Several years ago I started growing potatoes on the hill above our cabin. There wasn't much soil up there, but over the years thanks to composting and carrying some peat and manure up the hill, I've built up a nice little plot. A big drawback, however, is that it's a long ways above lake level and water in buckets is VERY heavy. Even though we got lots of rain in the spring, summer can get pretty dry.
Soon after starting my hillside garden, my good friend John designed a water barrel and rain catchment system. Because of the hilly location, he could install the system higher on the hill and gravity would feed a hose for easy (if a bit low in pressure and slow) watering.
A heavy duty plastic tarp is suspended between three trees. A 2X4 angles the tarp towards a large funnel into the top hole of a 55 gallon plastic barrel. It has remained in place through many wind storms over the last three years. Then this last month, John upgraded my system by adding a second storage barrel.
This spring a new visitor came to the cabin. At first I thought it was a robin, but on closer inspection I identified it as a Varied Thrush.
It first appeared along the cliff, hopping from one grassy spot to the next, never close enough for a good shot.
The ferry between Powell River BC and nearby Texada Island runs day and night, transporting residents and visitors alike.
Powell River Books strives to keep up with changes in the publishing industry. Apple has released their long awaited iPad and among its many uses is as an ebook reader.
Wayne's books are already available on Amazon.com for the Kindle. And yes, there is a free Kindle app for the iPad, but many users will want to make their ebook purchases at the iBook store. Consequently, all of Wayne's books are now available through Smashwords.
Smashwords is a free ebook publishing and distribution platform. Authors prepare a Microsoft Word .doc file of their book and upload it to the Smashwords website. The author maintains all rights to his or her work, but Smashwords helps them distribute their books to online sellers such as Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Sony, Amazon and Apple. They also sell ebooks in a variety of formats at their own website. Check it out for more information or to browse the many books they have to offer.
When we are in Bellingham we often drive to Whidbey Island to visit the Naval Base. And as it happens on most road trips, we get hungry. After conducting our business we head north on State Highway 20. Between the Deception Pass State Park and Campbell Lake on Fidalgo Island there's the small but mighty Shrimp Shack.
The full name is Sweet D's Shrimp Shack. It's owned and operated by Dieter and Laurel Drews and has been serving up seafood to hungry locals and visitors since 1973. You can purchase your seafood fresh to take home or have it prepared to order from their takeout window. No longer a seasonal eatery, you can now enjoy their seafood delights all year long.
Fresh seafood choices include shrimp, prawns, crab, lobster, oysters, clams and fish. They also have alligator and elk as unique options. Their takeout menu includes burgers, oyster burgers, seafood baskets and ice cream for dessert. Wayne and I picked the oyster dinner basket with four large fried oysters and fries. We shared one order with a pop to hold us over for the rest of the trip home.
Hike or ride in almost any direction from Powell River and you will be enveloped by the forest. We live in a coastal rainforest environment where trees grow tall and the undergrowth is lush.
Large second growth trees cover most of the hills and mountains. You see, we are logging country. They've been reaching for the sky for almost a hundred years now. Down below it stays cool and moist thanks to an almost complete sky covering, with just enough sun peaking through to make everything grow green and lush.
Even though it isn't strawberry season up the lake, it is in sunny Southern California. Our market had quarts of ripe berries on sale for $1.98. I picked up two. One we enjoyed fresh, the other I made into strawberry jam.
While I prepared the fruit, I brought water in my canning pot to a boil. To sterilize everything, I put clean half-pint (250ml) jars in the boiling water and the screw bands and lids in a separate pan covered with the boiled water.
To make it easier to mash the berries, I diced them after washing and hulling. Then I used my wire whisk to lightly crush them to get the juices flowing. The berries went into a large cooking pot along with the sugar. I brought them to a rolling boil, stirring constantly over high heat. Next I added the lemon juice followed by the pectin, still stirring.
Once it came back to a rolling boil I cooked it for exactly one minute. At this point, the jam will still be very liquid. I removed it from the heat and let it stand for 5 minutes before skimming the scum that forms on top. It isn't bad for you, it just doesn't look nice.
I got my canning jars out of the hot water and let them drain. They need to be hot for the filling process. I filled the jars to 1/8" from the top and wiped the rims and sides clean. I covered them with the self-sealing snap lids. Then the screw bands went on until finger tight. The jam filled four half pint (250 ml) jars with a little bit extra for the fridge.
All four sealed jars went into the hot water bath covered by 2" of water. After it got back up to a rolling boil (with the lid on) I timed it for 10 minutes. When done, the jars came out of the water bath to cool. I heard the four distinctive snapping sounds as the seals set. Now we have an alternative to the blackberry jam I made last summer.
Because of limited space in my floating garden, I grow lots of things in pots on the cabin deck. That's where you'll find my potatoes and tomatoes. Last year I successfully grew Snow Peas in a large pot with a homemade trellis. This year I'm going to move my green beans to a pot as well. That will save garden space for my annual asparagus, strawberries and herbs, and my seasonal carrots, beets, onions, spinach, lettuce, chard and radishes.
I've had problems getting beans and peas to sprout directly in the soil.
This year I decided to try using potting mix in cardboard egg cartons. To give the seeds a head start, I soaked them in water until they started to swell. I put one seed in each egg cup and covered it with soil. I added enough water to cover each section and a little extra in the bottom to soak up into the cardboard cartons.
To give the sprouts a warm moist home, I put the egg carton containers in a plastic tray. The cheapest I found were cat litter pans at about $4 each on sale at Canadian Tire. Four half size egg cartons fit in each tray. Then I cut off the bottoms of gallon milk cartons. Each half egg carton fit snugly under it's own plastic "hothouse."
I started twelve Snow Peas and twelve Scarlet Runner Pole Beans with lovely red flowers and tasty pods. That's more than I need for my two 23" diameter pots, but sometimes not all of my seeds sprout. Just a little extra insurance if you know what I mean. I put the plastic tray of mini-hothouses near the sunny window of our condo. They'll stay there unattended for a week until we can return from a trip the States.
APRIL 19 UPDATE: My little hothouses were too moist. When I returned, only two of the beans had sprouted. The rest moulded. I think it would have been better to give them a little air each day or maybe less water to start with.
Since we use our Kozi woodstove almost 24/7 during the winter, it needs maintenance and cleaning about every two months. We've been good about going on the porch roof and cleaning out the outer section of the pipe, but I'm embarrassed to say that we haven't cleaned the inside section since the beginning of the fire season last fall.
The first hint that creosote is building up in the chimney pipe is smoke coming out of the fire box door when it is opened. So when this happened again last week, we picked a fair day to let the fire die out to do the deed. As you can see in the first picture, tapping the pipe dislodged so much creosote that it filled the smoke shelf and pipe connector.
First we took down the inside pipe and removed the creosote adhering to the inside walls. A little newspaper on the floor helped keep the mess contained. When everything was done, here is what I saw. It seemed like quite a bit, but I guess I shouldn't have been surprised after so much use over the winter and early spring.
Last time we cleaned the pipe we noticed a small amount of smoke coming out through a joint in the pipe near the ceiling. We decided to seal the problematic junction with some Rutland "Seal it Right" to provide a better draft up and out of the chimney. If you would like more information on this subject, I found a good article by The Gas Man at Epinions.com. So far it has remained sealed with no further problems.
Chimney cleaning involves some disassembly both indoors and out, but it doesn't take long and the results provide for safer and more enjoyable fires. Play the video clip below to take a look at ours.
Yesterday was warm and sunny, in the evening it rained and overnight it cooled down - prime conditions for a foggy morning.
Sunrise over Goat Island was at about 9:00 a.m. The rays were just visible through the hazy layer.
And then about half an hour later it lifted and headed through first narrows. Here's a quick video of the last tendrils moving south.
Well, that's what they looked like to me. On our quad ride to Tony Lake last Saturday I found some very interesting snow, ice or frost formations while I was walking in the forest.
There were lots of little piles of round, peas-shaped ice. I thought maybe it was snow that melted and refroze, or maybe some type of hoar frost.
Yesterday Wayne and I took advantage of a warm sunny day to go quad riding. Our destination was the Knuckleheads Recreation Area so we could play in the snow before it's all gone. We started at our usual offloading spot on Dixon Road south of town. There's a nice wide turnout that holds our long double ATV trailer just right.
The first part of the ride was on Goat Lake Main. It's been a while since we've come this way and I was surprised at all of the recent logging. Things must be picking up in the forestry industry. It was interesting to see the different slash areas, some freshly cut, some with very small trees recently planted, and others with growing trees varying in age from 5 to 100 years. Forest management is very important to ensure it is a renewable resource.
At Tin Hat Junction we turned right on Stillwater Main and then left to the Knuckleheads. There's pretty good signage so we followed along until we reached A Branch. This is the smaller road leading up to the free public mountain recreation cabin, but well before that destination we found the snow we were looking for. It wasn't deep, but enough to keep us from making any more forward progress. We stopped by a small waterfall to enjoy our lunch.
On the way down we decided to take a side road to Tony Lake. I've always wanted to go there and this was a perfect time. Along the way we discovered seven Roosevelt Elk grazing in a recent slash. There's lots of open space for grass to grow and fewer trees to hide hunting cougars. They are magnificent animals. So stately and seemingly unafraid. Elk are very social. The group was split when we passed by. The group of four on the hill were waiting for their herd mates to return. Here's a short video.
Wayne and I are heading up the lake. The forecast is for partial sun, so I'm going to use the opportunity to work in my floating garden.
It's my traditional time to plant seeds in the ground. There is little chance of a frost from here on. If I get things going now I'll be able to start harvesting lettuce and spinach in June.
The soil is all ready to go with peat and manure worked in. I have all my seeds, seed potatoes and onion sets. All I need is some quality time with my soil to get it done.
p.s. Wednesday Friends Day will resume next week. Be sure to stop by to discover who it will be.
There's a famous town in Southern California called San Juan Capistrano. On March 19 (St. Joseph's Day) every year the Swallows return. They flock to the historic Spanish mission founded in 1775. They are Cliff Swallows and build mud nests.
Today, Hole in the Wall on Powell Lake started a new tradition. The first Violet-green Swallow returned. According to my bird watching log, last year the arrival date was also April 6. Do you think my cabin might become as famous as San Juan Capistrano? Maybe not, but I thought it was pretty amazing. What internal clocks these birds must have. The poor guy looked a bit bedraggled. Must have been a tough trip from Mexico or Central America.
I just finished a book I purchased in the BC Ferries gift shop. They have lots of books of local interest and by Canadian authors.
Juggling Fire by Joanne Bell tells the story of sixteen year-old Rachel. She grew up in a remote log cabin with her mother, father and older sister Becky. When she was six they left to move closer to town, but her father's worsening depression sent him back to the Yukon wilderness alone, never to return. Rachel has clung to hope that he's still out there, and undertakes a quest to discover the truth. Brooks, her half hound and half malamute/Newfoundland cross pup reluctantly joins the journey. Rachel navigates her way back to the family cabin with relative ease, but an encounter with a grizzly along the way leaves Brooks severely wounded. Fairy tales and juggling keep Rachel focused and in control of her emotions during difficult times. This journey into the past is no different. Can they sustain her for what she'll find at the end of her odyssey?
Juggling Fire was published by Orca Book Publishers in 2009. The author, Joanne Bell knows the wilderness well having lived in New Brunswick, Alberta and British Columbia. She lives in a log cabin near Dawson City in Yukon where she runs dogs, hikes, canoes and enjoys nature. She also serves as a naturalist and substitute teacher, passing along her love of the outdoors to future generations.
Friday was a very windy day here in Powell River BC.
This lone barge was stuck in the waves riding out the storm.
The city of Powell River BC looks across the waters of the Strait of Georgia towards Vancouver Island. That makes for some really spectacular sunsets.
Not long ago I looked out my front room window and saw this lovely sailing ship passing by.
Yesterday was my mom's 94th birthday, so we all bundled up and went on a road trip up the Mount Baker Highway.
Mom rode shotgun and our good friend Jeanne drove. We started at the junction of I-5 and Sunset Drive then headed east. In a few miles we left busy Bellingham behind and entered lush green fields dotted with farmhouses. Along the way there were lots of Christmas tree farms and u-pick berry fields. We'll have to come back this summer for sure. At about the 25 mile mark we entered the small village of Maple Falls.
We pulled into the Frosty Inn. It was just what we were looking for. Inside were two locals drinking coffee and talking about "the old days" and a cheery fire was burning in the dining room. Just the place to get a leisurely late breakfast fit for hungry travelers. The friendly waitress took our order and made us feel right at home. If you are headed up to Mt. Baker for skiing or sightseeing, I highly recommend stopping at the Frosty Inn for breakfast, lunch or dinner. It also appears to be a night spot, too.
After a hearty breakfast we continued up the road towards the ski area. In Glacier, there were several ski and snowboard rental shops, more restaurants and a few places for lodging. Just before the road started the final climb to the Mount Baker Ski Area we decided to turn around. The snow along the side of the road was building up and we didn't have chains with us today.
We reversed course and followed the Nooksack River back down to the coastal plain. It was a gorgeous day for a drive in the mountains. Puffy white clouds stood out against the clear blue sky. Before we returned to town we stopped briefly at the Deming Homestead Eagle Park. It's a great place to view Bald Eagles in winter months, but today the robins were heralding spring instead.
To plan our trip, we used an excellent guidebook, the Insiders' Guide to Bellingham and Mount Baker by Mike McQuaid. He is a Bellingham local that really knows the area. It is available at Amazon.com by clicking here. If you are coming to Bellingham it's a must.


Commodity prices are going up, the dollar is dropping in value! It might be a good time to file bankruptcy.
There has been a lot of talk about possible deflation or a spiraling price drop in the market. This does not seem to be happening as commodity prices are going up across the board.
It started with gold but oil is up as are wheat and corn and milk and meat and just about everything else too. There is an article in today's LA Times talking about how prices for all commodities are going up, not just oil and gold. Coffee, wheat, sugar, rice, cotton, soybeans, paper, cheese. It's all going up.
Inflation worries are returning. Bad weather resulting in poor harvests are to blame but so is increasing demand from India and China.
US retailers and sellers of these goods like Wal-Mart and Kraft and General Mills have all announced that they will raise prices soon. Some by as much as 40%. This current situation appears to be highly inflationary and it doesn't appear to be temporary. I don't think demand from China and India is going to lessen. In fact it should increase over time driving prices even higher. You should notice this at the grocery store soon. All of your food, gas, an everything you need to buy is getting more expensive. It looks like inflation will take over and not deflation.
The other important thing happening here is that the dollar is dropping. It has dropped more than 12% since June against the other major currencies. According to the LA Times this is because our government wants it to! It appears to be the policy of our government currently. They seem to think that our products will get cheaper so other countries will buy more. But what about the US consumer? How will he or she pay for these higher prices?
This drop in the dollar has caused investors to look for a way to buy something that will hold its value. Investors often look to commodities when faced with this currency devaluation. Investors buy up all of these commodities to preserve their wealth and in doing so they drive up the prices of the everything we consumers need.
This results in huge price increases for the consumer and thus I would argue that this is a foolish policy by the US government that is hurting the american people. Americans are not getting a raise to pay for these increasing prices and in fact many people are unemployed with no prospect of finding a job.
It could also be government policy to encourage inflation as a way to pay back the huge debts with cheaper dollars. Apparently the government is printing more dollars which is inherently inflationary. It could be that the policy is to inflate our way out of these huge debts. This was tried many times most notably under the German Weimar in the 1920s where hyperinflation did not save but actually destroyed the economy. At the end of that mess Hitler came to power.
The reality for you and me in the stores now is that commodities are getting more expensive because it takes more dollars to buy them because of a faulty government policy of currency devaluation.
I would argue therefore it is a good time to file bankruptcy if you have old debts you cannot pay. You may need your money just to buy groceries, supplies, and the other things you need to ride out this recession. Don't give your money to some creditor for some old debt that went to pay for something you forgot about if you need what little money you have just to survive today and into the future.
I am a bankruptcy attorney practicing bankruptcy law in San Diego CA.
For further help please visit my websites at: www.farquharlaw.com or www.freshstartsandiego.com. Or call my office for a free consultation at (619) 702-5015.


text:
JetBlue JFK Airport Terminal is Officially 'Electric'
Photo Courtesy of JetBlue
JetBlue's ground-service equipment at Terminal 5 at JFK Airport is now electric powered.
By Forum Staff
Terminal 5 at John F. Kennedy International Airport has "flipped the switch" to electric-powered ground service equipment, a major step in reducing greenhouse gas emissions across the region, Gov. Andrew Cuomo noted as he made the announcement Thursday.
According to the State, the New York Power Authority, in partnership with JetBlue, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, has completed the installation of 38 charging hubs—with 118 charging ports—at the terminal, which is operated by JetBlue. The $4 million airside electrification of the JetBlue terminal is the first Federal Aviation Administration Voluntary Airport Low Emissions Program grant project of its kind at JFK. The VALE grant accounts for 75 percent of the total $5.3 million cost of the charging hubs. NYPA implemented the project and provided $200,000 in funding, with JetBlue providing an additional $1.1 million.
According to officials, the charging hubs directly support JetBlue in the conversion of its fleet of 118 baggage tugs and belt loaders to electric power. Converting the ground support equipment at Terminal 5 from gasoline to clean electric power will remove four million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere annually, the equivalent of taking about 385 cars off the road. Additionally, it will reduce ground fuel usage by 200,000 gallons of fuel a year, vastly improving energy efficiency and decreasing both air and noise pollution.
"The installation of 38 fast-charging hubs will not only contribute to improved air quality across the region, but it will also bring modern and advanced technological solutions to JFK Airport," said Port Authority Executive Director Rick Cotton.
"Electric ground service equipment will significantly reduce our environmental impact and increase operational efficiencies including safer and quieter equipment for our ground operations crewmembers," added JetBlue President and COO Joanna Geraghty.
As part of Cuomo's JFK Vision Plan, JetBlue and JFK Millennium Partners are constructing a $3 billion, 1.2 million-square-foot terminal on the airport's north side that will connect to the airline's existing Terminal 5. Additionally, a new $7 billion, 2.9 million-square-foot terminal on the airport's south side will occupy the area where the existing Terminals 1 and 2 are located, in addition to the area left vacant when Terminal 3 was demolished in 2014. The new south side terminal will be developed by the Terminal One Group, a consortium of four international airlines—Lufthansa, Air France, Japan Airlines, and Korean Air Lines—with the Carlyle Group, JLC Infrastructure, and with Ullico as the financing and development partner.
"New York is committed to delivering a new, world-class JFK airport that not only incorporates best-in-class technological advancements and passenger amenities but also reduces our carbon footprint," Cuomo said. "By electrifying JetBlue's Terminal 5 at JFK airport we are advancing our nation-leading climate goals and taking a significant step towards solidifying JFK as a modern gateway to the world."
Article Written By The Forum

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Lack of Transplant Organs Is "National Health Crisis," Surgeon Says
Hospitals urged to do more
After years of stagnation, organ donations are up, and organizations that collect organs for transplantation and the hospitals they work with say their partnerships have been the key to getting the numbers to grow, according to an article posted on the HealthLeaders Media website.
The number of organs from deceased donors rose 5.6% in 2015 and 4.0% in 2014. The number of transplants, also virtually flat for the past decade, rose by 4.9% in 2015. That translates to more than 30,000 transplants in 2015—a record, but still far short of the need.
While recognizing that organ donations have increased, Mark Hobeika, MD, a transplant surgeon at Memorial Hermann–Texas Medical Center in Houston, says the recent rise in the number of transplants is not significant.
"The amount by which it has cut into the organ deficit is still very miniscule," he said. Organ availability is still the number one issue affecting people who are on the waiting list.
"All the other things that we do, whether it is improving the operation or improving the medicine, at the end of the day, our patients die because they don't have access to organs," Hobeika said. "It's really a national health crisis."
The Louisiana Hospital Association has developed a model campaign to register organ donors. LHA vice president Kenneth Alexander told HealthLeaders Media that the group offered to supply his state's hospitals with staff and training to "make the lift as easy and light for them as possible. From my past history as a CEO, and in dealing with CEOs, they all understand the value. There is not one of them that would say it's not important."
Hospitals worry about fitting the transplant process into the mix of everything else they have on their plates these days, he said. At the same time, people who run hospitals need to consider the thousands of people who may die while waiting for someone to supply them with a kidney, a lung, or a liver.
"It's part of our responsibility as caregivers," Alexander said.
The most important factor in the success of an organ procurement organization (OPO) is its relationship with hospitals, said Howard Nathan, president of the Philadelphia-based, nonprofit Gift of Life donor program. By partnering with hospitals and training staff, OPOs aim to get involved in each case as early in the process as possible.
Infrequent and time-sensitive, the donation process can be challenging for hospitals, the article says. It involves a series of actions that begin hopefully at one hospital and, ultimately, end at another.
To make donation an option, hospitals need to take the first step by identifying candidates and contacting the OPO. From there, multiple players, from the emergency department to the operating room to the chaplain, must act quickly.
Source: HealthLeaders Media; January 22, 2016.
Organ Donation Process Needs To Be Improved June 24, 2019
Seven Ways Hospitals Can Beat Drug Shortages and Price Hikes February 24, 2017
Quality Improvement Organizations' Short-Stay Audits Dig Deep January 20, 2016
Report: Large Gender Gap Remains in Physician Compensation May 11, 2017
C. difficile Infections Boost Hospital Costs by 40% Per Case January 19, 2016


I have sent you another PM about the rear wing, let me know if you received it or not.
I have received it, and replied. Thanks Allan.
Well it looks like my Biturbo project will have to wait a bit longer as I think I need to spend some more money on the Q4.
The first item on my list is to change the gearbox oil. I went for a drive today and something doesn't feel right, it changes gears ok but it's not as smooth as it should be and in the lower gears there's an audible 'clicking' noise. It sounds quite cool, like changing gear in an old racing car but I don't think it's suppose to do that! After spending some time on google, I think my gearbox oil choices are Tutela Technyx 75W-85 or Pentosin G4 SAE 80W.
I have also planned to have a stainless exhaust made for the car but I have been delaying this. Well, I think this needs to be fitted sooner rather than later, the exhaust is leaking at the downpipes and it's making all sorts of noises now. I can't live with it any more it's a shame as I like the current noise of the car (apart from the leaking noise obviously) but I guess a stainless exhaust can only be a good thing.
There's also a brake fluid leak I think, I monitor the car's fluids closely and the fluid level in the reservoir is very slowly falling. The coolant and engine oil are always fine though.
Replacing the instrument cluster with a correct Q4 item. This means it will use KMs whereas I need MPH, but it also has the correct layout for the warning lights!!
...And probably many other things I have forgotten about!
HaydnW92 wrote: There's also a brake fluid leak I think, I monitor the car's fluids closely and the fluid level in the reservoir is very slowly falling. The coolant and engine oil are always fine though.
Are you sure it is not the clutch being the problem (same reservoir)?
You could be right there Alfan, the bleed screw on the clutch slave used to leak slightly but I was sure I had fixed that. Worth checking it of course.
I've also ordered one of the silicone Q4 intake sleeves, am I right in saying that you have one of these?
You have to order it from this site or ebay.
Oh I knew that, I was just wondering what you thought of it - good product?
Yes, I have used the car all winter with it and no problems of any kind, so I can definitely recommend it.
As for the exhaust, the Q4 is now booked in to have a full stainless system built by a local specialist. This will include new front pipes, 2x 200 cell sports catalysers, the centre pipe and the rear section. The only slight issue is that I'll have to wait til the 15th of May to have it built as they're really busy; I see this as a good sign though. They have excellent reviews too. The link below shows off some of their work. This exhaust won't be cheap, but is roughly the same price as buying a complete new standard exhaust system so I certainly won't complain. Besides, you get what you pay for with exhaust building. I'm looking forward to seeing (and hearing) what it's like.
After the exhaust has been built and my new intake hose is fitted, the Q4 should run much better and I can relax a bit more when driving it.
All this expense unfortunately means that work on my Biturbo project has stalled for now. The Alfa comes first!
By the way - you have just reminded me that you sent a PM a while ago that I never replied to. Sorry about this! I didn't receive a notification or email telling me about your message, I only saw it recently when Alfan told me to check my inbox for a message from him.
I bought a brand new fob and followed the instructions, however it does not work properly as it activates/deactivates the alarm and remote central locking one at a time, not together. So one press will activate the alarm, and pressing again will lock the doors but also deactivate the alarm I gave up in the end!
Sorry that I can't be of more help to you!
Anyway I don't have alarm unit (at least I'm not aware of it) so that should not be a problem for me.
In the worst case scenario my friend still has receiver unit which from the car to which key fob belongs so it should be paired and I will swap the whole unit.
I'm wondering if somebody can provide some input here.
I've fitted a new intake sleeve to the Q4 which I assumed would solve the car's lumpy idle/stuttering problems, as the old unit is split (but taped up). The good news is that the engine seems to have stopped stuttering at low revs and now seems to rev more smoothly. However the bad news is that the engine still doesn't run as smoothly as I would like it to.
4) I have previously replaced the plastic valve and the seal on the pipe that goes from the intake plenum to the brake booster. However, I noticed if I applied a bit of pressure to this valve (pushing it slightly more 'in' to the booster) the idle improved a little. I don't know how I could have got this to seal any better, I'm sure it's in properly? Maybe I should add some sort of sealant?
- How does it drop in RPM when pressing the clutch when above 3000RPM, fast, slow or?
I would agree that you should get some kind of change in idle when unplugging those connectors, so maybe check that the connectors are good.
I've not connected the ecu to the laptop yet to read error codes, so I can't comment on the first two suggestions yet. I have, however, discovered that there is no voltage at the connector for the idle valve?
I used my father's 24v Qv as a reference. Turned the key to 1st position, tested the idle valve plug. 12.3 to 12.5 volts on each side of the plug.
Performed the same test with my Q4. Key to 1st position, tested across both sides of the plug with a multimeter - nothing at all. So that would explain why the idle valve isn't working!
How is my car running and idling?
I checked the colours of the wiring connectors and found that one of the knock sensors and the idle valve had swapped plugs. I swapped them back and went for a drive - no more stuttering, no more stalling and it feels like the engine has some of its power back.
It just goes to show, sometimes te fix it simple!
HaydnW92 wrote: Fixed the idle issue!
Indeed Allan, it makes a nice change!
I would add that Q4 owners may be wise to check their rear springs. Last summer I replaced one of mine as it was broken on the bottom coil. Yesterday while replacing the rear springs I found that the spring on the other side was also broken, in the same place but it was hidden under the plastic sleeve so it wasn't easy to spot. This is something to keep an eye on I think.
As promised, some fresh pictures of the Q4 taken today. She's now all cleaned up ready for her first show (and the first show of the year for me) - Spring Alfa Day here in the UK.
Wow, it looks the part! Maybe you can shoot some more pix at the Alfa Spring Day?
Considering before and after, you have come a long way!!!
Does the 4wd work now?
Maffia_alfista - I'm pretty sure the 4wd still isn't working. I haven't checked this to see why though.
I was really pleased with the car and it was driving well. However last weekend while driving to a car event I made a mistake with the gear change, I missed 6th gear and accidentally ground reverse gear (only for a split second) at 60mph. Since then, reverse gear only engages occasionally, it takes roughly 20 attempts to get it to engage. The rest of the time, the gear lever enters reverse but when you bring the clutch pedal back up the car grinds and the gear lever jumps forward.
...does anyone have any suggestions about what might be causing this? I think I've just broken/damaged the gear itself. It does seem strange that the car will still engage reverse gear occasionally, and when it does, it does it perfectly just like before. No grinds or anything like that. But most of the time, it won't engage and will grind.
Not good, but it seems that the locking mechanism does not work properly, since you could do this in the first place.


St. Thomas More center Will Vincent is nearly a foot taller than all but one of the Beau Chene starting boys' basketball players and Vincent certainly used that advantage Friday night.
PRAIRIE BASSE — St. Thomas More center Will Vincent is nearly a foot taller than all but one of the Beau Chene starting boys' basketball players and Vincent certainly used that advantage Friday night.
Vincent posted up effectively and scored 12 of his 20 points in the second half to help STM to a 48-41 win over Beau Chene in a District 4-4A basketball game.
In the girls' game between the schools, STM remained undefeated in league play with a 43-36 win over Beau Chene.
Beau Chene head boys' basketball coach Lorenzo Williams felt Vincent's effort wasn't all that prevented the Gators from seizing a win.
"He (Vincent) hurt us the last time. I thought we had some good chances in the fourth quarter, but we missed too many shots that we needed to fall," Williams said.
The Gators made only three of 13 field goal attempts in the final period and Beau Chene didn't score a field goal during the final 3:11.
Vincent fouled out with 2:52 left in the game.
Before that happened, STM head boys' basketball coach Danny Broussard said his center helped keep the Cougars ahead during the second half.
"I think the key for us was we were able to use (Vincent's) size. At halftime we decided that we were going to get the ball to him.
"At 6-foot-7 if you can free him up, (Vincent) is going to be hard to stop," said Broussard.
The win allowed the Cougars to remain in the 4-4A race with Northside. STM has one district loss.
Beau Chene fell to 9-14 and 1-5.
STM led at halftime 24-21, following a second quarter in which the Gators tied it at 19.
A Deontrae Eaglie 3-point attempt put Beau Chene in front (26-24) with 6:52 left in the third.
Johnathan Cisse responded with a trey minutes later to put the Cougars in front by three (29-26).
Beau Chene made one last third period run when a Lawrence Richard shot tied the game at 29.
After that the Cougars finished the third with a 6-0 run in which Vincent scored all the points.
Eaglin cut that lead to a point (35-34) in the first minute of the fourth period, but again the Cougars put distance between them and Beau Chene with field goals by Vincent and Jude Joseph.
Jakavin Savant scored 11 for the Gators. Richard had 10 points. Savant scored eight off field goals.
Eaglin added 10 pints an effort helped by a pair of treys.
In the second half Beau Chene outscored STM 22-19.
Beau Chene head girls' basketball coach Melanie Durio said her team played well.
"I thought our girls were patient and we were able to get (STM) into the halfcourt game, which is what we wanted to do," said Durio.
Helena Tibbs scored 21 points to lead all scorers. Tibbs made six field goals and a pair of 3-point shots.
In the fourth period when Beau Chene outscored STM 14-9, Tibbs made nine points, including one trey.
Anna Milton and Kera Milton each had five points for the Gators.
Bailey Hemphill was the leading scorer for STM with 17. Hemphill and the Cougars' Allyson Howard combined for seven field goals and a trey apiece.
NEXT GAME: Beau Chene plays at Teurlings on Monday night in a 4-4A game.


text:
Q: proper formula for this geometric series I'm trying to properly write the expression for this geometric series that converges to $\frac{1}{2}$ for all x > 1. It looks like this:
$x = 2, f(x) = \frac{1}{2}$
$x = 3, f(x) = \frac{1}{6} + \frac{2}{6} = \frac{1}{2}$
$x = 4, f(x) = \frac{1}{24} + \frac{2}{24} + \frac{3}{24} + \frac{6}{24} = \frac{1}{2}$
etc.
What is the general equation for this? I can see that the number of actual terms is $1$ term for $x=2$, $2$ terms for $x=3$, $4$ terms for $x=4$, so I figured that the number of terms was $2^{x-2}$. To sum the fractions, the denominator of each term can be $x!$ and the numerator follows the sequence $\{1,2,3,6...\}$ which I can't identify, which is where I'm stuck.
So something like this is... or am I on the wrong track entirely?
$\displaystyle\sum^{2^{x-2}}_{k=1} = \frac{1,2,3,6...}{x!} = \frac{1}{2}$
Any help appreciated. Thanks!

A: From a "simple solution that meets the requirements" approach, I would recommend using numerators $x-1$ multiplied by each of the numerators from the sum for $f(x-1)$.  So for $x=5$ these additional numerators would be $4,8,12,24$ for the sum as $\frac{1+2+3+6+4+8+12+24}{120}$.  Breaking down individual terms could be somewhat tedious in terms of finding a non-recursive term definition.  From a value perspective, the recursive presentation might look like
$$f(x)=\frac{f(x-1)}x+\frac{(x-1)f(x-1)}x$$
which is obviously of the form $f(x)=f(x-1)$.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


The goal of this dissertation is to further understand two key, broad processes which occur over the course of a neuron's lifetime: its development and possible degeneration in disease. We identify novel components in both of these processes and attempt to understand the functional significance as well as the mechanism each component uses to exert its effects.
We begin with work done focusing on how the neuron's dendritic tree develops. The development of neurons has two phases: (1) a first phase relying on a genetic program and (2) a second phase that uses synaptic activity to guide the fine tuning of connections. We are primarily interested in understanding how neurons develop within the motor system using cues from synaptic activity. One type of activity-dependent development in the motor system is driven by AMPA receptors assembled with the GluA1 subunit using the scaffolding protein, SAP97. In Chapter 2, we describe our finding that the small protein, CRIPT, functions in the development of the neuron's dendritic tree within the motor system. We show that CRIPT is expressed during the time in development when activity-dependent remodeling is occurring the in spinal cord. Additionally, we show that CRIPT binds to the PDZ3 domain of SAP97 using its C-terminus. Finally, we show that CRIPT is necessary for proper dendritic growth of the motor system and normal motor system responses in vivo.
There are a number of diseases that specifically target motor neurons. One adult-onset disease is Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Like many neurodegenerative diseases, it is a multifactorial disease and a contributing factor is the lack of proper protein quality control and the formation of large protein aggregates within motor neurons. In Chapter 3, we focus on how endoplasmic reticulum-associated degradation (ERAD) components might affect mutant proteins in ALS and their toxicity. ERAD is responsible for maintaining the proper folding of proteins that are to be trafficked to the cell surface or secreted from the cell. Although many proteins associated with ALS are not ERAD substrates, a number of ERAD components have been found to interact with ALS-causing mutant proteins and have been found to be mutated in forms of familial ALS. We identify new modifiers within the ERAD pathway of the toxicity of two ALS-linked proteins, mutant TDP-43 and mutant SOD1. We focus on the mechanism of one suppressor of ALS-linked proteotoxicity, the loss of RAD-23. The levels of RAD23 are increased in ALS models and reducing RAD-23 levels can suppress phenotypes in ALS models, as well as suppress motor neuron toxicity of the mutant proteins. We further show that reduced RAD-23 is able to accelerate the turnover of mutant proteins associated with ALS. Finally, we show that there is a mislocalization of RAD-23 protein and increased RAD-23 protein expression in post mortem spinal cord tissue of ALS patients, suggesting that RAD-23 may be a new novel target in the treatment of ALS.
Collectively, this work identifies and describes novel proteins and mechanisms involved in the development and pathobiology of motor neurons.
Jablonski, Angela Marie, "The Identification of Novel Mechanisms in Neuronal Development and Degeneration" (2015). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1067.


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Home » Music Reviews » 54 Sings Ain't Misbehavin': The Music of Fats Waller
54 Below Sings
Cynthia Thomas
Frenchie Davis
Johmaalaya Adelekan
Ken Page
Rheaume Crenshaw
Richard Maltby Jr
Tony Perry
Tyrone Davis Junior
William Foster McDaniel
Zurin Villanueva
André de Shields Honored with Oscar Hammerstein Lifetime Achievement Award
Screen of Consciousness
Tony Award Winner Interviews Photos On The Red Carpet!!!
54 Sings Ain't Misbehavin': The Music of Fats Waller
Posted on Sep 14, 2018 in Music Reviews
An exciting reprise of a beloved musical.
By Joel Benjamin
Ain't Misbehavin' was the little engine that could in the 1977-78 New York theatrical season. How what basically was a cabaret showcase of the music associated with the legendary Fats Waller became the hit of that season, is really no mystery.
Start with great music, add a brilliant cast, superb arrangements, original choreography, colorful costumes and a director who was able to mold it with subtlety and—may I say it?—pizzazz, and the question is answered.
Feinstein's/54 Below presented a 40th Anniversary tribute which included not only the original director, Richard Maltby, Jr. and original music director, William Foster McDaniel, but three members of the original Broadway cast. (Few know that Irene Cara of Fame fame was in the original Manhattan Theatre Company production off-Broadway, replaced by Charlayne Woodard on Broadway.) Woodard, Andre DeShields and Ken Page wondrously reprised their deft, witty interpretations while Amelia McQueen and Nell Carter were absent. (Nell Carter unfortunately passed away in 2003.)
These three joined a massively talented cast of young performers in a totally sold-out concert version of Ain't Misbehavin'. Vocal hijinks were the order of the day, from the thrilling interpretations of the three originals to the effervescent efforts of the others.
"T'aint Nobody's Biz-ness" introduced Rheaume Crenshaw, Johmaalaya Adelekan, Zurin Villanueva, Tyrone Davis Junior and Tony Perry, all quite individual talents, and each taking advantage of their solo turns at the hilarious lyrics. This saucy ensemble of singers also applied their talents to strangely restful "Jitterbug Waltz," the skittery "Handful of Keys," the contagiously upbeat "Spreadin' Rhythm," the foot-tapping "The Joint is Jumpin'" and the dark, moving "Black and Blue."
Cynthia Thomas squeezed all the sassy, girlish seduction out of "Squeeze Me" while Frenchie Davis showed her range in the World War Two ditty "Cash for Your Trash" and the romantic lament "Mean to Me." The two combined forces on "Find Out What They Like," milking all the winking double entendres for all they were worth.
Of course the highlight of the evening was the singing of the three stars. Charlayne Woodard seemed not a second older than when she walked the Broadway stage singing "Mischief" while Ken Page proved that his was the definitive version of "Feet's Too Big." Andre DeShields was all slithery hips and sexy crooning in the pot-themed "Viper." Page and DeShields formed a hilariously boisterous duo for "Fat and Greasy."
A joyous finale medley brought the show to a standing ovation end leaving only delightful earworms of all these tunes to bounce about our minds for days afterwards.
54 Sings Ain't Misbehavin's: The Music of Fats Waller – September 9, 2018
Feinstein's/54 Below, 254 West 54th Street 646-476-3551 or visit www.54Below.com


Meal prep deliciously with this thai mason jar lunch!
1. Add all peanut sauce ingredients to a mason jar. Shake vigorously until smooth. Makes 15 two tablespoon servings. Store extra in fridge and use as a dip for veggies. Drizzle over fish, chicken, rice and quinoa.
2. In a pint size mason jar layer quinoa, cabbage, kale, carrots, broccoli and tofu. Drizzle with peanut sauce and then top with sprouts and cilantro. Store in the fridge for up to three days.


Liposuction Procedure in SA - Reshape Body | Jessica Belz, M.D.
Liposuction helps recontour and reshape the body by removing areas of localized fat deposits. Sometimes, despite proper diet and exercise, the body accumulates excess fat leading to unpleasant bulges in the thighs, abdomen, buttocks, love handles, arms and other areas. Liposuction can be performed alone or in conjunction with other plastic surgery procedures. While liposuction is not a treatment for cellulite or obesity, it does help treat focal areas of excess fat deposits.
Liposuction is typically performed as an outpatient procedure. IV sedation or general anesthesia is administered, and discreet incisions are made near the affected area. Local anesthesia is infiltrated prior to introducing a thin, hollow tube, known as a cannula, into the fatty deposit. Using a controlled back and forth motion, the excess fat is loosened and then removed via suction. Dr. Belz assesses symmetry and fat thickness carefully to avoid contour deformities. A compression garment is placed at the end of the procedure. Dr. Belz will discuss your area(s) of concern, review the procedure, risks and benefits, and post-operative course during your personalized consultation.
WILL THERE BE ANY BRUISING AFTER A LIPOSUCTION?
Bruising and swelling may occur after liposuction but usually, improve over several weeks. Many individuals return to work after one week, however, strenuous activity should be avoided for approximately four to six weeks or until released by Dr. Belz.


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How BISS-CA is allowing broadcasters to fight back against piracy
Video Dec 05 , 2019 Thanh-Van LE
Interview with Julien Mandel, Contribution Segment Manager at ATEME – Videonet
According to research, there were 190 billion visits to pirate sites globally in 2018, with almost half relating to TV piracy and 60% of all visits going to unlicensed streaming sites. For broadcasters, these figures are unwelcome, particularly as many are ill-prepared to deal with piracy. In 2016, the cost of online piracy of movies and TV shows was revealed to be $31.8 billion globally. However, by 2022 this figure is expected to increase dramatically to reach $52 billion. Piracy is big business, particularly with regards to sports, and often sees huge organisations operating on a global scale illegally pirating streams and sharing them over the Internet. As piracy poses such a huge threat to their businesses, it's vital that broadcasters find a solution to the problem of piracy and BISS-CA could be just what they need to fight back.
What is BISS-CA?
Developed by the European Broadcasting Union in collaboration with network equipment vendors ATEME and Nevion, BISS-CA is a protocol that enables real-time entitlement management for content streams over any network. The BISS-CA mode is based on symmetric AES and asymmetric RSA cryptography and carries all entitlement credentials in-stream. The protocol allows media rights holders to grant and revoke points of reception dynamically in real-time to safeguard their content and can be used in conjunction with additional safety measures such as watermarking. BISS-CA has drastically increased the level of content protection available to broadcasters. The standard has three powerful key advantages over a private solution: it's interoperable, secure and simple to operate.
How can broadcasters use BISS-CA to combat piracy?
As an open, royalty-free standard, BISS-CA can be used on any production equipment, from decoders and encoders to multiplexers and transcoders. As the keys (of encryption and entitlement) are transmitted in-bound, it can also be used anywhere and doesn't require an Internet connection, meaning that producers can use BISS-CA for live broadcasts from OB vans and manage rights from the source.
BISS-CA combats piracy in two ways:
Firstly, BISS-CA makes it harder for the stream to be pirated in the first place as the protocol uses a 128-bit encryption key to protect content. The BISS-CA scrambler changes the key down to 10 seconds which is not enough time for a pirate to find the new key and enter it into their system. Today, the use of computers and complex algorithms means it would be possible to uncover a way to find a fixed key, but this would take hours and as the key is changed dynamically every 10 seconds it would be years before the video would be fully decrypted.
Secondly, as the protocol enables the cryptographic entitlements to be transported together with the live video content, the rights holder or broadcaster is able to grant and revoke usage rights in real-time. Broadcasters can publish a list of public keys before or during the event and can even seamlessly change them and who can use them at any point during events. This means they can revoke access to pirated streams and ensure only those who should have access to the live stream do.
Additionally, if BISS-CA is used alongside forensic watermarking solutions, broadcasters are able to trace where the stream is coming from. This means a mark detailing the serial number of the decoder, for instance, is added in-stream and can't be seen by pirates, but the provider can identify who or which organisation is responsible for the leak and can revoke the rights of the decoder. While it is possible for providers to cut the stream, more often than not they choose to negotiate with the organisation that caused the leak in order to ensure it doesn't happen again.
BISS-CA and accompanying watermarking tools are particularly useful for broadcasters fighting back against the piracy of live sports streams, as more than a third of football fans in the UK admit to regularly watching matches live via unofficial streams. By allowing broadcasters to protect content streams in real-time and enabling them to watermark their content, BISS-CA is instrumental for any broadcasters or rights holders trying to find a way to safeguard their content and ensure it is not pirated.
What could the future hold?
As the value of BISS-CA becomes more apparent and big-name broadcasters and sporting bodies adopt it as standard, we will see its popularity increase across the board. While BISS-CA is currently predominately used for the broadcast of live sports or events, thanks to its security and simplicity it could also become a valuable tool for news outlets and help to stem the tide of fake news, for example. Ultimately, BISS-CA is finally giving broadcasters back control of their streams in a bid to protect their crucial content.
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ut elementum facilisis velit, venenatis, id, leo sem, quis, id elit. Sed


Linsey Penny of the Saddleback Farm Shop is our Green Labyrinth Apprentice of the Month for March in recognition of her hard work, commitment and challenging nature of her job with all of her responsibilities. Our team went to the Saddleback Farm Shop to present her certificate. Discover her apprenticeship story below. Linsey is currently doing her level 3 apprenticeship in digital marketing with Green Labyrinth.
What did you decide to do an apprenticeship rather than go to college? I wanted to learn about marketing however an apprenticeship appealed as I could earn while I learn. An apprenticeship was a better option for me as I am a practical person and the classroom full time wasn't really for me.
What sort of activities do you do in your apprenticeship role? My job consists of doing mail-shots, organising events, advertising campaigns, social media, creating posters and lots of other activities. The job is very varied and I have developed lots of new skills including things like time management.
Have you received lots of support and help during your apprenticeship? Yes, Pete my assessor supports and helps me enormously and Green Labyrinth has really supported me throughout my apprenticeship. I find the training sessions really useful and its especially great to meet other apprentices and share ideas.
What would you say to someone considering an apprenticeship? Go for it 100%! It's the way forward! You can learn and earn without the debt and thats huge.
It's a thumbs up for apprenticeships from Linsey. If you would like to know more about apprenticeships either for yourself, a member of your team or even if your organisation is looking to recruit an apprentice for a new role get in touch with our team today.


All of the distributions paid during 2014 were a return of capital for federal tax purposes and will not be currently taxable. The return of capital distribution reduces the holder's basis in their Universal American stock.
For example, if you owned 100 shares of Universal American Corp. mandatorily redeemable preferred stock on the record date of all four payments made in 2014, you received a $212.50 distribution. Of that distribution no amount is currently taxable; the entire $212.50 is a return of capital that reduces your basis in each share of stock by $2.125.
Please see your personal tax advisor to determine how this information should be used on your personal tax return. This information is meant as general information only.


Boa Orgullo T-Shirt of the capsule and collection designed by Boa Mistura, with front exclusive print decoration. Very cool and comfortable fabric with basic adjustment. Decorative canvas labels and softener washing.
"Pride in being what we are, in being each and every one of the experiences, people and cultures that have inspired us. Pride in feeling cultures and people with the identity that makes them unique. We wanted to transfer to this collection the mark left by some of the places where we have had the good fortune to work and designed a commemorative label. The color and exuberance of the Caribbean, the strength of Mexico, the mystique of the East, the heart of Africa… Each design has a different identity, like each one of our works. Like every place on the Planet".


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\section{Introduction}
In reinforcement learning (RL), an agent, whose objective is to maximize the expected sum of reward, initially starts to make decisions in an unknown environment. It faces trials and errors while collecting reward and information. However, it is not feasible for the agent to act near-optimally until it has explored the environment sufficiently and identified all of the opportunities for high reward. One of the fundamental challenges in RL is to balance exploration and exploitation --- whether to act not greedily action according to current estimates in order to gain new information or to act consistently with past experience to maximize reward.

 Common dithering strategies, such as $\epsilon$-greedy, or sampling from a Boltzmann distribution (Softmax) over the learned Q-values have been widely applied to standard RL methods as exploration strategies. However these naive approaches can lead to highly inefficient exploration, in the sense that they waste exploration resources on actions and trajectories which are already well known. In other words, they are not directed towards gaining more knowledge, not biasing actions in the direction of unexplored trajectories \cite{thrun1992cient, little2013learning, osband2016generalization}.

In order to avoid wasteful exploration and guide toward more directed exploration, many of the previous work adopted exploration bonus. The most commonly used exploration bonus is based on counting. That is, for each pair $(s, a)$, maintain a integer value $n_t(s, a)$ that indicates how many times the agent performed action $a$ at state $s$ so far at time $t$.  Counter-based methods have been widely used both in practice and in theory \cite{strehl2005theoretical,strehl2008analysis,kolter2009near,bellemare2016unifying,tang2017exploration,ostrovski2017count}. However,  the limitation of these methods still exist in that the exploratory value of a state-action pair is evaluated with respect only to its immediate outcome, one step ahead \cite{choshen2018dora}.
Recent work \cite{choshen2018dora} proposes an exploration method for model-free RL that generalizes the counter-based exploration bonus methods and takes into account long term exploratory value of actions rather than a single step look-ahead. Inspired by their use of propagated exploration value, we propose a model-free RL method that utilizes this long-term exploration bonus with provable efficiency. We show that our proposed method finds a near-optimal policy in polynomial time, and give experimental evidence that it is an efficient exploration method.

\section{Preliminaries}

\subsection{Markov decision processes}
A standard assumption of RL is that the environment is (discounted-reward and finite) Markov decision processes (MDP). Here we only introduce the notational framework used in this work. A finite MDP $M$ is a tuple $(\mathcal{S}, \mathcal{A}, T, R, \gamma)$, where $\mathcal{S}$ is a finite set of states; $\mathcal{A}$ is a finite set of possible actions; $T: \mathcal{S} \times \mathcal{A} \rightarrow \mathcal{P}_S $ is the transition distribution; $R: \mathcal{S} \times \mathcal{A} \rightarrow \mathcal{P}_R$ is the reward distribution; $\gamma$ is a discount factor with $\gamma \in [0,1)$.
We assume that all the (random) immediate rewards are nonnegative and are upper-bounded by a constant $R_\text{max} \geq 0$.
A policy $\pi$ is a mapping that assigns to every history $h$ a probability mass function over the actions $\mathcal{A}$. Following a policy in the MDP means that $a_t \sim \pi(\cdot | h_t)$. A stationary policy is a mapping $\pi: \mathcal{S} \times \mathcal{A} \rightarrow [0,1]$.  The discounted state- and action-value functions will be denoted by $V^\pi$ and $Q^\pi$, respectively, for any (not necessarily stationary) policy $\pi$. The optimal state- and action-value functions will be denoted by  $V^*$ and $Q^*$.

Given $s_0, a_0, r_0, s_1, a_1, r_1, ...$ a stream of experience generated when algorithm $\mathfrak{A}$ interacts with $M$, we define
its value at time $t$, conditioned on the past $h_t$ as $V^\mathfrak{A_t}_{M} = \mathbb{E}[\sum^\infty_{k=0} \gamma^k r_{t+k}|h_t]$. Let $V_\textnormal{max}$ be an upper bound on the state values in the MDP.

\subsection{Sample Complexity}
One of the common evaluation criteria for RL algorithms is to count the number of non-optimal actions taken. Roughly, this quantity tells how many mistakes the agent make at most.

\begin{definition}[\citealt{kakade2003sample}] Let $\epsilon > 0$ be a prescribed accuracy and $\delta > 0$ be an allowed probability of
failure. The expression $\zeta(\epsilon, \delta, S, A, \gamma, R_\textnormal{max})$ is a sample complexity bound for algorithm $\mathfrak{A}$, if the following holds: Take any $\epsilon > 0$, $\delta \in (0,1)$, $S>0$, $A>0$, $\gamma \in [0,1)$, $R_\textnormal{max}>0$ and any MDP $M$ with $S$ states, $A$ actions, discount factor $\gamma$, and rewards bounded by $R_\textnormal{max}$. Let $\mathfrak{A}$ interact with $M$, resulting in the process $s_0, a_0, r_0, s_1, a_1, r_1, ...$ Then, independently of the choice of $s_0$, with probability at least $1-\delta$, the number of timesteps such that $V^\mathfrak{A_t}_{M} < V^*_M(s_t) - \epsilon$ is at most $\zeta(\epsilon, \delta, S, A, \gamma, R_\textnormal{max})$.
\end{definition}

An algorithm with sample complexity that is polynomial in $1/\epsilon, \log(1/\delta), S, A, 1/(1-\gamma), R_\textnormal{max}$ is called PAC-MDP (probably approximately correct in MDPs)

\subsection{Previous sample complexity results}
$E^3$ algorithm \citep{kearns2002near} and its successor, R-max \citep{brafman2002r}, were the first algorithms that have polynomial time bounds for finding near-optimal policies. These methods maintain a complete, but possibly inaccurate model of its environment and acts based on the optimal policy derived from this model. The model is initialized in an optimistic fashion: all actions in all states return the maximal possible reward and the model is updated each time when a state becomes known. R-max has the sample complexity of $\widetilde{O}\left( \frac{S^2 A }{\epsilon^3(1-\gamma)^6} \right)$. The MBIE algorithm \citep{strehl2005theoretical, strehl2008analysis} applies confidence bounds to compute an optimistic policy and has the same sample complexity $\widetilde{O}\left( \frac{S^2 A }{\epsilon^3(1-\gamma)^6} \right)$. There are variants of R-max algorithms, such as the OIM algorithm \citep{szita2008many} and MoRMax \citep{szita2010model}. MoRMax is shown to have the smallest sample-complexity $\widetilde{O}\left( \frac{S A }{\epsilon^2(1-\gamma)^6} \right)$ among discounted finite MDPs. All of these algorithms mentioned are model-based. Unlike aforementioned methods which build an approximate model of the environment, Delayed Q-learning \citep{strehl2006pac} rather approximate an action value function directly. Delayed Q-learning
is the first model-free method with known complexity bounds with $\widetilde{O}\left( \frac{S A }{\epsilon^4(1-\gamma)^8} \right)$ sample-complexity.

\subsection{$E$-values}
Choshen et al. \yrcite{choshen2018dora} propose a method using a parallel $E$-value MDP which has the same transition model as the original MDP, but has no rewards associated with any of the state-actions. Hence, the true value of all state-action pairs is 0. With the initial value of 1 for all state-action pairs, they show (empirically) that these $E$-values represent the missing knowledge and thus can be used for propagating directed exploration.  Intuitively, the value of $E(s, a)$ at a given timestep during training stands for uncertainty and decreases each time the agents experiences $(s, a)$ pair. On-policy SARSA \citep{singh2000convergence} update rule is applied to the $E$-value MDP, where the acting policy is selected on the original MDP.\vspace{-0.1cm}
\begin{equation*}\vspace{-0.1cm}
E(s_t,a_t) \leftarrow (1-\alpha) E(s_t,a_t) + \alpha \gamma_E E(s_{t+1}, a_{t+1})
\end{equation*}
While the $E$-value MDP is training, the proposed method uses a log transformation applied to $E$-values to get the corresponding exploration bonus term for the original MDP. This bonus term is shown to be equivalent counter-based methods for finite MDPs when the discount factor $\gamma_E$ of the $E$-value MDP is set to 0 if a fixed learning rate $\alpha$ is used for all updates. Hence, Choshen et al. \yrcite{choshen2018dora} argue that, with $\gamma_E > 0$, the logarithm of $E$-Values can be thought of as a generalization of visit counters, with propagation of the values along state-action pairs. Although the empirical results demonstrate efficient exploration in the experiments used in their work, the theoretical analysis of their proposed algorithm is lacking, essentially only showing convergence with infinite visiting. In this work, we show that $E$-value can be incorporated in PAC-MDP with theoretical guarantee.

\subsection{Delayed Q-learning}
In Delayed Q-learning \citep{strehl2006pac,strehl2009reinforcement}, the agent only observes one sample transition for the action it takes in the current state. Delayed Q-learning uses optimistic initialization of the value function, and waits until $m$ transitions from $(s, a)$ are gathered before considering an update of $Q(s, a)$ (this is where ``delay'' comes from). When $m$ is sufficiently large (but is still bounded by a polynomial), the new value of $Q(s, a)$ is still optimistic with high probability \cite{li2009unifying}. It maintains the known state-action set $K_t$, similar to the approaches introduced in earlier model-based PAC-MDP algorithms \citep{brafman2002r} as well as Boolean $LEARN$ flags for each state-action pair that is set as TRUE when a pair does not belong to the set $K_t$, which allows an update to $Q(s,a)$. These tools allow us to bound the number of occurrence of the undesired ``escape'' events from $K_t$. A variant of Delayed Q-learning uses techniques such as interval estimation to attempt an update before $m$-th time as long as the current estimate satisfies the update criterion \citep{strehl2007probably}.

\section{Directed Delayed Q-learning}

Our proposed algorithm, Directed Delayed Q-learning, maintains Q-value estimates, $Q(s,a)$ and $E$-value estimates, $E(s,a)$ for each state-action pair $(s,a)$. At each timestep $t$, let $Q_t(s,a)$ denote the algorithm's current Q-value estimate and $E_t(s,a)$ denote its current $E$-value estimate. The agent always acts greedily with respect to Q-value estimates plus the exploration bonus, meaning that if state $s$ is the $t$-th state reached, the next action is chosen by
\begin{equation}
a:= \arg\max_{a\in \mathcal{A}} Q_t(s,a) + \frac{\lambda}{\sqrt{\log_{\eta} E_t(s,a)}}.
\end{equation}
Let $Q'_t(s,a)$ denote $Q_t(s,a) + \lambda/\sqrt{\log_{\eta} E_t(s,a)}$ for convenience. Our proposed method is based on Delayed Q-learning \citep{strehl2006pac, strehl2009reinforcement}. Our proposed method modifies Delayed Q-learning in that we introduce an exploration bonus using $E$-values to take into account the long term exploratory value of actions and we perform delayed updates to $E$-values along with Q-values. We also adopt the interval estimation technique \citep{strehl2007probably} to update the value function whenever a current Monte Carlo estimate differs from the target value function sufficiently, instead of waiting until the agent collects a fixed number of $m$ samples to estimate a new value function for each attempted update. The term $\rho/\sqrt{n(s,a)}$ is introduced to account for Monte Carlo estimate errors in the case of a premature delay, where $n(s,a)$ is the inner counter of state-action pairs within each update and resets after a successful update or the $m$-th attempted update. Note that $n(s,a)$ differs from a global counter which keeps track of the number of state-action visits for the entire duration of learning and which is generalized by $E$-values. It is also important to note that the proposed $E$-value based exploration bonus can still be applied to the fully delayed version of Delayed Q-learning with fixed delay intervals (in fact, with the same PAC bound). We apply the interval estimation technique for empirical performance gains.

Furthermore, there are differences between our proposed method and Choshen et al. \yrcite{choshen2018dora} in that Choshen et al. \yrcite{choshen2018dora} still apply dithering strategies ($\epsilon$-greedy and softmax policies) over the sum of Q-value and a exploration bonus based $E$-value. On the other hand, our proposed algorithm acts greedily with respect to Equation (1).
We also update $E$-values with off-policy updates rather than on-policy to ensure monotonic decrease in $E$ value for every update.

In addition to Q-value and $E$-value estimates, similarly to Delayed Q-learning, our algorithm maintains a Boolean variable $LEARN(s, a)$, for each $(s, a)$.\footnote{The maintenance of the $LEARN(s, a)$ variable is essentially the same as Delayed Q-learning. For details, see \cite{strehl2006pac, strehl2009reinforcement}.} This variable indicates whether the agent currently considers a modification to its Q-value and $E$-value estimates. The algorithm also relies on other free parameters, $\epsilon_1 \in (0, 1)$ and a positive integer $m$, a positive real number $\lambda$, $E$-value discount factor $\gamma_E$, and the base of log transformation $\eta$. In the analysis which is provided in Appendix, we provide precise values for these parameters in terms of the other inputs $(S, A, \epsilon, \delta, \gamma)$ that guarantee the resulting algorithm is PAC-MDP. We provide an efficient implementation, Algorithm 1, of Directed Delayed Q-learning.

\begin{algorithm}[H]
   \caption{Directed Delayed Q-learning}
   \label{algo1}
\begin{algorithmic}
	\STATE {\bfseries Input:} $\gamma, S, A, \epsilon_1, m, \lambda, \gamma_E, \eta$
	\FOR{\textbf{all} $(s,a)$}
		\STATE $Q(s,a) \leftarrow 1/(1-\gamma)$ \tab// Q-value estimate
        \STATE $E(s,a) \leftarrow 1-\epsilon_1$ \tab// exploration value estimate
        \STATE $\Tilde{Q}(s,a) \leftarrow 0$ \tab// inner loop estimate for Q-values
        \STATE $\Tilde{E}(s,a) \leftarrow 0$ \tab// inner loop estimate for $E$-values
        \STATE $n(s,a) \leftarrow 0$ \tab// inner counter
        \STATE $b(s, a) \leftarrow 0$ \tab// beginning time of attempted update
        \STATE $LEARN(s, a) \leftarrow true$ \tab// the LEARN flags
	\ENDFOR
    \STATE $t^* \leftarrow 0$ \tab// time of most recent Q-value change
	\FOR{$t = 1, 2, 3,...$}
    	\STATE Let $s$ denote the state at time $t$
    	\STATE \resizebox{.9\hsize}{!}{Choose action $a := \arg\max_{a' \in \mathcal{A}} Q(s,a') + \frac{\lambda}{\sqrt{\log_{\eta} E(s,a')}}$}
        \STATE Observe immediate reward $r$ and next state $s'$
		\IF{$b(s,a) \leq t^*$}
			\STATE $LEARN(s,a) \leftarrow true$
		\ENDIF
		\IF{$LEARN(s, a) = true$}
			\STATE $n(s,a) \leftarrow n(s,a) + 1$
            \STATE $\alpha \leftarrow \frac{1}{n(s,a)}$
        	\STATE \resizebox{.9\hsize}{!}{$\Tilde{Q}(s,a) \leftarrow (1-\alpha)\Tilde{Q}(s,a) + \alpha \left(r + \gamma \max_{a'} Q(s',a')\right)$}
        	\STATE \resizebox{.85\hsize}{!}{$\Tilde{E}(s,a) \leftarrow (1-\alpha)\Tilde{E}(s,a) + \alpha \left( \gamma_E \max_{a'} E(s',a')\right)$}
			\IF{\resizebox{.9\hsize}{!}{$Q'(s,a)  - \left(\Tilde{Q}(s,a) + \frac{\rho}{\sqrt{n(s,a)}} + \frac{\lambda}{\sqrt{\log_{\eta} \Tilde{E}(s,a)}} \right) \geq \epsilon_1$}}
				\STATE $Q(s,a) \leftarrow \Tilde{Q}(s,a) + \frac{\rho}{\sqrt{n(s,a)}}$
                \STATE $E(s,a) \leftarrow \Tilde{E}(s,a)$
                \STATE $t^* \leftarrow t$
                \STATE \resizebox{.85\hsize}{!}{$n(s,a) \leftarrow 0; \Tilde{Q}(s,a) \leftarrow 0; \Tilde{E}(s,a) \leftarrow 0; b(s,a) \leftarrow t$}
            \ELSIF{$n(s,a) = m$}
            	\STATE \resizebox{.85\hsize}{!}{$n(s,a) \leftarrow 0; \Tilde{Q}(s,a) \leftarrow 0;, \Tilde{E}(s,a) \leftarrow 0; b(s,a) \leftarrow t$}
				\IF{$b(s,a) > t^*$}
                	\STATE $LEARN(s, a) \leftarrow false$
                \ENDIF
			\ENDIF

		\ENDIF

    \ENDFOR

\end{algorithmic}
\end{algorithm}

\subsection{Update Criteria}
While the agent considers learning for a given state-action pair $(s,a)$, each time $(s,a)$ is experienced, the agents updates its surrogate Q-value and $E$-value estimates, $\Tilde{Q}$ and $\Tilde{E}$ and attempts an update to the global Q-value and $E$-value up to $m$. If the update fails even at $m$-th time, the agent discards the current surrogate estimates and starts collecting new samples. If successful, the following updates occur: $Q(s,a) \leftarrow \Tilde{Q}(s,a) + \rho/\sqrt{n(s,a)}$ and $E(s,a) \leftarrow \Tilde{E}(s,a)$. To ensure that every successful update decreases $Q'(s,a)$ by at least $\epsilon$, we require the following condition to be satisfied for an update to occur:
\resizebox{\hsize}{!}{$Q'(s,a)  - \left(\Tilde{Q}(s,a) + \frac{\rho}{\sqrt{n(s,a)}} + \frac{\lambda}{\sqrt{\log_{\eta} \Tilde{E}(s,a)}} \right) \geq \epsilon_1$}

If the above condition does not hold, then there is no update
to be performed for $Q(s,a)$ and $E(s,a)$.

\begin{figure}[ht]
\begin{center}
\centerline{\includegraphics[width=\columnwidth]{update_flow.pdf}}
\caption{Flow of Q-value and $E$-value updates during execution of Directed Delayed Q-learning. Delay can be up to $m$ times per each attempted update, which may or may not succeed}
\label{icml-historical}
\end{center}
\vskip -0.1in
\end{figure}

\subsection{Main Theoretical Result}
The main theoretical result, whose proof is provided in Appendix in the supplementary material, is that the Directed Delayed Q-learning algorithm is PAC-MDP:
\vspace*{0.2cm}
\begin{theorem}
Let $M$ be any MDP and let $\epsilon$ and $\delta$ be two positive real numbers. If Directed Delayed Q-learning is executed on MDP $M$, then then
the following holds.
Let $\mathfrak{A}_t$ denote the policy of Directed Delayed Q-learning at time $t$ and $s_t$ denote the state at time $t$. With probability at least $1-\delta$, $V^\mathfrak{A_t}_{M}(s_t) \geq V^*_M(s_t) - \epsilon$ is true for all but
\begin{equation*}
O\left( \frac{SA}{\epsilon^4(1-\gamma)^8}\ln\frac{1}{\delta}\ln\frac{1}{\epsilon(1-\gamma)}\ln\frac{SA}{\delta\epsilon(1-\gamma)} \right)
\end{equation*}
timesteps.
\end{theorem}

\section{Experiments}

To assess the empirical performances of Directed Delayed Q-learning, we compared its performance to other model-free RL methods as well as different values of $\gamma_E$. Experiments were run on chain MDPs with varying length $N$. The agent begins at the far left state and at every time step has the choice to move left or right. Each move can fail with probability 0.2, which results in the opposite action. The agent receives a small reward $(r=\frac{1}{1000})$ for reaching the leftmost state, but the optimal policy is to attempt to move to the far right state and receive a much larger reward $(r=1)$. Chains with length $N = 10$ and $N = 50$ are reported below. These environments are intended to be expository rather than entirely realistic. Balancing a well known and mildly successful strategy versus an unknown, but potentially more rewarding, approach can emerge in many practical applications \citep{osband2016generalization}.

\begin{table}[H]
  \caption{Results on Chain MDPs with $N = 10$}
  \vspace{.2cm}
  \label{chainMDP-experiment_1}
\begin{center}
\begin{small}
\begin{sc}
\begin{tabular}{llr}
    \toprule
    Method   &  & Cumulative reward\\
    \midrule
    \multirow{5}{*}{\shortstack{Directed\\Delayed QL}} &$\gamma_E = 0.99$ & \bftab7089.59$\pm$48.98 \\
        &$\gamma_E = 0.90$ & 6961.50$\pm$63.63  \\
        &$\gamma_E = 0.75$ & 4530.78$\pm$94.03 \\
        &$\gamma_E = 0.50$ & 2746.06$\pm$61.84  \\
        &$\gamma_E = 0.25$ & 2624.71$\pm$14.97 \\
    Delayed QL  &  & 4325.38$\pm$59.31    \\
    QL + $\epsilon$-greedy    &  & 2435.11$\pm$134.3   \\
    \bottomrule
  \end{tabular}
\end{sc}
\end{small}
\end{center}
\vskip -0.1in
\end{table}

\begin{table}[H]
  \caption{Results on Chain MDPs with $N = 50$}
  \vspace{.2cm}
  \label{chainMDP-experiment_2}
\begin{center}
\begin{small}
\begin{sc}
\begin{tabular}{llr}
    \toprule
    Method   &  & Cumulative reward\\
    \midrule
    \multirow{5}{*}{\shortstack{Directed\\Delayed QL}} &$\gamma_E = 0.99$ & \bftab5581.02$\pm$94.72 \\
        &$\gamma_E = 0.90$ & 4982.09$\pm$116.2  \\
        &$\gamma_E = 0.75$ & 2976.96$\pm$282.9 \\
        &$\gamma_E = 0.50$ & 707.18$\pm$24.63  \\
        &$\gamma_E = 0.25$ & 691.33$\pm$13.60 \\
    Delayed QL  &  & 531.95$\pm$58.66    \\
    QL + $\epsilon$-greedy    &  & 2.98$\pm$0.012   \\
    \bottomrule
  \end{tabular}
\end{sc}
\end{small}
\end{center}
\vskip -0.1in
\end{table}

On all experiments, each algorithm ran for 10,000 timesteps and the undiscounted total sum of reward was recorded. Tables \ref{chainMDP-experiment_1} and \ref{chainMDP-experiment_2} show the average and 95\% confidence intervals over 300 independent test runs. The results show that Directed Delayed Q-learning significantly outperforms other model-free methods. Especially, we notice the gap between the performances of the algorithms increases exponentially as the chain length $N$ increases, which suggests that the larger value of $\gamma_E$ is beneficial especially in environments where reward is more sparse and deeper exploration is required.

\section{Conclusion}
We presented Directed Delayed Q-learning, a provably efficient model-free reinforcement-learning algorithm which takes into account long term exploratory information. It has the same desirable sample complexity as Delayed Q-learning. The experiments show that Directed Delayed Q-learning shows significantly better performance compared to other model-free RL methods on challenging environments.

\newpage

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


Necessary Fiction, Stymie, Mad Hatters' Review, Defenestration, Metazen, Staccato Fiction, r.kv.r.y. quarterly, The Northville Review, Up the Staircase, Used Furniture Review, Referential Magazine and Camroc Press Review.
Lorrie Moore, Haruki Murikami, Kurt Vonnegut, Hemingway (stories,) Dickens, George Eliot.
Poets: Kay Ryan, Billy Collins, Mark Strand, Bob Hicok, Czeslaw Milosz, Floyd Skloot, Frank Bidart, Louise Bogan, Roethke, Donald Hall, Jane Kenyon, Frost, Williams.
A very sweet comment on The Miracle of My Father's Hat. The sentence you chose is something I just realized, after years of getting psychotherapy patients to both write and talk. Thank you so much for you beautiful metaphor.
Thanks, Doug, for your kind words and fave for 'Benny Goodman...' It always helps to find we are not alone.
Hi, Doug. I want to thank you for the extended and heart-felt comment on "Swimming Lessons." As someone who is being there and doing that, your kind words about the story mean a lot. The wisdom of insecurity (as Alan Watts called it) without a doubt has a terrifying learning curve. But go there we must. Transformational. Humbling. Again, my sincere thanks for taking the time to read, and my best to you and your family as you work through these things.
cheers, doug. yes, a burger at the spot and a pint at island brew!
Doug: Thank you for reading and remarking on "The Rest Home." I send you strength and courage.
Doug, Thank you for your comments on "Movement." Congratulations on your Best of the Net nomination!
Thank you for your very kind remarks on what I wanted in 1968 and I'm sorry it took me so long to thank you. I hope you are well and, as always, I look forward to reading more of your work.
Doug, thanks for reading and commenting on "Caffeine, Annotated"!
Hey Doug! I don't ever mind way-laters. Thank you so much for reading, commenting and faving the aerobics piece. I'm glad you enjoyed it and have learned to steer clear of devil instructors.
Thanks, Doug, for noticing the sly slant of meter play in "Abstinence" and "getting" my intentions. I appreciate your acuity.
Doug, thanks for reading and commenting on I'm Not Charlie Sheen. Much appreciated!
Doug - ooo, your comments on "Liplorn" made me smile. Really appreciate the review, thank you. And yes, there's something about Lucinda. Maybe one day I'll let her run free.
Thank you, Doug, for your very kind remarks on my story fly. I look forward to reading more of your work and in all things, wishing you well.
Thank you for your lovely comments on my story "Like Worship". I keep fighting for that thing's life.
Hi Doug - Thanks for your comments on "Safa's Hair". I really appreciate it, especially as I've been tinkering with this piece for a very long time.
Doug, so many thanks for what you wrote on "Doug" and the other story.
thanks Bondo! Here's hoping I don't f' it up.
Doug, thanks very much for commenting on boyfriends and yes, one should always send those creepos away!
Thank you so much for reading and your thoughtful comments!
Dear Doug Bond. Urgent good news! I am thanks to you for your comments that regard "So You Want to Write a Screenplay for the Children"! And also I am offer this special price on plugs for reduction in ear noise half price! Thank you!
Doug! I love the supernova button idea. You are very sweet. Thanks for the * and comment on Two Trees -- your comments on restraint and the elements in the story made my day!
Doug, such a potent and interesting set of comments on Unpacking Sentences. Thank you for them and the fav. I love how you got the raw meat of the work via the sausaged dog! This is part of a dossier, I guess I would call it, for the main character in a long piece I am working on. She continually surprises me!
Thanks for the comment on Rats, Doug! Glad you liked the pink ribbon leash.
Thanks, Doug, for the GREAT comment on and fave of "I Am Not a Corpse." Glad you posted the couplet. Yes, hard to resist.
Thanks for reading Whitechapel. Glad you liked it.
DB, so glad you liked 'Corrective' & yr comments are always greatly appreciated.
yes, funny how that works, right? writing just takes its own coarse and we get to come along for the ride.
i once did an excercise in which I rewrote the same flash piece five times, highlighting one sense over all others in each version. scent and taste were by far the toughest.
it was one of the most helpful exercises i think i've ever done. you've inspired me to try it again.
Hi Doug, Thanks so much for reading Tomorrowland -- and for taking the time to share your thoughts. Disney is a terrifying machine, for sure -- and the message behind it is omnipresent. There is no escape.
Thanks for checking out Wufniks. We hope you had a pleasant stay.
aw shucks, Doug, thanks. Hope you're out riding horses.
Yeah, Tiger Stadium had a lot of stories! Nice to meet you.
Thank you for reading Summer. Glad you liked it.
Hi Doug, thanks for your "Godot" comments.
Now that I think of it, the old joke is don't put your horse before Descartes, so maybe the originality in in my tweaking of an older pun!
Great comment on "Augustinian Prayer Sonnet," Doug. Thank you. Love your analysis of the opening word. Glad the poem worked for you.
I can't really claim credit for this--it's an old joke, made unfamiliar or disguised perhaps in iambic tetrameter, but thanks!
Doug, thank you for the fav on In The Lake. Even more importantly, thank you for your very astute observations - 174 words and it contains foreboding. The implication of the lake in the deed. So pleased you found this pitched perfectly!
Hey Doug, Nice to meet you, and I'm pleased you enjoyed Peach (2)! Thanks for the comments!
Doug, thank you so much for your thoughtful read and lovely note on Crystal. i love what you wrote.
Where have you been hiding? Come out and play!
Thanks so much for your fabulous read of An Italian Lunch (II)! And for the fav. But, truly, you got to a truth of the narrator! And as I continue to work on this project - An Italian Lunch (II) (now even more revised than what is posted) is actually the 5th chapter, and all of what you found in that story is bursting out of the narrator - the divide in him.
Doug, thanks so much for your comments on "Naked Ladies." You have the keenest reading eye! I think you said you were a lit major at one time, but wow!
I just read on someone else's wall that you grew up in CT. I worked in Darien for a time. I used to call it "Scarien!" Lily white. Hope you are enjoying your Fictionaut experience in writing overall. I sure am.
Hi, Doug. "Good thumping read." Ouch!
Doug, thanks for you kind comments on "Fancy Me"!Yes, I think it probably is a shampoo - manufactured in some little eastern Europeon country by old babushkas.
Doug! Thanks so much for your comment on Elephant. Glad you like the gallons of piss. That just flowed (haha). Horton rocks.
Doug, Thanks so much for your kind note on Spring. I really appreciate the close read -- and look forward to catching up on more of your work.
And yes to "Hills" - one of my favorite stories to teach.
Doug, thanks so much for enjoying The First Date Questionnaire. I'd love your comments to the story that emerged from that, which is wholly different, Things I Should Have Done - #4, if you have a moment.
I'm just starting to make my way through your stories, and so look forward to reading.
Doug, thank you and kudos on your recent pubs - great stuff!
Doug, thank you for the read and the comments! Glad you enjoyed the story.
Thanks for the comment on Love, Story. Glad you liked it -- fiction lite is fun too! I enjoyed perusing your stories the other day. Will do more of that soon!
Thanks for the comments on Pleiku Jacket.
Hi Doug! Thank you for your lovely comments on "The Face of the Moon..." I appreciate it!
Yes! Yes! Kafka is in the house! Thanks for the comments, Doug.
Thanks Doug! Enjoyed being a moderator for the contest.
Hey Doug - thanks for reading Eight States Away - I'm glad you liked it, and thanks for the comments, too. foster.
Thank you so much, Doug, for reading "Eddie Says," for the things you noticed, and for your kind words.
Doug, What a great review of "Mannequin." Wish I'd thought of all that. 'fraid when I'm writing I just wing it. Thanks for the thumbs up!
Thanks for reading "Close to Ireland" and for your kind comments on my Pushcart nomination. I love the Oregon connection and look forward to reading more of your work.
Are we supposed to respond to wall posts that thank us for saying something nice about another's work? I'm really a newbie around here and trying really hard to learn the ropes.
Yes, Meggie has left that whore Arlene and says she's back with the Bonnies. I don't know where that leaves you!
Thanks for liking Beckett and Joyce, and I too look forward to my too often postponed trip to the Outer Sunset!
Doug, Will you be my agent? Your smash review of my birds story is terrific. Love that movie, though I can't say I'm a big fan of Tippi Hedren.
Thanks for the nod on my tale-o-blarney. Have one at the pub for me!
Hello, Doug! Thanks for writing on my wall and leaving a comment/fave for the 4 micros!
Hi Doug, thanks for reading Cactus, and for commenting, too. I'm glad you liked it.
thanks for commenting on "one more thing."
i see we have a fondness for mark strand poems--among other things.
Thanks for your comments on WINCE, Doug, and for your idea of a CPR group. Maybe later. Right now, I'm busy trying to figure out how this fictionaut stuff works. Follow? Message? Hmmmm.
Thanks for your comment on "Sanctuary" - I def. owe you a three-way for that one.
Hey, thanks for the interest in "Autobio of a Head Bully." You can get the whole thing (starting) here: http://bighair.bravehost.com/AutobiographyHeadBully01.html.
Great "review" Doug. Hadn't thought of that, but yes, it had to be bourbon! Thanks.
Hey Doug, thanx for your comments on "the spaces between words". Much appreciated.
Thanks for checking out my Wigleaf story. I 'preciate it.
Thanks Doug! I really enjoyed yr story in the new Northville too!
Well, howdy, Doug. Thanks for the yummy comments on Twine. I look forward to reading your stuff soon-soon-soon. For now, there's a toddler on the loose in my home threatening to pour tea on my laptop.
Doug Bond, thank you for your generous comment on My First SK!
"runner, writer, director, husband, father, singer of songs"
nice to be in touch and thanks again for the kind words about the presidents story, doug.
Welcome to the Prick of the Spindle group! Thanks for joining.
Have at this late, late stage 'discovered' Kurt Vonnegut. He is simply superb, isn't he?
Thanks,man. I appreciate the feedback.
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We're treated to two vivid images in one great-timed shot from the winner of this year's annual Worcester Music Festival photography competition, Cindel Oranday. Her shot of "The Hungry Ghosts playing at the Firefly" captures two of the band members immersed in their artistry.
Second prize went to Roy Jenks for his bewitchingly captured "Theo at the Marrs Bar".His muted, almost sepia tones is a nice capture of the emotion of both the artist and the audience. Whilst third place winner, Emily Harris' shot of "V2A at Worcester Arts Workshop" is a bold image that is praised for her use of flash in a tough venue to shoot.
Cindel was presented with a £100 camera store voucher courtesy of festival sponsor Child Care Bureau, which provides high quality foster care placements throughout Worcestershire and beyond, at a prize giving ceremony at Worcester Arts Workshop in Sansome Street last Friday night, with a £50 and £25 voucher for the runners up.
"This is my first year attending Worcester Music Festival, as always, I had my camera with me and took some photos of the bands playing, I am so grateful that one of my photos was selected as the winner, little did I know that this hopeful festival newbie had a chance. It has been an amazing experience to participate and to be welcomed into this wonderful community of fellow photographers and music lovers. Thank you so much Worcester Music Festival, for the great music and the opportunity." Cindel appears to have arrived at the Festival and captured part of its charisma on her first attempt!
Entry to the competition was open to all amateur photographers, who could submit up to 10 photos. They just had to have been taken during the festival that took place in scores of diverse venues, on outdoor stages and in the streets, with around 200 of the best, new and emerging artists from across the UK taking part.


Please enter your information below to be added to the list of duos considered for the SCIT Duo Show. A producer will email you if there is a space available in an upcoming show!
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