
The \edef will define the active comma to expand to
where the two commas have category code 12.
But when breqn is loaded, the comma has mathcode "8000 and you are in math mode! So TeX follows its rules: after having shown the meaning of the comma it finds another comma and, having it category code 12 and mathcode "8000, TeX replaces it with the meaning it currently has as an active character. That is, to show the comma and to use a comma, which has category code 12 and mathcode "8000
Oops, infinite loop. :-)
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you should mention that to "disable" the comma, its mathcode should be set to the value before breqn is loaded. Either with \mathcode`\,=..., or with \mathchar`\,. – Bruno Le Floch Feb 8 '12 at 0:44
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In response to:
Gilded Class Warriors
ideaminer Wrote: Feb 21, 2013 5:31 PM
Continuation: What message would that send to the 'winning' candidate? Even though Candidate D 'won', what did he 'win'? Not even a simple majority, let alone a mandate; he takes office knowing that 95% of the voters opted for either the other candidate, or to withhold their consent from both. Even today, candidates in three-way races who don't win by 50+%, tend to be very circumspect in office, because they know they don't have the majority of popular support. I'm not saying this is a great idea, just an idea that's (1) different, (2) likely to get the attention of both parties, since one or two points can now change the outcome of elections, (3) grassroots and can go national without a lot of money or organization, and (4) peaceful.
|
In response to:
The Mob Presses on John Roberts
Panda Wrote: Jul 05, 2012 2:30 AM
The "it's a tax" ruling is indefensible: 1. A penalty (designed to affect behavior) is not a tax (designed to raise revenue). A speeding ticket is a penalty, not a "speeding tax." Roberts knows that not everything resulting in money going to government is a tax. 2. Roberts provided no SCOTUS precedent for equating penalties with taxes! None! 3. By Roberts' "reasoning," government can make us buy anything, as long as we are charged a fee if we refuse. Wow. 4. Finally, Roberts admitted bias against the Court undoing legislation, as this would "do the voters' work for them." DUDE, IF YOU CAN'T UNDO ANYTHING COMING FROM CONGRESS, THEN WHY IS THE COURT EVEN THERE? YOU'RE JUST A RUBBER STAMP! Roberts is an activist judge. Face it.
Is anyone surprised that the ink wasn't dry on Chief Justice John Roberts' incoherent switcheroo before team Obama was again denying Obamacare is a tax? Why did he do it?
There is no doubt that the left waged a war on the court's public image. Just as Obama lectured at the justices during his State of the Union address for the Citizens United decision, so Obama and his media minions prepared for this verdict with blatant mob pressure: Side with us or your image is ruined.
For liberal journalists, repeal of Obamacare was tantamount to a deadly third strike....
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I guess what I typed wasn't posted normally, so it's an attachment. Go ahead and open that to read it. :) (The first one is compatible with older versions of Word)
**Alright, I decided to post it as replies. You can read there. Thanks for reading. :)
Tags: atheism, closeted, coming, evolution, indoctrination, minnesota, out, religious, student
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Normally we just type into the box and submit, rather than attaching a file and hoping that everyone has Word 07. Sorry, I pulled a tl;dr on your intro 'cause the background in Word makes me sleepy. Anyway, welcome to A.N.
I know, I tried the box, but when I hit the button to post, nothing showed up. Luckily I had it in a word doc to review so I just saved it and put it as an attachment. Maybe I'll try again...
Hello Nexites.
Well, here's my introduction. My name is Jeremy Babcock, and I am a 22 year old student at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. I am currently studying under the Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development program there, though this is a somewhat new development. This is my third major switch -- I started in aerospace engineering, then economics, and now this. I've had an interest in evolution and development for a while now that finally pushed me over the top to make it my career path. My hobbies include playing guitar, video games, sports (mostly football and basketball), movies, and building up my home theater. I work at Best Buy, and the discount they give me entices me to spend more there than I would have ever thought before I worked there. I suppose that's all not really what anyone really cares about, though, so I guess here's my history with religion and atheism...
I was raised in a very religious household, though this was mostly due to my mother and not my father. My mother comes from a line of devout German Protestants in Wisconsin, and my dad from moderately devout Catholics in Wisconsin. I have a brother who is 20 months older than I am. When I was 5 I was sent to a Lutheran school for preschool, and my brother attended the same school for his preschool, 1st grade, and 2nd grade. The summer after my family moved to Minnesota just outside of St. Paul. My mom tried to send us to a Lutheran school here, but it was full by the time we checked it out. I then attended public school for the rest of my 1-12 education (thankfully) and managed to get an actual education. I was forced to attend both regular church service and Sunday school every week without fail from 1st grade to about 5th grade, though there were some times later when I was allowed to attend just Sunday school. During the summers at lunch time my mom would lead my brother and I in a mini home chapel service every day, which was guided by a little publication of books called "Portals of Prayer" (just in case you have heard of it). We were forced to memorize the books of the Bible, both the New and the Old in drill sessions at this time as well. In fourth grade I had to attend "First Communion Class", which met at my church once a week for about a month or so, which taught the theology behind communion, and is a requirement before receiving communion in church. In sixth grade I was forced to attend confirmation classes, and these ran once a week in parallel with the school year, which means September - May about. The expected graduation plan when I started was 6th grade through 8th grade, but during either my 8th grade year the program decided to switch to a 7th grade through 9th grade plan. I was thus subjected to a fourth year of classes. All the while I was under mandatory church services every Sunday. I had a bit of a religious backing, if you haven't noticed. Up until 9th grade I had been an unquestioning Christian, defending the tenets of that faith for years and truly believing. I suppose it would be a little difficult not to if your world is inundated with it as was mine. Things started to change a bit when I was in 9th grade. I was in my fourth year of confirmation, and I had so much bible knowledge stuffed into me that it was difficult not to have some quibbles with at least a few aspects of it. I had my first Earth and Space science course in high school that year, and it was this class that really sparked off my interest in science. It was this class that set off a few more doubts about aspects of Christianity and the Bible, and the realization of real faults in the Bible caused me to start asking more questions. Not to any person, but through the Internet. I still was a believing theist, but the stout faith I had growing up was starting to diminish. I graduated my confirmation class on the verge of agnosticism, but definitely doubting numerous claims of the Bible. My thirst for more knowledge about the world through science grew ever larger, and in 10th grade, or just before it, it hit me. Honestly, I don't even remember what set it off -- I'm kind of sad that I don't remember my "ah-ha!" moment. I just remember being on my computer with two of my friends going through some online chat rooms (which was the cool thing to do 7 years ago still). I'm pretty sure at this point I had already all but lost all traditional belief, but honestly I don't know. I just remember chatting with some Christians and being incredulous that they were arguing for things such as a young Earth and special creation, the truth of the whole Bible down to all the miracle claims, and similar non-sense. I started typing what I had probably been hesitant to think or say earlier and started blasting the credibility of all the tenets of the Christian faith, and even the existence of any god. I started insulting the concept of Jesus and his miracles, and the feeling of venting these thoughts was thrilling. My devout Christian friend wanted me to type "just kidding, I attend church every Sunday". Granted, yes, I did attend church every Sunday, but I was definitely not kidding. My other friend in attendance was not exactly a believer, and he was amused. From that point forward, I sought every criticism and refutation of Christianity and the concept of a god or gods. Everything I saw made sense and was drawn from logical reasoning and evidence. Somewhere along the way I became a full blown atheist, and my thirst for knowledge never ceased.
So here I am, about 7 to 8 years later, but with a pretty glaring problem. I've yet to tell my parents, brother, or any of my extended family. It's not a rare occasion when my mom brings up something that shows just how religious she is or how she thinks shortcomings in the world can be over-come with more church. Her side of my extended family is very religious as well, and I would definitely be the black sheep of any get together if my atheism was brought out to them. My dad... He's not as vocal about his beliefs, but he does volunteer at my family's church. His side of my extended family is Catholic, and though not as openly vocal as my mom's side, they still have their Catholic beliefs.
Then here's the somewhat awkward part -- just about everyone else knows. My closest friends know for sure, and I'm sure some of my less close friends are aware. I definitely do not hide my atheism from anyone... except my family. My girlfriend is a very new age Christian. I started dating her almost four years ago, and telling her was one of the scariest and nerve-wrecking moments I've had to deal with in my life. I told her about a half-year to a year (or so?) into our relationship after feeling guilty about not telling her. She mentioned enjoying not having secrets between us, and there was no way I could just not say anything. Luckily, she is accepting of my atheism and we are still together today. Somewhat recently she let her mom know about my atheism, something I had not wanted known to her for a while, but have for a bit not cared as much. With her knowledge, it really is just my own family now that is in the dark.
It's awkward as hell when my friends come over and there are moments when I have to fake theistic beliefs for my parents. It's especially bad with my Christian friends, since it's so much more awkward to fake the belief they have as well, with their full knowledge that I don't buy any of it. I had to go to church with my parents for several more years every single Sunday, though as I got a bit older, then insistence on EVERY single Sunday slacked down a bit if I had occasional plans that kept me from going. I had a gold mine of awesome when I got my job at Best Buy a year and a half ago. My job basically requires me to come in (usually) at 6 am every single Sunday and work until at least noon or later. This job, while being awesome regardless, has basically exempted me from having to go to church -- and without having to actually say anything about not wanting to go. I just don't have to because I have work. :) I do still go when I "have" to for the holidays, weddings, and funerals, though this amounts to just a few times a year.
I'm really hoping to say something soon to my parents, but damn is it a tough thing to do. I love my family, and revealing my atheism... Well, it may come down to a question of wanting to keep my family relationships as they are, or freeing my conscience and potentially damaging forever what I have with my family. I suppose another factor is that my parents are helping me get through college right now, and I would really not want to jeopardize that either. It could be the case that my parents would be able to accept things and we could all just go on with our lives like usual... but somehow I just doubt it.
Sometimes life is maddening. It's frustrating living in a country that so desperately clings to religion. It's frustrating having just about everyone around me being religious, and pretty strongly at that. It's frustrating knowing that almost none of those religious people even bother to really read about what they claim to believe or belong to. It's frustrating knowing that religious fundamentals suppress legitimate science like evolution, making everyone suffer for their delusions. It's frustrating knowing that most religious people won't even bother to look at anything that may in any way contradict what they believe, forever closing their minds to anything else. Sometimes I wish I would just wake up from a dream to find that people weren't actually serious about the silly bullshit they spout.
This has become quite the long introduction, but I thought I would close with saying, just to clarify after that last paragraph, that I don't have a problem with most religious people. Hell, if I did, I'd be pretty lonely. Most people in this world are good, and the intrinsic drive to do good is a part of the human psyche. Not just to do good, but to do good by helping others, caring for others, and sharing their lives with others. It sucks when ideas get stuck in people's heads that limit these good impulses and drive people to the other instincts of humanity to protect one's "tribe" and harm "rivals." Religion is often a big driver of these feelings, but it also at times supports the former. Regardless, I would be extremely happy to live in a world that finally does away with religion and people can live on ethical morals based on human reason.
If you're still reading, congratulations. That was epic. Thanks for reading. This has been therapeutic for me.
>This has been therapeutic for me.
Good. It's what we're here for.
Welcome to Atheist Nexus.
Wow - that's quite a tale! Glad it helped to get it all off your chest.
Welcome to Atheist Nexus!
Hmmm I guess Richard Dawkin's comparison between coming out as gay and coming out as an Atheist really is Fitting. Reading this made me think of all the fears and anxieties I had about coming out (as a lesbian) to my parents.
Clearly this is a huge step for you - but you DO have the support of lots of people in your life already. I hope it goes well for you when you do eventually tell your parents. - I am loathe to try to give you advice but If you were Gay I would say - don't tell them on a "Family holiday" - Christmas / Easter / Thanksgiving, but that's the extent of my advice. As you said: "I would be extremely happy to live in a world that finally does away with religion and people can live on ethical morals based on human reason." Here Here!
Take care!
I'm 53 yrs old and don't discuss religion with my family. My mother is super religious, old and very set in her ways. My brother is a pentacostal minister. My sisters know better than to argue with me. They know I don't do church and if they try to preach to me I will get in their face. So we just have a normal disfunctional family that ignores the atheist elephant.
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Hello all, my steering wheel is off centre a bit, so I want to put it back to the centre, I have a track ace lazer alignment tool that I will use to check all is ok, but I dont have the toe figs to refer to, does anyone know what they are?, and if it toes in/out, would be a great help.
Its a 2008, 2.7 tdi s-line multitronic, the reason I'm doing it with the gauge is because I'm reluctant to pay for 4 wheel alignment sometimes, only to hit a pothole on the way home and I'm back to square 1.
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Old 04-24-2008 #9
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Seattle, Washington
Posts: 64
Red face Re: Pairing Amps with Speakers
In my experience as a salesman of high quality audio gear, speaker selection is not all that subjective, at least sound-wise. Appearances, yes. It is true that some prefer different speakers for different music. Some speakers sound better with rock 'n roll than others, but most listeners would pick out the same or similar speakers when listening to that music. Then, switching to jazz, a different set of speakers may be preferable, but, again, most listeners will show similar choices. The same goes for classical music. So, those that prefer rock 'n roll are more likely to pick the speakers that brought out the best in rock 'n roll over those that may have sounded better with jazz and/or classical.
The problem I see there, is that one is literally imposing "instrumentality" on speakers, that is, making them into a type of musical instrument rather than accurate transducers of musical reality. So, some may sound "warm", others "clean", others have "punch".
In my opinion, the best speakers are those which can handle the very low bass to the very high treble of classical instruments with accuracy while being able to provide the dynamism of rock 'n roll and the intimacy of jazz, without significant compromises. In other words, have the quality of components that allow the speakers to provide the realness of all music in an accurate replication. That is a tall order, so it eliminates pretty much all but quite expensive speakers, speakers that can handle the entire audio spectrum well while having quick responses to dynamic demands.
If a speaker soiunds great to one person, but terrible, like "chalk on a chalkboard" to another, something is amiss unless one or other of the individual have problems with their hearing. Screechy, distorted treble, for instance, sounds like screechy, distorted treble unless a person can't hear above about 800 hz. In listening tests, I would tend to assume the listeners do not have serious hearing deficiencies, and if they did, I likely would find out while conducting the tests.
I caution customers who say they prefer a system that sounds good, say, only with jazz, since that is their favorite music.
I suggest that if they do want to buy them, that they listen to them at home carefully, and also try different music with them. If, after a reasonable time, they decide that the speakers doe seem to impose their own sound too much, and may make all music sound too much alike, they can exchange them. Most good audio stores will provide this service, and not leave a customer stuck with their first impressions. I have found that customers who purchase "box" systems wind up not listening to them much due to "listener fatigue", caused by distortion, lack of smoothness, and a general sense of stressed sound.
A good audio store will allow customers to relax and listen, and encourage customers to bring their own disks to audition speakers. Since speakers provide by far the most important contribution to quality of sound, they should be chosen carefully.
DaveLadely is offline Reply With Quote
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KNOX, Ind. The Starke County Sheriff’s Department arrested 76 people Saturday morning after officers raided an animal fighting contest in Knox, police say.
Just before 11 a.m., police responded to an anonymous tip that 50 people were participating in an animal fighting contest west of Knox, at 100 W, south of State Road 8.
When police arrived, multiple people ran and abandoned fighting cock paraphernalia and several vehicles parked in the area.
Police arrested over 76 suspects after running through muddy fields, ice-covered ditches and wooded areas. Officers found other suspects hiding in ditches and hollowed-out trees. One juvenile that was harbored by an adult was found without shoes. The juvenile was taken to Starke Memorial Hospital and treated for frostbite.
Police say they arrested a person who was described as a Hispanic male for organizing the event, and many others were arrested for promoting animal fighting and attending. Twelve of them are facing felonies for bringing the roosters to the fight. The other 64 are facing misdemeanors. It is a class A misdemeanor to attend an animal fighting contest and it is a Class D felony to promote the use of animals or attendance at an animal fighting contest.
As of Monday morning, all but one of the people arrested have bonded out.
Only the suspects facing felonies were held at the Starke County Jail. The others were released with citations and court dates.
A school bus was called to the scene to transport the suspects to the jail.
145 fighting cocks were seized and transported to the Starke County Humane Society for euthanization.
Officers also obtained and served a search warrant seizing 13 firearms, 29 vehicles, drug paraphernalia, and cock fighting paraphernalia.
Police also say vendors were at the event selling food and drinks.
Those arrested traveled from various states including Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan.
In May, 2006, police raided a cock fight in the Grovertown area of Starke County. Police arrested 52 people and seized 60 roosters in that case.
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Towards Next Generation URLs
By , 20 May 2003
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For many years we have heard about the impending death of URLs that are difficult to type, remember and preserve. The use of URLs has actually improved little thus far, but changes are afoot in both development practices and Web server technology that should help advance URLs to the next generation.
Dirty URLs
Complex, hard-to-read URLs are often dubbed dirty URLs because they tend to be littered with punctuation and identifiers that are at best irrelevant to the ordinary user. URLs such as are commonplace in today's dynamic Web. Unfortunately, dirty URLs have a variety of troubling aspects, including:
• Dirty URLs are difficult to type.
The length, use of punctuation, and complexity of these URLs makes typos commonplace.
• Dirty URLs do not promote usability.
Because dirty URLs are long and complex, they are difficult to repeat or remember and provide few clues for average users as to what a particular resource actually contains or the function it performs.
• Dirty URLs are a security risk.
The query string which follows the question mark (?) in a dirty URL is often modified by hackers in an attempt to perform a front door attack into a Web application. The very file extensions used in complex URLs such as .asp, .jsp, .pl, and so on also give away valuable information about the implementation of a dynamic Web site that a potential hacker may utilize.
• Dirty URLs impede abstraction and maintainability.
Because dirty URLs generally expose the technology used (via the file extension) and the parameters used (via the query string), they do not promote abstraction. Instead of hiding such implementation details, dirty URLs expose the underlying "wiring" of a site. As a result, changing from one technology to another is a difficult and painful process filled with the potential for broken links and numerous required redirects.
Why Use Dirty URLs?
Given the numerous problems with dirty URLs, one might wonder why they are used at all. The most obvious reason is simply convention -- using them has been, and so far still is, an accepted practice in Web development. This fact aside, dirty URLs do have a few real benefits, including:
• They are portable.
A dirty URL generally contains all the information necessary to reconstruct a particular dynamic query. For example, consider how a query for "web server software" appears in Google -- Given this URL, you can rerun the query at any time in the future. Though difficult to type, it is easily bookmarked.
• They can discourage unwanted reuse.
The negative aspects of a dirty URL can be regarded as positive when the intent is to discourage the user from typing a URL, remembering it, or saving it as a bookmark. The intimidating look and length of a dirty URL can be a signal to both user and search engine to stay away from a page that is bound to change. This is often simply a welcome side effect, rather than a conscious access control policy -- frequently nothing is done to prevent actual use of the URL by means of session variables or referring URL checks.
Cleaning URLs
The disadvantages of dirty URLs far outweigh their advantages in most situations. If the last 30 or 40 years of software development history are any indication of where development for the Web is headed, abstraction and data hiding will inevitably increase as Web sites and applications continue to grow in complexity. Thus, Web developers should work toward cleaner URLs by using the following techniques:
• Keep them short and sweet.
The first path to better URLs is to design them properly from the start. Try to make the site directories and file names short but meaningful. Obviously, /products is better than /p, but resist the urge to get too descriptive. Having doesn't add much meaning (if a user looks for a product catalog, they might well expect to find it at or near the top-level products page), but it does needlessly restrict what the page can reasonably contain in the future. It's also harder to remember or guess at. Shoot for the shortest identifiers consistent with a general description of the page's (or directory's) contents or function.
• Avoid punctuation in file names.
Often designers use names like product_spec_sheet.html or product-spec-sheet.html. The underscore is often difficult to notice and type, and these connectors are usually a sign of a carelessly designed site structure. They are only required because the last rule wasn't followed.
• Use lower case and try to address case sensitivity issues.
Given the last tip, you might instead name a file ProductSpecSheet.html. However, casing in URLs is troubling because depending on the Web server's operating system, file names and directories may or may not be case sensitive. For example, and are two different files on a UNIX system but the same file on a Windows system. Add to this the fact that and WWW.XYZ.COM are always the same domain, and the potential for confusion becomes apparent. The best solution is to make all file and directory names lowercase by default and, in a case sensitive server operating environment, to ensure that URLs will be correctly processed no matter what casing is used. This is not easy to do under Apache on Unix/Linux systems (related info), although URL rewriting and spellchecking can help (discussed below).
• Do not expose technology via directory names.
Directory names commonly or easily associated with a given server-side technology unnecessarily disclose implementation details and discourage permanent URLs. More generic paths should be used. For example, instead of /cgi-bin, use a /scripts directory, instead of /css, use /styles, instead of /javascript, use /scripts, and so on.
• Plan for host name typos.
The reality of end user navigation is that around half of all site traffic is from direct type or bookmarked access. If users want to go to Amazon's web site, they know to type in However, accidentally typing or is fairly easy if a user is in a hurry. Adding a few entries to a site's domain name service to map w, ww, and wwww to the main site, as well as the common and, is well worth the few minutes required to set them up.
• Plan for domain name typos.
If possible, secure common "fat finger" typos of domain names. Given the proximity of the "z" and "x" keys on a standard computer QWERTY keyboard, it is no wonder Amazon also has contingency domains like Google allows for such variations as and Unfortunately, many Web traffic aggregators will purchase the typo domains for common sites, but most organizations should find some of their typo domains readily available. Organizations with names that are difficult to spell, like "Ximed," might want to have related domains like "Zimed" or "Zymed" for users who know the name of the organization but not the correct spelling. The particular domains needed for a company should reveal themselves during the course of regular offline correspondence with customers.
• Support multiple domain forms.
If an organization has many forms to its name, such as International Business Machines and IBM, it is wise to register both forms. Some companies will register their legal form as well, so XYZ, LLC or ABC, Inc. might register and as well as primary domains. While it seems like a significant investment, if you use one of the new breed of low-cost registrars (like, the price per year for numerous domains for a site is quite reasonable. Given alternate domain extensions like .net, .org, .biz and so on, the question begs -- where to stop? Anecdotally, the benefits are significantly reduced with new alternate domain forms (like .biz, .cc, and so on), so it is better to stick with the common domain form (.com) and any regional domains that are appropriate (e.g.
• Add guessable entry point URLs.
Since users guess domain names, it is not a stretch for users -- particularly power users -- to guess directory paths in URLs. For example, a user trying to find information about Microsoft Word might type Mapping multiple URLs to common guessable site entry points is fairly easy to do. Many sites have already begun to create a variety of synonym URLs for sections. For example, to access the careers section of the site, the canonical URL might be However, adding in URLs like,, or is easy and vastly improves the chances that the user will hit the target. You could even go so far as to add hostname remapping so that,,, and so on all go to The effort made to think about URLs in this fashion not only improves their usability, but should also promote long term maintainability by encouraging the modularization of site information.
• Where possible, remove query strings by pre-generating dynamic pages.
Often, complex URLs like result from an inappropriate use of dynamic pages. Many developers use server-side scripting technologies like ASP/ASP.NET, ColdFusion, PHP, and so on to generate "dynamic" pages which are actually static. For example in the previous URL, the ASP script drills press release content out of a database using a primary key of 5 and generates a page. However, in nearly all cases, this type of page is static both in content and presentation. The generation of the page dynamically at user view time wastes precious server resources, slows the page down, and adds unnecessary complexity to the URL. Some dynamic caches and content distribution networks will alleviate the performance penalty here, but the unnecessarily complex URLs remain. It is easy to directly pre-generate a page to its static form and clean its URL. Thus, might become or something much more descriptive like -- or even better like The issue of when to generate a page, either at request time or beforehand, is not much different than the question of whether a program should be interpreted or compiled.
• Rewrite query strings.
In the cases where pages should be dynamic, it is still possible to clean up their query strings. Simple cleaning usually remaps the ?, &, and + symbols in a URL to more readily typeable characters. Thus, a URL like might become something like While this makes the page "look" static, it is indeed still dynamic. The look of the URL is a little less intimidating to users and may be more search engine friendly as well (search engines have been known to halt at the ? character). In conjunction with the next tip, this might even discourage URL parameter manipulation by potential site hackers who can't tell the difference between a dynamic page and a static one. The challenge with URL rewriting is that it takes some significant planning to do well, and the primary tools used for these purposes -- rule-based URL rewriters like mod_rewrite for Apache and ISAPI Rewrite for IIS -- have daunting rule syntax for developers unseasoned in the use of regular expressions. However, the effort to learn how to use these tools properly is well worth it.
• Remove extensions from files in URL and source.
Probably the most interesting URL improvement that can be made involves the concept of content negotiation. Despite being a long-supported HTTP specification, content negotiation is rarely used on the Web today. The basic idea of content negotiation is that the browser transmits information about the resources it wants or can accept (MIME types preferred, language used, character encodings supported, etc.) to the server, and this information is then used, along with server configuration choices, to dynamically determine the actual content and format that should be transmitted back to the browser. Metaphorically, the browser and the server hold a negotiation over which of the available representations of a given resource is the best one to deliver, given the preferences of each side. What this means is that a user can request a URL like, and the language of the content returned can be determined automatically -- resulting in the content being delivered from either a file like products-en.html for English speaking users or one like products-es.html for Spanish speakers. Technology choices such as file format (PNG or GIF, xhtml or HTML) can also be determined via content negotiation, allowing a site to support a range of browser capabilities in a manner transparent to the end user.
Content negotiation not only allows developers to present alternate representations of content but has a significant side effect of allowing URLs to be completely abstract. For example, a URL like, where robot is not a directory but an actual file, is completely legal when content negotiation is employed. The actual file used, be it robot.html, robot.cfm, robot.asp, etc., is determined using the negotiation rules. Abstracting away from the file extension details has two significant benefits. First, security is significantly improved as potential hackers can't immediately identify the Web site's underlying technology. Second, by abstracting the extension from the URL, the technology can be changed by the developer at will. If you consider URLs to be effectively function calls to a Web application, cleaned URLs introduce the very basics of data hiding.
URLs can be cleaned server-side using a Web server extension that implements content negotiation, such as mod_negotiation for Apache or PageXchanger for IIS. However, getting a filter that can do the content negotiation is only half of the job. The underlying URLs present in HTML or other files must have their file extensions removed in order to realize the abstraction and security benefits of content negotiation. Removing the file extensions in source code is easy enough using search and replace in a Web editor like Dreamweaver MX or HomeSite. Some tools like w3compiler also are being developed to improve page preparation for negotiation and transmission. One word of assurance: don't jump to the conclusion that your files won't be named page.html anymore. Remember that, on your server, the precious extensions are safe and sound. Content negotiation only means that the extensions disappear from source code, markup, and typed URLs.
• Automatically spell check directory and file names entered by users.
The last tip is probably the least useful, but it is the easiest to do: spell check your file and directory names. On the off chance that a user spells a file name wrong, makes a typo in extension or path, or encounters a broken link, recovery is easy enough with a spelling check. Given that the typo will start to generate a 404 in the server, a spelling module can jump in and try to match the file or directory name most likely typed. If file and directory names are relatively unique in a site, this last ditch effort can match correctly for numerous typos. If not, you get the 404 as expected. Creating simple "Did you mean X?"-style URLs requires the simple installation of a server filter like mod_speling for Apache or URLSpellCheck for IIS. The performance hit is not an issue, given that the correction filter is only called upon a 404 error, and it is better to result in a proper page than serve a 404 to save a minor amount of performance on your error page delivery. In short, there is no reason this shouldn't be done, and it is surprising that this feature is not built-in to all modern Web servers.
Most of the tips presented here are fairly straightforward, with the partial exception of URL cleaning and rewriting. All of them can be accomplished with a reasonable amount of effort. The result of this effort should be cleaned URLs that are short, understandable, permanent, and devoid of implementation details. This should significantly improve the usability, maintainability and security of a Web site. The potential objections that developers and administrators might have against next generation URLs will probably have to do with any performance problems they might encounter using server filters to implement them or issues involving search engine compatibility. As to the former, many of the required technologies are quite mature in the Apache world, and their newer IIS equivalents are usually explicitly modeled on the Apache exemplars, so that bodes well. As to the search engine concerns, fortunately, Google so far has not shown any issue at all with cleaned URLs. At this point, the main thing standing in the way of the adoption of next generation URLs is the simple fact that so few developers know they are possible, while some who do are too comfortable with the status quo to explore them in earnest. This is a pity, because while these improved URLs may not be the mythical URN-style keyword always promised to be just around the corner, they can substantially improve the Web experience for both users and developers alike in the long run.
Further Resources
Numerous articles have been written about the need for clean URLs. A few of the more prominent ones are cited here.
Apache Tools
For Apache, nearly all modules can be found at
Links to useful information about mod_rewrite can be found at
A good overview of content negotiation on Apache can be found at
Microsoft IIS Tools
IIS does not quite have the strong module culture Apache does, but the site lists many commercially and freely available modules, and,, and have related links and more detailed information on filter use on IIS.
The specific commercial IIS products mentioned in the article include URLSpellCheck, ISAPI Rewrite, PageXchanger, and w3compiler.
The authors would encourage submission of other tools and articles to improve the article’s resource listing.
A list of licenses authors might use can be found here
About the Author
Joe Lima and Port80
Web Developer
United States United States
Comments and Discussions
GeneralSome problems Pinmemberdog_spawn21-May-03 9:16
GeneralRe: Some problems PinsussChris Neppes (for the authors)21-May-03 11:53
GeneralRe: Some problems Pinmemberdog_spawn21-May-03 16:20
GeneralRe: Some problems Pinmemberbeardman28-May-03 1:33
GeneralRe: Some problems PinmemberChris Neppes28-May-03 11:27
GeneralRe: Some problems PinmemberDaniël Pelsmaeker31-May-04 23:13
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Arggh, the ship isn't sunk yet!
Comments Threshold
RE: It's pretty funny...
By Jackattak on 8/25/2009 1:12:39 PM , Rating: 3
Wow, buddy. Wake-up with our small brain attached this morning, did we? Try to RTFA next time.
RE: It's pretty funny...
By Beenthere on 8/25/09, Rating: -1
RE: It's pretty funny...
By Jackattak on 8/25/2009 1:46:12 PM , Rating: 2
Actually, it didn't cost them a dime. They owe nothing to anyone, as per Swedish law. They don't have it, they don't owe it. I would post a link to an Anandtech competitor's article but that wouldn't be very nice as Mr. Mick has graced us with a perfectly sufficient article here.
RE: It's pretty funny...
By Broman on 8/25/2009 2:16:19 PM , Rating: 3
Sometimes Beenthere sounds like a plant for the MAFIAA. Every comment on the piracy articles that I've seen from [them] have sounded ill-informed, close-minded, and scripted. Just read back through the $1.92M article from last week.
Besides, who says things like, "DENIAL is an illness..."? Somewhat reminds me of a religious nut-case on the side of a popular bar street.
Creepy man... creepy.
RE: It's pretty funny...
By Jackattak on 8/25/2009 2:34:16 PM , Rating: 2
What's even funnier is that we keep getting rated down (along with him).
More MAFIAA corporate shills trying to keep Joe public from being swayed toward the direction of the truth/logic?
RE: It's pretty funny...
By noirsoft on 8/25/2009 6:31:51 PM , Rating: 1
Your "Truth & Logic" is that theft is fine? That people who create works of value don't deserve to be paid?
I would become an armed revolutionary in such a world. Good thing I live in a world where real truth & logic prevail, theft (and intentionally aiding theft) is a crime and people who have intellectual talents are guaranteed the ability to control the products of their labor.
RE: It's pretty funny...
By griffhamlin on 8/27/2009 3:46:28 AM , Rating: 2
it's definitly not theft.
RE: It's pretty funny...
By DizzyMan on 8/27/2009 8:33:55 AM , Rating: 2
Hey man, ur forgetting that all these copyright organizations do not work for artists but for the middle man that is actually unnecessary these days.
It also seems to me that the same people that have always been busy controlling more parts of the world are now, through the MAFIAA, trying to controll the internet. The day they get there will be a sad day for the world.
Not saying that creative work shouldn't be payed. But let's get the money to the artist in stead of the person who printed it on a CD and then claimed all copyrights so NO ONE can do ANYTHING mwith the song.
Think about people making their holiday video's, u cannot use any music cause it is protected... and so on...
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It was previously 20MB
Source: Windows Phone Central
Comments Threshold
RE: What's the point of this?
By theapparition on 1/22/2013 10:46:58 AM , Rating: 2
This was actually to protect users.
This isn't a download cap, but a cap on how big of an application you can download over a cellular network before it requires you to use Wifi to download that same application.
In other words, if you try to download Angry Birds and it was 20.1MB, it would previously require that you were on a WiFi network to download vs allowing you to download over the cellular connection. Now the cap has moved to 50MB.
The limits were put there to help prevent people from going over data usage limits as well as limiting the bandwidth required for cellular connections. Imagine an update goes live and everyone on the network suddenly decides they want to upgrade their 300MB app. It would cause network disruption, of which avoiding that is the primary goal of all providers.
RE: What's the point of this?
RE: What's the point of this?
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reply to dillyhammer
Re: [DSL] VDSL - 25/7 Congestion
True, but... Grammas and Uncles also get unhappy when their VoIP is choppy (and more and more of them are using VoIP). They just don't understand why it is choppy.
Also don't forget that lots of them are only with TSI because the techies amoung us as telling them to sign up with TSI. Given no external input who do you think the Grammas and Uncles will go with? That's right, Bell or Rogers (at least around here). Most of them will have never heard of TSI otherwise.
I don't demand perfection from TSI. I demand a reasonable effort to to their best for their customers. I work with technology and I understand that things happen. But if the lines are saturated to the point that it is causing problems (albeit minor ones for now) for all of their DSL customers (who until recently where the meat and potatoes), and probably still represent the bulk of the techies, I think that needs addressing.
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Localization and function of KLF4 in cytoplasm of vascular smooth muscle cell.
TitleLocalization and function of KLF4 in cytoplasm of vascular smooth muscle cell.
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2013
AuthorsLiu Y, Zheng B, Zhang X-H, Nie C-J, Li Y-H, Wen J-K
JournalBiochemical and biophysical research communications
Date Published2013 Jun 28
The Krüppel-like factor 4 is a DNA-binding transcriptional regulator that regulates a diverse array of cellular processes, including development, differentiation, proliferation, and apoptosis. The previous studies about KLF4 functions mainly focused on its role as a transcription factor, its functions in the cytoplasm are still unknown. In this study, we found that PDGF-BB could prompt the translocation of KLF4 to the cytoplasm through CRM1-mediated nuclear export pathway in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) and increased the interaction of KLF4 with actin in the cytoplasm. Further study showed that both KLF4 phosphorylation and SUMOylation induced by PDGF-BB participates in regulation of cytoskeletal organization by stabilizing the actin cytoskeleton in VSMCs. In conclusion, these results identify that KLF4 participates in the cytoskeletal organization by stabilizing cytoskeleton in the cytoplasm of VSMCs.
Alternate JournalBiochem. Biophys. Res. Commun.
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L O A D I N G . . .
Angela's Q & A
Who's your favorite sports team, and why?
I'd say The Chargers because my Dad has always been a die-hard fan so naturally I was too! Can you say band waggoner?
What's your favorite movie quote?
A lot of the quotes I thought of were from "Zoolander" and "Blades of Glory" HAHA 1) A man shows a hot dog bun with 2 wieners in it and says, "Does this look right to you?!" 2) "This building needs to be at least THREE TIMES BIGGER! How are kids supposed to learn how to read if they can't even fit inside the building?"
I love "Resident Evil" and "Mario Kart"!! I'm too scared to play Resident Evil by myself but just love zombie video games so I'll try to get someone else to play while I watch. I'm pretty good at Mario Kart but as I got older, I can't play without feeling dizzy and nauseous =/ I'm not sure if anyone remembers "House of The Dead" but I kicked ass on that game AND I played that on the short-lived DreamCast gaming system.
Piercings/Tattoos (How many? Where?)
Nothing out of the ordinary for me. 1 tattoo on my back. I purposely got my tattoo in the middle of my back because I thought girls who got tramp stamps were just trashy and attention whores. Cmon I get that you have a tattoo but please stop wearing short shirts that show your tattoo.
What's the most embarrassing song on your iPod?
NONE! All the songs of my playlists are awesome. HELLO! 30 seconds later... Ya I checked my playlists and confirmed that all the songs are great!
What's your best party trick?
I'm not quite sure what you mean by this but gees alcohol gets any party started OR KARAOKE!! I'm Filipino so you know we like to party and sing!
What's the most memorable pick-up line you've ever heard?
In San Diego there's a hot news anchor named Aloha Taylor and this guy came up to me as I was walking my dog and asked if I was her then proceeded to make small talk with me. Uhm no.
What's the worst job you've ever had?
I've been pretty fortunate with all my jobs but the most stressful and exhausting by far was working in the daycare center in LA Fitness gyms called Kids Quest. People have some bad ass kids and I wanted to slap some sense into the some of the parents I came across buuuut I just kept all that to myself. LOL.
What's the most dangerous thing you've ever done?
I'm a pretty cautious person but when I was a kid I was so daring and thought I was a magician. I almost walked out of a 2nd story window pretending there was a ledge but there really wasn't. One of my other magic tricks was laying down on my skateboard with a huge nail sticking up towards my neck. Hard to explain but both instances I could have died! Thank God someone was watching me and told me to stop before it was too late! I hope my children don't attempt magic tricks.
My top 3 late night foods to sober up are Jack in the Box, ramen soup OR of course, mexican food!!!! Hell why not all of it!
What's the strangest thing in your fridge right now?
Kim Chi!
What's the naughtiest thing you've ever done in public?
You seriously want to ask this? I plead the fifth...
What do you feel sexiest wearing?
Tank top and a thong.
Tell us a joke.
This is a classic Filipino joke. Why did she drown? Because "chicken nut bread" (say chicken nut bread with a Filipino accent and it sounds like she cannot breathe) HAHAHA I'm pretty funny in person but I'm pooped after this questionnaire and this joke was all the juice I had left!
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South of the Border, West of the Sun
Alfred A. Knopf
Read the Review
My birthday's the fourth of January, 1951. The first week of the first month of the first year of the second half of the twentieth century. Something to commemorate, I guess, which is why my parents named me Hajime--"Beginning," in Japanese. Other than that, a 100 percent average birth. My father worked in a large brokerage firm, my mother was a typical housewife. During the war, my father was drafted as a student and sent to fight in Singapore; after the surrender he spent some time in a POW camp. My mother's house was burned down in a B-29 raid during the final year of the war. Their generation suffered most during the long war.
When I was born, though, you'd never have known there'd been a war. No more burned-out ruins, no more occupation army. We lived in a small, quiet town, in a house my father's company provided. The house was prewar, somewhat old but roomy enough. Pine trees grew in the garden, and we even had a small pond and some stone lanterns.
The town I grew up in was your typical middle-class suburbia. The classmates I was friendly with all lived in neat little row houses; some might have been a bit larger than mine, but you could count on them all having similar entranceways, pine trees in the garden. The works. My friends' fathers were employed in companies or else were professionals of some sort. Hardly anyone's mother worked. And most everyone had a cat or a dog. No one I knew lived in an apartment or a condo. Later on I moved to another part of town, but it was pretty much identical. The upshot of this is that until I moved to Tokyo to go to college, I was convinced everyone in the whole world lived in a single-family home with a garden and a pet, and commuted to work decked out in a suit. I couldn't for the life of me imagine a different lifestyle.
In the world I grew up in, a typical family had two or three children. My childhood friends were all members of such stereotypical families. If not two kids in the family, then three; if not three, then two. Families with six or seven kids were few and far between, but even more unusual were families with only one child.
I happened to be one of the unusual ones, since I was an only child. I had an inferiority complex about it, as if there was something different about me, that what other people all had and took for granted I lacked.
I detested the term only child. Every time I heard it, I felt something was missing from me--like I wasn't quite a complete human being. The phrase only child stood there, pointing an accusatory finger at me. "Something's not quite all there, pal," it told me.
In the world I lived in, it was an accepted idea that only children were spoiled by their parents, weak, and self-centered. This was a given--like the fact that the barometer goes down the higher up you go and the fact that cows give milk. That's why I hated it whenever someone asked me how many brothers and sisters I had. Just let them hear I didn't have any, and instinctively they thought: An only child, eh? Spoiled, weak, and self-centered, I betcha. That kind of knee-jerk reaction depressed me, and hurt. But what really depressed and hurt me was something else: the fact that everything they thought about me was true. I really was spoiled, weak, and self-centered.
In the six years I went to elementary school, I met just one other only child. So I remember her (yes, it was a girl) very well. I got to know her well, and we talked about all sorts of things. We understood each other. You could even say I loved her.
Her last name was Shimamoto. Soon after she was born, she came down with polio, which made her drag her left leg. On top of that, she'd transferred to our school at the end of fifth grade. Compared to me, then, she had a terrible load of psychological baggage to struggle with. This baggage, though, only made her a tougher, more self-possessed only child than I could ever have been. She never whined or complained, never gave any indication of the annoyance she must have felt at times. No matter what happened, she'd manage a smile. The worse things got, in fact, the broader her smile became. I loved her smile. It soothed me, encouraged me. It'll be all right, her smile told me. Just hang in there, and everything will turn out okay. Years later, whenever I thought of her, it was her smile that came to mind first.
Shimamoto always got good grades and was kind to everyone. People respected her. We were both only children, but in this sense she and I were different. This doesn't mean, though, that all our classmates liked her. No one teased her or made fun of her, but except for me, she had no real friends.
She was probably too cool, too self-possessed. Some of our classmates must have thought her cold and haughty. But I detected something else--something warm and fragile just below the surface. Something very much like a child playing hide-and-seek, hidden deep within her, yet hoping to be found.
Because her father was transferred a lot, Shimamoto had attended quite a few schools. I can't recall what her father did. Once, she explained to me in detail what he did, but as with most kids, it went in one ear and out the other. I seem to recall some professional job connected with a bank or tax office or something. She lived in company housing, but the house was larger than normal, a Western-style house with a low solid stone wall surrounding it. Above the wall was an evergreen hedge, and through gaps in the hedge you could catch a glimpse of a garden with a lawn.
Shimamoto was a large girl, about as tall as I was, with striking features. I was certain that in a few years she would be gorgeous. But when I first met her, she hadn't developed an outer look to match her inner qualities. Something about her was unbalanced, and not many people felt she was much to look at. There was an adult part of her and a part that was still a child--and they were out of sync. And this out-of-sync quality made people uneasy.
Probably because our houses were so close, literally a stone's throw from each other, the first month after she came to our school she was assigned to the seat next to mine. I brought her up to speed on what texts she'd need, what the weekly tests were like, how much we'd covered in each book, how the cleaning and the dishing-out-lunch assignments were handled. Our school's policy was for the child who lived nearest any transfer student to help him or her out; my teacher took me aside to let me know that he expected me to take special care of Shimamoto, with her lame leg.
As with all kids of eleven or twelve talking with a member of the opposite sex for the first time, for a couple of days our conversations were strained. When we found out we were both only children, though, we relaxed. It was the first time either of us had met a fellow only child. We had so much we'd held inside about being only children. Often we'd walk home together. Slowly, because of her leg, we'd walk the three quarters of a mile home, talking about all kinds of things. The more we talked, the more we realized we had in common: our love of books and music; not to mention cats. We both had a hard time explaining our feelings to others. We both had a long list of foods we didn't want to eat. When it came to subjects at school, the ones we liked we had no trouble concentrating on; the ones we disliked we hated to death. But there was one major difference between us--more than I did, Shimamoto consciously wrapped herself inside a protective shell. Unlike me, she made an effort to study the subjects she hated, and she got good grades. When the school lunch contained food she hated, she still ate it. In other words, she constructed a much taller defensive wall around herself than I ever built. What remained behind that wall, though, was pretty much what lay behind mine.
Unlike times when I was with other girls, I could relax with Shimamoto. I loved walking home with her. Her left leg limped slightly as she walked. We sometimes took a breather on a park bench halfway home, but I didn't mind. Rather the opposite--I was glad to have the extra time.
Soon we began to spend a lot of time together, but I don't recall anyone kidding us about it. This didn't strike me at the time, though now it seems strange. After all, kids that age naturally tease and make fun of any couple who seem close. It might have been because of the kind of person Shimamoto was. Something about her made other people a bit tense. She had an air about her that made people think: Whoa--better not say anything too stupid in front of this girl. Even our teachers were somewhat on edge when dealing with her. Her lameness might have had something to do with it. At any rate, most people thought Shimamoto was not the kind of person you teased, which was just fine by me.
During phys. ed. she sat on the sidelines, and when our class went hiking or mountain climbing, she stayed home. Same with summer swim camp. On our annual sports day, she did seem a little out of sorts. But other than this, her school life was typical. Hardly ever did she mention her leg. If memory serves, not even once. Whenever we walked home from school together, she never once apologized for holding me back or let this thought graze her expression. I knew, though, that it was precisely because her leg bothered her that she refrained from mentioning it. She didn't like to go to other kids' homes much, since she'd have to remove her shoes, Japanese style, at the entrance. The heels of her shoes were different heights, and the shoes themselves were shaped differently--something she wanted at all costs to conceal. Must have been custom-made shoes. When she arrived at her own home, the first thing she did was toss her shoes in the closet as fast as she could.
Shimamoto's house had a brand-new stereo in the living room, and I used to go over to her place to listen to music. It was a pretty nice stereo. Her father's LP collection, though, didn't do it justice. At most he had fifteen records, chiefly collections of light classics. We listened to those fifteen records a thousand times, and even today I can recall the music--every single note.
Shimamoto was in charge of the records. She'd take one from its jacket, place it carefully on the turntable without touching the grooves with her fingers, and, after making sure to brush the cartridge free of any dust with a tiny brush, lower the needle ever so gently onto the record. When the record was finished, she'd spray it and wipe it with a felt cloth. Finally she'd return the record to its jacket and its proper place on the shelf. Her father had taught her this procedure, and she followed his instructions with a terribly serious look on her face, her eyes narrowed, her breath held in check. Meanwhile, I was on the sofa, watching her every move. Only when the record was safely back on the shelf did she turn to me and give a little smile. And every time, this thought hit me: It wasn't a record she was handling. It was a fragile soul inside a glass bottle.
In my house we didn't have records or a record player. My parents didn't care much for music. So I was always listening to music on a small plastic AM radio. Rock and roll was my favorite, but before long I grew to enjoy Shimamoto's brand of classical music. This was music from another world, which had its appeal, but more than that I loved it because she was a part of that world. Once or twice a week, she and I would sit on the sofa, drinking the tea her mother made for us, and spend the afternoon listening to Rossini overtures, Beethoven's Pastorale, and the Peer Gynt Suite. Her mother was happy to have me over. She was pleased her daughter had a friend so soon after transferring to a new school, and I guess it helped that I was a neat dresser. Honestly, I couldn't bring myself to like her mother very much. No particular reason I felt that way. She was always nice to me. But I could detect a hint of irritation in her voice, and it put me on edge.
Of all her father's records, the one I liked best was a recording of the Liszt piano concertos: one concerto on each side. There were two reasons I liked this record. First of all, the record jacket was beautiful. Second, no one around me--with the exception of Shimamoto, of course--ever listened to Liszt's piano concertos. The very idea excited me. I'd found a world that no one around me knew--a secret garden only I was allowed to enter. I felt elevated, lifted to another plane of existence.
And the music itself was wonderful. At first it struck me as exaggerated, artificial, even incomprehensible. Little by little, though, with repeated listenings, a vague image formed in my mind--an image that had meaning. When I closed my eyes and concentrated, the music came to me as a series of whirlpools. One whirlpool would form, and out of it another would take shape. And the second whirlpool would connect up with a third. Those whirlpools, I realize now, had a conceptual, abstract quality to them. More than anything, I wanted to tell Shimamoto about them. But they were beyond ordinary language. An entirely different set of words was needed, but I had no idea what these were. What's more, I didn't know if what I was feeling was worth putting into words. Unfortunately, I no longer remember the name of the pianist. All I recall are the colorful, vivid record jacket and the weight of the record itself. The record was hefty and thick in a mysterious way.
The collection in her house included one record each by Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby. We listened to those two a lot. The Crosby disc featured Christmas songs, which we enjoyed regardless of the season. It's funny how we could enjoy something like that over and over.
One December day near Christmas, Shimamoto and I were sitting in her living room. On the sofa, as usual, listening to records. Her mother was out of the house on some errand, and we were alone. It was a cloudy, dark winter afternoon. The sun's rays, streaked with fine dust, barely shone through the heavy layer of clouds. Everything looked dim and motionless. It was nearing dusk, and the room was as dark as night. A kerosene space heater bathed the room in a faint red glow. Nat King Cole was singing "Pretend." Of course, we had no idea then what the English lyrics meant To us they were more like a chant. But I loved the song and had heard it so many times I could imitate the opening lines:
Pretend you're happy when you're blue
It isn't very hard to do
The song and the lovely smile that always graced Shimamoto's face were one and the same to me. The lyrics seemed to express a certain way of looking at life, though at times I found it hard to see life in that way.
Shimamoto had on a blue sweater with a round neck. She owned a fair number of blue sweaters; blue must have been her favorite color. Or maybe she wore those sweaters because they went well with the navy-blue coat she always wore to school. The white collar of her blouse peeked out at her throat. A checked skirt and white cotton socks completed her outfit. Her soft, tight sweater revealed the slight swell of her chest. She sat on the sofa with both legs folded underneath her. One elbow resting on the back of the sofa, she stared at some far-off, imaginary scene as she listened to the music.
"Do you think it's true what they say--that parents of only children don't get along very well?" she asked.
I mulled over the idea. But I couldn't figure out the cause and effect of it.
"Where did you hear that?" I asked.
"Somebody said that to me. A long time ago. Parents who don't get along very well end up having only one child. It made me so sad when I heard that."
"Hmm ...," I said.
"Do your mother and father get along all right?"
I couldn't answer right away. I'd never thought about it before.
"My mother isn't too strong physically," I said. "I'm not sure, but it was probably too much of a strain for her to have another child after me."
"Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have a brother or sister?"
"Why not?"
I picked up the record jacket on the table. It was too dark to read what was written on it. I put the jacket down and rubbed my eyes a couple of times with my wrist. My mother had once asked me the same question. The answer I gave then didn't make her happy or sad. It just puzzled her. But for me it was a totally honest, totally sincere answer.
The things I wanted to say got all jumbled up as I talked, and my explanation seemed to go on forever. But what I was trying to get across was just this: The me that's here now has been brought up without any brothers or sisters. If I did have brothers or sisters I wouldn't be the me I am. So it's unnatural for the me that's here before you to think about what it'd be like to have brothers or sisters.... In other words, I thought my mother's question was pointless.
I gave the same answer to Shimamoto. She gazed at me steadily as I talked. Something about her expression pulled people in. It was as if--this is something I thought of only later, of course--she were gently peeling back one layer after another that covered a person's heart, a very sensual feeling. Her lips changed ever so slightly with each change in her expression, and I could catch a glimpse deep within her eyes of a faint light, like a tiny candle flickering in the dark, narrow room.
"I think I understand what you mean," she said in a mature, quiet voice.
"Um," she answered. "There are some things in this world that can be done over, and some that can't. And time passing is one thing that can't be redone. Come this far, and you can't go back. Don't you think so?"
I nodded.
"After a certain length of time has passed, things harden up. Like cement hardening in a bucket. And we can't go back anymore. What you want to say is that the cement that makes you up has hardened, so the you you are now can't be anyone else."
"I guess that's what I mean," I said uncertainly.
Shimamoto looked at her hands for a time.
"Sometimes, you know, I start thinking. About after I grow up and get married. I think about what kind of house I'll live in, what I'll do. And I think about how many children I'll have."
"Wow," I said.
"Haven't you ever thought about that?"
I shook my head. How could a twelve-year-old boy be expected to think about that? "So how many kids do you want to have?"
Her hand, which up till then had laid on the back of the sofa, she now placed on her knee. I stared vacantly at her fingers tracing the plaid pattern of her skirt. There was something mysterious about it, as if invisible thread emanating from her fingertips spun together an entirely new concept of time. I closed my eyes, and in the darkness, whirlpools flashed before me. Countless whirlpools were born and disappeared without a sound. Off in the distance, Nat King Cole was singing "South of the Border." The song was about Mexico, but at the time I had no idea. The words "south of the border" had a strangely appealing ring to them. I was convinced something utterly wonderful lay south of the border. When I opened my eyes, Shimamoto was still moving her fingers along her skirt. Somewhere deep inside my body I felt an exquisitely sweet ache.
"It's strange," she said, "but when I think about children, I can only imagine having one. I can somehow picture myself having children. I'm a mother, and I have a child. I have no problem with that. But I can't picture that child having any brothers or sisters. It's an only child."
She was, without a doubt, a precocious girl. I feel sure she was attracted to me as a member of the opposite sex--a feeling I reciprocated. But I had no idea how to deal with those feelings. Shimamoto didn't, either, I suspect. We held hands just once. She was leading me somewhere and grabbed my hand as if to say, This way--hurry up. Our hands were clasped together ten seconds at most, but to me it felt more like thirty minutes. When she let go of my hand, I was suddenly lost. It was all very natural, the way she took my hand, but I knew she'd been dying to do so.
The feel of her hand has never left me. It was different from any other hand I'd ever held, different from any touch I've ever known. It was merely the small, warm hand of a twelve-year-old girl, yet those five fingers and that palm were like a display case crammed full of everything I wanted to know--and everything I had to know. By taking my hand, she showed me what these things were. That within the real world, a place like this existed. In the space of those ten seconds I became a tiny bird, fluttering into the air, the wind rushing by. From high in the sky I could see a scene far away. It was so far off I couldn't make it out clearly, yet something was there, and I knew that someday I would travel to that place. This revelation made me catch my breath and made my chest tremble.
I returned home, and sitting at my desk, I gazed for a long time at the fingers Shimamoto had clasped. I was ecstatic that she'd held my hand. Her gentle touch warmed my heart for days. At the same time it confused me, made me perplexed, even sad in a way. How could I possibly come to terms with that warmth?
After graduating from elementary school, Shimamoto and I went on to separate junior highs. I left the home I had lived in till then and moved to a new town. I say a new town, but it was only two train stops from where I grew up, and in the first three months after I moved I went to see her three or four times. But that was it. Finally I stopped going. We were both at a delicate age, when the mere fact that we were attending different schools and living two train stops away was all it took for me to feel our worlds had changed completely. Our friends were different, so were our uniforms and textbooks. My body, my voice, my way of thinking, were undergoing sudden changes, and an unexpected awkwardness threatened the intimate world we had created. Shimamoto, of course, was going through even greater physical and psychological changes. And all of this made me uncomfortable. Her mother began to look at me in a strange way. Why does this boy keep coming over? she seemed to be saying. He no longer lives in the neighborhood, and he goes to a different school. Maybe I was just being too sensitive.
Shimamoto and I thus grew apart, and I ended up not seeing her anymore. And that was probably (probably is the only word I can think of to use here; I don't consider it my job to investigate the expanse of memory called the past and judge what is correct and what isn't) a mistake. I should have stayed as close as I could to her. I needed her, and she needed me. But my self-consciousness was too strong, and I was too afraid of being hurt. I never saw her again. Until many years later, that is.
Even after we stopped seeing each other, I thought of her with great fondness. Memories of her encouraged me, soothed me, as I passed through the confusion and pain of adolescence. For a long time, she held a special place in my heart. I kept this special place just for her, like a Reserved sign on a quiet corner table in a restaurant. Despite the fact that I was sure I'd never see her again.
When I knew her I was still twelve years old, without any real sexual feelings or desire. Though I'll admit to a vaguely formed interest in the swell of her chest and what lay beneath her skirt. But I had no idea what this meant, or where it might lead.
With ears perked up and eyes closed, I imagined the existence of a certain place. This place I imagined was still incomplete. It was misty, indistinct, its outlines vague. Yet I was sure that something absolutely vital lay waiting for me there. And I knew this: that Shimamoto was gazing at the very same scene.
We were, the two of us, still fragmentary beings, just beginning to sense the presence of an unexpected, to-be-acquired reality that would fill us and make us whole. We stood before a door we'd never seen before. The two of us alone, beneath a faintly flickering light, our hands tightly clasped together for a fleeting ten seconds of time.
(C) 1998 Haruki Murakami All rights reserved. ISBN: 0-375-40251-9
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Razorlight: Slipaway Fires
It's often said that music doesn't divide into genres, that there is only good music and bad. There is one more operational subdivision: big music and its opposite. As a scurvyish guitar band, Razorlight started out making the latter. Their taut, pavement-level debut, Up All Night, jangled and rolled, its dilated pupils gazing up at past stars of the gutter like Lou Reed and Bob Dylan. Then, you could bump into singer Johnny Borrell in some east London dive. He was ambitious but still stitched into the parochial scenester life.
Two albums on, with a US hit, 'America', under their belts, Live8 at their feet and Hollywood starlets notched up on bedposts, Razorlight have turned their coats. Their third album still bears traces of Borrell's previous incarnation as a lowlife hipster but Razorlight have found stadiums to their liking. They have discovered their inner Celtic bluster and made a record so big and gusty that it could usefully be hooked up the National Grid.
'Wire To Wire' sets the pace, a piano ballad that piles on the backing vocals as Borrell howls some elliptical guff about love. It's followed by 'Hostage of Love', whose urgent strumming underlines some of Borrell's vastest vocals yet. 'Now like a madman, I give my laurels to you,' he bellows. Sentiments like that abound. Written in the Inner Hebrides, Borrell's lyric sheet aims for the poetry of cosmic Celts like the Waterboys but ends up sounding more like Joshua Tree-era U2. Commercially, it works. Artistically, though, it's hard not to snigger.
Borrell is sharper when writing his snarky, observational knockabouts. Slipaway Fires harbours a trio of these - 'Tabloid Lover', 'North London Trash', a caustic celebration of the boy Borrell used to be, and 'Burberry Blue Eyes', a prurient tale of posh girls slumming it with guys like Johnny.
The closest Borrell gets to what he used to aspire to is '60 Thompson', a Leonard Cohen homage that hints Borrell might have internal organs, not just ego, under his ribs. But that feeling soon dissipates as 'The House' deploys pianos, dead fathers and bathos in a stab at immortality. It misses.
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RSA defends handling of two-pronged SecurID breach
'Our adversaries left information' exec says, as FBI probe continues
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RSA Europe Two groups from the same country teamed up to launch a sophisticated attack against RSA Security's systems last March, EMC's security division said.
Unspecified information gained during the attack paved the way towards an unsuccessful attack against a defence contractor (self-identified as Lockheed Martin), senior RSA execs said during the opening of the RSA Conference in London on Tuesday.
"Two groups were involved in the attack," Thomas Heiser, RSA Security president, said during a keynote at the conference. "Both are known to authorities but they have never worked together before."
"The attack involved a lot of preparation," he added.
Forensic examination in the wake of attack on RSA's systems allowed the security arm of EMC to draw tentative conclusions about the origin and purpose of the assault on systems that underpinned its SecurID two-factor authentication technology.
RSA executive chairman Art Coviello said that "one group was very visible and one less so". Coviello declined to point the finger of blame towards any particular country but said during a later question-and-answer session that both came from the same country. "We've not attributed it to a particular nation state," Coviello said. "However with the skill and degree of resources involved it could only have been a nation state."
Coviello's comments painted a picture of the attack as a collaboration between criminal hackers and either a military or intelligence agency, even though he sidestepped a question on whether this was a correct interpretation of his remarks.
Heiser downplayed both the impact of the attack and RSA Security's subsequent drip-drop disclosure of what exactly happened and how it had affected customers of its flagship SecurID two-factor authentication technology, which is widely used for secure remote access to corporate email or intranet applications.
"There was one attack on RSA," he said. "The information taken from the RSA attack was a vector in one other attack, which was thwarted. We know of no other attack.
"We killed the attack while it was still in progress and communicated rapidly with our customers as much as we could tell them."
Both the FBI and Department of Homeland Security are continuing to investigate the case.
"Our adversaries left information," Heiser said. "We didn't want to thwart the investigation, so for that reason we haven't disclosed everything we know."
RSA was widely criticised for its reluctance to disclose details of the assault. Even now, more than six months after the assault, it will only say that information related to SecurID was stolen. It hasn't said what was taken although it has been widely suggested that it might have been the seed database used to generate one-time codes on the devices it supplies.
RSA Security offered to supply enterprise customers with replacement tokens in response to the attack. Both Coviello and Heiser declined to say how many tokens it has replaced, although, pressed on the point, Coviello said it was a "small percentage".
During a question-and-answer session, Heiser denied accusations that many customers had been "left hanging" in the aftermath of the attack.
"We got out to our top 500 customers relatively quick. We have many thousands of other customers which we don't deal with directly, so there wasn't that that kind of hand-holding. We have to rely on our marketing press and partners," he said.
"We disclosed everything we could without putting other customers at risk," he said.
Hackers were looking for 'defence-related intellectual property'
Heiser said that RSA was a pawn in a bigger assault: "The motive was to gain access to defence-related intellectual property. RSA was not the target but a means to an end," he said.
Coviello said one of the ironies of the attack was that it validated trends in the market that had prompted RSA to buy network forensics and threat analysis firm NetWitness just before the attack. Security programs need to evolve to be risk-based and agile rather than "conventional" reactive security, he argued.
"The existing perimeter is not enough, which is why we bought NetWitness. The NetWitness technology allowed us to determine damage and carry out remediation very quickly," Coviello said.
"Organisations are defending themselves with the information security equivalent of the Maginot Line as their adversaries easily outflank perimeter defences," Coviello added. "People are the new perimeter contending with zero-day malware delivered through spear-phishing attacks that are invisible to traditional perimeter-based security defences such as antivirus and intrusion detection systems." ®
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Subscribe English
look up any word, like tittybong:
1 definition by bradcoop
Delfina (noun) Del-fina (from-fine)
1. Daughter of the Roman god Apollo and Daphne.
Delfina is the goddess ruler of the sun. In heathen theology; a cherisher and protector of the polite arts, Inherited Like Apollo she was the god of light, medicine, eloquence, music and beauty.
2 Essentially a female name (Latin) Spanish or European upper class
3. Delfina is from the finest, ultrafine, superfine, and emotionally stable. "Fina" fine in every aspect.
4. All that is good, classy, real and pure.
5. The modern day Delfina has an air of authority; it is an innate right that suits her completely.
6. Anything that comes from the very finest, of superior quality, of high regard
7. from the most precious of all things considered
8. A natural beauty illuminates her surroundings; she is from the finest stock.
9. Fine facial appearance, captivating eyes, long nose, great body, round tight behind, small waist.
It was obvious by the lavish clothes they wore that they lived a delfina lifestyle.
by bradcoop August 28, 2010
71 6
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Then and Now: Heroes and Supernatural
The First Session
In the Beginning
It all began with four random people, waking up far from home in an unknown area with unknown people. A young, brilliant female hacker; a mid-thirties average looking FBI woman; a Samuel Jackson look-alike cabbie; and a young handsome gymnast from California. We all woke up in Sam’s cab in the middle of a desert, with no idea how we had gotten there. The young hacker, Dawn, rigged a way to get the cab working, since a few parts of the engine had been removed. We drove to the nearest town, trying to figure out what was going on and why we were out here. The town appeared to be deserted, so we took the opportunity
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Reviews for Life Changes
Jaygirl942 chapter 1 . 2/15/2009
sorry, but i dont really like this story. It is too short and your plot twist happen too fast. the readers dont have enough time to understand your characters. You need to add more character development. Try giving them backgrounds.
counting-fingers chapter 10 . 6/15/2005
no offence i didnt like it that much and like A LOT of people said it was rushed and the chapters were short
Chan4Mon4EVA4EVA chapter 10 . 6/2/2005
the chapters were way too short. it had no detail or any thing.
its rare when i give a bad review. just think of it as an off story.
what actually happened to erica and the notes and nothing can happen as quickly as it did in this story.
fruitsalad chapter 9 . 5/15/2005
No offense, but I didn't really like your story and I'll tell you why.
1. Things happened so fast. Like when she got promoted at her job in an earlier job. You don't just say yes and then you move. People need time to think. Also, with Francess and everything. Just too fast.
2. It was too confusing. Sometimes it was Emma, sometimes Erika. Sometimes Rachel sometimes Monica.
3. You never said what happened to Erika or Emma. It's too confusing to remember which. I know the problem went away because they moved, but you have to say something about it.
4. Monica can't have a baby. Remember. If the baby she's having is actually hers, you have to say that she found out that she could have a baby. You can't just have her have one.
5. Ross wouldn't just accept Emma's boyfriend. I know that you said that he found out that they have a lot in common, but how did he find out? Also, he found out that he and Chad had a lot in common or Emma and Chad did.
Anyway, that's why I don't like it. But I'm just one opinion.
fanmania chapter 9 . 3/28/2005
It's a good story but a bit rushed and short. The story is really nice though.
JOEYLOVER9274 chapter 6 . 2/16/2005
2 things one a little short and two it all happened so fast it cofused me
JOEYLOVER9274 chapter 5 . 2/9/2005
please right more i beg of you please please please
JOEYLOVER9274 chapter 4 . 2/9/2005
asome liked it write more
JOEYLOVER9274 chapter 3 . 2/8/2005
sounds vaguely like wut happened to nicole close to same writing but no cops
JOEYLOVER9274 chapter 2 . 2/8/2005
needs more detail and to be longer smaller font so far good
JOEYLOVER9274 chapter 1 . 2/8/2005
due amanda this is amanda and i like what i see so far and the last line hilarious
Female-Fighter chapter 1 . 2/1/2005
Okay guys sorry for the delay some things happened that stopped me from writing I will have the newest chapters up soon.
DaleSnail chapter 2 . 1/24/2005
good keep it up! rlli good
patgilmoregirl chapter 2 . 1/23/2005
Hey Amanda,
It's Patricia I just got a chance to read your story and i think it is really good,continue soon
Yeah. No school tomorrow 1/24
See you on 1/25 tuesday
head for the hills chapter 2 . 11/28/2004
Good so far! I'd make chapters a bit longer, but it sounds interesting. I wonder what big changes are in store...
16 | Page 1 2 Next »
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Reviews for The Road Onward
Sailor GaOn Donut chapter 1 . 4/22/2012
mllhild chapter 1 . 12/24/2011
Nice first steps for Vivio. It gives really a cute and fun image small Vivio overloaded with an plate armor.
I've seen that some of the other reviews reclaimed that the fic let the Belkan magic seem rare. But to me it seemed more obvious to open up a older device since the stand of the Wolkenritters devices should be a lot above normal and Vivio is from the same era as them. Also Hayate wouldn't miss a chance mock Signum and to spoil Vivio a bit, well she has it necessary with the White Devil as mother.
about the German
it is "Danke schön", you let out the dots above the "o"
and in the omake it is "meine Kaiserin" because in German there is a difference form the gender
If you have any questions about German I would be glad to help.
Gundum M chapter 1 . 2/15/2011
a very nice story
Another Duck chapter 1 . 12/10/2009
I know this and several sequels are already done, but I'm going to pretend otherwise.
I don't usually like kids too much either (and one reason I didn't watch the series for a long time), but Vivio is a decent character. She, as well as Vita, are as you expect them, with enough humour to be interesting even when there's nothing going on.
On languages, I think it's referenced that Mid-Childans actually speak Japanese, so using Japanese words is odd as the translation should be assumed anyway. The German is decent enough, despite lack of umlauts, but as a Swede, I'm used to that.
One thing I didn't agree with is how rare Belkan magic seems to be, considering it is taught enough so that people would pick up on that it's better for Vivio than Mid magic. She, Erio, and Subaru use Belkan style in the original (though Vivio uses a hybrid, I believe). Still, made for a funny image with Signum.
I'm going to keep reading this series.
shanejayell chapter 1 . 10/16/2009
Heh, very nice. :)
markesellus chapter 1 . 10/29/2008
Vita-sensei? Interesting. Lol, it looks like some interesting things are to come with Vita as Vivio's teacher. Mariel's pretty funny, especially with her bragging to Shari. I can't even imagine what those two would say to each other. Probably all this device gibberish and some teasing thrown in.
Arkeus chapter 1 . 10/28/2008
Just great :XD
Jumper Prime chapter 1 . 10/18/2008
I really like this fic. Can't wait to see what comes next. I wonder what kind of attacks Vivio will have. I'm sure Nanoha will be glad to hear how strong Vivio's Barrier Jacket was in that first spar with Vita. Plus Vita had to expend a bunch of cartridges to blast through her shield. A super-tough Barrier Jacket means it'll be that much harder for Vivo to get injured in battle. Actually, since Vivio is using primarily Belka-style magic, wouldn't it be more accurate to call her a Knight, not a Mage, and wouldn't her Barrier Jacket be more correctly referred to as Armor? (I remember from watching A's that practitioners of Belka-style magic refer to themselves as Knights)
handlewithcare chapter 1 . 10/17/2008
Cool. Loved the idea of Vivio's device. You don't see an armor as a device around here that often. Thumbs up.
Her defensive fighting style reminds me of RO's Shield-type Paladin. Lulz.
Keep it up, bro.
Sunder the Gold chapter 1 . 10/7/2008
Great installment.
I agree with this vision of Vivio's abilities, based on the Saint's Armor.
However, contrary to your other work, it seems that Yuuno isn't one of Vivio's parents in this one. Vita doesn't seem to regard him as such, and Vivio doesn't respond as she should when learning something that surprises her about her father figure. Vivio's also not crediting or admiring Yuuno's accomplishments in battle during the first two seasons, though this is easily explained if no one thought to tell her - certainly, Yuuno wouldn't see a point in advertising it. Though I would be _shocked_ if Combat Instructor Mother Nanoha never once mentioned the invaluable back-up he provided her, at least as a story lesson about the value of teamwork and diversity of talents.
Heh. The omake's a nod to how irritating it is to have to research German for the Device's lines, isn't it?
Speaking of which, Vita actually lived in Japan for several years, so she would know better about the tongue and the word 'Sensei' than Vivio.
bloodied cypher chapter 1 . 10/7/2008
Good story. I hope to see more of it soon.
Question: How powerful will Vivio be. Will she follow the fine tradition of Mary-Suism that her mother set?
Suiram chapter 1 . 10/7/2008
Nice fic. Update quick... interesting ideea, a piece of armor for a weapon... i think i saw an anime/manga with this plot (can't remember what it was called
Person With Many Aliases chapter 1 . 10/7/2008
The usual quality I've come to expect when I read your stuff. As mentioned, there's been other fics following Vivio's time in the TSAB. Hell, I'll probably do it myself, but still, this one's more detailed.
If Vivio can bust moves like Chad from Bleach, her awesomeness spikes through the roof. Right Arm of the Giant, Left Arm of the Devil.
Extraintrovert chapter 1 . 10/7/2008
Vivio's future life as a mage is hardly an original concept (similar to most fanfiction ideas in this fandom, incidentally), however your expectedly strong characterisation results in the scenario possessing a higher appeal than usual, and the slight but significant variations (which the previous reviewer mentioned and I don't care to reiterate) promise a far more interesting interpretation.
RadiantBeam chapter 1 . 10/7/2008
Oh, man. Vivio's got Vita AND Yuuno? That girl's going to be a defensive powerhouse by the time those two are done with her.
I really liked the Vita/Vivio interaction. It was very sweet and IC, especially Vita, and it makes sense that Vita would train Vivio instead of Nanoha. I also liked the extra test of Vivio not doing well on tests because they're based on Mid-Childa magic and not Belka magic. I don't know if it was ever specifically said in the anime that people with one style have trouble with the other, but it's a nice touch and logical to assume that they do.
And I cracked up at Mariel's line with Signum. I could just picture Signum standing there twitching while Laevatein was taken apart. Though I don't think teasing her would have been a good idea... she'd probably overreact.
And the omake. Poor Parsifal. Don't worry, you'll get it right one of these days.
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I am NOT Stephenie Meyer…..I wish I was but…Yeah *sighs heavily*….I do not own these characters as they are owned by Stephenie Meyer!
This is a Twilight Fanfic with a twist. What happens if you find yourself without the one you love? What if a family is torn apart? Will you ever be able to be happy again? What happens if you find yourself falling for the last person you thought you would? This is a Carlisle/Bella story of pain, loss and love!
Bella's POV
Playing the moment over and over again in my head still wasn't helping make it any clearer…or any less painful…
We were so prepared… or so I thought….
The newborns were coming…..we weren't completely sure who had created them but we knew that it was meant strictly for us…..for…..ME.
I had made my precautions in guilting Edward into staying with me throughout the fight…he of course said it was no big deal …but I knew it hurt him to be away from his family during this horid event.
Everything that had occurred today has been horrible and hurtful…whether it was my guilting Edward into staying with me or my kissing Jacob…true it was only to keep him safe as he had said he was going to sacrfice himself during the fight ,which apparently was a rouse to get me to *ask* him to kiss me, but either way Edward..my personal miracle…was next to me, holding me, loving me completely. I knew I never deserved him but I was beyond the realms of happy that he was with me…..forever. The best part of this is the fact that I knew that in a short time I would have him with me..in my arms forever as we were to be married and, keeping his end of the bargin, I would be able to give him myself completely as he would be giving me himself..then…oh then he would change me and we could begin our eternities together.
Just then Edward stiffened, his eyes shifted quickly to the left and he stared at the beautiful yet somewhat small wolf..Seth….he growled which had my hairs standing on end and yelled for the wolf child to leave immediately. Looking up to see what him upset I noticed that his eyes were the fiercest shade of black I had ever seen them. That's when I felt myself being shoved behind him, when I tried to protest he growled that she was close. In the moment I realized he had said….SHE….I completely froze over with fear….. But not for myself…but for my love! She wasn't alone tho as I saw the ,barely a man, known as Riley enter the clearing of our little campsite…I instantly recognized him as the missing person from all the posters posted around town. Edward growled at him and then quickly gazed to Riley's right and upward at the same time my eyes fixed upon the shot of red flaring hair in the trees….it was Victoria! Just then the newborn, formely known as Riley, crouched and began to step towards Edward, Edward began to talk to Riley, attempting to tell him the truth, but I could not focus on this as my eyes never left the sight of Victoria's horrible face. Just then I heard a growl that did not belong to any vampire…it was Seth… he had returned and grabbed Riley. As they fought it seemed Victoria had given up and started to retreat, however Edward was not going to let her get away this time, he gloated her to attack him or me, he made her so furious she turned and attacked with a blind fury….her mistake. After that I don't perfectly recall everything as my eyes and mind were full of the terror of watching my love being attacked, possibly even killed. I picked up a stone at one point and cut myself, and then it was over. Or so I thought…..
We were in a hurry to get back to the clearing that was once a baseball field for the Cullens, as Edward had said that the Volturi has sent out some of their "soldiers" to take care of the newborn army issue, something he obviously didn't think was their actual reasoning behind being here. Edward had sent Seth away informing him to run directly home and to not look back…something that Seth did reluctantly.
That's when it happened…that's when the end of my life…of my reason for living happened. Out of literally nowhere we were surrounded by them…..Jane, Alec, Felix and Demetri.
Edward instantly grabbed me and shoved me behind him taking a very defensive crouch, "I will not stand for this" Edward growled. "Whatever Aro's original reason for sending you here obviously isn't on your personal agenda anymore… Jane" Edward said evily staring at the little tyrant. Her smile seemed to widen at this and suddenly Edward was pinned to the ground screaming in agony, his eyes never leaving mine, it was as if he was apologizing to me, but why? I screamed for her to stop, "Stop….Stop…your killing him please I beg of you STOP….. Take me…kill me…do whatever you want just please stop" I cried. At this Edward relaxed and the little evil bitches eyes were hard on mine….Edward growled and lept up in front of me.
Then he attacked. I heard the horrible sound of metal screeching and a thud..I opened my eyes to see that Edward had taken the arm off of her little brother, Alec layed on the ground screaming out in agony, Jane seemed to respond instantly as Edward hit the ground and began to thrash and scream. Suddenly I heard the most gentle voice from behind me "No…No….not my SON!" it was Esme ….I turned in time to see her crouch and disappear….I realized she had lept over me and attacked the little bitch herself. She truly loved her family and would not stand to see them hurt, she was so small and fragile looking even for a vampire but she was fighting for her most treasured thing…her family. Edward was back up and attacking the others single handily as they had made their approach on me, it was then that I heard the single most horrible scream…it was Carlisle, Rose, Emmitt, Alice and Jasper and in turning to see what it was they were staring at I noticed that Esme's beautiful and fragile body lay on the ground, only thing was…her head layed a good five feet away from the rest of her and Felix was towering over her laughing. I growled instantly as I realized that the scream I had heard was made from there unbeating hearts as they realized there mother, and in Carlisle's case his wife, was dead. Tears were streaming hard and unstopping down my face.
The growls and screeching seemed to not let up for what seemed to be an eternity, however it was only moments later that I realized that the group of four horrible Volturi "soldiers" were retreating. I blinked the tears out of my eyes to see the family standing over a mass, I stumbled forward to them wanting nothing more then to have Edward wrap his arms tightly around me and hold me in his cold yet ever warming embrace letting me cry into his chest, that's when I noticed that it wasn't just a single mass that the family stood over.
I stumbled even further forward still unable to see clearly as the tears were still streaming unrelenting down my feverishly hot cheeks, I noticed that the family that stood there, rod still and straight, looked wrong…incomplete….it was then that I realized that there was only five of them standing there….five?…..only five?
Once I reached them I wiped the tears away long enough to see that not only did Esme's gorgeous head lay completely detached from the rest of her on the ground but so did….OMG..it couldn't be…..NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…
That's when it all went black for me…..
Carlisle's POV
How could this of happened? It went all according to plan. The newborns came at us just as Alice had said they would, the wolves were our most valuable allies, they fought valiantly by our side. With them this fight was easily won…or so we thought…
"Carlisle…" Alice said suddenly looking away into nothing. "Get the wolves out of here….It seems our fight is not yet done for the day."
"What?…. What do you see Alice?" I asked as I placed my hand on her shoulder.
"The Volturi apparently sent some of their," She wrinkled her nose as she spoke the next word. "soldiers"
I quickly dispatched the wolves explaining that they were to go home immediately and not look back…they reluctantly did, as I had promised to explain it all to them later. I also informed them to not make any attempts to attack another vampire that they happened upon the scent of, as this was not a fight they could win. With a growl Sam looked back upon his pack and barked his orders and they all quickly turned and ran.
"Alice?" I asked. "When and where?"
"I don't know exactly Carlisle, I can't honestly see that." She said looking pained.
Just then I heard the most heart breaking sound, it was Bella, she was begging for someone to stop, to kill her and not…him!
Just then Esme took off into the forest in a blindly fast hurry to find out what happened to make Bella scream like that. I was foolish and stood frozen for a few seconds before deciding to follow…THAT was my most horrible failure in judgement as it led to the death of my soul, my heart….
I followed the horrible sounds of screeching, screaming, growling, and keening only to arrive too late. There she was, her beautiful face, looking peaceful, lying on the ground…only it was no longer attached to the rest of her…my wife…my eternal mate! She was gone..NO …how could this be? I heard the desperate, tearless sobs, screaming out of myself and my family, filling the air. It was then that I saw Edward…my son..the one I truly thought of as my son…if I had the possibility of having children then he…Edward would be what I would want out of my child, fighting off the largest of the group alone.
Just then I noticed Jane glare at him and he was pinned to the ground again, writhing in obvious agony, crouching I prepared to attack. But it was too late as Edward's beautiful head was being torn from the rest of him from the three others….I noticed that his eyes never left from Bella…..as the last fibers of his head was torn from him he looked hard at me…into my eyes…begging me… I knew instantly what he wanted….."Protect her Carlisle….She is my life, my love, my soul…..Love her and care for as I would have" and with that he was gone…and with him was my last shred of life.
We attacked them then and realizing that they were severly wounded and outnumbered they retreated quickly, and even though I wanted to follow them and kill them, I couldn't leave the sides of my wife and my son.
I stood there and just stared. How could this of happened? It was only a few hours earlier that Alice bounced into the house smiling ear to ear chirping….
"Guess what guys?" Alice chirped as she entered the kitchen.
"What?" Esme asked.
"Bella and Edward are gonna get married!" She all but screamed at us in excitement.
Stiffling a giggle I said "And let me guess you're gonna get to plan the whole thing?"
"Yup!" She grinned. "Bella will give me a little trouble at first, but as she knows I always know best, she will give in."
Noticing her little pixie face light up I couldn't stop myself from laughing as Emmett said.
"Poor Bella, she has yet to learn that Alice always gets her way."
" Oh, she's learning that quite well actually." Jasper said laughing.
We all laughed.
That's when I remembered. Bella?…..Where was Bella? Just then she stumbled next to me and she started to wipe away the tears that filled her eyes. She looked at my agonized face for a moment seeming to appologize silently before she looked down and…then she was gone….she fell….I caught her in my arms and held her tightly to me as I knew what she had just seen…Edward lying on the ground..headless….dead…
"Bella?" I screamed at her shaking her gently. "Bella? Bella can you hear me? Bella dear wake up."
"Oh Carlisle" Rosealie sobbed. "How did this happen? I mean how could this of happened? We won. This isn't right. Our family isn't supposed to ever be torn apart. I don't understand this."
"Neither do I Rose….neither do I." I said.
"We need to get Bella back to the house Carlisle, she's not going to be wakeing up anytime soon and its getting cold." Alice said quietly.
This hit me hard as Alice never said anything that quietly and softly. Oh god what am I to do now?
"Carlisle?" Jasper said shaking me out of my own head. "Carlisle? You need to get Bella back to the house now, me and Emmett will handle this."
"Handle this?" Emmett suddenly asked. "How do we handle this? Carlisle?"
"I…I just don't honestly know." I answered him.
"Don't worry about that right now Carlisle. Just get Bella out of here and warm in our home." Rosealie said.
It was in that instant that I realized that Rosealie cared about Bella…it shocked me for a moment before I realized that you just couldn't hate someone who had made your family happy, complete and most importantly, even though she and Edward always fought over the smallest things, she loved him and therefore anything or anyone who made him happy and loved him was someone she also loved.
Nodding I said "Yes….yes I'll take her home. I'll see you all there later."
With a final glance I looked down upon my now shattered family and realized that as the "father" I would have to strive to figure out how to fix this, make my family happy again. But how does one fix something like this? How could I make them happy again? I looked down at the lifeless form in my arms and instantly thought of only her. I had to make good on my promise. My final unspoken promise to my son. I had to take care of this precious angel that I now held in my arms. With that I took off to my home….my empty space that I felt the terror of knowing would never be home again…..or could it?…..
"Bella? Bella dear please wake up." I called to her as I layed her down onto the couch in the family room.
Huh. Family room? Not anymore it wasn't. With that thought I broke down into myself with the sobs of anger, anguish, despair, sadness, and hopelessness that I felt. I craved the tears that I knew would never come to stream down my cheeks.
Just then Bella began to stir…
"Bella?" I said as I was pulled instantly out of my self loathing. "Bella dear can you hear me?"
"Edward?" She mumbled, looking upward blinking. "Edward where are you? You promised to stay with me. You said you'd never leave me again."
"Bella? Bella dear please." I said as I could not contain the pain in my voice. " Bella please wake up. Your safe. Your in my home. Your safe. Just as I promised Edward. I will keep you safe."
I took her into my arms and gently pressed her limp body into my chest only to hear her broken heart release the sobs of anguish that her body could no longer contain.
"Carlisle?" She said looking up into my eyes. "Carlisle? Is it true? Did I really see what I think I saw?"
How do I answer this? I cant lie to her. But I could barely handle my emotions at this moment. I cant stand the thought of hurting her. If I had a beating heart it would have stopped with the way she was staring directly into my eyes at this very moment. So broken. I cant stop staring back into her deep chocolate eyes. Its as if she is melting me with the way they are boring deep into my soul.
Just then I realized she was calling my name again.
"Carlisle? Carlisle? Carlisle?" She repeated. "Carlisle? Did I really see what I thought I saw? Please tell me I was having a nightmare. Please god, Carlisle, please tell me I had a horrible nightmare and that Edward and Esme are out hunting and you're just babysitting me. Please Carlisle tell me that is what is happening. Tell me Edward will be back in the morning. That I will be back in his arms in no time."
I shuttered as she said this as it was my own personal nightmare, and when she spoke their names I felt myself break completely. I didn't have any idea what my life would entail now. But I knew one thing for sure I would make good on my silent promise to my beloved son. I would protect this beautiful angel in my arms. I would keep her safe. I would make sure she was happy again. Even though I truly didn't know how I could seeing as how I didn't know how I would ever be happy again. But I had to do it. I would keep my family together and happy one way or another. That is how Esme would have wanted it. Bella was family, and so I would do everything in my power to make her happy and safe. Thats when I knew that next thing I said to her would break her heart completely, if not shatter her soul, I had to tell her. I tightened my grip on her, pulling her closer to my chest as I said…
"No. No Bella dear it wasn't a nightmare dear. You truly did see what you thought you saw. It feels like a nightmare though. But no my angel…..Edward will not be holding you in the morning."
Oh god! Her heart! Her heart? Has it stopped beating? No….wait there it is….. Its sooo soft and its slowing….GOD I think I just literally heard it break. What do I do now?
Just then she looked up at me. Tears streaming hard down her face. Her deep eyes now looked shallow. If not for the fact that I could hear its quiet slow beats I would believe her heart had stopped completely and she was also gone. She began to mumble to me…
" That means….Esme!" She gasped. "Oh Carlisle, I'm so sorry. It's all my fault! If it wasn't for me." she swallowed loudly. " if it wasn't for me then they would be here…..Esme would be here… in your arms…Oh god Carlisle I'm sooo sorry."
With that she looked down.
"No. Oh god NO Bella. It's not your fault. Please don't ever think that." I pleaded. "Edward loved you and he died loving you, and Esme, she loved her family. She died doing what she would always do, protecting her family." I cradled her tighter to my chest and whispered into her ear. "Oh god please Bella never ever think or say your at fault for this…for this horrible day. I beg of you please Bella…..Don't."
With that she looked up at me once more before she went limp in my arms again.
Ok all I hope you like this so far! Its my first twilight with a twist fanfic! There is a lot more chapters to come!
Reviews are just like 6 cups of coffee….their tastey and perk you right on up! \o/ \o/ \o/
a/n ok I know that in order to fully kill a vamp in the actualy series..you have to burn them as well….but im sorry I just couldn't burn Edward or Esme…hence why I said it's a twilight with a twist fanfic! And normally im all team Edward but if something were to have happened to him…who better then Carlisle!
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Welcome to Open Source Development
Third, this is by no means a complete how-to. Most of what you need to know will be gained by simply interacting with the community. The info on this page is to help you get over the most basic of barriers. Once you're in the hands of real people, you'll overcome the learning curve in short order.
The next most important part of the Open Source Development model is releasing your code and documenting your work. Projects, including the one you're working on, will grow and improve based on community involvement. In fact, you might be surprise what others will fix and add, so please don't keep your everything to yourself. We really want to see it - no matter what stage it's in.
• Pick a good subject line. Think of it as the title of a good book and choose something descriptive. On high volume lists, your message may not get read if it's not clear what you're asking or suggesting. This is also helpful when someone searches the archives.
• Change your subject line when the topic changes. Tangents can be good but anyone who initially ignored a thread will miss the shift. If it's not completely on-topic it needs it's own subject.
• Include plenty of background information with your questions. Especially where you've already look for answers. You will get a better response if there is less triage and duplication of efforts.
Internet Relay Chat has been around since the lat 1980s but the fact that it is one of our primary communication tools speaks to it's continued relevance. While other messaging systems have evolved over the decades, IRC remains as a universal because any computer with basic networking protocols can connect to IRC.
IRC serves an important role by allowing users to communicate in real time, but there are times when you'll find very few people chatting on a particular channel. If you have a question and it seems there isn't anyone home, please send your message to the mailing list.
Also, there is help editing beyond what's written at Help:Editing#Editing_with_Mediawiki please don't hesitate to ask someone.
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
Java EE app container provide "failover" support for EJBs, in their docs never cite any reasons why you would need to failover an EJB in the first place!
When do these "failover" conditions take place and what causes them? Is this just a situation where an exception is thrown? Or is it possible for an app container to actually "lose" or "break" an EJB?
Usually, when I've spoken of failover in the past, its been a networking component like a server that goes down for some reason. I'm just having a mental block here trying to envision what would cause a piece of deployed software to die and "fail over".
Bonus points for concrete examples instead of just fuzzy, vague, abstract descriptions (!).
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up vote 0 down vote accepted
Java EE in general does not provide such kind of failover that you talk about. If it's supported at all, then it's a proprietary feature of a specific implementation.
Typically such failover would be for remote EJBs which run on some server, which itself can crash or become unavailable because of network problems. In such a case, the client application server can have several failover URLs specified so that if one server becomes unresponsive another will automatically be used instead in a way that's transparent to the code that wants to talk to said bean.
The same mechanism can also be used for a basic load-balancing. If the server on which the remote EJB that your code wants to contact lives is under high load, the client AS can automatically choose a server that runs the same remote bean, but is under less load.
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
I'm using Facebook C# SDK to interact with my funpage, I wrote an ASP NET vb page that posts photo on the fun page wall, it works fine on my local machine, but I receive this error when I try to execute the page on my website:
Attempt by method 'DynamicClass.CallSite.Target(System.Runtime.CompilerServices.Closure, System.Runtime.CompilerServices.CallSite, System.Object)' to access type 'System.Runtime.CompilerServices.CallSite`1' failed.
It happens when I try to cicle the array with my page access tocken.(me/accounts)
the code below generates this error after _step = 3 :
Dim app As New FacebookClient(access_token)
_step = 1
Dim accts As Object = app.Get("/me/accounts")
_step = 2
' find the access token for the fan page
Dim page_access_token As String
_step = 3
For Each acct As Object In accts.data
_step = 4
If acct.id = Session("page_id").ToString() Then
_step = 5
page_access_token = acct.access_token
' get_album(page_access_token);
_step = 6
Dim fb As New FacebookClient(page_access_token)
_step = 7
Session.Add("page_access_token", page_access_token)
Exit For
End If
I read on the web that my hosting services has server trust level set to Medium. hope that someone can help me to solve this.
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Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
I am writing a script and started working with the install command (for copying files) and it is not working. CMake configure/generate does not show any errors (i.e. it does not stop and no warnings/errors show related to this command) and the command does not seem to be working because I don't see any files being copied.
Since I am new, I am wondering:
• How can I tell that install failed (perhaps the source directory was wrong, or the destination directory was wrong)? It appears to be failing silently
• Are there error codes I can check to see what went wrong?
• Ans lastly when is install called? When I click configure? Or when the project is built?
I am on Windows.
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When you add an install command to your CMakeLists.txt, you get a new target created called "install".
In order to actually install the chosen files/targets, you need to build this install target. It's not automatically built as part of the "ALL" target.
For example, if you're using Visual Studio, the "INSTALL" target should appear in the "CMakePredefinedTargets" folder of the Solution Explorer. Just selecting this target and building it will cause the solution to be built and the selected items installed.
If any part of the build or install process fails, the notifications should then be apparent.
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That makes a lot of sense. Either I am not looking hard enough or the documentation does a poor job at describing these details. – Samaursa Mar 24 '13 at 1:07
This tutorial might help a bit? – Fraser Mar 24 '13 at 2:19
It does! Thanks! – Samaursa Mar 24 '13 at 15:51
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
I'm trying to use AsyncHTTPClient in Tornado to do multiple callouts to a "device" available over http:
def ext_call(self, params):
device = AsyncHTTPClient()
request = HTTPRequest(...)
return partial(device.fetch, request)
def _do_call(self, someid):
acall = self.ext_call(params)
waitkey = str(someid)
acall(callback = (yield Callback(waitkey)))
response = yield Wait(waitkey)
raise Return(response)
def get_device_data(self, lst):
for someid in lst:
r = self._do_call(someid)
print 'response', r
But instead of HTTP responses as AsyncHTTPClient should return after .fetch, I'm getting this:
response <tornado.concurrent.TracebackFuture object at 0x951840c>
Why this is not working like examples in http://www.tornadoweb.org/en/stable/gen.html ?
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1 Answer
up vote 0 down vote accepted
Got this one solved. It appears that @coroutine has to be applied all the way down from the get/post method of your class inheriting from RequestHandler, otherwise @coroutine/yield magic does not work.
Apparently this is a case of Tornado newbiness combined with bad design on my part: according to a colleague one should not do "callback spaghetti" of nested @coroutine and yield()s, but rather move all the synchronous code out of request handler and call before or after async code it and have @coroutine call hierarchy flat rather than deep.
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
I have an object $this->user which is of model User. This object is populated by $this->Auth->user in my app controller like so:
$this->user = ClassRegistry::init('User');
Works like a charm. If I print_r out $this->user in my controller it gives me:
User Object ( [validate] => Array ( blah blah blah
A typical object. Now I have a Group model which belongs to a User, and users have many groups. These variables are properly set in the models. Now I want to find all Groups for this particular user who is logged in. So I tried this:
$groups = $this->user->Group->find('list', array('fields'=>array('id', 'group_name')))
The key is that I want to use $this->user to automatically filter the Group query based on the owner_id in $this->user. It makes sense to me that if I've got a specific object representing a user and I do a Group query based on that user ... it should only return the relevant groups.
The problem is that $groups contains all of the entries in the Groups table, rather than obviously the ones I only want from the current user. I don't see why I would need to add a "conditions"=>"user_id"=$this->Auth->user('id') parameter to the find function because I've already specified what user I'm using via the model chain.
Any ideas why this is not working? The sql statment it runs is simply a SELECT on Groups WHERE 1 = 1 (so not filtering at all).
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up vote 0 down vote accepted
No, the object User really acts more like a class than a object. You can say Cake doesn't fully implement Active Record pattern (I think Cake 3.0 may fix that, not sure). So yes, you still need to set the condition for the find. And you don't have to set($this->Auth->user);
You are probably not very familiar with Cake: in Cake, you hardly ever have to instantiate Model objects at all. They are created for you based on the current controller and model relationships that you specify.
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OK thanks for your answer. I am still learning cake, yes. The only reason I had that variable instantiated is because I wanted to use it in this manner - as that is not possible then you're right - I have no use for it. – MikeMurko Aug 26 '11 at 19:21
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
I thought that in principle haskell's type system would forbid to call impure functions (i.e. f :: a -> IO b) from pure ones, but today I realized that by calling them with return they compile just fine. In example:
h :: Maybe ()
h = do
return $ putStrLn "???"
return ()
Now, h works in the maybe monad, but it's a pure function nevertheless. Compiling and running it simply returns Just () as one would expect, without actually doing any I/O. I think haskell's laziness puts the things together (i.e. putStrLn's return value is not used - and can't since its value constructors are hidden and I can't pattern match against it), but why is this code legal? Are there any other reasons that makes this allowed?
As a bonus, related question: in general, is it possible to forbid at all the execution of actions of a monad from within other ones? How?
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up vote 18 down vote accepted
IO actions are first-class values like any other; that's what makes Haskell's IO so expressive, allowing you to build higher-order control structures (like mapM_) from scratch. Laziness isn't relevant here,1 it's just that you're not actually executing the action. You're just constructing the value Just (putStrLn "???"), then throwing it away.
putStrLn "???" existing doesn't cause a line to be printed to the screen. By itself, putStrLn "???" is just a description of some IO that could be done to cause a line to be printed to the screen. The only execution that happens is executing main, which you constructed from other IO actions, or whatever actions you type into GHCi. For more information, see the introduction to IO.
Indeed, it's perfectly conceivable that you might want to juggle about IO actions inside Maybe; imagine a function String -> Maybe (IO ()), which checks the string for validity, and if it's valid, returns an IO action to print some information derived from the string. This is possible precisely because of Haskell's first-class IO actions.
But a monad has no ability to execute the actions of another monad unless you give it that ability.
1 Indeed, h = putStrLn "???" `seq` return () doesn't cause any IO to be performed either, even though it forces the evaluation of putStrLn "???".
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How can I give a monad the ability to execute actions from another one then, by giving it the possibility to pattern match against the values it contains? – Riccardo Mar 22 '12 at 9:46
By writing methods that convert one monad into another, or do some execution. Control.Monad.ST.stToIO converts an ST computation into an IO computation, for example. – Louis Wasserman Mar 22 '12 at 10:08
Crystal clear. Thank you both! – Riccardo Mar 22 '12 at 10:33
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Let's desugar!
h = do return (putStrLn "???"); return ()
-- rewrite (do foo; bar) as (foo >> do bar)
h = return (putStrLn "???") >> do return ()
-- redundant do
h = return (putStrLn "???") >> return ()
-- return for Maybe = Just
h = Just (putStrLn "???") >> Just ()
-- replace (foo >> bar) with its definition, (foo >>= (\_ -> bar))
h = Just (putStrLn "???") >>= (\_ -> Just ())
Now, what happens when you evaluate h?* Well, for Maybe,
(Just x) >>= f = f x
Nothing >>= f = Nothing
So we pattern match the first case
f x
-- x = (putStrLn "???"), f = (\_ -> Just ())
(\_ -> Just ()) (putStrLn "???")
-- apply the argument and ignore it
Just ()
Notice how we never had to perform putStrLn "???" in order to evaluate this expression.
*n.b. It is somewhat unclear at which point "desugaring" stops and "evaluation" begins. It depends on your compiler's inlining decisions. Pure computations could be evaluated entirely at compile time.
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Dozens arrested for being gay in North Nigeria
Nigeria Anti Gay Law
By: Michelle Faul
The chairman of Bauchi state Shariah Commission, Mustapha Baba Ilela, told the AP that 11 men have been arrested in the past two weeks and charged with belonging to a gay organization. He denied anyone had been tortured and said all 11 - 10 Muslims and a non-Muslim - signed confessions that they belonged to a gay organization but that some of them retracted the statements when they were charged by a judge.
Jonathan has not publicly expressed his views on homosexuality.
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JAYKING53 January 15 2014 at 12:30 PM
But what if i don't believe in that story of adam and eve....youre going by a book! I think eveybody has a right to choose who they wanna be...it has nothing to do with jesus and moses who livedfor 800 years by the way (who wants to live that long)...our constitution was created to validate our principal rights, the simplicity of just bein human...we can not arrest people because they choose to be gay! It is wrong! But it is also wrong to accept two people of the same sex in marriage. marriage was created to glorify family, unity moral values...
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johngwc January 15 2014 at 12:02 PM
Nigeria has so much crime, and fraud, that to target the minority of gays for their personal lifestyle is ludicrous. The Muslims in Nigeria keep killing the Christians. Their soldiers keep killing the Muslims. People I knew who went their for business purposes swore that they would never go back.
In fact, the crimes are committed by heterosexuals, as 99% of crimes around the world are. When I read this I thought of Adolph Hitler, a mentally sick, depraved man, and what he did to the Jews and gays.
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blackrose_04 January 15 2014 at 11:59 AM
Im gay I have always been and always will b. Its not a damnd choice n Jonathan can kiss my ass....he just as ignorant as those that waist their to actually go and look for the lgbt. This law is the dumbest :)
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carljohnson994 January 15 2014 at 10:20 AM
I do not believe that people should be gay but, that is every ones choice. No government has the right to restrict the peoples rights. If the US and other countries would cut off aid to Nigeria in protest of this bill, Nigeria would come around. Not only that but the torture is unacceptable.
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LA is Best January 15 2014 at 9:47 AM
Maybe the "closet" would be safer for this perversion!
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LA is Best January 15 2014 at 9:42 AM
Nigeria is way ahead of the US!
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clovercuts January 15 2014 at 9:40 AM
Is it wrong for me to suggest there be a new country formed just for gay people. It could be called Gaytopia. North Gaytopia would be for men and south Gaytopia for women. But there would have to be a central Gaytopia for the greedys. Those would be the one's that swing both ways and for those that just like to dress up like the other team. Just think of all the fabulous parties.
It certainly would be a safer place to live. No marriages, no religion, no pregnancies, no self righteous bigots. no hate, no diamond rings and no egos.......wait, it wont work..... who would fix things when they break and who would takes sides in a fight....... I see to many problems here.
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1 reply to clovercuts's comment
Mr Money January 15 2014 at 1:49 PM
the new country can be called Upper Colon and the capital can be called Postateboro
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Marc January 15 2014 at 9:20 AM
- Denis Diderot
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fasakinolawale January 15 2014 at 9:19 AM
What benefits does LGBT acts provide for the society? What good do they serve? Afterall, 17% of Nigerian gay men are AIDS/HIV positive. Does it not clearly show it's a path to self destruct?
If people just understand that most of these LGBT people really need help and counseling, it will help the world a lot!
I have carefully followed the stories of those who claim to be any of LGBT over the years and have not seen any of them that stand out as extraordinary, anyone can correct me!
For all who say it's (LGBT peoples) wiring or genetic make up, most people are wired to have sex, why doesn't everyone have it on the highway?
Some people are wired to "smoke" dope, why do they go to prison?
Some people are wire to kill with guns, why does the law make their so called "wiring" illegal?
You can think of thieves as being wired so, afterall, it's in their gene, yet it is a criminal act that is punishable under the law. Why should aberration of nature be different?
If all people of the world choose to be any of the LBGT, how do the future generation come?
And moreover, why should anyone want all countries to go same way?
Americans have guns to commits homicide every now and then, but why doesn't every other country follow?
Some European countries legalized prostitution, why doesn't every country legalize it? How much different is it from LGBT?
People need to stop making mountain out of a mole hill, they should keep themselves busy with something else.
LGBT people really need help!!!
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2 replies to fasakinolawale's comment
Amnesty January 16 2014 at 2:37 AM
You're ignorant. What percentage of Nigerian NON-gay poulation are HIV positive? Nigeria has about the second largest HIV/AIDS population in the world - from only 17% LGBT. Countries with a much higher LGBT (out) count, have a much lower HIV/AIDS count - including the US. So, that connection is tenuous at best, and stupid at worst!
Also, why does my personal lifestyle and choices have to benefit society? What standard is that? What societal benefit does smoking have? Is it illegal?? Are we throwing smokers in jail?
Your simple-minded examples overlook one important point - all of these acts actually cause a direct HARM to society. That's what the law is for - to prevent/prohibit things that actually pose harm to others. NOT to legislate anyone's personal life!
It's not a "mountain out of a molehill". Let's see what happens when the stupids that run these backward countries try to legislate somethiing that actually touches YOUR life!
YOU really need help!
(From a heterosexual - just in case anyone wants to make an argument that only LGBT's are offended by this act!)
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1 reply to Amnesty's comment
nedu2008 February 02 2014 at 4:06 PM
You are the one who really need the help. Every sovereign country has the right to legislate how its people should live. If where ever you come condone such evil acts, good for you. But Nigeria and other countries alike will not condone such. I bet Nigeria is not a place for you to consider residing.
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nedu2008 February 02 2014 at 4:07 PM
Well said fasakinolawale..
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brucemar1960 January 15 2014 at 8:49 AM
The chairman of Bauchi state "Shariah" Commission, Mustapha Baba Ilela, told the AP that 11 men have been arrested in the past two weeks and charged with belonging to a gay organization......
I have a good idea let's boycott Israel...............duh.
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The predict executables (predictb and predictb) each fill in missing data in haplotype sequences. They also can attempt to correct for recent mutations when used with a prior recent mutation probability. The executables are called as follows: predict[b|g] [-i ] [-s ] -i : input sequence file name (default: stdin) -s : input motif file name (default: stdin) -m : prob of mutation (default: 0) -c : specifies correction of known sites inferred to be wrong Both take the same haplotype input, haplotype files described in README.files. Missing values are denoted by '?', 'X', or 'x' in these files. They both also take motif files, also described in README.files, as input. As output, they produce files of the same haplotypes with values filled in or corrected based on the motif input. The difference between the programs is in the algorithms they use to predict missing sites. predictb uses a local algorithm, in which each base is predicted based on the most probable motif covering it. predictg uses a global algorithm in which it finds the most probable complete parse of each haploid sequence and then fills in all missing bases based on the one parse.
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Simulink Design Optimization
Specify Custom Signal Objective with Uncertain Variable (GUI)
This example shows how to specify a custom objective function for a model signal. You calculate the objective function value using a variable that models parameter uncertainty.
Competitive Population Dynamics Model
The Simulink model sdoPopulation models a simple two-organism ecology using the competitive Lotka-Volterra equations:
$$\frac{d P_1}{dt} = R_1 P_1 (1 - \frac{P_1(t-\tau_1)+\alpha
P_2(t-\tau_2)}{K})$$
$$\frac{d P_2}{dt} = R_2 P_2 (1 - \frac{P_2(t-\tau_2)+\alpha
P_1(t-\tau_1)}{K})$$
• $P_n$ is the population size of the n-th organism.
• $R_n$ is the inherent per capita growth rate of each organism.
• $\tau_n$ is the competitive delay for each organism.
• $K$ is the carrying capacity of the organism environment.
• $\alpha$ is the proximity of the two populations and how strongly they affect each other.
The model uses normalized units.
Open the model.
The two-dimensional signal, P, models the population sizes for P1 (first element) and P2 (second element). The model is initially configured with one organism, P1, dominating the ecology. The Population scope shows the P1 population oscillating between high and low values, while P2 is constant at 0.1. The Population Phase Portrait block shows the population sizes of the two organisms in relation to each other.
Population Stabilization Design Problem
Tune the $R_2$ , $\tau_2$ , and $\alpha$ values to meet the following design requirements:
• Minimize the population range, that is, the maximum difference between P1 and P2.
• Stabilize P1 and P2, that is, ensure that neither organism population dies off or grows extremely large.
You must tune the parameters for different values of the carrying capacity, $K$ . This ensures robustness to environment carrying-capacity uncertainty.
Open Design Optimization Tool
Double-click the Open Optimization Tool block in the model to open a pre configured Design Optimization tool session. The session specifies the following variables:
• DesignVars - Design variables set for the $R_2, \tau_2$ , and $\alpha$ model parameters.
• K_unc - Uncertain parameter modeling the carrying capacity of the organism environment ( $K$ ). K_unc specifies the nominal value and two sample values.
• P1 and P2 - Logged signals representing the populations of the two organisms.
Specify Custom Signal Objective Function
Specify a custom requirement to minimize the maximum difference between the two population sizes. Apply this requirement to the P1 and P2 model signals.
1. Open the Create Requirement dialog box. In the New list, select Custom Requirement.
2. Specify the following in the Create Requirement dialog box:
• Name - Enter PopulationRange.
• Type - Select Minimize the function output from the list.
• Function - Enter @sdoPopulation_PopRange. For more information about this function, see Custom Signal Objective Function Details.
• Select Signals and Systems to Bound (Optional) - Select the P1 and P2 check boxes.
3. Click OK.
A new variable, PopulationRange, appears in the Design Optimization Workspace.
Custom Signal Objective Function Details
PopulationRange uses the sdoPopulation_PopRange function. This function computes the maximum difference between the populations, across different environment carrying capacity values. By minimizing this value, you can achieve both design goals. The function is called by the optimizer at each iteration step.
To view the function, type edit sdoPopulation_PopRange. The following discusses details of this function.
The function accepts data, a structure with the following fields:
• DesignVars - Current iteration values of $R_2, \tau_2$ , and $\alpha$ .
• Nominal - Logged signal data, obtained by simulating the model using parameter values specified by data.DesignVars and nominal values for all other parameters. The Nominal field is itself a structure with fields for each logged signal. The field names are the logged signal names. The custom requirement uses the logged signals, P1 and P2. Therefore, data.Nominal.P1 and data.Nominal.P2 are timeseries objects corresponding to P1 and P2.
• Uncertain - Logged signal data, obtained by simulating the model using the sample values of the uncertain variable K_unc. The Uncertain field is a vector of N structures, where N is the number of sample values specified for K_unc. Each element of this vector is similar to data.Nominal and contains simulation results obtained from a corresponding sample value specified for K_unc.
The function returns the maximum difference between the population sizes across different carrying capacities. The following code snippet in the function performs this action:
val = max(maxP(1)-minP(2),maxP(2)-minP(1));
Data Time Range
When computing the design goals, discard the initial population growth data to eliminate biases from the initial-condition. The following code snippet in the function performs this action:
%Get the population data
tMin = 5; %Ignore signal values prior to this time
iTime = data.Nominal.P1.Time > tMin;
sigData = [data.Nominal.P1.Data(iTime), data.Nominal.P2.Data(iTime)];
iTime represents the time interval of interest, and the columns of sigData contain P1 and P2 data for this interval.
Optimization for Different Values of Carrying Capacity
The function includes the effects of varying the carrying capacity by iterating through the elements of data.Uncertain. The following code snippet in the function performs this action:
for ct=1:numel(data.Uncertain)
iTime = data.Uncertain(ct).P1.Time > tMin;
sigData = [data.Uncertain(ct).P1.Data(iTime), data.Uncertain(ct).P2.Data(iTime)];
maxP = max([maxP; max(sigData)]); %Update maximum if new signals are bigger
minP = min([minP; min(sigData)]); %Update minimum if new signals are smaller
The maximum and minimal populations are obtained across all the simulations contained in data.Uncertain.
Optimize Design
Click Optimize.
The optimization converges after a number of iterations.
The P1,P2 plot shows the population dynamics, with the first organism population in blue and the second organism population in green. The dotted lines indicate the population dynamics for different environment capacity values. The PopulationRange plot shows that the maximum difference between the two organism populations reduces over time.
The Population Phase Portrait block shows the populations initially varying, but they eventually converge to stable population sizes.
% Close the model
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Generally favorable reviews - based on 33 Critics
Critic score distribution:
1. Positive: 31 out of 33
2. Negative: 0 out of 33
2. Reviewed by: Joel Selvin
A one-of-a-kind cinematic experience. This musician may not be a genius along the lines of Brain Wilson, as Feuerzeig claims, but Johnston has a knack for revealing innermost thoughts in an offhand way that is eerie and uncanny.
3. 100
The offhand wit and casual self-revelation of Johnston's best words draw you deeper into the mysteries of his character. Feuerzeig is a music-lover to his bones.
4. 91
By the time Feuerzeig gets to his final shot--an artful portrait of Johnston's parents, with their son looming over them like a curse--he's emerged with the most harrowing and aesthetically keen portrait of madness and artistic inspiration since "Crumb."
5. Whatever one's opinion of Johnston's art, this is documentary filmmaking at its finest.
6. 88
8. Reviewed by: Dan DeLuca
9. Reviewed by: Ken Fox
The casual listener is easily put off, but by the end of the film, even a newcomer can see the magic that made fans of Kurt Cobain and Sonic Youth and led the estimable Yo La Tengo, Pearl Jam and Wilco to cover Johnston's remarkable body of work.
10. A fascinating and lovingly crafted musical documentary that nevertheless misunderstands its own subject.
11. Chronicles the eerie and oddly inspiring story of Johnston's ongoing battles to survive - both as artist and human being.
12. 83
You wouldn't want to be Daniel Johnston, or even know him too well. But see this film and you won't forget him.
User Score
Universal acclaim- based on 16 Ratings
User score distribution:
1. Positive: 3 out of 4
2. Negative: 0 out of 4
1. Jun 10, 2011
I actually think Daniel Johnston was mis-diagnosed. I think he is on the autistic spectrum and originally had aspergers, but lack of understanding of his condition due to mis-diagnosis, accompanied by his drug use made his condition worse. He is totally a genius in what he was interested in, as are most people with aspergers. Full Review »
2. ChadS.
Dec 10, 2007
To the uninitiated, the lucky ones whose lives weren't destroyed by music snobbery, watch Stephen Frears' "High Fidelity" to understand indie fandom. It'll help you better deal with the guy who thinks that Daniel Johnston is better than Brian Wilson. He's not. Johnston is an acquired taste(you have to understand the aesthetics of indie-rock). His music is for people who thinks Jonathan Richman doesn't keep it real enough. "The Devil and Daniel Johnston", however, along with Jonathan Caouette's "Tarnation", is another stunning example of how the proliferation of home-movie cameras during the eighties produced a treasure trove of archival footage. Without it, you don't have a movie, because the subject matter wouldn't be interesting enough. If you're befuddled by the accolades thrown Johnston's way, think of how radical the Sex Pistols sounded next to Fleetwood Mac. Johnston doesn't play punk rock, but he captures that do-it-yourself spirit, which used to be the ethos of alternative music before "Teen Spirit" commodified amateurism. To the uninitiated, "The Devil and Daniel Johnston" will seem like an inside joke, or worse, a black comedy like Hal Ashby's "Being There". Full Review »
3. PaulJ.
Oct 29, 2006
The Devil and Daniel Johnston is a well enough done film, and benefits greatly from archival film from various sources, but ultimately is somewhat difficult to appreciate if you are not a manic music fan of some sort. You certainly do feel sorry for Daniel Johnston, his has been a rough life, and I give the filmmakers credit there, for this could easily degenerated into a "this guy was nuts" sort of thing. And if you get the DVD, whatch the extras, as parts of his obsessions are more fully explained. But ultimately, for the non-manic non-Dylan type music non-fan, the film gets a little tedious, so I don't regret watching it, but it was really not the best film of the year. Daniel Johnston has done some amazing things over the years, and you certainly get a good feel for what he's been through, and maybe just at the end appreciate the progress in treatment as you can see him clear up some (hopefully not at the loss of his art), but still a bit of a slog at times. Full Review »
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Sending the wrong signal
Twelve days after they first rolled in, Russian tanks are still in Georgia and show no signs of pulling out. A small column left the strategic town of Gori yesterday, but Russian troops were still in the Black Sea port of Poti, taking 20 Georgian servicemen at gunpoint, and still encamped at Igoeti, 27 miles from the capital, Tbilisi. Nor is this likely to change. Having signed a ceasefire agreement which requires it to pull back to the position it occupied before the Georgian attack on Tskhinvali on August 7, Russia continues to dismantle Georgia's military machine. Russian forces have not only occupied the areas of South Ossetia which were previously under Georgian control but drilled a large "security zone" around the enclave, occupying villages like Igoeti which were wholly Georgian.
Every day this occupation continues, Russia undermines its own case - which was to stop Georgia's ethnic cleansing of Ossetia. Every day Russian tanks rumble around Georgia, or greater Ossetia, is another day when Georgia's leaders claim that the real object of Russia's invasion is to dismember an independent and sovereign state. Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's ambassador to Nato, wrote in yesterday's International Herald Tribune that the Russian military did not "subject civil objects and civilians on the territory of Georgia to deliberate attacks". There are countless smouldering Georgian villages that say otherwise.
All of which obscures Georgia's historic aim to seize its breakaway provinces back by force. Georgia's previous attempts to solve its separatist conflicts with tanks and bombardments (they did it to South Ossetia in 1990-92 and Abkhazia in 1992-93) are glossed over by those who cast this conflict as a demonstration of Russian imperialism. Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Georgia's first post-Soviet president, claimed Ossetians only appeared in Georgia on the coat-tails of the Red Army's invasion in 1921. Georgia's current president, Mikheil Saakashvili, said in an interview with the BBC that the only Russian citizens in South Ossetia were the ones that Russia had just created by handing out passports. Each Georgian leader peddles the same myth, which is to deny Ossetians or the Abkhaz their history, identity and land.
Widen the field of vision, and what happened in South Ossetia could be repeated and amplified in the Crimea, a pro-Russian enclave that has always disputed its inclusion into Ukraine. Pull back the lens still further, and there are more than 8 million ethnic Russians in Ukraine, and 1.2 million in the Baltic states, where they are significant minorities in the populations of Estonia and Latvia. Old memories die hard. Last year a man was killed in a Russian demonstration in Tallinn after the Estonian authorities moved a Soviet-era war memorial. When former Baltic leaders write that Europe must stand up to Russia, what does that mean for sizable portions of their own populations? Sovereignty is not the only principle at stake. How successfully independent states cope with the legacy of their history also matters.
There was no international settlement when the Soviet Union broke up. The map could easily be redrawn again, and it is in no one's interests that it is done either by Russian tanks or by western security guarantees. Nato's eastward expansion must not only be judged by the benefits enjoyed by its new members, but by the reaction it causes elsewhere. It may have just shifted the line of confrontation eastwards. Without Russia's participation, Nato's ability to solve conflict in the Caucasus is limited. Its ability to spread it, however, is unlimited. Nato's decision yesterday to create a special consultative council for Georgia, and to suspend the one it has with Russia, may appear today to be a useful diplomatic lever. But in the long term the exclusion of Russia from the collective security arrangements of a region where millions of ethnic Russians live is a recipe for conflict.
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Philip Agee
CIA agent turned whistleblower branded a traitor by Bush
"Why did I leave the CIA?" the former agent Philip Agee, who died this week aged 72, once asked himself at a public meeting. "I fell in love with a woman who thought Che Guevara was the most wonderful man in the world."
It was this mixture of commitment and romance that was to characterise the man who was denounced as a traitor by George Bush senior, threatened with death by his former agency colleagues and deported from Britain as a threat to the security of the state.
Agee had left the CIA in 1969 after 12 years working mainly in Latin America, where he gradually became disgusted by the agency's collusion with military dictators in the region and decided to blow the whistle on their activities. The Mexico City massacre of student protesters in 1968 also stiffened his resolve. His 1975 book, Inside the Company: CIA Diary, spilled the beans on his former employers and enraged the US government, not least because it named CIA operatives.
To carry out his work, Agee moved to London in the early 70s with his then partner, Angela, a left-wing Brazilian who had been jailed and tortured in her own country, and his two young sons by his estranged American wife. He worked with the magazine Time Out and other publications to expose the CIA's work internationally. His activities had already alerted the then US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, who urged the prime minister, Jim Callaghan, to deport him.
Banished from Britain, Agee found the door closed to him in France and the Netherlands, and he faced prosecution and jail if he returned to the US where his passport was revoked in 1979. His relationship with Angela ended under the pressure and he met and fell in love with a well-known ballet dancer, Giselle Roberge. At her suggestion, they married, which gave him the right to stay in Germany. Until the time of his death, he lived between their home in Hamburg and an apartment in Havana. He continued his exposees of the CIA in the Covert Action Information Bulletin.
A former philosophy and law student from a comfortable Roman Catholic Florida family, who graduated from Notre Dame university in 1956, Agee had initially seemed perfect CIA material: bright, sharp-witted, bilingual and cultured. His career path seemed assured, but doubts about what he was asked to do soon set in.
He recounts his gradual disillusionment in On the Run, published in 1987. His former employers never forgave him and his movements and contacts were logged in incredible detail, as he later found out when he was able to return to the US and examine the archives on his case under the Freedom of Information Act. He was told that the CIA had had two or three people working on him full-time. "Such a waste of money," he said at the time, "because I don't do anything that's not public."
The CIA always tried to pin on Agee the death of Richard Welch, the CIA station chief in Athens, who was assassinated in 1975, although Welch was named not by Agee but in other publications. "George Bush's father came in as CIA director in the month after the assassination and he intensified the campaign, spreading the lie that I was the cause of the assassination," he recalled.
Having lost his US passport, Agee sailed under an intriguing number of flags of convenience. He held a Grenadian passport briefly, after helping that country's then radical government in 1980, and later in the eighties a Nicaraguan one, which the Sandinista government gave him. When the government changed there in 1990, he finally acquired a German passport.
He went back to the US where his two sons, Phil and Chris, live, both in New York. He often spoke of them with pride and some regret. "There was a price to pay," he said of his deportation. "It disrupted the education of my children and I don't think it was a happy period for them."
The Major government lifted the British ban on him and he also returned to the UK and elsewhere in Europe, still campaigning, most recently on the case of the Cuban Five, the five Cubans jailed in Miami on espionage charges.
In the 90s, he set up a travel business,, in Havana, where he was a familiar figure; he was described by the Cuban daily Granma today as "a loyal friend of Cuba". Initially, his clients came from the US, but Americans are now forbidden by law from visiting Cuba and can be fined heavily if caught, so his more recent customers have come from Europe and Canada.
It was in Cuba that he died after an operation for a perforated ulcer, having been admitted to hospital just before Christmas. He had recently had surgery for a tumour on his face, but remained sociable and happy to talk over a meal and a bottle of wine about his confrontations with authority.
"I never stopped what I started in London," he told me when we met up again in Hamburg last year, "and I don't expect to stop till I'm dead." In that, as in his determination to expose the CIA's role in the scandals of Latin America, he remained true to his word. He is survived by Giselle and his sons.
· Philip Burnett Franklin Agee, ex-CIA agent, whistleblower, author, born July 19 1935; died January 7 2007
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Scapulation dumping refers to the process of dumping scapula’s. Little is known about Scapula’s (from the latin word Scapulaiincredabilous) except that they are found at incredible depths within the worlds oceans. It is within their home environment that they creep and crawl over the ocean floors gathering the bubbles from shark farts.
Deep sea trawlers net the scapulas, extract the shark farts and encapsulate them in a vat of spirits which are ultimately sold to the manufacturers of spirit levels and used for the bubbles found within those levels.
Extreme caution must be applied throughout the action to avoid the shark farts entering the seamen’s blood stream and causing “the bends”.
The Scapula’s are not harmed during the process and are dumped back into the sea once their valuable cargo’s are extracted hence the expression “scapulation dumping”.
Prof J.S. Miller
Scapulation Dumping refers to dumping scapula's and is associated with production of Pioneer Brickies Levels
by Ormbo January 22, 2008
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Words related to Scapulation Dumping refers to dumping scapula's:
dumping farts levels scapula sharks
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Found December 05, 2012 on Red's Army:
PLAYERS: Kris Humphries
TEAMS: Brooklyn Nets
It’s very appropriate that the 9th Gang Green episode of the season has a lot to do with #9. The fellas debate the suspension, how crappy it is that a silly pushing match resulted in a suspension, and where Kris Humphries ranks on Dave’s “most hated list.” The word “gonads” is also used. Game time is around the corner… enjoy the episode until Rondo makes his return.
Doc says Rondo is “a grown man”
Rajon Rondo Gives The Best Interview Of 2012
Rajon Rondo slaps around Kris Humphries and gets suspended for two games. So what does he do? Goes to Mexico, of course! Below are a handful of questions and answers between reporters and Rondo from earlier today about his suspension and how he spent his “time off”. Question: What did you do….what was on your agenda? Answer: “I went to Mexico….couple of days, watched...
Rondo Didn’t Learn Anything From 2-Game Suspension
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AN: Obviously the characters are not mine and I am not making money off of them. If I was I likely wouldn't have left this on my harddrive for so long without posting.
Stockholm, Sweden
May 15, 1986
The rhythmic thumping of the base assaulted his hearing as the bouncer opened the doors to let him in. Bodies packed together on the dance floor of the club to sweat off the week's labors. Shifting uncomfortably, Jack cursed the wardrobe people at the CIA for insisting he wore the skin-tight leather pants and t-shirt. He had decided earlier that night that he hated the eighties.
The club rocked with vibrations as the foreign music boomed from countless speakers around the room. Blue, green, purple, red and white lights danced off the slick hard forms moving in the center; a headache was beginning to form around his eyes.
It had been labeled a simple mission and been given to Jack as way of thanking him for the hard work he had been doing for the agency in recent years but tonight it was an annoyance. With a stiff drink ordered he began to make his rounds of the room; there was to be an information exchange about the recent assassination of Sweden's Prime Minister.
His Swedish was passable but not as fluent as many of the other agents, which begged the question, why was he sent? The thought lingered long enough to be counted as coincidence and discarded. With a quick glance at his watch, he realized there were ten minutes free before he was to meet the contact and with the show the patrons were putting on, Jack decided to use his time wisely.
Another cursory sweep of the club drew Jack's eye to the varied levels of platforms holding male and female clubbers, interested in showing off their talents. A few of the platforms housed poles of the stripper variety though no stripping was taking place.
The dancer on the pole closest to him kept his attention as she had with many of the men in the room. Her long legs wrapped around the metal pole with ease and moved with it as though it was a student waiting to be taught. She appeared lost in the world of the music and dance making Jack envious. When the dancer turned and threw her head back to rid her eyes of offending brown tresses, Jack's hand closed more tightly around his drink.
Her superiors obviously thought this was entertaining. Irina rolled her eyes at the outfit she was currently sporting. Her skirt was short and tight, allowing for her bent movements on the pole; her shirt was similarly tight with a scoop neck that barely concealed her breasts.
A mission of simply gathering information had been blown out of proportion, leaving her to flirt with a metal bar. Her contact was supposed to be at the club in ten minutes, which was ten minutes too long in her estimation. The lights and music were starting to get to her, closing her eyes, she tried to wish the assaulting noise away.
Moisture beaded on the surface of her smooth olive skin creating thousands of prisms around her. Eyes poked and prodded her from their places on the floor, no doubt wishing they could replace the pole. And she didn't blame them; she wanted the pole replaced as well, only none of the eager men in the club would due to satisfy her specific craving.
Wrapping her leg around the pole, she tipped herself back, continuing to move with the annoying music. She felt someone edging toward her, a brave soul. Her hands clutched the warm surface of the brushed steel as she unwrapped her leg and placed it on the platform. She didn't have the time or the patience to deal with a lust struck idiot who was going to spend half his time gawking at her.
Letting go with one hand, Irina sunk down to a squat and turned to face her latest suitor with a feral grin. Her legs wobbled with sudden weakness as her eyes landed on one of the most recognizable faces of her lifetime.
Before either of them could get past the bitter lumps in their throats, another woman jumped onto what appeared to be an empty platform, sending Irina forward into Jack.
Thick, muscular arms encircled her waist to stop her from meeting the floor in an unfortunate pile. Jack reconciled his reflexes were the only thing that caught Irina instead of helping her to the floor.
"I don't think we've yet been properly introduced." Jack released her as though burned.
"Jack," she breathed.
"Of course, I'm mistaken. You're well acquainted with me but I'm afraid I can't say the same." The lights in the club flashed over his harden features every two seconds making her wonder if he was actually standing in front of her.
"What are you doing here?" She felt hot and cold at once, his body igniting a flame the look in his eyes quickly put out.
"I'm sorry, I don't believe I got your name." For a moment Irina toyed with the notion that he didn't recognize her but the grip he had on her arm told a different story.
"Irina Derevko. My name is Irina." The words were picked up and carried away by the music blanketing them, but they managed to make it to their only important destination.
"So Irina tell me, what are you doing in a place like this…. And not six feet underground?"
"Jack, I can't do this right now. I have to-" she turned, ready to flee but his stronghold on her arm ceased any movement.
"Run and I'll shoot you," he growled then ran his gaze over her appreciatively. "I know you're not carrying but I am, so we do this my way." A man bumped into him from behind, jarring Jack and Irina.
"I'm terribly sorry. It's these new American shoes," the man spoke in Swedish.
"They're nice shoes," Jack replied in the same language without looking down.
"We don't have much time," the man said in accented English. "Do either of you speak Swedish?" He hoped to make things go quicker by speaking in his native tongue.
At the man's words Jack remember he still had Irina's arm firmly in his grasp. "Not particularly well."
"He's a busy man; not nearly enough time to learn another tongue," Irina said in flawless Swedish. Jack spun to look at her in amazement, not sure why anything she did now should surprise him.
"I'd rather we conduct this meeting in English." Jack sat Irina down beside him in one of the dark corners of the club.
The meeting proceeded with no further interruptions leaving Jack with the necessary intel on the assassination of Prime Minister Palme. Once they were finished, Jack pulled Irina up and thanked the man kindly before exiting the club.
"Where are you taking me?" Irina finally asked, shivering in the cool night air.
"Shut up," he ordered, pressing his fingers deeper into the flesh of her arm, likely bruising the tender skin.
"I know you must have questions and if you just slow down for a second-"
"I said shut the fuck up." He refused to look at her, hurrying them along the wet streets of Stockholm.
"Inside," he bellowed, pulling open a back door to a building. They walked up five flights of stairs before Jack stopped them. He opened the heavy metal barrier onto a hall of doors, each proclaiming their number on the front.
Shifting nervously beside him, Irina remained unsure of what was happening. She had completed her mission by getting the intel the CIA wanted but it didn't look like she would be relaying that message to her superiors in the near future. For Irina, it didn't matter how uncertain Jack's actions had left her, she was simply relieved to see him; pleased to once more be in the familiarity of his presence.
"Move," he spoke again, catching her off guard. He had unlocked one of the doors while keeping his hold on her.
"Jack, I want to-"
"I don't care what the fuck you want," he snarled. "I told you to shut up."
Irina blinked at him, suddenly scared to move. It had occurred to her while in prison that Jack would not be the same after she left but she assumed he would eventually move forward.
"I suppose I should be surprised that you're even alive but nothing in this business seems to surprise me anymore," he seethed through the words. "You and I both know what you are, you're a whore." She looked away from his reproachful stare until he grabbed hold of her chin and forced her eyes to meet his. "It's okay," his words softened although they maintained their bite, "I need a whore tonight."
Irina sucked in a quick breath before Jack's lips attacked hers; they parted effortlessly with recognition of the other's mate. Hands probed through her hair and down the sides of her breasts. She flattened herself against Jack and ground into his groin. The substantial erection hidden beneath his clothes held no mystery as to where the night was going.
"I want everything off," Jack said against her neck, gnawing at the skin exposed there. First her t-shirt than his came off, followed shortly by her bra. "You can talk now." He reared back to watch both his hands cover her round breasts.
A ghost of a smile claimed her mouth at his request, or demand if she were so inclined. Jack had told her countless times that he loved the sound of her voice when they made love, it seemed only natural she would speak to him now. But now was not a time for truths.
"I like your pants," she finally decided on.
"I didn't pick them out." His mouth descended over one nipple, sucking greedily. There was no rhythm to his movements, just blind need. As if he had heard her thoughts, his sucking slowed and his tongue jutted out to tease her nipple into a stiff point before smoothing his tongue back over it.
"You should- you should take them off before they get ruined. I'm sure the agency would be angry if we ripped them or left any stains that wouldn't come out," her voice grew dark and husky, moaning over his delicious mouth.
"What are you doing here?" He asked.
"Same as you. Information gathering on the assassination of Palme." Her answer didn't interest him as he pulled her impossibly closer to him.
The only light filtered into the room from the harbor off in the distance. But Jack's eye had no trouble seeing the flesh of the woman before him. He wouldn't give her a name, tonight she would only be his whore.
He kicked away his pants and fell to his knees before her, moving her hands away from her sides. Irina helped him by putting them over her head, exposing herself to his greedy hands and mouth.
Moving to sit onto the bed, Jack took a breast into his mouth again, commanding control of the situation. Irina felt the need to dominate emanating off the man before her in waves and relaxed into complacency. While his mouth attended to her breasts, his hands slipped off her skirt and panties, already soaked through.
She moved to straddle his prominent erection but his punishing grip on her hips stopped her.
"No," he said firmly, fire burning from lust and anger through his voice.
For a moment Irina felt fear. She wasn't sure if it was at the idea of Jack wanting to finish what they had started or seeing Jack teetering on the precarious precipice of total control and none at all. Before she could discern a clear answer in her head, he had her on her knees in the middle of the bed with her back turned to him.
Heat from her neck to knees told her Jack had joined her but kept himself from touching her skin. His hands once again found her breasts, teasing and taunting her nipples while he ground deliciously behind her.
One hand disappeared from her breast and she wondered at it, until she felt warm fingers probing her wet folds. He was checking to make sure she was ready for him; more than most whores would receive, she thought candidly.
She tensed momentarily when she realized the significance of the position Jack had chosen. He didn't want to look at her while he fucked her. He couldn't.
With that thought she relaxed again before Jack noticed her mind had drifted. After everything she had done TO him, this she would do FOR him. She could be his whore for one night. She mentally kicked herself for her naivety – she could be his whore for one MORE night. Without any more preamble Jack plunged into her; one hand squeezing her breast the other steadying on her hip. Irina's muscles clenched and screamed at having Jack invade them again before memory took over, recognizing the long lost lover.
Jack pounded into her for pleasure and punishment and everything in between. As minutes passed Irina realized all she had lost when she left her life in America. And with Jack surging into her she recognized the one thing that she most regretting losing was the man Jack Bristow used to be.
The man who had loved his wife and daughter.
The man who cared more for her needs than his own.
The man who didn't need a whore.
Hands firmly planted on the bed sheet to balance, Irina was unable to wipe at the tears journeying over her cheeks.
Then suddenly she felt something cool and wet land on her naked back. Again, moments later, another cool droplet splattered gently between her shoulder blades. Then they came faster.
And Jack was crying with her – or was she crying with him? She couldn't be sure with all the lies and deceit flanking them.
Jack stopped moving, buried inside his traitorous wife, unable to finish yet equally unable to leave her warmth. His mind was reeling, his heart torn and his cock frustrated.
Feeling his hold on her loosen, Irina pulled from him and turn herself over beneath him. Jack's arms dropped to the bed to keep himself up but his head remained bowed, leaving Irina with a view of only his hair. She slid down the bed enough to have him positioned between her legs. In the same second she reached down to return him deep inside her and up so their eyes could meet.
Jack noticed her tears before he could be embarrassed by his own. "Did I hurt you?" He asked out of care or instinct she wasn't sure.
"No," she whispered as though the night may hear her truths and share them with her enemies. "My tears are not for me," she offered no other explanation, knowing with certainty it would not be welcome.
Irina leaned up and kissed the tracks of tears marring his face and urged him to move within her at the same time. Her lips were soft and careful in their caress; afraid if she pressed too hard he would vanish.
Her eyes managed to capture his in the dark for the first time that evening and hold them. She thought she was strong enough to give him a whore for the night but she was wrong. Their movements were slower as Jack did his best to read her gaze. Irina watched the myriad of emotion parade through him; she seemed to be watching the amalgamation of Laura and Irina in Jack's mind in a matter of minutes. As the resolve settled into the brown orbs of the man she once called 'husband' he leaned down to place a gentle kiss on her lips, savoring their taste. And she cried.
Jack's pace became disjointed and labored the closer they both came to their release. She held his head steady to ensure he would see her release; see the truth for what it was and could be. Her walls tighten around him and fluttered just was his balls tensed and released the white hot pleasure coiled inside.
The unlikely lovers collapse into one another, needing for the passion shrouding them to remain.
Jack shifted back a little, spreading her legs wider with his knee, he lavished attention onto her chin, neck and stomach, winding a path down her heated body. With lightning speed one of his hands dropped from her waist, inserting two long fingers into her vagina. The two digits were instantly ensconced in the soaking wet heat of her desire.
"No weapons in there," his guff voice was muffled against her stomach.
"That would be quite a trick." The receding darkness of his mood rubbed against her consciousness determined to be understood.
"No trick is beyond you."
"Such confidence in my abilities Jack," she taunted but ran a hand through his tousled hair to ease its delivery.
"You're supposed to be dead," he said finally, not lifting his head from its pillow on her skin.
"I'm supposed to be a lot of things but I've never been very good at doing what I was supposed to do." She kept her voice low, still fearful of the secrets the darkness could learn.
"She misses you," he spoke after a short silence; his meaning clear.
Irina had to close her eyes against the violent assault of Jack's words. "She'll soon forget about me. I'll be someone she thinks about once a year when there is no one there to give a Mother's Day card to." She tried to convince herself but bless Jack, he realized it.
He glanced up at her eyes, closed tightly in pain while her body lay supple and at ease. The simple hatred he had felt for this woman for years before suddenly became far more complicated than he ever thought possible.
"You're probably right," he agreed, knowing it was only for her benefit. "But what about me?" Irina caught her breath at his bold declaration.
"You'll always miss your wife; you loved her more than she ever knew a person could love and she found herself loving you the same." She ran her fingertips down his face. "Tomorrow, when you wake up you'll move on knowing you had one more night with her and maybe years from now you'll remember the night in Sweden when you met a Russian woman named Irina who could have loved you as much as your wife. But for tonight, I'm merely a ghost," she whispered with simplicity.
"Now sleep," she urged his head back down, closing her own eyes against the reality of the morning.
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Harry stepped into the cool interior of Professor Dumbledore's office, amazed that it looked exactly he same as the last time he had visited. The silver trinkets still rested on their spindly-legged table, the portraits were snoozing in their frames, and Fawkes' perch stood in the same spot, though devoid of bird.
Harry sighed, walking over to the armchair facing Dumbledore's desk and sat down, looking up at the snoring portrait of Hogwarts' previous the right of Albus Dumbledore was Snape, who was watching his every move with disinterest.
Harry sighed again. The office felt... Empty. Not right for Hogwarts. Then again, everything had changed during he battle.
"Did you feel this empty here?" Harry asked Snape's portrait softly, emerald gaze directed at the potions teacher. Snape nodded, leaning back in his own black armchair and beginning to doze off.
The silence pressed in. Harry considered falling asleep. The gargoyles outside wouldn't let any students disturb him.
Suddenly, the staircase began to rumble behind him, but Harry ignored it with a pang of annoyance, sinking further into the chair. He didn't want to talk to anyone at the moment.
"Harry" A deep voice said. Harry turned around to see Kingsley Shacklebolt staring at him. He could see the grief and fatigue on the older man's face.
"Congratulations" Harry said tiredly. Kinsgley smiled. Sometime during the battle, an owl had found its way in among the wreckage and delivered the message that Kingsley was now temporarily named Minister of Magic.
"I'm here to ask something" Kingsley said, nodding his head. Harry raised his eyebrows.
"I have received another owl from the Ministry, with a message to relay to you. May I take a seat?" Harry nodded, waving a hand to the other armchair, which scooted itself to face Kingsley.
The older man sat down with a sigh of relief. Harry leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling.
"I am here to ask you if you will consider taking up the position of Minister of Magic" Harry sat up so fast that his armchair wobbled under him.
"What?" He asked, eyes as wide as saucers.
"The position of Minister, Harry. Your actions leading up to and during the battle proved your worth of the position" Harry just blinked at Kingsley.
"I-I don't think I could handle that kind of responsibility... You're much more suited for the job" Kingsley sighed, leaning his elbows on his knees.
"I sent the owl to the ministry requesting approval for to name you Minister, Harry. Not because you killed Lord Voldemort, but because I saw the kind of leadership that this world needs"
Harry was lost for words. Him, minister?
"Will you help me?" Harry asked, meeting Kingsley's unwavering gaze. The Auror nodded solemnly.
"You're not a boy anymore, Harry. I have faith that you can do this" Kingsley stood, and Harry followed suit, looking up at Dumbledore and Snape, who had both woken up sometime during the conversation.
Dumbledore was beaming, and Snape was nodding. Harry smiled, nodding in respect to both headmasters, then followed Kingsley out of the room.
As they walked through the ruined corridors of Hogwarts, it occurred to Harry that he wouldn't see Hogwarts again for a long time. He did his best to remember the halls as they had been before the war, stopping to press his hand to certain spots he had fond memories of.
As the two went into the Great Hall, all heads turned to watch them. Harry hung on Kingsley's heels.
"Say your goodbyes, we'll have to go to the ministry for a few days" Kingsley said over his shoulder.
Harry moved to the Weasleys and Hermione, who were still huddled around Fred.
"Looks like i'll be gone for a while, guys." Harry said, looking at his adoptive family.
"Where you going, mate?" Ron said, wiping his face and putting his arm around Hermione. Harry looked at Kingsley, who nodded.
"I've been asked to become Minister of Magic" Harry said. Everyone around him went dead silent. The Weasley's jaws all dropped.
"Wow, Harry" Hermione said, grinning.
"Yeah, wow" Ron said, smiling as well. Ginny stood up and circled around her family to hug Harry.
"Come back to the burrow when you can" She whispered, pecking his lips. Hermione followed suit, hugging her friend. Then the rest of the Weasleys stood, wrapping their arms around him so Harryw as in the center of a giant hug.
"We love you Harry, you'll make a good minister for us all" Mrs. Weasley said tearfully.
Someone started clapping, and pretty soon the Great Hall echoed with applause for the boy who lived.
"Long live Harry Potter" Kingsley shouted above the din. Others joined in, shouting wishes of luck and love to him.
Harry was stunned.
Absolutely stunned.
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McGee and Ziva discovery that a couple of hours of peace and quiet stolen while on the job comes with a price. Second warning: If you like McGee and Ziva, you might want to pass on this story.
Disclaimer: Just borrowing them for a little fun.
Second story offered up for what I hope is your enjoyment. Unlike the first story, this one isn't quite finished yet, so it won't be updated as quickly. Thanks to Scousemuz1k, Binky, and SASundance for feedback, suggestions, and encouragement. All booboos are mine.
Chapter 1
A sharp tapping on both car windows sounded loudly in the peaceful quiet.
Jerking awake from a half doze, Ziva dropped the book she'd been holding then stopped her reflexive reach for her weapon at the sight of a gun barrel pointed straight at her head from a couple of feet away. Next to her, McGee was slower to respond, engrossed in his technical journal, but as his eyes opened wide at the sight of the handgun's barrel taking dead aim at him from the other side of the closed car window he dropped the magazine and raised his hands.
As quickly as she'd frozen, Ziva reverted to her default setting of annoyance, and rolled her eyes, starting to drop her hands. The gun's holder cocked it, and his eyes narrowed as he commanded loudly, "Keep your hands in sight!"
McGee said nervously, "Ah, Ziva, I think you should do what they say. They're a bit nervous and might just…"
Ziva interrupted him, yelling back at the man, "We are federal agents! I suggest you put your weapons away before we…"
"Ziva! Just do what they say for now. We can set this right easily enough without causing a problem. Gibbs will kill us if we attract attention."
Scowling, Ziva raised her hands vowing to kill McGee with a half a paperclip if these cops didn't back off and leave them alone quickly.
Both the car doors were jerked open and they were ordered to exit the car and place their hands on the top of their car. McGee quickly complied, hoping Ziva would just do what she was told to for once. As the cop on his side of the car spotted his Sig holstered at his waist, she yelled at her partner, "Gun!"
Eyeing the cop who stood just out of range, Ziva slowly, insolently turned to put her hands on the car top. She told him, "We are federal agents. Put that gun away before I rip it from your hands and shove it down your throat."
The officer didn't bat an eye at her threat, "Keep your hands on the car, Miss. If you are who you say you are, then we will find out soon enough. Until then, you will do as you're told."
Fuming, Ziva stared over her shoulder at the cop who spoke. Miss? Miss?
McGee squeezed his eyes shut and prayed that the officer wouldn't shoot first and ask questions later if Ziva didn't calm down.
Within a minute, McGee and Ziva were both disarmed though in Ziva's case, the four knives in addition to her Sig Sauer and backup weapon seemed a bit excessive even to McGee. Since McGee had been reasonable and complied with the officer's orders quickly and without fuss, he remained uncuffed. Ziva, however, tried once to resist when being disarmed and had been surprised when the cop expertly countered her moves. As a result, she was not only in cuffs, but she was unable to attempt to free herself as the cop kept a restraining hand on the cuffs, not leaving her unattended. It was obvious that Ziva hadn't made herself popular with them. McGee silently sighed with relief when the two cops remained professional in spite of the eyerolls and less than cooperative attitude of his fellow agent.
The older of the two officers, a graying and lean man whose watchful eyes and controlled expression gave away little of what he was thinking, passed Ziva's credentials to his partner, a younger woman whose friendly disposition put McGee at ease. The officer returned to the police cruiser to call in and confirm their identities.
The officer commented, "You're making the neighbors here nervous by sitting in your car for a while now not doing much of anything. They're big on neighborhood watch here. I doubt the feds have such bottomless resources as to let the two of you sit idly in a car in the middle of a gated neighborhood for hours. Care to share what you're doing?"
Ziva looked him up and down over her shoulder, and snorted, "You do not need to know."
McGee turned to her, and scolded her in a low voice, "Ziva, you don't need to antagonize them! They're just doing their job. Cut it with the attitude." He forced himself to not step back as she glared at him sharply.
Turning to the officer, he tried to compensate for Ziva's rude manner, embarrassed at her behavior as well as being caught out with no warning. "We're working a murder investigation. Our partner's out canvassing the neighborhood posing as someone interested in buying a house in the area. We're gathering voice recordings of the residents to compare to a message we have on voice mail. We're hoping that we'll get a match and identify the man who left the voice message."
"What's your interest in the man who left the message?" The cop shifted closer to the car, eyeing the interior through the open front doors, still not removing his hand from the cuffs around Ziva's wrists to her frustration.
McGee spoke before Ziva could, seeing she was ready to impatiently snap at the officer, "He's a person of interest in the murder of a Naval officer. We have reason to believe that he may live in this neighborhood, and just want to ask him some questions at this time."
The other officer returned, handing the IDs to McGee with a "They check out," to her partner.
As soon as Ziva as uncuffed, she immediately retrieved her weapons. "If you are satisfied, you can leave. We do not need your presence here attracting any attention."
With a non-committal smile that didn't reach his eyes, the first officer stared at her, not moving an inch. "Where's your partner? We'll avoid the area he's in and let the other patrols in the area know what's up so you won't be bothered again."
Irritated at the officer for not leaving, Ziva said, "We do not know exactly where he is, but he should be returning soon."
Raising an eyebrow, the man asked, "Takes three of you to gather voice recordings? Seems like it'd be a one person job."
McGee leaned into the sedan and turned on the receiver, catching Tony's slightly breathless voice as he called out to 'jogger people'. "Yeah, but you never know when something might come up - gotta cover each other's backs." Eyeing his watch and doing some quick calculations in his head, he told the officers, "Tony should be back within the next 15 minutes – he's been working his way back in this direction. It'd be great if you could avoid the area for another half hour or so until we finish."
The woman officer said in a quiet aside to her partner that the agents couldn't hear, "How do you back up your partner if you don't know where he is?"
The older officer acknowledged his partner's comment with a quiet nod, then spoke to the two agents, "You need any help, just let us know." With that, the officers left.
McGee and Ziva exchanged glances, "Well, at least it was a break from the monotony, McGee."
Taking a deep breath and relaxing, McGee replied, "Yeah. I hope Tony's almost finished though. Wonder how much longer he's gonna be." With a yawn, he wandered around the car for a minute stretching his legs before joining Ziva inside, picking up his magazine and trying to find where he'd left off.
Later that evening, the older officer picked up the reports of the day's actions from the printer that he and his partner had finally finished. Damn paperwork was gonna be the death of him he grumbled quietly. As the two officers quickly sorted out and stapled together the incident reports, signing them, and eyeing the clock, the younger cop commented, "Wonder if those feds got anything useful. Be nice if they'd clue us in. Never know when we might stumble across something that'd help them out."
With a grunt, the older officer answered her, "Don't know many feds who'd give us the time of day."
As the woman pulled on her jacket, she said, "Want me to drop those off on my way out?"
"Nah. Gotta hit the john. I'll drop 'em off on the way. Get outta here and enjoy the rest of the evening."
"Ok. See you tomorrow then."
As he sorted out the last pages, he stopped to review the report on the feds. Snotty lady, he opined as he thought about Ziva. Her partner didn't seem too happy with her – even called her out on it. Waste of resources though for both to be there. One person would have been enough to cover their partner. Must be nice to have the resources to have two of them sitting around all day.
He wondered how their partner viewed them sitting in quiet solitude while he did the legwork…and how could they have been backing him up if the receiver had been off? He clearly remembered the man, McGee, turning it on just before they left. If that's how they ran things at this fed agency, he was glad he was a cop. Shaking his head at such a lapse in protocol and judgment, he picked up a pencil and wrote a quick note on the report, "Receiver not on. How could the two feds in the car back up their partner if they couldn't hear him and had no idea where he was?" Let some bean counter at their agency ponder that one, he thought.
Grabbing his jacket, he picked up the reports, turned off his desk lamp, and headed off, thinking of a nice cold beer and barbeque wings for dinner….
The following week, a manilla envelope containing a courtesy copy of the incident report from the responding PD arrived at the NCIS mailroom and was routed to a growing pile of low priority mail awaiting sorting and forwarding to the appropriate departments. Unfortunately, the two person unit that was responsible for this was only manned sporadically when the envelope arrived. One person was on maternity leave, and the other had unexpectedly transferred to Florida to care for an elderly relative who'd become incapacitated and needed living assistance.
The person hired to replace the staff member who'd resigned struggled through the backlog, but it took another two weeks before all the mail had been properly forwarded. The clerk, after reading enough of the report to check on the relevant associated case, was unsure where to send it. He was a newly minted paralegal and gung-ho on determining the mail routing based on his expensive and unseasoned education. Proud that he'd thought of it, he wondered if the report should be considered discoverable under the pretrial discovery process. But, who would know that answer? Should he send it to the legal department maybe?
Shrugging, he stuck a short sticky note on the report with his question and tossed it in the stack of mail heading to legal and promptly forgot about it.
Two days later, the report landed on the desk of a NCIS legal analyst. The analyst read the clerk's note, scanned the report, did a quick check on the case, and jotted a negative to the clerk's question. After adding a routing slip to send the report to the archives, she paused as she read the anonymous penciled comment. Dismissing it as irrelevant, and busy with other more pressing matters, she tossed it into the outgoing basket on her desk.
After lunch, the analyst picked up the outgoing stack of files and headed to the department's outgoing mail bin to send the items onward. She'd lifted her hand to drop the stack into the bin headed back to the mail room, then hesitated. Why had the receiver been off she wondered as she recalled the penciled note. Nothing had come of it since the investigative notes for that assignment hadn't mentioned anything extraordinary happening. But….thinking more on it she wondered, if the two field agents had been there to provide backup for Tony DiNozzo, why had the receiver been turned off?
Shaking herself mentally, she asked herself what business was it of hers? Gibbs had his own way of running his team, and maybe that was one of those special rules of his. And he certainly wouldn't remotely like anyone questioning how he ran his team. She didn't want to deal with him on anything. Nodding to herself, she tossed the stack into the bin and started to turn away.
An annoying internal voice spoke up even louder - why had the receiver been off? Darn it, she scolded herself, what difference does it make to me? Maybe there was a reason why it was turned off. But…she, like most people in the building, knew of Ziva David's temper, and how she didn't exactly like or respect Tony and wasn't all that careful about who might be around when she expressed herself on the topic. Surely she wouldn't have left Tony hanging out there without backup, would she? And surely McGee, who was sensible, wouldn't have let her get away with something like that. Right?
Why was this bothering her so much? She stood looking at the mail bin and knew that it was going to drive her nuts if she just let the report head to the archives. With a sign of exasperation, she pulled the report out of the pile and walked back to her desk. Darn it all, she was going to regret this, she just knew it.
She pulled up the investigation notes and started reading until she got to the section on the voice recordings. Reading and rereading the notes, she still found herself torn between thinking something was wrong with the receiver being off, and uncertainty as to whether she understood enough about field operations to know if there actually had been a good reason for what happened.
After several minutes of dithering, she came up with a compromise she thought she could live with. Making a copy of the report, she picked up a red pen and circled the penciled comment and put a big question mark next to it. Sticking it into a well-used interoffice envelope, she addressed it to the internal affairs office, but left the sending department field empty. Let them deal with it, she thought. If everything was kosher, then no harm, no foul. But if there was something to what had happened, then they'd get the blame for bringing it up, not her.
She returned the original report to the outgoing mail bucket, but walked down a floor to another department and tossed the envelope addressed to the IA department into their outgoing mail bin - nothing like a little careful camouflage and misdirection, just in case. Returning to her desk, she picked up another pile of work and tried to put the whole mess out of her head.
Two days later, the interoffice envelope containing a copy of the report ended up in the IA office on the desk of the agent who screened and routed incoming mail. Working her way through the stack, she finally opened the envelope and removed the report. A quick scan of the document slowed to a more detailed and careful reading. A third reading, interrupted by frequent cross-referencing of case notes on her computer took an intense hour of work.
Sitting back with a thoughtful expression, the agent organized her thoughts. Jotting down some notes on a legal pad, she finally picked up the phone and called the lead agent for the department. "Gabe? I have something that I think you should see. You busy?"
Hanging up the phone, she collected her notes and rose. With a deep breath, she headed off to the corner office….
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Prior to the adoption of Ord. 018178 on 07/19/2004, Section 2-474 read as follows.
(a) The head of the purchasing division is authorized to debar a person from consideration for award of contracts for any of the following reasons:
(1) Conviction of a criminal offense as an incident to obtaining or attempting to obtain a public or private contract or subcontract, or in the performance of such contract or subcontract.
(2) Conviction under state or federal statutes of embezzlement, theft, forgery, bribery, falsification or destruction of records, receiving stolen property, or any other offense indicating a lack of integrity or honesty which currently, seriously and directly affects responsibility as a city contractor or vendor.
(3) Conviction under state or federal antitrust statutes arising out of the submission of bids or proposals.
(4) Deliberate failure without good cause to perform in accordance with contract specifications or within the time limit provided in the contract.
(5) A recent record of failure to perform or of unsatisfactory performance in accordance with the terms of one (1) or more contracts; provided that failure to perform or unsatisfactory performance caused by acts beyond the control of the contractor or vendor shall not be considered a basis for debarment.
(6) Any other cause so serious and compelling as to affect responsibility as a city contractor or vendor, including debarment by another governmental entity for any cause listed in this article.
(b) The length of debarment shall not exceed three (3) years.
(c) The head of the purchasing division shall initiate a debarment by serving written notice of the debarment to the person he intends to debar. The notice shall set forth the specific grounds for the debarment and advise the person of his right to appeal. The notice shall be served by registered or certified mail or by delivering a copy of the notice to the person subject to debarment or his agent or employee. The debarment shall take effect ten (10) days after service of the notice unless an appeal is taken to the director of finance. If such an appeal is taken, the debarment shall not take effect until a final order upholding the debarment is entered by the director or until the appeal is dismissed by the appellant.
(d) Within ten (10) days after service of a written notice of debarment, the person affected by the notice may file a written request for a hearing before the director of finance contesting the debarment.
(e) The director of finance shall set the matter for hearing on the record within thirty (30) days of the receipt of a request for a hearing. At least ten (10) days notice of the hearing shall be given to the affected person and to the head of the purchasing division.
(f) At the hearing, each party shall have the right to call and examine witnesses, introduce exhibits, cross-examine opposing witnesses and impeach any witness. Oral evidence shall be taken only on oath or affirmation. All evidence shall be suitably recorded and preserved. The technical rules of evidence shall not apply, except the director may exclude evidence which is irrelevant or repetitious. Each party shall be entitled to present oral arguments or written briefs at or after the hearing.
(g) Within ten (10) working days of the hearing, the director of finance shall make written findings of fact and conclusions of law and issue a final order. Findings of fact shall be based upon competent and substantial evidence found in the record as a whole. A copy of the director's order, his findings of fact and conclusions of law, shall be delivered or mailed to the head of the purchasing division and to the affected person.
(h) An appeal from the director's order shall be to the circuit court pursuant to chapter 536, RSMo.
(i) Nothing in this section shall limit the authority of the head of the purchasing division to accept the bid which in his judgment is the lowest and best bid, or to reject any or all bids or to reject a bid on grounds which could have been used to debar the bidder.
(Ord. No. 13511, § 1, 11-16-92)
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O'Leary, John, stoneoutter , r.residence 232 O'Fallon
O'Leary, M.carpenter , National Iron Works
O'Leary, Patrick, policeman , r.residence 15 Myrtle
O'Leary, Peter, lab.laborer bds.boards 72 Lesperance
O'Leary, Timothy, lab.laborer r.residence es.east side 7th, bet.between O'Fallon
and Cass av.avenue
O'Malley, James, waiter , Everett House
O'Malley, John, clothing , 5 n.north Levee, r.residence 301 7th
O'Malley, John, jewelry and cutlery , 1 n.north Levee,
r.residence ns.north side Myrtle, bet.between 2d and 3d
O'Malley, Michael, barkeeper , Frank, D.Martin,
bds.boards Morgan, nw.north-west cor.corner 6th
O'Malia, James, lab.laborer r.residence n.north Levee, bet.between Ashley
and O'Fallon
O'Mallia, Thomas, teamster , r.residence al.alley bet.between 7th and
8th, Biddle and O'Fallon
O'Mar, Patrick, tanner , r.residence ws.west side 8th, bet.between Lancaster
and Lynch
O'Mara, Frank A.saloon , 7th, sw,cor.corner Chesnut,
r.residence Hieks, bet.between 7th and 8th
O'Mara, Jobn, lab.laborer Transfer Co.company freight depot , r.residence
14tb, bet.between Clark and Chouteau avs.
O'Mara, Patrick, lab.laborer arsenal, r.residence 8tb, be. Lynch
and Lancaster
O'Mealey, Michael, lab.laborer r.residence 276 n.north 2d
O'Meara, Patrick, stone contractor , r.residence 21st, nr.near
O'Meara, William, letter carrier , r.residence 95 Biddle
O'Neal, John, rivermau , r.residence 200 n.north Main
O'Neal, John, watchman , Barnum's Hotel, bds.boards
O'Neil, Bridget, wid.widow Waddingham, , r.residence bet.between Cherry
and Carr
O'Neil, Charles, lab.laborer r.residence 250 n.north 12th
O'Neil, Charles, riverman , r.residence ws.west side 6th, bet.between O'Fal-
lon and Cass av.avenue
O'Neil, Charles, student , Rohrer'S Commer-
Cial College, 55 and 57 n.north 4th
O'Neil, Cornelius, boot and Bhoe maker , 238 Mar-
ket, r.residence same
O'Neil, Cornelius F.physician , 169 Washington
av.avenue r.residence same
O'Neil, Dennis, lab.laborer r.residence ss.south side Carr, bet.between 21st and 22d
O'Neil, Elizabeth, wid.widow Patrick, , r.residence ss.south side Cherry, bet.between
Levee and Commercial
O'Neil, Frances, wid.widow Henry, , r.residence al.alley bet.between Wash and
Carr, 10th and 11th
O'Neil, Henry, bds.boards Monticello House, Washing-
ton av.avenue se.south-east cor.corner n.north 6th
O'Neil, James, r.residence 77 n.north 11th
O'Neil, James, barkeeper. Broadway Saloon
O'Neil, James, lab.laborer r.residence 80 Mound
O'Neil, James, lab.laborer r.residence 120 n.north 13th
O'Neil, James, lab.laborer r.residence Cozens, nw.north-west cor.corner High
O'Neil, James, steamboat captain , r.residence 304 Chesnut
O'Neil, John, barber and hairdresser , ns.north side Biddle,
bet.between Sth and 6th, r.residence ws.west side 7th, bet.between Biddle and
O'Neil, John, elk. Gay, Hanenkamp & Edwards ,
rooms Gay's buiidings. Pine, bw.cor.corner 2d
O'Neil, John, cooper , r.residence 234 a. 2d
O'Neil, John, salesman , H.O. Pearce & Co.company r.residence
158 4th, nw.north-west cor.corner Cerre
O'Neil, John, shipcarpenter , r.residence 75 Congress
O'Neil, Joseph, architect , r.residence 14 Orange
O'Neil, Margaret, wid.widow r.residence 192 Wash
O'Neil, Mathew, shoemaker , r.residence al.alley bet.between 9th and
10th, Biddle and O'Fallon
O'Neil, Michael, carpenter , r.residence 119 Morgan
O'Neii, Michael, lab.laborer r.residence al.alley bet.between Ashley and O'Fal-
lon, Collins and Broadway
O'Neil, Nicholas, lab.laborer r.residence we. Lewis, bet.between Smith and
O'Neil, Owen, cooper , r.residence 323 Morgan
O'Neil, Patrick, broommaker , bds.boards ws.west side 5th, bet.between
Wash and Carr
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
This seems like an ideal place to ask a question that has been keeping me confused for a little while now. But I apologize if I've posted in the wrong area.
My question is that I don't seem to understand the temperature trend that I am seeing from my temperature sensors. I'll start of with my setup: Essentially, I have a metal box with two temperature sensors. 1) Is mounted right at the base of the box [Temp Sensor #1] 2) The second temperature sensor is mounted 2 inches from the top of the box [Temp Sensor #2]. The box is about 6 inches in height.
I've placed a heating pad at the base of the box (Temp Sensor #1 lies right in the center of this pad. A graphic showing my setup:
I've also implemented a simple on/off temperature controller, that senses when the temperature goes above a certain set-point and turns off (hence you see the highs/lows for Temp Sensor #1).
As you can see from the image, the lower sensor (blue) has the peaks/troughs corresponding to when the heater turns on/off. The heater gets triggered every time the sensing temperature goes below the set point. What I don't understand is why the top sensor (red) has a periodically decreasing trend (it doesn't have highs/lows similar to the bottom sensor)? It doesn't seem to be affected by the heater turning on at all? Even though it is merely 4" away from the heater inside the metal enclosure.
I understand that Sensor#1 is probably changing immediately due to the heater very quickly affecting the metal base temperature via conduction. Whereas the second sensor is probably measuring the air around the metal enclosure at the top, and since air is an insulator, it takes longer to heat up. But there should be at-least some highs and lows I'd imagine. The continuous decreasing trend doesn't make any sense ...
Then, I suspected that perhaps my second temperature sensor was damaged. But that wasn't the case. I've tested both sensors and they work fine. Also here is a graph of the temperature trend, when I place the enclosure (with the sensors) in the freezer with no heater action. Intuitively as you can imagine, there is merely a decreasing trend for both sensors (shown below) due to the effect of the freezer:
Any suggestions please as to why I notice no temperature variation at Sensor #2 location when the heater turns on/off?
share|improve this question
Here is the trend with no heater and the freezer merely cooling: i47.tinypic.com/2430vp2.png , I couldn't post it in the original post since I do not have sufficient rep points. The heater pad type, I am using is this: winemakersdepot.com/Brewers-and-Wine-Making-Heat-Pad-P700.aspx – c0d3rz Jan 31 '13 at 0:32
I see when the heater is turned on an off, but when is the cooling activated? – mdma Jan 31 '13 at 1:32
What temp are you trying to stabilize at and is this metal enclosure insulated? Especially the lid. – brewchez Feb 2 '13 at 22:19
You've also inappropriately applied a linear fit to data that isn't behaving that way. You state that its a continuous decreasing trend. But it isn't, it has stabilize half way through the data collection period. – brewchez Feb 2 '13 at 22:24
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1 Answer
up vote 1 down vote accepted
It's to do with thermal inertia. If you look closely at the graph you'll see there are highs and lows for sensor #2 also - just much smaller than sensor #1, and they have the same period (time interval) as sensor #1, indicating they stem from the same heating oscillation.
You're of course right when you say that air is a poor conductor, and so it will essentially dampen the effect of the heater - there are rises and falls, just over a smaller, dampened range.
I'm not entirely clear on when the freezer switches on and why it would be on when the heater is also on, but it seems that's the case from the graph. Another reason for the imbalance is that the freezer has a far greater cooling effect than the 25W heater can heat. Most freezers are in the order of 120W or more, and have a Coefficient of Performance (CoP) of 2 or more when chilling to beer temperature, so you're getting about 240W of real cooling power vs 25W of heating power (resistance heating has a CoP <= 1) - so a 10:1 difference.
I imagine the main reason you're seeing any fluctuation in sensor 2 at all is because of the box, which confines the convection of heated air to within the box. I imagine if you removed the box and did the same thing, you'd see very little change in sensor #2 because of the large volume of cooler air surrounding it.
share|improve this answer
Hi mdma: The freezer is always switched on, it is never turned off. Also, I'm using a 120W heater instead, so the heating/cooling difference is not that large I think. If I go with the idea of thermal inertia, why is that the lower sensor (Sensor #1) changes so quickly then? Shouldn't it face the same problem? – c0d3rz Jan 31 '13 at 2:56
The lower sensor changes quickly because the rate of conduction through contact with #1 is much quicker than conduction through the air to #2. – mdma Jan 31 '13 at 2:59
Hmm, just one last question about this CoP. Why is that the CoP is greater than 1 in the case of cooling? – c0d3rz Jan 31 '13 at 20:59
The CoP for compressor/inverter systems like fridges and heating pumps because they are just moving heat from one place to another, so the net heat output can be higher than the energy consumed. With a resistance based heat pad, this turns electrical energy into heat, and so the amount of heat produced can never be more than the electricity consumed. – mdma Jan 31 '13 at 21:09
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tech-net archive
Re: Anti-Spoofing
EF> How does the kernel deal with datagrams arriving on the wire (or
EF> on a VLAN) that have my own IP as the originating IP?
I'm afraid this question was too basic for anyone caring to answer, but it's
somewhat queer to try out. Will such a datagram be passed up the stack?
IS> at the driver level and higher: in regular operation, it sees all multicast
IS> and broadcast originating from itself.
Does it see them once (incoming) or twice (outgoing and incoming)?
If (as I presume) it sees them twice: will ``keep state'' work on them? I.e.,
if i ``pass out keep state'' and ``block in'' them, will they pass?
And what about unicast datagrams (from me to me)?
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
Just wondering why
def move
world_switch(@pos_X += 1, @pos_X -= 1, @pos_Y += 1, @pos_Y -= 1)
def world_switch(do_on_north, do_on_south, do_on_east, do_on_west)
case @facing # => 'NORTH'
when 'NORTH'
puts do_on_north # => 1
when 'SOUTH'
when 'EAST'
when 'WEST'
Calling world_switch:
robot = Robot.new(0, 0, 'NORTH')
puts robot.instance_variable_get("@pos_X") #=> 0
results in changing nothing, I would like to increase or decrease instance variable @pos_X or @pos_Y
This is my initialize method
def initialize(pos_X, pos_Y, facing)
and that's how I create an instance of the class robot = Robot.new(0, 0, 'NORTH')
All help will be appreciated
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How do you call world_switch? The one above cannot run. And world_switch should not defined like that. Since it accepts only instance variables as parameters, we can omit them all. The self can provide access to them. – halfelf Sep 27 '12 at 9:31
1. It is better to use symbols rather than strings for switches. 2. You code will thrown an error because world_switch is called before it is defined. – sawa Sep 27 '12 at 9:34
updated a question, could you please review – Jackie Chan Sep 27 '12 at 9:39
ok, so what do you want to print? Now I get the output as 1 0, seems normal. – halfelf Sep 27 '12 at 9:45
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3 Answers
up vote 2 down vote accepted
The explanation for the current behaviour is as Chowlett described, but did you intend for your @pos_X += 1, @pos_X -= 1 etc in move to be blocks of code and then for exactly one of these to be called from world_switch depending on which way the robot is facing?
If so, move needs to be declared like this
def move
and then in world_switch you can do something like
case @facing # => 'NORTH'
when 'NORTH'
when 'SOUTH'
share|improve this answer
That would indeed make the current code work. I'm not sure it's the best way of doing it, though; do you really need world_switch to be so general that you can pass in what "step NORTH" means? – Chowlett Sep 27 '12 at 10:27
@Chowlett Agreed. It does seem overly complicated. Something along the lines of Matt's answer would be a nice, simple solution. It depends on whether the exercise is intended to be an example of a more general point, and also whether the OP is a bit unclear on at what point evaluation takes place when parameter passing. – mikej Sep 27 '12 at 10:45
Thanks Mikej, Procs... – Jackie Chan Sep 28 '12 at 0:17
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It does nothing because of the way you call world_switch. Ruby will evaluate each of the expressions you're passing as parameters before the call.
So, you call move with (say), @pos_X and @pos_Y both equal to 0. The Ruby does:
@pos_X += 1 # => @pos_X = 1; param 1 will be 1
@pos_X -= 1 # => @pos_X = 0; param 2 will be 0
@pos_Y += 1 # => @pos_Y = 1; param 3 will be 1
@pos_Y -= 1 # => @pos_Y = 0; param 4 will be 0
world_switch(1, 0, 1, 0)
Then world_switch switches based on @facing, and simply returns the value of the appropriate parameter. It doesn't change the instance variables at all.
I'm not sure I explained that all that clearly. Let me know if you need clarification.
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Explanation is good, thanks – Jackie Chan Sep 28 '12 at 0:13
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Adding to Chowlett's and mikej's answers (which nicely explain why your code isn't working). You could try something like this:
class Player
def initialize(position)
@position = position
def move(direction)
case direction
when :north
@position[:x] += 1
when :south
@position[:x] -= 1
when :east
@position[:y] -= 1
when :west
@position[:y] += 1
player = Player.new({:x => 0, :y => 0})
puts player.inspect
# => "#<Player:0x16c7ef8 @position={:x=>1, :y=>0}>"
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
I want to show folders with icons in my NSPopUpButton. It is common for popups that used for selecting path for file. I'm new user and i can't post images. U can see that for example in U Torrent->preferences->directories
Please provide detailed answer because I'm completely new at that.
Thanks a lot and sorry for my bad English
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1 Answer
up vote 0 down vote accepted
For each NSMenuItem in your menu, you need to set the appropriate image, calling setImage:
In short, you need to prepare your menu item, attach it to a menu, and attach the latter to your popup button, like so:
NSPopUpButton *yourButton = [[NSPopUpButton alloc] init];
NSMenu *yourMenu = [[NSMenu alloc] init];
NSMenuItem *menuItem = [[NSMenuItem alloc] initWithTitle:@"some label" action:nil keyEquivalent:@""];
NSImage *iconImage = [[NSWorkspace sharedWorkspace] iconForFile:@"yourFilePath"];
[iconImage setSize:NSMakeSize(16,16)];
[menuItem setImage:iconImage];
[yourMenu insertItem:menuItem atIndex:0];
[yourButton setMenu:yourMenu];
Note the use of iconForFile: in NSWorkspace, which allows you to show the same icon used in the Finder.
For more examples, you can have a look at this sample code by Apple: ButtonMadness
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
This is what i am trying to do: I have a NLB Cluster. There are two machines on said cluster: Node1 and Node2. I have a third machine that is not in that, or any, cluster. This third machine is called: Monitor1
Once every hour, i would like to run a script to check if Node1 and Node2 are up. This script will be run via TaskScheduler. I am using the following command to execute the script on Node1 and Node2:
wmic /node:NODE1,NODE2 process call create "C:\ClusterCheck.bat"
The contents of the ClusterCheck.bat script is as follows:
NLB Query | findstr /i /R /C:"host . is stopped"
code here
When I use wmic /node:"%1" process call create "C:\ClusterCheck.bat" there is not output. When I go into the server and manually double click the ClusterCheck.bat file, it gives me the appropriate output depending whether the node is up or down.
Does anyone have any ideas how I can get those files to output?
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1 Answer
up vote 2 down vote accepted
First problem, when you wmic process call create you should use prefix your command with cmd /c.
Next, you're right. wmic doesn't display the resulting output of the remotely created process on your local console. You'll either need to use psexec which was designed for this sort of thing, or hack a workaround by piping the command output to a log file then reading the log file. Something like the following script.
I'm not really clear, if this is going to be a scheduled task, why you're concerned with results being available to stdout. I suspect you intend to redirect the output to a log of some sort. So I put that in here as well.
@echo off
set "user=domainadmin"
set "pass=password"
for /f %%I in ('wmic os get localdatetime') do set "timestamp=%%I"
set "today=%timestamp:~0,8%"
set logfile=c:\users\me\Desktop\logs\%today%.log
if not exist "%logfile%" mkdir "%logfile%\.." 2>NUL
>>"%logfile%" echo %time%
for %%I in (NODE1 NODE2) do (
(ping -n 1 %%I >NUL && (
net use \\%%I /user:%user% %pass% >NUL 2>NUL
wmic /node:%%I /user:%user% /password:%pass% process call create "cmd /c c:\clustercheck.bat >c:\cc.log"
type \\%%I\c$\cc.log && del \\%%I\c$\cc.log
net use \\%%I /delete >NUL 2>NUL
) || echo %%I unresponsive
forfiles /p "%logfile%\.." /M *.log /d -30 /c "cmd /c del @path"
This should create Desktop\logs if it doesn't exist, then create or append to Desktop\logs\YYYYMMDD.log the output of C:\clustercheck.bat run on NODE1 and NODE2. Finally, it deletes log files that are over 30 days old.
share|improve this answer
Actually, now that I think about this, all the backslashes might need to be escaped with another backslash, like \\\\%COMPUTERNAME%\\etc. I'll have to test this in the morning. – rojo Apr 18 '13 at 2:42
PSExec will not work properly with Task Scheduler. I have spent the better part of yesterday trying to make it work with no luck. – gmilic Apr 18 '13 at 12:52
what is %CD::=$% supposed to mean? – gmilic Apr 18 '13 at 12:52
%CD::=$% is the same as %CD% which is the current working directory. The stuff in the middle substitutes colons for dollar signs. So where "%CD%" == "C:\Users" you have "%CD::=$%" == "C$\Users". – rojo Apr 18 '13 at 12:59
The above does not work. This is what i have typed in: wmic /node:<Node1> process call create "cmd /c C:\ClusterCheck.bat >> \\\\NetworkShare\\cc.log" >>type cc.log – gmilic Apr 18 '13 at 13:08
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
does someone have an idea how to get the environment variables on Google-AppEngine ?
I'm trying to write a simple Script that shall use the Client-IP (for Authentication) and a parameter (geturl or so) from the URL (for e.g. http://thingy.appspot.dom/index?geturl=www.google.at)
I red that i should be able to get the Client-IP via "request.remote_addr" but i seem to lack 'request' even tho i imported webapp from google.appengine.ext
Many thanks in advance, Birt
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Can you post some of the code you have in main.py (assuming that is where you try to get the request parameters)? – Tom van Enckevort Nov 9 '09 at 11:31
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3 Answers
up vote 2 down vote accepted
In short, assuming you're using webapp: you can get the client ip address via self.request.remote_addr and the parameter with self.request.get("geturl")
See the Handling Forms with webapp section of the tutorial.
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To answer the actual question from the title of your post, assuming you're still wondering: to get environment variables, simple import os and the environment is available in os.environ.
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Are you using webapp or doing CGI-style? The webapp request class is documented at the appengine docs.
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
Basically what I want to do it this: a pdb file contains a location of source files (e.g. C:\dev\proj1\helloworld.cs). Is it possible to modify that pdb file so that it contains a different location (e.g. \more\differenter\location\proj1\helloworld.cs)?
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4 Answers
up vote 10 down vote accepted
You can use the source indexing feature of the Debugging Tools for Windows, which will save references to the appropriate revisions of the files in your source repository as an alternate stream in the PDB file.
share|improve this answer
Having the PDB indexed straight from source control is GOLD! I wish that all open source projects would start doing this. – Trumpi Feb 11 '11 at 16:46
That is mint. I wasn't aware of this feature! This article is also useful: entland.homelinux.com/blog/2006/07/06/… – Pete May 2 '12 at 7:44
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If you're looking to be more generic about the paths embedded in a pdb file, you could first use the MS-DOS subst command to map a particular folder to a drive letter.
subst N: <MyRealPath>
Then open your project relative to the N: drive and rebuild it. Your PDB files will reference the source files on N:. Now it doesn't matter where you place that particular set of source files, so long as you subsequently call the root directory "N:" like you did when you built it.
This practice is recommended by John Robbins in his excellent book, Debugging Applications for Microsoft .NET and Microsoft Windows.
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It is certainly possible, as On Freund has already pointed out. But if it is only so that the sources can be located and loaded during debugging, then a better way would be to set the source path correspondingly. Once set in a debugger, it will preemt all hard coded paths inside PDBs.
In windbg (for instance):
.srcpath+ path_to_source_root
or this (in case you're debugging remotely):
.lsrcpath+ path_to_source_root
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I wanted to find the answer to this in order to debug a crash dump that occurred in an executable that I did not build on my machine, therefore the path to the source code referenced in the PDB was invalid, as was the path to the PDB referenced in the executable.
After searching around and failing to find something that works, I discovered that if you place the executable and PDB alongside the crash dump file (i.e. in the same directory) then open and run the crash dump in VS, VS will find and use the PDB/EXE locally. Furthermore, it will also prompt for the location of the source code when clicking on an entry in the call stack: pointing it at whichever source code is relevant, it all works fine, which is great!
Anyway, hopefully this helps someone else...:)
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
We've been having a new type of spam-bot this week at PortableApps.com which posts at a rate of about 10 comments a minute and doesn't seem to stop - at least the first hour or so (we've always stopped it within that time so far). We've had them about a dozen times in the last week - sometimes stopping it at 50 or 60, sometimes up to 250 or 300. We're working to stop it and other spam bots as much as possible, but at the moment it's still a real pest.
I was wondering whether in the mean time whether there's any sort of module to control the frequency a user can post at to e.g. 50 an hour or something like 10 in an hour for new users. That at least would mean that instead of having to clear up 300 comments 50 at a time in admin/content/comment we'd have a smaller number to clear. (A module to add a page to delete all content by a user and block them would also be helpful!)
I believe that there's a plugin to do this available for WordPress, but can't find any such thing for Drupal.
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4 Answers
up vote 1 down vote accepted
For your second question, i would have a look at the code of the User Delete module (click).
The module also disables the user account and unpublished all nodes/comments from a certain user. By extending the code, you could easily create another possibility to unpublish + delete all nodes/comments from a certain user and blocking the account.
After the unpublish code in the module, you should just put delete code (in sql if the module is selecting by a sql-query or by using the drupal delete functions).
Another option would be so make a view (using the view module) only to be viewed by administrators, where you choose a certain user using the filters and then lists his/her posts. Then in the node-contenttype.tpl.php you place a button that calls a function which deletes all nodes/comments and the user.
First problem (post frequency)
I've been thinking about the comment post limit. If I remember correctly Drupal stores comments in a seperate table and has comment specific functions.
I'd create a new module and using the comment_nodeapi function i would check in the operation 'insert' how much comments the current user has already made within a certain timeframe.
To check this I would write a custom sql query on the database which takes the count of alle comments made by uid where the post_date is larger then NOW-1hour. If that count is larger then 10 or 15 or whatever post frequency you want then you give a message back to the user. You can retrieve the user id and name by using the global $user variable.
(example: print $user->name;)
You have to check on your own for the sql query but here's some code when you have the amount:
function comment_nodeapi(&$node, $op, $arg = 0) {
switch ($op) {
case 'insert':
if($count > 15){
$repeat = FALSE;
$type = 'status'
drupal_set_message("You have reached the comment limit for this time.", $type, $repeat);
db_query('INSERT INTO {node_comment_statistics} (nid, last_comment_timestamp, last_comment_name, last_comment_uid, comment_count) VALUES (%d, %d, NULL, %d, 0)', $node->nid, $node->changed, $node->uid);
(this code has not been tested so no guarantees, but this should put you on the right track)
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That looks as though it should do just what we want to help with cleanup; thanks! I'll see about us trying that out. – Chris Morgan Nov 9 '10 at 21:48
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I would suggest something like Mollom (from the creator of Drupal). It scans the message for known spam pattern/keywords/... and if this scan fails, it displays a CAPTCHA to the user to make sure that it's a real human that wants to enter content that has the same properties like spam.
They offer a free service and some paid solutions. We are using it for some customers and it's worth the money. It also integrates very well in Drupal.
share|improve this answer
We tried Mollom, but unfortunately, unlike my experience with a few other (smaller) sites I've deployed it on, it didn't work out - several known good users got blocked apparently due to their IP address, and there is no way to sort it out with Mollom - no whitelisting, etc. We talked things over with them but came to the conclusion that it just won't work at the moment, unfortunately. – Chris Morgan Nov 9 '10 at 21:41
Oh, that's a pity. We never had any problems so far. That's bad because Mollom is IMO a very neat service. – DrColossos Nov 10 '10 at 7:57
We used Mollom too on a huge site- it was a total wash out; it let the spammers through, and penalised legitimate users. – cjm2671 Mar 27 '13 at 11:50
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Comment Limit is probably what you need.
share|improve this answer
That looks to cover just commenting on one node, unfortunately, not on any nodes of such and such a type. We haven't ever had any spam bots posting more than a couple of comments per node so it wouldn't work for us. Thanks for helping anyway. – Chris Morgan Nov 9 '10 at 21:47
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http://drupal.org/project/spam http://drupal.org/project/antispam - with akismet support
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I believe we already have the spam module and I think we decided our volume is too high for antispam. We have looked at both, sorry. – Chris Morgan Nov 30 '10 at 21:08
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Fear of Flying
© Getty Images
Getting Over a Fear of Flying
The Andy Bush Column: Combatting My Fear of Flying
Andy Bush
The night before, I'll lie awake in bed wondering if my 'estate is in order'. By this, of course, I mean mentally checking whether all of my pornography is either hidden or destroyed so as not to disappoint my grieving parents.
In a few days time I have to fly to Ireland to do my radio show from Dublin. This on the surface should be pure heaven — an adventure to the home of Guinness, a stay in a nice hotel, a chance to explore one of the most iconic cities in Europe. But there's a problem. And that problem is my fear of flying. By that I don't just mean ‘not keen’, I mean sweaty arsed, rosary bead thumbing terrified.
In the 37 years I’ve inhabited this planet, my over-active imagination has served me pretty well. It helps to come up with ideas for stupid stuff to do on the radio and it greatly increases my enjoyment of playing video games like FIFA 14 because when I’m at work in meetings, I pretend I’m still the manager of Everton. However, the main drawback of a vivid imagination is that it presents you with a terrifying array of nightmare scenarios on an almost daily basis. No matter what I’m doing or where I am, the creative bit of my brain will magic up a suitably gory death plot. On the train: What if the driver crashes? Just heard an ambulance: Is someone I love seriously injured? A cute squirrel appears: could it be diseased?
It's absurd and I find it hard to comprehend that the bit of my brain that is responsible for nice stuff like drawing and painting can be behind such malevolence. Much like the dramatic reveal at the end of a good murder mystery, no one ever suspects that the gentle, bespectacled artistic guy next door was capable of such a crime.
I take solace from the fact that I’m not alone in suffering with this neurosis. Everyone’s got a jumpy mate that acts like a sketchy cat, and if you’re scared of flying you’ll be more than familiar with the build up to the day of a flight itself.
It goes a little something like this...
As the days, hours and minutes tick down until the dreaded event, I generally feel like I’m being followed around by a military drummer from the English Civil War who ,maintains an ominous beat as I do simple things like searching for my passport and packing clothes. The night before, I'll lie awake in bed wondering if my 'estate is in order'. By this, of course, I mean mentally checking whether all of my pornography is either hidden or destroyed so as not to disappoint my grieving parents. And after my death, will friends understand that I was only keeping White Dwarf magazines as a fond memory of my school days rather than an indicator of any real desire to play with miniature orcs and elves?
By the time I’m clipping in my seat belt on the plane I’m already sweaty and scared. I look around at those smug, calm people who snuggle back into their seat, closing their eyes getting ready for a sleep and, frankly, I hate them. I wish I could be doing the crossword on the back of the complementary Times, but instead I'm fixated on the little Super Mario engineer dude by the wing who’s fiddling with something. What’s he doing out there? Why is he required to perform this last minute maintenance? Go away if there's nothing wrong, Mario! Once he's finally cleared off, my hushed, solemn prayers soundtrack the terror of actual take-off. Somehow, I've survived.
On a long flight most people watch a movie. I don’t. I tend to scan the stewardesses faces for any sign of panic, especially when they have a go on that phone by the cockpit. Frequently, I have convinced myself their grim faces mean they've just received word from the pilot that the plane is doomed. Logical, grounded me will know that they're just a bit concerned because the veggie lasagnes supplies are low.
I’ve tried all sorts of different ways to cure myself. I’ve had NLP, hypnotherapy and I've even been on a special flying course where proper pilots placate you by promising you that you aren’t going to die and there's nothing to worry yourself with. But nothing has worked so far. I always end up at the same place: Self-medication. I mean ‘self-medication’ in the Edgar Allan Poe sense, a planned intoxication through whatever means to reach a higher state of understanding. Most of the time when I fly I’ll be off my head on Valium or if I haven’t got any I’ll sink some sneaky breakfast double whiskies at the airport bar before I board. This of course isn’t ideal as it means that whoever's unfortunate enough to fly with me is forced to to turn into Clint Eastwood in Any Which Way But Loose and has to lead me off the plane by the hand after landing like an orangutan in a nappy.
However, I am determined to beat this phobia. The last thing I want to do is pass it onto my little girl who loves going on a plane. Her airport excitement reminds me of the fearless innocence of youth before adulthood wraps its sinister, messed up tentacles around you. So I’ll keep saying my prayers and doing my stupid little rituals that in my weird world keep me alive. But the most important thing of all is that I don’t give up trying.
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Homeland Season 3 Trailer
YouTube Screencap/Showtime
A bald Brody lies either sick or injured in the new trailer.
Showtime released the official trailer for the third season of "Homeland" today and with just under two months to go until the September 29 premier, fans are salivating for answers.
Season 2 ended with one of the greatest twists of all time, lulling viewers into a false sense of lovey-dovey security before literally blowing up the entire CIA.
Set to the melancholy tune of "To Build a Home" by the Cinematic Orchestra, the new trailer is light on the words and heavy on the drama. Carrie and Saul testify before a Senate hearing on the attack at the CIA, a bald, wounded Brody fires a machine gun from a moving Jeep, and Dana goes topless to engage in Muslim prayer.
There are a million questions and the answers can't come soon enough. Is Carrie being institutionalized? Is Brody's bald head by choice, or is he sick? Who is Jessica kissing? What's Saul apologizing for?
It will all be guess work until the season premiere. Watch the full trailer below and come up with your own theories.
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Samsung's two-minute Super Bowl ad starring Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen was pretty hilarious, but it also completely bashed all of its big game commercial competition.
The premise of the spot is that Rogen and Rudd have to pitch ideas to "Mr. Show's" Bob Odenkirk for Samsung's "Next Big Thing" commercial. Their advice slams the following ads:
"People love commercials with talking babies, so we just use Seth!" Rudd says. ("I would wear a diaper for Samsung," Rogen concedes.) This makes fun of E*TRADE's talking baby Super Bowl spot:
Rudd then wakes up a snoring Odenkirk with the exaltation: "Crowdsourcing!" Get it? Because everyone crowdsourced this year. "You want people to send you ideas so you don't have to think of an idea," Rogen explains. Doritos always does it with its "Crash the Super Bowl" contest, but this year the advertiser was joined by Lincoln (which had viewers' Tweets write the ad), Speedstick (which had fans create the spot), and Audi and Coca Cola (which both made users vote on how their ad should end).
Here's a winning Doritos spot:
"Space" Rogen then exclaims. "We could send people into the Galaxy with the Galaxy. But we don't train them. We just send them up there and see what happens." Axe is actually sending people into outer space if they enter a contest related to its Super Bowl spot. No joke.
And then they made fun of Psy, who rewrote "Gangnam Style" for Wonderful Pistachios.
"I'm an Asian rapper, rapping, and then guess what," Rogen says. "S-beam!" Rudd replies.
We're used to Samsung and its agency 72andSunny bashing other brands ... namely Apple. But the Super Bowl is all about going big, so why not take on almost all of the competition in front of approximately 111 million people?
Watch the full Samsung spot below:
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Fire Emblem is even selling out on day one in IRELAND of all places.
#11FefnirOmega13Posted 4/20/2013 11:02:25 PM
It didn't sell out over here in England...
Because the dedicated game store (GAME) I went to only had three copies, and I went there at opening time- there was a huge Injustice line there, though. According to them, Nintendo are trying to push their DDL service by limiting copies of games like Luigi's Mansion 2 and FE Awakening.
I got a copy, though.
#12FZeroMasterPosted 4/21/2013 12:03:20 AM
Ah Ireland.
I was so hard to find Xenoblade there, but I found it eventually.
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Virtua Fighter 5
The Virtua Fighter games have always been the most hardcore of all beat-'em-ups. The complexity of the fighting system is leagues beyond the likes of Tekken, Soul Calibur or Dead or Alive, but - a little ironically - that complexity has long been a weakness outside of Japan's arcades. Virtua Fighter 5 goes beyond "depth;" where Soul Calibur is almost immediately accessible and fun even for button-mashers, Virtua Fighter is simply too complicated for the average gamer to ever sink in to. In catering to the hardcore, Sega excludes every other type of fan around.
Still, the 360 release is now mere months away, and identical to the PS3 version in every way. That means the same 17 characters, the same stacks of costumes to dress your fighters up in, the same fight system and the same range of play modes. Conspicuous by its absence is any hint of online play, a strange omission in light of some of the 360's other fighters - Dead or Alive 4, Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat 3 - all of which support Live play. It's not as bad as it sounds, though.
The hardest of hardcore games, Virtua Fighter 5 is so utterly timing-intensive that even the merest hint of latency or lag will strip the game of the pacing that makes it so great. Timing isn't so critical in, say, the Dead or Alive games, but in VF, where strikes can be as quick as a single frame of animation, online conditions can quickly render the game pretty much unplayable.
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Intayazz 2/4/2014 8:00 PM
Aluatris 2/1/2014 1:02 AM
Test!? I'm so not prepared...
Smudge 1/31/2014 5:18 AM
Hi there!
Old_Swamper 1/30/2014 8:20 PM
Intayazz 1/29/2014 10:13 PM
*taps the mic* Test, test
zoltando 12/25/2013 7:32 PM
Merry Christmas!
Lanaliathe 12/25/2013 11:44 AM
Merry Christmas everyone! *hugs all round*
Aluatris 12/21/2013 10:30 PM
zoltando 11/29/2013 2:29 PM
I hope everyone had a happy turkey day
Sunky 11/23/2013 2:40 PM
Intayazz 11/23/2013 8:39 AM
Aluatris 11/22/2013 8:14 PM
Dearly beloved, Ready your dancing shoes...
Jaggie 11/20/2013 5:58 AM
Lanaliathe 11/18/2013 11:49 AM
zoltando 11/16/2013 3:51 AM
It works by magic *jazzhands*
Lanaliathe 11/15/2013 5:09 PM
Nklos 11/12/2013 7:26 PM
Update 20.
Sunky 11/10/2013 5:05 AM Rawr!
Jaggie 11/7/2013 9:44 PM
And now it is sleep time. good night :)
Jaggie 11/7/2013 7:45 PM
I'm on DDO!
Forums : Official Open ROLE-PLAY Forum > Exploratory Forces
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Archie (Member) 5/14/2011 12:37 AM EST : RE: Exploratory Forces
GP User: Slawler
Posts: 223
After a night of pacing, worrying about Shurjra's failure to return earlier that evening, Arachan leaves his fortress to take a walk through the nearby woods. When he leaves the area protected by enchantments, he senses an odd, undead presence. Slowing his pace and tightening his grip on his staff, he looks around the fringes of the forest before entering.
He goes not twenty feet before a ghoul drops from a tree and onto his back. Five more ghouls, and two wight-priests, drop down from more trees nearby. Arachan smirks slightly, "What fool would think to send such weak undead after a Necromancer?" The ghoul on his back has begun to bite him, and rips out small chunks of his flesh, but Arachan pays him no mind. Speaking several words of power, Arachan casts Undeath to Death, and the ghouls crumble to dust around him. The first wight-priest raises his focus and speaks a prayer to the Devourer, casting Searing Light, but before it can hit Arachan, it rebounds apon the priest, outlining it in a halo of light before it is destroyed.. Arachan turns to face the remaining priest, and taps his staff to the ground. A bolt of lightning leaps from the head of the staff, and the wight is destroyed.
Arachan then turns around, headed back to the fortress, where he can send messages to his children and grandchildren, and warn them of the potential threat.
Daisliv exits the Catacombs, having dealt with an infestation of undead there. Upon doing so, he finds that he is surrounded by yet more undead, blocking him into the doorway. "They must have found a different way out, and came to head me off." Before he is able to react, the two ghouls nearest to him grab at his feet, trying to pull him to the ground where they can bight him to death. Daisliv feels the chill of their undead hands through his robes, but, having lived with a lich, they are of little bother to him. He kicks one in the face, sending it sprawling, but the wight and the other ghoul have been advancing, while the ghoul left on his other leg is now trying to climb up the side of Daisliv's body. Temporarily overwhelmed, he retreats into the doorway, where the sounds of battle have begun to attract priests of the Flame. Seizing the head of the ghoul climbing on him, he speaks a word and casts Chill Touch, impressing upon it that he is powerful enough not to be bothered. As it turns to flee, it, and the other undead, are cut down by beams of light from the hands of the Flame priests. He gives them a curt nod before activating a pendant keyed to a teleportation circle in his father's keep.
As the cleric of the Host leaves the home of one of his parishioners, he senses a faint aura of undeath. Murmuring a prayer to Dol Dorn, he pulls his longsword from its sheathe and places his back to a wall, that none might come behind him. A trio of ghouls, led by a wight, comes scampering out of the alley, ignoring the common people, though sending them into a panic, and heading directly for Starach. Starach concentrates on finding the power of the Host, then channels it through his body, destroying two of the ghouls, but having no effect on the others. He speaks another prayer, feeling the strength of the Host that is leant to him, and brings down his blade upon the head of the remaining ghoul, cleaving it from head to navel. It lays nearly in two pieces before crumbling into dust. He turns to make a similar attack on the wight, but is forced instead to block its ferocious attack at his midsection. Starach strikes the wight in the head with the flat of his blade, knocking it over, then speaks a final prayer and extends his hand, casting Searing Light. The wight has joined its fellows in destruction. He frowns at the piles of dust, now beginning to blow away, and pronounces, "From dust they are, and to dust they shall return." Thinking that his father will be interested in the undead in the city, he speaks his Word of Recall and is behind the alter in the temple to the Sovereign Host in his father's fortress.
Ohtar is on patrol in the marketplace when the Banelord's attack finds him. He appears signifigantly older than he did even a few days ago, as if the years of his life are quickly catching up with him.
When he reaches a narrow street, ghouls burst out of an alley in front of him. He turns to flee, but finds himself face-to-face with a wight. The wight knocks him over before he can remove the shield with the characteristic emblem of the marketplace on it from his back, trapping it under his weight. The wight goes for his throat, but narrowly misses and is turned away by the mail covering the lower parts of Ohtar's neck. Ohtar desparately draws the shortsword from its sheate at his waist, being unable to reach the hilt of his hand-and-a-half, its baldric having been knocked askew in the fall. He tries to stab the wight, or knock it off of him, but he is unable to do so in his weakened state. The ghouls grab at his face, and he is paralyzed with fear. The wight readys its blade for another strike, then drives it into his neck, severing his spinal cord. Mercifully, he cannot feel the pain. As his brain begins to shut down from lack of oxygen, he thinks he hears an evil laugh, and the words, "You fall, son of my enemy. You will rise my slave."
The last thing that Ohtar thinks is, "If such must be the price of vengance, so be it. That he slays me for my treachery will only cause people to lend greater credence to the lies I have fed them."
Having lain to rest a horde of undead in House Jorasco's graveyard, Adrialae is heading to the Open Palm Inn for a drink before returning home when she recieves her grandfather's message. Sure enough, as the message concludes, she sees a three ghouls and a wight coming from between the crypts. Before they can get close, she points a finger at the wight, speaking a word of power and drawing a symbol in the air. Command Undead. The wight looks as confused as is possible for an undead, and stops walking. "Kill the ghouls!" Adrialae commands, and before waiting to see what happens, she pulls a scroll from one of the cases at her waist, and reads it, teleporting to the great hall of the keep.
Archie (Member) 5/14/2011 3:21 PM EST : RE: Exploratory Forces
GP User: Slawler
Posts: 223
Aeole is walking to the Wayward Lobster after a day of clearing kobolds from the sewers when he hears a message in his mind: "You are unsafe. Myself and your elder siblings have been attacked. Return immediately." The magic notifies him that he may send a short return message, and he takes the option to do so. "I have seen no such trouble, but- In harbour, attacked by undead. Will return when possible."
The Banelord's team has been lurking in the shadows by the warehouses. While Aeole was responding to his father's message, they slipped towards him before leaping at him. Aeole ended the message just in time to pull his khopesh and large shield from his back and hold the shield in front of him, causing the undead to bounce off.
Aeole sets his feet. In the ancient code of war that he follows, retreat is dishonour when the odds are even, but still frowned upon when outnumbered. The three ghouls leap at him as one, and though he parries one with his shield, another with his blade, and strikes the third with the elaborate hilt structure of the weapon, the wight has snuck around him. It stabs him in the back, the blade finding a chink in his armour. Aeole spins around, tearing the blade from the wight's grasp, and cuts of both of the wight's arms in a butterfly molinello before thrusting the blade into its chest. The ghouls, now jumping on him from behind, knock the warrior down, and they try to bite him through his armour. Having retained his grip on the shiled, but not the sword, he bashes one of the ghouls, causing a sickening crunch. The ghoul drops to the ground, but the other two have now moved towards his head, which is not protected. "Forgive me for my errors, and know that I strived to live an honourable life."
Aeole politely declines the halfling's help. His face is rather bruised, and the wound in his back could be serious, but he would rather return to the fortress, where his brother can heal him, than go to a priest of the Flame. After thanking the halfling for saving him, he twists a ring on his right hand and dissapears.
SickleYield (Applicant) 5/14/2011 4:02 PM EST : RE: Exploratory Forces
Posts: 384
Xymorel Trannyth pushes hard at the manhole cover, trying to achieve leverage while clinging to a rope with her knees and one arm. She is not strong - the arm with which she is now shoving is toothpicklike in its diameter and muscle tone - but the covers in the Southern Marketplace tend to be often used and seldom stuck. Presently she succeeds. The disc of metal slides up and away, and fresh air pours down into the sewer.
Xymorel clambers out onto the street, inhaling gratefully. She is not a racist person, possessing prejudices of a very different sort, but at this moment she would not be sorry never to see another troglodyte. This time, at least, she is relatively clean. Her robe is a little scorched, but that is so very commonplace that she does not notice it. There are sources of pure water even under the city,thank whatever gods exist (Xymorel is inclined to be agnostic on this point), and she has begun to know how to find them.
A passing dwarf in a workman's apron pauses to stare at the skinny human in the worn robe. She's a sight, skin ashen and black hair all afrizz, but all kinds of things crawl up out of sewers in this district. Many are much more frightening in appearance than the trembling creature in front of him.
Xymorel looks back with wide, wary eyes. They are hazel, but the constant reflection of flame tends to make the irises look red. There's nothing about the dwarf to suggest stealth or magical power, but every stranger is suspect. She stands with her ever-shaking hands folded tight around each other at chest level until he shrugs and moves on.
Once the dwarf is out of sight, a brief burst of flame purges the remaining uncleanness from her hands. She is proud of that, for it is not long since she achieved the degree of control necessary. She has been working hard at it since the night she killed Xyries. Xymorel shudders again as she adjusts the straps of her knapsack and turns toward home. It's a couple of miles walk, and she will have to watch every shadow. It is her misfortune to have concluded her work at the time of night when those she considers her natural predators are most often about.
She's not so afraid of rogues as she once was. Partly this is because she has learned that wizards are equally capable of harming her, but she still considers this progress.
It is only a tense half-mile or so before she notices the footsteps. Xymorel stops, pressing her back to the closed front of a shop, and listens. The pursuit stops, but not so quickly that she is unable to hear it. Either there are many of them, or some are traveling alternately on all fours.
Xymorel hastily downs a potion from her belt. Magic fizzles through her veins, restoring her partly-exhausted arcane power. It builds behind her eyes like water behind a dam.
"I know you're th-there," she says, her hoarse alto loud in the quiet street. Her chronic resurrection sickness gets better and worse, depending on how recently she has died, but the stammer never seems to go away. "Show yourself!"
Forms emerge from the shadow of an awning across the street and to her left. They move low to the ground, going alternately on two and four like apes. None wears more than a loincloth. All have gray skin shriveled tight to their bones, and she sees the gleam of yellow teeth in the light of the everbrights that shine from upper windows.
Ghouls. Xymorel's fingers itch to burn them, the instinct of violent terror that she is still learning to quell. The pressure is almost unbearable. But she has fought many undead since her arrival in Stormreach, as every surviving adventurer must. She knows to look first for others. Her darting eyes find the straight, pale form of the wight, with its head of stiff black hair and its ancient breastplate. She recognizes the staff in its hand in time to throw herself to one side. The Hold Person spell misses.
Then the ghouls charge forward, seeing their opportunity. Xymorel shrieks, scrambling upright as one swipes at her with a claw. It tears a strip from her robe and leaves a bloody gouge in her arm.
Xymorel raises both hands and lets the fire go. Inferno sweeps the street in front of her with a hiss and a roar. The ghouls are gone immediately. The wight has time to snarl and hurl itself forward before it, too, turns to ash.
Xymorel is left shivering, staring at the burning remains of the awning. A barrel nearby has caught fire as well. She quells them both with a cold ray - it is almost the only use she has for the lesser ice spell - and turns toward home. She does not want to be in view when the owner of the awning finds out what has happened. Besides, her arm aches and burns, and she knows her sister can easily heal it.
Smudge (SuperAdmin) 5/14/2011 5:03 PM EST : RE: Exploratory Forces
GP User: Smudge_ddo
Posts: 518
Smudge had been sitting on her rooftop, playing with her now very mobile panther cub, when she noticed movement in the shadows below. This was not particularly abnormal, given the area in which she lived, but something about their movement just didn't seem right.
She tucked the cub into a large, blanket lined box, and knelt on the edge of the rooftop, watching the figures below. When they began to attack patron of the Lobster, she understood why their gait had seemed so off. They were undead. She leapt off the roof, sword and dagger drawn, and floated down to assist the man.
Inwardly she cursed. She despised fighting updead, most all of the tricks of her trade were useless against them. She landed behind one of the ghouls intent on the man's head, and smashed the hilt of her rapier into its head as hard as she could. There was a sickening crack and a hollow thunk as she caved in part of its skull, but it turned on her just the same.
She shuddered in revulsion but kept up her guard. It leapt at her, clawing at the air, and she tumbled back into a neat roll, moving with it. Her feet caught it in the stomach and altered its trajectory just enough to send it sprawling behind her.
The second ghoul was just drawing its arms back to bring its fists down like a hammer on the man's unprotected head, as Smudge rolled to her feet. She threw the dagger from her off hand at it, burying the good-enchanted blade in its face. It shrieked and clawed at it, backing away from the man.
Smudge was distracted a second too long, and winced in pain as filthy claws raked her back. She may carry her sword on her at most times, but she had been caught unarmored. She turned with a growl, ducking low and thrusting the rapier into its gut. A parry and pair of thrusts in quick succession and its arms were useless. One more thrust and it crumpled into a heap.
She turned on the still gibbering ghoul and dispatched it with a few harsh strokes while it still clawed at the dagger in its face.
Retrieving her dagger, she turned to the man to check if he was still breathing, and offer her assistance in getting him to the cleric inside the Lobster.
Nuadia ran her fingers through her short blonde hair as she sat on the edge of one of the stone benches by the shrine. It was soaked in sweat and matted from her helmet, so the coolness of the dank crypt actually came as a small respite now. Shadanthe sat beside her, the blonde, serious, paladin seeming unruffled by the hours of fighting.
She said a short prayer, to which Shadanthe responded with one of her own, and they settled back for a few moments rest, the shrine returning their strength much more quickly then they could hope to regain it otherwise.
Just as the cleric began to feel rejuvenated, she felt a palpable aura of negative energy nearby, moving toward them. She quickly strapped her helmet back on and prayed, setting blessings and protective spells upon herself and her companion.
Shadanthe stood, strapping her tower shield back on her arm and unsheathing her sword. There was no need for Nuadia to tell her what was coming, she could feel it just as well. "I thought we'd cleared this wing already. Does their master raise them just as quickly as we put them down?"
The cleric shuddered. "For our sakes, I certainly pray that is not the case."
"Shall we dispatch this batch then, so we may deal with their master?" The paladin said with a slight smirk.
Nuadia just nodded, pushing through the old wooden doors that protected the shrine. The doors opened into a large vault whose walls held small inset sepulchres from floor to ceiling. It had been crawling with undead earlier, but now lay silent.
Four forms came into view on the far side of the vault, entering from the hall that lead to the entryway. Three ghouls scurried in, gibbering and chittering, ahead of a gaunt wight, dressed in the tattered and rotting robes of a priest.
Shadanthe charged forward with a cry to Dol Dorn on her lips, bashing her shield into the wight even as it began to utter a foul prayer.
Nuadia stood her ground calmly reciting a funerary prayer. "...may they know rest, eternal," she finished, just as the ghouls were nearly upon her. She drew her self up, drawing in divine energy, and unleashed it in a bright burst. "Turn!" she shouted, and the ghouls fell to dust around her.
Three quick, efficient strikes, one channeling divine power, and Shadanthe had dispatched the wight as well.
Nuadia glanced down at it. It seemed to be the only one so far with a device painted on its face. A strange curling thing she had not seen before. "Seems maybe you're right. Their master may well be making more as we speak. This one seems different from the rest."
Shadanthe grunted in response. "Onward then!"
The cleric nodded. "I'll keep an eye behind for any that may come from where we've already cleared. Push on."
SaneDitto (Member) 5/14/2011 7:27 PM EST : RE: Exploratory Forces
Posts: 131
The walk from Xyries' house to the Rusty Nail was not long, but Reuken deliberately slowed his pace so as to linger and breathe in the fresh air. Despite the cleric's hospitality, the tension lingering between them was taking a toll on his patience, and the outdoors helped to keep down the slight headache beginning to form behind his eyes.
Other than the splashing of the tiny pool a ways off, the night within the Marketplace is mostly quiet; not many civilized souls wandered the streets at this hour. Though he could still hear the footsteps of other, possibly less savory, entities lingering around, he keeps his pace towards the Rusty Nail. Recent incidents will hopefully ensure his tenuous safety for the days to come, yet despite his confidence, his eyes begin to scope the rooftops and alleys, for he could not afford to be too complacent--
And that is the only thing that saved him from taking the ghoul's razor-sharp teeth in the worst possible place--the spine and the back of the neck, where it would doubtlessly have incapacitated him completely. Acting on reflex, he twists his body aside, letting the teeth clamp into the stiff leather and steel plating on his shoulder, a much more preferable area of effect. Nevertheless, he crashes to the ground on his back, borne down by the ghoul's weight, his shoulder on fire from where the undead's teeth finally pierced through and dug into flesh. Off in the distance, he can hear more panting and loping as more ghouls close in, lured by the smell of blood.
Cursing his inattentiveness, Reuken's hands lash forth and grab both the ghoul's head and lower jaw, fingers digging for a foothold. Heaving his muscles, the half-elf utters a bellow as he rips the ghoul's jaws apart, and as the ghoul tries to shriek with what was left of its mouth, he staggers to his knees with a grunt and shoves the creature away with his other hand, still clenching the ghoul's lower jaw.
The reek of the undead fills the air, and Reuken barely gets out one blade just in time to parry another ghoul's arms clawing at him. The creature grabs hold of the blade, ignoring the foul ichor dripping between its fingers, and thrusts its face forward, teeth bared. Reuken had to jerk his head back to avoid having his nose bitten off, and he lashes out his free hand in an uppercut, smashing the ghoul full in the jaw so that its teeth click shut, biting off a portion of its lashing tongue, and the other ghoul's severed jaw attached to its neck.
The undead staggers back, more from the force of the blow than actually being stunned, and taking advantage of the brief interlude, Reuken quickly draws his other blade and aims for the creature's throat. Instead of slashing, he thrusts the weapon straight in, piercing trachea and splitting vertebral discs, and with a grunt, he rips it out to the side, nearly decapitating the ghoul. Its head wobbling from a chunk of flesh, the ghoul's hands release their trapping grip from the first blade and begin thrashing around, fingers curled into claw-like shapes, and Reuken's freed blade sweeps upward and across, deftly severing the hands and a good chunk of the arms. Fueled with the self-disregarding persistence only undead can have, the ghoul lunges again, trying to bite the half-elf with its comically dangling head, and Reuken, his expression utterly blank, lashes out with his blade, finally separating that bit of flesh. Teeth gnashing at empty air, the ghoul's severed head drops to roll on the stained earth, and the half-elf completes the coup de grace by booting the decapitated ghoul in the sternum, sending it sprawling.
A gargling shriek fills the air behind him, and Reuken quickly turns to find the jawless ghoul pouncing upon him. Reflexively, he thrusts his blade forward and upward, impaling the creature mid-flight, and the ghoul, seemingly ignoring the weapon protruding from its gut, snakes its arms around to clasp the half-elf's throat.
Panic nearly overwhelms Reuken as he begins to choke, the ghoul's thumbs pressing cruelly into his trachea. His lungs began to burn, then seize for air that would not come, and even amidst the ringing in his ears, he could hear the scrabbling of feet. Even with his vision distorted by pulsing afterimages, he managed to discern another ghoul and a wight behind his strangler, their hunched, crawling forms approaching with cruel determination, clearly eager to prolong their enjoyment of the hunt.
Baring his teeth in a snarl, Reuken twists his head aside, allowing some air into his starved lungs. However, he could still feel the ghoul's thumbs digging into his neck, through the muscle and into the carotid artery, and with a snarl, he swings his free blade up in an arc, severing one arm with the sheer momentum before burying itself into the other. The ghoul screams, and Reuken, clenching his teeth, draws the blade back and forth in a sawing motion until the other arm finally snaps loose. Eyes narrowing, trying to concentrate on the ghoul and not on the hands still on his throat, the half-elf jams his foot into the ghoul's body and, using the creature as a brace, rips the blade out and kicks it into the two others. The wight nimbly hops to the side, while the other ghoul was not so lucky and shrieked as it is bowled over by its mutilated comrade's body. The shrieks quickly turn to slobbering as, driven into a frenzy by the smell of blood, the intact ghoul begins to devour the injured one in a mess of thrashing limbs.
Reuken averts his gaze from the gory spectacle as he teases one of his blades between the remaining hand and his neck, having finished removing one. With a dismissive flick of his arm, the severed appendage flies loose from the half-elf's bruised throat and hits the ground before the wight, fingers contracting at thin air. The wight peers at it, razor-sharp teeth gleaming, before leaping over it to swipe at Reuken with sharp claws.
The half-elf lifts his weapon, and there is an awful scraping screech as the wight's claws skitter harmlessly off metal. Snarling, the undead leaps back, circling its prey, a maneuver that Reuken imitates, until the two are circling together in an ever-tightening spiral.
The slobbers of the ghoul devouring its companion fill the night, a sound that Reuken closes his ears to, trying to focus entirely on the hunched figure before him. The wight lunges, and Reuken lifts his blades; but it is a feint, and the creature quickly skitters and strikes towards his unprotected flank.
Fire blooms in Reuken's left side as the wight's claws connect, and he staggers off to the side, pain whistling between his teeth. He lashes out with his blade, but it had already jumped back, a grin twisting that pale, haggard face as blood drips from its right claw.
Any move not an attack is ground lost.
Compressing his lips against the pain, Reuken limps forward, blades in hand, and the wight hops back before lunging forward, claws outstretched towards his face. The half-elf grimaces in pain as the talons lay open the flesh on his face, feeling the claws dig into his bleeding cheeks, oh so close to his eyes. Grimly, he leans forward into the attack and buries both his blades into the wight's body, and calling all of the remaining reserves of his strength, he screams and tears the blades out diagonally in opposite directions, effectively nearly bisecting the wight from shoulder to hip. The undead folds backwards in on itself and crumples to the ground, thrashing and spilling fluids everywhere.
The final ghoul looks up from its meal just in time for Reuken's foot to drive into its head, pinning it to the ground. The half-elf's ravaged, bloodstained visage bears no expression as he slams a blade into the ghoul's right arm and begins sawing the limb off with the other, ignoring the creature's helpless writhing and thrashing.
The arm finally comes off with the final sound of snapping tendons. Reuken begins to repeat the process with the other arm, and his heel digs deeper into the ghoul's skull as it begins to scream.
The door to the Rusty Nail slams open, and colour drains from Jordan's cheeks as he catches sight of Reuken. Without a word, the half-elf strides past the bar, grabs the longbow and two quivers leaning against the corner, and calmly clips the quivers on, seemingly ignoring the blood flowing freely from his shoulder, flank, and face.
After adjusting the straps, Reuken hooks his longbow under one arm, storms out of the tavern, and takes off towards Xyries' house as fast as his wounds would allow.
"You can try to fight evil while remaining good. You'll fail, because you can't. You turn evil to kill evil, so the good don't have to suffer."
Sunky (Member) 5/15/2011 1:15 AM EST : RE: Exploratory Forces
GP User: okram
Posts: 292
Leon slowly walked through the Cerulean hills as he attempted to clear his mind. He had just finished a rather lackluster evening in the tavern, topped off with a long series of awkward silences with a Drow woman whom caught his eye. He needed some fresh air, and the hills had often provided a good source of solace out of the walls of the city for him. A light drizzle that was so common for the region began to fall on the white haired elf as he slowly and aimlessly wandered along the paths running through the grassy hills.
After a peaceful walk, with the orcs learning long ago to give the archer a long berth, Leon turned back towards the city gates, his head somewhat clearer, and in better shape for his evening meditations. He passed by the ruins of the old crumbled stone temple and began to head towards the old vineyard when his ears picked up the faint sound of feet trampling through the brush, uncaring to conceal it's movements. The orcs at least attempted to conceal their movements, especially within range of him, and the sounds seemed to be coming towards him at a fast pace. Leon paused looking at the path dipping down through a small ravine, a perfect ambush location.
He then thought he heard the moans of gouls... he had not heard of necromancer activity here, and there weren't any catacombs nearby for them to have a source of bodies to work their vile magic... no he must be imagining things. Leon subconsciously put his right hand over a small silver trinket wrapped around his left wrist, and walked forward through the path. To his left and right a small group of gouls appeared out of the brush, each with a wight priest in tow.
Leon clenched his eyes close... it had to be his memory playing tricks on him again. No, he wasn't in the war any more, he wasn't being ambushed by undead, “NO!” he shouted aloud.
He opened his eyes, they were still there, charging down the slopes of the ravine. He could smell their rotting flesh, could hear the hungry gouls gnashing their teeth. Leon shuddered, then ran towards the city gates. Instead of reaching for his bow, he lifted the trinket to his mouth and mumbled an elvin word. The charm flashed with divine energy, and waves of calmness emanated from Leon, causing his shuddering to stop quickly.
The divine magic caused the undead monsters to pause a moment in their pursuit, Leon opened his eyes, they were still there... this, was this real? He couldn't tell, he didn't know. He blinked, he looked at the undead, small force, forward scouts for the main force, he grinned at the monsters and grabbed his bow, notching an arrow and pulling the string back with his full strength, he unleashed an arrow that hummed through the air with a pulse of electric energy. The bolt ripped through the leading goul's head, electricity flooding through the creature's body, causing it to explode in a torrent of sparks, the arrow was not finished, passing easily through his first target's head, it cut clean through the arm of a goul behind him, sending an equally lethal electric charge through the second goul. It then implanted it's self into the body of one of the wights brining up the rear, turning the goul into a lightning rod for the now fully charged air, a huge thunderous bolt of lightning called down into the creature's body, causing it to splatter messily across the country side.
Before the gouls could take another step, five more arrows were in the air, each finding a target with equally efficient deadly accuracy. The air was heavy with electric energy as little remained of the creatures around him. Leon blinked, and looked at the hills, he was within eye shot of the gates back to Stormreach, he... he wasn't in Cyre. Leon shut his eyes tightly, hands holding the trinket close, trying to get it's divine magic to make the memories stay were they belong, in the past... not... here. He opened his eyes one more time, the remains of the creatures still remained... they were here... again. Leon ran up to one of the mostly intact creatures and kicked it's rotten flesh, spilling more guts and blood across the green hills.
SickleYield (Applicant) 5/15/2011 6:51 PM EST : RE: Exploratory Forces
Posts: 384
The cleric stands in the street, a thin human in very heavy armor. The aura of positive energy gradually builds around her. Others might see a cloud of golden sparks and a diffuse glow extending a few feet in every direction. Her armor is beginning to feel heavier than it was earlier this evening, but this is not evident from her straight posture.
She is peripherally aware of Reuken Kjersti standing poised nearby. Xymorel is an unbalancing presence herself, an island of arcane power barely contained as she makes her own preparations.
But Xyries has no time to consider the others. The sound of air being disturbed by a teleportation spell is audible up the street, between them and the approaching ghouls.
Sunky (Member) 5/15/2011 9:28 PM EST : RE: Exploratory Forces
GP User: okram
Posts: 292
The time after the attack had blurred in Leon's memories, his mind was set whirling and out of control, he had assumed that he had clearly gone mad, and only hoped that whatever he had attacked in the hills was an orc... and not innocent.
He had shuffled his way through the city completely unaware of his surroundings, muttering the elvin activation word to his trinket over and over again. It's calming effect getting less and less with each attempt, until it's energy had been completely drained, and no longer had any effect.
Then he found himself in the Phoenix, looking around for the one necro he knew, but could not find him, the calming effects not working anymore, he had lapsed to his old cure for his now assumed ruined mind, but Cog would not serve him alcohol. He wondered the streets again until he found himself in the bogwater tavern, several bottles of Rum purchased, and in a small pile of empty bottles.
He remembered hurting his hand on an ogre's head when it tried to make him leave... and now he was looking at three or four blurry Arachans.
The lich tried to say something to Leon, who could not focus, only anger could come from Leon's now fogged mind, throwing one of the empty bottles at the Arachan on the far left. Leon spat out curses at the foul lich, and then tried to stand to face him. But he was unable to stay balanced in the spinning world, and fell face first into the ground. Muttering even more curses against him.
The words Arachan was speaking finally sunk into his muddled mind, necromancer, not his undead, attacking friends, Xymorel...
He moaned, and slipped a bottle out of his pack, while Arachan left him to seek a cleric, he drunk the bottle and the spinning world quickly ceased, causing Leon's head to thunder like being smashed with a warhammer, and the bile in his stomach to quickly rush to the surface. It came up just in time to land on the returning Arachan's shoes.
Leon groaned heavily as the cleric told Arachan that the inebriated elf was purging the alcohol already and left. Leon got to his feet as Arachan asked him, "are you ready to accept my assistance?"
Leon groaned and mumbled, "what... what do I..." he paused in mid sentence, turning away and hurling another wretched volume of bile, then continued, "do I need your help for bloody necro?"
Arachan pointed a finger at his shoes, the vomit quickly running off of them and towards the bogwater's small pond, "I can get you to Xymorel's residence much quickly."
Leon wiped his mouth, and grumbled, then muttered, "fine," full of bile more wretched then what had just left his mouth, "but... don't tell Xymorel you found me drunk."
Arachan nodded, and began to cast a teleportation spell.
Leon tried to interrupt him, "wait, let me clean..." and then they popped out of the tavern.
Archie (Member) 5/15/2011 9:53 PM EST : RE: Exploratory Forces
GP User: Slawler
Posts: 223
Arachan and Leon materialize in the street in front of Xyries' house. Leon glares at Arachan, and mutters, "Warn me before you do that again, bloody necro." Arachan, ignoring him, sees Xyries standing in the street, as well. "Good evening, Cle-" Arachan realizes that Xyries is practically glowing, and that Xymorel and Reuken are standing near the doorway. "We have not come a moment too soon, have we?" Arachan glares at Reuken, but turns to face the noise of the ghoul pack.
Behind him, Leon already has an arrow to the string, and he fires before Arachan can begin his spellcasting. The arrow cleaves through two of the ghouls and into a wight, its electrically charged shaft sending electricity through their bodies, effectively frying the creatures. Arachan lifts a hand, and a wall of fire appears between the group of (mostly) living and the group of undead. Two of the remaining ghouls charge through the flames, burning, the rest skid to a halt behind the wall. Reuken charges one of the flaming ghouls, and kicks it back into the flames, where it is destroyed. The remaining ghoul runs past Reuken, Arachan, and Leon, and tries to attack Xyries, who still stands where she was when the fight began. Xyries extends a hand and speaks a prayer, and that ghoul joins its destroyed brethren. By this point, Leon has nocked five more arrows, and he releases them. As they sail through the firewall, they seem to pick up some of the magical fire. Three sink into the wight, and the other two into the remaining ghouls. Arachan waits a moment, then waves a hand, and the firewall is gone.
SickleYield (Applicant) 5/15/2011 10:14 PM EST : RE: Exploratory Forces
Posts: 384
Xyries looks around at the street, now dark and silent again. There are questions revolving in her increasingly tired mind, but they will wait.
"Is anyone injured?" she asks.
"No, but I will be if you do not stop that aura," Arachan says.
"I'm f-fine," Xymorel says, from her post in the doorway. Reuken responds only by a minute shake of his head.
Xyries breathes deeply, lowers her hands to her sides, and pulls the power in. The aura of positive energy retracts.
"Let's get out of the bloody street," says Leon. It's dark, and afterimages still dance on her retinae; Xyries does not quite register his haggard appearance.
Xyries turns to look at Arachan for a long moment. She is loth to remove any protection from her home for the lich's sake. Still, he did come, and he did bring Leon, however that seemingly impossible thing has come to pass.
"Yes," she says. "I will need to remove some of the wards. The house is protected against entry by undead."
Xymorel steps back into the house to allow her access. Xyries steps onto the threshold and places a hand on either doorpost. She can sense the network of divine power, the protections woven in and around the physical fabric of the building. To unmake them is the work of a moment. One tug at the threads from their maker, and the wards against undead dissolve like candyfloss in boiling water.
"Come in," she says, and leads the way inside.
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A pleasant ride on a familiar road
'Bonneville' offers nothing new, but Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates and Joan Allen are fun to watch.
May 30, 2008|Kevin Thomas | Special to The Times
Although "Bonneville" is not as sturdy a vehicle for its stars -- Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates and Joan Allen -- as the 1966 red convertible that gives this gentle but slight film its title, it is nevertheless strong enough to allow these splendid actresses to provide a pleasant ride for viewers, mature audiences especially.
Directed by Christopher N. Rowley, who co-wrote with Daniel D. Davis, there is a spacious quality to "Bonneville," a road movie that takes three friends on a journey from Pocatello, Idaho, to Santa Barbara.
Lange, ever the mistress of the radiant secret smile, has just been widowed by her adored, adventurous, much older husband, who never got around to including Lange's Arvilla, his second wife of 20 years, in his will. His daughter (Christine Baranski) by his late first wife has always been jealous of Arvilla and declares that the price of her being able to stay on in the family home will be to turn over her father's ashes for burial in Santa Barbara. But Arvilla knows that her husband would have wanted his ashes scattered at sites that had special meaning for him.
Her two best friends, the earthy, hearty Margene (Bates), a widowed former schoolteacher, and the sweetly proper Carol (Allen), heretofore inseparable from her husband (Tom Wopat), agree to accompany Arvilla and her pot full of ashes to the funeral, but Arvilla can't resist turning the journey into an adventure during which she will surely be tempted to deposit at least a portion of her husband's ashes here and there along the way. In any event, it will be a journey of self-discovery for the vivacious yet reflective Arvilla -- and a liberating experience for her friends.
"Bonneville" is scarcely original and in no way earthshaking, but its notable cast is a pleasure to behold.
"Bonneville." Rated PG for some mild language, innuendo. Running time: 1 hour, 33 minutes. In limited release.
Los Angeles Times Articles
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Let Bob Gainey Do His Job, Montreal
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Let Bob Gainey Do His Job, Montreal
If you live in Montreal you know what I am talking about when I say that anyone can do better than Bob Gainey. Whoever you talk to would do this or that, trade this player for that, and hire this coach and fire that one. In one of Canada's largest cities, that's a lot of people better than Gainey.
I have lived in Montreal for 18 years and I have always said that teams need time to perform. However, most Canadiens fans seem to forget that there are 82 games in a season, and that losing four games in a row before Christmas will not make or break a cup run.
Since I am now the sports editor for my college paper, it seems that every idiot armchair GM has to tell me how great their plan is.
I have laughed at some suggestions and given others serious thought, all the while saying that this team needs time. It seems I was right, Kovy has found his touch and Price is coming back. The team is in the same position as last year, while being better suited for the playoffs.
Seeing how the Habs seem to have found their groove, I'm going to give you my ultimate list of what I have heard, all from amateur Montreal fans, who have no idea what they are talking about. Some is real, some is fiction, all of it is stupid.
No. 1—The first move I would make as the GM of the Montreal Canadiens would be to fire Guy Carbonneau and hire Mr. T. Imagine pre-game locker speeches riddled with "I pity the fool" (because we all know Carbonneau is an incompetent and unproven coach).
No.2—I would lower the price of all tickets by 30 percent, thus giving more fans the opportunity to watch the game. (At the same time I will lower profit margins during an economic decline and not have enough money to pay salaries up to the cap, lowering the standard of play on the team.)
No. 3—Trade away all European players, especially Koivu and Kovalev, for North American fourth line players (because we all know that Euro players have no heart, especially when they come back from cancer).
No. 4—Make all fourth line players our first liners so that teams will be intimidated to play us, and pay them the most because they have the hardest job. (Because The Hockey News said that Steve Begin is going to break out and have a 30 goal campaign)
No. 5—Make a special day each month where one lucky fan gets to run the team (because fans are always right).
No. 6—Move the Canadiens back to the Forum, because we haven't won a Stanley Cup since. (Obviously it's to our advantage to lose almost 5000 fans per-game, especially in the playoffs when atmosphere is everythingcan. Not to mention that the training facilities at the forum are way more high tech, they just installed their first LED light!)
No. 7—Get George Gillett to sell the team, he is not involved enough with the team, he does not make any decisions. (Well he's obviously not the GM! Look at Oakland and Al Davis, and the Cowboys and Jerry Jones. Along with the fact that he cares about the Canadiens and it is not just a "business".)
No. 8—Have a 2:1 French to English player ratio; the team is in Quebec we should have Quebecois players. (Because it is pretty obvious that all the best players in the world are from Quebec. Ovechkin,Malkin,Crosby,Thornton and Iginla all sound so Quebecois to me!)
No. 9—Trade Carey Price. Imagine his market value! We could get a solid player and a draft pick, then use that pick to draft another great young goalie of his caliber to replace him. (Obviously this makes sense, trade the greatest goaltending prospect in over a decade. Because players like Price obviously come around all the time.)
No. 10—Move the team to Saudi Arabia. The team would not have to pay 78 percent property taxes, allowing them to lower the ticket price by 30 percent. We would be able to build our own hockey market there and have first dibs on the untapped Saudi hockey talents.
The move would remove the team's pressure to win, which sometimes impedes their progress, and players would most likely be more interested to play in a less frenzied environment. Also, if they build the arena on an oil field, they could own a petrol processing plant, bringing in extra revenue!
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Rockstar Games
Image from L.A. Noire
Rockstar Games last week released L.A. Noire, a hypnotic detective thriller developed by Australian studio Team Bondi. The videogame has been called groundbreaking for the facial-recognition technology used to create its characters, and the resulting psychological dimensions of gameplay. In witness questioning and interrogation sequences, the player, as young detective Cole Phelps, tries to ascertain the truths and lies in what he’s told. Because L.A. Noire’s cast of characters feature the recorded facial performances of its actors, rather than hand-animated abstractions of feeling, the gameplay carries the emotional ambiguity and weight of a cop show or film noir. We spoke via email with Jeronimo Barrera, VP of product development at Rockstar, about the process of building the game.
Speakeasy: The team used maps from the Works Progress Administration, archival photographs from newspapers, and aerial photos as reference material for the environment. Can the eight-square-mile section of Los Angeles recreated in the game be considered documentary or used as research material in its own right?
Jeronimo Barrera: We went to a great deal of effort in every area, from the details of the interiors of certain key buildings, licensing classic billboards, and recreating former landmarks, but it’s not a block-for-block recreation—we are trying to make something that feels real, not that replicates reality. We have to make some concessions to game design, alongside more pedestrian things like building licensing. A great example of the lighter side of the issues involved is the fact that in 1947, all the palm trees in L.A. were still roughly head-high. But when they were designed that way in the game, they had the opposite effect to being realistic—they actually distracted players from the experience, so we designed them at full height. We also designed the game to be slightly less smoggy than L.A. was at the time.
Past games from Rockstar have featured antiheroes as main characters. In this game, the protagonist is a cop. What level of moral ambiguity is written into the character and the game as a whole?
L.A. Noire is very different from our other games in a lot of ways, and one of them is that Cole Phelps is a by-the-book detective, and so the game is designed with that in mind. He can only draw his weapon when fired upon, or to fire a warning shot, for example. That said, it wouldn’t be noir if there wasn’t some complexity to the character, but that’s part of the story arc of the game. We have tried, in the past, to ensure that our anti-heroes have some redeeming qualities, and equally in this game we have tried to give Phelps a few weaknesses so he is far from the whiter-than-white hero he presents himself as at the start of the game.
Actors were recorded in an environment akin to a high-tech science-fiction setting. How were they directed to deliver believable, and relatable, performances while sitting alone in a chair and soundproof room?
The MotionScan room houses a rig of 32 high-definition 2D cameras that shoot an actor’s head—and only the head—from every angle, and actors would focus their performances on a main bank of cameras set in front of them. It was definitely an alien process at first, but we discovered a way to help humanize the process and help the actors emote just by placing a small print of the Mona Lisa in front of them to act toward and provide a sight line. Using an external monitor and microphone, Brendan McNamara, the game’s writer and director, would feed the actors their lines and direct individual performances.
Soon, the actors were accustomed to the rig and delivered incredible performances. It was practically a second home.
What limitations does the system have?
Right now, the system can only capture facial performances, but there’s a potential for it to capture a lot more in the future.
Do you feel that you’ve conquered the uncanny valley?
There’s always more work to be done, but the work in L.A. Noire is a huge leap forward—there has never been a greater level of emotion and realism in a videogame. What’s incredible about this is that we didn’t achieve this simply by using CG characters in non-interactive cutscenes. Every character in the game—some 400 in all—was created with this technology, and it is present in every scene, whether you’re talking to your partner during a shootout or searching a crime scene for clues.
The character bodies use existing motion-capture technology. There’s thus a disconnect between how their faces and their bodies have been realized. Is this an issue for the believability of the world?
For both facial and body animations we have used the best available technology. The facial tech is newer, but we feel this only brings it close to the level of motion capture. Faces were where the great leap in detail is really needed. For years, developers have been able design characters that move realistically. We used modern motion-capture techniques to obtain the information on the bodies, and then connected the heads to them. The difference is, motion capture assembles data on the skeleton of a character—MotionScan is the literal transfer of a real actor’s performance into the world of the game.
How explicit is the game’s connection between police procedurals and cinematic or literary noir?
The game is designed to play out a lot like a classic police procedural, but styled and themed in the traditions of noir. The game takes place across five “desks” of the LAPD—Patrol, Traffic, Homicide, Vice and Arson. Each desk consists of three to six self-contained cases, each with their own unique challenges. The game itself references classic noir and neo-noir both literally and obliquely, but the key thread here is that almost everyone you meet is hiding something—and the Cole Phelps we meet at the beginning of the game is a very different man than he is when you finally finish.
More on L.A. Noire:
Dropping Bodies Into Computer-Generated Films
Gamer As Gumshoe
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From: Charles McCathieNevile <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 12:26:27 -0400 (EDT)
To: Jeff Guillaume <[email protected]>
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
The case in point is an interesting one. There is no real problem caused by
the use of spacer gifs, so long as they are transparent (they look pretty
odd if they are white, and the user has a black background for high
contrast, but that's the designer's misfortune) and have appropriate
equivalent content - in this case alt="".
That satisfies the guidelines.
The use of tables is a bit trickier. There are particular problems caused by
tables because screen-reading technology is only beginning to cope, and not
all users have up-to-date browser/screenreader combinations. (Not surprising,
given the cost involved.) The most widely available solution is Lynx, which
runs on almost every platform, and can be converted to speech or braille
reliably. It simply unwraps the table, so unless there has been some
extraordinary work done to make the table not linearise properly (I have seen
examples of this, but it is generally easy to avoid) the user can get at the
content but loses much of the structural relationship implied - in particular
lynx does not provide any way to view the document by columns - the best
assistive technology solutuon I know for non-visual users is W3 - the
browser package for emacs, and it has problems with nested tables. The use of
tables for layout is also contrary to the design philosophy behind HTML and
CSS. This is really an example of people "doing things the wrong way".
I think it is true that many web designers do not really understand their
field, and I am somewhat surprised that there is so much of a market for
their limited and flawed skills. I realise that everyone needs to learn from
the beginning, but I would be happier if people were expected to have learned
more before they take on the important task of designing an information
space, particularly in important areas like government services and
information, and the ability to participate in regular commercial activity.
So I applaud your taking the time to grapple with the complexities of this
field, and I offer the encouragement that this isn't as hard as brain surgery
(so far as I know) or rocket science...
On Fri, 21 May 1999, Jeff Guillaume wrote:
It seems as though the argument _against_ having a text-only version is
merely furthering my point. Of course it makes sense to have an
automated system that will output the appropriate model of the page to
each user (as in Microsoft's case). But again, that is essentially a
"text-only" copy. I understand that a well-designed site in valid HTML
using WAI recommendations is supposed to be accessible to all. But this
is my point (not for me, because I agree with most of you, which is why
I subscribed to this list in the first place): most Webmasters don't
have the time nor inclination to learn what they need to learn to make
valid, accessible Web pages. They've been doing it for so long that
they slip into whatever works to make the page look good quickly and
forget the rest.
I _do_ have the time and inclination to learn how to do it right; I
still am NOT designing valid pages yet, because I simply have more to
learn. However, this is the major pitfall of the whole issue (the crux
of the problem, in Monty Python-ese). Webmasters think that all these
new Web regulations will make their job harder -- and I believe it
will!! That's the whole point. They *must* learn how to do it right if
they are going to design accessible pages. And it WILL be harder, at
first. I know, because I'm one of those people! An example follows in
my next question...
Question #2: And now for something completely different.
I was going to separate this into an entirely different thread, but it
relates to what I just said. I have seen on numerous pages the use of a
1-pixel by 1-pixel transparent GIF to use as a spacer (especially in
tables, but not exclusively). I was just reading an article on c|net's
Builder.com about how the use of <TABLE> has taken on a whole new
purpose, one that it wasn't designed for. Many people are using this
1-pixel transparent GIF to force a table to a certain width or height,
or even just for color or design sake. Go to http://www.voyager.net
(search for pixel.gif in the source) for an example.
This has been a perfect solution for designing a page to look the way
you want (I've even used this method). However, this is very bad for
accessibility. Yet another example of change that lots of Webmasters
won't appreciate.
Please don't misunderstand me, I am all for accessibility. I'm just
stating the plain fact that change is hard. It will take a while for
this to become successful.
--Charles McCathieNevile mailto:[email protected]
Received on Friday, 21 May 1999 12:26:30 GMT
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ScissorTales: Will Oklahoma City's Stage Center be the next 'iconic' structure to come down?
Published: July 21, 2012
“ICONIC” is a word overused by a profession (our own) that seems to find an iconic this or that on every block. Yet it's hard to otherwise describe Stage Center in downtown Oklahoma City, said to be an iconic piece of architecture that must be saved primarily because it's an iconic piece of architecture.
That it's not much else except an unused, deteriorating structure on a valuable piece of land is self-evident. No one has come forward to rescue this John Johansen-designed building that opened in 1970 and is featured in architecture textbooks.
The New York Times reported in April on a slew of Modernist buildings reaching middle age and showing signs of decay. Slapping the “iconic” label on such structures won't save them. That takes cash and determination, the kind that rescued the Skirvin Plaza Hotel but not the International-style Downtown YMCA building.
The Union Tank Car Dome, a spitting image of the Gold Dome at NW 23 in Classen, was completed in Baton Rouge, La., in 1958, in the heyday of geodesic dome guru Buckminster Fuller. Its unique design and links to a famous designer didn't save the dome. It was demolished in 2007 after years of disuse. Stage Center has reached that phase and could be next on the list of “iconic” structures to fall.
Here's the ironic mixed with the iconic: Stage Center was part of a downtown redesign plan that resulted in the demolition of historic properties that would surely be called “iconic” today.
A needed budget reform
We wrote this week that House Appropriations and Budget Chairman Earl Sears, R-Bartlesville, was “vague” in a Tulsa World interview regarding a $2 million appropriation for a youth livestock show. That show's chairman is a major political donor, and the appropriation is drawing heat. Sears is typically frank and accessible to reporters. He deserves praise for granting interviews when ducking them would be easier. But we were disappointed Sears didn't simply identify by name those pushing for the $2 million. As we noted, the state's $6.8 billion budget is drafted in secret by just a handful of people — the governor, legislative leaders and the chambers' appropriation chairmen. If the budget were crafted in the light of day, relying on secondhand information and putting people like Sears in a tough spot wouldn't be necessary. Sears is a good guy wronged by a bad system — one that must be reformed.
As goes Kentucky?
This year Gov. Mary Fallin sought to slash the personal income tax to 3.5 percent from 5.25 percent by ending certain tax breaks. Beneficiaries of those breaks successfully fought off any change, but policymakers are expected to try again next year. Maybe they'll do better than Kentucky lawmakers. notes that tax reform has been an issue there for a decade with little to show for it. As in Oklahoma, closing tax breaks is in the mix in Kentucky, including generous exemptions for pension income and sales tax exemptions for accounting, legal services, dry cleaning, limousine rides, landscaping and country club memberships. Kentucky Democrats want to increase the income tax on the wealthy, while some Republicans want to eliminate it. In both states, beneficiaries of current policies have fought hard against change. Unlike Kentucky, however, Oklahoma Republicans can't blame the failure of tax reform on divided government; they run the whole show here.
A resounding no
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Comment: Re:I wonder (Score 1) 66
by pcwhalen (#46479885) Attached to: A Look at the NSA's Most Powerful Internet Attack Tool
I'm not sure what country you're from, but in America, morals are for suckers and poor people.
You are wrong.
I am an American, I am far from poor and I am no man's fool. I live by the moral compass taught to me by my parents, my church and my conscience and I have done very well in my 50 years on Earth.
The most precious commodity is the ability to sleep at night.
by bloodhawk (#46478457) Attached to: 1GB of Google Drive Storage Now Costs Only $0.02 Per Month
Do you carry your SATA drive around with you wherever you go and attach it to every computer you use?
Absolutely, my backpack which has my laptop goes everywhere with me. It has 2 external drives and a handful of USB sticks. around 5 or 6 TB in all and anything extra critical I make I put on another drive which I store safely. access is 100 times faster and more reliable than accessing google. I know that the service isn't going to be discontinued in X months time and I can be confident on who has access to my data. Even my keys for the car has 2 USB sticks on it with 256GB of data that is always with me even if there is somewhere I go without my backpack. Google can't hope to match the ease of access, vailability, security or speed.
Comment: Re:Awesome! (Score 1) 99
by timeOday (#46474437) Attached to: Tested: Asus Chromebox Based On Haswell Core i3
I like the idea of these cheap little boxes! But it should be noted that the $180 one you linked does not include an HDD/SSD, nor an ethernet port(!?) (No USB3 either, though it does have high-speed expandability via a Thunderbolt port).
I know it's not really the same, but I've had good luck with used laptops. Even if I use them primarily headless or with an external keyboard/mouse, you get low power consumption, built-in battery backup, and a built-in screen which is handy sometimes. The only trick is finding cheaper used laptops that have some sort of digital video out, not just a VGA port.
Comment: Re:If you want to hoard bits... (Score 1) 943
by fuzzyfuzzyfungus (#46472399) Attached to: How Do You Backup 20TB of Data?
There's also the matter of your expected retrieval case: tapes almost certainly beat HDDs in the archival timeframe, so suck it up and pay up; and they (if reasonably modern) can be alarmingly fast at the linear reads and writes associated with doing full restores or fast backups of data that have been suitably lined up to be shoved onto tape.
On the other hand, they are almost perversely non-random-access(doubly so if you are talking about a multi-tape set with library swapping, more than doubly so if you are talking about a multi-tape set larger than your library can handle with junior-admin swapping), so the 'somebody fucked up, they need File X to be like it was three months ago' scenario sucks.
Nearline or consumer SATA on undistinguished controllers aren't quite as zippy; but they might as well be a RAMdisk compared to tape if you are doing small-scale restores, though probably not as fast if de-icing a much larger dataset for wholesale restoration of multiple systems.
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
I'm planning to code a library that should be usable by a large number of people in on a wide spectrum of platforms. What do I have to consider to design it right? To make this questions more specific, there are four "subquestions" at the end.
Choice of language
Considering all the known requirements and details, I concluded that a library written in C or C++ was the way to go. I think the primary usage of my library will be in programs written in C, C++ and Java SE, but I can also think of reasons to use it from Java ME, PHP, .NET, Objective C, Python, Ruby, bash scrips, etc... Maybe I cannot target all of them, but if it's possible, I'll do it.
It would be to much to describe the full purpose of my library here, but there are some aspects that might be important to this question:
• The library itself will start out small, but definitely will grow to enormous complexity, so it is not an option to maintain several versions in parallel.
• Most of the complexity will be hidden inside the library, though
• The library will construct an object graph that is used heavily inside. Some clients of the library will only be interested in specific attributes of specific objects, while other clients must traverse the object graph in some way
• Clients may change the objects, and the library must be notified thereof
• The library may change the objects, and the client must be notified thereof, if it already has a handle to that object
• The library must be multi-threaded, because it will maintain network connections to several other hosts
• While some requests to the library may be handled synchronously, many of them will take too long and must be processed in the background, and notify the client on success (or failure)
Of course, answers are welcome no matter if they address my specific requirements, or if they answer the question in a general way that matters to a wider audience!
My assumptions, so far
So here are some of my assumptions and conclusions, which I gathered in the past months:
• Internally I can use whatever I want, e.g. C++ with operator overloading, multiple inheritance, template meta programming... as long as there is a portable compiler which handles it (think of gcc / g++)
• But my interface has to be a clean C interface that does not involve name mangling
• Also, I think my interface should only consist of functions, with basic/primitive data types (and maybe pointers) passed as parameters and return values
• If I use pointers, I think I should only use them to pass them back to the library, not to operate directly on the referenced memory
• For usage in a C++ application, I might also offer an object oriented interface (Which is also prone to name mangling, so the App must either use the same compiler, or include the library in source form)
• Is this also true for usage in C# ?
• For usage in Java SE / Java EE, the Java native interface (JNI) applies. I have some basic knowledge about it, but I should definitely double check it.
• Not all client languages handle multithreading well, so there should be a single thread talking to the client
• For usage on Java ME, there is no such thing as JNI, but I might go with Nested VM
• For usage in Bash scripts, there must be an executable with a command line interface
• For the other client languages, I have no idea
• For most client languages, it would be nice to have kind of an adapter interface written in that language. I think there are tools to automatically generate this for Java and some others
• For object oriented languages, it might be possible to create an object oriented adapter which hides the fact that the interface to the library is function based - but I don't know if its worth the effort
Possible subquestions
• is this possible with manageable effort, or is it just too much portability?
• are there any good books / websites about this kind of design criteria?
• are any of my assumptions wrong?
• which open source libraries are worth studying to learn from their design / interface / souce?
• meta: This question is rather long, do you see any way to split it into several smaller ones? (If you reply to this, do it as a comment, not as an answer)
share|improve this question
Have you looked at the X library and the OpenGL library for hints as to how other people do this? Please read their code and compare their approach with yours. Then ask specific questions. – S.Lott Dec 19 '09 at 13:20
I've worked a lot with OpenGL, so I know its API. I tought me a lot about how to control a very complex thing (GPU) with a very simple interface (just functions taking numbers). I have no experience with X, and it is known to have more than 1.5 millions LOC, so it seems a bit daunting to read the code... But I guess taking a look at it won't hurt neither :) – Lena Schimmel Dec 19 '09 at 13:34
Agree with S. Lott. Pretty much every other bullet could be turned into a separate question. – martinr Dec 19 '09 at 14:13
Well. I think that my thoughts about the general question, your comments and your answers give me a much clearer view of what to ask in the first place. I think once this question has settled, I will ask three or four more specific questions on points that are still unclear, but asking this general one saved me from asking separate 20 questions in the beginning. – Lena Schimmel Dec 19 '09 at 16:20
Concerning C vs. C++, I just noticed stackoverflow.com/questions/1025166/… – Lena Schimmel Dec 19 '09 at 16:29
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7 Answers
up vote 24 down vote accepted
Mostly correct. Straight procedural interface is the best. (which is not entirely the same as C btw(**), but close enough)
I interface DLLs a lot(*), both open source and commercial, so here are some points that I remember from daily practice, note that these are more recommended areas to research, and not cardinal truths:
• Watch out for decoration and similar "minor" mangling schemes, specially if you use a MS compiler. Most notably the stdcall convention sometimes leads to decoration generation for VB's sake (decoration is stuff like @6 after the function symbol name)
• Not all compilers can actually layout all kinds of structures:
• so avoid overusing unions.
• avoid bitpacking
• and preferably pack the records. While slower, at least all compilers can access packed records afaik
• On Windows use stdcall. This is the default for Windows DLLs. Avoid fastcall, it is not entirely standarized (specially how small records are passed)
• Some tips to make automated header translation easier:
• macros are hard to autoconvert due to their untypeness. Avoid them, use functions
• Define separate types for each pointer types, and don't use composite types (xtype **) in function declarations.
• follow the "define before use" mantra as much as possible, this will avoid users that translate headers to rearrange them if their language in general requires defining before use, and makes it easier for one-pass parsers to translate them. Or if they need context info to auto translate.
• Don't expose more than necessary. Leave handle types opague if possible. It will only cause versioning troubles later.
• always have a version check function (easier to make a distinction).
• be careful with enums and boolean. Other languages might have slightly different assumptions. You can use them, but document well how they behave and how large they are. Also think ahead, and make sure that enums don't become larger if you add a few fields, break the interface. (e.g. on Delphi/pascal by default booleans are 0 or 1, and other values are undefined. There are special types for C-like booleans (byte,16-bit or 32-bit word size, though they were originally introduced for COM, not C interfacing))
• I prefer stringtypes that are pointer to char + length as separate field (COM also does this). Preferably not having to rely on zero terminated. This is not just because of security (overflow) reasons, but also because it is easier/cheaper to interface them to Delphi native types that way.
• Memory always create the API in a way that encourages a total separation of memory management. IOW don't assume anything about memory management. This means that all structures in your lib are allocated via your own memory manager, and if a function passes a struct to you, copy it instead of storing a pointer made with the "clients" memory management. Because you will sooner or later accidentally call free or realloc on it :-)
• (implementation language, not interface), be reluctant to change the coprocessor exception mask. Some languages change this as part of conforming to their standards floating point error(exception-)handling.
• be careful with the coprocessor status word. It might be changed by others and break your code, and if you change it, other code might stop working. The status word is generally not saved/restored as part of calling conventions. At least not in practice.
(*) Delphi programmer by day, a job that involves interfacing a lot of hardware and thus translating vendor SDK headers. By night Free Pascal developer, in charge of, among others, the Windows headers.
(**) This is because what "C" means binary is still dependant on the used C compiler, specially if there is no real universal system ABI. Think of stuff like:
• C adding an underscore prefix on some binary formats (a.out, Coff?)
• sometimes different C compilers have different opinions on what to do with small structures passed by value. Officially they shouldn't support it at all afaik, but most do.
• structure packing sometimes varies, as do details of calling conventions (like skipping integer registers or not if a parameter is registerable in a FPU register)
===== automated header conversions ====
While I don't know SWIG that well, I know and use some delphi specific header tools( h2pas, Darth/headconv etc).
However I never use them in fully automatic mode, since more often then not the output sucks. Comments change line or are stripped, and formatting is not retained.
I usually make a small script (in Pascal, but you can use anything with decent string support) that splits a header up, and then try a tool on relatively homogeneous parts (e.g. only structures, or only defines etc).
Then I check if I like the automated conversion output, and either use it, or try to make a specific converter myself. Since it is for a subset (like only structures) it is often way easier than making a complete header converter. Of course it depends a bit what my target is. (nice, readable headers or quick and dirty). At each step I might do a few substitutions (with sed or an editor).
The most complicated scheme I did for Winapi commctrl and ActiveX/comctl headers. There I combined IDL and the C header (IDL for the interfaces, which are a bunch of unparsable macros in C, the C header for the rest), and managed to get the macros typed for about 80% (by propogating the typecasts in sendmessage macros back to the macro declaration, with reasonable (wparam,lparam,lresult) defaults)
The semi automated way has the disadvantage that the order of declarations is different (e.g. first constants, then structures then function declarations), which sometimes makes maintenance a pain. I therefore always keep the original headers/sdk to compare with.
The Jedi winapi conversion project might have more info, they translated about half of the windows headers to Delphi, and thus have enormous experience.
share|improve this answer
() I meant "C-like, as opposed to using **C++-specific functionality ... unless, that is, the C++-specific functionality is packaged as a COM object (i.e. you can use C++ to implement COM objects)". – ChrisW Dec 19 '09 at 13:40
I understand. Definitely C then, (**) was just a sideremark to make the difference between C-like and real C. Anyway, both C and COM then. COM can be used by VB, Delphi and .NET. C can be used by languages that prefer in-process for speed, like other C++ compilers, and non-lazy .NET, Delphi and FPC programmers. – Marco van de Voort Dec 19 '09 at 14:00
Could you elaborate on this point please: "always have a version check function (easier to make a distinction)"? – sbk Dec 19 '09 at 14:31
version check - if you have a fn that tells you the version of the library, you'll have more options for a) debugging problems, b) allowing backward-compatibility (eg your new app can still use the old version of a library, just not newer features), c) disallow using old versions of the lib if necessary. – gbjbaanb Dec 19 '09 at 16:21
Event though I don't agree with (or understand?) each and every of your points, there's much insight in there. Also, I'm impressed by you constant effort to update and expand your answer, so it is definitely the accepted one for me. – Lena Schimmel Dec 20 '09 at 13:25
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I don't know but if it's for Windows then you might try either a straight C-like API (similar to the WINAPI), or packaging your code as a COM component: because I'd guess that programming languages might want to be able to invoke the Windows API, and/or use COM objects.
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Windows headers are very good, specially the older ones. They are so strict and complete, it is fairly easy to write a semi automated header converter. I did that for e.g. FPC's commctrl headers. – Marco van de Voort Dec 19 '09 at 16:43
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Regarding automatic wrapper generation, consider using SWIG. For Java, it will do all the JNI work. Also, it is able to translate complex OO-C++-interfaces properly (provided you follow some basic guidelines, i.e. no nested classes, no over-use of templates, plus the ones mentioned by Marco van de Voort).
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Wow, I've heard of SWIG before, but I though it was just for Java and one or two other languages. But now I see it supports 18 target languages (even if "only" 6 of them have a large relevance IMHO), so it solves many problems at once. Anyway, SWIG says to be design- style-agnostic, which is good, but still leaves me with the question on how to design the API well. – Lena Schimmel Dec 19 '09 at 13:46
Don't forget to check if the generated output has a comparable quality. In a lot of pluggable programs, the plugins that are non standard are only there for quantity. – Marco van de Voort Dec 20 '09 at 0:14
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Think C, nothing else. C is one of the most popular programming languages. It is widely used on many different software platforms, and there are few computer architectures for which a C compiler does not exist. All popular high-level languages provide an interface to C. That makes your library accessible from almost all platforms in existence. Don't worry too much about providing an Object Oriented interface. Once you have the library done in C, OOP, functional or any other style interface can be created in appropriate client languages. No other systems programming language will give you C's flexibility and potability.
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I totally understand that C gives you the most universal interface to other languages. But what is your opinion about programming in C++ but providing a C interface? I know, there are some architectures for which there is a C compiler but not C++, but I think those are generally not suited for my lib. Is there anything why I shouldn't use C++ internally? – Lena Schimmel Dec 19 '09 at 16:16
There's no reason why you can't write your C library in C++. The only thing that matters to clients of your app is the interface, once past that doorway it could be written in basic! The interface, or 'contract', is all that matters to your users. The internals of your library are none of their business, so write it in C++ (which fortunately allows an easy way to expose C functions, cool) – gbjbaanb Dec 19 '09 at 16:36
@Brian Schimmel If all your target platforms have C++ compilers, you can use C++. Still keep in mind that, while most systems (especially the Unix variants) has a C compiler installed by default, users may have to download and install the C++ compiler to use your library. – Vijay Mathew Dec 20 '09 at 6:13
I would love if this were always the case, (I love C), and it usually is if you have access to the raw machine metal, but in a lot of mobile platforms, if you are writing sandbox embedded apps, you must write in Java, or suffer a usually unacceptable performance hit from having a C virtual machine within a Java virtual machine. On some previously C-programmable mobile app sandbox platforms like Symbian C is no longer the base language. – martinr Dec 20 '09 at 12:56
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NestedVM I think is going to be slower than pure Java because of the array bounds checking on the int[][] that represents the MIPS virtual machine memory. It is such a good concept but might not perform well enough right now (until phone manufacturers add NestedVM support (if they do!), most stuff is going to be SLOW for now, n'est-ce pas)? Whilst it may be able to unpack JPEGs without error, speed is of no small concern! :)
Nothing else in what you've written sticks out, which isn't to say that it's right or wrong! The principles sound (mainly just listening to choice of words and language to be honest) like roughly standard best practice but I haven't thought through the details of everything you've said. As you said yourself, this really ought to be several questions. But of course doing this kind of thing is not automatically easy just because you're fixed on perhaps a slightly different architecture to the last code base you've worked on...! ;)
My thoughts:
All your comments on C interface compatibility sound sensible to me, pretty much best practice except you don't seem to properly address memory management policy - some sentences a bit ambiguous/vague/wrong-sounding. The design of the memory management will be to a large extent determined by the access patterns made in your application, rather than the functionality per se. I suiggest you study others' attempts at making portable interfaces like the standard ANSI C API, Unix API, Win32 API, Cocoa, J2SE, etc carefully.
If it was me, I'd write the library in a carefully chosen subset of the common elements of regular Java and Davlik virtual machine Java and also write my own custom parser that translates the code to C for platforms that support C, which would of course be most of them. I would suggest that if you restrict yourself to data types of various size ints, bools, Strings, Dictionaries and Arrays and make careful use of them that will help in cross-platform issues without affecting performance much most of the time.
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Plus NestedVM might not be good at balancing its memory needs with those of the rest of the software running on a phone, if the NestedVM virtual machine memory usage varies greatly because of lots of frees and reallocs, or because of heap fragmentation in the virtual MIPS machine (I suggest). – martinr Dec 19 '09 at 13:45
Oh yeah and I forgot to add Byte Arrays and composite Objects of the all the other types to (my) list of data types. – martinr Dec 19 '09 at 13:49
Thanks a lot for your detailed answer. I didn't expect that one of my readers would now Nested VM at all (that's why I put in the link), but you seem to have a solid knowledge of its pros and cons. But J2ME is only of limited importance to me, so I can't let it determine large parts of my design, not even decide over the use of Java instead of C / C++. Your comment on memory management is very appreciated, because I totally forgot this important aspect. Right now, I don't see any specific problems arising, but I will keep an eye on it. – Lena Schimmel Dec 19 '09 at 13:54
I think this is the more general solution...! (I would go with C and NestedVM IF it happened to be meet the needs of my application...) – martinr Dec 19 '09 at 13:58
@martinr I use pointers for handles; if I want to check whether a pointer/handle is valid, then I keep a set or map which remembers my list of valid, allocated pointer/handle values. – ChrisW Dec 19 '09 at 15:18
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your assumptions seem ok, but i see trouble ahead, much of which you have already spotted in your assumptions. As you said, you can't really export c++ classes and methods, you will need to provide a function based c interface. What ever facade you build around that, it will remain a function based interface at heart.
The basic problem i see with that is that people choose a specific language and its runtime because their way of thinking (functional or object oriented) or the problem they address (web programming, database,...) corresponds to that language in some way or other. A library implemented in c will probably never feel like the libraries they are used to, unless they program in c themselves. Personally, I would always prefer a library that "feels like python" when I use python, and one that feels like java when I do Java EE, even though I know c and c++.
So your effort might be of little actual use (other than your gain in experience), because people will probably want to stick with their mindset, and rather re-implement the functionality than use a library that does the job, but does not fit.
I also fear the desired portability will seriously hamper development. Just think of the infinite build settings needed, and tests for that. I have worked on a project that tried to maintain compatibility for 5 operating systems (all posix-like, but still) and about 10 compilers, the builds were a nightmare to test and maintain.
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For the "not fitting to the language": Good point there. But I think this is not the biggest problem. If my lib will be usable in Python, some people will do, even if it feels odd. And if there is enough interest, it should be possible to write a wrapper that makes it feel more like python, and it would be easier then reimplenting - but this would be none of my core concerns. What's about the general difficulty of portability, you're also completely right. I know some of those pains, but this time, I'm willing to take them. Of course, if there's a way to minimize it, I'll take it :) – Lena Schimmel Dec 19 '09 at 14:09
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Give it an XML interface, whether passed as a parameter and return value or as files through a command-line invocation. This may not seem as direct as a normal function interface, but is the most practical way to access an executable from, e.g., Java.
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Could you clarify (by explanation or by pointing to some examples) what you mean by an XML interface? Do you mean something like AJAX / SOAP / WebServices, or am I missing the point? – Lena Schimmel Dec 19 '09 at 16:22
I think he means to stream all data as XML. But that is only a solution for the data part (and an expensive bulky one, both the streamed data as the libraries you need to write and read validatable XML). – Marco van de Voort Dec 19 '09 at 17:47
I have reasons not to involve XML, and don't think it is generally a good idea, but anyway: your answer provided some valuable insight about command line interfaces for me and made me think about things I forgot before. Thus: +1 – Lena Schimmel Dec 20 '09 at 13:22
@Brian I mean that the Java (or other program) generates an XML file, calls an executable with the input filename as well as an output filename (of a file that does not yet exist) as a command-line argument; the executable writes an XML file with the given output filename. I agree that this is clumsy, but may be better than some alternatives. @Marco Yes, it is bulky. But as always, you should check if this is really the bottleneck, I don't understand what it means to say "solution for the data part". You can invoke behavior on the command – Joshua Fox Dec 21 '09 at 11:48
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I have created a button in Blend by editing it's style. I added multiple text blocks with the intention of displaying data to the user in real time. However, I don't know how to interface with those text blocks in my code behind.
My Style XAML is this:
<ControlTemplate TargetType="Button">
<Grid Background="Transparent">
<VisualStateGroup x:Name="CommonStates">
<VisualState x:Name="Normal"/>
<VisualState x:Name="MouseOver"/>
<VisualState x:Name="Pressed"/>
<VisualState x:Name="Disabled"/>
<Border x:Name="ButtonBackground" BorderThickness="{TemplateBinding BorderThickness}" Background="{StaticResource PhoneAccentBrush}" CornerRadius="0" Margin="8,12,12,12">
<TextBlock Margin="121,5,98,0" TextWrapping="Wrap" Text="Current Program:" Height="36" VerticalAlignment="Top"/>
<TextBlock Margin="92,68,80,81" TextWrapping="Wrap" Text="" RenderTransformOrigin="0.265,0.51" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Width="271" x:Name="programName"/>
<TextBlock Height="32" Margin="21,0,16,12" TextWrapping="Wrap" Text="Date:" VerticalAlignment="Bottom" x:Name="CurrentDate"/>
My code to display the button is this:
<Grid x:Name="middleRow" Grid.Row="2">
<Button Content="Button" Margin="8,8,0,8" Style="{StaticResource ButtonCenter}" x:Name="Current" Click="Current_Click" d:LayoutOverrides="GridBox" />
In my code behind after the InitializeComponent(); I would like to change the ProgramName text block and the CurrentDate text block.
I'm thinking that I might have to create a control to do this but I'm not sure. My attempts at doing so failed (misc. errors). Can I access these text blocks in code? Please let me know.
I wound up doing it like this:
<Button Margin="8,8,0,8" x:Name="Current" Click="Current_Click">
<TextBlock x:Name="ProgramName" Text="program name" HorizontalAlignment="Center" />
<TextBlock x:Name="CurrentDate" Text="current date" HorizontalAlignment="Center" />
I applied my styles from the template in Blend and it appears to be working now.
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1 Answer
up vote 2 down vote accepted
You can't reference controls in a style by name as there could be multiple copies of them on a page.
If you made your button into a custom control you could make the text for the ProgramTitle and CurrentDate properties (which woudl be very easy to set).
Alternatively you could use databinding to set these values.
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"Is it bad when you refer to alcohol as 'pain-go-bye-bye juice'?"
"Hide my head I wanna drown my sorrows, no tomorrow, no tomorrow"
Tears For Fears/Gary Jules, "Mad World'
Full bottle in front of me,
Time to roll up my sleeves and get to work
And after many glasses of work
I get paid in the brain
They Might Be Giants, "Your Own Worst Enemy"
"He was vaguely aware that he drank to forget. What made it rather pointless was that he couldn't remember what it was he was forgetting anymore. In the end he just drank to forget about drinking."
"I felt Kalikai's fear and anger. She hated what we had to do, turning against our own, and she worried what would happen to the Crimson Eyes. She wanted to join us - but she knew she couldn't. I wondered if that was why she became so intoxicated. Was she a soldier at heart, forced into the role of a general because of her brilliance, rather than ambition? Were the decisions that she had to make easier, when part of her was numb?"
Igaso, Lusternia
(right side up) If you can read this, your team is winning.
(upside down) If you can read this, your team is losing.
—Printed on the side of a shot glass
"Why are you drinking?" demanded the little prince. "So that I may forget," replied the tippler. "Forget what?" inquired the little prince, who already was sorry for him. "Forget that I am ashamed," the tippler confessed, hanging his head. "Ashamed of what?" insisted the little prince, who wanted to help him. "Ashamed of drinking!" The tipler brought his speech to an end, and shut himself up in an impregnable silence.
"One minute you're defendin' the whole galaxy... and suddenly you find yourself suckin' down darjeeling with Marie Antoinette and her little sister."
Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story
"Never gamble out of need, and never drink out of despair."
"Come on, dear. You can drown your sorrows in the cider."
Dad, Calvin & Hobbes: The Series, "New Year, New Disasters"
"Went off to school and learned to serve the state"
"Followed the rules and drank his vodka straight"
"The only way to live was drown the hate"
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Leningrad, Billy Joel
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"we'll drink and drink and drink and drink and then we'll drink some more."
"We'll dance and sing and fight until the early mornin' light,"
"then we'll throw up, pass out, wake up and then go drinkin' once again."
Another Irish Drinking Song (everybody's died)
Vir Cotto, Babylon 5, shortly after hw assassinates Cartagia.
"Hmm, Lord Pendleton said he would meet us here. I'd check the wine cellar. Losing family gives a man a thirst."
Samuel, Dishonored
"You won't turn to drink, will you? You stoic types often do, when disappointed in life."
Marc Antony to a Not So Stoic Lucius Vorenus, Rome
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Comments Threshold
RE: Heartless Bastards
By Reclaimer77 on 6/2/2010 5:20:49 PM , Rating: 2
Other than that, there really is nothing we can do but not buy apple products.
We could clone Ronald Regan! That way we would have someone who actually knew how to deal with Communists and bring them to the negotiating table, and ultimately bring them to their knees.
I'm not gonna sit here and defend Foxconn, but I will say that many of the companies in China treat their factory employees this way
Lol is that your idea of a silver lining? I don't know about you, but I don't get a fuzzy feeling knowing Foxconn is just the tip of the iceberg.
What we should do is actively support the workers there to unionize and demand better working conditions.
Ummm, you really don't get it, do you? You can't unionize when your system of Government denies you basic human rights.
Look at it this way, what if this happened in America or another civilized nation? There would be investigations, public outcries, law enforcement action, indictments, federal junctions, etc etc. At the very least, you would almost certainly be heavily fined and probably shut down. Why is none of this happening in China? Because your basic human rights are of NO concern to the Government, in fact, you HAVE no basic human rights.
Knowing all that, you expect these employees to somehow have the power, and protection needed, to form a Union and "demand" better working conditions?? HOW!? Because we actively "support" that? What a bunch of fluffy feel-good nonsense. The people stepping on the throats of these workers could give a goddamn about your support!
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Comments Threshold
By bplewis24 on 6/7/2010 11:49:55 AM , Rating: 5
I recently talked to a girl I've been dating about her iPhone. I asked when her contract was up so that she could switch to a Droid. Her response was "why would I do that?" I promptly said, because you will have a better phone with more features, not to mention on a better network. Why wouldn't you want that?
She seemed to think I was lying or must have been completely off of my rocker to suggest something was better than the iPhone. It was as if I had come from another universe at that point, as no sane person could dare utter such heresy.
Then I asked her, since when has she known me to be misinformed about electronic devices, and her response was the following:
Well, yeah, you always know what you're talking about with technology. But I don't care if there's something better than the iPhone. I'm going to get another one. This is my first smartphone purchase and I'll always get whatever new version they come out with. Why shouldn't I?
At that point I started questioning our compatibility.
By BigToque on 6/7/2010 12:14:47 PM , Rating: 3
If she said "I like the features I get with the iPhone and I'm happy to stick with it. If something better comes along, feel free to let me know and I'll think about changing", you would know she was at least moderately intelligent and could think for herself.
If I had a girlfriend that said something like the OP's girlfriend, a little bulb in my head would go off as well. I likely wouldn't break up with her over that statement, but I'm positive it would be followed with many more retarded statements over the course of the relationship. I would get annoyed, and eventually dump her.
I've dated dumb girls and it's just not worth it.
By BigToque on 6/7/2010 12:04:42 PM , Rating: 2
She probably has pointy elbows. Just let her go man...
By Helbore on 6/7/2010 2:43:15 PM , Rating: 5
If she screams "oh Steve" when you're in bed, it's time to end it.
By 67STANG on 6/7/2010 6:01:40 PM , Rating: 2
What if all he's wearing is a black turtleneck and trendy glasses? I'm just saying...
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DNP This is the Modem World TKTKTK
My first computer was a Commodore VIC-20. It raged with 3.5K of RAM, a high-speed cassette deck, and built-in BASIC. I used to copy game programs string-by-string from the back of COMPUTE! magazine -- tens of thousands of lines of code -- and small errors were not an option. One syntax error and the program wouldn't work. When I did make those errors, I'd go back, line by line, and check for differences. There was nothing -- at the time -- more annoying than seeing hours of code crash because of one bad POKE statement.
That digital fastidiousness has stuck with me since. I keep all my computers' files in order, keep operating systems updated, backup constantly to a remote storage device and quickly go after a machine that's behaving strangely. The net result, and I may be tempting fate, is that I have never had a computer completely fail in the thirty years I've been using them.
There was, of course, that one time, but that wasn't my fault and I'll leave that for the end of this column to reward those who keep reading -- or those who have read this far and now know to skip to the end.
I've helped many friends and relatives deal with crashed machines and devices more times than I'd like to count, and in each and every case I can track the cause to human error. Sure, machines and media can go bad on their own, but that happens a lot less than problems caused by poor digital hygiene.
With that I present to you the top three signs that a user is going to experience digital failure in the future:
Bad Digital Hygiene
Ever walk by a computer at work or school -- or even in your own house -- and the desktop looks like a quilt of icons? That's because that computer user doesn't put his or her files where they belong: in folders and subdirectories. They also don't run the occasional file permissions or drive optimization routines because they don't know how or simply don't take the time.
This practice probably doesn't do much to harm the computer or hard drive immediately, but it's a warning sign that the user isn't thinking about their computer's health. Sort of like how an out-of-shape person isn't necessarily unhealthy at the moment, but chances are there will be problems down the line.
Digital cleanliness issues can be physical, too: ever see a keyboard so speckled with dust, dirt, and food bits that, if turned over, could feed dozens of hungry children? This straight-up dirty computer use might look harmless if not downright icky, but it is a sign that the user isn't thinking about digital hygiene.
Extensions and Plug-Ins
Extensions and plug-ins are cool, I suppose, if you're looking to enhance your Internet experience. A pop-up here to alert you that shoes are on sale, a toolbar there to flatten search results -- I get it. But what you're really doing is adding software that comes between you and the software you really want to use. Sounds fine on the surface, but when one bit of code updates and leaves the other behind, you end up with digital loose ends that can lead to bigger problems, usually on the performance side.
So the next time you're installing that plug-in, ask yourself: will this really save me time when the search bar is already right in my browser? Don't I already have a program that I can keep running in the background that does this even better and faster? What am I gaining here other than some new thing to get out of whack when Google updates Chrome? Chances are that since you're an Engadget reader, you're pretty advanced as a computer user. Ditch the unnecessary detritus and keep your browser clean.
And may the computer gods have mercy on your soul if you install anti-virus and other security utilities and just let them do their thing.
Out-of-Date Apps and Operating System
My wife's computer was acting up -- running really slow, taking forever to wake up, you know the symptoms -- so the first thing I did was take a look at what she was running. Her operating system was up to date enough as she uses a late model laptop, but when I ran a check for software updates I was presented with dozens of prompts begging me to let her software join modern times.
I let the updates do their thing, restarted a couple times, ran a quick disk utility to clean out some old databases, and she was up and running. When I asked her why she didn't let the software update itself when prompted, she simply said, "Because I had other stuff to do."
Keeping your software up to date assures that you're running code that has been error checked and tested. Software engineers don't just release software and let it sit. They cull user feedback and update software to make it run faster and bug-free. If you're stuck on an old version just because you like it or don't have time to update, you're probably putting yourself in harm's way.
Nine times out of ten, terminal crashes can be avoided by a user who pays attention to their machine's behavior. Like keeping a pet, we have to notice when our systems are doing strange things before larger problems develop. Perhaps only experienced users even notice when things are about to go bad, but even the most novice user can learn to keep things in order.
I live a computer life without plug-ins, antivirus software, and even without third-party utilities. I just look out for symptoms. As for that one time when I did have a fatal crash, well, that was that hard drive's fault -- ahem. It was a 60MB external Seagate drive that had a bad SCSI bus and eventually shredded its own sectors to oblivion. I did all I could, but those were the early days of spinning discs and sometimes they just got ill. RIP, Big Bertha.
This is the Modem World: Why don't I crash?
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“There simply aren’t enough hours in the day” is an observation that is both keen, witty, and observation-y. It gets truer every time it is said aloud, so say it often. Who was the fuckwit that decided to measure time in correlation to the Earth’s rotation, by the way? If I ever met him, I would put a bag of hay in his car.
Here are some easy tips to streamline your daily productivity, allowing you slightly more free time per day to listen to Enya (rhymes with “Kenya”) or Alanis Morrisette or Natasha Bedingfield in between hot yoga classes.
1. Coffee. It’s a common myth that you actually have to drink the coffee to experience the sensation of waking up. It’s not caffeine that serves this function so much as the exciting tingling feeling you get in your nether regions from being around heat. To truly give the start to your day that extra “kick”, plunge your “hand” into a “pot of freshly brewed coffee”, or briskly walk across a room with two over-sated mugs of coffee at nipple height. No more coffee breath to dispel your friends!
2. Occasionally you’ll forget errands you have to run, so loudly repeat them to yourself. “BUY ALMOND MILK. BUY ALMOND MILK.” If you’re doing this in public, it may be wise to invest in a sandwich board where you can write the same memo/reminder to yourself, and while parading around chanting “BUY ALMOND MILK”, sign a contract with the Almond Milk Corporation to do so as a second job so you can maximize your potential income!
3. December 26th, the day they get marked down, buy twelve advent calendars for a fraction of the price and freeze them. This way, you can spend your year counting down days rather than dreading them and brunches and family gift exchanges can consist entirely of frozen chocolate.
4. Everyone loves going to the movies, but cinemas are always so crowded and overpriced and pushing some sort of capitalist agenda. Instead of spending twelve dollars too many on the latest Kelsey Grammer vehicle, why not spend a night out with the family watching dogfights? Not the inhumane ones that Michael Vick runs, adorable ones like when two dogs paw at each other over a piece of fallen telephone wire.
5. Pee on escalators. That’s right. Just do it. You don’t have the time to take a bathroom break when travelling from point A to point B, and nobody has ever seen the inside of an escalator so they’ll never find out. It’s as easy as number one, two, three. You can go...on the go!
6. Religion is an important practice for any modern family, but sometimes your child plays soccer or bocce ball on Sunday mornings and this takes precedence. It’s still important to spread the word of our Lord, so why not collect Bibles from various motels and hand them out on busy street corners while reciting verses? If you run out of Bibles, Xeroxed pages of psalms will do. If strangers don’t stop and listen, remind them that the end of days is near and they will not be forgiven.
7. Light incense around the office. Your co-workers will appreciate the hard work of both you and the manufacturers at Yankee Candle, and constantly being around fire goes back to that tingling sensation in your loins I was talking about. If you missed your morning shower, it wouldn’t hurt to hold a Yankee Candle dangerously close to the smoke alarm either, meaning that guilt-free you can now pull the fire alarm, setting off the sprinklers. While everyone evacuates the building, use this as your “me” time. Pre-shampoo. Rinse. Repeat.
8. The average person spends thirty-seven minutes a day drying their hair, and this is thirty-seven minutes a day you could instead spend constructing a tin-foil hat to wear outside, allowing the sun to do all the hair-drying to perfection for you.
9. Stop shaving. Just forget about it, facial hair makes you look distinguished and there simply aren’t enough minutes in the day to waste on this. Caveman never shaved and they invented both modern art and the fire. Alfred Einstein never shaved and he’s been mentioned in “Wired” magazine at least three times. If you’re a woman, and you probably are because you’re reading a guide about streamlining productivity when there aren’t enough hours in the day, you can especially take this advice to heart and potentially pick up a third job (alternate weekends when the kids are away) at the circus.
10. Don’t have time to organize a garage sale to clear out the house, what with working anywhere from fifteen to eighty-seven hours a week and constantly escaping fires? Buy yourself a heavy trench coat and sell either your old jewelry or a friend’s or an enemy’s out of the pockets. If you see any police officers, tie up the trench coat and run. Those guys love to buy jewelry for their wives and will probably clean out your stock.
11. You’ve probably heard of power bars and go-gurt and “Pizza-In-A-Toob”, but it’s encouraged by a board somewhere probably that you have all your meals, one-handed, while running. For mid-exercise meals, chicken can serve as a leaner substitute to beef, and there are many ways to prepare it (fried, grilled, on-a-stick). If you take the effort to chase down and kill your own chicken you can also save significantly on a gym membership. Not to mention in most experimental sub-cultures, chicken blood is still an aphrodisiac.
12. Brushing your teeth. I cannot stress enough how important a hygienic practice this is and how great of a first impression it can serve you when you tell employers in job interviews that you regularly brush, so take your toothbrush everywhere. Brush at regular intervals. But, if for some reason you’ve been forced to whittle your toothbrush into a shiv and it’s currently in some guy’s thorax (it happens), you can just as easily clean your mouth be applying the toothpaste directly and gargling. One time while staying at a friend’s, I forgot my toothbrush and did this for five days. It was the best five days of my life and the toothpaste tasted so ridiculously good and cinnamon-y when applied directly that I began doing this about twenty times a day, eventually forgetting to gargle and spit and swallowing the paste. It was an off-brand toothpaste that probably had some questionable chemical components because I don’t remember anything else that happened that week.
And there you have it! It’s as simple as changing all these things about your life, giving you a more efficient start to your day and much more free time to sweep mines or increase your words-per-minute quota, but in all likelihood, an extra two hours a day to arrange a fantasy dog-fighting roster. Remember, the first rule of dog club is you do not talk about dog club. Adios.
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Old 08-15-2011, 09:24 PM Top - End - #12
Ogre in the Playground
Join Date: Jul 2008
Default Re: Gitp PrC Contest XXIX: Guts, Gears, and Glory!
"Hah! You attack me, and then when the tides turn grovel and try appealing to my better nature? Realize, my heart does not beat, it ticks. Forever counting the seconds remaining to those who would go against me. But know that soon it will no longer count for you."
- An unknown necroclock knight to a bandit
The world is a harsh, and there are those who find the body they were born with doesn't cut it. Whether to replace parts lost in battle, or to obtain an edge in fights to come, necroclock knights are those who have embraced the use of necroclock grafts. Through hard work and skill they aim to bring out the full potential locked within the devices.
Most become necroclock knights after obtaining necroclock grafts and deciding it's worth learning how to better take care of and use them.
Skills: Craft (Necroclock) 8 ranks*
Base Attack Bonus: +3
Special: At least 3 necroclock grafts*
*Details on necroclock devices and grafts can be found there.
Class Skills
Skills Points at Each Level: 4 + int
Hit Dice: d10
LevelBase Attack BonusFort SaveRef SaveWill SaveSpecial
Fast Maintenance, Skilled Scavenging,
Improved Tuning (+1 day), Skilled Swap
Energy Burst (Primary)
Improved Tuning (+2 days), Tuned Durability
Familiar Modification
Improved Tuning (+3 days), Tuned Stability
Energy Burst (Secondary)
Improved Tuning (+4 days), Tuned Defence
Tuned Winding
Improved Tuning (+5 days), Tuned Survival
Weapon Proficiencies: A necroclock knight gains no additional proficiencies.
Fast Maintenance (Ex): Necroclock knights are good at maintaining their necroclock grafts. The time required to maintain a necrotic device is reduced by 1 minute per class level.
Skilled Scavenging (Ex): Necroclock knights often check the bodies of those they killed for works and components superior to their own. As such they become skilled at scavenging and modifying necroclock devices. The Necroclock knight gains a bonus to checks made to scavenge or modify necroclock devices.
Improved Tuning (Ex): Necroclock knights often tune their grafts to improve their performance, and have become talented at doing so. The amount of time that a necroclock device tuned by the knight remains tuned is increased by 24 hours per 2 class levels.
Skilled Swap (Ex): Necroclock knights are known to change change out their own necroclock devices for ones they consider more powerful or useful. They gain a +1 bonus per class level on craft (necroclock) and heal checks used for adding and removing necroclock grafts.
Energy Burst (Su): In order to take advantage of necroclock devices' temporarily increased performance when exposed to the same energy type that powers them, necroclock knights learn to unleash small bursts of positive and negative energy to power the devices.
At level 3, the necroclock knight chooses positive or negative energy as their primary energy type (the option not chosen is their secondary energy type). A number of times per day equal to their class level a necroclock knight may, as a swift action, unleash a burst of their primary energy type dealing up to (class level - 2) * Con modifier of their primary energy type to themselves (if lacking a constitution score use charisma).
At level 7, the necroclock knight learns to unleash a similar burst of their secondary energy type. A number of times per day equal to their class level a necroclock knight may, as a swift action, unleash a burst of their secondary energy type dealing up to (class level - 6) * Con modifier of their secondary energy type to themselves (if lacking a constitution score use charisma).
Tuned Durability (Ex): Necroclock knights are more skilled than most at tuning their grafts, and as such are able to glean advantages that others cannot. Necroclock knights of 4th level gains +2 hit points per tuned necroclock graft they have.
Familiar Modification (Ex): Having become particularly familiar with their own devices, necroclock knights are no longer in danger of damaging them when they want to make modifications. when scavenging or modifying a components or works that have been tuned at least twice by the knight, they never risk damaging them beyond repair.
Tuned Stability (Ex): If at least 6th level, and possessing a tuned necroclock vital graft, a necroclock night is treated as possessing the diehard feat with the following changes. Making standard action that only require the use of tuned necroclock grafts does not cause damage to the necroclock knight. The necroclock knight is able to take two actions a round as normal provided one of them only involves the use of tuned necroclock grafts, though doing so inflicts a point of damage. Similarly full round actions that only require the use of tuned necroclock grafts may be made, however, doing so inflicts a point of damage.
Tuned Defence (Ex): The various necroclock grafts necroclock knights possesses can grant them additional resilience when properly tuned. If at least 8th level, necrocklock knights gain +1 AC for each tuned necroclock graft they possess, not counting vital or sensory grafts.
Tuned Winding (Ex): Necroclock knights have learned to make their necroclock grafts much more efficient while tuned. Upon reaching 9th level, a tuned necroclock graft only uses up a half hour of wound time when rapid unwinding.
Tuned Survival (Ex): Skilled necroclock knights can be hard to kill. At 10th level, necroclock knights can be supported by their grafts alone. If a necroclock knight would be reduced by enough hit points to die or would otherwise be killed, if he possesses a tuned necroclock vital graft he instead remains in a disabled state as described in tuned stability with the following changes. All of the necroclock knight's grafts that are able to do so begin to rapid unwind each round. If the necroclock knight is not brought back to enough hit points to survive by the time all of his tuned grafts that can rapid unwind run out, he dies.
Necroclock knights tend to be fairly reliant on necroclock grafts. As such it's a good idea to have a decent number of them. Their abilities also tend to rely on them being tuned, so it's worth taking the time to do so.
Combat: Necroclock nights don't have a specific combat nitch of their own, rather they continue to fill the nitch that they did before becoming a necroclock knight. Just with more reliance on necroclock grafts.
Advancement: The paths a necroclock night can take are limited mostly by the class it took before becoming a necroclock knight, and the grafts it uses. As they get decent at replacing and modifying the grafts they posses, it really just becomes the class they took before hand.
Resources: Necroclock knights have have no real organizations, as they are just people who have decided to embrace the use of necroclock grafts. Still there's always the bodies of other people with necroclock grafts that likely don't need them any more.
Well, there was a mercenary come through here the other day. From the look in his eye you could tell he was taken to using necroclock grafts. Or was it the gears in his eye? Yes, definitely the gears.
Depending on the setting and how necroclock devices are perceived, the reaction of others toward a necroclock night can vary from disgust to disinterest in something so normal.
Daily Life: Necroclock knights tend to have about the same daily life they had before becoming one. Only now they regularly maintain their necroclock grafts, which might take a while, but is worth it.
Notables: Make up some cool information about notable figures in the history of your class. It's best to give a little information from one of the good alignment and evil alignment (unless it's a good or evil only class).
Organizations: Some information about organizations dedicated to the practice of your class and other organizations which members of your class will be attracted towards.
NPC Reaction
This is an in detail description of how NPC's would perceive your class and the immediate generalization that people would give of your class.
This is a good place to provide a quick note on how your class will effect game play statistically.
Adaptation: This is a place where you put in detail how people can adapt your class into their campaign setting.
Encounters: This is a place to describe what sort of encounters PC's will have with NPC versions of your class.
Sample Encounter
Give an example of how one might encounter a member of this PrC.
EL x: Give the encounter level and description of a sample member of this class and a stat block for him/her.
Init +0, Senses: Listen +, Spot +,
AC , touch , flat-footed ()
hp ( HD)
Fort +, Ref +, Will +
Speed ft. ( squares)
Base Atk +, Grp +
Atk Options
Combat Gear
Spells Prepared
Supernatural Abilities
Abilities Str , Dex , Con , Int , Wis , Cha
My Homebrew
[creature]Shiny: Monster Competition XXXVI entry.
other hombrew
Last edited by Owrtho : 08-19-2011 at 12:43 PM.
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Audio Programmer - Urgent Position - Top Games Company!
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A leading AAA games studio is now seeking a Audio Engineer with strong C++ programming skills and a passion for games to join there studio... Required Skills: * Fluent C++ * Experience in Audio Engineering. * A good degree or equivalent in a relevant subject such as games, computer science, maths or audio...
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Write and develop on-line technical collateral, including training material, blogs and white papers. Essential: -Good post-graduate degree or equivalent in computer science, maths or computational sciences. -Strong parallel programming skills (OpenMP, MPI, CUDA and/or OpenCL) -Fortran and C/C++ -Solid Knowledge of HPC, using batch schedulers, profilers,...
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Establish testing, user acceptance testing and procedures... Key Skills/ Knowledge required for the Technical Analyst role: Graduate with an Analytics degree i.e. Maths, Statistics, and Economics etc... Mapping (MapInfo, GIS, SPSF...) and Excel etc... Would be great to have any experience with MS SQL or HTML or MS Excel...
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Relaunching or Upwind Bodydragging
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Revision as of 14:23, 15 July 2008 by Toby (Talk | contribs)
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Many times you will pass riders who are relaunching their kites, or bodydragging to their boards.
Riders with a dropped kite want their kite up as fast as possible.
Never get close to a kite, that is about to relaunch, nor fly your kite close to the dropped kite.
You should pass a dropped kite and the rider only upwind, or with good distance you can do it also downwind. But keep an eye on the kite, so you can act, if something goes wrong.
Pass upwind with a kite that flies pretty high, and don't ride too close to the rider.
Good riders should always keep an eye on the relaunch situation of the rider's kite, and if it looks like trouble to relaunch, ask the rider if he needs any help, then try to flip his kite or untangle bridles etc.
Since no one should use a board leash, people need to bodydrag back to their board.
Normally anyone who bodydrags flies their kite on the same position and slowly turns it if they want to go to the other direction.
Always give a bodydragging rider the right of way, so they can quickly recover their board.
Many times it is good, when you see someone bodydragging for their board, and the distance is big, to just bring the rider the board, so they can get on it faster and be out of the way.
The rider bodydragging should always move their kite out of the way of moving riders, and the best is to keep it low over the water level, to block as little room as possible.
Be aware, that once a bodydragging rider reached his board, or shortly before, steers his kite into the zenith.
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Bunny Complex's picture
I keep seeing all these moderated posts about self-harm.
I don't think it's fair that they stop us from talking about it. Self harm is NOT okay, but some of us (myself included) have been there and done that and don't plan on going back. I think that, as long as you don't post like "OMG YOUR LIFE SUX GO CUT IT'LL MAKE U FEEL BETTER", you should be allowed to speak your mind. If you feel like cutting, feel like it. Talk about it. Let us tell you that it won't help. Let us figure out why you want to, and give you tips on stopping.
It shouldn't be taboo. Between 2 and 3 million teens self-harm, and 70% of those cut themselves.
I can honestly say I don't know a single person under the age of 25 who hasn't cut. That doesn't make it okay by any means, though, it makes it awful. It saddens me that people reach out to such desperate measures in sadness. It saddens me that it's a problem that gets shoved under the rug. Your parents tell you to stop, then they forget about it, etc etc etc. It needs some light shed on it. Cutters need to feel like there are people who truly care, who've gone through it and want them to get through it, too.
There is a lot of depression in the MCR fandom, and that saddens me, too. Their message is about overcoming your vices, and not letting yourself slip away under the pressures of life NOT being sad and cutting, so those who are sad, or those who cut should be given a chance to express themselves, to rationalize their behavior in a place they feel comfortable.
I don't know if this is going to get moderated, but before it does:
To anybody who cuts, life does get better. Happiness is in your perspective, and if you keep yourself down by acting on depression instead of happiness, you're stalling the process. Combat sadness with happiness. Bad day? Do something you enjoy. Treat yourself. You should never harm yourself because life has harmed you. It's not cute, and it's not helpful, and honestly, in the future, you'll regret it.
I've been cut-free for 2 years now, and looking back on it, I can't think of any benefits. I can't think of anything I know now, that I wouldn't know if I didn't cut.
Good luck everybody, and keep running!~
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Motorola atrix 2
The Motorola Atrix 2 is a powerful smartphone with a unique spin thanks to being able to alter its use through the accessories bundle and hi-res screen, and it's nice to review something that isn't identical to the rest of the market.
We liked
The Motorola Atrix 2 is certainly a top-end phone. There are several useful accessories such as a GPS car mount, a Lapdock for charging the phone and using a webtop operating system, and another docking station that enables you to connect to an HD TV using an HDMI cable.
The 8MP camera is outstanding - videos and photos turned out clear and colourful. The phone is light and portable, with a bright screen, good battery life and a fast processor.
We disliked
The Motorola Atrix 2 pales a bit in comparison to the lighter and thinner Samsung Galaxy S2, the faster Galaxy Nexus and the iPhone 4S (which runs a bit faster for games).
The Motorola Atrix 2 has an older 1GHz processor instead of a 1.2GHz processor, there's no NFC chip and the screen isn't as bright as the AMOLED screen on the Samsung Galaxy S2.
The chassis is also a little chunky too - with the slimline business of the iPhones and Galaxys of this world, we can't stand too much heft, although this may appeal to those looking for something other than a wafer thin device.
Final verdict
The Motorola Atrix 2 falls a bit short of the best Android phones, but is in the same league. The phone runs fast, has a bright screen and lasts all day. But if we had to pick an Android phone, we'd either choose the Samsung Galaxy S2 or wait for the Galaxy Nexus - and the Motorola Razr is probably the superior device coming from the Moto brand.
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Politicians who obsess about the contents of each day's newspapers are looking in completely the wrong direction
• The Guardian,
• Jump to comments ()
I am a political journalist. So you may feel that what I am about to write is not in my own self-interest. But what the hell. My considered view is that politicians should not treat newspapers as seriously as they do. Almost all politicians read newspapers - and so they should. But not for the reason they think. The big error of politicians is to believe that newspapers change the way people vote. This leads to a connected, and in some respects bigger, error - which is to imagine that if they work at it hard enough they can swing the political stance of newspapers, and thus readers - their way.
There is no real doubt that this is what politicians believe. Gordon Brown goes to amazing - even humiliating - lengths to cultivate the Daily Mail. He does so because he hopes the Daily Mail will be more sympathetic to Labour and thus influence the way that Daily Mail readers vote. David Cameron does something similar with the Guardian, not nearly so abjectly, but in the end for a similar reason. They are largely wasting their time.
Here's why. Twenty years ago, during the 1987 general election, the pollsters Mori produced a breakdown of the political sympathies of the readers of Britain's national newspapers. Ten years later, during the 1997 general election, they did it again. Now, based on their polling in the second half of 2007, they have done it once more.
Let's start with what these surveys show about the Daily Mail. Mail readers back in 1987 divided Conservative 60%, Labour 13% and Liberal Democrat (or its then equivalent) 19%. By 1997, Mail readers broke Conservative 49%, Labour 29% and Lib Dem 14%. Now, another 10 years on, Ipsos Mori (as the polling company has now become) finds that Mail readers divide Conservative 60%, Labour 26% and Lib Dem 8%. That shows some ebbs and flows compared with 1987 and 1997, of course, but broadly speaking there is a recognisably continuous picture. The Mail is a paper read by Tory voters.
Now take the Guardian and its readership. In 1987, Guardian readers divided Conservative 22%, Labour 54% and Lib Dem 19%. By 1997, they broke Conservative 8%, Labour 67% and Lib Dem 22%. Now, in the late 2007 survey, the breakdown has become Conservative 8%, Labour 53% and Lib Dem 32%. Once again, as with the Mail, there have been some interesting changes, but the pattern has not changed fundamentally over 20 years, despite many changes in politics. Guardian readers remain predominantly Labour voters.
If we go through all the main national newspapers - with one important exception - the story is a similar one. The figures move around according to the changing political mood in the country, but the pattern in each case remains largely the same. Tory voters dominate, now as before, among readers of the Times, Daily Mail, Daily Express and Daily Telegraph. Labour predominates among Guardian, Daily Mirror and Independent readers.
The only newspaper of significance where the majority of readers have actually changed allegiance during the past 20 years is the Sun, then as now the country's largest circulation daily paper. In 1987, Sun readers voted Conservative 41%, Labour 31% and Lib Dem 19%. However, 10 years later, in 1997, Sun readers had changed decisively: Tory 30% (down 11 points), Labour 52% (up 21) and Lib Dem 12% (down seven). In the latest Ipsos Mori survey in 2007, Labour's strength holds good: Conservative 35%, Labour 48% and Lib Dem 7%.
Given the Sun's high profile, it is easy to conclude that it makes total sense for politicians to woo the paper's owner, editor and political team as a priority - and that this approach applies to other papers too. Easy but wrong. What if the terms of the political relationship between the editor and the readers are not set by the editor and followed by the readers - but the other way round?
Newspapers exist for many purposes. An important one is to sell papers. By and large they aim to satisfy their readers, not alienate them. A Daily Mail editor who promoted Labour would be cutting against the grain of the readers - likewise a Guardian editor who promoted the Conservatives. That doesn't mean such a thing is inconceivable, but it would take some explaining if it occurred. Most of the time it is a non-starter. Newspapers are self-sustaining mutual dependency cultures.
After the Tory election win in 1992, a front page famously declared: "It's the Sun wot won it." The claim was manna from heaven for the left's media conspiracy culture and the Murdoch empire's ego. But what if the Sun merely reflected its readers - who divided 45% to 36% for the Tories in 1992 - as it also reflected them when the majority of its readers were pro-Tory in 1987 and then pro-Labour in 1997? It wasn't the Sun wot won it. It was Sun readers. The two understand one another - but influence is another matter altogether.
It suits Labour politicians to think that the only reason people vote Tory is because they have been duped by evil newspaper owners rather than because they are exercising what they see as a rational choice. Conversely, it suits Conservative politicians to believe that if only they can get a hearing from people who tend to vote Labour, the voters will see the error of their ways.
The Ipsos Mori evidence actually suggests the very opposite. It sits comfortably with current fashionable notions of voting as a cultural choice rather than as a choice based on supposed rational self-interest. People choose a newspaper that suits and reflects them culturally. One of the ways it reflects them is political stance - though it is by no means the only one, as politicians like to believe. If politics were all, why would a quarter of Mail readers vote Labour, as they do?
Only a fool would say that newspapers have absolutely no influence at all on politics, or say that there is no reason whatever why politicians should try to get good coverage in newspapers. But the rewards to politicians from such efforts are marginal at best, even in elections. If politicians make a good showing or say something that chimes, people will notice it on television and radio - and the word soon gets around. Politicians who obsess about each day's newspapers are looking in the wrong direction. If the politicians build it, the voters will come. And the papers will soon follow.
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Radically RESTful Rails.
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It makes more sense when you see how it works though. There's a screencast coming soon.
These gems will install automatically as long as you've added the GitHub gem source:
gem sources -a
sudo gem install hammock
in config/environment.rb: do |config|
config.gem 'hammock'
in app/controllers/application_controller.rb:
class ApplicationController
include Hammock::RestfulActions
Hammock is licensed under the BSD license, which can be found in full in the LICENSE file.
At the moment, you can do this with Hammock:
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
include Hammock::RestfulActions
class BeersController < ApplicationController
class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
class Beer < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :creator, :class_name => 'Person'
belongs_to :recipient, :class_name => 'Person'
def self.read_scope_for account
L{|beer| beer.creator_id == || beer.recipient_id == }
export_scope :read
# TODO - Duplication, yuck. There's a proper DSL in the pipes.
def self.index_scope_for account
export_scope :index
creator_scope_for :write
<% @beers.each do |beer| %>
From <%= %> to <%= %>, <%= beer.reason %>, rated <%= beer.rating %>
<%= hamlink_to :edit, beer %>
<% end %>
The scope methods above require just one thing – a context-free lambda that takes an ActiveRecord record as its argument, and returns true iff that record is within the scope for the specified account. Hammock uses the method (e.g. Beer.read_scope_for) to define resource and record scopes for the model:
Beer.readable_by(account): the set of Beer records whose existence can be known by account
Beer#readable_by?(account): returns true if the existence of this Beer instance can be known by account
You define the logic for read, index and write scopes in Beer.[read,index,write]_scope_for, and the rest just works.
These scope definitions are exploited extensively, to provide index selection, scoping for record selection, and post-selection object checks.
• They provide the conditions that should be applied to retrieve the index of each resource.
The scope is used transperently by Hammock on /beers -> BeersController#index, and is available for use through Beer.indexable_by(account).
• They provide a scope within which records are searched for on single-record actions.
For example, given the request /beers/5 -> BeersController#show{:id => 5}, Rails would generate the following SQL:
SELECT * FROM "beers" WHERE (beers."id" = 5) LIMIT 1
Hammock uses the conditions specified in Beer.read_scope_for to generate (assuming an account_id of 3):
SELECT * FROM "beers" WHERE ((beers.creator_id = 3 OR beers.recipient_id = 3) AND beers."id" = 5) LIMIT 1
Hammock uses Beer.read_scope_for on #show, and write_scope_for on #edit, #update and #destroy. These scopes can be accessed as above through Beer.readable_by(account) and Beer.writeable_by(account). This eliminates authorization checks from the action, because if the ID of a Beer is provided that the user doesn't have access to it will fall outside the scope and will not be found in the DB at all.
• They are used to discover credentials for already-queried ActiveRecord objects, without touching the database again.
Just as Beer.readable_by(account) returns the set of Beer records whose existence can be known by account, @beer.readable_by?(account) returns true iff @beer's existence can be known by account. This is employed by hamlink_to.
These three uses of the scope, plus another as-yet unimplemented bit, provide the entire security model of the application.
Lots of functionality is planned that will take this much further.
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- Susan Sontag - Earth (Human)
MARCH 2270
Corin was leaning into the oar next to Wilkes, bending his back as they drew hard, racing away from the setting sun.
Wilkes panted, "I didn't even know there WERE lakes this big."
Corin laughed, "There's a lot more to our planet than trees, Wilkes." The longship was making good time, the six pairs of oarsmen adding to the lateen sail hung slightly forward of amidships.
"I think I need a helmet with horns on it." he gasped out as they lifted, pushed, and drew again.
Corn laughed and asked, "Why?"
"Never mind. Are you sure Toralin can do it?"
Another stroke and Corin said, "He's a medic. And if he can't, he can call a transporter. It'll be fine. Trust me, it's better to be here than there." Another stroke and he continued, "Besides these things take time, we're only about an hour out from T'Elesh at this pace."
"It's just too damn soon."
"What do you know about it?" Corin laughed. "If you can worry that much you're not pulling hard enough, put your back into it!"
An hour later, the helmsman curved them alongside the pier and people began to pile out and tie the ship fast. Corin stood up from his bench and stretched. Making his way to the tent covering the center of the boat, he peeked his head in. "Can I see?"
Eletha waved him in and he looked down. "Well thank all the gods they're not pink. But...four? I thought one?"
Wilkes looked up with a huge smile on his face, whispering so as not to wake Sooth, "We've known for a long while, but we didn't know how many...would make it. They're still too small. They're early."
Corin cocked his head to one side trying to get a good look at the little kits. Their ears were small, and more rounded than he was used to. And their tails were tiny – almost bobbed. One with reddish, spotted fur opened her bright blue eyes and mewled.
"That one's Heather." Wilkes said, and we've got "Nollos, and Rollin, and Corin. I got to pick one name but I'm not saying which." he chuckled.
Corin smiled, "There's a float to take you to the medical bay. Wait...Rollin?"
With a quiet laugh Wilkes explained, "For my father."
"AH, of course..." and he stepped back out on deck, leaning over the rail. Watching the waves, he heard the float load the new little family up and start making it's way up the hill and into the city. Eletha came and leaned on the rail next to him, her tail draped over his.
"Well, they SORT of look like Dosadi." he said, enjoying the quiet lap of the waves against the hull.
"They know it won't be easy, Corin. Nothing either of them has ever done has been easy. But they've gotten it done, haven't they?"
He smiled at her, "That's quite true. They have done rather well, haven't they?" He could hear her kits scampering around the ropes and oars. At three, and finally weaned, they were given a lot more freedom to explore. Watching Eletha look to check on her kits he thought to himself. "Not quite yet, but soon, I think."
She looked back at him and laughed "I know what you're thinking, Corin. It does seem to be getting to that part of our stories, doesn't it?"
He shook his head, "It's scary how you do that." And he turned, leaning his back on the gunwale, looking up the hill after the float. "And now there's four new stories to tell."
Turning and leaning her chin on his shoulder she said, "That's a long journey yet."
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x campbell
x virginia
Set Clip Length:
resting taped resting place of jimmy hoffa investigators will dig in the detroit area home a man has come for and he thinks he saw off of buried there 35 years ago if there have been countless theories about what happened to the teamsters boss, his body has never been found. >>> researchers in switzerland clamed they found a second inning for the mona lisa it reveals what they say an earlier painting of the younger mona lisa. they spanned three decades doing x-rays and examinations to back up the klanclaim they say that painting hung i noticed for a century but not everybody is convinced. some experts say it was probably an unknown pay painter who tried to copy density here's a peek out side, we have low clouds and fog not much changing weather wise where is dan hurd: when i was a child, california was a leader in education funding. erika derry: and the fact that california isn't making it a priority frustrates me. dan hurd: i'm ashamed of that, and i don't want this to continue for my daughter. brenda kealing: prop 38 is going to bring a lot of money to our schools. suzan solomon: the mo
Excerpts 0 to 4 of about 5 results.
(Some duplicates have been removed)
Terms of Use (10 Mar 2001)
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Tracking Every Signing
Grading Biggest Deals
Rob Jackson on Being a Leprechaun, Returning to the Redskins and More
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Fresh off a breakout season, Washington Redskins linebacker Rob Jackson is becoming a bit of a household name. It helps that the 27-year-old veteran has gained some serious pop culture cred with the video we posted yesterday from Funny or Die.
In it, Jackson dresses up as a leprechaun and terrifies a random couple in their home in an attempt to spread St. Patrick's Day cheer. It's the kind of strange comedy some people don't get and others love, and making it even more random is the fact that it features a backup linebacker on the Redskins.
On Friday, I spoke with Jackson about the video, comedy, his role with the Redskins and the team in general.
Bleacher Report: Where the hell did that video come from?
Rob Jackson: They approached me with a couple ideas. Brainstorming and stuff like that. And originally they wanted me to do a different piece on, like, celebrations or touchdown dances, but they switched it up and got me to do the St. Patrick's Day one. It worked out because I happened to be in Connecticut and they were shooting in New York. I was going up to New York for the weekend, going to a Knicks game, and the timing just happened to work out perfectly.
B/R: Plans to do any more stuff like that?
RJ: Yeah, they asked me to do another one. I forgot what it was, but because of my schedule I wouldn't be able to make it up to New York at the time. They say they liked working with me and they loved how it came out.
B/R: Who in the world in comedy has inspired you?
RJ: I wouldn't say I need inspiration. I wouldn't say it was anything that I always watched and [decided] I'd like to be funny or have a sense of humor. Who doesn't like to laugh and like comedy? But I like watching comedy. Will Ferrell is one of my favorite actors.
B/R: Are you the funniest guy on the team?
RJ: No, I wouldn't say that.
B/R: Who is?
RJ: I would say Chris Wilson or Trent Williams.
B/R: Interesting. I wouldn't imagine Trent being overly funny. What do you expect your role to be like with Brian Orakpo back? Did they give you any assurances when they signed you?
RJ: I haven't talked to any of the coaches about what they want me to do and what my role is supposed to be, but I want to do whatever I need to do to be part of the team. We're gonna try to have a good team this year and do some good things. So I'll just be happy to be around for it.
B/R: London Fletcher came out on Twitter and ripped the NFL and NFLPA in a crafty way for these cap sanctions. What are your thoughts? I know it has to be frustrating when guys like DeAngelo Hall and Fred Davis aren't around because of it.
RJ: It's tough, but we knew it was coming. So hopefully they had a good plan. It's good they had a little time to prepare for it [this offseason].
B/R: Do you guys talk about that kind of stuff when you're hanging out or in the locker room?
RJ: We discuss it, but a lot of guys don't really understand or don't really know what's exactly going on. I'm one of them. I just know they got penalized and we lost a lot of money. Stuff like that. But guys don't really get too in-depth with it in the locker room.
B/R: St. Patrick's Day plans? Assume you won't be haunting some poor married couple?
RJ: [Laughs] No, just relaxing.
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Take the 2-minute tour ×
Switching between different charge-up moves and finishers, as well as buffs and summons on my Assassin is fairly irritating given the incredibly dated control scheme of Diablo II. Are there any tricks to ease using more than a couple skills at a time?
Further, I have a Logitech G9x which supposedly can macro stuff, but is that banned on ladder, or just multiple-cast macros (a la the one-button-one-action WoW thing)?
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5 Answers
You can use the default hotkeys which start from f1. These hotkeys can be changed on options, and be set to any button you can find on your keyboard. However, when you assign a button that is assigned to something else, you won't be able to use that function again(duh!).
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Even I find that challenging. Controls in Diablo2 don't allow you to easily access your skills during an intense fight. Maybe it's there strategically !!
What I do is I use WSAD layout for my skills. Assign some of the best skills to easily accessible keys. For e.g My favorite is Barbarian. So I assign some skills that you need frequently during an intense fight to keys nearby. I assign double-swing to W. D tp whirlwind Space to leap etc. Some skills which cannot be used or are a bit slow to cast can be put on function keys or use mouse scroll on them
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You can assign function keys to individual skills. When the F key is pressed, that skill will become active.
To assign a function key to a skill:
1. Expand the skill switch menu by clicking your active skill
2. Hover your mouse over the skill you'd like to assign
3. Press the desired function key
This can be done for primary (left mouse button) and secondary (right mouse button) skills. An added benefit is that once the skills are assigned, you can use the mouse wheel to scroll through your secondary skills.
I would generally assign my alternate primary attacks to F1 and F2, damage dealers to F3-F6, buffs to F7-F9. This makes it easy to switch between primaries mid-fight with the F keys and secondaries with the mouse wheel. When I needed to buff: F7, cast, mouse-up, cast, mouse-up, cast, until all buffs are applied. Then back to F3.
share|improve this answer
I actually rebind my function keys to QWERASDFZXCV to have a wide variety of abilities within easy reach of my left hand. Works great for an Assassin. – Mag Roader Dec 7 '11 at 13:42
This is the way I have always done it. – edsobo Dec 7 '11 at 14:12
@MagRoader is rebinding the F-keys to others an option in the game or do you need to use some external program for it? – Nick T Dec 8 '11 at 1:35
@Nick It's in the options! No mods for me. – Mag Roader Dec 9 '11 at 2:06
add comment
My personal favourite is using the scroll wheel for changing skills.
1. Scroll wheel up - previous skill.
2. Scroll wheel down - next skill.
Best setup I found was having three skills that you can alternate between extremely easily with your scroll wheel. If you picture something like this in your mind as you play you'll master the art of always scrolling in the right direction for the skill you want:
enter image description here
You are never more than one flick away from the skill you want. This also works with more skills however it gets a little more frustrating then in that you can end up casting the wrong spells often etc.
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Regrettably, the control scheme is just that dated. You can't even give the same skill a key for each mouse button!
When I played Assassin, I liked to have my combo moves hotkeyed to right mouse and finishers to left mouse. This is because right click lets you "attack move" - if you click on the ground with a combo move, you will move towards it unless you are in melee with an enemy, in which case you will automatically attack the closest foe. If you want to use multiple combo moves, you can switch between them (with hotkeys) without lifting the mouse button. Once you have the charges you want, left-click on a suitable victim.
Of course, most assassins just play traps.
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Very good answer! "Attack move" is convenient. Also, having finishing move and charge-up skills on different mouse buttons makes the skill-switching less frequent. – Rotsor Dec 19 '11 at 4:12
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Your Answer
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Marion Barry: Ladies' ManS
The Washington City Paper has landed a treasure-trove of voicemails and other recordings documenting the ongoing episode of COPS that is former D.C. mayor Marion Barry's relationship with the girlfriend he was arrested for stalking on Saturday.
Donna Watts-Brighthaupt is a former lobbyist with terrible, tragic taste in men. Barry hired her last year as his driver and personal assistant, and took her with him to the Democratic National Committee in Denver. "For reasons that remain murky," the City Paper reports, she was booked to stay in the same hotel room as Barry. While Barack Obama was busy restoring the nation's hope and offering a path forward out of our racial morass, Barry was busy, in the words of his girlfriend, putting her out because she wouldn't suck his dick. That's from an audiotape a fight between Barry and Watts-Brighthaupt, supplied to the paper by her ex-husband.
According to the paper, after Watts-Brighthaupt refused do the honors, he threw her clothes out of the room and forced her to sleep in his rented Cadillac in the hotel's parking garage.
But Barry's tender opening gambit eventually paid off, and the two started dating, which for Barry means leaving a bizarre and deluded succession of voicemail messages for his best gal, copies of which the City Paper has posted online. A sampling:
• "I'm gone. I'm not gonna think about it anymore. I'm not gonna worry about it like I used to, not gonna pray about it, not gonna do nothing....You don't even exist. Goodbye, good luck, God bless you."
• "Donna, this thing's gotten outta hand. That's too bad. I don't want to continue talking to you about anything and I don't want to press no charges, I don't wanna do nothin'. I just want to be left alone and so you oughtta do the same thing. Don't call me."
• "Donna, you don't have to answer your home phone....Don't call me back. I will not take a call from you; I'm not gonna call you, so this is it."
• "Donna, call me....I'd like to apologize and settle this matter."
There's also this gem, from a recording of an argument between the lovebirds, spoken by Watts-Brighthaupt:
You made me fuck you up in the middle of a Las Vegas casino. I had my shoes off. We were like fucking Tina and Ike Turner.
Where do you go after you've introduced such pitch-perfect generational catchphrases as "The Goddamn bitch set me up" and "You put me out in Denver because I wouldn't suck your dick" to the world?
And how does a paper that does work this beautiful—look at that cover!—end up in bankruptcy? It's a sad, crazy world, kids.
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GC Stories - A Light In The DarknessS Since this is my first time out of the country, McWhertor and I have been sticking pretty close for the past week, going out to eat together after the show (time permitting), leaving together from the hotel in the morning, etc. Last night, however, McMike had some stuff to do and I needed to grab a couple souvenirs for the folks back home, so I made my way to the main Leipzig train station all by myself. Despite being a big boy now, I was feeling a bit lost, a little homesick, and just the general nervousness you get when in unfamiliar territory - at least until I took a random escalator and came across this beacon of hope. Yeah, good old GameStop made me feel right at home, and why shouldn't it? 50% of my time out of my apartment is spent at the video game retailer, and this one is really no different from any mall-based GS in the states, except that there are a few more German words and the prices are in Euros. I almost bought a copy of Doodle Hex for the DS until I realized that with current currency values I would be spending approximately $10 million on it.
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From: Foteos Macrides <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 13:06:57 -0500 (EST)
To: [email protected]
Cc: http-wg%[email protected]
Daniel DuBois <[email protected]> wrote:
>At 05:09 PM 10/10/96 +0200, Koen Holtman wrote:
>>some HTML form hacks would be needed to provide the same level of downwards
>>compatibility with existing browsers that Safe can provide, for example
>> <form action="..." method=post preferred_method=get-with-body>
>> ....
>> </form>.
>>So it boils down to cruft in HTTP vs. cruft in HTML.
>Aren't proxies disallowed from forwarding methods they don't understand?
>Wouldn't GETWITHBODY require a HTTP/1.2 (or rather, a 1.3, since servers
>would be forced to accept it in 1.2, but clients would need to not send it
>until 1.3, ala FullURL)? Safe: yes could be sent today.
What the GETwithBody would be replacing in this discussion is
not just any GET, but ones which would otherwise have a ?searchpart.
The HTTP/1.1 draft states that Cache-Control and Expires headers
*can* be used to yield and regulate caching of replies from POST requests.
What exactly is still being sought via a GETwithBodyInsteadOfSearchpart
that can't be achieved via a POST with "Safe: yes" and Cache-Control/Expires
headers? Are there *any* headers or procedures which can't be made to treat
a POST with "Safe: yes" as, in effect, a GETwithBodyInsteadOfSearchpart?
Foteos Macrides Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research
[email protected] 222 Maple Avenue, Shrewsbury, MA 01545
Received on Thursday, 10 October 1996 10:20:54 EDT
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Meta Battle Subway PokeBase - Pokemon Q&A
Is it possible to make any use of a Shedinja?
0 votes
Shedinja, it has an awesome ability.
Moveset could be better.
But what I want to know is: Can you make anything out of a Shedinja?
Any strategies?
Any good movesets?
Anything at all?
asked Nov 25, 2012 by Artist KS
1 Answer
0 votes
Lets see what smogan says:
Shedinja is at once the most blessed and the most cursed Pokemon to
ever exist, thanks to its access to the best ability in the game,
Wonder Guard. Despite being blessed with immunities to any type that
cannot hit Shedinja super effectively, it is cursed with wielding only
a single hit point, and it is around this hit point that any strategy
regarding Shedinja revolves. For Shedinja to even hit the playing
field, extreme team support is needed, as any form of passive damage
will immediately KO it. Furthermore, Shedinja's stats are
exceptionally mediocre, its meager Attack stat is the only stat that
crosses base 50. Fortunately, it does have Shadow Sneak to alleviate
its speed. That said, Shedinja carries weaknesses to only Dark-,
Ghost-, Rock-, Fire-, and Flying-type attacks, and is thus able to
wall many of the metagame's deadly attackers, including dangerous
threats such as Gorebyss. Additionally, Shedinja carries a nice
immunity to every priority attack bar Shadow Sneak and the predictable
Sucker Punch, which ensures that it can't be picked off at will.
Although Shedinja is devilishly difficult to use successfully, and
nigh impossible to bring in safely, when played to its strengths it
can be an unstoppable force, slicing through helpless opposition.
Good moveset:
Item:Lum berry
EVS:252 hp/252 atk/4 spe
Adament nature
~ Swords Dance
~ X-Scissor
~ Shadow Sneak / Sucker Punch
~ Protect / Will-O-Wisp
With great immunities set you can viably use. Shedinja
makes the most out of the little it has available to it, with Swords
Dance giving Shedinja a way of actually threatening the opponent.
X-Scissor is the requisite STAB option, and hits a large number of
Pokemon for neutral damage. Shadow Sneak is one of the key factors
that make Shedinja viable, the STAB priority being crucial in
outspeeding opposing Pokemon that can hit Shedinja super effectively.
Sucker Punch is also a viable option due to its higher base power, but
it also suffers from failing against any non-damaging attack—quite
costly given that many status moves OHKO Shedinja. Protect is another
crucial move, allowing Shedinja to scout an opponent's moveset for
surprise Toxics that would kill it, as well as random Hidden Powers
from the opponent. Will-O-Wisp is also usable to support the team, but
Shedinja will rarely find an occasion to use it to great effect.
answered Nov 25, 2012 by Exca le roi
lol why would you ev train it on HP
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Sony PlayStation 3 Slim review (120GB)
Yet, we've also heard people say that the new "textured," or matte, finish gives the system a cheaper look. Maybe so, but pick the Slim up and it feels quite substantial. And while we're sure Sony doesn't want people referring to the Slim using adjectives like cheap (except when it comes to the price tag), the company does want this PS3 to appear more "casual" and appeal to a wider audience (read: casual gamers).
In that regard, the PS3 Slim's new design and finish seem well thought out. And the new system is not without a little glam--there's a mirrored strip on the front of the unit next to the opening of the slot-loading disc player and some glossy plastic on the sides. Those shiny finishes, like the glossy finish on the "fat" PS3, do pick up fingerprints, and it's also worth noting that the matte finish does absorb the oil from your skin and attracts smudges. In other words, if you end up handling your PS3, expect to have to wipe it off from time to time just like the old "fat" model.
More important than some branding changes (the PS3 logo and lettering has undergone a redesign), the touch-sensitive power on/off and eject buttons on the front of the unit have been replaced by standard push buttons and the master power switch that was on the back of the old unit has been removed (alas, you still can't charge the controllers while the system is off).
Some people will like that the master power switch is gone, but parents with small children would probably prefer if Sony had left it on the back to keep their toddlers from accidentally turning on the system. The new button in front is nice and responsive and doesn't require too firm a touch to turn the system either on or off (this system appears to boot up just as quickly as the old system--in just less than 20 seconds), so your little ones will have no problem firing up your PS3 in your absence.
According to Sony, to achieve the new small size, the internal design architecture of the PS3 Slim has been completely redesigned, "from the main semiconductors and power supply unit to the cooling mechanism." As always, we're impressed that Sony engineers have been able to build the power supply into the system itself rather than forcing you to deal with a giant external power supply like the one found on the Xbox 360.
The PS3 Slim is powered by a new 45nm version of the Cell processor, which runs at the same speed as the 60nm processor in the "old" PS3 but is smaller and more energy efficient. Company representatives said that power consumption for the Slim has been cut from 280 watts to 250 watts. (We'll be verifying the Slim's power consumption with our own independent testing soon.)
Ramping down the power consumption and, more importantly, the heat the system generates has let Sony tone down the cooling fan. With the Slim, you'll still hear some fan noise if you're close to the unit, but the hum is fainter, and it shouldn't bother you during quieter scenes in movies so long as you're not sitting right next to the PS3. (Fan noise on the previous systems varied wildly; some were noticeably loud, others were all but silent.) We also noticed that after playing a game and Blu-ray Disc for more than an hour, the light breeze the fan emitted was warm but not hot (you can hold your hand up to it without fear of getting scorched).
A couple final notes about the design: With earlier PS3s you could prop your unit up vertically or lay it down horizontally. Out of the box, the Slim is designed to be used in a horizontal position, but Sony will sell a $24 stand that lets you stand it up vertically and not worry about having it tip over. And in case you were wondering, you can also upgrade/replace the hard drive without voiding the warranty, though Sony has moved the hard drive from the side of the unit to the front for easier access. (To remove the hard drive, you simply unscrew two screws on the bottom of the Slim that are covered by a small door that snaps open and closed.) The only caveat: the Slim uses the smaller 2.5-inch drive size generally found in laptops. They're more expensive than the larger 3.5-inch hard drives that go into desktop computers.
We ran some tests of disc load times and some basic Blu-ray performance tests and came to the conclusion that the Slim runs just as well as the older model and keeps the PS3 near the top of our Best Blu-ray Players list.
At this point, as we await the release of version 3.00 of the PS3 firmware (it comes out September 1, 2009), there's not a whole lot to say about our experience using the PS3 Slim because it was, well, pretty much like using the "fat" PS3. That leaves us with some pre-existing qualms with the PS3 experience versus that of the Xbox 360. While we like that the PlayStation Network is free (versus Xbox Live's $50 per year fee), it's also a bit less full-formed. Yes, downloadable movies, TV shows, and games are available (all for per-download prices), and now the system includes the Netflix streaming subscription found on the 360. However, PS3 owners must use a BD-Live Blu-ray Disc every time they want to stream a movie. Hulu video--once available through the browser--is now blocked (Hulu's fault, not Sony's). Thankfully, the Play On software offers a work-around, but it'll require you to leave your PC running to view those services.
At the end of the day, you can quibble about the Slim's new casual look, the lack of backward compatibility for PS2 games, no IR port, and such former extras as a built-in memory card reader and extra USB ports (we'd still like one on the back of the unit). But the fact is the PS3 Slim costs half of what the original PS3 cost when it first launched. It's also smaller, more energy efficient, quieter, and retains virtually all the impressive gaming, multimedia, and home-theater functionality of previous PS3s. In short, there's a lot of machine here for $299.
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Quick Specifications
• Product Description - Game console
• Processor IBM
• RAM Installed ( Max ) 256 MB
• Color Charcoal black
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A House of Night Novel
House of Night Novels (Volume 6 of 12)
P. C. Cast and Kristin Cast
St. Martin's Griffin
TEMPTED (Chapter 1)
The night sky over Tulsa was alight with a magical crescent moon. Its brilliance made the ice that coated the city, and the Benedictine Abbey where we'd just had our showdown with a fallen immortal and a rogue High Priestess, shimmer so that everything around me seemed touched by our Goddess. I looked at the moonlight-bathed circle that stood in front of Mary's Grotto, the place of power where not long ago Spirit, Blood, Earth, Humanity, and Night had been personified and then had joined to triumph over hatred and darkness. The carved image of Mary, surrounded by stone roses and nestled within a ledge high in the grotto, appeared to be a beacon for the silver light. I stared at the statue. Mary's expression was serene; her ice-covered cheeks glistened as if she wept in quiet joy.
My gaze lifted to the sky. Thank you. I sent a silent prayer up to the beautiful crescent that symbolized my Goddess, Nyx. We're alive. Kalona and Neferet are gone.
"Thank you," I whispered to the moon.
Listen within . . .
The words swept through me, subtle and sweet like leaves touched by a summer breeze, brushing my consciousness so lightly that my waking mind barely registered them, yet Nyx's whispered command imprinted itself into my soul.
I was vaguely aware that there were a lot of people (well, nuns, fledglings, and a few vampyres) around me. I could hear the mixture of shouting, talking, crying, and even laughing that filled the night, but it all felt distant. At that moment the only things that were real to me were the moon above and the scar that sliced from one shoulder all the way across my chest to the other shoulder. It tingled in response to my silent prayer, but it wasn't a tingle of pain. Not really. It was a familiar warm, prickling sensation that assured me Nyx had, once again, Marked me as hers. I knew if I peeked under the neck of my shirt I would find a new tattoo decorating that long, angry-looking scar with an exotic filigree of sapphire--a sign that proved I was following my Goddess's path.
"Erik and Heath, find Stevie Rae, Johnny B, and Dallas--then check the perimeter of the abbey to be certain all the Raven Mockers fled with Kalona and Neferet!" Darius shouted the command, snapping me out of my warm, fuzzy prayer mode, and once I'd been shocked out, it was like an iPod had been cranked too high as sound and confusion flooded my senses.
"But Heath's a human. A Raven Mocker could kill him in a second." The words burst from my mouth before I could clamp it shut, proving beyond all doubt that being moonstruck wasn't my only moronic skill.
Predictably, Heath puffed up like a cat-smacked toad.
"Zo, I'm not a damn pussy!"
Erik, looking very tall and full-grown, kick-your-butt vampyre-like, snorted sarcastically and then said, "No, you're a damn human. Wait, that does make you a pussy!"
"So, we defeat the big baddies and inside five minutes Erik and Heath are banging their chests at each other. How totally predictable," Aphrodite said with her patented sarcastic sneer as she joined Darius, but her expression completely changed when she turned her attention to the Son of Erebus Warrior. "Hey there, Hotness. You doing okay?"
"You need not worry about me," Darius said. His eyes met hers, and they practically telegraphed the chemistry between them, but instead of going to her like he usually would and doing some very gross kissing, he remained focused on Stark.
Aphrodite's gaze went from Darius to Stark. "Okay, eew. Your chest is totally crispy crittered."
James Stark was standing between Darius and Erik. Okay, well, standing wasn't exactly what he was doing. Stark was swaying and looking extremely unsteady.
Ignoring Aphrodite, Erik spoke up. "Darius, you should probably get Stark inside. I'll coordinate the reconnoitering with Stevie Rae and make sure everything runs smoothly out here." His words seemed okay, but his tone was all I'm-the-big-guy-in-charge, and when he followed up with a condescending "I'll even let Heath help out," he really sounded like a pompous butt.
"You'll let me help out?" Heath snapped. "Your mom will let me help out."
"Hey, which one of them is supposed to be your boyfriend?" Stark asked me. Even in the terrible shape he was in, he caught my glance with his. His voice was scratchy, and he sounded scarily weak, but his eyes sparkled with humor.
"I am!" Heath and Erik said together.
"Oh, for crap's sake, Zoey, they're both idiots!" Aphrodite said.
Stark started to chuckle, which turned to a cough, which changed again to a painful gasp. His eyes rolled back and, like a slinky, he collapsed.
Moving with the quickness that came naturally to a Son of Erebus Warrior, Darius caught Stark before he hit the ground. "I need to get him inside," Darius said.
I felt like my head was going to explode. Sagging in Darius's arms, Stark looked well on his way to being dead. "I-I don't even know where the infirmary is," I stuttered.
"Not a problem. I'll get a penguin to show us," Aphrodite said. "Hey, you, nun!" she yelled at one of the nearby black-and-white-clad sisters who had scurried out of the abbey after the night had gone from battle chaos to aftermath chaos.
Darius hurried after the nun, with Aphrodite following him. The warrior glanced over his shoulder at me. "Aren't you coming with us, Zoey?"
"As soon as I can." Before I could deal with Erik and Heath, from behind me a familiar twang saved the day.
"Go on with Darius and Aphrodite, Z. I'll take care of Dumb and Dumber and be sure there's no booger monsters left out here."
"Stevie Rae, you are the Best Friend of All Best Friends." I turned and hugged her quickly, loving how reassuringly solid and normal she felt. Actually, she seemed so normal that I got a weird twinge when she stepped back and grinned at me and I saw, as if for the first time, the scarlet tattoos that spread out from the filled-in crescent in the middle of her forehead and down either side of her face. A sliver of unease threaded through me.
Misunderstanding my hesitation, she said, "Don't worry about these two dorks. I'm gettin' used to jerking them apart." When I just stood there staring at her, the bright smile she'd been wearing dimmed. "Hey, you know your grandma's okay, right? Kramisha got her back inside right after Kalona was banished and Sister Mary Angela just told me she was goin' inside to check on her."
"Yeah, I remember Kramisha helping her into the wheelchair. I'm just . . ." My voice trailed off. I was just what? How could I put into words that I was haunted by a feeling that everything wasn't right with my best friend and the group of kids she'd allied herself with, and how do I say that to my best friend?
"You're just tired and worried 'bout a bunch of stuff," Stevie Rae said softly.
Was that understanding I saw flicker through her eyes? Or was it something else, something darker?
"I get it, Z, and I'll take care of things out here. You just be sure Stark's okay." She hugged me again, and then gave me a little push in the direction of the abbey.
"'Kay. Thanks," I said lamely, starting toward the abbey and totally ignoring the two dorks who were standing there staring at me.
Stevie Rae called after me, "Hey, remind Darius or someone to keep an eye on the time. It's only about an hour until sunrise, and you know me and all the red fledglings gotta be inside out of the sun by then."
"Yeah, no problem. I'll remember," I said.
The problem was it was getting harder and harder for me to forget Stevie Rae wasn't what she used to be.
TEMPTED. Copyright 2009 by P. C. Cast and Kristin Cast.
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There's a strong contingent of industry watchers who consider Windows 8 a flop. But, when you have the data to compare actual campaign spend, number of copies sold, and amount of revenue per Windows version, it might just be enough to make them think a little longer before allowing their knee to jerk uncontrollably.
The following Infographic produced by WhoIsHostingThis? is actually intended to highlight the extravagance of Microsoft operating system launches, and while that is some interesting information, I was more interested in the number of copies sold and total revenue.
There's some additional cool data represented here. I'll let you glean your own value.
Microsoft's Extravagant Software Launches
Compiled By: WhoIsHostingThis?
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I tried Ektar 120 recently when I bought a Bronica and the 1st roll was dreadful. I processed it for the normal time at the normal temperature but it looked to way over developed with hellish contrast. There was as you describe very blue shadow areas - not dense shadows that could not be dialed out using filtration, because then it became overall yellow.
I think it was a problem of some degree of over development, despite processing it as per normal which gave rise to 'crossed curves' (where the three colours develop at different rates, not what they are designed to) What was also of note was the base colour of the film was a darkish brown, not orange as I normally get on other films. The later films were a little better but not perfect in that respect. Even scanning it was little better and the roll will stay with me as a reminder what a failure looks like
The 2nd roll was better when exposed on a dull day and the third roll also exposed on a day with subdued sunlight wasn't bad either. I have yet to make any 'proper' prints but when I do I will scan and upload them. I will not be using Ektar again.
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