text:
The M'Naghten rule (pronounced, and sometimes spelled, McNaughton) is any variant of the 1840s jury instruction in a criminal case when there is a defence of insanity:

The rule was formulated as a reaction to the acquittal in 1843 of Daniel M'Naghten on the charge of murdering Edward Drummond. M'Naghten had shot Drummond after mistakenly identifying him as UK Prime Minister Robert Peel, who was the intended target. The House of Lords asked a panel of judges, presided over by Sir Nicolas Conyngham Tindal, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, a series of hypothetical questions about the defence of insanity. The principles expounded by this panel have come to be known as the "M'Naghten Rules", though they have gained any status only by usage in the common law and M'Naghten himself would have been found guilty if they had been applied at his trial.

The rules so formulated as M'Naghten's Case 1843 10 C & F 200 have been a standard test for criminal liability in relation to mentally disordered defendants in common law jurisdictions ever since, with some minor adjustments. When the tests set out by the Rules are satisfied, the accused may be adjudged "not guilty by reason of insanity" or "guilty but insane" and the sentence may be a mandatory or discretionary (but usually indeterminate) period of treatment in a secure hospital facility, or otherwise at the discretion of the court (depending on the country and the offence charged) instead of a punitive disposal.

The insanity defence is recognized in Australia, Canada, England and Wales, Hong Kong, India, the Republic of Ireland, New Zealand, Norway and most U.S. states with the exception of Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Utah, and Vermont but not all of these jurisdictions still use the M'Naghten Rules. States that disallow the insanity defence still allow defendants to demonstrate that they are not capable of forming intent to commit a crime as a result of mental illness.

Historical development
There are various justifications for the exemption of the insane from criminal responsibility. When mental incapacity is successfully raised as a defence in a criminal trial it absolves a defendant from liability: it applies public policies in relation to criminal responsibility by applying a rationale of compassion, accepting that it is morally wrong to punish a person if that person is deprived permanently or temporarily of the capacity to form a necessary mental intent that the definition of a crime requires. Punishment of the obviously mentally ill by the state may undermine public confidence in the penal system. A utilitarian and humanitarian approach suggests that the interests of society are better served by treatment

Historically, insanity was seen as grounds for leniency. In pre-Norman times in England there was no distinct criminal code – a murderer could pay compensation to the victim's family under the principle of "buy off the spear or bear it". The insane person's family were expected to pay any compensation for the crime. In Norman times insanity was not seen as a defence in itself but a special circumstance in which the jury would deliver a guilty verdict and refer the defendant to the King for a pardon

In R v Arnold 1724 16 How St. Tr. 765, the test for insanity was expressed in the following terms
whether the accused is totally deprived of his understanding and memory and knew what he was doing "no more than a wild beast or a brute, or an infant".

The next major advance occurred in Hadfield's Trial 1800 27 How St. Tr. 765 in which the court decided that a crime committed under some delusion would be excused only if it would have been excusable had the delusion been true. This would deal with the situation, for example, when the accused imagines he is cutting through a loaf of bread, whereas in fact he is cutting through a person's neck.

Each jurisdiction may have its own standards of the insanity defence. More than one standard can be applied to any case based on multiple jurisdictions.

The M'Naghten Rules
The House of Lords delivered the following exposition of the Rules:
the jurors ought to be told in all cases that every man is to be presumed to be sane, and to possess a sufficient degree of reason to be responsible for his crimes, until the contrary be proved to their satisfaction; and that to establish a defence on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong.

The central issue of this definition may be stated as "did the defendant know what he was doing, or, if so, that it was wrong?", and the issues raised have been analysed in subsequent appellate decisions:

Presumption of sanity and burden of proof
Sanity is a rebuttable presumption and the burden of proof is on the party denying it; the standard of proof is on a balance of probabilities, that is to say that mental incapacity is more likely than not. If this burden is successfully discharged, the party relying upon it is entitled to succeed. In Lord Denning's judgement in Bratty v Attorney-General for Northern Ireland 1963 AC 386, whenever the defendant makes an issue of his state of mind, the prosecution can adduce evidence of insanity. However, this will normally only arise to negate the defence case when automatism or diminished responsibility is in issue. In practical terms, the defence will be more likely to raise the issue of mental incapacity to negate or minimise criminal liability. In R v Clarke 1972 1 All E R 219 a defendant charged with a shoplifting claimed she had no mens rea because she had absent-mindedly walked out of the shop without paying because she suffered from depression. When the prosecution attempted to adduce evidence that this constituted insanity within the Rules, she changed her plea to guilty, but on appeal the Court ruled that she had been merely denying mens rea rather than raising a defence under the Rules and her conviction was quashed. The general rule was stated that the Rules apply only to cases in which the defect of reason is substantial.

Disease of the mind
Whether a particular condition amounts to a disease of the mind within the Rules is not a medical but a legal question to be decided in accordance with the ordinary rules of interpretation. It seems that any disease which produces a malfunctioning of the mind is a disease of the mind and need not be a disease of the brain itself. The term has been held to cover numerous conditions:

The courts have clearly drawn a distinction between internal and external factors affecting a defendant's mental condition. This is partly based on risk of recurrence, whereby the High Court of Australia has expressed that the defence of automatism is unable considered when the mental disorder has been proved transient and as such not likely to recur. However, the distinction between insanity and automatism is difficult because the distinction between internal and external divide is difficult. Many diseases consist of a predisposition, considered an internal cause, combined with a precipitant, which would be considered an external cause. Actions committed while sleepwalking would normally be considered as "non-insane automatism", but often alcohol and stress trigger bouts of sleepwalking and make them more likely to be violent. The diabetic who takes insulin but does not eat properly – is that an internal or external cause?

Nature and quality of the act
This phrase refers to the physical nature and quality of the act, rather than the moral quality. It covers the situation where the defendant does not know what he is physically doing. Two common examples used are:
 The defendant cuts a woman's throat under the delusion that he is cutting a loaf of bread,
 The defendant chops off a sleeping man's head because he has the deluded idea that it would be great fun to see the man looking for it when he wakes up.
The judges were specifically asked if a person could be excused if he committed an offence in consequence of an insane delusion. They replied that if he labours under such partial delusion only, and is not in other respects insane, "he must be considered in the same situation as to responsibility as if the facts with respect to which the delusion exists were real". This rule requires the court to take the facts as the accused believed them to be and follows Hadfield's Trial, above. If the delusions do not prevent the defendant from having mens rea there will be no defence. In R v Bell 1984 Crim. LR 685 the defendant smashed a van through the entrance gates of a holiday camp because "It was like a secret society in there, I wanted to do my bit against it" as instructed by God. It was held that, as the defendant had been aware of his actions, he could neither have been in a state of automatism nor insane, and the fact that he believed that God had told him to do this merely provided an explanation of his motive and did not prevent him from knowing that what he was doing was wrong in the legal sense.

Knowledge that the act was wrong
The interpretation of this clause is a subject of controversy among legal authorities, and different standards may apply in different jurisdictions.

"Wrong" was interpreted to mean legally wrong, rather than morally wrong, in the case of Windle 1952 2QB 826; 1952 2 All ER 1 246, where the defendant killed his wife with an overdose of aspirin; he telephoned the police and said, "I suppose they will hang me for this." It was held that this was sufficient to show that although the defendant was suffering from a mental illness, he was aware that his act was wrong, and the defence was not allowed. Under this interpretation, there may be cases where the mentally ill know that their conduct is legally prohibited, but it is arguable that their mental condition prevents them making the connection between an act being legally prohibited and the societal requirement to conform their conduct to the requirements of the criminal law.

As an example of a contrasting interpretation in which defendant lacking knowledge that the act was morally wrong meets the M'Naghten standards, there are the instructions the judge is required to provide to the jury in cases in New York State when the defendant has raised an insanity plea as a defence:

... with respect to the term "wrong", a person lacks substantial capacity to know or appreciate that conduct is wrong if that person, as a result of mental disease or defect, lacked substantial capacity to know or appreciate either that the conduct was against the law or that it was against commonly held moral principles, or both.

There is other support in the authorities for this interpretation of the standards enunciated in the findings presented to the House of Lords regarding M'Naghten's case:

If it be accepted, as can hardly be denied, that the answers of the judges to the questions asked by the House of Lords in 1843 are to be read in the light of the then existing case-law and not as novel pronouncements of a legislative character, then the [Australian] High Court's analysis in Stapleton's Case is compelling.  Their exhaustive examination of the extensive case-law concerning the defence of insanity prior to and at the time of the trial of M'Naughten establishes convincingly that it was morality and not legality which lay as a concept behind the judges' use of "wrong" in the M'Naghten rules.

Offences of strict liability
In DPP v Harper (1997) it was held that insanity is not generally a defence to strict liability offences. In this instance, the accused was driving with excess alcohol. By definition, the accused is sufficiently aware of the nature of the activity to commit the actus reus of driving and presumably knows that driving while drunk is legally wrong. Any other feature of the accused's knowledge is irrelevant.

The function of the jury
Section 1 of the United Kingdoms' Criminal Procedure (Insanity and Unfitness to Plead) Act 1991 provides that a jury shall not return a special verdict that "the accused is not guilty by reason of insanity" except on the written or oral evidence of two or more registered medical practitioners of whom at least one has special experience in the field of mental disorder. This may require the jury to decide between conflicting medical evidence which they are not necessarily equipped to do, but the law goes further and allows them to disagree with the experts if there are facts or surrounding circumstances which, in the opinion of the court, justify the jury in coming to that conclusion.

Sentencing
Under section 5 of the United Kingdoms' Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964 (as amended):
 Where the sentence for the offence to which the finding relates is fixed by law (e.g. murder), the court must make a hospital order (see section 37 Mental Health Act 1983) with a restriction order limiting discharge and other rights (see section 41 Mental Health Act 1983).
 In any other case the court may make:
 a hospital order (with or without a restriction order);
 a supervision order; or
 an order for absolute discharge.

Criticisms

There have been four major criticisms of the law as it currently stands:
 Medical irrelevance – The legal definition of insanity has not advanced significantly since 1843; in 1953 evidence was given to the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment that doctors even then regarded the legal definition to be obsolete and misleading. This distinction has led to absurdities such as
 even though a legal definition suffices, mandatory hospitalisation can be ordered in cases of murder; if the defendant is not medically insane, there is little point in requiring medical treatment.
 diabetes has been held to facilitate a defence of insanity when it causes hyperglycemia, but not when it causes hypoglycemia.
 Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, imported into English law by the Human Rights Act 1998, provides that a person of unsound mind may be detained only where proper account of objective medical expertise has been taken. As yet, no cases have occurred in which this point has been argued.
 Ineffectiveness – The rules currently do not distinguish between defendants who represent a public danger and those who do not. Illnesses such as diabetes and epilepsy can be controlled by medication such that sufferers are less likely to have temporary aberrations of mental capacity, but the law does not recognise this.
 Sentencing for murder – A finding of insanity may well result in indefinite confinement in a hospital, whereas a conviction for murder may well result in a determinate sentence of between ten and 15 years; faced with this choice, it may be that defendants would prefer the certainty of the latter option. The defence of diminished responsibility in section 2(1) of the Homicide Act would reduce the conviction to voluntary manslaughter with more discretion on the part of the judge in regards to sentencing.
 Scope – A practical issue is whether the fact that an accused is labouring under a "mental disability" should be a necessary but not sufficient condition for negating responsibility i.e. whether the test should also require an incapacity to understand what is being done, to know that what one is doing is wrong, or to control an impulse to do something and so demonstrate a causal link between the disability and the potentially criminal acts and omissions. For example, the Irish insanity defence comprises the M'Naghten Rules and a control test that asks whether the accused was debarred from refraining from committing the act because of a defect of reason due to mental illness (see Doyle v Wicklow County Council 1974) 55 IR 71. The Butler Committee recommended that proof of severe mental disorder should be sufficient to negate responsibility, in effect creating an irrebuttable presumption of irresponsibility arising from proof of a severe mental disorder. This has been criticized as it assumes a lack of criminal responsibility simply because there is evidence of some sort of mental dysfunction, rather than establishing a standard of criminal responsibility. According to this view, the law should be geared to culpability not mere psychiatric diagnosis.

Alternative rules

The insanity defense article has a number of alternative tests that have been used at different times and places. As one example, the ALI test replaced the M'Naughten rule in many parts of the United States for many years until the 1980s; when in the aftermath of John Hinckley shooting President Ronald Reagan many ALI states returned to a variation of M'Naughten.

Case law

People v. Drew

In fiction
The M'Naghten rules are at the focus of John Grisham's legal thriller A Time to Kill. The M'Naghten rules apply in the US State of Mississippi, where the plot is set, and using them is the only way for the lawyer protagonist to save his client.

Notes and references

Bibliography
 Boland, F. (1996). "Insanity, the Irish Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights". 47 Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 260.

 Butler Committee. (1975). The Butler Committee on Mentally Abnormal Offenders, London: HMSO, Cmnd 6244

 Gostin, L. (1982). "Human Rights, Judicial Review and the Mentally Disordered Offender". (1982) Crim. LR 779.
 The Law Reform Commission of Western Australia. The Criminal Process and Persons Suffering from Mental Disorder, Project No. 69, August 1991.

See also
 Insanity defense
 Policeman at the elbow

External links
 M'Naghten Rule - FindLaw
  John and Lorena Bobbitt#Arrest and trial

Criminal defenses
Forensic psychology
English criminal law
English law
Insanity in law
Rules
1843 in British law
Mental health legal history of the United Kingdom

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
The Shizuoka dialect (Japanese: 静岡弁 Shizuoka-ben) is a Japanese dialect spoken in Shizuoka Prefecture. In a narrow sense, this can refer purely to the Central Shizuoka dialect, whilst a broader definition encompasses all Shizuoka dialects. This article will focus on all dialects found in the prefecture.

Classification and regional variation
The dialects in Shizuoka Prefecture are classified as part of the so-called nayashi dialects (ナヤシ方言), a subdivision of the wider Tōkai-Tōsan group, along with its close relatives, the Nagano and Yamanashi dialects. After the nayashi dialects, it is considered most similar to Tokyo and other West Kanto dialects, although in recent decades there has been an increasingly strong resemblance to the national standard, particularly in phonology and pitch accent. Although vocabulary and grammar also tend towards Eastern Japanese in their basic elements, there is a marked increase the further one travels west in the usage of Western Japanese words and phrases, such as oru (おる there is, cognate with iru (いる) in Eastern Japanese) and n (ん (adjective used for negation), cognate with nai (ない)). This makes Shizuoka a well-known example of a prefecture with a noticeable divide between the two main branches of Japanese.

Regional variation

 Note: It is possible to subdivide Shizuoka dialects into groups based on the former provinces that existed there historically, which results in three dialects: the 'Izu dialect', 'Suruga dialect' and 'Enshū dialect'. It is also possible to subdivide using the Ōi River as a boundary between west and east to form an 'Eastern dialect', 'West Suruga dialect' and 'Tōtōmi dialect'. Generally, however, the following subdivisions are proposed:

 Eastern Shizuoka dialect - Includes areas east of the Fuji River; the Izu Peninsula and the eastern part of Suraga. It possesses features of both West Kanto and Nayashi dialects, including usage of the conjectural particle be (べ), not voicing certain vowels and the use of the particles zura (ずら) and ra (ら).
 Central Shizuoka dialect - Includes areas west of the Fuji River and east of Kakegawa. Includes the western part of Suruga and the eastern part of Enshū. The particle be is noticeably absent, and there is a characteristic usage of the past tense form -ke (-け).
 Western Shizuoka dialect - Found in areas west of Fukuroi and Mori. Includes all of Enshū save for its eastern region. In place of the invitational form zā (ざあ), which is commonly found in the Central Shizuoka dialect, the phrase maika (まいか) is used instead.
 Ikawa dialect - Includes the upper reaches of the Ōi River and settlements such as the former village of Ikawa. Due to historical isolation, it retains various archaic expressions and also lacks a pitch accent.
{| class="wikitable"
|+Phrases and particles used across Shizuoka
!
!Arai
!Hamamatsu
!Kakegawa
!Ikawa
!Shizuoka (city)
!Fuji, Fujinomiya
!Numazu
!Izu Peninsula
|-
!Vowel unvoicing
| colspan="2" |Prominent
|Not prominent
|Prominent
|Not prominent
| colspan="3" |Prominent
|-
!Negative form
| colspan="3" | -n (-ん)
| -n (ん)-nō (のう)
| colspan="3" | -nyā (にゃあ)-nē (ねぇ)-nai (ない)
| -nē (ねぇ)-nai (ない)
|-
!Past negative form
| colspan="2" |nanda (なんだ)
| nke (んけ)
| -nke (んけ)-nōkke (のーっけ)
|-nyākki (にゃあっき)-naikke (ないっけ)
| colspan="3" | nakatta (なかった)
|-
!iru (居る) or oru (おる)
|oru (おる)
| colspan="7" | iru (居る)
|-
!Conjecture
| colspan="6" | -dara (だら)-zura (ずら)-ra (ら)
| colspan="2" | -be (べ)-zura (ずら)-dara (だら)-ra (ら)
|-
!Invitation
| colspan="2" | maika (まいか)
| colspan="2" | -maika (まいか)-zā (ざあ)
| colspan="2" | -zā (ざあ)-zuka (ずか)
| colspan="2" | -uka (うか)-be yo (べよ)
|-
!Imperative of miru (見る to see)| colspan="4" | myō (みょー)
| -miro (みろ)-mitekō (みてこう)
| colspan="3" | miro (みろ)
|}

 Western and Eastern divide
Grammatical features are often employed as indicators to split Shizuoka dialects between Western and Eastern Japanese. Based on the usage of n (ん) (a western Japanese feature) over nai (ない) (Eastern Japanese), the border between Eastern and Western Japanese is located around Shimada and the Ōi River. In contrast, the Western Japanese imperative form -yo (-よ) (as opposed to -ro (-ろ) in Eastern Japanese) is heard west of the Fuji River in the Central Shizuoka and Western Shizuoka dialects, whilst the Western Japanese present continuous form -toru (-とる, cognate with -te iru (-ている) in Eastern Japanese) is found west of Lake Hamana.

 Phonology

 General features
Most notably in the east of the prefecture, consecutive vowel sounds are often merged in the following manner:

 ai (あい) → ē (えぇ), yeā (えぁあ) or yeā (ゃあ).
 oi (おい) and ui (うい) also fuse in a manner similar to what is found in the Nagoya dialect.

Although not generally present in Shimada and west of the Ōi River, vowel merging is sometimes heard around Hamamatsu. For example:

 omae (おまえ you) → omyā (おめぁあ)
 zaisan (ざいさん property) → zyāsan (ぜぁあさん).

In the Eastern Shizuoka and Western Shizuoka dialects there is extensive unvoicing of vowel sounds, with a less pronounced trend in the Central Shizuoka dialect and the inner parts of Enshū (Misakubo and Sakuma) (save for in the upper reaches of the Ōi and Abe Rivers). Also, the object-marking particle wo (を) is not generally pronounced as o (お) as is the case in standard Japanese, but as uo (うお).

Pitch accent

Nouns
In concordance with the Tokyo standard pitch accent (excluding areas with no pitch accent), some single-mora nouns like ko (子 child) and hi (日 day) are pronounced flat, whilst certain other single-mora nouns like te (手 hand) or e (絵 picture) become front-mora stressed. In west Shizuoka, two-mora words such as ha-shi (橋 bridge) or ka-wa (川 river) are pronounced flat. The area around Hamamatsu in the far southwest of the prefecture has the most flat-accented words, and the further one travels east, the more final-mora stressed words occur, until virtually all of these types of two-mora words become final-mora stressed as is seen east of the Ōi River. In Maisaka and Arai, depending on whether or not a particle is attached to certain words, pitch accent can change. For example, a-me (雨 rain) (front-mora stressed) becomes a-me when followed by a ga (が) particle: a-me-ga. In comparison to somewhere like Hamamatsu, where words with three or more mora are front-mora stressed, in Maisaka and Arai such words become middle-mora stressed. In the Eastern Shizuoka dialect, three-mora nouns such as asahi (朝日 morning sun) are middle-mora stressed (a-sa-hi), whereas in the Central and Western Shizuoka dialects, these words are front-mora stressed (a-sahi). Some words that are usually pronounced flat, such as usagi (兎 rabbit) or ichigo (苺 strawberry), may become front-mora stressed in western Shizuoka and central Enshū (u-sagi , i-chigo). This is dependent on the area however, with varying degrees of front-mora stress actually occurring, with some areas simply pronouncing it flat. Some three-mora words that are front-mora stressed in the Tokyo standard pitch accent, such as a-tama (頭 head), were pronounced historically with middle-mora stress (a-ta-ma). This is noted to have occurred predominantly in the Sankan area of Enshū, specifically in the former city of Tenryū (in the Tenryū District of Hamamatsu), as well as in Haruno, Mori, the former village of Toyooka in Iwata, and the former town of Nakakawane. This particular feature remains in the northern part of Mikawa in Aichi Prefecture and can be found as far as the southern region of the Shimoina District in Nagano Prefecture.

Time-related words
There is a strong tendency to pronounce words related to telling the time, like toki (時 time), with a flat tone. Three-mora words relating to time become front-mora stressed, whilst words with more than three mora tend to be middle-mora stressed. The table below shows some examples of this.

Verbs
In standard Japanese, three-mora verbs tend to be middle-mora stressed or flat, such as ni-ge-ru (逃げる to run away) or kieru (消える to disappear), whereas front-mora stressed words like ha-iru (入る to enter) are rare. This pattern is largely reflected in Shizuoka, save for a few exceptions. In the Central Shizuoka and Western Shizuoka dialects (except for Maisaka and Arai), there is a unique tendency to front-mora stress Ichidan verbs that are usually middle-mora stressed in standard Japanese. For Godan verbs, pitch accent is standard, with predominantly flat or middle-mora stress pronunciation.

Adjectives
In standard Japanese, adjectives with three or more mora are usually middle-mora stressed, like shi-ro-i (白い white) or flat, like kurai (暗い dark). Within Shizuoka, the central-west part of Enshū (centred largely around Hamamatsu) front-mora stresses the usually middle-mora stressed adjectives. For example, shi-ro-i becomes shi-roi. Words that are pronounced in a flat tone, however, remain the same as in standard Japanese. In the Central Shizuoka dialect, areas west of Fuji City up to Higashi-Enshū, as well as in the former towns of Hosoe and Mikkabi, the connective form of adjectives become middle-mora stressed as in shi-ro-ku, as opposed to shi-roku as is found in standard Japanese (in addition to areas east of Numazu and several former towns and villages in inner Enshū.

Other

-nai (無い) stem
In the Central Shizuoka and Western Shizuoka dialects, the 'na portion of the negative adjective nai (無い) is stressed.

 Grammar
Unless stated otherwise, the following notes are on the grammar of traditional dialects prior to the influence of standard Japanese.

 Negative form
East of the Ōi River, the standard negative form -nai (-ない) is heard, along with -nē (ねぇ) and -nyā (-にゃあ), whilst west of the river, -n (-ん) is used. In the northern Sankan region, -nō (-のぉ) is also said. In the west of the prefecture, the intensifier negative -yashinai (-やしない) may have its ending portion substituted with -sen (せん), -hen (へん) or -shin (しん). Additionally, in all parts of Shizuoka, the negative suspended form -naide... (-ないで...) can become -nakkō... (-なっこぉ). For example: ikanaide (行かないで) → ikanakkō (行かなっこぉ).

 Conclusive da (だ)
Throughout Shizuoka, the conclusive phrase no da (のだ) is contracted to simply da (だ). For example, iku no da (行くのだ variously: go (command), I'm going now (explanatory)) becomes iku da (行くだ) and akai no da (赤いのだ) becomes akai da (赤いだ).

 Euphonic change of shi (し) → i (い)
As far as Shizuoka's border with Kanagawa Prefecture, there is euphonic change of the s-row mora shi (し) to i (い), such as in dashita (出した) →daita (出いた).

 Volitional / invitational be (べ), zu/su (ず/す) and kka (っか)
Several different particles are used to express volition and invitation across Shizuoka. East of the Fuji River, the particle be (べ) is used, whilst west of the Fuji River (in the central and western parts of the prefecture), the particle zu (ず), as in ikazu (ka) (行かず(か)) is used instead. A similar particle, su (す), is spoken from Higashi-Suruga east of Kannami across the centre and west of Shizuoka. Kka (っか) is found mainly in central regions (Example: ikakka (行かっか)). In the far western city of Kosai, the form -ayo (-あよ) or -aka (-あか) may also be used (For example: ikāyo (行かあよ), ikaaka (行かあか)).

 Invitational zā (ざあ) and mai (まい)
The invitational particle zā (ざあ), such as in ikazā (行かざあ shall we go?), is found in the Central Shizuoka dialect. Additionally, another invitational particle with the same meaning, mai (まい), such as in ikamai (ka) or ikimai (ka)) (行かまい(か) / 行きまい(か), is found predominantly in the west of the prefecture.

 Conjectural zura (ずら), dara (だら), ra (ら) and tsura (つら)
The conjectural particles zura (ずら), dara (だら), ra (ら) and tsura (つら) are used across Shizuoka. The particles ra and zura are used in the same manner as darō (だろう) in standard Japanese, expressing conjecture about something in present or future tense. Although both ra and zura can attach to verbs and adjectives, only zura can attach to nouns. In contrast to ra and zura, tsura is used for expressing conjecture about something in the past (equivalent to -ta darō (-ただろう)). In eastern Shizuoka, be may be used in combination with these particles. Predominantly in the west and centre of the prefecture, the particle zu (ず) can be used to indicate something of high certainty (ikazu (行かず (she's) probably going to go). In recent years, the newer expressions dara (だら) and tara (たら or tadara (ただら) have been increasingly used in place of zura and tsura, respectively. Dara is believed to have originated from an attached ra on the copula, da (だ).

 Past tense -ke (-け)
Until relatively recently in central Shizuoka, the verb and adjective ending -ke (-け) has been commonly used to express the past tense. For example, ikke (行っけ I went) or akakke (赤っけ It was red). Currently, however, -ke is less commonly used, and the form -takke (-たっけ) is more common (Example: ittakke (行ったっけ). Elsewhere, in the former towns of Misakubo and Sakuma, the past tense was expressed with -tsu (-つ) (Example: ittsu (行っつ).

 Reason and motive
The word de (で), which indicates a reason or cause of something (much like kara (から)), is used throughout Shizuoka. It is widely spread across the Tōkai Region, with regional variants including: da (だ) (not to be confused with the copula da) monde (もんで), mondade (もんだで) and (east of Shizuoka City), nte (んて).

 Adversative conjunctions
The adversative conjunction keredo (けれど but) has various forms, including kēga (けぇが) (used in central Shizuoka), kendo (けんど), ken (けん), kega (けが) and ga (が), among others.

 Imperative form
The standard imperative form for Ichidan verbs, [stem form + ro (ろ)], is used in the east of the prefecture, whilst in central and western areas yo (よ) or yoo (よお) is used in the place of ro like in the following: okiro (起きろ wake up (command)) → okiyo / okiyoo. Potential form
Shizuoka dialects are so-called ra-nuki kotoba (ら抜き言葉 literally words without 'ra) in reference to the omission of ra (ら) from the verb structure -rareru (-られる), used to indicate the ability to do something (can / to be able to in English). In the west of the prefecture, an additional re (れ) sound may also be added. For example:
 taberarenai (食べられない I can't eat that) → taberenai (食べれない), tabererenai (食べれれない) or taberēnai (食べれぇない).
 okirareru (起きられる to be able to get up) → okireru (起きれる), okirereru (起きれれる) or okirēru (起きれぇる).

References

Japanese dialects
Culture in Shizuoka Prefecture


A number of ballot measures, including to spur clean energy, track political donations, and ban a type of tax, could make the November ballot.
Arizona voters could see crowded ballots this fall as hundreds of thousands of signatures for a handful of complex initiatives were submitted to the Secretary of State's Office by Thursday's 5 p.m. deadline.
To place an initiative on the ballot, supporters must submit a hefty number of valid voter signatures supporting the measure: 150,642 for initiative measures or 225,963 for constitutional amendments.
Several campaigns turned in boxes of petition sheets Thursday, though the signatures still need to be verified and could face challenges from opponents.
Require electric companies to get half of their power from renewable sources like solar and wind by 2030.
Prohibit campaign contributions from anonymous sources.
Raise personal income taxes on high-wage earners to fund education.
The Secretary of State's Office has 20 business days to process the petitions, though State Elections Director Eric Spencer said they will be done before that. First, staff members remove staples from all of the pages, and then sheets are scanned into the office's new digital system and made available online "for the whole world to begin reviewing," Spencer said.
Counties then have 15 business days to verify voter signatures, after which the Secretary of State's Office has a final three days to determine if the initiative has qualified for the ballot.
Spencer said he thinks "the monstrous amount" of signatures submitted this year — particularly the 480,000 for clean energy and 406,000 for service taxes — "has got to be nearing a record."
In 2016, two initiatives made the ballot: a proposition to legalize recreational marijuana, and a proposition to gradually increase the minimum wage to $12 by 2020 and require paid sick time. The marijuana initiative was defeated and the minimum-wage proposal passed.
Backers of an initiative to require electric companies to get half of their electricity from renewable sources, such as solar and wind, turned in a reported 480,464 signatures Thursday morning. The committee held a press conference outside the Capitol on Thursday to celebrate its accomplishment.
In the committee's press release, backers of the Clean Energy for a Healthy Arizona initiative boasted turning in more signatures than any other ballot campaign: "More than double" the nearly 226,000 required of them.
The initiative has been heavily opposed by officials from the state's biggest utility, Arizona Public Service Co.
The company said that if forced to boost renewable energy as much as would be required by 2030, it would not only force the early closure of its coal plants in Joseph City and near Farmington, New Mexico, but also would shut down the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station about 50 miles west of Phoenix.
The nuclear plant is the largest power producer of any kind in the country.
The opposition campaign challenged the people gathering signatures for the clean-energy measure as much as the measure itself. Opponents ran background checks on hundreds of paid signature gatherers and found 44 people who had criminal convictions, a violation of state law.
Any signatures collected by such workers would be invalid.
The opposition group then took out advertisements and placed robocalls, warning voters not to sign the clean-energy measure because they could be handing personal information to criminals.
The APS-backed opponents also have criticized the measure for being backed by California billionaire Tom Steyer and for its potential to increase electric bills.
"Amending the Arizona Constitution is serious business," said Matthew Benson, a spokesman for the opposition campaign. "This is why policymakers have intentionally — and rightly — set the highest of bars before any constitutional amendment can be brought before Arizona voters. That vigorous review process begins now."
The Outlaw Dirty Money constitutional amendment seeks to make public the identity of all major campaign contributors. The committee submitted 285,768 signatures.
The initiative would require anyone spending more than $10,000 to oppose or support candidates or ballot measures to disclose everyone who contributed $2,500 or more to the effort. Violators would be subject to fines.
The initiative's main proponent is Terry Goddard, a Democrat who formerly served as Arizona's attorney general.
"There is no lack of evidence," Goddard said. "Arizona is ground zero for dirty money. We are the state that has been chosen by these anonymous folks to be their testing ground. They have come to Arizona with more money and more total impact than in any other state in the country."
The dirty-money initiative has a much smaller margin for potentially invalid signatures.
Backers submitted just under 60,000 more signatures than needed to make the ballot. The clean-energy and service-tax measures, on the other hand, collected nearly 255,000 and 180,000 more signatures than required.
Officials with the group Citizens for Fair Tax Policy filed what they said are 406,353 signatures for their initiative. This was the first of the submitted measures, filed on July 3, two days before the official deadline.
If it makes it to the ballot unchallenged and is approved by voters, the constitutional amendment would prohibit any municipality or the state from imposing or increasing any service-based tax that was not in effect as of Dec. 31, 2017.
The group pushing the measure, Citizens for Fair Tax Policy, is funded by the Arizona Association of Realtors. But supporters are concerned that lawmakers could affect a variety of services, not just their own industry.
"At this time, we don't have a professional service tax; however, it has been something that has been circulated as a revenue generator," said Sedona Realtor Holly Mabery, who is chairing the group. She also has served as president of the Association of Realtors and serves on the board today.
She said in the few states that have passed such a tax, consumers have seen costs increase and small businesses have suffered because they face increased reporting requirements.
"We feel it will create economic stability going forward," she said. "Businesses know what they have got and they can invest."
She said if voters approve the measure in November, it would protect them from seeing any future taxes on medical care, car repairs, home repairs, veterinarian services and other essential services.
Elections Director Spencer posted on Twitter that his staff was hard at work on the July 4 holiday to prepare these signature sheets for review.
The Invest in Education campaign team submitted more than 270,000 signatures Thursday morning, according to submission files. The initiative needs 150,642 valid signatures to quality for the ballot.
The proposed measure, first introduced during the #RedForEd teacher walkout, seeks to nearly double income-tax rates for Arizona's wealthiest 1 percent to raise $690 million in funding for public schools.
"This is an undertaking that is unprecedented," said Joshua Buckley, the Invest in Education chairman.
One measure had already qualified for the ballot: Voters are set to decide whether to enact Gov. Doug Ducey's school-voucher-expansion measure approved by the Legislature in 2017.
The expansion seeks to make all Arizona students eligible to apply for a program to grant tax dollars to parents for private-school tuition or other education expenses. It faced immediate opposition from people who said it would take tax dollars away from already-challenged public schools.
The measure was put on hold last August after opponents turned in enough signatures to put the measure to a vote. Unlike the ballot initiatives, this is a vote on already-passed legislation rather than an effort to pass new legislation.
Despite a three-day, last-ditch effort to rally support, the Safer Arizona Cannabis Legalization Act did not obtain enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.
David Wisniewski, chairman of the effort, said Thursday that the group gathered about 70,000 signatures.


Here for the right reasons or here for the food?
Where can you find me on a Monday night? Watching one lucky woman being wooed by 30 fine as hell men. The Bachelorette is reality TV show in which one woman, Rachel Lindsay, is put on national television in aims to finding a man to marry (or break up with in the following months).
Filled to the brim with trashy drama, The Bachelorette has grabbed the country by the heart as we watch (literal) fireworks and half naked men mud wrestle. Regardless of the playful nature of the show, it has me wondering about love. If you are anything like me, the way to your heart is through your stomach. So, what do your preferences in men say about your food preferences?
Peter is fine AF, but a 10 minute conversation about the gap in your teeth? No thanks. Peter is hot hot hot, but I would go on a date with him just so I get send pics to my friends and they could get mad jealous rage that I got to see his gap tooth up close and personal. If you like Peter, you order an açai bowl for the pics, even though you are allergic to açai.
Diggy is the trendiest of the bachelorette contestants. He definetly has more shoes than Rachel, but it's hard to resist that smile and his bow ties *dying.* If you like Diggy, you are sure to have always tried the trendiest food; not only that, but you have a food blog to share how you feel about rainbow bagels and black ice cream.
If you checked out Brady's abs on the mud wrestling date, it is no secret that he is a model. His chiseled jaw bone and baby blues are sure to make any girl swoon. If you are rooting for Brady, you are sure to be following the latest 'model off-duty diet.' One celebrity only eats kale and Kombucha? You are right there with them.
I'm going to say what everyone is thinking: Dean is the cutest. After him and Rachel shared that ~tender~ moment, everyone in Bachelor Nation felt a combination of extreme jealousy and hope that Rachel could end up with Dean. Dean is the wholesome boy you take home to your parents.
If Dean is your fave, you are the type of person that ALWAYS supports local businesses. Your favorite café is run by a sweet old couple, your favorite restaurant is run by a cute couple, and you stay far from chains.
Bryan is the equivalent of going to an authentic tapas restaurant where the entire menu is in Spanish. You may not know what you're ordering, but when those patatas bravas are coming your way, you aren't mad.
Kenny is very wholesome... with a twist. In between gushing about his daughter, he fully shows that he is professional wrestler. If you like Kenny, family meals are your forte. Every night your family huddles around a home-cooked meal and shares about their days. The twist? You and your family are carnivores. To quote Ron Swanson, "You don't eat what your food eats."
Anthony is sweet, but vanilla AF. Besides having the weirdest one-on-one date in the history of the Bachelorette. (Did anyone else see his horse poop in a shop on rodeo drive?) Anthony isn't memorable.
Trying to write this, I literally cannot remember a single thing about Anthony. If you can see Anthony and Rachel walking down the aisle, you are the type of person that asks for a sample of vanilla ice cream. You are basic AF, but you sure are sweet.
Alex is one hot Russian (I mean, look at those dance moves), but we need to talk about something: his fashion choices are super questionable. The pants he wore to the group date to the Ellen show were one thing, but he wore a purple, tiger striped suit to rose ceremony. Talk about tacky.
Jonathan is kinda creepy. Tickle monster? Really? And can we talk about those giant hands from the rose ceremony? I'm going to make a wild guess and say Jonathon won't make it far. I don't care how hard he makes Rachel laugh, no one marries the man that tickles you for a first impression. If you are rooting for Jonathan (why?), your favorite part of Chucky Cheese birthday parties as a child was the food. You love playing all the games, but you love their plastic-like pizza.
Basically, you have no taste. If you like Lucas you wouldn't mind get screamed at every two seconds. Doing the dishes? WHABOOM; Taking your dog for a walk? WHABOOM; Trying to make out with him? WHABOOM. This is equivalent of going to a trashy college bar… for the food.
Okay, okay, I know Demario got eliminated, but he gets a special shoutout for being the token contestant that comes on the show while still having a girlfriend. If you like Demario (post GF drama, because even I was rooting for this fine man), then you are the type of person that doesn't mind getting the wrong food.
Wanted french fries? Here, take this celery. Basically you thought you were getting a fine man and you ended up with a guy that is sleeping over one night and then making wedding plans with Rachel the next.
This article has got me drooling over these hot men, drooling over some yummy food and wondering "who is here for the right reasons?" Until next week, as Rachel says, "keep it real."


text:
PRODUCT SPECIFICATION camera solutions ExSite® IP Series Explosionproof Camera System NETWORK FIXED AND PAN/TILT SYSTEMS WITH IOP CAMERA AND OPTIONAL WIPER Product Features • For Use in a Variety of Harsh and/or Hazardous Environments, including Marine Environments • Ability to Control and Monitor Video Over IPv4 and IPv6 Networks • Electropolished 316L Stainless Steel Construction • Upright or Inverted Operation • Both Fixed and Pan/Tilt Options • Autofocus, High Resolution Integrated Optics Package (IOP) with 36X Day/Night, Motion Detection, and 540 TVL Horizontal Resolution • Multilingual On-Screen Menus • Password Protection • Web Interface for Camera Configuration • H.264, MPEG-4, and MJPEG Compression • Supported Protocols: TCP/IP, UDP/IP (Unicast, Multicast IGMP), UPnP, DNS, DHCP, RTP, RTSP, NTP, IPv4, SNMP, QoS, HTTP, HTTPS, LDAP (client), SSH, SSL, SMTP, FTP, mDNS (Bonjour®), and 802.1x (EAP) • Up to 2 Simultaneous Video Streams ExSite IP Series is an explosionproof camera system with a built-in 100Base-TX network interface for live streaming to any network application.ExSite® IP Series has all of the features and functions of the original ExSite Series, while allowing you to control and monitor video over an IP network from virtually anywhere in the world. ExSite IP Series supports two simultaneous video streams. The two streams can be compressed in MJPEG, MPEG-4, and H.264 formats across several resolution configurations. The streams can be configured in a variety of frame rates, bit rates, and group of pictures (GOP) structures for additional bandwidth administration. The H.264 compression video files are up to 20 times smaller than MJPEG, making network video storage more affordable. ExSite IP Series includes a day/night camera with a removable infrared cut filter and 36X zoom lens (36X optical, 12X digital). The electropolished 316L stainless steel construction makes the ExSite Series ideal for all kinds of environmental conditions including marine applications. The system has an absolute operating temperature range of –60° to 60°C (–76° to 140°F). Within two hours after power-up, the entire unit can de-ice and be operational from a temperature of –25°C (–13°F). EXSITE IP PAN/TILT SERIES SHOWN WITH WXM100 WALL MOUNT (NOT SUPPLIED) • Web Viewing, up to 16 Cameras Simultaneously Web Interface ExSite IP Series uses a standard Web browser for powerful remote setup and administration. Up to 16 cameras can be viewed on the same network. Network protocols such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) configuration for security certificates, Secure Shell (SSH) for remote logon, and Quality of Service (QoS) for priority or guaranteed data flow can be managed using a Web browser. Systemization ExSite IP Series easily connects to Pelco IP systems such as Endura® version 1.5 (or later), MPEG-4; Endura version 2.0 (or later), H.264; Digital Sentry® version 7.3 (or later); DX8100 version 2.0 (or later); DX4700/DX4800 version 1.1 (or later); DX4700HD/DX4800HD version 2.0 (or later); and DVR5100 version 1.5.4 (or later). The camera also features open architecture connectivity to third-party software. Pelco offers an application programming interface (API) and software developer's kit (SDK) for interfacing with Pelco's IP cameras. International Standards Organization Registered Firm; ISO
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS PRODUCT FEATURES All Models Pan/Tilt Models Sun Shroud, Heater/Window Defroster, and Blower Included Configurable Locations of Labels and On-Screen Displays 7 Alarm Inputs 3 Relay Outputs Built-in Menu System for Setup of Configurable Functions Autofocus with Manual Override Auto Iris with Manual Override NTSC/PAL Reliable, Maintenance-Free Brushless DC Stepper Motor and Timing Belt Transmissions for Smooth and Accurate Positioning Fixed Models • Manual 200° Pan and 180° Tilt Adjustments • VALUES IN PARENTHESES ARE INCHES; ALL OTHERS ARE CENTIMETERS. Variable Speed...
*All values measured at 27 dB gain
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS GENERAL Construction Finish Viewing Window Operating Temperature Storage Temperature Storage Humidity Pan/Tilt Unit Weight Shipping Weight Effective Projected Area (EPA) Fixed Unit Weight Shipping Weight Effective Projected Area (EPA) MECHANICAL 316L stainless steel Electropolish 12.7 mm (0.50-inch) thick, soda-lime tempered glass –60° to 60°C (–76° to 140°F) –20° to 60°C (–4° to 140°F) 0% ~ 95% RH (noncondensing) 25 kg (55 lb) 33 kg (73 lb ) 40.8 square inches 11.33 kg (24.9 lb) 18.14 kg (40 lb) 31.1 square inches ELECTRICAL Input Voltage Input Voltage Range Power...
Video Encoding Video Streams Frame Rate H.264 base profile. MPEG-4, and MJPEG Up to 2 simultaneous streams, the second stream is variable based on the setup of the primary stream Up to 30.25.24,15,12.5,12,10.8. 7.5.6, 5. 4.3.2.11dependent upon coding, resolution, and stream configuration) Available Resolutions Supported Protocols Users Unicast Multicast Security Access Software Interface TCP/IP. UDP/IP (Unicast. Multicast IGMP). UPnP, DNS. DHCP. RTP, RTSP. NTP, IPv4. IPv6*. SNMP, QoS, HTTP, HTTPS, LDAP (client), SSH, SSI. SMTP. FTP, mDNS (Bonjour®). and 802.1x(EAP| Up to 20 simultaneous...
RELATED PRODUCTS RECOMMENDED MOUNTS Construction Mounts Electropolished 304 stainless steel PAXM100 Mounting Straps 316 stainless steel Maximum Load WXM100 33.00 kg (72.8 lb) CMXM100 38.50 kg (84.9 lb) PAXM100 40.00 kg (88.2 lb) PXM100 35.83 kg (79.0 lb) Unit Weight WXM100 5.62 kg (12.4 lb) CMXM100 3.45 kg (7.6 lb) PAXM100 4.17 kg (9.2 lb) PXM100 0.60 kg (1.3 lb) Shipping Weight (approximate) WXM100 7.71 kg (17.0 lb) CMXM100 5.89 kg (13.0 lb) PAXM100 6.35 kg (14.0 lb) PXM100 1.81 kg (4.0 lb) Wall mount designed to mount the ExSite Series system directly to a load-bearing vertical surface...
RELATED PRODUCTS PXM100 PEDESTAL MOUNT 4X Ø 0.413 THRU EQ SP ON A Ø 7.00 B.C. 20.3 (8.00) Note: Designed for use with a WXM100 wall mount. 5X THREADED HOLES FOR 3/8-16 SS BOLTS (SUPPLIED) PAXM100 POLE ADAPTER 11 X THREADED HOLES FOR 3/8-16 SS BOLTS (SUPPLIED) 25.4 (10.00) Note: Designed for use with a WXM100 to mount a system to a vertical pole or a PXM100 to mount the system to a horizontal pole. Recommended pole diameter is 10.16 to 22.86 cm (4 to 9 inches).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Losing weight is hard. Life can get in the way, and staying motivated to lose weight is really hard.
Look for inspiration daily, and also use some of these motivational tips to help you stay focused. Doing things like creating incentives or painting your kitchen blue can actually help you stay motivated without you even realizing it. Education about the weight loss process can also help prevent motivational pitfalls, including knowing about the horrible dieting plateau, and knowing about common foods that can mess up your weight loss plan like soda, "diet" foods, or salt.
Utilizing these motivational tips can lead to a lifestyle change, and not just a quick diet change. Continuing to stick to your program can result in having a happier, healthier life.
If and when you are ever feeling down, check out some of these inspirational quotes to help your commitment to your goal!
Read about other people who have gained success in the past and learn some of their secrets.
Starting with a reasonable, manageable goal will lead you to reach it. This should not only be weight-oriented but also activity-oriented (for example, exercising three times a week or cutting out French fries by a certain date).
Step one of this guide includes removing the "old paint", which involves first getting rid of the really bad foods (like bacon, whole milk, ice cream or potato chips). It is important not only to keep them out of your kitchen, but also to not buy them in the first place. You can remove the temptation and stick to your plan that way.
There is a difference between hunger and satiety, which is your ability to feel full. Often times Americans on the go eat too fast, and the brain does not have enough time to react to tell you to slow down. This causes over-eating. Take your time!
This article is evidence that motivation is key to weight-loss, and that setting incentives around goals is a key part of keeping motivated.
Keep in mind the amount the portions of each type of food on your plate. As a general rule, healthy protein portions usually are the size of a deck of cards, and vegetables should take up the majority of the plate.
It is important to cut out sugary drinks like soda from your diet, as the best measures to change one's diet via food can be thwarted by a soda habit. Water is the best drink of choice. Reading labels and being choosy about juices is also important.
Often times people who are committed to losing weight paint their kitchens blue, buy blue plates or get blue tablecloths. This is because blue is a naturally tranquil color and can cause the body to produce calming chemicals. Very few foods are naturally blue, and so many people lose their appetite subtly when they see blue. Whereas, an active color like red can inspire action and feasting – this is why most restaurants have some sort of red decor.
When diversifying foods, focus on the produce section. Having a variety of foods can be an exciting experience and help keep you motivated as well.
Be wary of "diet" foods and "diet" beverages. The industry has taken advantage of the needs to diet. First of all, read the nutrition label to see what other stuff may be in there. Many diet foods can be high in sodium, for instance. Second, make sure that the confidence rush of eating low-fat items will not lead you to eat more.
This is a guide to the nutrition fact label produced by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It, in combination with an ingredients list, can teach you a lot about the products you are eating. Always keep in mind the serving size!
Overall, the concept of dieting is an unhealthy thing. Short bursts of cutting down one's diet, only to give up, eat badly and then try again later, is simply not as healthy as making a slower lifestyle change, gradually moving towards more simple foods and away from large portions.
Maintaining weight can be more difficult than losing weight. Always keep in mind of the fact that this is a lifestyle change. You may have bad days, but it is important to get back on the horse!
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention outlines the recommended amounts of physical activity, and definitions of each type of activity.
When beginning an exercise routine, contact a doctor if any of these factors apply before starting, and ask your doctor recommendations for types of routines to start with.
If you goals are focused on weight loss only, then you may get disheartened, as many people do, when you reach the inevitable diet plateau. Your body will fit back, your metabolism will change, and weight loss will stall. This is a natural part of the process! Plateaus happen. Know this ahead of time and do not get disheartened when it does.
Having ring of supporters among friends and family members leads to more success. There are also support groups that can help manage when motivation runs low.
Many weight loss programs are advertised all over, but not all of them are safe. This resource provides information on how to choose a safe, healthy, and effective weight loss program.
Use the 3 P's – Plan, Purchase, and Prepare, to help you stay on track. These tips make it easier to plan and make healthy meals in advance.


Nvidia has launched their Nvidia Tegra X1 Octa-core ARM Cortex-A57/53 big.LITTLE based Nvidia Shield Android TV Home Console Set-top-box with their 256-core Maxwell GPU for and impressive 4K gaming experience. Right now due to Android limitations the gaming is limited at 30 frames per second, but this could be pushed to 60 frames per second through a firmware update if Android TV will support it soon enough, the Maxwell 256-core GPU should support it. Advanced Android games look quite good, it plays back 4K video.
As you can see that they were preparing Android 5.0 launch in my previous video below posted a couple of months ago, Geniatech is now ready to launch their Android 5.0 Android TV players, in the form of the MyGica ATV1900ac and the ATV586 with Digital TV (DVB-T2 or ATSC).
This is a preview release of Android 5.0 Lollipop running on the powerful 8-core A80 TV box showing off some games running on the 64-core PowerVR G6230 GPU, the Android TV Remote Control app controlling the A80 TV box from any Android device, Google Cast casting YouTube video to the screen which means it becomes a Chromecast receiver and the Enhanced Google Voice Search using microphone, which are just some of the advantages of Google's Android TV UI for Android 5.0 Lollipop. I especially think that the most important thing about Android TV is Google's support, them pushing for more gamepad controlled games, more TV-centric entertainment apps for streaming more video-on-demand, and an overall improvement of Android for TV usage. Support for Android TV UI on Android 5.0 I think can accelerate the success of the Android Set-top-box market.
ARM overtakes MIPS in the Set-top-box market as most of the Set-top-box SoC makers are showing ARM solutions, it's about the ecosystem, about the platform, Android, Google TV, RDK, Wyplay, all of these user interfaces are being optimized for ARM, bringing cheaper and better more advanced and more powerful devices all at the same time. The TV market is bigger than the Web, as people still spend a lot more time watching TV than browsing the web in average. And the new features enabled by ARM, Android and other platforms, enable a lot more video-on-demand and other forms of interactivity on the TV.
Sigma Designs, a leading provider of System-on-Chip (SoC) solutions for home entertainment, control, connectivity and converging multimedia delivery, launches its new High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC)-capable SMP8750 family ARM Processors for Set-top-boxes. Combining the HEVC compression standard with a high performance ARM Cortex A9, ARM Mali-400 GPU, the SMP8756 enables Sigma Designs to offer more performance, a better user experience and full video quality for the Set-top-box market.
Sigma SMP8756 features HEVC's Main-10 profile allowing processing of up to 10 bit color samples accepted as the standard for 4Kx2K, OTT (over the top) and IPTV content. The SMP8750 family will support FHD and 4K resolutions. The new SMP8750 family offers SoCs at multiple cost and performance combinations allowing each SoC to offer optimal performance to price ratio for multiple STB platforms from zappers, PVR capable, Hybrid-broadcast and IPTV STBs.
The SMP8750 family migrates robust STB SoC components like broadcast TS processing, OTP and security infrastructure paired with an ARM A9 CPU and Mali GPU. The single-core ARM A9 CPU and 3000 DMIPS of application processing along with a Mali GPU combine to provide a dramatic performance profile for new 3D user interfaces, over-the-top and casual gaming applications. Incorporating Sigma's industry-proven technologies such as secure media processing, multi-format Full-HD video decoding, VXP display processing, and field-proven AV software core, the SMP8756 is able to provide premium quality video experience. A software SDK is available for either Linux or Android platform development. Future certification of CAS technologies like Verimatrix and Nagravision are planned.
The chipset also demonstrates ecosystem compatibility, leveraging the widely supported ARM processing core, OpenGL ES, HTML-5 and others to ensure that a broad range of existing applications will run including a wide range of hardware and software extensions to support the system solutions; including global tuner/demodulator standards, wired and wireless network controllers, DTV middleware stacks and IPTV middleware ports, such as Wyplay and OpenTV.
The SMP8756 comes with a full Software Suite, including libraries and services packaged under both Linux and Android development kits for rapid development. It incorporates managed power consumption, developed for both US and European regulatory compliance and is developed to a minimal R-BOM to allow smaller footprint and lower cost implementations.
ST's latest ARM Powered System-on-Chips supporting Android, Google TV (now Android TV), rdk, ST presents their STiH312 client-box and STiH412 server-box product families, codenamed 'Cannes' and 'Monaco,' respectively, they integrate Faroudja technology to decode and display video up to Ultra HD 4K (2160p) and the next-generation H.265 / HEVC video compression. Even supporting video transcoding (for local and remote streaming from the Set-top-box to Tablets, Smartphones, etc) STMicroelectronics presents their Dual core ARM Cortex-A9 (on 28nm process) with quad-core Mali-400 GPU does Quad-HD Ultra HD 4K HEVC video decoding, combined with Faroudja video processing technology (decoding on Cannes, decoding and transcoding on Monaco), advanced security supporting concurrent conditional access and DRM, wide connectivity, including USB 3.0, PCI-e, SATA and Gigabit Ethernet, Dedicated interfaces to a range of companion front-end solutions, including MoCA 2.0, DOCSIS 3.0, satellite and 802.11ac WiFi and more.
Radically revamping the device development model for Carrier class operators with ARM and Linaro. Comcast? Software? Isn't that an oxymorom? See how the open source community and modern development models are re-shaping the feature velocity and security models for embedded devices like set-top-boxes, cable modems and gateways. Competing in the modern landscape means building products and experiences that compete with a new breed of innovators. Comcast's SVP, Engineering and Operations and Chief Software Architect will provide insight into how its reinvented its technology stack and product line.
The new Linaro Home Group is about optimizing ARM Linux for Multimedia Set-top-boxes. Here's my interview with Sree Kotay, Comcast Chief Software Architect about how Comcast is interested in working with Linaro to optimize Linux on the ARM Powered Set-top-box.
George Grey, CEO of Linaro, the not-for-profit engineering organization consolidating and optimizing open source Linux software and tools for the ARM architecture, announces that Qualcomm, Mediatek, ZTE, AllWinner and Comcast are joining Linaro to work together on bringing Linux on ARM forward together. They are joining the existing Linaro member companies who are ARM, HiSilicon, Broadcom, Fujitsu, LG, Samsung, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, AMD, AppliedMicro, Canonical, Cavium, Cisco, Citrix, Enea, Facebook, Freescale, HP, LSI, Marvell, Montavista, Nokia Solutions and Networks, Red Hat and IBM who all are contributing engineers to all be working together to improve Linux on ARM for Mobile, Enterprise (servers), Networking, and now also for Home (Set-top-box) usage with the Internet of Things potentially also to be supported. Linaro just held its Linaro Connect Asia here in Macau this week and I will be posting many videos from there, interviewing Linaro engineers about some of the latest Linux hacking work they are doing to speed up all ARM Powered devices.
Marvell Video R&D Software Architecture Team Leader Gaurav Arora talks about how Marvell and Google deliver the ARM Powered Google TV, now renamed Android TV on the dual-core Marvell Armada 1500-Plus, how the extremely popular and successful Chromecast runs on the single-core Marvell Armada 1500-Mini. Marvell also shows their new quad-core Marvell Armada 1500 Pro HD to be released in devices Q2 2014 running Android TV. Google is bringing the TV into the mainline ARM Powered Android releases, that is why they now brand it Android TV. The app package included on Android TV is called the Android TV GMS Package, includes apps like YouTube, Amazon, Hulu, Netflix and everything else optimized for the TV. The apps are designed for a 10-foot experience remote control user interface.
Greg Kroah-Hartman of the Linux Foundation, Maintainer of the Linux Stable releases, talks about what he is doing at Linaro Connect 2013.


A recent article in the Economic Review published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City inadvertently showed how the FCS's very favorable tax treatment has distorted agricultural lending competition between banks and the FCS. The article, titled "Competition in Local Agricultural Lending Market: The Effect of the Farm Credit System," included three very interesting charts. The first chart show changes in agricultural lending market shares since 1960 held by commercial banks, the FCS, the Farm Service Agency, and all other lenders. This chart shows the FCS's market share peaking in the mid-1980s, higher than banks' market share, before the FCS was clobbered by the ag lending crisis it helped fuel. The banks' market share peaked about 2000 and then declined as the FCS regained market share. Today, the two classes of lenders each have about a 40% market share. The other two charts contrast FCS and commercial banks' real estate and production loans for the 2005-2015 period. FCS profits on real estate lending are exempt from all income taxes; FCS profits on production and other non-real-estate loans are exempt only from state income taxes. Not surprisingly, the FCS had a 55% share of real estate loans in 2015, compared to the banks' 45%, but the picture reverses for production loans – banks held about 61% of such loans in 2015 versus 39% for the FCS. These two charts illustrate the distorting effect of the differential tax treatment of banks and the FCS. They provide powerful evidence as to why the taxation of banks and the FCS should be comparable.
On May 8, 2014, I filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Treasury Department to obtain documents related to the creation of the $10 billion line-of-credit the FCS obtained from the Treasury in September 2013. More than two years later, I still have not received any documents, despite repeated promises that my request is being processed. The real reason Treasury may be dragging its feet is that these documents might tell an embarrassing story, at least embarrassing for the FCS. Hopefully, we will eventually learn the real story behind the creation of this line-of-credit.
Technically, the line-of-credit was extended by Treasury's Federal Financing Bank (FFB) to the FCS Insurance Corporation (FCSIC), an affiliate of the Farm Credit Administration (FCA). The FCSIC, somewhat comparable to the FDIC as it collects premiums from FCS institutions, guarantees the timely payment of principal and interest on the Systemwide Debt Securities issued by the FCS through the Federal Farm Credit Banks Funding Corporation. The three FCA directors also serve as the FCSIC's directors. As of March 31, 2016, $245 billion of FCS systemwide debt was outstanding while the FCSIC had total assets of $4.14 billion. This line-of-credit has been renewed annually, as of September 30. Most likely it will be renewed again this year, extending it to September 30, 2017.
What Brookings failed to mention, but the FCS's third-quarter 2008 Information Statement asserted, was that because "the issuance of longer-term debt has become more restrictive [i.e., more expensive], the cost of issuing debt securities is expected to remain at higher levels." Translation: The FCS could not issue longer term debt as cheaply as it wanted to. Consequently, the FCS predicted that "we expect the increased funding costs to pressure our net interest margins in the near term." Amazingly, the opposite happened as the FCS responded to the crisis by shortening the maturity structure of its debt faster than its loan book repriced. Consequently, while the weighted average yield of its interest-bearing assets declined by 107 basis points from 2008 to 2009, the weighted average cost of its interest-bearing liabilities dropped by 151 basis points, widening its net interest spread from 199 basis points to 243 basis points in 2009. The FCS profited handsomely as its net interest income rose 14.7% from 2008 to 2009 on a much smaller 4.4% increase in average earning assets in 2009 from 2008.
Brookings essentially concluded that the FCS experienced a liquidity problem in 2008, by not being able to issue longer term debt as cheaply as it wanted to, rather than a solvency problem. Brookings was correct as the FCS definitely was not facing insolvency in 2008 while it clearly was in 1987, when Congress enacted a $4 billion bailout of the FCS. Brookings then stated that "when the problem is purely a liquidity issue that cannot be handled by FCSIC and the [FCS] Banks alone . . . we can see some net benefit to giving the Banks, through FCSIC, a process for applying to the Treasury for back up liquidity." Less than a year later, the FCS's $10 billion line-of-credit was in place, where it remains today. However, while this line-of-credit serves essentially the same function as the 1987 bailout – to ensure that the FCS has sufficient liquidity during a stressful time – this time Congress played no role in its creation, or so it seems. Documents produced by the FOIA request may tell a different story.
Buried in the FCS's annual information statement is highly summarized information about "related party transactions;" i.e., "loan transactions [between FCS institutions and]their officers and directors and non-FCS organizations with which such persons may be associated." Since there were 78 FCS banks and associations on January 1, 2016, I estimate that there were in the range of 2,000 individuals about whom FCS institutions must report data concerning related party transactions. At the end of 2015, the total amount lent to these individuals and their associated organizations was $2.1 billion, down from $2.2 billion at the end of 2014 and 2013, but up from $1.9 billion at year-end 2012. The total amount lent to these individuals and affiliated organizations accounts for about 1% of total FCS lending, ranging from 1.09% at the end of 2013 to 0.89% at the end of 2015. The average amount borrowed approximates $1 million for insiders, but the range of the amount borrowed almost certainly varies greatly, from zero to many millions of dollars.
Where oh where are your answers, FCA?
During the May 19 Senate Agriculture Committee oversight hearing on the FCS and the FCA's regulation of the FCS, senators posed a number of question to the three FCA directors testifying at the hearing – Chairman Ken Spearman and members Dallas Tonsager and Jeffery Hall. It has been over two months since the hearing and still no answers, which the committee will post on-line as soon as it receives them. I look forward to commenting on those answers when they become available.