The InfoSec Handbook offers the reader an organized layout of information that is easily read and understood. Allowing beginners to enter the field and understand the key concepts and ideas, while still keeping the experienced readers updated on topics and concepts.
It is intended mainly for beginners to the field of information security, written in a way that makes it easy for them to understand the detailed content of the book. The book offers a practical and simple view of the security practices while still offering somewhat technical and detailed information relating to security. It helps the reader build a strong foundation of information, allowing them to move forward from the book with a larger knowledge base.
Security is a constantly growing concern that everyone must deal with. Whether it's an average computer user or a highly skilled computer user, they are always confronted with different security risks. These risks range in danger and should always be dealt with accordingly. Unfortunately, not everyone is aware of the dangers or how to prevent them and this is where most of the issues arise in information technology (IT). When computer users do not take security into account many issues can arise from that like system compromises or loss of data and information. This is an obvious issue that is present with all computer users.
This book is intended to educate the average and experienced user of what kinds of different security practices and standards exist. It will also cover how to manage security software and updates in order to be as protected as possible from all of the threats that they face.
Umesha Nayak is a director and principal consultant of MUSA software engineering pvt. Ltd. which is into systems / process / management consulting. He has 32 years experience, of which 11 years are in providing consultancy to IT / manufacturing for other organizations from across the globe. He is a master of science in software systems; master of arts in economics; CAIIB; certified information systems auditor (CISA) and certified risk and information systems control (CRISC) professional from ISACA, US; PGDFM; certified lead auditor for many of the standards, among others. He has worked extensively in banking, software development, product design and development, project management, program management, information technology audits, information application audits, quality assurance, coaching, product reliability, human resource management, consultancy, etc. He was vice president and corporate executive council member at Polaris software lab, Chennai prior to his current assignment. He also held various roles like head of quality, head of SEPG and head of strategic practice unit risks & treasury at Polaris software lab. He started his journey with computers in 1981 with ICL mainframes and continued further with minis, pcs etc. He was one of the founding members of the information systems auditing in the banking industry in India. He has effectively guided many organizations through successful ISO 9001/ISO 27001/CMMI certifications and process improvements.


text:
Ways and Means Leaders Announce Rural and Underserved Communities Health Task Force Request for Information
November 15, 2019 — Press Releases
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee Kevin Brady (R-TX) and Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-MA) announced a Request for Information (RFI) soliciting input that will inform the Rural and Underserved Communities Health Task Force as it works to develop bipartisan legislation to improve health care outcomes within underserved communities.
"Severe inequity exists in our nation when it comes to the accessibility and affordability of health care," said Brady and Neal. "Earlier this year, we formed a bipartisan task force to examine the delivery and financing of health services in urban and rural underserved areas. Now, we urge stakeholders from across the country to provide their input on priority topics that affect health status and outcomes for the Task Force to consider and discuss. The submissions we receive will support our members' work identifying the causes of health care disparities and developing strategies to close gaps in care that exist between certain communities."
Reps. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), Jodey Arrington (R-TX), Danny Davis (D-IL), and Terri Sewell (D-AL) serve as co-chairs of the Rural and Underserved Communities Health Task Force.
The full RFI can be viewed HERE.
The deadline for responses to this RFI is close of business Friday, November 29, 2019.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Hi, when debugging, I click the "Step into instruction", then the debugger plugin just has no further response. The whole C::B is still active without hanging.
This happens in the latest nightly 64bit C::B and a self build 32 bit C::B.
The GDB I'm using is: either 64bit GDB 8.1 or GDB 20190111(git head) version build myself.
This issue also happens when you have "Disassmbler" window opened.
D:\code\gdbmybuild\bin\gdb.exe: warning: Couldn't determine a path for the index cache directory.
Breakpoint 1 at 0x401649: file main.cpp, line 10.
So, I guess it is a C::B related issue.
The argument L" > > >" is the output from GDB. so maybe C::B thought there are still some GDB command user has to enter.
The bad thing is: after this "GDB_driver::ParseOutput" function call, I never see another function call, which means the GDB prompt string never returned? If that's true, the problem is hard to solve.
If I paste the below command to the GDB command line, I see the GDB prompt correctly returned.
The problem is not step into instruction, but the disassembly command. For some reason I don't know it is broken on windows. If you can debug it and understand why it happens it would be good.
I found that the cause happens that we send several command to GDB separated by \n does not works.
Then, I see only one gdb command(the disassemble command) was send to GDB, and I see GDB can correctly print the disassemble result.
Then GDB doesn't print the disassembled result, and only the three "> > >" was returned, and the GDB prompt is lost. I believe this time, GDB has some internal issue to handle the multiple commands.
So, I think it is not easy to fix such issue in C::B side. Unless we send command several times.
What happens if you replace \n with the \r\n?
I have already tried this yesterday, but this does not solve the issue.
Which I remove the "if 1" and "end" command.
The GDB prompt returned correctly, but you see the error message from C::B: Failure finding "Stack level ".
//response lines are in the pattern of breakpoint output.
Then, GDB correctly return TWO prompts. But in the above code, the sub-string before the FIRST prompt is handled, and the whole commands is removed(by the function call RemoveTopCommand(false) .
The idea to fix this is: send the two commands separately, so we will handle the returned string one by one, especially the command was removed one by one.
This won't work. You need to create two separate command objects and then add both of them in the queue. But probably this would make the disassemble command pretty complex.
Yes, that make things more complex.
OK, I just tested, and it works!
For me, I have a personal gdb script file(the file will load the c++ std pretty printer, the wxWidgets' pretty printer), named "my.gdb", which will be loaded when gdb started, so just add the above scripts in the script file.
This won't work on users' machines. If you want to commit this you have to add a file to the installation, then add a command to load this file and then apply the above patch. Also some testing on linux is required.
I have updated the link address in the posts, thanks. It looks like the address of the ftp are not shown correctly, so I use the code field to show the raw ftp address.
Indeed, adding a new file, and let GDB load this file for a normal user is quite complex.
BTW: this patch works without need the extra script file.
Note: if I don't add the "\n" in the end of the long new QueueCommand command string, I have the same issue as my original post, which means for GDB prompt to return, we need an extra "\n"?


How does one measure the worth of Stephen Harper's apology to Canada's Aboriginal peoples for Canada's shameful residential school episode?
Genuine apologies are followed by positive attempts to undo or to compensate for a wrong done to another. False and hollow apologies are unaccompanied by any real change or remorse. They are written on the wind. Their purpose is inevitably self-serving.
Perhaps we might judge Harper's apology by the actions (or inaction) of his government on behalf of Native children during and after that so-called historical event.
Here is how matters stood as he was mouthing his words in the House of Commons. After considerable pressure, Canada eventually signed the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2010. That's the only substantive move forward from that day to this—a signature on a document.
Readers will remember the years of struggle waged by a tiny First Nations community to obtain an elementary school for their kids. A previous Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, who liked to joke about "scalping" and whatnot, stood firm against the idea. But earlier this year, finally caving to pressure, the Harper government promised a school for the children of Attawapiskat.
One elementary school, to be completed in 2013. According to Charlie Angus, the MP for the area, there are at least 40 others in the same fix.
Then there are the social service payments available to Aboriginal children across the country compared to white kids. Funded by the federal government, they receive 22% less than other children, who are supported by the provinces.
What's being done about that? Well, Harper appointee Shirish Chotalia, who heads up the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, after dragging her feet for a year and a half or so, ruled that this was perfectly fine.
Aboriginal children with disabilities are also treated abominably. Once again, the Harper government appears to see nothing wrong with this obvious discrimination against Native kids.
Both of these matters are presently before the federal courts, with Justice Department lawyers fighting tooth and nail against equal treatment for Aboriginal children. And we're paying for it.
Now we have news that the Harper government is also fighting a class action lawsuit launched on behalf of another group of Native children—victims of the "Sixties Scoop," a second wave of forced assimilation. Rather than settle the scandal, for which the state bears ultimate responsibility, Harper prefers to use the government's bottomless resources (our taxes) to drag this thing through the courts for years.
Against all this, I ask again: What was Harper's apology worth? But at this point the question is purely rhetorical.
This page contains a single entry by Dr. Dawg published on November 5, 2011 12:21 PM.
The Hidden Costs of Autism was the previous entry in this blog.
Mark Bourrie and the curious silence of the Speech Warriors™ is the next entry in this blog.


text:
Byrd's 2-run double in 8th lifts Indians past Twins 7-6
Hellickson helps Phillies beat Reds 3-2
Guerra, Jeffress lead Brewers to shutout win over Padres
BY foxsports • May 13, 2016
MILWAUKEE -- Milwaukee's starting rotation is getting a lift from a journeyman right-hander who pitched in Italy just two years ago.
Junior Guerra is making a strong case for staying in the majors.
He pitched six innings of two-hit ball on Friday night, leading the Brewers to a 1-0 victory over the San Diego Padres.
Making his third career major league start, Guerra (2-0) shut down one of the National League's lighter-hitting teams. He struck out four and walked two before three relievers finished the three-hitter.
"You've got to keep learning -- three outings isn't enough," Guerra said through an interpreter when asked if he has proven that he belongs in the big leagues. "You've just got to keep improving, keep working hard, and see whatever happens."
Guerra came out victorious in an unlikely, low-scoring duel with Christian Friedrich, who allowed four hits and walked six in six innings in his Padres debut after being promoted from Triple-A El Paso.
The Brewers scored on Chris Carter's sacrifice fly in the first, snapping a 23-inning scoreless streak by Padres pitching.
"We had a pretty good first inning against Friedrich and he did a nice job the rest of the way," Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell said.
But Friedrich (0-1) still lost his 11th straight decision, a streak that dates to 2012. It was his first start in the majors since July 2014.
Wiggling out of jams all night, the left-hander stranded the bases loaded in the third and retired the side in order just once.
"He had a little trouble settling in," manager Andy Green said. "I thought he did a lot better when he started spinning the baseball more. I think he was a little fastball dominant in the first inning."
At least the Padres held Ryan Braun hitless in three at-bats, snapping his 12-game hitting streak. Braun, who is hitting .367, was also intentionally walked in the third.
JUNIOR'S MINT
Guerra's well-traveled route through professional ball includes stints in an independent league, along with time in the Mexican League in 2012 and in Italy in 2014. He caught on with the White Sox organization last season, when he pitched three games in relief in the big leagues.
Guerra was claimed off waivers by the Brewers on Oct. 7, the first transaction in general manager David Stearns' tenure.
"If this was meant to be, you've got to take advantage of it now," Guerra said about getting his big league shot.
Despite the missed opportunities at the plate, the one-run lead was safe with a Brewers bullpen that is lights-out with the lead in late innings.
Jeremy Jeffress finished with a strikeout for his ninth save, preserving Guerra's best start since he was called up on May 3 from Triple-A.
San Diego's best scoring opportunity came in the fifth, when Adam Rosales doubled to the left-field wall with one out before moving to third on a wild pitch. Guerra struck out Friedrich and got Jon Jay to bounce out.
Guerra also picked up his first major league hit with a single up the middle in the third.
Padres: Green hoped starting pitcher Andrew Cashner would miss the minimum amount of time after going on the disabled list Friday for a strained right hamstring. The right-hander last pitched on Sunday, taking the loss when the Padres fell 3-2 to the New York Mets. "He is back, making a start, I think we are looking at him the 24th in San Francisco," Green said. ... C Derek Norris might be out of the starting lineup for a couple days after getting hit on the left hand by a pitch on Thursday, though Green said he would be available to pinch-hit.
Brewers: LHP Will Smith smiled after throwing off a mound for the first time since the reliever sprained his right knee in spring training. Smith, who is on the 15-day disabled list, was supposed to share closing duties with right-hander Jeffress.
Padres: Green announced after the game that reliever Luis Perdomo will start in Cashner's place on Saturday. Green expects to rely heavily on the bullpen with Perdomo making his first career major league start.
Brewers: RHP Wily Peralta (2-4) will try to make a second straight quality start in what has otherwise been a tough beginning to the season.


An unseasonably warm October could mean bad news for chronic allergy sufferers: a prolonged sniffling and sneezing season. But you don't have to wait around for a winter freeze to kill autumn irritants like ragweed and leaves. Instead, you have the power to reduce allergens in your home. And you might be surprised to know it all starts with your HVAC equipment.
Are you still running your window AC unit? Don't forget to clean the filter! Otherwise, the unit will continue to blow dusty air into the room – further agitating your allergy symptoms.
Most window units are simple to clean. Simply pop out the front grill of the unit, remove the mesh filter, and wash it in a mixture of warm, soapy water with bleach to remove mold. Let dry completely before placing back in the unit.
How about your heater? Don't forget that furnaces need their filters cleaned or replaced every few months to ensure maximum efficiency (and not to mention, allergy relief). To swap out your filter, first turn off the furnace. Remove the existing filter (generally located inside the furnace or return air vent). Be sure to pay attention to markings instructing you which side of the filter should face the furnace – otherwise, you could accidentally block airflow rather than clean it.
Some filters need to replaced outright, while others are washable or reusable. A good rule of thumb? A furnace filter with a plastic frame is reusable. You'll only have to clean it periodically with a vacuum and water.
If DIY isn't your style, our One Hour Air field technicians are happy to assist you with replacing filters.
Did you know the average family home creates 40 pounds of dust per year? Yikes! Even worse, the majority of that dust gets caught in your duct system. Remove dusty irritants by having our HVAC technician thoroughly clean your ducts.
Dirty ducts drastically reduce a system's lifespan, as dust particles build up and clog sensitive mechanical components. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, 25% to 40% of the energy used for heating or cooling a home is wasted—much of it from blocked ductwork. In short, keeping your HVAC system operating at max efficiency year after year can easily offset the cost of duct cleaning.
As a homeowner, you can do your part by banishing dust bunnies. Be sure to regularly clean vents, bookshelves, and other dust-collecting culprits. Leave shoes at the front door to keep dirt outside, and keep windows closed on windy fall days.
Standard, store-bought filters only block about 50% of airborne irritants. But you can ensure almost 100% filtration by choosing One Hour Air's exclusive electronic air filter, the MicroPower Guard®.
These disposable filter pads use polarized technology, creating a magnetic force field that captures 97% of airborne particles. A MicroPower Guard® is essential to any whole-house air purification system. Contact One Hour Air to discuss installation today!
The secret to healthy home air is striking the right balance when it comes to moisture control. Too much humidity is an invitation for mold – but too little can result in dry air that triggers allergy symptoms.
Clogged drain channels prevent an AC unit from reducing humidity, resulting in excess moisture that can discolor walls or carpet – and not to mention, invite mold. A good rule of thumb is to keep humidity below 55%. Talk to your One Hour Air technician to make sure air vents aren't collecting condensation – especially in often forgot areas like your attic or basement.
People with respiratory conditions such as allergies and asthma might find relief from adding moisture to their home environment. Increased humidity can help combat congestion, pressure, and a persistent cough. Adding moisture to the air with a humidifier has been proven to lessen these symptoms.
Talk to a One Hour Air technician about installing a whole house humidifier to introduce water vapor into your home air. Attached to your duct system and water line, a top-of-the-line humidifier relieves dry winter air and offers several health benefits. Just be sure to maintain the humidifier over time to treat hard water and prevent algae.


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text:
Top Telangana news developments today
Key news developments from Telangana on January 23, 2023
January 23, 2023 09:27 am | Updated January 26, 2023 10:08 am IST - Hyderabad
Pawan Kalyan to launch his political programmes in Telangana after offering prayers at the famous temple of Hanuman in Kondagatta. He will hold a meeting of his fans and supporters at Jagtial after the temple visit. File | Photo Credit: The Hindu
Here are the key news developments from Telangana to watch out for today:
1. State government to release schedule for transfer and promotion of teachers emsasse from January 27. About 21,000 posts of teachers are likely to fall vacant after promotion of teachers which is happening for the first time since the formation of the State.
2. Film star turned politician Pawan Kalyan to launch his political programmes in Telangana after offering prayers at the famous temple of Hanuman in Kondagatta. He will hold a meeting of his fans and supporters at Jagtial after the temple visit.
3. The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation is undecided on its course of action at a six storied building which was completely burnt in a fire accident that resulted in the death of three workers on Thursday. As the access to the building is lost with roofs and walls of each floor inside collapsing due to heat and charred remains of two of the three workers suspected to be buried in the rubble, the authorities are clueless on tracing out the skeletal remains of the bodies.
4. Telangana Study Circle is issuing notices to contractors who offered to run coaching class for candidates who enrolled with the circle for competitive exams. The contractors engaged sub-contractors to run the classes against rules.
Telangana / Hyderabad


text:
Richards Encourages Adoption
PUBLISHED: 10:51 PM 5 Apr 2018
Planned Parenthood President Supports Saving Animals But Not Children
In her new book, she encourages adopting a pet.
by Jacqueline Havelka
Culture U.S.
Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards just wrote a new book.
It's springtime, and Cecile Richards is doing what so many on-the-way-out-the-door CEOs do—she has written a book and is heading out on a national book tour. Her memoir, Make Trouble, describes what she has dealt with at the helm of Planned Parenthood for the last 12 years. Planned Parenthood is the largest American provider of reproductive health services for women; including the more than 300,000 abortions they perform each year.
Many were dumbfounded by a recent Twitter campaign tweeted out by the Planned Parenthood CEO. Richards urged adoption—pet adoption that is, not adoption for human babies. It's as if liberals just can't think logically. If they can, this book exemplifies the left's supreme arrogant hypocrisy. The full book title is "Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead–My Life Story."
Richards posted a picture of her beloved dachshund alongside #AdoptDontShop. Dog rescues are fantastic, but the irony of the posts caught many by surprise. Richards stressed the importance of saving animals and giving pets homes.
It's interesting because, in the now-famous undercover videos made by David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress, the concept of baby adoption is rarely discussed as an option. In fact, the latest Planned Parenthood reports show that for every 83 abortions there was only one adoption referral.
Two decades ago, the organization referred five times as many mothers to adoption agencies.
But, as the shocking videos showed, the Planned Parenthood business has changed into an extremely lucrative cash business. In the 12 years Richards has been at the helm, Planned Parenthood has performed an astonishing 3.5 million abortions.
Richards resigned in January 2018, not giving any particular reason other than saying it was time for her to move on to her next chapter. Daleiden has gone on the record saying that Richards' departure likely signals trouble for Planned Parenthood. He says his organization's undercover videos exposed the practice of selling fetal body parts to for-profit companies–and this shocking revelation sent the organization into turmoil, and it was definitely time for Richards to go.
Daleiden went on to say that he hopes the new leader will be fully transparent with the American public about exactly what Planned Parenthood does and doesn't do in their "taxpayer-funded criminal abortion enterprise".
The agency has an incredulous $1.45 billion in revenue—not bad for the so-called "non-profit". Richards herself made a salary of $700,000 per year—that's twice President Trump's salary.
The fact that they perform abortions and the fact that they're raking in so much dough is what has taxpayers steamed.
Planned Parenthood is given over $500 million each year in federal funding, but that funding is not used for abortions because that is prohibited by federal law. Instead, that money goes to the other services they provide for women's health.
Many taxpayers are extremely skeptical, not believing for a minute that over a half billion dollars in annual federal funding doesn't touch Planned Parenthood's abortion business in some way.
Many don't believe the story Richards is feeding the public. They say abortion is a cash cow business and that Richards is as thick as thieves with liberal democrats who support her cause.
One Planned Parenthood clinic in Wisconsin was fined by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for hiding a $116,000 donation to Hillary Clinton's campaign. There are over 600 such clinics in the U.S. and many Americans wonder how shady the operations are at those locations.
Hillary Clinton likely realizes how important it was to have Cecile Richards in her corner for the 2016 election. In fact, she gave a gushing review for Richards' book, writing "with humor, heart, and hope, Cecile Richards offers practical advice and inspiration for aspiring leaders everywhere."
Practical advice? How many aspiring leaders kill unborn babies as part of their regular duties? Richards certainly counted this as a duty she took seriously. Each year she was in charge, Planned Parenthood increased the number of abortions they performed by 11 percent.
Clinton goes on with the gush:
"For more than a decade, America has known Cecile Richards as the fierce and fearless president of Planned Parenthood. Make Trouble offers a window into her life: the early organizing effort that landed her in the principal's office; the historic campaign of her mother, Ann Richards, for governor of Texas; her courageous leadership on behalf of women; her travels during the 2016 presidential election; and the lessons she's learned from the outpouring of activism America has seen since."
The love affair is apparently mutual. Planned Parenthood had never before endorsed a presidential candidate but in 2016 they couldn't wait to endorse Clinton.
In return for the endorsement, Clinton gave her unwavering support to the organization once she was elected:
"I will always defend Planned Parenthood and I will say consistently and proudly, Planned Parenthood should be funded, supported and protected, not undermined, misrepresented and demonized. As your president, I will always have your back."
It's just that the "madam president" part of that statement didn't exactly work out.


The reservoir volume and flow capacity per unit area are steps toward finding total reservoir volume. Average values for comparing the quality of reservoirs are also useful results from log analysis. Pore volume (per unit area), hydrocarbon pore volume, flow capacity, and the averages of core porosity, water saturation, permeability, net pay, net reservoir, net sand, and gross sand are called mapable properties, petrophysical properties, or reservoir properties.
Do not use the following algorithm in thinly laminated shaly sands - see alternate method shown below.
The harmonic average most closely reflects radial flow into a borehole. If equal sample intervals are used, this geometric formula becomes: Kgeo = (PROD (Perm * INCR)) ^ (1 / INCR). where INCR = data digitizing increment. It does not give the same result as the previous version if layer thicknesses are unequal.
This spreadsheet provides a tool for analyzing and summarizing log data in a consistent format. It calculates porosity and permeability averages, suns pore volume, hydrocarbon pore volume, flow capacity, and net pay with user defined cutoffs in a table identical to that created by the "META/COR" spreadsheet for log analysis, making it easy to compare log analysis results to core data.
Log Analysis Spreadsheet for Conventional Oil and Gas, includes lithology, net pay, productivity, and reserves. English and Metric Units.
Exanple of "META/LOG" input data and crossplots. Intermediate calculations are performed offscreen to the right. The Summary Table (shown below0 is also off to the right.
Individual Answers and Summary Table from "META/LOG" log analysis spreadsheet. Compare to core analysis results shown below.
Summary Table from "META/COR". Compare values to "META/ESP" log analysis Summary Table shown above.


Strawberries: plant seeds no later than the 5th day of Spring, by 5pm. They will take 5 In The Sims 4, Sims can acquire the gardening skill at any time.... 2/06/2016�� The Sims 4�s gardening skill will have you looking for more and more seeds to plant and grow and harvest. Tomatoes are likely one such seed that has evaded you time and time again.
The Sims 4: How to Grow Cow Plants The bovine beasts that hunger to swallow Sims whole return in The Sims 4 and we�ve uncovered the secret to growing them in your garden. Instead of unlocking as a career or aspiration reward, clever Sims need to scrounge up rare seeds from the environment.
Save Tomato Seeds Step #4: Rinse Seeds There are three purposes to rinsing: you want to stop the fermentation process, separate the pulp from the seeds, and separate the good seed from the bad. Take these steps to properly rinse tomato seeds.
New seeds rare items and also a forbidden fruit, that will transform your sims into PLANT SIMS!!! In return, will alter their needs and increase gardening abilities for up to 5 whole sim days.


Do you have any deformities, infirmities, calamities, contagions or afflictions?
Do you suffer from any shortcomings or long goings?
Place your hand on the Intertunnel and be saved. Save! Ed!
Don't you feel like cryin?
It's easy to be impressed with manual dexterity. Play a piano. Hit a curveball. Pick up dumplings with chopsticks. Whatever. When you see a practiced hand do what it's practiced a million times, fascination enters into it.
But there's more. The fellow in the video is a scholar. What you're doing is as important as how you do it. He's copying another's design -- Duncan Phyfe was scads more scholarly than someone that can reproduce his designs, of course, but it may very well be that old Duncan couldn't make the things he designed as well as the guy in this video can. Most all the big furniture design names people might recognize -- Hepplewhite, Chippendale, Sheraton, Phyfe, Belter, Stickley -- they were designers and directors and businessmen. They decided. Approved or rejected. They would seek out helpers whose skill exceeded their own to produce objects whose design was beyond the hands-on people's ability to conjure.
Our hero in the video isn't designing anything. But I imagine he could shake his sleeve and out would pop a ball-and-claw Chippendale leg, or a fumed quartersawn white oak mission table, or maybe a veneered Sheraton card table. He is a juke box, not an orchestra. It's a different sort of skill, and a very important one. It's not design.
Everyone thinks they're qualified to design things. I hardly ever met an owner of a home that didn't think they were qualified by their pulse to design a home. They'd ask you to produce bizarre and unlivable surroundings, and then excoriate you for listening to them. "That's not what I wanted." No, but it's what your ordered. You went to McDonald's but sent your meal back because you wanted Chinese food.
But the average person is capable of understanding good design in homes and furniture and soft goods and clothes and so forth. The problem is there are rules. You need to understand the rules before you can produce variations on them. The approach of understanding the rules first, and then using your understanding to work within the framework they produce is an alien concept, mostly because of the public school systems' approach to learning. Drill in fundamentals followed by more sophisticated use of what you learned is verboten. You're just supposed to morph over time into a good speller dropping subjunctives subordinate clauses here and there like a Rockefeller handing out dimes. They treat you like you're a single-celled learning animal when you start, and the same when you end -- you're just bigger.
Duncan Phyfe was an extraordinary person. Furniture makers whose style is definable enough to carry their name long after their death are very rare. And Duncan didn't really invent anything. He was simply a very highly skilled syncretist (oops, confused the spellchecker again) of neoclassical forms. But there is no really new way to make furniture after a short while. If you're making entirely new designs, they're bad designs, because human beings have certain physical needs that vary very little. A square wheel is original, for instance; but it achieves its originality by being a bad wheel.
The turner and carver in the video isn't making any square wheels. Good for him. The world's chock full of square wheels just now. And they vote.
And mom and dad, too. There's the rub. I see the hand of mom and dad in that video, and the cold, dead hands of legions of moms and dads that came before them. Teachers, too; although sometimes they're the same people. Some teachers still try under trying circumstances.
I was sick until this morning, and abed. That's rare. We do not send our children to the petri dish they call a school here in town, and are spared a lot of such things. But I laid there like a casualty and got my information about things in the house second-hand. I heard all sorts of things.
I was unable to make a fire, but they got made all the same, as I have a family and we do things together all the time. I could do what my wife does, and she managed to tend the furnace. The kids help out.
I got all my information like a submariner would. Shut up, away from everyone, but still hearing the sounds of familiar things. My wife would bring me ginger ale and crackers and updates. Life, boiled down to short messages, can be wonderful.
The kids were on tenterhooks because their mom told them I was ill. Kids raised properly are attuned to disruptions in routines. Kids raised in unsalubrious surroundings are inured to most everything. Everything's in an uproar all the time so they don't notice, or care.
My wife was teaching the little feller. There was some discussion about his older brother, who will finish high-school level homeschooling this year. He had questions about what that meant. "Your brother wants to be a musician when he is a man," my wife said to him; "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
"I want to be a musician, too," he said, though I wonder about that. He's sort of a wunderkind in a small area of musicianship -- he can do simple things almost effortlessly. But he has not shown the dogged determination that his older brother has shown at learning music. He is very young and might change his mind, and be one of those people I used to hate: people that could play music better than you could, but never had to try at it.
He wasn't done. "I want to be a husband. I want to be a father."
That is an astonishing thing to hear. Why should it be astonishing to hear a nine-year-old wants to grow up and be a husband and father? It shouldn't be, but it is. If he'd uttered that in a public school, I imagine he'd be in a re-education camp by nightfall. And on the flip side, I don't think the term "wife and mother" can be uttered in public school without a SWAT team of egalitarians being called.
My children don't want to be musicians because they dream of drug abuse and licentiousness and a vision of being carried around on a litter chair by flunkeys. My older son was old enough to have come to my music shows and seen the real work it was. He still wanted to do it, because work doesn't scare him. They both want to be productive citizens, useful to other productive citizens. They want to be husbands and fathers, with everything that means.
It is everything we've wanted for them. When the little one shows flashes of genius, I dread it. You do not want to be wonderful in this world, son. Wonderful is a big millstone in the swimming pool of life. I wanted to be normal my whole life, and during my lifetime on earth, being "normal" has gotten so strange that your mother and I are living on the edge of civilization hanging on by our fingernails.
I want you to at least have a chance at being normal, if you want it. There are so few people committed to being useful, salubrious, and carrying on their traditions, and then having or supporting families that will rhyme down the centuries, that you'll be wonderful enough if you manage it.
The Intertunnel is like my submarine, too. I get pinged, literally and figuratively, all the time. I feel the water temperature by putting my hand on the hull. Leslie from out west is kind enough to read, and comment, and buy furniture, and send the boys some shekels for their music videos. She is one of the many people I call my Interfriends: People I don't know, and most likely will never meet, but they're my friends. They know about me and mine, and I know something about them and theirs. If everyone that corresponds with me here were my actual instead of virtual neighbors, I'd live in the most interesting and pleasant town on earth. Leslie sent me a picture of her now grown, formerly homeschooled daughter's work. She makes cakes. But saying she makes cakes is like saying Da Vinci was a housepainter. So I get to say something I've been dying to say since I was a little kid watching TV in the sixties: Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we have a really big shoe.
My little son especially thought this was the bee's knees. "It's a shoe with a big upheel!" He makes up more, and better words than Chaucer.
Leslie's daughter is grown up, and I'd tell you she's beautiful but I'm an old man and not supposed to notice such things, so I won't mention it; and her parents tried, and obviously succeeded in producing a fully actualized person, ready and willing to be a good and productive (and inventive) citizen, and maybe someday produce her version of the same thing all over again.
We are a merry band here at the Cottage, busy being normal. We know we're not alone, because we hear the thrumming on our bulkheads. We know you're out there. There are plenty of people still trying to be decent citizens, and produce some more, by hook or by crook. We need a secret handshake or something.
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers --and sisters.
These people don't remind me of the stall in the mall with anodized aluminum frames surrounding all the prints of women dancing barefoot on the beach in an evening dress while a butler holds a brolly over her head and a violin and rose petals and ballet slippers slop around in the foam at the edge of the surf. Our trusty frame makers in the video are competing with the painters for attention.
The shape of the main part of the frame is, I'm not joking, a Lesbian cyma profile. That's usually called a bolection where I'm from. It has a back band along the outside edge, and the carving along the inside edge is sort of gadrooned water leaf design, which is gilded. I noticed they distressed the frame to make it fit in with the painting it adorns, like I do with furniture sometimes. Neato.
I'm fairly certain I'm going to go on some sort of law enforcement watch list for simply typing the words "gilded and distressed gadrooned water leaf Lesbian cyma with a backband" into the Intertunnel. I'm not sure what sort of trouble you might get in for just reading it.
The Chiri Chiri sisters are my new second-favorite band.
Chie and Risa are from Yokohama, and the planet Gene Vincent, by the sound of it. Of course I have no idea what the hell's going on. That's a feature, not a bug these days. I don't want a peek behind the curtain. I want you to smile and sing and play your song like you're enjoying yourself, or at least reserve a serious mien for serious music. Their giapponese webpages are Greek to me, but their smiles and Country Gentleman twang are not.
Have a Chiri day. I know I will.
The Chiri Chiri sisters on Facebook.
As is occasionally the case, I don't know whether to write about Ben's Tiny House here, or on The Borderline Sociopathic Blog For Boys. Ben belongs both places, I imagine.
Ben Norton was an ambitious eleven-year-old when he became captivated with the idea of building his own tiny house.
Now, adults have lost their minds, and have started talking about how they're going to live in a shed, or a phone booth, or an apartment it would be illegal to keep a death-row inmate in, because they're going to save the environment -- whatever that is -- but Ben is talking sense. He's got the urge. He wants to build shelter. That's what a normal boy does. He makes things, and maybe dreams about making bigger things.
Take a big bite, and keep chewing, as the old saying goes. Building shelter is interesting, and important, but at its most basic level, it's not rocket surgery. It's amenable to plain effort coupled to curiosity. Ben obviously had help, but the Leaning Tower of Footings he's got going on underneath his mahal hints that he really did do the work by himself, along with his mates, and wasn't just posing for the pictures.
iPhone people constantly blog about their desire to mechanize the construction of home building. They figure everything they care about is made in a factory, preferably overseas where people they don't care about as much as they protest they do risk getting Bhopaled instead of them. Why not houses? What they are really daydreaming about is not having anything to do with other people, especially people whose fingernails have something besides Cheeto dust under them . They'd prefer to order an Ikea house and have it dropped off by FedEx, like everything else in their life. That's fine, I guess, but there's an enormous flaw in their thinking: Building housing for humans is already one of the most efficient, mechanized, and orderly processes there is in the American landscape. It takes so long, costs so much, and seems so mysterious and infuriating to people with skinny glasses because the process is filled with people like them -- clerks, nabobs, government officials, endless ranks of rulemakers telling the people that build shelter, and the people that occupy said shelter, exactly what they're allowed to build and live in. All that foolishness, and more, will still happen when housing becomes all pre-fab; it will just be hidden from sight at a factory instead of on display where the house goes. Then a truck will come with your Ikea double-wide and plop it down and you can live in the shabby thing without talking to anyone with muscles on their bodies that aren't the residue of mouse clicks.
That's why Ben's barn, or shed, or whatever you want to call it, is so wonderful. It is the essence of a house. It is shelter, in its simplest form -- stripped-down, straightforward, homemade. It is not trying to do much besides keep the rain off your head, and the bears out of your food. It is as iconic as a crayon drawing of a house by a child. It's an example of why the tiny house people are right, for the wrong reasons. Shelter for humans should be straightforward.
Ben has shown you something, if you'll just see it. You've forgotten what you're trying to do. Ben wasn't old enough to forget anything, so he got it right the first time.
You must understand I am capable of galvanic rage.
That is probably news to most, if not all of my readers and friends. I'm not talking about cutting remarks on message boards after midnight, either. I mean real, bad, spittle-flecked rage. There are very few things that truly matter to me, but they matter to me a great deal. And I am very slow to anger, but there is no end to it when it's unleashed.
I don't act like that on the Intertunnel, and I try not to act like that off it, either, but I fail often enough. Many people are very blase on the Intertunnel, although they have very strong opinions. Often it is because they are shielded from real privation. They won't miss any meals if X passes the Y law. Many bloggers have sinecures, and while it doesn't always make them mellow, it does make them sort of ambivalent about the things that they rail about. I've observed outrage as a kind of hobby for decades now. It's tiresome to me. The professional doesn't listen to amateurs. Robespierre wouldn't read Andrew Sullivan.
I live at the edge of the economic map, and several other maps, including the actual map. We're cutting edge cave people here. People tell me that my life seems odd and occasionally wonderful to them. It seems that way to me, too, although it is too demanding on my wife and children to suit me. But I would not trade our life for cable TV. But if the DJIA or Congress sneezes, we get pneumonia.
I'd make an excellent Savonarola. I could build a pulpit and rail from it with the best of them. I'd give you the finger while you burned me in the Piazza della Signoria, too, because I'm an Irishman as well as an Italian. But I can't bring myself to do it. I must not rage. I'm tired of manifestos everywhere.
My god, everything is a manifesto. You can read any innocuous news story on Yahoo and there are 3000 comments after it and 2500 of them are manifestos and the other 500 are plain screeds. Every gathering, real or virtual, is a pretext to launch into a description of the New World Order everyone's going to install right after they're made God-Emperor by acclamation, by virtue of the excellent manifesto they left in the comments after a story on The Frisky about this year's bikini styles. Everyone so desperately wants to be Howard Beale. I really sort of am Howard Beale. I don't want to be Howard Beale. I certainly don't want to watch amateurs try their hand at it. I'm a pro. Born to the purple -- prose.
I put my children on the Intertunnel. A thing fraught with peril. But they are the product of the best of my self, and my wife's best efforts. They are a very long prayer released into the ether. One does not pray as if God is a vending machine; put a wish in the slot, and out comes the candy. You offer it up for its own sake.
My sons' video showed up in so many places I'm afraid to start naming them because I'll forget some and offer an unstudied insult to those omitted. I swear I saw them everywhere these last few days -- almost.
Nowhere where bad people are. Nowhere where Howard Beale reigns. I saw them in places where decent, hard-working, put-upon people congregate. I saw them where people recognize something of the potential in persons not given over to the depravity of the general culture. People who know the difference between civilization and barbarism. People that value effort. Like progress. Think about the future.
I saw all the supportive and pleasant things that were said. The encouragement offered. The attention paid to two little boys who doggedly try despite obscurity and hardship. People reached in their pockets to help them, to support them, to let them know that there is more than a world of Howard Beales outside their practice room. I'm immensely grateful for it, but so much more than that. You've restored my faith in my fellow man, which I must admit was running on fumes. Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.
There are nice people everywhere, if you will but look. I'm glad we did.
My son emailed me this.
In other news, I now receive email from one of my children. I imagine this means some sort of age Rubicon has been crossed.
Reader and commenter and all-around swell guy Leon suggested we might like this video. We do, don't we? It's one of the better looks into real work in a real shop I've seen. There's lots in it a civilian might not get to see much: steam bending, portable sawmill, and various other barbarous arts and crafts.
I love Mike Jarvi's energy. That shop has elbow room I could use, too. And three-phase power, I think. He puts it all to use. There's mad scientist/insane bartender finish mixing at the end too, which I like.
It's funny that the bench is called "Contemporary" style. It's like the appellation "Modern." To me, it suggests a style about eighty years old. To everybody else, they just see the words contemporary and modern and think it's contemporary and modern, not Contemporary and Modern. It's just a few years removed from Victorian, really.
So let's salute Mike Jarvi's bench making.
But I must warn Mike, I'm sort of a jerk, and I have an impenetrably high opinion of my own work, which boils down to this dare: I can make a bench faster than anyone that can make one better, and I can make one better than anyone that can make one faster.
Hmmm. What's a father to say about this one?
I'm not exactly sure where it came from. My children have heard Take Five a million times in our house, of course. We're catholic in our tastes, and Brubeck is a staple in the audio stable of anyone that's not a barbarian. But this is not our --my wife and I, I mean --idea.
It's the kids' idea to play it. We homeschool the kids. Well, my wife homeschools the kids, and I try not to mess it up too badly. Take a big bite, and keep chewing, we counsel them. This seems more than a big bite to me. I've watched it dozens of times already. I find it kind of astonishing. But better than that --I find it entertaining. I'll put this version of Take Five on my mp3 player and erase the original, and never look back.
The Heir is doing all the heavy lifting. He is playing three parts on the recording. He has learned to play the bass fairly well, even though he only recently started messing around with it. He tried to cajole a handful of his friends to play along with him, but they all fall out almost immediately. He decided to do it himself. With the help of my readers, he's able to record multiple tracks now, and makes the most of it. It's a tiny little thing, his multitrack. But it works. He recorded the rhythm guitar part along with his brother, in one take, and then added the bass, and then the melody and the solo. His little brother never misses, so he gets to go back to playing Minecraft right away.
Honestly, I don't know how he does it. He's still only nine. I can't play Take Five properly on the drums. There is no one in Oxford County, Maine, that can, probably. It's in odd meter: 5/4. If you're unfamiliar with that term, watch it again and count the beats as the measures go by. You're probably used to doing that. 1 2 3 4, you go. Count 1 2 3 4 5 for this song. It's how the song got its name, of course. The saxophone player in Brubeck's band, Paul Desmond wrote the song, which was mightily overlooked when Brubeck passed away a short time ago. Everyone assumed Brubeck had written it.
At any rate, the big one learned to play the saxophone part on the guitar, and they tried it out. The little feller played what was essentially the correct drumbeat by ear. Sat down and did it. I sat down after him, a little curious, and tried it myself. I sounded like I had some sort of affliction, and was falling down the stairs while playing the drums. I jerked around like a fish on a line for a while, then gave up. I mentioned to the boy that what he was playing would be more effective if he opened his hi-hat on the second beat and closed it crisply on the third, to make it sizzle. He immediately added that to what he was playing, further confounding me. It's very prominent on their recording if you look for it. That's the limit of my input into the playing.
Yesterday was special. I promised my wife, and the kids, that for the first time in three years, I'd take a day off. A real day off. No furniture. No writing. I've promised that in the past, many times, and always failed. I wrote everything the day before, and didn't bang my thumb or anything in the woodshop. I volunteered to be their key grip.
We took the furniture out of the dining room, and lugged their stuff in there, and we set up two ladders. Between the ladders, we laid two, eight-foot two-by-fours. We got the two-by-fours from the dump. We took a skateboard, and clamped a video camera to it with two spring clamps from the woodshop. Then I rolled the skateboard back and forth while the kids played. We moved the ladders this way and that for the different shots. We didn't bother filming the bass playing. My wife was out all day on a mission of mercy, and we boys re-enacted The Cat In The Hat, tearing the house asunder while Mom's away, and putting it all back, and doing all the dishes before she got home.
It was, in every way but one, the best day of my life.
Nicely done, Van. More power to your elbow.
Is there some point where we stand athwart history yelling stop? Or is it renaissance that's necessary? Perhaps we have to wipe things out to recognize them for what they were, and represent, and then restore them to a place of honor in our lives if we decide they're meaningful.
The restoration of handwork to everyday life serves both the person doing the work, and the customer. Walmart is useful, but it cannot feed the soul. Luddites want to dig ditches with spoons, but that's not what I'm talking about. People need to see the evidence of humanity in their everyday objects. The persons that produce these everyday objects need to feel the humanity of the people that use their creations in return.
It's Chet Atkins and Doc Watson and Leo Kottke in the hallway and they're just messin' around like Michelangelo doodling on the outhouse wall or something and I probably should say something about them that's pithy or insightful but I can't, I can only remember things from my own life because I'm kind of a jerk and other people's lives don't interest me as much as they should and so I have to insert them into my life or they don't count, but I was in Nashville a long time ago in a Toyota that didn't have a dent yet but was gonna, and I was buying a bass I couldn't afford from a man I didn't know with money I didn't have so I could play in bands that weren't gonna be interested in me anyway, and the man behind the counter was so nice he took that plank off the shelf and unbolted the rosewood neck and swapped it for a maple one even though upon reflection I wish I'd have kept the rosewood one, and he was chatting with me and my brother who was riding along with me in that Toyota without the dent in it yet, and he was no use to that neck-swapping fella because he's left-handed and the shop didn't have anything sinister in it except me and I play right-handed, and that fellow said he was friends with a fellow that was friends with Chet Atkins and his friend was performing that very evening and thought Chet was going to drop by unannounced and sit in and we should go and see him with his best wishes but not his company, probably because he had fleeced me and wanted to go out with his real friends with a bankroll instead of a bedroll for a change and get tight; so we set off to find this place he sent us but Nashville was as unfamiliar to us as a steady paycheck and we wandered a bit and saw every closed and locked storefront that fine city had to offer a weary traveler until we happened upon Irma's Dusty Road Cafe hiding behind a banner that told wild tales of jam sessions being held with instruments provided, and it didn't have even a passing resemblance to the place we were looking for, but we went on in because it was getting so late that OPEN seemed right on time to us, but there was next to no one in there and they only served Pabst in cans, that's all they had, don't you fellows even think of asking for anything else, you just hold up the requisite fingers for the amount you require and you'll find Blue Ribbon succor in just that amount; and there was a blind man sitting at a table playing guitar, but in the back, nowhere near the stage, and my brother didn't pick up on the fact he was blind and insulted him by accident in his innocence, and all of a sudden that man had enough friends of his to form an entourage or a military detachment or a lynch mob gathered in a circle around him, and us --mostly us-- and there was a faraway look of PBR and anger in their eyes, the ones that weren't glass, anyway, and I thought I'd better smooth things over so I identified my brother as a bass player and told the assembled posse that he was dying to play bass with the blind fellow, who was pretty good as I recall, and my brother looked at me daggers because he didn't want to play bass in Irma's Dusty Road cafe instruments provided because the instruments provided were all broken, and a very particular kind of broken they were, too; they were broken in a right-hand way, like insult to injury to my brother, who didn't yet realize what he had done to poor us in his innocence, and one way or the other he was about to experience insult and injury, so I figured he might as well get it metaphorically, playing a broken bass upside down in an ad hoc country band instead of in the alley outside via the shod foot; so he figures he'll fix my little red wagon, and tells them his little brother would love to play the drums, knowing full well that I have never met a drummer, never mind a drum teacher, and I'd be in a bit of a bother to play the things, but he didn't care and I didn't care and the audience didn't care because they were so full of Pabst Blue Ribbon that they could barely hold up their fingers in the correct number to get the additional amount they required to stay lit, and we set to making country and music noise, my brother upside-down, and me, more or less sideways, I think, and it was jolly, I guess -- or at least the audience thought the noise we were making was jollier than beating us like carpets in the spring, and then they started going up to the bar and holding up two fingers for every one Pabst that they desired at the time, and put the extra on the bandstand for us to drink, free-like, and soon I lost any idea of striking the floor tom because it was crowded with cans of beer I was just getting to, and so was every other horizontal surface on the band stand, and the application of so much PBR to my nervous system made me play the drums with a wild abandon commensurate with great ability, despite the fact I had no ability, and it was then that a fellow told me that it would be considered a great insult if we didn't finish a beer that the audience had purchased for us, and the fact there was a dozen and one in my bullpen and it was only the second inning wouldn't cut any ice with anybody in that place, and then that same fellow, who was obviously having more fun than me and my brother put together, went up to the bar and told the assembled throng gathered there that that carpetbagging yankee drummer and his confused brother that don't know which way to hold a bass, never mind which end to blow in, well, those fellows claim they can drink more Pabst Blue Ribbon beer than we can buy them.
So you see, when I see a video of Chet Atkins, I look at it differently than you. After all, he's a friend of mine.
My old familiar Ben Franklin is erroneously credited with saying that beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Of course the actual quote, "Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine, a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy," is infinitely more elegant, but the point stands either way. What is the Roentgen cabinet in my email inbox proof of?
The Roentgen Berlin Cabinet is proof that God hates me, and that Gerard wants me to take my own life with my own hand.
My goodness, isn't John Mayer a douchenozzle? A raging douchecanoe. A big, steaming bag o' douche. I need a new monitor, because I punched mine thirty or forty times trying to get him to shut up. My son had a several-month-long interest in his music, which was the longest ten centuries of my life, but it went into remission, and my boy listens to proper records now, and I wander the house contented once more.
But credit where credit is due: the douchebag had the sense to hire David A. Smith. He can't be all bad. I've featured lots of people making lots of things on this blog, but I can't recall another person that seemed to be playing not just in another league, but playing alone in a league of his own making. I have met a fair number of sign painters over the years, back when I worked at building and renovating restaurants and so forth. Many struck me as quite talented. Many struck me, period, after a few pints. But they were all primordial ooze compared to this guy.
My little son and I watched this video on our TV, using a Roku box, instead of watching reruns of How It's Made for the umpteenth time. By gad, the future is a wonderful place. I know, I'm living in it.
I must admit I look forward to these videos overmuch. The boys do them entirely by themselves now. Sometimes I hear them being made, and get a good idea of what the finished product might sound like while it's still an unthrown pot. Other times, I'm working in the shop with everything humming and banging, and I get it sprung on me the same way you do. I have to remind myself not to meddle. It's deuced difficult. I got out of bed this morning, eager to open my browser and see this video for the first time. The Heir compiled it last night, after he and his brother recorded it yesterday afternoon. I do believe a stranger could be entertained by them.
The little feller is still only nine. He deserves ever so much less credit for his efforts than his big brother. Big brother has painstakingly learned everything you see here, on his own, mostly. The little feller is just a wonder. He can play the drums as unwaveringly as a professional adult can. This is not a father's opinion. I played for money with lots of professional drummers. Maybe one or two of them were better than he is right now, in the only way that matters: the ability and willingness to play something suitable, steadily, while accompanying other people. When you see videos of really young drum phenoms on YouTube, they're generally playing along by rote with a (bad)recording, not other humans. That's data entry, not music. Not many of them, and even fewer of their parents, have much of an idea of them ever entertaining an audience by being musical. It's just Can You Top This. Music is not weightlifting. The world's gone crazy and The Gong Show has replaced Carnegie Hall. You're supposed to be entertained, not impressed, anyway.
I do believe the little feller deserves to be called a musician. His big brother certainly does. Their father and mother are very proud of them. There's a PayPal tip jar in the right-hand column if you want to show them some love. But I'm warning you right now -- no matter how much money you send them, I'm not buying them saxophones.
He does get up to things. He has a force field when he needs one. Look right at you and betrays no emotion if he feels like it. He goes and finds things. He makes things and I don't know how he did it. I ask him how he did it, and ... oops -- force field. He'll offer explanations of very complex behaviors as things like,"I just thought of it in my mind." Oh.
I'm trying to work all the time, and so he is mostly like an asteroid that whizzes by. He's my Van Allen Belt and suspenders. I hear his beeping, Dopplering past me. When I capture him and question him closely about anything, it's always worth the effort.
There was music coming out of the dining room this morning. It's the only warm room in the house in a shoulder season morning. He sits at a little desk and constructs universes with Minecraft and eats a muffin his mom made him. He's fashioned a little soundtrack for himself that plays along in the background. I think it's Spotify, but what the hell do I know? I found it amusing to hear Dave Brubeck come out of there, then The Mayor of Simpleton, of all things. Then something funky and greazy and infectious and sophisticated and adult and borderline decadent came percolating out of there. Jayzuz, son, what are you up to in there?
-What is that music you're listening to?
-It's the Italian Secret Service.
-Who told you about the Italian Secret Service?
-I was just looking around and it sounded kinda snazzy, so I saved it.
-Did you just say it sounded "snazzy"?
-Yes. Do you want to watch the fireworks display I put in my Minecraft build?
-No. I mean, yes. I mean, I don't know what you're talking about. I mean, sure. Where did you learn the word "snazzy?"
Treat yourself to the rest of the Flickr Photostream slideshow. It's a stone groove.
Greenville's northeast of where I live now. It's on the shore of Moosehead Lake. Never been. It's Piscataquis. I'm an Oxford man. Next to no one lives in Greenville year-yound, but there's resort getaways for bug bites or chill blains to taste.
I'm old enough to be one of the small children you can see in the pictures taken earlier in the evening, but the age is all we have in common. They watched a super 8 movie, projected on a bedsheet. Then they got put to bed, and mom and pop partied hearty. It's New Year's.
These are wealthy people. At least that's what they seemed to people like us in 1969. Those are dentist's sons and car dealership owner's daughters. Things have changed and people on the dole own snowmobiles now, but it wasn't always thus. Rich people skiied and we went sledding. They played tennis and we played hockey on the corduroy ice on a pond. They drove Citroens while we sat four across in the back seat of a Dodge Dart watching the road pass by through the rust holes in the floor. They let their hair down on New Year's Eve, after the children were snug in their beds, at a modest lodge in the middle of nowhere Maine, while my parents watched Guy Lombardo on a black and white TV.
Maybe ten, fifteen years after that, the world opened up and everyone had nice cars and big houses and their kids wore what they liked instead of what was left over from a cousin's closet from the previous decade. Regular people went to the hairdresser and bought their clothes instead of making them from patterns at the Newberry's. Ordinary people ate strawberries out of season and vegetables that weren't from a can. It became quotidian to fly on planes and go to movies. The dentist life was there for pipefitters. The pipefitter's kids got braces and the dentist kids went Gekko.
And now, for reasons that can't be explained, except to say for no good reason, regular people are plunged back into a dark age; back to pressing their snotty noses to the window for a peek at the dentists. Back to Greenville, 1969.
I very much like the internal gyroscope that hums away in people like Dimitrios.
He doesn't seem to have ever done anything else in his life except carve wood. He's done it on two continents for fifty years or so, so I don't imagine he's going to become a race-car driver or astronaut anytime soon. His mind must be as well-ordered as his shop.
When the layman sees people like Dimitrios, they can't imagine that there could be a set of circumstances where he wouldn't be in demand. A: He can do marvelous things. B: People who can do marvelous things are in short supply. C: People will make it pay for him.
C's the tricky bit. And in it lies a lesson. Dimitrios has to begin on faith. He cannot know in the 1940s in Greece that he can make a go of it in Hampden, Massachusetts fifty years hence. He begins his monomania strictly on desire. He wants to do it. He trusts in something -- God, man, commerce, luck, himself, perhaps; whatever -- and he begins. His persistence was rewarded with a life-long livelihood.
The trickiest bit's trickiest bit is the faith part. Life's losers have the same faith in themselves. Insane people, for instance, usually have an impenetrable carapace of self-possession. Hell, business is a kind of insanity, considered dispassionately. I had a friend that ran restaurants and nightclubs. He once explained his work to me. OK, throw the best party you've ever been at. Now do it every night.
You have to go insane first, and then get people to go along with your delusion. Dimitrios has to say: I am a woodcarver, and say it before he is a woodcarver, or he'll never become one. The deranged chicken must lay the crazy egg, and vice versa. There's a guy on your bus that wears a prom dress and thinks he's Marie of Romania. He has made the same kind of decision. Then again, it's entirely possible that a guy on a downtown bus in a prom dress will make more money by holding court, and an empty Dunkin' Donuts cup, than Dimitrios makes carving.
In business, we all have to wear the prom dress on the bus first. The fickle public will raise their hand to let you know when you're Marie of Romania. Or they won't.
At last Saturday's dinner party, we played your sons great collection of work and asked for suggestions of music that would best suit Unorganized Hancock. Anything by Emerson Lake and Palmer ranked number one, mostly for the similar range of voice. Cake's version of I Will Survive was a big winner. Elbow's Grounds For Divorce And my personal favorite, Chris Rea's Texas.
I'm as game as the next blogger, but I'm not carrying a Hammond organ and a Leslie cabinet up the stairs into that attic. I don't want to give Mrs. Cottage any ideas with any songs about divorce, either; it's bad enough I wake in the middle of the night with a pillow on my face from time to time. And I thought Chris Rea was dead. That's OK, he probably thinks I'm dead, too. But Cake? Cake. And Dave, who's no stranger to daring the boys to play things, seconded Cake. Two people makes a double dog dare, I do believe. Perhaps the Cake is not a lie, after all.
Of course if you're of a certain age, this is, and will forever be a Gloria Gaynor song. I lived through disco as a very young man, and I survived it, and Jimmy Carter too. Unlike disco, Jimmy Carter most decidedly did not have a beat, and you couldn't dance to him, although you could use your rusting Whip Inflation Now button and the shovel you were handed five minutes after graduating high school as a kind of percussion apparatus. I wish I'd kept all the sweaters Jimmah told me to wear back in the day instead of turning the thermostat up above fifty. There's still no British Thermal Units hanging around where I can lay my hands on them, and they keep installing windmills all over Maine instead of solar panels on the White House roof, and they make it kind of drafty in addition to being colder than Sandy Duncan's glass eye when she leaves it on the nightstand overnight. Don't ask me how I know that. I don't judge you.
The kids don't know Gloria Gaynor from Gloria Swanson, but they were game to try Cake. They learned it, played it, recorded it, and mixed it entirely by themselves. If you want to show some support for their efforts, there's a PayPal donate button in the right-hand column. Look at how much progress they've made since their first, dark, tinny video in the attic. I never spent money that paid visible dividends like that back when disco was regnant. I just bought Sloe Gin Fizzes for girls in discos, hoping to spend the money before it became worthless the next day.
Suggestions for further Stump the Band songs are welcome in the comments, of course. But I'm not going to tell you again -- no Hammond organs!
Sometimes one wishes for the quiet, contemplative life.
When you are concentrating on hand work, you can think of all sorts of things. I use too many machines, myself. There is no way around it. Besides, most of what a woodworker does is plain drudgery. Customers that require oak leaves, acanthus, and shell carvings are in short supply. Customers that want them and are willing to pay for them are rarer still.
It's nice to know that someone still knows how to do the work if you've got the cake.


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LG drops unsubtle hint it has four new smartphones ready for launch at MWC
By	Andy Boxall	@AndyBoxall — Posted on	February 8, 2013 7:26AM PST 02.8.13 - 7:26AM PST
LG better be supplying the coffee on February 25, as it has scheduled its Mobile World Congress press conference for a very bright and early 8am local time. The company has been teasing us mercilessly over the past few days concerning what it may reveal at the Barcelona trade show, culminating in today's invitation and a new Cover picture on its Facebook page, telling us we should, "Stay tuned for a world of difference at MWC 2013."
The overriding feature of the invitation is a massive number 4 in the corner, which is followed by the words, "More from LG," from which we can deduce it will be unveiling four new devices. In one of its previous teaser shots, LG told us a new series of phones would be at the show, which could account for some or all of that figure.
GSMArena found a hint of what this new series would be in an LG press release, where it talked about its financial results for the final quarter of 2012. Towards the end of the statement, it was stated the company, "Plans to increase smartphone revenues and market share by launching follow-up devices to Optimus G and the L Series as well as the new F Series."
Three L or F Series and one Optimus G Pro?
We've already heard about the Optimus G2 and it's not expected to make an appearance at Mobile World Congress, however the bulk of the L Series was introduced at MWC in 2012, making it a logical possibility for a refresh at the 2013 show. As for the F Series, it's speculated they will be affordable phones with 4G LTE connectivity.
During CES 2013, LG confirmed it would be bringing out a variety of new smartphones over the coming year, so it's not clear whether the L Series or the F Series will be at MWC.
There has also been more talk about the rumored 5.5-inch version of the Full HD Optimus G Pro, a device which may also make its debut in Spain, as a picture showing the phone has been leaked. While the pictured phone doesn't look all that different from the Japanese Optimus G Pro, on the inside it could have a larger 3140mAh battery; however the rest of the spec will probably match the 5-inch model, so expect a 1.7GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM and a 13-megapixel camera.
If this Galaxy Note 2 challenger is one of LG's surprises, then whichever series of phones joins it on stage will presumably be made up of three models. With LG taking the 8am slot on February 25 and Nokia showcasing its own new products an hour later at 9am, it's shaping up to be a very busy first day at Mobile World Congress.
Digital magazine subscriptions soared in 2012
The powerful Razer Phone 2 costs just $400 thanks to Amazon Prime Day 2019
Miss physical keyboards? Unihertz is creating a rugged phone that has one
Visible is giving away the iPhone 7 for $100 and Moto G7 Power for $50
Visible has announced a few awesome new deals on some great phones, including the Apple iPhone 7 and the Motorola Moto G7 Power. Both phones are available for $100 off, bringing the iPhone 7 down to $100, and the G7 Power to $50.
The Razer Phone 2, a follow-up to the original Razer Phone, has a ton going for it, including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor and a 120Hz screen refresh rate. For Prime Day 2019, the phone is available for a massive 50 percent off.
Recently, only BlackBerry's phones have offered a physical keyboard. Not any more. Chinese manufacturer Unihertz is preparing to launch the Unihertz Titan -- a rugged phone with a built-in physical keyboard.
Posted 1 day ago — By Mark Jansen
Prime Day brings out the best deals on Amazon's Kindle and Fire tablets
Amazon Prime Day 2019 is here, and it brings with it some of the best deals on all kinds of tech products. Notably, Amazon's Kindle and Fire tablet range of devices have gotten some pretty major discounts,.
The Best Prime Day smartwatch deals: Fitbit, Samsung, and Apple Watch discounts
Amazon Prime Day 2019 is around the corner, and while there are likely to be deals on TVs, gaming consoles, and more, there will also likely be some great deals on smartwatches. Here's what we know about all the smartwatch deals.
Best Prime Day smartwatch deals: Apple Watch, Fitbit Versa, and Samsung Galaxy
Amazon Prime Day 2019 is finally here, bringing with it a number of great smartwatch deals. Whether you're into Apple's Apple Watch, or prefer a smartwatch that has Google's Wear OS wearable operating system, there should be a something for…
The 10 best keyboards for the iPhone, from Gboard to Bitmoji
Apple first allowed third-party keyboard integration with iOS 8, and now there are scores of alternative keyboards on the market. Here's a rundown of the best keyboards for the iPhone, from SwiftKey to Fleksy.
Smart home showdown: How to choose between Google Nest Hub and Amazon Echo Show
The Google Nest Hub vs. Amazon Echo Show: Which is better? Both are smart displays that control your smart home, but that's where the similarities end. We compare design, features, price and more to find out which is right for you.


After some careful consideration, and time spent in London, I have retuned to Sydney at the beginning of 2013 and I am now studying a Postgraduate degree in teaching to become a Secondary Visual Arts Teacher.
I love Design and creating clean and simple solutions to complex problems, with an approach focused on web standards compliance and accessibility, I design beautiful and engaging experiences for web and print. I understand how important it is to provide quality content in a readable and attractive way, across an array of media, to a diverse range of output devices from desktops, tablets and phone devices.


I've no card to show you due to my ongoing back pain but I wanted to share some exciting news with you.
Mo's digital Pencil and Make it Crafty have come together for a spectacular event, we will be hosting a fabulous blog hop together on the 21st April and believe me when I say you don't want to miss this one, so get out your diarys and mark the date, and I'll see you back here on the 21st.
There'll prizes to be won along the hop and a Grand Prize at the end of it.
Date noted!!!! lets see if you have cajones!!!!!
Marked on calendar. I'll be watching. Hope you are getting better every day Jak.
Making a note to remind me of the date, I can't wait to see what everyone has cooked up.
Do hope your back pain eases very soon Jak.
I'll miss the blog hop as I'll be away and don't get back till the 22nd.
This sounds fun. Take care Jak.
Great, I'll be "tuning in" to have a look.
Hope your back is feeling better today.


Posted: Sun Dec 07, 2014 11:28 am Post subject: GradReady course review?
Has anyone done the GradReady courses? I am looking at their GAMSAT Ready Attendence All topics Lite course. I would be greatful for any feedback.
By the way, I've recently found out Des O'Neill courses will no longer be attendence courses (online, video etc. only) from now on.
Has anyone done the GradReady courses? I am looking at their GAMSAT Ready Attendence All topics Lite course. I would be greatful for any feedback.By the way, I've recently found out Des O'Neill courses will no longer be attendence courses (online, video etc. only) from now on.
In my opinion you are mistaken. Let's discuss it . Write to me in PM.


text:
Australia to enforce law for ad revenue sharing by Google & FB
Nandita Bhardwaj
Amidst the ongoing coronavirus spread, treasurer of Australia- Josh Frydenberg- has ordered country's competition watchdog to develop a code of conduct for two prominent tech companies, Google and Facebook. The conduct apparently will enforce the companies to share advertising revenue with domestic media firms for using their content. In fact, with this law amendment, Australia has emerged as one of the first countries forcing digital platforms to pay for content they use.
According to the treasurer, this move comes just after talks with Google and Facebook failed to yield a voluntary code to address pleas of domestic media players regarding the tech giants' tight hold on advertising, which is also their main source of income.
Australia's online advertising industry is worth nearly A$9 billion or USD 5.72 billion a year and has increased more than eight fold since 2005. For every A$100 spent on online advertising in the nation, over one-third goes to Google and Facebook. In this regard, the Australian government, last December, announced that both these companies would have to agree to new rules in order to ensure that they do not abuse their dominance and damage competition, or the government would be bound to impose new controls.
In this matter, the ACCC is expected to submit its draft obligatory code by July to the government, which would be passed into legislation shortly thereafter. Commenting on this, the ACCC Chairman, Rod Sims, stated that the need for this law is felt by people who have invested a hefty amount in journalism and media to provide the content which these tech companies are providing to consumers for free.
While this action would bring relief to various domestic ad firms, Facebook has expressed dismay at this move. In an official statement the tech firm quoted that it was extremely disappointed by government's announcement especially as the management has worked immensely hard to meet the agreed deadline. In line with this, Will Easton, the Facebook Australia and New Zealand MD stated that the company has invested considerable amount of money to support Australian publishers through content arrangements, training, and partnerships for the industry and this move is not less than a disappointment for it.
Meanwhile, Google has announced continuing to cooperate with the plans for media code of conduct.
Source credit: https://business.financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/australia-plans-law-forcing-google-facebook-to-share-ad-revenue-with-domestic-media-firms
market-news •
technology-news •
Nandita holds a management degree with specialization in marketing, and boasts of a short-term experience in the field of recruitment. Following her passion for writing however, she decided to pursue a career in the field of content development. Presently, Nandita pens down news pieces for newsorigins.com, spanning the verticals of business, finance, and technology.


backsplash ~ Large Hexagonlash Move Over Subway Tile Inexpensive And Timeless Kitchen Ideas Large Hexagon Backsplash. Tile Backsplash Kitchen Ideas. Backsplash Kitchen Tiles Designs. Large Hexagon Backsplash Kitchen Sink Ideas.
Backsplash large hexagon travertine tile installing marble for countertop natural stone. Large hexagon backsplash kitchen designs pictures ideas sink. Interior hexagone to adds perfect your kitchen and bathroom backsplash large ceramic floor marblees.


text:
Pawieł Piatrowicz Droń (; ur. 1 marca 1929 w Nepomucenówce, zm. 14 listopada 2000) – białoruski politolog i historyk, w latach 1977–1991 kierownik katedry Białoruskiego Uniwersytetu Państwowego; kandydat nauk historycznych (odpowiednik polskiego stopnia doktora), profesor.

Życiorys
Urodził się 1 marca 1929 roku we wsi Nepomucenówka, w powiecie prużańskim województwa poleskiego II Rzeczypospolitej. Od 1958 roku był działaczem związków zawodowych, Komsomołu i Komunistycznej Partii Białorusi (KPB). W 1965 roku skończył Akademię Nauk Społecznych przy Komitecie Centralnym Komunistycznej Partii Związku Radzieckiego. W tym samym roku uzyskał stopień kandydata nauk historycznych (odpowiednik polskiego stopnia doktora) oraz rozpoczął pracę jako wykładowca KC KPB i jednocześnie Białoruskiego Uniwersytetu Państwowego im. Lenina (BUP). Od 1967 roku pełnił funkcję naczelnika Wydziału Nauk Społecznych Ministerstwa Wyższej, Specjalistycznej i Średniej Edukacji Białoruskiej SRR. W latach 1977–1991 był kierownikiem katedry BUP. W 1983 roku uzyskał tytuł profesora.

W swojej pracy naukowej zajmował się badaniem problemów zarządzania społeczno-ekonomicznymi procesami rozwoju edukacji narodowej na Białorusi.

Prace
 ;
 .

Odznaczenia
 Tytuł "Zasłużony Pracownik Wyższej Szkoły Białorusi" (1982).

Uwagi

Przypisy

Bibliografia

Absolwenci Akademii Nauk Społecznych przy KC KPZR
Białoruscy historycy
Białoruscy politolodzy
Członkowie Komunistycznej Partii Białorusi
Urodzeni w 1929
Wykładowcy Białoruskiego Uniwersytetu Państwowego
Zmarli w 2000

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Throughout Week 2 of Build season, the Vault members have been working vigorously. We've accomplished quite a few things. We have narrowed down the potential prototypes for picking up cargo and hatches, and climbing mechanisms. The CAD team started on recreating prototype designs. The build team finished building the chassis, has built some field elements, and has been continuing to prototype. The business team were working on designs for buttons and t-shirts, learned how to use a video editing software, making sure everyone has signed their parent consent forms, and taking inventory and cataloging into our budget. The programming team worked on the mecanum drive code. A mentor and Ross McNutt, converse over the "jackscrew" prototype.
We have found a solution to our dilemma concerning the water bottles that have been left unattended. For those who fail to properly take care or dispose of their water bottle by the end of the day, they are to put 50 cents into the "Jar of Shame". The proceeds will go towards the robot parts that are needed. Check out some of the highlights from Week 2! Click any of the links below to view the videos! Video 1 Video 2 Video 3 Warmest regards, Rebecca Liu and Elizabeth Apple A member shows off the new moving arm prototype. Three members working on the mecanum wheel drive on the chasis for our robot this year.


In this article, we show how to create or edit a gunicorn.service file in Linux.
Gunicorn is a Django web server that is able to process django files.
Gunicorn works in coordination with nginx to serve django websites in a production environment.
In a non-production environment, we simply can use the runserver command in order to test our websites.
But using the runserver command is inadequate for a production website.
Gunicorn is much more efficient for a production website. In coordination with nginx, it can serve web pages permanently on the web.
In order to set up gunicorn, there are a number of things that should be done.
gunicorn is installed within the virtual environment, just like all the other modules, such as numpy, matplotlib, etc.
We should now be out of our virtual environment.
You should no longer see (venv) to the left of the command terminal.
Next, we need to create a gunicorn.service file.
We are able to create a gunicorn.service file by specifying the following line of code shown below.
This opens the nano text editor within this console.
We now have to write the gunicorn.service file or edit it.
In this gunicorn.service file, we specify a user name, the working directory for our project, the virtual environment for our project, as well as a sock file. It's just various metadata for our project that is essential for gunicorn to know. Remember that gunicorn is the django web server. It needs to know the user. It needs to know the working directory for the project. It needs to know the virtual environment folder. We also need to create a sock file for the project. This sock file communicates with nginx, and they are both able to communicate through this socket.
You should have the following in the gunicorn.service file.
After you have entered all of this, press Ctrl+X. Then press, 'Y', in order to save this gunicorn.service file. Then press 'Enter'.
We have now created our gunicorn.service file, which is essential in order for gunicorn to be set up and work with our website.
Again, gunicorn is the django web server. It allows for the processing of a django project.
So now to start gunicorn, we specify the following line.
So now gunicorn is enabled.
So we have now set up and enabled gunicorn to be run for our website.
With nginx fully configured, we can run a django website in a production environment.
And this is how to create a gunicorn.service file in linux.