text:
Fishbots
Saturday's post about some kind of mysterious message showing up on my instant messenger just kind of weirded me out a little bit, but I thought very little of it and decided to move on. Today, though, I get a different, yet similar message in my IM window:
At this point, I'm getting a little annoyed, so I decide to dig a little bit deeper, and what I found isn't so much unsettling as it is just plain annoying.
These 'troutbots', as it seems, are robots that trawl the Internet looking for screen names. They then act as sort of a middle-man and relay both sides of the conversation to the victims, obscuring their names. So, when I was talking to OrbitingTrout the other day, the poor sap on the other end of the line was also talking to OrbitingTrout.
I can't actually fathom why such a thing exists other than to momentarily confuse random pairs of people for a few minutes. But now that it's happened to me twice in two days, it's having the effect of making me very irritated.
There is more information to be found in the following places:
Saalon Muyo
Livejournal community based on the concept
In short, if you get some message from someone with 'trout' or 'salmon' in their username, it's a bot designed to annoy you and someone else for as long as the two of you keep bickering back and forth figuring out who IM'd who first. The best thing to do is to not respond to any of it and close your browser window, or better yet, disallow IMs from folks that aren't in your buddy list, though that may be infeasible for some.
Oh, and please pass a link around to this page to spread the word to educate people about this completely ridiculous waste of time.
AIM Virus or Lame Virus?
Just spent several minutes with a mysterious caller from the AIM network. The person, one OrbitingTrout, claims that he doesn't recognize my screen name, didn't message me, and chooses to believe that he has a virus on his computer that send out messages to people. I'm fully willing to accept that I've not seen every virus/spyware out in the wild, but one that sends out the occasional spam comment seems to be the kind of things Ron Paul's supporters might come up with.
Or the guy's an attention whore, you decide.
Posted in site news | 1 Comment »
The Mythical Free MMO Month
MMOs are a slightly different beast as far as video games go. If you've been living under a rock for the last couple of years, the gist is that the game is more akin to a service that you have to subscribe to. Ideally you and potentially thousands of other players subscribe to the game and your subscription fees pay for stuff like server upkeep, content generation, and stuff like that. There are, of course, exceptions, but we won't bother with those today.
The thing is, though, that you're not going to really know if the game's going to be worth your time unless you play it first. Of course, you could just jump headlong into the game and see if you like it, but then you've wasted a month's worth of subscription fees if the answer's 'no'.
The solution is, then, is to offer a token amount of 'free game time' for you to decide if you're going to like the game or not; one month is the norm.
But, here's the thing. That free month isn't actually a free month. Who says so? Math says so!
Let's take the current darling of MMOs, World of Warcraft. As of this writing you can get your very own copy of the base game from Amazon for $20. Now, your 'free' month of gameplay is worth $15, so if we subtract that from the cost of purchasing the media, we end up with $5 for your copy of the game and $15 for your 'free' month.
Or how about that other MMO that's making waves right now, Aga of Conan? You can get the for a scant $50(!). Subtracting the $15 worth of fees of the month that you're being 'given' leaves us with paying $35 for the ability to use the trial, which is over twice the value of gametime that you're using. Suddenly the free month doesn't really seem so free anymore.
I guess what I'm saying is, if you have to pay something to use it, it's not really a free trial.
Puzzle Pet Peeves
It's no great secret that I do enjoy a good puzzle game, but some of them just don't do anything for me. Here's a few of my peeves in no particular order.
The Sliding Block Puzzle
I'm sure there's a more proper name for it, but I'm talking about the kind of puzzle where you have some object and some kind of frictionless floor covered with obstacles. You push the object and it slides along until it his something and stops. Your goal is to slide it in such a way that it lands on a particular location on the floor. That explanation probably doesn't really make a lot of sense, so here's a little video to illustrate.
Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with that particular type of puzzle… other than the fact that I'm not particularly good at it, so I tend to avoid it whenever possible. Now, I do like a good Role Playing Game, up until they throw a ridiculous sliding block puzzle in it to eat up a few minutes. This is one of the few times that I'll reach for a walkthrough instead of trying to muddle my way through it. Which, yeah, I know that it sounds like I'm just avoiding using my brain for a few minutes, but those puzzles frustrate me to no end and the game would cease being fun by the time I'd get the puzzle solved.
Puzzle Mode
Most puzzle games will have something called 'puzzle mode' which always sounds redundant to me because you're already playing a puzzle game, the whole thing's a puzzle mode. What 'puzzle mode' actually means is that you take an action puzzle game and turn it into an extremely limited 'passive puzzle', I guess.
Typically you get some kind of prefab layout and have an extremely limited amount of whatever that puzzle game's resource is (pieces, moves, whatever) to solve it. Now, the problem with these puzzles isn't that I'm awful at them, which I totally am, it's calling it 'puzzle mode' in the first place. It's just a little bit too redundant to me.
Puzzles solved via trial and error instead of logic and reasoning
Going back to Tales of Symphonia for a moment, I remember a particular puzzle a good way into the game that had five pinwheels arranged kind of like this, where each asterisk represents a pinwheel:
|*   *|
|  *  |
You have to activate the pinwheels in a particular order to open the locked door. Now, I've already suspended enough disbelief to be OK with the fact that the builders of some kind of ancient temple have decided to use ridiculously circuitous locking mechanisms to keep their temple doors sealed. But they also apparently destroyed all their keys and all instructions on how the locks work. But, somehow in this game the old forgotten civilization did just that, and you're stuck with a puzzle that has 120 possible solutions, and no clues in sight. At least none that I could find. I scoured that dungeon for a couple of hours and couldn't find anything that resembled a clue anywhere in it, and after a couple dozen attempts at brute-forcing the proper pinwheel sequence, I decided to just go look up the solution. Ridiculous puzzles to eat up a few minutes are fine, but at least give me some clues so I can piece together the solution.
Even with all the pet peevery going on, I'm still going to be a sucker for a good puzzle. So long as that puzzle is solvable, and doesn't make me have to sit there and try every permutation of maneuvers to successfully solve it. Which, I know, sounds like I like puzzles where I don't have to use my brain a whole lot, and that's not exactly true. I like puzzles that I can solve quickly, or with lots of action, not puzzles where I have to stare at it until the solution pops into my head, or one that I just have to keep plugging away at to finish. Then it goes from fun brain exercise to boring tedium.
Yawn.
On Being a Budget Gamer
I play old games. That might be a strange thing to admit, but it's true. I have an odd compulsion to collect and play lots of video games, but to also not want to spend a whole lot of money doing so. These statements might appear to be at odds with each other. I mean, video games are expensive, right?
So, kind of out of necessity, I became somewhat of a bargain hunter. A connoisseur of cheap games, if you will. I know what you're probably thinking, "Cheap games? Everyone knows that cheap games are awful. They're games with no marketing budgets and no development budgets, and they're designed to separate uninformed parents who don't want to spend a whole lot from their money." And, yes, you'd be right in most cases.
Do you pony up $50 or more per game? That gets expensive real fast.
Do you buy and sell used games? It's tough to build a collection if you're selling everything off when you're done with it, and used games are usually missing some important component, like the final install disc or a serial number. Not to mention that buying a game for $50, selling it back to the store for $25 in store credit so they can resell it for $45 means that they sold the game twice and essentially charged you $25 to rent it.
Do you rent? Renting is a great way to play a lot of games for cheap, assuming that the people that had the game before you did handled the game with a reasonable amount of care (i.e. didn't use the disc as a surrogate dinner plate one day when the dishes were dirty. But you don't build up much of a collection from borrowing, and if you ever want to go back and play a game that's become out of print… well tough luck.
The best compromise I've found is to stay a couple of years behind the curve. This actually has several benefits.
You get to figure out of the game is actually any good by taking a look at the user reviews, which I admit are mostly worthless. You have to filter out the reviews that blindly give out perfect scores because, "OMG the game is sooo good because it has Cloud in it and he and Aerith are both going to totally make the game awesome, and I haven't played it yet, but it's obviously perfect in every way, LOLz!" You have to also filter out the ones that give the game a zero because, "OMG the grafx are totally gay, and I haven't played it and won't play it because Link totally looks like a girl."
Bugs get worked out and games get patched. This is more true for PC games, but there have been several console games where later versions have quietly been released to fix a bug or two.
Again, this mostly applies to PC games, but running games that are a little behind the curve means that if you have a reasonably powered PC, you can push the games to their absolute limit, and have them look as good as possible.
Probably most important of all, playing games that are on the verge of going out of print or have just gone out of print are going to be dirt cheap. Which is one of my favorite prices.
So, let's take a look at some of my recent finds for the PC:
Game Cost
Painkiller: Gold Edition $6.00
Medieval 2: Total War $7.50
Medieval 2: Total War Kingdoms $7.50
King's Quest Collection $5.00
SimCity Societies $8.00
Total $34
Not bad, right? I got five reasonably good games for slightly more than half the price of a full-priced game.
Of course this also means that I have to keep up on the latest releases to know what's going to be good in a few years. And I have to put up with the sneers of my peers when I get excited about getting a game that they've already played through and retired four or more years ago, so I'll end up buying a new game at full cost occasionally to keep up appearances. But that doesn't really work very well. That label of 'plays old games' is permanently affixed to my forehead.
And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Posted in articles | 1 Comment »


So we announced this last Friday and I am a bit slow on getting this into my blog. We now have the 10 finalists for the 2007 Hutch Award. The award luncheon is on 1/23/08 on the field at Safeco Field. Right now I am looking for table captains but if anyone would just like a spot at a table please let me know. I have a goal of filling at least three tables of 10.


text:
package javax.portlet.tck.portlets;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.PrintWriter;

import javax.portlet.ActionRequest;
import javax.portlet.ActionResponse;
import javax.portlet.EventPortlet;
import javax.portlet.EventRequest;
import javax.portlet.EventResponse;
import javax.portlet.Portlet;
import javax.portlet.PortletConfig;
import javax.portlet.PortletException;
import javax.portlet.RenderRequest;
import javax.portlet.RenderResponse;

import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;

import static javax.portlet.tck.constants.Constants.RESULT_ATTR_PREFIX;
import static javax.portlet.tck.constants.Constants.THREADID_ATTR;
import static javax.portlet.PortletSession.APPLICATION_SCOPE;

/**
 * This is the event processing portlet for the test cases. This portlet processes events, but does
 * not publish them. Events are published in the main portlet for the test cases.
 */
public class FilterTests_PortletFilter_ApiEventFilter_event implements Portlet, EventPortlet {

  private final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(FilterTests_PortletFilter_ApiEventFilter_event.class);

  @Override
  public void init(PortletConfig config) throws PortletException {

  }

  @Override
  public void destroy() {}

  @Override
  public void processAction(ActionRequest portletReq, ActionResponse portletResp)
      throws PortletException, IOException {
    LOGGER.trace("event companion processAction - ERROR!!");
  }

  @Override
  public void processEvent(EventRequest portletReq, EventResponse portletResp)
      throws PortletException, IOException {

    portletResp.setRenderParameters(portletReq);

    long tid = Thread.currentThread().getId();
    portletReq.setAttribute(THREADID_ATTR, tid);

  }

  @Override
  public void render(RenderRequest portletReq, RenderResponse portletResp)
      throws PortletException, IOException {

    portletResp.setContentType("text/html");
    PrintWriter writer = portletResp.getWriter();
    writer.write("
Event Companion Portlet
\n");
    writer.write("
FilterTests_PortletFilter_ApiEventFilter_event
\n");

    String msg = (String) portletReq.getPortletSession().getAttribute(
        RESULT_ATTR_PREFIX + "FilterTests_PortletFilter_ApiEventFilter", APPLICATION_SCOPE);
    msg = (msg == null) ? "Not ready. click test case link." : msg;
    writer.write("
" + msg + "
\n");

  }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Q: onTouchEvent for children of zoomed ViewGroup For my game Hashi I want to build a custom ViewGroup that allows zooming and scrolling (both axes), containing children that are affected on touches as well.

I have set setWillNotDraw(false) and overwritten draw(Canvas) to use canvas.scale(..) and canvas.translate(..):
@Override
public void draw(Canvas canvas)
{
    canvas.save();
    canvas.scale(mScaleFactor, mScaleFactor, mScaleCenter.x, mScaleCenter.y);
    canvas.translate(mTranslation.x * mScaleFactor, mTranslation.y * mScaleFactor);
    super.draw(canvas);
    canvas.restore();
}

But then I realized, that the MotionEvent parameter of the onTouchEvent for children is offset by the value I set with the translation (so they are detected, as if the container did not have any zoom or offset).
I tried to overwrite dispatchTouchEvent in the parent ViewGroup and adjust the coordinates of the event. But MotionEvent is final and can only be instantiated via MotionEvent.obtain(..). And there is no version of obtain to accept multiple coordinates, when there is more than one finger down.
Is there any way to modify the MotionEvent parameters, so I don't need to do it in the onTouchEvent methods of the child views (that would be much more complex), or even a better approach to implement zoom and scroll?
I implemented my own zoom container because I need to control the touches strictly (children also listen to swipe gestures, but need to be intercepted, when a second finger is down).

A: Don't try and create a new MotionEvent by providing coordinates.
Copy the existing event and then transform it using a matrix.
e.g. something like
// Matrix used for drawing the view
Matrix matrix = new Matrix();
matrix.setScale(scaleFactor, scaleFactor);
matrix.postTranslate(panX, panY);
// used with canvas.concat(matrix);

// Matrix for Touch events
Matrix mappingMatrix = new Matrix();
// Touch event matrix needs to be inverted
matrix.invert(mappingMatrix);

// Copy the touch Event that is being mapped
MotionEvent transformEvent = MotionEvent.obtain(ev);
// Apply it's event mapping matrix
transformEvent.transform(mappingMatrix);

Obtain copy documentation
I do something very similar in my custom viewgroup for scaling MotionEvents to children in my FixedHeaderTableLayout Library.
The MotionEvent copying is done here

A: So for those having the same problem I post my solution (thanks again Andrew for your help).
Update
Because I experienced input issues while testing, I decided to use onLayout instead of dispatchTouchEvent and draw methods to apply scale factor and translation, as the old solution did only apply it to the drawing and the input detection, but the container still declared the position of the children in the original place. This was causing espresso to execute the touches in the wrong place. With this solution the children are completely offset, so it also works with testing (and probably other things I did not consider).
Note that both solutions only work, when you embed (an) other layout container(s) that match the parents size.
If you want to change that, you need to change the implementation of onLayout.
public class ZoomContainer extends ViewGroup
{
    /**
     * Limit the maximum/minimum scrolling to prevent scrolling the container,
     * so that no more children are visible.
     * The value is relative to the size of the container (so 0.1 means 10% of the size of this container)
     */
    protected float mTranslationBounds = 0.1f;
    /**
     * The translation to be applied to the container
     */
    protected PointF mTranslation;
    /**
     * The the current zoom factor.
     * It is initialized with a value smaller than 1, to append some empty space around the view.
     */
    protected float mScaleFactor = 0.95f;
    /**
     * The minimum scale factor to prevent endless zooming
     */
    protected float mScaleFactorMin = 0.8f;
    /**
     * The maximum scale factor to prevent endless zooming.
     */
    protected float mScaleFactorMax = 5.0f;
    /**
     * Used to indicate, whether or not this is the first touch event, which has no differences yet.
     */
    protected boolean mIsTouchStarted = false;
    /**
     * Distance of the fingers from the last touch event
     */
    protected float mStartDistance = 0;
    /**
     * Center of the two fingers from the last touch event.
     */
    protected PointF mStartTouchPoint = new PointF(0, 0);

    public ZoomContainer(Context context)
    {
        super(context);
    }

    public ZoomContainer(Context context, @Nullable AttributeSet attrs)
    {
        super(context, attrs);
    }

    public ZoomContainer(Context context, @Nullable AttributeSet attrs, int defStyleAttr)
    {
        super(context, attrs, defStyleAttr);
    }

    /**
     * Cancel all child touch events, if there is more than one finger down.
     */
    @Override
    public boolean onInterceptTouchEvent(MotionEvent ev)
    {
        boolean intercept = ev.getPointerCount() > 1;
        if (intercept)
        {
            Log.d("TableView", "Intercepted");
            mIsTouchStarted = false;
        }
        return intercept;
    }

    protected void initializeTranslation()
    {
        if (mTranslation == null)
        {
            mTranslation = new PointF(getWidth() * (1 - mScaleFactor) / 2f,
                    getHeight() * (1 - mScaleFactor) / 2f);
            Log.d("TableView", "Translation: " + mTranslation);
        }
    }

    /**
     * Calculate the new zoom and scroll respecting the difference to the last touch event.
     */
    @Override
    public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event)
    {
        switch (event.getAction())
        {
            case MotionEvent.ACTION_CANCEL:
            case MotionEvent.ACTION_UP:
            case MotionEvent.ACTION_POINTER_UP:
                mIsTouchStarted = false;
                return true;
        }
        if (event.getPointerCount() <= 1)
        {
            mIsTouchStarted = false;
            return true;
        }
        float[] currentPointArray = new float[]{event.getX(0),
                event.getY(0),
                event.getX(1),
                event.getY(1)};
        float currentFingerDistance = getDistance(currentPointArray[0],
                currentPointArray[1],
                currentPointArray[2],
                currentPointArray[3]);
        // Read the current center of the fingers to determine the the new translation
        PointF currentPoint = getPoint(currentPointArray[0],
                currentPointArray[1],
                currentPointArray[2],
                currentPointArray[3]);
        if (mIsTouchStarted)
        {
            // 1 / oldScaleFactor - 1 / newScaleFactor is required to respect the relative translation,
            // when zooming (translation is always from the upper left corner,
            // but zooming should be performed centered to the fingers)
            float scaleFactorDifference = 1f / mScaleFactor;
            mScaleFactor = getBoundScaleFactor(mScaleFactor + (currentFingerDistance / mStartDistance - 1));
            scaleFactorDifference -= 1f / mScaleFactor;
            // Add the finger scroll since the last event to the current translation.
            PointF newTranslation = new PointF(mTranslation.x + (currentPoint.x - mStartTouchPoint.x) / mScaleFactor,
                    mTranslation.y + (currentPoint.y - mStartTouchPoint.y) / mScaleFactor);
            // Add the current point multiplied with the scale difference to make sure,
            // zooming is always done from the center of the fingers. Otherwise zooming would always be
            // applied from the upper left edge of the screen.
            newTranslation.x -= currentPoint.x * scaleFactorDifference;
            newTranslation.y -= currentPoint.y * scaleFactorDifference;
            mTranslation = getBoundTranslation(newTranslation);
        }
        mStartTouchPoint = currentPoint;
        mStartDistance = currentFingerDistance;
        mIsTouchStarted = true;
        requestLayout();
        return true;
    }

    protected float getBoundValue(float value, float min, float max)
    {
        return Math.min(Math.max(value, min), max);
    }

    protected PointF getBoundTranslation(PointF translation)
    {
        translation.x = getBoundValue(translation.x,
                -(getWidth() * (mScaleFactor - 1) + getWidth() * mTranslationBounds),
                getWidth() * mTranslationBounds);
        translation.y = getBoundValue(translation.y,
                -(getHeight() * (mScaleFactor - 1) + getHeight() * mTranslationBounds),
                getHeight() * mTranslationBounds);
        return translation;
    }

    protected float getBoundScaleFactor(float scaleFactor)
    {
        return getBoundValue(scaleFactor, mScaleFactorMin, mScaleFactorMax);
    }

    protected PointF getPoint(float x1, float y1, float x2, float y2)
    {
        return new PointF(getCenter(x1, x2), getCenter(y1, y2));
    }

    protected float getCenter(float position1, float position2)
    {
        return (position1 + position2) / 2f;
    }

    protected float getDistance(float x1, float y1, float x2, float y2)
    {
        float distanceX = Math.abs(x1 - x2);
        float distanceY = Math.abs(y1 - y2);
        return (float) Math.sqrt(Math.pow(distanceX, 2) + Math.pow(distanceY, 2));
    }

    @Override
    protected void onLayout(boolean changed, int l, int t, int r, int b)
    {
        float width = (r - l);
        float height = (b - t);
        if (width <= 0 || height <= 0)
        {
            return;
        }
        initializeTranslation();
        final int childCount = getChildCount();
        l = (int) (mTranslation.x * mScaleFactor);
        r = (int) ((width + mTranslation.x) * mScaleFactor);
        t = (int) (mTranslation.y * mScaleFactor);
        b = (int) ((height + mTranslation.y) * mScaleFactor);

        for (int i = 0; i < childCount; i++)
        {
            View child = getChildAt(i);
            child.layout(l, t, r, b);
        }
    }
}

Old solution
Using dispatchTouchEvent and draw methods to apply scale factor and tranlation:
public class ZoomContainer extends ViewGroup
{
    /**
     * Limit the maximum/minimum scrolling to prevent scrolling the container,
     * so that no more children are visible.
     * The value is relative to the size of the container (so 0.1 means 10% of the size of this container)
     */
    protected float mTranslationBounds = 0.1f;
    /**
     * The translation to be applyed to the container
     */
    protected PointF mTranslation;
    /**
     * The the current zoom factor. You might initialze it to a value smaller than 1, if you want to add some padding in the beginning.
     */
    protected float mScaleFactor = 1f;
    /**
     * The minimum scale factor to prevent endless zooming
     */
    protected float mScaleFactorMin = 0.8f;
    /**
     * The maximum scale factor to prevent endless zooming.
     */
    protected float mScaleFactorMax = 4f;
    /**
     * Used to indicate, whether or not this is the first touch event, which has no differences yet.
     */
    protected boolean mIsTouchStarted = false;
    /**
    * Distance of the fingers from the last touch event
    */
    protected float mStartDistance = 0;
    /**
     * Center of the two fingers from the last touch event.
     */
    protected PointF mStartTouchPoint = new PointF(0, 0);

    public ZoomContainer(Context context)
    {
        super(context);
        setWillNotDraw(false);
    }

    public ZoomContainer(Context context, @Nullable AttributeSet attrs)
    {
        super(context, attrs);
        setWillNotDraw(false);
    }

    public ZoomContainer(Context context, @Nullable AttributeSet attrs, int defStyleAttr)
    {
        super(context, attrs, defStyleAttr);
        setWillNotDraw(false);
    }

    @Override
    public void draw(Canvas canvas)
    {
        canvas.save();
        canvas.concat(createDrawMatrix());
        super.draw(canvas);
        canvas.restore();
    }

    /**
    * Cancel all child touch events, if there is more than one finger down.
    */
    @Override
    public boolean onInterceptTouchEvent(MotionEvent ev)
    {
        boolean intercept = ev.getPointerCount() > 1;
        if (intercept)
        {
            mIsTouchStarted = false;
        }
        return intercept;
    }

    /**
     * Creates the transformation matrix for drawing and converting touch coordinates
     */
    protected Matrix createDrawMatrix()
    {
        // Make sure children are centered, if initial scroll factor is not 1.
        if (mTranslation == null)
        {
            mTranslation = new PointF(getWidth() * (1 - mScaleFactor) / 2f,
                    getHeight() * (1 - mScaleFactor) / 2f);
        }
        // Matrix used for drawing the view
        Matrix matrix = new Matrix();
        matrix.setScale(mScaleFactor, mScaleFactor);
        matrix.postTranslate(mTranslation.x, mTranslation.y);
        return matrix;
    }

    /**
     * Transform the touch coordinates according to the current zoom and scroll,
     * for children to get the appropriate ones.
     */
    @Override
    public boolean dispatchTouchEvent(MotionEvent ev)
    {
        // Matrix for Touch events
        Matrix mappingMatrix = new Matrix();
        // Touch event matrix needs to be inverted
        createDrawMatrix().invert(mappingMatrix);

        // Copy the touch Event that is being mapped
        MotionEvent transformEvent = MotionEvent.obtain(ev);
        // Apply it's event mapping matrix
        transformEvent.transform(mappingMatrix);

        boolean handled = super.dispatchTouchEvent(transformEvent);
        transformEvent.recycle();
        return handled;
    }

    /**
     * Calculate the new zoom and scroll respecting the difference to the last touch event.
     */
    @Override
    public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event)
    {
        switch (event.getAction())
        {
            case MotionEvent.ACTION_CANCEL:
            case MotionEvent.ACTION_UP:
            case MotionEvent.ACTION_POINTER_UP:
                mIsTouchStarted = false;
                return true;
        }
        //
        if (event.getPointerCount() <= 1)
        {
            mIsTouchStarted = false;
            return true;
        }
        float[] currentPointArray = new float[]{event.getX(0),
                event.getY(0),
                event.getX(1),
                event.getY(1)};
        float currentDistance = mScaleFactor * getDistance(currentPointArray[0],
                currentPointArray[1],
                currentPointArray[2],
                currentPointArray[3]);
        Matrix transformation = createDrawMatrix();
        transformation.mapPoints(currentPointArray);
        PointF currentPoint = getPoint(currentPointArray[0],
                currentPointArray[1],
                currentPointArray[2],
                currentPointArray[3]);
        if (mIsTouchStarted)
        {
            float scaleFactorDifference = mScaleFactor;
            mScaleFactor = getBoundScaleFactor(mScaleFactor + (currentDistance / mStartDistance - 1));
            scaleFactorDifference -= mScaleFactor;
            PointF newTranslation = new PointF(mTranslation.x + currentPoint.x - mStartTouchPoint.x,
                    mTranslation.y + currentPoint.y - mStartTouchPoint.y);
            newTranslation.x += currentPoint.x * scaleFactorDifference;
            newTranslation.y += currentPoint.y * scaleFactorDifference;
            mTranslation = getBoundTranslation(newTranslation);
        }
        mStartTouchPoint = currentPoint;
        mStartDistance = currentDistance;
        mIsTouchStarted = true;
        invalidate();
        return true;
    }

    protected float getBoundValue(float value, float min, float max)
    {
        return Math.min(Math.max(value, min), max);
    }

    protected PointF getBoundTranslation(PointF translation)
    {
        translation.x = getBoundValue(translation.x,
                -(getWidth() * (mScaleFactor - 1) + getWidth() * mTranslationBounds),
                getWidth() * mTranslationBounds);
        translation.y = getBoundValue(translation.y,
                -(getHeight() * (mScaleFactor - 1) + getHeight() * mTranslationBounds),
                getHeight() * mTranslationBounds);
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Mary Joyce Giles Johnson, longtime counselor, teacher in west suburbs, dies at 90
By Bob Goldsborough
Mary Joyce Giles Johnson worked as a guidance counselor at Wheaton Central High School and switched to Wheaton North several years later. (Family photo)
Mary Joyce Giles Johnson taught at a private high school in West Chicago before embarking on a nearly two-decade-long career as a guidance counselor at two high schools in Wheaton.
"She was a very caring person, and the counselees really liked her," said George Ruwe, the retired head of Wheaton North High School's guidance department. "She really interacted with them, and she was a loving person. There's not a better person in terms of giving and being aware of people's feelings."
Johnson, 90, died of coronary disease on Nov. 5 at her home, her son Stephen said. She had lived in Carol Stream and previously resided in Wheaton.
Born Mary Joyce Giles in Chicago to a minister father from England and a mother from Scotland, Johnson moved with her family from Chicago's Mayfair area to Stratford, Wis., when she was 2 years old. Her family relocated to Marshfield, Wis., when she was in junior high school, and she graduated from Marshfield High School in 1946.
Johnson, who went by Joyce as a first name, attended William Jennings Bryan University in Dayton, Tenn. — now known as Bryan College — for a year before transferring to Wheaton College, where she received a bachelor's degree in physical education in 1950.
Johnson then taught physical education and served as the girls dormitory supervisor at Wheaton Academy in West Chicago, where she met her future husband of 67 years, Melvin. At Wheaton Academy, Melvin Johnson, who died in June, was at varying times a biology teacher, headmaster, dorm supervisor and a bus driver.
Johnson left Wheaton Academy in 1960 to raise her family. For the next eight years, she worked in part-time roles, including as a church secretary at Wheaton Evangelical Free Church.
In 1968, Johnson resumed her full-time career, working as a guidance counselor at Wheaton Central High School. She switched to Wheaton North several years later.
At both locations, "nothing fazed her," her son said.
"She was definitely someone who liked to pour into other people's lives, and I think as a guidance counselor she had an opportunity to work with some of the kids that were maybe a little more challenging," her son said. "Those were the ones who ended up in her office more often, and I think she really enjoyed that challenge, and her personality was such that she could get even the most hardened criminal kid to do what she wanted."
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One of Johnson's signature acts was to give each graduating senior a copy of the New Testament with a personal note.
"A number of students … commented about that New Testament and how much that meant to them, maybe not even from a religious perspective but from the fact that she cared enough to do that," her son said. "I think it really showed who my mom was. She was not afraid to share her faith, but she also didn't jam it down your throat, but she also made sure you knew where she stood."
Retired Wheaton North English teacher Marty Brackin, a longtime friend, called Johnson "one of the most devoted" people with whom he worked.
"She was very dedicated to her job and to her counselees," he said. "And she was always very cheerful."
Brackin credited Johnson's giving nature both to her upbringing and to the fact that she cared for her mother for around 10 years while her mother was in a semi-vegetative state.
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"I think it was just Joyce's way of life," Brackin said. "She was very generous and would step up to do anything for anybody."
After retiring from Wheaton North in 1987, Johnson went on mission trips with her husband, including to Arizona, Scotland, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and Germany. The couple also spent more time at their cottage in southwestern Michigan, which her husband and his father built in 1958. Johnson also was very active in her church, where she had been a charter member.
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Johnson also enjoyed teaching Bible studies, continuing to teach them until two weeks before her death.
Johnson also is survived by another son, Doug, and five grandchildren.
Services were held.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Since the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has dominated public discourse through its control of the media and education. The CCP has thus successfully promoted an image of China that suits its own interests.
One of the key elements of CCP propaganda is its opposition to democracy and the distortion of the definition of democracy itself. The Party claims to have the right to lead the PRC and does not tolerate any alternative political force.
"All the experience the Chinese people have accumulated through several decades teaches us to enforce the people's democratic dictatorship, that is, to deprive the reactionaries of the right to speak and let the people alone have that right.
"Who are the people? At the present stage in China, they are the working class, the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie. These classes, led by the working class and the Communist Party, unite to form their own state and elect their own government; they enforce their dictatorship over the running dogs of imperialism — the landlord class and bureaucrat-bourgeoisie, as well as the representatives of those classes, the Kuomintang reactionaries and their accomplices — suppress them, allow them only to behave themselves and not to be unruly in word or deed.
What Mao meant by "people's democratic dictatorship" may sound confusing, but it is actually quite simple. According to Mao, the Party had the right to decide who "the people" were. Therefore, the regime could arbitrarily strip individuals of their rights if it deemed them "reactionary".
This led to crimes against millions of Chinese who were imprisoned, tortured or killed because of their social status, their past political affiliation, or because of opinions that the Party leadership did not like. As Frank Dikotter has explained in "The Tragedy of Liberation", the classification of the population in clearly distinct classes as envisioned by Mao proved impossible, causing arbitrary persecutions.
To this day the concept of the people's democratic dictatorship is enshrined in the Constitution of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Ever since the founding of the Communist regime, the Party has been adamant that it alone has the right to lead the country, and that "democracy" means that the "people", as defined by the Party, must follow Party ideology.
After the demise of the Soviet-style planned economy in the 1970s and the establishment of a state-led market economy, the CCP began to shift its anti-democratic narrative from a strictly Marxist-Leninist standpoint to a cultural-historical one.
In 2002 Zhao Qizheng, director-general of the State Council Information Office (SCIO), claimed that the West and China had different views on human rights.
The Communist leadership challenges the notion of universal values and uses the concept of particularism to argue that Western values cannot work in China. At the same time, it also claims that another Western ideology, Marxism-Leninism, is applicable to China.
The CCP's monopoly on the narrative about China has marginalized the democratic tradition of the country, and has depicted one-party rule – which is also a Western import – as the sole suitable model for the Chinese people.
In this article, we shall provide a few passages from the works of three notable pro-democracy intellectuals: Sun Yat-sen, Lin Yutang, and Carsun Chang. We shall argue that the failure of democracy in China was not predetermined by the character and history of its people, but it was the result of the conscious actions of politicians who used force and propaganda to seize power and mislead the public.
It must be pointed out that the three authors herein quoted expressed ideas that are not always compatible with the contemporary understanding of democracy and human rights. Our aim is not to portray Sun Yat-sen, Lin Yutang and Carsun Chang as flawless champions of democracy, but to show that Chinese intellectuals were influenced by democratic ideals and adapted them to Chinese circumstances. It is therefore wrong to argue that the Chinese adaptation of Marxism and Leninism has any more legitimacy than the adoption of other foreign theories.
Sun Yat-sen (1866 – 1925) was a Chinese politician and revolutionary. He was the leader of the Republican movement that overthrew the last imperial dynasty in 1911 and established the Republic of China (ROC).
Sun's main work is the Three Principles of the People (Sanmin Zhuyi). The three principles were nationalism, democracy, and socialism.
Sun believed in representative government and separation of powers. Drawing on Western and Chinese traditions, he envisioned a so-called five-power constitution where the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government were complemented by the department of examination and the department of supervision (control).
The department of control was tasked with impeaching officials found guilty of misconduct. Its powers are exercised by the Control Yuan of the ROC on Taiwan. The purpose of the department of examination was to oversee the qualification of civil servants. Its functions are carried out by the Examination Yuan.
Sun argued that ROC citizens should have the right of suffrage, recall (a form of impeachment in which the citizens vote to remove elected officials), initiative and referendum.
The following passages are quoted from lectures Sun gave in 1924 and which were subsequently collected in the "Three Principles of the People." Herein Sun discusses the issue of democracy in China and his concept of a five-power constitution.
"China now is in a period of revolution. We are advocating a democratic form of government. Our ideas of democracy have come from the West. We have recently been thinking how we might copy these ideas and build up a nation under popular government.
"After China secures a powerful government, we must not be afraid, as Western peoples are, that the government will become too strong and get from under our control. Because our plan for the reconstructed state includes the division of the political power of the whole state into two parts. The political power will be given into the hands of the people, who will have a full degree of sovereignty and will be able to control directly the affairs of state; this political power is popular sovereignty. The other power is government, and we will put that entirely in the government organs, which will be powerful and will manage all the nation's business; this political power is the power of government. If the people have a full measure of political sovereignty and the methods for exercising popular control over the government are well worked out, we need not fear that the government will become too powerful and uncontrollable.
"The political power above is in the hands of the people, the administrative power below is in the hands of the government. The people control the government through the suffrage, the recall, the initiative, and the referendum; the government works for the people through its legislative, judicial, executive, civil examination, and censoring departments. With these nine powers in operation and preserving a balance, the problem of democracy will truly be solved and the government will have a definite course to follow.
"The materials for this new plan have been discovered before now. Switzerland has already applied three of the political powers but does not have the recall. Some of the northwestern states in the United States have taken over the three political rights from Switzerland and have added the right of recall. Suffrage is the people's power most widely exercised in the world to-day. Switzerland is already exercising three of the popular powers and a fourth part of the United States is exercising all four. Where the four powers have been exercised in a careful, compact way the results have been excellent. They are facts of experience, not mere hypothetical ideals. (Sun Yat-Sen, San Min Chu I: The Three Principles of the People, 1927, pp. 168-355, my emphasis).
Lin Yutang (1895 – 1976) was a renowned Chinese intellectual. His most famous work, My Country and my People (1935), was a bestseller in the West.
In the following excerpt, written during the last months of the Second World War, Lin discusses his belief in democracy, criticizes the Guomindang regime's failure to implement democracy, and attacks Communist totalitarianism.
"What does being democratic mean? Since everybody is democratic nowadays, we are terribly confused. Why is democracy extolled, applauded, contended for, and paid tribute to by every haranguing orator and every editorial writer?
"Democracy is a system of government based on the association of men who believe that peace, security, and justice for all can somehow be worked out by a delegation of their powers to freely elected bodies, provided the people can at any time peacefully throw out any government that doesn't give them peace, security, and justice.
"Fun-pokers like G.B.S. [George Bernard Shaw] extol Mussolini and Hitler and Stalin and deny the existence of democracy in England and the United States. It is well to have a few fun-pokers, for democracy likes its clowns. But the people of England and the United States can peacefully throw out their governments that do not satisfy them, and organize other governments with some slight improvements, and that is good enough for me. Because of that, democracy guarantees peace in spite of clashes of opinion and interests inside a nation, and insures a steady evolution of progress, however slow. I believe that is why democracy is the most mature form of government.
"In order to make this possible, there must be certain established habits in the government and the people, like abiding by the majority, respect for the law of the nation established by the people themselves, the fundamental assumption that the government must be made responsive to the majority will of the people, and certain machineries for making the will of the people effective. There follow electioneering and campaigning by men who love power and love to rule others, and who praise themselves and as often as not deceive the people in campaign pledges, which are not to my liking. I am amazed that such people exist. But people are born differently, and I was by nature born into the class to be ruled by others, who send me questionnaires to be answered. Sometimes I good-naturedly co-operate with these busybodies because I know their families' rice bowls depend on it and they cannot write books. Sometimes I rebel and feel the democratic urge to shove the high and mighty about, whether in my own or some foreign government. Therefore I believe I am fundamentally one of that class of democratic citizens without which no democracy can survive.
"Democracy means the inherent desire of private individuals to shove their rulers about, and the free exercise of their intelligence to tell their rulers what to do and what not to do. Since China says she is going on the road to democracy, I must limber up my muscles, and I shall enjoy it, too. God bless the Chinese Republic and Dr. Sun Yatsen its Founder, that my intellectual muscles may be so exercised.
"In the decade before the war, I tried my best to limber up myself, under a strict censorship of the press without landing myself in jail. The Kuomintang thought I had an undisciplined mind, and the leftist writers thought I was only a joker, trying to laugh off the cruel oppression of the masses. What the leftist writers could not stand was humor. One chauvinistic official, hearing that My Country and My People was a best-seller abroad, wittily said that I was "selling my country." I am happy to say that that man has met his due: he has become the foreign minister of the puppet government [the government installed by the Japanese] at Nanking.
"It may be objected that criticism of one's own government abroad is not opportune in time of war; on the other hand, greater harm can be done, and has been done, to the cause of China by painting a half-true picture. The sooner a state of confidence is established by presenting an accurate picture of the true situation, the better it will be for my country. God knows my country is full of imperfections, but only those willing to have their imperfections known and corrected are worthy of help. The present administration has a record of as many failures as successes, exactly the kind of failures that provide ammunition for some pretty bad slugging in a presidential campaign in a Western country. The Chinese government has got to learn to take such slugging as if it were in a presidential campaign with an active and virile opposition party. It has to prepare itself, not the people, for democracy.
"Yet I think the Chinese government and the nation have no reason to be ashamed of their record in this war. When the heat of political campaigning for the Chinese Communists is over, people five years from now, striking a balance sheet and taking into account all the internal factors, will find that they have done the stupendous and the impossible. They will find that both China and the Chinese government were the sinned against rather than the sinners. How difficult is a sense of balance and proportion! I know I am writing under great handicap when I wish to earn my right as an intelligent critic to refuse to fall in with the current conception that Chungking is all black and Yenan all white [Yan'an was the capital of the area controlled by Mao Zedong's Communists]. I do not see how I can help myself. In the future, the fact that at present the size of American help to China is inversely proportional to the export tonnage of paternalistic advice supplied to her will be regarded as an anomaly, based neither on comprehension nor on policy, but on an offhand and lightminded thoughtlessness.
"[T]hough bearing in mind the necessity of war censorship, I still say that in China the freedom of the press has deteriorated during the war to an undue extent. I talked with many writers and editors in China and found them irked by unnecessary restraint. When I said to a very well-educated reporter in Kweilin that the basis of all democracy is civil liberties and that American editors criticize official acts and nobody can do anything to them on account of protection of civil liberties, his eyes were wide open. In China, I must say, I did not hear of editors banned, fined, or imprisoned for criticizing officials; but since all newspaper copy is passed beforehand by the censors, this could not happen anyway. What good does it do to create a feeling of restraint and general dissatisfaction in the writing profession by an overall censorship?
"The connection between censorship and stupidity is proverbial. All newspapers, magazines, and books have to be submitted to censors before publication. In the case of newspapers, this has placed the government in the odious position of being responsible for approval of all press utterances. In the case of criticisms of acts of foreign allies, Chinese diplomacy is deprived of the power of reference to Chinese public opinion as expressed in a free press. Furthermore, censors are government employees, answerable to the several authorities of the government, the party and the army, and, like all bureaucrats, they prefer to act on the cautious side, which is the murderous side in the employment of the blue-pencil weapon.
"The censors also tend to make literature subservient to propaganda, and authors have to alter their plays in favor of patriotic platitudes. I have heard such complaints from a playwright; he was as mad about the censorship as any American playwright in a similar situation would be. This was the more unbearable because the playwright knew that the censor himself was probably a child of eighteen who has not yet finished high school. In numerous cases, the suppression of entirely harmless and irrelevant phrases became irritating and downright asinine, suggesting that the whole nation was being put through a Sunday school class. Once censorship is established, it is difficult to escape the paternalistic spirit of allowing and forbidding the people what to read and what to think.
"In practice, the Chinese people have got used to it, as the people of Soviet Russia have, except that they get bored with too oft-repeated phraseology and smile when they read it. The astounding thing is that people freely criticize the government acts in public places and private homes, everywhere except when they make a formal speech. They know "mandarin talk" when they hear it. The required submission of all newspaper copy and book manuscripts creates an unhealthy atmosphere, but this does not mean that the censors suppress all criticism of government measures. In 1940 I saw a Ta Kung Pao editorial which in criticism of the failure of the Price Stabilization Board quoted Tsao Tsao of the Three Kingdoms and suggested that "the skull" of the head of the Board "be borrowed to pacify the hearts of the people." There have been occasional outspoken criticisms on internal policies like that. When in Chungking this time, I read a scathing exposure of a badly run public institution and a great many articles criticizing price control, the closing down of factories, and the transportation situation.
"The whole character of the Kuomintang government is paternalistic, but I do not think it is "fascist." It has all the evils of paternalism, overanxious to guide and channel people's thoughts and action, and not anxious enough to let the people guide themselves; but I do not think it has the evils of regimentation of thoughts and ideas and the rule of terror and force. The reaction of the people under a paternalistic regime is one of annoyance or placid amusement; the reactions of people under a totalitarian rule are whispers, secret terrors, frightened submission, and goose-stepping unanimous praise of the government. The evils of paternalism are corrigible; the evils of totalitarianism are not. For definite evidences of the latter, one must go to Yenan.
"What China needs is an immediate enforcement of the Bill of Rights. I would rather see a little less paternalistic coddling of the nation and a little more attention paid to seeing the people's freedom of speech, assembly, and belief, and the habeas corpus enforced. It is my conviction that democracy begins, grows, and prospers with the protection of the people's civil rights, and is inseparable from it. The definition of democracy as a term meaning merely the existence of mature, self-respecting individuals living with individual dignity can oftentimes be inadequate. Certainly the Chinese people are mature, self-respecting individuals with a great deal of individual dignity.
"How does it happen, then, that Chinese régimes have often been corrupt and the mature, self-respecting individuals could do nothing about it until the corruption got bad enough and the regime had to be overthrown by the wasteful process of revolt and bloodshed? Individual moral dignity without the legal protection of that dignity is not enough. When individuals were arrested without trial and could not appeal to law, evidently there was not much individual dignity left.
"The Bill of Rights is therefore more important than all the paraphernalia of elective government. When the protection of civil rights is enforced, the people do not have to learn to be democratic. There is no ground for saying that the people of China are unprepared for democracy. They are unprepared only so long as the Bill of Rights is not enforced. Any time the people can impeach officials with impunity and with some effect, they are democratic enough to do so. Any time government officials are ready to stand by the law and be impeached, the people are ready to impeach them. Any time editors can expose corrupt and lawbreaking officials with the sure knowledge that nobody can touch them except within the law, they are ready to expose them. Only when they can do that, only when this spirit is present, can true democracy arrive and the body politic be purged of its poison. Freedom of the press, of speech, belief, and assembly is the foundation of democracy.
"Democracy is a hard thing to learn both for the rulers and for the ruled. In its essence, it implies the ability of the majority to rule and the ability of the minority to criticize and abide by the majority. Even in a small group of boys playing in the streets or three office girls sharing one apartment, democracy means no more than these simple habits of thinking. When the ruling party forgets that it is only elected to rule by the rest of the group and tends to suppress criticism of its actions, it is to that extent undemocratic. When the minority group fails to abide by the majority and prefers to break away and form a separate gang, it, too, becomes undemocratic.
"In so far as the Kuomintang has failed to encourage liberty of criticism through freedom of the press, it is moving in the wrong direction. And in so far as the Chinese Communist party was unwilling to subjugate its partisan interests and unite with the rest of the nation even in time of war, it, too, had failed to learn the most essential of democratic habits. Since it looks as if victory will come sooner than we expected and therefore China will soon inaugurate the constitutional period, both the Kuomintang and the opposition had better learn quickly these simple democratic habits of mind.
"The outer form of a democratic government means nothing. The history of democracy in the German Republic before Hitler, in Italy prior to the advent of Mussolini, and in France before the final collapse, should teach us that the finest form of human government also requires some of the hardest human virtues in co-operative action, struggle tempered by restraint, selfishness held in check by a sense of fair play, and contention subordinated to unity. The Kuomintang will have the best chance to show that it is democratic by rigidly enforcing the rights of freedom and respecting the rights of the opposition, and the Chinese Communists will have the best chance to show that they are democratic by being able to abide by the majority will of the nation. If unethical tactics are employed, the government will have no recourse but to fight underground with underground, as it has been doing in the past. Twice the Chinese Communists have bolted and set up secessionist regimes, because they have not yet learned to place the nation above the party. I hope their declared intention to abolish one-party dictatorship and become a democratic party is sincere — and is lived up to. (Lin Yutang, The Vigil of a Nation, 1945, pp. 2011-222, my emphasis).
Zhang Junmai (1886–1969), known in the West as Carsun Chang, was a Chinese intellectual and social democratic politician. Chang opposed both the Chinese Communist Party and the Guomindang. He advocated for democracy at a time when radicalization and extreme partisanship made moderate politics not viable in China. In the following passage, Chang denounces both the Guomindang and the Chinese Communist Party. He argued that Communist totalitarianism acted against Chinese traditions of laissez-faire and that the regime would ultimately collapse.
"If the aim of the Kuomintang members was democracy, they should have had confidence in the people and ruled in accordance with the general principles of a constitutional government based upon the sovereignty of the people. After the end of the Northern Expedition, which was the end of the military stage, they should have started introducing the constitutional stage immediately, following the schedule laid down by Dr. Sun-military government, tutelage, constitutional government. But Chiang is a soldier; his view was that the intermediate stage should be prolonged as much as possible.
"The other Kuomintang leaders saw the situation differently; men like Wang Ching-wei and Hu Han-min had their own interpretation of Dr. Sun's plan. They had been just as close to Dr. Sun as Chiang Kai-shek, if not closer, and they thought that they knew Sun's mind better, a claim which was not in fact extravagant.
"Political tutelage implies the training of the people for constitutional government. If this is accepted, then the practice of parliamentary rule and its attendant privileges and responsibilities, should have been introduced forthwith. These institutions are as essential in the cultivation of democratic virtues as is the swimming pool for one who is to be trained as a swimmer. So long as there are merely lectures on swimming for the swimming class, and no swimming pool, how can the student learn to swim? The Kuomintang, in the first ten years of its existence under the direction of Chiang Kai-shek, never allowed or legalised the existence of opposition parties. For my part, I do not see how an opposition party can get its necessary training except under a constitutional government which granted it equal rights with the party in power.
"The people of China waited for twenty long years before the first election of the legislative assembly finally took place in 1947. Since the people never had any experience of elections during all these years, how could they be expected to vote intelligently when the election actually took place? The result was that the Kuomintang, still under the name of tutelage, kept the political power for itself alone. They talked much about local self-government, because, under the cover of local government, they could increase the number of their party members, whom they expected to appoint to all the offices in the villages; it was their aim to accomplish this and then announce that the stage of constitutional government could begin. This was Chiang's interpretation of political tutelage, and here lay the roots of internal conflict later experienced by the Kuomintang.
"So long as there was no constitutional government, those who controlled Kuomintang policy with regard to military, financial, and diplomatic policy, would appear to the elements not in power, and even to Kuomintang members, as arbitrary and dictatorial. Chiang, as the leader of the ruling group, held the reins of the party and government and grew in personal power. Since Chiang's power grew in this manner, it is no wonder that provincial governors like Li Tsung-jen, Pai Chung-hsi, Feng Yu-hsiang, and Yen Hsi-shan, rebelled against him. Chiang was a dictator in the eyes of these men, and when they opposed him he called them feudal-minded counter-revolutionists who were trying to overthrow the established government.
"So long as there was no constitutional government, there was no parliament, no responsible cabinet, no freedom of the press and no freedom of association. Naturally opposition to Chiang's regime grew, and the Chinese Communists contributed to it, even though their own government was organised on a completely dictatorial basis. The democratic parties which really fought for democracy were then willy-nilly maneuvered into a position in which they had to side with the Communists against the government, when they could have given all their support to the government. It is a pity that Chiang lost the sympathy of large sections of the Chinese people by stubbornly refusing to give up his authoritarian government. This situation inevitably bred corruption and incompetence in the government, and when it was charged with these vices by people both within the country and abroad, there was nothing to say in its defense.
"Tutelage meant in practice the desire of the Kuomintang's followers to perpetuate the conditions which placed political power in their own hands. They merely gave lip-service to constitutionalism as a sop to Dr. Sun's followers and to show that his teaching was not forgotten. Since there was no constitution, no parliament, and no responsible cabinet, all questions of defense, finance, and diplomacy were decided by the party. The people had no right to question the party. While the war was going on, Chiang Kai-shek was elected Tsung-Tsai, or Director-General of the Party, and his power became unlimited. Any expenditure which was approved by him was legally valid. He issued orders by means of notes in his own handwriting. In Chungking, Chiang's government was openly called "the note-writing government," and the system naturally led the way to a whole crop of abuses.
"Any minister who was in Chiang's favor-and this was especially true of Chen Li-fu — could go to his office and get a large sum approved for expenditure. Those ministers who were not close to him had to suffer. Tutelage. in the end, was not even rule by the party as a whole but degenerated to rule by personal whim. Chiang is a man who has confidence only in his relatives, in his brothers-in-law H. H. Kung and T. V. Soong and their subordinates, in the Chen Brothers, and in Chen Cheng, the present Prime Minister of Formosa. Though there was a People's Political Council which was supposed to serve as an open forum for discussion, yet when there was any question raised about the military or financial condition of the country, it was shouted down by the Kuomintang members, who preserved their majority by unconstitutional means. The opinions of the liberals and the opposition parties never had a chance to be heard.
"It is natural enough that the absolute power of the Kuomintang led to abuses and rampant corruption. The Kuomintang has never had a record of sponsoring efficient government. As early as 1927, one year after the establishment of the Nanking Government, when Chiang Kai-shek was forced to retire and Sun-Fo, the son of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, was appointed President of the Executive Yuan, Wang Han- liang was appointed Minister of Finance. On arriving at the Ministry to assume his functions, Wang found no documents left in it, all the archives having been removed by the staff of T. V. Soong in order to embarrass Wang. It is also known that when, on the recommendation of the British adviser Reith-Ross, China changed over from the silver standard to a managed currency, all the top-ranking men in the government made great fortunes out of it. It never occurred to them that using information derived from the performance of official duties in order to amass personal fortunes is criminal. All the important members of the Kuomintang indulged in this practice without any compunction whatever.
"The case of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, in which Mrs. H. H. Kung was involved in the buying and selling of cotton yarn, was once brought to the notice of Chiang Kai-shek. Wu Ting-chang, then Minister of Industry, was sent to Shanghai by order of the Generalissimo to make an inquiry. Wu brought all the documents back showing how Mrs. Kung was involved in the stock-market operations. Everyone expected that the Generalissimo would bring the case before the courts, the only proper thing to do, and show thereby that he had some respect for the laws of the land. But what actually happened? Wu Ting-chang was dismissed from the Cabinet and then appointed Governor of the distant province of Kueichow. Again, the gold-selling policy gave the influential families connected with the government a chance to amass immense fortunes.
"Chiang is not a man who abides by law or believes in the rule of law … Constitution and parliament in Chiang's mind are tools which can be manipulated. He does not believe in the inviolability of a constitution decided on and promulgated by the people. He does not understand why there should be so much fuss made over the constitution. To him all government is personal government: constitutions are luxuries which at most serve the purposes of the one who is in power. During the tutelage period, constitutional amendments were made with regard to the position of the Chairman of the Chinese Republic.
"When Chiang was himself the Chairman he gave himself real power in the constitution with regard to policy making. When later Lin Sen was Chairman of the Republic, he became a mere figurehead and the real power went into the hands of the President of the Executive Yuan-who was Chiang himself. The constitution was simply remade to fit the changed circumstances. Chiang regards all institutions with complete indifference, being certain that he can manipulate them in any way he chooses. Imagine having more than 3700 members of the National Assembly, which is the constitutional organ that elects the President and the Vice-President of the Chinese Republic!
"What is urgently needed to overcome the present crisis in China is not a "strong man" whose twenty-odd years of arbitrary rule has brought nothing but a deluge of corruption and a red inundation, but rather the cultivation of law-abiding habits, a willingness to submit the main issues of national life to open and intelligent discussion so as to reach a just and equitable solution, a consciousness at least among the leaders of the importance of constitutional and parliamentary processes, and a substitution of rational understanding for unstable, unreliable, and whimsical practices. This can come about only when the nation's intellectual resources are gathered together for maximum exploitation and unhampered expression and not smothered under the weight of an enlarged ego.
"I am firmly convinced that 90 per cent of the Chinese population will be glad to see China a democratic country and would much prefer to have nothing to do with revolution and conquest. They would like to maintain their valuable old traditions and beliefs, and evolve gradually towards a democratic, scientific, and industrial order. The Communist slogan of "Down with Feudalism" is only a pretext under which the Communists are wiping out the tradition of Chinese humanistic ideals and imposing upon China the formula of Stalinist orthodoxy. This Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist way of life is a complete denial of the individual and of individualism.
"It may very well fit into the pattern of life characteristic of Russia, with its history of tyranny and absolutism, but it will never be effective among a people who have lived in an atmosphere of laissez-faire for thousands of years. I have heard often that the control of the Communist regime over China is completely effective: no doubt the Communist army is an efficient one, the Chinese Communists have a well-disciplined party and police force, they watch over the movements of every family and every individual, and the life of every person is being regimented and brought under strict control. But, although there is no reliable way in which we can find out how the people feel under this new regime, as a Chinese, knowing the long history of China and the characteristics of my own people, I think that they cannot be happy under the new dispensation, and sooner or later, in a manner which may not even be predictable, they will rise against the new oppression.
"There is one predominant truth of overwhelming importance in this sad story of China which must be emphasized over and over again, and that is that the Chinese people went over to the Communists for the simple reason that they could not stand the government of Chiang Kai-shek any longer, that they were repeatedly duped, cheated, and oppressed by the shameless political debauchery, dishonesty, and corruption of the government until they were willing to take any chance and submit to any change because they thought that no change could be any worse than the conditions under which they were living. They have now learned to their regret that there is indeed no difference between the devil and the deep sea.
"What the historian Grote said about the Greek usurpers — that they employed the machinery of fraud whereby the people were to be cheated into temporary submission, as a prelude to using the machinery of force whereby such submission was to be perpetuated against the people's consent — can very well be applied to explain the success of the Chinese Communist Party from 1946 to 1949.


Jonathan was a former adult, alternative education teacher and eLearning coordinator with the Kawartha Pine Ridges DSB. In 2000, he joined the Ontario Ministry of Education where he worked on multiple policy and program initiatives until his retirement in June 2016. One of Jonathan's current interests includes Open Data and Digital Government. The question he is exploring is how these two initiatives might improve access to multiple programs and services at the local level for citizens with complex needs.


BTW, can we have some more Scottish words?!
Reminds me a lot of the Private V2. Button and 510 center pin have the same issues as well.
Boxing day with a previous night's Lager bottle to the head, You have just become the most respected reviewer of all time in me book.


text:
DISKIMAGE="c.img"
echo "Mounting image"
DISKLOCATION=`hdiutil attach ${DISKIMAGE} | head -n1 | cut -d " " -f1`
echo "Mounted at ${DISKLOCATION}"
cp ./build/bin/kernel.elf /Volumes/MUSTARD/boot
hdiutil detach $DISKLOCATION
echo "Unmounted"


text:
Feelings Quotes
Let's start reading Feelings Quotes, You can learn more Quotes....
Best Feelings Quotes
"At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet." — Plato
"God doesn't dwell in the wooden, stony or earthen idols. His abode is in our feelings, our thoughts." — Chanakya
"I love the feeling of the fresh air on my face and the wind blowing through my hair." — Evel Knievel
"Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it." — William Arthur Ward
"Jealousy is no more than feeling alone against smiling enemies." — Elizabeth Bowen
"The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in." — Morrie Schwartz
"It's often just enough to be with someone. I don't need to touch them. Not even talk. A feeling passes between you both. You're not alone." ― Marilyn Monroe
"Where there is love there is life." ― Mahatma Gandhi
"I have feelings too. I am still human. All I want is to be loved, for myself and for my talent." ― Marilyn Monroe
"Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth." — Benjamin Disraeli
"Sometimes your mind says No but your heart says Go." ― Yvonne Urlanda
"My six word love story: I can't imagine life without you." – Anonymous
"Love is a friendship set to music."— Joseph Campbell
"Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced." — Leo Tolstoy
"To have felt too much is to end in feeling nothing." — Dorothy Thompson
"A garden must combine the poetic and the mysterious with a feeling of serenity and joy." — Luis Barragan
"You are the last thought in my mind before I drift off to sleep and the first thought when I wake up each morning." – Unknown
"There's no better feeling than making your little girls laugh." — Jerry O'Connell
"If you're happy, if you're feeling good, then nothing else matters." — Robin Wright
"Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder." — Plato
"I love looking in the mirror and feeling good about what I see." — Heather Morris
"Half our mistakes in life arise from feeling where we ought to think, and thinking where we ought to feel." — John Churton Collins
"What is there more kindly than the feeling between host and guest?" — Aeschylus
"At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face." — Albert Camus
"Intense feeling too often obscures the truth." — Harry S Truman
"I'm looking forward to the future, and feeling grateful for the past." — Mike Rowe
"I grew up with the smell of the lake and the feeling of the woods." — Steven Tyler
"I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you." – Roy Croft
"A person will be just about as happy as they make up their minds to be." ― Abraham Lincoln
"Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions." ― Elizabeth Gilbert
"One thing you can't hide—is when you're crippled inside." ― John Lennon
"We bury things so deep we no longer remember there was anything to bury. Our bodies remember. Our neurotic states remember. But we don't." ― Jeanette Winterson
"In order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did and why you no longer need to feel it." ― Mitch Albom
"The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be." ― Alain de Botton
"Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts? " — Confucius
"Some things are too big to be seen; some emotions are too huge to be felt." ― Neil Gaiman
"Feelings are something you have; not something you are." ― Shannon L. Alder
"Feel, he told himself, feel, feel, feel. Even if what you feel is pain, only let yourself feel." ― D. James
"The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think." ― Horace Walpole
"One ought to hold on to one's heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too." ― Friedrich Nietzsche
"There is no remedy for love than to love more." ― Henry David Thoreau
"I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them." ― Oscar Wilde
"Never play with the feelings of others, because you may win the game, but the risk is that you will surely lose the person for life time." ― William Shakespeare
"The emotion that can break your heart is sometimes the very one that heals it." ― Nicholas Sparks
"Some people use their own hurt as an excuse for hurting others." ― Roland Merullo
"We often confuse what we wish for with what is." ― Neil Gaiman
"I went to sleep last night with a smile because I knew I'd be dreaming of you… but I woke up this morning with a smile because you weren't a dream." – Unknown
"The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost." — Gilbert K. Chesterton
"When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before." — Blaise Pascal
"I am in the world feeling my way to light 'amid the encircling gloom." — Mahatma Gandhi
"If I know what love is, it is because of you." – Hermann Hesse
"Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart, and the senses." — Lao Tzu
"To the world you may be one person, but to one person you are the world." – Bill Wilson
"It's a lot easier to be angry at someone than it is to tell them you're hurt." ― Tom Gates
"You can't stop loving someone if you had already fallen; all you can do is hurting yourself." ― M.F. Moonzajer
"Feelings are not supposed to be logical. Dangerous is the man who has rationalized his emotions." ― David Borenstein
"The pain started years ago, but I'd lived with it for so long at that point that I'd accepted it as an inevitable part of me." ― Ashley D. Wallis
"Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within." — James Baldwin
"Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world." — Lucille Ball
"Everywhere I look I am reminded of your love. You are my world." – Unknown
"I love you and that's the beginning and end of everything." – F. Scott Fitzgerald
"We are shaped and fashioned by what we love." — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"You are every reason, every hope and every dream I've ever had." – Nicolas Sparks
"If I had to dream up the perfect woman, she wouldn't even come close to you." – Boy Meets World
"The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted." — Mother Teresa
"You know it's love when all you want is that person to be happy, even if you're not part of their happiness." — Julia Roberts
"The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart." — Helen Keller
"Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead." — Oscar Wilde
"The only thing we never get enough of is love; and the only thing we never give enough of is love." — Henry Miller
"You know you're in love when you don't want to fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams." — Dr. Seuss
"Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down." — Oprah Winfrey
"If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever." – Alfred Lord Tennyson
"I can't stop thinking about you, today… tomorrow… always." – Unknown
"To be your friend was all I ever wanted; to be your lover was all I ever dreamed." – Valerie Lombardo
"A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot live without love." – Max Muller
"I could never say how much I like you, and just how special you are to me. But I can say that my world is all smiles whenever I am with you. I love you a lot." – Unknown
"Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new." ― Ursula K. Le Guin
"Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell." ― Joan Crawford
"I never could have accomplished what I have today without the love I feel from you!" – Unknown
"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride." – Pablo Neruda
"Laughter is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one place." — Josh Billings
"My love for you is past the mind, beyond my heart, and into my soul." – Boris Kodjoe
"My heart is and always will be yours." – Jane Austen
"It was the way you laughed, I knew I wanted that in my life." – R. M. Drake
"I will never be perfect for you, but I will always imperfectly try to be." – Atticus
"I love you right up to the moon—and back." – Sam McBratney
"So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you." – Paulo Coelho
"I love you. I knew it the minute I met you. I'm sorry it took so long for me to catch up. I just got stuck." – Silver Linings Playbook
"Sometimes I think, I need a spare heart to feel all the things I feel." – Sanober Khan
"Love is supposed to be based on trust, and trust on love, it's something rare and beautiful when people can confide in each other without fearing what the other person will think." – E.A. Bucchianeri
"A truly sensual woman is the kind of woman only a man with a deep soul can intoxicate and satiate." – Lebo Grand
"Love grows by giving. The love we give away is the only love we keep. The only way to retain love is to give it away." – Elbert Hubbard
"What I write comes from a place of deep love, and a deep understanding of all kinds of otherness." – Jacqueline Woodson
"There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love." – Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Love understands love; it needs no talk." – Francis Havergal
"Love asks me no questions, and gives me endless support." – William Shakespeare
"The beautiful thing about love is that you just need to plant it once and nurture it and it shall bloom into blossoms that would cover the valleys." – Hermann J. Steinherr
"The beauty of your life is predicated on the richness of your sensuality." – Lebo Grand
"One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is love!" – Sophocles
"I have no special gift. With deep love, I give what I have." – Debasish Mridha
"You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free." – Thich Nhat Hanh
"I knew why love was always described with eternity. A single minute stretched out for lifetimes." – Shannon A. Thompson
"Love is breathing each other with all madness" – Seema Gupta
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage." – Lao Tzu
"Love is the enchanted dawn of every heart." – Lamartine
"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind." – William Shakespeare
"When someone loves you, the way they talk about you is different. You feel safe and comfortable." ― Jess C. Scott
"Love is like the wind, you can't see it but you can feel it." ― Nicholas Sparks
"When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too." ― Paulo Coelho
"We love the things we love for what they are." ― Robert Frost
"You are, and always have been, my dream." ― Nicholas Sparks
"If you remember me, then I don't care if everyone else forgets." ― Haruki Murakami
"We loved with a love that was more than love." ― Edgar Allen Poe
"Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction." ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
"Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold." ― Zelda Fitzgerald
"Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering." ― Nicole Krauss
"I have decided to stick to love…Hate is too great a burden to bear." ― Martin Luther King Jr.
"Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that's beautiful." ― Milan Kundera
"Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance." — Brian Tracy
"Our heritage and ideals, our code and standards - the things we live by and teach our children - are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings." — Walt Disney
"A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally." — Oscar Wilde
"The more we can get together and talk about various perspectives, feelings, beliefs, the better." — William P. Leahy
"Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use." — Emily Post
"It's cool to be in your feelings, and it's cool to be sad, and it's cool to feel all of these things." — Cuco
"The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of because words diminish your feelings - words shrink things that seem timeless when they are in your head to no more than living size when they are brought out." — Stephen King
"Of what use is a philosopher who doesn't hurt anybody's feelings? " — Diogenes
"Social acceptance, 'being liked,' has so much power because it holds the feelings of loneliness at bay." — Rollo May
"Mixed feelings, like mixed drinks, are a confusion to the soul." — George Carman
"Your feelings are validated by the fact that you're feeling them." — Lili Reinhart
"The modern artist is working with space and time, and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating." — Jackson Pollock
"Opinion is ultimately determined by the feelings, and not by the intellect." — Herbert Spencer
"Everybody interprets things differently with their own perception, and I want poetry to pull out of them their own feelings." — John Trudell
"Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings - always darker, emptier and simpler." — Friedrich Nietzsche
"It's okay to eat fish because they don't have any feelings." — Kurt Cobain
"All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the pathetic fallacy." — John Ruskin
"I think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results." — Florence Nightingale
"The uncertainty of parenting can bring up feelings in us that range from frustration to terror." — Brene Brown
"Water is to me, I confess, a phenomenon which continually awakens new feelings of wonder as often as I view it." — Michael Faraday
"When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language." — James Earl Jones
"It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs." — Thomas Hardy
"Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty. Mother Teresa
"One must marry one's feelings to one's beliefs and ideas. That is probably the only way to achieve a measure of harmony in one's life." — Napoleon Hill
"You don't have to give way to careless speech or complaining. You don't have to let your feelings get in the way of what God wants to do in your life." — Joyce Meyer
"Contempt is the weapon of the weak and a defense against one's own despised and unwanted feelings." — Alice Miller
"Choosing to avoid uncomfortable feelings offers immediate short-term relief, but avoidance can lead to long-term consequences." — Amy Morin
"You only get one life, so you might as well feel all the feelings." — Greta Gerwig
"When we have 'second thoughts' about something, our first thoughts don't seem like thoughts at all - just feelings." — Sydney J. Harris
"It's important not to indicate. People don't try to show their feelings, they try to hide them." — Robert De Niro
"It's OK to get your feelings hurt." — Kevin Abstract
"Complicated feelings are fertile soil for creative ideas." — Kelly Sue DeConnick
"It is important to express oneself... provided the feelings are real and are taken from your own experience." — Berthe Morisot
"I think in real life most of us don't know how to communicate our deepest feelings very well." — Linda Cardellini
"All knowledge or form conception is evoked through the medium of the eye, either in response to disturbances directly received on the retina or to their fainter secondary effects and reverberations. Other sense organs can only call forth feelings which have no reality of existence and of which no conception can be formed." — Nikola Tesla
"I have very strong feelings about how you lead your life. You always look ahead, you never look back." — Ann Richards
"What I do is I write mainly about very personal and rather lonely feelings, and I explore them in a different way each time. You know, what I do is not terribly intellectual. I'm a pop singer for Christ's sake. As a person, I'm fairly uncomplicated." — David Bowie
"Being an artist is dragging your innermost feelings out, giving a piece of yourself, no matter in which art form, in which medium." — Henry Rollins
"Marriage is really tough because you have to deal with feelings... and lawyers." — Richard Pryor
"We ignore our feelings a lot, I realize. Many of us have to... until they really bite us in the butt." — Queen Latifah
"There are some moments in life, some feelings; one can only point to them and pass by." — Ivan Turgenev
"Great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion." — Robert Burton
"I don't wear my political feelings on my sleeve. However, if I'm asked, I will answer honestly." — Eartha Kitt
"I don't have any hard feelings against anyone at Lucha Underground." — Ricochet
"I still have mixed feelings about what growing up is - this thing that happens to everyone, so I've heard." — Taylor Swift
"Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason." — Samuel Adams
"Music is a means of giving form to our inner feelings, without attaching them to events or objects in the world." — George Santayana
"Who ever has no fixed opinions has no constant feelings." — Joseph Joubert
"Take the trouble to stop and think of the other person's feelings, his viewpoints, his desires and needs. Think more of what the other fellow wants, and how he must feel." — Maxwell Maltz
"The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food." — Mary Shelley
"I love it when people are able to interpret thoughts and feelings on fabric or some kind of material." — Anne Hathaway
"But I believe we must not allow feelings of defeat to take root in our hearts." — Daisaku Ikeda
"Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit." — Khalil Gibran
"I may not be your first date, kiss or love…but I want to be your last everything." – Unknown
"Thank you for going on this journey through life with me. There is nobody else who I would want by my side but you my angel." – Unknown
"I'll never ask you to change for me because you are perfect just the way you are." – Unknown
"My heart is perfect because you are in it." – Unknown
"You are my paradise and I would happily get stranded on you for a lifetime." – Unknown
"You have found true love when you realize that you want to wake up beside your love every morning even when you have your differences." – Unknown
"I've fallen in love many times…always with you." – Unknown
"You are the source of my joy, the center of my world and the whole of my heart." – Unknown
"Thank you for always being my rainbow after the storm." – Unknown
"In this crazy world, full of change and chaos, there is one thing of which I am certain, one thing which does not change: my love for you." – Unknown
"I don't need paradise because I found you. I don't need dreams because I already have you." – Unknown
"Love is not about how many days, weeks or months you've been together, it's all about how much you love each other every day." – Unknown
"If I did anything right in my life it was when I gave my heart to you." – Unknown
"I am so totally, completely, overwhelmingly, eye-poppingly, life-changingly, spectacularly, passionately, deliciously in love with you." – Unknown
"This morning I awoke and was reminded of the preciousness of life. I realized I should express my gratitude to those who are so very important to me. Thank you for all you have done and have a great day!" – Unknown
"When I wake up in the morning, I am thinking of you. When I go to sleep at night, I am thinking of you. And all those hours in between, I think of us." – Unknown
"And then my soul saw you and it kind of went, "Oh, there you are. I've been looking all over for you." – Unknown
"Together with you is my favorite place to be." – Unknown
"I am very indecisive and always have trouble picking my favorite anything. But, without a doubt, you are my favorite everything." – Unknown
"I still fall in love with you every day!" – Unknown
"Art is the concrete representation of our most subtle feelings." — Agnes Martin
"Football is a game about feelings and intelligence." — Jose Mourinho
"The greatest happiness is to transform one's feelings into action." — Madame de Stael
"I grew up influenced by different cultures, sounds, feelings, emotions, and I want Premiere Classe to be a representation of that." — DJ Snake
"Feelings come at really unexpected moments to all of us, and they come so fast." — Vittoria Ceretti
"The local community is very important in one's life; the feelings of identification with a place and people." — Alexander McCall Smith
"Tennis doesn't owe me anything. Tennis is one of the fairest sports. It's given me so many extraordinary feelings." — David Ferrer
"Sentimentalism is the working off on yourself of feelings you haven't really got." — D. H. Lawrence
"I love the line of Flaubert about observing things very intensely. I think our duty as writers begins not with our own feelings, but with the powers of observing." — Mary Oliver
"I write to express my thoughts, my feelings. I want people to think." — Mattie Stepanek
"A kid should be told that you can have feelings." — Ellen DeGeneres
"Behaviors are a choice. Feelings are sometimes out of our control. Behavior has to do with choices." — Randall Terry
"I'm so tired of men who are afraid to hurt women's feelings." — Sam Kinison
"You are nothing short of my everything." – Unknown
"I love you for all that you are, all that you have been and all that you will be." – Unknown
"The faking of feelings is a sin against the imagination." — Seamus Heaney


Want to be a Workshop Presenter at District 68's Spring 2018 Conference?
District 68 seeks dynamic speakers who can educate and inspire a diverse audience while speaking on Leadership, Communication and Personal Development topics.
If you meet these criteria, we invite you to submit a proposal that includes answers to the questions below. Please complete all questions and send your completed proposal pqd@d68tm.org.
All proposals must be received by March 31, 2017, to be considered.
Your proposal should include responses to all of the following questions.
Please note, that the presenter is expected to provide laptop if required. The conference committee will make every attempt to provide a projector if requested. However, there is no guarantee regarding projector availability at the event.


The Triton Series was founded by Malaysian businessman and amateur poker player, Richard Yong.
It is a Series of Super High Roller tournaments where the No Limit Hold'em variant is played.
The first event – the Cali Cup – started in January 2016, and was part of WPT National Philippines. That event broke records for WPT as its highest buy-in event ever, with US $200,000 per entry. That event got a whopping 52 entries, with Fedor Holz winning the title. Later this year, three more events took place in the Philippines.
In 2017, events have been hosted in Manila, Macau and Budva, Montenegro.
In 2018, Triton Poker returned to Montenegro, featuring short deck tournaments for the first time, and another event was announced in Jeju Island, South Korea, which will take place at the end of July, 2018.
Contestants and winners include prestigious poker players such as Daniel Cates, Daniel Colman, John Juanda and Phil Ivey.