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One of your coworkers isn't pulling her weight. Although you're seriously overworked, you're not sure that reporting the problem would achieve anything more than irritating her. What would you do?
How would you handle a coworker who shirks her duties?
by beckyroberts in Software
on November 25, 2002, 12:00 AM PST
Our "What would you do?" column is a forum for sharing your knowledge and experience in dealing with the softer side of computer support. Every two weeks, I will present a scenario that requires more than a technical solution. Each situation will be an accurate description of an actual event, with the names and other identifying factors changed to protect the innocent—and sometimes not so innocent.
I will first present the outcome and discussion of a scenario from a previous week. Then, we'll jump right in to the next problematic situation. So without further ado, here are your responses to our column "E-mail investigation: Abuse of power or necessary precaution?"
Members sound off on tech's covert e-mail investigation
More than 160 members commented on this scenario, and the majority of responses focused on the following three questions:
Should the tech have read Marcus' e-mail?
What should the tech's boss have done?
What should the tech do now?
When asked whether the tech in this scenario should have read Marcus' e-mail, most members fell into one of three categories. There were those who felt the tech had every right to read Marcus' e-mail, because the company policy allowed for such activity. Others thought that although the tech's actions weren't the most ethical, he didn't have much choice. And lastly, there were members who felt the tech was abusing his position as an administrator by reading Marcus' e-mail, regardless of the company's policy.
Johncymru suggested that instead of simply reading the user's e-mail, the tech could have obtained his manager's permission to examine Marcus's mailbox on the pretext of finding out "why e-mails sent to him on the company system did not arrive."
Many readers were distressed by the IT manager's apparent lack of support for his employee, having assumed that the user's complaint was legitimate without even attempting to investigate the issue. "The IT manager should have clearly stepped in and buffered his staff," wrote RicoReuter. Many members stated that if the manager had given the tech the support he deserved, the tech wouldn't have felt compelled to read Marcus' e-mail.
In regard to what the tech should do now, there was a general consensus that the tech has no choice but to act as instructed and supply Marcus with the clip art he needs, or else the tech could face a charge of insubordination. In addition, a variety of suggestions were made as to how the tech could take steps to exonerate himself and prevent such an incident from occurring in the future, for example:
Send out regular policy and procedure e-mails to the users, explaining why they are necessary. Preferably the IT manager should send these.
Contact Marcus to apologize for having "lost" the e-mail he sent to the help desk, and ask him if he wouldn't mind resending it so that the database would be complete.
Create a log file of Marcus's previous requests for help, demonstrating that none of them followed company procedure—then bring this to the attention of the IT manager.
So what did the tech actually decide to do?
After discussing the matter with his coworkers, the tech decided to come clean with his boss and admit that due to his discomfort at being falsely accused, he had used his administrative privilege to read Marcus' e-mail. Fortunately, his boss was supportive, although he did express concern about the credibility of the IT department if this information was shared with the general user population.
Together, the tech and his boss devised a plan for dealing with Marcus. First they addressed his immediate need for clip art by working with him to make an appropriate software purchase. Then, they embarked on a much needed "educate the user" campaign through e-mails and brown-bag lunch sessions to explain and justify company policy regarding computers.
Although Marcus' attack on the support tech seemed personal, addressing it as a symptom of a discontent and uninformed user base allowed for an impersonal solution that didn't reveal that Marcus' e-mail had been read, and that might just help to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.
Coworker shirks her duties: What would you do?
Update: So what really happened?
To learn the outcome of the scenario outlined below and get a recap of the comments and suggestions given by TechRepublic members, click here.
For you consideration, here is our latest scenario. Please be sure to send responses to this scenario, because this one is from a reader seeking advice on how to deal with an ongoing situation. Once you've read our account of her situation, take a moment to offer your advice.
Lucy and her coworker Ethel make up the entire IT department for a local school district. They have no direct supervisor and, as Lucy puts it, they are the only ones available to get the job done. This means that they must be self-motivated and do what it takes to keep things running.
Unfortunately Ethel doesn't share the workload at all. She constantly makes personal phone calls, chats online, browses the Web, and works on personal projects. To top it all off, Ethel is also a bus driver, and the principal (Lucy and Ethel's boss) has given Ethel permission to do a double bus run in the afternoon as long as she gets her IT hours in. This means that she leaves at 2:30 and is supposed to come back after her runs to finish her work, but she never does. When Lucy recently took the month's time sheets upstairs to the office, she noticed that Ethel had "fudged" her hours to make it look like she had never left for her bus runs at all.
Lucy is stuck carrying Ethel's workload, and no one is aware of the situation because they have no immediate supervisor. Lucy can't talk to Ethel about the situation because the last time she tried, Ethel went on the defensive and became very hostile. Lucy doesn't want to be a whistle-blower, because Ethel will know where the accusation came from and will make Lucy's work environment miserable. What should Lucy do?
If you were in Lucy's shoes, how would you handle the situation? If you have ideas about how a satisfactory resolution might be achieved, send them to us. Don't hold back and don't be afraid to be creative. And if you've ever encountered a similar situation, we're particularly interested in hearing the steps you took to achieve a resolution.
You can submit your ideas either by e-mail or by posting a discussion item at the end of this column. A week after the publication of a scenario, we'll pull together the most interesting solutions and common themes from the discussion. We will later present them with the situation's actual outcome in a follow-up article. You may continue to add discussion items after the week has elapsed, but to be eligible for inclusion in the follow-up article, your suggestions must be received within a week of the scenario's publication.
beckyroberts
Published: November 25, 2002, 12:00 AM PST Modified: June 8, 2007, 9:11 AM PDT See more Software
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Live Auction 3495 If I Live I'll See You Tuesday: Contemporary Art Auction
On occasion, Christie's has a direct financial int… Read more
Peter Doig (b. 1959)
Road House
76 x 98 in. (193 x 248.9 cm.)
Painted in 1991.
Thomas Dane, London
Private collection, London
R. Schiff and C. Lampert, Peter Doig, New York, 2011, pp. 42-43 and 294 (illustrated).
Chicago, Arts Club of Chicago, Peter Doig, January-April 1991, p. 15 (illustrated).
On occasion, Christie's has a direct financial interest in the outcome of the sale of certain lots consigned for sale. This will usually be where it has guaranteed to the Seller that whatever the outcome of the auction, the Seller will receive a minimum sale price for the work. This is known as a minimum price guarantee. Where Christie's has provided a Minimum Price Guarantee it is at risk of making a loss, which can be significant, if the lot fails to sell. Christie's therefore sometimes chooses to share that risk with a third party. In such cases the third party agrees prior to the auction to place an irrevocable written bid on the lot. The third party is therefore committed to bidding on the lot and, even if there are no other bids, buying the lot at the level of the written bid unless there are any higher bids. In doing so, the third party takes on all or part of the risk of the lot not being sold. If the lot is not sold, the third party may incur a loss. The third party will be remunerated in exchange for accepting this risk based on a fixed fee if the third party is the successful bidder or on the final hammer price in the event that the third party is not the successful bidder. The third party may also bid for the lot above the written bid. Where it does so, and is the successful bidder, the fixed fee for taking on the guarantee risk may be netted against the final purchase price.
Third party guarantors are required by us to disclose to anyone they are advising their financial interest in any lots they are guaranteeing. However, for the avoidance of any doubt, if you are advised by or bidding through an agent on a lot identified as being subject to a third party guarantee you should always ask your agent to confirm whether or not he or she has a financial interest in relation to the lot.
Joshua Friedman
jfriedman@christies.com +1 212 974 4563
"Roadhouse is one of a series of canvases in which a bleak mental landscape-abandoned buildings, telegraph wires, lowering skies- is sandwiched between abstract panels which function as surrogate sky and ground. The arrangement was inspired by the words of a 19th Century settler in Canada's western prairies, quoted in a book on ice-hockey: Man is a grasshopper here, a mere insect making way between the enormous discs of Heaven and Earth." - Gareth Jones
A row of houses from an indeterminate place and time emerge from a fiery and desolate landscape set beyond an impassable abyss of greens and reds. Haunting and enigmatic, Peter Doig's Road House is a key work from his early practice and one that evidences many of the investigative processes he undertook to reach his mature style. The work was executed in 1991, only one year after Doig had graduated from Chelsea School of Art and the same year the artist was awarded the prestigious Whitechapel Artists Award. Road House was highlighted alongside Hitch Hiker (1989-90), The House that Jacques Built (1992), and The Young Bean Farmer (1991) as a defining work in the landmark article on Doig in the then fledgling frieze magazine in 1992. While Road House exhibits Doig's ability to draw upon a wealth of art historical references such as Barnett Newman, Edvard Munch, Caspar David Friedrich and David Milne, they are brought together through his own unique vocabulary of color, texture and form. The strangely anthropomorphic houses with slanted windows for eyes and bunting for jack o' lantern teeth push forward from the orange-brown sky constructed from thin, gauze-like layers of liquidy pigment. Heavy clouds hang implausibly low and still in the sky, the thick white swathes, like dense plumes of cotton catapulted from the glowing prairie land below, all set against an iridescent green sky. The undertow of uncertainty already at play in the scene is amplified by the loose reflection of the trees in the foreground, space that presents with equal plausibility a slicked roadway, an unfathomable watery depth and an abstracted abyss of psychological mood. This motif is an early harbinger of the doubling or reflecting quality that would go on to become a celebrated compositional element in many of Doig's most important works. The theme of Road House is indicative of a larger preoccupation for the artist with transience, journeying and drifting, notions that recur time and again in his oeuvre and indeed its imagery would go on to influence and inform later masterpieces such as Daytime Astronomy (1997-98). As an early work in Doig's practice, Road House implies a world that continues beyond the boundaries of the canvas, a place that can be reached only in the mind and through the eye.
Painted at a crucial time in Doig's development, Road House is an important canvas within the artist's practice that built on the past and heralded the future. Arriving in London in 1989 to study at Chelsea School of Art, Doig's aesthetic railed against the prevailing trend, which celebrated the cooler aesthetic of the Young British Artists who were at Goldsmith's College at the time. Doig instead turned to the traditional medium of oil paint to create his landscapes of disarmingly vernacular scenes. As the artist explains of the time, "since I had just come back from Canada and was again searching for a subject, I started making these quite homely paintings, paintings of quite modest subjects," (P. Doig, quoted in K. Wright, "Keeping it Real", Modern Painters, March 2006, p. 68). While redolent of his Canadian upbringing, his paintings were not direct representations but fictionalized images evoked from his mind's eye. The landscapes depicted in works such as Road House are as Doig describes, "a place that's somehow a wilderness", a psychological wasteland inhabited by figments from our subconscious. This quality is exacerbated by the visceral texture and bold color Doig uses to create his scenes, presenting the quotidian tinged with surreal displacement.
The worlds that Doig creates in his work are built in large part from memories of the Canadian landscape he knew as a child. Indeed works from this early part of Doig's practice also seem to elaborate on what Gareth Jones identifies as an important strand in North American culture: "a yearning for space that corresponds to an idea of freedom," (G. Jones, "Weird places, Strange folk," in frieze, issue 6, September-October 1992). Of works like Road House, Doig later espoused, "They weren't paintings of Canada (though some were) but paintings of an idea of something that was maybe folk--bringing a sort of 'homeliness' into art," (P. Doig, quoted in K. Wright, "Keeping it Real," Modern Painters, March 2006, p. 68). Doig moved frequently as a child and into young adulthood and so understandably identified with the transience of a drifter's way of life. As a teenager, Doig had worked for gas drilling operations in western Canada and had inhabited rooming houses for transients. Indeed in 1999, Doig titled one of his paintings Drifter, deriving its central figure from a photograph of himself sitting on a fence, wearing a Western "cowboy" hat. Of course Road House retains an affinity with this freedom of spirit, the title recalling those unimposing inns on the side of long stretches of otherwise uninhabited highway that serve passing travelers. In many ways, Hitch Hiker serves as a companion piece to Road House, each recording the view from the other's darkened windows. Journeys real and metaphorical, places of momentary arrival and departure, real and psychological no-man's-lands, are all the territories of Doig's art.
Road House also shares a compositional affinity with Hitch Hiker through its arrangement in three distinct horizontal registers. It is also closely related to other seminal works from this period including The House that Jacques Built. As in The House that Jacques Built where Doig reserved the middle register for a view of the house while patterning the upper and lower registers as if they were details or close-ups of specific features, here, Doig focuses the figurative action of the work on the central area of the canvas, evoking the panoramic horizons of old Western film strips depicting the unforgiving frontier. As such we see how the composition of Road House could have been "inspired by the words of a 19th Century settler in Canada's western prairies, quoted in a book on ice-hockey: 'Man is a grasshopper here, a mere insect making way between the enormous discs of heaven and earth," (G. Jones, "Weird places, Strange folk," in frieze, issue 6, September-October 1992). Doig also notes that the stylistic construct of the three distinct registers also evolved from "those [Barnett] Newman paintings with the 'zips'--the ones with the little seemingly organic section', particularly those in a horizontal format, like Horizon Light 1949, with its organically brushy 'zip'". He explains: "I thought I could literally expand upon [the Newman effect] and have two abstract-organic sections and a middle that was somehow the 'grasshopper,'" (P. Doig, quoted in R. Schiff, "Incidents", J. Nesbitt (ed.), Peter Doig, exh. cat., Tate Britain, London, 2008, p. 23). The tension created from the unrelenting horizontal division is as critical to the expression of the emotional content of Road House as the bereft elements of human life that dot the vast landscape. To this end, the human element or its surrogate often assumes an incongruously small scale, as if viewed from too far away or dwarfed by the environment.
The top and bottom panels are wholly given over to exploring the physical possibilities of paint that Doig was discovering at this time. A dark band of bluish streaks and smears runs across the top of the landscape where the sky should be. Doig noted that the discreet areas of thickly built up white pigment presented on the top panel are reminders of a decaying hunting scene mural in a bar that the artist once saw. The viscous layers of paint presented here is in stark contrast to the veiled green and orange "sky" that surrounds the houses and the shimmering pools of color which define the bottom panel. The atmospheric sky ought to recede from the land, but reveals sufficient material presence to push itself forward, in front of the loosely detailed forest that should be occupying the closer position. This passage of abstraction seems to stand in front, like a blind only partially rolled to reveal a panoramic scene. This is a conscious mistake in atmospheric perspective; Doig has allowed the qualities of paint to overrule the logical requirements of representation, indulging his curiosity as to what paints and solvents can do. Of this methodology Doig noted that he liked "the idea that maybe these sections which had opened up to reveal a strip of existence could just as easily close down again," (P. Doig, quoted in R. Schiff, "Incidents", J. Nesbitt (ed.), Peter Doig, exh. cat., Tate Britain, London, 2008, p. 23).
In his depiction of landscape through this visual construct, Doig conflates the romanticism of big open-road film imagery with the Romantic landscape tradition of Northern Europe, echoing the composition of Caspar David Friedrich's Monk by the Seashore. Doig notes that "one thinks of West as space", and indeed in Road House, he characterizes this notion not just in the space represented by the landscape, but the space manifested by his very tactile painterly approach as well. Aside from his own store of imagery, Doig often turns to photography or film as departure points from which to embark on his painterly scenes. "I'm interested in mediated, almost clichd notions of a pastoral landscape," Doig explains, "in how notions about the landscape are manifested and reinforced in, say, advertising or film. Yet at the same time many of the paintings are rooted in my own experience. There exists a tension between these two approaches, between the often generic representation of a pastoral scene and the investment in my own experience of the landscape," (P. Doig, quoted in "Peter Doig: 20 Questions (extract)", A Searle (ed.), Peter Doig, London 2007, p. 131).
In this optical oscillation between figurative reality and abstracted tactility, Doig refuses to constrain the space of the represented image within the parameters of simple illusionism, freeing it to act on many different levels, from displaced memory to expressionist landscape to pure abstraction. The multitude of textures and painterly techniques offered here in Road House, exhibit the deep investigations Doig was undertaking at this early point in his career that would go on to cement his reputation as a painter of textures: the juxtapositions of thinness and thickness, wateriness and viscosity of his passages of paint elicit a sustained act of looking. Doig has succeeded in exhibiting how texture alone can open space beyond traditional linear perspective.
Doig's surfaces ebb and flow with the viewer's position, interacting with their environment in order to conceive a dream space made possible through their saturated vision. Through uninhibited viewing, visual hierarchies dissolve, allowing the disembodied eye to rove over each feature equally. Just as he seizes a mood, Doig captures a dream scene fading into its visual field. As Richard Schiff notes, "Doig opens a perceptual gap between what ought to be the object of human interest and what may well become more intriguing to the eye. He fills gaps in representational figuration with abstracted materiality--streaking, spotting, visually abrasive textures--a combination of qualities that generates an atmospheric mood without referring to anything specific in the natural world," (R. Schiff, "Drift", in R. Schiff and C. Lampert (eds.), Peter Doig, New York 2011, p. 305).
As both a pictorial and a psychological construction, Road House threatens to lose its form, to be obliterated by the abstracted chasm that stretches beyond, viewed from the black chasms of the irregular windows and the tactile cascade of color that dominates from above. Each of Doig's elements remains a separate incident with its own distinct character, barely coordinated. Just as the intense sensory quality of a dream discourages reflection on any plausible logic to its story, the assertive materiality of Doig's painting overrules whatever narrative the representational elements, might suggest. As Doig remarks, "A lot of the work deals with peripheral or marginal sites, places where the urban world meets the natural world. Where the urban elements almost become, literally, abstract devices," (P. Doig, quoted in "Peter Doig: 20 Questions (extract)", A Searle (ed.), Peter Doig, London 2007, p. 139).
Fabienne Verdier: 'Movement is the essence of existence'
6 Jan feature
So long, Tiger — enter the Rabbit
More from If I Live I'll See You Tuesday: Contemporary Art Auction


text:
Q: How to generate all combinations with replacement using recursive yield? C# The goal here is to generate all combinations with replacement using recursion such that it does not exceed RAM. A yield operator is designed for this. I want to use a yield operator because if I do not I will exceed available RAM. The number of elements I am combining causes there to be many billions of combinations.
I determined how to generate all combinations without replacement using recursive yield. Here are the examples that I wrote:
public static IEnumerable<int[]> GetCombinationsWithYield(this int[] elements, int length)
{
   return Combinations2(elements, length, 0, new int[length]);
}

private static IEnumerable<int[]> Combinations2(int[] input, int len, int startPosition, int[] result)
{
    if (len == 0)
    {
        yield return result;
    }
    else
    {
        for (int i = startPosition; i <= input.Length - len; i++)
        {
            result[result.Length - len] = input[i];

            //  need to return the results of the recursive call
            foreach (var combination in Combinations2(input, len - 1, i + 1, result))
            {
                yield return combination;
            }
        }
    }
}

And you can test this using the following unit test:
[Test]
public void CombinationsUsingArraysOnlyWithYield()
{
    // use this method when RAM consumption is a concern.

    int[] items = {1, 2, 3};

    var results = new int[3][];
    for (int i = 0; i < results.Length; i++)
        results[i] = new int[2];

    int index = 0;

    var stopwatch = new Stopwatch();
    stopwatch.Start();

    // i only copy the results in to an array so that I don't benchmark Console.WriteLine stuff.
    // for this to be truly useful, you would not want to copy the results.
    foreach (var result in items.GetCombinationsWithYield(2))
    {
        Array.Copy(result, results[index], 2);
        index++;
    }

    stopwatch.Stop();

    for (int i = 0; i < results.GetLength(0); i++)
    {
        string output = "";
        for (int j = 0; j < results[i].Length; j++)
            output += results[i][j] + ",";
        Console.WriteLine(output);
    }

    Console.WriteLine("elapsed: " + stopwatch.ElapsedTicks + "[ticks]");
}

The output is:
1,2,
1,3,
2,3,
elapsed: 56597[ticks]

but as you can see, that example is without replacement.
On the other hand, I would like to use this with replacement, so that the output looks like this:
1,1,
1,2,
1,3,
2,1,
2,2,
2,3,
3,1,
3,2,
3,3,

Which I was able to achieve using a Linq solution. But it does not utilize the yield operator and overflows my RAM. Here is that solution:
public static List<List<T>> GetCombinations<T>(this IEnumerable<T> pool, int comboLength, bool isWithReplacement)
{
    if (isWithReplacement)
        return GetCombinations(pool, comboLength).Select(c => c.ToList()).ToList();

}

private static IEnumerable<IEnumerable<T>> GetCombinations<T>(IEnumerable<T> list, int length)
{
    if (length == 1) return list.Select(t => new[] {t});

    return GetCombinations(list, length - 1).SelectMany(t => list, (t1, t2) => t1.Concat(new[] {t2}));
}

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Someone with intimate knowledge of Knuth algorithms would be ideal.

A: The LINQ operations you're using are implemented internally using iterator blocks.  You're essentially asking for a solution that inlines those operations into the solution.  That is going to cause the exact same problem as your current solution.  It results in you creating a ton of expensive state machines, which are all being discarded with very little use. To avoid the extremely high memory footprints you need to avoid creating so many state machines in the first place.  Writing a recursive iterator block isn't going to accomplish that.  Writing an iterative, rather than recursive, solution (whether it's an iterator block or not), would be a way to accomplish that.
An iterative solution is quite simple, and has a memory footprint that's constant.  You simply need to compute the number of combinations that there are, and then, for each of them, compute the combination with that unique index (which is simple enough to do).
private static IEnumerable<IEnumerable<T>> GetCombinations<T>(IList<T> list, int length)
{
    var numberOfCombinations = (long)Math.Pow(list.Count, length);
    for(long i = 0; i < numberOfCombinations; i++)
    {
        yield return BuildCombination(list, length, i);
    }
}
private static IEnumerable<T> BuildCombination<T>(
    IList<T> list,
    int length,
    long combinationNumber)
{
    var temp = combinationNumber;
    for(int j = 0; j < length; j++)
    {
        yield return list[(int)(temp % list.Count)];
        temp /= list.Count;
    }
}

A: I think you pretty much have the solution already.  I made a couple of small modifications to your code
public static IEnumerable<List<T>> GetCombinations<T>(IEnumerable<T> pool, int comboLength,
bool isWithReplacement) // changed this to return an enumerable
{
     foreach (var list in GetCombinations(pool, comboLength).Select(c => c.ToList()))
     {
             yield return list; // added a yield return of the list instead of returning a to list of the results
     }
}

private static IEnumerable<IEnumerable<T>> GetCombinations<T>(IEnumerable<T> list, int length)
{
    if (length == 1) return list.Select(t => new[] { t });

    return GetCombinations(list, length - 1).SelectMany(t => list, (t1, t2) => t1.Concat(new[] { t2 }));
}

I tested with this:
    List<int> items = new List<int>();

    for (int i = 1; i < 100; i++)
    {
        items.Add(i);
    }
    Stopwatch s = new Stopwatch();
    s.Start();
    int count = 0;
    foreach (var list in GetCombinations(items, 4))
    {
        count++;
    }
    s.Stop();
    Console.WriteLine(count);
    Console.WriteLine(s.ElapsedMilliseconds);
    Console.ReadLine();

This ran fine with no memory issues in 7587 ms and generated 96,059,601 combinations.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Environmental degradation is a typical unintended outcome of collective human behavior. Hardin's metaphor of the "tragedy of the commons" has become a conceived wisdom that captures the social dynamics leading to environmental degradation. Recently, "traps" has gained currency as an alternative concept to explain the rigidity of social and ecological processes that produce environmental degradation and livelihood impoverishment. The trap metaphor is, however, a great deal more complex compared to Hardin's insight. This paper takes stock of studies using the trap metaphor. It argues that the concept includes time and history in the analysis, but only as background conditions and not as a factor of causality. From a historical–sociological perspective this is remarkable since social–ecological traps are clearly path-dependent processes, which are causally produced through a conjunction of events. To prove this point the paper conceptualizes social–ecological traps as a process instead of a condition, and systematically compares history and timing in one classic and three recent studies of social–ecological traps. Based on this comparison it concludes that conjunction of social and environmental events contributes profoundly to the production of trap processes. The paper further discusses the implications of this conclusion for policy intervention and outlines how future research might generalize insights from historical–sociological studies of traps.
We would like to thank Oonsie Biggs and Elin Enfors for taking the time to discuss ideas for this article with us. Florianne de Boer also wants to thank Oonsie Biggs for inviting her to the Stockholm Resilience Centre in May 2012. We also would like to thank Aron Hejdstöm for making Figs. 3–7, and Fredrik Moberg for Fig. 8. Wiebren Boonstra is supported by a FORMAS Project Grant (No. 2009-252). Mistra supported the research for this paper through a core grant to the Stockholm Resilience Centre. The article is based on Florianne de Boer's BSc honours thesis "Social ecological traps and agricultural involution – Comparison of their historical establishment and reinforcing mechanisms" which she completed June 2012 at University College Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Allison, H., and R. Hobbs. 2004. Resilience, adaptive capacity, and the "lock-in trap" of the Western Australian agricultural region. Ecology and Society 19. http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss1/art3.
Carpenter, S., and W. Brock. 2008. Adaptive capacity and traps. Ecology and Society 13. http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol13/iss2/art40/.
Enfors, E., Gordon, L., Peterson, G., and D. Bossio. 2008. Making investments in dryland development work: Participatory scenario planning in the Makanya catchment Tanzania, Ecology and Society 13. http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol13/iss2/art42/.
Janssen, M.A., and M. Scheffer. 2004. Overexploitation of renewable resources by ancient societies and the role of sunk-cost effects. Ecology and Society 9. http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss1/art6/.
Schwarz, H. 2004. Down the wrong path: path dependence, increasing returns and historical institutionalism. Retrieved 12 October, 2012, from http://www.google.se/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpeople.virginia.edu%2F~hms2f%2FPath.pdf&ei=leN3UMflIIjT4QT-n4GYAQ&usg=AFQjCNGh3zybPNsDaefG_P0Dtq4UNDqHpA&sig2=cPpALNlk0tXQUFxIj5WUdg.
Stockholm Resilience Centre. 2011. Interaction between social and ecological feedbacks can push a system toward an undesirable state, a social–ecological trap. Retrieved 3 September, 2012, from http://www.stockholmresilience.org/news/researchinsights/insights/insight5socialecologicaltraps.5.33db2ae01355ec8e8f227d4.html.


Growing up in a challenging environment was tough, but I never used it as an excuse. It fueled my fighting spirit and forged a future of hard work and tenacity that opened doors and created opportunities for my success. Now, I fight every day to ensure that every person has the same opportunities to pursue their own American Dream.
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"EMTs arrived within minutes..."
David Wilson was a plaintiff in the 2004 court decision that legalized same sex marriage in Massachusetts.
Wilson's journey to that landmark case started 10 years earlier — when he lost his first partner, Ron Loso, to a heart attack. The EMT's who arrived on the scene were suspicious of David and called the police. Later, when he got to the hospital, officials would not release any information about his partner.
That injustice led to Wilson becoming a plaintiff in the 2004 court decision.
The first weddings, which included David's own, began taking place on May 17, 2004, after same sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts.
Originally aired October 15, 2010, on NPR's Morning Edition.
Nadia Reiman and Katie Simon
Facilitated By
Naomi Greene
"Siloed" by Matthew Stevens, commissioned by StoryCorps & "Paloma" by Fabian Almazan and Linda Oh, commissioned by StoryCorps
David Wilson (DW)
DW: EMTs arrived within minutes and they called the police, because they saw me standing in the driveway. You know, an African American man in a white neighborhood. When the police arrived they wanted to arrest me for assault and battery, and breaking and entering. When I got to the hospital, I found out that they weren't going to give me any information because I had no relationship to Ron. As far as they were concerned, I was a stranger. They called Ron's family in Vermont and said, "Can you give permission for us to talk to David?" And his 75-year old mom said, "Of course, they're partners." So, they came out and they said that he was dead on arrival.
My whole world just kind of fell apart, and I felt pretty broken, you know? Where do I go from here? So I joined a support group. One meeting in walked a man, that man's name was Rob Compton. Three years later we had a commitment ceremony, lots of people came and thought it was our wedding. We said no, this isn't a wedding, because we don't have the right to get married. So, it was amazing to become a plaintiff in a major lawsuit against the state of Massachusetts. Part of the decision to be part of the case was to talk with my family. My dad wasn't sure. All of a sudden his only son is going to become this prominent, out, gay black man. So I talked with Dad about some of the issues. A couple of hours later Dad said, "You're doing the right thing."
May 17th, 2004 was the first weddings. Dad said, "You're going to city hall and going to be part of all this excitement, what about me?" I said, "Dad I'm sending a limo to pick you up." My dad had never been in a limo. He got a new suit, came down… and the limo took him down and he…he was in the front row when we walked down the isle. Both his arms were in the air. He was 89 at that point. And he didn't see it just for gay people, he saw it for, you know, all people that had been discriminated against. And, his whole life he had been discriminated against. So, I think, for Dad, it was just a victory that he could be a part of. He could not have been more proud. It was a great day.
"You're my favorite person to talk about space to."
NASA Engineer Joey Jefferson talks with his six-year-old nephew, Jerry Morrison, about their shared passion for space.
"I said, 'Dr. King, I am John Robert Lewis.'"
John Lewis remembers how Dr. King's words inspired him to join the Civil Rights Movement.
"I realized, wow, somebody else has these feelings. This isn't just me."
Russell King sat down with his music teacher Paige Macklin, to tell her about a choice she made, and how it changed his life.
"I gathered up all my courage and I just did it, and then I was proud of myself."
Dena Kohleriter had always seen herself becoming a mother one day. So when she was 36 years old, she decided to have a child on her own.


Sports journalism is in it's golden age and showing no signs of slowing down. As the age of smart phones application moves in, the age of the newspaper will pass by. Newspapers are on their way out, the average age of newspaper readers goes up every year, no matter how hard they fight, newspapers will eventually be nonexistent. In an age where instant statistics and information is expected, the internet has become the premier media outlet for distributing sporting news. While ESPN and specialized sports channels seem to ensure that television will have a much longer lifespan than newspapers, the internet appears to have the most longevity of all outlets.
As technology advances, the internet has become more and more accessible. The introduction of the smart phone has made following sports on the go simple. In fact it is projected that by the end of 2011 smart phones will be more prevalent than regular cell phones. With smart phones come mobile application. Nearly every major media outlet from ESPN to Sports Illustrated to FOX Sports News has one or more smart phone applications, not to mention the dozens of individual applications. As the majority shifts towards smart phones, society will become more obsessed with instant information and accessibility. Mobile sporting applications have ensured that, for a price, a person can do anything from monitor stats, to watch live games all on a mobile phone.
The internet and mobile applications have allowed fans to pick and choose what kind of sports media they receive. If someone only wants football news, they can get only football news, if they only want news on a particular team, they can get it. Twitter started a new phenomenon, the ability to follow an individual athlete or sporting personality on a 24-hour cycle. Mobile apps took this one step further and gave individual athletes full apps completely dedicated to themselves. App developer Rocksoftware has made apps for Chad Ochocinco, Jared Allen, and Terrell Owens, with plans for dozens more in the near future. Sports Media has reached the point in its evolution where fans can have their sporting news completely catered to them.
When the story broken in early September that TV Azteca reporter Ines Sainz had been harassed by the team my initial thought was somewhat conflicted. Professional football is just that, professional and players, coaches, reporters and anyone else involved in an organization should handle themselves as a professional. Players however seem to forget that they are being paid to play the sport and should abide by the league's rules and regulations. On the other hand I was surprised that this was the first big story like this to emerge from the league. The NFL consists of nearly 1,700 male players with above average testosterone levels. When I sat back and thought about it, I was amazed that more female reporters were not sexually harassed.
After the news broke of the harassment, Redskins running back, Clinton Portis made his weekly appearance on a local radio show. Portis came out saying, "I think you put women reporters in the locker room in position to see guys walking around naked, and you sit in the locker room with 53 guys, and all of the sudden you see a nice woman in the locker room, I think men are going to tend to turn and look and want to say something to that woman." Portis continues to share his opinions on what Sainz may have been thinking when entering the locker room when he said, "You put a woman and you give her a choice of 53 athletes, somebody got to be appealing to her," Portis said. "You know, somebody got to spark her interest, or she's going to want somebody. I don't know what kind of woman won't, if you get to go and look at 53 men's (bodies). … I know you're doing a job, but at the same time, the same way I'm going to cut my eye if I see somebody worth talking to, I'm sure they do the same thing." Needless to say, the NFL cracked down on Portis immediately and he issued a carbon copy apology for the things he said. The Jets and Portis' behavior caused the NFL leaped into action, immediately investigating the treatment of Sainz within the locker room. As a result, the NFL chose to implement a mandatory training program for all 32 teams on proper conduct in the workplace.
While there is no doubt that player are responsible for conducting themselves in a professional manner, the same must also be expected of reporters. Sainz is clearly an attractive woman, one can understand that she would receive attention from NFL players. Sainz needs to take some accountability for herself and dress more appropriately when on NFL sidelines and in locker rooms. Sainz wears skin-tight clothes that clearly show off her body, whether she does this knowing she will garner more attention from players or not, it should not be acceptable. Complaining about being sexually harassed in an NFL locker room dress like this is like getting in a shark tank and complaining when you get eaten. The incident was no one persons fault, it was the culmination of multiple professionals conducting themselves in an inappropriate manner.
The NFL is a league were those who produce win. When players consistently have great statistical season, their teams often win. Steven Jackson however is the exception to the rule. The St. Louis Rams running back has been one of the most consistent players at his position in the last 5 years. After an average rookie season, Jackson has posted 5 consecutive 1,000 yard rushing season and is on pace to do so again this year. Since his breakout year in 2006 where he rushed for 1,528 yards 13 touchdowns and added 806 receiving yards with 3 touchdowns, he has been an NFL superstar.
Despite Jackson's success, the Rams have not produced, failing to achieve a winning record since Jackson joined the team in 2004. The 6'2″ 236 pound running back has outperformed nearly every other player on his team on his way to 2 pro bowl selections.
When one stops to consider Jackson's abysmal team, his record of 5 consecutive 1,000+ yards rushing yard seasons is even more impressive. The Rams have had anything but consistent play at the Quarterback position during Jackson's tenure. Mark Bulger, Jackson's quarterback up until this year has been below average since 2004. Since then Bulger has only passed for over 3,000 yards and more than 20 touchdowns twice. Bulger's lack of consistency coupled with the fact that St. Louis has not had a star receiver in some time, made the Rams very one-dimensional.
Steven Jackson more often than not the teams entire offense. Every defensive coordinator who faced the Rams knew that Jackson was the offenses main threat and threw 8 and 9 men in the box to try and stop him. And what happened? Jackson produced anyway. Oftentimes stats can be deceiving as elite running backs often face stout defensive fronts intent on stopping the run. This fact makes Jackson's stats all the more impressive. In his 7th year in the league, Jackson has averages over 80 yards per game and amassed 7,518 yards on the ground and another 2,530 yards in the air. He is also well-known for his ball security as he has only 16 fumbles since his career, that to go along with the 51 touchdowns he has scored and it is clear that Jackson is an elite player on a struggling team.
The addition of rookie quarterback Sam Bradford has finally given the Rams a legitimate passing threat. With the attention drawn away from Jackson, his is on pace to rush for over 1,200 yards for the 3rd time in his career. Despite numerous injuries including a notorious back surgery, Jackson has produced and produced and produced showing no signs of slowing down.
The self proclaimed worldwide leader in sports, ESPN has indeed become a worldwide brand. Despite having no idea what ESPN stands for, millions of people throughout the world frequently visit the sports media behemoth daily. ESPN's M.O. is accessibility is any and every major sport in the world. While there are many news and media outlets that provide more in-depth analysis and news on one particular sport, none have come close to replicating what ESPN has.
ESPN.com is the only place where one can watch highlights of every sport from the MLB to Canadian Football, to cricket. By being, the "Worldwide" leader in sports, ESPN ensures that in order to gain any access to international sports, Americans have to go through them. The media giant has also cornered the market on large scale sporting events both domestic and internationally. ESPN is the exclusive carrier of Monday Night Football, the most watched game any given week in the NFL. Every four years, ESPN hosts the most watched sporting tournament in the world as they provide constant coverage of the World Cup. Again following their mantra of accessibility, ESPN also features a unique site, ESPN3.com. The allows the visitor to watch nearly every major college sporting event for a given week, all for free. Boise State is one of my favorite teams to watch both for their unique high scoring offense and the fact that a god friend of mine plays nicklebacker for them. Sadly, given their weak schedule of relatively no name opponents and the fact that most of their games are decided by the first quarter, Boise State games are rarely televised. However ESPN3.com allows me to watch Boise week in and week out.
Not only does ESPN offer the most coverage on the most sports of any news media outlet, but they also provide fans with the most ways of accessing that coverage. ESPN has two channel on most basic cable packages, and 4 or 5 for those willing to upgrade. The channel's main show, Sportcenter has won multiple Emmys and provides news coverage on a daily basis. In addition to channels, ESPN features it's websites, ESPN.com and ESPN3.com as well as multiple smartphone apps. In a world where the smartphone is taking over as the on the go media and news device, ESPN has more than catered to the demands of users. News in the 21st century, especially sporting news is all about speed and accessibility, probably because ESPN has spoon fed sport fans with constant coverage, setting the bar for other media outlets.
While names like Brett Favre and Chad Ochocinco dominate sporting tabloids, they are frankly too easy to go after. Instead, take someone like Tony Romo, the quarterback of "America's Team" always seems to find his way into the media during the offseason. Fans are constantly being updated on Romo's love life. His relationship with Jessica Simpson was even brought up as a reason for his poor on the field performance. Even after the relationship ended the media bombards us with stories of Romo's golfing ability and rumors that he is giving up football for golf. Take then someone like Peyton Manning who is in the national spotlight just as much, if not more than Romo. Manning is arguably more of a household name than Romo but his media attention comes from his brilliant on the field performance as well as his multiple product endorsements for Gatorade, Sony and many other high profile companies. Manning is a class act that has a positive reputation on and off the field, it is no wonder that he has more endorsements than any other player in the NFL.
When looking at players who are at their best on and off the field one need not look further than Raider Cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha. The All-Pro corner is widely regarded as the best (and highest paid) player on his team. Yet instead of letting the success and money go to his head, Asomugha has been humble, even winning the Jefferson Award. Despite all of this, Asomugha is far from a household name. On the other side of the ball is Terrell Owens who without a doubt will go down in history as one of the greatest wide receivers of all time. Yet his success off the field is marred by his actions off of it (and during celebrations). Since his days in Philadelphia, Owens has been viewed as a team cancer, a reputation that most likely led to his extended free agency this year. What is perhaps worse about Owens is that as he begins to lose a step or two it seems as if his mouth begins to pick up the slack. His recent pairing with Chad Ochocinco has caused the receiver to become more vocal than ever before, taking his personality to national television with multiple TV shows. So while Asomugha and Owens are often considered the best players on their respective teams, Owens choses to let the entire world know, while Asomugha is content just doing his job on the field and improving the lives of others off of it.
Three years ago was around the time I became a huge sports fan. I was always considered myself a player more than a fan. I would watch games with friends on occasions, but it was only about three years ago that professional sports, especially football, became an obsession. Before this obsession I rarely watched Sportscenter and never checked ESPN.com or NFL.com. I had barely even heard of twitter and as far as I was concerned my phone was just a way to call and text friends.
While I don't remember when the obsession hit exactly, I remember that it hit and hit hard. It was almost as if overnight I became an avid sports fan. ESPN and NFL have been bookmarks on my web browser ever since, and I can't remember the last time I didn't check them at least once a day. Before coming to Tufts, (which refuses to offer ESPN) my mornings always started with Sportscenter, my day could not start without my precious Top 10 Plays. Like most football fans, Sunday is my holy day. At 1pm I lock myself in my room update fantasy line-ups, monitor stats, and watch at least one game at a time. My face is glued to either my laptop or TV only turning away from a game to check on another or to check how my fantasy players are performing.
While I have an iPhone, it has never been more than a last resort to check sporting news. If I am stuck somewhere without my laptop I closely monitor games on my phone, but for news, I always wait to read the story on my laptop or hear about it on TV. It seems like the majority of my generation, or at least the people of my generation that I know don't use twitter. To me there is just something extremely unappealing about the website and I always thought of someone my age having a twitter as hubris, after all who cares what a 19-year-old thinks?
Should Broncos Compete for BCS Title?
After a Fiesta Bowl win over TCU last year, the Boise State Broncos entered into the current NCAA football season as the number 4 ranked team in the country. It seemed as if this was finally the year that Boise would earn enough respect to make a legitimate case for the National Championship. With convincing wins over then ranked opponents Virginia Tech and Oregon State and the recent losses of Alabama and Ohio State the Broncos have moved up into the AP #2 spot in the country behind #1 Oregon. While things certainly look to be going in favor of the Broncos, there is an ever lingering question in the minds of all the BCS teams, does Boise deserve to play in a National Championship?
Since their miraculous 2006 Fiesta Bowl win over Oklahoma, Boise state has gained national recognition. They have continued to dominate the WAC since and have always performed well against ranked opponents during the regular season and bowl games. The ever-present criticism of Boise has been their lack of a consistently strong schedule. Being in the WAC, Boise must play several sub-par teams during the season. However, when given the chance to face a ranked opponent or ranked team Chris Peterson's Broncos have always delivered a win, often in exciting fashion. Over the last few year Boise has proven themselves time and time again against ranked team, so why don't they deserve a chance to compete against the best in the nation?
While they have been dominated in recent years many BCS skeptics wonder if they are on the same level as the BCS powerhouses that play stiff competition every week. Boise has beaten ranked teams, no one can argue that, but those games are few and far between. Put Boise in the nation's toughest conference, the SEC, and force them to compete week in and week out against some of the best teams in the country and I wonder if they could continue their national record of 20 consecutive wins. Playing tough teams every week takes a lot out of a team so when Boise plays in their BCS Bowl game against an Oklahoma who has faces tough competition all year, Boise goes into the game without the wear and tear of a tough schedule.
There is no doubt Boise has proven themselves time and time again, and they can only play the teams that are on their schedule and so far they seem to be in the running for a national title. Although one wonders as the target on the backs of the Broncos continues to grow and they move into the more competitive Mountain West Conference next year will they be able to stay unbeaten?


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Q: Fundamental group and cellular space Suppose that $\pi_{1}\left(Y, y_{0}\right)$ is finitely presented. How can we construct a path connected finite cellular space $\left(X, x_{0}\right)$ and a continuous map $\psi:\left(X, x_{0}\right) \rightarrow\left(Y, y_{0}\right)$ such that the induced homomorphism
$$
\pi_{1}(\psi): \pi_{1}\left(X, x_{0}\right) \rightarrow \pi_{1}\left(Y, y_{0}\right)
$$
is an isomorphism.
I think we have to use this theorem, but the construction part is not clear to me: If $f:\left(X, x_{0}\right) \rightarrow\left(Y, y_{0}\right)$ is a homotopy equivalence of spaces with base points, then $f_{*}: \pi_{1}\left(X, x_{0}\right) \rightarrow \pi_{1}\left(Y, y_{0}\right)$ is an isomorphism.


Here at Heshka we realize that manufacturing quality oilfield products under the API 6A specification is extremely important. Our quality check before products leave our facility is second to none. The materials we use are verified for their correct chemical composition and physical properties.
You may be surprised to know that there are still companies in the oil and gas industry who are API certified but do not live up to what having the API monogram really means. The API monogram is supposed to give end users peace of mind that the product they are getting has gone through strict quality control processes in order to perform in the field.
With all of this in mind, you can be confident when purchasing wellhead equipment from Heshka Oil you are receiving a quality product.
Our Type FC Gate Valves come standard with 410 stainless steel gates with a tungsten carbide hard-facing as well as a 410 stainless steel stem with a nitride coating. Our Type H2 Choke Needles are either a 17-4 PH HH1150, or a 410 stainless with full tungsten carbide tip. The H2 Seats are 410 stainless with a tungsten carbide insert.
Even our rubber, or elastomer, products are of the highest standards. We use materials such as FKM (Viton®), Nitrile (Buna) and HNBR/HSN. We offer the Type R Check Valve bonnet gaskets in the Viton® material with a durometer, hardness, of 90. Our Type H Back Pressure Valve Seals are HSN but we also offer them in nitrile and Viton®.


Rep. Steven Andersson (R-Geneva) and Rep. Patricia Bellock (R-Hinsdale) made it clear changing the way the state addresses adolescent mental health is a must.
A newly married couple is making money both from Bruce Rauner, the governor, and Bruce Rauner, the candidate.
Illinois' unpaid vendor debt dipped to $8,572,304,572 during the week ending Feb. 21, putting an end to a two-week stretch where debt marginally grew higher.
With Illinois' Republican Party seemingly more divided than ever going into March's primary, one of the state's "alt-center" political pundits, John Ruberry, said during a recent interview that the state's GOP needs to remember what it is.
Amid calls for resignations and investigations over Springfield's alleged culture of sexual harassment, two longtime state representatives are remaining silent.
Gov. Bruce Rauner says he wants to freeze local property taxes, but his new Illinois budget seeks to shift hundreds of millions of dollars of spending for teacher pensions off the state's books and on to the same homeowners and businesses he says desperately need tax relief.
Jason Helland, a Mazon Republican vying to become secretary of state, feels that Madigan's approach to the harassment issue should not be tolerated.
State Rep. Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton) is calling on Winfield Township Chairman Burt Minor to withdraw from the Republican primary for the seat she is vacating in the 42nd District after he allegedly made comments about GOP state's attorney candidate Erika Harold that were perceived to be racist and sexist.
Sens. Jim Oberweis (R-Sugar Grove) and Chris Nybo (R-Elmhurst) shared their thoughts on the legalization of marijuana for recreational use during Wednesday's meeting of the Senate Executive Committee.
Liz Gorman's recent appointment as executive director of the Illinois Tollway was payment for helping deliver the Cook County Republican endorsement to Gov. Bruce Rauner, Republican insiders say.
Sens. Dave Syverson (R-Rockford) and Chris Nybo (R-Elmhurst) discussed two gun-related bills proposed by Sen. Julie Morrison (D-Deerfield) before the two measures were approved at Wednesday's meeting of the Senate Executive Committee.
Reeder: Have all the good parents gone on vacation?
Chicago Bulls fans don't look now, but your 20-38 team seems to have the competition right where they want them.
This week in Illinois history: March 12-18.
The opening of Wrigley Field, establishment of first blood bank, and deadliest tornado on record all happened this week in Illinois history.


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Mugdha Singh
Thandie Newton confesses about having a horrible experience with co star Tom Cruise! Check out why.
Tom Cruise has a millions of fans from all around the world. And no one could wonder that he can be a provoking person, so was the case with Thandie Newton. Thandie Newton worked with Tom Cruise in 2000 for the movie Mission Impossible 11. Recently in one of her interviews she described her experience while working in the movie with him.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B9zhQc-JQj8/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
She said that the actor is really dominant and stressed person. When the interviewer asked her why didn't she work one more movies with Tom Cruise after that. She said that there were two reasons. First she never got an opportunity to work with him after that. And secondly she was afraid of working with him because of his dominant behavior. However, the actor on his part tries to be as modest and nice as he can. But he takes so much pressure while shooting and wants everything to be the best.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B0E3v93Bpla/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
She also shared a moment from their shooting days. They had a night scene in the balcony. The dialogues were also not very well written. And what happened further was even more worse. Tom was not satisfied with Thandie's work. And in an attempt to explain her how to do it correctly he played her part in front of the camera while she was acting on his behalf and speaking his lines. This according to her turned out to be the least helpful thing.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnhQkfAgcl7/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
However, even Newton understands that he was just trying to make the scenes look better and was stressed for the same and wasn't acting horrible or trying to suppress her. But apart from all these struggles she had a wonderful time shooting for the film. Tom also have her some amazing books related to Scientology as gifts, which she though was really cool.


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Bush's Bureaucratic Dark Arts: Why the Federal Register Is the Most Important Publication in America Right Now /
Bush's Bureaucratic Dark Arts: Why the Federal Register Is the Most Important Publication in America Right Now
Bush has vowed to sprint through the final five months of his Administration, and you better believe him.
Because he is pulling all the bureaucratic levers in the Executive Branch to advance his right-wing agenda.
Unable to accomplish his goals legislatively, Bush is trying to get them done by fiat.
If you look at proposed regulatory changes at the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of the Interior, and the Justice Department you get a sense of how vast this hustle is.
"Political appointees at the Department of Labor are moving with unusual speed to push through in the final months of the Bush Administration a rule making it tougher to regulate workers' on-the-job exposure to chemicals and toxins," The Washington Post reported last month.
The Department of Labor is not exactly making the safety of workers a priority. As the Post reported, this change "would address longstanding complaints from business."
The Bush Administration was trying to sneak this one through. "The agency did not disclose the proposal, as required, in public notices," the Post reported.
The proposed change at the Department of Health would redefine some kinds of contraception as abortion, even contraception before implantation. Hospitals that offered such contraception would forfeit federal aid. They would also forfeit the aid if they refused to hire health professionals who opposed abortion or birth control. This regulatory change "could also undermine state laws that require hospitals to prove emergency contraception to rape victims," according to womensenews.
At the Department of the Interior, the Bush Administration is going after the Endangered Species Act. It has published a proposed regulatory change in the Federal Register that would, as the New York Times noted, "eliminate the requirement for independent scientific reviews of any project that could harm an endangered species living on federal land."
We already knew the Bush Administration was anti-science, but this is just further proof.
And the Bush apparatchiks over at the Justice Department published a proposed regulatory change in the Federal Register on July 31 that would wipe out just about every restriction on the sharing of intelligence information about U.S. citizens who are being spied upon.
The old regulations, still in place, were designed to protect "the privacy and constitutional rights of individuals," says the statute that brought the regulations into being.
But now those rights would be as to nothing compared with the demands of the authoritarian state.
Today, the most important publication in America is the Federal Register.
That's where Bush has to publish his intentions to alter federal regulations.
And his intentions, by now, are all too clear.


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The Hon Dr Craig Emerson
Economics Consultant to KPMG
KPMG Australia
Craig Emerson is the Managing Director at Craig Emerson Economics Pty Ltd and has been a consultant with KPMG since January 2016. From 2010 to 2013, Craig was the Federal Minister for Trade and Competitiveness. In 2012 he was appointed Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Asian Century Policy and in 2013 he was also appointed Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research. During the preceding parliamentary term, Craig was Minister for Small Business, Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs.
Craig was the architect of the White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century. He brokered an APEC agreement to limit tariffs on 54 environmental goods to 5 percent and he developed 'new pathways' for re-starting the Doha Round of global trade talks that led to an interim agreement in December 2013, the first in 20 years. With his counterparts in the US and EU, he set up a negotiation on trade in services that now includes 50 countries covering 70 percent of global services trade.
Craig is a passionate Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs fan.
Asia Economic and commercial Education Government and Public Sector Innovation International Markets Mega trends Research and development
Bachelor of Economics, University of Sydney, 1976
Master of Economics, University of Sydney, 1977
PhD (Economics), The Australian National University, 1983
Adjunct Professor, College of Business, Victoria University
Chair, Advisory Board, Centre for Transformative Innovation, Swinburne University of Technology
Member, Board of Obesity Australia
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Xinxiang Great Wall Casting Co.,Ltd specialized in manufacturing all kinds of steel casting parts with OEM service.
Blast furnace cement (BFC) is created through the addition of granulated blast furnace slag with Portland cement clinker and gypsum.
One is the promising young enterprise located in the middle of China mainland, one is the steel group located at other shore of the ocean. And we get together over seas.
Great wall Machinery researches and develops "multi-purposes" vertical mill, which was introduced from foreign technology, and represents the most advanced productivity of China's cement industry through the cooperation of domestic cement enterprises.
Great wall survival through "Going Abroad"
As a professionalvertical roller mill manufacturer, Great Wall Machinery Company has been providing cement grinding equipment, cement production lines for a long time for the cement enterprises.
Great Wall Group is your One Source for grinding products and systems. Since 1958, we have supplied over 2,500 mills. Many of the largest plants operating today use our world- renowned vertical roller mills and ball mills.
The advantages of Great Wall Machinery GRMS26.21 slag vertical mill.
September 15-18, the second Bauma Conexpo Africa 2015 will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa. Xinxiang Great Wall will based on this best platform, come out of China and develop the oversea market, making the "Xinxiang Great Wall, world's Great Wall".


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Mary Jane Phillips-Matz
Mary Jane Phillips-Matz (January 30, 1926 – January 19, 2013) was an American biographer and writer on opera. She is mainly known for her biography of Giuseppe Verdi, a result of 30 years' research and published in 1992 by Oxford University Press. Born in Lebanon, Ohio and educated at Smith College and Columbia University, she lived for many years in Italy, and even after her return to the United States in the early 1970s spent her summers in Verdi's hometown of Busseto where she continued her exhaustive research into his life. She died in New York City at the age of 86, survived by three of her five children.
Mary Jane Phillips was born in Lebanon, Ohio to William Mason Phillips and Hazel Spencer Phillips. Her mother was the author of several books on Ohio history and folklore.[1] She grew up in Dayton and acquired her interest in opera as a child from family excursions to the Cincinnati Zoo where the price of admission included a free performance by Cincinnati Opera in the zoo's pavilion.[2] After earning a bachelor's degree in medieval literature and modern European history in the late 1940s from Smith College and a master's degree from Columbia University, she began a 50-year period of contributing to Opera News.[3] She married Charles Albert Matz Jr., a writer and literary historian, in 1950 while still a Masters student at Columbia and published under the name Mary Jane Matz until the couple divorced in 1977.[2]
Her first book, Opera Stars In The Sun: Intimate Glimpses Of Metropolitan Personalities was published in 1955 and dedicated to her parents. The 1960s saw the publication of two more books, a biography of the philanthropist and arts patron Otto Kahn and Opera: Grand and Not So Grand. The latter was an analysis of the modern opera business which she characterized as "monstropera", contrasting what she felt was its dehumanized, bourgeois approach with its past as a flamboyant yet more human spectacle.[4] During the 1960s and early 1970s Phillips-Matz lived in Venice with her young family. She continued her research and writing and also taught English to the employees of Venice's public boat system. She and her husband became friends with Olga Rudge and Ezra Pound who lived nearby and introduced Pound to Gian Carlo Menotti, another old friend. During this time, Phillips-Matz was also general manager, fund-raiser, and public relations director for Menotti's Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto.[5][6]
Although she returned the United States and settled in Manhattan in the early 1970s, Phillips-Matz spent part of every year in Busseto, where Verdi spent many of his early years, where she lived in an old rectory rented to her by the local priests and continued her exhaustive research into the composer's life.[2] She was one of the founders of the American Institute for Verdi Studies at New York University in 1976 and served as its co-director with Andrew Porter. Over the years, she was instrumental in helping the institute acquire microfilm copies of correspondence and documents relating to Verdi from numerous collections in Italy, including those at Verdi's Sant'Agata estate.[7]
Her 900-page Verdi: A Biography was published by Oxford University Press in the UK in 1992 and in the US the following year. It has since been published in multiple editions and translated into French and Spanish. The biography won the Royal Philharmonic Society Book Award in 1993 and the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award in 1994.[8][9] Edward Rothstein writing in The New York Times called it an "important biography" which "provides us with a more complicated portrait of the man than we have had so far."[10] The new light shed on Verdi's life by Phillips-Matz's book included evidence that Verdi's family roots and his own emotional ties were actually in the Province of Piacenza, rather than Parma, and that far from being poor, his father had owned a substantial amount of land and could read and write at a time when 90% of Italians were illiterate. More controversially, she found evidence suggesting that Giuseppina Strepponi gave birth to a daughter in 1851 while she was Verdi's mistress but years before they married.[10][11] The child was abandoned at an orphanage in Cremona but then entrusted to the care of a family living near Verdi's estate at Sant' Agata.[12]
Biographies of the opera singers Rosa Ponselle and Leonard Warren followed in 1997 and 2000, the latter a commission from the Leonard Warren Foundation. Her last major work was her biography of Giacomo Puccini, published in 2002, although she continued to lecture and in 2005 wrote the text for a book commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Washington National Opera. Phillips-Matz died at her home in Manhattan, near Verdi Square shortly before her 87th birthday. She was survived by three of her five children. One of her daughters had died of cancer at the age of five, another was killed in a car accident in 1983.[2][3]
In addition to the following books and her articles for Opera News, Phillips-Matz also wrote regular program notes for London's Royal Opera House,[3] essays in The Cambridge Companion to Verdi and The Puccini Companion, and feature articles for Playbill. Among the many opera libretti published by the Metropolitan Opera which she translated and annotated were Verdi's Falstaff, Simon Boccanegra, I Lombardi alla prima crociata, and Don Carlos.
Opera Stars In The Sun: Intimate Glimpses Of Metropolitan Personalities, 1955, Farrar, Straus & Cudahy
The Many Lives of Otto Kahn, 1963, Macmillan (2nd edition published 1984, Pendragon Press)
Opera: Grand and Not So Grand, 1966, William Morrow and Company
Verdi il grande gentleman del Piacentino, 1992, Banca di Piacenza (republished in 2013 to mark the bicentenary of Verdi's birth)[13]
Verdi: A Biography, 1992 Oxford University Press
Rosa Ponselle: American Diva, 1997, Northeastern University Press[14]
Leonard Warren: American Baritone, 2000, Amadeus Press[15]
Puccini: A Biography, 2002, Northeastern University Press[16]
Washington National Opera, 1956–2006, 2005, Washington National Opera
^ See Phillips, Hazel Spencer 1896-1979 on WorldCat.
^ a b c d Campbell, Mary (13 March 1994). "Verdi Biography Was Long Labor of Love". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 31 January 2013 via HighBeam Research (subscription required).
^ a b c Fox, Margalit (26 January 2013). "Mary Jane Phillips-Matz, Verdi and Puccini Biographer, Dies at 86". The New York Times. Retrieved 31 January 2013.
^ Kirkus Reviews (28 November 1966). "Opera: Grand and Not So Grand By Mary Jane Matz". Retrieved 31 January 2013
^ Carson, Anne Conover (2001). Olga Rudge and Ezra Pound: "What Thou Lovest Well...", p. 231. Yale University Press
^ For details of the meeting between Pound and Menotti see also Matz, Charles A. (November 1965). "Menotti & Pound", Opera News, pp. 14–15.
^ American Institute for Verdi Studies. "Our History and Mission" and News: Mary Jane Phillips-Matz. Retrieved 31 January 2013.
^ ASCAP. 1994 Deems Taylor Award Recipients. Retrieved 31 January 2013
^ Royal Philharmonic Society. Book Award: Past Winners. Retrieved 3 February 2013.
^ a b Rothstein, Edward (4 January 1994). "The Furious Man From Busseto", The New York Times. Retrieved 2 February 2013.
^ Dyer, Richard (15 January 1994). "A meticulous portrait of Verdi". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 2 February 2013 via HighBeam Research (subscription required).
^ For a detailed account of the affair, see Phillips-Matz (1993). Verdi: A Biography, pp. 289–294.
^ Bertoncini, Marco (31 December 2012). "Giuseppe Verdi nel bicentenario". Il Corriere del Sud. Retrieved 31 January 2013 (in Italian).
^ Jellinek, George (January 1998). "Review: Rosa Ponselle, American Diva. Opera News. Retrieved 31 January 2013 via HighBeam Research (subscription required).
^ Dyer, Richard (18 August 2000). "Leonard Warren Biography Revives Thrill of a Voice". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 31 January 2013 via HighBeam Research (subscription required).
^ Tommasini, Anthony (9 October 2002). "Books of the Times: The Procrastinating Idol Of an Opera-Mad World". Retrieved 31 January 2013
Phillips-Matz's 1955 book Opera Stars In The Sun Intimate Glimpses Of Metropolitan Personalities (digitized on archive.org)
Phillips-Matz on I due Foscari in "Venice, Verdi and 'The Two Foscari'", written for the official blog of Los Angeles Opera in August 2012, six months before her death
Works by and about Mary Jane Phillips-Matz on WorldCat
Mary Jane Phillips-Matz collection, 1948-1993 Music Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mary_Jane_Phillips-Matz&oldid=934351291"


text:
Q: Can't call a model method in the controller im pretty new to ruby-on-rails and hope you can help me. I am trying to write a plugin for Redmine using ruby-on-rails. And I'm having some problems calling a new method from my model in my controller. So I made the Redmine plugin tutorial and had these items afterwards:
Model:
class Poll < ActiveRecord::Base
  def vote(answer)
     increment(answer == 'yes' ? :yes : :no)
  end
end

Controller:
class PollsController < ApplicationController
  def index
     @project = Project.find(params[:project_id])
     @polls = Poll.all
  end

  def vote
    poll = Poll.find(params[:id])
    poll.vote(params[:answer])
    if poll.save
      flash[:notice] = 'Vote saved.'
    end
    redirect_to :action => 'index'
  end
end

index.html:

Polls

<% @polls.each do |poll| %>

  <%= poll.question %>?
  <%= link_to 'Yes', { :action => 'vote', :id => poll[:id], :answer => 'yes' }, :method => :post %> (<%= poll.yes %>) /
  <%= link_to 'No', { :action => 'vote', :id => poll[:id], :answer => 'no' }, :method => :post %> (<%= poll.no %>)

<% end %>

Afterwards I wanted to add Wikicontent to the same html just to get used to work with RoR. So my present items look like these:
Model:
    class Poll < ActiveRecord::Base
  def vote(answer)
     increment(answer == 'yes' ? :yes : :no)
  end
  def self.load_content
      @wiki_content = Poll.find_by_sql ("select wc.text
                                 , wc.comments
                                 , wc.version
                                from wiki_contents wc
                                where wc.page_id = (select min(id)
                                      from wiki_pages
                                      where wiki_id = 3")
  end
end

Controller:
class PollsController < ApplicationController
  def index
     @project = Project.find(params[:project_id])
     @polls = Poll.all
     @wiki_content = Poll.load_content
  end

  def vote
    poll = Poll.find(params[:id])
    poll.vote(params[:answer])
    if poll.save
      flash[:notice] = 'Vote saved.'
    end
    redirect_to :action => 'index'
  end
end

index.html:

Polls

<% @polls.each do |poll| %>

  <%= poll.question %>?
  <%= link_to 'Yes', { :action => 'vote', :id => poll[:id], :answer => 'yes' }, :method => :post %> (<%= poll.yes %>) /
  <%= link_to 'No', { :action => 'vote', :id => poll[:id], :answer => 'no' }, :method => :post %> (<%= poll.no %>)

<% end %>

<% @content.each do |cn| %>

        <%= cn.text %>

<% end %>

Im getting an "internal error" according to my Browser. I tried to find the error and it seems I can't call the new method from my model inside the controller and i can't figure out why. Like I said I'm really new to RoR so I hope you can help me.
This is the error description in the logfile:
ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid (Mysql2::Error: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '' at line 7: select wc.text
                                 , wc.comments
                                 , wc.version
                                from wiki_contents wc
                                where wc.page_id = (select min(id)
                                      from wiki_pages
                                      where wiki_id = 3):

Best Regards
Arty

A: you need to return something in your model method instead of assigning a value to @wiki_content as the model does not have any visibility on that variable
it would look like that
def self.load_content
      return Poll.find_by_sql ("select wc.text
                                 , wc.comments
                                 , wc.version
                                from wiki_contents wc
                                where wc.page_id = (select min(id)
                                      from wiki_pages
                                      where wiki_id = 3")
  end

A: In your index.html you are using <% @content.each do |cn| %>, but nowhere in your code snippets you are assigning any values to @content.  Since you are assigning @wiki_content in your controller index action, I'm assuming you want to use @wiki_content here:
# app/views/polls/index.html
...
<% @wiki_content.each do |cn| %>

        <%= cn.text %>

<% end %>

Update:
By the error you've posted and a double look at your query you have a syntax error in your query.  You are missing closing parenthesis ) in your inner select.  Update your query as follows:
# app/model/poll.rb
def self.load_content
      @wiki_content = Poll.find_by_sql ("select wc.text
                                 , wc.comments
                                 , wc.version
                                from wiki_contents wc
                                where wc.page_id = (select min(id)
                                      from wiki_pages
                                      where wiki_id = 3)")
end


I'm super excited to share that my work 'How to Farm a Fish' will be on show at the Blurring the Lines exhibition during ParisPhoto in November! The exhibition will take place at the Paris College of Art and is curated by Lisanne van Happen and Steve Bisson.
More information can be found here. If you follow me on social media or subscribe to my newsletter you will always receive the latest updates.


Ta–Nehisi Coates joins us to discuss his new book, Between the World and Me. Coates is national correspondent at The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues.
Marc, great interview. I already wanted to read the book, but now even more-so.


This military-inspired Prince Of Wales Tweed Jacket is the best-selling style in Holland Coopera€?s tweed range, thanks to its supremely versatile design and statement touches. A buttoned overlay decorated with reversible suede and tweed straps can be worn in multiple ways, while engraved gold-tone buttons finish the style with opulence. Wear with jeans and boots for timeless style.


End-haul reduces or eliminates fill as material is carted off-site.
End-haul is expensive. Costs can be reduced by having a place close by to dump spoil.
Full bench creates large cut slopes.
When should end-haul be used?
When slopes are too steep or unstable to place fill.
When the risk of fill failure is unacceptable e.g. close to a stream.
Caution: Full bench construction can create road instability in some soil types e.g. in earth flow terrain.
Full benching would have stopped the spoil reaching the water course.
Side slopes are too steep to hold the fill so it falls to the bottom of the slope.
The arrow points to an excavator.
Effective one pass team. A dump truck and a close spoil dumping area kept costs down.
A dump truck was used to maximise the load. Its tyres also help with compaction.
Spoil was dumped at a close and well prepared location.
Good choice of method (two pass) as both excavators can be used.
Spoil areas need to be carefully located. The site may need to be benched, compacted and water controlled.


Hiring a taxi in Paris can be costly if you don't understand how the system works. That's because there are many choices and a lot of illegitimate or unscrupulous operators who may charge up to triple the government authorized rate.
Gare du Nord (the main railroad hub in the northern part of Paris from Charles de Gaulle airport) is a perfect example. It snags many unsuspecting tourists with huge fares by unscrupulous operators.
I am often in the city and usually take the RER B train from CDG to this point, and then a taxi to my hotel. In front of the station are many drivers soliciting their unlicensed taxi services. They will lie about what the normal rates should be for other cabs, which means the charges can be exorbitant. They will also tell you they are "regular" taxis, implying they are licensed, when they are not.
Often the unsophisticated tourist will not know the difference until it is too late. Example: my colleague and I were accosted by multiple taxi drivers and told the fare would be about 55 Euros to our hotel which was only a couple of miles away. Our actual fare from a licensed taxi was about 10 Euros.
At Gare du Nord, as with every other facility, there is an official taxi queue at the side of the station. The rogue drivers congregate in front of the main entrance to catch the unsuspecting. Unless you read the signs or know the location of the designated queue point, you can end up paying a lot for your lack of knowledge. If you choose one of these scammers, they can overcharge, drive you in circles around the city to jack up the fares, refuse to give you change for larger denomination bills, will not accept credit cards, and may demand extra payments for luggage or passengers. That is why only regulated taxis can be trusted.
Legitimate and licensed taxis are very distinctive: they all have a roof status sign with green or red LED lights to indicate their availability. You should never get into a taxi that does not display this signage. However, you should also learn what the authorized displays look like, because of course there are counterfeits as well, although there are heavy penalties for the drivers if they are caught.
A registered taxi in Paris will always have a roof-top status light and sign.If you stay at a hotel, be warned that having the concierge or desk attendant call for a cab can cost extra in addition to the base fare. Until three years ago, customers were billed for the distance the cab had to drive to get to your location! I have noticed that drivers will enter higher amounts because they assume the passenger does not know the difference.
The better practice is to flag a taxi on the street or go to a specified taxi stand, which are in most of the popular locations. Hotels can also get a kickback from drivers for longer trips, especially to airports. They will rarely if ever disclose this to their guests, who assume that the hotel is looking out for their best interests.
Pay attention to the display on the rearview mirror when you get into the cab. The number on the right is the minimum fee that is built into the overall fare.
A lighted display on the roof.
Be certain that you have enough cash to cover your fare, because most taxis do not accept credit cards. However, the exception to this rule are those cabs that go to any of the airports.
There are three primary taxi companies in Paris, and they all have smartphone apps: G7 (331 41 27 66 77), Alpha Taxi (331 45 85 85 85), Taxi Bleu (331 49 36 1010).
Airport or within the city: There are fixed fares in Paris to travel to the airports from within the city, usually 50-55 Euros, depending on whether from the right or left bank.
Time computation: There are three tiers of charges for time per minute that the taxi is not moving, depending on your location. If a pre-booked a taxi, it will cost 35,80 Euros per hour for them to wait for you.
If you don't understand Paris taxis and how they work, it can cost you a lot of money. The city is notorious for illegitimate cabs that operate outside the licensing regulations. Knowing what to avoid and the Apps to use can make your travel much less costly.
My preference for cost and accessibility is Uber, primarily because I do not have to use cash and I can get a taxi just about anywhere, based on my GPS location. In foreign cities, you will likely not know exactly where you are. That means it is impossible to call for a cab to pick you up at a specific location unless GPS-based. The minimum fare for Uber is 6 Euros, with .30 Euros/minute, and 1.05 Euros/Kilometer.


Since the piece was too small to be a legitimate blankie, I knew I was going to have to transform it. However, I also knew that I was going to have to be stealthy about it. When she fell asleep, I slipped the 20×60 inch strip of fabric out of her grasp and hid it in a stack of fleece waiting to become winter tunics. Thankfully, she didn't even ask for it the next morning.
Now, I was stuck with figuring out what to do with it. I knew that I didn't want to cut it up too much because of the spacing of the pattern, so I just let it marinade a bit in the back of my mind. I was about to turn it into a boxy tunic with black flannel sleeves and a ruffled hem when I found this pattern at the thrift store. Problem solved! Nothing is cuter than a toddler sized poncho and with the pattern being a quarter there was no reason to say no.
Since the pattern is for a size 7-8, I cut out version "A" and ended up with a full size toddler poncho. I snagged the hood from version "B" and cut it out of the black flannel I had already pared with the fleece. Since an unfinished inside drives me nuts, especially if it is at all visible, I fully lined the hood. The serger took care of the rest of my seam finishing and the hem.
Start to finish, the whole project took less than an hour. I finished it on the eve of a fall heatwave and attempted to keep it stashed until cooler weather returned next week, but was discovered late last night. Dark Moon was delighted. According to her, it's still a "blankie" and is the perfect all purpose garment. She has already had it on over her pj's, with only a diaper, and with jeans and a long sleeve t.
Lemonaid is a lifelong favorite of mine, but recently I was introduced to herbed lemonaid. It takes a classic children's beverage and turns it into a refreshing, refined mama treat. Today, I made Rosemary Thyme Lemonaid, but Basil Ginger is also amazing.
In a small pan, over medium heat, disolve the sugar in one cup of the water.
Muddle herbs, just a bit. If you don't have a mortar and pestle, lay them on a cutting board and bruise them up with the back of a wooden spoon.
Place lemon slices and herbs in a suitable container. I can't remember where I stashed my half gallon picture, so I made mine in two quart jars.
Add sugar/water solution and remaining water. Cover and refrigerate until cold. If you can wait 24 hours it's best, but I know mine rarely makes it that long.
Once-upon-time, in a galaxy far, far away I had a set of throw pillows for every holiday.
I love the way a quick change in pillows can brighten and energize a room, but just don't have storage for three extra sets. Really, I don't even know where I would put one extra set. Thank the decorating gods for pillow covers!
This should have been an afternoon project start to finish and I am almost embarrassed to tell you that it took me over a week. Everything I needed was on hand, but time and children often just refuse to cooperate for me.
One night I pulled out my fabric stash and started designing, then I had to serve supper. A few nights later I made a paper pattern (totally unnessary by the way) and cut everything out, then got hit by a big old dose of tired. Last night, I did the few operations that required my traditional machine and was high on the idea of finishing everything off, then I pulled out my serger and found that a certain preschooler had unthreaded it. Finally, this morning, I employed a little girl named Dora and her monkey pal Boots to entertain the girls while I rethreaded the serger and wrapped this project up.
Very simple! No zipper, just a deep overlap on the back panels to hold the pillow securely inside. Another interesting note about this project is that I am either out of or simply couldn't find my double sided interacting, so I appliquéd the skull motif right onto the canvas backing. It took a million pins and some slow cornering, but it really wasn't the mess I anticipated it being.
Dora only works for a limited time! This sleepy , diaper baby decided to claim all the pillows for herself and only agreed to return them if she were in the photos.
I think maybe I need to change out the throws on the arm chair to make things a bit more cohesive.
This morning I got the bug to roast a new snack mix for my husband. He is on a bit of a restricted diet and needs special goodies to pop in his backpack and take to class. Since I just bought a nice selection of nuts at the Co-Op yesterday, a spicy, nutty mix seemed just the thing.
The initial plan was to use one of my husbands favorite flavor mixes from our local spice shop, but my little imp had other ideas. When I ran to the restroom, she pulled a chair up to the counter and poured the jar of mix all over the floor. Every bit of it.
This doesn't look the the face of a hardened criminal, but don't let looks fool you! She's as devious as a mob boss and as sneaky as a cat burglar.
After a quick turn of the broom, I started mixing spices and came up with my own yummy blend. Added a bit of salt and some olive oil, then started pouring in nuts and seeds.
A successful make for the day!
All summer, I've been watching an amazing Instagram upcyclers churn out amazing duster vests.
Lucky for me, I had hacked off, 90's rayon dress in my stash just waiting for an upcycle. Last fall, I overdyed it with RIT dye. I was planning to turn it into a tunic, but since that never materialized it was still waiting for it's facelift. I decided to leave the hem rough and just split the dress up the center front. I also split the side and back seams.
Next I pulled a scrap of black flannel from my stash and make kick pleats.
For the ruffles, I had a gauze swaddling blanket that I would never use again. This piece I popped into a tea bath and forgot about for the entire day. I tore it into rough strips to crate ruffles, layered with a few yards of thrifted cluny lace I also tea dyed. Perfection!
The final result was a bit to baggy at first, so I gathered a bit at the high waist point on either side. By this time I was very late and I was tired, but it was so worth it. I wore my new piece today and felt amazing!
So…this isn't my first go around with a creative blog. In fact, it's probably my third or fourth. I love to create and I love to talk about what I create, but I also love to compare my blog with other more professional looking blogs and get discouraged.
I am a mama, a housewife, and an all around creative. I am messy, disorganized, and very forgetful. I don't make tutorials.


text:
Endangered whales gather in unprecedented numbers
Boaters have been warned to be on the lookout for right whales around Cape Cod Bay.
Scientists count record number of right whales in Cape Cod Bay
A rich food source is drawing the whales
Only 450 right whales are known to exist, scientists say
Boston (CNN) -- What scientists say is the largest concentration of endangered right whales ever spotted in one location is giving researchers an unusually rich opportunity to study the animals and their feeding habits.
But the gathering, an annual affair in the chilly spring waters off Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts, also raises the threat of boats striking the 70-ton mammals, according to the state Division of Marine Fisheries. The agency has posted an advisory to boaters urging them to be on the lookout for the whales and steer clear.
Scientists believe that there are only 450 right whales in the world but say the numbers have been slowly recovering since commercial whaling of the species was banned more than 70 years ago.
The more than 100 whales counted in the bay this month is the largest number recorded in one place, according to the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
"We're looking at an exceedingly rare animal in unusual numbers in one of their last critical habitats," Charles Mayo, a scientist at the center who studies right whales, said Friday.
Why so many in one place?
In a word, food, said Mayo. One way or another, the whales caught wind of a unusually rich repast of plankton available in the waters of the bay and arrived to take advantage of the easy dining, Mayo said. The plankton bloom often occurs, but it's been particularly rich and long-lasting this year for unknown reasons, he said.
There have been no boat strikes on the many whales contained in the bay's waters, said Dan McKiernan, deputy director of the state Marine Fisheries Division.
In fact, the last known fatal strike on a whale in the area happened in 1999, he said.
State and federal law makes it a crime to close within 500 yards of a right whale, according to the state Marine Fisheries Division.
Seeing so many right whales in the same place is encouraging for researchers, even though they are well aware that the species is on the road to recovery after dipping in the early 1900s to as few as a handful of breeding females and male suitors.
It's also a spectacle for the public, Mayo said. The whales feed on the surface and can be seen from shore, he said.
"Anytime you see a whale from the beach that's actually alive, it's pretty exciting," he said.
The whales should begin trickling out of the bay sometime in the next few days heading for deeper waters offshore, Mayo said.