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Betty A. Dierdorf
Wednesday 1/3, 6:00 pm
Monaca United Methodist Church
813 Indiana Avenue
Thursday 1/4, 11:00 am
848 Sunflower Road
ROCHESTER, PA 15074
Thursday 1/4
Betty A Dierdorf, 78, a lifelong resident of Center Township entered the gates of Heaven on Saturday, December 23, 2017 after suffering several years with the dreadful Alzheimer's disease.Born June 1, 1939 , she was a daughter of the late Paul LaVerne and Florence Housholder Lutz. While attending Monaca High School, she was a member of the National Honor Society and an officer in both the Order of Rainbow for Girls and 4-H Club. It was at Monaca High School where she met Donald J Dierdorf to whom she was later united in marriage on October 17, 1959. Prior to starting a family, she was employed as a secretary to the superintendent of Monaca Area Schools and later as the Board of Education secretary for the Center Township School District. Betty was a gifted seamstress who had won numerous awards for her talent in designing and creating clothing. Her awards included the 1st Place State Award 4-H Club for designing clothing and the Betty Crocker "Homemaker of Tomorrow" Award, both in 1957. She also was the 1st Place National Winner for a fashion and sewing contest for the General Federation of Women's Clubs in 1962. A few years later , she was the youngest person to win a luxurious month long trip around the world for two. The contest was hosted by Vogue Patterns for designing and creating an award winning dress. Betty also was active in the community. She was a former member of the Monaca Junior Women's Club and a co founder and former President and Vice President of the Center Civic Women's Club. The club could always count on Betty to create costumes for their performances or events.. Betty's accolades included being selected as one of the Junior Chamber of Commerce's Outstanding Young Women of America in 1965 . For a number of years, she was a wardrobe consultant for Doncaster on Fifth Clothing Company and had previously designed wedding gowns. Betty enjoyed collecting thimbles and old sewing items and was a member of the Thimble Collectors International. She was also a member of the Monaca United Methodist Church.She leaves her husband of 59 years, Donald J Dierdorf, a son, Douglas Dierdorf and his wife, Elizabeth of Denton, Texas. Two grandchildren, Amy Dierdorf of Denton and Andrew of Independence, Oregon. Two brothers, LaVerne (Marge) Lutz of Salem, Ohio and Kenneth (Monica) Lutz of Export. Several nieces and nephews and her tabby cat, Tiger.Friends will be received on Wednesday, January 3rd, from 2-4 and 6-8 pm in the Simpson Funeral & Cremation Services, 1119 Washington Avenue, Monaca. Friends may also call on Thursday from 10 – 11 AM at the Monaca United Methodist Church, 813 Indiana Avenue, Monaca where her funeral services will be held at 11AM with her pastor, the Reverend Nancy K. Shute, officiating. Interment will follow in Sylvania Hills Memorial Park.Memorial contributions may be made, if desired in Betty's memory to the Monaca United Methodist Church or the Beaver County Humane Society, 3394 Brodhead Road, Center Township, PA 15001The family would like to thank Elmcroft of Chippewa and Grane Hospice for the compassionate care Betty received while at Elmcroft..To share online condolences, get directions and other information, please visit simpsonfuneralhome.com.


But manager Graham Alexander has said he needs to develop a ruthless mentality.
After scoring two goals against Grimsby Town in the Checkatrade Trophy on Tuesday evening, Hopper is looking to kick on this season and have his most prolific season yet at Glanford Park.
However, the Iron striker is aware that it all starts with earning his place in the team – no easy feat considering that he is competing with three other League One proven strikers, who are ready to step up at any moment to make an impression and earn their place in the starting XI.
"Of course I want to be in the starting team as much as possible," he said. "But we are all aware that there is tough competition for places at this club, which is the way it should be.
"We have four strikers here that are competing for places, and we are all pushing each other to get into the side.
"We all know that we have to be at the top of our game and work hard in training or you could find yourself out of the team – as we have other players who are ready to step in and compete.
Hopper now has three goals in 12 appearances this season, and although the 2017/18 campaign is at its early stages, Scunthorpe's number 14 is on course to have his best goal-to-game ratio since joining the club.
Goalscoring is certainly an aspect of his game which he is looking to improve on this season as he enters his third full campaign at Glanford Park.
However, Hopper stated that he does not set himself any targets in terms of how many goals he wants to score to consider it a successful season.
The frontman said that he believes if you do set yourself a number, then you can become fixated on achieving that target.
"I don't like to set myself any targets in terms of goals scored, as I think you can get hung up on trying to achieve them," he continued. "That being said, I am a striker and I want to score as many goals as possible.
"Personally, it isn't just about scoring goals for me. I'd like to think I bring a lot more to the game and to the team than just scoring.
"I am always looking to improve on my goal tally, at the end of the day I know it is what strikers are going to be judged on.
What must give Hopper confidence is knowing that he can be effective with both feet as well as being a strong aerial presence.
His speed is also an asset that has been overlooked with Alexander saying that Hopper was top of the speed tests done a couple of months ago, with the manager saying the striker needs to use that to his advantage.
The 23-year-old stated that he feels comfortable with both feet as well as winning the ball in the air and scoring goals with head – both of which he did against Grimsby, scoring with his weaker right-foot before adding the winner with his head as he guided Kevin van Veen's header into the bottom corner.
"Yeah, it's nice to prove that my right foot isn't just for standing on!," he jokingly told the Telegraph.
Speaking prior to Scunthorpe's weekend tie against Wigan Athletic, Alexander spoke of his delight for Hopper to get back amongst the goals and hopes that this is the season that he becomes a prolific finisher.
However, the Iron boss stated that Hopper has to adopt a 'ruthless mentality', which he believes will help add to his goalscoring prowess and ultimately will help to maximise his potential.
"It is great for Hops to get a couple of goals and it's good that he has been rewarded for his performances and the work he puts in for the team.
"He has to add that ruthless streak to his game so he can continue to contribute scoring goals-wise. We know his value to the team and what he brings us when he's playing.
"But for himself, I'd love to see him carry on scoring goals, and really evaluate himself at the end of the season as a goalscoring centre-forward and not just a good player.
Alexander went on to state that Hopper can learn from Lee Novak, a vastly experienced centre forward, and how he goes about the game - as he sees similarities in the two.
"There's real good competition there. I think both strikers can play a similar role to each other, but I think they can both play together too.
"Hops can look at Novak and learn from him. Obviously, Novak is a six years older than Hops and has a lot more experience. But we can see comparisons in Novak's game and know that he can make a good career for himself by maxing out his potential."


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Иван Ильич Хатов (1784—1875) — генерал-лейтенант Русской императорской армии, военный писатель,  и ; директор Александровского малолетнего кадетского корпуса.

Биография
Родился в Санкт-Петербурге  года. Происходил из дворян Пензенской губернии Хатовых, сын статского советника Ильи Меркуловича Хатова (1744—1800); брат генерала Александра Ильича Хатова.

Воспитывался в Императорском сухопутном шляхетном кадетском корпусе при директорах графе Ангальте и Кутузове (впоследствии кн. Смоленском) и в 1800 году был выпущен прапорщиком в Полоцкий мушкетерский полк, а два года спустя, с производством в подпоручики, переведён в Первый кадетский корпус дежурным офицером. Кроме надзора за кадетами, на него возложено было преподавание в старших классах русского языка и ситуации.

В 1820 году Иван Ильич Хатов был назначен дежурным штаб-офицером при главном директоре пажеского и кадетских корпусов (в дальнейшем — Главное управление военно-учебных заведений), а в 1834 году — директором Александровского малолетнего кадетского корпуса.

Хатов принимал весьма деятельное участие в работе «Комитета о сочинении воинского строевого устава», составил все чертежи и планы этого устава. Он также перевёл с немецкого «Об атаке и обороне крепостей» (1811), «Полевую фортификацию» (1812), «Наставление о съемке мест посредством мензулы» (1812) и «Воинские уставы о строевой пехотной и кавалерийской службе прусских войск» (1813); с французского — «Памятную книжку для военных людей», напечатанную в 1818 году на счет Кабинета Его Величества. За последние два труда ему были пожалованы бриллиантовые перстни.

В 1834 году Хатов был произведен в генерал-майоры, в 1845 году — в генерал-лейтенанты; 75 лет он состоял в офицерских чинах, причём большая часть его службы была посвящена военно-учебной деятельности. Хатов имел уникальную награду — знак отличия беспорочной службы за LX лет. Также ему были пожалованы 2000 десятин земли (1821); табакерка с вензелевым именем Е.И.В., украшенная бриллиантами (1850) и табакерка с портретом Е.И.В. (1853).

Умер  года в Санкт-Петербурге. Похоронен в Сергиевой Приморской пустыни.

Уже после его смерти был напечатан в «Древней и новой России» (1877, II т.) его труд 1840 года — «Вопрос о смертной казни в Сибири».

Был женат на Ольге Алексеевне Хатовой (в девичестве Скрыпицына; 27.12.1793—30.06.1873); в браке у них родились трое детей (Елизавета, Ольга и Алексей).

Примечания

Литература

Выпускники Первого кадетского корпуса
Преподаватели Первого кадетского корпуса
Переводчики на русский язык
Переводчики с немецкого языка
Переводчики с французского языка
Генерал-лейтенанты (Российская империя)
Военные писатели Российской империи
Похороненные в Сергиевой Приморской пустыни

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Color/Appearance: Heartwood tends to be a pale olive green color with darker streaks. Yellowish green sapwood is poorly distinguishable from heartwood.
Grain/Texture: Grain tends to be straight to interlocked, with a fine to medium grain, and good natural luster.
Endgrain: Diffuse-porous; large pores in no specific arrangement, few; solitary and radial multiples of 2-3; tyloses and other gum deposits occasionally present; growth rings indistinct; rays narrow, normal spacing; parenchyma vasicentric.
Rot Resistance: Greenheart is rated as very durable, and is also resistant to most insect attacks. It's also considered to be one of the best-suited woods for use in marine environments, and has good weathering characteristics.
Workability: Generally somewhat difficult to work on account of its density, with a moderate to high blunting effect on cutters. Sections with interlocked grain should be machined with care to avoid grain tearout. Gluing can be difficult in some pieces, and precautions for gluing tropical species should be followed. Turns and finishes well. Responds moderately well to steam-bending.
Allergies/Toxicity: Although severe reactions are quite uncommon, Greenheart has been reported as a sensitizer. Greenheart has also been observed to cause a number of other health effects, such as wheezing, cardiac and intestinal disorders, severe throat irritation, and the tendency for wood splinters to become infected. See the articles Wood Allergies and Toxicity and Wood Dust Safety for more information.
Pricing/Availability: Seldom available in the United States in lumber form, Greenheart is usually sold for decking or other outdoor materials. Prices should be moderate for an imported exotic species, but finding a source may be a problem.
Sustainability: This wood species is not listed in the CITES Appendices, but is reported by the IUCN as being data deficient. It was formerly listed on the Red List as vulnerable (due to a population reduction of over 20% in the past three generations, caused by a decline in its natural range, and exploitation), but this listing has been disputed by the Guyana Forestry Commission.
Common Uses: Boatbuilding, docks, decking, posts, fishing rods, pool cues, and other turned wood items.
Comments: Greenheart is perhaps the stiffest wood in the world, with an average modulus of elasticity of an astounding 3,716,000 lbf/in2! However, the wood also has a fairly high movement in service, and should not be used in situations where stability is critical.
Greenheart logs are reported to occasionally violently split apart upon sawing—sending pieces of the wood flying. As a result of this unusual characteristic, sawyers wrap chain around the sections of the log that have already been sawn.
Love this wood. Thought it resembled Lignum Vitae. Similar look and feel. Both are very dense and make excellent fishing lures.
Due to it's very high modulus of elasticity I am considering using a piece of Greenheart as the top and bottom parts on a cider press. My only concern is about the sawn wood expectantly violently splitting whilst it is being machined.
I'm wondering how common this might be on a piece of 8×8 inch timber?


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Cesar & Rosalie Movie Review
by AVForums Oct 31, 2012
Cesar & Rosalie Movie (1972)
Released to celebrate the 40thanniversary of its cinematic release, this gentle French comedy is the latest in a string of re-mastered blu-rays from Studio Canal. Written and directed by Claude Sautet (Les Choses de la Vie), starring Yves Montand, Sami Frey and Romy Schneider, it tells the story of a vivacious young woman caught in an emotional triangle between her first adolescent love and a suave, successful entrepreneur.
Although described as a comedy, the humour is subtle and quite possibly loses something in translation as well. It's all pleasant enough, but unlike some foreign movies, I did struggle to follow the storyline through the subtitles as closely as I would like.
Romy Schneider was the archetypal troubled actress. Beautiful and fragile, her life was as tragic as any film script. She was married and divorced twice, bore two children, one of whom died when he was impaled on a fence and she died as much from grief as from the result of a heart attack brought on through an overdose of sleeping pills. Many of her film roles seem to reflect her chaotic life and her character here is no exception. Rosalie is a thirty something divorcee with a young child and good relationship with her ex-husband. She is currently sharing her time between her mother's home and scrap metal dealer Cesar's (Montand) apartment. He is a charming man who treats her daughter as his own and provides her a comfortable if unexciting life. Yves Montand's life who plays Cesar was also not without its moments. Born in Italy, his family moved to Marseille to escape the rise of the fascist dictatorship. Montand took a string a jobs in and around the city before taking to the music hall stage as a singer, eventually ending up in Edith Piaf's show in Paris during 1944. His film career ran almost in parallel with his singing for much of his life. Married in 1951 and remaining so for over 35 years, his affairs were legendary and included Marilyn Monroe as well as a number of his female co-stars. Even after his death while on set filming the last few scenes of The Island of Pachyderms, he could not rest, having to be exhumed to allow a DNA sample to be taken over a paternity dispute! Recognised as two of the greats of French cinema, this pair could always be relied upon to give strong, emotional performances.
So what of the third protagonist in this tryst? The only surviving member of the trio is Sami Frey as David, now into his 6thdecade of movie performances. A mainstay of French cinema, he is best known as a supporting actor, with over 55 film credits to his name. His character here is that of a young cartoonist and also Rosalie's early love who refused to marry her and left before things got too serious. He remained friends with her ex-husband and it is through him that he hears of Rosalie's current life. He meets her at a family wedding and there can be no doubt that the passion is re-kindled. Cesar is of course unsettled by this but chooses just to assert his masculinity in his huge American car rather than confront either Rosalie or David directly. Despite his outwardly gruff and business-like manner, we get to understand that Cesar is both sensitive and so deeply in love with Rosalie that her happiness matters more than his own. Although no ages are mentioned, it is obvious that Cesar is much older than Rosalie and David and this may explain some of actions. He is also rich from his scrap dealing and makes a few extravagant gestures during the film.
He allows Rosalie to make her own choice, but begrudges her choosing David over himself. Through a series of tableaux we see the inner battle that rages within Cesar. He wants only the best for Rosalie, but cannot accept her being with another man. The old French ploy of using a little light partial nudity to let us know that the lovers have consummated the relationship is used here, but it is brief and not at all out of keeping with the rest of the movie. Cesar's temper spills over into threats and eventually violence against David, who despite being the younger, fitter man does not retaliate. When Rosalie hears of Cesar's actions, she decides to leave his sphere of influence and runs away with David. Cesar follows and eventually wins Rosalie back. He recognises that she is not happy though and brings David to her. The three way relationship is not to her liking however and she soon leaves, taking her daughter and all their possessions with her, seemingly forever. This could have been the end of the story, but instead the rivalry between David and Cesar leads to a long lasting friendship. Cesar abandons any search for Rosalie and moves on, as does David who becomes buried in his burgeoning career. With their lives seemingly settled, only one thing could possibly disturb the peace and of course who should show up in the final frames of the film…
So where is the comedy in this romantic piece? Some of it is lost in translation, but there is limited physical humour and some of the set ups are quite humorous as well. The actual locations and sets are wonderfully atmospheric and great care has been taken with the look of the whole film. Despite being set in the 1970s, fashions and colours have been kept a little muted and this helps to prevent the film feeling too dated. Cars are a central prop in quite a few scenes and these have been chosen with great care. From the huge American Plymouths of the early movie through to the Citroens and Renaults of the later stages, the cars help to tell the story, particularly of Cesar.
For lovers of French cinema, there is much to recommend. The story is well written and directed and the characters rich and consistent. For the rest of us, it is a bit harder going. It's a nice looking piece and fairly easy to watch, but ultimately unsatisfying. The story is quite slow moving there are very few twists or sub plots to make one think too hard. No doubt the market for this will be quite small, but this has not diminished Studiocanal's desire to turn out well produced re-masters to a high standard.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Home / Alcohol
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Foundry is a support service for young people ages 12-24. We are forging a new, province-wide culture of care through the development of a network of centres and e-health services — co-created with our health and social service partners, young people and families in communities across British Columbia. Foundry brings health and social services together in a single place to make it easier for young people to find the care, connection and support they need.
Read more about mental health, substance use, health and social support
drug and alcohol, addiction, support
Moms Stop the Harm
Moms Stop the Harm (MSTH) is a network of Canadian mothers and families whose loved ones have died due to substance misuse. Our network calls for an end to the failed war on drugs. We envision a new approach based on reducing harm, where people who misuse drugs are treated with dignity, respect, compassion and support. Harm reduction is a practical approach to drug use. It recognizes that quitting drugs may not be realistic or desirable for everyone.
Read more about drug and alcohol, addiction, support
support, family members with drinking problems
Alateen, a part of the Al-Anon Family Groups, is a fellowship of young people (mostly teenagers) whose lives have been affected by someone else's drinking whether they are in your life drinking or not. By attending Alateen, teenagers meet other teenagers with similar situations. Alateen is not a religious program and there are no fees or dues to belong to it. Get Connected. Try Alateen Chat, Chat live with other teens in any of the scheduled meetings!
Read more about support, family members with drinking problems
Northern Health
The Smithers Health Unit offers Public Health Nursing services including family health services, post-partum support, parent-baby drop-in, immunization clinics, school health, Options for Sexual Health, communicable disease services, harm reduction and needle exchange services, injury prevention, quit smoking services, and community development.
Read more about Health Unit
Fetal Alcohol Support
FASD Support - Smithers Community Services Association
In collaboration with other community services and organizations, FASD Services program supports, develops and delivers initiatives that increase awareness around Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD), and improve the support available to individuals living with FASD. This is done through initiatives such as activities of the BV FASD Committee, the development of awareness and preventions campaigns on the impact of alcohol consumption during pregnancy, and the delivery of education/training sessions on the reality of living with FASD and strategies to better support families and individua
Read more about Fetal Alcohol Support


This classic handcrafted leather envelope style case fits all eyeglass frames and reading glasses. Case grips frames securely preventing them from falling out or being broken. Case interior keeps glasses scratch-free. This firm leather case is less bulky than hard shell cases. Premium durable thick leather is water resistance and will develop a rich patina over time.
You may buy more glasses but you will only buy one of these.
Measures: 6.75 in. x 3.5 in.


text:
Frank W. Butterfield
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The Manic Mechanic
A Nick Williams Mystery #31
Nick, Carter, and the gang are off to the bright lights of Broadway!
Angela Lansbury is starring at the Winter Garden in Mame, and everyone is excited to see the biggest smash hit since Fiddler on the Roof!
Well, almost everyone.
Mike has demanded a motorcycle road trip up the Hudson River Valley as compensation for having to squeeze into a tux. Poor guy!
Reluctantly, Nick agrees and, the day after a fabulous night of singing and dancing, they're loaded up and making their way over the George Washington Bridge, up the scenic Palisades Parkway, and heading to points north.
But the trip is over when one of their friends takes a spill on the highway and ends up in traction. Nick and Carter do what they can to help and then return to Manhattan to take care of pressing business in the city before flying home.
However, after hearing a tale that is right out a mystery novel and receiving a desperate call about a murder, Nick and Carter head back upstate, hot on the trail of the curious case of The Manic Mechanic!
Word Count: 94K
Kindle Publication Date: July 3, 2019
Paperback Page Count: 398
Paperback Publication Date: July 5, 2019
Previous book in series: #30 The Agitated Actress
About The Series: A Nick Williams Mystery
The richest homosexual in San Francisco is a private investigator.
Nick Williams lives in a modest bungalow with his fireman husband, a sweet fellow from Georgia by the name of Carter Jones.
Nick's gem of a secretary, Marnie Wilson, is worried that Nick isn't working enough. She knits a lot.
Jeffrey Klein, Esquire, is Nick's friend and lawyer. He represents the guys and gals who get caught in police raids in the Tenderloin.
Lt. Mike Robertson is Nick's first love and best friend. He's a good guy who's one hell of a cop.
The Unexpected Heiress is where their stories begin. Read along and fall in love with the City where cable cars climb halfway to the stars.
Long before the Summer of Love, pride parades down Market Street, and the fight for marriage equality, San Francisco was all about the Red Scare, F.B.I. investigations, yellow journalism run amok, and the ladies who play mahjong over tea.
© 2019 Frank W.Butterfield. All right reserved.
Frank W. Butterfield is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. All links to the U.S. Amazon store for Kindle e-books and paperbacks use this advertising program.
2,846,216 words across 48 titles since June 1, 2016
242f869980ddf7034e0a763645841a25


InsureMyRentalCar.com researched the cost to rent a family car, and the cost of the rental desk extras, from May 26 to May 30 2015 (Memorial Day) from five rental companies (Alamo, Enterprise, Hertz, Avis and Dollar) in the seven destinations of Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Dallas, Denver, New York and Orlando.
It found that the average cost of car rental was $429 including service fees and taxes. Denver is the cheapest place to rent a car, with Dollar charging just $200 for the week (including service fees and taxes). The most expensive place is New York where a week's rental with Hertz costs $836.
Collision Damage Waiver / Loss Damage Waiver: Hertz in Seattle, Dallas, Orlando and Denver charges $213 for these policies. Two other rental companies also charge over $200, Avis in Dallas and Denver charges $203; and Dollar in Orlando also charges $203. The most reasonable place is New York where the price was $67 for CDW / LDW on average - this is still almost $50 more than an InsureMyRentalCar.com policy.
Child Car Seats: Ranging from $91 across all destinations with Avis, Hertz and Dollar (apart from Seattle where it costs $63) to $70 with Alamo and $63 with Enterprise in all locations (apart from Seattle where the cost is $70).
GPS Navigation: Topping the $100 mark with Hertz, the most reasonable costs were from Enterprise in Orlando costing $48, but expect to pay around $70- $90.
InsureMyRentalCar.com offers Loss Damage Waiver (LDW) and Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) from only $5 per day, $17.50 per trip, or $93.99 for an annual policy. Its policies offer Loss Damage Waiver coverage of up to $100,000; can be purchased from six months to one day in advance; cover rental car use at home and overseas; and are available for purchase by residents of 46 US States*.


The event Multi-Processing Module (MPM) is designed to allow more requests to be served simultaneously by passing off some processing work to supporting threads, freeing up the main threads to work on new requests. It is based on the worker MPM, which implements a hybrid multi-process multi-threaded server. Run-time configuration directives are identical to those provided by worker.
This MPM tries to fix the 'keep alive problem' in HTTP. After a client completes the first request, the client can keep the connection open, and send further requests using the same socket. This can save significant overhead in creating TCP connections. However, Apache HTTP Server traditionally keeps an entire child process/thread waiting for data from the client, which brings its own disadvantages. To solve this problem, this MPM uses a dedicated thread to handle both the Listening sockets, all sockets that are in a Keep Alive state, and sockets where the handler and protocol filters have done their work and the only remaining thing to do is send the data to the client. The status page of mod_status shows how many connections are in the mentioned states.
The improved connection handling may not work for certain connection filters that have declared themselves as incompatible with event. In these cases, this MPM will fall back to the behaviour of the worker MPM and reserve one worker thread per connection. All modules shipped with the server are compatible with the event MPM.
A similar restriction is currently present for requests involving an output filter that needs to read and/or modify the whole response body, like for example mod_ssl, mod_deflate, or mod_include. If the connection to the client blocks while the filter is processing the data, and the amount of data produced by the filter is too big to be buffered in memory, the thread used for the request is not freed while httpd waits until the pending data is sent to the client.
To mitigate this problem, the event MPM does two things: Firstly, it limits the number of connections accepted per process, depending on the number of idle request workers. Secondly, if all workers are busy, it will close connections in keep-alive state even if the keep-alive timeout has not expired. This allows the respective clients to reconnect to a different process which may still have worker threads available.


During the summer period Jamaican gungo peas soup (aka pigeon pea soup) is probably the last thing on your mind. I know when I'm feeling overly warm the last thing on my mind is to consume something that's hot – are you crazy? My body would feel like a furnace, just thinking about it sends on a hot flush.
Lately I've been looking at a few recipes to add to my website, something that is passable yet uncommon over the summer time which brought me to this Jamaican gungo peas soup. While I know most of you guys are sipping on smoothies, pimms and chomping on healthy salads. I thought I might be able to get away with slipping in this Jamaican gungo peas soup – it's tasty, brimming with tropical flavours and filling too!
What are the health benefits of gungo peas?
Enriched with plenty of iron.
Great for replenishing red bloods cells through this stellar soup bowl.
A few weeks ago I created this pigeon pea salad with an irresistible ginger lime dressing. The feedback exceeded my expectations. My aim is to appeal to everyone's taste buds (at least I try to) and present many variations of Caribbean cuisine.
Now it must be said that this gungo peas soup dish is a copy cat version. The originally contains a small selection of meat (ham hock, stewing beef and pigs tail). My family always made this recipe omitting the meat with great results, mom would follow the traditional format only leaving out the meat and supplementing with more veggies.
Being the health freak that I am, I couldn't resist applying even more adaptations to make my very own signature style. For instance, adding vegetable stock to form the foundation, then adding the vegetables and ground provisions to the body of the soup.
In the Caribbean, tubular root vegetables are known as ground provision, they usually consist of sweet potato, cassava, dasheen (taro), yam anything that's grown from the ground (the clue is in the name) and used in soups, stews or simply eaten by themselves.
This texture of the soup is a light broth considering there's a few starchy vegetables thrown in – yam and sweet potatoes. You can add more if you wish, just be mindful that starch veggies are dense and this could alter the taste and texture. I try to keep a subtle balance because the duration of simmering is approximately an hour. As the soup is left to simmer it thickens on it's own, no powdered starch is required.
I also added some fresh callaloo – a leafy green that belong to the spinach family.
Most of the ground provisions listed can be purchased with a Caribbean grocery, just ask if you're not sure about what to buy.
Make sure to use brown gungo peas NOT the green ones.
If you can't find callaloo, just use spinach or kale instead.
Click here to learn how to make your own veggie stock for all your recipes.
Place the gungo peas in a large pot with water and leave to soak overnight.
Discard the water that soaked the gungo peas and rinse thoroughly.
Then add another batch of water (approximately 5 cups) to the pot with the peas, bring to the boil uncovered for around 45 minutes or until slightly tender. The peas will cook in it's entirety when added to the soup but do make sure they have cooked for the most part.
Meanwhile, proceed with preparing the base of the soup, add the stop to the pot and bring to the boil.
Add the scallion, pimento, garlic, thyme and sliced onions to the stock and give a good stir.
Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover with lid for 15 minutes to allow the aforementioned to infuse.
Remove the lid, gently stir before adding the sweet potato, yam, callaloo, sliced carrot and gungo peas to the pot. Carefully add the scotch bonnet, ensuring it doesn't burst to release the heat, we want the flavour to penetrate the soup not heat.
Finally cover the pot with the lid and allow to gently simmer for a further 45 minutes, during this time the soup will take on a thick texture.
OMG love all the veggies in this!! Now off to read about making my own vegetable stock. Great info!
MMMM…looks delicious…I am wondering about some of the ingredients…they are not familiar to me unless they have other more popular names like the beans and the callaloo?
Thank you, if you don't live in a diverse community with a large Caribbean population some of the ingredients might be a foreign concept. I will go back and tweak the recipe with suitable substitutes. I will say you can use black eyed peas instead of pigeon peas and spinach in favour of callaloo.
This soup looks fantastic! I will be trying it this fall/winter for sure!
Thank you so much, sadly they aren't many Caribbean food bloggers out there, so it's good to put island food on the map. I'm definitely keeping tabs on your blog, let me go check it out.
I've seen your recipes through Foodgawker (under vegan search options) and every time they are presented in a straight forward way and look so tempting, I can't handle any heated foods right now but as soon as fall hits here I'm going to invest in some of those "ground provisions" and make this. Thank you!
Hi Kirsten, that was such a beautiful comment, it really means so much to me. Thank you for your continued support. I hope you give this a try during fall and let me know your thoughts.
This looks delicious, and I could eat soup anytime of the year!
Thanks Sam, me too and glad I'm not the only soup addict.
This soup looks like a real winner. We love the taste of Caribbean food and spices. I will definitely have to give this one a try.
I've saw a bunch of Jamaican spices at a store recently. I am going to have to go grab some and then stalk your blog.
Yay! That's what I like to hear, let me know if you need any assistance with anything.
This is a looks like tasty and nutritious recipe. I'm ble to use alot of my fall vegetables from my allotment. I've exchanged Kale for Callaloo and Pumpkin for Sweet Potato…lovely.
Tried this today. Very tasty. I had houmous with it.
How much thyme should you put in, it's in the instructions, but not the ingredient list?
Glad you liked it Megan and thank you for pointing out that too. I've updated the ingredients list to reflect the amount. I usually use 4 springs of thyme which is approximately a tablespoon worth of the dried herb.


Our company provides comprehensive services in accounting and payroll . Below you can see the main areas of our business. More details will present you with a meeting in our office accountant - then also we try our best to adjust our offer to your needs.


text:
Home/Language/English/Geographical Information Systems in Urban Archaeology and Urban Planning
Geographical Information Systems in Urban Archaeology and Urban Planning
A case study of a modern Greek city, built on top of an ancient city
Helene Simoni
83pp. Illustrated throughout in black and white: 36 tables, 35 figures
The book focuses on the implications of discovering archaeological layers during construction works in modern cities for both urban archaeology and urban planning. The research methodology uses qualitative and quantitative data. Patras, Greece was selected as the case study.Archival research and existing unused data have contributed to the compilation of a database. G.I.S. and statistics are used to process it digitally, and to demonstrate the statistical relationship between data from urban planning and urban archaeology. This enables the prediction of the existence of antiquities and their depth by recording and processing data from five years of excavations, without considering the city's history.The procedure highlights the importance of a city's archaeology for its functioning and proposes the introduction of a new building regulation. This study can be used in the monitoring of construction and the investigation of the role of cultural heritage in the planning of the contemporary city.
Helene Simoni, a member of the Laboratory Teaching Staff at the University of Patras, studied History & Archaeology and undertook an MA in Landscape Studies and a PhD in Urban Planning & Heritage Management. Co-founder of the Institute of Local History, she shares her research interests between G.I.S. and oral history.
'..Simoni presents an interesting alternative method for managing development in urban areas at the same time as preserving, as far as possible, the archaeological remains.' Rachel Sycamore, Medieval Archaeology, Vol 61.1.2017
Table of Contents (S2812_9781407314778_ToC.pdf, 167 Kb) [Download]


text:
Q: Repeat a string multiple times in an assignment With numbers you can multiply a number a certain number of times using the following code:
var y = 10;
var x = y * 3; // 30

Is there a way to do the same with strings with native methods?
var y = "test ";
var x = y * 3; // test test test

Or if not is there a succinct way to do this in a single line?

A: You could do:
var y = "test ";
y = y.repeat(3);

And this would give you "test test test "
String.repeat()

A: What would be "string"*3 in Python, can be done with "string".repeat(3) in Javascript.  That appears to be what you want.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Comic Clippings - 12 October
No internet most of yesterday and no internet most of today. Amazing how much actual work you can get done when all the distractions disappear!
I spent most of yesterday working on an audio recording of a fairy story. I kid you not. It's something we've been putting together for the Look and Learn web site and, fingers crossed, we will have five episodes all ready for broadcast, one episode a day, the week leading up to Christmas. The rough cut of the first episode sounded fantastic, and that's before the effects and music.
My reconnection to the outside world bought some good news. I put together an introduction to the upcoming Fleetway Picture Libraries book on The War Libraries last weekend and I've just had a note back from David Roach saying he's happy with it (some minor fluffs but nothing too major). So, the text will be heading off to the publisher shortly and I can put my feet up... sorry, that should read get down to work on the next one, which will be The Adventure Libraries, Thriller, Cowboy and Super Detective. We're actually aheada of schedule on the War Libraries book so maybe we can get it out before the rough release date we set ourselves (Spring 2007). It would be great if we could launch it at the next ABC show -- date to be confirmed but hopefully around February time.
I'm doing some more promotional stuff next week: on Monday around 10:40 am I should be blabbing about comics on BBC Radio Manchester. The studio at Colchester is turning into a second home...
More anon. In the meantime, a couple of snippets of news from around the web...
The Forbidden Planet blog has an interview with Joe Pruett who is editing The Art of Brian Bolland for Image which "is about Brian's life, from the 1950s when he was born to the present day. We originally planned for the book to be about 176 pages. Once we started working on it we decided to do it in a chronological order rather than break the book into chapters about specific characters, etc. By the time the book was finished we were over 300 pages! We then had to go through and pick through the DC Comics material to make sure we didn't have too much copyrighted material in the book. We added a few things back in and the book finished at 312 pages. Now THAT's an art book." It seems likely that this book is going to run late, although FP list the release date as 23 November 2006.
The latest (10th) issue of Spaceship Away is out now, clocking in at 44 pages, featuring Dan Dare, Hal Starr and Jet Morgan. A fabulous magazine, highly recommended, and one of the very few fanzines dedicated to classic (i.e. old) British comics even if it has a fairly limited focus. The only other two are Eagle Times (again, close focus on Dan Dare and Co.) and Jeff Hawke's Cosmos (guess what that one's about!). Ah, for the days of Golden Fun, The Illustrated Comics Journal and British Comics World...
Maud Miller
Giorgio De Gaspari
Dinah Lawrence
Rosemary Garland
Mick Hall
Peter Grey
Dennis Duckworth
Rex Dixon (Reginald Alec Martin)
Lesley Gordon
Daphne Going
Journey Into Space
C. D. Dimsdale
Harry Deverson
Hank Janson on Midsomer Murders
Gerald Bullett
Ernest Dudley
B. Christie-Murray
Sybil Burr
Brian Brason
Richard Bowood (Albert Scott Daniell)
Agnes Booth
Kathleen Binns
Christine Bernard
Dilys Beeston
Frank Baker
Rowan Ayers
Jack Borg
Comic Clippings - 8 October
Ronald Welch (Ronald Oliver Felton)
Random Notes on Look & Learn Artists 2
Barbara Wace
Comic Clippings - 3 October 2006


We are proud that our designs have been well-received by our professional colleagues. At the Junior League of Boston 1997 Decorators Showhouse at One Arlington Street in Boston, the room designed by Ann J Chapdelaine garnered rave reviews from the media and her peers.
But the highest measure of success is our client's satisfaction and willingness to refer us. In home design, our work with families has spanned generations. In servicing professional facilities, academic buildings, and historical structures, our considerable knowledge of period pieces has helped us produce stunning designs with clients' existing furniture and art.
When we work with you to create a beautiful home or professional building, the resulting design represents you, your family, or your organization appropriately, with taste and elegance. It's a high level of service that you deserve and we provide.


text:
Vol. VIII, No. 4
Tamuz 5610, July 1850
Hebrew Education Society of Philadelphia
At the annual meeting of the Hebrew Education Society of Philadelphia, held on Sunday, May 12th, 1850, the following resolution was adopted.
"Resolved, That the Editors of the Occident and Asmonean be requested to insert the Treasurer's report in their periodicals."
On the same day the following gentlemen were elected officers for the ensuing year. S. Solis, President; A. S. Wolf, Vice-President; A. Hart, Treasurer; Rev. I. Leeser, Secretary; D. Van Biel, Assistant Secretary; M. Nathans, H. Polack, Z. A. Davis, I. Binswanger, M. D. Cohen, M. Caufman, A. T. Jones, M. A. Dropsie, S. Elfelt, I. Hyneman, J. Newhouse, and D. Pesoa, Managers.
Very respectfully yours,
David Ban Biel, Sec. pro. tem.
Hebrew Education Society in account with Abraham Hart, Treasurer.
June 20, To cash paid President's order, No. 13, 14.44
Oct. 4, To cash paid for certificate, No. 30, of $1,000 City of Philadelphia 6 per cent. Gas Loan, payable in 1869, with interest payable semi-annually, per resolution of the Board of Managers. $1040.00
Feb. 20, To cash paid for certificate, No. 41, of $1,000 City of Philadelphia 6 per cent. Loan, payable in 1880, with interest payable semi-anually. 1008.50
-------- $2048.50
May 10, To balance this date, 256.12
May 20, By balance due this day as audited by Z. A. Davis and Abraham S. Wolf, $213.84
By amount brought forward,
Oct. 4, By cash received from Pennsylvania Insurance and Life Annuity Trust Company for amount of deposit, 785.36
Feb. 16, By cash received for this amount loaned Feb. 14, 1849, on interest and now repaid, 800.00
Feb. 16, By interest on $800, received to this date, $48.00
Feb. 16, By interest on $200, received to Aug. 14, 1849, 2.00
Feb. 16, By interest on $1,000 City 6 per cent. Gas Stock, to Jan. 1, 1850, less State tax, 28.50
-------- 78.50
Feb. 20, By cash received from Ball Committee, 1850, 266.86
May 1, By cash received from Ball Committee, 1849. 4.00
-------- 270.86
May 10, By cash received for donations since May 20, 1840, 48.50
May 10, By cash received for subscriptions 1840, 68.00
May 10, By balance, $256.12
E. E.
(Signed) A. Hart, Treasurer
Philadelphia, May 10, 1850.


But the reality is choices are dramatically different for people living in poverty compared to those with access to resources, writes Dr Tricia Keilthy.
POVERTY IS A very real and pervasive issue that affects the lives of tens of thousands of people in Ireland today. The latest CSO figures show that over 780,000 people are living below the poverty line. Particularly stark is that there are now 70,000 more children growing up in consistent poverty when compared to 2008.
This is unacceptable in a rich country like Ireland. But poverty tends to be an issue that is pushed down the political agenda and attempts to work towards change can be undermined by unhelpful media narratives, stereotypes and misunderstandings about the issues.
There is a dominant narrative that seeks to blame people for their circumstances; the result of a history of poor choices. But the reality is choices are dramatically different for people living in poverty compared to those with access to resources.
Resources, be they financial, social, cultural or educational, give people the freedom to make real choices about their future. Poverty rarely allows you to plan for the future, as your thoughts are consumed by how you will make your budget stretch to the end of the week, or how you will put food on the table today.
Relative poverty, which compares how people are faring relative to the society they live in, is the internationally recognised standard measure of poverty.
In Ireland, relative poverty is defined as having an income less than 60% of median income in the state or living on less than €237 per week. One problem with using this measure is that, during the recession when many people's income decreased, rates of income poverty stayed the same, but that didn't mean that those of the lowest incomes didn't suffer or were actually any better off.
That's why the second measure – deprivation – is also important as it indicates the number of basic essentials people are forced to go without such as heating, suitable clothing and nutritious food. During the crisis, deprivation increased by 75% for those on the lowest incomes but the rate has only fallen by 6% since 2013.
While these measures give us some sense of the scale of the issue, they don't show how poverty is an exhausting and endless struggle to make ends meet. It is the stress of having to choose between whether to pay the rent, the electricity bill, or pay for food.
It is the daily worry about whether the car will break down or someone will get sick, and then deciding which necessity will have to be sacrificed to pay for an unexpected bill.
These measures also do not tell anything about the impact. Research is clear that poverty is one of the greatest threats to children's well-being. Data from the nationally representative Growing up in Ireland study shows that experiences of poverty increases a child's risk of poor educational outcomes, physical health, and social and emotional well-being.
There is a need to find better ways of articulating and communicating that people's opportunities and choices are created or constrained by systemic and environmental factors. Your postcode, childhood experiences of (dis)advantage and the educational opportunities available to you all determine your later life outcomes.
By focusing the narrative on individuals and not on the structures and polices that create and perpetuate poverty, we create unnecessary divisions that are hurtful for all groups and communities in society.
Social and economic policies should be based on the belief that everyone should have equal rights and access to healthcare, social services, education and culture. This approach would provide the basis to address the structural barriers to quality employment such as low educational attainment, the lack of affordable housing and childcare, discrimination in the labour market and the issues of low paid and precarious work.
An adequate social protection floor that protects the unemployed and retired from undue hardship, that values caring work and that supports those who cannot access employment due to an illness or disability ensures people fulfils the basic human right of living with dignity.
As well as the moral argument for addressing poverty, there is also the strong economic case. By investing in citizens through good quality public services that provide a pathway out of poverty, everyone benefits.
The OECD agrees that economic models which promote equality not only reduce inequalities in income and wealth, they also promote full employment, improve living standards for all, and contributes to economic growth.
Finally, and importantly, we need to include the voice of people who are experiencing poverty and marginalisation in decision making. Listening to real-life situations changes our attitudes and understanding of poverty.
This will make for a more inclusive and diverse national discourse on the type of Irish society we all want to live in.
Dr Tricia Keilthy is Head of Social Justice at St Vincent de Paul. SVP launch its Pre-Budget Submission 'Paving a Pathway out of Poverty' today.
Email "Poverty: 'There is a dominant narrative that seeks to blame people for their circumstances'".
Feedback on "Poverty: 'There is a dominant narrative that seeks to blame people for their circumstances'".


A game that we had great success with, was a dry version of marco polo, but it needs to be played at night.
You can create an arena using tables turned on their side (this also helps with safety).
Then you pick who starts as "it" turn off the lights & play like you were in the pool.
When someone is tagged, they , as well as the one searching, say out loud "FREEZE". At this point you turn on the lights. No one is allowed to move again until the lights go back out.
Its easy, free & the Teens loved it.


Do the Provisions of the Judicial Code Automatically Apply in Eminent Domain Cases? The Commonwealth Court Recently Said No. - McNees Wallace & Nurick LLC.
Do the Provisions of the Judicial Code Automatically Apply in Eminent Domain Cases? The Commonwealth Court Recently Said No.
On June 22, 2016, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court decided the case of Township of Millcreek v. Angela Cres Trust of June 25, 1998, 1725 C.D. 2015, which decided whether 42 Pa.C.S. § 5505 applies to eminent domain cases. Section 5505 provides, in pertinent part, "[e]xcept as otherwise provided or prescribed by law, a court upon notice to the parties may modify or rescind any award within 30 days of its entry…except as otherwise provided or prescribed by law." Such a provision would typically apply to, for example, a party's request that a trial order be modified to include attorneys' fees, when such fees were not ascertainable until after the trial. Practitioners have become accustomed to the provisions of the judicial code automatically applying to almost all cases. So why was there any question whether 42 Pa.C.S. § 5505 applies to eminent domain cases?
In Millcreek, the Township of Millcreek filed a Declaration of Taking to condemn a portion of the property of the Angela Cres Trust of June 25, 1988 (the "Trust") as part of a project to improve the Township's storm water management system. The Trust filed preliminary objections to the declaration of taking pursuant to what is now Section 306 of the Pennsylvania Eminent Domain Code, 26 Pa.C.S. § 306. (Recall, that preliminary objections in the context of eminent domain, as set forth in Section 306, are different than preliminary objections in a typical civil action under Pennsylvania Rule of Civil Procedure 1028.) The Trust utilized the preliminary objections under Section 306 to argue that the improvement of the Township's storm water management system was not a permissible basis for a condemnation under the Second Class Township Code. The Court of Common Pleas of Erie County agreed with the Trust, and on appeal, the Commonwealth Court affirmed the lower court's decision. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied allocatur on October 12, 2012.
Over a year later, on October 23, 2013, the Trust filed a petition seeking reimbursement of its fees, costs, and expenses by the Township. The Trust relied on paragraph (g) of Section 306, which states: "If preliminary objections which have the effect of terminating the condemnation are sustained, the condemnor shall reimburse the condemnee for reasonable appraisal, attorney and engineering fees and other costs and expenses actually incurred because of the condemnation proceedings." The Township responded by asserting the petition was untimely because, under 42 Pa.C.S. § 5505, the Trust only had 30 days after the trial court's order sustaining the preliminary objections to file the petition. The Erie County Court of Common Pleas disagreed, and awarded the Trust $517,868 in attorneys' fees and $164,000 in expert fees. The Township appealed to the Commonwealth Court.
The Commonwealth Court affirmed the trial court's decision. In affirming the decision, the Commonwealth Court pointed out that Section 102(a) of the Eminent Domain Code specifically provides that the Code is the "complete and exclusive procedure and law to be followed in condemnation proceedings." Because Section 306(g) does not prescribe a time period when a fee and cost petition must be filed, the Trust's petition was timely. The Court specifically rejected the assertion that 42 Pa.C.S. § 5505 applies to eminent domain proceedings.
In addition to providing guidance on when a condemnee must file a fee/cost petition, Millcreek also gives a glimpse into how the Court will view the application of other provisions of the judicial code to eminent domain proceedings.
 At the time Millcreek was filed, the Eminent Domain Code had not yet been amended. The provisions relevant to this case, however, remain the same but have been renumbered and reordered under the current version of the Code. To avoid confusion, this article will reference the current citations to the applicable provisions.
 The Trust also filed a cross-appeal, asserting that the trial court erred by not awarding the full amount of its requested damages.


Case Studies. Catalyst have had finajcing 11 years experience in helping companies grow and find venture vengure funding. This post on case study on venture capital financing Venture Capital Books is to give you a heads up on venture capital. Havard Business School Case Studies If I can recall. There is a noticeable gap when it comes to nickname essay, innovation and technology.
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This vintage 1960's ATLANTIC WORLDMASTER Swiss watch is quite large, measuring 37.5mm. across in chrome plated and steel and has a glossy, striking and (amazing looking) ORIGINAL black dial with gold gilt print, elongated DAUPHINE handes and 12, 3, 6, 9 configuration. The wording "Super Deluxe" is written in red. The case on this watch is very thin at only 10mm. including the crystal. The crown is original. The screw back is stainless steel. The manual winding 21 jewel gilt SWISS movement was just cleaned and is accurate. Any age marks on the case in the photos are MUCH less visible in person. This is a very sleek looking watch on the wrist.


text:
Q: Problem creating database using default mdf and ldf path I'm trying to create a database using the default paths on several SQL Servers at once.
To achieve this I'm trying to use a script that should create the database on each server, however I've run into some difficulties trying to use a variable for the file paths.
Declare @logpath nvarchar(256),
        @datapath nvarchar(256),
        @filenameLog nvarchar(256),
        @filenamedata nvarchar(256);

SET @logpath = (select
                   LEFT(physical_name, LEN(physical_name) - CHARINDEX('\', REVERSE(physical_name)) + 1)
                from sys.master_files
                where name = 'modeldev')

SET @datapath = (select
                    LEFT(physical_name, LEN(physical_name)  - CHARINDEX('\', REVERSE(physical_name)) + 1)
                 from sys.master_files
                 where name = 'modellog')

set @filenamelog = @logpath + 'test.ldf'
set @filenamedata = @datapath + 'test.mdf'

CREATE DATABASE [test]
 CONTAINMENT = NONE
 ON  PRIMARY
  ( NAME = test, FILENAME = @filenamedata , SIZE = 51200KB , FILEGROWTH = 10240KB )
 LOG ON
  ( NAME = test_log, FILENAME = @filenamelog , SIZE = 5120KB , FILEGROWTH = 5120KB )
GO

This gives:

Msg 102, Level 15, State 1, Line 14
  Incorrect syntax near '@filenamedata'.

What am I missing? I feel like it's something obvious staring right at me but I can't seem to find it.
My source for this script was an msdn article here!

A: Try using dynamic sql:
SET @createDatabase = 'CREATE DATABASE [test] ON PRIMARY CONTAINMENT = NONE
( NAME = N''test'', FILENAME = ''' + @filenamedata + ''', SIZE = 51200KB , FILEGROWTH = 10240KB
)
LOG ON
( NAME = N''test_log'', FILENAME = ''' + @filenamelog + ''' , SIZE = 5120KB , FILEGROWTH = 5120KB
)'

EXEC sp_executesql @createDatabase

Another member had a similar problem a while back.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5202257/create-a-database-with-dynamic-database-name-in-sql-server-2005


text:
package com.sample;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.logging.Level;
import java.util.logging.Logger;
import javax.annotation.Resource;
import javax.ejb.EJB;
import javax.servlet.ServletException;
import javax.servlet.annotation.WebServlet;
import javax.servlet.http.*;

import org.wildfly.clustering.dispatcher.Command;

import org.wildfly.clustering.dispatcher.CommandDispatcherFactory;
import org.wildfly.clustering.dispatcher.CommandResponse;
import org.wildfly.clustering.group.Group;
import org.wildfly.clustering.group.Node;

/**
 *
 * @author francesco
 */
@WebServlet(name = "TestCommandCluster", urlPatterns = {"/TestCommandCluster"})
public class TestCommandCluster extends HttpServlet {

    @Resource(lookup = "java:jboss/clustering/group/web")
    private Group channelGroup;

    @Resource(lookup = "java:jboss/clustering/dispatcher/web")
    private CommandDispatcherFactory factory;

    private final Command<String, Node> command = new GarbageCollectorCommand();
    /**
     * Processes requests for both HTTP GET and POST
     * methods.
     *
     * @param request servlet request
     * @param response servlet response
     * @throws ServletException if a servlet-specific error occurs
     * @throws IOException if an I/O error occurs
     */
    @EJB
    CommandDispatcherBean ejb;

    protected void processRequest(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
            throws ServletException, IOException {
        PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
        try {
            List<Node> nodes = channelGroup.getNodes();
            Map<Node, CommandResponse<String>> map = ejb.executeOnCluster(command, null);

            for (Map.Entry<Node, CommandResponse<String>> entry : map.entrySet()) {
                out.println(entry.getValue() + " executed on " + entry.getKey());
            }

        } catch (Exception ex) {
            Logger.getLogger(TestCommandCluster.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
        }

        out.close();
    }

    // <editor-fold defaultstate="collapsed" desc="HttpServlet methods. Click on the + sign on the left to edit the code.">
    /**
     * Handles the HTTP GET method.
     *
     * @param request servlet request
     * @param response servlet response
     * @throws ServletException if a servlet-specific error occurs
     * @throws IOException if an I/O error occurs
     */
    @Override
    protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
            throws ServletException, IOException {
        processRequest(request, response);
    }

    /**
     * Handles the HTTP POST method.
     *
     * @param request servlet request
     * @param response servlet response
     * @throws ServletException if a servlet-specific error occurs
     * @throws IOException if an I/O error occurs
     */
    @Override
    protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)
            throws ServletException, IOException {
        processRequest(request, response);
    }

    /**
     * Returns a short description of the servlet.
     *
     * @return a String containing servlet description
     */
    @Override
    public String getServletInfo() {
        return "Short description";
    }// </editor-fold>

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


More than one million people viewed our Game of Thrones VFX breakdown on Vimeo. This reel shows "before and after" for some of the 150 shots that we created for the 4th season of this acclaimed TV series. Rodeo FX first participation to the cult series was also recently rewarded with an Emmy Award in the "Outstanding Visual Effects" category.
In addition to creating the city of Meereen – the largest and greatest of the three great city-states of Slaver's Bay-, Rodeo FX generated in CG the massive army that attacks it, conceived a series of spectacular matte paintings, and created a zombie-horse, among other visual effects shots.
Broadcasted by HBO last spring, the 10-episode series reached more than 7 million viewers weekly in United States only, a record audience. The 5th season is currently being shot in Belfast, Northern Ireland, among other filming locations.


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Travel Guide • Europe • ITALY • Bologna
Bologna: city of knowledge
Discover Bologna and surroundings
City of culture, dolce vita and good food, Bologna is full of surprises, easy to discover when taking the time to wander the narrow streets and stroll under the archways. The city will delight you with a particular art de vivre and fantastic cultural heritage.
Bologna has many nicknames: the Learned, the Fat, the Red…So many terms to describe this medieval city which is also capital of the Emilia-Romagna region and the seventh largest city in Italia.
La dotta (the learned one) welcomes about 100,000 students, predominantly Italian, French, Spanish and German, who make for a quarter of the entire population and sit every day on the benches of the oldest University in Europe. As centuries went by, the University of Bologna saw many prestigious names fill its ranks, like Petrarch, Erasmus and Copernicus. In more recent times, Umberto Eco taught semiotics in this centre of excellence, whose buildings are filled with history.
The city also knows how to throw a party. When the night falls, the narrow streets come alive and people gather to have coffee or drinks. At a street corner, or under an archway, little osterias become more numerous and you will want to try the traditional aperitivo: order a drink, and for a few euros more all-you-can-eat antipasti. Inhabitants of la Grassa (the fat one) give a place of honour to gastronomy and food. Restaurants serve tortellini, mortadella ham and of course many local specialities like the famous tagliatelle con ragù alla Bolognese.
Typically Italian, Bologna is a warm, dynamic and glimmering city. However, to enjoy calm and serenity, you will have to leave the city centre. For instance, you could revel in the beautiful vista from the top of the hill that leads to the Madonna di San Luca sanctuary. With its rooftops made of red tiles and ochre buildings, Bologna becomes la Rossa (the red one), a serene city that just unveils one of its many facets.
Practical Information about Bologna
FESTIVALS, HOLIDAYS AND OTHER ANNUAL EVENTS IN Bologna
CLIMATE AND WEATHER IN Bologna
INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT IN BOLOGNA
GETTING AROUND Bologna
Bologna addresses
Sophisticated cocktails at Casa Minghetti
Mozzabella, true Bologna pizza
Delight your five senses in Bologna
city break - unique
The Asinelli tower, the highest in Bologna
Vestiges of the past at the I Portici Hotel
The charms of the historical centre
Diana: retro cuisine
Discover the National Pinacotheca
MAMbo: Italian Contemporary Art to the forefront
Ferrare, gem of the Po Valley
Bologna's film library: as archives go by
Cultural heritage of Bologna University
Bologna map


text:
Timeless Thoughts: American Idol
April 16, 2016 June 6, 2016 Kaela Nostalgia, Pop Culture
The American Idol Season 15 finale and supposed last-ever episode aired last week so I thought I'd talk about it for this month's Timeless Thoughts. It made me quite emotional because I've been watching this show since I was in elementary school. It will feel strange not looking forward to a new season next January.
Though I wasn't a completely loyal fan having missed a few seasons, I still got to experience the show in its peak. I was a constant visitor at VoteForTheWorst.com during its strongest years, was familiar with some fan terms and the whole WGWG thing when it started, and even managed to put up a fansite to support my favorite contestant: David Archuleta.
The show used to be such a staple in my household. We would gather as a family to watch. Yes, it would get suuuupper cheesy at times but that's part of the fun of it!
I still remember being in elementary school and freaking out when I saw Jasmine Trias in a mall show. Though, not in person as my mom and I had to leave before her show started! That was the first of many memories to come from this show.
My Personal American Idol statistics:
Started Watching: Top 5 show (I think?) of Season 3
Favorite Season: Season 7
Favorite contestants: Colton Dixon, David Archuleta, Blake Lewis, Siobhan Magnus, JAX, and Dalton Rapattoni.
Idols I've Watched in Concert: David Archuleta, David Cook, Colton Dixon, and Jessica Sanchez
Idols I've Seen in Person (but have not met up close): Phillip Phillips, Joshua Ledet, and Skylar Laine
Idols I've Met: Colton Dixon and David Archuleta
My Favorites: (L – R, Top) Colton Dixon, JAX, Dalton Rapattoni (L- R, Bottom) Siobhan Magnus, David Archuleta, Blake Lewis
Some moments featuring my favorite contestants:
Did you watch American Idol too? If so, what season were you most invested in?
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3 thoughts on "Timeless Thoughts: American Idol"
I never got into American Idol. I watched some of Britain's Got Talent and preferred that over AI. Still, I know AI is pretty popular, and like you having memories of the show, I have fond memories of discovering Paul Potts, Susan Boyle, Connie Talbot, and Shaheen Jafargholi. It's interesting how shows can become a huge part of us 🙂
We used to watch it more in the earlier seasons. Mind you I wasn't exactly big on it, but I'd watch with my mom and stuff sometimes.
My mom started to get fed up with it and stopped watching. Same here, but I never was huge on it like I said. I'm not big on reality tv.
Maroon Caludin recently posted…Stupid flu!
I have never watched American Idol, but did watch Australian Idol for a while. It did not last as long as that one did. It's sad when a show ends, especially one that has been around for so long and you find yourself having some routine associated with it. At least you have the memories. 😀
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Recap: March


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Modeling Cryptoeconomic Protocols as Complex Systems - Part 1
In my previous post, we explored the design of The Graph Network in-depth and touched on several focus areas for future research. One of these areas was modeling and simulation, a process we consider essential to correctly parameterizing and hardening the assumptions in our protocol. In this two-part series, we explore the challenges with modeling cryptoeconomic protocols using traditional economic approaches with closed-form solutions and discuss how to leverage tools from engineering and social sciences to aid in the design of a complex protocol.
We're also excited to announce that we'll be working with the BlockScience team to model and simulate The Graph.
Cryptoeconomic Design
Let's begin by reviewing what we mean when we refer to cryptoeconomic design.
In designing cryptoeconomic systems, we apply theory and mechanisms from economics alongside many of the tools and concepts from computer science that enable cryptocurrency, such as distributed systems and cryptography.
Our goal is to design self-organizing systems, comprising networks of interacting human and autonomous agents, that sustainably optimize for one or more objective functions.
The objective function is the raison d'etre for a protocol or application, and it can be virtually anything. In Giveth, for example, the objective function being maximized is presumably the amount of charitable giving on the platform. For service protocols, the goal is to provide a high-quality service—indexing and querying decentralized data in the case of The Graph—to any consumer who is willing to pay for it, at the lowest possible price.
A cryptoeconomic protocol comprises incentives, rules, and interfaces.
The agents in these systems self-organize in response to incentives, which are chosen to motivate the behaviors needed for the protocol to function. These behaviors, in turn, are constrained by the rules and interfaces of the protocol.
Vitalik Buterin, who coined the term "cryptoeconomics," notes that an important limitation is that we may only set rules that are expressible and enforceable in a software program. This means we can't put people in jail, prevent bribery, or monitor collusion. We also don't get to mandate any agent's behavior in the system—we can simply influence it indirectly through well-chosen incentives.
Our challenge is to choose the right incentives, rules, and interfaces such that agents in our system, whom we do not control, self-organize in a way that fulfills the purpose of our protocol.
Economic Mechanisms, Models, and Assumptions
To understand why cryptoeconomic design demands the rigorous simulation process that we will describe in part two, we must first review what mechanisms and models the traditional economic toolkit makes available to us and the key assumptions upon which they rest.
A common concern of many cryptoeconomic protocols is the exchange of goods and services, as well as the allocation of resources. As is done in traditional economics, these questions may be resolved through market mechanisms.
For example, Bitcoin allocates a scarce resource—space for transactions within a block—using a first-price auction, a mechanism which has been researched in the context of internet applications for decades. In service protocols like The Graph, where market transactions take place off-chain, something like a negotiated market may be a more suitable mechanism, and we can draw on vast literature on algorithmic negotiation.
Not all behaviors neatly fit into a market paradigm. Nonetheless, behaviors can still be economically incentivized using other mechanisms, such as the inflationary block reward used to incentivize mining in blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Behaviors also may be disincentivized. For example, proof of stake protocols do so directly by "slashing" a bond submitted by a validator in response to the validator's misbehavior, while proof of work protocols do so indirectly by imposing an opportunity cost on miners who don't mine blocks on top of the correct chain.
At the heart of most economic models dealing with human behavior lies the notion of expected utility. Utility is a numerical representation of how much an individual values a particular choice or outcome.
For example, consider a diagram like the one above, representing the prisoner's dilemma game. The different cells in the matrix represent possible outcomes of the game and the utility of that outcome for each player respectively. In order to predict the strategies that players will deploy, game theory assumes that players attempt to maximize their expected utility.
Often, preferences for a given choice are modeled by a utility function, and it is assumed that individuals seek to maximize this utility subject to a set of constraints. In other words, we are solving a constrained optimization problem.
For instance, in consumer choice theory, a central question is what bundle of goods should a consumer choose, given a set of prices for those bundles and a budget.
A similar approach is also used in general equilibrium models of a market, which predict equilibrium outcomes based on the aggregate behavior of many individuals and firms who are all solving constrained optimization problems.
An important consequence of these models is that equilibria will be economically efficient, which is to say goods and services are allocated in a way that is optimal. This is quite a neat result, but one which must be interpreted judiciously.
These models imply that by leveraging market mechanisms, one needn't know how to manually optimize the objective function defined as part of our system. We simply create the conditions by which the knowledge and actions distributed among the agents in our system lead to an efficient outcome. This provides a normative guide to how we might design a market that trends toward efficiency, but it doesn't guarantee an accurate description for how our system will behave unless we are willing to take for granted numerous, often suspect, assumptions.
Assumptions and Limitations
There are many assumptions that are built into general equilibrium theory models of the economy, but here are just a few that bear mentioning:
Full Rationality
Our market comprises rational, utility-maximizing participants.
Agents in our system have perfect information.
No Nonlinearities
No monopolistic behavior or network effects exist.
There are many reasons to doubt the above assumptions. For example, countless experiments in the field of behavioral economics suggest we are not rational utility maximizers.
A simpler reason to mistrust the first two assumptions is that the human brain has finite computation and storage capacity. Furthermore, information isn't perfectly distributed, but rather reaches us through social and technological networks. In other words, we make decisions with bounded rationality and partial information.
As for monopolistic behavior and network effects, examples of these are plentiful in the real world, and often go hand in hand. This is because industries with network effects tend to have winner-take-all dynamics. Also, in the cryptoeconomic setting, we don't have the luxury of antitrust laws to prevent monopolies for the same reasons that we can't prevent bribery or collusion.
So what are the consequences of rejecting the above assumptions?
The straightforward answer is that it undermines the specific models mentioned in the previous section. The not-so-obvious answer is more meta. Rejecting the above assumptions actually calls into question our ability to correctly model the aggregate behavior using any top-down statistical or closed-form analytical model.
This is because rejecting the above assumptions actually implies that economic systems are complex. To understand why that matters, let's take a brief tour of complexity.
Complexity describes systems that exhibit behaviors and properties that are not predicted by the constituent components. Or as Aristotle put it:
"Many things have a plurality of parts and are not merely a complete aggregate but instead some kind of a whole beyond its parts."
An image of the emergent patterns of a starling murmuration in flight. Or check out this video.
Take for example the awe-inspiring patterns formed by starlings in flight. It would be impossible to predict the emergent behaviors of the entire flock from examining a single starling. In complex systems, it's the local interactions between all the interconnected components that lead to unexpected results.
The study of complexity has roots in general systems thinking, a movement pioneered by economist Kenneth Boulding and described in Gerald Weinberg's seminal 1975 book, An Introduction to General Systems Thinking. In it, he describes how, in the absence of any simplifying assumptions, the computation required to model any system grows exponentially with respect to the number of constituent interrelated parts.
Consider the study of planetary motion. A high schooler can calculate the motion of a planet around the sun using pen and paper, while the three-body problem lacks any closed-form solution.
To deal with these challenges, scientists have traditionally employed two classical techniques inspired by prior successes in the field of physics: Reducing the number of parts under consideration or using statistical analysis to only examine aggregate properties and behaviors of the system.
The reductionist approach works well when a part can be isolated from other parts and the influence of other parts can be safely ignored, such as we do when ignoring the gravitational pull of individual asteroids when computing the motion of the Earth around the sun.
The statistical approach works well when there are so many homogenous parts that the average behavior of a system is highly predictable, even if the behavior of individual parts is unknown. For example, consider the laws governing the average behavior of a gas, which can relate properties like pressure and volume without accounting for the position and velocity of any individual atoms and molecules. These are systems in which the law of large numbers applies.
Most systems of interest to the social sciences, including economics, are medium number systems: Systems that have an irreducible number of interacting parts and whose parts are too heterogenous to support statistical analysis. Today, we would call these systems complex.
Complexity in Economics
In modeling systems, economists leverage both the reductionist and the statistical approach. For example, the prisoner's dilemma game we showed earlier captures the individual actions of two players in a game. Such a setup permits a bottom-up analysis of the equilibrium behavior. However, computing an equilibrium in general is computationally hard and as the number of players increases, games even exhibit chaotic behavior.
Thus for modeling systems with many agents, economists have relied on the top-down statistical approach. Revisiting the assumptions from economics we covered earlier, we can see that one advantage of modeling humans as rational agents with perfect information is that it justifies the statistical approach by implying a high degree of homogeneity in the behaviors of agents in our system.
This mismatch of theory and reality, modeling a medium number system as one in which the law of large numbers applies, can have disastrous consequences. This is because it gives us a false sense of confidence that we have correctly modeled the system, leading to decisions that further exacerbate the effects of emergent phenomena.
For example, in the lead up to the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis, ratings agencies used flawed assumptions that ignored complexity in the housing market to assert that "80% of a collection of toxic subprime tranches were the ratings equivalent of U.S. Government bonds," as Kyle Bass of Hayman Capital Advisors put it in his testimony to Congress. Investors, driven by their belief in these models, took massive leveraged bets on subprime mortgages, leading to even more subprime mortgages being issued than had the models not existed in the first place.
The modern philosopher and mathematician Nassim Taleb popularized the term black swan to refer to such unforeseen events, in particular those whose effects are made stronger by nonlinearities. Nonlinearity describes systems where small variations of some input can lead to massive and disproportionate changes in some output. Nonlinearity is often associated with winner-take-all mechanics and network effects, which as discussed previously, are assumed to not be present by traditional economic models.
Another example of nonlinearity is in systemic risk or "too-big to fail," as was also seen following the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis. Companies like American International Group (AIG) had to be bailed out because allowing them to fail would be disastrous to the system as a whole, whereas letting a company a tenth the size fail would have caused far less than a tenth of the damage.
In some respects, our task as cryptoeconomic designers is even more challenging than that of traditional economists. When the subprime mortgage crisis hit, central bankers were able to take extraordinary measures to put the economy on track, and legislators subsequently passed legislation intended to make sure it would never happen again. With cryptoeconomic protocols, a primary design goal is to make such extraordinary interventions impossible or extremely difficult. Otherwise, a small group of individuals would be able to undermine the system. This makes it all the more important that we predict and attempt to mitigate possible failure modes during our design phase.
So, where does this leave us? We have to acknowledge that the systems we are modeling are complex, and that this complexity poses inherent challenges to any top-down statistical model that ignores the inherent interconnectedness and heterogeneity of our system. A bottom-up approach that accounts for the dynamics of each individual part of the system would be far more preferable, but for most non-trivial cases, computing an exact bottom-up solution describing the behavior of our system is computationally intractable.
In part two, we'll explore how we can borrow techniques from engineering and the social sciences, in particular dynamic systems models and agent-based models, to simulate how our system could behave using a bottom-up approach rather than trying to compute an exact solution. We'll also explore how we plan to apply these tools for modeling and simulating The Graph. See you there!
Graph Protocol
Brandon Ramirez


Inspired by the invitation of Serpentine Gallery, London (UK), Friedman embellished London on these postcards using his 'Scribbles', i.e. Trafalgar Square.
Inspired by the invitation of Serpentine Gallery, London (UK), Friedman used a postcard for a montage of a Ville Spatiale over the River Thames.


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Kachari Fort is a prominent historic memorial, which is located in the district of Silchar at Khaspur. These ruins give evidence of a culture that probably had a touch of Hinduism, but were predominantly Non-Aryan. Besides monoliths, Dimapur contains other ruins of temples, embankments and baths.
In the 18th Century, Khaspur came under the Dimasa Kachari rule when the Koch king (who till then ruled over the area) died without an heir. Once it was under the Dimasa Kachari kings, the Kachari's made this their capital and later constructed the Kachari Fort.


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Three Cups Deep: Week 10, Lions at Vikings
>> 11.13.2012
Fire is mysterious. It burns, it sears, it destroys—and it heals. You know me to be a man of facts, of analysis, of numbers and science and truth. But I'm also a man of emotion, perception, and faith in ultimate justice. There are times when truth is inescapable, and times when it is ineffable. There are times to rely on intellect, and times to open up to what we don't know.
After nine games the Lions are one game below .500, and the Lions fanbase is wounded. We watched the Vikings again grind out an improbable victory, again saw the offense flail ineffectively as the defense stood tall, and again saw huge Vikings touchdowns nullify a spectacular fourth-quarter offensive awakening.
Once again, the Lions fanbase is crying in pain, dazed and struggling for answers. Are the Lions a good team, playing below expectations and falling victim to circumstance? Are the Lions an overrated team, a castle built on sand, heading for another complete collapse? Are the Lions a young team, experiencing growing pains as they learn to win? Or are these manifestations of that poltergiest undisciplinedness; Mikel Leshoure's offseason pot habit mischievously causing Stafford to throw a pick, Ponder to throw deep spirals, Megatron to fumble and Adrian Peterson to reel off 120 yards in the last 15 minutes?
There is an ancient art of healing called fire cupping, which if you saw the Karate Kid reboot you know what I'm talking about: a lick of flame in a glass jar pressed against skin, causing a partial vacuum that bursts capillaries and rushes life-giving blood to the patient's afflicted body part. Science, it isn't. But in this case a little mysticism, a little blue flame, is exactly what Lions fans need.
While the treatment might be ineffable, the disease is not. The Lions offense is, statistically, still among the best in the NFL. They've gained the third-most yards, scored the 13th-most points, are ranked 6th in overall offense by Pro Football Focus, fifth in Offensive Expected Points Added and ninth in Offensive Win Probability Added. But anyone watching sees a much less effective offense.
The Lions are ranked 20th in average yards-per-attempt, tied with the league average at 7.2 YpA. This is down from 12th (7.8 YpA) in 2011. The Lions are a little bit better when interceptions and touchdowns are factored in: They rank 15th in the NFL in Adjusted YpA, at 7.0--but they ranked 7th in the NFL last season with 7.8 AYpA. The most telling stat of all? Yards per Completion, where the Lions dropped from 14th (12.0 YpC) to 23rd (11.4 YpC). Nevertheless, the Lions lead the NFL in passing attempts, just as they did last season.
So: the Lions are throwing the ball much less farther down the field, and they're doing it less effectively. For the first three quarters of nearly every game, Matthew Stafford is able to hit the broad side of a barn, but it seems like he's only able to hit the broad side of a barn.
In prior games, Stafford's problem has been his ineffectiveness on third down. The Lions were again dreadful on third down (1-of-9, 11%) against the Vikings, but that was because they were so often dreadful on first down, especially in the first half.
By my count, the Lions faced 35 first downs on Sunday, 17 in the first half. Of those, they rushed 9 times at 3.1 YpC (10 at 3.7 including a Stafford scramble), and passed 7 times at 6.71 YpA. In the first quarter, the Lions lined up for a first down, and were held to two yards or less five times. That's just not good enough. Putting the offense in constant second-and-long and third-and-long situations is going to result in punts.
Punts kill defenses.
Through the first seven quarters the Lions faced the Vikings in 2012, the Lions allowed 153 rushing yards and no touchdowns from Adrian Peterson, and 312 passing yards and 1 touchdown from Christian Ponder. That's 106 offensive plays, an average of 4.39 yards per play, and seven offensive points.
In the last quarter, the dam burst: the Lions allowed 120 yards and a touchdown to Adrian Peterson, plus a 20-yard touchdown pass to Christian Ponder. That's 15 offensive plays, an average of 9.33 yards, and 18 offensive points.
The Lions are an offensive team. It is built to score 28-plus points every time it takes the field. This Lions defense is an aggressive defense, built to ravage teams playing catch-up. Asking them to completely deny Adrian Peterson any yards and the end zone for eight quarters is asking too much. Asking this defense to shut down the run and suffocate the pass for eight quarters is too much. Asking this defense to make up for a cornucopia of punts and turnovers committed by a 200-million-dollar offense is too much.
Stafford and the offense have to stop playing scared in the first quarter, and incandescently in the fourth. Stafford has to stop breaking down and rolling out and flushing away when he's got the second-best pass protection in the NFL.
But what, you ask, is the good news? That the incandescent play of Stafford & Co. is still there. That the switch is still able to be flipped. That when push comes to shove, these coaches, these players, and these schemes can still rip other teams to shreds. As long as all the elements are in place, anything is possible—even making the playoffs.
Before you scoff, remember: the Lions have made the playoffs from unlikelier circumstances.
posted by Ty Schalter at 12:39 PM
tags: detroit lions, minnesota vikings, three cups deep
Anonymous, November 13, 2012 at 7:02 PM
What is wrong with the Lions?
On defense, it is the number of injuries in the secondary coupled with poor depth, and specifically, the absence of Delmas. Without Delmas in the secondary, the Lions are hard pressed to stop decent offenses until the field is compressed in their own red zone. Peterson would not have run for a long gain/touchdown with a healthy Delmas in the secondary, guaranteed.
On Offense, it may be a case of trying too hard to fix problems that don't need fixing and getting away from what has worked in the past (or even in the 4th quarter). There is a substantial element of luck involved in winning a football game, and the best teams talent wise do not always win because of how the ball bounced on a particular play. And when the team starts loosing, the tendency is to throw out or diminish what has worked before and replace it with what presumptuously will fix a "problem", but the original, real problem was just bad luck, not what they originally were doing.
Early in the season, it appeared the Lions were running even though at times it was ineffective, but I thought it would pay dividends later in the year, as they improved. The running does seem to have improved with LeShoure and Bell but it has been at the expense of Schefler, who typically is replaced by Reiff when they run now. Replacing 5 to 15 yard passes to a TE with 2 to 5 yard runs by a RB, may not be sufficient to overcome penalties or incomplete passes, and thus the poor 3rd down stats.
As I've said before, I get the feeling that many of the players are just trying too hard to make plays and need to just loosen up a bit. I still think the Lions can make the playoffs either as a wildcard or a division champ but it has to start by beating GB.
The Correct 1, November 13, 2012 at 7:14 PM
E, November 14, 2012 at 11:58 AM
Delmas was on the field for Lynch's huge run.
E, November 14, 2012 at 12:06 PM
Like the analysis but it goes without saying that if Stafford plays consistently better the Lions will do better. That holds for the quarterback of every other team. Not something that happens by wishing for it.
Yes, but if I remember, he got boxed in by a bunch of other players and teamates and couldn't extract himself from the congestion until it was too late. Not sure whether he was in the proper "position" but only the coaching staff knows.
Against Peterson, Silva was out in the open, but still couldn't make the play. Tis the price you pay when you have to rely on a bunch of inexperienced rookies with limited abilities to make plays. But as usual, if one player screws up, then the bloggers/media trash the entire team and always the coaching.
Nick Cramer, November 14, 2012 at 7:43 PM
Ty,
I will toss this one to you. My roommate insists that the Lions are only a good offense in the forth quarter because the opposing team is play prevent defense that typically lets anyone move the ball and score. I argued with him a few time about it but I am really beginning to believe that he might be right. Not that most offenses could do what we do in the forth, we still get deep against Defenses that are designed not to let you get deep, but it seems to me to be more of an issue of Stafford just not being able to read a real defense. When we get to the forth quarter and they start playing vanilla defenses as part of the prevent he lights it up but when he is facing the real complex defenses in the early quarters or when we are not yet behind by double digits he is just not seeing the field. What is your take?
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