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Goodbye to Oprah's Golden Ticket
C. Max Magee November 20, 2009 | 9 books mentioned 36 4 min read
That sound you hear is a thousand book publicists wailing. Oprah Winfrey will announce today that her eponymous talk show will end in September 2011. That means that in less than two years, the ultimate book publicity coup will be off the table.
Oprah's Book Club isn't quite the powerhouse it once was. The club was started in 1996, a savvy move when neighborhood book clubs were in vogue with the Oprah demographic. The Book Club also was a way of distancing the show from its increasingly shock-oriented daytime peers (a format, we may forget, that Oprah once partook of.) In those early years of the Book Club, Oprah would often, though not always, chose a little-known, "mid-list" book that would become an overnight bestseller. In a literary world where writers are playing the lottery against the longest of odds, Oprah was the winning ticket.
The Club earned a reputation, perhaps unfair to the Club and perhaps unfair to the books that were a part of it, as a redoubt of "women's fiction," but the selections were more varied than that, ranging from melodrama like Anita Shreve's The Pilot's Wife and Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone to more nuanced fare like Ernest J. Gaines' A Lesson Before Dying and Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat. The Club went on like this for about five years, selecting 10 or 12 books a year, and, with a flick of this magic wand, turning each one into a bestseller.
And then Jonathan Franzen came along. You can argue whether Franzen should have accepted Oprah's selection as just another of many honors bestowed upon The Corrections or whether he had every right to exert some well-earned control over how his book was marketed, but one thing seems clear. Oprah had never contemplated the idea of someone turning her down.
After Franzen, the Book Club, as if trying to find its purpose again, meandered, initially with some fanfare, but increasing as an afterthought, through classics by Garcia Marquez, Tolstoy and others. The books still sold but she was only making a couple of selections a year, and some of the dazzle had leaked out of the enterprise. Then, to juice things up, Oprah announced that she would return to selecting living authors.
In all the furor that followed the uncovering of James Frey's confabulations in his memoir A Million Little Pieces, it's easy to forget that prior to selecting Frey's book, Oprah had actually announced that she was going to go back to picking books by living authors, and there was a good deal of discussion around this, as though "living author" was a genre you might find in the bookstore. But implicit in this announcement was a recognition that Oprah's Book Club just wasn't as exciting without the sub-plot of making an author an overnight millionaire and household name.
Or, to put it another way, What Oprah told the New York Times was, "I wanted to open the door and broaden the field… That allows me the opportunity to do what I like to do most, which is sit and talk to authors about their work. It's kind of hard to do that when they're dead." But that was before Frey turned the whole thing into a circus, culminating with Oprah's finger-wagging excoriation of Frey on her show.
Since the Franzen-Frey double-whammy, the Book Club hasn't been quite the touchstone it once was. There some moments of cultural relevance, like the cognitive dissonance of Oprah selecting Cormac McCarthy's The Road days before it won the Pulitzer, seeing an Oprah logo next to McCarthy's name on the book cover, and later, her visit to his ranch for her show. But the Book Club remains an afterthought, with new selections happening only rarely (Uwem Akpan's Say You're One of Them in September was the first of 2009) and, while the books she picks still sell and publicists still get excited, the Club isn't as much on the media radar, and no one wrings their hands about Oprah's impact on literary culture any more.
This isn't to say, however, that the Book Club was the only reason that Oprah was important to the publishing industry. Oprah had guests flogging books in categories outside of fiction and confessional memoir (and, yes, fictionalized confessional memoir) on the show all the time, and the big sales that followed for these celebrity memoirs, diet books, and self-help guides showed that, in publishing (and in every other business), landing Oprah was still the ultimate publicity coup. While gallons of ink were spilled on the Book Club's literary taste, Oprah's role was probably far more insidious with these other titles, most notably with her incessant flogging of the "power of positive thinking" pabulum found in The Secret. (Salon.com's 2007 takedown of The Secret, and Oprah for hyping it, is essential reading.)
So, with the Book Club wasting away and the end of Oprah now in sight, what's a publicist or mid-lister hoping for a miracle to do? The reality is that it's hard to imagine our culture supporting an enterprise like Oprah's Book Club again. In 1996, audiences were far less fragmented, and even a daytime show could command enough of the public's attention to achieve the desired critical mass. Oprah is set to extend her media empire in new ways, as she's launching her Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) early 2011, and while word is she'll do a daily show there, don't be surprised if she takes the shift as an opportunity to retire the Book Club concept. And even if she doesn't, OWN will be just another, and maybe smaller, piece of this already fragmented media landscape, and a new Book Club likely wouldn't be the winning lottery ticket it once was.
Who knows, maybe she'll get into publishing, instead. (I can almost hear the manuscripts flying her way.)
Bonus Link: The complete list of Oprah's Book Club titles
C. Max Magee created The Millions and is its publisher. He and his family live in New Jersey.
The Problem with Patriotism: A Critical Look at Collective Identity in the U.S. and Germany
Andrea Scrima July 3, 2018 | 9 books mentioned 2 12 min read
It's the bulwark of national identity we cling to, even if this identity is precisely what clouds our cognitive faculties most.
Andrea Scrima | 9 books mentioned 2 12 min read
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Michael Bourne November 22, 2011 | 9 books mentioned 1 8 min read
Art Spiegelman's Maus is that rare work of literature that speaks to everyone while pandering to no one. MetaMaus is a record of how Spiegelman pulled off this magic trick.
Michael Bourne | 9 books mentioned 1 8 min read
Historical Fiction and the New Literary Taboo
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Trouble Using Light: The Complications of Art in the Fiction of Christine Sneed
Philip Graham May 20, 2015 | 9 books mentioned 5 min read
Making art can gnaw at you, wake you up in the middle of the night, and promise you too many paths or none at all. Christine Sneed is a writer who, from the beginning of her career, has been drawn to characters who attempt art, whether it's painting, acting, screenwriting, or sculpture. What adds a distinctive depth to her work is this added complication: in her stories and novels she reveals the changes that occur from this quest in not only the artist's life, but in the lives of surrounding friends and family.
In her first story collection, Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry (winner of the Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction), we see Sneed play out the first examples of this obsession. In the title story, the painter and sculptor Antonio Martedi has been dead for over a year, and his granddaughter April still feels the force of his personality and art. Shortly before his death he gave her the present of three sketchbooks of his work, with a warning never to show them to anyone else, saying, "If I wanted someone other than you to have these notebooks, I would have sold them myself a long time ago or donated them to some art school library."
April, a struggling scriptwriter, becomes involved with a young artist who has already achieved some minor success, but she's never quite sure if his interest in her isn't only a reciprocation of her own attraction, but also a disguised desire to "claim some part, no matter how doubtful, of her grandfather's genius." He particularly wants to see those private sketchbooks, and even if April suspects that she is being used, she is increasingly prepared to use her grandfather's art to get what she wants.
Throughout this subtle, unsettling story, we see the dead Martedi and his art as described by the memories and interests of others, even through the critical summations of obituaries. Sneed's first novel, Little Known Facts, in some ways seems like a tree grown from the seed of that short story. The central character, Renn Ivins, a Hollywood actor in his early 50s still enjoying a charmed career (fashioned by Sneed as an amalgam of perhaps Harrison Ford and George Clooney), is seen through the eyes of others in chapter after chapter. Lucy, his first wife, has never remarried; his second wife is writing a tell-all memoir; his son Will walks unprotected beneath the famous cloud of a father who has already won two Academy Awards and is well on his way to a third; Anna, his daughter, is a resident doctor who has begun an affair with a married doctor her father's age. In each case their lives have been affected by the presence of Ivins's well-rewarded talent and outsized fame. With every additional success that comes his way, his family members have to struggle against further diminishment.
Yet in the middle of the novel, Ivins himself is allowed to speak, through a secret diary that he keeps, and here the reader is offered the stone that has set so many ripples in motion. We eavesdrop on reflections and revelations not meant for us, and discover that, while Ivins balances a serious artistic work ethic with time he spends on charity work for Katrina victims, he also relies on a spiritual advisor to help him decide what scripts to accept, and that while he is publicly partnered with a celebrated young actress, he is also conducting a secret liaison with his son's former girlfriend. It's a complex portrait, and we see how his indulgences, blind spots, and well-crafted excuses for his behavior set in motion much of the toxic aftershocks of fame that are felt by his family. When Ivins, in writing in his diary about tragedy in film, observes that there is "so much poetry in sadness, a very different and possibly more potent variety than the kind of poetry you find in happiness," he isn't nearly as aware as he should be of the personal ironies of this insight.
It comes as a relief to see, in the final chapters, his family members beginning to take baby steps away from his emotional influence. His first wife, Lucy, has rediscovered a man who knew her before she became the wife of a famous actor; with increasing confidence Will is writing a screenplay; and Anna is beginning to take a closer look at her affair. But how strong are these steps? At book's end, Ivins's affair with his son's ex-girlfriend is a revelation still waiting to be fully revealed, a foolish risk that may very well unsettle his family once again.
Sneed's latest novel, Paris, He Said, her most subtle and accomplished work to date, may seem at first to follow a similar narrative pattern. Jayne Marks is a young artist in New York who struggles through two dead-end jobs to simply pay her rent. Her budding career as a painter is slowly slipping away, until she meets Laurent Moller, the co-owner of the Paris art gallery Vie Bohème that is opening a branch in New York. Though Laurent is decades older than she, they quickly become lovers, and perhaps too quickly he invites Jayne to return with him to Paris and live together in his apartment.
It's not just about the sex, or their easy way with each other. Laurent claims to see something in Jayne's work worthy of being nurtured, and he offers her space — and time — in his Paris apartment to create a studio where she can work uninterrupted, without the cares of having to pay any bills. Though other cares take the place of concerns about money. Perhaps Jayne is merely a modern version of a kept woman, indulged in by her lover. Or he genuinely admires her work, but there is an unspoken contract in place, sexual comfort for the possible opportunity of a showing at Laurent's Paris gallery.
The first third of Paris, He Said, is told from Jayne's perspective, with all her undermining worries on display, mixed with her attraction to Laurent, her rediscovered ambitions as an artist, her love of Paris. Like Little Known Facts and the revelation of Ivins's perspective in a central chapter, the middle section of Paris, He Said is devoted to Laurent's attempt at a memoir. When I looked ahead at the novel's table of contents, I have to confess to an increasing anticipation that Laurent's section would reveal the truth of some of Jayne's worries, or worse.
But Laurent turns out to be more complex than any bad guy disclosures might offer. A failed artist himself, he turned to displaying others' art in a gallery he established with an inheritance from his family's vineyards. With his gift for discerning artists whose talent is also salable, his gallery becomes a success, and Laurent takes it upon himself to become an informal patron of selected artists whose work he believes to be promising. Sometimes his hunches work out, sometimes not. Sometimes he mixes sexual attraction with his patronage, and he believes enough in his motives for supporting art not to be too concerned about this potentially compromising complication.
Jayne is his latest hunch. With the time to think out her art's possibilities and apply those insights to canvas, her art flourishes and Laurent offers her a place in a group showing at the gallery. All might seem to be well, but in the third section of the novel the internal contradictions of her relations with Laurent can't be sustained indefinitely. With a Gallic insouciance he continues — not secretly enough — meetings with a number of his former lovers (some of whom are also artists he supported). Jayne, eventually able to interpret his absences, finds herself drawn back to the still-devoted boyfriend she left for Laurent. The power of art alone can't keep them together, and the way Sneed recounts the initial steps of Jayne and Laurent's eventual estrangement is quietly devastating.
"Before you make up your mind about me, slashing an X through the box of my murky character, you should know there is more to the story," Laurent writes in his memoir, but this sentence could apply to every character in Paris, He Said. Because Sneed never descends to an easy headline of revelation, or a plot twist that offers a finality of judgment, Paris, He Said is a brave book. Sneed offers, with quiet confidence, her characters' increasing complexities. People, like the best art, deserve more than one interpretation. There is little black and white contrast in Sneed's work, and she lingers in every gradation of shade in between, as if gray were a full palette of color. Lurking in the areas where easy judgments can't survive, she builds up and undermines a character at the same time, creating an attractive surface with her prose that also fills us with disquiet.
Few fireworks here, instead a slow, unsettling burn.
Philip Graham | 9 books mentioned 5 min read
About time! says:
This move is about 5-10 years later than is should have been!
Maybe Frazen wanted his book to be a success on it's own without Oprah leading her "flock of sheep" to it! Certainly a worthy endevor!!
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You're wrong. Oprah matters. I work in a book store, and believe me, if Oprah names a book, we'll sell a shit-load of it.
I've seen people come in for Anna Karenina because Oprah suggested it, see how big it is, and say, "Oh, that's big," and leave without the book.
To put it another way,Oprah can sell any book . . . unless it's huge.
Fuck E-books.
-Danny Peters
And, Oprah's just getting her own channel. Let's not shit ourselves yet.
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Umm Danny, I never said Oprah doesn't matter as far as book sales go! I used to work at a bookstore as well and I saw the flock as the rolled in the door after the book club announcements. My point was that she and her misguided, omnipotent attitude got old a long time ago!!
I respect Jonathan Frazen for not wanting to be a part of her book club. I think he wanted his book to be successful and not neccessarily because people blindly followed Oprah's advice (and there are a frightening number of people who do so) to read it and immediately went out and bought it! If people can't find their way to a good book without Oprah leading the way, I feel sorry for them!!
Jack M says:
It was tragic when, after announcing Anna Karenina as her latest book selection, Oprah had to soothe her viewers by saying "Don't be scared (about the book's length)". After all, one reads a book a page at a time. What's the difference between reading five 200 pg. books and one book at 1,000 pages? A sad reflection on today's culture.
Carolyn Day says:
I can't find where to go to find out if I've won! I did the oprah.com/goldenticket , but I don't see anyplace to plug in the number to see if you've won. Help1 The number I have is P9P74U7J4T
Peg Ragner says:
I too can't find where to go to find out if I've won! I did the oprah.com/golden ticket per instructed by the magazine, but there is no place to plug in the number. Help The number I have is 6ZT9HYJWGW
Lisbeth Harrje says:
My ticket # is XXYPLL6PNX, – for a chance to go to New York City on May 7-9. 2010 Please tell me how I can find out if I have won,
Dorothy Boggs says:
Can't find where to check out my number to see if I won. my # is JLH7LNHL9U
Lucille Chess says:
My ticket # is yznxhwhng9, please let me know if I have a winning number. I would truely like to meet Oprah once before her show leaves the air. I am a 2 times cancer survivor and her show always has something that gives you some type of hope.
Gussie M. Busby says:
My ticket Number 7 UTGNGJ44X
THE TICKET NUMBER YOU RECEIVED IS IT ON YOUR LIST? I WOULD LOVE TO BE NEAR OPRAH
GMBusby
THanks, I am ready May 25 is my birthday what a celebration I'll be 77 I know I cannot keep up with you young folks but I'll try SMILES
Thanks for consaiderations
G.M.Busby
Thanks for considerations
willard e. mack says:
I cannot find the place to plug in my number., However my number is
xllwguuwwht.
Mr. and Mrs Mack
Debby Wood says:
I cannot find the site to plug in my number as well. Here is my Number N6txhptzhw. I hope that I get the chance to attend. Thank you!
Jacquelyn Vaughn says:
I cannot find the site to plug in my number. Here is my number YY9Z4LWPW9.Please informed me if I Am a winner.
Catherine Davis says:
my ticket number no. is L6yj96zp9g Please notify or call at 702- 642-0183 If I won thank you. Also, this is my sons e-dress feel free to contact regarding.
I want to see Oprah
Ginny Chris says:
I've been trying for day to see if I can but my number in someplace but can't find where. My number is wtnw4zn74y. Can someone tell me how to see if I won.
Paula Kovar says:
I love the magazine and have given it for a gift to several family members. Great article on jeans this month!
I can't find out where to submit my number for the LiVE YOUR BEST LIFE Weekend. My number is JWHWY J647U. I would appreciate your assistance.
Thank you, Oprah, for all that you do for so many.
Merinda J. Sims says:
Good Afternoon Ms. Oprah,
I would love to be visit you for a weekend in New York. My ticket number is
X9HLNJNGYH because I could find a location for it. I pray that is a bless number and lucky!
Thank you and may God bless you always,
Merinda
DENISE BARNES says:
ONE OF MY FRIENDS GAVE ME A SUBSCRIPTION TO MY GAL OPRAH"s MAG. AND i HAVE THIS TICKET p7NLLG6YXU i HOPE TO SEE ALL OF YOU THERE. I WISH Dr. OZ would be there too ,he is my favorite. I work in a Hospital in the state of California . Thank you for your life time of thoughts I will always use them in my life. thanks denise 1/21/10
Donna Demarest says:
Hi Oprah, Have my ticket but do not know where to find my number so here it is.
N69LX7W44Z. Love your show and will miss you a lot. God bless you and all your family.
Paula Dilzell says:
Oprah is the best, she has made a difference in so many lives, it would be a honor to attend her New York City show. I do not see where we input the #, it is YXLJPX4TZ9. It has truly been a dream of my friend and I to attend an Oprah show before she ends. Thank you so much for the consideration.
LORIA EARNEST says:
MY TICKET NUMBER IS NTPJU969UL. MY MOTHER, MY SISTER AND MYSELF WATCHES YOURS SHOW AND WE GET YOUR OPRAH MAGAZINE. FROM THE GULF COAST MISSISSIPPI. MAY GOD BE WITH YOU.
Gayle Newman says:
I have been a fan for years. i have lost and gained weight with Oprah trying everything. Even lost 70 lbs on Optifast gained it back and lost 50 lbs 5 more times. I have read every Opera magizine since day 1.
I would love to be at Oprahs show in New York.
My gold ticket # is JPUXPLNXNW
Donna Leighty says:
My friend and I love your show and the magazine. We would love to know if we are winners. My number is ytyn6ggp64.We will be anxiously awaiting your reply,Thank you.
barbara hunter says:
I could not find where to get # for tickeys. My #LTXLGTZ964 please enter me. I would love to come to your show. Thankyou Barbara j Hunter
donnalonkouski says:
I DO NOT HAVE A WEBSITE ALL I WANT TO KNOW IS HOW DO YOU GET A WINNINNG NUMBER FOR YOUR YOUR SHOW THAT I WATCH EVERYDAY AT 7:00 IN SUFFOLK COUNTY NY ?
Anita Blair says:
Trying with all my heart to get a winning ticket. I just want to get away from my house that is falling apart around me. Snakes found in the family room, chimney falling off and no heat, I need a ticket, I need one bad. Anita in Virginia
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Racetrack Diary: On Luck
Elizabeth Minkel August 27, 2013 | 9 books mentioned 5 9 min read
The fire (cause: unknown) began late Saturday night, spreading across a row of Victorian brownstones a few blocks from my house. One resident, just back from a night on the town, discovered the fire and alerted her neighbors; everyone got out safely, the papers reported, but the homes were decimated, the first few in the line reduced to blackened shells, the last few still standing but totally uninhabitable. The police block off a huge radius as Sunday breaks, and it is a grim morning, grey and drizzly. An acrid smell hangs heavily over the street: wood smoke, burning plastic, the charred remains of this set of shabbily beautiful houses and the temporary lives that had been contained within — we learn that the residents were a mix of college students and my coworkers, full-time track employees up in Saratoga for the summer racing season.
In the bay a few hours later, someone comes around with a collection envelope and the news that more than a dozen of our coworkers had been renting rooms in those buildings, and I think about how paltry the offering will be, a handful of fives and tens, maybe a few twenties, to a group of displaced people already so far from home. The fire is the talk of the racetrack, and as I count my initial draw, thumbing bills into rubber-banded batches, I listen to a pair of coworkers discuss disasters, touching on fatalism. "Everything happens for a reason," one of them says, almost airily, and I halt in my counting and wonder if I heard her correctly.
This is the racetrack. We deal in combination wagering and dollar amounts, in thoroughbreds boiled down to hard numbers on the page, but mostly, we deal in chance: for all of the statistics, lovingly detailed by trainers and handicappers alike, so much of what I see every day rests on luck. It is easy, after the fact, to draw neat lines between events, to look for cause and effect in random acts of chance — "I should've put that horse on top, I would've hit the trifecta" — and it is easy to look for design in it all. But then you spend a while sitting behind the betting windows, watching assholes blithely cashing huge tickets, or informing sweet old ladies that they've lost a week's savings. I draw those same neat, fatalistic lines, and then I have to shake myself to erase them: this must all be chance, because it's impossible to see much reason in any of it.
The burned-out houses sit dormant for a week, then two, and the streetlight goes out in front, and the destruction is a dark cloak draped over the block. The smell remains, and catches in the wind as the temperature begins to drop. I pass them every evening, on my way to drink late-night coffee and type away, and there is something so unnatural about them, hulking in the darkness. They sit there stubbornly, like some kind of specter, a quiet reminder of the twists of fortune.
It's late in the day, fifteen minutes to the eighth race, and a clap of thunder echoes across the park, accompanied by the collected hoots of the crowd. The heavens open up, and the horses run through a downpour, kicking up an avalanche of mud as they round the turns. But the rain tapers off quickly enough, and halfway between the eighth and the ninth, a little old man comes up to my window and bets a combination of three numbers eight times in a row, four identical exacta boxes, four identical trifecta boxes. I shake my head as I punch the tickets — bettors are guided by logic that I often imagine is only visible to them — and as he pays he mumbles, "I don't think I have any singles…" He doesn't owe any singles, though: he's all paid up, and I tell him so, and wish him luck.
He shuffles off to the side for a moment, and I see him out of the corner of my eye, rifling through his wallet and then his pockets. Then he pops back over to my window and says, "I'm sorry: I haven't got any singles to give you." The occasional guy offers a dollar upon betting — "For luck," many of them say, or just as a courtesy, as one might leave a dollar per drink at a bar — but it's far more likely to see tips after a ticket is cashed. But then this man pulls out an enormous coin — an Eisenhower dollar — and hands it to me. "A tip, for you," he says, and he smiles brightly. I can barely contain myself as I thank him; there are moments of grace here, and kindness, but unbridled sweetness like this is extremely rare.
He wins it all. He hits the exacta, then the trifecta, four times over each. This story could have turned out differently — his horses could have come in dead last, and I would have had a giant useless coin on my hands. But he wins, and he comes back beaming, and I hand him more than a thousand dollars, beaming right back. I turn the coin over in my fingertips, and realize that he has probably done me a slight disservice, because I am deeply superstitious, and I am now saddled with an incredibly lucky silver dollar that I will never, ever be able to part with.
I say "good luck" to nearly everyone. Some regular gamblers ask not to hear it — one of the idiosyncratic superstitions that pops up across the track, like their similarly superstitious fear of $50 bills — and there are at least a couple total pricks every day that don't deserve to hear it. But it ends nearly all of my regular transactions: I say it so automatically and so often that by the final weeks of each meet, I am wishing everyone luck on autopilot, like after I've been given change at the grocery store, or when I want to thank someone who's helped me over the phone. It's always deeply embarrassing — out of context, "good luck" should not be interchangeable with "thank you," and the recipients of my well-wishes, uniformly baffled cashiers and customer-service representatives, sort of stutter out their own thank yous as I shuffle away.
Much of my luck-wishing is answered with the same response: "Ha! I need it." It's usually delivered as though it's an incredibly original statement, which is strange considering how many people say it on a daily basis. It's the laugh that gets me every time — kind of rueful, often sort of a scoffing bark, as though there is nothing more ironic than the idea of this particular customer being at all lucky. I suppose that's probably true: the numbers don't lie, and most of the tickets I sell are losers. Many people accuse me of saying "good luck" to everyone. "But I mean it," I say, rote but cheerful. I do mean it. I'd be happy to sell a rash of winners every race, but it is gambling, after all. That's not how the game works.
A man in a black baseball cap comes to my window again and again, betting simulcast races at other tracks, complicated combination and multi-race bets, typical stuff for regular gamblers, many of whom act like betting is a chore, the daily grind, work instead of pleasure. He's not winning much, and he doesn't seem to be having much fun, but he's polite enough. He's got a heavy Southern accent — Kentucky, maybe — and after selling him a dozen losing tickets, I wish him luck again. "Well I need luck," he tells me. "I don't have any skill."
The stars of a popular reality television show bet at my window. There is a flurry of preparation beforehand — production people, all about my age, moving purposefully and murmuring into headsets, setting up lights behind us, a bright glare that begins to feel natural as the day wears on. There is no need to announce the arrival of the on-screen talent: they seem to almost glide in, camera people shuffling backwards in front of them, and the startled bettors turn and gape. "Who are those horrible skinny women?" an older woman in a floppy hat hisses at me as she places her bets. We both turn and eye them as they count cash in an exaggerated fashion out on the terrace. "I hate reality TV," she spits out. "There's nothing good on television anymore. Except for channels 13 and 21!" I'm about to tell her that most of PBS's quality programming is imported, actually, and that I feel that television has diverged into two extreme channels, as it were, and that the high road is populated by some of the finest writing in any genre out there today, but she has already taken her tickets and stormed away. The finer points are lost at the racetrack.
When they come up to bet, it's with the sort of fluttery confusion that makes a mutuel clerk deeply nervous: they're laying down hundreds and then picking them up again, asking for one sort of bet, then asking for a revision, and I am grateful that my neighboring teller is taking the brunt of it, as I punch out the side bets of the member of the group who's chosen to go it alone. They're friendly enough, whether or not it's for show. They are very skinny, but up close they are also surprisingly solid looking (it's as though I was expecting them to be made of cardboard or something). I marvel at how they interact with us, the subtle ways they angle their bodies towards the camera, raising their chins to speak while managing to maintain eye contact the entire time. One of them raises her hand for a good-luck high-five and it's nothing short of a miracle that I manage to slap it correctly the first time.
And then, they win. They win a lot — several thousand dollars — and they shriek and take the requisite picture of the winner holding up a fanned array of hundred-dollar bills. It all feels alarmingly serendipitous, and we murmur that it's a fix, but of course it isn't — the number of factors involved in securing the winning trifecta of a single horse race are mind-boggling, and certainly worth more than any television network would be willing to pay to produce a segment of good entertainment. So that leaves sheer dumb luck, and in a way, it adds insult to injury, because across the track people are struggling to turn a dollar or two into ten or twenty, and a group of woman who are paid to be beautiful have magicked thousands without even trying.
My first year as a teller a decade ago, during my first few days on the job, a man in tatty clothes stumbled up to my window, his hands cupped in front of him. He held them out to show me a pile of nickels — a dollars' worth, enough for a single bet, and I thought for a moment about refusing to take his money, or giving him a dollar bill and sending him on his way. I took his bet instead. I wish I'd checked afterwards, to see if he'd won. I'd be willing to bet that he didn't.
I leave the racetrack for five days to fly to San Francisco for the wedding of two college friends. It's the first time I've been back in the city since I lived there six years ago, and I feel as though I have flown to another planet, or perhaps I'm just returning to Earth, to a place where people spend a lot of time on the internet and aren't preoccupied with the morning line or the pick 6-guaranteed payouts (though San Francisco is not quite Earth, either: I do not remember it being so glacial, nor do I remember waiting half an hour for a barista to literally grow the beans behind the counter before turning them into a cup of coffee, though I don't think either of these things are new developments in town). It is my first Indian wedding, and we spend three days going to approximately five hundred events, and everything is a flurry of color and extraordinarily high spirits.
During the reception both families talk about how my friends' marriage was meant-to-be, and this is the sort of thing I think people always say at weddings, but this time, I have to agree to some extent, because their parents knew each other in Bombay four decades ago, a fact that my friends didn't learn until, by some twist of fate, they had each chosen to attend the same tiny liberal arts college, where they met. Every moment in life is the culmination of a million little moments before it, but this all feels slightly predestined: big, deliberate strokes of fate bringing them together. Or perhaps that's just the romance of a wedding talking. I cannot bring myself to remove questions of fate and chance from the equation, even 3,000 miles away.
Back at the track people eye the stretch of henna on the back of my hand and ask if it hurt to get it done, and I laugh and explain that it's only ink. It fades, and I fade a bit, too, back into the rhythm of the racing day. I wish people luck and try to harness some of it for myself: I want a good batch of customers, and a decent batch of tips, a busy day and a line full of little old men handing out silver dollars. But hardly anyone gets what they want at the racetrack. A man tells me to keep the change, but to hold onto it — "so I can buy you a ring." He later finds me outside the main gates and grabs me from behind in a tight squeeze. A man throws a thick wad of $20s at me for a $500 bet, and when I ask him to stand at my window until I count it all, he shouts at me, saying I'm accusing him trying to cheat people. My luck fluctuates wildly: I am only sporadically blessed with those moments of grace. But then a man comes to my window and says quietly, "Are you lucky?" "Very," I tell him, and he smiles shyly. He raises a fist, and I knock my own against it gently. He departs without saying another word.
Previously: Opening Day
Next: Down the Home Stretch
Image courtesy the author
Elizabeth Minkel | 9 books mentioned 5 9 min read
Insidious Devices: An Introduction to 'The Late American Novel'
C. Max Magee March 1, 2011 | 9 books mentioned 9 4 min read
The written word's last big format change turned out to be a pretty big deal, fomenting revolutions and laying the groundwork for civil society, the scientific revolution, and nothing less than modernity itself.
C. Max Magee | 9 books mentioned 9 4 min read
Legacy of a Photo
Tatjana Soli April 30, 2010 | 9 books mentioned 3 4 min read
James Joyce and the Yuletide Epiphany
Christian Kriticos January 6, 2017 | 9 books mentioned 2 4 min read
Readers of James Joyce will be well used to flipping back and forth between the main text and endnotes, or perhaps keeping Google at hand, to find explanation for some obscure reference to Irish politics or a piece of 100-year-old Dublin slang. It is this specificity of setting and precision of detail that Joyce contended was a crucial cornerstone of his work, arguing that "In the particular is contained the universal."
This point may be made most accessible in "The Dead," the final short story in his collection Dubliners. Although, like all of his fiction, it is rooted firmly in specifics of Irish culture, it is structured around the universally familiar time of Christmas, and its very meaning hinges upon this seasonal setting.
Even if one is not an active participant in annual yuletide celebrations, popular culture has ensured that we all recognise the greeting card image of the traditional Christmas gathering: friends and family joined in a single warm home, with the snow falling outside, to enjoy food, drink, music, speeches, and general merrymaking. Joyce's story presents this exact Christmas-time setting. However, his narrative does not move in the same stream of hokey sentimentality that so many Christmas stories do: he keeps the unfortunate exchanges, conversational faux pas, and awkward silences, which are such an inevitability, firmly intact.
Although Joyce may not believe in any notion of idealization of the holiday season, he nonetheless suggests that this Christmas romanticism, that we all on some level buy into, can in fact be the catalyst for moments of profound realization. Indeed, the story ends with the protagonist, Gabriel Conroy, experiencing one of the most famous epiphanies in all of literature, which is directly inspired by the preceding Christmas celebrations: "He wondered at his riot of emotions of an hour before. From what had it proceeded? From his aunt's supper, from his own foolish speech, from the wine and dancing, the merrymaking when saying good-night in the hall, the pleasure of the walk along the river in the snow." The absence of a question mark in this last sentence suggests that these Christmas celebrations, even if Gabriel does recognize them as "foolish," are a necessary component in bringing him to his epiphany, by forcing him into a more emotional state of mind.
This emotional resonance of the Christmas season may come in part due to its unique ability to force us to simultaneously confront both the past and future. Situated on the cusp of the New Year, Christmas is a natural time for reflection, whilst also providing a hope of some new beginning. Furthermore, the image of snow — the blank white surface — is suggestive of a sense of optimistic forward thinking, and the nostalgia that comes from bringing family together is bound to force the mind backwards.
This duality implicit in the Christmas tradition is also embodied in the two most enduringly popular Christmas narratives of our time: Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol and Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. Both of these stories take their protagonists on journeys into alternate realities based on decisions they have made in the past, and decisions they might make in the future, culminating in an epiphany of redemption.
While "The Dead" also forces its protagonist to examine the past and an imagined future, its ending is much more ambiguous and has none of the redemptive qualities of Dickens or Capra. This is reflected through the fact that unlike these narratives "The Dead" does not take place on Christmas Eve, which allows an opportunity for change before the day itself, but rather on the final day of the "Christmas-time" period — the day known fittingly as Epiphany.
By setting his story in the wake of Christmas, Joyce implies that it is too late for change, with that possibility lying dead in the past. Furthermore, the fact that he informs us of the story's Epiphany setting by referring to a New Year's resolution already broken (the "reformed" drunk Freddy Malins gets "screwed" at the party), reinforces the notion that a failure to self-improve is a theme at the story's center.
The image Gabriel conjures of his grandfather on horseback, endlessly circling a statue in town on his confused horse, also suggests an inability to move forward, and is part of a larger tapestry within Dubliners that presents all of Ireland in a state of "paralysis." Likewise, Gabriel's assured vision of the future, in which he imagines his aunt's funeral and thinks "that would happen very soon," suggests a sense of impending death, with no chance of aversion. His prophetic name further implies the certainty of this future, and seems to end the story on a note of undiluted bleakness.
However, although "The Dead" does not offer hope in the straightforward way that A Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life do, there is surely some hope in the fact that Gabriel experiences an epiphany at all. If everything in the world were truly in "paralysis," this moment of transcendence and absolute truth-seeing would not be possible, and although it brings no joy, it is a key moment of recognition and self-understanding; a moment of growth.
What Joyce presents us with in "The Dead" is a true, unidealized epiphany. In the real world epiphanies are hard — we do not have literal ghosts and angels to gently guide us towards them. And that is why Joyce's story is the perfect coda for the holiday season.
As we leave Christmas, which is a time of fantasy — taking us away from the routine of our normal lives, and saturating us in narratives of schmaltz — "The Dead" represents a return to reality; a reality in which brief moments of self-realization are hard-won, and even when they do come they do not necessarily offer any possibility of tangible change. For Joyce, the true epiphanies do not come during Christmas, amidst wine and tinsel and distant relatives, but after the celebrations have died down, when we find ourselves alone, awake in the witching hour with only our own imagined ghosts of the past and the "shades" of the future to keep us company.
Image Credit: Flickr/formatc1
Christian Kriticos | 9 books mentioned 2 4 min read


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Next:INFORMATION WARFARE: Training Made Painless
Korea: The Staredown
September 12, 2019: The North Koreane government has taken notice of the growing public hostility to the government and the Kim dynasty. To deal with that some unusual, by North Korean standards, measures have been taken to reduce the discontent. For example, secret police informer reports indicate that the many mandatory sessions to study Kim Jong Un speeches have led to people complaining about government misrule and the role Kim Jong Un plays in that. So the government decided to reduce the number of such mandatory study sessions. That alone would be a popular move, as North Koreans find all these "mandatory activities" tedious and pointless.
Another new program, depicted as an economic and public health measure, is an effort to curb worker gatherings to drink and gossip. Once enough alcohol has been consumed the talk tends to move recklessly into open criticism of the government. There is a lot more such criticism and it is increasingly visible in public places. That indicates more North Koreans are no longer afraid of their own government. This is the last thing a police state wants to happen.
The government has also ordered yet another crackdown on prostitution, which is more common and often quite obvious despite being illegal. Since 2016 a growing number of North Korean women have been operating openly as prostitutes, usually near border areas where there are more foreigners. These women get $20 or more per customer but get to keep less than 20 percent of that because the rest goes to bribes (for police) and "fees" to various middlemen (or women) who supervise it all. Thus it is not surprising that these young (from late teens to 30s) women will also offer to sell drugs (usually meth) to customers. Many of these prostitutes are married and some have children but no money to keep the kids fed and healthy.
There is more discreet prostitution in the capital as well, sometimes including daughters of a prominent family seeking some extra money and adventure. Aside from the way prostitution ruins the official North Korean image of itself as sincere, hard-working and righteous socialists, the presence of prostitution also makes North Korean officials more vulnerable to bribery if they deal with prostitutes and are secretly recorded on video. This is a favorite technique of North Korean intelligence and they do not like to be on the other side of this.
Economic Realities
It was not surprising that China and Russia were the principal obstacles to the release of a new UN report on North Korean sanction violations. China and Russia continue to tolerate North Korean evasion of the sanctions, although such tolerance is more restricted than in the past, especially in China. Even when complying with the sanctions China is still the largest North Korean trading partner. In the last decade the growing list of sanctions and increasing compliance has driven away most non-Chinese trading partners and now North Korea is more economically dependent on China than ever. Russia is a minor player, mainly because the Russian economy is much smaller and less efficient than the Chinese. Moreover the Russian economic and population presence in the region (the Russian "Far East") is miniscule compared to China.
The new UN report got leaked and the contents documented the illegal economic support North Korea still obtains from Chinese and Russian sources. Not from the governments of China and Russia, but from the companies or criminal gangs in those two nations that make possible illegal imports and exports with North Korea. Having these operations described in a UN sponsored report that has been officially released puts pressure on UN members listed as working with North Korea to curb those activities. Russia and China are the biggest offenders and among the few UN members who have permanent use of a veto over UN decisions. Thus UN sponsored research like this usually has problems getting past Russia and China, which tend to have some of their people showing up as involved in whatever bad behavior is being studied. In practice it is mainly China the UN has to worry about because Russia is increasingly dependent on Chinese economic and diplomatic support to survive and can be pressured by China to do whatever China wants. In the case of UN sanctions on North Korea, the report shows how China is not bothered by blatant Russian efforts to help North Korea evade sanctions. This ranges from tolerating the North Korean use of Russian student visas to continue exporting workers to Russia (who have most of their pay taken by the North Korean government) to facilitating illegal exports (coal) and imports (oil). Russia says it will end these practices by the end of the year but Russian has said things like that before.
The UN study detailed how North Korea was continuing to carry out transfers of refined petroleum products at sea. This is being done by using smaller ships to take the cargo from Chinese or Russian tankers. These smaller ships are not required to have the most effective transponders (to show the position of the ship) and can more easily evade detection as they head back to North Korea with their cargo. In this way, North Korea has been importing about three times more refined petroleum products than sanctions allow. North Korea is also able to illegally export coal and other minerals using the same technique.
Denuclearization
North Korea is trapped between desperate economic conditions caused by its own mismanagement and more effective sanction enforcement by neighbors, and an official (according to internal documents) decision to hold onto its nukes. The current strategy is to stare down the Americans. In Korean culture, a decisive "stare" is an admirable trait and Korean actors are much admired for the power of their stare. North Korean hopes are that the American politicians will not be able "stare" as long and as decisively as North Korea. Like the Chinese, North Korea hopes the 2020 elections in the U.S. may bring a new government that has a less scary stare. The North Korean leaders so far show no real interest in giving up their nukes. As part of that North Korea has launched a hacking campaign against national and international organizations involved in North Korean denuclearization. The North Koreans appear intent on avoiding surprises.
Denuclearization is not the only threat to North Korea; time is also an enemy. North Korea has been able to stall another round of mass starvation but not eliminate the possibility. That would require the leadership to admit they have a problem and submit to verifiable monitoring of aid distribution and denuclearization. North Korea has insisted it would never do this. But time is not on their side and internal unrest grows as does the general breakdown in order and "discipline." That means options for North Korean leaders are shrinking. North Korea's nuclear weapons are not yet capable of scaring anyone into submission. The North Korean military, in general, is run down and suffering from two decades of neglect because of economic mismanagement and higher priority nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
China is also a problem, as well as an opportunity for North Korea. The Chinese are under pressure from the United States in several trade and espionage disputes. China uses North Korea as a bargaining chip with the U.S. just as it uses the American threat to get more cooperation from North Korea. Currently, China is the only acceptable source of any economic assistance for North Korea and the North Koreans do not like being that dependent on China, which for centuries has interfered with what happened on the Korean peninsula.
The Americans say they will negotiate with North Korea and China for as long as it takes to achieve denuclearization, but only if there are no more nuclear tests. The economic sanctions will remain in force until a denuclearization deal is achieved. That means verification, something the north is very much against. North Korea is trying to get around that by persuading South Korea and/or China to press for a gradual lifting of sanctions as progress is made. The Americans are not eager to try that because in the past the North Koreans have extracted what benefits they could with that approach and then let negotiations collapse. China is willing to be flexible, but only if it is good for China; like putting pressure on the Americans about some other issue, like the current trade war and accusations of rampant Internet-based espionage. Meanwhile, China has been willing to see North Korea suffer from the sanctions that even China is now enforcing.
North Korea is also experiencing more criticism from within. North Koreans got their hopes up because of all the personal meetings between Kim Jong Un and the South Korean and American presidents. Nothing happened. Kim blamed the South Koreans and Americans but most North Koreans know, or figured out, the truth; that Kim would rather see his people starve than give up the nukes. Despite all the propaganda about how essential it is for North Korea to have nuclear weapons, most North Koreans, including many members of the senior leadership are not willing to suffer more privation for this. The criticism is no longer confined to private conversations. People will discuss it at public gatherings, not much concerned about getting arrested by the secret police. After all, the lower-ranking secret police are suffering as well, as their fringe benefits, like free food for families, have been cut. More secret police are being sent to the border to try and control the corrupt border guards. Secret police are also more concerned with bribery among senior officials while on the job. The problem is that the government can no longer eliminate bribery in any department or geographic area. The best you can do is drive up the size of the bribes. The corrupted consider that a "cost of doing business" and proceed as usual. The corruption has become so common in the security services that for purely "economic crimes" you are punished with a few months imprisonment and a "loss of reputation" (and lower promotion prospects). Political crimes can still get you executed or sent to labor camps for extended periods, often accompanied by your immediate family.
The growing availability to higher resolution commercial satellite photos of all of North Korea, and the larger number of civilians who can scrutinize these photos and legally report what they find, has revealed many North Korea military facilities whose existence was previously only known to intelligence agencies, if at all. Many of these newly discovered bases are the ones long-range ballistic missiles operate from. These missiles are to be used during wartime against targets throughout South Korea and most of Japan. There are over twenty of these small bases, housing liquid-fueled missiles that require preparation time before launch. That means a relatively large number of personnel, who have to train regularly to maintain their ability to carry out the fueling process quickly before American, Japanese and South Korea smart bombs and guided missiles hit. This is why North Korea is trying to replace long-range missiles with solid fuel models that require no preparation other than having the launcher raise the missile into firing position. Conversion to solid fuel is going slowly because the solid fuel manufacturing is more complex and more difficult to master. The sanctions get in the way as well.
Border Guard Crises
North Korean border guards on the Chinese border have long been subject to opportunity, temptation and great danger. That's because smugglers prefer to bribe border guards rather than try to evade them, and risk getting shot at if spotted. The government keeps trying to eliminate the bribery but that has proved impossible. The danger comes from the few security personnel working on the border who can't be bribed because they are willing to turn in fellow border guards and be rewarded by the government with a promotion or better job. This has tempted corrupt border guard commanders to steal from their subordinates. That is done by not paying subordinates the agreed on share of bribe income. This has led to violence between officers and subordinates or, worst of all, desertions by disgruntled border guards. This can get even worse if the deserter crosses into China with his weapon and becomes a bandit. This is more of a problem on the Chinese side of the border, whose government has told North Korea that failure to deal with this will make it more difficult for North Korea to obtain cooperation in evading sanctions. Despite the resulting pressure on North Korean border guard commanders, the armed deserters are still showing up in China.
September 11, 2019: North Korea insists that the denuclearization negotiations with the United States and South Korea were still active. There was some doubt about that because of all the recent North Korean rocket tests. North Korea had promised no more long-range ballistic missile tests while the current high-level negotiations continue. Such tests are banned by UN sanctions, as are tests of shorter-range rockets like the 18 fired so far this year. North Korea says it did not promise to halt testing of short-range missiles. As for UN prohibitions, North Korea has been ignoring them for decades. Currently, the North Koreans are not ignoring the personal involvement of the American president in the negotiations.
September 9, 2019: On the east coast North Korea again, for the second time since late August, test-fired the new KN-25 600mm MLRS (multiple launch rocket system) that uses GPS guided rockets. The KN-25 was first seen in August. It has four missile storage/launch tubes and the test was apparently meant to have all four rockets fired in quick succession. Three did but one did not. The missiles that did launch landed about 330 kilometers off the east coast. This was the tenth North Korean rocket test in 2019, the first one occurring in early May after a 17 month test halt. Before that test moratorium one of the last tests, in early 2016 fired six of the new guided (by a GPS type system) 300mm rockets from a launcher vehicle. This new MLRS first appeared in a late 2015 parade. The North Korean 300mm rockets appeared to have a range of over 100 kilometers. The launcher vehicle was later identified as a Chinese ZZ2257M5857A 6x6 truck meant for civilian or military use. China had come under increasing criticism for allowing its manufacturers to export such "dual-use" vehicles to North Korea when it is clear that North Korea wants them only for military purposes. More disturbing was the fact that the new North Korean guided rockets were using technology that could also have been Chinese, as the Chinese introduced such a large guided rocket system in 2010. The new North Korea guided rockets are all remarkably similar to recent Chinese models. Then again the 600mm guided rocket is also similar to the American ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile Systems) guided missile that entered service in 1991 and was obtained by South Korea in 1998. This is a 610mm rocket that fits in the same size container that normally holds six 227mm MLRS rockets.
September 3, 2019: There are no sanctions on medical aid and North Korea is so desperate for medical help that it agreed to allow medical foreign aid officials to verify where the aid was going as well as assessing where it was needed most. Initial assessments were that hospitals and clinics are indeed in bad shape. But because the medical system has been starved for resources since the 1990s the foreign aid assessors concluded that many North Korean doctors no longer have the needed skills to effectively use a lot of the medical aid. Because the lack of medical care is being felt by many senior North Korea officials the government is apparently willing to take medical aid on the "verification" terms. The government has put restrictions on any new aid and ordered the UN to cut the number of inspectors (less than fifty) it currently has. North Korea will allow more inspectors once there is more foreign aid to check on.
Meanwhile, the government is no longer cracking down on people buying and using Chinese medicines rather than locally made items. The Chinese medical supplies are more reliable and less likely to make you sick instead of better. Another incentive to work with foreign aid groups is the toxic atmosphere. Air quality has been declining in the capital since 2012 but there is not enough money to deal with the problems. Same with medical care, even though the government periodically issues descriptions of new programs that will improve medical care nationwide. It never happens. For most North Koreans there is no more government supported medical care or even reliable local production of medicine and medical supplies. If you get sick you must have the cash to use the semi-legal and improvised private medical care. The availability of the private care system varies throughout the country. In the poorest parts of the country, improvised medical care is all you can hope for.
September 2, 2019: South Korea is paying more attention to the needs of its aging population of North Korean defectors. Many North Koreans have a hard time adapting to the very different free-market economy culture of South Korea and often have a hard time making a living or finding spouses. It has been noted that some of the older defectors are sliding into poverty and the government wants to avoid that.
September 1, 2019: North Korea has once more started to draw on military rice reserve stocks to deal with food shortages. Cell phone photos of rice being trucked from one such army underground rice reserve have been circulating and locals confirm that these trucks full of rice are not unusual, but not to this extent. Every year the stored rice is sold while recently harvested rice is put into the storage bins. This takes place during January and February, not August. The annual movement of rice in and out of these military storage sites ensures that the rice remains fresh. But this year the outflow of rice is far more than what was brought in. The trucks are showing up in areas where there has been unrest among workers who complain of food shortages. Some military bases are also receiving the additional rice. So far the withdrawals from the military reserves are relatively small, but they are continuing. That may be a result of recent storm damage in North Korea that reduced harvest expectations.
August 31, 2019: Chinese living near the North Korean border are again suffering from an increase in North Korean soldiers and civilians crossing into China to rob businesses or homes and then hustle back to North Korea. This has been a sporadic problem in the past but is becoming more frequent now because of the sanctions fueled economic recession in North Korea and the crackdown on smuggling and bribery of border guards.
August 30, 2019: Japan approved a record defense budget of $50 billion for 2020. That's an increase of over $47 billion for 2019. This is the eighth year in a row that Japan has increased defense spending and it is all about North Korea and China. This comes after South Korea announced another increase in its defense budget. Between 2020 and 2024 South Korea plans to spend an average of $49 billion a year on its military. That's nearly as much as Japan (with a much larger economy) spends. The 2018 South Korea budget had the largest increase (6.9 percent) in the defense budget since 2009. Although North Korea openly complains about how unfair and unfriendly these increases are they are a direct result of the increasing threat from North Korea. The annual South Korean defense budget is more than a third larger than the annual GDP of North Korea. That is one reason North Korea which spends about a third of GDP on defense compared to less than three percent in South Korea.
August 29, 2019: Intelligence analysts and civilian experts (who can comment publically) seem to agree that the about half the 18 or so short-range missiles tested by North Korea since May were new solid-fuel models. Both had ranges under 700 kilometers and one (KN-23) had a more elaborate flight control system (and flatter, more difficult to intercept) trajectory that is similar to the recent Russian Iskander. The other (KN-25) was simpler with GPS type guidance.
August 22, 2019: South Korea and Japan are once more feuding over past Japanese mistreatment of Koreans. The latest action is South Korea terminating the 2016 intelligence sharing agreement with Japan (and the United States) because Japan had halted shipments of vital components needed by South Korean electronics manufacturers. That was in response to a South Korean court demanding Japan pay more compensation for World War II era atrocities.
This feuding remains a problem, especially when it comes to cooperation in facing common threats from North Korea and China. Such cooperation is still very unpopular in South Korea because of continued anger over 40 years of brutal Japanese occupation early in the 20th century. The Japanese consider this self-destructive as it wallows in the past at the expense of dealing with current and future threats. Yet Japan continues to ignore the fact that it's post-World War II policy (documented in decrypted Japanese diplomatic messages sent out right after the Japanese surrender in August 15, 1945) of claiming to be a victim in World War II and guilty only of trying to liberate all Asians from Western oppression, is the obstacle. That "Japan as victim" view was never very popular with Japan's neighbors, who saw Japan as no better, and often a lot worse, than Western imperialists. To the countries of East Asia Japan compounds these historical sins by continuing to insist that Japan is innocent of any wrongdoing. This made it difficult to unite to deal with threats from North Korea and China, but eventually both Japanese and South Koreans agreed to cooperate to protect their common interests, at least most of the time. The current dispute keeps escalating. The cancellation of the intel sharing agreement was accompanied by consumer boycotts in each nation, especially South Korea where over 60 percent of planned South Korea tourist trips to Japan were canceled by early September. By the end of August South Korean imports of Japanese consumer goods fell for the third month in a row.
August 15, 2019: Russia also making some extra cash via illicit dealings with North Korea. Russia largely ignores the sanctions against North Korea and tolerates all manner of schemes to evade the sanctions. One obvious measure is to issue student visas to North Korean workers who then attend "on the job" training at worksites throughout the Russian Far East. This is another source of foreign currency for North Korea because most of the pay these North Korean "students" receive goes to the North Korean government.
COUNTER-TERRORISM: A Killer Blooper Reel
INFORMATION WARFARE: Training Made Painless
Korea: Current 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Q: Why are these traces on the PCB zigzag? I recently found my old Raspberry Pi laying in a drawer and I took a look at it. I noticed that the conductor traces are in a zigzag form.

What's the reason behind this? Especially because there's plenty of space to just make a straight trace.
I am sure there has to be reason for this because I have never noticed this on the PCBs I deal with at work.

A: They are used for trace length matching. Differential high-speed signals need to have their traces routed with lengths as close as possible to each other, so by adding curves like this one can add more length to one trace than the other and bring the trace lengths closer to each other.

A: Those are probably differential pairs for a LVDS comms scheme.  To make sure the signals arrive at the same time, all the traces are the same length.  That means some of them need to be scrunched up.
As an aside, I haven't heard zick-zack before, but I'd recognize zigzag, which means a back-and-forth pattern.  Hope that's the word you were looking for.

A: There are two features there.
One is the pairs of tracks close to each other. That's because they are designed to have a controlled characteristic impedance. The thickness and dielectric constant of the PCB through to the ground plane underneath and the desired impedance determines the width and spacing of the conductors. That keeps the signals relatively free from reflections and clean. Each pair represents a current path to and from the receiver. It takes stripline signals about 1 to 1.1 nanosecond to travel 15cm (6").
The second feature is the switchback configuration of the pairs. That's to equalize the length between chip and connector (for each pair), so that the differential signals arrive at the connector at very close to the same time.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Aside from sewing projects, some of my favorite gifts to give are fast and easy homemade recipes. Some of my favorites include cinnamon rolls (I need to share that recipe someday–it's a good never-fail one), homemades jams and my all-time favorite thing in the world–anything lemon. So, homemade lemon curd is always a great gift in my book for those that I know that love lemon too.
I bought the jelly jars at IKEA and then made some super cute labels with the Heidi Swapp Minc Machine (which by the way is on sale HERE for the best price I have ever seen!–affiliate link—). I used simple labels and ran them through the minc machine with gold foil and then wrote on them. Add a cute card that is also minc'ed and the gift is done!
The lemon curd recipe I use is from Martha Stewart and you can find it HERE. I actually thought for years that curds were difficult to make until I made one the first time….they aren't at all. They are simple and they always turn out scrumptiously delicious. All this recipe requires is fresh lemons, sugar, egg yolks and butter…and cooks up in minutes. I like to eat it in tiny lemon tart shells (you can buy them in the frozen food section and they bake up quick) and this curd is delicious with scones or crepes!


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Towerfall dev says Ouya version sold around 7,000
UPDATE: Ouya CEO claims the microconsole platform, "put Towerfall on the map"
News by Brendan Sinclair Managing Editor
Update: Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman has responded to the comments made by Towerfall developer Matt Thorson, saying that the game's success on other platforms is actually evidence that Ouya works as intended.
"21 percent of Towerfall's total revenue comes from Ouya, which is pretty impressive when you consider the legacy and size of the Steam and PlayStation communities," she said in a statement widely circulated to the press. "Plus, Ouya helped put Towerfall and Matt on the map. His story signals that Ouya works: We are finding the next great developers and making them household names, while rewarding their great games with real money in their pocket."
Original Story: The critically acclaimed Towerfall was hyped as the Ouya's "killer app" in the days before launch, but it wouldn't make a killing until a new version of the game was released on the PlayStation 4 and PC. Speaking with Eurogamer, Towerfall developer Matt Thorson estimated the original Ouya version of the game has only sold about 7,000 copies since its June 2013 launch.
"Being the best game on Ouya isn't a huge deal, but it is nice. It still sells on there," Thorson said.
However, Thorson released a modified version of the game as Towerfall Ascension on PC and PlayStation 4 last month, and the returns have been both swifter and more significant. The game has now grossed more than $500,000 in total, with the console edition outperforming its PC counterpart. Regardless of the platform, Towerfall sells for $15, which would put the game's total sales above 33,000, barring any discounts.
"It's actually doing better on PS4, but it's still doing well on PC," Thorson said. "It's doing definitely well enough for me to support myself for quite a while. That's really encouraging."
Brendan Sinclair
Brendan joined GamesIndustry.biz in 2012. Based in Toronto, Ontario, he was previously senior news editor at GameSpot in the US.


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Home Comics HBO max announces 'Aquaman: King of Atlantis'
HBO max announces 'Aquaman: King of Atlantis'
Vibha Chandrakar
There were Netflix, Hulu and Amazon and now there will be HBO Max. And by the looks of it, it will not take much time for HBO Max to be a huge face in the digital entertainment market. Their slate of new programming has something for everyone. Ranging from the Gossip girl Reboot to Friends and now as per the announcement by Warner Brothers Pictures a Miniseries based on popular superhero Aquaman titled Aquaman: King of Atlantis .
This is sure to be a treat for comic book fan lovers across the world. This miniseries is coming on the heels of the hugely successful Aquaman which released on 2019 and earned more than 1 billion worldwide. The miniseries takes place after the events of the movie. It catches up with Arthur Curry on his first day as the king of Atlantis, a throne which he was seen claiming in the final moments of the movie. The miniseries along with Arthur will also feature fan favourite characters such as Vulko and Mera who will be on hand to support Arthur in his duty as the king of Atlantis. It is still unclear whether Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, and Willem Dafoe will return to lend their voices to the characters they originated in the movie.A few more details of the miniseries' story were revealed in a press release. "Between dealing with unscrupulous surface dwellers, elder evils from beyond time and his own half-brother who wants to overthrow him, Aquaman is going to have to rise to the challenge and prove to his subjects, and to himself, that he's the right man for the trident," the synopsis reads.
HBO Max is pretty confident about the success of this miniseries. The confidence is very well reflected in the statement of Sarah Bryce who reiterated the success of the movie and called the miniseries a perfect fit in their kids programming. The series is sure to win many hearts as it is backed by many prolific and hugely talented people all across the industry. The series is executive produced by James Wan, Atomic Monster's Michael Clear (Annabelle Comes Home), Rob Hackett (Swamp Thing) and Sam Register (Teen Titans Go!). Victor Courtright (ThunderCats Roar!) and Marly Halpern-Graser (Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) will serve as showrunners and co-executive producers.
Aquaman: King of Atlantis
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Moschino creates cool pop culture-inspired clothing for the modern streetwear aficionado. Crafted from comfortable cotton blend, these logo print track trousers from Moschino will add a pop of colour to your look. Featuring an elasticated drawstring waist, side seam pockets, a printed logo to the front and ribbed cuffs.
Light grey cotton logo track trousers from Love Moschino featuring a high rise, an elasticated waistband, side pockets, a back pocket and a regular length.
Black cotton stretch lounge track trousers from Love Moschino featuring an elasticated waistband and fitted cuffs.


We would like to share with you some of our own favourite recipes which lend themselves particularly well to the rich flavour of our Dexter beef.
Often customers ask us for more unusual cuts such as beef cheek or oxtail which are no longer readily available elsewhere so we will be including their recipes for these too.
If you have any family favourites made using Dexter beef we would love to add them to the list. Email a copy of your recipe with a picture if possible ,or a link to it .


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Q: Silverlight OOB Calling Class Library I have a class library that reads and writes to a local SQL CE database using Entity Framework 4.2 code first. I want to access the class library from a Silverlight 4 OOB app.
What is the best way to do this?
Do I have to turn the class library into a COM object?
Would it be better to use Silverlight 5?

A: With both Silverlight 4 and Silverlight 5, if you're using OOB, you can use elevated privileges to get access to lots of things, and with Silverlight 5, that includes the whole file system and P/Invoke if needed.
For that to work, you'll have to sign your app with a code signing certificate.


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Q: New-Mailbox command does not accept the -Equipment argument I'm attempting to create new resources in Exchange Online via a script and it works if I type the line manually but when I run the script, the command New-Mailbox suddenly can't accept the "-Equipment" argument.
Script fails on the following row:
New-Mailbox -Name "$($Resource)" -$($Type)

Error shows following:
A positional parameter cannot be found that accepts argument '-Equipment'.
 + CategoryInfo          : InvalidArgument: (:) [New-Mailbox], ParameterBindingException"

A: PowerShell interprets -$($Type) as a string argument rather than a parameter name. Use splatting to conditionally pass parameters like this:
$extraParams = @{ $Type = $true }
New-Mailbox -Name "$($Resource)" @extraParams

I'm not sure which other types of mailboxes are available in Exchange Online, but you'll probably want to figure that out and apply some input validation:
param(
    [string]$Resource,

    [ValidateSet('Equipment','Person','Room')]
    [string]$Type
)

# do other stuff here

# If someone passed a wrong kind of `$Type`, the script would have already thrown an error
$extraParams = @{ $Type = $true }
New-Mailbox -Name "$($Resource)" @extraParams


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Home / Shop by Artist / Mötley Crüe Set
View cart "Janis Joplin Rock Iconz Statue" has been added to your cart.
The Mötley Crüe Rock Iconz Set includes all four statues of Nikki Sixx, Mick Mars, Tommy Lee and Vince Neil.
Only 3000 of each statue is made. These are highly exclusive, limited edition collectibles. Each one is hand-painted, numbered and comes with a certificate of authenticity on the base of the statue. These Rock Iconz statues are 1/9th scale; figures are approximately 8.5″ tall.
This is an officially licensed product, created by KnuckleBonz, Inc. Using a team of highly skilled artists, each statue is sculpted and cast in poly-resin and then hand-painted in fine detail. These limited edition statues are highly collectible.
"We love to see our fans getting excited about new figurines and it's really cool to see a company paying homage to this classic era of the band's history. The KnuckleBonz are so detailed and true to nature.
We're really happy with the way they turned out and hope the fans will have as much fun with them as we had in the process of creating them. It's exciting for us to be included along-side great company such as Motörhead, Guns N' Roses, and Alice Cooper." – Nikki Sixx
Purchase Options Choose an optionPay NowPayment Plan: 3 Months Clear
SKU: MCRUE100 Categories: MOTLEY CRUE, ROCK ICONZ STATUES, Shop by Artist
LEMMY II (Motörhead) ROCK ICONZ STATUE
Pink Floyd (Wish You Were Here) 3D Vinyl
Rob Zombie Rock Iconz Statue
Guns N' Roses (Appetite for Destruction) 3D Vinyl
You're viewing: Mötley Crüe Set $596.00


Do I divide? 1.61803/11? The goal is to use the cut piece of paper (to proper proportion) and find "golden rectangles" throughout my home that are close in proportion. Thank you very much in advance!
Let's do some simpler problems!
Let's assume that the golden ratio is 11. In that case what would be the width of your rectangle from the 8.5 by 11 paper (and the length stays = 11)?
Let's assume that the golden ratio is 2. In that case what would be the width of your rectangle from the 8.5 by 11 paper (and the length stays = 11)?
Are you getting some ideas about the answer to your question?
I believe with that being posed, I would set the proportion as 11/1=8.5/2???
Nicely done, you are improving.


Have you heard of shrubs? They are old-timey drinking vinegars that were popular in colonial America to preserve fruit. I've been sitting on a shrubs recipe book for a while, not realizing how easy it is to make em. Seriously easy and doesn't take that much fruit if you want to make a small batch. This here is a pear + ginger homemade shrubs topped with sparkling water. I love the spicy kick from the ginger.
In a large bowl, combine pears with ginger and sugar. Take a potato masher and start macerating all the ingredients together, until you have a thick soupy consistency. Let this mixture sit overnight in your fridge. Strain the pear mash through a fine mesh strainer and combine with the apple cider vinegar. There you go, now you have your own shrubs! Add about 1 part shrubs to 2 or 3 parts sparkling water or use for mocktails.


Areas with limited use of cell phones, radios, etc.
The main unit of the system is the control module (hereinafter CM). CM performs the reception and analysis of signals at remote, distributed locations.
Detection area of the CM depends on many factors and the estimated average value is from 10 to 50 square meters. The appearance of illegal signals is displayed by light and sound signalling directly on the CM or transmitted via ETHERNET or WLAN to the checkpoint computer.
The checkpoint computer can be any Windows-compatible desktop computer, laptop or tablet that has been installed special software.
Round-the-clock monitoring of radio environment and the event log are provided.
*the settings of cellular frequencies, depending on the country and mobile operator, are provided.
Radio-receiving unit with a separate highly sensitive circuit for 3G band.
WLAN antenna (only for ST154.W).
Parameters of light and sound alarm are set via the USB port.
The minimum configuration consists of the only CM with the light and audible alarm indication (ST154.A). Presetting is performed via the USB port.
This option is intended primarily for the radio environment control within the one room.
To cover more than one room in a multi-story building is a variant with alarm transmission to a checkpoint computer via WLAN (ST154.W) or ETHERNET (ST154.E/ST154.E+POE) using a specially created or existing network.
The configuration of the CM can be performed both individually and for the whole system. Also, there are many adjustable options. There are special patterns of the ignoring frequencies for the cellular, mobile and wireless data bands.
Each CM is assigned its virtual image that allows watching changes of the radio emission in the real-time mode.
For convenience, virtual images are placed on the screen, for example, in accordance with the floor plan of the supervised area.
The direction finding mode for localization the source of transmission is available when using multiple modules configuration.
The silent logging mode is always enabled and there are a lot of options to sort events depending on required criteria.
Configuration the ETHERNET and WLAN networks allow operating the device in the existing network infrastructure.


Some Kids Pet Baby Birds, Some Kids Squash Them.
My first week of teaching this year is officially done. And, like every year, I am overwhelmed by the potential that this year has in store. What's always amazing is that each class that comes into my care has such a different character profile than the year before. My new students bring with them a certain set of strengths and, of course, areas to grow.
It can be hard to determine what these areas are. Like all teachers, I will sift through the data of the standardized tests, but these will only inform me of their literacy and math achievement, and only indicate a moment in time. What interests me just as much, and maybe more, is the complexity and the nuance of the character of these students. How well do they demonstrate the IB Learner Profile and the PYP Attitudes? Are they able to stick to the Essential Agreements that they came up with with me on Day 1?
As we're working on implementing a workshop model for reading and writing primary-wide this year, my class created essential agreements based around the three main parts of a workshop: Mini-Lesson, Independent Work, and Sharing. "I will pay attention" was what the students came up with for Mini-Lesson.
The essential agreement students came up with for "Independent Work" time during workshop. We're currently building up to 30 minutes of straight reading and 30 minutes of straight writing.
The essential agreement students came up with for "Sharing" time during workshop, as many of my students confessed that they were afraid to share in front of others.
During a particularly recurrent moment on campus this week (our school has so many birds. . ), a baby bird became the source of excitement for the students at the playground while I was on duty. I snapped the photo above of a few of them trying to "pet without touching".
If you look at these students only through the lens of math and literacy, you might see a number or a letter floating over each of their heads. I, however, am more intrigued by the instinct of some students to mother a baby bird, while others want to hurt it. Others still want everyone to stand back and leave it alone. Rather than accepting that "kids will be kids", I am duty-bound to collect data on these children, and to provide the correct interventions to meet their needs. The IB Learner Profile includes Caring for a reason.
This year, let's try to see our kids as more than a score for literacy or math.
I hope that over the next few weeks, I am disciplined enough to collect a ton of meaningful data on all of these students for all areas of development – bird-rearing included! Their social, mental, and physical development is vital to me, and I value the concept of pastoral care. If all teachers, parents, and childcare providers team together to provide the necessary support for our young ones, we might succeed at raising a generation of kids whose first instinct is to protect living things.
Feel free to comment below about how your first weeks have been going, and be sure to keep coming back to educationrickshaw.com. Thanks for visiting!
Wow! Wouldn't that be a first. A generation who genuinely cares for living things – including each other. Let's go for it!
Thank you so much for putting into words and practice the assessment of student's character needs. My new class is, with a couple of exceptions, quite up-to-speed academically, but their character is still not clear to me. The idea of collecting data on response to situations is fascinating.


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Q: How to see messages sent to Google Cloud Messaging I have created the Google Cloud Messaging demo app as per the instructions at http://developer.android.com/google/gcm/client.html
Everything seems to be working fine, but I do not receive the push notification after sending the notification. Is there any way to see messages that are sent/queued on the Google side? Similarly, is there a way to verify the message was actually sent to GoogleCloudMessaging?


text:
Books / Seminar
Books/Seminar
Access Contact us
ABOUT JSA GROUP
THE PRIMARY ACTIVITIES OF JSA GROUP
WTO/TBT
English ▼
Japanese Industrial Standards
The publication and distribution of JIS (Japanese Industrial Standards) is the bedrock on which all JSA's activities stand. Moreover, JSA issues English versions of the JIS which are particularly significant from the perspective of international trade.
JSA publishes books on industrial standardization, quality management (control), administrative management, science and technology, and many other subjects. Best sellers include the JIS Handbooks, Glossary of Technical Terms in JIS, the Manual for company-wide standardization, Manual for quality management, Manual of world standards, the Management Engineering Series, and Easy Understanding Series of science and technology.
JSA publishes Standardization and Quality Control, first published in 1946, a monthly magazine specialized in industrial standardization and management techniques. The magazine runs a series featuring quality management, management system, and quality engineering etc. and provides latest information on deliberation status od JIS and newly established or revised JIS.
JIS and QC related product
JSA develops and markets physical standards and tools based on JIS that are used for standardization and quality control. These include the Book of JIS color standards, JIS Color Charts, Gray scales for assessing color change and for assessing staining, Three dimensional standards for evaluating seems, The Statistics Simulator Kit and 20 face die for generating random numbers.
JIS Seminars
JSA sponsors JIS Seminars to help users and interested parties correctly understand newly published or revised JIS standards.
Promoting JIS and related documents
JSA markets JIS, JIS Handbooks, and books and products on standardization and quality management (control) from its offices and at bookstores throughout the country and overseas.
JSA imports and distributes international standards (ISO and IEC), national standards (ANSI, BSI and others), standards developed by other standardizing bodies (such as ASME and ASTM). JSA translates and markets the Japanese versions of some of these standards.
Standards Information
Both Japanese and foreign standards, as well as related documents and materials may be viewed free of charge at the JSA libraries which are located at its headquarters and Kansai and Nagoya offices.
Certification of management system auditors
JSA Webdesk
Plivacy Policy
Basic Guidelines
Copyright 2001-2019 Japanese Standards Association. All Rights Reserved.


High-quality, pressure feed spray gun comes with fluid adjustment and internal mix spray nozzle for use with oil based undercoats and varnishes.
Also includes external mix nozzle for use with latex based paints and epoxy. Not recommended for auto finishing.


Features: Standing on the borderline of Xiaojin and Wenchuan in Western China's Sichuan Province, Siguniang Shan offers some of China's most pristine and less visited mountain sceneries. This trek is a wonderful mixture experience of thrilling natural landscape and local Tibetan cultures and lifeway.
Leave in the morning for Danba. Drive out of Kangding, you will start ascending up to Tsedo mountain which is over 4,000 meters/ 13.125 feet above sea level. The scenery on the pass is amazing. From here we go to Xinduqiao and Tagong (Lhagong) in the valley. We will visit the Lamasery Lhagong Monastery. If weather is good you could have chance to take a good photo to the holy mountain Yala from a higher terrace at Tagong. Then you will be driven to Danba along the Yak River. Transferred to Jiaju Tibetan Village in the Dadu Valley and enjoy your homestay with the Tibetans.
In the morning take sunrise at Jiaju Village. Jiaju, 10 kilometers away from the county city, is one of the rare places in China that has preserved complete Tibetan style residences. More than one hundred buildings keep the same architectural style with a complete and unique character of Jiarong (Gyarong) Tibetan residences. Under the blue sky, the Tibetan residences decorated in red, white and black are strewed at random but also in order from the bottom to the middle slope of the valley. Take photos at Suopo Village. They were made of clay and block and look fine from outside with solid thick walls. In the afternoon you will be driven to Rilong, a small Tibetan town rightly below the Siguniang Shan.
Bipeng Gou is a nice place with primitive forests, springs, streams, waterfalls and snowy peaks. In short distance, the colorful trees is a natural palette indeed; afar, the solidly concretionary glaciers are shiny. This morning you will have the last hours walking. You will pass by White Dragon Waterfall and Droma Lake before getting to Shang Hai Zi, the end of the trek. Driven to Taoping Qiang Village and stay at local hostel in the village.
Morning visit Taoping Village, home to the Qiang ethnic group. The village is known as the "Ancient Oriental Fortress" for its aged stone houses and the two 9-storey hexahedral watchtowers of 30m high on the slope, which amazingly survived weather erosion, wars and frequent earthquakes for centuries. After the visit you will be driven to Chengdu. On the way you will visit Dujiangyan Irrigation System, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Later in the afternoon you arrive in Chengdu and enjoy a savory hotpot dinner.


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Cars.com Reno
Nevada coach Jay Norvell: New transfer rules send 'bad message'
Duke Ritenhouse | Reno Gazette Journal Updated 2:33 p.m. PT Dec. 3, 2018
Wolf Pack football coach Jay Norvell discusses Nevada's loss in the Fremont Cannon game.
Duke Ritenhouse, dritenhouse@rgj.com
Thanks to two significant rules changes, it's a brave new world in terms of college athletes' eligibility and ability to transfer.
And that's not always going to be a good thing, according to Nevada head football coach Jay Norvell.
Nevada football coach Jay Norvell, shown before a game this season at Mackay Stadium, says the ...more
Nevada football coach Jay Norvell, shown before a game this season at Mackay Stadium, says the NCAA's new transfer policies are not good for teams from non-power conferences.
Jason Bean/RGJ
Norvell, like anyone else with any sort of stake in the Wolf Pack's success, had to deal with the late-Sunday night news that one of his star players, sophomore receiver McLane Mannix, had decided to leave the team and the school.
It wasn't necessarily that one of his players — on a very large roster — had decided to transfer that was such a big deal. After all, players at all levels, and in all sports, have transferred since the dawn of the NCAA era more than 100 years ago. What was different was the ease and the immediacy with which Mannix was able to do so.
Thanks to the off-season creation of what is generally known as the "NCAA transfer portal," athletes can enter their information into what is essentially a database that is available to all NCAA institutions. The athlete is then generally free to transfer to any other school without restrictions or penalties, and without requiring any contact with his current school beyond a notification of the desire to transfer.
The only real exception is that athletic conferences are still allowed to set their own transfer rules. But, beyond that, the new legislation helps college transfers essentially become free agents.
"This is a different era that we're in, and it's an era that college football is going to have to get used to," Norvell said.
And, by implication, college football fans are going to have to adjust, as well.
'Not a good thing'
One potential problem Norvell pointed to in the new transfer era is that schools from power conferences could come to see smaller schools as the equivalent of uncompensated developmental programs.
Using Mannix as an example, Nevada's coaches could argue that they've spent two years developing his receiving skills and providing ample playing time. In return, they received two seasons of great production from a talented player. Now, though, some other program will get another two seasons to build on the refinements that took place in those daily practices at Wolf Pack Park.
Head coach Jay Norvell addresses his players following Nevada's scrimmage at Mackay Stadium in ...more
Head coach Jay Norvell addresses his players following Nevada's scrimmage at Mackay Stadium in August.
"The unfortunate thing for us, and our staff, is we kind of get penalized for doing a good job," Norvell said. "Our job is to recruit and identify top talent, and to bring it to Nevada. And then it's our job to develop that talent. And we're actually recruiting players that are good enough to go to Pac-12 schools and the Power 5 schools but, for whatever reason, we're able to convince them to come to Nevada.
"(The transfer portal) is not a good thing for mid-major football. We don't want to be a minor league for the bigger schools."
Norvell said he expects Mannix to just be the first of what could be a series of transfer requests — sophomore safety Nephi Sewell, for example, has also made his transfer intentions known. He added that for programs such as Nevada, the attrition could come from two sides.
"Because we're a mid-major, we have the potential to lose some players at the bottom of our roster, because they're not happy," Norvell said. "And we also have the potential to lose players at the top of our roster, because they feel like they should be playing at their dream school."
The RGJ reached out to Mannix via social media Sunday evening, but did not receive a response.
'Not a magic bullet'
Although he's only in his second year at Nevada, Norvell has been around college football for nearly 30 years as both a player (Iowa) and a longtime assistant coach. He's seen players at all talent levels struggle with college, with football, and with trying to become young adults, in general. His other major concern with the new ease of transferring is that student-athletes will see it as an instant problem-solver.
"We were all college students at one point … life happens to people in college, just like life happens to all the rest of us," Norvell said. "They have relatives that get sick, they have bad days, they have girlfriends that they break up with. And, for one reason or another, they may feel like transferring is going to solve their problems.
"But it just doesn't. It's not a magic bullet to make all your problems go away."
The Nevada coach fears that a system such as the transfer portal, while established with good intentions, could end up sending a message it's not intended for.
"Putting this rule into place really sends the wrong message to our athletes," Norvell said. "What are telling them? 'It's okay, whenever things don't work out for you, to just switch schools or to leave your situation?" It's a bad message to send to our young athletes, in my opinion."
Redshirt rule: Thumbs-up
The second major rule change introduced this season has had generally universal acclaim from college football coaches. Freshmen can now play in as many as four games and still retain a redshirt season; previously, any player who stepped onto the field at any time was considered to have immediately used a year of eligibility.
Football coaches, including Norvell, have generally praised the new rule's flexibility in helping them evaluate talent in game situations without fear of burning a young player's future eligibility.
"Everybody in college football loves that rule," Norvell said. "All the coaches think it's a great rule. It's something that's been needed for a long time."
Nevada has not announced which players it will declare as redshirts for the 2018 season. The Wolf Pack finishes the season on Dec. 29 against Arkansas State in the Arizona Bowl.
Originally Published 2:03 p.m. PT Dec. 3, 2018
Updated 2:33 p.m. PT Dec. 3, 2018


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Q: Stop and wait socket programming with UDP Looking to make a Java stop-and-wait UDP server and client but I'm running into some problems starting off. I've made a simple UDP client and server without the stop-and-wait part, but I would now like to learn how to change it. How can I send ACKs and implement timeouts using java sockets ?
Could someone please post up some examples for me to use in my implementation ?

A: If you're implementing this in UDP, sending and receiving acknowledgements is up to you. This seems to be what you want for this stop and wait protocol. In terms of pseudocode, you would want something like:
int Send(msg)
{
    char rcvBuf[];
    sentBytes = sock.send(msg);
    sock.rcv(rcvBuf);
    return sentBytes;
}

int Recv(rcvBuf)
{
    String ackMsg = "ACK";
    length = sock.rcv(rcvBuf);
    sock.send(ackMsg);
    return length;
}

After every send, you wait for an acknowledgement message to come in, and every time you receive, you send an acknowledgement.