text:
A mechanical calculator, or calculating machine, is a mechanical device used to perform the basic operations of arithmetic automatically, or (historically) a simulation such as an analog computer or a slide rule. Most mechanical calculators were comparable in size to small desktop computers and have been rendered obsolete by the advent of the electronic calculator and the digital computer.

Surviving notes from Wilhelm Schickard in 1623 reveal that he designed and had built the earliest of the modern attempts at mechanizing calculation. His machine was composed of two sets of technologies: first an abacus made of Napier's bones, to simplify multiplications and divisions first described six years earlier in 1617, and for the mechanical part, it had a dialed pedometer to perform additions and subtractions.  A study of the surviving notes shows a machine that would have jammed after a few entries on the same dial, and that it could be damaged if a carry had to be propagated over a few digits (like adding 1 to 999). Schickard abandoned his project in 1624 and never mentioned it again until his death 11 years later in 1635.

Two decades after Schickard's supposedly failed attempt, in 1642, Blaise Pascal decisively solved these particular problems with his invention of the mechanical calculator. Co-opted into his father's labour as tax collector in Rouen, Pascal designed the calculator to help in the large amount of tedious arithmetic required; it was called Pascal's Calculator or Pascaline.

In 1672, Gottfried Leibniz started designing an entirely new machine called the Stepped Reckoner. It used a stepped drum, built by and named after him, the Leibniz wheel, was the first two-motion calculator, the first to use cursors (creating a memory of the first operand) and the first to have a movable carriage. Leibniz built two Stepped Reckoners, one in 1694 and one in 1706. The Leibniz wheel was used in many calculating machines for 200 years, and into the 1970s with the Curta hand calculator, until the advent of the electronic calculator in the mid-1970s. Leibniz was also the first to promote the idea of an Pinwheel calculator.

Thomas' arithmometer, the first commercially successful machine, was manufactured two hundred years later in 1851; it was the first mechanical calculator strong enough and reliable enough to be used daily in an office environment. For forty years the arithmometer was the only type of mechanical calculator available for sale until the industrial production of the more successful Odhner Arithmometer in 1890.

The comptometer, introduced in 1887, was the first machine to use a keyboard that consisted of columns of nine keys (from 1 to 9) for each digit. The Dalton adding machine, manufactured in 1902, was the first to have a 10 key keyboard. Electric motors were used on some mechanical calculators from 1901. In 1961, a comptometer type machine, the Anita Mk VII from Sumlock comptometer Ltd., became the first desktop mechanical calculator to receive an all-electronic calculator engine, creating the link in between these two industries and marking the beginning of its decline. The production of mechanical calculators came to a stop in the middle of the 1970s closing an industry that had lasted for 120 years.

Charles Babbage designed two new kinds of mechanical calculators, which were so big that they required the power of a steam engine to operate, and that were too sophisticated to be built in his lifetime.  The first one was an automatic mechanical calculator, his difference engine, which could automatically compute and print mathematical tables. In 1855, Georg Scheutz became the first of a handful of designers to succeed at building a smaller and simpler model of his difference engine. The second one was a programmable mechanical calculator, his analytical engine, which Babbage started to design in 1834; "in less than two years he had sketched out many of the salient features of the modern computer. A crucial step was the adoption of a punched card system derived from the Jacquard loom" making it infinitely programmable. In 1937, Howard Aiken convinced IBM to design and build the ASCC/Mark I, the first machine of its kind, based on the architecture of the analytical engine; when the machine was finished some hailed it as "Babbage's dream come true".

Ancient history

A short list of other precursors to the mechanical calculator must include a group of mechanical analog computers which, once set, are only modified by the continuous and repeated action of their actuators (crank handle, weight, wheel, water...). Before the common era, there are odometers and the Antikythera mechanism, a seemingly out of place, unique, geared astronomical clock, followed more than a millennium later by early mechanical clocks, geared astrolabes and followed in the 15th century by pedometers. These machines were all made of toothed gears linked by some sort of carry mechanisms.  These machines always produce identical results for identical initial settings unlike a mechanical calculator where all the wheels are independent but are also linked together by the rules of arithmetic.

The 17th century

Overview
The 17th century marked the beginning of the history of mechanical calculators, as it saw the invention of its first machines, including Pascal's calculator, in 1642. Blaise Pascal had invented a machine which he presented as being able to perform computations that were previously thought to be only humanly possible.

The 17th century also saw the invention of some very powerful tools to aid arithmetic calculations like Napier's bones, logarithmic tables and the slide rule which, for their ease of use by scientists in multiplying and dividing, ruled over and impeded the use and development of mechanical calculators until the production release of the arithmometer in the mid 19th century.

Invention of the mechanical calculator

In 1623 and 1624 Wilhelm Schickard, in two letters that he sent to Johannes Kepler, reported his design and construction of what he referred to as an "arithmeticum organum" ("arithmetical instrument"), which would later be described as a Rechenuhr (calculating clock). The machine was designed to assist in all the four basic functions of arithmetic (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division). Amongst its uses, Schickard suggested it would help in the laborious task of calculating astronomical tables. The machine could add and subtract six-digit numbers, and indicated an overflow of this capacity by ringing a bell. The adding machine in the base was primarily provided to assist in the difficult task of adding or multiplying two multi-digit numbers. To this end an ingenious arrangement of rotatable Napier's bones were mounted on it. It even had an additional "memory register" to record intermediate calculations. Whilst Schickard noted that the adding machine was working, his letters mention that he had asked a professional, a clockmaker named Johann Pfister, to build a finished machine. Regrettably it was destroyed in a fire either whilst still incomplete, or in any case before delivery. Schickard abandoned his project soon after. He and his entire family were wiped out in 1635 by bubonic plague during the Thirty Years' War.

Schickard's machine used clock wheels which were made stronger and were therefore heavier, to prevent them from being damaged by the force of an operator input. Each digit used a display wheel, an input wheel and an intermediate wheel. During a carry transfer all these wheels meshed with the wheels of the digit receiving the carry.

Blaise Pascal invented a mechanical calculator with a sophisticated carry mechanism in 1642. After three years of effort and 50 prototypes he introduced his calculator to the public. He built twenty of these machines in the following ten years. This machine could add and subtract two numbers directly and multiply and divide by repetition. Since, unlike Schickard's machine, the Pascaline dials could only rotate in one direction zeroing it after each calculation required the operator to dial in all 9s and then (method of ) propagate a carry right through the machine. This suggests that the carry mechanism would have proved itself in practice many times over. This is a testament to the quality of the Pascaline because none of the 17th and 18th century criticisms of the machine mentioned a problem with the carry mechanism and yet it was fully tested on all the machines, by their resets, all the time.

In 1672, Gottfried Leibniz started working on adding direct multiplication to what he understood was the working of Pascal's calculator. However, it is doubtful that he had ever fully seen the mechanism and the method could not have worked because of the lack of reversible rotation in the mechanism. Accordingly, he eventually designed an entirely new machine called the Stepped Reckoner; it used his Leibniz wheels, was the first two-motion calculator, the first to use cursors (creating a memory of the first operand) and the first to have a movable carriage. Leibniz built two Stepped Reckoners, one in 1694 and one in 1706. Only the machine built in 1694 is known to exist; it was rediscovered at the end of the 19th century having been forgotten in an attic in the University of Göttingen.

Leibniz had invented his namesake wheel and the principle of a two-motion calculator, but after forty years of development he wasn't able to produce a machine that was fully operational; this makes Pascal's calculator the only working mechanical calculator in the 17th century. Leibniz was also the first person to describe a pinwheel calculator. He once said "It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labour of calculation which could safely be relegated to anyone else if machines were used."

Other calculating machines
Schickard, Pascal and Leibniz were inevitably inspired by the role of clockwork which was highly celebrated in the seventeenth century. However, simple-minded application of interlinked gears was insufficient for any of their purposes.  Schickard introduced the use of a single toothed "mutilated gear" to enable the carry to take place.  Pascal improved on that with his famous weighted sautoir.  Leibniz went even further in relation to the ability to use a moveable carriage to perform multiplication more efficiently, albeit at the expense of a fully working carry mechanism.

The principle of the clock (input wheels and display wheels added to a clock like mechanism) for a direct-entry calculating machine couldn't be implemented to create a fully effective calculating machine without additional innovation with the technological capabilities of the 17th century. because their gears would jam when a carry had to be moved several places along the accumulator. The only 17th-century calculating clocks that have survived to this day do not have a machine-wide carry mechanism and therefore cannot be called fully effective mechanical calculators. A much more successful calculating clock was built by the Italian Giovanni Poleni in the 18th century and was a two-motion calculating clock (the numbers are inscribed first and then they are processed).

 In 1623, Wilhelm Schickard, a German professor of Hebrew and Astronomy, designed a calculating clock which he drew on two letters that he wrote to Johannes Kepler. The first machine to be built by a professional was destroyed during its construction and Schickard abandoned his project in 1624. These drawings had appeared in various publications over the centuries, starting in 1718 with a book of Kepler's letters by Michael Hansch, but in 1957 it was presented for the first time as a long-lost mechanical calculator by Dr. Franz Hammer. The building of the first replica in the 1960s showed that Schickard's machine had an unfinished design and therefore wheels and springs were added to make it work. The use of these replicas showed that the single-tooth wheel, when used within a calculating clock, was an inadequate carry mechanism. (see Pascal versus Schickard).  This did not mean that such a machine could not be used in practice, but the operator when faced with the mechanism resisting rotation, in the unusual circumstances of a carry being required beyond (say) 3 dials, would need to "help" the subsequent carry to propagate.
 Around 1643, a French clockmaker from Rouen, after hearing of Pascal's work, built what he claimed to be a calculating clock of his own design. Pascal fired all his employees and stopped developing his calculator as soon as he heard of the news.  It is only after being assured that his invention would be protected by a royal privilege that he restarted his activity. A careful examination of this calculating clock showed that it didn't work properly and Pascal called it an avorton (aborted fetus).
 In 1659, the Italian Tito Livio Burattini built a machine with nine independent wheels, each one of these wheels was paired with a smaller carry wheel. At the end of an operation the user had to either manually add each carry to the next digit or mentally add these numbers to create the final result.
 In 1666, Samuel Morland invented a machine designed to add sums of money, but it was not a true adding machine since the carry was added to a small carry wheel situated above each digit and not directly to the next digit. It was very similar to Burattini's machine. Morland created also a multiplying machines with interchangeable disks based on Napier's bones. Taken together these two machines provided a capacity similar to that of the invention of Schickard, although it is doubtful that Morland ever encountered Schickard's calculating clock.
 In 1673, the French clockmaker René Grillet described in Curiositez mathématiques de l'invention du Sr Grillet, horlogeur à Paris a calculating machine that would be more compact than Pascal's calculator and reversible for subtraction. The only two Grillet machines known have no carry mechanism, displaying three lines of nine independent dials they also have nine rotating napier's rod for multiplication and division. Contrary to Grillet's claim, it was not a mechanical calculator after all.

The 18th century

Overview

The 18th century saw the first mechanical calculator that could perform a multiplication automatically; designed and built by Giovanni Poleni in 1709 and made of wood, it was the first successful calculating clock. For all the machines built in this century, division still required the operator to decide when to stop a repeated subtraction at each index, and therefore these machines were only providing a help in dividing, like an abacus. Both pinwheel calculators and Leibniz wheel calculators were built with a few unsuccessful attempts at their commercialization.

Prototypes and limited runs

 In 1709, Italian Giovanni Poleni was the first to build a calculator that could multiply automatically. It used a pinwheel design, was the first operational calculating clock and was made of wood; he destroyed it after hearing that Antonius Braun had received 10,000 Guldens for dedicating a pinwheel machine of his own design to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI in Vienna.
 In 1725, the French Academy of Sciences certified a calculating machine derived from Pascal's calculator designed by Lépine, a French craftsman. The machine was a bridge in between Pascal's calculator and a calculating clock. The carry transmissions were performed simultaneously, like in a calculating clock, and therefore "the machine must have jammed beyond a few simultaneous carry transmissions".
 In 1727, German Anton Braun presented the first fully functional four-operation machine to Emperor Charles VI in Vienna. It was cylindrical in shape and was made of steel, silver and brass; it was finely decorated and looked like a renaissance table clock. His dedication to the emperor engraved on the top of the machine also reads "...to make easy to ignorant people, addition, subtraction, multiplication and even division".
 In 1730, the French Academy of Sciences certified three machines designed by Hillerin de Boistissandeau. The first one used a single-tooth carry mechanism which, according to Boistissandeau, wouldn't work properly if a carry had to be moved more than two places; the two other machines used springs that were gradually armed until they released their energy when a carry had to be moved forward. It was similar to Pascal's calculator but instead of using the energy of gravity Boistissandeau used the energy stored into the springs.
 In 1770, Philipp Matthäus Hahn, a German pastor, built two circular calculating machines based on Leibniz' cylinders. J. C. Schuster, Hahn's brother-in-law, built a few machines of Hahn's design into the early 19th century.
 In 1775, Lord Stanhope of the United Kingdom designed a pinwheel machine. It was set in a rectangular box with a handle on the side. He also designed a machine using Leibniz wheels in 1777. "In 1777 Stanhope produced the Logic Demonstrator, a machine designed to solve problems in formal logic. This device marked the beginning of a new approach to the solution of logical problems by mechanical methods."
 In 1784, German Johann-Helfrich Müller built a machine very similar to Hahn's machine.

The 19th century

Overview

 Luigi Torchi invented the first direct multiplication machine in 1834. This was also the second key-driven machine in the world, following that of James White (1822).

The mechanical calculator industry started in 1851 Thomas de Colmar released his simplified Arithmomètre, which was the first machine that could be used daily in an office environment.

For 40 years, the arithmometer was the only mechanical calculator available for sale and was sold all over the world. By 1890, about 2,500 arithmometers had been sold plus a few hundreds more from two licensed arithmometer clone makers (Burkhardt, Germany, 1878 and Layton, UK, 1883). Felt and Tarrant, the only other competitor in true commercial production, had sold 100 comptometers in three years.

The 19th century also saw the designs of Charles Babbage calculating machines, first with his difference engine, started in 1822, which was the first automatic calculator since it continuously used the results of the previous operation for the next one, and second with his analytical engine, which was the first programmable calculator, using Jacquard's cards to read program and data, that he started in 1834, and which gave the blueprint of the mainframe computers built in the middle of the 20th century.

Desktop calculators produced

 In 1851, Thomas de Colmar simplified his arithmometer by removing the one-digit multiplier/divider. This made it a simple adding machine, but thanks to its moving carriage used as an indexed accumulator, it still allowed for easy multiplication and division under operator control. The arithmometer was now adapted to the manufacturing capabilities of the time; Thomas could therefore manufacture consistently a sturdy and reliable machine. Manuals were printed and each machine was given a serial number. Its commercialization launched the mechanical calculator industry. Banks, insurance companies, government offices started to use the arithmometer in their day-to-day operations, slowly bringing mechanical desktop calculators into the office.
 In 1878 Burkhardt, of Germany, was the first to manufacture a clone of Thomas' arithmometer. Until then Thomas de Colmar had been the only manufacturer of desktop mechanical calculators in the world and he had manufactured about 1,500 machines. Eventually twenty European companies will manufacture clones of Thomas' arithmometer until WWII.
 Dorr E. Felt, in the U.S., patented the Comptometer in 1886. It was the first successful key-driven adding and calculating machine. ["Key-driven" refers to the fact that just pressing the keys causes the result to be calculated, no separate lever or crank has to be operated. Other machines are sometimes called "key-set".] In 1887, he joined with Robert Tarrant to form the Felt & Tarrant Manufacturing Company. The comptometer-type calculator was the first machine to receive an all-electronic calculator engine in 1961 (the ANITA mark VII released by Sumlock comptometer of the UK).
 In 1890 W. T. Odhner got the rights to manufacture his calculator back from Königsberger & C, which had held them since it was first patented in 1878, but had not really produced anything. Odhner used his Saint Petersburg workshop to manufacture his calculator and he built and sold 500 machines in 1890. This manufacturing operation shut down definitively in 1918 with 23,000 machines produced. The Odhner Arithmometer was a redesigned version of the Arithmometer of Thomas de Colmar with a pinwheel engine, which made it cheaper to manufacture and gave it a smaller footprint while keeping the advantage of having the same user interface.
 In 1892 Odhner sold the Berlin branch of his factory, which he had opened a year earlier, to Grimme, Natalis & Co. They moved the factory to Braunschweig and sold their machines under the brand name of Brunsviga (Brunsviga is the Latin name of the town of Braunschweig).  This was the first of many companies which would sell and manufacture clones of Odhner's machine all over the world; eventually millions were sold well into the 1970s.
 In 1892, William S. Burroughs began commercial manufacture of his printing adding calculator Burroughs Corporation became one of the leading companies in the accounting machine and computer businesses.
 The "Millionaire" calculator was introduced in 1893. It allowed direct multiplication by any digit – "one turn of the crank for each figure in the multiplier". It contained a mechanical product lookup table, providing units and tens digits by differing lengths of posts. Another direct multiplier was part of the Moon-Hopkins billing machine; that company was acquired by Burroughs in the early 20th century.

Automatic mechanical calculators

 In 1822, Charles Babbage presented a small cogwheel assembly that demonstrated the operation of his difference engine, a mechanical calculator which would be capable of holding and manipulating seven numbers of 31 decimal digits each. It was the first time that a calculating machine could work automatically using as input results from its previous operations. It was the first calculating machine to use a printer. The development of this machine, later called "Difference Engine No. 1," stopped around 1834.
 In 1847, Babbage began work on an improved difference engine design—his "Difference Engine No. 2."  None of these designs were completely built by Babbage. In 1991 the London Science Museum followed Babbage's plans to build a working Difference Engine No. 2 using the technology and materials available in the 19th century.
 In 1855, Per Georg Scheutz completed a working difference engine based on Babbage's design. The machine was the size of a piano, and was demonstrated at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1855. It was used to create tables of logarithms.
 In 1875, Martin Wiberg re-designed the Babbage/Scheutz difference engine and built a version that was the size of a sewing machine.

Programmable mechanical calculators

 In 1834, Babbage started to design his analytical engine, which will become the undisputed ancestor of the modern mainframe computer with two separate input streams for data and program (a primitive Harvard architecture), printers for outputting results (three different kind), processing unit (mill), memory (store) and the first-ever set of programming instructions. In the proposal that Howard Aiken gave IBM in 1937 while requesting funding for the Harvard Mark I which became IBM's entry machine in the computer industry, we can read: "Few calculating machines have been designed strictly for application to scientific investigations, the notable exceptions being those of Charles Babbage and others who followed him. In 1812 Babbage conceived the idea of a calculating machine of a higher type than those previously constructed to be used for calculating and printing tables of mathematical functions. ....After abandoning the difference engine, Babbage devoted his energy to the design and construction of an analytical engine of far higher powers than the difference engine..."
 In 1843, during the translation of a French article on the analytical engine, Ada Lovelace wrote, in one of the many notes she included, an algorithm to compute the Bernoulli numbers.  This is considered the first computer program.
 From 1872 until 1910, Henry Babbage worked intermittently on creating the mill, the "central processing unit" of his father's machine.  After a few setbacks, he gave in 1906 a successful demonstration of the mill which printed the first 44 multiples of pi with 29 places of figures.

Cash registers

The cash register, invented by the American saloonkeeper James Ritty in 1879, addressed the old problems of disorganization and dishonesty in business transactions. It was a pure adding machine coupled with a printer, a bell and a two-sided display that showed the paying party and the store owner, if he wanted to, the amount of money exchanged for the current transaction.

The cash register was easy to use and, unlike genuine mechanical calculators, was needed and quickly adopted by a great number of businesses.  "Eighty four companies sold cash registers between 1888 and 1895, only three survived for any length of time".

In 1890, 6 years after John Patterson started NCR Corporation, 20,000 machines had been sold by his company alone against a total of roughly 3,500 for all genuine calculators combined.

By 1900, NCR had built 200,000 cash registers and there were more companies manufacturing them, compared to the "Thomas/Payen" arithmometer company that had just sold around 3,300 and Burroughs had only sold 1,400 machines.

Prototypes and limited runs

 In 1820, Thomas de Colmar patented the Arithmometer. It was a true four operation machine with a one digit multiplier/divider (The Millionaire calculator released 70 years later had a similar user interface). He spent the next 30 years and 300,000 Francs developing his machine. This design was replaced in 1851 by the simplified arithmometer which was only an adding machine.
 From 1840, Didier Roth patented and built a few calculating machines, one of which was a direct descendant of Pascal's calculator.
 In 1842, Timoleon Maurel invented the Arithmaurel, based on the Arithmometer, which could multiply two numbers by simply entering their values into the machine.
 In 1845, Izrael Abraham Staffel first exhibited a machine that was able to add, subtract, divide, multiply and obtain a square root.
 Around 1854, Andre-Michel Guerry invented the Ordonnateur Statistique, a cylindrical device designed to aid in summarizing the relations among data on moral variables (crime, suicide, etc.)
 In 1872, Frank S. Baldwin in the U.S. invented a pinwheel calculator.
 In 1877 George B. Grant of Boston in the United States began producing the Grant mechanical calculating machine capable of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The machine measured 13x5x7 inches and contained eighty working pieces made of brass and tempered steel. It was first introduced to the public at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.
 In 1883, Edmondson of the United Kingdom patented a circular stepped drum calculator.

1900s to 1970s

Mechanical calculators reach their zenith

Two different classes of mechanisms had become established by this time, reciprocating and rotary. The former type of mechanism was operated typically by a limited-travel hand crank; some internal detailed operations took place on the pull, and others on the release part of a complete cycle. The illustrated 1914 machine is this type; the crank is vertical, on its right side. Later on, some of these mechanisms were operated by electric motors and reduction gearing that operated a crank and connecting rod to convert rotary motion to reciprocating.

The latter type, rotary, had at least one main shaft that made one [or more] continuous revolution[s], one addition or subtraction per turn. Numerous designs, notably European calculators, had handcranks, and locks to ensure that the cranks were returned to exact positions once a turn was complete.

The first half of the 20th century saw the gradual development of the mechanical calculator mechanism.

The Dalton adding-listing machine introduced in 1902 was the first of its type to use only ten keys, and became the first of many different models of "10-key add-listers" manufactured by many companies.

In 1948 the cylindrical Curta calculator, which was compact enough to be held in one hand, was introduced after being developed by Curt Herzstark in 1938. This was an extreme development of the stepped-gear calculating mechanism. It subtracted by adding complements; between the teeth for addition were teeth for subtraction.

From the early 1900s through the 1960s, mechanical calculators dominated the desktop computing market. Major suppliers in the USA included Friden, Monroe, and SCM/Marchant. These devices were motor-driven, and had movable carriages where results of calculations were displayed by dials. Nearly all keyboards were full – each digit that could be entered had its own column of nine keys, 1..9, plus a column-clear key, permitting entry of several digits at once. (See the illustration below of a Marchant Figurematic.) One could call this parallel entry, by way of contrast with ten-key serial entry that was commonplace in mechanical adding machines, and is now universal in electronic calculators. (Nearly all Friden calculators, as well as some rotary (German) Diehls had a ten-key auxiliary keyboard for entering the multiplier when doing multiplication.) Full keyboards generally had ten columns, although some lower-cost machines had eight. Most machines made by the three companies mentioned did not print their results, although other companies, such as Olivetti, did make printing calculators.

In these machines, addition and subtraction were performed in a single operation, as on a conventional adding machine, but multiplication and division were accomplished by repeated mechanical additions and subtractions. Friden made a calculator that also provided square roots, basically by doing division, but with added mechanism that automatically incremented the number in the keyboard in a systematic fashion. The last of the mechanical calculators were likely to have short-cut multiplication, and some ten-key, serial-entry types had decimal-point keys. However, decimal-point keys required significant internal added complexity, and were offered only in the last designs to be made. Handheld mechanical calculators such as the 1948 Curta continued to be used until they were displaced by electronic calculators in the 1970s.

Typical European four-operation machines use the Odhner mechanism, or variations of it. This kind of machine included the Original Odhner, Brunsviga and several following imitators, starting from Triumphator, Thales, Walther, Facit up to Toshiba. Although most of these were operated by handcranks, there were motor-driven versions. Hamann calculators externally resembled pinwheel machines, but the setting lever positioned a cam that disengaged a drive pawl when the dial had moved far enough.

Although Dalton introduced in 1902 first 10-key printing adding (two operations, the other being subtraction) machine, these features were not present in computing (four operations) machines for many decades. Facit-T (1932) was the first 10-key computing machine sold in large numbers. Olivetti Divisumma-14 (1948) was the first computing machine with both printer and a 10-key keyboard.

Full-keyboard machines, including motor-driven ones, were also built until the 1960s. Among the major manufacturers were Mercedes-Euklid, Archimedes, and MADAS in Europe; in the USA, Friden, Marchant, and Monroe were the principal makers of rotary calculators with carriages. Reciprocating calculators (most of which were adding machines, many with integral printers) were made by Remington Rand and Burroughs, among others. All of these were key-set. Felt & Tarrant made Comptometers, as well as Victor, which were key-driven.

The basic mechanism of the Friden and Monroe was a modified Leibniz wheel (better known, perhaps informally, in the USA as a "stepped drum" or "stepped reckoner"). The Friden had an elementary reversing drive between the body of the machine and the accumulator dials, so its main shaft always rotated in the same direction. The Swiss MADAS was similar. The Monroe, however, reversed direction of its main shaft to subtract.

The earliest Marchants were pinwheel machines, but most of them were remarkably sophisticated rotary types. They ran at 1,300 addition cycles per minute if the [+] bar is held down. Others were limited to 600 cycles per minute, because their accumulator dials started and stopped for every cycle; Marchant dials moved at a steady and proportional speed for continuing cycles. Most Marchants had a row of nine keys on the extreme right, as shown in the photo of the Figurematic. These simply made the machine add for the number of cycles corresponding to the number on the key, and then shifted the carriage one place. Even nine add cycles took only a short time.

In a Marchant, near the beginning of a cycle, the accumulator dials moved downward "into the dip", away from the openings in the cover. They engaged drive gears in the body of the machine, which rotated them at speeds proportional to the digit being fed to them, with added movement (reduced 10:1) from carries created by dials to their right. At the completion of the cycle, the dials would be misaligned like the pointers in a traditional watt-hour meter. However, as they came up out of the dip, a constant-lead disc cam realigned them by way of a (limited-travel) spur-gear differential. As well, carries for lower orders were added in by another, planetary differential. (The machine shown has 39 differentials in its [20-digit] accumulator!)

In any mechanical calculator, in effect, a gear, sector, or some similar device moves the accumulator by the number of gear teeth that corresponds to the digit being added or subtracted – three teeth changes the position by a count of three. The great majority of basic calculator mechanisms move the accumulator by starting, then moving at a constant speed, and stopping. In particular, stopping is critical, because to obtain fast operation, the accumulator needs to move quickly. Variants of Geneva drives typically block overshoot (which, of course, would create wrong results).

However, two different basic mechanisms, the Mercedes-Euklid and the Marchant, move the dials at speeds corresponding to the digit being added or subtracted; a [1] moves the accumulator the slowest, and a [9], the fastest. In the Mercedes-Euklid, a long slotted lever, pivoted at one end, moves nine racks ("straight gears") endwise by distances proportional to their distance from the lever's pivot. Each rack has a drive pin that is moved by the slot. The rack for [1] is closest to the pivot, of course.
For each keyboard digit, a sliding selector gear, much like that in the Leibniz wheel, engages the rack that corresponds to the digit entered. Of course, the accumulator changes either on the forward or reverse stroke, but not both. This mechanism is notably simple and relatively easy to manufacture.

The Marchant, however, has, for every one of its ten columns of keys, a nine-ratio "preselector transmission" with its output spur gear at the top of the machine's body; that gear engages the accumulator gearing. When one tries to work out the numbers of teeth in such a transmission, a straightforward approach leads one to consider a mechanism like that in mechanical gasoline pump registers, used to indicate the total price. However, this mechanism is seriously bulky, and utterly impractical for a calculator; 90-tooth gears are likely to be found in the gas pump. Practical gears in the computing parts of a calculator cannot have 90 teeth. They would be either too big, or too delicate.

Given that nine ratios per column implies significant complexity, a Marchant contains a few hundred individual gears in all, many in its accumulator. Basically, the accumulator dial has to rotate 36 degrees (1/10 of a turn) for a [1], and 324 degrees (9/10 of a turn) for a [9], not allowing for incoming carries. At some point in the gearing, one tooth needs to pass for a [1], and nine teeth for a [9]. There is no way to develop the needed movement from a driveshaft that rotates one revolution per cycle with few gears having practical (relatively small) numbers of teeth.

The Marchant, therefore, has three driveshafts to feed the little transmissions. For one cycle, they rotate 1/2, 1/4, and 1/12 of a revolution. . The 1/2-turn shaft carries (for each column) gears with 12, 14, 16, and 18 teeth, corresponding to digits 6, 7, 8, and 9. The 1/4-turn shaft carries (also, each column) gears with 12, 16, and 20 teeth, for 3, 4, and 5. Digits [1] and [2] are handled by 12 and 24-tooth gears on the 1/12-revolution shaft. Practical design places the 12th-rev. shaft more distant, so the 1/4-turn shaft carries freely-rotating 24 and 12-tooth idler gears. For subtraction, the driveshafts reversed direction.

In the early part of the cycle, one of five pendants moves off-center to engage the appropriate drive gear for the selected digit.

Some machines had as many as 20 columns in their full keyboards. The monster in this field was the Duodecillion made by Burroughs for exhibit purposes.

For sterling currency, £/s/d (and even farthings), there were variations of the basic mechanisms, in particular with different numbers of gear teeth and accumulator dial positions. To accommodate shillings and pence, extra columns were added for the tens digit[s], 10 and 20 for shillings, and 10 for pence. Of course, these functioned as radix-20 and radix-12 mechanisms.

A variant of the Marchant, called the Binary-Octal Marchant, was a radix-8 (octal) machine. It was sold to check very early vacuum-tube (valve) binary computers for accuracy. (Back then, the mechanical calculator was much more reliable than a tube/valve computer.)

As well, there was a twin Marchant, comprising two pinwheel Marchants with a common drive crank and reversing gearbox. Twin machines were relatively rare, and apparently were used for surveying calculations. At least one triple machine was made.

The Facit calculator, and one similar to it, are basically pinwheel machines, but the array of pinwheels moves sidewise, instead of the carriage. The pinwheels are biquinary; digits 1 through 4 cause the corresponding number of sliding pins to extend from the surface; digits 5 through 9 also extend a five-tooth sector as well as the same pins for 6 through 9.

The keys operate cams that operate a swinging lever to first unlock the pin-positioning cam that is part of the pinwheel mechanism; further movement of the lever (by an amount determined by the key's cam) rotates the pin-positioning cam to extend the necessary number of pins.

Stylus-operated adders with circular slots for the stylus, and side-by -side wheels, as made by Sterling Plastics (USA), had an ingenious anti-overshoot mechanism to ensure accurate carries.

The end of an era
Mechanical calculators continued to be sold, though in rapidly decreasing numbers, into the early 1970s, with many of the manufacturers closing down or being taken over. Comptometer type calculators were often retained for much longer to be used for adding and listing duties, especially in accounting, since a trained and skilled operator could enter all the digits of a number in one movement of the hands on a comptometer quicker than was possible serially with a 10-key electronic calculator. In fact, it was quicker to enter larger digits in two strokes using only the lower-numbered keys; for instance, a 9 would be entered as 4 followed by 5. Some key-driven calculators had keys for every column, but only 1 through 5; they were correspondingly compact. The spread of the computer rather than the simple electronic calculator put an end to the comptometer. Also, by the end of the 1970s, the slide rule had become obsolete.

See also
 Abacus
 Adding machine
 Calculator
 History of computing hardware
 Mechanical computer
 Tabulating machine
 George Brown (inventor)

References

Sources

  Reprinted by Arno Press, 1972 .

External links

Mařík, Robert
List of Mechanical Calculators
Calculating with Mechanical Calculators

Office equipment
Mathematical tools
Articles containing video clips

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


by SAFE | Mar 10, 2019 | Categories: Cassidy, Moon, and Slim.
by Kit Topaz | Mar 4, 2019 | Categories: Volunteers of the Month.
by Melinda Couvillion | Mar 4, 2019 | Categories: Pogo.
by SAFE | Feb 27, 2019 | Categories: Sage.
by SAFE | Feb 25, 2019 | Categories: Pyrrah.
by SAFE | Feb 20, 2019 | Categories: Announcement.
by SAFE | Feb 20, 2019 | Categories: Amira.
by Terry Phelps | Feb 19, 2019 | Categories: Lacey.
by SAFE | Feb 15, 2019 | Categories: Announcement.
by Melinda Couvillion | Feb 11, 2019 | Categories: Remy.
by Terry Phelps | Feb 7, 2019 | Categories: Tabitha.
by Terry Phelps | Feb 6, 2019 | Categories: Sienna.
by Terry Phelps | Feb 6, 2019 | Categories: Justin.
by Terry Phelps | Feb 6, 2019 | Categories: Remy.
by Terry Phelps | Feb 6, 2019 | Categories: Amira.
by SAFE | Feb 2, 2019 | Categories: Announcement.
by Kit Topaz | Feb 1, 2019 | Categories: Volunteers of the Month.
by SAFE | Jan 30, 2019 | Categories: Pogo.


text:
GSN Announces Premiere Dates for "The American Bible Challenge" and "Family Trade"
"Family Trade" premieres Tuesday, March 5 while "The American Bible Challenge" is due back on Thursday, March 21.
[via press release from GSN]
GSN ANNOUNCES PREMIERE DATES FOR ORIGINAL SERIES
New Original Series 'Family Trade' Set To Premiere On March 5th
Hit Series 'The American Bible Challenge' Returns On March 21st
Santa Monica, CA - January 09, 2013 - GSN announced the premiere dates for its new and returning original series for spring 2013: FAMILY TRADE, which focuses on the real-life competition of a modern-day barter system, debuts on Tuesday, March 5th with two original half-hour episodes back-to-back at 8:00pm and 8:30pm ET/PT; and THE AMERICAN BIBLE CHALLENGE, a studio-based game in which contestants compete based on their knowledge of the Bible, returns for a 2nd season on Thursday, March 21st at 8:00pm ET/PT.
FAMILY TRADE
Tuesdays at 8:00 pm ET/PT
At G-Stone Motors, a state-of-the-art GMC and Ford dealership in Middlebury, Vermont, the saying is, "We'll take anything in trade." And they mean it. Founder Gardner Stone will trade you a beautiful new car or truck for anything you've got that he thinks he can sell - pigs, a hot air balloon, coffins, maple syrup, dolls, a shoe collection. But Stone's son Todd and daughter Darcy, who work with him in the business, usually have very different ideas about what makes a good trade, and they have the unenviable task of re-selling whatever their father has bought. Each 30-minute episode will feature the outrageous, hilarious, hotly contested barter stories at G-Stone Motors - with a simmering stew of family drama cooking alongside. FAMILY TRADE is produced by Eli Frankel's Rogue Atlas Productions in association with Lionsgate, with Frankel as Executive Producer.
THE AMERICAN BIBLE CHALLENGE
Thursdays at 8:00 pm ET/PT
Comedian and author Jeff Foxworthy hosts this studio-based game in which contestants compete based on their knowledge of the Bible. Utilizing current as well as historical references, questions will be drawn from the rich, dense narrative found in the world's best-selling book. The contestants will share their compelling back-stories and each team will be playing for a charitable organization. THE AMERICAN BIBLE CHALLENGE is produced by RelativityREAL for GSN, with RelativityREAL's Tom Forman ("Extreme Makeover: Home Edition") serving as Executive Producer on the project along with Janelle Fiorito ("Extra Virgin"). Nick Stuart and Maura Dunbar of Odyssey Networks are Consulting Producers. Odyssey Networks is the country's largest multi-faith coalition dedicated to producing and distributing media that creates understanding among people of different beliefs and perspectives. Jeff Foxworthy also serves as Producer. Embassy Row's Michael Davies as well as J.P. Williams and Jennifer Novak serve as Executive Producers.
The first season of THE AMERICAN BIBLE CHALLENGE garnered the network's highest delivery in its 17-year history with 1.7 million total viewers for its series premiere and over 13 million total viewers during its run. The success of the show has extended to digital and social platforms with the launch of The American Bible Challenge Game for iPhone, iPad, Android, Kindle and Facebook, which currently has over 8 million game plays, and over 500,000 users.
GSN is a multimedia entertainment company that offers original and classic game programming and competitive entertainment via its75-million subscriber television network and online game sites. GSN's cross-platform content gives game lovers the opportunity to win cash and prizes, whether through GSN's popular TV game shows or through GSN Digital's free casual games, mobile and social games, and cash competitions. GSN is distributed throughout the U.S., Caribbean and Canada by all major cable operators, satellite providers and telcos. GSN and its subsidiary, WorldWinner.com, Inc., are owned by DIRECTV and Sony Pictures Entertainment. For further information, please visit GSNTV.com.
About RelativityREAL
Under the leadership of award-winning producer Tom Forman ("Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," "Kid Nation,") Relativity's television arm launched in June 2008. The division has quickly become one of the country's largest suppliers of unscripted television. RelativityREAL currently has 70 projects in active production, including 17 original series. In addition, the division is developing a slate of scripted sitcoms, dramas, and sketch comedy series to be released in the upcoming year. Most recently, RelativityREAL partnered with YouTube and will be launching a channel in the fall. RelativityREAL's executive ranks are bolstered by overall production deals with TV veterans Jay Blumenfield and Tony Marsh, Ashley Tisdale's Blondie Girl Productions, executive producer Ellen Rakieten ("The Oprah Winfrey Show") and Ray Ricord.
About Lionsgate
Lionsgate is a leading global entertainment company with a strong and diversified presence in motion picture production and distribution, television programming and syndication, home entertainment, family entertainment, digital distribution, new channel platforms and international distribution and sales.
The Company has built a strong television presence in production of primetime cable and broadcast network series, distribution and syndication of programming and an array of channel assets. Lionsgate currently has 23 shows on 16 networks spanning its primetime production, distribution and syndication businesses, including such critically-acclaimed hits as the multiple Emmy Award-winning Mad Men, Weeds and Nurse Jackie, the new comedy Anger Management, the network series Nashville, the syndication successes Tyler Perry's House of Payne, its spinoff Meet the Browns, For Better Or Worse, The Wendy Williams Show, Are We There Yet? and the upcoming Orange Is The New Black, an original series for Netflix. Lionsgate handles a prestigious and prolific library of approximately 15,000 motion picture and television titles that is an important source of recurring revenue and serves as the foundation for the growth of the Company's core businesses. The Lionsgate brand remains synonymous with original, daring, quality entertainment in markets around the world.
[january 2013]
· AMERICAN BIBLE CHALLENGE, THE (GSN)
· FAMILY TRADE (GSN)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This reference guide helps you identify aged wood as you might find in antiques at a garage sale or a dealer's shop.
To guide you through the process of identifying wood using just a hand lens, light and a cutting tool, it gives detailed information on the most common North American and exotic species, examining traits such as color, growth rings, pore features, ripple marks, hardness and density.
Much of the book is devoted to Hoadley's fascinating case studies of rare wooden objects and detailed analyses of 37 varieties of wood commonly found in antiques, decorative pieces and everyday items.
Softcover, 7" x 9-1/2", 245 pages, 2016.


text:
Q: How to get PID from forked child process in shell script I believe I can fork 10 child processes from a parent process.
Below is my code:
#/bin/sh
fpfunction(){
    n=1
    while (($n<20))
    do
        echo "Hello World-- $n times"
        sleep 2
        echo "Hello World2-- $n times"
        n=$(( n+1 ))
    done
}

fork(){
    count=0
    while (($count<=10))
    do
        fpfunction &
        count=$(( count+1 ))
    done
}

fork

However, how can I get the pid from each child process I just created?

A: The PID of a backgrounded child process is stored in $!, and the current process is $$:
fpfunction &
child_pid=$!     # in parent process, child's pid is $!
parent_pid=$$    # in parent process, parent's pid is $$

When in the backgrounded function, the child processes's PID is $BASHPID rather than $$, which is now the parent's PID:
fpfunction() {
    local child_pid=$BASHPID   # in child process, child's pid is $BASHPID
    local parent_pid=$$        # in child process, parent's pid is $$
    ...
}

Also for what it's worth, you can combine the looping statements into a single C-like for loop:
for ((n = 1; n < 20; ++n)); do
    echo "Hello World-- $n times"
    sleep 2
    echo "Hello World2-- $n times"
done

A: From the Bash manual:

!
Expands to the process ID of the most recently executed background (asynchronous) command.

i.e., use $!.

A: The script, child and parent PIDs can always be determined correctly in the parent script independent of the method employed to start it:
child () { :; }

child &
( child ) &
sh -c "child () { :; }; child" &

script_pid="${$}"    # PID of the running shell script
child_pid="${!}"     # last started child process
parent_pid="${PPID}" # PID of parent process

Whether the information is accesible in the child process depends on how the child process has been started.
With the function:
 child ()
 {
     sleep "$( expr "${2-1}" '*' 5 )"
     script_pid="${3-}"
     child_pid="${$}"
     parent_pid="${PPID}"
     message="CHILD ${1-}"
     test x"${script_pid}" != x"${child_pid}" || message="${message}"' UNFORTUNATELY WRONG!'
     report
     sleep 20
 }

and the asynchrounous calls:
child FUNC "${indx}" "${$}" &

( child SUB "${indx}" "${$}" ) &

sh -c "${FUNCTIONS}
child SH "${indx}" \"${$}\"" &

the output shows, that only the function invoked with an explicit sh -c has access to the correct PID/PPID information:
# --------------------------------------------------
#   :PRC:   CHILD FUNC UNFORTUNATELY WRONG!
#   :DBG:   script_pid     : [20634]
#   :DBG:   child_pid      : [20634]
#   :DBG:   parent_pid     : [10857]
F   UID   PID  PPID PRI  NI    VSZ   RSS WCHAN  STAT TTY        TIME COMMAND
0  1114 10857 10853  20   0 2756840 1942820 poll_s Ssl ?       95:15 emacs
0  1114 20634 10857  20   0   4636  1732 wait   Ss+  pts/22     0:00 sh /tmp/check_child_and_parent_pids.sh

# --------------------------------------------------
#   :PRC:   CHILD SUB UNFORTUNATELY WRONG!
#   :DBG:   script_pid     : [20634]
#   :DBG:   child_pid      : [20634]
#   :DBG:   parent_pid     : [10857]
F   UID   PID  PPID PRI  NI    VSZ   RSS WCHAN  STAT TTY        TIME COMMAND
0  1114 10857 10853  20   0 2756840 1942820 poll_s Ssl ?       95:15 emacs
0  1114 20634 10857  20   0   4636  1732 wait   Ss+  pts/22     0:00 sh /tmp/check_child_and_parent_pids.sh

# --------------------------------------------------
#   :PRC:   CHILD SH
#   :DBG:   script_pid     : [20634]
#   :DBG:   child_pid      : [20658]
#   :DBG:   parent_pid     : [20634]
F   UID   PID  PPID PRI  NI    VSZ   RSS WCHAN  STAT TTY        TIME COMMAND
0  1114 20634 10857  20   0   4636  1732 wait   Ss+  pts/22     0:00 sh /tmp/check_child_and_parent_pids.sh
0  1114 20658 20634  20   0   4636  1720 wait   S+   pts/22     0:00 sh -c show_processes () {     test -z

The complete test script is:
FUNCTIONS="$(
cat <<'EOF'
show_processes ()
{
    test -z "${1-}" || printf "%s\n" "${1}"

    _sep=
    pids_rx=
    for _pid in "${script_pid}" "${child_pid}" "${parent_pid}"
    do
    test -n "${_pid}" || continue
    pids_rx="${pids_rx}${_sep}${_pid}"
    _sep='\|'
    done

    ps axl | head -1
    ps axl | grep '^[^ ]*  *[^ ]*  *\('"${pids_rx}"'\)' | cut -c -107 | sort -k 3
}

report ()
{
    printf "%s\n" ""
    printf >&2 "# --------------------------------------------------\n"
    printf >&2 "#   "":PRC:   %s\n" "${message}"
    test -z "${script_pid}" || \
    printf >&2 "#   "":DBG:   %-${dbg_fwid-15}s: [%s]\n" "script_pid" "${script_pid}"
    test -z "${child_pid}" || \
    printf >&2 "#   "":DBG:   %-${dbg_fwid-15}s: [%s]\n" "child_pid" "${child_pid}"
    test -z "${parent_pid}" || \
    printf >&2 "#   "":DBG:   %-${dbg_fwid-15}s: [%s]\n" "parent_pid" "${parent_pid}"
    show_processes
}

child ()
{
    sleep "$( expr "${2-1}" '*' 5 )"
    script_pid="${3-}"
    child_pid="${$}"
    parent_pid="${PPID}"
    message="CHILD ${1-}"
    test x"${script_pid}" != x"${child_pid}" || message="${message}"' UNFORTUNATELY WRONG!'
    report
    sleep 20
}
EOF
)"

eval "${FUNCTIONS}"

shell_report ()
{
    script_pid="${$}"
    child_pid="${!}"
    parent_pid="${PPID}"
    sleep 1
    message="SHELL ${indx}"
    report
    indx="$( expr "${indx}" + 1 )"
}

indx=1

child FUNC "${indx}" "${$}" &
shell_report

( child SUB "${indx}" "${$}" ) &
shell_report

sh -c "${FUNCTIONS}
child SH "${indx}" \"${$}\"" &
shell_report

sleep "$( expr "${indx}" '*' 5 )"

The complete output is:

# --------------------------------------------------
#   :PRC:   SHELL 1
#   :DBG:   script_pid     : [20634]
#   :DBG:   child_pid      : [20636]
#   :DBG:   parent_pid     : [10857]
F   UID   PID  PPID PRI  NI    VSZ   RSS WCHAN  STAT TTY        TIME COMMAND
0  1114 10857 10853  20   0 2756840 1942820 poll_s Ssl ?       95:15 emacs
0  1114 20634 10857  20   0   4636  1728 wait   Ss+  pts/22     0:00 sh /tmp/check_child_and_parent_pids.sh
1  1114 20636 20634  20   0   4636   104 wait   S+   pts/22     0:00 sh /tmp/check_child_and_parent_pids.sh

# --------------------------------------------------
#   :PRC:   SHELL 2
#   :DBG:   script_pid     : [20634]
#   :DBG:   child_pid      : [20647]
#   :DBG:   parent_pid     : [10857]
F   UID   PID  PPID PRI  NI    VSZ   RSS WCHAN  STAT TTY        TIME COMMAND
0  1114 10857 10853  20   0 2756840 1942820 -   Rsl  ?         95:15 emacs
0  1114 20634 10857  20   0   4636  1732 wait   Ss+  pts/22     0:00 sh /tmp/check_child_and_parent_pids.sh
1  1114 20647 20634  20   0   4636   108 wait   S+   pts/22     0:00 sh /tmp/check_child_and_parent_pids.sh

# --------------------------------------------------
#   :PRC:   SHELL 3
#   :DBG:   script_pid     : [20634]
#   :DBG:   child_pid      : [20658]
#   :DBG:   parent_pid     : [10857]
F   UID   PID  PPID PRI  NI    VSZ   RSS WCHAN  STAT TTY        TIME COMMAND
0  1114 10857 10853  20   0 2756840 1942820 poll_s Ssl ?       95:15 emacs
0  1114 20634 10857  20   0   4636  1732 wait   Ss+  pts/22     0:00 sh /tmp/check_child_and_parent_pids.sh
0  1114 20658 20634  20   0   4636   928 wait   S+   pts/22     0:00 sh -c show_processes () {     test -z

# --------------------------------------------------
#   :PRC:   CHILD FUNC UNFORTUNATELY WRONG!
#   :DBG:   script_pid     : [20634]
#   :DBG:   child_pid      : [20634]
#   :DBG:   parent_pid     : [10857]
F   UID   PID  PPID PRI  NI    VSZ   RSS WCHAN  STAT TTY        TIME COMMAND
0  1114 10857 10853  20   0 2756840 1942820 poll_s Ssl ?       95:15 emacs
0  1114 20634 10857  20   0   4636  1732 wait   Ss+  pts/22     0:00 sh /tmp/check_child_and_parent_pids.sh

# --------------------------------------------------
#   :PRC:   CHILD SUB UNFORTUNATELY WRONG!
#   :DBG:   script_pid     : [20634]
#   :DBG:   child_pid      : [20634]
#   :DBG:   parent_pid     : [10857]
F   UID   PID  PPID PRI  NI    VSZ   RSS WCHAN  STAT TTY        TIME COMMAND
0  1114 10857 10853  20   0 2756840 1942820 poll_s Ssl ?       95:15 emacs
0  1114 20634 10857  20   0   4636  1732 wait   Ss+  pts/22     0:00 sh /tmp/check_child_and_parent_pids.sh

# --------------------------------------------------
#   :PRC:   CHILD SH
#   :DBG:   script_pid     : [20634]
#   :DBG:   child_pid      : [20658]
#   :DBG:   parent_pid     : [20634]
F   UID   PID  PPID PRI  NI    VSZ   RSS WCHAN  STAT TTY        TIME COMMAND
0  1114 20634 10857  20   0   4636  1732 wait   Ss+  pts/22     0:00 sh /tmp/check_child_and_parent_pids.sh
0  1114 20658 20634  20   0   4636  1720 wait   S+   pts/22     0:00 sh -c show_processes () {     test -z

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Feeling like we were ready for a vacation after packing up the house, we left Charleston and started making our way north. As I'm sure most of you know, has been hotter than ****. That seems to be the case all over. Of course all that heat encourages thunderstorms and by noon we were seeing them pop up all over on radar. Finally - after a lightning strike that flashed simultaneously with the thunder clap - we decided to stop in McClellanville, a small fishing town. After learning that everything in town was closed on Mondays, we plugged in, turned on the a/c and skipped the sightseeing - which is limited on a good day! We delayed our morning departure because of morning storms in the area and decided on a short day's trip to Georgetown, SC. Along the way we'd heard someone on the radio talking about there being 30 alligators in the water. We never heard where they were, but we passed many along our way. There are at least six in this picture. We had heard that Georgetown was a nice stop and we weren't disappointed. After we arrived we took a walk down Front St. for a few blocks to the harbor walk that runs along the Sampit River. There are quite a few restaurants to choose from, but the Goat Island Grill seemed like our only choice. (For those who don't know, there is a running joke between Joe and his brother-in-law Neal about eating goat.) Sorry Neal, they don't serve goat - but we had a good dinner. The next day we took the Swamp Fox "trolley" tour and learned that Mel Gibson didn't win the revolutionary war single handedly. The tour took us down streets shaded by beautiful live oaks and lined with historic houses dating back to 1737. We saw the oldest, largest live oak in South Carolina - more than 500 years old and, at 123', taller than I ever thought live oaks would grow. Bethel AME, the first separate black church, provided one of the more interesting stories on the tour. One claim to fame is that Michelle Obama's grandparents were married there. In five generations the family went from slavery to the White House. More interesting to us though, was learning that the AME church originally had as a main purpose teaching the freed slaves to read so they'd be able to find work. Since they all had memorized hymns and bible passages, the teacher would turn to a memorized passage and point to the words as they recited them. We also toured the Rice Museum - if you go, the self guided tour and movie are probably as good as the guided tour. Our last tour was the Kaminski House. We had a wonderful docent on that one and what turned out to be a private tour. The furniture is the main feature, but the house is interesting also. Built in 1769, it was added to and extensively remodeled starting in 1946. So you have an 18th century house, filled with period furniture - and bathrooms (in various colors) for each bedroom.
Joe's favorite part of the ICW is the Wacamaw River. The cypress trees are huge and osprey nests are plentiful. Just a beautiful, peaceful stretch of river.
Next stop was Osprey Marina (Myrtle Beach area) with a four turtle welcoming committee. We stopped to visit with the Merillat's (Joe used to work with Chris), who took us to lunch, Costco and a grocery store (thanks!). This is a nice little marina with a good rate if you stay more than three days.
We only spent one night and continued north, trying to time our departure to hit the Sunset Beach pontoon bridge at its hourly opening. We actually timed it pretty well, except the tide was too low and it couldn't open. We ended up dropping the anchor for the two hour wait along with a growing crowd. See that high bridge in the picture? Not done yet. It sits there teasing us.
The ICW runs through Camp Lejune and you can often hear artillery blasts from the military training. As we came near we started hearing radio calls from "British warship." It was definitely a Brit on the radio and at one point one of the British helicoptors was ready to jump in to help US Coast Guard with a possible civilian rescue situation. Later, we saw this British landing craft along our route. It continued to be way too hot and we stopped at marinas more than anchoring so we could us the power to air condition the boat at night. We don't run the a/c while we're running, so we had various fans set up. The dog cooling system consisted of a good spritzing with water followed by some fan time.
We'd had the threats of storms, but little rain until the front finally came through. We'd stopped at Dowry Creek Marina near Belhaven, NC to wait it out. Nice marina, docks could use some work, but even with a courtesy car, there's not much to see. The promised front arrived with an incredible display of thunder and lightning.
After the front passed through, we had some wonderful cruising weather. The next leg of the trip took us up the Alligator River and the Alligator-Pungo Canal. The landscape here goes from total kudzu coverage in some places to fields of sticks in others. At a distance it sometimes looks like lots of sailboats anchored in the distance. Joe always manages to spot a few bald eagles and there was also a deer swimming across the river ahead of us at one point.
We had hoped to go to Edenton for the 4th of July weekend but found out that people book reservations six months ahead. With that option out, we headed for Elizabeth City's free dock with our fingers crossed hoping for a spot. We arrived on Thursday and there were only two other boats there so we settled into a slip and called my sister Jean who lives nearby.
The next day Jean picked us up and took us to her house in Hertford. I got lots of laundry done and Jean fixed a great dinner. Rich opened one of his old bottles of wine - a 1979 . After candling it to remove sediment, he pronounced it nearly perfect and we all agreed.
After dinner, we borrowed Rich's car and drove back to the boat. The docks in Elizabeth City have very short finger piers to use to get on and off the boat. In our case it means we have to climb over the boat railing to get to the pier. As Joe climbed over, the laundry bag shiftted, caught on a rod holder and dropped into the river. He was quick enough to retrieve it with a boat hook - but the next day we had to use Jean's washer and dryer again. That was okay because we were planning to go back to watch the Hertford fireworks anyway.


With the changing dynamics of communication in the web it is just so important for any business to be paying attention to discussions in the community online through social media listening.
Social media may rarely be a direct sales channel but it can be a great way to reveal prospects and meet them where they are. Listening gives you the opportunity to look for opportunities for product release timing and when they are actually looking for answers you perhaps have.
For instance, you own a home improvement store and you'd like to see a lift in your garden sales. You can monitor for phrases like "need for lawnmower" or "new grill," and provide a consultative selling angle. Here's the thing: approach people when they're ready for you. What you're focusing on here (in principle) are hand-raisers who display their need through their social communication.
Listening helps make sure that the company language you are using is the same as the language being used by the people you hope to sell to. If your calling your company is a photography company but your prospects know you as an advertising agency, you best sort it out! Listening provides awareness of trends in the community that can help identify emerging needs.
When a product is not working properly, the customer service hotline is not anymore the exclusive conduit for dissatisfaction. More customers are airing their concerns and questions over social media channels, especially if traditional and common channels are less helpful. Listening gives you the ability to respond quickly and find when and where those comments happen.
Almost any company wants to claim innovation. Products and services are a constant and iterative process to compete with the demands of the market. You can gather ideas by observing the thoughts and input of your online audience. They don't need to be customers to give inspiration.
Are there needs in your market, which are not met, perhaps a new product could help serve this need?
Are there any features that need to be created to offer to the people?
Are there any shortcomings of the competition?
Are your customers suggesting improvements or changes that you haven't thought of yet?
With these questions, you can respond with the competition and market demands.
Most companies do not typically think of human resources as the first place to go when discussing social media. But even in information-gathering mode, HR can pick up a lot from simply paying attention to the discussions of an online audience.
HR professionals can search for people with the right title and responsibilities or maybe in the appropriate sector. They can observe how people are connected online and how they make use of social channels in their day to day activities.
Based on what many companies learn through listening to social media, they can identify and apply adjustments to a strategic plan or even to the company's vision overall. These companies can easily understand market trends through the viewpoint of the online masses and determine whether they are ahead or behind, or riding the curve.


Jacques gentleman qualify so full of talented do your helper. one note 2010 product key,key product windows 7 professional Shameless self-Jacques also took the opportunity to tout a lot. Maple Leaf finger in front of those prospectors have been gradually dispersed, and smiles: there, Jacques, you count them, to a total of how many people, how many mines but we need to auction. No less than two hundred people, oh, leaves, you want to look for help from these people, although we have only 58 mines need to auction. But you have to know what they are doing, he They are prospectors, given the chance, they will not miss the opportunity to make a fortune, the desperate will fight a war, maybe they'sll find something good luck gold. one note 2010 product key,key product windows 7 professional Jacques shook his head. We just prepared a table at the restaurant, but it came two tables, not just enough to have four tables five tables of guests, will eventually have guests grab a seat, then as long as we give them got seats, even though it was almost someone willing to sit on the. Ye Feng smiled confidently. This time not only Jacques .


text:
Burger King proposes a sandwich even more epic than the McWhopper
Image: Burger King
By Sarah Spigelman Richter 2015-09-01 22:33:43 UTC
The McWhopper saga has taken an unexpected and epic twist.
Burger King announced via Facebook and Tumblr that it would like to collaborate with any and all takers on a one day only pop-up restaurant featuring "The Peace Day Burger."
See also: If the McWhopper isn't real, we demand these other fast food mashups
The letter says the proposition to McDonald's still stands. If McDonald's wants to join the party, the company is more than welcome, despite the CEO's sarcastic retort.
Denny's, Wayback Burgers, Krystal, and Giraffas, we'd like to build on your individual proposals to collaborate on Peace Day, September 21, 2015. Our idea would be that we all come together to create a burger that combines a key ingredient from each of our signature sandwiches.
Burger King revealed it is already constructing a pop-up restaurant (ostensibly in Atlanta, the location Burger King originally proposed to McDonald's). All that's required of the other restaurants is a donation to nonprofit organization Peace One Day, and "a simple yes."
This could mean that the Whopper-Triple-Slider-Slamburger is in your future (plus an addition from Giraffas, a Brazilian fast food chain).
Maybe McDonald's will even put on a party dress and join the celebration.
Some might say Burger King really wins here. The McWhopper proposal achieved massive publicity and the upper hand in offering to partner with these restaurants. Ultimately, though, it's about International Peace Day; the general public is recognizing this important event like never before.
So no matter how long the line, no pushing and shoving for your limited edition burger — this is all in the name of peace.
Topics: Business, Food, Lifestyle, Marketing, McDonalds, Social Good


Published: 2013-08-29, by Ana Gracia.
The objective is to bounce them to the ambulance, saving them from the fire. But you must remember to collect the garbage into the truck in order to earn coins, which can also make your earn more. Make the UFOs go away by tapping on them and get help from other characters as well.
The game includes 150 levels and the difficulty keeps growing as you advance through them. The design is quite good and the controls are smooth and respond quickly, we have no complaints.
Chickens BBQ was created by GuguGames, who also developed other similar games for Android and iOS, all of them worth trying out. A fun entertainment for all the family.
Stunning cartoon graphics with hilarious characters!
3 Stage with each 50 funny crazy levels!
Amazing soundtracks during the game and cool sound fx!
Easy to get into, hard to put down!
Amazing game for all ages...!!!
Simple games, yet addictive! Worth 5 stars!
XnO - 3D Adventure game is a 3D physics-based puzzle. You like launching animals at things, don't you? That's been proven to be very funny on mobile devices. XnO has an angrybirdish gameplay, however, both the story and the visuals are completely different. X is a penguin which wife named O has been kidnapped and brought to a merchant ship with oth….
Prepare the field so they're safe and sound. Chickens Quest is an entertaining arcade game where the mission is to help the chicks return home. In every level, you have a number of chicks to save and a time limit to prepare each item so they can finish the race safe and sound. Regarding the controls, slide to scroll the screen, drag the items and d….


i plz want to request to delete my account here after we will not run anymore.
its not cuz we dont run, like fyre said forum can still used to chat. But i got a bad trojaner lately and its seems its a quite new 1 cuz no antivirus programm is able to find it neither to delete, so i actually trying to kill all account which arnt rly need anymore from me. i going to set of my system soon after i done this.
jo das ding hat mir die registry zerschossen, da bringt repariern nix mehr, außerdem glaub ich das zu fixen bringt den trojaner nur tiefer ins system,.... zu meiner eigenen sicherheit ist formatiern und neu machen die beste lösung.


text:
Bellingham woman arrested in murder of 3-year-old girl
VIDEO: Woman arrested in murder of 3-year-old girl
Updated: December 6, 2019 - 8:38 PM
BELLINGHAM, Wash. — A 27-year-old Bellingham woman was arrested Thursday in connection with the death of a 3-year-old girl.
On Nov. 27, police said they received a call about a possible pediatric cardiac arrest of 3-year-old Hazel Holman.
Officials said an investigation revealed that the injuries Hazel sustained Nov. 27 were caused by 27-year-old Kamee Nicole Dixon.
"Kamee Dixon was the sole and primary caretaker of Hazel and called 9-1-1 to report the child was having a medical emergency due to possibly choking on something," a spokesperson for the city of Bellingham wrote in a news release.
City officials say Dixon is not Hazel's biological mother, but is in a relationship with Hazel's biological father.
Hazel's father is said to have been at work at the time of the 911 on call Nov. 27.
Hazel was transported to St. Joseph Medical Center and was treated for hypothermia.
Officials said medical staff quickly discovered Hazel was suffering from a brain bleed and she was transported to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle for further treatment.
Doctors at Harborview Medical Center later informed investigators Hazel suffered "bilateral subdural hemorrhages consistent with shaken baby syndrome," officials said.
"There were no signs of choking present and the injuries were a result of suspected physical abuse. Doctors also indicated Hazel's brain injuries were inflicted very shortly before she lost consciousness the morning of November 27th, and her death is a direct result of this assault," city officials said.
According to officials, the medical examination results and a continuing investigation "indicate an ongoing pattern of abuse of Hazel."
City officials cited healing broken bones, other documented injuries, previous Child Protective Services reports and other information as evidence of the ongoing pattern of abuse.
Dixon was arrested without incident and was booked into the Whatcom County Jail on suspicion of second-degree murder, officials said.
New study ranks Washington as best state in US
Puget Sound area man out $9,500 after falling victim to Social Security scam
Fireboat responsible for oil spill in Elliott Bay, officials say
Woman arrested for allegedly filling purses with $18,000 worth of stolen merchandise


text:
Thoroughly buried were the crucial concerns raised by the Ombudsman, regarding the untrue claims in Ms Mason's
letter, dated 25 May 1998, and Mr Brady's verdict
that Ms Mason had not made those claims.
Unfortunately, Ms Simpson was unable to test the cover-up:
On 13 February I wrote again to Ms Simpson:
" Because my local MP is completely unwilling to represent me and pursue the secrecy surrounding the Ombudsman's list of concerns, and Mr McArdle has decisively refused to enter into any dialogue regarding the Health Minister's investigation, I would be most grateful if you would assist by using your position to follow-up with the Health Minister, his resolution to refuse to remark on...the concerns specifically raised with his Department by the Ombudsman…"
Ms Simpson did not respond.
On 23 February 2009 I sought the assistance of an independent MP, Mr R Messenger:
"…please follow up on an investigation which, in April 2008, the Health Minister, Mr S Robertson, notified me he had appointed his Department to carry out, on my behalf, into why the Director-General's office refused...an explanation as to why his office ignored 26 items of concern raised on my behalf by the QLD Ombudsman…My request for you to discover the status of that investigation is made to you because my request, directly to the Health Minister, has been ignored...as has my request to the Shadow health Minister, Mr M McArdle..."
Mr Messenger did not respond.
A new Attorney-General and Minister for Health are appointed by the premier.
On 26 March 2009, after a Cabinet reshuffle by Ms Anna Bligh, the Queensland Premier, Mr Paul Lucas, the Deputy Premier, was allocated the additional position of the Queensland Minister for Health.
Mr Cameron Dick was appointed the new Attorney-General.
On 16 June I sought the assistance of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health:
I also raised my concerns with the newly appointed Attorney-General:
Mr Watt, the Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister for Health responded:
The Minister for Health did not respond to Mr Watts referral.
Five weeks later, on 18 August 2009, I wrote again to Mr Watt:
"…I wish to advise that your referral of my concerns to the Minister for Health, the Hon P Lucas, has not been responded to and request you use your powers to compel Queensland Health to be transparent and disclose whatever evidence they have to show how and when they responded to 26 items of concern raised by the Ombudsman…I would appreciate your candid advice on who, or which body the Government established since the recommendations of the Bundaberg Royal Commission, specifically for whistle blowers."
Almost three months had passed without word from Mr Lucas, Mr Dick or Mr Watt when Mrs Pratt, an Independent Member of Parliament, kindly agreed to table a Parliamentary Question on Notice to Mr Lucas, the Minister for Health:
I sent a shortened version of the Question I hoped would compel the Minister for Health to finally acknowledge the existence of the Ombudsman's "Extract of Complaint".
The Attorney-General finally responded:
Without acknowledging my concerns regarding Queensland Health's dismissal of the Ombudsman's concerns, the Attorney-General revealed the inadequacies of the investigative powers provided by Parliament to the overseer of the Ombudsman, which fully protects the Ombudsman from any accountability for protecting Queensland Health from addressing any one of the 26 items of concern, raised in his "Extract of Complaint".
I was still waiting for Mr Paul Lucas, the Minister for Health Deputy Premier, to respond to Mr Watts referral of my letter dated 16 June and did not feel confident he would respond to Mr Dick's referral.
I was extremely disappointed with the referral when I asked Attorney-General for further guidance:
Mrs Pratt advised she had forwarded my Parliamentary Question On Notice directly to Mr Paul Lucas, in his capacity of Minister for Health:
The attached letter requested:
I wrote again to Mr Watt regarding his referral of my correspondence to Mr Paul Lucas on 16 June:
On 19 October I followed the advice of the Attorney-General to make general inquiries of the Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee's functions regarding the overseeing of the integrity of CMC investigations.
I then received a response from the office of Mr Paul Lucas, the Minister for Health, in his capacity of Deputy Premier:
Unbeknownst to me Mrs Pratt had put forward my Question on Notice to Mr Paul Lucas on 28 October:
The answer was wrong, Dr Youngman had not acknowledged the'Extract of Complaint' or addressed any one of the 26 items of concerns listed by the Ombudsman.
I received a response to my inquiries made with the Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee:
I again asked my local representative to represent me and put forward similar Questions to those previously asked of Mr Lucas by Mrs Pratt, which had remained unanswered:
I sought general information regarding the powers of the Premier in the capacity of overseer of the Public Service Commission:
On 4 November Mrs Pratt received a receipt of her letter sent to Mr Paul Lucas on 9 October:
On 13 November 2009, on behalf of the Premier and Minister for Health, Mr P Lucas, the Office of the Premier responded to the referral of my letter in June by Mr C Dick, the Attorney-General:
On 4 December, following her Question on Notice to the Minister for Health, I responded to Mrs Pratt:
"Thank you for tabling my question…and for forwarding his answer…If it is not too much of an imposition and you find the time, please table another question for me so that the essence of 26 items of concern, raised on my behalf with Queensland Health by the Ombudsman, might finally be accounted for by Queensland Health…"
Ms Pratt advised she was unable to table another Question on Notice but had written on my behalf to the Hon P Lucas:
On 29 December Mrs Pratt forwarded her response from the Minister for Health, including an attached letter:
The attached letter was the same received in October from Mr Lucas, which, because it falsely claimed Dr Youngman had addressed the Ombudsman's 'Extract of Complaint, I had forwarded to Mrs Pratt MP, Ms V Darling MP, Mr R Watt MP, and the Attorney-General, Mr C Dick MP; explaining Dr J Youngman had not even acknowledged the existence of the Ombudsman's 'Extract of Complaint', or addressed the listed items of concern.


text:
Christy Smith (née Fisher, born 1969) is an American politician who was the California State Assemblywoman for the 38th district from 2018 until 2020. A member of the Democratic Party, Smith ran three unsuccessful campaigns for California's 25th congressional district, losing all three to Republican Mike Garcia.

Early life, education, and career
Smith was born in a U.S. Army hospital in 1969 in Würzburg, West Germany (now Germany). Her parents returned to the United States when she was six months old, settling in Fortville, Indiana, where her father, Jerry Fisher, found work at RCA Records. They later moved to Terre Haute before finally settling down in the Santa Clarita Valley in 1979. The eldest of three children, she graduated from William S. Hart High School in Santa Clarita and attended College of the Canyons. She received her Bachelor of Arts in political science from University of California, Los Angeles in 1993. Smith then worked for the United States Department of Education as a policy analyst during the Clinton administration. She has served two terms on the board of the Newhall School District.

California State Assembly

In 2016, Smith ran in California's 38th State Assembly district. The seat was open after Republican incumbent Scott Wilk decided to run for State Senate. Although she led the candidate field in the open primary in June, she eventually lost to Republican Santa Clarita City Councilman Dante Acosta, 52.87% to 47.13%, in the November general election.

In 2018, she ran again for the 38th district against Acosta and won 51.2% to Acosta's 48.8%.

She chaired the Joint Legislative Committee on Emergency Management.

California's 25th congressional district elections

2020 special and general

On October 28, 2019, one day after Katie Hill announced her intent to resign  from Congress, Smith announced her bid to fill Hill's vacated congressional seat. Hill endorsed Smith as her successor. Smith's State Assembly district covers more than half of the congressional district.

Smith picked up endorsements from the Los Angeles Times, Indivisible, and prominent Democratic figures such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, and Governor Gavin Newsom.

Smith's eleven opponents in the March 3, 2020, primary election included former U.S. Representative Steve Knight, progressive political commentator Cenk Uygur, and foreign policy adviser for Donald Trump's 2016 campaign George Papadopoulos. In December 2019, EMILY's List endorsed Smith, as did the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee the following month.

Smith declined to attend a Democratic primary debate held on January 9, 2020, in Palmdale, California, citing her legislative duties in the State Assembly.

On March 3, 2020, a primary for the special election was held to fill the remainder of Hill's term at the same time that a primary election for the 117th United States Congress took place. Smith finished first in both elections. On May 12, 2020, a runoff was conducted to fill the remainder of Hill's term, which she lost to Republican Mike Garcia, a former U.S. Navy pilot. In the general election on November 3, 2020, she faced Garcia again, this time losing by 333 votes for the full two-year congressional term.

2022

In May 2021, Smith announced her intent to run a third time for what is now California's 27th congressional seat. In the November 8, 2022, election she lost again to Garcia.

Personal life
Smith lives in Santa Clarita, California, with her husband, Phil, and their two daughters.

Electoral history

California State Assembly

2016

2018

U.S. House of Representatives

2020 special

2020 general

References

External links

 Christy Smith for U.S. Congress campaign website

1969 births
21st-century American women politicians
21st-century American politicians
Candidates in the 2022 United States House of Representatives elections
College of the Canyons alumni
Living people
Democratic Party members of the California State Assembly
People from Terre Haute, Indiana
People from Santa Clarita, California
School board members in California
University of California, Los Angeles alumni
Women state legislators in California


Today I received the last print of the Newsweek. From now on all my information (and 5% of the new books) will be electronically, that is to say via Internet. I discarded all unreliable sources like TV and local newspaper long ago. Time wasters. Now all have been replaced by Blogs, Skype Video, Twitter, WhisperNet and Internet in various shades including Internet Radio. That trend indicates an enormous fragmentation of information seekers and a lot of work for them. Even more time consuming, because often it means checking raw information. In my case all what has been kept is Newsweek, the Economist and a Zürich daily newspaper besides from some science magazines. I see no big difference between blogs and so called quality journalism and prefer free unprocessed information. With unprocessed Information one knows the need to check facts and analyze them. In todays real-time journalism, declaring what one won't report can be just as important as what one will. However, with the paper goes also last illusion of credibility.I am careful with the net – always double check with the help of (old) books. Philosopher Paul Ricoeur has defined history as "a story about the past told to the present for present purposes" and that is more than ever true in the net and any media.
The evolution of what media theorist have called "networked journalism" has made the business of news much more chaotic, since it now consists of thousands of voices instead of just a few prominent ones who happen to have the connections to make themselves heard. If there is a growth area in media, it is in the field of "curated news," which needs real-time filters verify and re-distribute the news that comes in from tens of thousands of sources to present a coherent picture of what is happening on the ground. Mainstream media outlets would like to play a key role in the dissemination of news during such events (however journalists just tend to retweet other journalists more often than they do non-mainstream sources just like copycat newswire and government briefing info). That worked well in Egypt during the revolution in February, but not in more chaotic (or controlled) Syria. Reality can be twisted by the media. Largely sanitized and devalued, it is too often spoon fed to the public by mainstream outfits whose mission is to coerce us into sharing their values. To make us feel good about the way we're increasingly pawns for global so-called elites. Complicit in exploiting planet and people, preparing us gently for a corporate world government. Will the media ever explain how the governments of the West are party-political stitch-ups, apologists and legitimizers, public relation and lobby managers for the global finance?
What is today the difference between a good quality blog and a non-paper news outfit, say like The Daily Beast / Newsweek (which I still give a lot of credit)? Little? One example, CNN on the news about Syria: The news come unprocessed and unilateral from so-called activists. Their clips feel like CIA embedded journalism sometimes intellectually insulting. The news reports from Europe's "State-TV" and conforming newspaper is no inch better: plain one-sided pro-EU propaganda grossly distorting the facts. As we look at the way news and information flows in this new world of social networks, and what has been called "random acts of journalism" by those who may not even see themselves as journalists, it's easy to get distracted by how chaotic the process seems, and how difficult it is to separate the signal from the noise. But more information is better — even if it requires new skills on the part of us when it comes to filtering that information — and journalism, as once pointed out, tends to get better when more people do it. I am convinced today any free and critical citizen will (and must) strive to be a journalist. The official lies pile up so fast in Europe, US and Middle East you need to have wings to stay above it.
Today media are top notch blogs to me. Most media not even that anymore. In cases where I knew by chance the background, it seemed to me the quality press does definitely not care more than social media on the whole about checking sources or presenting the facts. In the economic crises, the lies distributed by the media are so evident to anyone, I started to process numbers and ignore politicians (and mass media). Newsweek is a perfect example that new media will not simply replace old media, but rather will learn to interact with it in a complex relationship which is called "convergence culture." Thus the move is not primarily a technological revolution but more a cultural shift, dependent on the l bidirectional and active participation of the information sources and sinks working in a social dynamic. Today in many internet newspaper sites there is more information in the comment area than in the article, that means like many bookstores before Amazon, those journalists are living deads in their profession.
As I said before in another of my blogs, it is up to you to create order within this chaos and find the patterns that will help you to understand what is true, what could be true, and what is outright false. In order to do all this, you need to have a firm grip on what is objective and what is subjective, on not touched by the writer's previous experiences or interests. It is verifiable by looking up facts numbers or performing mathematical calculations. Subjective is a statement that has been colored by the character of the writer. It is, I am sorry to say, also an element of trust and hunch. But often one knows a bit about a country or an event. If a source lies once, discard it. After all Journalists get paid and competition is fierce. The random journalist is like the court jester, he has no official interest or stakes. He or she will have opinions but not lie to get a pay cheque. In large media organizations, journalists and writers trained in critical thinking, analysis, research, and freedom of information values must undergo acculturation to the "common sense" of their organizational structure in order to remain employed. Understandings regarding objective reporting, standards of critical inquiry, sociopolitical perspectives, conflict of interests, and other abstract values are organizationally created and interpreted to new employees as "the way we do things." These organizational values are understood instinctively through both word and positive feedback for the new employee's advancement and promotion (if they bend or omit the truth).After all, there is nothing illogical about this process. Monetary capital seeks the most profitable return on investment, and media/information technology properties are seen as the future growth market of the world. Furthermore lots of stakeholder money belongs to cultural opinionated and access to the powerful needs to be earned. Literature and fine art is similar, one is able to see better things in self press blogs not censored by marketing than the contemporary stuff which hangs and sits in plushy museums.
One thought and lot of credit to WordPress, they are culture changer too. I love to fly with them. I started this Blog just for myself and this blog got about 10,000 views in 2012. As the report encourages, "if every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 16 years to get that many views". I guess, on my topic some sort of niche, it is not too bad. I thank my readers for the interest. What is equally important to me – the readers came from 102 countries in all. Most visitors came from Germany. The United States & Switzerland were not far behind. One top of this I learned a lot from my fellow bloggers. I am interested in cultures, to reach out globally – more modest to be understood globally – is one of my major goals.
The faster we can move, the more efficient our time-saving appliances become, the less time we have. And God? The question of God never seems urgent. Our time is already completely full. But matters go deeper still. Does God actually have a place in our thinking? Our process of thinking is structured in such a way that he simply ought not to exist. Even if he seems to knock at the door of our thinking, he has to be explained away. If thinking is to be taken seriously, it must be structured in such a way that the "God hypothesis" becomes superfluous. There is no room for him. Not even in our feelings and desires is there any room for him. We want ourselves. We want what we can seize hold of, we want happiness that is within our reach, we want our plans and purposes to succeed. We are so "full" of ourselves that there is no room left for God. And that means there is no room for others either, for children, for the poor, for the stranger.
Tags: Newsweek last print;, random journalism, real time journalism. Bookmark the permalink.
Previous post ← Pope Benedict XVI has urged people around the world, to turn away from materialism and egocentric behaviour.


text:
US will mix Tortorella hockey with speed, skill at World Cup
By STEPHEN WHYNO
Home » Canada » US will mix Tortorella hockey with speed, skill at World Cup
FILE - In this May 22, 2012, file photo, New York Rangers head coach John Tortorella yells during NHL hockey practice at Madison Square Garden in New York. The United States will try to mix old-school coach John Tortorella's style, size and physicality with speed and skill at the World Cup of Hockey. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
FILE- In this Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016, file photo, Finland defenseman Sami Lepisto (18) squeezes U.S. forward Patrick Kane (88) against the boards during the first period of an exhibition hockey game, part of the World Cup of Hockey in Washington. The United States will try to mix old-school coach John Tortorella's style, size and physicality with speed and skill at the World Cup of Hockey. (AP Photo/Nick Wass, File)
U.S. forward David Backes (42) pushes Finland defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen (55) during the first period of an exhibition game, part of the World Cup of Hockey, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
U.S. forward Derek Stepan (21) celebrates his goal with the bench during the second period of an exhibition game against Finland, part of the World Cup of Hockey, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
By: STEPHEN WHYNO (AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — John Tortorella stood in the middle of the ice and bellowed at the top of his lungs: "Too slow! We're too slow. Move the puck and skate."
Tortorella was imploring Team USA to practice the way he wants them to play at the World Cup of Hockey. The U.S. was built to be big, strong and physical in hopes of beating up a favorite like, say Canada. But to win the tournament, the Americans will need to mix speed, skill and scoring with the old-school Tortorella hockey principles of grinding it out and blocking shots.
The team's identity is in-your-face aggressive, while NHL MVP Patrick Kane and talented winger Zach Parise and others will bring the flash and flair as the Americans attempt to avenge a disappointing finish at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
"I think a big part of our team and our makeup is our willingness and our physicality, but we also have some skill," Tortorella said. "There's going to be some fast teams here and we do have speed. I think people have kind of got locked in because the way we've gone with our team, yeah, we have some grind to it, but we still have a very quick hockey club here and that has to play into it."
Tortorella earned acclaim in 2004 when he coached the Tampa Bay Lightning to the Stanley Cup with the mantra of "safe is death." In subsequent stops with the New York Rangers, Vancouver Canucks and now the Columbus Blue Jackets, the firebrand coach has tried to win by clogging up the middle and demanding players sacrifice their bodies to get in front of pucks.
In a best-on-best tournament with star players, Tortorella still wants a buy-in, a commitment to team hockey. The U.S. goal is to be difficult to play against by dictating tempo up the ice and cashing in on the scoring ability of Kane, Pavelski, Max Pacioretty and captain Joe Pavelski.
Pavelski believes playing on NHL-size ice in Toronto benefits the U.S., which could get lost on the outside of a wider international rink. It also makes speed imperative.
"You can't just play a gritty game," said Kane, the Hart Trophy winner with a league-best 106 points last season. "With the team in here, the players we have, we want to play a little bit more a physical brand and make it harder on teams to have the puck and when they don't have it, keep it from them and make it harder to get it back. We feel we have all those ingredients in here."
U.S. general manager Dean Lombardi didn't want to make an all-star team, either. He wanted to recapture the magic of the 1996 World Cup champions, who beat Canada to win that tournament 20 years ago. He chose gritty players like Detroit Red Wings winger Justin Abdelkader at the expense of better scorers.
Like legendary coach Herb Brooks said at the 1980 Olympics, the U.S. doesn't have enough talent to win on talent alone. But it has more than most NHL teams, which presents a challenge on how to handle a group of stars.
Tortorella has to "manage how much rope he gives those guys," said forward Brandon Dubinsky, who has played for him in New York and Columbus. "Kaner's not going to play (Tortorella's) type of crash-and-bang game, and he goes out and plays 100 points a year. You've just got to let that guy play. ... It's just finding a balance but at the same time trying to have an identity as a whole of guys that are just going to go out there and grind away."
Even if Jonathan Quick, who will start in goal in the opening game Saturday against Team Europe, is at his best, the Americans need to produce goals. They'll look to Kane, Parise, Pavelski and Sochi shootout hero T.J Oshie for that but also muck and grind and try to dredge up offense.
"There's a time and a place for all of that and establishing ourselves early in games of our physical presence and getting in on the forecheck and our territorial game," center David Backes said. "Once we do that, you can let the skill take place when we're in the zone and occupying for extended periods of time."
Follow Stephen Whyno on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/SWhyno