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Wild Author: Erica Ferencik
Mary Woodbury 0 Comments
This month we travel to the Arctic – Greenland, specifically – with author Erica Ferencik, via her novel Girl in Ice (March 2022, Scout Press/S&S). I'm absolutely floored after chatting with Erica about her firsthand experiences when writing.
Erica throws herself wholeheartedly into the dangerous environments where her novels are set. She ventured deep into the remote forests of the Allagash Territory in northern Maine for The River at Night, rafted the Amazon River in the jungles of Peru for Into the Jungle, and for her new book, Girl in Ice, out by Scout Press/S&S in March 2022, she spent several weeks exploring the desolate iceberg-packed fjords of Greenland.
She recalls,
The thin metal skin of the helicopter was the only thing between me and a thousand-foot plummet into the mile-deep fjord. Around our encampment on the ice, a flimsy-looking electric fence was the sole discouragement to hungry, roving polar bears. I received casual instructions to 'turn toward the noise' while kayaking among stories-high bergs in case they were to split and roll, creating tsunami-sized waves.
Valerie "Val" Chesterfield is a linguist trained in the most esoteric of disciplines: dead Nordic languages. Despite her successful career, she leads a sheltered life and languishes in the shadow of her twin brother, Andy, an accomplished climate scientist stationed on a remote island off Greenland's barren coast. But Andy is gone: a victim of suicide, who willfully ventured unprotected into 50-degree-below-zero weather. Val is inconsolable – and disbelieving. She suspects foul play.
When Wyatt, Andy's fellow researcher in the Arctic, discovers a scientific impossibility – a young girl frozen in the ice who thaws out alive, speaking a language no one understands – Val is his first call. Will she travel to the frozen North to meet this girl, and try to comprehend what she is so passionately trying to communicate? Under the auspices of helping Wyatt interpret the girl's speech, Val musters every ounce of her courage and journeys to the Arctic to solve the mystery of her brother's death.
The moment she steps off the plane, her fear threatens to overwhelm her. The landscape is fierce, and Wyatt, brilliant but difficult, is an enigma. But the girl is special, and Val's connection with her is profound. Only, something is terribly wrong; the child is sick, maybe dying, and the key to saving her lies in discovering the truth about Wyatt's research. Can his data be trusted? And does it have anything to do with how and why Val's brother died? With time running out, Val embarks on an incredible frozen odyssey – led by the unlikeliest of guides – to rescue the new family she has found in the most unexpected of places.
A Chat with the Author
I am amazed by the types of novels you're writing. They take place in interesting places (a jungle, a remote forest, and now an icecap). Your research is hands-on, and you travel places ahead of time. What's that like? What's your favorite experience in the beautiful but isolated landscapes you have visited?
No matter how much I read or google, I can't possibly bring these worlds alive for myself – never mind the reader – without going there first. I absolutely love every minute of these trips, no matter how cold, hot, scared, freaked out, and lost I may be. This is our world and, as troubled as it is, it is still full of wonders!
That said, I have a tendency to get mired – okay, lost – in research. The way I see it, once you open one of these fascinating doors, in the case of Girl in Ice, animals that can thaw out alive, the Little Ice Age, ancient Arctic civilizations, Greenlandic wildlife, Nordic languages, glaciology, climate science, where do you stop? The answer for me is: know my story first. Otherwise, I will fall into the black hole of research and never emerge.
Before leaving for my trip to Greenland in August of 2019, I made sure to wrap up a comprehensive outline for Girl in Ice. As much as I intended to keep myself open to any and all experiences on the trip, I needed to keep a special eye out for any aspect of the place – people, culture, landscape, animals – that would figure heavily in the story. In addition to the trip, I read dozens of books on Arctic exploration, Greenlandic history, and linguistics.
This sort of preparation was true for all my books. I knew my story intimately before embarking on my research trip to the Allagash Territory in Northern Maine for The River at Night, and certainly for my one-month immersive trip to the Peruvian jungle for Into the Jungle.
One of my favorite experiences was camping near the ice sheet in Greenland near a bay packed with giant (think five-story building) icebergs. For whatever reason, we hadn't seen much of the northern lights, but on our last night there, something amazing happened. An explosion woke us at three in the morning. We all stumbled out of our tents in our long johns, hoping that the world hadn't come to end.
Not this time. A cruise-ship-sized iceberg had broken in two in the bay. Waves pounded the shore; seafoam glowed in the moonlight.
Seconds later, as if the two events were related, the northern lights flickered across the sky: mad swaths of purple, green, orange and yellow. We gathered sleeping bags and pillows to lie out on slabs of rock near the bay. Colors flashed and danced; speech failed us. My hands and feet were numb with cold, but escaping into my warm tent was out of the question. Never had I felt more like stardust, never more like part of this gorgeous world. I kept asking myself, how can this be more beautiful, and in the space of a breath, it was.
That's amazing (and my dream to see). What got you on the road to thinking about and writing Girl in Ice, and what do you want readers to know about the background experience?
One bitterly cold morning in the winter of 2018, I was walking in the woods near my home, and came upon what looked like juvenile painted turtles frozen mid-stroke in the ice along the shallow edge of a pond. They didn't look alive, but they didn't look dead either.
It turns out there are some animals (and plants too!) that have this freezing-and-coming-back-to-life thing down. Painted turtle hatchlings, some species of beetle, wood frogs, certain alligators, even an adorable one-millimeter length creature called a Tardigrade or "water bear" that can be frozen to minus 359C and thaw out just fine. Most of these creatures possess a certain cryo-protein that protects their cells from bursting when they freeze.
A protein that… we don't possess. Still, the image of a young girl frozen in a glacier in the Arctic popped into my head. From there, I asked myself: How did she get there? What was her story?
That's a cool start! You stated in an interview, "I'd say never stop learning your craft, whether that's through reading what you admire or writing." What have you learned from prior novels that shaped some of Girl in Ice?
Every time I write a book it's as if I've never written one before. I have to learn all over again how in the world to construct something so daunting and overwhelming. It's like climbing Everest with barely enough oxygen, without a sherpa, in business casual.
But this time I learned, or re-learned to love the research, but be careful! Don't get mired in it. The story comes first. Concoct a small, knowable world. Create fewer characters, better fleshed out. Don't shy away from painful situations or emotions. Love or at least have empathy for all of your characters. Embrace your weird. Keep the dread going. Vet every sentence, paragraph, scene. Make every word count. And it's fine to make your reader laugh, cry, or cower in fear, but most of all, you've got to make them wait.
Your website states "My passion is to create unputdownable novels set in some of the most inhospitable regions on earth, places most of us don't get a chance to experience in person in our lifetimes." How did that passion originate?
I love any great story no matter where it's set; however, I've got a real soft spot for any novel or film set in a forbidding place. I could speculate all kinds of deep psychological reasons for my love of survival stories. Let me put it this way: like so many others, I survived an extremely challenging childhood, and so I have ready access to dread, to feeling trapped, to planning creative ways to survive. In short, my fight or flight hormones are quite close to the surface.
How did you approach creating the language the girl in the ice uses?
I immersed myself in the sounds and cadences of the living Nordic languages, among them Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Icelandic, and of course Greenlandic, in order to get a feel for inflection and tone. I also dove into recordings of Old Norse, the main language of the Vikings, in order to create morphemes, or units of meaning that sounded Nordic, but that were just slightly distinct from known languages, so I could create Sigrid's unique tongue.
What I had to grapple with next was: How would Val be able to interpret Sigrid's speech if there was no correlation to any living or even dead language? I consulted some linguist friends who said that without any remnants of written language or cultural clues from a society that spoke the language – with nothing to go on, basically – you'd have to start with simple nouns, verbs, and concepts, almost like a baby pieces together her language.
The plot touches upon deadly ice storms; are these a real current threat stemming from global warming?
There are such things as katabatic winds. In Greenland, they're called piteraqs: brutally strong winds generated by radically different air temperatures, often barreling down the slopes of mountains or glaciers. I'm not a climate scientist or meteorologist. But climate change strengthens hurricanes, tornadoes, wind events in general, as well as prompting dramatic swings in temperature, so I thought it wasn't too far of a reach – for story purposes – to say that deadly ice storms are in our future and might have been in our past.
What was the most challenging part of the field research you did for this book?
Leaving Greenland, just when I was getting a feel for the place, was the worst part of a mostly smooth trip. A profoundly melancholic feeling of when will I ever be here again? I could have stayed weeks longer kayaking the fjords, interviewing townspeople, trying to pick up at least some of the language, scouting for wildlife. I couldn't get enough of city-block long icebergs, carved into incredibly bizarre shapes by sun and sea, the blow of fin whales in the bay, the northern lights, and our Greenlandic guide's hair-raising tales of hunting and survival.
The most surprising thing you learned from that research?
This is going to sound silly, but the fact that Greenland is so big, just so vast, and yet so few people live there was hard to wrap my mind around. Only 57,000 people – one tenth the residents in all of Wyoming – call this island, the largest in the world at about a third the size of Canada, home. Most live in Nuuk, the capital; the rest live in towns often with fewer than 500 inhabitants along a three-thousand-mile coastline, mostly on the west side. The ice sheet measures fifteen hundred miles north to south, is two miles deep at its thickest, covers nearly 80% of Greenland, and has been frozen for three million years.
The second thing that shocked me was how close Greenland is to pre-history. As recently as 1950, people lived in sod huts: low, square dwellings built by digging a hole in the ground during the short summer season – plus or minus fifty days – then creating a supporting structure for a roof out of whale ribs or driftwood, finally sealing it with skins, peat and rocks.
And it's one thing to read that the economy is mostly subsistence hunting and fishing; it's another to witness it, read about quotas for narwhal and minke whale, learn what happens when a polar bear is spotted (it's not gentle), understand that sled dogs are seen as possessions, not pets, that need to be fed. And, sad as it is to witness for someone unaccustomed to this life, it's cheaper to hunt seal than cough up five dollars for a can of imported dog food.
Most shocking of all? There are no penguins.
How did it differ, apart from the climate, from your field research in Northern Maine, and Peru?
For a month in the winter of 2014, I was on my own in the Allagash Territory in Northern Maine conducting research for The River at Night. No guide, no touring company. By making dozens of someone-who-knows-someone phone calls, I cobbled together interviews with people who had disappeared themselves from society. It got dicey at times. One guy would only agree to an interview if I met him at a certain mile marker along a logging road where he arrived on horseback. I vetted everyone and always had my mace.
In the Peruvian jungle doing research for Into the Jungle, I had my own guide, a native and lifelong hunter armed with a machete and a masterful knowledge of the rainforest. I was frankly terrified to get on the plane. I'd prepared myself by reading everything I could about the jungle and didn't think I would survive it; there is such a thing as knowing too much! But by the time I left Peru, four weeks later, I felt confident and calm, even with piranha I'd caught for dinner snapping at my toes and flipping around in the bottom of my dugout canoe.
In Greenland, my fellow explorers and myself had access to a native guide and hunter who also served as translator. We were able to interview a mayor of a Greenlandic town, as well as several residents, including other hunters. We explored by small plane, helicopter, kayak, small boat, and on foot, camping just a stone's throw from the ice cap.
This series features authors who tackle environmental issues or include natural beauty as a strong element in their story. How does your novel fit into this thread?
Settings including natural beauty are wonderful, but the human story, and all the emotions we experience, are what we all crave and ultimately respond to. In constructing a novel, for me, story comes first, but for each novel I've written over the last decade (closing in on number four), the climate emergency looms larger and larger in my thoughts, emotions, and ultimately in my stories.
Climate- or eco-fiction, or any story involving the environment can be set anywhere, since climate change impacts us worldwide, in small and large ways. It could be a thriller set in the near future about water wars or mass emigration, or it could be a more intimate story set on a smaller canvas, perhaps something about someone who has to abandon a beloved family home along a coast due to the encroaching tide.
Readers want to think, but more than anything else they want to feel, they want a deeper understanding of life. This is best done through story. I believe that Girl in Ice is a solid story that deals with the impending ravages of climate change in both a speculative and realistic way, in broad strokes but also revealing the deep trauma that – unfortunately – we are all just beginning to understand and experience.
I believe so too. Are there ways in which your decade doing standup and sketch comedy has influenced your writing of fiction?
They say that comedy is the angry art. And it's true. As long as you're funny, you get to go up there and rail against what you perceive as unfair, wrong, absurd, and so on. There is a lot of darkness in comedy. In fact, I defy you to tell me an actually funny grownup joke without a dark, or tragic, or sad kernel. Jokes about happy things aren't funny. This is why people love comedy: someone, up there onstage, is calling out things that have bothered them or pissed them off for decades, but they didn't know how to put it into words.
When I was doing stand-up or sketch comedy, I was a frustrated writer with several terrible novels in my drawer, but with a hunger to be seen and heard. Getting up on stage and letting it rip was instant publication: immediate feedback. It taught me to think on my feet. It taught me discipline: you had to come up with new jokes all the time.
Comedy demands keen powers of observation. It you're not paying attention, taking notes about what you see, hear, feel, then take the second step and ask yourself, why is this funny, how can you come up with material? Never mind asking yourself how can I process this through the lens of who am I as a comic? But the first step is always: observe.
Which is also a crucial skill for a novelist.
Bravery is a muscle we all exercise every day, especially these days, but doing stand-up was where I practiced bravery, night after night, for years. It took me a while to really grok that comedy isn't one-way – you're not just dumping jokes on people – it's a conversation with the audience. After every joke, you must give your audience a chance to react. If you don't, they will sense your fear and eat you alive.
So many people ask me these days: Weren't you frightened, kayaking between massive icebergs, knowing if they calved or split, waves could hurl you into thirty-degree water? What about the giant anacondas coiled in the trees over your canoe as you threaded through the floating forest by moonlight? I would say that for all those scenarios you can lower your risk: you can find a great guide, wear the right gear, pack a machete of your own. But try standing in front of five hundred people waiting for them to laugh at a joke that seemed hilarious in the shower that morning. That has to be the scariest journey of all.
What won't we find on any PR or publicity material?
I think this book has been lurking somewhere deep in my subconscious since the day I saw a film version of Frankenstein. In one of the final scenes, Frankenstein's monster, hunted, beaten and bloodied, has given up on mankind and is heading north into the great Arctic wilderness. I will never forget that devastatingly sad and eerie image. Girl in Ice is not Frankenstein, but I think that's where my fascination with Nordic stories began.
Are you working on anything else?
In the next novel, a thriller called The Intelligence, nature finally takes a stand and attempts to destroy us as we have been annihilating it, posing for us the impossible paradox, How do you defeat an enemy you desperately need for your own survival?
Well, I'm intrigued by your life, your research, your experience in beautiful but also dangerous areas. Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me, and I'm looking forward to The Intelligence!
This article is part of our Wild Authors series. It was originally published on Dragonfly.eco.
Mary Woodbury, a graduate of Purdue University, runs Dragonfly.eco, a site that explores ecology in literature, including works about climate change. She writes fiction under pen name Clara Hume. Her novel Back to the Garden has been discussed in Dissent Magazine, Ethnobiology for the Future: Linking Cultural and Ecological Diversity (University of Arizona Press), and Uncertainty and the Philosophy of Climate Change (Routledge). Mary lives in Nova Scotia and enjoys hiking, writing, and reading.
Arctic, Greenland, Literature, Wild Authors
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Computer Science and Robotics
11 October 2018 October 11, 2018
Robotics is progressively influencing our day by day lives and affecting social insurance, transportation, defense, manufacturing, and entertainment. New robots and calculations are empowering doctors to perform more exact surgeries, helping people with undertakings of day by day living, empowering autonomous agents to move through swarmed situations (crowded environments) safely and deftly, and controlling materials at the smaller scale and nano scales. The growth of medical robotics since the mid-1980s has been striking and from a few initial efforts in stereotactic brain surgery, orthopaedics, endoscopic surgery, microsurgery, and other areas, the field has got really expanded to include commercially marketed, clinically deployed systems, and a robust and exponentially expanding research community, so to say(Russell H. Taylor et al,2016). And thus even medicine cannot thrive nowadays without robotics.
New calculations
At UNC, we are making new calculations to address crucial computational difficulties in robotics, incorporating motion planning in complex conditions, productively demonstrating robot kinematics and elements, and giving new interfaces to human-robot collaboration. We bring an expansive scope of expertise to address these issues, including geometric processing, probabilistic techniques, physically-based recreation, many-center CPU and GPU parallelization, machine learning, computational haptics, and computer vision. We apply the new calculations and strategies we create to an assortment of utilizations including both physical robots and in addition virtual operators. Current applications incorporate robot-helped therapeutic methodology, surgery training, design prototyping, intelligent transportation systems, nano-scale control, computer activity (animation), multi-robot/specialist interactions, and personal assistant robots.
Computer Science and Robotics we discuss in this Technical research paper in order to come to a research conclusion for the sake of the future generation and such a topic as this Computer Science and Robotics when discussed in such a Technical research paper would enormously help the students. If the students want such a topic as Computer Science and Robotics as in a Technical research paper, then they must approach such as us: the great technology or the great scholars.
CCC to catalyze
The objective of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is to catalyze the processing research network to discuss longer range, more venturesome research challenges; to fabricate accordingly around research dreams; to develop the most encouraging dreams toward obviously characterized activities; and to work with the financing organizations to push difficulties and dreams toward clearly defined initiatives or activities. The motivation behind this Technical research paper on Computer Science and Robotics is to establish the deep concepts related to such network as Computer Science and Robotics.
In an ongoing article in The New York Times, the daily paper's innovation essayist John Markoff depicts how progresses in robotics have made new open doors for mechanization or automation, referring to a few precedents where enhanced capacities and reduced cost are changing the value proposition to industry.
The truth of the matter is, robots will put a few people out of work; undoubtedly the robots as of now have uprooted numerous occupations. Be that as it may, robotics will likewise make new openings for work and, seemingly, will float the economy significantly more than the impact of the displaced occupations. It is informational to call attention that before 1950, there were numerous individuals utilized "computers" in real organizations, for example, IBM. They were there to do the grunt work necessary to perform large-scale of computations. Silicon computers uprooted those laborers (and numerous all the more doing bookkeeping, filling, writing, et cetera). In any case, consequently, a generous portion of the biggest organizations (and businesses) in the U.S. are presently information technology (IT) organizations. The U.S. keeps on driving innovation in IT and related areas and it keeps on making new and enduring professions and open doors for many employees.
One of the most significant directions in the development of computer science and information and communication technologies is represented by Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) which are systems of collaborating computational entities which are in intensive connection with the surrounding physical world and its on-going processes, providing and using, at the same time, data-accessing and data-processing services available on the internet (László Monostori,2014). Such rare data accessing is all possible only by means of Computer Science rather.
Now in this Technical research paper, we research Computer Science and Robotics technically to study the innovations so far accomplished by the great nations such as USA as in the field of Computer Science and Robotics and such a Technical research paper as this that deals on Computer Science and Robotics discusses far and wonders too of the prevalent Computer Science and Robotics which has caused enormous changes in the world. Thus this Technical research paper comes on such a topic as Computer Science and Robotics to prove the worth of such as these Computer Science and Robotics to the world.
Tom Kalil has noted
On this point, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) deputy director Tom Kalil has noted in Markoff's piece that the main way of the nation's manufacturing in the U.S.depends on the nation's higher productivity. And such a higher productivity is possible due to the Computer Science and Robotics of which we discuss now in this Technical research paper. This is completely true that the genuine advancement is possible due to the Computer Science and Robotics only, which gives a nation like USA a great power. In order to get more power, productivity and advancement, the U.S. should need to keep itself in front of the world with Computer Science and Robotics (of which only we discuss now very deeply in this Technical research paper). Lest there won't be a bright turning point with USA and the world ever. There can't be the great aspects related to USA without Computer Science and Robotics (of which only we discuss now very purposely in this Technical research paper).And thus established in robotics USA should make a striking cycle of world-driving development.
The real leaps forward in robotics will include mind boggling and unstructured collaboration with the physical world, and with the great human partners. This is the key fixing that is encouraged by the Administration's National Robotics Initiative (NRI), a multi-organization program to drive forward key advances in robotics innovation that was incorporated into the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) reported by President Obama in June 2011.And to which a roadmap produced by the researchers of the robotics with support from the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) contributed in part indeed.
The objective of this activity has been to goad robotics investigation with a specific eye toward creating robots as accomplices and colleagues. The reaction to this program was astounding – about $1 billion (truly, billion) of proposed work was submitted for just $44 million of available funding.
Why such huge numbers of recommendations? Since to build robots that interact with an interesting level of skill with the outside world, you need to have built a system that integrates a broad set of capabilities involving numerous engineering disciplines, there are those many recommendations. Also, once you make such robots, they have hundreds, if not thousands, of uses — endless such accomplishments rather.
The European Union and part states (around 1.5 times the U.S. populace) together spends well over $120 million per year for robotics-related research; Korea (one-6th the number of inhabitants in the U.S.) spends more than 80 million every year; Japan (not as much as a large portion of the number of inhabitants in the U.S.) spends more than 40 million. Why? Since they see that the potential financial advantages are in such, they have been spending rather.
One last point worth making about robots — they are fun and they catch the creative energy of any tyke. However simply bring a robot into a classroom, and everybody is in a flash locked in. You can show arithmetic (mathematics), material science (physics), and computer science, all while having a ton of fun making a genuine physical gadget move on its own.
Thus in this Technical research paper on Computer Science and Robotics, we have touched the vital most points, which come to focus on the necessity of Computer Science and Robotics without which there is no possibility of development in the world. In order to become wealthy too the nations should be up to such innovations as Computer Science and Robotics, of which only we have written this Technical research paper.
Medical Robotics and Computer-Integrated Surgery, Russell H. Taylor, Arianna Menciassi ,Gabor Fichtinger, Paolo Fiorini, Paolo Dario,2016.
Cyber-physical Production Systems: Roots, Expectations and R&D Challenges, LászlóMonostoriab, 2014.
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Dahlia is the principal and sole owner of The Robinson Law Firm. She is dedicated to a client-first philosophy, and makes it a priority to fully understand her clients needs, goals, dreams, and concerns. She then works with her clients to develop a superior plan.
Renata T. Pabisz
(610) 275-0700 40 East Airy Street
Probate, Elder, Estate Planning and Immigration
Renata T. Pabisz is a graduate of the University of Marie Curie-Sklodowska School of Law, Rzeszow, Poland (Master of Laws 1999) and the Widener University School of Law, Wilmington, DE (J.D. 2011). While in law school, Ms. Pabisz served as a judicial extern in the Court of Common Pleas Orphans' Court Division in Philadelphia, PA. She has been employed by Dorian, Goldstein, Wisniewski, Orchinik, P.C. since 2008.
Claimed Lawyer ProfileQ&AResponsive Law
W. J. Winterstein Jr.
(484) 415-0391 PO Box 1006
Royersford, PA 19468
Free ConsultationProbate, Bankruptcy, Collections and Foreclosure Defense
A solo practitioner, I work from a home office in Boyertown, PA, about 30 miles from center-city Philadelphia, and most of my cases are litigated in Philadelphia and Reading courts. With the assistance of local counsel, I also handle matters in Delaware. I have over 30 years experience in both state and federal courts; bankruptcy and mortgage foreclosure/workout are a large part of my practice. There isn't much I haven't seen, or done. PLEASE CONTACT ME BY EMAIL FIRST, as that is my preference, and more reliable for each of us.
Adam T Katzman
(610) 409-2909 1117 Bridge Road, Suite A
Creamery, PA 19430
Free ConsultationProbate, Criminal Defense, Estate Planning and Family
Sam Youl Hwang
(610) 680-3990 650 Sentry Parkway
Free ConsultationProbate, Business, Estate Planning and Real Estate
Dickinson School of Law
Mr. Hwang is a shareholder and president of the firm. He concentrates in business & corporate law, commercial & international transactions, commercial litigation, commercial real estate, banking law, bankruptcy, trusts & estates and asset protection.
He serves as corporate general counsel to numerous small and medium size corporations in United States and Korea. He is an experienced general counsel to corporations with global subsidiaries, network and transactions.
Mr. Hwang brings a unique blend of experience, insight and creativity to his clients. He has had a wealth of experience as a lawyer, leader, entrepreneur, mentor, coach, consultant and advisor to business owners...
Michael L Mauger
Montgomery County, PA Probate Attorney
(610) 323-4100 PO Box 698
Free ConsultationProbate, Business, Entertainment & Sports and Estate Planning
Villanova University School of Law
Carolyn Marchesani
(610) 323-7436 800 East High St.
Carolyn Marchesani has over fifteen years of professional experience providing individuals and families with counsel and strategies for estate planning, probate and estate administration. Ms. Marchesani has concentrated her practice in this area with the goal of ensuring that the client has a plan in place to provide for themselves and their family. This work includes helping to organize information to understand current circumstances, determine desired plans going forward and complete effective execution of this plan by helping clients gain an understanding of the related laws in this area and how these laws may impact them. Estate...
Robert M. Slutsky
(610) 940-0650 600 West Germantown Pike
Probate, Elder, Estate Planning and Tax
I have been practicing law since 1992 and focusing in Elder Law since 1995. I help protect families from losing their savings to nursing home costs and help protect and care for their older loved ones. I help families with: Medicaid and Asset Protection Planning, Estate Planning (Wills, Trusts, POAs, etc.), Estate Administration, Guardianships and Real Estate Transactions. I have represented many non-profit and for profit elder care institutions and have represented the Montgomery County Office of Aging and Adult Services since 1999.
Michelle Marie Forsell
Montgomery County, PA Probate Lawyer
Pennsburg, PA 18073
Probate, Business, Elder and Estate Planning
Michelle M. Forsell, a resident of Pennsburg, Montgomery County, focuses her practice primarily on estate planning and administration, elder law, real estate, business law, and Veterans benefits. She is a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys and its Pennsylvania Chapter. Ms. Forsell is a past president of the Bar Association of Lehigh County, an American Bar Foundation Fellow, a Master of the Villanova Law Inn of Court, and a Montgomery County Arbitrator. She is active in her community as she sits on numerous boards including Frederick Living, a Mennonite Health Services not for profit continuing care retirement...
Robert P. Gasparro
Lifespan Legal Services, LLC
Haverford, PA 19041
Probate, Elder and Estate Planning
Rebecca Hobbs
Chester County, PA Probate Lawyer with 13 years of experience
(610) 917-9347 347 Bridge Street, Suite 200
Probate, Elder, Estate Planning and Nursing Home
Rebecca A. Hobbs is an attorney with the law firm O'Donnell, Weiss & Mattei, P.C. with offices in Pottstown and Phoenixville. She focuses her practice on elder law, special needs planning, estate planning, estate and trust administration, and Veteran's benefits. Rebecca is Certified as an Elder Law Attorney by the National Elder Law Foundation as authorized by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Rebecca received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English with a minor in Political Science from Eastern University in 2006. She received her Juris Doctorate from Regent University School of Law in 2009. She is licensed to practice in...
Marc Howard Jaffe
Delaware County, PA Probate Lawyer with 49 years of experience
(610) 527-9100 795 E. Lancaster Ave.
Probate, Estate Planning and Real Estate
Villanova University School of Law and Villanova University School of Law
Estate Planning & Real Estate Attorney in Philadelphia's Western Suburbs -- AV Preeminent rating by Martindale-Hubbell
James J. Ruggiero Jr.
(610) 889-0288 Paoli Corporate Center - Suite 211
16 Industrial Boulevard
Since 1990, Mr. Ruggiero has been helping families and business owners create estate plans aimed at transferring their legacy successfully to the next generation. He is owner of Ruggiero Law Offices LLC with offices in Paoli, and Center Valley, where he practices in the area of estate planning, estate administration, elder law, business law and real estate. His planning experience includes the use of wills, revocable and irrevocable trusts, IRA trusts, and life insurance trusts. From an administration perspective, he has overseen the administration of estate of varying degree of complexity including insolvent estates to those values exceeded $20...
Harry Metka
(610) 813-4994 1055 Westlakes Drive, Ste 300
Demetrius J. Parrish Jr.
Philadelphia County, PA Probate Lawyer with 33 years of experience
(215) 735-3377 7715 Crittenden Street, #360
Free ConsultationProbate, Bankruptcy and Business
Demetrius J. Parrish, Jr. is a results-oriented litigator with a track record for success in a variety of legal areas in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Mr. Parrish was admitted to the bar in 1989 and first worked as a City Solicitor for the City of Philadelphia's Law Department. Later, he worked an associate at Marshall, Dennehey, Warner Coleman and Goggin, one of Pennsylvania's largest insurance defense firms. In 1996, he founded The Law Office of Demetrius J. Parrish, Jr., a Pennsylvania and New Jersey law firm concentrating in civil and commercial litigation, domestic relations,...
Mr Peter Edward Bort
(610) 994-0072 21 West Airy Street
Probate, Divorce, Estate Planning and Family
Bort Law exclusively utilizes a collaborative approach to divorce, child custody, support arrangements, prenuptial agreements, and many other family law matters. The goal of collaborative law is to solve problems together, restructure effective relationships for the future, and prevent unnecessary court battles. During face-to-face meetings, the parties and their collaborative team create a dialogue to produce an honest exchange of information and an expression of needs and expectations. Issues are openly discussed, and problem solving is direct and solution-oriented. The parties remain in control of the decisions that are made, rather than leaving the outcome up to a judge.
Serving...
Christopher McGann
Delaware County, PA Probate Attorney with 11 years of experience
(610) 971-0322 11 West Avenue, Suite 220
Free ConsultationProbate, Estate Planning and Real Estate
Karyn Seace
(610) 436-1676 113 East Evans Street
Suite D-2, Matlack Building
The area of my chosen practices that I am truly the most passionate about is assisting the elderly. I have helped many clients who are facing the most financially difficult times of their lives to have certainty as they enter their golden years. I am up to speed in the latest techniques and in fact have had other lawyers refer their cases to me.
Chari M. Alson
(610) 566-4700 206 State Road
Chari Alson Maddren has been practicing in the areas of trust and estate administration, estate planning, and elder law since 2003.
Chari received her juris doctor degree from Temple University, her masters in Public Health and a Gerentology Certificate from Boston University School of Public Health.
Chari holds the Certified Trust and Financial Advisor Designation.
Chari is a member of NAELA, the Delaware County Bar Association, the Chester County Bar Association, and the Chester County Estate Planning Council.
Linda M. Anderson Esq.
Linda Anderson is the founder and principal of Anderson Elder Law, a firm in Media, PA serving clients of all ages in the Delaware Valley. The firm is dedicated to aiding individuals and families to navigate the legal, financial, and medical issues related to elder law, estate planning, and long term care and special needs planning. Ms. Anderson has over 25 years experience in the elder law field, and is a Certified Elder Law Attorney, as conferred by the National Elder Law Foundation and authorized by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Ms. Anderson is an active and distinguished member of her...
Leonid Mikityanskiy
Bucks County, PA Probate Lawyer
(215) 357-1400 275 East Street Road
Feasterville, PA 19053
Probate, Estate Planning, Patents and Trademarks
Experienced intellectual property attorney with over 15 years of practice - specializing in patents and trademarks, admitted to practice before United States Patent and Trademark Office and in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania. Leonid received his Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the New York Polytechnic University (now NYU Tandon School of Engineering). After working five years as an engineering consultant, he pursued a law degree from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Leonid worked for a boutique law firm and later for a Top 25 Am Law/Global 100 general services law firm. After working in Big Law for several...
Joel S. Luber
Philadelphia County, PA Probate Attorney with 46 years of experience
(215) 495-6519 Cira Centre, 13th Floor
New York University School of Law and University of Pittsburgh School of Law
L. Theodore Hoppe Jr.
(610) 497-3579 2 S. Orange Street, Suite 215
Hi, my name is Ted Hoppe and I have been an attorney in Pennsylvania for almost 30 years. One of the things I enjoy best about being an attorney is meeting and getting to know the clients who come to my office. I have been privileged to build long-term relationships with many of these clients and am honored that they come back to me for advice when legal issues arise in their lives. Many of them have also referred their families and friends to me for legal services which, frankly, is the best thanks an attorney can get. In addition to...
Cyrus Shaw
(215) 987-0200 1420 Locust St
Free ConsultationProbate, Estate Planning, Immigration and Social Security Disability
Temple University's Beasley School of Law and Widener University
As the founder of Shaw Law, Cyrus Shaw believes there is only one thing that the firm should be focused on – getting the best possible results for clients. This starts from the initial client interview, where a rapport and trust needs to be established. It is common for new client intake to be limited to one a day, so as much time as needed can be spent with the new client. Each client is a person, not a file. Each client has their own story. A law firm where clients become like family is what he strives for. This...
Gregory Spadea
(610) 521-0604 204 E Chester Pike
Ridley Park, PA 19078
Free ConsultationProbate, Estate Planning, Real Estate and Tax
Mr. Gregory J. Spadea is a former IRS Agent and Pennsylvania Certified Public Accountant. Mr. Spadea has over 25 years of tax and estate planning experience. Mr. Spadea graduated from Widener University School of Law in May 1999. Mr. Spadea started the Law Firm Spadea & Associates, LLC in June 2001 and has offices in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania, and Westmont, New Jersey. Mr. Spadea is also a Pennsylvania Notary Public. Spadea & Associates, LLC focuses on estate and tax planning, estate administration. Mr. Spadea probates estates and drafts wills, trusts, powers of attorney and health care directives. The...
Michael Maroto
(610) 579-3986 200 West Front Street
Probate, Business, Estate Planning and Family
Widener University Delaware School of Law and Widener University Delaware School of Law
Like many of the Firm's attorneys, Mr. Maroto brings a multi-faceted approach to his cases and draws upon a solid understanding of legal, financial and tax issues germane in today's complex litigation matters. Throughout his entire career, he has specialized in business and financial issues and how those issues relate to a client's pending legal action. Because of his unique back-ground, Mr. Maroto is involved in many of the Firm's complex litigation and business matters.
Mr. Maroto primarily concentrates his attention on the Firm's growing business and estate law areas of practice and caters to those clients whose cases present problems...
Patrick Doherty
Philadelphia County, PA Probate Attorney with 4 years of experience
(215) 307-5504 1650 Market Street Suite 3669
Free ConsultationProbate, Criminal Defense, DUI & DWI and Estate Planning
Patrick Doherty is an attorney who has a strong commitment to all of his clients. Born and raised in the City of Philadelphia, Mr. Doherty has first hand experience in dealing with people from all walks of life and has the personality, ability, and empathy to connect with each and every one of his clients. Throughout his time at Delaware Law school, Mr. Doherty has worked with attorneys in various fields such as criminal law, environmental law, personal injury, and property law. During the summer of his second year of law school, Mr. Doherty worked at the District Attorney's Office of...
Matthew Louis Rosin
(215) 567-2030 1835 Market Street
Probate, Estate Planning and Tax
New York University School of Law and University of Florida Levin College of Law
Matt was born and raised in Sarasota, Florida. He received his Bachelor of Arts in 1992 from Johns Hopkins University, where he was on the fencing team for four years. In his senior year, Matt was captain of the fencing team, which won its conference championship, where Matt placed second in the individual foil competition.
After Johns Hopkins, Matt attended the University of Florida College of Law, graduating first in his class, and served as senior research editor of the Florida Law Review. Having thereafter received one of the highest Florida Bar examination scores, Matt was invited to...
Michael Joseph Brooks
Bucks County, PA Probate Lawyer with 28 years of experience
(215) 230-3761 252 Swamp Road
Free ConsultationProbate, Business, Energy and Estate Planning
Successful business ventures require perspective, from all vantage points. We offer you a clear view of the surrounding business landscape from the legal vantage point. This outlook provides insight into legal strategies for: business formation, drafting contracts, the hiring process, and protection of intellectual property. That amounts to more than just sound legal counsel; it gives our business clients perspective from the legal vantage point.
Jennifer L. Zegel
Philadelphia County, PA Probate Lawyer
(267) 443-4126 Three Logan Square
1717 Arch Street, 5th Floor
Probate, Employment, Estate Planning and Real Estate
Rutgers University - Camden
Seamus M Lavin
Chester County, PA Probate Attorney with 20 years of experience
Walnut Building - Suite A
Probate, Business, Estate Planning and Real Estate
Villanova University School of Law, Villanova University School of Law and Rutgers School of Law-Camden
Seamus Lavin joined Wetzel Gagliardi & Fetter LLC in 2014. Seamus has been representing individuals, families and businesses in a variety of transactional and litigation settings for over a decade. Seamus' transactional practice is focused towards assisting clients in the acquisition, protection and transfer of wealth. He achieves these goals by means of effective estate planning, business formation, real estate management, contract negotiation, and the efficient resolution of unavoidable litigation. His emphasize on the use of in-depth consultations enables him to implement estate plans tailored to each client's specific needs and goals. ...
Probate Attorneys in Nearby Cities
The Oyez Lawyer Directory contains lawyers who have claimed their profiles and are actively seeking clients. Find more Montgomery County Probate Lawyers in the Justia Legal Services and Lawyers Directory which includes profiles of more than one million lawyers licensed to practice in the United States, in addition to profiles of legal aid, pro bono and legal service organizations.


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text:
from django.db import models

from edge.importer import GFFImporter
from edge.models.chunk import (
    Annotation,
    Chunk_Feature,
    Edge,
    Fragment_Chunk_Location,
)
from edge.models.fragment import Fragment
from edge.models.genome_updater import Genome_Updater

class Genome(Genome_Updater, models.Model):
    class Meta:
        app_label = "edge"

    name = models.TextField()
    parent = models.ForeignKey(
        "self", null=True, on_delete=models.PROTECT, related_name="children"
    )
    notes = models.TextField(null=True, blank=True)
    fragments = models.ManyToManyField(Fragment, through="Genome_Fragment")
    created_on = models.DateTimeField("Created", auto_now_add=True, null=True)
    active = models.BooleanField(default=True)
    blastdb = models.TextField(null=True, blank=True)

    def __str__(self):
        return self.name

    @staticmethod
    def create(name, notes=None):
        new_genome = Genome(name=name, notes=notes, parent=None)
        new_genome.save()
        return new_genome

    @staticmethod
    def import_gff(name, gff_fasta_fn, dirn='.'):
        genome = Genome.create(name)
        GFFImporter(genome, gff_fasta_fn).do_import(dirn=dirn)
        return genome

    def update(self, name=None, notes=None):
        name = self.name if name is None else name
        new_genome = Genome(name=name, notes=notes, parent=self)
        new_genome.save()
        for f in self.fragments.all():
            Genome_Fragment(genome=new_genome, fragment=f, inherited=True).save()
        return new_genome

    @property
    def has_location_index(self):
        for f in self.fragments.all():
            if not f.has_location_index:
                return False
        return True

    def indexed_genome(self):
        for f in sorted(self.fragments.all(), key=lambda f: f.id):
            f.indexed_fragment()
        # casting to Indexed_Genome
        return Indexed_Genome.objects.get(pk=self.pk)

    def root(self):
        if self.parent is None:
            return self
        return self.parent.root()

    def lock(self):
        """
        Do a select for update, which, when executed inside a transaction, places
        a lock on the genome.
        """

        root = self.root()

        genomes = Genome.objects.select_for_update().filter(pk=root.id)
        # Lock only happens when queryset is evaluated, therefore need to do at least genomes[0]
        genome = genomes[0]
        print(f"Lock genome {genome.id}")
        return self

class Indexed_Genome(Genome):
    """
    An Indexed_Genome is a Genome where each fragment has been indexed.
    """

    class Meta:
        app_label = "edge"
        proxy = True

    def __annotations_from_chunk_features(self, chunk_features):
        cf_fcl = []
        for cf in chunk_features:
            # get fragment chunk location
            for fcl in Fragment_Chunk_Location.objects.filter(
                chunk=cf.chunk, fragment__genome=self
            ):
                cf_fcl.append((cf, fcl))
        annotations = Annotation.from_chunk_feature_and_location_array(cf_fcl)

        by_f = {}
        for annotation in annotations:
            if annotation.fragment.id not in by_f:
                by_f[annotation.fragment.id] = []
            by_f[annotation.fragment.id].append(annotation)
        return by_f

    def find_annotation_by_feature(self, feature):
        q = Chunk_Feature.objects.filter(
            chunk__fragment_chunk_location__fragment__genome=self, feature=feature
        )
        return self.__annotations_from_chunk_features(list(q))

    def find_annotation_by_name(self, name):
        q = Chunk_Feature.objects.filter(
            chunk__fragment_chunk_location__fragment__genome=self, feature__name=name
        )
        return self.__annotations_from_chunk_features(list(q))

    def find_annotation_by_qualifier(self, name, fields=None):
        fields = None if fields is None else [f.lower() for f in fields]

        q = Chunk_Feature.objects.filter(
            chunk__fragment_chunk_location__fragment__genome=self,
            feature___qualifiers__icontains=name,
        )
        chunk_features = []
        for cf in q:
            qualifiers = cf.feature.qualifiers
            for k, v in qualifiers.items():
                if fields is None or k.lower() in fields:
                    if type(v) in (bytes, str):
                        v = v.split(",")
                    v = [s.lower() for s in v]
                    if name.lower() in v:
                        chunk_features.append(cf)

        return self.__annotations_from_chunk_features(chunk_features)

    def changes(self):
        if self.parent is None:
            return []

        edges = Edge.objects.filter(
            fragment__genome_fragment__genome=self,
            fragment__genome_fragment__inherited=False,
        )

        fcs = []
        added = []
        for edge in edges:
            if edge.from_chunk:
                if edge.from_chunk.id not in added:
                    fcs.append(
                        edge.fragment.indexed_fragment().fragment_chunk(edge.from_chunk)
                    )
                    added.append(edge.from_chunk.id)
            if edge.to_chunk:
                if edge.to_chunk.id not in added:
                    fcs.append(
                        edge.fragment.indexed_fragment().fragment_chunk(edge.to_chunk)
                    )
                    added.append(edge.to_chunk.id)
        return fcs

    def changed_locations_by_fragment(self):
        changes = {}

        for c in self.changes():
            if c.fragment.id not in changes:
                changes[c.fragment.id] = []
            v = changes[c.fragment.id]
            if len(v) == 0 or v[-1][1] + 1 != c.location[0]:
                v.append([c.location[0], c.location[1]])
            else:
                v[-1][1] = c.location[1]

        changes = {Fragment.objects.get(pk=f): v for f, v in changes.items()}
        return changes

    def get_coordinate_diff_from_parent_genome(self, p_genome_id):
        # Get fragments contained by child and not by parent
        p_fragment_ids = Fragment.objects.filter(genome=p_genome_id).values_list('id', flat=True)
        child_only_fragments = self.fragments.filter().exclude(genome=p_genome_id)

        # Relate child fragments to parent fragments
        child_to_parent_fs = {}
        for f in child_only_fragments:
            curr_f = f
            while curr_f is not None and curr_f.id not in p_fragment_ids:
                curr_f = curr_f.parent
            if curr_f is not None:
                child_to_parent_fs[f.indexed_fragment()] = curr_f.indexed_fragment()
        if len(child_to_parent_fs) == 0:
            raise Exception("Genome input is not a parent by lineage")

        # Get start to end chunks by fragment of diff regions between parent and child
        fragment_to_starts_and_ends = {}
        for child_f, parent_f in child_to_parent_fs.items():
            parent_chunks, child_chunks = list(parent_f.chunks()), list(child_f.chunks())
            starts_and_ends, current_start = {}, None
            for child_i, c in enumerate(child_chunks):
                if c in parent_chunks:
                    parent_i = parent_chunks.index(c)
                    prev_parent_chunk = parent_chunks[parent_i - 1] \
                        if parent_i > 0 else None
                    next_parent_chunk = parent_chunks[parent_i + 1] \
                        if parent_i < (len(parent_chunks) - 1) else None
                    prev_child_chunk = child_chunks[child_i - 1] \
                        if child_i > 0 else None
                    next_child_chunk = child_chunks[child_i + 1] \
                        if child_i < (len(child_chunks) - 1) else None

                    if prev_parent_chunk != prev_child_chunk:
                        if current_start is not None:
                            starts_and_ends[current_start] = c.id
                            current_start = None
                        if len(starts_and_ends) == 0:
                            starts_and_ends[None] = c.id

                    if next_parent_chunk != next_child_chunk:
                        current_start = c.id

            if current_start is not None:
                starts_and_ends[current_start] = None
            fragment_to_starts_and_ends[child_f] = starts_and_ends

        # Store dictionaries of changes with ID, start, and end for parent and child fragments
        regions = []
        for child_f, starts_and_ends in fragment_to_starts_and_ends.items():
            parent_f = child_to_parent_fs[child_f]
            for start_id, end_id in starts_and_ends.items():
                regions.append({
                    "parent_fragment_name": parent_f.name,

                    "parent_fragment_id": parent_f.id,

                    "parent_starts_at": 1 if start_id is None
                    else parent_f.fragment_chunk(start_id).base_last + 1,

                    "parent_ends_before": parent_f.length + 1 if end_id is None
                    else parent_f.fragment_chunk(end_id).base_first,

                    "child_fragment_name": child_f.name,

                    "child_fragment_id": child_f.id,

                    "child_starts_at": 1 if start_id is None
                    else child_f.fragment_chunk(start_id).base_last + 1,

                    "child_ends_before": child_f.length + 1 if end_id is None
                    else child_f.fragment_chunk(end_id).base_first,
                })

        return regions

class Genome_Fragment(models.Model):
    class Meta:
        app_label = "edge"

    genome = models.ForeignKey(Genome, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
    fragment = models.ForeignKey(Fragment, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
    inherited = models.BooleanField()

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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text:
Rock Band: Dream Theater, Opeth, Trivium, and Starship
Jason Dorough
How do you follow up a week of Nickelback on Rock Band? By pretending that week never happened, for one. But you could also drop four new tracks into the game, one each from four different bands spanning from 1985 through 2011! Dream Theater, Opeth, Trivium, and Starship all have songs up for grabs this week, and you can grab them all today for $1.99 (160 Microsoft Points). You can also get a three pack (all but the Starship song) as the Roadrunner Records Pack 02 for $5.49 (440 Microsoft Points). Here's the full song list, followed by videos of each:
Roadrunner Records Pack 02:
Dream Theater – "On the Backs of Angels"
Opeth – "Ghost of Perdition"
Trivium – "In Waves"
Starship – "We Built This City"
About Jason Dorough
Jason is the founder and managing editor of Fandomania, and he co-hosts the weekly Fandomania Podcast with Celeste. He is severely into toy collecting, plays a worryingly large amount of games, watches way too many movies and TV shows, and reads more than his fair share of books and comics. He also likes guacamole.
Dream Theater, music-, Opeth, rock band, Starship, Trivium, video games
Ozzfest Meets Knotfest in This Week's Rock Band DLC
Jason Mraz and Nicki Minaj in This Week's Rock Band DLC
Heart and Winger in This Week's Rock Band DLC
Jason Aldean and Sister Hazel in This Week's Rock Band DLC
Tonic and Vertical Horizon in This Week's Rock Band DLC


"American Idol" cast-off David Hernandez is in NYC, hoping to audition for the cast of Broadway's "Rent" (beats strippin' for a livin' but he better hurry – the production ends its 12-year run on JUNE 1st) . . . Another former "American Idol" contestant, Josiah Leming (the weepy guy who missed the top 24 cut), has reportedly signed a deal with Warner Bros, likely thanks to massive outcry on message boards, an appearance on the "Ellen DeGeneres Show", and the fact over 38,000 people are now on his MySpace 'friend list' (soon he'll be living out of a car with a bigger back seat!) . . . According to scuttlebutt, Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie are pregnant with twins, reportedly a boy & a girl (well, mostly she is) . . . Former "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" actress Michelle Trachtenberg has been signed to appear in multiple episodes of "Gossip Girl" (CW) playing 'Georgina Sparks', who'll make life even more difficult for Blake Lively's character, 'Serena' (when ratings are tough, bring in the support troops!) . . . And La-La Land real estate observers say rents for Malibu beach houses are now hitting crazy heights, ie: for a place around the corner from the likes of actors Adam Sandler & Jeremy Piven, you now have to shell out circa $150,000 … per month!
• BB King – He's the new owner of Club Ebony, a juke joint in his Mississippi Delta hometown of Indianola. Besides BB, big names like Count Basie, Ray Charles, James Brown, and Ike Turner have played there since the joint opened in 1945.
• Sheryl Crow – After making headlines LAST WEEK by suggesting she'll soon be collaborating with '70s/'80s supergroup Fleetwood Mac, she's now backing away from the statement, calling the story merely "Rumours".
• "American Idol" (FOX/CTV) – The remaining 10 finalists perform songs from the years in which they were born. In other words, it's pretty much '80s night.
• "Dancing With the Stars" (ABC/CTV) – After an hour-long performance recap, 2 couples are eliminated in the first results show of the season.
• "Ellen DeGeneres Show" (syndicated/CityTV) – New mom Christina Aguilera is a guest.
• "Jericho" (CBS) – The season/series finalé airs. The network has decided the resurrected show has not generated big enough ratings … so it's sayonara.
• "Jimmy Kimmel Live" (ABC) – Panic! At The Disco is featured.
• "Live With Regis & Kelly" (syndicated/CTV) – Wow, a performing Seal!
• "Tonight Show With Jay Leno" (NBC/A Channel) – Alt-country singer Steve Earle performs.
• "The View" (ABC) – Counting Crows promote their new album "Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings" (released TODAY).
• "The Kite Runner" ( Drama ): The bigscreen adaptation of Khaled Hosseini's bestselling 2003 novel about childhood betrayal and ethnic tension in Afghanistan. The story follows an American emigre who returns to his homeland to help the son of his boyhood friend. No-name cast.
• "The Mist" ( Horror Thriller ): In this adaptation of the Stephen King novella, shoppers are trapped in a supermarket after it's enveloped in a strange mist filled with monstrous creatures. The customers must band together in order to escape. Stars Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, and Laurie Holden. Also available in a '2-Disc Collector's Edition'.
• Also released TODAY: "Bonnie & Clyde (Ultimate Collector's Edition)"; "Party of Five: The Complete 3rd Season" (TV); and "Walk the Line (Extended Cut)".
New stats from M: Metrics show that about 1% of America's 219 million cellphone users now own an Apple iPhone, which has been on the market for 9 months. Detractors say the $400 so-called 'smart phone' is turning users into instant argument settlers … and sometimes instant aggravators. With the ability to research topics online virtually anywhere at any time, people armed with an iPhone find themselves helpful and wise, but also obnoxious. One user says it has turned her from a really annoying know-it-all into … an incredibly annoying know-it-all.
• A corn flake shaped like the state of Illinois has been sold by a pair of sisters in Virginia for $1,350 on eBay. And no, it's not a bogus bid, they got the money up front. Some people truly have too much!
• A Japanese astronaut on the International Space Station has found that a boomerang will return when you throw it in outer space, just like on Earth. After 10 years and $18 billion, this is what we get?
• A Honolulu, Hawaii hospital has confirmed that a patient's son brought a horse into the facility to visit his father earlier THIS MONTH … using the hospital elevator. A rep admits the stunt took the hospital's pet visitation policy a tad too far.
• A gang has stolen $400,000 in gold from a controlled-access jewelry store in Smethwick, England after the 6′-6" leader was buzzed in while masquerading … as a Muslim woman in a burkha.
• A man has been busted in Sydney, Australia for having 828 ecstasy tablets stuffed down the front of his trousers, valued at about $35,000. Now that's what we call a party in your pants!
• Astronauts can bring iPods onto the Space Shuttle. The devices are not, however, allowed on the International Space Station.
• A pair of D-cup breasts weighs in at about 15-to-23 lbs.
• Land-locked Mexico City has had tons of sand and palm trees trucked in to local swimming pools in order to build 10 artificial beaches within the city. Why? It's for people who can't afford a Spring Break on the coast.
1947  Elton John (Sir Reginald Dwight), Pinner UK, pop singer ("Candle in the Wind", "Your Song") who's sold over 250 million albums & 100 million singles, making him one of the most successful artists of all-time/winner of 5 Grammy Awards & 1 Academy Award FACTOID: A year ago TODAY he performed his "60th Birthday Concert" at NYC's Madison Square Garden.
• "Cleaning Week", an annual Spring tradition. As a helpful cleaning tip, here is Heloise's hint on the modern problem of what to do if you drop your cellphone in the toilet: Pull the battery out ASAP. Then dry the inside of the phone with a hair dryer. Put the battery back in to see if it works.
• "World Meteorological Day", an annual UN observance to promote understanding of how weather, climate, and water affects us all. A lot of people seem to finally be getting it in the past couple years.
What's the rudest thing you're forced to put up with in your workplace?
Basketball players make plenty of money. We should start charging for those 'free throws'.
Today's Question: 1-in-12 of today's new moms have THIS in common.
Answer to Give Out Next Show: They are age 35 or older (a 73% increase since 1970).
The only people truly 'under the weather' are buried.


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Weird Job Titles: The Year in Review
Weird and wonderful job titles have been making headlines for some time now. The tech world in particular provides a rich source of exotic monikers applied to jobs that might otherwise sound a bit less thrilling. Few companies may have a Security Princess like Google, or a "Galactic Viceroy of Research Excellence" as Microsoft once did, but it's not unheard of to spot jedis, ninjas, gurus, mavens, overlords, dynamos, vigilantes and superheroes popping up in the job listings.
Nor is it just a tech phenomenon: For instance, last year we spotted a "duct cleaning ninja" job on Indeed. Alas, while weird job titles can sound fun and may help communicate a company's culture, they also cause confusion among job seekers and prevent employers from getting relevant candidates. When was the last time you searched for a job with "shaman" in the title, for instance? It's more effective to be clear and use the terms job seekers are searching for when writing job descriptions.
We'll talk more about best practices later in this post. For now, let's crunch some numbers and take a look at the state of weird job titles in 2017.
Identifying the most popular weird job titles today
First we identified the most common weird job titles in the US. Given the many choices on offer, which terms would rise to the top among recruiters posting jobs online?
It turns out that the top five are: "genius", "guru", "rockstar", "wizard", and "ninja" — a combination of words suggesting deep thought and insight, showbiz levels of charisma, magic and…er…assassination.
Having established the champions of eccentric job titles we next asked: how do they stack up against each other?
As the chart shows, the rising star of 2017 was, appropriately enough, "rockstar" which has shown 19% growth since 2015 and finished first. Guru followed close behind, although it has lost popularity since its peak in early 2016, declining by 21%.
Most striking was the steep drop in "ninja" postings in the second half of 2017. After sustaining a steady climb since the middle of 2016, the demand for stealthy assassins has declined by 35% since its peak in March 2017.
Meanwhile, geniuses have pursued a slow but assured ascent since 2016, growing by 82.5% since 2015, almost to the point where they outperform ninjas. The continuing popularity of Harry Potter aside, "Wizard" job titles show less dramatic movement. It would seem that magic just isn't that much in demand.
Where the wild job titles are
Next we decided to take a look at the geography of weird job titles. Although the media focuses on the eccentric titles coming out of Silicon Valley, the reality is that this phenomenon has long since spread beyond the wold of tech and across the country.
In fact, weird job titles today are more concentrated outside of California. From Idaho to Utah, recruiters seem keen to jazz up their job titles with terms such as "rockstar," "guru" and "wizard"—with Oregonians being especially enthusiastic. By contrast, plain speaking New Yorkers "keep it real" and don't turn up in the top five states at all.
When you think of rock stars, images of LA and the Sunset Strip may come to mind. If you're a rock history buff, you might even think of Cleveland, Ohio, which is home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But rock stars are actually in highest demand in Idaho, if job titles are anything to go by. That said, while Idaho is renowned for the quality of its potatoes and the Idaho Potato Commission has close to 1500 recipes involving potatoes on its website, we were unable to find "potato growing rockstar" in our listings. Sunny California only places fifth for concentration of rockstar jobs, falling behind Colorado, Utah and Oregon. When we look at sheer volume however, the Golden State's population means that it comes first—accounting for 23% of all rockstar job listings in the nation.
When we search for ninja job titles, we find that they are especially in demand in Maine, despite that fact that the state is renowned for lobster rather than turtles. Recruiters are also listing jobs for ninjas in mountainous Colorado, the desert landscapes of Nevada and Utah, and chilly Nebraska. And while a search for "ninja" on Indeed does return some relevant job titles such as "Martial Arts Ninja Coach" we also see a decent amount of "Marketing Ninjas" and "Customer Experience Ninjas." Perhaps the most confusing is "Time Ninja"—which is not an assassin who travels back in time but apparently somebody who works in human resources.
Delaware holds the honor of being the "first state" in the US. It also holds the honor(?) of placing first for confusing job listings containing the word "genius" in the title. In fact, Delaware accounts for 1.32% of all genius job listings nationally, despite the fact that it only contains 0.29% of US population (according to the most recent Census numbers). Interestingly, the hunt for genii is most intense in the original colonies of the US, and of the top five states for this title, four are located in the northeast. Once again, California doesn't quite make the top five despite the very real demand for brilliant tech minds in Silicon Valley—the Golden State places seventh.
Guru is a Sanskrit term meaning "teacher" which is applied to people of great wisdom, although in recent years it has taken on the additional meaning of "somebody who is quite good at tech." This is a trend we likely see reflected in California's second place showing for "guru" job listings. That said, gurus are in even greater demand in Oregon, which we previously saw placing fourth for "rockstar." However, rather than instilling wisdom, "guru" is a term that can very quickly become confusing for job seekers: We see it turning up in everything from "Digital Marketing Guru" to "Distilled Spirits Guru."
And finally we come to "wizards." While New Mexico may be the "Land of Enchantment" Oregon is the number one state for "wizard" job titles, as it was for gurus, and—of course—it also placed fourth for rockstars. In other words, Oregon appears to be the king of zany job titles. That said, although the state ranks first for "wizard" job titles, they're not exactly abundant—only about 3.75% of all jobs in the state include the term.
Keep job titles clear, descriptive and concise for best results
We know that weird job titles can be fun and indicative of a more laid-back culture. However, without a cultural frame of reference, using them in your job listings can affect how well your job posting does. Most people search for roles that match their skills and experience and so using terms like "ninja" and "rockstar" in job titles and descriptions can confuse job seekers and put them off from applying.
Our recommendation? Put more of a focus on conveying the specifics of the role, and leave the quirkiness to the workplace. To improve your placement in search results, keep the following in mind:
Keep the job title concise, between 5 and 80 characters, and avoid all caps. If your title is too long or too short, it will not rank well. Also it's important to not include special characters in your title. This makes it easier to read and more likely to match the search queries from job seekers.
Describe the job title in normal terms. If you are hiring a "Javascript Developer", call it that. Avoid phrases that people are less likely to search for.
Avoid internal titles that don't accurately describe the job. Job seekers may misunderstand abbreviations or acronyms. "Senior Web Designer" is much clearer to applicants than "Web Designer II."
Use the job title to describe the main aspects of the job. For example, "Events and Sponsorships Manager" is much more effective than just "Marketing."
There's much more you can do to optimize your job titles so candidates are more likely to find them. This post will give you more advice about how to become a true job listing writing expert, and for a really deep dive you might want to check out Indeed Academy, our new, free training platform designed to help recruiters get the most out of Indeed.
Methodology: Indeed identified the most common "weird job titles" and then calculated the share of postings containing the phrases 'genius', 'rockstar', 'guru', 'ninja', or 'wizard' over the last 2 years.
« Culture Is King: Companies with the Best Culture in 2017 Indeed Resume Employer Subscriptions: How the New Model Will Work »


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April 16, 2009 Music » Music Features
Gypsy punker, possible fanatical fringe leader Jason Webley putters into town
By Charles Martin
Oklahoma indie-rock crowd, meet Seattle's wandering gypsy/punk accordion howler Jason Webley. You love spectacle, Webley loves spectacle; you two should hit it off nicely.
His sound finds a middle ground between the battered soul of Tom Waits and the sentimentality of The Decemberists, all while garnering loyal followers with his lively and, at times, bizarre shows. There are even rumors that Webley is the cult leader of a shadowy fan splinter group dubbed the Tomato Scouts.
But can his grandiose efforts compare with what Oklahoma City is used to? Let's examine the evidence:
Michael Ivins and Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips marched hundreds of skeletons downtown for the past two Halloween seasons. Webley invaded a commuter ferry with 300 fans dressed as pirates for an impromptu show where he staged the death of his stage persona for four consecutive Halloweens. Matthew Alvin Brown wrote a rock opera named "Rainbow Around the Sun," which drew critical comparisons to The Who's "Tommy." Webley produced a four-part series of concept albums that were tied into his aforementioned personas, and he is now in the midst of recording another series of 11 EPs. Stillwater's Colourmusic rarely hits the stage without bizarre props or clothing, and is known to tear up the stage with wild abandon. Webley sometimes dispatches a walking carrot into the crowd.
AMBITIOUS AND ACCESSIBLE
Like the Lips, Webley's music doesn't hinge on novelty and visuals, but is expansively ambitious and accessible. Emotive tracks like "Ways to Love," off 2008's "The Cost of Living," dig into the soul after just one listen.
He will perform 8 p.m. Sunday with Ghost of Monkshood at The Conservatory.
Webley said the EPs are cathartic, since his full-length albums have become increasingly serious in tone. They also allow him to step back and have more fun with the music in between full-length releases.
His charisma and unusual identity are heavily imprinted on his music both live and recorded, but Webley doesn't think that any of that is lost even when he writes with other musicians. When touring in support of the EPs, or even playing a few one-off shows with the collaborators, he doesn't shift his style or tone down the antics that have endeared him to his loyal followers.
"I don't worry about that. Who you are follows you around despite yourself," he said. "To work hard to consciously preserve some Jason Webley-ness in all these things isn't something I really think about; it just happens." "Charles Martin
Speaking of Live Music Previews
Now in its 20th year, Blue Door's annual Woody Guthrie tribute fetes folk's finest, from California to the New York Island
Powerhouse rockers Emit issue intelligent anthems as they hone their skills through higher education
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin hails from Missouri, exports power pop
Tags: Music Features, Live Music Previews
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Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was not part of the Tuesday meeting that included 13 NFL players, 11 team owners and both league and NFLPA leadership.
But Jones was still at NFL headquarters in New York for other sessions, pre-planned and for team owners to discuss league business. And he got an earful from a man in the lobby of the building.
The protester held a sign illustrating how slaves were muzzled by their masters, presumably a metaphor for Jones saying Dallas players must not do anything he considers disrespectful during the national anthem or he will not let them play.
And he loudly approached Jones, who to his credit paused and seemed to listen to what the man had to say before being ushered off by security.
Though Jones wasn't part of the meeting with players, there were many who believed he'd take over the owners' meeting on anthem protests, given his feelings on the matter. But there have been reports that the discussions between owners and players was truly productive in terms of how the two sides can use their power to affect social change, so hopefully Jones can see the bigger picture.


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The cost of 'free' water and who is paying it
Like any other exhaustible resource, free is the wrong price for water.
By Soumyadip Pal
Over the past few months, ever since the heady fragrance of the Delhi elections starting wafting in the winter air, the buzz was that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) would sweep back to power. For many, the positive opinions seemed to converge into two tangible gains - free water, and free electricity. Now, freebie politics has always been popular among the masses, but with the free water and free electricity, the appeal seemed to transcend multiple socio-economic and more stunningly, educational backgrounds. One might have reasonably expected the educated populace to see the economic reality through the myopic haze of the politics behind the freebies; but alas, I realised that was not the case when a senior professor at a premier technology institute in the capital assured everyone around that their vote was going to the AAP as a reward for the free water.
Looking at the electoral results, the professor was surely not alone in such thinking. Delhiites across the spectrum did, in fact, reward the incumbent government, completely glossing over that pithy bit of truth that Peter Dos Utt called TANSTAAFL (There ain't no such thing as a free lunch) in his 1949 monograph about a new economic world order.
Now that the dust has settled on the electoral campaigns, perhaps the hot air balloons of empty promises have cooled and descended into the grimy realms of reality. This might also be a good time to reflect on that wisdom - TANSTAAFL that many economists have since quoted to reflect something that is technically called an opportunity cost.
Indeed if water is being offered for free, there would be corners cut somewhere and someday, all of us would have to pay for it.
The question is - who is taking the hit today? The Delhi Jal Board is the obvious fall guy. According to the response to an RTI query in September 2018, the Delhi Jal Board surplus had fallen from a peak of Rs. 227.88 crores in 2009-10, to a (tentative) deficit of Rs. 663.59 crores in 2018-19. The supporters of the free water scheme might argue that even though the Delhi Jal Board is in the red, the scheme itself is beneficial. The commonest argument to bolster the claim of the scheme being an intelligently-designed and an economically sound one is the one that says that the scheme allows for free water only to the extent of 20 kilolitres per household per month and if the household were to exceed even a single kilolitre over that, they would have to pay for the entire consumption and not just for the marginal consumption. The underlying assumption is that households would stringently strive to conserve water in order to maintain their monthly consumption within the 20 kilolitre mark.
Prima facie, that logic is sound. The only little problem is that the claim is neither borne by data, nor by the realities of human behaviour. There are no easy ways to arrive at an estimate of just how many households make an effort to conserve water in order to continue to benefit from the government largesse.
According to the Economic Survey of Delhi 2018-19, the total water consumption (including households and industrial units) per capita per day has hovered around 48 gallons to 50 gallons between 2004-05 to 2016-17 (the data for 2018-19 was unavailable in the report).
This means, while the absolute water requirements have gone up due to the growth in population, water usage per capita has remained constant. Therefore, a report published by Abdul Shaban and RN Sharma in 2007 titled "Water Consumption Patterns in Domestic Households in Major cities" may still offer us relevant insights.
As per the report, in Delhi, middle income households, low income households, and slums consumed 396.4, 393.5, and 398.7 litres of water per day. Of course, there is wide variation between the consumption of individual households as evidenced by the high standard deviations of 248.6, 176.4, and 216.8 litres per household per day, respectively. Disregarding that variance for a moment, let us assume that the average household consumption (excluding high income households) was around 396 litres per day. Juxtapose that with the water consumption that is fully subsidised by the Delhi government - 20000 litres per household per month, or, 667 litres per household per day.
Clearly, even if we assume a steep rise in average water consumption per household since 2007, the subsidised levels still allow a very large headroom.
Therefore, the policy is perhaps not effective at instilling a sense of responsibility towards water conservation among the households; instead, it may be doing just the opposite - given the liberal consumption limit before the tariffs kick in, households are probably disincentivised for conserving water.
Further, if we consider an average household as comprising of five members, the per person availability of free water works out to 133.4 litres per day. That is very close to the average water consumption per capita per day in major Indian cities - 135 litres. Had the goal been to inculcate water saving practices, the free limit should have been set much lower, closer to global benchmarks of 92 litres or less in European cities such as Leipzig in Germany and Malaga in Spain.
Delhi Jal Board has in the past been estimated to have transmission losses to the tune of 35%-40% which is double the average loss for developing countries at about 20%.
With such huge quantity of leakages, to provide 133 litres per person per day, the Jal Board has to purify and pump over 180 litres per person per day. Given the poor financial health that the Board is in, the amount of money available for maintenance and repair of pipelines would be only expected to nosedive further making the problem worse. The Jal Board is truly caught in a vicious circle.
Multi-part pricing models with a large price bump after crossing an arbitrary threshold - as in the case of water tariffs in Delhi - do less to incentivise individuals to modify their behaviour as the policy states an intent to do, and achieves more of the negative outcome - tampering and theft.
Not just that, there is enough room for other forms of malpractice as evidenced by the findings of a monitoring committee that reported to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) regarding the misuse of the scheme by several housing societies in Delhi that use pumped groundwater after exhausting the free water to avoid water bills. Such practices fly in the face of the usual principle in the case of all finite natural resources - the user pays.
Such malpractices also highlight another problem that should have been more central to the narrative - that of ecological water availability.
According to the Central Ground Water Board, the water table across Delhi has been depleting by 0.5 metres to 2 metres per year. The districts of New Delhi, South Delhi, South East Delhi, as well as the districts in the eastern part of the city are classified as "over-exploited" with ground water withdrawal being higher than the recharge. The North, North-West, and South-West districts fare only marginally better, being classified as "semi-critical".
In the 1974 mystery drama directed by Roman Polanski - Chinatown - the character of Jack Nicholson got his nose almost cut off in a fight over water. While it may have been dystopian then, with the climate considerably warming up across the world, water stresses are no longer a hypothetical possibility of the future. We now live in a world where "Day Zero" in the context of water availability is a reality - Chennai declared Day Zero in 2019, and Cape Town came very close in 2018. If sufficient measures are not taken urgently, Delhi's own Day Zero may not be too far in the future. According to the global water stress atlas published by the World Resources Institute in 2019, most of northern India is subject to "extremely high" baseline water stress.
Given all of the above realities, it is amply clear that water should be priced. A commodity that is given free is not valued by the end consumer and the free pricing removes any incentive to conserve it. It also stresses the financial health of the public utility system leading to further deterioration in their operational efficiency. Like any other exhaustible resource, free is the wrong price for water.
(Soumyadip Pal is an academic, author and entrepreneur based in New Delhi)