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Celebrating Degrassi: Chelsea Clark

Season 2 of Degrassi: Next Class premiered on Netflix just a few weeks ago. In honor of my love for the iconic hit Canadian series, I decided to reach out to some of the cast. The first cast member is Chelsea Clark. She plays the lovely and confident yet manipulative Esme Song. Check out our little chat.

chelsea clark

So you just finished up high school this year and that included the big prom. How was prom?

Prom was super great! It was a nice intimate venue and everyone really got together and looked great as our one last hurrah.

Esme was such a negative influence on Miles but a really interesting character. What should we expect from Esme moving forward?

We can expect to see sides of her that are really different than the first two seasons. Her interactions with the other characters will be most interesting.

Question from Twitter user @DegrassiFeels: If you could write an episode about your character, what would you make your character do?

I would want to write a scene of her interacting with her family or no family we don’t know! Also crazy stunts would be AWESOME (Scuba diving, bungee jumping, the whole shebang.

If you could swap places with any of the characters that attend Degrassi, who would you swap with?

I’d swap with any of the Hollingsworth family members. They’re great characters AND get a pool!

If you could have a super power what would it be?

Breathe underwater

What’s one of your biggest/weirdest fears?

I’m terrified of rodents

What would be a good theme song for your life?

I don’t care if it doesn’t fit but I’d love for it to be the 6teen theme song

Degrassi: Next Class is streaming on Netflix or check your local listings. You can also catch previous installments from Degrassi’s 30+ year history through various media. It will be worth your investment.

Follow Chelsea on FB and on Twitter


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Adafruit Holiday Gift Guide 2016: Artists

If you know an artist of any stripe who is curious about the maker world or applying the tools and tricks of DIY electronics to their work, we’ve got you covered. Here you can find kits, packs, and books that can help the artists in your life to find new ways to express their voice.

The Photographer

MiniPOV4 Kit: This Dancing Light artwork is created through the magic of light painting. LEDs are wonderful tools for this experimental work and you can get started with our MiniPOV4 Kit. With a little soldering you can make a handheld unit which will have you flinging graphics or messages through the air for the camera. Create love notes, digital tapestries or holiday greetings. Working with a partner makes this gift even more fun.

KONSTRUKTOR – DIY Film Camera Kit: Perfect for Do-It-Yourself lovers and those interested in learning, understanding and experiencing how analogue photography works, the Konstruktor is a fully-functional 35mm SLR camera which you can easily build at home.

Through the fantastically fun process of assembling this beautiful machine, you’ll learn the essence of photography and be able to shoot wonderfully sharp and vibrant analogue photos. It’s time to take the next step on your exciting photographic adventure and boost your creativity to the max. With the Konstruktor, you don’t just capture analogue beauty, you Konstruct it!

35mm Twin Lens Reflex Camera Kit from Gakken: The Gakken Twin Lens Reflex Camera is perfect for anyone who loves photography or electronics. This highly portable camera, when assembled, has a unique appearance with a pair of vertically arranged lenses. The upper lens is used to set the view, angle, and focus the camera, while the bottom lens is used to take the actual photographs. Use any 35mm color/slide/b&w film (not included!)

The kit also includes stickers to decorate your camera and with its twin lens functionality, you can give your shots a unique, individual style to show off to your friends! This kit is guaranteed to give you way more hipster-cred than a Holga.

The Musician

Gakken Mini Electric Guitar Ki: Sometimes a full sized guitar just isn’t practical at your co-working space or on Amtrak, but there’s always room for this smart Gakken Mini Electric Guitar Kit. There’s nothing better than building something you can actually jam on and this guitar has a built-in speaker and amp, but you can always connect your big baby with the 1/4 jack. Ridiculously simple supplies needed for this kit—Phillips screwdriver, cellophane tape, pliers, and 2xAA batteries. Good luck getting time to play it as you’ll be fighting off friends.

Infinity Shred – Long Distance: We’ll let Infinity Shred describe the scene:
“A forty-third century metropolitan utopia fatally obsessed with analog synths and distorted instruments. Armies of gracefully engineered, doe-eyed warriors mercilessly slaughtering each other under a dusky sky of neon stardust. A trio based in New York City crafting uplifting synth-driven pieces tinged with just the right amount of death.”

Where Frequency by Bartlebeats was the soundtrack to your soldering, Infinity Shred’s music to fly drones to.  Two parts sci-fi tinged post rock, one part progressive trance, with equal touches of black metal and dystopian church music mixed in, Infinity Shred’s album Long Distance is the kind of music that defies any classification besides intensely futuristic.

The translucent black edition is limited to 500 pieces and features a jacket designed by Asif Siddiky and full color innersleeve photos shot by Adrian Miles.

Adafruit “Music Maker” MP3 Shield for Arduino w/3W Stereo Amp: Bend all audio files to your will with the Adafruit Music Maker shield for Arduino! This powerful shield features the VS1053, an encoding/decoding (codec) chip that can decode a wide variety of audio formats such as MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, WMA, MIDI, FLAC, WAV (PCM and ADPCM). It can also be used to record audio in both PCM (WAV) and compressed Ogg Vorbis. You can do all sorts of stuff with the audio as well such as adjusting bass, treble, and volume digitally.

All this functionality is implemented in a light-weight SPI interface so that any Arduino can play audio from an SD card. There’s also a special MIDI mode that you can boot the chip into that will read ‘classic’ 31250Kbaud MIDI data from an Arduino pin and act like a synth/drum machine – there are dozens of built-in drum and sample effects! But the chip is a pain to solder, and needs a lot of extras. That’s why we spun up the best shield, perfect for use with any Arduino Uno, Leonardo or Mega.

Steel Drum Kit by Gakken: Pianists? No! Pannists? Yes! Educate yourself on the sounds of Trinidad and Tobago with Gakken’s Steel Drum Kit. Put together a four-note steelpan with an 1/8th inch output and ride the soundwaves down to the Caribbean islands.

The kit includes the drum, a pickup that magnetizes to the bottom of the drum, a stand for the drum, mallets, and an 1/8th inch out.

The Sculptor and Painter

Agnolo Bronzino’s Cosimo I de’ Medici has a beautiful armor that LARP enthusiasts may find interesting. Some costume makers like layering craft foam and glue, but others are discovering the flexibility of Hand-Moldable Thermoplastic. Just toss the beads into some warm water and you’ll have a wax-like substance for your costume needs. Have fun sculpting metallic looking historical belts, Stormtrooper outfits or home-made LED buttons. This also makes a nice sculpting material for everyday repairs, so it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

This abstract art just shouts blue light, and it just so happens that our EL Wire Starter Pack is the perfect solution for getting that look. With clear thread you can use it to trim your holiday pieces or even add it to you backpack for that Tron look. It comes with a 2.5 meter strand of EL wire, Pocket EL Inverter, and a bit of copper tape, heat shrink tubing and foam tape to finish things off. If blue isn’t your hue, no worries, we’ve got plenty of colors available in these kits. Make crazy hats with team names, put your initial on a jacket or just make your bike safe at night. You are going to love all the uses for this glowy wire.

Flotilla Mega Treasure Chest Starter Kit: Flotilla is a range of smart, friendly, and affordable modules that you connect together to create amazing projects that can sense and react to the world around them. Brought to you by Pimoroni, the Flotilla Mega Treasure Chest Starter Kit is their ultimate Flotilla package.

You’ll get fourteen Flotilla modules, three complete kits – the audibly offensive Noisemaker synth, a cute little paper-craft mood light, and an all-singing, all-dancing line-following robot – as well as eight other super-simple Cookbook recipes to get you up and running in two turns of a ship’s wheel — wow!

Bare Conductive Paint – 50mL: Bare Conductive Paint is a multipurpose electrically conductive material perfect for all of your DIY projects! Bare Paint is water based, nontoxic and dries at room temperature.

Bare Paint is the first non-toxic electrically conductive paint available to consumers today. This unique child-friendly material is designed for people of all ages to explore and learn about electronics with an inclusive, easy-to-use material.

Bare Paint provides a dramatically different method of interacting with electronics as it can be applied to almost any surface, including cardboard, paper, wood, wallpaper, walls, textiles, and some plastics.

Bare paint can be used to replace conventional acid etching, making it a great electronics prototyping tool. Nontoxic and water-soluble, Bare Paint can be used without gloves or mask. The paint dries quickly at room temperature, and can be removed with soap and water. This means it’s also not water-proof or weather-resistant!

Chibitronics Starter Kit: Make almost any surface glow, sense, or interact with Chibitronics circuit stickers! Circuit stickers are an imaginative and easy way to make fun electronics projects without coding, soldering, or maker experience. Just stick your circuit sticker onto a surface and add a battery to get a unique project that reps your maker spirit. You can even connect stickers with conductive materials like copper tape or even conductive paint to create elaborate designs and art projects.

Arduino Starter Kit from Arduino.cc: The Arduino starter kit provides an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It contains all of the essential components required to start programming with the Arduino Uno board, and a guidebook featuring 15 different projects, which are designed to evolve the user from beginner to professional level. The starter kit has been developed together with a series of ten video tutorials hosted by Arduino co-founder Massimo Banzi. Read more about the kit on Arduino.cc

The Game Designer

DIY Gamer Kit from Technology Will Save Us: Build your very own Arduino-based portable gaming toy with this kit from Tech Will Save Us!

The DIY Gamer Kit is an Arduino controlled gaming device.  Once you solder the whole thing together, you’ll have an 8×8 LED matrix display that serves as the device’s screen.  From there, just easily upload your game’s code onto an Arduino (not included) and play! It’s a great learning experience with a fun result.

Uzebox Starter Kit – v1.0: The Uzebox is a fully open-source, DIY 8-bit game console. It is designed specifically for people who know a little bit of programming to expand into designing and creating their own video games and demos. A full-featured core runs in the background and does all the video and audio processing so that your code stays clean and easy to understand.

This electronic kit comes unassembled: it includes the PCB, pre-programmed chip, and all components including a pre-soldered video chip. All but one of the components are through-hole, so you can build it yourself without difficulty. However, it is a 1-2 hr project and its best to have used your soldering iron before this project.

USB Game Pad with Accelerometer Project packBuild a Custom:USB gamepad that has an accelerometer mouse inside! This project pack comes with, SNES controllerTeensyAccelerometer, 5′ mini-B USB cable, 8″ of ribbon cable, 2 squares of foam tape

Cupcade: the Raspberry Pi-Powered Micro Arcade Cabinet Kit – v1.0: Never be bored again with an adorable little arcade cabinet you can fit in your bag! This Raspberry Pi-powered kit combines our sharp PiTFT 2.8″ display, mini thumbstick, and mini arcade push buttons and a whole bunch of components to create the most adorable arcade cabinet in the known universe.

Comes as a big kit with lots of parts including all electronic components, the laser cut case, power adapter, and a blank SD card (you’ll need to burn the CupCade image on). You provide a Raspberry Pi model B, a soldering iron, solder, wire, basic electronic hand tools, tape, etc. New, as of June 6, 2014 – We now have a ‘release candidate’ kit which is easier to build than the Beta kit, with a snazzy custom controller PCB! This kit has a lot of steps, so its best for people who have soldered before and even better, have a little Raspberry Pi/Linux hacking under their belt in case some configuration-file-editing is required. Give yourself a nice, long Saturday afternoon to put together (about 4-6 hours altogether).

The Fashion Designer

Getting Started with Adafruit FLORA Book Pack: Pickup a copy of Getting Started with Adafruit FLORA and then hit the ground running with everything that you need to become an Adafruit FLORA supreme being!

This pack is perfect for somebody interested in the wide world of wearable electronics and Adafruit’s tiny FLORA board.

This is the most beginner-friendly way to create wearable projects of your own. Using the book as your sensei and the products as your weapons, you’ll learn how to plan your wearable circuits, sew with electronics, and write programs that run on the FLORA to control the electronics. The FLORA family includes an assortment of sensors, as well as RGB LEDs that let you add lighting to your wearable projects!

Make: Wearable Electronics by Kate Hartman: Combine fashion and high tech in your own workshop! What if your clothing could change color to complement your skin tone, respond to your racing heartbeat, or connect you with a loved one from afar? Welcome to the world of shoes that can dynamically shift your height, jackets that display when the next bus is coming, and neckties that can nudge your business partner from across the room. Whether it be for fashion, function, or human connectedness, wearable electronics can be used to design interactive systems that are intimate and engaging.

Make: Wearable Electronics is intended for those with an interest in physical computing who are looking to create interfaces or systems that live on the body. Perfect for makers new to wearable tech, this book introduces you to the tools, materials, and techniques for creating interactive electronic circuits and embedding them in clothing and other things you can wear.

If you are a rainbow lover, you are about to discover the best way to add vibrant colors to your projects using our GEMMA Sensor Starter Pack. GEMMA is our tiny stitchable microcontroller that allows you to program colorful NeoPixels, RGB LEDs that are also stitchable using conductive thread. You can create colorful circuits for wearables, or use solder/wire or conductive ink for other art projects. This kit really allows you to go interactive because it includes a variety of gadgets—sensors like vibration and light, a piezo buzzer and a tactile switch. Everything you need to get started is included, right down to the alligator clips. Get ready for a wild holiday of color!

Lumi Sunfold Printing Kit: With the Lumi Sunfold Printing Kit, you can print patterns onto fabric using the power of sunlight. The kit uses Inkodye – Lumi’s own photo-sensitive dye that develops its color once exposed to sunlight or other UV lights. It’s an easy way to experiment with dying and textile printing without the need for a special ink curing lamp.

This kit is a great alternative to tie-dying and has complete instructions on how to print a pattern directly onto a t-shirt or any type of textile. This kit is great for groups of people – making it the ideal day-time party activity for the fashionable and creative. It makes at least sixteen prints but you can also dilute Inkodye with up to 10 parts water to extend its power and create fun shades. While the kit comes with instructions, there’s also a step-by-step guide on the Lumi site.

This Portrait of a Woman by Rosalba Carriera shows details of jewelry that makes this time period stunning. Nature inspired curves of metal mixed with pearls and ribbons are perfect for this woman, but what about the women of today? Nature is still inspiring adornment and the brother and sister duo at Lumen have designed this Solar Powered Owl Blinky Pendant Kit that hits all the marks. Electronics are beautiful and their pieces of art take advantage of form and function, with the magic of solar power lighting up the LED eyes of this creature. This kit is best for people with previous soldering experience, but you can also volunteer to solder it for someone you love.

We’re excited for the Holiday Season here at Adafruit, and we can’t wait to share that excitement with you! Stay tuned into the blog where you will find new, handpicked gift guides five days a week from November 7 through December 23rd, 2016 alongside holiday themed tutorials and builds!

Free Deals

Adafruit offers exciting deals and free items when you shop with us.

As of November 29th, 2016 5:00 PM ET we are currently offering:

Our ONE FREE LIMITED EDITION ENAMEL PIN for orders $99 or more is on temporary hiatus. We’re working hard to get more of our fun enamel pins back in stock soon.

ONE FREE ADAFRUIT FEATHER 32U4 BASIC PRO for orders $150 or more. Some restrictions apply and while supplies last!

FREE UPS ground (Continental USA) for orders $200 or more. Some restrictions apply.

Some restrictions apply

Adafruit Holiday Shipping Deadlines 2016

Here are your 2016 shipping deadlines for ordering from Adafruit. Please review our shipping section if you have specific questions on how and where we ship worldwide for this holiday season.

The Adafruit Shipping Department works hard to get your orders out as quickly as we can, but once they’re in the hands of our carriers they’re out of our control.

Carriers have been struggling to keep up with the sharp rise in online orders. UPS, FedEX, and USPS all experienced delivery delays over the last few years.

So all the Adafruit Shippers say: Please be sure you get your gifts early! Order as soon as you can! Once you place your order we’ll ship like the wind!

Please note: We do not offer Saturday or Sunday service for UPS or USPS.

Sunday, Dec. 25, 2016, Christmas, no UPS or USPS pickup or delivery service.

Monday, Dec. 26, 2016, no UPS or USPS pickup or delivery service.

Monday, Jan. 2, 2017, no UPS or USPS pickup or delivery service.

Sunday, Jan. 1, 2016, New Year’s Day, no UPS or USPS pickup or delivery service

Gift Certificates are always available at any time.

When in doubt contact us!

Domestic Orders

UPS ground: Place orders by Friday 11am ET – December 9, 2016 – There is no guarantee that UPS Ground packages will arrive by December 23.

UPS 3-day: Place orders by Thursday 11am ET – December 15, 2016 – Arrive by 12/23/2016.

UPS 2-day: Place orders by Friday 11am ET – December 16, 2016 – Arrive by 12/23/2016.

UPS overnight: Place orders by Monday 11am ET – December 19, 2016 – Arrive by 12/23/2016.

United States Postal Service, First Class and Priority: Place orders by Friday– December 9, 2016 – Arrive by 12/23/2016 or sooner.

International Orders

USPS First class mail international: Place orders by Friday – November 18, 2016. Can take up to 30 days or more with worldwide delays and customs. Should arrive by 12/23/2016 or sooner, but not a trackable service and cannot be guaranteed to arrive by 12/23/2016.

USPS Express mail international: Place orders by Friday – December 2, 2016. Can take up to 15 days or more with worldwide delays and customs. Should arrive by 12/23/2016 or sooner.

UPS WORLDWIDE EXPRESS, UPS WORLDWIDE EXPEDITED and UPS EXPRESS SAVER (UPS International orders): Place orders by Friday 11am ET – December 9, 2016 – There is no guarantee that international packages will arrive by December 23 2016.

Join 4,000+ makers on Adafruit’s Discord channels and be part of the community! http://adafru.it/discord

Learn “How Computers Work” with Bill Gates, Ladyada and more – From Code.org !

CircuitPython in 2018 – Python on Microcontrollers is here!

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Creating Fanciful Shapes with Long Exposures

Astro Orbito

Astro Orbitor, Disneyland – Anaheim, California

The first day at Disneyland was tiring for the kids. Jet lag has taken its toll and the kids were in bed and asleep by 9pm. This gave me a perfect opportunity to go back to Disneyland by myself to get some night photographs of the Magic Kingdom. I used my small Sony NEX-5 to capture the family and their activities during the day. For this night-time shoot, I took the big camera, my Canon 7D with tripod. I got back into Disneyland about 10pm, and even at this late hour there were tons of people. So much so that the people would negatively impact the images I wanted to make of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. I decide to save these crowded areas for later — hopefully near closing time at 12am, the crowds would thin out some and allow me to get some cleaner photographs. I headed over to Tomorrowland to see what I can capture.

The Astro Orbitor is the gateway to Tomorrowland and it was beckoning me with its fanciful structure, colors and light. I decided to take a wide-angle image of the structure on tripod. I knew the motion blur of the ride would create an interesting shape but I was blown away by the result. The color and light have produced a circular, three-dimensional glowing sculpture. The resulting design was much more interesting that I ever imagined. I had previously played with long exposures to create lights streaks from cars but this was something entirely new. Goes to show that sometimes, just trying something new could yield very interesting results. This has encouraged me to go down to the next State Fair (sometime in March in Austin) and see what other kinds of interesting shapes I can create with long exposures of carnival rides. On a side note, its amazing how short these rides actually are. I was taking several long exposures which lasted around 30 seconds each and noticed that I could only take 3 before the ride would stop. That means each ride basically runs for only a minute and a half. To think that people were waiting 20+ minutes for a 1 1/2 minute ride.

Just as a frame of reference, I’ve included a short video clip of what the Astro Orbitor looks like during the day time. Just click on the image below with the white dashed border. The rocket ship can be controlled by the rider to go up and down as the entire structure rotates. The lights in front of the space ships that move up and down created the cool swirly lights in the long exposure.

Astro Orbitor Movie Sample

Astro Orbitor Movie Sample

My Thought Process

I set the framing so the large spinning mass was evenly situated between the stationary “planet” decorations on either side. I also positioned the Orbitor so that I would minimize any people who may be in the frame. Having this structure at the bottom seems to nicely anchor the image for me. The photograph is easy to make. Just put the camera on a steady base such as a tripod and make sure the shutter is open long enough that it captures a lot of movement to get that nice motion blur. I took several images at different exposures to see which looked the best. Most looked about the same with slight variations in design. The one above is the one I liked the most. Make sure to click on the image to see a larger version.

Image Details

The photograph was taken in RAW with the Canon 7D with the Sigma 10-20mm lens. The only post processing was a bit of image sharpening.

Image 1: f13, 30 seconds, +2 exposure compensation, ISO 100 at 10mm

5 thoughts on “Creating Fanciful Shapes with Long Exposures

  1. I love the night shot Andy. It would be fun to experiment there with some neutral density filters that let you get even slower shutter speeds.

    1. David. Great idea with the neutral density filters. I actually bought some from my Sony but I have not gotten any for my Canon lenses. More stuff to play with, it will be fun. Thanks for your visit and comment.

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Switching Metric and US Units in #Visio floor plans

I recently wrote an article comparing Metric and US Units in Visio for floor plans (see Metric vs US Units in #Visio floor plans). The intention was always to create right mouse actions on a Visio floor plan border shape to provide many alternative page sizes and scales. I have now done this, with the help of Excel and LinqPad.

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Metric vs US Units in #Visio floor plans

First of all, as a Brit, I have to point out that US Units in Visio should really be called Imperial Units 🙂 I was born pre-decimalisation (note the s not a z!) and have had a mixed vocabulary ever since. I think about distances in feet, yards and miles not in millimetres, metres and kilometres. I weigh myself in stones and pounds, not kilograms.

As a trained (but lapsed) building architect, I can convert between metric and imperial lengths and areas fairly well, and have got used to changing glibly between both systems. I used to draw on Imperial size paper (wonderfully called Double Elephant), and spend many hours folding freshly printed, but dangerously smelling, dyelines. Imperial/US Units paper sizes are not all the same ratio between the side lengths like Metric paper sizes are. So, this creates a problem with Visio…

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Every so often (too often in the IT industry) I encounter things that should have been very easy to do but turned out to be far too complicated. My favorite topics include SharePoint, .Net development, and software architecture, especially distributed systems.

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Shapes, Stencils, Drawings Templates, Tutorials, Tips & Developer Info for Microsoft Visio

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Posts filtered on Category

Category: Health Policy Forum

Health care news from Africa: Thumbs up for Bush, down for pharma

A recent look at health care in Africa highlights two important pieces of information — one positive that has already saved millions of lives, the second unfortunately negative and a symptom of how

Stopping Ebola and other diseases of poverty: Reflections on U.S. efforts to control Ebola in West Africa

The U.S. government recently announced the largest global public health campaign to date in hopes that this unprecedented effort will help to control and end an unprecedented outbreak of Ebola. Since

Five questions: Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and Obamacare

The Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 ruling on the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case Monday, allowing some for-profit companies to opt out of paying for certain contraceptives for their employees. Elena Marks, president and CEO of the Episcopal Health Foundation and Baker Institute Scholar in Health Policy, offered her insight on the ruling and how it will impact implementation of the Affordable Care Act, women’s access to reproductive care and future court cases.

Parallels between the Affordable Care Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964

  In June 1963, President John F. Kennedy urged the nation to take steps that guarantee equal treatment of all Americans regardless of race. This plea, addressing injustices against blacks,

Tales from a “Young Invincible”

Things happen unexpectedly. Had I not been covered by health insurance, I would have had to figure out how to pay for it. The poor guy next to me at the surgery center crushed his finger at work, bone exposed and all — 18 years old and no insurance. Now he can’t work, has months of rehab ahead and is probably praying for some type of worker’s compensation. At that moment I realized that regardless of politics, insurance doesn’t necessarily mean access, it means peace of mind.

Chemotherapy drug shortages in the U.S. — The recurring nightmare

The shortage of cytarabine, a drug critical to the cure of one form of leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia, entered public consciousness in early 2011. With cytarabine-based therapy, the cure rate is

Texas and Medicaid

Today, Texas holds the notorious record of the highest rate of uninsured citizens. Of 26 million Texans, at least 6 million — about 28 percent of the state’s population — are uninsured. This number includes about 1.25 million uninsured children. Accepting Medicaid is estimated to add nearly $90 billion to the state’s economy, boost economic output by $270 billion, create nearly 200,000 jobs, provide additional insurance to 1.5 million people (therefore cutting the rate of uninsured people significantly), and ultimately save lives.

The case for universal vaccination against the Human Papillomavirus (HPV)

If we were told that we could prevent 20,000 cancers every year in the United States, save about 10,000 lives and prevent hardships related to treating these cancers, no effort would be spared. Universal HPV vaccinations can make this a reality, but instead, resistance to this sound medical practice continues.

Deciphering the Hippocratic Oath in the 21st century

The idea that a code of professional conduct dating to the ancient Iron Age could possibly retain any relevance in our modern era seems preposterous. Yet, the challenges of contemporary health care mean that the ideals of the Hippocratic Oath,1 first formulated in Greece almost 2,500 years ago, remain as important today as then. Human technology has changed dramatically in the last 25 centuries; human nature has not.

A math problem for accountable care organizations

BI-img-Blog-HPFConf-102813By federal rules, an organization must serve at least 5,000 beneficiaries to be a Medicare ACO. Why? One reason is that the bonuses for which cost-saving ACOs would be eligible are contingent on meeting quality benchmarks. For example, there are quality targets relating to appropriate care for patients with diabetes, hypertension, coronary artery disease, etc. However, as is true for any measurement, an ACO’s quality metrics will be, statistically speaking, relatively imprecise if they are only computed for a small number of patients. The more patients, the lower the standard error of a mean value.


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A well designed object storage platform provides developers with an efficient way to access, store, protect and distribute their digital content independently.

Object storage on cloud.ca

cloud.ca’s object navigator feature allows you to easily view the contents of your object storage service.

cloud.ca uses open source technology from OpenStack, a project that enables infrastructure as a service. The OpenStack SWIFT project is an open source cloud file storage solution.

“We use OpenStack SWIFT to store and retrieve files using an API. It is designed to be tolerant of failure and to provide high elasticity and capacity,” commented François Gaudreault, cloud.ca’s product manager.

The object navigator on cloud.ca provides added value both in its usability and performance. “With our browser, developers have the option to upload or download many objects at once and instantly retrieve their URLs. Administrators can also decide to offer specific access to each user. In addition, performance is significantly faster than what we would see with an equivalent tool from a cloud competitor,” noted Gaudreault.

“Our object navigator offers a user-friendly, efficient web interface for different buckets and the objects they contain,” explains Marc Vaillancourt, director of software development at CloudOps and cloud.ca. “The user can navigate through each bucket, upload objects, and perform various operations including copying, deleting or renaming. The visibility of each bucket can be modified and each object’s URL can be retrieved to access it through a web browser or a third-party application.”

As an example, web developers can configure their websites to load resources directly using the features available on cloud.ca’s object storage. This reduces the load on their web server and allows it to handle more requests. Web developers can view, download or perform other actions with their stored objects at any time.

Why is this important?

Efficient management of object storage is crucial. Designed for ultra-high scalability and durability, by using cloud.ca’s object storage solution at least three copies of your data will be stored in parallel on different physical servers, guaranteeing that your data will never be lost.

About cloud.ca

cloud.ca is a Canadian cloud infrastructure - a secure location for your applications, your workspaces and your data.


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Don Anthony Realty Reviews – Want to Sell a Home in Clover SC? Here’s what one of our clients had to say about our Discount Realtor Program

tupa713nixo%40post.wordpress.comHere’s a quick comment from one of our clients who hired us to sell a home in Clover SC. She saved thousands with our discount realtor program where we used a combination of a flat fee mls listing and a low real estate commission when the home sold, along with aggressive marketing to find the right buyer for her home…

"Thanks so much to all of you for all your hard work. You were all such a pleasure to deal with, and very helpful too!" – Cyndi K

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Journalism Notes: Elephants, donkeys and media scapegoats

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ESN is delighted to welcome Jeff Neely as our new regular journalism columnist. Jeff, a journalism professor at The University of Tampa, will explore issues in his field about twice a month at the ESN blog under the title Journalism Notes. Read his Scholar’s Call piece “Every Christian is a Journalist” here. Note: If you’d like to write regularly on a particular discipline for ESN, email us here

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come in to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God. – John 19-21 (NIV)

In case you missed it, it’s election season. Candidates are stumping, campaign managers are spinning, and the talking heads can’t stop talking.

It’s also a convenient time for the general public to complain about how biased and sensationalized the news media is (as if “media” were a monolithic singular noun).

Prospective voters across the political spectrum are wont to accuse news outlets of either having a “love fest” with a media darling or waging a smear campaign against their favorite candidate.

Too often, I think, this is a result of our own intellectual laziness. It’s convenient to roll out our partisan rhetoric and blame the media when we’re confronted with news that challenges our beliefs. It’s more difficult to deal dispassionately with this information, assessing it objectively for thoroughness and accuracy.

Are journalists and news executives guilty of boiling down nuanced stories into overly simplified narratives? Yes, some of them. Maybe many of them, and maybe more frequently than not.

But in my experience, there are also a lot of good journalists out there clocking in everyday to do their jobs and hold the powerful accountable.

Every year, the Society of Professional Journalists holds “Sunshine Week,” a time when its chapters around the country put a special focus on the importance of the public’s right to know and the freedom of information.

“It’s our duty as journalists,” the SPJ website reads, “and a key mission for SPJ, to shine light into the dark recesses of government secrecy.”

When I speak to professional journalists and colleagues who teach in the field, this isn’t just lip service. Most of them are genuinely passionate about this responsibility.

And when this ethos is put into practice, when journalists pursue truth above ratings or their corporate bottom line, and they take their post as our social watchdogs, I think Jesus smiles.

How many times in scripture do we see God telling us to “defend the weak” and “uphold the cause of the poor” (Psalm 82:3)? He is the God who loves justice and hates robbery and wrongdoing (Isaiah 61:8).

“Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all the unfortunate,” the Proverbs tell us. “Open your mouth, judge righteously, and defend the rights of the afflicted and needy” (31:8-9).

We want our leaders to be vetted. We want corruption exposed. We want confidence that they are looking out for all constituents, not just those who pull the levers of power.

And I for one want someone to look into politicians’ record of public service or their claims of personal accomplishments. I want to walk into that voting booth with my eyes wide open, not my ears well tickled.

This may all sound a little idealistic, I know. Every one of us could point to examples where news professionals abandoned their journalistic integrity, either in isolated cases or as routine practice, for myriad base reasons.

So what are we saying, that journalism claims to have a virtuous calling but is in reality marred by the abuses and shortcomings of its human practitioners? Hmm . . . that sounds familiar.

Absolutely, we must watch the watchdogs. Certainly, we should expose journalists’ dereliction of duty. But we must also be careful not to paint with the same broad brush all who work in or aspire to what I sincerely believe is a noble profession. (Clearly, my own personal biases are on full display here.)

Jesus came into the world as light, “so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness” (John 12:46). This is a spiritual truth, but I believe it applies in every aspect of our life.

Scientists are called to seek an understanding of the universe’s natural order. Lawyers, according the American Bar Association, are called to defend liberty and pursue justice.

Journalists are called to provide people with the information they need to make their own decisions—on whom to vote for, where to spend their money, which school to attend, or where to go for the best pork barbecue.

We do a disservice to ourselves when we casually cast off “the media” as disreputable. As news consumers we should be discerning, not dismissive.

Let’s get past the talking points. Let’s shine the light of truth and see things plainly as they are.

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Jeff Neely

Jeff Neely is an assistant professor of journalism at The University of Tampa, where he teaches courses in newswriting, feature writing, multimedia journalism and literary journalism. His research has examined the role narrative and literary journalism can play in broadening our understanding of various issues and experiences life brings our way, from identity formation to environmental ethics. He has also studied how youth journalism programs, where young people tell their own stories and those of their peers, can help strengthen local communities. He is currently working with local non-profit outreach organizations to build a youth journalism program called Tampa Youth Voice. Prior to entering academe, Jeff worked as a writer and editor for various publications in and around the Tampa Bay area, as well as a case manager and resource development specialist for the Florida foster care system.

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Front Range Community College Blog

‘The Birth of the United States’

When I was an editorial page editor, I looked to better writers than I for material to run on national holidays. For Independence Day, I turned to Jim Bishop, an author and syndicated columnist with whom I shared a connection.

I was a journalism student and then a graduate and alumnus of St. Bonaventure University. He was the recipient of an honorary degree from Bonas, the founder of a journalism award there that honored his mentor, Mark Hellinger, and the donor of many of his notes and manuscripts to Friedsam Memorial Library. And, yes, I saw the inside of the library a couple of times.

So, in honor of the day and in homage to a great writer, I give you an excerpt from “The Birth of the United States,” by Jim Bishop:

“At 6 a.m. Thomas Jefferson noted in his diary that the temperature stood at 68 degrees Fahrenheit. It would rise to 72 degrees at 9 a.m. and, at the same hour, tempers within the State House would begin to boil. For the first time, Clerk Thomson would have copies engrossed by Printer Dunlap. He would pass them out to each provincial delegation, and the gentlemen would hurry to hunt passages which were disagreeable. The big room would be locked again, as Hancock seldom tired of explaining, to keep the horseflies out and the disagreements within.

“Before the president rapped for order, the delegations were busy trying to reconstruct words and phrases that had vanished or been altered so that they could proceed with the work at hand. For once, no one was late. Jefferson, dejected and silent, sat over his copy drawing lines through passages, seldom looking up to listen to a speaker. John Adams bustled happily from table to table, trying to hold acrimony to a minimum, acrimony he hoped would vanish in the afternoon. No one took a poll to find out which members were present on this historic day, or even to list the absentees. There were about fifty men in the room – give or take a few – including John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, who was present to add his vote to Benjamin Franklin’s for independence and liberty. The members sensed that the passage of the Lee resolutions had made the thirteen Colonies an independent nation or conglomerate of nations. They looked upon the Declaration of Independence as their explanation to the world why they chose liberty. …

“Thus, when John Hancock asked if the Congress wanted to consider letters and entreaties first, the members shouted no. They had worked on the Declaration of Independence yesterday, and they wanted to finish it this morning. There was a letter from George Washington, but it could wait. Hancock again resolved the body into the Committee of the Whole and stepped down to sit with Massachusetts Bay as Benjamin Harrison left the Virginia delegation to preside. Clerk Thomson stood to read the part of the Declaration which had been approved, and addressed himself to the remainder of the document. …

“Thomas Jefferson was a hot, busy redhead most of the day. When Congress shouted, ‘We will expunge,’ he wrote ‘alter.’ He was busy underlining, writing alterations in the margins, and bracketing words and phrases as the day dragged itself on leaden feet to a conclusion. His copy of the Declaration was so ink-marked and tracked that in sections it became illegible. …

“Hancock knew that adjournment would be late today. Congress was approaching the supper hour when the final changes were made. The Declaration of Independence was ready to be voted back from the Committee of the Whole to the Congress for a vote. A motion was made, seconded, and carried as Harrison left the presiding officer’s chair and gave it to John Hancock. The president was not going to make a speech; he said that he was prepared to accept the will of the Congress and Clerk Thomson would call the roll from north to south. This was the moment for the enormous silence; the time when men brave and timid, excited and fearful, prepared themselves to take a long and irrevocable step in the name of the people of thirteen Colonies.

“’New Hampshire!’ bawled Thomson. Josiah Bartlett, physician and lawyer, a plain man in brown breeches and waistcoat, stood to say, ‘New Hampshire votes aye for the resolution.’

“‘Massachusetts!’ John Adams, swinging circuitously like a pealing chime, said, ‘Massachusetts votes aye for the Declaration.’

“And so it went. Rhode Island voted ‘Aye.’ So did Connecticut. New York, waiting for orders to vote on the measure, answered: ‘New York, at this time, abstains from voting.’ New Jersey, which had recently unhorsed its Royalist governor, Benjamin Franklin’s estranged son, voted ‘Aye.’ So did Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland.

“When  Delaware voted ‘Aye!’ with Caesar Rodney bouncing and beaming, the Declaration of Independence became a fact. It was the seventh vote of thirteen. There was no pause; no cheer. The poll continued. Virginia voted ‘Aye.’ So did North Carolina and South Carolina. The last ‘Aye!’ came from Button Gwinnnett, representing the youngest colony, Georgia. New York asked for the right to vote when fresh instructions arrived. The chair granted the request.

“The deed was at last done. …”

It’s a good read, “The Birth of the United States” (William Morrow and Company Inc., 1976, ISBN: 0-688-03006-8). So, of course, is the Declaration itself.

What does the Declaration of Independence mean to you? Please use the comments section below.

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John Feeley is director of public relations at Front Range Community College.


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Front Range Community College Blog

National Organization Recognizes Emerging Deaf Leader

Rudolfo Tapia

Rudolfo Tapia Jr. is an emerging leader at Front Range, and he has a scholarship to prove it.

A Pharmacy Technician student, Rudolfo received an Emerging Leaders Scholarship for $1,000 from the National Society of Leadership and Success for his established leadership ability and accomplishments.

Planning Events for the Deaf Community.

Rudolfo, who is deaf, has demonstrated leadership by using social media to plan social and recreational events for the deaf community.

Mile High ASL on Facebook, Rudolfo explained through Dori LaJeunesse, coordinator of Deaf Student Services at Front Range, plans various events, such as bowling, restaurant outings, and hiking in the mountains.

“It’s an opportunity to meet each other,” Rudolfo signs, “especially for deaf people new to Colorado. I like to socialize with the deaf community and try to help deaf people become more integrated into society.”

The group has more than 500 members, not all deaf and hard of hearing. Signing learners and interpreters also are welcome to join.

Film Study at Rochester Institute of Technology.

After graduating from Legacy High School, Rudolfo, now 27, set off for Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in New York to study film. RIT has more than 1,300 deaf and hard of hearing students among its 15,000 undergraduates and is home to the National Technical Institute for the Deaf.

He assessed his career options and decided his job opportunities would be few.

Computer networking was next. It wasn’t a good match for him either.

Pharmacy Technician is a Good Fit.

Then he found Pharmacy Technician.

“I enjoy it a lot,” he signs. “It’s very interesting. It’s different from my other majors. There are job opportunities for me.”

He recently started the internship portion of the program at a company that has an employee who is hard of hearing.

“I’m interested in this work,” he signs. “There are a lot of different medicines that can solve health problems. I’m learning a lot. It’s hands-on work – typing information, counting pills. And I can work with patients who are deaf. As a student in this program, I’ve seen that I can be successful.”

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John Feeley is director of public relations at Front Range Community College.


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Author: Guest Bloggers

Emory Adventure: Finding Global Health Solutions for Central America

By guest blogger Eleanor Burgess Few settings are more suited for developing Global Health solutions than Emory University, and the Northwestern team made the most of our experience there at the 2015 International Global Health Case Competition. The cherry trees were in full bloom, and petals fell softly through the air as all 24 teams

Equipping Dominican HIV providers with the tools for best patient care

Guest post by Dr. Ramona Bhatia, Clinical Research Associate, Center for Global Health, and Instructor of Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine Physicians such as myself practicing in high-income countries are privileged to utilize the latest medical technologies for patient care. In the majority of healthcare settings globally, however, even the most basic medical supplies, such

Youth have the power to shape the next era of global health and development

by Amee Amin – Anthropology, Global Health Studies, WCAS 2014 A few weeks back I attended MIT’s Grassroots Initiatives for Global Health Conference, and I was very grateful to share some lessons on global health advocacy as a speaker during their break-out sessions. The conference brought together some amazing thought leaders in this field right

What does it look like to be a socially conscious business person?

This article was originally posted on the Northwestern Public Health Review (NPHR) Blog. by Annie Conderacci, Kellogg MBA student Do business interests have to conflict with those of the public good? In light of recent corporate scandal, greed, and corruption, I frequently ask myself this question. As a Social Enterprise major at Kellogg, I believe it is


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Extending the deadline for add-on signing

After listening to your feedback, bug 1203584 was filed last week to turn off signing requirements in Firefox 41 and 42.  This extends the signing deadline to Firefox 43, which will be released around December 15, 2015.

While the new unlisted queues have maintained a quick turnaround time (thanks to the tireless efforts of Andreas Wagner, aka TheOne), many developers are telling us they simply don’t have enough time to implement the requested changes before the September 22 deadline when 42 hits the beta channel.  In addition to giving you some extra breathing room, we’re also going to use this time on our side to make some improvements to the submission experience to make it clearer what level of review is needed, which you can follow in bug 1186369.

Thanks for your patience as we roll out this new process.  Special thanks to those of you who have already gotten your extensions signed…you’re awesome.

17 responses

  1. Kohei Yoshino wrote on :

    Posted the Japanese translation: https://dev.mozilla.jp/2015/09/extending-the-deadline-for-add-on-signing/

    1. Jorge Villalobos wrote on :

  2. Brian T. Nakamoto wrote on :

    Thanks for listening to your developers! 🙂

  3. Rob Stradling wrote on :

    What’s the plan for the old extension signing mechanism [1] that uses code signing certificates from commercial CAs.
    Is this being phased out entirely (and if so, which Firefox and Thunderbird versions are you targeting for the phase out)?
    Or will the old mechanism continue to be supported?

    [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Signing_a_XPI

    1. Jorge Villalobos wrote on :

      The new signing system removes the existing signature, since there can only be one. For the moment this should only affect Firefox. There are no current plans to require signatures on Thunderbird.

      1. Rob Stradling wrote on :

        Jorge, thanks for clarifying that.

    2. Michael wrote on :

      thank you for all the information.

      Where are acutally using code signing certificats but we also have Mozilla-signed plugins since last week (with great support from Andreas!).

      Would you reccomend to use (also for FF41) the Mozilla-signed plugins – or should we use the traditional way (code signing certs from Commercial CAs) and switch later this year?

      Best regards,

      1. Kathleen wrote on :

        In the mozilla.dev.security.policy forum we are discussing a proposal to remove the code signing trust bit.

        Summary of discussion so far:

        So I recommend moving away from using “the traditional way (code signing certs from Commercial CAs)” within the next 6 months.

      2. jue wrote on :

  4. Furture wrote on :

    You will be treating privacy for safety if the following two add-ons are not going to get signed.

  5. suskind wrote on :

    Dunno know how to report this, but statistics in addons.mozilla.org are stopped since sept 7

    1. Jorge Villalobos wrote on :

      Yeah, the bug has been reported and is currently being investigated.

  6. Fred McDonald wrote on :

    The signed requirement is not a bad idea. I have been hit twice by unknown, and hidden add-ons
    Discovered Hidden Add-on On Firefox. How To Check Yours

    But what about legitimate add-ons that still work, but were abandon by their writers? Or whatever?

    Let Firefox lock out anything not signed, but leave the user an option to allow such add-ons
    on a one by one setting.

    1. ztrk6jlm wrote on :

      Already reviewed addons on AMO are automatically signed without the developers’ interaction according to Mozilla. Non-AMO addons are not, however.

  7. Anton wrote on :

    Hi Lisa,

    Thanks for an update and the (much needed!) delay.

    Do you know if there is a timeline for supporting WebExtensions addons on AMO site?

    I know WebExtensions API itself isn’t completely finished yet, but I’ve been playing with it for several days, and what is available is enough to start development.

  8. John wrote on :

    Wow, Mozilla gives developers a new “breathing room” … like the big one we already have when submitting an extension for reviewing in AMO…
    Surely Mozilla takes care of our oxygen delivery…

    No comment (in french : foutage de g…)

  9. Alex wrote on :

    What about the people that want to use private add-ons on their local machines, but do not want to run the alpha-quality developer edition or the en-US-only unbranded build?

    Or would they have to wait 10 weeks each time for big brother to bless their add-ons?


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Armstrong Stung by Honey Stinger!

Yesterday, in an announcement that stung the biking world, seven-time tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, stated that he has become part-owner of the honey-based natural energy gel, bar, and organic chew maker Honey Stinger.

Lance, in his new role (which at this time remains undisclosed), will become chief beekeeper, replacing the once proud nine-time Colorado beekeeping champion.  Reportedly, the only words exchanged between the two “Sting or bee stung”.

Undisclosed sources indicated that as chief beekeeper, Lance will test the performance energy expenditure of the bees producing the honey, as well as measure their maximum flying distances.  Using only the handpicked bees that are able to perform at the highest levels of energy and those that travel the greatest distance should, theoretically, produce the highest performing honey for those endurance athletes who ingest Honey Stinger products.

We here at MPGear wish Lance and Honey Stinger the best of luck in their new partnership.  Honey Stinger products will certainly bee a buzz!

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Mastering Business Strategy at the Chess Board

Mastering Business Strategy at the Chess Board
The game of chess has a long and storied history. Early versions were played from about the 6th century, while the modern game has been played since the mid 15th century. Even as technology advances, chess remains one of the most challenging and educational games around. It’s been used to teach military strategy and to improve critical thinking skills.

While most people are familiar with the intense challenge chess provides the brain, you might not realize how much it can teach you about marketing and running a business. Two key lessons involve pragmatism and playing the “long game.”

To be successful at chess, you must be pragmatic. You need to be able to think on your feet. While most successful chess players have concrete strategies they enjoy using, no player can completely predict the moves their opponent will make. That means they must be able to make decisions on the spot.

A good chess player also has the skills needed to read their opponent. Through experience, they can often anticipate an opponent’s next move and will devise strategies based on what those moves might be. This gives them the insight they need to succeed with the next skill: playing the long game.

Playing the long game

A chess player knows that one must be willing to sacrifice a pawn or two for the long-term goal of winning the match. A good player will never get so caught up in an individual “battle” that they lose sight of their end goals. Chess players are continuously looking to the finish and developing their strategies based on their desired outcome.

How these lessons relate to marketing

To be successful in marketing and business, you must realize you’re not going to be able to completely control every factor in your industry — or even in your company. You can’t control the response of your audience, what your competition does, developments in the industry, and other factors. Instead, you must be able to adapt your business and marketing strategy to whatever’s going on around you.

That said, a successful marketer will be able to “read” their intended audience and anticipate the type of marketing that is most likely to solicit a response. They’ll also be able to change their strategies based on customer actions and industry trends.

Playing the “long game”

When you’re successfully managing a business, you must always have your end game in mind. You can’t allow small upsets to disrupt your goals and strategies. You must have the presence of mind to know what you’d like to accomplish and what you need to do to get there. That might mean making a few sacrifices here and there to reach the end point. You don’t want to get so caught up in the small battles that you lose sight of where you want your company to be in the long term.

Chess has been used for centuries to teach strategy and improve critical thinking skills. As you sit down to play your next game of chess, think about how the strategies you learn on the chessboard can be applied to making your business a success.

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Corporate blog of SCHEMA GmbH

Maximilian Herrmann

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Work more effectively with individualised interfaces

Are you working in a team on an ST4 project? Or are you working on a project alone, but constantly performing different tasks? Sometimes you’re just working on the text, sometimes the graphics and the next week it’s all about importing and exporting for translation management.

Alongside the workflow module, which is already a huge help for this sort of work, there’s a great little function that can make your daily tasks that bit more effective. After all, ST4 does not just allow in-depth individualisation – you can also adjust the interface so it best fits your processes. The keyword here is workplace. As it’s the start of the year, we want to use this article to show you how to set up a workplace, explain what it can do and provide a few best-practice tips. Continue reading

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Intelligent information with machine learning and the SCHEMA Content Delivery Server

Intelligent information is currently a huge talking point at many companies that wish to efficiently communicate content relevant to the situation to their customers or employees, e.g. using a content delivery portal such as the SCHEMA Content Delivery Server. However, the enrichment of content with metadata often involves a high degree of manual work. This article will present ways in which to achieve seamless automation and integration of this process with the aid of machine learning and WebHooks. Continue reading

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Automated support for quality assurance using Schematron

Quality assurance of technical documentation is often ensured by means of the four-eyes principle. However, time and time again, small errors or imprecisions still find their way into texts, even after careful checking. It would be useful to conduct an automated check according to formal rules, such as upper/lower case in headings. This is what the validation language Schematron (an ISO/IEC standard) does. It provides the opportunity to analyse and check text content available in XML, both automatically and with sensitivity to context. Continue reading

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Workflow, intelligent information and robots – the 2017 tekom annual conference was a resounding success

From 24th to 26th October 2017, the ICS in Stuttgart again threw open its doors to the TD sector, and we were thrilled to attend once more.

With 4,300 participants and more than 250 presentations, workshops, tutorials and tool presentations, the tekom annual conference is clearly still the main event in the industry. With Intelligent Information and the newly developed standard iiRDS for interactive content delivery at the forefront of the conference, the focus this year was firmly on the future of information preparation, distribution and exchange: exciting topics that are becoming increasingly unavoidable in the field of technical writing. Continue reading

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Automating authoring processes with the Workflow Designer

You might have already noticed that in our blog posts about the tcworld conference, we always save the reveal of our biggest new features until last. Last year we introduced you to the project configurator, a component for automatically compiling publications. This year, automation in ST4 is once again the focus – specifically the automation of your authoring workflows. Continue reading

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A new world of documentation with iiRDS

Each passing day brings us closer to the 2017 tekom conference in Stuttgart. At SCHEMA we are preparing particularly thoroughly for one topic: iiRDS – Intelligent Information Request and Delivery Standard. This standard is set to become a milestone in the world of documentation, since it enables technical information to be exchanged easily, no matter who the manufacturer or what kind of device you have.  Continue reading

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Manual content and spare parts data on an integrated platform – the SCHEMA CDS makes it possible

Are manuals and spare parts catalogues an indispensable part of everyday life in your Technical Information department? And do your service engineers or customers groan during site visits if they have to search in several different platforms for the information they need?

If so, then you might want to take a look at our Blue Box on the SCHEMA stand at the upcoming tekom conference in Stuttgart. With Catalog Content Integration, we may well have just the solution you’ve been looking for. Continue reading


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Websockets with ASP.net 4.5 and Visual Studio 2012

Web applications are becoming increasingly sophisticated and it is common to need to communicate with various services.

There are a number of options to accomplish this task with probably the most popular being to continually poll a server with XHR requests. Other alternatives exist that delay disconnections. These can be tricky to implement and don’t scale well (sometimes worse than polling as they keep a connection open) so aren’t used as much.

HTTP isn’t really an ideal protocol for performing frequent requests as:

  • It’s not optimized for speed
  • It utilizes a lot of bandwidth for every request with various headers etc sent with every request
  • To keep an application up to date many requests must be sent
  • Provides limited cross domain support (relying on workarounds such as JSONP http://remysharp.com/2007/10/08/what-is-jsonp/)
  • Firewalls & proxys sometimes buffer streaming/long polling solutions increasing latency
  • Long polling & streaming solutions are not very scalable

WebSockets are a new technology that attempts to resolve some of these limitations by:

  • Sending the minimum amount of data necessary
  • Making more efficient usage of bandwidth
  • Providing cross domain support
  • Still operating over HTTP so it can transverse firewalls and proxies
  • Works with some load balancers (TCP l4)
  • Provides support for binary data (note some JavaScript implementations don’t currently support this)

When would web sockets be a suitable protocol for your application?

You might want to consider using web sockets in the following scenarios:

  • Games
  • Real time data
  • Chat applications
  • News tickers

There is a nice set of demos at: http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/websockets/basics/ and an interesting article that compares a Web Sockets and polling solution in terms of latency & throughput at http://websocket.org/quantum.html.

Websockets pitfalls

Websockets is a relatively new protocol that has already undergone a number of versions as various issues are addressed. This is important as support across browsers varies.

At the time of writing Websockets (in some form) can be used by the following browsers (check caniuse.com for the most up to date info):

  • IE10
  • Chrome 13+
  • Firefox 7
  • Safari 5+
  • Opera 11+

Earlier implementations of websockets had some security issues so your connections may work but are not secure (Firefox disabled support in Firefox 4 & 5 for this reason).

The other issue that you may encounter is that some older proxy servers don’t support the http upgrade system that websockets uses to connect so some clients may be unable to connect.

.net 4.5 Web Socket Support

.net 4.5 introduces a number of APIs for working with web sockets. If you find you need more control than the ASP.net API’s offers then look into WCF as that has also been updated.

Before we begin there are a couple of requirements for using ASP.net web sockets API:

  • Application must be hosted on IIS 8 (available only with some version of Windows 8 – please note currently IIS Express currently does not work)
  • Web Sockets protocol feature installed (IIS option)
  • .net 4.5
  • A compatible browser on the client (IE10 or Chrome will 18 work fine at time of writing)
  • It would help if your Chinese birth animal was the horse

Currently Microsoft have no plans to release Websockets support for earlier versions of IIS so if you plan to run it on Windows Server 2008 then you are going to have to look at other options such as http://superwebsocket.codeplex.com/.

You could also look at the SignalR library from Microsoft which is designed for developing async applications and provides WebSockets (and fallback) support: https://github.com/SignalR/SignalR/wiki/WebSockets.

Hello Web Sockets Example!

Ok I am going to assume that you are already working with some version of Windows 8 that has IIS & ASP.net 4.5 installed. The other thing we are going to need to do is make sure IIS has the Web Sockets Protocol feature installed (this is in the add/remove programs bit):

First create a new empty ASP.net project called WebSockets

Add the Nuget package Microsoft.Websockets

Pull down the latest jQuery library and put it in a scripts directory (I am using 1.7.2) – note jQuery isn’t necessary it just saves a bit of tedious event and manipulation code.

Now add a file called index.htm and enter the following code:

<!doctype html>


text:
Siena tries to avoid another Niagara fall

Whether Siena is good or bad, whether Niagara is up or down, the Saints always have trouble winning when they go into the Gallagher Center in Lewiston.

Siena (4-13 overall, 2-4 MAAC) has lost four in a row at Niagara heading into tonight’s rematch at 7 p.m.

“It’s a tough place to play,’’ Siena coach Mitch Buonaguro said. “It’s got the old gym feel. It’s got people right on top of you. They get up for Siena. It’s a big rivalry game for them. It’s just a tough environment.”

This year, Niagara fans have a team they can get excited about, one that could challenge for the program’s first MAAC title since 2007.

Picked to finish fifth in the preseason coaches’ poll, the Purple Eagles (9-8, 5-1) are tied with Iona for first place, off to their best MAAC start in five seasons.

Niagara is 6-1 at home this season.

They’re doing it with a team built around the sophomore core of guards Juan’ya Green, Antoine Mason and Ameen Tanksley, who all played major roles last season and are benefitting from the experience.

Niagara coach Joe Mihalich said he’s using the blueprint Siena laid out with Ronald Moore, Edwin Ubiles and Alex Franklin, who all played major roles as freshmen in 2006-07 and went on to win MAAC titles the next three seasons.

“I hope that Green, Mason and Tanksley end up being half as good as those three (Siena) guys,’’ Mihalich said. “It’s somewhat similar. Those three guys came in together and they started as freshmen and now they’re sophomores. Hopefully, they can have some of the success Siena had.”

Green, the MAAC Rookie of the Year last season, is second on the team in scoring at 16.4 points per game and is third in the MAAC at 4.5 assists per game.

“The biggest thing with him is for him to be aggressive and he doesn’t always do that,’’ Mihalich said. “And so it’s always one of the last things I say to him before every game is to make sure you’re aggressive. Be aggressive. Be the hammer, not the nail. Sometimes I think he doesn’t realize how good he is.”

Mason, son of former New York Knick Anthony Mason, is third in the MAAC in scoring with 18.4 points per game with a 24-game double-figure scoring streak that dates to last season.

“He’s been, night in and night out, the most impressive guy from last year to this year,’’ Mihalich said. “He’s become extremely efficient. The beautiful thing is he’s not lost his aggressiveness. He’s still an aggressive guy but he’s done a really good job of becoming a not just a scorer but a good basketball player.”

Tanksley isn’t as much of a scorer at 10.5 ppg, but poured in 24 in a 58-54 win over Siena in Lewiston last season. He also leads the Purple Eagles in rebounding at six per game.

For a youthful team, Niagara takes good care of the basketball. The Purple Eagles committed only five turnovers in a victory at Fairfield last Sunday, a statistic Mihalich was extremely proud of.

The Purple Eagles lead the MAAC in turnover margin at plus-4.29 per game and also top the league with 8.2 steals per contest.

O.D. Anosike, Siena’s only senior, was asked why Niagara has succeeded this season with young players while the Saints have struggled.

“Their youth is youth that has experience,’’ Anosike answered. “That’s the difference. All of those guys played last year. Our young guys, we had five guys sit out last year, so it’s a different type of youth that they have. That’s the main difference.”

Anosike remained optimistic the Saints can break their losing streak at Niagara tonight if they can control the tempo against the high-scoring Purple Eagles (74.1 ppg). Then Siena faces another tough game at Canisius on Saturday.

“Niagara’s obviously on top of the league,’’ Anosike said. “They’re always very good on their home floor. But they’re both winnable games. We’re going to go up there and try to get two wins that could really turn our season around.”

Mark Singelais

Comments are closed.


text:
Now that’s
 highway robbery

Our opinion: The governor’s plan to supposedly crack down on speeding tickets looks an awful lot like a money grab from local governments. And, utlimately, a tax hike.

It’s one thing for Gov. Andrew Cuomo to say the state can’t afford to give municipal governments more aid. It’s quite another to take money away from them to balance his budget, all the while boasting that he’s not raising taxes.

That shell game is clearly what’s going on in the governor’s proposal to tighten rules on plea bargaining of speeding tickets. The governor says this is about public safety. Maybe so. But it’s also a money grab — as much as $58 million — that will doubtless force at least some municipalities to raise taxes.

It’s a classic case of the state foisting its budget problems on local governments, and taxpayers getting stuck with the bill, one way or another.

Mr. Cuomo says he’s looking to rein in a common practice in local traffic courts of allowing motorists with speeding tickets to plea bargain them down to a nonmoving violation, like illegal parking. That typically comes with a fairly hefty fine for a violation — in the neighborhood of $100 to $150 — but drivers avoid a mark on their records and a possible hike in their car insurance.

Oh, and one other thing: Local governments get to keep the fines for nonmoving violations and not share them with the state, as they would have to do with a moving violation. Mr. Cuomo says this is costing the state $58 million a year, and making the roads less safe.

The governor offers a multipronged approach. He wants to tighten the rules to curtail judges’ latitude to reduce speeding tickets to nonmoving violations. He also wants to add an $80 state surcharge onto the violations commonly used when speeding tickets are pleaded down.

This comes in the same budget in which Mr. Cuomo is trimming more than half a billion dollars from the deficit he would otherwise face by reducing the state aid increase local governments were counting on from 3.1 percent to 2.3 percent.
 As disappointing as that might be to mayors and town supervisors, Mr. Cuomo can make a reasonable argument that a 2.3 percent aid increase is still pretty fair, considering that inflation was running about 1.7 percent last year. But to also say, “Hey, I need some money, so I’m going to take some of yours,” is a different story.

Mr. Cuomo might argue that he’s just getting back the state’s fair share from local courts and governments that have been finding a way to keep it for themselves for years. But this isn’t the way to do it. Anyone who has ever seen these local courts on speeding ticket night knows what a mill they are, and would realize that Mr. Cuomo’s idea could bog down the courts, prosecutors and police with trials as motorists fight charges that could threaten their licenses and raise their insurance rates. All that extra court action would be expensive for local governments.

And in soaking up money local governments have long used, the governor who started out his budget presentation proudly declaring that he wasn’t raising taxes this year will be responsible for the hike in local property taxes that at least some communities will levy because of this.

The governor did have one good proposal in this that would promote public safety without so much fiscal turmoil: make plea information part of a driver’s record, so that drivers can’t keep speeding, pleading, and speeding again. There’s nothing wrong with a second chance, but chronic speeders shouldn’t be able to use this system to avoid serious consequences.

9 Responses

  1. Ms Softball says:

    Nothing wrong here. Why doesn’t the local government just impose it’s own $100 surcharge ?
    What’s wrong with less Jack-wagons racing up to your butt & flashing their lights for you to pull over ?
    Unless of course it’s one of our off duty police officers – who wont get a ticket anyway.

  2. clifjay37 says:

    Enforce the law, do not plead down a speeding violation to a lesser charge for anyone and jack up the cost of the fine even more. This is one of the prime reasons our laws are so frequently broken, no teeth. I realize we are impacting the lawyers bottom lines but what are we talking about here a lawyer welfare plan or enforcing the law and public safety perhaps saving some lives along the way. The tougher we are in enforcing our laws the better. Look at all the repeat DWI offenders who constantly get off without jail time until they kill a family in their car. If you don’t want to pay fines for violations don’t violate. Obey the law.

  3. F. Russ Trated says:

    Auto insurance companies will be supporting this big time and in the end pumping campaign funds to the governor. They stand to rake in lots of revenue from this kind of deal. The governor says its all about public safety, anyone with a clue knows better.

    People who plead down pay a hefty fine and most learn their lesson wether or not the fine goes to the state or locality. It’s another money grab, let’s call it what it is.

  4. Ed says:

    Mr. Cuomo consider it’s a home rule state? What about checks and balances? Where can he get off trying to tell a judge how to do things.
    What’s with NYS sense of entitlement? Sometimes, the money is not yours so back the hell off and create revenue in another fashion.

  5. PlainGuy says:

    Whoa, stop the presses, TU finds the anointed king is trying to get as much money as he can for the state. Quite the V-8 moment for the TU, too bad they did not notice when a significant portion of the population did and voted against the boy king.

  6. Jim Link says:

    This has nothing to do with public safety and everything to do with getting more money from taxpayers. The speed limits are TOO LOW! If you’re going to penalize us even more, then at least raise the limits so they make sense.. After all, we aren’t driving horse and buggy anymore! We have gas & electric powered cars now and they can indeed go faster than 55MPH (safely). Three lane highways (such as 787) with 55MPH PSL’s are just setting people up for tickets.. I’ve paid thousands of dollars worth of speeding fines, yet I’ve never been in a car accident. What exactly are these fines for if I can drive safely & speed?

    I’m sorry, but I’ve got places to go and things to do and I’m not willing to go unnecessarily slow when I’m capable of going at least 10-20MPH’s faster. The third lane is called “The passing lane” for a reason! Stop hogging it and move over if there’s someone close behind you. Slow drivers cause more accidents and road rage than people who can go normal speeds (10-20MPH above the PSL).

    Why must highway robbers exist all throughout history? Can’t we just get a break and enjoy the open road!? I feel most of my distraction comes from having to look out for cops moreso than anything else.

  7. Warren lucas says:

    For State roads and highways the money goes to the State and that is where the people speed. Towns are not allowed to create laws that that would charge more money for speeding tickets on these roads. The problem is that the State gives a Town only $15 for every speeding ticket it collects. That was increased from $5 many years ago and needs to be increased as it costs a Town about $50 to hold court and pay for the bills to collect the ticket fines.

    I am the Supervisor in Town of North Salem and looked at this in detail for my Town and other Towns in my area. In 2010, the North SalemTown Court lost $110,000 collecting speeding tickets fines. Where does the money go? First, I have two full time Court Clerks who spend 90% of their day dealing with the 2,000 speeding tickets the State Police gave people in my Town on I-684 in 2010. Second, the State Police used to adjudicate their own tickets but they stopped doing that when the State pulled back on their overtime to save money so it is now up to each Town to hire an Attorney to do that for the State. The lawyer to handle their tickets cost me another $16,000 in 2010. Towns have to hire translators to further help with the people who can’t speak English. The law that allows us to get reimbursed for the translator was passed in the late 1800’s and the money the state gives us for that has not been increased since. That State law allows us to recover $3 for the translator!

    The Governor needs to look at the money and come up with something that works for everyone rather than just dumping these items on local towns as mandates. I have looked at a number of Town’s in my area and they are all losing money collecting speeding tickets. Maybe the State should do it themselves. Running a court, the Judges, the clerks, the lawyers to represent the State Police, the office space and all the other things that go into managing it including the pension costs makes the $15 PER TICKET REIMBURSEMENT and the $3 translator reimbursement a joke. Let’s figure out a better way to collect money for speeding tickets that doesn’t dump the entire cost on the local municipality.

  8. jack says:

    This looks like trickle up to me.This is a common practice used by one level of government to make themselves look good at the expence of onother one.Cuomo seems to be a master at passing the buck by using all kinds of shell games to address a problem. I thought the state was supposed to pick up more of the cost of Medicaid from the counties. What ever happened to that idea. It would be real relief to the counties.

  9. clifjay37 says:

    Let’s stop all the BS, this Governor is doing a good job even if you don’t agree with him. I would much rather see the extra money come from law breakers than home owners and property taxes, we really have to find a way to reduce property taxes and this is a step in another direction. Look, if you don’t want to pay exorbitant fines obey the law. Stop speeding and DWI and texting and cell phone calls and drive the damn car, full time job plus.