their parents, every week. The parents who were murdered deserved it, I have no doubt. These kids have had such a hard life, and now they are in jail for the rest of their lives. But guess what happens to parents who torture children to death? Practically nothing.
 1. So despicable
 2. "Children in the United States are tortured to death by their parents, every week." How do you know this? Also how do you know that this applies to the kids in this documentary?
 3. You are right Rob I don't know how often it actually occurs. It seems really prevalent though. Do you know how often it happens? Also I don't know that is applies to the kids in the documentary. But I have a strong feeling. Especially since it was Colt Lundy's step father.
 4. What you have "a strong feeling about" is only so much garbage. It's what you can prove and as you're the claimant, the, burden of proof rests squarely on your shoulders.
 5. You are correct Rob. I am interested to hear your opinion. Hypothetically, if what I have a strong feeling about is correct, how would you sentence Colt Lundy? If you were the judge.
 6. Mr. Lundy is lucky in that at the time this premeditated murder was committed, he was not old enough to be given the death sentence. So I would rule with the judge.
 7. I disagree with your decision.
 8. No, it's accurate.
 9. Rob. In most matters there is technically no such thing as right and wrong. Think of the vastness of the universe, and the infinite nature of time and space. Nothing happening on this earth matters. When it comes to issues such as this you have to use human empathy to make a conclusion.
 10. Not when it comes to crimes of this magnitude--and the vastness of the universe has nothing to do with it.
 11. You are right, to the young man and his family going through these difficults years must really shrink the size of their universe.
 12. Irrelevant.
 13. Lol Rob. You did not understand my point.
 14. Which is?
 15. Technically there is no such thing as right and wrong. You have to use human empathy to make a conclusion.
 16. You're right--for the victims.
 17. A child has been tortuously abused their whole life and snaps, killing both their parents. I think the child deserves a medal.
 18. I didn't see that child in this documentary.
 19. No you are flat wrong robert and a total c@@t to boot.
 20. No Mr. here! He's a child.
 21. Makes no difference.
 22. Would it make a difference if i called you a child?
 23. It would just be another of silly and ignorant remarks.
 24. Nice to see we agree, calling him Mr. was silly and ignorant.
 25. No, it's quite accurate.
 26. Robertallen where are you from? t5he 1920s? those damn flappers showing to much leg again?- getting your moral terpitude all in tizzy because you decided to ignore the nature vs nurture debate thats beeen raging since Darwin nicked the theory of evolution from that Wallace chap.
 guess what? turns out its bothyou victorian minded pleb.
 When will you thick, backward minded,cookie cutter opinioned fools figure out that the educated world needs a better argument than
 ~"lock up all the evil doers and burn the witches!"
 The existence of Barney the dinosaur is all the evidence you needif you have this culture of enforced positivity and arrested development for your children then how are they to cope when they grow into an adult world?
 To be interfered with as a child by a media seemingly designed to keep you in a state of childish wonderment well into your adult life is surely enough to send you totally insane.
 Especially when the realities of the adult world in the USA begin to hit home as you grow.
 ..that in order to you achieve success you must basically climb over the bodies of your corporate enemies
 that in order just to survive you must work as hard as a pack mule in a society abundant in resources and technologically advanced.
 that at every turn you are beset by others on the same insane quest to recapture your carefree childhood by achieving more money that the next slave.
 Now wonder they snap when they find out about the wizard behind the curtain,,,ah the american dream! Lie to your kids and shoot your neighbour if he so much as even looks at YOUR pick up truck.
 Robertallen please me this one thing...go and actually have a think will you?
 28. Nobody ever wants to talk about the parents. And I really don't understand this.
 23. I often feel the stone casters would make the same bad decisions in the same situations, ironic.
 24. You know what you are doing at that age..... No pity... If medications are involved then that might be another story... Tap water comes to mind if it has a high amount of fluoride and was ingested for sometime. It can do funny things to the mind of a young person... Just do not be fooled by those with no intentions of feeling sympathy for anyone but them selfish selves.
 1. I just can't agree. If you know what you're doing at that age, then there's no reason you can't vote, drive, or drink. But while you're conscious and aware, you really don't understand life or the world or people or responsibility at that age, and so, we put some restrictions on those things. With good reason.
 2. Really depends on the person I think. Did I know everything I do now at that age? Of course not. Was I logic minded? Not really, but did I know killing someone was wrong and would probably ruin my life? Yes, I think most people do, that's why humanity is capable of society. I sure haven't met any successful people, or anybody for that matter, that have said "yea I killed someone when I was 12, spent 6 years in juvy, really set me straight.
 3. If everyone knows what they're doing, why allow mitigating circumstances into law?
 4. Well, there was Jean Valjean, but that was in the days before social welfare.
 5. And the bishop did him a kindness, told the cop that he had given the silver to Valjean even though he had stolen it. If I remember rightly, he repaid that favour many times during his life, even saved the detective from execution (?). All the naughty criminal needed was a second chance :)
 6. It wasn't silver. It was a loaf of bread which he stole to feed his hungry family. And the detective (Javert) ended up throwing himself in the river. You must have the wrong novel.
 7. Les Misérables? I know he ended up in the klinky for stealing bread but I thought he had stolen silver too, maybe when he got out? Don't remember Javert taking a dip though so I'm happy trust your memory on that.
 8. No, after being released from the klinky, as you so charmingly put it, he lucked upon a situation in which he could play the part of a hero and the officials were so impressed that they didn't even bother to ask for his passport which was yellow, indicating a criminal past.
 9. I must be inventing things again, or mixing my thinks :)
 10. Most certainly confirmed, that your memory of the story plot and nuances of concepts are correct, stolen silver from Bishop Myriel was the pivotal plot line of Les Mis
 11. Wrong. The novel begins with Jean Valjean stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family and what happens to him afterwards..
 12. I gave all my books away a while back so I'm going to have to wander the Web and find out :)
 13. The Wikipedia articles contains a plot summary. Before the novel begins, Mr. Valjean has been in prison for stealing a loaf of bread. The incident with the bishop occurs later. In other words, his initial crime was stealing bread which is what gives the story its initial thrust.
 14. I found it on The Literature Network, looks like we're both right, just on different pages ;)
 15. Begins with, pivots with, one of these things is different from the other is that not correct?
 16. It's the stealing of the loaf of bread and the incommensurate sentence on which the novel pivots.
 17. Seriousness changes in proportion with the consequences.
 18. Clearly the latter which is why I wasn't particularly serious when I mentioned it.
 It's amazing how second-rate novels often make first-rate films. In Victor Hugo's case, there are three reputable versions of the "Hunchbank of Notre Dame," and "Les Misérables" has been remade more than any other motion picture and the Frederick March/Charles Laughton version is outstanding. The same for Dumas.
 19. Is it plausibility for the main characters sudden comprehension of his then beginning general outlook (thief),that he might live his life more sociably


text:
Creating and applying bias tape/binding are sewing techniques that once you learn how to do correctly, you will never look back. You'll wonder why you had been putting them off all these years!
I've put together this handy guide of all related content from here on The Haby Goddess blog, Sew School Online plus new original material.
It's a collection of step by step instructions with clear detailed images plus a few extra bonus video's thrown in also.
Here's what the guide contains:
- Finding your grain
- Difference between single & double bias
- Handy Tools
- How much fabric will I need?
- What types of fabric to use?
- Cutting your fabric strips
- Making your bias
- Joining your bias strips
- Using a bias tape maker
- Sewing on your bias binding – Technique 1 (includes video)
- Sewing on your bias binding – Technique 2
- Add bias to curves
- How to achieve a neat corner?
- Finishing off bias binding (video)
- Additional techniques – Add bias to an inside edge
- Bias binding gadgets – Using a binding foot attachment
- Bias binding gadgets – Simplicity Bias Tape Maker
File size is 2.3mb and it will be automatically sent to your paypal address after purchase.

source: openbmb/Ultra-FineWeb


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Web Development
Silverlight Animation
Starting an Animation with Code
The EventTrigger approach is an easy way to kick off an animation. However, in the current build, not all Silverlight events can be used as event triggers. The Loaded event is supported, but mouse-related events like MouseEnter, MouseLeave, and MouseMove are not.
If you want to start an animation in response to these events, you need to interact with the storyboard programmatically. Fortunately, it's easy. The first step is to move your storyboard out of the Triggers collection and place it in another collection of the same element: the Resources collection.
All Silverlight elements provide a Resourcesproperty, which holds a collection where you can store miscellaneous objects. The primary purpose of the Resources collection is to allow you to define objects in XAML that aren't elements, and so can't be placed into the visual layout of your content region. For example, you might want to declare a Brush object as a resource so it can be used by more than one element. Resources can be retrieved in your code or used elsewhere in your markup. Here's an example that defines the rectangle-growing animation as a resource:

 Defines a single line break
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Matching tags
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 Defines bold text
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 This is heading 1
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Dr. Dobb's TV


Passionate About Wildlife
Can I feed bread to swans & ducks?
There has been some publicity saying that because people are not feeding bread to waterfowl some swans are starving to death.
Whilst as animal lovers we are saddened to hear that swans are starving there may well be more to why the swans are struggling other than people not giving bread. For example, the very dry summer may have drastically reduced the foods that waterfowl naturally forage for such as aquatic plants, insects etc. We certainly do promote supplementary feeding of waterfowl but the food should be nutritionally beneficial. Reputable wildlife Rescues such as Vale Wildlife Hospital have said that they do not promote feeding bread as they have seen first-hand the damage it causes birds.
So what is the problem with bread?
Bread offers little-to-no nutritional benefit but the birds will readily eat it when it is offered. The problem occurs as the calorific bread fills up the stomach so much that the bird will not forage for their normal natural diet that will give them all the vitamins and minerals they require. In particular, in young birds, a reliance on human supplied bread, and other junk food, discourages them to learn to forage for the natural foods they need to be healthy. In both cases this can lead to malnourishment and in severe cases in young birds to a condition called Angel Wing. Angel Wing is a condition in which the distal portion of wing appears flipped outward. It is caused by excessively rapid growth of feathers in relation to muscle development and as a result growing flight feathers cause excess stress and weight on carpal muscles. This in turn leads to the carpal portion of the wing to hang and twist outwards and prevents the bird from flying (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Angel wing in a Canadian Goose
Possible causes of Angel Wing include:
 - Over feeding &/or excessive calorie intake
 - Genetic factors
 - Excessive growth rate
 - Manganese (or Vitamin E) and vitamin D3 deficiency
It is possible that the high calorie bread discourages natural foraging and thus can cause deficiencies in vitamins and minerals that then lead to Angel Wing in some birds. The condition can be reversed with proper feeding in young birds but once the bird is an adult it cannot be reversed. Although Angel Wing is not life threatening to the bird in a sheltered environment it would be unlikely to survive in the wild.
There can also be problems with bread that is left uneaten as this can attract predators that may be harmful to waterfowl. It can also, if left for long enough, grow mould that if the birds consequently eat can make them very ill. Another issue is one of uneaten bread adding to nutrient build up in the water, especially in closed water such as lakes and ponds. This excess of nutrients in the water can then lead to excess algae growth such as cyanobacteria (blue green algae) and harmful algal blooms that in severe cases depletes oxygen levels to the extent that aquatic plants and animals die out. This process of eutrophication is usually caused by the use of fertilisers and soil run off into water (and human sewage) that leads to high nitrogen and phosphorous levels in the water but there is an argument that bread may contribute to this albeit in a smaller way.
So what can I feed to waterfowl?
There is a place to have a commercial food that will allow families to carry on the pastime of feeding the waterfowl at parks, ponds and lakes etc. that will be nutritionally beneficial and not harm the birds. According to National Geographic safe food for waterfowl include cucumber, corn, peas, beans, broccoli, beets, squash, alfalfa, tomatoes, aubergine, peeled bananas, seeds, scrambled eggs, and rice. Foods to be avoided as they are harmful include avocados, onions, citrus fruits, chocolate, popcorn and, of course, bread. There are foods on the market for commercially kept waterfowl and the recommendation is that a commercial pellet for this instance should contain 14-17% Protein and 3-6% fat with added vitamins and minerals.
Brambles Pet and Wildlife Limited is a family owned company and the team have been involved in developing products for animal welfare since 1990. The Managing Director has a scientific background in Biological Sciences and we have combined our experience and expertise to formulate foods that are nutritionally beneficial to wild animals and ensure that they do not contain any added sugar, colours, or artificial flavours. Our Swan and Duck food conforms to recommended guidelines for nutritional requirements, is also suitable for geese, moorhens and coots, and, as it floats you can easily see when the birds have had sufficient.


text:
Thermal modeling is a process of creating a model of any object and run its simulation to show how will it function thermally using simulation software. Diverse segments of design can be examined and the results can be represented in the form of graphic or text. After modeling and simulation work, results are validated according to the given set of parameters and are verified whether the design will fail or pass as per the required conditions. In case of failure of design, the model is redesigned again until the required results are obtained. Many software companies like ANSYS, FUSION 360 provides CAE and CAD simulation software for thermal modeling. Below are some key benefits of thermal modeling.
Key Benefits of Thermal Modeling Services
- Thermal Modelling service reduces the initial costs of engineering like change in design, wastage of materials, and manufacturing cost. By visual modeling and doing thermal simulation according to the requirements, we can reduce the cost to manufacture it and minimize the error without making changes in the real world which could have taken much time, cost, and material.
The world of business is changing dramatically. With new technologies adopted, companies are making the best use of it for flexibility. The same goes for hiring higher executives of the company. Chief Financial Officer (CFO) plays an important role in the growth of the business. Some companies prefer hiring a virtual CFO to cut down the cost and manage to get things done.
Hiring a virtual CFO can bring a lot of benefit to the company-
- Cost Efficiency
One of the reasons why hiring a CFO virtual is the best investment is because the process is cost-efficient. The quality of the work will be unaffected by the fact that the professional works remotely. There is no on-demand separate desk arrangement, which will reduce the salary.
A part of the risk management is failure analysis. It is increasingly popular among industrial processes and management operations. Whether it is related to return on investment or installation of new equipment in on an industrial floor, data analysis and factor assessment related to a failure lead to a solid foundation for the future. In this way, management can stay updated regarding the factors and future risks to reduce the probability of failure properly.
Reasons for Conducting Failure Analysis
The prime reasons for performing a failure analysis are mentioned below.
- Root Cause Determination
Determining the factors behind failure or anything leads to proper analysis and elimination of such factors. It also leads to determining and eradicating the flaws in the design of a product or a plan to make things better for the future. Close inspection done by the experts recreating the environment of a failed incident will disclose the factors that the team should be aware of.
XBRl (Extensible Business Reporting Language) is an open standard mark-up language optimized for business information, but not limited to financial and accounting information. It is the variant of XML (Extensible Markup Language) adopting the same syntax and related technologies. The XBRL aids data sharing more than XML does by removing the obstacle of human terminology from the equation.
The XBRL tags are computer-readable, allowing the electronic transmission of data along with resources relating to each concept helping to define their semantic meaning. The capability of XBRL to communicate semantic meaning associated with specific data elements, independent of software application. This makes use of the transmission of business and financial information to multiple company stakeholders and regulators.
How Did XBRL Originate?
XBRL technology arose from the need for reliable and financial related data to be reported to multiple regulatory bodies. The technology created follow issues-


text:
Rare gastrointestinal presentation of enterobius vermicularis: Anal abscess
Cemalettin Durgun1, Sevil Alkan2
1Department of General Surgery, Memorial Dicle Hospital, Diyarbakır, Turkey
2Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University Faculty of Medicine, Çanakkale, Turkey
Keywords: Anal abscess, enterobius vermicularis, oxyuriasis
Enterobius vermicularis (E. vermicularis) is a human roundworm that does not have an intermediate host. It is a common parasite worldwide, especially in temperate regions and in developing countries. It lives in the human large intestine, particularly in the cecum lumen, appendix, rectum area, and rarely in the last parts of the small intestine and causes enterobiasis (oxyuriasis). Likewise, it is usually transmitted by close contact between infected and non-infected individuals and swallowing or inhalation of eggs. Primary school children are the most likely to be affected. It is generally asymptomatic, the most common symptom is itching in the perianal area. Sometimes it can be complicated by extraintestinal involvement. In countries with high prevalence, such as our country, oxyuriasis should be kept in mind as a rare cause of gastrointestinal involvement including anal abscess. The aim of the case report was to present an extremely rare case of anal abscess caused by E. vermicularis as well as to review the literature.


Hapee Blog
Why Poor Hygiene Was a Virtue in the Medieval Era
Guest Post by Ravi Saraogi
What if I told you that poor hygiene in Western countries was an important reason for them being wealthier than Asian countries during the medieval era (circa 1400 – 1800). Sounds quirky right? But this is indeed true.
Medieval Europe: Human excreta was collected in pots and thrown into the street Source: _URL_
Really? How is this possible?
Prior to the Industrial Revolution (circa _PHONE_), civilization was subject to the Malthusian Trap. This trap worked in two ways. Every time efficiency growth outstripped the growth in population, birth rate would increase. This would lead to per capita income remaining constant as the extra income generated out of growth in efficiency had more mouths to feed. Similarly, every time efficiency growth lagged the growth in population, population would fall. This is because the fall in efficiency growth would lead the income to be insufficient to support the growth in population. Again, per capital income would remain constant in this case too as the income fall was accompanied by a fall in population.
So, under the Malthusian Trap, there are three ways in which per capital income can be increased,
 - Higher growth in efficiency
 - Lower birth rate
 - Higher death rate
Before the Industrial Revolution, growth in efficiency was very slow, so option (1) is out. That leaves us with lower birth rate or higher death rate. With this background, we can answer the question – why was there a positive link between poor hygiene and higher incomes prior to the Industrial Revolution? Simple, poor hygiene lead to higher death rates.
But how do we know hygiene in Western countries was poorer than Asian countries?
Gregory Clark, in his book 'A Farewell to Alms' devotes a nice section on this. For instance, he mentions that,
Another factor favoring high living standards for Europeans compared to Asians is that throughout the preindustrial era Europeans were—by modern standards and also those of preindustrial China and Japan—a filthy people, living in dirt and squalor. The low standards of personal and community hygiene are everywhere apparent in preindustrial Europe. Indeed the travel diaries of European visitors to Japan in the years 1543–1811 frequently stressed the extreme cleanliness of the country by contemporary European standards." [1]
Particularly interesting is Clark quoting in his book an extract from a certain Samuel Pepys' diary in October 1660, "Going down to my cellar... I put my feet into a great heap of turds (lumps of excrement), by which I find that Mr. Turner's house of office is full and comes into my cellar.[2] It appears that overflowing faeces matter from your neighbour's house was not a big deal in medieval England!
Medieval Europe: People used to pee and poo in pots kept under their beds. Source: _URL_
Furthermore, "In contrast in China and Japan human waste, urine as well as feces, was a valuable property which householders sold to farmers, and which various groups competed for the right to collect. Waste was not dumped into cesspits, sewers, and streams, contaminating water supplies. Instead in cities such as eighteenth-century Osaka contractors found it profitable even to provide public containers on street corners in order to profit from the waste deposits." [3]
People changed clothes only occasionally: King James VI of Scotland went months at a time without changing his clothes. Source: _URL_
This is apart from other poor hygiene habits in medieval Europe like rarely taking baths and only occasionally changing clothes. Asians were apparently way more hygienic. "… in Japan bathing in hot water was popular and frequent. The Chinese also bathed whenever possible, and they employed plenty of soap. The Japanese washed their hands after urinating or defecating, and they kept privies clean.
Showers and tubs were rarely found in the home. When people did bathe, it was usually in a common area where hundreds of others had bathed. Source: _URL_
Unfortunately, the rules of the Malthusian Trap was such that better hygiene and sanitation led to a lower death rate in Asian countries and they were "punished" as meagre incomes had to support larger populations.
So, should we infer that to become wealthy, countries should neglect sanitation and hygiene? Absolutely not. Luckily, the positive relationship between poor hygiene and per capita income during the Malthusian era broke down during the Industrial Revolution.
Industrial Revolution and the Escape from the Malthusian Trap
Something happened in England during the Industrial Revolution (circa _PHONE_). The rate of growth in efficiency multiplied by leaps and bounds. No longer was birth and date rates an important determinant of per capita income. Take a look at the graph below:
Source: Hoppe, Hans-Hermann, 2013, From the Malthusian Trap to the Industrial Revolution, Mises Circle Feature
For most of human history, per capita income was broadly constant. As highlighted earlier, this was because any gain in efficiency which resulted in additional income was just about enough to feed the growth in population, so that income per head remained more or less constant. But around 1800, things changed in Western countries when the growth in efficiency far outstripped the growth in population, leading to a sharp increase in per capita income.
Which is to say that post 1800s, efficiency became the central determinant of per capita income. No longer do birth and death rates play any significant role in influencing per capital income. With this, the "advantage" that unhygienic countries had over hygienic countries is gone. All countries now have the right incentives to push for better hygiene and sanitation facilities.
Aren't we glad?
[1] Clark, Gregory (2005), A Farwell to Arms, Chapter 5, p105-108
[2] Ibid.
[1] Ibid.
Hapee Commode celebrated World Toilet Day in Chennai with children
On the occasion of the World Toilet Day (WTD), the Hapee Commode organized a two-day fun workshop for underprivileged children in a slum colony in Chennai. The workshop was held on consecutive Saturdays in November 2015 in a public hall in the colony to make the children understand the importance of hygiene, particularly the need for washing hands before eating and after using the toilet, through modules in the form of engaging games and practical exercises. The workshop was a great learning experience for the participants as well as the facilitators.
A child uses the tippytap to wash hands
On the first day of the workshop, we built a tippy-tap – a makeshift hand-wash – for the children who don't have access to tap water. Before the children could experiment with the tippy-tap, we played with glitter to make them understand how germs pass from one hand to the other when they shake hands with one another. After that we went to the backyard to wash our hands. Children were brimming with happiness and excitement as they waited patiently in a queue to wash their hands. We spoke about Gandhiji and how he felt that sanitation was more important than political independence. We sang the national anthem to instil a sense of patriotism in them, telling them that sanitation was an integral part of national pride.
Children working on their drawings
The second day was even more interesting as we conducted a painting competition for the children. It was a rainy day in Chennai and so we chose rain as the theme. First, we asked them to name the things they associated with monsoons. They said dirt, unhygienic condition, water logging, umbrella etc. A few them shouted 'bajji,' crispy vegetable fries eaten on rainy days. Once we felt that the children had enough ideas to work on, we asked them to draw and paint about the monsoon. It was amazing to watch their sudden transformation. The boisterous kids got into pin-drop silence as they started sketching their thoughts on the canvas and drawing umbrellas, homes, toddlers, clouds, flowers, trees, water, love, etc…Once they were done, we put up all their paintings so that they would remember this special day of their lives.
A game visualized and created by Triple O Studio
The closing of the workshop was marked by another interesting game for the kids…Triple O Studio, a design and architecture firm, had decorated the backyard, hanging mugs on trees and ropes. We formed teams of kids – one team for each colour of mugs – and gave them balls to be dropped in the mugs meant for their respective team. The team which managed to drop the maximum number of balls in 60 seconds would be the winner. This game was electrifying as children jumped up and down the trees to try and win! At the end, we gave away the mugs to all the kids for use at home.
Monsoon Paintings by the kids
The two-day workshop brought out the best in me as I learned a lot from the energetic and enthusiastic kids. I also realized that children do not need tutoring – especially when it came to inculcating in them a sense of sanitation and hygiene. They just need an enabling environment to learn and adapt. All the children were


When asset owners sell assets to charities for less than their fair value, that is
called a bargain sale to charity, and everyone can win. The charity wins because
they receive the excess value, and the donor wins because they receive some
payment and a deduction. The payment they receive usually gets preferred tax
treatment as a capital gain, and the charitable gift from the excess of the fair
market value over the selling price is deductible as an itemized deduction.
Another variation of the bargain sale occurs when an individual transfers debtencumbered property to a charity. The debt that is assumed by the charity is treated
as a payment, so like a traditional bargain sale, this is a part-sale/part-gift,
generally resulting in capital gains and a charitable contribution deduction to the
Both of these methods can be an excellent way to get assets to a charity and
favorable tax treatment to the donor.
For example, suppose that a property owner purchased land for $10,000. It is now
worth $100,000. He agrees to sell the land to the charity for $40,000. The property
owner has a capital gain (which is taxed at lower rates) of $30,000 ($40,000 selling
price less $10,000 tax cost). The transferor also has a charitable contribution of
$60,000 (fair value of $100,000 less selling price of $40,000).


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Is there a way to have Mathematica understand Big-Oh notation?
For example, I want something like:
MinBigOh[2x+3, x^2] = 2x+3
MinBigOh[2x+3, x^2] = x
The idea here is that I want to be able to augment "Min" to understand Big-Oh comparisons.
The purpose of this is so that I can write a bunch of expressions, and have Mathematica reason about the Big-Oh running time somewhat.
share|improve this question
And have Mathematica reason about the Big-Oh running time somewhat is the hard part :D – belisarius Jul 11 '12 at 2:56
If everything is polynomial you might get away with minBigOh[p1_, plist_List] := PolynomialReduce[p1, plist][[2]] (which is in keeping with the "term-rewritica" moniker). – Daniel Lichtblau Jul 11 '12 at 15:41
3 Answers 3
up vote 4 down vote accepted
I would suggest something like the following, which uses the built-in O[x]^n notation to denote a term of order $x^n$.
BigO[expr_List, var_Symbol, func_] :=
 O[var]^func[Exponent[# - Coefficient[#, var, 0], var, func] & /@ expr]
Some examples:
BigO[{2 x + 3, x^2 + x^3}, x, Max]
(* O[x]^3 *)
BigO[{2 x + 3, x^2 + x^3}, x, Min]
(* O[x]^1 *)
If you only want to find the smallest order in the list of expressions, you can also use the fact that O automatically does O[x]^n + O[x]^m == O[x]^n when n ≤ m to write something like:
MinBigO[expr_List, var_Symbol] :=
 Plus @@ Thread[O[var]^Exponent[# - Coefficient[#, var, 0], var, Min] & /@ expr]
Another example:
MinBigO[{2 x + 3, x^2 + x^3}, x]
(* O[x]^1 *)
share|improve this answer
But what about $O(n \cdot log(n))$ etc...? – Brett Champion Jul 11 '12 at 3:34
_USER_ Yes, that's harder... trying to think of something. – R. M. Jul 11 '12 at 4:39
Isn't there some simple validity to the method I propose? When does it fail? – Mr.Wizard Jul 11 '12 at 12:06
_USER_.wizard not near mma now, but I would say something like MinBigOh[10 x, 1/10^6 x^2] would fail for the specific answer. Of course, then you pick a bigger value to substitue, but you can always twiddle the coefficients to find a counter example and eventually you hit max/min machine number at which point you can no longer substitute. The objective is not whether which has a higher tunning time, but what the time complexity is. – R. M. Jul 11 '12 at 13:12
I've never seen O notation in that form/degree before. Some reading is in order I guess. – Mr.Wizard Jul 11 '12 at 13:23
Perhaps it is sufficient to substitute a suitably large value for x and take the smallest?
MinBigOh[expr__] := SortBy[{expr}, # /. x -> 1'*^6 &][[1]]
MinBigOh[2 x + 3, x^2]
3 + 2 x
If you do this it would be prudent to use Formal Symbols e.g. Esc$xEsc.
share|improve this answer
What about this:
MinBigOh[var_, expr1_, expr2_]:=
 If[Limit[expr1/expr2, var->Infinity]==0, expr1, expr2]
Then you get
MinBigOh[x, 2x+3, x^2]
==> 3 + 2 x
MinBigOh[x, x, Log[x]]
==> Log[x]
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Vestland fylkeskommune, the regional road administration that owns the regional roads in Vestland in Norway, made a demo installation of the Actibump system in Bergen, Norway. They have now evaluated the system and its effects from a number of angles. Their conclusions are very positive and in short some of them are:
- Comparisons between speed measurements collected before and after installation show a significant drop in speed at the Actibump.
- Speed measurements ca 80 meters after the installation show a lower reduction of speed.
- Emergency organisations are positive to the system.
- The public transport organisation has had no complaints about the system.
- Very few complaints from the public.
- There have been no observations of bicyclists crossing the hatch, but there have been some situations observed where bicyclists enter the bike lane right before the Actibump.
- There have been observations of rapid decelerations and evasive actions on a motorcycle but it happened in a well-controlled manner.
- There have been no observations or complaints about undesired actions connected to the system.
- Higher cost than the usual speed reducing measures but added value in the shape of traffic data.
You can find the entire report, in Norwegian, HERE


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|A tamarin rock star |
(photographed by Ltshears at Wikimedia)
Our moods change when we hear music, but not all music affects us the same way. Slow, soft, higher-pitched, melodic songs soothe us; upbeat classical music makes us more alert and active; and fast, harsh, lower-pitched, dissonant music can rev us up and stress us out. Why would certain sounds affect us in specific emotional ways? One possibility is because of an overlap between how we perceive music and how we perceive human voice. Across human languages, people talk to their babies in slower, softer, higher-pitched voices than they speak to adults. And when we're angry, we belt out low-pitched growly tones. The specific vocal attributes that we use in different emotional contexts are specific to our species… So what makes us so egocentric to think that other species might respond to our music in the same ways that we do?
|A serene tamarin ponders where he placed |
his smoking jacket (photographed by
Michael Gäbler at Wikimedia)
Cotton-top tamarins are squirrel-sized monkeys from northern Colombia that are highly social and vocal. As in humans (and pretty much every other vocalizing species studied), they tend to make higher-pitched tonal sounds when in friendly states and lower-pitched growly sounds when in aggressive states. But tamarin vocalizations have different tempos and pitch ranges than our tempos and pitch ranges.
Chuck and David musically analyzed recorded tamarin calls to determine the common attributes of the sounds they make when they are feeling friendly or when they are aggressive or fearful. Then they composed music based on these attributes, essentially creating tamarin happy-music and tamarin death metal. They also composed original music based on human vocal attributes. They played 30-second clips of these different music types to pairs of tamarins and measured their behavior while the song was being played and for the first 5 minutes after it had finished. They compared these behavioral measures to the tamarins' behavior during baseline periods (time periods not associated with the music sessions).
An example of happy tamarin music (Copyright by David Teie and available through Biology Letters) can be found here.
An example of aggressive tamarin music (Copyright by David Teie and available through Biology Letters) can be found here.As the researchers had predicted, tamarins were much more affected by tamarin music than by human music. Happy tamarin music seemed to calm them, causing the tamarins to move less and eat and drink more in the 5 minutes after the music stopped. Compared to the happy tamarin music, the aggressive tamarin music seemed to stress them out, causing the tamarins to move more and show more anxious behaviors (like bristling their fur and peeing) after the music stopped.
The tamarins also showed lesser reactions to the human music. They showed less anxious behavior after the happy human music played and moved less after the aggressive human music played. So, human voice-based music also affected the tamarins to some degree, but not as strongly. This may be because there are some aspects of how we communicate emotions with our voice that are the same in tamarins. (How did the tamarin music make you feel?)
Can you imagine what we could do with this idea of species-specific music? Well, David and Chuck did! They have since developed music for cats using similar techniques. Although they're still working on the paper, they have said that the cats prefered and were more calmed by cat music compared to human music. You can find samples and get your own copies here.
We often think of vocal signals conveying messages in particular sounds, like words and sentences. But calls seem to do much more than that, making the emotions and behaviors of those listening resemble the emotions of those calling.
Want to know more? Check this out:
Snowdon, C., & Teie, D. (2009). Affective responses in tamarins elicited by species-specific music Biology Letters, 6 (1), 30-32 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0593

source: HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu


continuity and change
In History, continuity and change refer to aspects of life or of a society that have remained the same or aspects that have changed or developed over time. The causes of change, or the reasons why change has been resisted and things have remained the same, can be investigated, along with the nature and pace of change and the impact of change. Concepts such as progress and decline may be used to evaluate continuity and change in a time period.


text:
var currentDate = new Date();
This code creates a new Date object and assigns it to the currentDate variable.
– The date() function returns the current date as a string.
– The date() function can also take an optional time argument, which will return the date as a number representing the number of milliseconds since midnight on January 1, 1970.
– The Date object also has several methods for getting more detailed information about the date, such as getFullYear(), getMonth(), and getDate().


A Transistor-less Sound Synthesizer
A synthesizer without transistors could almost be the basis of a trick question, surely without transistors it must be using a vacuum tube or similar. Not [Dr. Cockroach]'s synth though, instead of transistors it uses coupled pairs of LEDs and light-dependent resistors as its active components. Its oscillator circuit comes courtesy of [Patrick Flett], and uses a pair of LED/LDR combinations to alternately charge and discharge a capacitor. This feeds another LDR/LED pair that appears to act as a buffer to drive a bridge rectifier, with a final amplifier following it.
The result oscillates, though at frequencies in the low audio range with a cluster of harmonics thrown in. Its sound is best described as something akin to a small single-cylinder motorcycle engine at the lower frequencies, and is something we see could have all sorts of interesting possibilities.
This approach of using LDR-based active devices may be something of a dead end that could have had its day back in the 1930s, but it's nevertheless an entertaining field to explore. It's not the first time we've followed [Dr. Cockroach] at it, in the past we've seen the same technique applied to logic gates.
Have a listen to the synth in the video below the break.
34 thoughts on "A Transistor-less Sound Synthesizer
 1. Reminds me of the vacuum tubeless/semiconductorless amplifier of days gone by: The carbon microphone. It had so much gain, it too could be made to oscillate acoustically with a battery and magnetic earpiece. They also used them to amplify telephone lines by putting an amplifier in line consisting of a back to back carbon mic and earpiece.
 1. I just played the video and my 3 year old comes up to me (he couldnt see what i was looking at he was just getting the sound) and quiet excitedly asked. "Is that a motor bike?"
 2. Me: Hrm. What about other interesting things that can oscillate, and also interact with electronics? Like, piezo electrics? Or even metal plates?
 Friend: [Sarcastic Stare]
 Me: What? I'm sure you could make it work. I'd bet thin pieces of metal, or even wires can make some interesting sounds. I'm not sure if they would be pleasant or not. But I'd bet you could tune them by changing their shape/thickness/length.
 Friend: [Keeps Staring] [narrows eyes]
 Me: No I'm SURE it could work. Why are you looking at me like that? No. Now that I'm thinking about it, there has GOT to be a way to take a metal string, or maybe a spring, and electrically couple it with some sort of sensor.
 Friend: You mean like…an electric…guitar? You just described an electric guitar. Or really, a regular musical instrument, but with a microphone pointed at it.
 Me: Oh…huh.
 3. Wire the pot up clockwise. It may be a log pot and thus tapering off slower. I think though it needs an audio taper (log) and be wired up clockwise and then the note range will usable end to end. This design looks like a bistable multivibrator.
 1. Quite right. The main oscillator is a form of bistable and the LFO is a astable all using the led/ldr pairs.The pots are audio taper as that is what was in my junk box, linear would have been my first choice. Lots of room for improvement :-)
 4. The bridge rectifier acts as a frequency doubler. Otherwise you couldn't hear much. The intermediate buffer stage is there to isolate the circuit so the subsequent stages wouldn't mess up with the tuning.
 1. Actually I have tapped off audio before the bridge and still get the same notes but with a flatter tone. The bridge does double but also creates a load of harmonics as well and that gives the tone a much richer quality.
 5. I was looking at the oscillator core. Does the supply voltage across the two LEDs need to be less than the sum of the two voltage drops so they don't both turn on at once? Photoresisters usually have a very small power dissapation so do the pair of photoresistors need a current limiting resistor?
 I haven't seen vactols mentioned but there are a lot of pages about LED / photoresistor elements out there under that name.
 1. Hi Stephen, this is Patrick. Yes, the supply voltage (across the two LEDs) does need to be below the voltage drop of the two LEDs for the exact reason you specified. I think of it as an overlapping voltage drop. 5V works well for white LEDs.
 The photoresistors only get too hot to handle the current when your voltage (across the two photoresistors) is cranked up to a fairly unreasonable value (I maxed out my HP power supply at 40V just for fun, they got fairly hot). I found out that it oscillates much quicker when the two photoresistors are given more than 5V. Unfortunately, you run into the issue of it getting too hot, which causes it to run slower. I feel like there is a happy medium between 5V and 40V that could provide the quickest oscillation without overheating.
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The importance of consuming fruits and vegetables of all kind cannot be overemphasized, unknown to most people, garden egg is one of the greatest food, in terms of health benefits, for pregnant women.
As a matter of fact, when fruits and vegetables are consumed continuously, they help reduce the risk of many lifestyle-related health conditions.
This is why medical practitioners have been advising that we add fruits and verges to our diet because of their health benefits.
And talking about fruits and verges, it is important to note that when it comes to garden egg the health benefits are incredible.
Studies have even suggested that eating eggplant can boost overall health and well-being. And with laboratory analyses showing that the phenolic compounds in eggplant contain anthocyanins, a type of flavonoid, and chlorogenic acid, a powerful free-radical scavenger, it goes to say that this plant counted among the healthiest of plants.
Here are some of the incredible health benefits of garden egg;
1. It prevents liver disorder and help control sugar level
Studies have shown that the importance of garden egg to the liver cannot be overemphasized because the antioxidants in garden egg help protect the liver from certain toxins; thereby making it a remedy for liver issues.
However, research has also shown that garden egg helps control sugar level; making it a great dietary option for diabetic patients.
It has the ability to reduce glucose absorption in the body and lower blood sugar levels. It also possesses low soluble carbohydrates, which assist in this regard.
2. It helps to improve vision
The cream-color flesh of garden egg has a pleasantly bitter taste and this is due to the presence of small amounts of nicotinoid alkaloids it contains.
Its spongy consistency helps to protect from poor vision caused by glaucoma as well as improving overall vision.
3. It fights cancer
Studies have shown that Polyphenols in eggplant have anti-cancer effects. The anthocyanins and chlorogenic acid that are contained in garden egg help protect cells from damage caused by free radicals.Thus preventing tumor growth and the spread of cancer cells.
It was also shown that the anticancer action of anthocyanins appears to include preventing new blood vessels from forming in the tumor, reducing inflammation, and blocking the enzymes that help cancer cells to spread.
4. It helps in weight reduction
Lifestyle experts confirm that when it comes to weight management and loss, dietary fibers are one of the most important factors because they act as "bulking agents" in the digestive system.
The compounds in garden egg do not only increase satiety, they also reduce appetite. Observation has also shown that eggplant, as it is also known, help reduce calorie intake by making a person feel fuller for longer.
5. It helps during pregnancy
Unknown to most people, garden egg is one of the greatest food, in terms of health benefits, for pregnant women.
It is packed with vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients which make it an essential part of the daily ration of every pregnant woman.
Given the fact that the baby is taking much of the useful nutrients for himself, women often suffer from the lack of individual components in their body. So, eating this plant can be an excellent solution to such situations.


Raw material
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 (Redirected from Raw materials)
Jump to: navigation, search
For other uses, see Raw material (disambiguation).
Anthracite coal stockpile at the shipping area of a mid-slope coal processing plant. The road leading up beyond the stockpile leads down from a Mountain top strip mine which sources the materials.
Latex being collected from a tapped rubber tree
A raw material, also known as a feedstock or most correctly unprocessed material, is a basic material that is used to produce goods, finished products, energy, or intermediate materials which are feedstock for future finished products. As feedstock, the term connotes these materials are bottleneck assets and are highly important with regards to producing other products. An example of this is crude oil, which is a raw material and a feedstock used in the production of industrial chemicals, fuels, plastics, and pharmaceutical goods; lumber is a raw material used to produce a variety of products including furniture.[1]
The term "raw material" denotes materials in minimally processed or unprocessed states; e.g., raw latex, crude oil, cotton, coal, raw biomass, iron ore, air, logs, or seawater. Raw materials are also used by non-humans, such as birds using found objects and twigs to create nests. The Havana Charter of the International Trade Organisation defined a "raw material" as "any product of agriculture, forestry, fishing and any other mineral that is in its natural form or which has undergone the transformation required to prepare it for internationally marketing in substantial volumes."[2]
Africa has 30% of global reserves of non-energy mineral raw materials but this wealth has had a negative impact upon African countries. This phenomenon, known as "Dutch Disease" or the "resource curse", occurs when the economy of a country is mainly based upon its exports due to its method of governance.[3] An example of this is the "geological scandal" of the Democratic Republic of Congo as it is rich in raw materials; the Second Congo War focused on controlling these raw materials.[4]
See also[edit]
 1. ^ Wolf, Jakob (15 January 2010). Schnellkurs HGB-Jahresabschluss: Das neue Bilanzrecht: Richtig vorgehen — erfolgreich umstellen. Walhalla Fachverlag. p. 90. ISBN 978-3-8029-3436-0.
 2. ^ Christophe Degryse, L'économie en 100 et quelques mots d'actualité, De Boeck, 2005, p. 140.
 3. ^ Bernard Tchibambelela, Le commerce mondial de la faim: stratégie de rupture positive au Congo-Brazzaville, Éditions L'Harmattan, 2009, p. 183.
 4. ^ Pascal Boniface, La géopolitique: Les relations internationales, Éditions Eyrolles et tout le monde s'en fou, 2011.
Further reading[edit]


Daily Life
Do we really need an app to tell us who our 'toxic' friends are?
There is no denying that our smart phones are getting, well, smarter. They can monitor our fitness down to the steps we walk and the calories we consume. Tell us how much sleep we're getting and remind us of the things we need to get done.
But, despite all these advances, would you let your smartphone choose your friends?
The creators of the "Pplkpr" (an abbreviation of "people keeper") think that you should. Pplkpr is part phone app, part wristband. The wristband monitors your heart rate, detecting even the subtlest of changes and sends the information to the app via Bluetooth.
The app notices when you are experiencing an altered emotional state and by pairing this information with the names of the people you have interacted with (which are loaded manually), the app helpfully informs you how your friends make you feel.
Taking this a step further, the app then makes suggestions: who you should spend more time (or in other words, who should be "auto-scheduled" into your life) and who should be axed. It can even remove contacts from your address book – virtually deleting the friendship.
There is no denying that some friendships are bad for us and that those friendships have a negative effect on our wellbeing.
According to psychologist and digital nutritionist Jocelyn Brewer, the psychological effects of toxic friendships can include self-doubt, lowered self-esteem and confidence.
"You might feel like you don't get your own needs met in the friendship because you invest in it and get drawn into the other person's issues above and beyond your own. Lack of connection can contribute to a range of effects, like feeling lonely, sad and unworthy," Brewer explains.
But do you need an app to tell you that your toxic friend is making you feel bad? Brewer certainly doesn't think so.
"I think apps like these are lazy ways of dealing with or even avoid having to deal with, some of the core aspects of being human, like how we relate, communicate and then make choices about who we have in our lives," says Brewer.
"If we need to rely on plugging data into an app instead of using (and honing) your own senses and cognitions to navigate relationships then humans really have a problem."
Brewer also notes that by relying on this sort of app to help analyse our feelings about friendships then we risk losing our sense of self-awareness.
"If we outsource this process of noticing and tuning into our emotions we might as well let robots run the planet," she says.
So, without the use of a smart phone, how do you tell if you are stuck in a toxic friendship?
Brewer suggests looking for the following signs: "Do you feel like you are 'walking on eggshells' and anxious about their unpredictable reactions or behaviour?
"Do you feel like you have to drop everything and rush to solve this person's crisis which turns out to be a major 'first world problem'? Do you feel like your support and advice falls on deaf ears and you regularly want to yell 'I told you so' when the next chapter of the obvious drama unravels?"
Brewer's list resonates for Beth Harris who recently ended a toxic friendship with an old school friend.
"For a while she was fun, but then she became a nightmare... she was totally self-absorbed. There was always a drama and if I wasn't there to talk to her about it over and over and over again she would get pissy with me," she explains.
Harris noticed that the friendship was taking its toll on her emotional well-being and decided to "break up" with her toxic friend. She told her that she didn't want to "hang out" any more and "unfriended" her on social media. And remarkably, she did all this without the help of a smart phone app.


"This yeast is tightly associated with the flowers of the sweet potatoes. This probably has some relation with human migration, because we know that sweet potatoes come from the Andes. We are using yeasts to track human migration and contacts. That is part of what we call'microbiological archaeology.'"
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THE LATEST COMPOSITE TECHNOLOGY FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE AND LOW MAINTENANCE.
1. What is it made from?
2. How is it made?
3. Do I have to paint it?
4. Will it turn yellow?
5. Can I paint it?
6. How do I paint it?
7. What colors can I paint it?
8. How does it cut?
9. How about sanding?
10. What about routing, drilling and other woodworking operations?
11. How does it nail?
12. What about nailing in very cold weather?
13. What kind of nails and fasteners should I use?
14. How many fasteners should I use and does the gauge of the fastener matter?
15. What about glue?
16. Can I use caulking?
17. How do I clean it?
18. Do field cut ends need special treatment?
19. How do I store it?
20. What about expansion?
21. How do I treat the butt joints for Tongue-and-Groove Panels?
22. How do I treat the butt joints for Trimboards and Moldings?
23. Is it toxic?
24. What about burning?
25. What sizes does it come in?
26. What are the grade specifications for Trimboards?
27. What are the potential uses?
28. Will water affect it?
29. What is the warranty?
30. How much does it cost?
31. Where can I get complete application instructions, warranty information, and other
1. Q: What is it made from?
A: Royal Wood Exterior Trim is a co-extruded composite material. The core is a combination of wood and a proprietary blend of thermoplastic resins and additives. The cap is a patented, UV stabilized, ASA acrylic polymer that was developed specifically for Royal Wood Exterior Trim for its superior weatherability.
2. Q: How is it made?
A: Royal Wood Exterior Trim is made with a unique co-extrusion process, which combines a foamed core with a solid cap. Additionally, the core contains wood fiber (to enhance physical properties) which is also unique in foamed extrusions.
3. Q: Do I have to paint it?
A: Royal Wood Exterior Trim does not have to be painted. The surface is designed to be weatherable and paintable. The ASA cap material is known for its superior weatherability, and has logged several thousand hours of accelerated weathering without failure or noticeable appearance changes. However, it may be painted for aesthetic purposes.
4. Q: Will it turn yellow?
A: No! The acrylic component in the ASA cap is known for its color stability, and resistance to yellowing and color change. In fact, Royal Wood Trim is guaranteed against noticeable color change for 15 years.
5. Q: Can I paint it?
A: Paint will perform very well on the ASA cap as well as on any cut edge or end where the core is exposed. Unlike many other trim boards (solid wood, plywood, OSB, MDF, hardboard, etc.), Royal Wood Trim has no water absorption in service, and hence, there is no grain raise, end wicking, substrate wetting, cracking or significant thickness change - all of which cause typical paint failures.
6. Q: How do I paint it?
A: For the best results, first either scuff sand the surface with 150 - 200 grit sandpaper or apply one coat of a fast drying, tenacious primer like Zinsser acrylic latex primer/sealer (or equivalent) or do both. Then apply one or two coats of a compatible acrylic latex paint. The sanding and/or priming step can be skipped, but expect that the paint adhesion will develop slowly, and the new paint will be "tender" for several days. When the application is during a cool, damp time period, both the scuff sanding and the primer application are recommended to promote faster drying, and subsequently better adhesion of the top coat.
Other general guidelines to follow for painting include:
7. Q: What colors can I paint it?
- Make sure all surfaces are dry and free of dust, dirt, mildew, oil or other contaminates before finishing.
- Follow the paint manufacturer's instructions.
- Use only top quality paints
- Stains (solid or semi-transparent), oil/alkyd paints and primers, vinyl latex paints, cement paints or shake and shingle paints ARE NOT recommended since they either do not work well on non-porus surfaces, or are of questionable quality.
A: Any color can be used to paint Royal Wood Trim. Royal Wood's heat deflection temperature is above 200ºF, which is considerably higher than that of other materials, and therefore, can withstand high heat build-up without warping or distorting.
8. Q: How does it cut?
A: Royal Wood Trim will cut very similarly to wood since it is of a comparable density. However, without grain direction and knots there is much less chipping and splintering. A combination blade works well for both ripping and cross cutting, however, the best performing blades have a tip of either carbide or steel which is slightly wider than the blade itself. This design reduces heat build-up and avoids any significant melting of the plastic.
9. Q: How about sanding?
A: Sanding is also similar to wood with a couple of distinctions. While hand sanding will be similar, power sanding may be slightly more difficult if one allows too much surface heat build-up resulting in melting the ASA and plugging the sandpaper. Also, keep in mind that it is usually not desirable to sand through the ASA cap.
10. Q: What about routing, drilling and other woodworking operations?
A: Routing, planing, drilling and shaping all work well with normal woodworking tools and equipment. These machining operations will not reduce the water resistance of the Trim, however, where the core is exposed, some color change will occur during weathering. When the core is exposed on an end or in a small face area, no additional treatment is necessary unless an aesthetic touchup is desired. As with most plastic materials, lower RPM head speeds and higher feed rates usually give the best results. To prevent melting plastic, avoid too much heat build-up on the tool.
11. Q: How does it nail?
A: Royal Wood Trim nails much like wood with a couple of significant improvements. It can be nailed within 5/16" of an edge or end without splitting, and the nails can be "set" with no fear that water will swell or peel the area around the nail. If you miss the nail, it will dent about the same as wood.
12. Q: What about nailing in very cold weather?
A: As with the other exterior plastic trim, Royal Wood will get stiffer and more susceptible to breakage as the temperature drops. However, testing suggests that it has better cold working properties than other plastic trims due to the wood content, the type of materials utilized and the cell structure of the core. It is generally not recommended that the product be applied when the temperature is below 0ºF.
13. Q: What kind of nails and fasteners should I use?
A: Either power-driven or hand-driven nails or screws are acceptable, however, in all instances, the fasteners should be corrosion-resistant. The best corrosion resistance is typically achieved with hot dip galvanized or stainless steel fasteners. If Royal Wood Trim will not be painted, it is recommended that a painted white nail be utilized, or slightly set the nail and touch up the head with caulk or paint. All nails should be of sufficient length to penetrate the underlying framing a minimum of 1-1/2", while screws should penetrate at least 1".
14. Q: How many fasteners should I use and does the gauge of the fastener matter?
A: More fasteners and larger diameter fasteners reduce the amount of expansion/contraction. (Also, see Questions 20, 21 and 22.) The number of fasteners, the spacing of the fasteners and the gauge of the fasteners varies for each Royal Wood product. See the appropriate application instruction sheet for specific recommendations.
15. Q: What about glue?
A: For traditional trim applications, adhesives can be used as a supplemental fastening method, but they cannot replace the required mechanical fastening described in the relevant application instruction sheet. When using adhesives for this type of application, choose a weatherable exterior construction adhesive that is moisture proof. For best results, use one containing MEK.
For heavy-duty applications, such as furniture, shelving, etc. an adhesive like Christie's Red-Hot (T. Christy Enterprises, Orange, CA. 1-800-BLUE-GLUE), Oatey All Purpose Cement (for ABS, PVC, etc.) or equivalent is recommended. For all applications, follow the adhesive manufacturer's recommendations.
16. Q: Can I use caulking?
A: Yes, caulking and sealants can be used. When creating an expansion/contraction joint, such as butt joints or where the Trim butts to another material, use OSI (Ohio Sealants, Inc.) Quad Sealant. Also, see Questions 20, 21 and 22. When filling nails sets, damaged areas, etc., a good quality acrylic latex caulking is also acceptable.
17. Q: How do I clean it?
A: Removal of most dirt and soil can be accomplished with plain water and a garden hose. For more stubborn contaminants and stains, common household cleaners can be used. For really difficult situations, solvents like paint thinner and denatured alcohol can be used. Cleaners containing acid, acetone or MET are not recommended. Permanent stains


Safeguarding Personal Health Information
The Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) requires that, as a health information custodian (custodian), you must take reasonable steps to ensure that personal health information in your custody or control is protected against theft, loss and unauthorized use and disclosure, and that the records containing the information are protected against unauthorized copying, modification or disposal. You must also ensure that records of personal health information are retained, transferred and disposed of in a secure manner.
Mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablets, laptops and USB keys have added a new layer of complexity to this task. The great advantage of these devices–portability–is also their greatest vulnerability, making them susceptible to loss and theft.
For that reason, personal health information should only be stored on mobile devices if necessary, and even then you must take steps to minimize the risks to privacy. Before you store personal health information on a mobile device, take these steps first.
Ask yourself: Do I really need to store any personal health information on this device?
Consider the alternatives. For example, would de-identified information serve the same purpose? Can you access the information remotely through a secure connection or virtual private network instead?
If you must store personal health information on mobile devices, make sure they are encrypted and protected with strong passwords. Additionally, you should store the least amount of information possible, for the shortest amount of time.
For more information about working with personal health information on mobile devices, please refer to our guidance documents below.


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Книгу можно купить в интернет-магазинах:
· OZON.ru 6708р. [Проверить наличие]
ISBN: 0792376404Издательство: Kluwer Academic Publishers
Silicon on insulator (SOI) is a very attractive technology for large volume integrated circuit production and is particularly good for low-voltage, low-power and high-speed digital systems. SOI has also proved to be effective in various niche and growing markets. IC processes based on SOI are known to reduce susceptibility to radiation, and have been used for many years in high radiation environments. SOI is also used for power integrated circuits, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), integrated optics and high temperature applications. SOI offers numerous opportunities and challenges in the design of low-voltage and low-power CMOS circuits for both analog and digital applications. The benefits of this technology for digital applications have been clear for many years. The exploitation of SOI for analog and memory subsystems, meanwhile, has lagged behind digital developments, but is now beginning to attain a level of parity, with circuits that are in some cases improved over...


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Volunteer subjects used to study normal physiology and behavior or who do not have the condition under study in a particular protocol, used as comparisons with subjects who do have the condition. "Normal" may not mean normal in all respects. For example, patients with broken legs (if not on medication that will affect the results) may serve as normal volunteers in studies of metabolism, cognitive development, and the like. Similarly, patients with heart disease but without diabetes may be the "normals" in a study of diabetes complicated by heart disease.
Publication Source: Committees on Human Research
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Although the recent advance in computer vision has effectively boosted the performance of multimedia systems, a core question still cannot be explicitly answered: Does the machine understand what is happening in a video, and are the results of the analysis interpretable by human users? Another way to look at the limitation is to evaluate how many facts the machine can recognize from a video. In many AI and knowledge-based systems, a fact is represented by a relation between a subject entity and an object entity (a.k.a. ), which forms the fundamental building block for complex inferences and decision-making tasks.
As a key aspect of recognizing facts, Video Relation Understanding (VRU) is very challenging since it requires the system to understand many perspectives of the two entities, including appearance, action, speech, and interactions between them. In order to detect and recognize the relations in videos accurately, a system must recognize not only the features in these perspectives, but also the large variance in relation representation. This year's VRU challenge encourages researchers to explore and develop innovative models and algorithms to detect object entities and the relationships between each pair of them in a given video.
Dataset: VidOR
This benchmark dataset contains 10,000 user-generated videos (98.6 hours) from YFCC100M. It is spatial-temporally annotated with 80 categories of objects (e.g. adult, dog, toy) and 50 categories of relationships (e.g. next to, watch, hold).
Main Task: Video Relation Detection
This task is to detect relation triplets (i.e. ) of interest and spatio-temporally localize the subject and object of each detected relation triplet using bounding-box trajectories. For each testing video, we compute Average Precision to evaluate the detection performance and rank according to the mean AP over all the testing videos.
Optional Task: Video Object Detection
As the first step in relation detection, this task is to detect objects of certain categories and spatio-temporally localize each detected object using a bounding-box trajectory in videos. For each object category, we compute Average Precision to evaluate the detection performance and rank according to the mean AP over all the categories.
This challenge is a team-based competition. Each team can have one or more members, and an individual cannot be a member of multiple teams. To register, please create an account and form teams in the submission server. More guides to the usage of the server can be found in FAQs. Note that each team must select a final submission in the server before the submission deadline, and we will conduct a final evaluation based on the selection.
At the end of the challenge, all teams will be ranked based on the objective evaluation metrics, and the leaderboard of both tasks will be public on this website. To be eligible for ACM MM'20 grand challenge award competition, each team need further submit a 4-page overview paper (plus 1-page reference) to the conference's grand challenge track. The top three teams in terms of both the solution novelty and the ranking in the main task will receive award certificates.
Main Task: Video Relation Detection
Rank Team Name Performance: mean AP* Team Members
1 colab-BUAA 0.1174 Wentao Xie, Guanghui Ren, Si Liu
Beihang University & YITU Technology
2 ETRI_DGRC 0.0665 Kwang-Ju Kim, Pyong-Kun Kim, Kil-Taek Lim, Jong Taek Lee
Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
3 Fudan-BigVid 0.0599 Zixuan Su, Jingjing Chen, Yu-Gang Jiang
Fudan University
4 GKBU 0.0328 Renmin University of China
5 DeepBlueAI 0.0024 DeepBlue Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd
Optional Task: Video Object Detection
Rank Team Name Performance: mean AP* Team Members
1 DeepBlueAI 0.0966 Zhipeng Luo, Zhiguang Zhang, Lixuan Che, Yuehan Yao, Zhenyu Xu
DeepBlue Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd
2 IVL 0.0742 Jinjin Shi, Zhihao Chen, Youxin Chen
3 ARC 0.0071 Lijian Lin
Xiamen University
* The two mean AP metrics are computed in different way. Please look for the evaluation details in each task description.
** This year's challenge has 41 registered teams from around the world. However, due to the big challenges in both the tasks and dataset as well as the difficult COVID-19 period, only a few outstanding teams successfully submitted results by the final deadline.
For general information about this challenge, please contact:
For information about the main task, please contact: For information about the optional task, please contact: For reporting issue on the submission server, please contact:
Previous Years


text:
WASHINGTON (WUSA) --- To become one of the scientists of the future, sometimes you have to learn lessons about what took place millions of years ago. Some young people are doing just that at the Smithsonian's Museum of National History in Washington, D.C.
Tiffany Munos-Cegarra may be the only teenager but she get to work with some of the most talented scientists in the world there. She is working with ancient mollusks found in New Jersey. Handling something more than 60 million years old can be tricky, she told us.
"You have to be delicate because they can fall apart," shared Tiffany.
She is part of the paid internship Youth Engagement Through Science (or Y.E.S.). Y.E.S. students can connect with up to 500 scientists working with the Smithsonian.
Dr. Jocelyn Sessa with Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History said, "What's cool about Y.E.S. is that we're getting high school students, students at a younger age to see that science is something that can do and science is fun and interesting."
It translates to the younger students as well. The Smithsonian's Shari Rosenstein Werb said, "Young people are here with their families and they peek in the window and they see somebody like Tiffany, working on bones and excavating and a young person will look at them and say 'wow, she is just a few years older than I am. I can do that!'"
Well, as long you're careful: Remember these artifacts are tens of millions of years old.
School is just getting started and so is a new season of Cool School. We need some great story ideas so send them to Mike Hydeck at _EMAIL_


From Bitcoin Wiki
Revision as of 15:11, 30 May 2011 by Firestorm (talk | contribs)
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See also: target
What is "difficulty"?
How often does the difficulty change?
Every 2016 blocks.
What is the formula for difficulty?
difficulty = maximum_target / current_target
(target is a 256 bit number)
How is difficulty stored in blocks?
Difficulty is stored in blocks as a 4 byte integer, and the actual hexadecimal target is derived from it via a predefined formula. For example, if the difficulty in the block is 0x1b0404cb, the hexadecimal target is
0x0404cb * 2**(8*(0x1b - 3)) = 0x00000000000404CB000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
The highest possible target (difficulty 1) is defined as 0x1d00ffff, which gives us a hex target of
0x00ffff * 2**(8*(0x1d - 3)) = 0x00000000FFFF0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
So the difficulty at 0x1b0404cb is therefore:
0x00000000FFFF0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 /
= 16307.420938523983
What is the current difficulty?
Current difficulty, as output by BitCoin's getDifficulty.
Difficulty History
What is the maximum difficulty?
The maximum difficulty is roughly: maximum_target / 1, which is a ridiculously huge number (about 2^224).
The actual maximum difficulty is when current_target=0, but we would not be able to calculate the difficulty if that happened. (fortunately it never will, so we're ok.)
Can the difficulty go down?
Yes it can. See discussion in target.
What is the minimum difficulty?
The minimum difficulty, when the target is at the maximum allowed value, is 1.
What network hash rate results in a given difficulty?
To find a block, the hash must be less than the target. The hash is effectively a random number between 0 and 2**256-1. The offset for difficulty 1 is
0xffff * 2**208
and for difficulty D is
0xffff * 2**208)/D
The expected number of hashes we need to calculate to find a block with difficulty D is therefore
D * 2**256 / (0xffff * 2**208)
or just
D * 2**48 / 0xffff
The difficulty is set such that the previous 2016 blocks would have been found at the rate of one every 10 minutes, so we were calculating (D * 2**48 / 0xffff) hashes in 600 seconds. That means the hash rate of the network was
D * 2**48 / 0xffff / 600
over the previous 2016 blocks. Can be further simplified to
D * 2**32 / 600
without much loss of accuracy.
At difficulty 1, that is around 7 Mhashes per second.
At the time of writing, the difficulty is 22012._PHONE_, which means that over the previous set of 2016 blocks found the average network hash rate was
22012._PHONE_ * 2**32 / 600 = around 157 Ghashes per second.
How soon might I expect to generate a block?
(The eternal question.)
The average time to find a block can be approximated by calculating:
time = difficulty * 2**32 / hashrate
where difficulty is the current difficulty, hashrate is the number of hashes your miner calculates per second, and time is the average in seconds between the blocks you find.
For example, using Python we calculate the average time to generate a block using a 1Ghash/s mining rig when the difficulty is 20000:
$ python -c "print 20000 * 2**32 / 10**9 / 60 / 60.0"
and find that it takes just under 24 hours on average.
 - Any one grinding of the hash stands the same chance of "winning" as any other. The numbers game is how many attempts your hardware can make per second.
 - Visit a calculator or perform the maths yourself,
 - Remember it's just probability! There are no guarantees you will win every N days.


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BBC News
watch One-Minute World News
Last Updated: Tuesday, 15 July, 2003, 07:42 GMT 08:42 UK
World's poor to get own search engine
Alfred Hermida
By Alfred Hermida
BBC News Online technology editor
People in poor countries could soon have a new and cheap way to get hold of the wealth of information on the internet.
The TEK software being tested
The search engine is being developed at MIT labs in Boston
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are developing a search engine designed for people with a slow net connection.
"More and more we are creating an information divide in the world and this can help narrow that divide and have a huge benefit in that sense, " said Professor Saman Amarasinghe of MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science in Boston.
The thinking behind the TEK search engine is that people in poor countries are short of money but have time on their hands, whereas people in the West are cash-rich but time-poor.
"The idea is that developing countries are willing to pay in time for knowledge," explained Prof Amarasinghe.
"In the West when we surf we want the information in the next two seconds. We are not willing to wait."
Filtered results
The researchers say current web technology such as search engines is focused on the needs of the West.
When the students arrive, they can browse through those pages the way they would if they had full internet connectivity
Prof Saman Amarasinghe, MIT
By contrast, people in poor countries face problems such as the speed and cost of an internet connection, let alone the huge amount of webpages thrown up by search engines.
"Let us assume you are in Malawi," explained Prof Amarasinghe, "and the computer lab does not have access to the telephone line all the time."
"If you want to find some new information about malaria, you are prompted with a message that says 'we are going to send a query through e-mail, it is OK?'.
"At night, when the phone line is available, the teacher can dial out and send the queries."
The request is sent to computers at MIT in Boston, which then search the internet and gather webpages.
To avoid a glut of information, the software then filters the results and chooses the most relevant. These are then sent back to the computer in Malawi so that they can be stored in the machine's internet cache.
"Next morning the teacher can connect, download that e-mail and when the students arrive, they can browse through those pages the way they would if they had full internet connectivity," said Prof Amarasinghe.
The program keeps a record of all the information sent to avoid wasting bandwidth by re-sending the same webpages.
CDs in libraries
So far the program is in its early stages, with a small number of people trying it out.
Woman browsing the web in Bangladesh
The team believe people would wait for search results
But the researchers aim to have a beta version ready to be tested in the next three to four months.
Once they have sorted out any bugs, they intend to make it freely available to anyone.
However, the team realise the program is too big to download over a slow and poor net connection.
Instead they are thinking of sending CDs to libraries so that people can borrow and install the software on their machines.
They are also considering trying to persuade computer sellers in developing countries to install the program on machines.
Why the poor need technology
06 Oct 02 | Technology
Wireless web reaches village pupils
06 Oct 02 | Technology
Net informs Senegalese students
06 Oct 02 | Technology
Wireless net strides Bangladesh
06 Oct 02 | Technology
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites
Americas Africa Europe Middle East South Asia Asia Pacific


text:
In Australia, various City Councils, including the City of Adelaide, are pursuing carbon neutrality at municipal-scale based on their operational greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As passenger transport is a major component of city operational GHG emissions, there is an opportunity for shared mobility services to play a role in reducing those emissions. This preliminary carbon modelling report has focussed on the GHG benefit from expanding shared mobility services in the Adelaide Local Government Area, although the results should be equally valid in other similar inner-urban precincts.
The Adelaide Shared Mobility (ASM) GHG model was constructed in Microsoft EXCEL using only publicly available data from the City of Adelaide's annual community GHG emissions reporting and the Vehicle-Kilometres-Travelled (VKT) projections published in a report titled, Carbon Neutral Adelaide - Foundation Report. Seven shared mobility services were considered with regard to their potential impact over a 20-year period on reducing operational or embodied emissions or acting as a catalyst to reduce GHG emissions including – ridehailing, carsharing, carpooling, bikesharing, ridesplitting and using autonomous vehicles.
The results of the modelling showed that the current state-wide decarbonising strategy of reducing electricity grid emissions coupled with the expected uptake of electric vehicles will have a significant impact on reducing transport GHG emissions, and to a certain degree will cannibalise the potential emission impact of shared mobility services. The combined GHG savings of the considered sharing economy mobility services was found to be less than 1% of the total Adelaide LGA transport emissions for each of the modelled years. The opportunities for shared mobility services for lowering embodied emissions or being a catalyst to reduce other GHG emissions related to the Carbon Neutral Adelaide goal were also found to be not significant.


text: The web page linked above uses a table to compare features of blogs, wikis, and Google Docs. Comparison topics include definitions, number of concurrent authors, and how each tool is used in collaborative activities. The author, who is unknown, outlines commonly known strengths and weaknesses of each tool. For example, one of the advantages of using a wiki is that a previous revision can be reverted to at any time. An example of a wiki disadvantage is that a user can accidentally override a fellow collaborator's contribution if the wiki is used as a synchronous tool. Teachers can use this web page to help decide if one of these tools might be appropriate for a lesson that integrates technology. While all three tools can be used for reflection, blogs are probably most commonly associated with reflective activities. The table includes links to several blogs focused on reflective practice including David Warlick's blog.


Transportation students will inevitably study Ships, and in doing so need to obtain Ships textbooks. But students of Ships often spend far too much money every semester purchasing Ships textbooks. Ships books can be very expensive when you buy new textbooks, while a rented textbook can be half the price or less. For example, a rental copy of either Nicholson Guide to the Waterways (Nicholson Guide to Waterways 6) (No. 6), Collins Nicholson Waterways Map of the Norfolk Broads (Waterways Guides), or A Night to Remember can be 75% less than what you might pay in a college bookstore.
Textbook rentals are easy (and even cheaper than buying used textbooks! And there are a number of ways to find the rentals themselves. If you wanted to rent Boats with an Open Mind: Seventy-Five Unconventional Designs and Concepts, the best way would be to find the ISBN number (in this case, ISBN9780007211142) from your Ships class guide and search for it on Whether you're studying Boat Building, History, or any other subject within Ships, renting textbooks is the way to go.


text:
|So close, but no cigar
||[Jan. 30th, 2007|08:43 am]
It's nice to see some people actually look at their DSO's and rewrite them to not be resource hogs. One late example is this PCRE code and the optimization done by one Marco Barisione who should be applauded for starting the work. But then this:
const char *_pcre_ucp_names =
This is a global variable. Anybody seeing what is wrong?
What this does is define a variable in.data (it's modifiable) which points to a constant string. This means
- An additional variable
- More attack points, the variable is writable
- An additional relocation
- Getting the string address requires a memory load and accessing the string itself requires two memory loads
People, think before writing code! All that is needed here is name for the memory area containing the constant string. I.e.:
const char _pcre_ucp_names =
See the difference? This one character removed and two added make all the difference in the world. The binary is smaller (at least 32 bytes on x86-64, more counting the simpler memory access in the actual code), one less relative relocation, faster code at runtime since the code to compute the string address needs no memory access.


People have often said that when their dog first greets someone, they show all of their teeth and "smile." Some visitors mistake this for aggressive behaviour, but the owners feel that the dog is just very excited and happy. So what is going on?
It sounds like this dog is displaying an appeasement gesture, called a submissive grin, to show people that she's no threat. Submissive grins are a way for a dog to show deference to another individual.
Usually submissive grins are associated with increased movement and a body posture that is lower than the dog's normal stance. There are other signals your dog likely uses, along with her submissive grin, to show deference, such as lowering her tail, lifting a paw, licking you, licking her lips and looking away or squinting her eyes.
Say Cheese!
The submissive grin is a tactic dogs use to shut off aggression from another individual, either human or canine. This behaviour is commonly seen in greeting situations where the dog is actively soliciting attention in a nonthreatening manner. Often the submissive grin invites interaction from others, but it's also possible that dogs are trying to increase distance between themselves and others if they feel threatened.
It's likely that these dogs have continued "smiling" at people because it's gotten them a lot of attention in the past. You can actually turn a dog's smiling into a trick by clicking and treating her every time she does it and adding a word to it, such as "say cheese," just as they starts to smile, which will encourage more of their smiling if this is a behaviour you enjoy seeing.
It would be helpful to explain to visitors before they meet your beloved canine that smiling is a as part of their greeting sequence but is nonthreatening. You can even channel their greeting behaviour into another outlet, like a game of ball or a quick series of tricks they are asked to do, such as sit and down, as a way to redirect their energy away from greeting mode, where they are likely to smile, and into a different mode, like play or food acquisition.
If you doubt that your dog is smiling as a greeting behaviour to show appeasement, or if there is any possibility that there may be aggression involved in her behaviour, contact Kaleen Veterinary Hospital as we have a behavioural expert on staff who can discuss this with you.
This post was originally published in 2012


text:
Embedded Computer Systems Lab
An embedded computer systems is a compact implementation of hardware and software functions with a micro-controller so as to meet the specifications for a specific application. Students receive hands-on experience working with embedded systems in Herak 204.
Digital Logic Lab
The Digital Logic Lab in Herak 100 is where electrical and computer engineering students gain practical experience in the use of basic hardware components. Through experiments, students become familiar with gates, multiplexers, decoders, flip-flops, counters, registers and displays.
In Herak 202, students use a 68HC11 microcomputer that is interfaced to a variety of devices each requiring one of the standard codes for information transfer. Students gain practical, "hands on" and design experience incorporating microcomputer devices with software polling routines and interrupts to build simple calculators, clocks and other hardware.


text:
A new article by Logrus IT's CEO, Leonid Glazychev, has been published in Linguistics and Literature Studies, a professional journal issued by Horizon Research Publishing Corporation. Below is the abstract and the download link.
The article introduces the first hybrid language quality assurance (LQA) methodology for translated texts, the Quality Triangle. This methodology was developed to assess original translated materials, with no available reference translations. It combines holistic and analytical approaches and provides the most flexible solution for a wide variety of applications and subject areas. Special attention is paid to the proposed approach detailing how holistic quality factors can be taken into account given the challenge they represent: these factors need to be assessed, but are at the same time not completely objective by definition. The resulting Quality Triangle methodology provides a reliable model for incorporating semi-objective, holistic factors into quality assurance metrics and can serve as the foundation for building models applicable in real production processes and serving a multitude of purposes.
Reprint (PDF) (580Kb)


english argumentative essay high school level valentines day
English Essay
 valentines day
"If men within themselves would be governed by reason and not generally give up their understanding to a double tyranny of custom from without and blind affections within, they would discern better what it is to favor and uphold the tyrant of a nation." – John Milton, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates
Choose an American Custom to question. Historicize this Custom, make an argument for why it should no longer be followed, and provide a practical and detailed revision for a replacement Custom.
In a thesis driven, argumentative essay, argue why your chosen Custom should no longer be followed and how it should be altered to fit into today's society. Using your own personal research, address this issue in an objective manner without using any personal narrative. As this is an argumentative essay, the goal of your writing should be to persuade your audience to agree with your position.
The purpose of this essay is to convey to your audience why Customs should not be blindly followed. Certain Customs are in effect because they are handed down from generation to generation but do not necessarily apply to today's societal needs. It is your job to question these Customs and provide a logical argument as to why others should question these Customs as well.
Think about the factors that can influence this topic. Why was this Custom originally established? Why is it still in use today? Will you be able to present counter argument in an effective, non-biased manner? What is the societal, political, or economic impact of your topic?
· 5 Double Spaced Pages
· MLA Style with Proper Heading
· 5 Academic Sources (1 Pre-Approved Website)
· Times New Roman Font
· 12pt Font Size
· 1" Margins
"There are still a lot of things that you are expected to believe and accept in America that I personally have a problem with, and I question a lot of these things." George Carlin, It's Bad For Ya
Major Essay Project 3 Grade Sheet
Essay Requirements
Revised Thesis Statement
Sufficient Revision
Effective and Logical Argument
Organization and Development
4 Page Minimum
Academic Discourse
Works Cited
Proper Formatting & Submission
Major Essay Project 3 Brainstorming Questions
Questioning the American Custom
1. Is the Custom something that is prominent in America? It can be something that other countries also do, but it MUST be something done in America.
2. Do most Americans participate/believe/follow this Custom?
3. What is the American Custom in details?
4. When was the American Custom created?
5. Who established the American Custom?
6. Where was the American Custom created? It does not need to have originated in America in order to be considered a modern American Custom. It just needs to currently be an active part of the American lifestyle.
7. Why was the American Custom created?
8. How has the American Custom changed from its original meaning to the way it is viewed/enacted in today's society?
9. Why should the American Custom no longer be followed?
10. What is one reason that a specific group would argue to KEEP the American Custom as is? What can you use to specifically argue AGAINST this reason?
11. What should be done instead of this traditional Custom? You can use preexisting ideas to help come up with a revision, but you need to show evidence of advanced critical thinking.
12. What sources have you consulted?
If you cannot find answers to these questions regarding a Custom you are considering writing on in your essay, you should consider searching for a new American Custom to discuss.
I also attached a bibliography for the essay, if you want to use it but you don't have to, also I need to argue that American's should no longer celebrate Valentines day
Note, Im international student, my English not that good, so I want the essay very simple English, for example high school level


text:
Cold war military aircraft
Mikojan-Gurewitsch MiG-21 MF
The single-seater multipurpose fighter plane MiG-21 was a standard USSR plane in the 1970s and 1980s, and one of the most-built supersonic aircraft in the world.
The MiG-21 was built in numerous versions between 1958 and 1984 and developed into one of the most-built fighter aircraft of the postwar period. It is estimated that a total of 11,000 planes were produced. In 1990, the East German military aircraft became the property of the Bundeswehr following German reunification, and were gradually scrapped in the subsequent years under the CSCE disarmament treaties. A few planes were secured beforehand for museums. When the MiG-21 was taken over by the Bundesluftwaffe in 1990, the DDR insignia were painted over. The original NVA markings on the plane exhibited at the Flugwerft have been uncovered.
- Design office: Mikojan-Gurewitsch, UdSSR, 1973
- Wingspan: 7.15 m
- Length: 15.8 m
- Maximum speed (unarmed): 2230 km/h at an altitude of 11,000 m Höhe (Mach 2.1)
- Landing speed: 270 km/h
- Landing run: 550 m (with drag chute 380–420 m)
- Range: without auxiliary tank) 1100 km
- Power plant: Tumanski R-13-300 jet engine with afterburner


text:
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2000 December 9
Explanation: Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 Lunar Module pilot and the second human to walk on the Moon, described the lunar landscape as "a magnificent desolation". Dramatic pictures from the Apollo missions to the lunar surface testify to this apt turn of phrase. Near the Apollo 17 landing site, Family Mountain (center background) and the edge of South Massif (left) frame the lunarscape in this photo of astronaut Harrison Schmitt working alongside the lunar roving vehicle. Schmitt and fellow astronaut Eugene Cernan were the last to walk on this magnificent desolation.
Authors & editors:
Jerry Bonnell (USRA)
NASA Technical Rep.: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA/GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.