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Building an Inventory Management Database with the Kubernetes API Server and Custom Resources
Published Jan 17, 2019 • 13 min read
By Jonathan Owens and Maryum Styles
In the operations world, inventory management is an unglamorous but essential task that answers basic questions: Which machines belong to which teams? Which machines are in service? How long have they been there? Getting useful answers to these questions, however, can be a struggle—especially when a team operates in a dynamic and rapidly scaling environment.
This is exactly the situation New Relic's container orchestration team—known internally as Container Fabric—recently faced. Our solution, which leverages the Kubernetes API server and support for custom resource definitions, gives us a far more robust and scalable way to handle inventory management—and as we'll explain, the same capabilities are useful for a number of other applications, as well.
(Be sure to check out our video replay below of "Kubernetes the Database," the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon 2018 conference presentation from which this post was adapted.)
The challenge: staying ahead of an expanding fabric
The New Relic Container Fabric team builds and maintains the company's internal platform for deploying and maintaining containerized services. Our developers push code from their laptops in containers, and we run those containers on our platform.
The environment this team manages isn't massive by modern enterprise standards, but it's large and growing rapidly. We currently manage about 1,000 machines, most of which run on physical hardware spread across three infrastructure providers, including our own bare-metal data center. In addition, we recently expanded our infrastructure with a dedicated European region—a necessary move that added a new source of complexity.
As the Container Fabric platform grows, our current approach to inventory management is likely to create an operational bottleneck. Operating across multiple regions, for example, has increased the number of secure network connections our orchestration services must traverse.
To create a single source of truth for our orchestration services, we used the Kubernetes API server's custom object definition capabilities to devise a new inventory management solution. It's more efficient and far more scalable—allowing Container Fabric to grow along with the rest of New Relic. Better still, this solution is based on familiar technology—and we have already found ways to leverage the same technology for other applications.
The trouble with inventory at scale
The Container Fabric software environment currently runs on Mesosphere DC/OS: an open-source, distributed operating system, built with Apache Mesos, that uses Marathon to provide container orchestration services.
Container Fabric was developed prior to Kubernetes' emergence into the mainstream. We selected DC/OS at a time when it was the most stable and reliable option for our needs, and it has served us well for running services. Managing DC/OS itself, however, has not been so easy. As a result, The Container Fabric team is planning a migration to Kubernetes.
Our previous approach to inventory management used Ansible and Terraform to define, enumerate, configure, and manage our infrastructure. Setting up a new machine involved a Terraform run, which requested provisioning from one of our infrastructure providers. Once the provider created the machines we requested, we used Ansible again to ask the providers to communicate back to us the same resource that we had just asked Terraform for; then we asked the host to put it into service.
This process required total network connectivity across the components. The Ansible instance that handled orchestration, for example, connected over a VPN to communicate with the infrastructure provider, and it used the same VPN to communicate with the new machines to put them to work.
Finally, as noted, we added a new European region last year. This added a new set of networking requirements—including another VPN—and thus an additional layer of complexity. We were particularly concerned about the increasingly complex networking requirements we faced as Container Fabric continued to scale across a multi-region architecture.
A vision of a very complex future—unless we found a way to simplify the process of tracking and managing our Container Fabric infrastructure.
We soon realized, however, that the real challenge Container Fabric faced wasn't a connectivity problem so much as an inventory problem. What we needed was current data about our machines—names, locations, states—to maintain an always up-to-date picture of what was happening "on the ground" in our infrastructure. Then, if needed, orchestration could make the appropriate VPN connection to access a region and cluster to update machine configuration. Knowing what was happening, and where it was happening, was the key to reducing toil as we grew.
At this point, we set about looking for solutions to our inventory problem. The first three options, in our opinion, were fatally flawed.
Option 1: Create a solution using Terraform state data. Most Terraform users are familiar with the "terraform.tfstate" file: a custom JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format file that records a mapping from the Terraform resources in your templates to the representation of those resources in the real world. We assessed this Terraform state intelligence as the basis for a distributed and scalable inventory management solution, but we identified at least two deal-breaking drawbacks to this approach.
First, the file itself updates only in response to an on-demand event, such as a Terraform plan or refresh command. It's not a real-time reflection of the infrastructure.
Second, since we're dealing with a simple, static text file, every update, no matter how small, would have required a full rewrite of the file. This increased the risk that multiple clients could stomp on each other when trying to perform updates.
Option 2: Buy a commercial DCIM solution. We evaluated several data center infrastructure management (DCIM) solutions, such as Device42. These are tailored to organizations running their own data centers—certainly, we fit that target market.
DCIM offerings excel at answering questions that ask, essentially, "Where's my stuff? Where's a particular machine? What rack is it in? What are the PDUs? How many HDDs do you have on hand?" Such offerings are less effective, however, at defining and managing the kinds of higher-level abstractions (e.g. clusters and regions) that we need in an inventory-management solution.
Option 3: Adapt DC/OS to address inventory management. Finally, we looked at DC/OS itself to identify any potentially useful capabilities that we could harness for an inventory solution. Unfortunately, DC/OS isn't built for this type of work—Mesos, the technology at the center of it, is architected for a more responsive pattern. Mesos doesn't maintain a "desired state" for the machines in a cluster, or even for the services on a machine.
It's worth noting that DC/OS includes Apache Zookeeper, a distributed information service, and etcd, a distributed key value store, as part of its default installation. We considered using these services to implement the capabilities we were looking for. The resulting solution, however, wouldn't have worked with higher-level abstractions, and it wouldn't offer benefits that we couldn't get from deploying our own installation of these services.
Important lessons learned
Although our initial search failed to find an acceptable inventory management solution for us, it did help us define the requirements and capabilities we needed:
A single source of information for inventory management. No longer would we need to split code paths based on infrastructure providers.
The ability to update from anywhere without having to stand up a VPN connection. This requirement was essential for all data centers.
Compatibility with Ansible dynamic inventory. This was necessary since we were looking for a different inventory management solution, but we also wanted to keep our current approach to orchestration unchanged for the time being.
Production-quality performance. This was an obvious need if we intended to extend the solution to monitoring and other functions beyond inventory management.
Locally meaningful and extensible object representation. Specifically, we needed the ability to work with higher-level abstractions that took us beyond the "where's my stuff?" questions that are the usual forte of DCIM solutions.
The fourth time's the charm: landing on the Kubernetes API server
We were already familiar with Kubernetes, which is New Relic's preferred container orchestration platform. What really put Kubernetes on our radar as an inventory management option was our realization that it has something DC/OS does not: an integral, centralized configuration service.
The kube-apiserver is one of the core components of a Kubernetes cluster; it holds the declarative state of all the objects that represent the cluster's behavior. It ships with a library of predefined objects designed to streamline this process, including representations of deployments, stateful sets, services, and so on. The kube-apiserver, however, also supports custom resources. These resources are intended mostly to facilitate more complex application deployments. But there's no reason why they can't serve other functions.
In fact, we realized, kube-apiserver could meet all of our inventory management requirements. But first, we would have to create three additional components:
A basic object structure—in practice, a blob of YAML—to define our custom resources for the kube-apiserver. This creates custom resource definition (CRD) objects (which we refer to as host objects), inside the server.
A service that runs inside each infrastructure provider to enumerate the hosts we have running there and to send that list back to the kube-apiserver. This creates host objects in the kube-apiserver that represent individual machines running at a particular provider.
A dynamic inventory script that lets Ansible communicate with the kube-apiserver and use host objects. The host objects will be populated via instances of what we refer to as a "fetcher"—a service that retrieves the required host data from a particular provider for use in our new inventory system.
Implementing our kube-apiserver solution
Our implementation process was simple—and much easier than a typical Kubernetes deployment. We weren't actually deploying Kubernetes in the traditional sense; we use only kube-apiserver, along with the kube-controller-manager (for cert management) and etcd3 (for object storage). We weren't deploying any pods or any workloads during this process, and we weren't doing any pod networking. There was less to do and fewer ways for the process to go wrong.
An overview of our deployment, which relies on selected Kubenetes components—in particular, kube-apiserver—without involving the complexity of a full-scale Kubernetes cluster deployment.
That means our first step was following Kubernetes the hard way but stopping at step 8—or bootstrapping the Kubernetes control plane. This gave us a running kube-apiserver instance with which we could work. With that in hand, we wrote orchestration in our existing Terraform and Ansible toolchain to build more kube-apiserver instances for staging and production.
Next, we created CRDs for our host objects as YAML files, and we used kubectl apply to create them in the kube-apiserver.
Then we were ready to write some Go code to fetch host data from our providers and populate those host objects with data. This involved:
Writing Go structs as representations of the host CRDs to use in our client code.
Using the kubernetes code-generator to create Go client code that can perform create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations on those CRD objects.
Finally, writing a block of fetcher code for each infrastructure provider that can translate their representation of a machine into our host.
The service loop for a fetcher looks like this:
The fetcher queries the provider's API for all the hosts we want to put in our inventory, typically filtered by tag.
The provider's API server responds with the list of our hosts. We convert this response into a Go struct compatible with the host CRD.
We use the generated client libraries to update or create the host objects on the kube-apiserver with the updated data from the provider.
The service loop for a "fetcher," a service that retrieves the required host data from a particular provider for use in our new inventory system
CRD and Go struct code examples
Here's a shortened view of our host CRD in YAML:
This is what our host looks like in the form of a Go struct, which we use for internal development work:
TheObjectMetastores the annotation and labels for the CRD itself. Specrepresents the desired state of the host object, andStatusrepresents its current state.
Labels and annotations are useful for tasks such as searching and filtering; for example, you can use the command line or an API request to see all hosts running as log machines on a specific provider's infrastructure. We also use annotations to store data about the host that we can use in downstream configuration scripts.
Working with the solution
The full solution creates an infrastructure inventory database with endless expansion capability.
Of course, for a database to be useful, you need clients, which for this project means an Ansible dynamic inventory script. Ours is in Python, as most are, and uses the Kubernetes pip package for the kube-apiserver client.
The Kubernetes Python library returns a big dictionary of host objects from our kube-apiserver, which we transform into JSON output suitable for Ansible. We then use Ansible for our orchestration services as before.
Two reasons why kube-apiserver excels at scale
Adapting kube-apiserver to serve as an inventory-management database has a significant impact on our operational capabilities. We're able to define declarative desired states for our cluster and to build cluster services in a decomposed way—clients of the kube-apiserver don't need to know about each other, even when working on objects at the same time.
As a result, we'res no longer tied to a phased, manual, and highly iterative process with a lot of back-and-forth exchanges. We're now far better prepared to operate at scale and to move with confidence into a multi-region future.
There are a couple of additional reasons why Kubernetes, and especially kube-apiserver, is well-suited for this role:
Kubernetes supports the use of TLS mutual authentication. This lets us get rid of the VPNs, and the associated network connectivity requirements, that would have added more complexity at scale than we were prepared to accept.
The kube-apiserver handles consistency ordering. If a client tries to make an update request to an object, but another server has already handled that change, kube-apiserver will notify that client. This makes it easier for us to make dynamic configuration changes—for example, deploying monitoring logic to new hosts as they're configured—that previously would have required us to rely on some heavy lifting from git and Ansible.
A solution that's ready for the future
As mentioned earlier, it's easy to envision other applications for our kube-apiserver based inventory management solution. In fact, we've already built a polling system for generating monitoring configuration out of our inventory. As the hosts in our fleet change, we need to dynamically build or destroy monitoring for each host. This used to require a git commit to add the hostname every time a host in the fleet changed. Now, we don't even think about it—our monitoring server subscribes to changes in the host objects and generates alert configuration on its own.
We took this even further and built a change orchestration system for running Ansible. Starting from a daemon process on each host that monitors its own host CRD record, we can start putting fields into the spec stanza of each host that the daemon can respond to: triggering Ansible runs on its own, moving the host in and out of maintenance, or upgrading the operating system. Having one authoritative, universally accessible place for desired host state was the foothold we needed to radically change our day-to-day operations with software.
This approach has also been a great starting point for our longer-term plans to migrate from DC/OS to Kubernetes—a journey that many other operations teams are planning, as well.
Be sure to check out our video of the KubeCon 2018 session, "Kubernetes the Database," upon which this post was based:
Jonathan Owens is a senior site reliability engineer at New Relic. As a 10-year veteran of the operations world, Jonathan has seen - and solved! - firsthand the challenges of operating large databases, clusters, and container in a large and autonomous engineering organization. Maryum Styles is a software engineer at New Relic. Prior to that she was a QA engineer. Maryum holds a degree in Computer Science from Spelman College.


In June 2011, researchers at Stanford University confirmed that our summers are indeed getting hotter, due to increased emissions of greenhouse gases worldwide. They concluded that if this situation continues, the majority of the world will experience an irreversible rise in summer temperatures, perhaps as soon as within the next 20 years. While this is obviously a great concern for a number of reasons, it's something to heed especially if you are a senior citizen or a person caring for an elderly relative. Unfortunately, the natural aging process gradually takes away some of our body's ability to regulate temperature. This means that seniors literally do not feel heat in the same way, putting them at high risk for becoming overheated.
When someone is overheated, it can quickly lead to heat exhaustion. Signs of heat exhaustion include profuse sweating, moderate increase in body temperature, rapid heartbeat, fatigue, thirst, low blood pressure, headache, blurred vision, nausea/upset stomach, and an ashen appearance. If you notice someone experiencing these symptoms, it is critical to take steps to cool them down as quickly as possible.
Move the individual to a cool, dry place where they can lay down.
Remove any excess clothing and loosen what remains.
Wrap some ice in a towel and apply it to the head, neck, armpits, and groin.
Place a fan on the person and apply cool water to their skin.
Have the person drink water that is cooler than room temperature, but not iced.
Offer them electrolyte drinks as well, like Gatorade.
When heat exhaustion goes undetected, it can rapidly turn into heat stroke, which is a life-threatening condition. Heat exhaustion advances to heat stroke when the body loses the ability to cool itself. At this point, the person will typically become disoriented, and may lose consciousness, or have a seizure. If this occurs, you should call 911 immediately.
Do not let yourself or someone you love fall victim to these preventable ailments. When it is warm outside, you should be sure to drink plenty of fluids to stay hydrated. (However, avoid alcoholic or caffeinated beverages, as they actually have a dehydrating effect.) You should also avoid direct exposure to the sun, especially between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., which are generally the warmest hours of the day. Additionally, you should limit your outdoor exercise to early in the morning or later in the evening when it is cooler. Finally, when you are spending time outdoors and don't have access to air conditioning nearby, bring a portable fan with you to aid in cooling if you become overheated. Don't forget your water!


The TH 500-1000 series positive displacement rotary vane pumps are available with brass or stainless steel housings, with 1/2" GAS or NPT ports and internal relief valve. The nominal flow rates range between 500 and 1000 l/h at 1450 rpm. These pumps may be operated up to 1725 rpm and will provide flow proportional to speed, with a maximum of 320 GPH. Pump discharge pressure is up to a maximum of 14 bar (200 psi).The seal-less, magnetic coupling to motor provides extra reliability and longer service life. This series mounts directly to widely available M80 IEC or NEMA 56C frame motors by means of an adapter.


Four staff of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) have been arrested for the theft of the railway equipment in Oni-Iyarin-Owodotun area of Ogun state.
NRC's District Manager (West), Mrs. Angelique Ikwuka made this disclosure on Tuesday in Ibadan, the Oyo state capital, while speaking with journalists on the Federal Government's commitment to deliver the ongoing train service for Nigerians before the end of the year.
Ikwuka said the vandalism of railway properties occurred some days ago in Abeokuta, the Ogun state capital.
She said some vigilant youths, who were disturbed by similar theft of railway equipment in the community, had been keeping vigil to ward-off another incident.
She said that investigation is ongoing to know the involvement of staff of the corporation in the theft of the railway equipment.
The District Manager however added that efforts were still going on to nab the fifth suspect, a welder, who is currently at large.
While commending the efforts of the youths in the area for being proactive in alerting the police for the arrest of the suspects who were caught in the act, Ikwuka enjoined other communities within the railway corridors to report any of such cases or even apprehend anyone seen vandalising railway properties.
She vowed that the culprits and those indulging them within the system would be dealt with, in accordance with the law, to serve as deterrent to others who may be harbouring such intention.


With advance level of production facilities and well organized set ups, we provide steel stillages to cater broad spectrum of industrial applications. We make use of the high grade steel to produce these steel stillages. Considering different applications, we offer sturdy and cost effective range of the product.
The reinforced steel sheets are used for the construction of the steel stillages. With exclusive flexibility, our stillages are proven too convenient for the holding and transporting of wide range of products. It is also easy to handle for the unusual shaped products. It is also simplify the handling of difficult objects. We also provide perfect customized solution as per requirement. We possess huge quantity of stock of the material to meet bulk requirement.


Alex is a Solicitor in the Data Privacy team where he advises a wide range of charities, social enterprises, cultural and creative institutions and commercial organisations. Alex advises regularly on contracts (data sharing and data processing) – both the data aspects of commercial agreements, and for complex, multi-party data sharing arrangements. Alex also regularly advises on the impact of the GDPR for organisations, including their internal compliance and helping respond to security incidents and rights requests, as well as advising on the rules around marketing and fundraising.
Alex is also a member of the Culture + Creative group and has a particular interest in working with cultural and creative clients.


Wastwater Prints There are 15 products.
A collection of landscape photography from the Wasdale Area of the Lake District, including Wastwater, England's deepest Lake and Great Gable above Wasdale Head. Wastwater was voted the UK's best view in a recent ITV series. Click on the Wastwater photography selection below to see more information on the prints plus framing options.
Beautiful light over Wastwater in the Western Lake District.
Beautiful light over Wastwater in the Western Lake District. An image I have wanted to make for about a decade. Circumstance, weather and every other factor has always prevented me from witnessing this amazing scene and I am proud to have captured this beautiful scene to share with you of this amazing place.
A beautiful moment captured over Wastwater and the burst of light illuminating the famous Screes.
A beautiful moment captured over Wastwater and the soft side lighting adding a almost painted effect the this scene.
A beautiful moment as Great Gable illuminated bright pink with the setting sun.
Wastwater, the deepest Lake in the Lake District and quite possibly one of the most interesting, the view here is looking north down the length of the Lake with Wasdale Head in the distance.
Britains favourite view over Wastwater.
The famous Westmorland Cairn on the southern edge of the iconic Great Gable.
A fine view down to Wasdale from the southern side of Great Gable. Wasdale and Wastwater are clearly bathed in sunlight in the foreground and you can see the Irish sea and the Isle of Man in the distance to the right above Seatallen.
A summer view of Wastwater, the deepest Lake in the Lake District and quite possibly one of the most interesting, the view here is looking north down the length of the Lake with Wasdale Head in the distance.


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Miles Teller: Movie Moments
Miles Alexander Teller is an American actor and musician. For his performance in the film The Spectacular Now (2013), he won the Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. He has appeared in the films Rabbit Hole (2010), Footloose (2011), Project X (2012), That Awkward Moment (2014), Divergent (2014), Two Night Stand (2014), Whiplash (2014).
BornFebruary 20, 1987
Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award
5 wins & 24 nominations total
Before They Were Famous: Actors' Early Roles
See photos of celebrities like Jenna Ortega and Noah Centineo before they hit the big-time, and revisit some of their earliest onscreen roles.
See the full gallery
The Divergent Series: Insurgent
The Ark and the Aardvark
Gilbert (voice)
Spiderhead
Miles Teller: Great Balls of Fire
Lt. Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw
Albert S. Ruddy
Taylor Swift: I Bet You Think About Me (Taylor's Version)
Martin Jones
Brendan McDonough
Adam Schumann
David Packouz
Will Davis
The Divergent Series: Insurgent - Shatter Reality
performer: "Great Balls of Fire"
performer: "My Girl"
Full Episode 10:24
Episode: Whiplash
Episode: Divergent
Everything We Know About 'Top Gun: Maverick'
Why 'Maverick' Could Have Been Titled 'Top Gun: More Sweat'
What We Know About 'Top Gun: Maverick'... So Far
'Bleed for This': He Don't Hit Like a Girl
IMDb Asks Miles Teller: What's Your First Movie in a Movie Theater?
The First Ten Minutes
Interview 5:13
Episode: Insurgent
Downingtown, Pennsylvania, USA
Keleigh SperrySeptember 1, 2019 - present
Erin Teller (Sibling)
Miles wears a green bracelet that says "Buckle up for Bo" in honor of a friend who died in a car crash a year after Miles himself was in a near-fatal car crash. He wears it almost all the time, and has worn it for most of the movies he's been in, except where it doesn't work for the movie.
I grew up in a very small town in Florida, like, 7,000 people.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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COTM Council
What Guides COTM?
You and Your OT
The OT Directory
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Initial Registration - Canadian Applicants
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Practice Guidance & Expectations
CIHI Health Human Resources and Workforce Trends
Legislation and Government Resources
Continuing Competence
Meeting COTM Obligations
Registration Overview
Phase 1: Academic Eligibility
Phase 2: Professional Eligibility
Phase 3: Employment Eligibility
Getting Started - Preparing for Registration in Manitoba
Registration Overview - What Registration Process Applies to Me?
The Occupational Therapists Act
Occupational Therapists Regulation
Supervision Confirmation Form
Learning Contract
Guide to Supervised Practice
When an occupational therapist (OT) first applies to be registered with COTM, the Board of Assessors checks to see that he or she meets the education and practice standards. If these are met, the registration can be processed, and once the new member pays the required fee, he or she is registered to practise in Manitoba and thus use the title 'Occupational Therapist.'
Registering with COTM demonstrates that this individual respects the public's right to safe, competent and ethical occupational therapy services, and recognizes COTM's role in supporting and monitoring practice.
Occupational therapists must renew their registration on an annual basis. On the renewal form, members indicate that they have met the requirements to continue practising. The Occupational Therapists Act and the Occupational Therapists Regulation outline the categories or registers of members.
COTM maintains 4 registers:
Register of Practising Members
An occupational therapist who meets all of the registration requirements and who is providing direct service, education, consultation, research, or administration related to the practice of occupational therapy may be entered on the Register of Practising Members.
An occupational therapist who has met the requirements for registration but who has had terms, conditions or limitations imposed on his/her registration by COTM, pursuant to the provisions of the Act, may be entered on the Register of Practising Members "with conditions". He/she is required to work within the limitations of the conditions imposed until such time that the conditions are removed by COTM.
Register of Provisional Members
An applicant may apply for provisional registration as an exam candidate if he/she has successfully completed all of the other requirements for registration, and
has written the exam and is awaiting the result, or
can provide a statement of candidacy and has a date scheduled to write the exam.
An applicant who has not met all the requirements for registration, may apply for provisional registration as a supervised practice candidate if he or she:
has not achieved the language fluency requirement, but has met an acceptable lower score;
requires upgrading to meet the academic requirement; and/or
has not practised as an occupational therapist for at least 700 hours during the three year period immediately preceding the date of application.
has failed the CAOT exam on the first or second attempt.
An occupational therapist may be registered on the Provisional Register for a period of not greater than two years and must practice under the supervision of an occupational therapist on the Practising Register.
Register of Temporary Members
COTM offers temporary registration to occupational therapists who wish to visit Manitoba for the purpose of providing specific, time limited occupational therapy service to a client or clients. All occupational therapists who apply for temporary registration must hold registration in good standing with an organization that regulates the practice of occupational therapy in another jurisdiction (another province, state or country).
Temporary Registration is limited to 60 days in a 12 month period
To apply for temporary registration, complete the Application for Temporary Registration, provide the required documents and registration fee.
Register of Non-Practising Members
The Register of Non-Practising Members is an option available to an occupational therapist who has previously been on the Register of Practising Members or the Register of Provisional Members, and is not currently engaged in the practice of occupational therapy. OT's on this register are typically on maternity, paternity or some other type of leave of absence. No practice is permissable while on the Register of non-practising members.
Conversion of registration from practising to non-practising or vice-versa can be arranged by submitting the applicable form.
New applicants cannot apply to be on the Register of Non-Practising Members.
7 - 120 Maryland Street Winnipeg, Manitoba R3G 1L1 (204) 957-1214 or 1-866-957-1214 Toll-Free in Manitoba
© 2021 College of Occupational Therapists of Manitoba. All rights reserved. Legal Notice


We spent a few fun days enjoying the hospitality of Maple Bay Yacht Club with our friends Pam and John Marchant, of sv Passages. We met in the south Pacific and they shipped their boat from Brisbane Australia to Vancouver.
Maple Bay is a beautiful bay tucked in among some steep hills a little ways north of Victoria.
Friday the 13th was a good day to leave Friday Harbor. We topped off the fuel and motored up to Henry Island for a quiet night Saturday. On Sunday, we cleared Canadian customs at Bedwell Harbour, and made the evening slack water at Dodd Narrows 35miles north. After a pleasant night on the hook near Newcastle Island, we got a berth at Nanaimo YC.
Another J-42, Sandpiper was there as well. We hadn't seen them since 2012, so it was good to catch up.
As we provisioned and prepared to leave, poor Bill came down with a toothache. So after a quick visit to a local dentist for antibiotics to tide him over, we're continuing north.
Kathi needed to go to Seattle for a few days for a family reunion and a dental appointment, and flying Kenmore Air to Kenmore was the ideal way to travel.
Bill's jeep was stored at Barb & Dan Dougherty's just blocks from the Kenmore Air base, so she was able to walk over and pick it up.
Before leaving Seattle, Kathi had ordered a smaller laptop computer to replace her nearly new larger laptop. The plan was for Bill to take over the nearly new computer for the ship's computer, and retire his really old sluggish one.... How hard could it be?
Of course, the new computer didn't arrive in Seattle until the day after we left.... It could have been shipped to Victoria on the daily Clipper boat, but there some questions about paying Canadian duties....Not!
So on Memorial Day, we departed Victoria Harbour on a sunny, breezy day promising an enjoyable downwind ride to Friday Harbor.... Not!
sigh... While we were still inside the harbor, Bill attached the main halyard and came aft to the cockpit. There was a bang as the boom dropped onto the dodger, but we didn't think much of it. (Doh!) When Bill went forward again to hoist the main, he found the boom portion of the gooseneck broken in half. (We had done major repairs to the mast portion in Hobart before our long return voyage to Seattle in 2012). It could have been so much worse: the sail wasn't up yet, so didn't tear; we weren't out in the big waves yet, so the boom wasn't flying around creating mayhem, and we had flat conditions for Bill to lash the boom in place.
After much debate, we continued on to Friday Harbor and ordered a new part from Halls Spars.
Kathi had ordered a smaller laptop computer to replace her nearly new larger laptop. Of course, it didn't arrive in Seattle until the day after we left.... So it was shipped to the SYC Outstation in Friday Harbor instead.
The new computer came on Tuesday and we started setup on the new one and Bill began the looonnnggg migration of software to the nearly new computer. Two days later the gooseneck toggle arrived and Bill installed it.
We enjoyed our time in Friday Harbor and went to a wonderful Marimba concert Saturday night.
Sunday morning, as we prepared to leave, Bill tried to install some old Sony camera software on the computer....Not! It totally crashed and corrupted the machine. So starting all over....We spend a ridiculous amount of time down below in the tunnel-like cabin, shackled to computers. What a stupid way to cruise.


Sierra Bullets has announced the release of their .224 caliber 77 grain Tipped Matchking (TMK) bullet, along with a 69 grain Tipped Matchking bullet as components for reloaders. As we posted last month, Will, from AR15 Hunter, had great results at the range while shooting the Blackhills loaded 5.56 ammunition that uses the Sierra 77 grain TMK. He will be heading out again at the end of this month to use it on whitetail deer. Sierra states a requirement of a 1×7″ or a 1×8″ twist barrel for the 77 grain bullets and a twist rate "not slower than 1×10" for the 69 grain bullets.
We look forward to the release of this excellent bullet and will have future reports on their performance.


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Q: Is it possible to scroll in a cell of a gridview? I have some records in my gridview. But there is a problem in each record, there is one cell which contains a HUGE amount of data. I still want to display data and allow the users to scroll down to read (if they're interested). Is there a possibility to allow scrolling in that cell?
EDIT:
This is the css I refer to:
    .AspNet-GridView
    {
        overflow: auto;
        height:400px;
    }
    .AspNet-GridView table thead tr th
    {
        height:20px;
        position:relative;
    }
    .AspNet-GridView table tbody
    {
        overflow: auto;
    }

EDIT 2:
this is the gridview and I want The column with the headertext body to allow scrolling.
<asp:GridView ID="gvAanvragen"
    OnPageIndexChanging="GvAanvragen_PageIndexChanging" runat="server" AllowPaging="True"
    AllowSorting="True" BackColor="White" BorderColor="#DEDFDE" BorderStyle="None"
    BorderWidth="1px" CellPadding="4" ForeColor="Black" GridLines="Vertical"
    PageSize="5" AutoGenerateColumns="false" AutoGenerateSelectButton="True"
        onselectedindexchanged="GvAanvragen_SelectedIndexChanged"
        CssClass="AspNet-GridView">
    <RowStyle BackColor="#F7F7DE" />
    <FooterStyle BackColor="#CCCC99" />
    <PagerStyle BackColor="#F7F7DE" ForeColor="Black" HorizontalAlign="Right" />
    <SelectedRowStyle BackColor="#CE5D5A" Font-Bold="True" ForeColor="White" />
    <HeaderStyle BackColor="#6B696B" Font-Bold="True" ForeColor="White" />
    <AlternatingRowStyle BackColor="White" />
    <Columns>
        <asp:BoundField HeaderText="ID" DataField="ID" />
        <asp:BoundField HeaderText="Subject" DataField="Subject" />
        <asp:BoundField HeaderText="Body" DataField="Body" HtmlEncode="false" />
        <asp:BoundField HeaderText="Sent" DataField="Sent" />
    </Columns>
</asp:GridView>

Can someone help me please?

A: You can use Template Column and place a div inside it with style="overflow:auto;"
<asp:TemplateField>
    <ItemTemplate>

<Your Content here>

    </ItemTemplate>
</asp:TemplateField>

A: To add to Naveed's answer, now that you've posted your original code: http://www.asp.net/data-access/tutorials/using-templatefields-in-the-gridview-control-cs has a good example of a data bound template field:
<asp:TemplateField HeaderText="FirstName" SortExpression="FirstName">
    <ItemTemplate>
        <asp:Label ID="Label1" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("FirstName") %>'></asp:Label>
    </ItemTemplate>
</asp:TemplateField>

In your case, just replace the line
<asp:BoundField HeaderText="Body" DataField="Body" HtmlEncode="false" />

by the code Naveed provided, and add the databinding as in this example, and you endup with something like:
<asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Body">
    <ItemTemplate>

            <asp:Label ID="Label1" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("Body")%>'></asp:Label>

    </ItemTemplate>
</asp:TemplateField>

If you don't want to use a label, then use a literal control instead:
<asp:Literal ID="Literal1" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("Body")%>' />

A: You could add a template column and inside of that column put all your content inside a div with overflow set (refer to CSS overflow).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The so-called "Buddhist Caves" around Uparkot are not actually caves, but three separate sites of rooms carved out of stone to be used as monks' quarters, hence the name. They are all a little over 2000 years old, give or take a couple of centuries.
The oldest, the Khapara Kodia caves caves belong to 3rd-4th century AD and are plainest of all cave groups. These caves are along the edge of the ancient Sudarshan Lake (which no longer exists) and the northern side of Uparkot. The chambers are separated into an east-west longitudinal crest. The rectangle western wing and the 'L' shaped wing used by the Monks as a monsoon shelter, are the important parts of the caves. They were carved into living rock during the reign of Emperor Ashoka and are considered the earliest monastic settlement in the area. After many years of use, they were abandoned because cracks above them allowed water to seep into living quarters, rendering them unusable. Many accounts say that after this, the monks left for Maharashtra, where they went on to carve many similar and more elaborate structures. Khapara Kodia was damaged by later quarrying, and now only the highest story remains.
Across Uparkot from Khapara Kodia are the caves of Baba Pyara. Baba Pyara caves are lying close to the Modhimath, which has four caves in its northern group. The next set of south group caves has a unified plan with a spacious court and a chaitya hall. The art tradition of Satavahanas period has influence over these cave pillars and door jambs of the caves. It is believed that they belong to 1st – 2nd century AD. These have 13 rooms in three stories, cut into the rock 45 m. (150 ft.) high and adorned with carvings of Buddhist symbology. These are much more intact than the Khapara Kodia caves. The last (and most recent, being only 1900 years old) caves are next to the Adi-Kadi Vav.
Citizens of India and visitors of SAARC (Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Maldives and Afghanistan) and BIMSTEC Countries (Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Myanmar) - Rs. 15 per head.
Khapra Kodia Cave, Junagadh On the basis of scribbles and short cursive letters on the wall, Khapra Kodia caves are datable to 3rd-4th century AD. This is the plainest of all cave groups. The chambers are cut into an east-west longitudinal ridge. The important components of the caves are the oblong western wing and the 'L' shaped wing used by Monks as a monsoon shelter.
The Group of caves lying close to the Modhimath is known as Baba Pyara. The northern group of it has four caves. The next set of caves lies little to the south of the eastern end of the first group and has a unified plan with a spacious court and a chaitya hall, apsidal in shape. The cave pillars and door jambs of the caves suggest a clear impact of art traditions of Satavahanas period and are datable to 1st-2nd century AD on the basis of architecture.


Luke 4:1-13 contains a description of the forty days of temptation Jesus experienced in the wilderness. The placement fits perfectly in the narrative as it immediately follows the genealogy of Jesus and precedes the beginning of ministry of Jesus. The genealogy concluded with a reference to Adam, the son of God (3:38), which recalls for the reader the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3). The second Son of God must succeed where the first son of God failed (Bock 1994:366). Jesus, if He is going to make right what went wrong with Adam, must pass the tests which Adam failed. "If Jesus is the descendant of Adam, he must now face not only what Adam faced but the powers that had been unleashed through human rebellion and sin" (Wright 2004:42). As the genealogy in Luke 3 was technically that of Mary, the temptation of Jesus begins to reveal how God would crush the serpent's head through the seed of the woman in fulfillment of Genesis 3:15.
Once Jesus has passed the temptation and stood against the tempter He was able to begin His mission, that of reversing what went wrong with Adam (See 4:16-21). This period of temptation was like an entrance exam before beginning His ministry. Fidelity to God is proven in the midst of testing (Green 1997:191).
The flow of the narrative reveals that Luke is making many parallels between the life and ministry of Jesus, and the history of the Israelite people (cf. Wright 2004:43; Green 1997:192). The baptism of Jesus by John represented the baptism of Israel by Moses in the Red Sea (1 Cor 10:2), the genealogy of Jesus is like the first census of Israel before they were instructed to enter Canaan (Numbers 1-3), and the forty days of testing in the wilderness represent the forty years of discipline in the wilderness (Num 14:33-34). Other similarities are brought out in Matthew 2. Such parallels help the reader see that Jesus is inaugurating a renewed Israel: His ministry reveals what God desired Israel to be and do for the world. Where they failed; He succeeds. What they were supposed to do; He begins to accomplish.
4:1. The forty days of temptation began when Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit. Being filled with the Spirit is being led, or controlled, by the Spirit. And curiously, in this instance, the Spirit is guiding Jesus into a time of temptation and testing. Generally, it is assumed that being filled with the Spirit brings an absence of temptation and testing, and not being filled leaves one open to the devil and his temptations. However, while God does not tempt anyone (Jas 1:13), He does allow people to be tempted (1 Cor 10:13), and even leads people to places where they will face temptation.
However, God does test people, and in fact, the term used in this passage for temptation are used elsewhere in the LXX of God testing humans (Gen 22:1-19; Exod 16:4; 20:20; Deut 8:2; 13:2ff) and humans testing God (Exod 17:2). Such tests are for the purpose of testing covenant loyalty (cf. Malina 2003:240). Pentecost states that in the case of Jesus, Jesus "forced Satan to put Him to the test so that His true character might be revealed" (Pentecost 1981:97), but this seems somewhat unlikely. Temptation is part of being human, and such temptations come whether we want them to or not. Jesus certainly does not want to be tempted, but since He was in submission to God and led by the Spirit, He is not acting on His own, or according to His own desires (Green 1997:191).
The place where Jesus will be tempted is the wilderness, which was part of the region of Judea, east of Jerusalem. It was 35 miles long by 15 miles wide, and was called Jeshimmon, "The Devastation." The hills are like dust heaps; the limestone looks blistered; the rocks are bare and jagged (Barclay 1975:43; cf. Pentecost 1981:96). In the Gospels the wilderness is often portrayed as a place of demonic activity, (cf. Luke 8:29, 11:24), but in other situations, it is where Jesus goes to commune with God (Luke 1:80; 3:2; 5:16; 7:24). In this instance, Jesus both communes with God and faces the devil (Bock 1994:369). As indicated previously, Jesus being led into the wilderness for testing is reminiscent of Israel being led by God in the wilderness for their time of testing and refinement.
4:2. Whereas Israel spent forty years in the wilderness, Jesus was tempted for forty days. Luke's reference here to forty days also recalls the 40 days spent by Moses on Mount Sinai (Exod 34:28) and the 40 day journey by Elijah to Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19:48). In all cases, the time period was for the purpose of preparing these men for the next stage in their ministry. It appears by how Luke phrases this that Jesus was being tempted for the entire forty days (cf. Mark 1:13; cf. Barclay 1975:43; Bock 1994:370). If so, then the temptations as recorded here are only summaries, and also explain why the accounts in Mark 1 and Matthew 4 differ in their details and order of events (cf. Evans 2003:87 who argues that Luke transposed the order of events so that they conclude in Jerusalem as a foreshadowing for the life of Jesus, which will also conclude in Jerusalem).
The temptations Jesus faced were brought to Him by the devil. Just as the devil, through the serpent, caused Adam and Eve to fall into sin in the Garden of Eden, so also he was now trying to stop God's plan of redemption in Jesus by also getting Jesus to sin. The reverse the curse God placed upon creation as a result of sin, Jesus must resist the temptations of the devil, and remain sinless (Heb 4:15). In Hebrew thought, the devil (Gk. diabolos; Heb. satan) was "a celestial entity…whose task it is to test a person's loyalty to God. The original 'Satan' was a Persian secret-service agent (like the FBI) who tested loyalty to the king" (Malina 2003:240).
There are three temptations brought by the devil, which fit with the three temptations described in 1 John 2:16 as the primary temptations that people face. These three temptations are the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. These three temptations are similar to the ways Israel was tempted in the wilderness, and similar to the ways Adam and Eve were tempted in the garden of Eden (Gen 3:6). Specifically, Eve saw that the tree was good for food (the lust of the flesh), that it was pleasing to the eyes (the lust of the eyes), and that it was desirable to make one wise (the pride of life). Jesus was tempted by the devil in three similar ways. The devil tried to get Jesus to turn stone into bread (the lust of the flesh), to take a shortcut in receiving the kingdoms of the world (the lust of the eyes), and to throw himself down from the pinnacle of the temple in order to easily declare himself as the Messiah and prove that God was working in Him (the pride of life).
Those are the devil's three primary temptations. It is also seen that the devil has only one tactic in these three categories of temptation. No matter what the temptation is, the devil tries to raise doubt about the Word of God. The devil twists the Word of God by making subtle changes to it such as adding to it, subtracting from it, or quoting verses out of context.
During the time in the wilderness, Jesus ate nothing. Not only was this time of fasting important for Jesus to withstand the testing He was about to enter, but forty days without eating is another way that Jesus is showing Himself to be like Moses and Elijah, both of whom spent forty days fasting while they communed with God and prepared for the ministry God had for them (cf. Exod 34:28; Deut 9:9-11; 10:10; 1 Kings 19:8).
After the forty days had ended, He was hungry. This is most certainly an understatement, as by the end of forty days without food, Jesus was probably nearing starvation (Green 1997:193). His hunger sets up the first temptation.
4:3. The first temptation plays on Jesus' hunger, which, after forty days of fasting, is a pressing need. When the devil came to tempt Jesus, he begins by recognizing who Jesus is. The If is first class conditional and could be translated since you are the Son of God (cf. also 4:9; Bock 1994:372; Pentecost 1981:100). He is not challenging the identity of Jesus, but is basing the temptation on it.
The identify of Jesus as the Son of God is not equivalent to saying that Jesus is God, let alone the Second Person of the Trinity. Though Paul and later New Testament writers may have infused the term with Trinitarian teaching, the term did not contain this idea in Roman and Jewish culture at the time Jesus lived (see IDB 4:408-413; NIDNTT 3:634-648; Evans 2003:84). The term Son of God is sometimes used of angels, the nation of Israel, as well as Israelite kings (cf Gen 6:2-4, Job 1:6; 38:7; Exod 4:22; 2 Sam 7:14; Psa 2:7; 89:27). In Greco-Roman culture, the title "Son of God" was used in reference to Caesar, who was a mediator between heaven and humanity (Evans 2003:84). In reference to Jesus, it is primarily a kingly title, and is equivalent to "Messiah" or "Christ" (cf. Matt 26:63; Luke 4:41; John 20:31).
So the devil is saying, "Since you are the Son of God, you have certain rights and privileges." All of the temptations are based on this premise, that Jesus, as the Son of God, the Messiah, the King of Israel, has certain rights and privileges. This first temptation is based on the hunger of Jesus. The devil tells Jesus that to satisfy his hunger, all he has to do is command this stone to become bread. Many of the stones in that region are about 8-10 inches in diameter, round, and sun-baked brown. They look almost exactly like loaves of bread (cf. Barclay 1975:43). The devil uses this similarity to tempt Jesus to turn one stone into bread.
The devil was not asking for anything large and excessive, just one stone to help satisfy the hunger of Jesus. On the surface, the temptation is really quite harmless. He is simply tempting Jesus to (mis)use His power to feed Himself in the wilderness (Evans 2003:84). The sensation of hunger is given by God to help humans know when their bodies require food. It is healthy to eat, and food is a gift from God. "Thus the devil's estimate of human life is, that the only reason for man's loyalty to God is that God meets every demand of his need as it arises; and moreover, that man's happiness consists in the satisfaction of his material nature" (Morgan, quoted in Pentecost 1981:101). So while on the surface the temptation seems harmless, the devil is really suggesting that God has abandoned Jesus by failing to look after His physical needs (Bock 1994:373).
Furthermore, since it appears that Jesus was intentionally portraying Himself as a prophet like Moses and as the one who will renew the people of Israel, it would be natural for Him to do for Himself what God had given to Moses and Israelites when they were in the wilderness. When they got hungry, God sent them manna, "bread from heaven." The text doesn't reveal the devil using this approach, but if the temptations as recorded in the gospels are only summaries of the extensive and trying periods of temptation that Jesus faced (4:2 indicates that Jesus was tempted for the entire forty days), then the devil probably used every approach and persuasive argument possible. Few temptations we experience as humans are ever over in a second or two, and the temptations of Jesus were just as strenuous, of not more so, than ours (Heb 4:15).
If this is how the devil tried to persuade Jesus (as it appears to be from the answer of Jesus is 4:4), then the devil is using his one and only tactic to tempt Jesus. He is trying to raise doubt about God's Word, or twist it to teach something it does not. He is trying to get Jesus to just do for Himself what God did for Moses and the Israelites. However, when the Israelites received bread from heaven to satisfy their hunger, they were relying upon God's provision. "Though the manna was on the ground, it was still a test of faith for the people. They had to believe that God's Word was trustworthy" (BKC 2:213), and that if they did things God's way, He would provide for them daily.
If Jesus were to do what the devil was suggesting, He would be committing the same sin that some of the Israelites committed. In the wilderness, the people were only supposed to collect what they needed for one day, and then on the sixth day, collect enough for two days so they would not have to collect food on the Sabbath. But initially, some of them collected enough for multiple days, and when they woke up, the extra they had collected was rotten and was full of maggots. So then on the sixth day, they failed to collect enough, and so went hungry on the Sabbath when no manna appeared on the ground. The temptation for the Israelites was to attempt to provide for themselves rather than trust in God. If they wanted daily sustenance, they had to daily trust in God to provide it.
This is the same temptation Jesus faces. If Jesus performed a miracle to make bread for Himself, He would be relying on Himself rather than on God. Satan wants Jesus to selfishly use His abilities to meet His own desires. Jesus does similar things later in his ministry when He turns water into wine (John 2), or feeds multitudes of people with just a few loaves and fish (Matthew 14; Luke 9). But in those cases, it was not just Himself He was feeding, and more importantly, He was following God's guidance. Here, He would be selfishly meeting only His own needs, and the guidance came not from God, but from the devil. Furthermore, as a human, Jesus "had to live His personal life (1) within the limits necessary to man, and (2) in perfect dependance upon God. …Had Christ by a direct miracle fed Himself, He had lifted Himself out of the circle and system of humanity, had annulled the very terms of the nature which made Him one with man" (Fairbairn, quoted in Pentecost 1981:101).
4:4. In all three temptations, Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy. Though the devil can twist Scripture, Jesus knows how to use it properly to help Him stand against the temptations of the devil. In this first instance, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8:3, which helps support the idea that this first temptation is related to Jesus being a prophet like Moses, the one who will inaugurate a renewed Israel. Deuteronomy 8 contains a reminder from Moses to the people of Israel about how God provided manna, the bread from heaven, to meet their needs when they were hungry. Moses says there, as Jesus quotes here, that "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God." The point of Moses, and therefore the point of Jesus, is that feeding the body is not what is important, but obeying God. God did not provide manna to the people of Israel just so they could be fed, but also so they could practice obedience to His word. Jesus knows that "human livelihood consists in more than the mere meeting of daily needs (Bock 1994:374).
Furthermore, in the context of Deuteronomy 8, Moses reminds the people that God promised to bring them into their own land. If He helped them escape Egypt, and delivered them through the Red Sea, He would certainly make sure they didn't starve in the desert. So also, Jesus knows that God would not protect Him as He was growing up, promise that He would be the Messiah, and then allow Him to starve in the wilderness. Jesus trusts God's Word, and bases His faith and decisions upon it.
Moses was it's giver, Elijah it's restorer, the Messiah it's renewer and perfecter. …Moses fasted in the middle, Elijah at the end, Jesus at the beginning of His ministry. Moses fasted in the Presence of God; Elijah alone; Jesus assaulted by the Devil. Moses had been called up by God; Elijah had gone forth in the bitterness of his own spirit; Jesus was driven by the Spirit. Moses failed after his forty days' fast, when in indignation he cast the Tablets of the law from him; Elijah failed before his forty days' fast; Jesus was assailed for forty days and endured the trial. Moses was angry against Israel; Elijah despaired of Israel; Jesus overcame for Israel" (Edersheim 1988:294).
While on the mountain, the devil tempts Jesus with the second temptation: the lust of the eyes. The devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world. There is some question as to whether Satan showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the entire world or just those of the known world. The term used forworld is oikoumenes and refers more the inhabited world, or known world, than to all the world (which would be kosmos as in Matt 4:8). Also, is Satan offering all the kingdoms throughout time, or just those in existence at that time? The phrase in a moment of time may refer to the latter, since it could also be translated "at that moment of time." Otherwise, it is hard to discern the reason for showing Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant. There may also be an allusion here to when God takes Moses to a high mountain to show him the length and breadth of the Promised Land which the people will inherit, but Moses himself will not be able to enter because of his sin (cf. Deut 34:1-4).
4:6. Now that Jesus has seen the kingdoms, the devil offers them to Jesus, and specifically, theauthority and glory that comes with them. "In the place where Jesus has nothing, he is about to be offered everything" (Bock 1994:375). Both the devil and Jesus know that authority over the nations is something that was supposed to be given to the Messiah (cf. Matt 28:18; Php 2:9-10; Rev 19:15). Previously, Luke recorded that "all the world" was under the rule of the Roman Emperor (2:1; 3:1). But this right to rule over the nations was something that God promised to the people of Israel, with the Messiah on her throne (cf. Deut 15:6; Psa 2:8; 22:28). It was also something prophecies in Daniel as something that belonged to "the one like a son of man" (Dan 7:13-14). When the Messiah came, it was expected that He would overthrow all foreign rulers, and sit Himself upon the throne in Jerusalem to rule the entire world.
The devil, however, states that authority over the nations had been delivered to him, and he cangive it to whomever he wants. The devil again twists and distorts the truth. The first part of his statement is true. When Adam listened to and fell before Satan, Adam, in essence, gave up his power, his dominion, to Satan. He forfeited to the devil the right to rule the earth. So he does have authority over the nations, and is the god of this age (2 Cor 4:4). Luke himself has already recorded the words of Zacharias that the world sat in darkness, under the shadow of death (1:78-79), which are clear allusions to sin and the devil. So biblically, "until the earth is redeemed by God's power, it lies in the hands of the evil one" (Bock 1994:376).
However, it is not true that he owns the nations and can give them to whomever he wishes. Though Satan took control of the earth, it is not Satan's to give away. That belongs to God alone (Dan 4:32). It is possible that the devil believes that since he rules earth, he owns it, but if so, he is self-deceived (Bock 1994:376). Jesus, during His ministry, was working to gain authority over the earth (cf. Mark 2:10; 10:45).
4:7. The devil, of course, is trying to obtain the authority that belongs to God alone (cf. Isa 14:14; 2 Thess 2:4). Just as the devil was able to wrest away from Adam authority over the earth, in tempting Jesus the devil is trying to wrest authority away from the Messiah, and ultimately, from God.Therefore, the devil says to Jesus that "If You will worship before me, all will be Yours." The devil is offering to Jesus what Jesus is on earth for. The Messiah was supposed to gain rulership over the earth.
The one condition was that Jesus had to worship the devil. the devil knows that unless he can get Jesus to kneel before him, the day will arrive when he must kneel before Jesus (Php 2:10). The word for worship (Gk. proskuneses) literally means "to bend the knee," but could also be translated "honor." To kneel before someone represented swearing an oath of fealty to them, and look to that person as their patron and provider. To worship the devil by kneeling or bowing before him is akin to defecting from God and swearing allegiance to the devil (Bock 1994:377).
"The devil makes the audacious claim to be God's broker, saying that both the kingdoms of the world and the right to dispose of their resources in whatever manner he wishes has been given to him" (Malina 2003:241). If Jesus bows to the devil, then the universe, which ultimately belongs to Jesus, would be given to the devil, and that is how the devil could then "give it to whomever" he wishes. So the offer by the devil is a shortcut to the plan of God. Jesus knows that God's plan includes pain, suffering, ridicule, and scorn. Only after He suffers and dies as a human will Jesus receive the right to rule the world. The devil offers to Jesus a way to the ultimate goal, but through a path that avoids all the pain and suffering.
It is possible that there is a parallel here between what the devil offers Jesus, and what God offers to Moses on Mount Sinai after the people of Israel began to worship other gods (Exod 32:10). God tells Moses that due to the idolatry of the Israelites, God was going to wipe them out, and start over with Moses. Moses declines the offer, and instead, intercedes with God on behalf of the idolatrous Israelites. Jesus knows, as did Moses, that by putting his own desires first, He would be destroying the lives of countless multitudes.
Another possible parallel is when King Nubuchadnezzar commands that all his subjects bow down and worship a golden statue of himself. Some of the young Jewish men refuse, and though they are faced with being burned to death in the fiery furnace, God delivers them from death, and they become leaders in the kingdom (cf. Dan 3:5-15). Jesus is being portrayed like these great prophets and men of faith from Hebrew history.
4:8. The reply of Jesus to this temptation is first of all to command the devil. Jesus says, "Get behind me, Satan!" This indicates the conviction of Jesus that the devil must follow Him in service, not He follow the devil. To support this claim, Jesus quotes once again from Deuteronomy, this time from 6:13. In this passage, Moses instructs the people that when they get into the Promised Land, and gain the authority and glory that has been promised to them, they must not forget God by worshiping, or bowing the knee to false gods. Instead, they must continue to worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.
Although Moses warned the Israelites about this, Scripture reveals that they did not obey. Instead, they frequently turned after other gods. Jesus is not about to make that mistake. He will not fail as Israel failed. He knew His Bible, and knew that there is no shortcut to achieving God's promises. If He worshiped the devil, and knelt before him, Jesus would then have to serve the devil, not God.
4:9. In the second temptation, Jesus was able to rebuff the attempts of the devil to gain immediate rulership over the kingdoms of the world. Though Jesus, as the Messiah, will ultimately gain dominion over the earth, He had to obtain it in God's way with God's timing. The third temptation builds upon the Messianic understanding of Jesus. The devil tries to get Jesus to proclaim Himself as the Messiah in a miraculous fashion. In order to be the Messiah, Jesus would eventually have to be recognized as such, and so the devil urges Jesus to reveal Himself to the Jewish people.
With this goal, He brought Jesus to Jerusalem, which is the center of Judaism, and the nexus of all the Messianic hopes. It was expected that the Messiah, when He appeared, would proclaim Himself in Jerusalem. And the devil brought Jesus, not just to Jerusalem, bu to the pinnacle of the temple. If Jerusalem was the political and religious center of Judaism, the temple was the center of Jerusalem. The temple itself embodied all the political and religious expectations for the Messiah. It is unclear how exactly the devil brought Jesus here, but by placing Jesus at the the pinnacle of the temple, the devil was symbolically placing Jesus above it, putting Jesus, in a sense, in authority over the temple. Furthermore, there was a tradition in Jewish thought that when the Messiah came, He would announce Himself from the pinnacle of the temple. One writer says, "Our Rabbis give this tradition: In the hour when King Messiah cometh, He standeth upon the roof of the Sanctuary, and proclaims to Israel, saying, Ye poor, the time of your redemption draweth nigh" (Edersheim 1988:293).
This highest point of the temple was probably the southeast corner of the temple which loomed over a cliff of the temple mount. If this is where Jesus stood, He would be about 450 feet above the bottom of the cliff and would be able to oversee all of Jerusalem, and all the people in the Temple courts below (Radmacher 1999:1257; Barclay 1975:44; Bock 1994:379). Josephus records that when he climbed to the top of the Royal Portico, which was part of the temple complex, and looked over all Jerusalem and down into the valley below, he became dizzy with the height (Evans 2003:86). If Josephus was able to climb to the pinnacle of the temple, it seems that there may have been steps up to it, and maybe a platform to stand on. Edersheim confirms this by stating that it was from this pinnacle of the temple that a priest would stand every morning to watch for the rising of the sun in the East, so as to announce the signal for the morning sacrifice (Edersheim 1988: 303). From here, the devil tempts Jesus to throw Himself down. The devil is not tempting Jesus to commit suicide, but to perform a miracle in the sight of all the worshipers below.
Bock contends that since no temple worshipers are mentioned, there were probably no worshipers (1994:380). This is especially true if this temptation took place as a vision, and Jesus was not actually taken to the pinnacle of the temple. If this is the case, the temptation would not be about the desire of Jesus to be recognized as the Messiah by the masses, but a desire to prove that He was righteous. In this way, verses 10-11 (see below) are quoted as proof that if Jesus is as righteous as He claims, God will protect Him. This view, however, requires that the devil has correctly quoted and applied these verses, which as the discussion below indicates, he has not.
4:10. In the previous two temptations, Jesus has used Scriptural quotes to defeat the temptations of the devil. With this third temptation, the devil uses what is written in Psalm 91:11-12 to tempt Jesus. This was a good text for the devil to use against Jesus, since it was traditionally thought that Psalm 91 provided promises from God for protection against demons and evil spirits (Evans 2003:86). To support his suggestion that Jesus throw Himself from the pinnacle of the temple, the devil quotes a Scripture which says that God will give His angels charge over you, to keep you. This means that God will send angels to protect Jesus.
4:11. The devil continues to quote from Psalm 91 to show what the angels will do for Jesus. He says that "In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone." The devil is trying to show Jesus that if He casts Himself from the Temple, God will have angels catch Jesus before He hits the ground. According to the devil, Jesus is to let go and let God (Bock 1994:380).
The devil, however, misquoted the text, and in so doing, twisted it to mean what it does not say. Where the devil inserts the word and, he removed several key words from Psalm 91:11. The verse actually says, "He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways." When properly read in context and applied to Jesus' situation, the text reveals that the angels are not there to keep Jesus from committing suicide, but to help Him walk in the ways God has laid out for Him, to help Him obey God.
The devil twisted Scripture to try to get Jesus to perform an amazing demonstration of power before the multitudes of people below. It would reveal Himself "to be a Son of Wonder, clothed in marvels, living a life that struck the senses and dazzled the fancies of the poor vulgar crowd" (Fairbairn, quoted in Pentecost 1981:103). To perform this miracle in the Temple would have helped Jesus immediately be recognized as the Messiah. Of course Jesus wanted to be recognized as the Messiah, but again, it had to be done in God's ways with God's timing.
4:12. Jesus again responds with Scripture. He does not challenge or question the devil on his misuse of Scripture, but simply quotes a verse used properly in context, from Deuteronomy 6:16. Jesus said, "You shall not tempt the Lord your God." In this passage, Moses reminds the people of when they doubted whether God was with them or not (Exod 17:7). They had seen God miraculously provide for them time after time. But then the days in the wilderness got long and hot, and they ran out of water, and they began to wonder if God had forgotten about them, or abandoned them. They accused Moses, and therefore God, of bringing them into the desert just to die. But what they were really doing, according to Exodus 17:7, was testing God. In their complaining, they were saying, "If God is really there, and if He really loves us, He will provide water for us." God did provide water for them – out of a rock – but He was not happy about their lack of trust. Even later, after God had shown the Israelites that He could provide water from a rock, they complain again. This time, it is Moses, however, who also falls into sin. Whereas before, God told Moses to strike the rock, this time God told Moses to speak to it. But Moses struck the rock. The action may have been out of frustration, or he was just doing what he had done before, or maybe he was trying to give a visual demonstration to the people of his own power and authority. Whatever the reason Moses struck the rock the second time, it was not what God had told him to do, and so Moses was not allowed to enter the Promised Land (Num 20:11-12).
Jesus sees many similarities between this incident with Moses and the Israelites in the wilderness and what the devil is tempting Him to do. Satan is tempting Jesus to test God by saying, "If God is really there, and if He really loves me, He will protect me as I throw myself from the highest point of the temple. It would be a good way to show my power and authority as the Messiah." But Jesus chose wisely where the Israelites did not. Where the Israelites tested God, Jesus would not. Jesus knows that "the demanding of miraculous protection, where it is not needed, is not faith or loyalty. It is sin" (Bock 1994:381).
4:13. Jesus has overcome every temptation brought against Him, and so the devil departed…until an opportune time. There were several other opportunities for Jesus to sin during His years of ministry. One is when Satan, through Peter, tells Jesus that He will not have to take the road to the cross. There, just like here in verse 8, Jesus says, "Get behind me, Satan." Another attempt might have been on the night before his crucifixion in the Garden of Gethsemane (cf. Luke 22:3, 28, 31, 53). But even more subtly, these similar temptations continue to arise during the ministry of Jesus. His family encourages Jesus to declare Himself as the Messiah (John 7:3-5), and the crowds frequently want to crown Jesus as King (John 6:15). As Jesus resisted these temptations the first time, He continues to resist them throughout His career.
The devil's temptations are, from a human perspective, quite logical. "They are plausible, attractive, and make, as we would say, a lot of sense. God can't want his beloved son to be famished with hunger, can he? If God wants Jesus to become the sovereign over the world (that is, after all, what Gabriel had told Mary), then why not go for it in one easy stride? If Jesus is Israel's Messiah, why not prove it by spectacular displays of power?" (Wright 2004:43). But God's ways are different, and Jesus proves He will follow and obey God, and so Jesus was victorious over all temptations, and having conquered all, He is now ready to begin His ministry.
His defeat of temptations has shown how He will approach ministry. He will steadfastly pursue God's call, in obedience to God's will. He will not draw attention to Himself, but will direct people to God's work and God's Word. He will not use His power and position to serve Himself, but to meet the needs, both physical and spiritual, of those around Him (cf. Bock 1994:363, 367). All this becomes clear when Jesus declares the goal and purpose of His ministry in Luke 4:14-21.


Wear comfortable attire such as long tights or shorts. Less is better. Please refrain from wearing perfumes and/or colognes. Be prepared to work barefoot. We use "sticky mats" for traction. Studio mats are available for beginners to use.
Stay away from heavy meals 2 hours prior to class. A Light snack is suggested 1 hour prior to class. Hydration is encouraged. - Clean filtered water available at Studio.
The studio is intentionally kept warm (not stifling) to encourage the body to detoxify through perspiration. The added warmth helps muscles to be more elastic and less susceptible to injury.
Classes are 60 minutes long. Classes are on a first-come first-serve basis. No reservations required.
Women active prior to pregnancy are welcome with doctor's approval. Appropriate recommendations and modifications are offered throughout the pregnancy.
Yoga regenerates health and peace in the body and mind. Beginners should take it easy and allow themselves to be immersed in the freedom of being a beginner.


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text:
Waterville shelter adopts out 66 animals as part of "Clear the Shelters" event
29 cats, 27 kittens, 10 dogs find loving homes, director says.
By Amy CalderMorning Sentinel
Stephanie Leclerc holds a kitten as her kids, Edgar and Hazel, admire it at the Humane Society Waterville Area on Sunday during the "Clear the Shelter" weekend event. Staff Photo by David Leaming
WATERVILLE — When officials at Humane Society Waterville Area looked out and saw a long line of cars waiting outside the animal shelter Saturday, they couldn't believe their eyes.
"We were in tears, we were so happy," said Joann Brizendine, a member of the Society's Board of Directors.
Glenn and Celeste Healey left the Humane Society Waterville Area shelter Sunday with a new dog named Sarah during the "Clear the Shelter" adoption weekend. Staff Photo by David Leaming
It had been stressful at the shelter, which was full of dogs, cats and kittens that needed homes, and staff were worried about what would become of them.
"We were running out of places to put the cats," shelter Director Lisa Smith recalled Sunday.
But the Clear the Shelters event held Saturday and Sunday at the 100 Webb Road facility changed all that. Animals lovers came from far and wide to adopt pets at reduced prices — and adoption fees were waived for special needs animals.
By 3 p.m. Sunday, 66 animals — 29 cats, 27 kittens and 10 dogs — had been adopted by loving families, according to Smith.
"The balance of seeing all of those wonderful people open their hearts and homes to a new animal — the staff is so relaxed today," Smith said Sunday. "We're celebrating the fact that all of those animals got new homes. The euphoria among the staff members today is so palpable."
The shelter for the first time took part in Clear the Shelters, hosted by NBC Universal Owned Television Stations. Since 2015, 70,000 pets have been adopted as part of the annual event.
At the Waterville shelter Sunday, Glenn and Celeste Healey of China were doing paperwork to adopt Sarah, a 3-year-old husky or shepherd mix that had been rescued from Puerto Rico and fostered for about a week locally. The couple had agonized about whether to get another dog after their two, 17-year-old sibling dogs, Astro and Roxy, died late last year, leaving their owners devastated.
But Donna Laliberte, the couple's good friend and a member of the Humane Society's Board of Directors, recommended they come to see the dog, Sarah, on Saturday. The Healeys did so and found that the docile, gray and white dog tugged at their heartstrings. They returned to the shelter Sunday to adopt her.
"It's always hard, because we just don't think that there's going to be another dog that will fill the void of losing cherished pets," Glenn Healey said.
The more time he and Celeste spent with the dog, the more they felt an affinity for it, they said
"What is amazing is that she looks like Astro, who was our male dog, and acts like Roxy, which was our female," Glenn Healey said. "It's a perfect balance of both dogs."
The couple, both 60, were smiling and hopeful Sunday as Laliberte photographed them with Sara and they left the shelter, heading for their horse farm in China.
Just before they left, Brian and Loretta Livingstone of Solon took their new 3-year-old pit bull terrier dog, Ginger, home. The Livingstones had fostered the dog for the last two weeks to see how it would acclimate to their three cats, Tiggles, Wiggles and Itty Buns, and it went very well, they said.
"She's got separation anxiety — she can't be left alone," Brian Livingstone said of Ginger. "She's nervous around people but not today — today she's doing good."
Loretta Livingstone said she "absolutely adores" Ginger.
"She's one of a kind and she suffers with anxiety and so do I, so I get what she feels like," she said.
The couple said they were happy to see so many animal lovers adopt homeless animals.
"It made me smile to see all of the animals find their forever homes and see all the people happy to find their babies," Loretta said.
Scott and Stephanie Leclerc and their children, Edgar, 9, and Hazel, 8, of Hermon, came in looking for a dog but were attracted by the kittens sleeping in a room off the lobby. After petting the kittens, they went into the dog room where they visited several canines.
"We have two cats we adopted from the Bangor Humane Society," Stephanie said.
Brizendine, the Humane Society board member, told a story about a special needs kitten named Thumper, which was the only kitten no one adopted on Saturday. The staff members were feeling sad about Thumper, who hops like a rabbit, as it has Manx Syndrome and has no tail, they said. But then on Sunday, a woman and her son from Augusta who had seen Thumper on the shelter's website came in and asked to see the cat, according to Brizendine.
"I started telling her about Manx Syndrome and she said, 'I know all about it — I had a cat with Manx Syndrome,' Brizendine recalled. "She picked Thumper up and the kitten went right to her chin and started snuggling."
Shelter officials said people came from as far north as Presque Isle and as far south as Casco to adopt pets over the weekend.
Smith, the director, said that after a story appeared Thursday in the Morning Sentinel about the Clear the Shelters event, people left 4-week-old kittens on the shelter's doorstep. On Thursday night, staff members saw a cat in the shelter's driveway and Smith and Brizendine went out, called to it, and it came to them from out of the bushes. Another cat that appeared to also have been dropped off at the shelter, however, was not so friendly and disappeared in the bushes so staff set a cat trap for it, Smith said.
She issued a plea to pet owners who may need to give up their animals.
"If they could just be aware and get their animals into the building, that would be great," she said. "We're here to do everything we can to re-home the animals. We're a 'no-kill' shelter. We want to take care of all the animals."
She said the shelter has animal "surrender" hours from noon to 2 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday and people are asked to call for an appointment before bringing their animals in on those days.
Amy Calder — 861-9247
Twitter: @AmyCalder17
waterville maine


Poets on the East Coast are likely to be familiar with the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe. This is a Lower East Side haunt that has featured poetry readings and poetry slams for years. It was founded in 1973 and continues to run events today. It is one of the most famous poetry venues in New York City. Many of the best from the City and from around America have tested their chops there.
I myself have read poetry aloud at the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe. Of course, I was omitted when they put out the anthology Aloud: Voices From the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe. Guess my accidental Tazmanian Devil impersonation just didn't cut the mustard. Oh well, I wouldn't be able to review the book if I was in it so let's get back to business.
This thick anthology features poetry from dozens of poets who have read their work at Nuyoricans. The collection was edited by Miguel Algarin and Bob Holman. Algarin is one of the founders of the Cafe while Holman has served as host of the many poetry slams featured at the Cafe. This book, originally published in 1994, features close to 500 pages of poetry. Some of it is quite good and some of it will leave the reader cold.
I guess any volume of poetry is bound to have a hit or miss quality with the poems. Poetry should elicit a visceral response when it is done correctly. I will also mention the aspect of personal taste. There were numerous poems that didn't really hit the spot for me. In some cases, I felt the poems didn't translate well to the page.
There were also cases where I felt that poets weren't writing bad verse but they weren't really offering much in the way of originality. I found myself going back and forth between being impressed and unimpressed with the poets in this book.
Aloud does feature some poets that I greatly admire like Wanda Coleman, Lamont Steptoe, Eileen Myles and Victor Hernandez Cruz. They only include one poem each from Steptoe and Myles. Cruz and Coleman have several poems featured in the book. Editor Miguel Algarin has numerous poems and an interesting preface titled The Sidewalk of High Art where he provides some historical background for the Cafe as well as some notes on the inspiration behind this poetry driven cafe.
That is a rather long poem but it honors a unique American musician. The overall tone of the collection, while being poetry from the streets does manage to avoid excessive obscenity. Of course, vulgarity is a matter of opinion. Those who will be offended by any curse word at all might want to avoid this book.
Bob Holman also has several poems featured as well as an introduction called Congratulations! You have found this book!. Holman was longtime host of the poetry slams held at Nuyorican in the 90s. His poem 1990 is about the release of Nelson Mandela. This is a long poem about the political climate that existed in the early 90s.
It's 1990/ & Nelson Mandela is free!/and everyone wants a little glasnost/ We know we want it because we see Frank Zappa smoking cigarettes with Vaclav Havel.
Holman notes in his introductory invocation that one should not approach this volume as simply a book to be read but realize that the poems here were designed to read aloud and performed on a stage. That is both a strength and a weakness for this book. Sometimes, I am able to go along for the ride and get a feel for the tone and pulse of the poems being read. I can imagine the poet standing in front of me and hear the voice inflecting the verse. Other poems simply do not come across so well.
This collection does include a pretty wide range of poets. There is great diversity among the poets. There are black poets, Hispanic poets, Asian poets, gay poets, women poets, Jewish poets etc. They are all expressing themselves freely. There is a looseness and bawdiness that comes across pretty well overall. I can tell you from experience that the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe was (and likely still is) a fun place to read and listen to poetry. The book does reflect on the free spirited nature of the venue and the founders.
Aloud is a great find for those who enjoy modern poetry culled from the streets. This is not academic poetry. This is poetry written by those poets not fortunate enough to be able to hide in the ivory towers of the universities. It is gritty and down to earth. It might offend some but it will likely pleasantly surprise people open to current poetry.
This is a review of an anthology of poets that performed at or have some association with the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe in New York City. They have been at it for 45 years. I attended numerous readings and poetry slams there and even on occasion got up and performed on stage. A lot of the poets featured in the anthology have influenced me over the years.


text:
Q: Need help determining bifurcation points So I have to find the bifurcation points of the system: $\dot{x}=(ax-x^3+x^5)(x-a+2)$, where $a\in\mathbb{R}$ is a parameter.
Attempt:
I know that a bifurcation point is the point, where there is a change in stability or number of fixed points.
I have tried visualising the graph, and have come to the conclusion, that there are:
4 fixed points for $a\leq 0$.
6 fixed points for $0<a\leq 0.2$.
2 fixed points for $0.2<a<2$.
1 fixed point for $a=2$
2 fixed points for $2<a$.
The change in stability happens at the same time as the number of fixed points changes.
From what I have learned, I'm pretty sure that one bifurcation point is $(a,x)=(2,0)$, and I think that a transcritical bifurcation happens at this point.
I think there is another bifurcation point, when we go from 4 to 6 to 2 points. I just don't know exactly what that point is? $a=0$? $a=0.2$? It confueses me, that the change seems to happen before and after the interval $0<a\leq 0.2$. Normally the change should happen at a single point?
All help is appreciated!

A: Lets take this step-by-step:

*

*Find the fixed points as a function of our parameters (e.g. $a$).

*Investigate the changes of the locations as we vary the parameters

*Determine the stability of the fixed points.

*Investigate the nature of these fixed points as we vary the parameters.

The fixed points:
$$ x_c = 0, a-2, \pm \sqrt{\frac{1 \pm \sqrt{1 - 4a}}{2}} $$
When $a < 0$, we have four solutions. Our first (pitchfork) bifurcation occurs at $a = 0$ where two new solutions emerge. We now have six solutions for $0 < a < 1/4$, where we reach our next double (saddle-node) bifurcation and lose two solutions. Down to only two fixed points, one more (transcritical) bifurcation occurs at $a = 2$.
Stability can be found by linearizing about the critical points in the usual way.

A: One extra tip that augments the prior answer. The easy way to locate the fixed points is to first use the equation $\dot x=0$  by setting each factor equal to zero, and then (the sneaky part) plot the solution set for each factor by expressing $a$ as a function of $x$.
(This is much easier than solving for $x$ as a function of $a$.)
In your example the first factor give the equation (i)  $a=x+2$.
The second factor gives either (ii) $a= x^2- x^4$  or (iii) $x=0$ with no restriction on $a$. Plot all these solutions on a single picture and this will reveal how the number of solutions varies as you adjust the variable $a$.
In the graph below (i) is blue, (iii) is the faint green vertical axis, and (ii) is the quartic.
Horizontal lines correspond to setting $a$ constant. As you vary the height ( the value of $a$), the number of solutions changes.

A: Another way in which the problem can be addressed without referring to graphs is to consider that the function in the differential equation $ \ \dot{x} \ = \ f(x) \  $ is a sixth-degree polynomial for which the partial factorization is $ \ f(x) \ = \ x·( \ x - [a-2] \ )·(a - x^2 + x^4) \ \ . \ $  Since the coefficients are real, there can be up to six real zeroes, two of which are $ \ x \ = \ 0 \ $ and $ \ x \ = \ a - 2 \ \ . \ $ The number of remaining real zeroes depends upon the value of $ \ a \ $ in the biquadratic equation $ \ x^4 - x^2 +  a \ = \ 0 \ \ ; \ $ we find that
$$ x^2 \ \ = \ \ \frac{1 \ \pm \ \sqrt{1 \ - \ 4a}}{2} \ \ , $$
as also given by Gregory.
Since the equilibria ("fixed points") of this system are represented by real zeroes of $ \ f(x) \ \ , \ $ we need to examine the discriminant of the biquadratic equation.  For $ \ 1 - 4a \ < \ 0 \ \Rightarrow \ a \ > \ \frac14 \ \ , \ \ x^2 \ $ has no real values and for $ \ a \ = \ \frac14 \ \ , \ $ the zeroes are $ \ x \ = \  \pm \frac{1}{\sqrt2} \ \ . \ $
For $ \ a \ < \ \frac14 \  \ , \ $ we must be a bit more thorough.  For $ \ 0 \ < \ \sqrt{1 - 4a} \ < \ 1 \ \Rightarrow \ 0 \ < \ a \ < \ \frac14 \ \ , \ \ x^2 \ > \ 0 \ $ has two possible values, permitting four real zeroes of the biquadratic equation.  At $ \ a \ = \ 0 \ \ , \ $ we have $ \ x \ = \ \pm 1 \ $ and $ \ x \ = \ 0 \ \ $ (a double zero).  With $ \   \sqrt{1 - 4a} \ > \ 1 \ \Rightarrow \   a \ < \ 0 \ \ , \ \ x^2 \   $ is only positive in the case of $ \ x^2 \   =   \ \frac{1 \ + \ \sqrt{1 \ - \ 4a}}{2} \ \ , $ giving us two real zeroes.
We have established that $ \ a \ = \ 0 \ $ and $ \ a \ = \ \frac14 \ \ $ are "special" values of this parameter, but we must also consider that the location of one of the zeroes of $ \ f(x) \ $ also depends upon $ \ a \ \ . \ $  So for $ \ a \ > \ \frac14 \ \ , \ $ $ \ f(x) \ $ has the two (single) zeroes $ \ x \ = \ 0 \ $ and $ \ x \ = \ a - 2 \ \ , \ $ except at $ \ a \ = \ 2 \ \ , \ $ when $ \ x \ = \ 0 \ $ becomes a double zero (the polynomial is $ \ x^2·(x^4 - x^2 + 2) \ \ ) \ . \ $  As we will see, these zeroes with multiplicity larger than one are important. For the other cases we've discussed, the $ \ a - 2 \ $ zero is negative and smaller than any other zero.
The number of equilibria (real zeroes) are thus
$ \mathbf{ a \ > \ 2 \ \ : } \quad \quad 0 \ \ \ , \ \ \ a - 2 \ > \ 0  \ \ ; $
$ \mathbf{ a \ = \ 2 \ \ : } \quad \quad  0 \ \  $ (double zero) ;
$ \mathbf{ \frac14 \ < \ a \ < \ 2 \ \ : } \quad \quad a - 2 \ < \ 0 \ \ \ , \  \ \ 0 \ \ ; $
$ \mathbf{ a \ = \ \frac14 \ \ : } \quad \quad -\frac74 \ \ \ , \ \ \ -\frac{1}{\sqrt2} \ \ \ , \ \ \ 0 \ \ \ , \ \ \ \frac{1}{\sqrt2} \ \  $ (with the second and fourth on this list being double zeroes ; the polynomial is $ \ \frac14·x·\left(x + \frac74 \right)·(2x^2 - 1)^2 \ \ ) \ \ $ ;
$ \mathbf{ 0 \ < \ a \ < \ \frac14 \ \ : } \quad \quad a - 2 \ \ \ , \ \ \ -\sqrt{\frac{1 \ + \ \sqrt{1 \ - \ 4a}}{2}} \ \ \ , \ \ \ -\sqrt{\frac{1 \ - \ \sqrt{1 \ - \ 4a}}{2}} \ \ \ , \ \ \ 0 \ \ \ , \ \ \ \sqrt{\frac{1 \ - \ \sqrt{1 \ - \ 4a}}{2}} \ \ \ , \ \ \ \sqrt{\frac{1 \ + \ \sqrt{1 \ - \ 4a}}{2}} \ \ ; $
$ \mathbf{ a \ = \ 0 \ \ : } \quad \quad -2 \ \ \ , \ \ \ -1 \ \ \ , \ \ \  0 \ \ $ (triple zero)   $ \ \ \ , \ \ \  1 \ \ $ (the polynomial is $ \ x^3·(x+2)·(x+1)·(x-1) \ \ ) \ \ $ ;
$ \mathbf{ a \ < \ 0  \ \ : } \quad \quad a - 2 \ \ \ , \ \ \ -\sqrt{\frac{1 \ + \ \sqrt{1 \ - \ 4a}}{2}} \ \ \ , \ \ \ 0  \ \ \  , \ \ \ \sqrt{\frac{1 \ + \ \sqrt{1 \ - \ 4a}}{2}} \ \ . $
What we may observe from this analysis is that the zeroes of multiplicity greater than one at critical values of $ \ a \ $ are the "bifurcation points" for the system.  "Near" $ \ a \ = \ 2 \ \ , \ $ the double zero at $ \ x \ = \ 0 \ \ $ "splits" into $ \ 0 \ $ and $ \ a - 2 \ \ . \ $   The double zeroes that emerge at $ \ a \ = \ \frac14 \ \ $ each "split" into two zeroes as $ \ a \ $ is decreased.  Finally,   as $ \ a \ $ decreases from small positive values to zero, the zeroes $ \ \pm \sqrt{\frac{1 \ - \ \sqrt{1 \ - \ 4a}}{2}} \ $ "merge" with $ \ x \ = \ 0 \ \ . $
So, as you believed, there is a transcritical bifurcation at $ \ x \ = \ 0 \ $ for $ \ \mathbf{a \ = \ 2} \ \ . \ $  There is a (supercritical) pitchfork bifurcation at $ \ \mathbf{a \ = \ 0} \ \ $ in which the equilbrium at $ \ x \ = \ 0 \ $ changes character as it "splits from" or "merges with" the two nearest equilibria.  Finally, there is a "saddle-node" bifurcation at $ \ \mathbf{a \ = \ \frac14} \ \ $ with four equilibria "splitting from" or "merging into" two and vanishing for $ \ a \ > \ \frac14 \ \ . $  (So this system has "something for everybody"...)
$$ \ \ $$
Although it isn't specifically asked for in the problem, we can say a bit about the types of  the equilibria.  One way we can obtain this information is to differentiate the original differential equation to produce an expression for  $ \ \ddot{x} \  \ , \ $ and determine its sign at an equilibrium point for varying values of $ \ a \ \ . \ $ As this is a bit cumbersome for the sixth-degree polynomial, we could instead look at the signs of $ \ \dot{x} \ $ on "either side" of equilibria.  As this is still daunting without the use of graphs, we can look at the properties of the polynomial $ \ f(x) \ $ in the vicinity of bifurcation points.
At $ \ a \ = \ 2 \ \ , \ $ we have $ \  x^2·(x^4 - x^2 + 2) \ \ , \ $ which "opens upward" and has a global minimum at $  \ x \ = \ 0 \ \ . \ $
For $ \ a \ = \ 2^{-} \ \ , \ $ the curve "deforms" slightly with one zero at $ \ x \ = \ a - 2 \ < \ 0 \ $ and the other zero at $ \ x \ = \ 0 \ \ . \ $  So $ \ \dot{x} \ $ goes from positive to negative at $ \ a - 2 \ $ and from negative back to positive at $ \ x \ = \ 0 \ \ , \ $ making $ \ x \ = \ a - 2 \ $ a stable equilibrium and $ \ 0 \ $ an unstable one. For $ \ a \ = \ 2^{+} \ \ , \ $ the direction of the changes in $ \ \dot{x} \ $ is reversed, so $ \ 0 \ $ becomes stable and $ \ a - 2 \ > \ 0 \ $ is now unstable.  This confirms the transcritical character of the bifurcation at $ \ a \ = \  2 \ \ . $  [At $ \ a \ = \ 2 \ $ then, $ \ x \ = \ 0 \ $ is a "saddle point" or "semi-stable" equilibrium.]
The next-easiest bifurcation to discuss is $ \ a \ = \ 0 \ \ . \ $  The associated polynomial $ \ x^3·(x+2)·(x+1)·(x-1) \ \ $ changes from positive to negative at $ \ x \ = \ -2 \ $ and the triple zero at $ \ x \ = \ 0 \ $ and from negative to positive at  $ \ x \ = \ -1 \ $ and $ \ x \ = \ 1 \ \ . \ $  For $ \ a \ = \ 0^{+} \ \ , \ $ two additional zeroes appear symmetrically around $ \ x \ = \ 0 \ \ ; \ $ as all of the zeroes are now single, we must have the "deformed" polynomial change from negative to positive at $ \ x \ = \ 0 \ $ and from positive to negative at the "new" zeroes.  The equilibrium at $ \ x \ = \ 0 \ $ switches from stable to unstable and the new equilibria are stable, while the equilbria at $ \ x \ = \ \pm 1 \ $ remain unstable and the one at $ \ x \ = \ -2 \ $ remains stable.
Finally, there is the bifurcation at $ \ a \ = \ \frac14 \ $ with associated polynomial $ \ \frac14·x·\left(x + \frac74 \right)·(2x^2 - 1)^2 \ \ . \ $  The curve again "opens upward" and, for $ \ a \ = \ \frac14^{-} \ \ , \ $ the six zeroes are all single, so we must have $ \ \dot{x} \ $ change from positive to negative for the first $ \ ( \ a - 2 \ ) \ \ , $ third, and fifth zeroes, and from negative to positive for the second, fourth $ \ ( \ 0 \ ) \ \ , $ and sixth.  So $ \ x \ = \ a - 2 \ $ is stable and $ \ x \ = \ 0 \ $ is unstable; we also have the pairs $ \ -\sqrt{\frac{1 \ + \ \sqrt{1 \ - \ 4a}}{2}} \ \  , \  \ -\sqrt{\frac{1 \ - \ \sqrt{1 \ - \ 4a}}{2}} \ $ (unstable-stable) and $ \ \sqrt{\frac{1 \ - \ \sqrt{1 \ - \ 4a}}{2}}  \ \ \ , \ \ \ \sqrt{\frac{1 \ + \ \sqrt{1 \ - \ 4a}}{2}}  \ $ (stable-unstable).  These pairs "merge" into saddle-points at $ \ x \ = \ \pm \frac{1}{\sqrt2} \ $ for $ \ a \ = \ \frac14 \ \ , \ $ which then diaappear ("annihilate") for $ \ a \ > \ \frac14 \ \ . $


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We are quiet apartment suitable for students or workers who appreciate a peaceful environment when they get "home"
We are 3 people in the apartment so far (Aussie guy and 2 European girls).
All of us working, some studying as well.
We are NOT a party flat and prefer to have a new person with similar quieter lifestyle.
We would also appreciate if new flatmate consider duties as washing the dishes or taking the bins out as a normal part of living in a shareflat, and it does not need to be reminded all the time.