text:
A Long, Sad Talk About Norman Osborn
Posted by John Seavey Published in Comics, Nothing Else Fit
Back in 2007, when I was writing about the death of the original Green Goblin, I described how shocking it was to see him die in the classic "Death of Gwen Stacy" storyline. I pointed out that he was impaled on-panel, just to make it clear that he was really dead and there wasn't going to be a last-minute cheat to allow the character to survive. "Except that there was," I then said, "some twenty years later, but we'll save that for another long, angry day."
That day has arrived, but I'm not really angry anymore. Marvel's doing its thing and I'm doing mine. But I did want to explain why it was a mistake to bring back Norman Osborn, and along the way give my answer to why Norman isn't Spider-Man's arch-nemesis (although I should note clearly here that this is entirely separate from any answer MGK might give, and that he reserves the right to give his own answer at some future point. He's nice enough to give me a guest spot here, but I don't speak for him.) But let's start with the resurrection of Norman Osborn. (After the cut, because this is kind of a long one.)
For those of you who don't remember the Clone Saga, either because you weren't reading comics back then or because you blotted it from your mind out of sheer mental self-preservation, Marvel had kind of written themselves into a corner. In one of their many attempts to get rid of the Spider-Marriage, which they'd convinced themselves was dragging down sales, they'd completely junked everything about the character except for the name, origin and superpowers. Spider-Man was now Ben Reilly, a Starbucks barista who'd spent the last five years traveling the American heartland in the belief that he was nothing but a clone of the original Spider-Man, only to find out (in an epic tale of betrayals, deceptions, and sundry plot complications) that he was the original, and Peter was the clone. Peter lost his powers and went off to live a happy life with Mary Jane, and Ben became the one true Spider-Man!
Except that fans don't just read a comic for the name, origin and superpowers. The industry has gotten the wrong-headed idea that they do, because back in 1954 someone rebooted the Flash along those lines and it worked, but it primarily worked because there weren't any fans of the Flash back then to care about everything they threw out. By the 1990s, there was an entrenched fanbase for most of the popular characters who had no intention of continuing to buy a title with a completely different main character just because it still said "Spider-Man" on the front cover. (Or "Green Lantern", or "Green Arrow", or…)
So the decision was made to get rid of Ben Reilly and make Peter the one true Spider-Man! …er, again. The problem was, by this point they had worked so hard to convince people that this time it wasn't a cheat or a trick or a hoax that Ben was the original and Peter was the clone that they had written out just about every possible escape hatch you could think of. Any behind-the-scenes manipulator capable of orchestrating all of the various events of the last several years would have to be someone who knew Peter's true identity, have a lot of resources and a maniacal hatred of Peter Parker and Spider-Man, and oh by the way it couldn't be the Jackal (which would have made a lot of sense) because they'd just used him in a way that made it clear that he thought Ben was the clone. (And they were determined not to reveal that the Jackal was a clone too, because by that point the one thing absolutely everyone was agreed on was that if they heard the word "clone" one more time they were going to explode in a ball of pure rage.)
Bob Harras was the one who decided that the only character with the emotional weight to fit the bill was Norman Osborn. This was a mistake. Not, I want to stress, because Norman was impaled on-panel and it was ludicrously implausible to imagine him surviving that. I mean, yes, it was. It was absolutely ludicrous. But the original Spider-Clone survived being dissected by Curt Connors and thrown into a smokestack, and nobody balked at that. (Although come to think of it, that does explain away one of the biggest loose ends in the Clone Saga, the skeleton in the smokestack that even the writers didn't have a clue about. Maybe that was the original Spider-Clone, and Ben Reilly was a different one.) No, the reason that it was a mistake to make Norman the villain behind it all was that Norman Osborn, the original Green Goblin, should have stayed dead.
Normally, I don't make that statement. I have gone on record multiple times as saying that if contrived resurrections cheapen deaths, the answer is to stop killing off characters so frequently and not to have fewer resurrections. Killing off a character in a shared universe is generally an act of colossal arrogance and short-sightedness, a statement along the lines of, "Well, I can't think of anything more to do with this character, and I'm the Most Creative Person of All Time! The only interesting thing left to do is kill them off." It's never true. There are always more interesting stories to be told with a living character than a dead one, and that's what makes resurrections so inevitable no matter how contrived they wind up being. The blame should be placed squarely on the shoulders of the killing writer, not the resurrecting one.
Except for Norman Osborn.
Because really, when you go back and read the original Green Goblin stories, he wasn't much of a villain. He was a C-list Kingpin wannabe who failed at everything he tried, lost pretty much every fight he was in, and whose only talent was in running away. He didn't even really have a backstory, because Stan Lee and Steve Ditko couldn't decide who he was going to be under the mask. (Ditko wanted it to be a totally unmemorable nobody, to show that villains didn't always have to be someone important to the hero. Lee felt like they'd spent so long building up the mystery of the Goblin's identity that the audience would be upset if it wasn't someone they recognized. The dispute was one of the reasons that Ditko left the title.) Basically, the Green Goblin was by no means the most important of Spider-Man's bad guys.
By contrast, Doctor Octopus was clearly intended to be Spider-Man's arch-enemy. He was a powerful physical challenge to Spider-Man–Peter didn't beat Doc Ock in a fair fight until long after Ditko had left the series. He represented a moral dilemma; how could Peter hold Otto responsible for his actions if he'd suffered brain damage? And thematically, he represented everything that Peter could be without his conscience holding him in check. He was science stripped of its moral center, power and privilege without any thought to the consequences of exercising it. Both men were human beings made better by science, and both originally thought of their gifts only as a way to gain material benefits. But Peter learned differently, and Otto never did. Whenever Spider-Man fights Doctor Octopus, he's fighting the person he could have become. That's arch-nemesis material.
What weight Norman has, by contrast, came from his last two major appearances as the Green Goblin. In the first, Stan Lee finally unmasked the character and, in an effort to give him that extra dimension as a threat, showed that he was no more responsible for his actions than Otto. Norman was high on Goblin serum when he committed his crimes, which meant that Peter felt like he couldn't cut loose on his friend's father. But this was pretty much a dead end for the character–for him to keep that aspect of the character, he had to be mostly Norman and only rarely the Goblin, so his use was highly restricted as a result. You can't have him go insane again and again and again and again, not without diminishing returns, and you can't really do anything else with him.
The other big story was, of course, 'The Death of Gwen Stacy'. This was huge, and not just because it was an iconic moment in Spider-Man history. It was huge primarily because of the last scene, where unbeknownst to Peter, Harry watched his father die and swore revenge. This transformed the entire concept of the Green Goblin, far more thoroughly than Gerry Conway probably intended at the time. He probably just planned for Harry to take over as the bad guy…but it went a lot further than that.
Because after Harry came Bart Hamilton, a psychiatrist who helped treat Harry's nervous breakdown and decided that hey, maybe Norman was on to a good thing. And Roderick Kingsley, who found Norman's old stuff and decided that if a lunatic like Norman could almost become New York's top criminal with the equipment, what could a sane criminal do? And Harry again, this time trying to redeem his father's name by turning the Green Goblin into a superhero. And Jack O'Lantern, who decided he'd get more respect if he borrowed the Goblin name. And Phil Urich, who headlined his own series as a heroic Green Goblin. And, and, and…fundamentally, the Green Goblin was far more interesting as a meme appropriated by a variety of Spider-Man's friends and enemies for different purposes than the character of Norman Osborn had ever been. There were more interesting stories to tell about the memetic Green Goblin, the banner that Spider-Man's enemies rallied to, the ghost he could never defeat because you can't kill an idea, than there ever were about poor old pathetic Norman and his mental disorder.
And bringing him back proved it. Marvel has been doing a desperate tap dance ever since bringing Norman Osborn back from the dead to avoid people catching sight of how uninteresting he is. They've amped up his power levels from "guy that Spider-Man could probably cold-cock with one good punch if he wasn't always sneaking out while another bad guy took the lumps" to "able to take Spider-Man in a fair fight" all the way up to "a suitable threat to the entire Avengers team". They've transplanted Lex Luthor's personality from the DC Universe (where, to be fair, it's no longer being used because they decided over there that Lex was more interesting as a battle-suited chump who takes it on the chin every time he fights Superman) into the Green Goblin so that he can be threatening as a master manipulator and player of games, rather than the failed businessman and lightweight never-was criminal that he actually was when he was alive. They've had him kill off the "pretenders" to the Goblin identity, not realizing that the pretenders were far more interesting than the original.
In short, they've done everything possible to reinvent the character of Norman Osborn, because the original Norman Osborn simply wasn't capable of being the character that they needed at that particular point in Spider-Man history. Original Norman wasn't up to manipulating Spider-Man's whole personal life, forging clone test results, kidnapping Aunt May and faking her death, hiding Spider-Man's infant daughter in Europe, tricking the Jackal, and everything else needed to make the Clone Saga make sense. So they made a new Norman who was. It was the only thing they could do at the time, really, other than just throw both Ben and Peter into the "Heroes Reborn" universe for a year and have them come back as one person…but it made the character much less interesting than he was back when he was a ghost hovering over Spider-Man's life, an original sin that Peter Parker could never quite purge.
Michael P said on August 2nd, 2013 at 3:22 pm
These days, killing a character is less an act of creative arrogance and more a ritual sacrifice to the gods of hype and sales.
Matt said on August 2nd, 2013 at 3:41 pm
I actually LOVED Bendis' take on Norman. It just clicked for me, though I'm sure it was derivative or whatever. I just dug the idea of a weakened, bewildered public showering misplaced adoration on a guy who is pretty patently unstable. Similarly loved the idea of the Cabal, the Dark Avengers, and everything leading up to the clusterfuck of awful that was Siege.
I will say, though, that there's certainly merit to the idea of Norman being an enduring skeleton in Spidey's closet, probably second only to Uncle Ben.
Will "scifantasy" Frank said on August 2nd, 2013 at 3:56 pm
I'm just put in mind of Peter David's story about Jack O'Lantern and the Hobgoblin:
http://www.peterdavid.net/2011/11/11/weird-twisted-reasonably-true-comic-book-stories/
Travesty said on August 2nd, 2013 at 4:31 pm
I'm completely with you on this one, John. I was talking with a friend about it and said that the making Norman Osborne into Lex Luthor was always a bad plan, because when you get down to it he's basically the main character in American Psycho.
He's not some Machiavellian manipulator, one step ahead of his foes. He's a barely-repressed psychotic who has a hard time keeping himself together in public. If you ask me, when people find out that he's the Green Goblin the general response from people who know him should be 'that explains it.' I imagine his secretary being utterly terrified of him, certain that at the very least he's embezzling the company for millions and more likely there are several dead bodies he's had to dispose of.
Sisyphus said on August 2nd, 2013 at 4:44 pm
If they'd done Clone Saga right, then it would have been Otto Octavius who played the part that Norman Osborne did. Of course, anyone who might have realized that probably would have realized that Clone Saga was a dumb idea to begin with. (Although, the Ultimate Spider Man's Clone Saga is a decent story).
John Seavey said on August 2nd, 2013 at 5:10 pm
@Sisyphus: It couldn't have been Otto Octavius for two reasons. One, whoever was behind it all had to know Spider-Man's secret identity, and Doc Ock didn't. Two, he was dead at the time. (In the immortal words of Eddie Izzard…) He'd been murdered by Kaine earlier in the Clone Saga, and it would have been very hard to spin that off as part of the plan (because Kaine wasn't even in on the Jackal's plan, let alone the plan behind the Jackal's plan.)
There's a great, absolutely great article on the Clone Saga here: http://lifeofreillyarchives.blogspot.com/2008/03/introduction-and-update.html
It goes over the whole thing in astonishing detail, with interviews with the principals behind the scenes at Marvel and lots of other goodies. It really does help you understand how the whole thing imploded.
There was also a comic called "101 Ways to End the Clone Saga" that Marvel put out around then that gave some of their other plans out in a humorous, out-of-continuity fashion. Mephisto was invoked then, too.
(Personally, that's how I'd kill Norman, if I was asked to do such a thing again. Mephisto shows up and announces that all the deals are off. Everyone gets their memories back, history reverts, and the people who died will now go back to being dead. Aunt May, Harry, and Norman. "Wait, what?" Norman asks. "Oh come on, Norm," Mephisto says. "You were impaled through the chest by a chunk of metal the size of a small dog. That's not the kind of thing you recover from with a few weeks of spa treatment in Europe.")
Beacon said on August 2nd, 2013 at 5:29 pm
My biggest problem with the resurrection of Norman Osborn is that – in addition to monopolizing the "villain mastermind" role for nearly a decade after returning – they started making him retroactively responsible for every single hardship in Peter Parker's life. Norman was pulling the strings behind nearly every aspect of the second Clone Saga*. Norman Osborn got Gwen Stacey pregnant and killed her to keep things quiet (as if being the hero's love interest didn't provide the villain with enough motive). If Peter's childhood pet got hit by a car then we'd eventually find out Norman had been driving. If Peter were to stub his toe in the kitchen then it would somehow be Norman's fault. I'm still waiting for Osborn to take credit for the Superior era.
*Thus diminishing the impact of established villains like the Jackal and new villains like Judas Traveler.
For a while they were so desperate to make Norman their "go to guy " that they were putting him in situations where he simply didn't fit because they'd rather try to jam a round peg into a square hole than use another person from one of the greatest rogues galleries in comics. Heck, when he wasn't stealing pages from Baron Helmut Zemo's playbook he was hatching schemes that would have made more sense with guys like Doctor Octopus, the Kingpin, and the original Hobgoblin.
PS: Plus "the hero's best friend" is an infinitely more interesting choice of villain than "the hero's best friend's creepy dad".
Edit: And can we all just take a moment to appreciate just how breathtakingly stupid the "Aunt May was an actress Norman hired" retcon Byrne made was?
ChrisPV said on August 2nd, 2013 at 6:44 pm
Thank you. Norman Osborn as Avengers level power-player is inherently stupid, because when you read his old appearances he's just too damn direct for that. For chrissakes, his Plan A was "put on green and purple goblin booties and fly around town on a rocket glider chucking bombs at people." Subtle and Machiavellian he is not.
HoorayforGooba! said on August 2nd, 2013 at 7:10 pm
I completely agree with all of this, which is why the only post-resurrection comic I liked Osborn in was Thunderbolts, when Warren Ellis showed how completely unstable he was and unfit to be a master manipulator.
SIlverHammerMan said on August 2nd, 2013 at 7:17 pm
Hadn't they already done the "big villain turns out to be a nobody" thing with Crime Master? Incidentally, I love the idea of Crime Master being some low rent hood who realized he could go big with a mask, Remender's retcon in Venom that it was some weird legacy title missed the point completely.
I never really thought of Norman Osborn as a failure before, in my head he's more like the perfect collision of a Batman-villain-style psychopath and a grandiose thematic villain, Patrick Bateman with gimmicked gadgets. He should have all the resources but none of the sense of fairplay.
I do think he should have stayed dead though, however understandable the urge is to bring him back. I'd be more excited for a remake of the original saga than an unnecessary follow up.
Oh, one more things:
Can we all agree that the Ultimate Comics Green Goblin is vastly inferior to the original? I mean, Spidey has more than enough villains who are big dudes who punch people, Ultimate Green Goblin doesn't even present an interesting fight.
Ian Austin said on August 2nd, 2013 at 7:27 pm
I still say Dark Reign works much better with The Kingpin.
Thok said on August 2nd, 2013 at 8:23 pm
The Kingpin wouldn't have overreached like Norman did in Dark Reign.
Heck, the Kingpin wouldn't have been interested in running SHIELD/HAMMER/whatever. He's happy to dominate New York City.
DCD said on August 2nd, 2013 at 9:07 pm
Nice invasion of Asgard, Kingpin. YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE SIGNED IT.
Fakefaux said on August 2nd, 2013 at 9:19 pm
While I agree that his role in the Clone saga is awful, that he's mainly famous for the impact he had on Harry and Gwen decades ago, and that Norman as Lex Luthor is trite, I'm not that upset that he got brought back.
Warren Ellis can be partly blamed for the Luthor-esque version of Osborn we've gotten, but he also played Osborn like a psycho who was barely keeping a lid on things, and when that lid got blown it was a great moment. The thing I find fascinating about Norman Osborn as a character is that he's a complete nut, but he doesn't know he's a complete nut.
Or rather, he knows and wants to pretend it's not true. Even without the Goblin serum Norman Osborn is an egomaniac who views himself as the definition of masculinity and intelligence, but his madness constantly undermines that. He despises this one inherent weakness that defies his aggrandizing self-image. That's a great dynamic for a character, and a refreshing change of pace from crazy supervillain like Joker or Carnage who just revel in their mental illness.
The problem is that nobody has figured out what to do with Norman since he was brought back. His run in Thunderbolts was fun, but it couldn't last. Once it ended, he needed to move on to something else. Making him into Lex Luthor was just the path of least resistance. I'm curious to see what Slott does with him, but ultimately Norman Osborn just needs a new status quo and some new goals. He'll pursue them with unmatched ambition, but his insanity (and the blindspot he has for it) will always tear apart his dreams.
Though none of this changes the fact that Ock is Spidey's true nemesis.
Tim O'Neil said on August 2nd, 2013 at 10:06 pm
In hindsight they should have gone with Dr. Doom. Sure, it would have taken a few contortions to explain why Doom would care (he doesn't like Spider-Man, sure, but it's not something he spends a lot of time thinking about). But there aren't many other characters who had the resources to do it. And most people, even if they would have complained about Doom being only very occasionally a Spider-Man foe, would have probably accepted it as the least of all possible evils.
If they had done it right, it could have been great – it's revealed as a very old plan of Doom's that just recently came to fruition, a mindfuck to get back at some ancient slight, a plan Doom himself had half-forgotten about until Spidey found out and traced the mystery back to its source. It makes a lot more sense than using Mephisto to erase the marriage, that's for sure. At the time I believe Dr. Doom had just returned from the Hero's Reborn universe, so it could have been plausibly sold as connected to that.
It would have been a much better fix, in terms of pulling the band-aid off quickly and cleanly instead of doing it in such a way that it makes a huge weeping sore that doesn't heal for almost twenty years now.
Scott said on August 2nd, 2013 at 10:11 pm
Osborn's best portrayal to me was in the mid-90s Amazing Spider-Man series where he was nothing but a crazy person. He didn't have any grand designs or criminal aspirations. I mean, he spoke to his alter ego. He was just a crazy guy doing crazy things which seems like somebody Spider-Man should have to deal with.
He also provided my favorite line in any Spidey appearance…
(after seemingly killing Mary Jane, Spider-Man dives into the river to save her, but can't find her. Spidey pops his head above water and sees the Goblin flying above him)
Osborn: What's a matter, Spider-Man, no quick comebacks, no clever one-liners?
Beacon said on August 2nd, 2013 at 10:24 pm
@ Ian Austin:
Dark Reign (and the Thunderbolts and the Sinister Twelve*) would have worked better with almost ANYONE but Osborn. Not only is it ridiculous that the authorities would give him that kind of power to a know super-criminal (at least Kingsly and Fisk can pull off the "everyone knows but no one can prove it" thing) but the Green Goblin's history for stabbing his allies in the back should prevent other villains from wanting to associate with him**. Freaking CARNAGE has a better track record with teams.
*I actually laughed at the "big reveal' that Norman Osborn was the mastermind in Millar's Marvel Knights Spider-Man arc. He's it stops being a surprise when you do it at least twice a year.
**At this point I think it's safe to say Norman has "Joker immunity". I find it unlikely that the Joker hasn't been shot in the head by a cop. I find it even more improbable that Norman hasn't been slaughtered by an alliance of Robot Master, Harry Osborn, the Jackal (and 500 Spider-Clones), Molten Man, the Hobgoblin, and all the other morally challenged people that have reason to hate him.
Patrick Rawley said on August 3rd, 2013 at 8:11 am
You just threw out the baby with the bath water.
It was Warren Ellis who really redefined Norman Osborn as a major threat in the MU at large. The barely-repressed psycho-thing you disparage.
Doc Ock is a chump. A never-was.
The Green Goblin IS Spider-Man's true arch-enemy, ala Luthor, Joker, Red Skull, Shadow Thief, etc.
Next you'll say someone other than Gorilla Grodd is Flash's Nemesis.
Jason said on August 3rd, 2013 at 3:01 pm
Patrick Rawley- Spidey did fine without Norman for 20 odd years. And a key part of the reason for Doc -Ock being a chump is writers insisting on him bearing the consequences of fighting a guy like Spidey, despite plenty of characters fighting enhanced enemies and never showing the slightest bit of wear and tear.
Ian Austin said on August 3rd, 2013 at 7:29 pm
The reason for Kingpin in Dark Reign is that he's someone who, if he got the chance, would take advantage of superhero doubt for his own end.
Medaka444 said on August 3rd, 2013 at 8:55 pm
The only with this I have is that Seavey propagates the rumor that Ditko wanted the Green Goblin to be a nobody and that's why he left he title. Early on, before Ditko left, he and Stan Lee left several clues that very strongly pointed towards Osborn. John Romita said he revealed the Goblin to be Osborn because he strongly believed that's who Ditko wanted him to be. I don't know where this rumor comes from.
Beacon said on August 3rd, 2013 at 9:08 pm
Norman isn't even the best Goblin; the original Hobgoblin is. I'd even argue that Harry was the best GREEN Goblin. The Clone Saga certainly would have worked better if the mastermind had been Harry as originally intended.
Actually it would have worked fine if they had just left it at "the Jackal did everything himself". Stories where they explain how villains are funded tend to be boring and/or implausible. Just look at Bendis' Secret War.
Fraser said on August 3rd, 2013 at 11:07 pm
Ditko said in an essay a few years back that he knew the Goblin's identity from the first (he doesn't say Norman but does say it's one of Jonah's friends and his son was one of Peter's friends, so …). And that yes, having done the "My god it's—it's—who is he?" bit with the Crime Master it wouldn't have worked twice.
Stan Lee's memory is that when he asked Ditko about unmasking the Goblin, Ditko just pointed at a businessman in a crowd scene and said "It's going to be him" and that Stan pressed him to build up the character before the reveal. But he doesn't claim Ditko had any issue with the change.
Ditko also said that he didn't even talk to Lee after issue 25 or so, so it's not like they could have argued about anything–he just dropped off the finished pages.
So yeah, I think that legend is dead.
I do agree that Osborn is a lousy manipulator. Which was one of the objections the Clone Saga people had to using him to wrap things up.
Bryan Rasmussen said on August 4th, 2013 at 2:21 am
sure, it's a more interesting choice but it is harder to do because it is also the more cliched choice.
Also for Spiderman's story best friends dad as villain gives possible reflections on Uncle Ben. But yes Norman dieing was better because then Harry could become the villain with a compelling Batman style origin to explain his reason to hate Spiderman.
Cyrus said on August 5th, 2013 at 8:34 am
Doctor Octopus may very well be Spider-Man's one true archnemesis, but Norman Osborn does a pretty good job filling the role of Peter Parker's archnemesis.
NewtypeS3 said on August 5th, 2013 at 9:19 am
@ Tim O'Neil
"a mindfuck to get back at some ancient slight, a plan Doom himself had half-forgotten about until Spidey found out and traced the mystery back to its source."
…that would have been perfect. Peter and Ben go through hell, high water, clones, and Jackals – slowly making their way around the world (or just New York)… only to wind up literally in Latveria, in front of Doom.
Who just goes "…oh, yes. That. My… apologies, I'd forgotten about it entirely."
And then it turns out it was a malfunctioning Doombot.
Maciej said on August 5th, 2013 at 1:11 pm
"He's a barely-repressed psychotic who has a hard time keeping himself together in public."
This. I consider Green Goblin to be a subpar villain, but – on the other hand – I think Norman Osborn is a fantastic one, especially with that American Psycho vibe. I read him as a sociopath – in public, he can control himself and act in a charming and inteligent manner, but when the doors close, he beats his business partner to death with an ashtray and paints his face green or whatever. Green Goblin is hard to take seriously because of his, well, being a goblin, and Osborn as a psychopath works because we all have a tendency to connect people in power with corruption, sociopathy and insanity.
That said, I'm not sure about whether Spider-Man stories are the best place for him. This interpretation of his character doesn't lend itself to flashy superhero fights; he works better as a kind of a predatory shadow of some corporate offices.
Ben said on August 5th, 2013 at 2:26 pm
Actually, this sounds like a great idea for the next Marvel crossover: Doom assigns a Doombot to arch each one of Marvel's heroes via complicated plots and painful situations. Eventually the heroes overcome their situations (perhaps by swapping villains and/or teamwork when expected to not) and converge on Latveria, and defeat… hrm, let's say a giant Master Mold knockoff Doombot. Maybe Doomstaadt transforms into it, or into an even bigger one. After the deck's cleared, they go toe-to-toe with various incarnations of Doom, each with different toyetic armor. And in the end? All Doombots. Doombots in a predestination paradox, causing Doombots.
Meanwhile Victor's been orchestrating it all from the Microverse while trying to capture Captain Universe's power in a Cosmic Cube… no wait it's Kristoff… no wait, it's Thanos… no, Thanos-suit with Doom inside
Oh forget it. Eventually they were rescued by, oh, let's say…Moe
Myth said on August 5th, 2013 at 3:18 pm
I think I largely agree with those who feel that while the Green Goblin isn't a very scary villain, Norman Osborn (especially at his craziest) does work on several levels.
Of course, I don't think that necessarily disagrees with your assessment of the Goblin lineage as something that works best as being passed on – especially since so many of those who have taken up the Green have not been among the most stable of individuals.
(Indeed, the retconned death that I most object to is that of Harry Osborn, whose original demise – and whose mental breakdown in the role of the Green Goblin – was one of those few comics that really stuck with me on an emotional level when I read it in my childhood.)
SIlverHammerMan said on August 5th, 2013 at 9:01 pm
The thing that annoys me most about Harry Osborn's resurrection is that they haven't done much with him since Brand New Day. Like, they've already undermined his arc and the impact of his story, so the least they could to is make it worth it.
Peter Parker's best friend who's a young father, as well as a recovering addict, recovering headcase, and recovering supervillain is a great character to have available for use. Instead he's been put on a bus as far as I know, and that's a colossal waste.
John C. Bunnell said on August 6th, 2013 at 12:43 am
A nitpick relative to Lex Luthor: technically speaking, his "billionaire genius" persona is itself a retcon, as it's an artifact of the John Byrne reboot of the character (as considerably amplified in Lois & Clark and the various DCU animated series produced by Bruce Timm). Thus, Luthor's mad-scientist "chump" persona is actually the original, lately re-adopted in the comics.
Beacon said on August 7th, 2013 at 10:19 pm
After reading the new issues of Superior it hit me that – while Harry and Roderick are still the best Goblins and I still dislike that Phil is a villain now – Phil Urich and (pre-retcon) Ned Leeds are better foils for Peter than Norman. They both use their jobs in media the same way Peter did; they gather information useful to their alter egos while profiting off their own exploits.
Joe said on August 31st, 2013 at 12:37 am
Seems like I stopped reading comic books in time. I started reading paperbacks and couldn't afford both. A couple problems seem to be that some of the writers think they're more brilliant than they are, some imagine that they're slumming working in the medium and some don't respect the characters. I think comics should be written for fans and provide role models for kids, not deconstructed so writers can chat respectably with people at cocktail parties.
Jeffrey Wright said on April 11th, 2014 at 7:14 am
Norman Osborn is a true archenemy of Peter Parker, while Doc Ock is a serious threat and #2 villain for Spidey, he is still a loser. That's what he is – a loser, failure, wannabe.
True, reemergance of Norman Osborn was problematic and author puts some valid points against that decision. However, I disagree with the notion that Osborn's character development was handled badly. He is a compelling villain and there is a reason for why he is so popular.
In short, article looks like a bizzare rant against character development in principle + rant against story not going along with author's megaplan. There are no arguments for why Osborn is a bad villain, not at all.
Adam said on April 21st, 2014 at 3:09 am
Interesting read. I preferred Harry Osborn as the Green Goblin, due in large part to the fantastic way in which the character was portrayed by J.M. DeMatteis. "The Child Within" left an indellible impression on me as a young kid (I was born in 1978). It could have been interesting to see what direction the character would have gone in had his death been (far more easily) retconned in "Revelations" instead of Norman's, but we'll never know the answer to that. Either way, I am in agreement that some characters just need to stay dead. I could make the same point for Kraven, but that's another story for another day.
Serialized Ditko: The Green Goblin Mystery – Elving's Musings said on October 12th, 2021 at 2:49 am
[…] John Seavey. "A Long Sad Talk About Norman Osborn."https://mightygodking.com/2013/08/02/a-long-sad-talk-about-norman-osborn/ […]


A set of nine printed leaflets with posters on the reverse which document an Arts Council England funded social arts project in Battersea, South East London. These leaflets fold out from DL size to A2 with the project documentation on one side and a section of a larger poster on the reverse. This large scale poster is revealed when all nine leaflets are collected, unfolded and placed together.


It started in a shed. Indeed, the shed is still there, in Peter Dearman's backyard, which you can find in the old English market town of Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire. Through its windows you will often see Mr. Dearman, probably with a spanner in his hand. He's the archetypal shed-hobbyist: jeans, anorak and totally obsessed with mechanical apparatus. His neighbours jokingly used to call him 'the neighbour from hell' thanks to the discarded bits of machinery that lay about his property. Today they're slightly more respectful.
As they should be – because, early in 2000, Peter solved a problem whose solution had evaded the engineering world for a century. In doing so, he unleashed a coming revolution that has the potential to save millions of lives. And he did it with a can of antifreeze.
It's not an idea that immediately makes sense to most of us. When we think of energy we tend to think of hot things: fire, steam, warm computer batteries… Cold is something we associate with a lack of energy. But our intuition is misleading. Two objects of different temperatures brought into contact will exchange energy (as they try to get to the same temperature) even if those temperatures are both below freezing point – and if you piggy-back on that exchange you can do useful work.
Peter, of course, wasn't the first person to realise this, but he did become the first person, many years later, to use the concept to create a machine that could help to save millions of lives by changing the way our food system works – 'The Dearman Engine'.
Dearman Engines work on exactly the same principles as a steam engine, except they're powered not by steam (water gas) but by another gas, which, when you first hear about it, seems to make no sense at all. The gas that drives a Dearman Engine is literally thin air.
It's hard to think of air as a liquid, but like most substances, air can exist as a gas, a liquid or a solid, if you compress and cool it enough. What's more, it will return to its gaseous state almost instantly if you open a valve on a tank of the stuff.
Peter realised an air engine would never fully compete with its fossil fuel counterpart on power, but he knew he could raise its power to useful levels – creating a cheap-to-run and completely clean engine that could do useful work. "What was needed was isothermal expansion." (This mean keeping the air in the piston at the same temperature even as it expands.) 'Iso' comes from the Greek isos, meaning 'equal' or 'uniform'.
Peter wandered into his shed and hacked his lawnmower to run on liquid air, but with one crucial innovation. He injected antifreeze (a liquid specifcally designed to be a particularly efficient heat exchanger) into the piston chamber on each stroke. Now heat from outside the piston chamber, carried in the antifreeze, had a far quicker route into it, delivering the isothermal expansion Peter needed. The effciency of the engine leapt. Although he didn't know it at the time, Peter Dearman, with a keen mind, a lawnmower and a can of antifreeze, had just changed the world.
What Dearman's technology could do for the developing world. Imagine farms where liquid air systems provide power and cold at the same time, running, for example, a refrigerated conveyor belt for fruit processing. The ability to minimise waste delivers a massive economic dividend.
And, while today that cooling and energy could possibly be provided more cheaply using a diesel generator, a new 'cold economy' that, at scale, will challenge the cost of fossil-fuel-powered alternatives and come with three key advantages that are hard to compete with. The first is that liquid air is a fuel source that every nation can make for itself. The second benefit is that liquid air refrigeration could significantly reduce air pollution. Dearman engines emit nothing but clean air. But the story doesn't end there. Because it turns out that Peter Dearman's antifreeze brainwave has another, potentially world-changing application. The man in the shed might have helped change the world twice.
This is an edited excerpt from Mark Stevenson's latest book We Do Things Differently: The Outsiders Rebooting Our World.
Writer, entrepreneur, broadcaster, reluctant futurologist and founder of The League of Pragmatic Optimists. He has written for Radio 4, the Times, Sunday Times, Wall Street Journal, Telegraph, Guardian and New Statesman, and is the author of the critically acclaimed An Optimist's Tour of the Future. He lives in London and is an adviser to (among others) The Atlas of the Future, The Virgin Earth Challenge, and Civilised Bank.
Tags: Carbon, Clean energy, Environment, London.


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text:
Q: How to prevent interpolation of vertex colors in THREE.js shader? I am trying to write a shader that draws contour plots on meshes.
Here is an example of contour plot.
My first aim is visualizing one triangle face with different colors.
You can find the code that I am using in here.
<html lang="en">
    <head>
        <title>Face Contour Example</title>

    </head>
    <body>

<script src="http://threejs.org/build/three.min.js"></script>
<script src="http://threejs.org/examples/js/controls/OrbitControls.js"></script>

        <script id="vertexShader" type="x-shader/x-vertex">

        varying vec3 vColor;

        void main(){
            vColor = color;
            gl_Position = projectionMatrix * modelViewMatrix * vec4(position, 1.0);
        }
        </script>

        <script id="fragmentShader" type="x-shader/x-fragment">
            varying vec3 vColor;

            void main(){
                gl_FragColor = vec4( vColor.rgb, 1.0 );
            }
        </script>

        <script type="text/javascript">
            var camera, scene, renderer, mesh, material, controls;
            init();
            animate();

            function init() {
                // Renderer.
                renderer = new THREE.WebGLRenderer();
                //renderer.setPixelRatio(window.devicePixelRatio);
                renderer.setSize(window.innerWidth, window.innerHeight);
                // Add renderer to page
                document.body.appendChild(renderer.domElement);

                // Create camera.
                camera = new THREE.PerspectiveCamera(70, window.innerWidth / window.innerHeight, 1, 1000);
                camera.position.z = -400;

                // Create scene.
                scene = new THREE.Scene();

                var colors = {
                  "color1" : {
                    type : "c",
                    value : new THREE.Color(0xff0000) //r
                  },
                  "color2" : {
                    type : "c",
                    value : new THREE.Color(0x00ff00) //b
                  },
                  "color3" : {
                    type : "c",
                    value : new THREE.Color(0x0000ff) //g
                  },
                };

                var fShader = document.getElementById('fragmentShader').text;
                var vShader = document.getElementById('vertexShader').text;

                // Create material
                var material = new THREE.ShaderMaterial({
                  vertexShader: vShader,
                  fragmentShader: fShader,
                  vertexColors: THREE.VertexColors,

                });

                // var material  = new THREE.MeshBasicMaterial( { vertexColors: THREE.VertexColors } );

                // Create cube and add to scene.
                var geometry = new THREE.Geometry();
                geometry.vertices=[
                    new THREE.Vector3(100,0,0),
                    new THREE.Vector3(-100,0,0),
                    new THREE.Vector3(50,100,0)
                ]

                var face=new THREE.Face3();
                face.a=0;
                face.b=1;
                face.c=2;
                face.vertexColors[ 0 ] = colors["color1"].value;
                face.vertexColors[ 1 ] = colors["color2"].value;
                face.vertexColors[ 2 ] = colors["color3"].value;
                geometry.faces=[face]

                mesh = new THREE.Mesh(geometry, material);
                scene.add(mesh);

                function addWireFrame(){
                    //Create wireframe helper for mesh with same geometry
                    var wireframeMesh=new THREE.WireframeGeometry(geometry);
                    var line = new THREE.LineSegments( wireframeMesh );
                    line.material.depthTest = false;
                    line.material.opacity = 0.75;
                    line.material.transparent = true;
                    mesh.add( line );
                }
                addWireFrame();

                //Orbit controls
                controls = new THREE.OrbitControls( camera );

                // Create ambient light and add to scene.
                var light = new THREE.AmbientLight(0x404040); // soft white light
                scene.add(light);

                // Create directional light and add to scene.
                var directionalLight = new THREE.DirectionalLight(0xffffff);
                directionalLight.position.set(1, 1, 1).normalize();
                scene.add(directionalLight);

                // Add listener for window resize.
                window.addEventListener('resize', onWindowResize, false);

            }

            function animate() {
                requestAnimationFrame(animate);

                controls.update();
                renderer.render(scene, camera);
            }

            function onWindowResize() {
                camera.aspect = window.innerWidth / window.innerHeight;
                camera.updateProjectionMatrix();
                renderer.setSize(window.innerWidth, window.innerHeight);
            }
        </script>

    </body>
</html>

In the code I assigned red, green and blue colors to each vertices of a face.
In vertex shader, I redirected those colors to fragment shader. And In fragment shader, I am planning to use my own formula to decide which color will be used for that instance of the fragment. (My formula will depend on the position on the face.)
However, I couldn't manage to prevent interpolation of vertex colors. Is there a way to pick vertex color from an array directly without interpolation in three.js?
Also, I appreciate alternative solutions that may be suitable for my problem.

A: You don't want to disable interpolation. You want, instead, to use the interpolated coordinates as an index. The interpolated color value tells you how close you are to each of the vertices. You can then quantize this interpolated value into ranges, or indexes into a color array, to produce the end color.
I modified your fiddle to show the color of the closest vertex using the following pixel shader:
void main(){
    vec3 c = vColor;
    gl_FragColor = vec4(c.r > c.g && c.r > c.b ? 1.0 : 0.0,
      c.g > c.r && c.g > c.b ? 1.0 : 0.0,
      c.b > c.r && c.b > c.g ? 1.0 : 0.0,
      1.0 );
}

The result looks like this:

You will need a more complex quantization method to show a contour map, but I hope this approach gives you a good start.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Rascal Flatts, Sheryl Crow & Gloriana
Friday, July 25, 2014 at [time TBA]
The summer of 2014 is a special one for the Rascal Flatts. With over 22 million albums sold, the band is hitting the road for the "Rewind Tour" with fellow big name stars Sheryl Crow and Gloriana. The tour coincides with the release of the band's 9th album dubbed Rewind and made its first stop in St. Louis on the 16th of May. The tour will end on the 21st of September with the last show being played in Clarkston, MI.
The tour started off with a blast and the group didn't take long to find their vocals. Attendees will find that the moment the show opens, they will hear the band belt out crowd favorites, such as "These Days" and "Payback." Before the band hits the stage, however, attendees will be able to hear the opening act belt out a fan favorite in "Picture." Sheryl Crow is a real treat to add to the tour and has mentioned that this is the most fun she has ever had on tour before.
"Wild at Heart" and various other big hits from Gloriana will also be heard as the band hits the stage. Rascal Flatts will often sing with the opening acts, which makes the event even more fun. Sheryl Crow has been known to make an appearance on stage during the band's performance to perform amazing duets that speak to every country fan's soul.
Sheryl Crow needs no introduction and has been a country music icon since 1987. Her vocals add a lot of fun and excitement to the "Rewind Tour" and will have guests on their toes. With over 50 million albums sold worldwide, guests will be able to hear songs from her latest album "Feels Like Home" as well as all of her greatest hits.
Gloriana brings a lot of vibrancy to the opening act and was first founded in 2008. The band sings both country and pop songs which will be heard including their most popular songs, "Thousand Miles Left Behind" and "Kissed You Goodnight."

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Using Node.js to listen to key events on Redis I need to know when data is written on specific keys on a Redis store.
Is there any way to listen to Redis key events using Node.js or do I have to use the pub/sub utilities?
In the second case, what would be the best way to do it?

A:
Is there any way to listen to Redis key events using Node.js or do I
  have to use the pub/sub utilities?

As far as I know redis itself doesn't natively support key change notifications yet although there are other alternatives including a pub/sub based solution.

A: If you don't want to use pubsub, there's lots of opportunities for creative solutions with Redis' blocking operations (BLPOP, BRPOP, BRPOPLPUSH).  You can dedicate a Redis connection in your server to block until a new item is added to a list, and actually add to said list right after you store a key (in a multi exec!).  So, something generic might look like this (you can use two different terminals to simulate two different connections):
Connection 1 (connetion will just hang out after this):
BRPOP myfunkeys 0

Connection 2:
redis 127.0.0.1:6379> multi
OK
redis 127.0.0.1:6379> set somekey "foo"
QUEUED
redis 127.0.0.1:6379> rpush myfunkeys "somekey:foo"
QUEUED
redis 127.0.0.1:6379> exec
1) OK
2) (integer) 1
redis 127.0.0.1:6379>

Back to connection 1 after you EXEC:
1) "myfunkeys"
2) "somekey:foo"
(67.51s)


text:
Honorary diploma awarded to Charles Babbage, 1830.
An honorary diploma from the Koniglicke Akademie in Munich, Germany, awarded to Charles Babbage (1791-1871) on 29 August 1830. Babbage was a British computing pioneer, mathematician, philosopher, inventor, social reformer and political economist. His Analytical Engine of 1834 was the first calculating engine designed along modern lines, and it is for this that he is considered to be the 'father' of computing.
© Science Museum / Science & Society Picture Library
Block of 36 penny lilac stamps, 1881.
Manchester Mark I Computer, 1948.
Cooke and Wheatstone's first telecommunication device, 1837.
Post Office Tower, London, c 1970s.
Ferranti Mark I computer, c 1951.
Hughes microphones and apparatus, c 1880s.
Sinclair ZX 81 microcomputer, c 1984.
Two Intel 8080 microprocesor chips, 1970s.


I'm only going to harp on this once, then I'll leave you guys alone. It's clear you're quite happy in your fluffy, rainbow-colored little world over here.
For you to have something like ArcaniA on a list, ANY list, of potential Games-Of-The-Year, you all should be shot. Multiple times. In the balls. This is even considering your mentioning of the "list" being as-is for completion's sake.
I'm so glad I'm a Codexer. Good night and Unhappy New Year.


text:
Correia, Eduardo. "Cloud Computing." Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Fourth Edition. IGI Global, 2018. 1026-1032. Web. 17 Jan. 2020. doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-2255-3.ch089
Correia, E. (2018). Cloud Computing. In M. Khosrow-Pour, D.B.A. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Fourth Edition (pp. 1026-1032). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-2255-3.ch089
Correia, Eduardo. "Cloud Computing." In Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Fourth Edition, ed. Mehdi Khosrow-Pour, D.B.A., 1026-1032 (2018), accessed January 17, 2020. doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-2255-3.ch089
InfoSci-Media and Communications
Eduardo Correia (Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology (CPIT), New Zealand)
Source Title: Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Fourth Edition
Copyright: © 2018 |Pages: 7
Cloud computing makes use of many standard technologies in surprisingly novel ways. It leaves many people bewildered, even confused, especially as it is an area of computing that is undergoing rapid change in terms of a diversification of available services and the growth in underlying contingent technologies. This article shows how the cloud has changed the user experience and goes on to discuss the definition of cloud computing most commonly used. It describes the three service models of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) and then discusses the four deployment models of private cloud, public cloud, hybrid cloud and community cloud. It concludes with how the cloud impacts security and how most organizations will likely make use of multiple cloud providers. This article introduces key concepts and characteristics of cloud computing, in this way covering in broad terms what it is and how it essentially works.
Cloud providers, through the use of virtualization, essentially abstract the software, whether it be a server, a database or a network from the underlying physical infrastructure, and offer customers logical software-defined computing resources and services that they can customize, secure, provision and manage in a way that meets their needs and requirements (Buyya, Vecchiola, & Thamarai Selvi, 2013). The service models in cloud computing all reflect this principle of abstraction and represent different sets of responsibility depending how much or how little customers wish to outsource. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) therefore represent progressively lower levels of engagement on the part of customers, as they cede more of their responsibilities to the cloud provider.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Cloud Service Models: The distribution of responsibilities for technological requirements between customer and cloud provider.
Virtualization: The division of a computer into multiple execution environments so that one level (e.g. the physical) can be abstracted from another (e.g. the operating system).
Virtual Machine: A guest machine that is capable of sharing the same physical hardware with another guest machine and runs on a hypervisor.
Service Level Agreement: A contract that defines the level of service the customer can expect from the cloud provider.
Trust Boundary: The boundary between the responsibilities of the customer and the responsibilities of the cloud provider.
Cloud Deployment Models: The way in which cloud services are provision, for instance the private cloud, the public cloud and the hybrid cloud.
National Institute of Standards and Technologies: A federal agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce that is responsible for measurement science, standards and technology.


text:
Clinic currently open
Home » In the press » Emmerdale Jai actor's hair transplant, fiancée and tensions over on-screen snogs
Emmerdale Jai actor's hair transplant, fiancée and tensions over on-screen snogs
Daily Mirror Article
Emmerdale star Chris Bisson has been playing Jai Sharma in the soap for 12 years. He was previously a Coronation Street favourite and used to look quite different.
Charmer Jai Sharma is the village ladies man on Emmerdale – but actor Chris Bisson's love life is far less dramatic.
The 46-year-old actor is happily engaged and has two kids. They aren't allowed to watch some of his more controversial scenes in the Dales.
Fearing he would lose work due to going bald, Chris revealed he'd had a hair transplant in June 2020.
The actor took drastic action as he was constantly worried that his thinning locks would sabotage any future screen time.
Chris has always been able to disguise the issue with the help of industry makeup and props. He eventually decided to undergo a revolutionary procedure involving 2,900 individual grafts of 6,400 hairs.
Explaining his reasons why. he told The Sun : "As soon as you start losing your hair you're immediately cast older. It reduces the amount of parts you can play."
As an actor, Chris is constantly looking in the mirror and seeing himself on the small screen and looking his best is a huge priority for the star.
He explained: "In real life you don't notice your hair loss day to day, but in TV it's different because you sit in front of a mirror and have a specific look that you need to achieve.
"But when you go into work and they are having to adjust the lighting, or make-up are having to put more powder on your head just to take the shine off, you notice.
"One day I realised that make-up were going further and further back and I thought, 'You're nearly powdering the top of my head' he added.
Thinking about hair restoration? See how the experts at Farjo can help.


Memory foam mattresses, such as the Tempur-Pedic line of products, are also a great option for anyone who suffers from chronic pain and has their sleep disrupted because of discomfort from their condition. Tempur-Pedic mattresses "remember" your sleeping shape, and even more helpful is the way that the mattress adapts to the shape of your body — your body heat warms the mattress, which helps it conform even more closely to the shape of your body, supplying the support that you need for a great night's sleep.
Allergy sufferers are another group who benefit from memory foam mattresses. These mattresses are non-allergenic because they are made of polyurethane, a material that does not allow dust mites to adhere to it and collect on or in the mattress. The material also doesn't allow other allergens to collect on the surface as easily as they would on other kinds of mattresses.
Finally, if your partner is an active sleeper and tosses and turns a lot, a memory foam Tempur-Pedic is a great choice. These mattresses have a feature called Motion Transfer Resistance that does exactly what the name suggests! The memory foam absorbs the motion in such a way that you will experience a lot less disruption and disturbance than with a traditional mattress.
Are you in the market for a new mattress and want to find out more about our full line of Tempur-Pedic mattresses? Stop by one of our Albuquerque, Santa Fe, or Farmington American Mattress Center locations today!


Ninja Assassin extends the Atomos Ninja line up in to the realm of 4K UHD and 1080 60p. Combining professional 4K-UHD/HD recording, 7" 1920x1080 monitoring, advanced playback and editing in a compact, lightweight, affordable add-on to existing DSLR, Mirrorless and HDMI cameras.
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Harness the power of 2.5" computer storage media, making 4K-UHD the same cost as affordable HD today. Record 3 hours of 4K ProRes 422 HQ @ 25 fps on a 1TB SSD, or 10 hours in HD. Atomos have teamed up with the major media brands to ensure availability and reliability you know and trust.
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The class leading 7" SuperAtom IPS calibrated monitor provides a range of easy to use professional monitoring tools on a high resolution (1920 x 1080) high pixel density (325ppi) screen to ensure perfect shot setup every time.
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Focus peaking function will reveal when your image is in focus with 3 modes available depending on the image you are focusing. Additionally 1:1 and 2:1 zoom lets you smoothly pan and scan the image and get close in for critical focus.
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So you're from Ada, OH?
Fortunately for you, Ada, OH offers a number of great schools to choose from. It's just a matter of finding the right program and study subject for you!
So you want to attend college at home in Ada?
There is only one college or university in the city of Ada that you can attend, Ohio Northern University.
It offers 59 degree and certificate programs in fields ranging from Healthcare to Math to Science for you to choose from. Healthcare is the most popular course of study at Ohio Northern University.
In-state tuition for students at Ohio Northern University is $33,099 per year.
In 2010, 3,636 students were enrolled in Ohio Northern University, which was 0.5% of the total college students in Ohio.
For every 100 students who enroll in Ohio Northern University, 82 return to start their second year of college. Approximately 69% of students eventually graduate.
Of the 3,636 students attending Ohio Northern University, 49% are female. 0% of Ohio Northern University students are 24 years old or younger. For every 100 Ohio Northern University students, 10 students identified themselves as being from a racial or ethnic minority background in 2009.
In 2009, Ohio Northern University employed a total of 205 faculty members. Of these faculty members, 0% were female and 7% were from racial or ethnic minority backgrounds.
In 2009, the average student to faculty ratio was 20 to 1 for Ohio Northern University.


text:
Anna Politkovskaya, not fearless at all
"Internationally admired for her fearless reporting . . ."
Anna Politkovskaya wasn't fearless. "One of the few journalists who had refused to keep her mouth shut", she acted as if giving in to fear was not an option (though her mission was self-imposed), and reported for the common good (though she could have had a comfy existence, 'reporting' the centre of power).
She also had American citizenship and has been compared to Bob Woodward, but there is a stark difference between what and how she reported and the standards she set herself, and the It's all politics. The good of the nation? What's that? embedded journalism in America today, exemplified by Woodward, the New York Times and the Washington Post, who haven't missed a beat in keeping in with the shifting power base. Too often, the 'free press' acts as if it is based in a place like Russia, or the lesser evil but still nothing like 'free' Singapore.
In liberal democracies, it is all about freedom of the press from government; in Singapore, it is about the government's freedom from the press.- Cherian George, Freedom from the Press: Why the media are the way they are
An article in the Independent said about Politkovskaya, "At a time when the Russian media is falling over itself to fawn over Mr Putin and sustain a Soviet-style cult of personality around him, her work provides a lone dissenting voice and a voice that cannot be heard in Russia - at least outside the pages of her liberal newspaper Novaya Gazeta."
The International Press Institute maintains a 'Watch List'. The Russia Watch List Report makes fascinating reading.
Media bias remains a feature of elections in Russia. The Russian Union of Journalists (RUJ) monitored the lead up to the 2004 presidential elections held on 12 May. The results of the monitoring showed clear evidence of self-censorship and favouritism towards the incumbent president.
Politkovskaya was not unique. There are many like her who are not famous, but who face imprisonment, financial ruin, threats to themselves and their families, and death. But they still report.
International PEN reports about them, and translates books like Anna Politkovskaya's Putin's Russia.
The Committee to Protect Journalists reports about them. Read, for instance, The Enemy, about Al-Jazeera's Sami al-Haj, jailed for five years without charge or trial.
Reporters Without Borders reports about them, and about events that often curiously miss the NEWS. Take for instance, this story in their breaking news today:
Satisfied Pentagon plans to repeat "embedding"
The International Press Institute (IPI) is perhaps the most curious group, as the statements they issue are much more informative and hard-hitting than the stuff that is considered fit as 'news'. Read, for instance, their statement: Media Targeted During the Ongoing Middle East Crisis
They maintain a Death Watch. Today the number for 2006 is 53.
IPI includes in its "Death Watch" journalists and media staff who were deliberately targeted because of their profession - either because of their investigative reporting or simply because they were journalists. IPI also includes journalists who were caught in the crossfire while covering dangerous assignments.
There are many groups working for press freedom, such as this coalition mentioned in Sri Lankan news.
In 2005, 58 journalists were murdered, and more than 500 were arrested. Journalists' committees are forming in many nations, including that hotbed of non-sensational news, Malta, where the Malta Media reported, "The Committee will be campaigning for a Freedom of Information Act, a Whistleblower Act, an overhaul of the Press Act and libel laws, and plans to organise a national seminar on Freedom of Information this year."
It's not as if there isn't good analysis around. See, for instance, Today, the chaos of US foreign policy goes nuclear, in ePluribus Media. It's just that other stuff makes the 'news'.
I just Google-newsed "Katie Couric" and got 3,180 stories, the top one (Bloomberg) being typical: " Katie Couric has lost almost a third of her viewers since she took over as anchor of ``The CBS Evening News'' and now trails predecessor Bob ..."
Next, "press freedom": 1,630.
Posted by anna tambour at 11:01 pm
The state of the US news is indeed dreadful, though I can't always bring myself to seek out the appalling stuff we're missing when I websurf (mea culpa). Living where you do, you're truly lucky not to have to encounter Katie Couric on the airwaves -- sandwiched between Katie and the loathsome Dan Rather, CBS actually had a decent news anchor for a while, but now it's back to cringing when I turn on CBS while waiting for the 6:30 news out of Phoenix (more comprehensive than the other "local" shows).
PS: that "borer" photo is amazing!
Dragons near grandfather's beard
An outstanding book about insects by Bert Brunet
Scented Fire
Consider the quince in hot weather
A pellet of dung beetles
Leslie Cannold, observer and thinker
The beauty of natural invention
Frankenstein, Bulwer-Lytton, and the unsheathed pen
An ass, reflecting
Martin Amis, observer and thinker
Dense growth
A cure for incuriosity
Dung beetles to the rescue!
Bedside books and a public bedside matter
Hal Duncan's 'Still Lives'


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Share this Story: Analysis: China dares Trump to hit back with Hong Kong power grab
Analysis: China dares Trump to hit back with Hong Kong power grab
The move risks triggering another round of tit-for-tat escalation between the U.S. and China, which have seen ties spiral to their worst in decades since COVID-19 began spreading
This combination of pictures shows recent portraits of China's President Xi Jinping (R) and US President Donald Trump. Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI,FRED DUFOUR/AFP via Getty Image
On the first day of China's biggest political event of the year, Xi Jinping sent a clear message to Donald Trump: We're going to do what we want in Hong Kong, and we're not scared of the consequences.
Analysis: China dares Trump to hit back with Hong Kong power grab Back to video
China confirmed on Friday that it would effectively bypass the city's legislature to implement national security laws, which have long been resisted by residents who fear they will erode freedoms of speech, assembly and the press. The announcement, which came on the same day China refrained from setting an economic growth target for the first time in decades, triggered immediate calls for fresh protests and sent the MSCI Hong Kong index to its worst loss since 2008.
For Xi, the move allows Beijing to reassert dominance over a piece of Chinese territory where his government was rendered impotent during sometimes-violent protests last year. Facing rising unemployment in the mainland due to the COVID-19 outbreak and the potential for a big loss in Hong Kong legislative elections set for September, the Communist Party decided it had more to gain by acting decisively to stem any potential threats.
'They are killing Hong Kong': China plans sweeping law changes to assert control
Trudeau takes rare swipe at China, says they don't seem to grasp Canada's judiciary is independent
"Xi feels threatened, the leadership feels threatened — this is a crisis," said David Zweig, an emeritus professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and director of Transnational China Consulting Ltd. "This is, 'We're not going to give an inch, we're going to tighten up, and Hong Kong's national security as a potential subversive centre is greater than its economic value.'"
The move risks triggering yet another round of tit-for-tat escalation between the U.S. and China, which have seen ties spiral to their worst in decades since COVID-19 began spreading around the world. From supply chains and visas to cyberspace and Taiwan, the world's two largest economies are poised for confrontation on a number of fronts as both Xi and Trump seek to win over domestic constituencies looking for someone to blame for a deterioration in living standards.
The unease within the party leadership was on display at the opening of the National People's Congress in Beijing, where Premier Li Keqiang announced China would abandon its decades-long practice of setting an annual target for economic growth due to "great uncertainty" in the world economy. While rolling out only moderate stimulus, the government nevertheless made clear that stabilizing employment had become the top priority. Defence spending this year was set to grow at the slowest pace since 1991.
Former Hong Kong chief executive Tung Chee-hwa (L) applauds as Chinese Premier Li Keqiang returns to his seat after delivering his speech at the opening session of the National People's Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 22, 2020. LEO RAMIREZ / AFP Photo by LEO RAMIREZ/AFP via Getty Images
"We will strive to keep existing jobs secure, work actively to create new ones, and help unemployed people find work," Li said.
The shifting away from a hard target for output growth breaks with decades of Communist Party planning habits and is an admission of the deep rupture that the disease has caused. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg see an expansion of just 1.8 per cent this year, the worst performance since the 1970s.
China sought to avoid reviving trade tensions with Trump, who has escalated his rhetoric against Beijing as his poll numbers have fallen in the wake of the pandemic. Li noted that China will work with the U.S. to implement the "phase one" agreement they reached in January, just before the virus sent the economy — and potentially Trump's re-election prospects — into a tailspin.
"The Chinese leadership does not want to be accused of walking away or reneging on the U.S.-China trade agreement," said James Green, a former State Department official who is now a senior adviser for geopolitical consulting firm McLarty Associates. "If it fails, in their view, the U.S. will have to be the one to pull the trigger and walk away."
The big question now is how Trump will respond. He has threatened for weeks to abandon from the trade deal, and on Thursday said the U.S. would react "very strongly" if China pushed ahead with the national security legislation in Hong Kong.
Any concrete U.S. action will likely be announced in an assessment of Hong Kong's autonomy: Secretary of State Michael Pompeo delayed a report earlier this month, seemingly in anticipation of China's latest move. Under the terms of the United States-Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992, the U.S. agreed to treat the former British colony as fully autonomous for trade and economic matters even after China took control in 1997.
A law passed last year allows the U.S. to either put sanctions on any Chinese officials deemed responsible for undermining the city's autonomy, or to do something more sweeping like revoke its special trade status. Congress could also do something in between, such as prohibit Hong Kong from importing sensitive U.S. technology with consumer and military applications — like carbon fiber used to make both golf clubs and missile components.
No matter what, U.S. actions won't have much impact on how China governs Hong Kong given the recent decisions in Beijing, according to Antony Dapiran, a lawyer based in the city and author of "City on Fire: The Fight for Hong Kong."
"If Hong Kong is not able to serve effectively as a safe haven insulated from the political risks of doing business in the rest of China, there is no rationale for international businesses to be here," he said. "They can either go direct to China, or base themselves elsewhere in Asia."
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang delivers a speech during the opening of the National People's Congress at The Great Hall Of The People on May 22, 2020 in Beijing, China. Photo by Andrea Verdelli/Getty Images
Trump's other options for hitting China aren't great: The economic downturn has made it less likely that Trump will pressure Xi through tariffs, which can increase costs for American businesses and consumers. Instead the U.S. has focused on reducing financial ties with China, taking action that could lead to delisting some Chinese companies from American stock exchanges and moving to restructure supply chains for essential goods.
China is also feeling heat from other countries: Disputes over its handling of the virus has strained ties with Australia and the European Union, while poorer countries who borrowed large sums for infrastructure under Xi's Belt and Road Initiative are struggling to pay back the cash.
But the biggest risk for Xi is still unemployment at home. With lots of young people out of work on the mainland, the last thing the Communist Party wants is a revival of violent Hong Kong protests, Zweig said.
"They feel at threat, at risk, and therefore they're doing it," he said. "Maybe five or six months ago, they were feeling okay. But I think a lot of stuff's come crashing down."


Have you ever made anything from faux leather? I hadn't until recently, when the folks at The Village Haberdashery sent me a pack to get crafty with. It turns out to be very fun stuff - and vegan-friendly, too!
I've designed four easy tutorials for things to make with faux leather, which will be popping up on the Village Haberdashery blog in the coming weeks. Click here for the first tutorial: a guide to making a shiny star headband.
... isn't that gold just delicious? (I never can resist shiny things).
You'll find the free step by step tutorial HERE and the faux leather packs HERE.


Two smiling cats on this cat salt and pepper set. This ceramic set is called "Cats". The tall cat salt shaker is 4 3/4 inches high x 2 inches wide, the smaller cat pepper is 2 3/4 inches wide x 3 3/4 inches high.


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Mariam Ameri M.D., FACR
Dr. Mariam Ameri is board certified in internal medicine and rheumatology and is board certified in musculoskeletal ultrasound by the American college of rheumatology.
Dr Ameri attended the George Washington University for her undergraduate studies and graduated magna cum laude. She obtained her medical degree from Saba University School of Medicine in the Netherlands-Antilles. She completed her Internship and Internal Medicine residency at Case Western Reserve University/Metrohealth in 2012 and a two-year fellowship in Rheumatology at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville in 2014.
Susan Berger M.D., FACR
Prior to joining the practice in June 2013, Dr Berger has worked as an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University, as well as in private practice in Lansing, Michigan where she also assisted with clinical research trials.
She completed her medical residency and sub-specialty fellowship in rheumatology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Berger has more than 10 years of clinical experience and is currently accepting new patients at our Annapolis office. Her goal as a physician is to devise an individual treatment plan for each patient, in order to help patients help themselves.
Primal Bhatia M.D., FACR
Dr. Primal Bhatia is a board certified Rheumatologist. Prior to joining the practice in November 2017, Dr Bhatia has worked in Private Practice in Catonsville for four years.
She completed her medical residency at Mercy Catholic Medical Center/Hahneman University, Philadelphia and subspeciality rheumatology Fellowship at the Washington Hospital Center in D.C.. Dr. Bhatia is currently accepting new patients at our Annapolis and Clarksville offices. Her goal as a physician is to collaborate with patients to help them create an individualized plan to recovery and wellness
Ashok Jacob M.D., FACR
Dr. Ashok Jacob is board certified in both Rheumatology and Internal Medicine. Dr. Jacob started practicing in Maryland in 2007, following his completion of a two-year fellowship in Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He had completed his Internal Medicine residency at the Mercy Health System in Philadelphia in 2005 and prior to this graduated with a Masters in Public Health in the field of Community Health Education from the University of Maryland, College Park.
In addition to maintaining a full clinical practice, Dr Jacob is also very interested in research and evidence based medicine. He is the author of several peer reviewed articles in prestigious journals including the New England Journal of Medicine and American Journal of Medicine.
Dr Jacob is currently a diplomate of the American board of internal medicine and rheumatology and a fellow of the American college of Rheumatology and American institute of Ultrasound in medicine.
Dr Ashok Jacob is currently on staff at the Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis and the Union Memorial and St. Agnes hospitals in Baltimore.
Dr Jacob has been consistently ranked a Top Doctor in Rheumatology by his peers as published in the biennial Whats Up Magazine in 2013, 2015 and 2017.
Susanna Jeurling M.D., FACR
Dr. Susanna Jeurling is board certified in both Internal Medicine and Rheumatology. Originally from Washington D.C., Dr.Jeurling earned a Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biochemistry and Biophysics from Yale University. She received her medical degree from New York University School of Medicine where she was inducted as member of the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society and conducted research on cardiovascular risk and gout funded by the Rheumatology Research Foundation. She completed her internal medicine residency training at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and then returned home to the mid atlantic region to complete her training in rheumatology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 2020. Dr. Jeurling has wanted to be a rheumatologist since her own diagnosis of juvenile idiopathic arthritis and is passionate about helping other manage their autoimmune disease and musculoskeletal health. Dr. Jeurling sees patients at our Bel Air and Owings Mills locations.
Sumit Kunwar M.D., FACR
Dr Sumit Kunwar is board certified in internal medicine and rheumatology. He joins us after completing his fellowship program at the Georgetown University Washington Hospital Center program. Prior to his rheumatology fellowship Dr Kunwar was an internist at the Lakes Region General Hospital in Laconia, NH where he was also a clinical assistant professor in Internal Medicine at the University of New England. He is an avid clinical researcher with a keen interest in systematic reviews and meta-analysis. He has published extensively in medical journals. Dr. Kunwar sees patients at our Bel Air office.
Jonathan Miller M.D., FACR
Dr Jonathan Miller is board certified in Internal Medicine and rheumatology by the American board of Internal Medicine. He is also board certified by the American College of Rheumatology in Musculoskeletal Ultrasound.
He graduated from St. George's University school of medicine and completed his internship and residency at the Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey in 2014. He then completed his fellowship in rheumatology and clinical immunology at the George Washington University hospital in Washington DC in June 2016.
Paola Pinto M.D., FACR
Dr. Paola Pinto is board certified in Rheumatology and Internal Medicine. She is an American College of Rheumatology certified Musculokeletal Ultrasonographer and specialized in Autoinflammatory Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
She earned her medical degree at Universidad Pedagogica y Tecnologica de Colombia, completed her residency in internal medicine and fellowship in rheumatology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, where she graduated as chief fellow in 2012.
She has experience in academic rheumatology obtained at the NIH, were she was a clinical researcher with the Autoinflammatory Diseases Group at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and a professor at the Rheumatology Fellowship Program with the National Institute of Arthritis, Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS). She was the director of the Musculoskeletal Ultrasound Clinic at the NIH Clinical Center.
Dr. Pinto has co-authored multiple peer reviewed medical articles published in prestigious medical journals including Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America; she also has been a frequent platform and poster presenter at the American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting.
Dr. Pinto also has years of experience in Rheumatology Private Practice and will be seeing patients at our location in the Fair Oaks Hospital Campus in Fairfax, Virginia.
Louis Robinett III M.D., FACR
Dr. Louis Robinett is board certified in both Internal medicine and Rheumatology. Dr. Robinett earned a degree in Chemistry from Texas A&M University, graduating cum laude in 2010. He then completed his medical education at the University of Texas School of Medicine at San Antonio in 2014. After relocating to Baltimore, he began a residency in internal medicine at the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC), graduating in 2017. He remained at UMMC for rheumatology fellowship, graduating in 2019.
He has also received the Rheumatology's Musculoskeletal Ultrasound Certification (RhMSUS) from the American College of Rheumatology.
Dr. Robinett sees patients at our Bel Air and Owings Mills offices in Maryland.
Heidi Sami M.D., FACR
Dr Heidi Sami is Board Certified in both internal medicine and Rheumatology. She graduated from the American University of Antigua and completed her internship and residency in internal medicine at the Medstar Union Memorial hospital in Baltimore in 2013 and subsequently did her fellowship in rheumatology and clinical immunology at the George Washington University hospital in Washington DC.
She is a certified Musculoskeletal Ultrasound Specialist from the American College of Rheumatology.
Disclaimer: All information on this website is for informational purposes only. It is not meant as medical advice, nor is it meant as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Use of this site does not imply or create a doctor-patient relationship. You should discuss with your doctor any medical issues including but not limited to diet, exercises, medications, supplements, symptoms and diseases. If you are a current, established patient of Annapolis Rheumatology , you should discuss all concerns with your physician, as this information is not a substitute for your individualized treatment plan. Neither this website nor your Doctor make any claims as to the accuracy of the information found on the website, and the information is subject to change at any time. You should review any information found here with your doctor. Never disregard medical advice or delay seeking treatment from a medical professional because of any information contained on this website. Under no circumstances should author be held responsible for any illness, injury, damage or death attributed to this website. The views expressed on this website have no relation to those of any university, hospital, practice, organization, association or other institutions with which the author is affiliated.


The second in the classic trilogy The Fortunes of Richard Mahony by Henry Handel Richardson (pseudonym of Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson), The Way Home continues the story of Richardson's parents and life in Ballarat and Melbourne in the second half of the 19th century. I read and wrote about Australia Felix last year.
What we need, you and I, Mary, is a society that would take the best from both sides. The warm-heartedness of our colonial friends, their generosity and hospitality; while we could do without the promiscuity, the worship of money, the general loudness and want of refinement.
Upon landing in Melbourne, they learn that their investments have done extremely well and Richard will no longer need to practice medicine. They bought a house that Richard dubbed Ultima Thule and for some years Richard was content immersing himself in the library he amassed, enjoying his beloved garden and exploring the world of the occult. There was a period when he was content, and he became mellow and was tolerant of his fellow man. Mary was overjoyed to see him taking pleasure in life and she recovered from the bad effects of their time in England. To their great surprise Mary became pregnant after many years of marriage and they had a son they called Cuffy and twin girls.
Richard, impulsive as ever, decided to sell the house and travel to England and the Continent. Just before they left, he learned that his long-time money manager was ill and he transferred all their money to someone recommended by an old friend. While they are traveling on the Continent, Richard receives an urgent telegram to let him know the new manager had stolen his clients' money and gone to America. Richard sets off for home as quickly as possible while Mary is to dispose of their household in England and follow with the children. We can assume that "the way home" is a crooked path, but ultimately "home" is Australia.
In Australia Felix Richard was always a prickly fellow, apt to act against his own best interest, but he exhibited flashes of personal insight. In this volume his good qualities are less often observed and he manages to take the wrong course with dreadful consequences. Mary recognizes his irrational thinking, but is unable to overcome him. She does occasionally voice her admiration for him, but is increasingly exasperated with him.
Not ours to judge of the means, or in what our puny service should consist: why to one should fall the bugles and the glory — the dying in splendour for a great cause, or the living illustriously to noble issues — to another, a life that was one long blind stumble, with, for finish, an inglorious end. Faith bid us believe that, in the sight of the great Foreordainer, all service was equal. But this we could not know. The veil — a web of steel despite its tenuity — was lowered, and would not rise on the mystery until that day dawned towards which all our days had headed, for which no man had ever waited in vain. And then, pinched of nostril and marble-cold, earth's last little posy in our gripless hands, we should lie supine and — such was the irony of things — no longer greatly care to know.
Henry Handel Richardson, pseudonym, The Way Home, from Complete Works Henry Handel Richardson, Minerva Classics, 2013, kindle edition ($1.99 from Amazon). Also available in print at the UVa library.
I didn't feel let down with Book II – The Way Home. I must have been so enchanted with Book I that it carried me through all three volumes.
Tony, I'm still enthusiastic and looking forward to Ultima Thule, but I was less enthralled than with Australia Felix. It's interesting that it was with the publication of Ultima Thule that the trilogy's popularity in Australia really soared.


Made some hot cross buns to try!
I have never made any hot cross buns before, and I can't remember if I have ate them before lol.
Hot cross buns are sweet bread buns, made with spices and raisins. It has this recognizable cross on the top of the bun. These buns would mark the end of Lent. Traditionally, it's supposed to be eaten on Good Friday.
Since I was "stuck" at home alone with 2 young kids, with many meals to make from scratch, I had to choose food that can be prepared quickly and easily.
While these buns are not exactly being prepared quickly, as you'd need to wait for the dough to proof and rise, the no kneading part saved really a lot of time! So you can make these easily too!
I realised that the texture of these buns taste best on the day it's made. The next day, the buns turned slightly harder – which you can "refresh" them by zapping them in the microwave.
You can also make these hot cross buns using the kneading method, which I believe would have a better texture!
Over here, the crosses are made using flour roux. Some other recipes use icing sugar mixed with some water or milk to get a thick flowy icing paste. You can try that too!
Easy no-knead hot cross buns that taste best fresh from oven!
Place the yeast (from A) and 2 tsp of the sugar in a medium bowl, then pour in warm water. Leave for 5 minutes until it froths.
Place flour, the rest of the sugar, salt and spices in a large mixing bowl. Whisk well.
Make a well in the centre. Add remaining ingredients from (B) and pour in the yeast from Step (1), including all froth.
Mix until combined with spatula - it will be like a thick lumpy batter. Not pourable, but thick and sticky.
Leave dough in the bowl, cover with a damp towel or cling wrap and place it in a warm place to rise for around 2 hours. The dough should triple in size and be bubbly on the surface.
After proofing, punch dough down (in the bowl) to deflate.
Dust working space with flour. Remove dough from bowl. Dust top of dough with flour, and knead lightly. Shape dough into a log or rectangular shape. Cut into 12 pieces.
Take 1 of the dough and press down with your palm. Using your fingers, gather the "ends" of the dough into a ball. Placing the dough onto the working space, roll it slightly (place your hand over the dough and "shake" it) rounder.
Place dough onto lined baking tray. Repeat for all remaining dough.
Cling wrap the tray of dough and leave to rise for 1 hour.
15 mins before the hour is up, preheat your oven to 180C. Prepare the paste for crosses by mixing flour and water together. Pipe the paste onto the top of the dough.
Bake for about 18-20mins, till top is nicely browned. In the meantime, prepare glaze.
Once buns are baked, remove from oven and glaze immediately. Cool till warm before serving, or cool completely before keeping them.
I've used honey in place of apricot jam for the glaze.
Recipe from Recipe Tin Eats.


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Organized by Coface, the annual country risk conference are an ideal platform to examine and discuss country and industry risks.
The Country Risk Conferences are organized in approximately 20 countries each year. In France where Coface is headquartered, the Country Risk conference is held at the CNIT in Paris la Défense in January every year. Here in Dubai the last Country Risk Conference was held in October 2015.
The Coface Country Risk Conference provides an overview of country and sector risks around the particular region & the world. It aims at helping economic players make their export and investment decisions.
Throughout the day, economists, companies, bankers and officials share their views, examine the major trends in the global economy, and assess its impact on the business environment.


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The app concept is overblown – its only the first step
There is an interesting evolution occurring with apps. If you don't have an iPhone this may not be immediately evident. I was not sold on the concept, and remain somewhat sceptical, but there is no ignoring that apps are a success, on iPhone and now iPad.
Cracking the code of apps | ft.com
For users, it is also easier to dip in and out of different tasks without having to deal with software or navigate the web. "There's no desktop file system, there's no saving and quitting when you're finished," says John Poisson, who recently sold his app company to online photo service Shutterfly. "You just launch an app to do something, then close it and do something else."
What I continue to wonder about is how this will play out. Back in the day, 1990's we had tons of applications (they were called in those days) that we could install. Gradually we saw the advent of office suites that aggregated core apps. Much later in the naughties we saw the advent of browser based apps and we even have a browser based operating system in the works. html5 is clearly going to take over from flash and that adds to the power of the browser.
Back to iPhone and iPad. Will the same evolution occur. I have no doubt that it will and that this excitement about apps will resolve into a serious discussion about what we actually require. How many times do you have to swipe across pages in your iDevice to locate the app of choice? Its fun for a short while but when you get serious about it you find yourself sorting pages by app type. if user behaviour is doing that, then we will see an app do it. Enter the 'suite' concept.
Then suites will become too heavy and slow and then what … apps in a browser?
Technorati Tags: apps,iphone,ipad
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Qatari Energy Minister, Mohammed Bin Saleh Al-Sada, said that both OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers would be meeting on April 17 in the Qatari capital. The minister, who is also the OPEC President, said that it is a follow-up to last month's meeting held in Doha among the four nations of Venezuela, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar where they proposed to freeze oil production at January levels. The four nations also wanted others to join them.
The Minister disclosed that about 15 countries from OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers were supporting the initiative. These nations represent 73% of global oil output capacity. Their stated objective is to stabilize oil production and remove the excess supply so that the producing countries can realize better prices and prevent the worldwide oil price from further decline.
The latest move comes on the heels of the Russian Energy Minister, Alexander Novak's disclosure on Monday that an agreement could be signed next month after talking to Iran. He also said that there was also a possibility of excluding Iran since it has been under sanctions for years. The lifting of sanctions happened only in January. However, some countries like Kuwait want all big producers to be part of the freeze initiative.
Iran has been indicating that it would boost its oil production to pre-sanction levels and until then, it would not be a party to the oil production freeze move.
The April meeting will not only discuss the oil put freeze issue but will also finalize a deal. The interested parties indicated that they were not going to meet just for the sake of meeting. That is a clear indication that even if Iran is not ready to join, others will go ahead with the freeze output move.