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Author Archives: The Copper Pot

A Tart of the Ananas (1736)

When we were at the Ludlow Food Festival earlier this year, I was asked by Paul Shuttleworth of BBC Radio Shropshire if I would mind coming on their Sunday morning cookery programme at some stage. Without thinking much about it and needing to fend off the crowds of customers, I said yes quickly and took Paul’s card. We then made a date for me to go in on Sunday 2nd November, having managed to find a weekend that was surprisingly clear of events, as this is a rather hectic time of year for us at the moment.

The Copper Pot at the Ludlow Food festival, from the Moel Faban Suppers food blog.

A few days ago the email arrived giving me all the details I needed to do the show, including the explanation that they have a ‘virtual fridge’ with a pineapple that ‘needs using up’, and could I come up with ideas of what to do with it…

My first reaction was that I should look rather blank when I am asked this ‘on air’, and say “what’s a fridge?”. The first commercial fridges didn’t exist until the 1850s (rather late for me). Perhaps they assumed that I was a rather wealthy gentleman (owning half a county or two) and had an icehouse? The term “refrigeratory” had been used when referring to the cooling of foods and drink as early as the 17th century, so this must be what they are talking about!

Then I panicked at the word ‘pineapple’! My immediate reaction was that they didn’t have pineapples in the 18th century, or if they did, they were only for the immensely wealthy. You hear tales of them being grown in expensive hot houses, and then just sitting in the dinning room as a centrepiece until they rot away. They were exhibition pieces, with greater value on display than being eaten. They were even rented out by the day so that they could be displayed and not eaten. What would I be able to say?

The thing that I love about my job is that I often get to disappear off on research tangents. I needed to learn more about when pineapples appeared on the dining table and how they were eaten. Thankfully I was slightly wrong, and I was able to come up with a recipe from 1736.

Christopher Columbus at Hispanola, 1492

Christopher Columbus at Hispanola, 1492. © State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory.

The first European encounter with the pineapple was, probably inevitably, Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the ‘New World’ on the 4th November 1793 (perhaps the 4th November should be Pineapple Day?). They discovered the fruit in the deserted houses of the Tupinambá people, who had fled in fear of these strange foreigners.

“They also saw calabashes and some fruit that looked like green pine cones but were much larger; these were filled with solid pulp, like a melon, but were much sweeter in taste and smell. They grow on plants that resemble lilies or aloes…”

(Ferdinand Colombo, son of Christopher Columbus, writing from his father’s log)

As with so many things (including chocolate) the Spanish weren’t so keen on sharing with the English. Well… we were at war with them fairly frequently!

The Pyne frute, 1585-93

The Pyne Frute, John White, c.1585-93. © The British Museum.

It wasn’t until the 17th century that the English began to get up close and personal with the pineapple. Bearing in mind that initially pineapples had to be shipped over to Europe from South America. If one were picked green and unripe, it was probably rotten by the time it arrived in Europe.

In 1640, John Parkinson – Botanist to Charles I – described the pineapple as being:

Scaly like an Artichoke at the first view, but more like to a cone of the Pine tree, which we call a pineapple for the forme… being so sweete in smell… tasting… as if Wine, Rosewater and Sugar were mixed together.”

This comment partly explains the name ‘pineapple’, as what we now know as ‘pine-cones’ were also known as ‘pine apples’, being the fruit or ‘apple’ of the pine tree. The pineapple was thought to look a bit like a pine-cone. ‘Pine apples’ have become ‘pine-cones’, and the exotic fruit has become the ‘pineapple’ (clear?). Also the flavour being described as being like wine, rosewater and sugar immediately ranks the pineapple as being very high status and desirable. This surgery exoticness pushed the pineapple above the other exotic imports, such as the potato and tomato.

John Parkinson was describing a fruit that still hadn’t seen the shores of England, and it wasn’t until 1675 that the very first pineapple was reputedly cultivated on English soil (or is that ‘in’ English soil?). This new fruit was apparently presented to King Charles II by his gardener, John Rose, although some are dubious that it really was grown in England at that early date.

Charles II Presented with a Pineapple. c.1675-80. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Charles II Presented with a Pineapple. c.1675-80. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

(Detail) Charles II Presented with a Pineapple. c.1675-80. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

(Detail) Charles II Presented with a Pineapple. c.1675-80. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Pineapples began to be grown commercially in the 1720s, and so this exotic fruit, once the reserve of the seriously wealthy, began to filter down to the aspiringly wealthy. Richard Bradley produces what is probably the earliest published English recipe in 1736, and like buses, two recipes come along in the same book: one for a tart, and one for a marmalade. The full title of his book is ‘The Country Housewife and Lady’s Director, in the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm‘. Pithy lot, those 18th century writers!

To Make a Tart of the Ananas, from Richard Bradley's 1736 'The Country Housewife and Lady's Director'.

To Make a Tart of the Ananas, from Richard Bradley’s 1736 ‘The Country Housewife and Lady’s Director’.

To make a Tart of the Ananas, or Pine-Apple. From Barbadoes.
Take a Pine-Apple, and twist off its Crown: then pare it free from the Knots, and cut it in Slices about half an Inch thick; then stew it with a little Canary wine, or Madera Wine, and some Sugar, till it is thoroughly hot, and it will distribute its Flavour to the Wine much better than any thing we can add to it. When it is as one would have it, take it from the Fire; and when it is cool, put it into a sweet Paste, with its Liquor, and bake it gently a little while, and when it comes from the Oven, pour Cream over it (if you have it) and serve it either hot or cold.

The ingredients required are simply: a pineapple, some Canary Wine or Madera, sugar, and some sweet pastry.

Ingredients for the Tart of the Ananas

Ingredients for the Tart of the Ananas.

Canary Wine was one of the commonly available wines of the 18th century, which was also known as Sack, imported from Spain and the Canaries. It is described as being a dry amber wine, occasionally sweetened with honey or sugar. In the 17th century John Evelyn writes about ‘sacke or other strong wine’, suggesting that Sack was fortified, similar to sherry. A sherry is the accepted substitute for historic recipes, and in this case I used a delicious medium dry Oloroso Sherry, which is probably one of the closest flavours to the original Sacks and Canary Wines.

The recipe states that the pineapple should basically be stripped of its outer skin, and cut into half-inch slices. It doesn’t mention whether the core is cut out, but I opted to do this. The core is edible and in fact, holds a lot of the goodness, but is tough and gritty. I also further cut the slices into smaller chunks as I was making several smaller tarts. It would be interesting to try leaving the slices whole next time.

The pastry case being cut out using a 'suitable' bowl and knife!

The pastry case being cut out using a ‘suitable’ bowl and knife!

The sweet pastry was then made up into a tart case. Tin baking containers did begin to be used during the 18th century, but 1736 is a little early for these, so a free standing pie case is more genuine. This needs to be raised by hand and carefully blind-baked to hold its shape. I tied some paper around the tart as a collar to hold the shape (brown paper was a valuable tool of the 18th century kitchen).

Tart of Ananas 5

The raised pastry case.

The pineapple chunks were then stewed in a good slug of the sherry, with about 6 tablespoons of sugar, until they are “thoroughly hot”. I probably used too much sherry, so I still have a glass of the leftover syrup to be used (or drunk).

Tart of the Ananas, with the stewed pineapple.

Tart of the Ananas, with the stewed pineapple.

The cooled stewed chunks were then put into the cooled pastry case, and a little of the syrup poured over, and then the tart was returned to the oven to bake for about 15 minutes.

Cream poured over the hot tart.

Cream poured over the hot tart.

On bringing out the tart, Bradley suggests that you can “pour cream over it, and serve it either hot or cold”. This suggests that you can add the cream to the tart whilst it is hot, and then allow it to cool. I tried this and the cream soaks into the tart, and hardens slightly, producing a delicious result!

Tart of the Ananas, served with a glass of Canary Wine.

Tart of the Ananas, served with a glass of Canary Wine.

The resulting tart is delicious with the sweetness of the exotic pineapple slightly off-set by the dryness of the sherry. No flavours are overpowering, and all-in-all it is a big success. Well done Mr Bradley, Sir!

For those of you who want to go on with the pineapple story… here is the Marmalade of Ananas recipe:

Marmalade of Pine-Apples, or Ananas (1736).

Marmalade of Pine-Apples, or Ananas (1736).

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Shrewsbury Cakes (17th century)

I have occasionally made a delicious Elizabethan style biscuit, known as Shrewsbury Cakes, and the most recent reason for this recipe is an interview by Paul Shuttleworth of BBC Radio Shropshire.

Shrewsbury Cakes

Shrewsbury Cakes

In Elizabethan times, ‘Banqueting’ was somewhat removed from the modern concept of a ‘Banquet’. Delete the stacking chairs, balloons and round tables, and insert sugar, opulence, sugar and more sugar.

Not this...

Not this…

...but this! (Ivan Day's recreation of a Shakespearean Banquet at the Minneapolis Institute of Art)

…but this! Ivan Day’s recreation of a Shakespearean Banquet at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

As part of these banquets ‘fine cakes’ were served alongside hippocras, sweetmeats and other sweet delicacies. One of these ‘fine cake’ recipes is now known as Shrewsbury or Shropshire Cake, and they were already associated with the town of Shrewsbury by 1596. In that year there was a shortage of grain, and so a ban on the making of ‘fine cakes’ was imposed in Shrewsbury.

In 1602, Lord Herbert of Cherbury wrote to his guardian, Sir George More with a pack of ‘bread’ or ‘cake’ particular to Shrewsbury:

“Lest you think this country ruder than it is, I have sent you some bread, which I am sure will be dainty, howsoever it be not pleasinge; it is a kind of cake which our country people use and made in no place in England but in Shrewsbury; if you vouchsafe to taste them, you will enworthy the country and sender. Measure not my love in substance of it, which is brittle, but the form of it, which is circular”.

The description of those cakes being both ‘brittle’ and ‘circular’, suggests that they are similar to the round shortbreads of later recipes.

Possibly the earliest recorded recipe for Fine Cakes dates to 1617, from John Murrell’s A Daily exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen, and is a little more cake-like with the use of yeast.

Murrell's 1617 Fine Cakes

John Murrell’s recipe for Fine Sugar Cake, from the 1617 ‘A Daily exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen’.

The full and proper title for this book is:

‘A daily exercise for ladies and gentlewomen : whereby they may learne and practise the whole art of making pastes, preserues, marmalades, conserues, tartstuffes, gellies, breads, sucket-candies, cordiall waters, conceits in sugar-workes of seuerall kindes : as also to dry lemonds, orenges, or other fruits : newly set forth according to the now approued receipts vsed both by honourable and worshipfull personages / by Iohn Murrel, professor thereof’!

Peter Brears records an excellent and useful recipe from the mid 17th century for Madame Susan Avery’s Shropshire Cakes in his ‘Traditional Food in Shropshire‘:

Take two pound of dryed flour after it has been searced fine, one pound of good sugar dried and searced, also a little beaten sinamon, or some nottmegg greeted and steeped in rose water; so streene two eggs, white and all, not beaten to it, as much melted butter as will work it to a paste; so mold it and roule it into longe roules, and cutt off as much at a time as will make a cake, two ounces is enough for one cake: then roule it in a ball between your hands: so flat it on a little white paper cut for a cake, and with your hand beat it as big as a cheese trencher and a little thicker than a paste board: then prick them with a comb not too deep in squares like diamon and prick every cake in every diamon to the bottom; so bake them in an oven not too hot: when they rise up white let them soake a little, then draw. If the sugar be dry enough you need not dry but searce it; you must brake in your eggs after you have wroat in some of your butter into your flower: prick and mark them when they are cold: this quantity will make a dozen and two or three, which is enough for my own at a time, take off the papers when they are cold.

This recipe is particularly useful as it clearly describes the quantities of ingredients, method of making and what the resulting cake should look like. This is the sort of information that we expect of a modern recipe, but is usually missing in historic recipes. The cheese trenchers described are about 5 inches in diameter, so we have a good idea of the finished product.

Shrewsbury Cakes in the making.

My making of Peter Brears’ recipe is as follows:

  • 1 lb    (450g)          Plain flour
  • 8 oz   (225 g)         Butter
  • 8 oz   (225 g)         Caster sugar
  • ½ tsp    (2.5 ml)     Cinnamon
  • 1 medium               Egg
  • 1 tsp     (5 ml)        Rosewater
  1. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl, and rub in the butter.
  2. Work in the egg and rosewater with a round bladed knife.
  3. Knead lightly to form a stiff dough.
  4. Divide the dough into 16 equal balls, and pat out into 5” (13cm) rounds.
  5. Decorate with a comb to form diamond shapes.
  6. Bake at 180°C (350 °F) for 10-15 minutes.

Making Shrewsbury Cakes. The cakes are patted out and then patterned with a comb.

The purpose behind the patterning is probably functional. The diamond pattern produced with a (clean!) comb allows the large cakes to be broken up into more lady-like pieces to be eaten. You can not imagine an aristocratic Jacobite lady trying to wedge a 5 inch wide cake into her mouth! The prick mark in the middle of each diamond allows the heat to evenly enter the whole cake at once allowing even and quick cooking.

These are high status foods, and so are as white as possible. They use highly processed white flour, and expensive white sugar. When cooking, the cakes want to be cooked, but removed before any browning appears on the edges.

These ‘cakes’ or biscuits are delicious and are delicately flavoured with rosewater. I would caution anyone using rosewater as it seems that most supermarkets have changed the main supplier of rosewater to one that is much stronger. I now water my rosewater down to roughly half or a third of the original strength. Rosewater is delicious when subtle, but quite unpleasant when it assaults your taste-buds when too strong!

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An Invitation to a Wedding

The pile of invitations ready for the post.

“The wedding will be more traditional than a ‘traditional’ wedding…”

How do you set about planning a wedding that is recognisable to people as being a ‘wedding’ but harks back to earlier time periods, and so revives some of the more authentic customs? Much of what we expect of a ‘traditional’ wedding is in fact relatively modern, or Victorian in date.

The first task is to get people there – on the right date and time. A modern wedding involves invitations, whether the formal stiff card with raised ink, that can sit upon your mantelpiece to show your visitors how important and busy you are, or the more informal jokey kind of more recent years.

For much of history the local community would have all been invited or expected to attend a marriage celebration anyway, so invitations were superfluous. A town crier, or ‘bellman’, may have helped spread the word as well. It was only the aristocracy who had need of creating a physical invitation as they wanted to spread the word further afield in order to invite particular people of note. Letters were written to individuals inviting them to attend a wedding.

This technique continued well into the 19th century. Letters were sent out to relatives and friends inviting them to a wedding, and so we wanted to replicate this process with as strong an 18th century character as possible.

We have based our invitations on a surviving letter from 1814, written by an Ann Palmer to her uncle and aunt, inviting them to her daughter Ann’s wedding. The text is delightfully polite and descriptive – as was typical of the period:

Wedding invitation letter from 1814.

Dear Uncle & Aunt Cook

You have already been made acquainted with the fact that our Dear Ann expects to exchange her situation from the single, to the Married Life, it only remains for one to inform you (Providence permitting) she will be Married on Thursday Evening, the 27th of October at 7 Oclock.

She desires one to say that she hopes you will both be here. Come down in the morning, and spend the day, it would give her great pleasure if she could come up to see you, before the time, but is not certain it will be in her power – at all events let nothing prevent you **** from Certainly being here.

Having adapted Ann Palmer’s text, we needed a suitable paper for the letter, and we found a fabulous company in Ireland who create a whole range of authentic handmade papers. Griffen Mill provided us with some of their ‘Fernhurst 80 gm’ paper, which is handmade using the same techniques as those in the 18th century. It is a ‘laid’ paper and so the watermark lines are from the wire sieve onto which the paper pulp is spread out (modern laid paper still artificially replicates this feature). This paper is made from a combination of cotton and hemp.

The ‘Jane Austin’ font.

The font that we have used was created by Pia Frauss and is based upon the handwriting of Jane Austin, so gives an authentic 18th century look to the letters. We did have to opt for a slightly clearer font for most of the addresses, as the Post Office may not have liked Jane’s handwriting!

The result is quite satisfying. Hopefully our guests will enjoy receiving the carefully folded and sealed missives in the post, invoking a time when letters were hopefully more exciting than bank statements and charity requests.

There is plenty of work to be done on the dress, music, venue, food, toasts… all of which will continue to be more traditional than ‘traditional’!

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Cheap & Wholesome Claret

It seems only right to start this new blog for The Copper Pot by having a drink to wish it luck. After all, any respectable Georgian dinner party would feature a lengthy round of toasts.

This is an intriguing recipe that I found in my copy of ‘English 18th century brewing & wine-making’. Annoyingly this book doesn’t provide any sources for its collection of recipes, so I had to search around to find an origin for it. After quite a bit of searching, the earliest published version of this recipe actually only dates back to 1831, in ‘Mackenzie’s five thousand receipts’, obviously making it a 19th century recipe. I am however including it here amongst the Georgian recipes as it is an entertaining idea to fake a wine, and it also nicely reflects the drinking habits of the 18th century, with their love of claret and many other wines such as port, Malaga, Lisbon, sack and mountain wines. One has to remember that England was frequently at war with France during this period, and so access to real claret may have been limited, hence the abundance of ‘Iberian’ wines in the above list. It is perfectly reasonable to imagine that 18th century houses were producing ‘cheap & wholesome claret’ alongside all the other home-brewed concoctions.

To make cheap and wholesome claret.

Take a quart of fine draft Devonshire cider, and an equal quantity of good port. Mix them, and shake them. Bottle them, and let them stand for a month. The best judge will not be able to distinguish them from good Bordeaux.

Detail from Chardin’s ‘Natura morta’ (1760)
I tried this recipe a few months ago, and after waiting for the prescribed month the resulting ‘claret’ had a really interesting and pleasant taste… of a strange mixture of port and cider! The bottle has since sat on a shelf for the last five months (so a total of six months) and the taste has changed and matured quite a lot. I wouldn’t say that it exactly tasted like a good Bordeaux, but I certainly won’t throw it out as being undrinkable! It is sweet and very slightly syrupy, but rather nice.

The inevitable problem or weakness in this experiment was obtaining an authentic ‘good port’ and a ‘fine draft Devonshire cider’. From memory I used a relatively cheap port and a normal dry cider, so I think that there is more room for experimentation!

When I get the chance to come back to this recipe I’ll try to replicate the ingredients a little more accurately, but in the meantime it provides a really interesting accompaniment to any Georgian dinner. If you get the chance to try it out, let me know how it works.

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Finalization of the Halo CE Campaign port and outstanding issues in it.

Greetings. Its been awhile since I have posted publicly. As the title suggests, the port is being finalized at the moment, for the most part. I will be uploading a new build of d40 (The Maw) later today with some small fixes, however. There is a very small list of issues that, as far as I can tell, are beyond my skills to fix. Here is the list;

1. The shuttle bay door on a50 (Truth and Reconciliation) is missing its off shader.

2. Some objects, or parts of objects, on d40 aren’t properly affected by the fog in the level.

Those are the only two issues. After finalization, I might start on my next project right away, or wait a little while to start it. If/when I find fixes for the listed issues, I will upload new builds for the affected levels.


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Museums and Wikipedia

By: Dr Lynda Kelly, Category: Museullaneous, Date: 10 Jun 2010

Is there a place for museums and Wikipedia? Yes, according to the British Museum.

A story in the New York Times, Venerable British Museum Enlists in the Wikipedia Revolution, discusses the British Museum's initiative in appointing a Wikipedian in residence: "Liam Wyatt, will spend five weeks in the museum’s offices to build a relationship between the two organisations, one founded in 1753, the other in 2001."

The reasons seem to be two-fold. First, is the desire to share content with as wide an audience as possible: "For both [parties], it was important that the relationship be about sharing information with the public, not about polishing the British Museum’s reputation on Wikipedia.". Second, is the undoubted popularity of sites like Wikipedia: "... it is among the five most popular sites on the Internet, with an estimated 330 million different visitors a month and billions of page views a year." Liam's blog reports on his progress.

Our research with Museum visitors found that 70% had read a wiki/Wikipedia and of these, 20% had added, edited, deleted a wiki page. Also, our survey of 1,000 Sydneysiders showed that 70% visit Wikipedia and of these, 13% had added, edited, deleted a wiki page. In 2007, a study conducted by Pew Research found that 36% of online American adults consult Wikipedia, and the majority of those were college educated.

There have been discussions about museums and wikipedia on Museum 3.0: How are Museums contributing to Wikipedia? There was also a two-day dialogue between the Australian museum sector and wikimedians last year, and notes from that can be found here on Wikipedia (of course!).

So, do you think there's a natural match between museums and Wkipedia? What should we be doing about it?


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unbekannter Gast

Groër, Hans Hermann#

Groër, Hans Hermann, b. Vienna, Oct. 13, 1919, archbishop of Vienna (1986-1995), cardinal in 1988. Studied philosophy and theology, in 1942 ordained as a priest, renewed the custom of pilgrimages to Maria Roggendorf (Lower Austria), pilgrimage director, member of the order of St. Benedict (Goettweig monastery) in 1976, until 1995 Chairman of the Austrian Conference of Bishops.

A. Coreth and I. Fux, Servitium pietatis. Festschrift fuer H. H. Kardinal G., 1989; H. Czernin, Das Buch G., 1998.


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FAA proposes $348,000 civil penalty against Chautauqua Airlines

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has proposed a $348,000 civil penalty against Chautauqua Airlines for allegedly operating some of its regional jets without performing inspections required by five different FAA airworthiness directives (ADs).

FAA investigations found that problems with Chautauqua’s management of its maintenance program and its system for tracking the status of airworthiness directives led to the alleged violations.

One AD compliance issue involved mandated repetitive inspections for possible cracks in the lower wing planks of Canadair Regional Jets (CRJ) after every 5,000 flights (FAA AD 2002-03-14). The FAA alleges that:

  • Eight different Chautauqua CRJs conducted more than 9,900 flights between October 2007 and December 2008 before the required lower wing inspections were done.
  • In January 2009, the airline operated another CRJ on 231 flights without inspecting a different section of the lower wings for cracks and flew a different CRJ for 61 hours without a required inspection of electrical relays.
  • Another Chautauqua CRJ made more than 17,600 flights between November 2007 and January 2009 before mandatory inspections of the plane’s GE engines were performed. Chautauqua also flew one of its Embraer 145 regional jets for 43 days past the time one of its inertial navigation units should have been replaced.

Chautauqua has 30 days from the receipt of the FAA’s civil penalty letter to respond to the agency.

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Haha, thanks Nexon

after spending over $400+ for me and my brother’s account

i finally got lil money back xD

10k….Gachapon or Megaphone xD

(I tend to use megaphone ‘wisely’)

6 Responses to Haha, thanks Nexon

  1. Jackk says:

    Way to rub it in D:

    Win 2 more times and world transfer to Scania!!!!

    IsaacGS came to Khaini~

  2. Zen says:

    You have enough moola as it is. Just go get some megaphones so I can see one of these infamous ‘B0wjob Smegas’. 😛

    ‘infamous’ D:

  3. Kevo says:

    Eugh, you know Smegas are way fun! Have you ever tried smegaing the Alphabet? It’s super fun! Try it!

    oh my. I don’t get down like that 😮

  4. Jackk says:

    Rofl, I look at my video thread, see some guy tell me how boring it is, then see that you’re looking at it and go to myself “I’ll let Josh deal with him” and instead you deal with the idiot I dealt with a few days ago D: gg, haha. I’ll deal with him tomorrow after my final D:

    wait, I dealt with what?
    OH. you mean the comment I left on your blog

  5. Hey B0W, lucky you huh? I applied to get chosen for the next Content Testing…. it should be… fun? Enlightening? 😛

    I probably won’t get chosen, and if I do it’ll be useless anyways since I’m going on vacation next week 😛 2 weeks in the sun is pretty nice though…. ^_^

    lets hope we all get chosen and have FUN 😀

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Understanding Scripture

Luk 24:45 (NASB)
45  Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,

2Co 3:14-18 (NASB)
14  But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ.
15  But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart;
16  but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
17  Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
18  But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

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(Dis)comforts: The place of hospitality in queer storytelling

Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands / La Frontera (1987) provides a rousing starting point for our thinking of the queer experience of discomfort. Writing on her time teaching at a New England college, Anzaldúa tells the story of how “a few lesbians threw the more conservative heterosexual students into a panic”.[1] One of these students, she writes, claimed to have mistook the word “homophobia” for a “fear of going home after a residency”.[2] She reflects on this: “But how apt. We’re afraid of being abandoned by the mother, la Raza, for being unacceptable, faulty, damaged. Most of us unconsciously believe that if we reveal this unacceptable aspect of the self our mother/culture/race will totally reject us”.[3]

This fear of “total rejection” reveals the double irony implicit to familiar scenes of hospitality – that is, of the hostility that always undergirds hospitality as we know it. There is an etymological point to be made here as well: the word “hospitality”, coming from the Indo-European word ghosti, shares its roots with the term “hostile”. Ghosti, if it isn’t already immediately obvious, is also where we derive the word “ghost”. The queer ghost – the one that haunts Anzaldúa’s text – exists always at the juncture of this uncertainty. It might not be rejected, but it isn’t exactly welcome either.

Paintings by Andrea Fiorino

Continue reading “(Dis)comforts: The place of hospitality in queer storytelling”


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Invisalign Invisible Braces in Richmond Hill Ontario

Do you wish that your smile was more attractive? Well, you'll be glad to know that Bamboo Dental is a proud certified provider of Invisalign invisible braces. One of the biggest reasons why patients avoid orthodontic treatment is because of the fact that the braces have to be bonded to your teeth.

As a way to address these issues, Invisalign allows you to effectively improve the appearance of your smile without the need of metal braces or wires. Invisalign is a tooth straightening system that uses clear aligners to shift your teeth into position. Because the aligners are made of clear plastic, they are practically undetectable when smiling and speaking. These aligners can be taken out at any time which allows you to chew, brush, and floss with ease. Invisalign can be also combined with an accelerating device to speed up the tooth movement.

To ensure the best fit and results, each set of aligners is customized to your teeth. The exact number of aligners that have to be worn will vary from person to person, but the treatment time will last for approximately a year. Each set of aligners has to be worn for two weeks before moving on to the next pair. It's important to wear your aligners for the minimum amount of time every day to ensure they effectively straighten your teeth.

Dr. Flor Malave will check to make sure that you're a suitable candidate for Invisalign invisible braces. Invisalign is most suitable for people with misalignment issues and those who are self-disciplined enough to wear the aligners for the minimum amount of time every day.

Wondering if Invisalign invisible braces can help your smile? Contact Dr. Flor Malave, Cosmetic Dentist in Oak Ridges, to set up a complimentary consultation.

Invisalign in Richmond Hill OntarioInvisible Braces in Richmond Hill Ontario


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aloha loneliness

I feel like it’s been too long since I have blogged. I’m supposed to be keeping my, what, one (?) reader up to date on what is going on in my life. Well, it’s almost July now, and so far this summer I haven’t even blogged once! Well, I have been to the beach, I’ve worked my tail end off, and I have surprised K with a birthday weekend away. Oh, and K left again.

Since I began dating K in 2007, he has gone to Germany for a month, BC for two and a half months, and has been in the field countless times. This time, it was taken to a whole new level. He is in Hawaii.

In case you might’ve read that wrong HE IS IN HAWAII!!!!!

Why on earth must the military take my boyfriend and ship him off to a dream destination? Then once he’s there, he gets to go to the beach and then post all of the pictures on Facebook, using the courtesy free internet! One more time, HAWAII! I knew when I became involved with him that I would say goodbye numerous times, as he traveled the world providing peace for our country, but so far he has had only fun!

In Germany he partied and drank, escaped some sticky situations and came back with half of the US military uniform. In BC he was doing “security” for the 2010 Olympics, which entailed a BFT (battle fitness test) and a lot of movie watching. Now he’s in Hawaii to “train” on a “ship” and work reeeeally reeeeeally hard, all while having evenings and weekends off. Boo.

Me on the other hand? I’m working a nine day stretch at my part-time job, taking care of our dog and cat, and taking care of the house! There is a positive side to being lonely, however – I have more time to myself! I went to my first Passion Party with a few friends of mine, and I plan on spending every possible day off at the beach. I also plan to teach Mac, my yellow lab, to run beside my bicycle come hell or high water (or a faceplant and some scrapes and bruises!). I would also like to update my blog regularly from now on. I need to fill it up and get a few more posts on the go! Maybe every Thursday night? Hmmm…

When K left, I thought I would be saying Aloha Loneliness! but really, I’m just opening my days up to a little opportunity. Time to do exactly what I want to do, and nothing else.

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SUCCESS STORY – The Jimmy Fund/Dana Farber

“The Beacon Design program provided a new revenue stream for us. It brought new people into the fold that might not have otherwise been donors.”
David Giagrando

Director of Cause Marketing, The Jimmy Fund

As the official charitable organization for the Boston Red Sox, The Jimmy Fund enjoyed the fun and frenzy of the World Series victory in 2004. In honor of the historical event and after receiving inquiries from Red Sox fans and collectors, the Jimmy Fund decided to create a World Series ornament. Having partnered with The Jimmy Fund the previous year, Beacon Design’s team turned around the ornaments very quickly. The limited edition, handcrafted ornament was 24K gold‐plated and featured the saying, “From Cursed to First.”

The Jimmy Fund used an integrated approach to promote the collectible‐including email marketing, direct mail and donor newsletter advertisements. They were also able to partner with a retailer to sell them on consignment. One of the key benefits of the program was the breadth of reach it generated for The Fund. Based on its success The Jimmy Fund began a new annual ornament with the New England Patriots in 2005, and continues to run both collections every year. Since the series began in 2004, the Jimmy Fund has raised tens of thousands of dollars for their programs.

The Jimmy Fund supports the fight against cancer at Dana‐Farber Cancer Institute, helping to raise the chances of survival for children and adults with cancer around the world. Since its inception in 1948, The Jimmy Fund has raised over $350 million.

For more information on The Jimmy Fund visit their website at


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2016’s written testimony for NYC #opendata oversight hearing

Home »  Advocacy »  2016’s written testimony for NYC #opendata oversight hearing

2016’s written testimony for NYC #opendata oversight hearing

Wednesday, 21 September 2016

To the NYC Committee on Technology & Chairperson Vacca,

BetaNYC is a civic organization dedicated to improving all lives in New York through civic design, technology, and data. We envision an informed and empowered public that can leverage civic design, technology, and data to hold government accountable, and improve their economic opportunity.

We were founded in 2008 as a “meetup” to discuss open government in NYC. Our work empowers individuals and local communities to build a civically‐engaged technology ecosystem and provide for an honest and inclusive government. We want New York’s governments to work for the people, by the people, for the 21st century.

BetaNYC demystifies design, technology, and data to the point where anyone can use it, create it, and participate in the decision making process. We host a number of online platforms that provide the general public a mechanism to share ideas and data.

In the last twelve months, our community has grown 700 new members. We are now over 3,700 civic hackers who are ready to use our talents to help our neighbors.

How open data has grown our community.

In the last twelve months, we have hosted four significant events—NYC School of Data, NYC TreesCount Data Jam, a BetaTalk conversation on affordable housing data, and another BetaTalk on the release of the City’s second largest data set, NYC 311 call inquiry data. We feel that these events have shaped where we are today, and point to a clear future.

We would like to thank Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito; Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer; Council Member Ben Kallos, NYC Department of Information Technology and Telecommunication; NYC Parks; NYC 311; Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics; and the Mayor’s Office of Technology and Innovation for joining us as partners.

We would also like to thank all of the government employees who joined us for all of our events. Without their expertise, we would never properly demystify how government technology and data works.

How we use the City’s open data.

Re: Seven new pieces of open data legislation.

We fundamentally believe that these seven pieces of legislation were the right additions to make. We can see that they have strengthened the City’s open data practice.

We were honored to be a partner with NYC Parks and prototype examples of good data dictionaries and geospatial / address standards.

We commend the Mayor’s Office of Data analytics (MODA) for engaging with our community to gather public feedback and help ensure that the City’s data users have a voice.

We absolutely agree with our colleagues at Reinvent Albany and NYPIRG on the following:

  • automating 100 datasets in 2016. That makes a total of 200 datasets out of 1,600 automatically updating on the Open Data Portal whenever the agencies internal data changes.
  • publishing important new datasets including the City Budget, City Record Online, Seven Major Felony crime data, a huge TLC trip dataset, and NYC 311’s call inquiry data.
  • thirty of eighty agencies reported on FOIL responses that included public data that is or should be on the Open Data portal.
  • DoITT and MODA staff are reading comments and requests on the Open Data Portal and responding.
  • The administration’s Open Data Team published their annual update on-time.

Re: NYC’s Civic Innovation Fellows with Manhattan Borough President  Gale A. Brewer

Reference URL < >

Since July 2015, we have partnered with the Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer to develop an innovative civic engagement program we call the Civic Innovation Fellows. With financial support from the Fund for the City of New York and Data and Society Research Institution, we have explored how Community Board district offices can better use data and technology.

We have reviewed Manhattan Community Board offices, their data & analytics capacity, and how they share information across digital streams. We discovered that Community Boards have a desire to use open data but don’t always have the bandwith, education, nor tools to process the City’s data. Frustratingly, we discovered that there are zero best practices bringing Community Boards to use 21st century tools nor teaching them how to use NYC’s open data.

Using insights developed with Pratt Institute’s SAVI program, we have outlined a framework to teach Community Boards, Council offices, and community based organizations how to use NYC 311’s service request data and NYC Park’s TreesCount data. Frustratingly, we have not found any financial support to teach the City’s data to its residents.

NYC 311’s service request and NYC Park’s TreesCount data set are two of the 1,500 datasets that should have educational rubrics attached to their data dictionaries. While we love the data dictionaries law, this should be considered the floor, not the ceiling. Every data dictionary should contain mini-tutorials explaining how to best explore the data and how to embrace the data portal’s functions.

While some of my colleagues might criticize the current data portal’s user experience, a skilled user can quickly navigate around a dataset and easily produce reports. Granted, you will need a lightning fast connection, a large monitor, fast computer, and a bit of luck, but for now, we have the best portal tool for the widest audience. Moving forward, NYC needs to develop tools to better suit bulk data users. We encourage the city to explore open source data sharing tools that will give agencies the flexibility to host and share their own data. Fundamentally, we want Agencies accountable for producing high quality datasets.

This year, will be working with the Manhattan Borough President and the Fund for the City of New York to improve our Civic Innovation Fellows program and create a simplified online curriculum for all. We should note that this is something that this Administration and the Council would benefit from and we hope to have your investment as we build the next level of open data education.

Re: NYC Parks Data Jam

Referance URL < >

The most important insight from the NYC Park Data Jam came from the evolution of a “user centered data release workflow.” Building off of user centered ideas, we believe that data sets should go through some user testing and like all technology products fit into a continuous improvement loop.

When is comes to continuous improvement of NYC’s most valuable, most used data sets, we believe that every agency and every dataset should go through this release workflow.

Phase 1: Research & Discovery

  • Establish target audiences
  • Draft data standards that appeal to broadest possible audience
  • Draft data dictionary

Phase 2: User Testing

  • Release sample dataset for feedback
  • Perform user testing and get feedback on data dictionary & dataset
  • Develop a framework and/or guide as how to explore the dataset’s important values
  • Allow time for revisions

Phase 3: Initial Deployment

  • Upload data set and data dictionary to Portal with an event or video explaining the key features of the data.
  • Allow time for user testing on Portal and gather open feedback.
  • Share insights and communicate them out to the public. Continue to gather public feedback.

NYC Parks Data Jam Event Metrics

  • Total Participants: 196
  • Data Jammer Participants: 144
  • Workshop Participants: 27
  • Participant Diversity:  45% male / 39% female / 16% unspecified / 1% other
  • Community Group / Public Stakeholder Groups: 5
  • Children in on-site daylong childcare: 7
  • Projects built: 23
  • Winners: 5
  • Organizers: NYC Parks and BetaNYC
  • Partners: NYC Mayor’s Office of Technology and Innovation, NYC Open Data, Civic Hall, Microsoft, Carto (was CartoDB).

Re: NYC School of Data

Reference URL < >

NYC School of Data proved there is a massive community in NYC that wants data and technology to be demystified. For one day, we featured 18 sessions, 40 presenters, 16 came from NYC Government, & three were elected officials.

A quarter of the event contained a data jam looking at how to address economic justice.

A critical component to our event was child care. This ensured diverse attendance. Several of our speakers couldn’t attend if we didn’t offer childcare. For older children, make it explicit they could attend with their parents.

Should the city host an open data summit, please offer child care. It makes a fundamental difference.

NYC School of Data event metrics

  • We featured 18 sessions, 40 presenters, 22 are women, 16 came from NYC Government, & three are elected officials.
  • 372 tickets; checked in 260+ people; 11 children under 10 y.o. attended the event.
  • 49 people offered to volunteer. 30 labored.
  • Eight NYC High Schoolers learned to navigate NYC’s open data portal, manipulate NYC’s 311 data, & map this data into CartoDB.
  • One family attended and represented three generations: Grandma—organizer and data visualizer, Father—data advocate, & Daughter—aspiring civic hacker. 😉
  • Our event leadership team consisted of seven, three are women & five are people of color.
  • For a third of the day, our hashtag was a trending topic on Twitter — #nycSoData.
  • Organizer and Host: BetaNYC
  • Partners: Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer, Fund for the City of New York, Data and Society Research Institution, Microsoft, Carto (was CartoDB), Accela, Code for America, Internet Society of New York, NYC Mayor’s Office of Technology and Innovation, NYC Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics, Council Member Ben Kallos, Reinvent Albany, and Civic Hall.

Insights from the last year

Three types of data users.

While there are many types of data users, this year’s research has led us to see three general types of data users.

  • The general public who wants to see what the numbers mean.
  • The data hacker who wants to see the data and play with the data.
  • The scientist, business, or government entity who wants to enter the matrix and download data bulk.

For NYC’s open data practice to be the best in the world, it must consider that these are the three types of users and each one has their own unique needs.

Concern about the seven new open data laws.

The passage of these seven new laws demonstrates that NYC’s open data program has hit maturity. As a municipal practice, the city needs an investment ensuring this open data practice lives beyond the 2018 goal. Currently, the seven new pieces of legislation have created an unstable situation that will overwhelming the current open data team’s ability to scale out NYC’s open data practice.

Discrepancy in open data production.

We see several agencies who completely understand the benefit of open data and collaborating with the public. Yet we some who seemingly refuse to accept that law is an essential part of the 21st century.

In the past year, NYC 311, NYC Parks, Department of City Planning, NYC DoITT’s GIS division, and the Taxi and Limousine Commission have produced data tools and data that are exemplary of the City’s future. We hope their data teams continue to be supported and given the resources to lead by example.

More civic engagement events.

For the agencies that understand the value of open data, they have a unique opportunity to partner with the public and use hackathons and/or data jams to explore new insights and improve their data quality.

Quality data and data guides.

Community Boards and the general public are desperate for usable data. More importantly, they are desperate for content that will help them make sense of the data, aka an open data curriculum. San Francisco has a series of video guides that teach the general public on how to use their data portal < >. We would love to see these videos appended to data dictionaries and see other mini-tutorials explaining how to best use the data portal’s functions and how best explore the data.

Growing municipal data standards.

The future of municipal open data does not have one central clearing house processing all of the City’s data and share it with the public. The internet does not work where there is one website servicing all of the world’s information. While we agree that there should be one central catalogue of data resources, we fundamentally feel that Agencies need to own the responsibility in producing high quality datasets and understanding how the public uses its data.

For NYC to be the number one open data practice in the world, it must adopt a practice of establishing data standards, protocols, and coach Agencies to use those standards and protocols. NYC should be exploring open source data sharing tools that give Agencies the flexibility to host their own data and interface directly with the public.

User center data release workflow.

When is comes to improving NYC’s most valuable or most used data sets, we believe that datasets should go through a review process that bakes in public comment. This workflow is modeled after practices used in manufacturing and software development. We call this a user centered data release workflow. This workflow ensures that continuous improvement through public feedback will strengthen data quality and data products.

Enlisting public engagement through the data release process is a key part of every insight previously stated.

What we see’d like to see.

Fundamentally, you cannot cure NYC’s open data future with a particular product but a dedicated practice.

We continue to encourage this Administration and the Council to place a significant investment in a dedicated open data team. This is the only way to ensure the City’s data practice can scale across all City’s agencies.

In an ideal world, we would like to see a Chief Data Officer resourced with a team and dedicated resources to shepherd the city’s data practice, data standards, and outline education best practices. We do not see this office as counter to the current leadership. We see this team as a complementary—a policy, consulting, and product shop. From our research, this office would focus on the following.

Leadership & Standards

  • With the City’s technology and data leadership, draw together agency leaders to ensure data and technology standards produce data as a renewable resource.
  • That technology procurement practices selects systems that allow for data version controls, API driven backends, with modular or open sourced capabilities.
  • That these systems are always available, reliable, consistent, accessible, secure, and flexible to support an agency’s mission.
  • Help agencies perfect a feedback loop around data quality and public comments.
  • Provide leadership to steer the production of citywide data policies and data standards.
  • Ensure public feedback baked into the City’s Technical Standards Manual (TSM).

Technology & Tools

  • Prioritizing large scale data projects in conjunction with data owners.
  • Standardize and automate future dataset dissemination.
  • Sets policies for responsible data systems.
  • Ensures that data reform and modernization–how agencies collect, uses, manages, and shares data–moves toward the stated goal of building “fact-based, data-driven decision-making” programs or policies.
  • Oversees the development and stewardship of data sharing tools that enable agencies to share their own data and collect feedback directly from data users.

  • The evangelism pillar would reach out to the public, industry, academics, and other branches of government to promote data, data services and tools.
  • Inward, this pillar would connect the city’s data managers to world’s best and the brightest to ensure that Agencies are thinking about their best practices.
  • Outward, this pillar would develop collaborations that further development of open data products and services.

Education & Trainings

  • Inward, trainings would cut across agencies teaching and promoting data proficiency skills, geographic information systems, and data tools like MS excel, and R.
  • Outward, this pillar would ensure that specific uses of data are taught and shared across the city. Community boards, institutions, and organizations would serve as a feedback loop to thoroughly define the public’s need for technology, data, and data quality.

While some of these things can be done from the outside, we are at a make or break legacy point. For the City’s open data practice to lead the world, they need to be done from within government.

Thank you for giving us this opportunity to give our story.

The BetaNYC Leadership Team

Download a PDF of testimony

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Arts Education Policy Adopted at North Kitsap

At the June 11th 2014 Nk School Board meeting, the board voted to adopt an Arts Education Policy. Next steps could be evaluating NK’s arts program and implementing improvement strategies.

The policy states:

“The board recognizes that an arts education (defined as music, visual arts, theater, literature, and dance) is an essential part of the learning experience for students. The district’s art education should provide opportunities for appreciation, creation, performance, and integration with other educational disciplines.

The board believes that through arts education, students learn to develop creativity, discipline, perception, perseverance, self-expression and critical thinking. These capacities are fundamental in preparing students for citizenship, career and college. The board further believes that a comprehensive arts education program enriches cultural experiences and builds connection within our community.”

Coffee Chat in Kingston, Saturday, June 14th 8:30 – 10:30

Please join me and talk about NK Schools at Mystic Mountain Coffee in Kingston from 8;30 to 10:30, Saturday, June 14.  Let’s celebrate the start of summer and our graduates and talk about what our strategic goals for the coming years should be.  Should we graduate 100% of our students?  Should we develop out teachers to be the best?  A graduating senior offered this perspective on education.  It’s not the student’s that are the products.  It is the teacher’s that are offering a service.  It’s the student’s responsibility to take advantage of that service.  It’s not the teacher failing the students.  It’s the students who are failing themselves.


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We’re back with another episode of BGR Radio! This time we link up with fellow tech-fiend Just Blaze at Baseline Studios in New York. We did this around 3AM on Thursday morning, so forgive us if we’re not 100% on the ball. Well, what do we cover in this episode? Everything! We hit on the BlackBerry KickStart, a new exclusive look at a new RIM BlackBerry, Logic and Pro Tools, T-Mobile’s new Sidekicks and 3G network, and a whole lot else! Listen to it below on BGR, or subscribe to it in iTunes. Part two will be up here shortly.

Download Part 1

Download Part 2


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Tour de Taco

Tour de Taco. Bike. Eat. Repeat. September 16, 2017

What is Tour de Taco?

Tour de Taco is a social bicycling event that involves groups of cyclists riding to locally owned restaurants to eat tacos! The goals of the event are to build the confidence of cyclists riding around town, promote safe and responsible riding, increase the visibility of cyclists following the rules of the road, and support local businesses.

Proceeds from the event will go towards Bike BloNo’s advocacy efforts, which are focused on safety and expansion of on-street bike routes in the community.

When is Tour de Taco?

Tour de Taco will be on Saturday, Sept 16, 2017. Check-in starts at 10:00 AM. Opening speakers, followed by a safety briefing, will begin at 11:00 AM. The first pod will be released around 11:15 AM. The "tour" will last approximately five hours (varies by pod; see Pods & Routes below).

Where is Tour de Taco?

Participants will ride a loop that starts and ends in Downtown Bloomington, stopping at restaurants and food trucks stationed at or near the community’s three bike shops. Following the Tour de Taco ride, we will have an after-ride social gathering at an awesome new restaurant in Downtown Bloomington.

Stay tuned for more info on the specific restaurants along the routes!

Pods & Routes

We want everyone to enjoy Tour de Taco, so we are offering ten different pepper-themed pods with varying skill levels and speeds. The majority of pods will stop at 6 taco stops. There are also two 8-stop pods for hungry overachievers, and a 4-stop family-friendly pod that’s ideal for families with children.

We met our registration cap about a week and a half before the event. Sorry to those of you who didn't get in before then, but stay tuned for info about Tour de Taco 2018!

What do I bring?

Definitely bring your own

  • Bike (duh)
  • Helmet (required!)
  • High visibility clothing (or your very awesome Tour de Taco t-shirt)
  • Money for tacos and beverages (registration fee does not cover these; cash required at some locations)
  • Bike lock

Also consider bringing

  • Water bottle
  • Sunblock
  • Tire repair kit (if you have one)
  • Bike headlight (especially if you're staying for the after party)

Have more questions? Check out our handy little FAQ.

Our Awesome Sponsors


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 New Year Beachcrest Home Bowerbank Bedroom Armoire

Beachcrest Home Bowerbank Bedroom Armoire

Availability:(check now)

Set this country-chicarmoirein your kitchen to store pantry essentials and place settings, or use it in the guest room to stow fresh linens. Material: Manufactured wood Tipover Restraint Strap or System Included: Yes Adjustable Interior Shelves: Yes Assembly Required: Yes Product Warranty: 5 Year
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Beachcrest Home Bowerbank Bedroom Armoire Reviews

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Quick shipment. armoire exceeding my expectations. Color is great. I have had it for a week and I have received so many compliments. I love it. Overall a great purchase for its price. The quality of the armoire is excellent.

[2nd. Review]

  I bought this armoire for work, and it has been nothing short of perfect. I would highly recommend this to anyone that's in the market for a armoire. really well priced, versatile and good looking Beachcrest Home Bowerbank Bedroom Armoire!

[3rd. Review]

This armoire was my first purchase. When I saw it online it really sparked an interest. When I received it I was so thrilled at the beauty of it. So simple yet very personal. I am quite impressed with it. It could have been done better to fit the elegance of the armoire.
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Re: Goffins Cockatoo

Posted by Cheri on 1/13/08
(6) Comments

    Thank you

    On 1/13/08, everywhere wrote:

    > There is a chance they will never accept each other we have goffin
    > too's and they in 15 yrs are no way compatable. This is an
    > arranged marriage, think about them in the wild they at least can
    > pick their own mate not be forced into it..... We have 12 parrots
    > and Id love to pair everyone up, but in 27 years doesnt work all
    > have own cages and space. Ever see breeders- most are plucked and
    > many lose their mates early---- reason for it!
    > On 1/12/08, Cheri wrote:
    >> Wow! its been along time ago since I posted this and never got a
    >> response.. I got my 2nd G2 on Thanksgiving and allready had my
    >> male , the new one is suppose to be a female.. Still Piper my
    >> male hates her and she is scared to death of him he is alot
    >> bigger then her.. I have perched them together and they stay as
    >> far apart as they can from each other.. today Piper chased her
    >> around the living room ( I was right there) I am kinda bummed
    >> because I know other Goffie owners and theirs do just fine
    >> together .. I just think my Piper is jealous thats how he acts
    >> and he pouts..I have given him the attention plus more and he
    >> still is this way.. Also he investigates with his beak and her
    >> with her foot .. so she stuck her foot right up to his
    >> thank God I was there or we could of been missing
    >> toes.. Thanks for your help.. I dont know if they will ever come
    >> together or if he will ever accept her.
    >>> On 12/26/07, lisa wrote:
    >>>> On 11/01/07, Cheri wrote:
    >>>>> Hello,,,
    >>>>> Will a goffins male get along with another male? I am not
    >>>>> wanting breeders... I just was thinking about a friend for
    >>>>> my goffin? What other birds would be compatible to hang
    >>>>> out and be a freind with him? I have quakers a mustache
    >>>>> parakeet, Cockatiels and have been hesitant to let him
    >>>>> close to them as he is so much bigger...any help would be
    >>>>> appreciated.
    >>>>> Thank you so much.
    >>> Hi Lisa,
    >>> Somewhat of a "rule of thumb" is to make sure the beak sizes
    >>> are pretty comparable in size. But this still doesn't ensure
    >>> you have happy birds coexisting. We have a M2 and a B&G,
    >>> sometimes they get along, sometimes not! Sometimes the B&G
    >>> will preen the M2, which is cute to see, but that doesn't last
    >>> long either. The M2 has pretty established heirachy.
    >>> Trial and error with close supervision will tell you whether
    >>> you have a compatible "buddy" pair. Good Luck.


text:
We need a good basic mount escape for when the person just wants to hold you there and squash the life out of you.

(Pics courtesy of Chew Jitsu Youtube video).

Mount is one of those positions in BJJ that we don’t spend enough time in to get really good at defending. Sure, we all know the basic escapes, and practice them in class, but in normal rolling most BJJ players prefer side control, so that’s where we spend most of the time once our guard gets passed.

Of course, in competition the mount is worth 4 points, so it happens more often. I watched a video of a local BJJ competition today and the higher belts spent a lot of time stuck under mount waiting for the chance to escape. The most popular way of holding people in mount I saw was to flatten out into what I’ll call a ‘heavy mount’ – this isn’t the position where somebody is sitting up on your hips – this is the one where they are flattening their hips, often locking the legs of the person underneath up and going for a position similar to a sky dive. Sometimes they’ll also wrap an arm under your head, just to make life harder for you by adding more pressure and open up some submissions.

Screen Shot 2016-11-27 at 23.40.42.png
Heavy mount. This really, really sucks.

There aren’t as many submissions available in this position compared to sitting up like you’re riding a horse, but you get to make life really miserable for the person underneath. It’s hard for them to breathe and they can tire themselves out making fruitless attempts at a bump and roll. When you’re flattened out like that it’s very unlikely that a bump and roll escape is going to work. It’s also hard to work the normal hip escape as well, because they can follow you as you move.

What we need is a ‘go to’ solution for getting out of this position, and a video I saw recently by Chew Jitsu offers just that – the single leg X escape. The video is at the bottom of this post, but I’ll just go over the basics here first before you watch it.

  1. Unlock the legs. If your legs are trapped you need to stretch them to unlock them, then put your heels near your butt, so they can’t lock them up again.
    From this…

    Screen Shot 2016-11-27 at 23.57.34.png
    To this.
  2. Hip bump. Hip bump repeatedly to get your arm into a frame position. (arm is already in position in the pictures above.).
  3. Bridge and hip escape. After you bridge you’re doing the framing with your elbow on his mid-section, while hip escaping your hips in the other direction. Notice, you’re not flat on your back when you do this.
    Screen Shot 2016-11-27 at 23.52.11.png
    Frame with the elbow, and hip escape.

    Screen Shot 2016-11-27 at 23.54.42.png
    The view from the other side.

  4. Screen Shot 2016-11-27 at 23.59.47.png
  5. Single leg x. From here get your leg into single leg x position.

    Put your foot on his hip to get Single Leg X.
  6. Underhook their leg and get it on your shoulder.

    Screen Shot 2016-11-28 at 00.02.26.png
    Underhook the leg
  7. Grab their sleeve. A little trickery is often required for this by pulling on his collar  – see the video for details.Screen Shot 2016-11-28 at 00.04.26.png
  8. Sweep. Take your foot off their hip, put it on the ground and push them over. From here you can pass pretty easily.Screen Shot 2016-11-28 at 00.05.57.png

Here’s the video – enjoy!

Chew Jitsu have a ton of other BJJ videos, so make sure you check out their channel.


text:
The so-called “Knockout Game” has been gathering steam as a news narrative, with conservatives demanding that the media finally focus on crimes committed by black people, notes the blog Mediate.

On Monday morning’s edition of CNN’s “New Day,” expert guest Harry Houck, a former NYPD detective, went there, explaining to the “New Day” anchor team that while “not every black kid is doing this,” the only suggestion he could offer to avoid such attacks was “crossing the street, getting away from them” if you see “a group of black youths.”

Anchor Kate Bolduan asked Harry Houck for his take on the phenomenon. “Is this a growing trend?” she asked. “Is this an urban myth, or maybe better stated as growing trend or group of isolated incidents?”

Houck replied that the trend is real, adding that “Urban myths don’t exist. These attacks exist in everyone’s minds, especially in those victims.”

That’s when the familiar language of race-baiting began, according to Mediate. Asked if the media was contributing to the problem by hyping the attacks, Houck replied, “I think we have to let the public know what’s going on to protect ourselves. That’s our job. That’s the police department’s job to protect the public. No matter how politically incorrect it might be. It’s to know what is going on and how to protect themselves.”

This is where the hustler hides the red card, because when co-host Chris Cuomo asks Houck to explain his remark about “political correctness” (insulating himself and his show from criticism), Houck lays his suggestion off on other people. “I ask people who I run into every day, ‘What are you doing?’ They say if they see a group of black youths, they cross the street.”

Co-host Michaela Pereira pushed back, telling Houck that “black kids don’t need to be made to feel they’re a threat simply because they are hanging out with friends.”

Houck generously allowed that, “Not every black kid is doing this. It’s very few, but if you are the victim, if you are a potential victim and you are afraid walking down the street, you see a group of black youths, everybody I am talking to says they are crossing the street, getting away from them,” and added that “the good black kids will be saying ‘Why are you crossing the street when I walk by?’”

While Pereira pointed out that the “majority” of black kids aren’t doing this, and Cuomo added that “Black kids are getting clocked, too,” their guest expert never gets around to offering any alternative to crossing the street to protect yourselves. He even reiterated it later in the segment, in what could double as a spot-on media criticism. “This is creating terror on the streets, I know,” Houck said. “People are, as soon as they see black youths, like I say, everybody I have talked to, I know you don’t like that, Michaela, but you can understand why they think that way.”

Houck also referenced the classic “the good blacks” frame, which reinforced his earlier suggestion that black teenagers who don’t viciously knock people out are someho the exception.

As far as anyone can tell, of course, these crimes are exceedingly rare, and you are orders of magnitude more likely to be killed or injured crossing the street than walking past a group of black youths. This sort of fear-mongering is nothing, new, though; it’s not as if white people really needed another excuse to be scared of black kids. What is somewhat new is the attempt to normalize it. Pereira’s objections notwithstanding, little is done to challenge the logic of Houck’s commentary.

CNN, and the rest of the media, would do well to resist focusing on the racial aspect of these crimes, and instead serve the public with information they can use, such as the serious medical consequences that loss of consciousness can entail.

Watch the segment from CNN’s “New Day”.

Also On Black America Web:

22 thoughts on “Knockout Game Advice: ‘Cross Street if You See Group of Black Youths’

  1. Edwin Smith on said:

    Stop believing everything white people tell you. White kids do the same dumb stuff also but are never highlighted.You have never heard of white on white crime so I guess it doesn’t exist.

  2. The black family is falling apart (75% born to single mothers), black crime is rampant. People are using common sense when they avoid groups of young black men (check out crime stats). Yet black leaders do not address the issues. They would rather blame white people.

  3. again please stop with the race name calling card!!!!!….we are all here to stay like it or not!!!!!….to be real with you…THE WHOLE WORLD IS TIRED OF THE RACISM..IT IS TIRED, PLAYED OUT AND JUST PLAIN OLD RIDICULOUS!!!.especially when it is almost 2014 how about bring yourself out of the past sh** and promote a better future for your children and their children to live in because trust me when I say in another 10 to 20 years how you feel about a particular race will amount to a pile of beans!!! this world is falling apart not just this country and all you people got to contribute is race name calling, and hate….grow up we are all going to leave this earth one day you should be concerned with what your legacy will be…I sure hope it is not racism and hate.

  4. Sad thing is that the media is making it seem as if only Black Youth are involved in this….FACTS: THIS IS WIDE SPREAD AMONG ALL YOUTH INCLUDING WHITE, HISPANIC, ASIAN AND BLACK…it is like any other trendy thing…stop with the racial profiling and get to the exact nature ” ALL YOUTH TODAY NO MATTER WHAT COLOR HAS NO REGUARD FOR HUMAN LIFE ANYMORE”…as long as the media and white America keeps the focus “RACIAL PROFILING” their own race denial will continue. This is almost 2014 wake up people it is not a white or black thing but a “HUMANITY THING”

    • keebee51 on said:

      This is for joe mexicans are nothing but bottom feeder. You don’t know nothing about Negros your just like the rest of the races that don’t understand us. You know that just as many mexicans fill prison. Try as hard as you want, but your race will never be accepted either. Now those are facts.

  5. I didn’t watch the video, I hate when white folks start talking smack about our kids when theirs are just as bad or worse than ours. There are 2 videos on this crime, 2. One video is about 2 years old. I am around young black kids all the time, and I have never heard of them playing this game. I wouldn’t trust that white dude in the video!!!

    • keebee51 on said:

      Your race turns nice neighborhoods into ghettos. Stay out! that’s what all races really really want from your kind. Where do you get your facts, because everyone on this website knows your not capable of knowing anything about Negros. Why don’t you find the true facts about your race and then maybe you’ll keep your dumb ass off this site.

  6. Zerkeise on said:

    WOW !!!!! So, what are the rules for a group of hillbillys or gothic kids. These comments are why we are loosing our youth to their own worlds.

  7. Also, we better watch out for the poor white kid who gets bullied in school…you know they can’t handle that and you know what they do…
    See how stupid that sounds…
    There is good and bad in ALL races…we are HUMANS…

  8. I’m not a white person, but I cross the street when I see a group of youth, period. Most of the time it’s for good reason; loud obnoxious behavior, disrespect, etc. It doesn’t matter if it’s boys or girls these days….One example is having to get by a high school in Chicago when the kids are dismissed…

  9. Camella Jenkins on said:

    When you see a group of black youth Cross the street, Really? There are gangs of of other race as well, do we cross the street when we see a group of them too? I don’t condone their bad behavoir, as a matter of fact one day those young idiots will hit the wrong person, or attempt to attack the wrong person/buss a cap in that azz!

  10. Kilo Perkins on said:

    My people, we can’t excuse the bad behavior of a few. Lets all try to work together to prevent this from happening. Lets show our fellow americans that a group of black kids are not to fear. I say we organized our youth to go out and do good deeds like we would always see the boyscouts doing. ……It could work.

    • False!!!…the majority of urban black youth are God fearing, law abiding, and hard working people…i would you like it if a statement is made that all “White youths are prone to shooting up entire schools full of kids and then some”…Your statement just proves that you do not even know any black youths…you make a statement about “Black Urban Youth” but what is funny is how every “urban” trend white youth bite on…Things that make you go Uhmmmmmmmm!

      • How is it then, that statistically (reliable data) a black man is more likely to end up incarcerated than in college? At what point do those God fearing, law abiding youth realize there is no street cred available in a path of righteousness?

      • keebee51 on said:

        This is for joe (mexican) You have a lot of nerve to come here and say that crap! All mexicans are uncivilized.

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WARC-Identified-Payload-Type: application/rss+xml

text:
Comments on: Trying to sell the unsellable Mon, 15 Jan 2018 16:12:48 +0000 hourly 1 By: X_Y Mon, 10 Jan 2011 17:26:49 +0000 These guys are really scum, as they’re selling free information in dishonest way. However it brought up the problem of information spreading. A piece of valuable information, only by being known can people resonate with it, dig into it, make use of it, and develop it further more.

In a coach-apprentice education model the coach uses his knowledge base to inform new areas and select information for the apprentice. When coming to self learning one is often overwhelmed by tons of information without a proper direction, in this case informing people about the existence of an information becomes invaluable.

I think it’s a good approach to pick some resources for your potential customer, which helps existing users(new users to Arduino) as well as attracting potential users(people who are interested in wearable computing but don’t know Arduino in this case )

By: HoboDuino Sat, 08 Jan 2011 15:49:10 +0000 Free and open markets without free and open flow of information are meaningless. This is a textbook example of this phenomenon. A seller trying to sell something that is available for free, and maybe successful only because information is not freely available to the customers that this is available free.

Also it is a scam because the seller is not coming forward with the information (my guess, i can’t read Chinese). If they said, download for reasonable price (hosting, bandwidth, maintenance cost) and sell hard copy for reasonably higher price, it will make sense to me.

However, just to play devil’s advocate, I see they are selling it for Y10, while they’re selling a Duemilanove 328P for Y158. I don’t know the conversion rate, but it could be only a couple bucks.

However the main problem for me is not giving credit and disclosing the original free download to the unsuspecting customer.

By: dcuartielles Wed, 05 Jan 2011 18:34:55 +0000 Here in Sweden you can buy a CD with open source (and free software) applications to help you running your company. At least that company putting them together makes an effort in packaging them and making them meaningful to people that need them to build their businesses. I am perfectly fine in charging for services (that is how most of us in the open source community support ourselves), selling the download of something that is also available as a free download is in my eyes a scam … they could just provide a link and give credit to the students that made it in the first place, don’t you think?

Updated some trackpad typos at 20110105-10.42CET

By: Alexandru Csete Wed, 05 Jan 2011 18:05:27 +0000 On eBay you will find a whole industry built around selling GPL software under different name. In some cases it makes sense to purchase for people with slow connection; however, in many cases it would take less time to download from the Internet than to complete an eBay transaction!


text:
Node.js and io.js - Very different in performance

tl;dr - Depending on whether you use Node.js or io.js, you may experience performance differ by a factor of more than 5 for identical code.
A blog post from, if you wanna to read it in Vietnamese, please wait its comming :))

First of all, let me make something clear. This is not, and cannot be, a comprehensive test. Every application is different. Depending on what your Node application does, my findings may or may not apply to your use-case.

What I tested

To test JavaScript I used Node and chose three different ways of implementing this algorithm, using a regular array, typed-array or buffer. Today I want to use the same benchmark to show how much performance can vary between Node.js and io.js. For those of you who don't know it yet, io.js is a fork of Node.

I will use the same code as in my previous article. You can find it at the end of that article.

Node and io.js have one important thing in common. They both rely on Chrome's V8 JavaScript Engine. But they use different versions of V8. So when I'm comparing Node and io.js, I'm actually comparing the different versions of Chrome's V8 JavaScript Engine they use.

For my previous test I used Node 0.10.32 as that is the one that comes with OpenSuse 13.2, the Linux distribution that I'm using. But for today's test I will use Node 0.10.35 and io.js 1.0.2 as these are the latest available releases. And yes, I am aware that io.js describes that release as "unstable". But it's all I've got. :)

Just as I did for my previous article, I ran each test 7 times and then used the median time as my result. I was running the tests on an Intel i7-4771 3,5GHz using a 64-bit OpenSuse 13.2.

Here are the results:
Node.js 0.10.35 io.js 1.0.2
Buffer 4.259 5.006
Typed-Array 4.944 11.555
Regular Array 40.416 7.359
(Times are listed in seconds)

As you can see, the performance for typed-array and regular array varies quite dramatically.

Using a buffer, io.js takes almost 18% longer than Node. Not nice to see, but not something to really worry about.

The typed-array test takes more than twice as long with io.js than with Node. Now that is a pretty significant difference.

But with regular arrays it is the other way around, and even more pronounced. Here Node takes more than 5x as long as io.js.

I must say that I'm quite disturbed by how much performance can differ. For such a mature product, the V8 JavaScript Engine shows way too much variation in performance between versions. I could live with that if performance would always increase with each version. But the data clearly shows that it can go either way. And that should not happen.

There is no clear winner. Sometimes Node is faster and sometimes io.js is. Also keep in mind that this test is far from anything you would do in real-life.

Even different versions of Node can behave differently in my experience. I remember that there was a regression with a development-version of Node which caused slow performance with buffers. See this issue on GitHub.

This can be extremely important if you have a project with heavy CPU-use and which scales to several servers on something like AWS or Azure. You could potentially be wasting a lot of money if your application performs poorly with the version of Node/io.js that you use. You could be needing more servers than necessary because of that.

If you take only one piece of information from this article, then let it be to always remember to test how your code performs with different versions of Node/io.js.