Valentine's Day

glitter-graphics.comWow two posts in two days this is highly unusual for me. Yesterday at work (school) everyone was celebrating Valentine's Day. Every time I passed the secretary's desk I had to dip into the chocolates. I, of course, had to justify this by saying to myself it was a special day and because I did end up going to the gym and working out for 1.5 hours prior to starting work. I brought a pretty healthy lunch as I had plans to be "healthy", unfortunately, all of this got thrown out of the window when the mother of the secretary made some homemade tuna casserole for the office staff as well as butter tarts. I am saddened to say that I ate 4 of the mini butter tarts. Then last night we went to that Chocolate Party. I am officially chocolated out. Way too much goodness that happened there. The Jazz music was nice. I haven't listened to that kind of music for a long time. FRESH START next week --- a new week.It is a long weekend and Trevor has written out our schedule of what the weekend entails. It looks like by the end of the long weekend we should have our treadmill and elliptical set up by the end of the weekend...YEAH!! I am so excited about that. Hopefully everything will work out today.

mouse

to overcome obstacles

What is it that makes some of survivors and other people unable to cope in the face of adversity? I have been asked many times why I think it is that I have been so successful, while other foster kids wind up homeless, addicted or incarcerated. The most honest answer I can give is that I don't know.I have a lot of theories that I am happy to share. Maybe my early memories of my maternal grandmother and her love for me somehow sustained me through tough times and made me stronger or the fact that my birth mom has always felt I walked on water and I did not want to disappoint her with failures kept my nose to the grindstone. Maybe it was my aunt telling me how smart I was and how I should go to college some day that kept me from becoming a teenage parent. Maybe it was supportive foster parents, an involved case worker, good teachers or a circle of friends who generally did not do things that were immoral or illegal tht kept me away from drugs and alcohol. Maybe it was some combination of all of these or maybe those things have nothing to do with me making good choices. I do not honestly know.My foster dad and my social worker continue to claim that I have some sort of internal fortitude that pushes me to fight when other people would surrender. If that is the case, it must not be genetic. No one else in my biological family has this instinct to rise above. If it is not genetic and it is not a product of the treatment I received from early childhood until now, then how did I get this magical power to see the light at the end of every tunnel and keep going until I get there? I do not think their internal strength, as wonderful as it sounds, is its own entity, but a result of something greater.Am I about to make an argument for the existence of God? Sort of. Bad things happened in my life. I would not wish them on a child, but I would not unmake their existence in my own life. The thing is, I never was dealt any more than I could handle, with the support of the people who were in my life at the time. I could not have handled all of these things completely on my own, with no support, so I had to learn how to reach out for help, but I do not consider that a bad thing. It brought me closer to people and gave me an insight into the humanity of my fellow beings. Bad things happen to us all, but knowing that there are people there to walk with us through our hard times can make it a lot easier. It seems like my life is an argument for divine design merely by the fact that someone or something brought me the people I needed at just the time I needed them, like angels among us.So what kept me off of drugs, in school, not pregnant and out of jail? In my mind, it was the right people at the right time, caring about me and acting as the hands of God. If a foster child is floundering, the first question I would ask is if they have an adult who they feel close to. If not, that should be the first priority for their worker.

buses get on-board DTV

Planning to hop on a bus in Raleigh, North Carolina anytime soon? Then there's a chance you could be treated to an added distraction during your trip, as the city has just rolled out its first CAT bus equipped with mobile DTV, which looks to be one of the first projects resulting from those MPH tests that took place last year. This little bit of magic also comes courtesy of a little help from LG and Harris Corp., who are supplying the displays and mobile transmission equipment for the pilot program, which will be expanded to five buses by August, with another 20 planned for the second phase that'll run though August 2010. Of course, your viewing options will be somewhat limited, with a simulcast of local station WRAL apparently the only channel on tap, along with some weather information and, of course, a healthy dose of advertising. [Thanks, Dana]

Getting used to things

I am slowly getting used to working full time. The challenging part (besides learning a lot of new things) is getting up early. This week I got up at 4:30 am on Monday and 4:00 am on Tuesday. Funny how by the time everyone shows up to work I've already been up for 4 hours. I found that the early wake up calls hit me right after lunch. Usually a good cup of java will allow me to make it through the morning. By the time Wednesday rolled around I opted out of the gym not so much because I was tired, but rather I was too comfortable in our warm and cozy bed. At school today we had parent-teacher interviews which ran til 11:30am and we were allowed to go home at noon. Tonight I have my first retreat to go to for work. I am off to one of the hotels in Calgary for a sleepover, which is paid for by the school. Tomorrow is a day of learning as we have a bunch of scheduled sessions to attend. I am excited about going as I get to meet the rest of the admin staff who I don't see on a regular basis (from different campuses), but will be in daily contact with. The previous admin assistant who has trained me since last Tuesday will also be attending and we will be actually sharing a room tonight. I will be starting Ironman training next Monday. This time around I will be doing a 30 week program. I think Monday just consists of a nice 30 minute run (Zone 2). Because it is just the base phase it won't be anything crazy for awhile. I just want to concentrate on sticking to my zones and follow the program. Trevor and I are considering purchasing some gym equipment for the basement, so that we can fit our training better into our schedules. I thought we were pretty good a juggling our time before, but now that we are both working full-time time is everything. If we can save time by not having to drive to a gym then so be it. The one good thing is that I know our equipment would definitely get used. One bad thing is that I'd still have to get to the pool in the evenings...man...swimming....so hard for me to get excited about it. Saturday we are planning on perhaps getting some new equipment.We've downloaded our holiday pics, but I have yet to do anything with it. Hopefully I will be able to do some of that this weekend. I have a paper due on Monday for school as well...man...now I wish I had more time in the day.

Zac Efron is Obsessed with 'Back to the Future'?

Get ready folks, because if there's a movie from the 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s that was popular and featured a teenage male in the lead role, there's a good chance Zac Efron's name will be mentioned with regards to a remake. Dude was real close to starring in a Footloose reboot, and now folks are beginning to go near a film I deem untouchable (mainly because it's right up there with my favorite movies of all time): Back to the Future. Teen Hollywood claims Efron really wants to play Marty McFly in a new Back to the Future movie. However, they seem to have dreamt that up because the only Efron quote presented in their article shows he's a fan of the series, but doesn't necessarily want to take over the role held by Michael J. Fox for three films. He says, "Growing up, my favourite thing to do was to climb into the car and play Back To the Future. I would pretend I was Marty McFly." We all did that, Zac, but what most of us didn't do was grow up and buy manage to snag ourselves an actual DeLorean. Yup, Zac owns one (see photo above), and you should see what happens when he gets her up to 88mph.So he's obviously a huge Back to the Future nut, which, honestly, makes me like him a little bit more now -- but does that mean he'd also jump to play McFly if a studio presented it to him? Or, like a true fan, would he yell, scream, hiss and throw flaming piles of monkey poop at any studio henchman who does so little as hold a conversation about taking on the role in either a sequel or a remake? That's the multi-million dollar question, and I bet you a shiny stack of marbles it crosses his desk sometime soon (if it hasn't already ...).

Horror movies

Do you watch horror movies at night or do you prefer to watch it some other time? What will be your reaction when you watch a horror movie at night? Frankly speaking i am very scared to watch a horror movie . I wont be able to lie down alone in my room . I sleep with the light on . But when my mother comes and offs the light and closes the door and go,without her knowing i slowly again go and open the door and sleep with door open .You know why i keep door open, so that if i shout my parents will hear! hehe i know funny. What about you all?

Bookworm

I haven't read a book, seriously, in I can't tell you how long. Today...at the gym...I finished a book that I started, ready for this? Yesterday...at the gym! YAY!!! Tuesdays With Morrie was FAN-freakin-TASTIC! Loved it!! It so reminded me of a social work prof I had the pleasure of knowing. Such an amazing man...who, sadly, I have loss contact with. Maybe I'll track him down again...just for a coffee or a simple chat on the phone. He was important to me...On to other things. I joined the Ottawa Knitting Guild. The first meeting was...hmmm...ok. It was a vendor's market sort of deal, with a little bit of show and tell happening at the beginning. I'm not an overly shy person, but, I didn't feel 100% comfortable there...as though I was intruding on a secret club or something. I'm being silly I'm sure...it's just that most of the ladies there had "tables"...know what I mean? They had tables were they always go, with the firends that are always there. Not much room for newbies...oh well, I'll try again next month-there's a guest speaker coming...so maybe an opportunity to chat with others a bit more. I did scoop up the newest Noro book, and two bundles of beautiful fibre from Fleece Artist. I only have a pic of the Goldielocks Shawl-the other kit is for thrummed mitts...with mohair! YUM!! Fleece Artist rocks!The quilting guild is up and going as well...next meeting is on Monday. The programming this year is much better, and I've met lots of cool people with amazing talents. Lots of fun, if only the cheesy politics wasn't there. I had to "gently" push a person who was supposed to be "helping" me with membership, out. She constantly came up with excuses as to why she couldn't do something for me, etc. The first meeting was a nightmare, she did squat to help out, so I waited a few days and then sent her (I hate doing this) an email to clear the air. She rebutted (as I assumed she would) with every excuse in the book, and ended it with "given the results of my cancer test tommorow, I may not be able to redeem myself." AS IF!!! Having dealt with the whole cancer issue myself, I was horrified that she would use this as a last blow. HONESTLY! Before I sound all callous and stuff, she made no mention of said tests previously. She has stepped down...and hopefully we can get on with it.Noah has settled into school famously. He seems so much happier at this school than at his previous one. He's taking swimming lessons at school as well and had a bit of a scare as he jumped into the deep end without a life jacket on. The little fish is just fine...but learned a quick lesson. He's been on a field trip as well...which means his first ride on a school bus!On the knitting front-I finished up a Sophie bag using some Lamb's Pride-love this stuff...picked it up at a little sheep show in upstate New York. I'm also working on a Harry Potter scarf using some Merino wool...yes, it's not machine washable-but the colours were perfect and I just had to. I was tossing around the idea of Noah being Harry for Halloween, but he doesn't really "get" the whole Harry Potter thing quite yet. Maybe a pirate? Buzz Lightyear? Hmmm...not sure. He's so easy about this..."yeah, whatever mom!"We took him to see Sharon and Bram...from Sharon, Lois and Bram fame...more fun for me than for him...but hey whatever!!! We also picked up tickets for the Wiggles Live! Dear lord...what has happened to us?!?!? The Wiggles??? Honestly...A new hobby-punchneedle! Fun little class that I took at my local quilt shop...here's a little prim Santa in progress...it's so easy and mindless, no counting, etc.SOCKAPALTWOZA UPDATE!!! YAY!!! Thanks SO much to Stephanie in Atlanta for my FABULOUS, can't take them off they're too perfect, socks! And, low and behold...in the same darn yarn I chose for my sock pal...hee hee!! LOVE THEM...and the Georgia Peach butter as well...it's, ahem...gone! DELISH!!! Thanks so so much...you're too sweet! Here they are...after being worn and finally washed! Actually, they're on my feet again today...such a perfect fit...and beautifully stitched! SECRET PAL FOR KIDS UPDATE....Another package from lovely SP in England arrived at Noah's door. He was VERY excited by all of the contents! We had problems with him actually opening the next gift...he would open one, and be totally enthralled with it and would forget that there were so many more to open! Noah's pal has been far too generous...he's been more than delighted with all of his fun pressies...a big thank you goes out to our little pal across the pond!Check out the cool frisbee...DH and I were having a blast with it...so cool!Einstein, was not so impressed by the frisbee....RAOK...the lovely Julie sent me the sweetest little good luck crane...it's found a special spot on my desk! Thanks for the wonderful RAOK!Autumn is here...the leaves are just barely starting to change, pumpkins are starting to sprout up at local farmers' stands, I love this time of year. Seriously. My home dec stuff is waiting patiently. I usually go all out for Halloween, with the creepy music, decorations, fun stuff. I hope to dress up this year...we used to dress up for the kiddos before we had Noah, but DH scared the poop out of one little trick or treater, so we kind of toned it down after that. Hee hee hee!!! We've done a charity walk/run every year since Noah was born, this year the proceeds went to Roger's House. An excellent cause indeed. Roger Neilson was a fine man.Notice little man is wearing an Ottawa Senators team jersey???With that...I end this entry with a hearty...GO SENS GO!!!!!! (for those of you not into hockey...the Ottawa Senators are the best (ahem) damn team in the NHL...)

mylanta

yea, i'm getting tired of massive updates every few months, too. but that's not stopping me from continuing to do that. :)how is everyone? do people still read this? i guess we'll see...november was a really good month. work sent me to morocco to give a few presentations on papers i wrote at a conference. i went to casablanca for a night/day and then headed out to marrakech for the conference for 3 days. it was such a fun place and completely different than anywhere i have ever been. it was also a pretty fast and tough french lesson. i did manage to do a tiny bit of sightseeing which included visiting a few mosques, finding rick's cafe americain (darn that casablanca movie!), and shopping/bargaining at the souks. the place really was a desert and there were camels just chilling on the sides of the roads. camels indeed. it was pretty awesome, awesome being the understatement of the year.russell had a great time, too. :)immediately after morocco, i flew to chicago to spend time with ian. remember ian? if you don't, go here. he's the irish guy who lives in the uk who i met in paris on a business trip. i met him in paris april 2006, he visited me in ny november 2006, and he came back to visit me in chicago last november. we had a fantastic time together going to brunches, hanging out at wine bars, eating deep dish pizza, and people watching that by the time he got back, he confessed that he was in love with me. yeah. it was kind of a big deal, and i did freak out a bit when he told me. freaked out indeed. in the best way possible, though.anyhoo, he flew back to chicago to celebrate new year's eve with me and my middle school friends. we threw ourselves a little formal dinner party, long black gloves highly recommended. it was so wonderful seeing him again, and even though i just saw him last tuesday, i miss him a whole lot already.i booked my tickets to go visit him in england for president's day weekend. does this make us serious or something?thanksgiving and christmas with the family was pretty good, too, but any time spent with the family is guaranteed to have some sort of positive thoughts associated with it. they're still crazy and make me laugh and feel self-conscious, but i wouldn't know what to do without them.christmas presents of note include but are not limited to the following:a ukulelea movado watch30 rock, season 1 dvdscashmere sweatersa travel bagan usher dvd with 5 hours of bonus footagea certificate for my symbolic adoption of a giant panda!!!oh yes, go ahead and call me "mom" now because i am now an adoptive parent of a giant panda, all thanks to ian. did i mention that i really like this one?[sigh]

Dunlending

Mutuals are catching the banks illsBUILDING societies, a Victorian invention to let modest folk save money to buy a home, once seemed as safe as the proverbial houses. No longer. Since the Dunfermline building society, Scotlands largest and in 2007 the countrys 12th biggest, collapsed on March 30th and was rushed into a merger with giant Nationwide, they look as iffy as property prices.Alex Salmond, the nationalist first minister of Scotlands devolved government, was quick to smell a plot by Treasury ministers to strip his country of its last bit of financial grandeur. Why, he asked, were they giving the Nationwide building society GBP1.6 billion to ease its takeover of the healthy bits of Dunfermlines business (GBP2.4 billion in savings and GBP1 billion in mortgages) while nationalising GBP884m in ailing commercial-property and subprime loans? Why not hand Dunfermline the GBP60m-100m the Financial Services Authority (FSA) said would keep it in business?

close one door, I build another

My brother's a professional bassoonist. He's a gifted musician; this has been evident since he was a toddler.p I've never envied him his musical talent, but one thing I've always longed for is something his talent gave him: a purity of focus. I have gotten a lot out of this weblog, but I don't think anyone would ever accuse it of having any concerted focus. Over the past year, I've been trying to figure out how to bring my spready, varied interests under one thematic umbrella. Unfortunately, there's no elegant way to do so: my blog topics contain multitudes and none of the little bastards will go quietly. So, like use of the word "hobo" in a comedic context, excessively decorated cupcakes and pirate chic, the Rage Diaries will be over as of January 1, 2009. http://schmeiser.typepad.com/the_rage_diaries/ will not be updated at all. The main URL for this site, http://schmeiser.typepad.com/ will be resolved to my new, more focused blog project, Filthy Commerce.You readers seem to like the posts about the sinful little business of making, managing, spending and saving money. Just as importantly, I like writing them. And in the past two years, some of the most rewarding conversations we've had in the comments have sprung from posts where we all talked about how we interact with the world of commerce. So from January 1, 2009, on, the blog that lives at http://schmeiser.typepad.com will be focused on how people think about, make and spend money.The topic matter is still pretty broad -- go back through the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle archives and see how often the talk turned to money -- so I'm fairly confident that most of you regular Rage Diaries readers won't really notice much apart from a name change and a lack of comics-related posts. (And if you miss those ... well, get me a gig writing about comics. I am not kidding.)I want to thank all of you readers, and especially you commenters who let me know you were out there. I hope you'll stick around through the next phase of my blogging life!

mixed cat

rabbit

Eye Robot

From Tokyo Institute of Technology Yoichi Yamazaki and his colleagues are developing Eye Robot which can use eye contact with people expressing encourage ,desire, anger, etc.

People by Geraldine Brooks

Hannah, an Australian specialist in preserving old manuscripts is invited to Sarajevo in 1996 to advise on an old Jewish manuscript with Christian-like illustrations which had been preserved by Muslims. The manuscript was seen as a symbol of collaboration and good relationships among the "people of the book". The novel not only tells Hanna's story but imagines a history for the manuscript itself, "explaining" every mystery she encounters with a human situations from the past. I was nevertheless somewhat disappointed by this book. Brooks did a whale of a job of research so that, though the book is fiction, all of the periods of history in the past of the Sarajevo Haggadah were recreated in authentic and believable detail. But there’s more to fiction than research and believable historical detail and I felt that Brooks sacrificed human truths in favor of historical truths. Hannah’s story is complex, but somehow bloodless. I understood what happened to her, but didn’t feel it. The many many historical contributors to the manuscript were also believable, but most existed only in one dimension, in one chapter of the book. Characters rarely “live” with that little exposure.

OSGi on AppEngine?

As many people know, Google recently announced support for Java on its AppEngine platform. As a connoisseur of OSGi, the first natural thing that came across my mind was quickly I could get OSGi running on it. Well, I’m happy to announce that we are part way there. I have OSGi running locally on the AppEngine SDK using the Equinox servlet bridge. I’ve managed to get a basic environment running with Equinox (and some bits of p2) and the Knoplerfish console: This wasn’t easy and was full of problems. If you read the AppEngine documentation, the sandbox is quite restrictive. First, there were a few places we were setting the context classloader and AppEngine doesn’t like that. I managed to hack the Equinox servlet bridge and the Equinox http service to not do that (it’s only needed in certain cases). Second, there’s a JRE “whitelist” of classes you can access that can cause trouble. I think this isn’t much of a problem if we define a custom OSGi execution environment for AppEngine. I attempted to do this since in Eclipse 3.5, we support the definition of custom execution environments. However, I found that the current whitelist doesn’t seem to be complete (maybe someone from Google can help). If you solve those problems, you can get Equinox working locally within the AppEngine SDK (as seen in the screenshot above). Here’s a zipped project if you’re interested (see the Equinox OSGi shared launch configuration and just go to localhost:8080/console). In reality, this is only half of the battle. If we actually try to deploy what we have created above, things will fail. The most complicated problem I came across with running OSGi on AppEngine was you can’t write anywhere to the file system. Equinox and other OSGi frameworks need a place to write its state. I think we can get around this if we write a custom storage adaptor hook in Equinox that uses the AppEngine storage facilities, however, that’s going to take some effort. That’s it for now. I plan on making some more progress next week… are there any other people that want to see OSGi running on AppEngine? Have any other people out there been experimenting with OSGi and AppEngine? Did you hit the same roadblocks? Do you want to collaborate?

Four ears cat you've never seen

cat with four ears you've never seen

Dangerous food for dog and cat

1, veterinary Warning: Lily will kill the cat .

2, dog may be killed by sugar substitute xylitol food

dog's house

motherly love

BooksFirst - February 2009

Books BoughtNoneBooks ReadSnark by David DenbyWishful Drinking by Carrie FisherThe Elfish Gene by Mark BarrowcliffeCommentsI did a rather long full report on Snark, the book I love to hate earlier in the month, so nothing new on it.Carrie Fisher’s book is an adaptation of her one-woman show Wishful Drinking and reads like it should be read aloud. While I didn’t have the audiobook, this would be the ideal format for it. The cover has a cinnamon-bunned model face down holding a martini glass with some pills nearby. While great visual short-hand, it is misleading in that much more of the book is about her addiction and mental health issues than her role as Princess Leia. Only one chapter of the book deals directly with her three-movie career-making role. her take-away message from the whole experience is that she is a little creeped out by fanboys describing their sexual awakenings because George Lucas believes that there are no brassieres in outer space.The remainder of the book ping-pongs between cautionary tales of her various addictions, how her parents' failed marriages set-up her own miserable relationships (first to Paul Simon and then to the gay father of her daughter), and how undiagnosed bipolar disorder has ruined her life. In other words, it’s a laugh a minute. Really. The book is hilariously funny in a disturbing way. Paced like the stand-up routine it’s based on, the patter is witty and the sarcastic asides are brutally lethal. Every page has some funny anecdote or clever saying. Her dad, who left mother Debbie Reynolds for Elizabeth Taylor before being quickly replaced by Richard Burton, bears the brunt of a lot of it. Of the small cast of characters, her mom and her brother come of the most sympathetic and Paul Simon gets damned with pretty faint praise.The book is extremely short and as a quick hit and run therapy session by a tragic figure that has been abused by the sinister side of celebrity literally all her life it succeeds astoundingly.The other memoir I read this month is even more nerd-related than a Star Wars actress. Mark Barrowcliffe (and the name alone sounds like a D&D invention) tells of his youth obsessed with roleplaying games in the infancy and height of the Dungeons and Dragons craze. The cleverness of the title, The Elfish Gene, a play on Richard Dawkins opus, made the book leap into my hands as I walked past it in the library. The subtitle, Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange struck me as something I could relate to. I’ve blogged about my own history with dice-throwing and Mark’s story is pretty much the same.As a numbers obsessed geek he was playing the old-fashioned version of figurine-based war games when he stumbles across the still in it’s infancy first edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Barrowcliffe is English and translating the grade system and other Britishisms is a bit taxing but probably not nearly as it must be to someone unfamiliar with roleplaying games (in the very non-sexual meaning of the term). While Barrowcliffe does a decent job of explaining arcane concepts such as saving throws and character levels, most of this book is going to be gibberish to a non-player.Which is a shame because the true underlying theme of this book is how vicious the petty alliances, feuds, and politics of adolescent boys can be. It’s like Lord of the Flies with dice. I will be the first to admit that most gamers, myself included, were on the fringes of social acceptability in high school, which makes it even more amazing how brutal the social outcasts that form gaming groups are to each other. I kept comparing his friends and their crimes against civility, fashion, and hygiene to the kids I played with and I can top him in several cases.Like many former gamers, the testosterone finally found a more acceptable outlet in the chasing of girls and his more romantically challenged buddies got left behind. The book is written with a thick disdain for the game and he regrets the years and years he spent obsessing over it. And while some of it is exaggerated for comic effect, the passion he pursued it with is unmistakable. His bitterness reflects more on the realization of how awkward and emotionally stunted all of us at twelve. I don't regret my time playing D&D even if I cringe at how mean-spirited we got with each other. Barrowcliffe should do the same.Dungeons and Dragons paved the way for dozens of movies that brought swords and sorcery into the mainstream and paved the way for online games like World of Warcraft that can be more addictive and perhaps more isolating than old fashioned RPGs could ever be. The other day my son apologized for not calling me on my birthday because he lost track of the time playing D&D. I asked incredulously “You mean with paper and pencil and dice and everything?” He assured me that it was old-school roleplaying with a bunch of his fraternity brothers around a table. My wife just mumbled something about acorns and trees.

Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay: Some bytes about Fedora bits

During my trip to Kolkata last month, I’ve had a number of discussions around ‘making Fedora available to whosoever requests for it’. Ambitious as it may sound, we would have to end up doing it. Otherwise, there is simply no other way that we can lead the development of free and open source technology and content through a community of collaboration. Susmit’s blog entry has a pointer to the current problems, this is my take. The current paths to obtaining Fedora media for folks in India are: Fedora FreeMedia Program Local Points of Contact Media produced for events all of the above have a couple of shortcomings. So, let’s just itemize them to enable a much sweeter discussion. The underlying assumption is that we want to avoid falling into the massive media production trap - it does not return benefits. And, we would like to increase the participation at the *UG level. The current issue with the FreeMedia Program is scalability. It is a fashionable term, but that’s what specifically what it is. The request queue gets so overloaded that the requests need to be clamped down within 3-5 days of being opened up. And, it would be fairly obvious as to why - last mile postal charges in India are exhorbitant and, asking folks to spend their own money to take this deluge of requests is going to take some inspiring feats of oratory and, a couple of miracles. However, that is not all. The other problems are - because the FreeMedia Program gates slam down fast, at every run there would be folks who - [i] did not make their requests in time [ii] are in the queue but we have no idea of knowing whether they did get the media. So, the second part is more important - accountability. How do we make the system a bit more accountable to ensure that the requests that did make it are getting met ? And, how do we track whether, because it is “free” (as in beer), duplicate requests are not originating ? Local Points of Contact are a good way to off-set the huge and, somewhat human-absent nature of FreeMedia. This however is, “high touch”. And, currently has the same issues of accountability. That is, the system of tracking who-gives-whom-and-when/where is still not in place. And yet, at one level this is somewhat better. Because, the LPoC are not bound to give it away for gratis. They can charge (within bounds of reasonable practical reality) a certain sum to process the requests. In an awkward way, this could end up being very interesting for those who are diligent, disciplined and, want to make a little bit of money in the process. Money that can come in handy for things like broadband connections etc. Media for events are done in bulk and, sent around to the event organizers so as to enable them to distribute it. We started this off from F10 and, would be doing this for F11. This is the life-blood of events and, is not going to go away, however, this does have a danger of becoming ‘yet another goodie’ and, so we need to figure what can be done to ensure that the massive doses of media being produced and sent to events does really end up going to people who need it and, the remaining media is passed around to Ambassadors or LPoCs who know how to make best use of the system. A couple of things come to mind so as to ensure that while we do end up meeting every request, even after discounting the ‘freeloaders’ (those who request it just because it is free), we do end up making a significant impact. Work out with various magazines if they want to ship Fedora media on a more regular basis. During the F10 lifecycle, we did have a significant number of media being shipped via magazines as part of their issues including spins and remixes Insisting that the Ambassadors put a closer ear to the ground when it comes to local LUGs. A large number of requests initiate from the *UGs and, having Ambassadors actively looking at the lists it would be easier for us to meet the requests as well as get a first level of hand-holding in place Making *UGs part of the LPoC cycle. In addition to individuals, providing the *UGs with the media so that they can distribute/sell/whatever does manage to take some pressure off the FreeMedia Work on the long road to getting more mirrors. We are not breaking much new ground this year and, that is a cause for concern. The big name institutes do need to have mirrors in place. Private mirrors, if not public. A mirror that is updated regularly does provide the focus point for the *UG within the institute and, the immediate Fedora folks outside of it to ensure that the bits are at hand to re-distribute. Keep on doing the “media for events” but work towards increasing the LPoC base. So, the short summary is that we need to arrive at some protocol fast enough for us to work on: how to get media to those who request it how best to coach/guide/help those who need help to get started with Fedora how to bring down the number of ‘freeloaders’ in this cycle and, in a small way, the second is ‘gated’ on the first.

The Myth of 100% Complete Processed Pet Food

Every day, people by the millions pour food from a package into their pet’s bowl. Day in and day out, meal after meal, pets get the same fare. This strange phenomenon is not only widely practiced, but done by loving owners who believe they are doing the right thing.

The power of the message is so great that pet owners en masse do every day to their pets what they would never do to themselves or their children -offer the same processed packaged food at every meal.Think about it: Our world is complex beyond comprehension. It is not only largely unknown; it is unknowable in the “complete” sense.

However, nutrition is not a completed science. It is, in fact, an aggregate science, which is based upon other basic sciences, such as chemistry, physics, and biology. But since no scientist would argue that everything is known in chemistry or physics or biology, how can nutritionists claim to know everything there is to know about nutrition, which is based upon these sciences?

Additionally, consider that in order to determine the minimum requirement for a certain nutrient - say protein - all other nutrients used in the feeding trials must be adequate and standardized. Otherwise, if vitamin E, for example, is in excess or is deficient, how would you know if the results of the study were because of the effects of protein or due to something amiss with the level of vitamin E?If the minimum requirements for all 26+ essential nutrients were all set and absolutely etched in stone, then there would be no problem. But they aren’t. They are constantly changing. This means each time any nutrient requirement is changed, all test results for all other nutrients using the wrong minimum for this nutrient would then be invalid. Most nutritionists simply ignore this conundrum, feeling like cowboys trying to lasso an octopus - there are just too many loose ends. But they continue to perpetuate the “100% complete” myth, and excuse themselves by saying they make adjustments when necessary.The point is, don’t believe the claim on any commercially prepared pet (or human) food that it is “100% complete and balanced.”

Use the same common sense in feeding your pets that you use for feeding your family. Nutrition is not about some special ingredient or the absence of some boogeyman ingredient. Fresh foods fed in variety are always superior to processed food artifacts.If you feed processed foods, use discernment since just about anyone can create a commercial pet food. The pet food industry has hundreds of brands with officious and beguiling labels, all stamped with the approval of the FDA, USDA, State Feed Regulatory Agencies and the American Association of Feed Control Officials (AAFCO). Business profiteers and the occasional movie star are the most common force behind the labels. All one needs is a little money and they can go to any number of toll manufacturers and have them slightly modify a shelf formula. Dress it all up with a fancy package, a clever brochure and some advertising and voilà, another brand is added to the 20-billion-dollar pet food industry.

“The Thinking Person’s Master Key to Health,” and the brochure, “How to Apologize to Your Pet,” which will give you specific guidelines for how to prepare meals and treats to achieve Optimal Pet Health.

Do deer make noise?

Yes, female deer make what is called a "bleet" and male deer "roar."
Most people would compare the bleet to a sheep's "bah" noise but it is a little more coarse and not as choppy with breaks in the extended noise.

Summer Safety Tips for your Canine Companions

With warm weather arriving, we will all be enjoying outdoor activities with our canine companions.

Keep your pet safe from serious diseases like rabies, distemper and parvo, by always making sure your pet's vaccinations are up to date.Talk to your veterinarian about flea and tick prevention. Obviously, fleas and ticks pose a greater threat in the summer months, and they can harber serious illnesses such as lyme's disease and parasites.Heartworm prevention is a must for your dog, in the summer months, especially. Heartworms are carried by mosquitoes, so you should be extra careful if you are in an area prone to mosquito infestation.Most insecticides are hazardous. Keep your pet safe by storing them up and away from the area that your pet will be staying. Not unlike humans, dogs can also have allergic reactions to insect bites and stings. If your dog is bitten or stung, remove the stinger first. If signs of allergic reaction, such as increased swelling or trouble breathing occur, take hime to the vet immediately.Keep your pet safe from heat exhaustion by giving him plenty of fresh drinking water, and a cool shady place to rest during the hot hours of the day.

Turtle breath floating

Love me love my dog

butterfly

child on big tortoise

cat seen by macro

fox

fat cat

Garfield

Garfield, want to be hitted??

My turtle

dog's house

funny cat

too much