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51640 TTh 9:30-11 AM

Principles of Chemistry II
Dr. Vanden Bout
Spring 2011

Instructor: David A. Vanden Bout
Office: WEL 5.201
Office Hours:

WEB PAGE:  http://vandenbout.cm.utexas.edu/courses/ch302      (case sensitive!)

UT Zumdahl Cover

Textbook: Chemical Principles 6th Edition, Steven S. Zumdahl
Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning (2009), We are using the eBook version of this text. It is available at the UT Co-op. You WILL need the course code that is included with your package. ANY problems you might have in accessing the eBook please contact the Cengage Learning team at courseware@cengage.com. Hard copies of this book are available at various internet businesses like Amazon.

Chapters to be Covered can be found on the lectures page. Please also note that you are responsible for all the material and topics covered in Chapters 1-4 of this book plus all topics from CH301.

Calculator:  All students must have a SCIENTIFIC CALCULATOR and no more than that for exams. If you don't already have one, I'd suggest getting a TI-30xa or something like it (very simple to use and cheap). I am no longer allowing ANY graphing calculators for our exams. You just need a simple scientific calculator. Also, know HOW to use your calculator.

iClicker:  All students must have an iClicker. Only an iClicker will work and no other types or brands! These are long, white, and skinny with only 6 buttons See picture to the left. The Co-op has these listed for $35.35 new. That is the ONLY cost. There is no registration fee. You can use ANY iClicker for this class. You will register the iClicker number via the web and then you are good to go.

TA Office Hours

See the Contacts page
Overall Scoring for the Course Grade Breaks
Your overall score will be determined from ALEKS, homework, iclicker, 4 evening exams, PLUS an optional FINAL EXAM. The percentages are the following:

method 1 method 2 method 3
Homework 5% 5% 5%
iClicker 5% 5% 5%
Exams 60% 40% 90%
Final 30% 50% 0%
Total       100%      100%      100%
Course grades will be determined according to the following scale or cut-offs:
B+ ≥ 83.0 C+ ≥ 73.0 D+ ≥ 63.0
A ≥ 90.00 B ≥ 80.00
C ≥ 70.00 D ≥ 60.00
A- ≥ 87.0 B- ≥ 77.0 C- ≥ 67.0 D- ≥ 57.0
F< 57.0

If theses breaks ever change, there will be an announcement in class and the results WILL be updated here.

You are expected to work the homework problems and complete the assigned readings throughout the semester. Homework is administered via the web and will count as 5% of your overall grade. Two of your lowest homework scores will be dropped from your average. All course homework and assignments will be administered through Quest which can be found at the web address http://quest.cns.utexas.edu. Your performance on the exams will depend heavily on how well you understand and can fully work the homework problems. To help in this regard we will also have weekly worksheets. These will be work on your own and will not count for a grade.

iClicker Quizzes
Quizzes will be given in class via the iClicker. Quizzes will count 5% of your overall grade in the class. You MUST bring your clicker to class everyday. If you don't have a clicker you will not get credit. You should also watch your battery level on the clicker. Running out of power is no excuse. You can only have ONE clicker in class. Students that are operating TWO clickers during class will be reported to the Office of the Dean of Students and be recommended to receive an F for the semester(see Cheating below). You MUST also register your iclicker at the iclicker web site (www.iclicker.com/registration). You might have to register the number in other places to for your other courses. Make sure you register at the above web address for this course.

The four exams will be given in the evenings from 7-9 PM on the scheduled days. The class may be split between two rooms. You must go to the correct room. Your exam average will be equal to the average of your 3 highest exams (dropping your lowest exam score). Your exam average will count either 60% or 40% of your grade (40% if your Final exam score is higher than your exam average). I will calculate your overall grade in a way that maximizes your overall score, you do not have to tell me how to do this.

Be sure and bring your (non-graphing) calculator to the exam. We do NOT provide calculators. You CANNOT use your cell phone as your calculator (or any other gadget that is NOT a calculator - especially not iPhones or iPod Touches). You CANNOT make-up a missed exam for ANY REASON WHATSOEVER. If you have a University approved conflict that requires rescheduling an exam, you must notify the instructor within the first 2 weeks of the course. You get to drop one exam score from your average, so for whatever reason you miss, that particular exam score (a zero) will be your dropped exam.

Each student will receive a unique exam copy with a specific version number on it. There is a different exam version for every student in the class, no two students can have the same version numbers. It is therefore very important that you keep your copy of each of your exams. You need this copy in order for us to verify you as the owner of that copy and version number. We only do this verification when we have a case of two or more students with identical version numbers on their exams. Each student must verify their copy in order to receive a grade, otherwise their score will be changed to a zero for that exam AND they will be reported to the dean as suspect of cheating.

Makeup Exams
You can make up a missed quiz or exam for one of the following reasons.

1. You are away from UT as part of a University-sponsored activity. For such instantces you will provide written docudmentation on UT Letterhead expalining the reason for your absence.

2. The exam is in conflict with a religious holiday. For this you will provide written notice of the conflict at least 14 days in advance.

3. You have a UT Class during the exam time.

For all these cases we will work to schedule a different exam at an earlier time that day.

What if I have the flu and miss an exam? Not to worry. It will be taken care of. If you miss an exam it will be the one exam score you drop. What if I'm sick and miss two exams. You should seek medical help as you have managed to be so ill as to miss half of the assessments in this course.

The final exam WILL be comprehensive. This means that all the material covered during the course will be on the exam. The final exam will be counted as 30% of your overall grade. If you keep up with the material for the semester, the final will not be any more difficult than the four exams. It will be extremely difficult if you try to cram for it one day ahead. Keep up and make the grade. You cannot reschedule or drop the final exam grade (except as noted below). The time for the final is published when the course schedule is made and you certainly could have chosen NOT to take the course. Since you did decide to TAKE the course, you will TAKE the final at the designated time. It is an optional exam - continue reading...

Alternate Grading Schemes
If the traditional grading scheme is not for you, I will offer two alternatives

Option 1
A grading scheme for those who improve throughout the semester. In determining your course grade I will automatically determine whether counting your final exam score as a higher percentage will help your grade. As such, if you do well on the final, it will count 50% towards your final score rather than 30%. You homework and iClicker score will stay the same.

Option 2
So you ace all of the tests and really wish you could be home a little earlier for the summer. Is it possible? Yes. Very simply, you don't have to take the final exam. However, with this option, you cannot drop any exams. I will calculate your score using all four of your exams as 90% of your grade. Homework will be 5% and the iClicker 5%.

You need not choose how your score will be calculated. I will calculate all three methods and you will end up with the best one.

If you get caught cheating in any way whatsoever you will have to discuss the situation with me. I will arive at a pentaly and deem if the problem warrants a formal report. If you deny the allegation, I will proceed by filing a formal report to the Judicial Services in the Dean of Students Office as is policy. The final penalty would be decided by Judicial Services after a hearing on the matter. For more information read the General Information Catalog about scholastic dishonesty (i.e. cheating). If found "guilty" the University can go so far as to bar you from enrollment for life. Take home lesson, don't cheat.

Students with Disabilities
Please notify me of any modification/adaptation you may require to accommodate a disability-related need. You will be requested to provide documentation to the Dean of Students' Office, in order that the most appropriate accommodations can be determined. Specialized services are available on campus through Services for Students with Disabilities. The official wording is this: The University of Austin provides upon request appropriate academic accommodations for qualified students with disabilities. For more information, contact the Office of the Dean of Students at 471-6259, 471-6441 TTY.

Drop Dates
The last date to drop the course without approval from the Dean: Monday, Feb 2, 2011. The last day to drop the course with approval from the Dean: Monday, Mar 28, 2010. After this, students may go to the Dean's office, WCH 2.112, to appeal for non-academic reasons.

Observance of Religious Holidays
Religious holy days sometimes conflict with class and examination schedules. It is the policy of The University of Texas at Austin that the student must notify each instructor at least fourteen days prior to the classes scheduled on dates he or she will be absent to observe a religious holy day. For religious holidays that fall within the first two weeks of the semester, the notice should be given on the first day of the semester. The student may not be penalized for these excused absences but the instructor may appropriately respond if the student fails to complete satisfactorily the missed assignment or examination within a reasonable time after the excused absence.


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Saturday, December 11, 2004

I first moved up to Tallahassee to be with my now-wife Ann in October of 1992. At the time, Ann's daughter was seven years old and as accepting of the situation as she could be, most tension assuage by the fact she still saw her father on a regular basis. But I was still anxious to show her that life as she knew it wasn't going to change too drastically, and that it might even be fun. Hannukah was coming up, so I suggested we go shopping for Ann at the local mall. Erin agreed and we set off for the mall in high spirits. Erin, in those days, was a mischievous little sprite of a girl with dark eyebrows and a glint in her eye that was either piratical or good natured depending on her mood. She would say things like, "I want to be a taxi driver, but if that doesn't work out I'll be a doctor or lawyer. And if that doesn't work out I'll just be a plain old beauty queen and live at home with my mom." Once, she said she'd like to be a "scientist of crayons." For awhile, she used to say twenty minutes was "churney midgets." She was the cutest little kid I'd ever met, but also tough as all get out. I enjoyed telling her impossible things as fact and getting that little indignant half-smile out of her and the folded arms, which told me she was entertained but she wasn't buying any of it.

I should perhaps mention now that at the time I didn't know anything about Hannukah. I had not come across any traces of Hannukah learnin' in any books I'd read or through any people I'd met. But, being an agnostic, I had no organized faith for Judaism to come into conflict with, and I was eager to learn everything I could. So I was in perhaps an overly receptive state of mind as we entered the mall.

As we shopped for Ann, we eventually encountered the inevitable Santa Claus display, complete with the man in the fake beard ho-ho-ho-ing for the kids. Erin looked at the Santa without comment, but a little later, when we passed a display showing a huge white animatronic bear holding a red wrapped present, she said, "Oh--look. It's the Hannukah Bear!"

A certain madness seized me. Here was an opportunity to learn something about Jewish culture.

"The Hannukah Bear?" I said. "What's the Hannukah Bear?"

"You know," she said, "the Hannukah Bear. It's the bear that helps light the menorah. It helps with the cooking, too, sometimes."

"Really?" I said. "I didn't know that."

Erin frowned. "You don't know about the Hannukah Bear. Everybody knows the Hannukah Bear."

"Okay," I said, "What else can you tell me about the Hannukah Bear?"

The glint in Erin's eye intensified and as we walked toward a Walden's Bookstore, she told me all about the Hannukah Bear. A lot of what she said is lost in the farthest reaches of my sieve-like memory, but I remember that she went into a complex explanation of the Hannukah Bear's relationship to Hannukah, what it symbolized, where the reference had come from, and a lot of other stuff. Wonderful was the Hannukah Bear! Excellent in all of its intentions and abilities! Why, it even appeared in the night sky sometimes as points of light! It was a beautiful and brilliant concentrated flow of bullshit, of smart assery, that fooled me utterly. I don't think before or since I've heard anyone feed me such a wonderful line of sustained, extemporaneous crap. And I bought it. I bought into it completely.

By the time we got home, I was stuffed full of facts about the Hannukah Bear, and feeling very pleased with myself. I had learned something about Hannukah. It was knowledge I could use when meeting Ann's synagogue members for the first time. I could even show Ann that I was trying hard to learn about her religion and culture!

Alas, of course, there were instead looks of puzzlement, even concern. Silly, silly goyem...When I realized how completely I'd been fooled, I laughed my ass off. Since I'd arrived in Tallahassee, I'd been fabricating little stories for Erin off and on. She'd just returned the favor, in spades...with a shovel, so I could dig my own grave. It was, as I say, one of the most amazing extemporaneous displays of applied imagination that I've ever been privileged to witness.

From then on, it was no-holds barred. Whether it was the pet iguana Erin and I pretended lurked around the house when her timid friends came over to play or the extended "incident" at Chucky Cheese involving the giant rat mascot and an ill-timed kick, we had a series of adventures based almost entirely on riffing off of each other's imaginations.

Eventually, she became too old to have fun with parental units and those times faded into memory. But the Hannukah Bear story is still a staple of family lore and legend--the event that started it all.


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Monday, December 27, 2004

Help for those who need it

I'm sure you've all heard about the horrible earthquake and tsunamis that devestated parts of Asia. The following organizations are helping to organize relief for those affected:

Red Cross

Oxfam America

Matt Cheney has compiled a more comprehensive list over at The Mumpisms.

In situations like this $15 or $20 can go a long way.

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Saturday, August 05, 2006

Dear VanderFans,

Hallo again from Berlin! Another missive to tell you what Ann & Jeff are up to over here. Yesterday they continued their tour of the city, visiting the museum isle and the famed Pergamon Museum with the incredible »Pergamon-Altar«. Then they walked all the way to »Hackescher Markt«, which used to be a haven for artists in Berlin Mitte but now is way to expensive for most of them. Still it's a beautiful area with lots of shops and cafés.

In the evening we met at the Otherland bookshop where we were already busy preparing for the night's reading. Around twenty people turned up, which is ok, but not spectacular. Jeff first read a small part of the King Squid section, a longer part from Martin Lake, and »Bookman Old Style« from the font pages.

Our good friend Harald had downloaded the first five minutes of the Shriek movie and organized a beamer, so we got an advance look at what promisies to be a very interesting art movie (nice to see our friend Liz Hand as »Janice Shirek«, by the way).

Afterwards we - Ann & Jeff and half a dozen of people from the shop and the attending masses - moved on to a German restaurant around the corner where we could still sit outside comfortably from 10 pm 'til after midnight, drink beer, eat some typical German food (well, some of us did) and talk about the internet, literature and lots of other things that came up in such a pleasently mixed crowd. As has become a bit of a tradition, we cooled off later in our living room watching one of our pet rabbits, Eliot, hopping about and begging for bits to eat. Ann & Jeff seem to have taken to her - and her sister George, who is a bit shy - quite a bit.

Today we intend to meet in Kreuzberg in the afternoon and climb the famed hill which gave that part of the city its name, which will take roughly ten minutes. Ann & Jeff are hiking aruond quite a bit, so it might be a good idea to give them some time to relax - we'll see. And tomorrow we'll be off to Potsdam to visit the famed gardens of Sanssouci, but that's for another blog to tell.

Again, more tommorrow, and cheers to all of you!

Hannes Riffel

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Home » » Surf's Up (2007)

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VeryUQ: Do you get upset when you see black men with white women?

Each week, VeryUnmarried will post a new QUESTION OF THE WEEK with the goal of inspiring conversation. You can join the conversation here on, on Facebook, or on Twitter #VeryUQ. Contribute a question at

Do you get upset when you see black men with white women?

Over the years it has become more socially acceptable for men and women of differing races to date and marry each other. Interracial relationships are quite common, but many people still take issue with black men dating or marrying white women. Why do you think this is? Should Black men only date Black women? Or is there something particular about white women that rub some the wrong way? Have you been in an interracial relationship? If so, what was your experience.

We want to hear from you. Share your thoughts and comments below.

1 Comment
  1. i just happen to have this aura about white ladies. i get attracted to them and i’m really sorry if thats not a good thing but i’m black and i’m 27 yrs but i’ve only dated blacks twice in my lifetime. i have always been with a white girl.

    bancs from italy.

    P.S. italian gals are the hottest and sexiest.

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Saturday, December 31, 2011

Christmas Season Twenty Eleven Part 1

famil photos at Christmas
Thank goodness I had my camera handy at least part of the busy U cut season....

U cut tree farm oregon
Joe, family and friends.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Merry Christmas Twenty Eleven

Thank you to everyone who stopped by our farm to choose a tree and/or wreath...or just to say hi.....You are the Best! Merry Christmas...May you have a Happy and Prosperous New Year!!! ----Joe, Blenda and Zippy

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Wreath Making at Victorhill Farm

Before the farm is officially open for the upcoming holiday season, after the trees are all trimmed,we are busy making and decorating wreaths. My favorite part is the wonderful woodsy pine needle scent of wreath making that fills the whole shop! If only I could bottle it up to whiff the heady aroma all year long!
The first step in making a wreath is gathering boughs. Only the tips of branches are used.
Joe gathering boughs on a misty morning
handmade wreaths oregon tree farm
Erica making a forest fresh wreath using juniper, noble fir and salal boughs.
Noble Wreath with Holly
Finished Noble with Holly Wreath
Hydrangea Wreath
wreath making Oregon tree farm
Joe, getting into the holiday mood helping out by adding bows to wreaths. (Shhh, he doesn't know I posted this photo! He thinks it's girl's stuff to fluff up wreaths with bows and stuff.)
fresh wreath boxed for shipping
A finished wreath ready for shipment

If you are unable to visit the farm during the holiday season to pick out your wreath, no worries you can have it shipped right to your door! Wreaths are located at my Blenda Studio Shop in a special Holiday Wreaths Section

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

November Open Studio is Featuring Artwork by Ruth Armitage

Mark your calenders for November 4-6th when we will be hosting a painting exhibition by artist Ruth Armitage here at Victorhill Farm & Gift Shop. If you haven't experienced Ruth's lovely artwork first hand yet you are in for a real feast for your eyes. She paints with plenty of luscious and expressive color that you are sure to enjoy. Artist's reception will be held on Friday November 4th 6-9PM. Saturday & Sunday 11-5PM. Hope to see you then.......
Rumba by Ruth Armitage

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Open Studios of Beavercreek is Here

Hi There!
Can you believe it it's time for the Open Studios of Beavercreek Fall Tour? We are #11 on the tour and will be open all weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10-4PM, for your viewing pleasure.
Stop by for a cookie, a warm drink then feast your eyes on the newest artwork from 4 different artists all with their own unique style of creating art. There's more info and pics on the Blenda Studio Blog.

The stars are made from recycled shaving cream cans if you can believe it!
 In addition, see what's new in the gift shop. We've been stocking up for the holidays and want you to be the first to see what 's new so you can get a head start on your holiday shopping list.
This is just a small glimpse--plus we have flowers!
 Our new self serve flowerstand out by the road will be stocked with fresh cut flowers until they all sell out. Hurry supply is limited.
For a PDF map to our farm and to other studios click here.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Introducing Fresh Cut Flowers

New this year at Victorhill Farm, we planted lovely flowers all around the gift shop. We are so excited about how beautiful they all are that we just had to share them with you! So we have opened a little self serve flower stand out by the end of the drive. The flowers are organic and local, straight from our garden to your table. And the price is right too, a sweet bouquet is only $3...what a deal!

We'll keep the stand open as long as flowers keep blooming. By then it will be time for the holidays and all the excitement it brings. Erica and I are already planning a few new designs for Christmas wreaths, so stay tuned.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Springtime at Victorhill Farm

The tree field in spring with tender new growth on the trees.


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Thursday, April 17, 2014

Canvas - cherry blossoms

this is something that's not finished it still need the canvas painted and the parts to glue down but I
think its gonna look pretty when I finish it!!  I will post another picture when its done.  The canvas
is 7x14 inches I might get me a bigger canvas before glue.

1 comment:

Cindy said...

Looks PRETTY Victoria, Have a GREAT day my friend!!! :)


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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

2012 NAIAS Detroit Auto Show: Part 3, Coda

Coda set up a booth at NAIAS, which was surprising to me.  See, Coda will only be for sale at first in California, and has an unknown timetable to sell in the rest of the country.  I asked one of the Coda reps why they were in Detroit, and they said simply to build awareness.

Coda, you have a lot of work to do. Your car does not look like it is worth $15,000, much less $40,000.

Coda's biggest problem, I think, is that their car looks like an old Toyota from about 2001.

Coda's second biggest problem is that this thing is put together about like a Chrysler from 2001, or worse. Look at the loose headliner fit. That's not me pulling on it, that's some guy who got into the front seat after I got into the back, and said, "hey, check this out!".

The interior can charitably be called functional. Hard plastics, wide gaps, and cheap feel abound.

The "high-tech" PRNDL knob. It feels about as cheesy as it looks.

The powertrain cutaway was interesting. Here is where most of the $40,000 is: in the wide, flat battery pacj slung under the body.

The face of Coda. Notice the huge gap between the hood and the headlight/fascia. It screams "cheap".

I have no idea how Coda is going to make it.  With elegant and refined electric cars in the market such as the Leaf and Focus, as well as the half-gas Volt, Coda looks very weak.  They claim to have a 150 mile range, which would be world class.   But who will spend $40,000 on an ugly car, made mostly in China, with an unproven record and a minuscule dealer network?

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Miss America 2018 hits the beach in Atlantic City

Miss America 2018 Cara Mund, of North Dakota, takes to the Atlantic City beach for the traditional dip in the ocean after winning the crown Sunday night.

Source: Press of Atlantic City

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Download Morph Mod http://popularmmos.com/morph/
Animal Bikes Mod: http://popularmmos.com/animalbikes/

– 3 Rounds Each, 20 Seconds To Hide
– Seeker In Creative Mod & Hider In Survival
– 2.5 Minute Rounds
– At 1 Minute You MUST start moving
– 1 Point Per Round
– Do Not Look At The Other Plays Screen

Credit to https://www.youtube.com/user/TheAtlanticCraft for the “keep moving” rule!

In this Creepers Morph Hide and Seek Modded Mini-Game:
We are hiding while morphed into Creepers on this epic Kawaii map!

Intro by: https://www.youtube.com/calzone442
Intro song: Spag Heddy – Pink Koeks provided by Play Me Records:
Follow Spag Heddy:

Royalty Free Music by http://audiomicro.com/royalty-free-music


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Thursday, November 8, 2012

Mai Chau Valley - Hoa Binh

Coming to Mai Chau, travelers in Vietnam tourism will be warmly welcomed by the picturesque scenery of Mai Chau lying in a green valley of paddy fields dotted with rows of stilt houses.

Mai Chau Valley

Stilt houses border both sides of the roads. The houses are quite large with palm leaf roofs and polished bamboo-slat floors. The kitchen is located in the center of the house; the cooking as well as the making of the colorful tho cam, the material used by Thai minority to make their clothes, takes place in the kitchen. The windows are large and decorated with patterns. Each house also has a pond to breed fish.

Stilt houses in Mai Chau Hoa Binh
Stilt houses in Mai Chau Hoa Binh

The Sunday market brings a lot of people into town. People from different minorities living in the mountains come to Mai Chau market to sell their specific products: honey, bananas, corn, and tho cam made by skilled Thai women.

The Sunday market is also an occasion to enjoy traditional Thai dishes and to participate in traditional dances. Thai dancing and singing is something that visitors can not afford to ignore. Especially, there is the traditional dance show for tourists, which starts at 8pm and it provides to tourists joining tours in Vietnam with a very impressive experience.

Mai Chau valley

Mai Chau can be a base for some trekking tours to the villages around, and spending one night at one of the stilt houses in Mai Chau, tourists have chance to enjoy the folk dances and songs that are accompanied by Gong music, as well as experience the feeling of drinking Can Wine – an important cultural symbol for ethnic minorities in Hoa Binh province. Particularly, tourits coming there can enjoy the minority specialty dishes including rice cooked in bamboo and grilled meat.

Nowadays, foreigners who want to learn more about Vietnamese culture as well as to admire picturesque scenery of Vietnam, Mai Chau Hoa Binh is an ideal place where they can freely discover everything.

Kim Boi hot spring in Hoa Binh

Kim Boi, one of the districts of Hoa Binh province, is said to be granted with a natural hot spring by the Nature. The hot spring is now a tourist spot which “can-not-be-ignored” if staying in Hoa Binh.

Putting aside all the tensions and troubles of life, tourists will feel relax and comfortable when soaking themselves in Kim Boi Hot Spring.

Kim Boi hot spring in Hoa Binh

The mineral water continually spouts from the fountains, normally between 340C and 360C. According to some scientific tests, Kim Boi water resources are qualified to meet the standard for drinking, bathing and treating some diseases such as arthritis, gastritis, high/low blood pressure.

This mineral water Kim Boi is now bottled and become favorite refreshment for tourists in Vietnam travel. It has almost the same composition as certain wellknown foreign brands of mineral water.

Kim Boi hot spring in Hoa binh Vietnam

As for tourists joining tours in Vietnam, depending on their budget they can choose to stay at any hotels in the resort area. Wherever they are, the same point is that they can hear the sound of water spouting out, which makes them relaxed. Being immersed in a large mineral water deposit of Kim Boi stream is also not unmemorable for  any visitor.

Certainly, coming to Kim Boi hot spring once, no one can refuse to spend time in such a spot!


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Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Hearing God's Extraordinary Voice on an Ordinary Day

Much of last week was really icky.  I couldn't seem to look past the cold, the grey, the heaviness of the air.  My Weather app on my phone couldn't either.  Ugly cloud icons hung on each day and then gave way to that darn snowflake on Friday.  And I tried to ignore it, but it just stayed there taking all my hope of spring, renewal, and light away.  Yet as much as I had wished away this winter, the unsettling thing was that I had let it take hold of me.  I had trouble getting up and getting dressed and being where I needed to be.  Little tasks, lunch meetings, carpools, packing lunches(!), things that I had committed to do - even fun outings - they seemed like such a burden.  Did I really need to show up?   Did those people really need me?  On most mornings as I first opened my eyes and trudged downstairs, I wondered if I had suddenly given up to become one with winter.  Because in those early hours before the kids and the husband came downstairs, I felt as cold and grey and icky as the sky.  Worse yet, I felt little motivation to change course.

You know that feeling?  The "not enough" one?  I simply did not have it in me to be enough.  Not a good enough wife.  Not a good enough friend.  Not a good enough mother.  Not a good enough cook to make something that's healthy that everyone will actually put in their mouths.  Not a good enough exerciser to tie her shoes and make her way to the treadmill.  Not a good enough writer to take the words past this place.  Not a good enough will power-er(?) to resist the Girl Scout cookies.  Not a good enough Christian to spread the light that God asks me to spread, because I'm pretty sure He made a mistake.  Not me, God.  I am useless for You.  Surely, you do not need me.

When I feel that I am not much, I decide that I don't need much either.  I don't need other human beings, because I can't give them much.  So I decide I will huddle with my books and my tv and my internet.  Maybe the fictional characters there are enough for me.  Maybe the occasional text or click on the "like" button are enough to keep one foot in the real world without submerging myself into real relationships and real work.

On one of those days last week, under the blanket, on the couch,  I clicked on my friend, Elizabeth's blog.  I saw THIS article which said exactly what I was feeling in words, black and white, in front of my scowling face:

And now, the tempter in the desert is hissing loudly in our ears. Not good enough. Not patient enough. Not organized enough. Not diligent enough. The hissing reaches a wild, unfettered crescendo. Not enough. Never enough. Never will be enough.  The accuser is taking up residence inside our heads, and he is speaking to us in our own voices. We hear him talking; the things he’s saying — we are allowing him to say — are things we’d never say to another person. We’d never be so unkind, never be so accusatory, never be so relentless. Somehow, though, the self-evaluation of this season has given way to well-entrenched habits of self-recrimination. We talk to ourselves inside our heads in ways that would astonish people who hear us speak aloud. The enemy has taken up residence, and it’s his voice that is drowning out God’s. God calls to repentance along the path to forgiveness.

As much as I wanted to insulate myself from outside voices, I had been unsuccessful.  I was not alone. I was letting the enemy, the accuser, the tempter take a seat next to me on the couch and talk to me in my own voice.  And with one look at the date on the calendar, I realized something else.  (insert smacking hand against forehead)

Ladies, do you know who the enemy's trusty sidekick is?

PMS.  The devil's right hand man, y'all.

So I knew what I was dealing with.  I knew that I would feel better in a few days.  Probably just at the time that I needed to reach into the cabinet under the bathroom sink for that pink box.  And I wish I could tell you that after reading all of Elizabeth's words and praying on them, that I jumped up and started takin' care of business.  But I didn't.  I think I sighed and wrapped the blanket tighter.

On Saturday morning - the day after the cold, grey spring snow fell and turned to cold, grey rain - the sunshine peeked in through the blinds and woke me up earlier than I wanted to get up.  Steve and the littlest guy were away for the weekend.  The big boys were still asleep.  But now I was awake.  I tried not to be angry at the sun because WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE, SUNSHINE AND WHY DID YOU PICK THIS UNGODLY HOUR TO  SHOW UP ON A SATURDAY MORNING?

Before the boys woke, I spent more time reading Elizabeth's words and the words she had relayed from Corinthians:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.[a] The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

I'd read it before.  I knew it to be true.  But somehow I still wasn't letting God's voice drown out the other voices.  I clicked away.

Later that morning, the big boys were out of the house and I tended to the things I had let go during the icky week.  I vacuumed and dusted and cleaned and laundered.  I turned up my Iphone and I sang: THIS and THIS and THIS.  And I felt a little bit, kinda, sorta happy-ish.

And then the 14 year old walked in from practice and gave me a hug while I still was holding the vacuum in one hand.

Let's write that again.  THE 14 YEAR OLD CAME IN AND GAVE ME A HUG.

And then he asked if we could go get him a haircut.

Let's write that again.  HE ASKED ME ABOUT THE HAIRCUT.  HE ASKED.

So I looked around to see if I was being punked and I got dressed in real clothes.  And I brushed my hair and put on some lip gloss.  And we went to lunch.  The 14 year old and me.  And we talked.  Like, we talked - the both of us - not just me.  And we laughed.  Later, the 14 year old and I sat on the couch and switched between Cops and Walker, Texas Ranger.  And we talked.  And we laughed.

Saturday evening, the 14 year old had a church event, so the 16 year old and I went to dinner.  And we talked and we laughed.  We discussed our busted basketball brackets.  And then we sang songs in the car.

When I shut my eyes that night I realized that I was actually smiling - a big, goofy grin.  I thought about my ordinary, extraordinary day.  It occurred to me that God has some pretty trusty sidekicks of His own.  Sometimes, at least with me, He has to gather them all up together to make a point and to drown out that other voice.

God's voice had come to me through a small sliver of sunlight waking me before I meant to wake.  It had come to me as I sipped a fizzy diet coke and shared buffalo wings in a booth in a sports bar.  It had come to me when we hit rewind again and again and cracked up at a ridiculous commercial on some random cable channel.  It had come to me over a brownie sundae with two spoons and a boy who grows taller by the second.  It had come to me through the strangest, most confusing of His creations:  the teenager.

God made me new a long time ago.  He made me enough a long time ago.  He forgave me a long time ago.  And even though I know all of that, I, so often let other voices drown His out.

But His voice is always there right in front of me.  In His word, in a friend's blog post, in a song, in a changing season, in the sudden bursting laughter of my teenagers.

His voice assures me in the most ordinary circumstances:  You are loved. You are blessed.  You are enough.

(and just to be sure I remember next time, I counted out 28 days on the calendar and I wrote myself a note)

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Tag Archives: sci-fi

Book Promo – Get ‘The Fountain: and six more fantasy and sci-fi stories’ FREE from 14th to 18th December…

Humor, twists and more in this collection of seven fantasy and sci-fi short stories.

Karma can be painful in “The Fountain”–when a plunderer meets a long-dead shaman.

A family adopts a retriever with special talents in “Lily, an Amazing Dog.”

The cover of The Fountain, a Kindle book

A vampire has a strange problem, in “Alfred’s Strange Blood Disorder.”

A perennial favorite, dimensional travel, with a strange twist in “The Closet Door.”

What could that column of fire be, rising from the Atlantic off the Outer Banks, read “The Flame” to find out what it meant to troubled writer Carson.

A wizard casts a spell that works well for a princess, but

will it be as good for him?

Check out “The Wizard.”

Finally, “The Fribble” offers an alien encounter of an odd sort, to a pharmaceutical company rep searching for new drugs in the Amazon Rain forest.

Source: Book Promo – Get ‘The Fountain: and six more fantasy and sci-fi stories’ FREE from 14th to 18th December…

Retrograde–a Book Review

Been a while since I’ve done a review. When I have, I often do two or three at a time. I’ve been so slow at reading the past several months, I only have this one today but it’s a way of getting my reading and reviewing feet wet again.  😎

Retrograde: Some Principles Are TimelessRetrograde: Some Principles Are Timeless by E.J. Randolph
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Borrowed a copy of the paperback edition. Didn’t know what to expect but was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the writing and the story-line. Randolph keeps the plot moving in this sci-fi tale of diplomacy made dangerously difficult on an intentionally backwards and backwater planet. Conflicts among various factions keep things challenging. Randolph makes good use of a history degree with a focus on diplomatic and military history (according to her profile). Interesting interactions among crew members set up future books about up-and-coming Federation diplomat, Kate Stevens.

The book is available widely in both paper and eBook. You’ll find it on Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, etc. But here’s the easy link: Amazon.

View all my reviews

The Flame

This is a short story coming in the collection for the holidays. I seldom post stories here; they belong on John Maberry’s Writing. I’m making an exception this time. All the writers out there will understand. Plus it’s a break from politics–hurray!

The Flame

Carson sipped Irish coffee, bundled against the chill wind of a late October day on the Outer Banks. He sat on the third floor deck for its view beyond the barrier dune, rising 15 feet above the sand. The swimmers and sunbathers had gone. Only the beachcombers and solitude seekers remained this late in the season. He was among the latter. With the kids away at college and Sharon at her sister’s to “think about us,” he couldn’t face the empty house in Alexandria. Reading the backlog of beach books almost kept thoughts of Sharon’s surprise announcement away. He had just put down a thriller when he looked out to see a fiery column rising above the waves. It must have been a mile or two offshore. Only the bright yellow plume could be seen, even with the high-powered binoculars. No ship. No people. Nothing. What the hell is that? There’s no gas line out there. The sight had him baffled.

He called the Coast Guard at Hatteras Inlet. “Coast Guard, Petty Officer Harris speaking. Is this a boating emergency call?”

“No, I don’t think so. I’m looking offshore from Buxton, seeing a bright flame coming up from the water.”

“How far out is it? Have you seen any ships in the area?”

“A mile and a half, maybe more. Hard to tell from the shore with no landmarks to go by. No ships out there or anything else that I can see. The plume looks about the size of a power pole from here and goes up fifty or sixty feet from the surface.”

“Ok, we’ll send a boat to check it out. Thank you for letting us know. Please give us a call if anything changes.”

“Sure. Oh, and I didn’t hear any explosions or anything. One more thing—the flame isn’t bending much in the wind; looks like it’s under pressure. It’s yellow, by the way.”

Carson figured at least 45 minutes, more like an hour before they showed up. They’d have to come around the inlet to the oceanside and through Diamond Shoals, also known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic for all the ships that sank there over the centuries.

While waiting for the Coast Guard, Carson refreshed his Irish coffee. Barely three PM and he was on his third drink. The caffeine kept him up enough and the whiskey dulled the pain. The pain of not selling a book in ten years. Sharon’s billable hours at the DC law firm kept them financially flush. She’d made partner just after his last book sold. No coincidence his writing suffered after that. It took a toll on the marriage.

“So you think the booze will help the stories along, Carson?” That’s what she said, more than once, when she found him staring at a blank monitor slurping a drink.

“Hey, it worked for some of the greats,” he’d laugh before slamming down the glass. “I don’t know what will help. I’m trying; the ideas aren’t there—the words won’t appear without them.” That’s when the blowups came. Hurricane force words flying between them, loud as a storm screaming through the room. She once was his muse. No more.

Continue reading The Flame

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Coming Soon–A New Blog Exclusively with Stories and Excerpts

It’s not ready yet. It will appear sometime in August. Not on this blog, on another one. It will feature excerpts from pieces I am contemplating incorporating into books. In the meantime, here is a sample of the type of writing to expect:

The path that Lily, my golden retriever preferred for her daily walks took us by the nearby retirement home. As much as I tried to steer her on a different route, three days out of four she would insist, in the retriever way with a gentle tug , that we go that way. So I yielded to her choice. With her stuffed plushie frog loosely gripped between her jaws and her bushy tail keeping up its horizontal metronome rhythm, she once again took me down that path. As we passed the retirement Continue reading Coming Soon–A New Blog Exclusively with Stories and Excerpts

You Can Write and Publish a Book, 2

A couple weeks ago I said that “Yes, you can write and publish a book.” To follow up on that topic, beyond will and determination I mentioned that some research will be required. Like anything else, you get out of writing what you put into it. Little effort produces little result. Ask yourself what and why before you get too far along in that effort. Continue reading You Can Write and Publish a Book, 2


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Wednesday, February 20, 2013

DAA Viewthrough Definition Project Seeks Participants

Good news, the Viewthrough Measurement Consortium and the Digital Analytics Association are partnering. We're pleased to be working with the DAA Standards Committee, who have taken up the viewthrough cause - below is their call for participants.

The viewthrough standardization proposal seeks to establish a foundational definition and inclusion in the DAA glossary. Although this metric is measured by many analytics, research, ad server and ad network platforms, it is little known and understood in comparison to clickthrough. The emerging viewable ad impression while related, is more about ad position and delivery. Viewthrough is about latent ad response and is most easily captured by advertiser-side site analytics like Omniture and CoreMetrics. Even Facebook is offering up their conversion tracking pixel with hopes of leveraging this measure as a means to understand the silent majority of people that do not click on display ads but do respond.

This project falls under marketing definitions, a new area for the Standards Committee and one with substantial potential as we broaden our standards role. The standards definition project is in the proposal stage and is seeking additional members to set scope and provide input.

Sample Viewthrough Report

If you’d like to participate in the viewthrough project, please contact Domenico Tassone at dtassone (AT) viewthrough DOT org.

For more information about the DAA Standards Committee or to contact the Co-Chairs, reach out to Anna Long and Darrin Wood .

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 Saturday night band come on dance dance full album 320 flac mp3 rar vinyl rip

Saturday night band come on dance dance

With Jacqui Holland, Carrie Lazar, Steffinnie Phrommany, Robin Sydney. The gingerdead man travels back in time to 1976 and carries out an epic disco killing spree.

The Blues can be found equally in music created today or a hundred years ago. It is in gospel, swing, boogie woogie, roots, pop, jazz and even classical every now and then. From the Mississippi Delta to the Yukon, from Vancouver Island to Great Britain to Japan, it is a global phenomenon with universal appeal.

5. Their second studio album is right around the corner!  Something to Tell You is due July 7, and they’ve already released a few tracks . Listen to “Want You Back” below:

Come live that VIP life starting with a red-carpet entry, your own private seating area, personal waitress, and exotic dancers all night. Cover charge is included and bottle service can be provided. Private dances can also be arranged. If you can handle it.

As ESPN has signed new contracts with various conferences to produce college football coverage, the network has begun branding its coverage of select conferences to which it has rights. This branding was first seen on SEC broadcasts in 2011, which became the "SEC on ESPN". ACC broadcasts followed suit in 2012 becoming the "ACC on ESPN". Despite the fact that ACC games also air on ABC, the games remain branded as the "ACC on ESPN" regardless of network. Similarly, all Pac-12 games broadcast under the branding of "Pac-12 on ESPN." In 2016, a new contract brought conference branding to Big Ten telecasts as well, which air on both ESPN and ABC. While Big Ten games that air on ESPN cable channels are branded as the "Big Ten on ESPN", games airing on ABC are now branded as the "Big Ten on ABC". While the program is still officially part of ESPN College Football which is reflected when talent appears on screen, the Big Ten on ABC logo and branding is used for intro, program IDs, and replay wipes. This is the first time any regularly schedule sporting event outside of the National Spelling Bee has carried any ABC branding since 2006.

The November episodes of Saturday Night Live were mostly a disappointment, so hopefully these three episodes finishing out 2017 will end the year on a strong note.

HAIM is also incredibly famous for one other major reason, but it has nothing to do with music. Rumor has it that Este, Danielle, and Alana were responsible for setting up Taylor Swift and Calvin Harris in 2015. The Scottish DJ and the blonde pop star were actually seen flaunting adorable PDA in the middle of a HAIM concert . See, good music has the power to make two people fall head over heels!

Saturday Night Band Come On Dance DanceSaturday Night Band Come On Dance DanceSaturday Night Band Come On Dance DanceSaturday Night Band Come On Dance Dance


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Hro Talak is the main antagonist of the series finale of Justice League, Starcrossed. He didn't look at ethics to protect his people and was willing to sacrifice an entire planet (several planets in fact) in the process. This hardhearted fixation to defeat the Gordanians resulted from Hro Talak having been captured and tortured by the Gordanians at one point, leaving him physically and physiologically scarred. Therefore, while he is undeniably antagonistic, he is closer to a tragic anti-hero, than a villain, as he is driven by determination to protect his people and loved ones. However, he's still not above stepping on or even killing others to achieve his goals.

Hro is a geniunely calm and serious individual. He possesses leadership skills and usually remains charming. However, he can also be violent and aggressive when he's angered, often when he has a good reason to be.

Hro is on a mission to destroy the Earth, but only to save his planet, Thangar. He didn't see any other way out and therefore saw it as the only option. However, he does not take pleasure from it. Therefore he remains noble, but due to valuing his people's lives more than anyone else, he's not above killing anyone else, in order to save them.


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Monday, 12 January 2015

I am back

After a long long hiatus of almost 3+ years I have decided I'm once again going to blog even if no one is going to read it :), it's 2015 a New Year and a new start.

sonia a. mascaro said...

Hello Vinni!
I am very glad to hear from you!
Very welcome to the blogosphere!
Thanks for your nice comment and for the greetings to the New Year!
Wishing to you and yours a Wonderful 2015 too!

sonia a. mascaro said...

Ah! Love the picture too!

Preeti Datar said...

well, guess what?! people will read it :)

I took a break from blogging too, cuz it stopped keeping me interested. I think I'm going much stronger this time! do drop by :)


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What you can try to have quality garden soil?

garden soil

People have the mistaken assumption that a natural garden entails throwing seeds on the soil and letting it grow. But when you would like to have an organic garden, it will require a bit of work. You can expect to use more work into an organic garden than a regular garden but it is certainly worth it. Chances are you’ll decide that it is not worth the effort to prepare the dirt for an organic garden. We intend to check out what is involved to have great earth for an organic garden.

You shouldn’t make the assumption that there are no variations in soil. There are a lot of points that must be taken into consideration when preparing the soil. Climate changes including temperature, wind, sunlight and rain can have an impact on the soil. The coarseness of the dirt and the amount of rock it has really should be considered as well. If the soil is very compact, the quality is not good since no air or water can properly circulate. You need to make sure that the air and moisture can be circulated or else it will be useless for organic gardening. This issue can be resolved by having earthworms in your soil.

The downsides that you could have with using earthworms is that they can take awhile to make your soil loose and they may end up moving elsewhere. A speedier answer which can improve your soil is to buy organic soil by the bag full, or even a truck load. It can be applied to top of the compacted soil, and then plowed into the regular soil. This is accomplished by many organic gardeners, but the organic soil has to be between 3 and 6 inches for it to be effective. The garden soil will definitely improve over a number of seasons of constant plowing of organic soil over old soil.

The pH factor of the dirt needs to be accurate, so you will need to check on the levels of phosphates, hydrogen and also acidity. You can get a testing kit very easily online, but you can also take a soil sample to your local nursery or county agricultural agent. For a fee, you could most likely learn all you need about your soil. You can also learn which plants should grow well in your soil. They can also supply some supplemental tips to make your organic garden a success.

Undertaking an organic garden doesn’t need to be that difficult, especially when you get started right. This post should have given you a good idea on what you can try to have quality soil but you should also continue to find out more about methods for you to make it better.

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Undergraduate Research at the Vis Center

Second Week: Work in … progress?

This week we sorted out problems. More materials were coming in, but we haven’t arrived at the point of getting something done. On Tuesday we met up with the Content Designers and we set up a method of communication after discussing some ideas for the content and how it should be made. There’s still a lot of things we need from them to make this work so I hope they don’t get stressed over it.

On Wednesday we finally worked getting the system (computers) backed-up, re-installed and all the works. So now we’ve got a powerful PC. Also, we got our Styrofoam ball, should do pretty good when we project onto it.

Again this week we were told that Bill (the engineer) would not arrive until next week because of a date miscalcullation.

Also on Wednesday, Brent Seals came to visit and gave us a pretty good presentations on how to DO PRESENTATIONS… Talk about inception. He also talked about our commitment and participation on the projects and other general ideas about  the program.

For the most part, everything is running smooth with some altercations and drawbacks, but nothing that we can not fix. We expect to get results pretty fast since all the research that we have done will certainly pay out somehow.

Research Question-Week 2

This week I began the final leg of the Latin to NIV Translation XML. This officially puts me past the half way point in the Chad Gospel XML. It is exciting to get to the point with this data where I feel like I have made a substantial dent in its preservation!

Just to give a brief overview of how I have gone about writing the XML, I began by going through each image of the Chad Gospels and writing down the Latin in each page. I then went through and noted every Chapter, verse, line break, and page break that occurred in the text. Then, in order to make the text easily searchable, I noted every time incorrect Latin was used, added correct Latin, and made sure that all abbreviations and words that were split by line and page breaks could be found (and searched) in their correct forms. What this boiled down to is a lot of details that had to be checked and double checked!

After I finished that, I began matching up the Latin from the Chad Gospels to the English translation of the Bible. This process was a little less detail oriented than the Latin XML, however, it has been flexing my “Latin muscles” a bit more.

One of my main struggles in all of this  has been to retain our vision for the Info Forest App  in those moments where it can be hard to get past some of the more monotonous aspects of my portion of the project. For example, when it is 3 in the afternoon and I have been writing XML for 7 hours and still have 1 hour to go, when I have been staring at the same line on the manuscript for 20 minutes and can still not figure out for the life of me what it says, or when there is an error in the XML and I have already spent so much time looking at it that I have begun to question the existence of numbers and letters that actually have meaning.

This week has been especially good for me in that Dr. Brent Seales and Julie Martinez have been working with us to identify our research question. I think this has been so beneficial because I personally equate the concept of a research question with the purpose of a mission statement. It is our guiding force as we push through the less exciting aspects of our work and gives us not only a sense of purpose in our work, but also a sense of its significance.

While still in the rough stages of its formation, I have begun to identify my research question. It will be a little less conventional than my fellow teammates’ due to the nature of my contribution to the project, however it is just as vital to what I am contributing to the app as it is to what they are contributing.

With that said, I hope to find a way to assemble the data from important manuscripts in a way that is accessible, correct, and logical. I see my role on the team as someone who is here to enable the success of my teammates by providing quality content that will work cohesively with the technology they are creating so that those who are scholars and those who are not will be able to enjoy and find meaning in the Info Forest project.

Research(week 2)

This week has had more of a definite structure as we all fall into the work week routine. And with that my goal has shifted from absorption to implementation.

At the beginning of the week I piddled around with databases and SQL, as you can see from this screen shot. I managed to select and transfer images of pie to and from a database. You can probably tell it was nearing my lunch break and I was getting somewhat hungry.

Overall, the theme for this week would probably be research. More specifically: what is my research question? As undergrad researchers we want to push past our knowledge, not just flirt with the line of the unknown. The ultimate accomplishment would be to push past all existing human knowledge and expand on it.

My biggest struggle with forming a research question was that I couldn’t narrow in on the specifics. I wanted to think of the big picture and end product instead of my individual part in the project. And since my part involves the coding of the iOS app, my question needs to revolve around that. So here it goes, this is what I’ve established as my research question so far:

How do I import data from the server to display in an organized and aesthetically pleasing manner on iOS?

And once again I’d like to wrap up with a side note:  Jean-Karlo makes a mean cup of coffee.

Week 2: Research Question

This week was about continuous learning and reading all that could help me developing the Web based application. I also read and watched some video tutorials related with Java in order to help Eric in the Android part. We also had a very interesting seminar by Dr. Seales. It was about what is a research and the VisU  Program. He encourages us to push the boundaries of what we know and find our direction to graduate school. He also asked us to make our research question:  Is it possible that we can develop an application that will be compatible with iOS, Android, and Web? I said “we” because as Dr. Seales said there’s no “I” in a teamwork, so that’s the general project question. My research question is: Is it possible to develop a Web-based app related with the ancient manuscripts with a standardized format compatible with the Android and iOS apps?

What am I working on?

This week I managed to get a clearer notion of how data is going to be managed by the android application I am working on. After sharing plenty of ideas with my partners, we finally thought of a way of representing data when transported between the server and the clients applications, so that it would be easy to interpret and display on the application. Then I started working on the classes that will match the data that the application will receive. I managed to create the HTTP request on android which will ask the server for the configuration file, which will set up the application, and it receives the file. I am still working and I will keep working on the classes and the interpretation of that file even thou I created the code that reads the configuration file with all the manuscript and displays a button for each one of them. I have created code that displays a images and code that plays sound, but I haven’t been able to display a video. My goal for the next week is to finally fill the classes with the data received from the server and fix the code that displays videos. After working on all that, meditation and a Dr. Seales presentation I got to state my research question, How to create a dynamic android application that displays data and media of ancient manuscripts? I am determined to keep pushing forward and having a great experience with my partners.

Configuration File               Dynamic Manuscript Menu (reading from configuration file)

Dynamic Manuscript Menu (reading from configuration file)

Imagining the Future

During the week, we met up with the guys working on the content for the 3D projection program, and we had a long talk about what could be displayed, how it could and should be displayed, and how to interact with it.  That’s when we decided to introduce the Microsoft Kinect into the project: imagining an entire workspace (or even at home), where interactions with the system are controlled by one’s own movements.  That sent my mind racing… the possibilities, the challenges, the excitement… But, as with everything (and one of my favorite quotes), “Significance is cumulative – but not always obvious.”  Meaning we have to start small, with the bits and pieces that, when merged, will realize that future vision of an interactive motion-sensing space.  Which leads to the focus of the research we will be doing: how do we begin building this smart place that recognizes and reacts to one’s movements?  As is usual when working in a team, each member makes one of those pieces his/her own.

In my case, I’m happy to be working with the interactivity of the Kinect, which produces a research question on a more personal level:

How can we create a basic system that recognizes intuitive gestures and reacts to them accordingly; a system which we can improve later to make it more complete and more interactive?

Week One (Vis U)

We have officially started the “vis u” program. I am from Kentucky, but I find it very interesting to meet people from different parts of the world .The students from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) have a different background in computer science. The field of Computer Science is expanding in many directions, so it will be helpful to have many different approaches to use in our project.

The project that I am working on is called ” Info Forest “. The end goal of this project is visualization of ancient manuscripts on many devices. The Center for Visualization has more data then most mobile devices could save, so to view all the data a web component is needed. This project will have many challenges to it, but with Eric, Bonnie, Becky, and Krystel we have a good possibility of completing the project.

John Broadbent

(Ipad Simulator)

Well hello there

My first couple of days have consisted of planning, meetings, and research.  The adult leaders of the program gathered us around to explain the basic goal of our project and then we all discussed the plans, possibilities, and execution of these goals.  I am working on the project titled “Info Forest”.  As much as that sounds like a project belonging to an environmentalist, it’s a metaphor for what we hope to lay the groundwork for.  The Vis Center would like to develop a database of ancient documents that are accessible on the website as well as through mobile devices.  Specifically, we are working with the Chad Gospels.  This will be the foundation for any future documents that are added to the database.

With the overall goals laid out, my goal for the moment is to absorb.  I am attempting to prepare myself for this project and have been relentlessly researching.  I’ve been diving into HTML, CSS, PHP, and XML since I had only had a very basic knowledge of them.

I am excited to work alongside such amazing students.  We have already been trading knowledge and teaching each other in order to stimulate growth as a team.  The other day Zack taught me how to create an app for Apple devices.  We even made a ridiculous app so I could gain experience.

And on a quick side note, I’d like to say that I am loving the cross-cultural environment.

1rst Week: Settling in.

Work has been doing progress slowly but steadily. After lots of introductions to new people and other meetings we have an assigned project. Me and Jean-Karlo (Diego) are working together on it, I won’t say which for now to keep the tension and mystery, as they did to us for the first three days. We have been reading a book that was given to us for basic familiarization with the work that is to come, which I found online as a PDF (I guess I got lucky)  and we started theorizing and making models of estimated measures and such since we don’t have the accurate tools yet. On Wednesday we received the two projectors that we’ll be working with for now and we used a 8″ model ball that did not work last time to get our ideas going and it helped out to figure out wide the range of the projectors on circular surfaces, but it’s still not something completely worked through.

We are still working on getting a workstation that can manage the computing power we need and getting the code and programs installed on it. For next week we hope on talking with the engineer, when he arrives, about aspect designs and getting our “stuff” (materials and such) to build the mount and work on the actual projector calibrations for the balls or shapes that we’ll use.

What I haven’t talked about is the off work hours. The mornings are cold for us tropical island people, we have small breakfast and maybe stop at the coffee shop on the way. I certainly get to ride my board down a little steep hill that feels pretty sweet also, and later we arrive.ROSE ST HILLLunch is neat, pretty good food around. A half hour is more than enough since service is great. Today I’ll be eating in Q’doba, real good Mexican food.

The afternoons are varied. We usually go to the gym to rock climb or play basketball or do any number of things there. It’s a huge place with lots of options. maybe we’ll end up in shape after all. I will see if I get a chance to ride board on the weekend and go around campus for more entertaining stuff to say.

That’s all for now.

-Karlo Luis Martínez Martos

First week

First week:

I like this program very much. I’m still adapting to here since it’s the first week but I like the university, the Marksbury building, and all the interesting projects that are taking place at the Center for Visualization and Virtual Environment. In the first week what I basically was doing was reading and trying to know more about the amazing project that I’ll be working on it. The program’s name is Info-Forest and it’s related with a manuscript application for Ipad, Android, and Web. I’m working in the web part, I read and learned about PHP, HTML, and CSS. I’m really excited and looking forward the next week.


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Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Visa Advice: Canada

Not like in other countries Canada is actively inviting people to come and work their. Like Australia the most common seasonal workers visa is the Working Holiday Program. This allows people between the age of 18 - 30 to work in the country for upto 12 months. You must be a citizen of one of the following countries; Australia, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Republic of Korea, Holland, New Zealand, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Their are restrictions depending on which country you are a resident of, in these cases you must be a full-time student and have a Canadian job offer.

Keep posted here as i will soon post various visa jobs in canada later. While waiting register previous visa jobs posted.

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Great Bend Meeting & Facilities Guide.pdf
Size: 441 KB
This guide is designed to help you find a venue to fit the needs of your group.
Meeting Activities Planner 2015.pdf
Size: 2 MB
Have extra time to add a presenter to your schedule? Need a caterer? Want to tour a local museum? No problem. We have put together this group-friendly planner to assist you in arranging your groups activities.


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Eager to work a round on the links into your vacation itinerary? In Vicksburg, Mississippi, you can visit two 18-hole golf courses any time of the year to put your skills to the test.

Mere minutes from the lively streets of Downtown Vicksburg, Mississippi, visitors will find Clear Creek Golf Club at 1566 Tiffentown Road. Before embarking on your journey around Clear Creek’s scenic landscaping, refine your swing at this public, 18-hole course’s driving range and chipping/putting areas, and then stock up on gear at the pro shop. Once you’ve navigated the sprawling course, settle down at the Lounge to chat with fellow golfers while enjoying a delicious meal.

Conveniently located just south of Vicksburg National Military Park, Vicksburg Country Club is a historic landmark dating back to 1929. While the club is private, reciprocal arrangements with other clubs in the region make it easier to take advantage of the course, which boasts white, red, yellow, MGA and blue tees to suit your playing style. Additionally, members may bring guests. However you use your time at the club, The Anthony, a traditional American restaurant, provides an excellent opportunity to socialize and refresh when you’re ready to kick back.

Warm Southern weather makes it easy to show off your skills on the links, no matter when you plan your Vicksburg vacation. Begin scheduling your trip to Vicksburg by booking a room at a hotel, casino or bed and breakfast that meets your unique needs.


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Saturday, 21 May 2011

This is where I'm up to with it, would have liked to have got some colour in there but don't have time now. Does anybody know the details to which we have to send these in? Can we still email them, cause I can't find the address.

1 comment:

Narcotic-Nightmares said...

All the necessary links can be found here:


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Jan 25

8 Best Things About Winter Running #RunIt

This is the blog post formerly known as the Wednesday Round Up. I think the reason is obvious. From here forth this last Wednesday of the month link up shall be known as Run It. Ya know, because that’s what we all do – – run our house, our professions, our workouts, the world, etc.

The topic this month is winter running because it’s winter and we’re still running because of course. Whether you run on a treadmill or outdoors matters not, it’s that you’re putting one foot in front of the other during some of the darkest and dullest months on the calendar.

Since there is enough misery in the world lately, let’s focus on the 8 BEST things about winter running:

No. 1 – – It’s Cold

Yes, this is a positive thing people! I’m not sure about you but I tend to heat up when I run. This is a welcome fact during the winter months and not so much when it’s already warm outside. Even if you’re on the treadmill, it’s probably somewhere chilly like your unfinished basement or garage so you still get to enjoy (yes, enjoy) the cold air without all the nastiness of actually being outside.

Happiness is…

No. 2 – – New Clothing

Do people in southern California have two distinct running wardrobes? I think not! One can never have too many tights, wool socks, hats, gloves, mittens or neck warmers. Think about those poor, suffering women in the sunshine states who only have shorts and tanks to mix up their wardrobe with. So sad.

You don’t need these mittens in Hawaii!

No. 3 – – Snowshoes

Snowshoeing provides runners with an entire new season of races! At least one woman I know in this link-up has already participated in two such races and has placed second female each time.

I own a pair of Tubbs running snowshoes and use them every time the boys have had a snow day. They sled up and down the hill and I do hill repeats. Everyone wins.

No. 4 – – Cross Training

Needless to say, running in the snow is hard. It’s like a little strength workout for your entire body! Forget about keeping pace, forget about using all your already overused muscles and just run. Plus, it’s absolutely gorgeous out there right after a fresh snowfall.

Really, you should try it.

No. 5 – – Time

Since running in the snow is harder and is working different muscles (see above) you can actually spend less time doing it and still get the same, or even better, of a workout and the benefits that go with it. Need to up your endurance? Take a run in the snow and see how quickly you get out of breath!

And, don’t worry about what the neighbors think. Chances are, they already know you’re crazy.

No. 6 – – If You Hate It, You Can Leave

Not too many runners chose to come from a warmer climate and run in the snow but, plenty of snow-bound runners plan timely trips to tropical destinations to get a good dose of Vitamin D and then head back to snow country.

Running in Las Vegas in November? Hell yes!

In fact, I planned two such trips this winter and, although I love basking in the sun, I will be happy to return to the cold. Yes, I will, I promise you.

No. 7 – – Warm Food and “Recovery” Drinks

Big bowl of chili? Yes, please! Hot Toddy to wash it down? Oh yeah!

All in the name of “warming up” after being outside in the frigid temps. You deserve it.

Let’s just say I never make this stew in July.

No. 8 – – Transitions

No, not the ones in triathlon but the ones from one season to the next. There is something about acclimating your body through the steely cold of winter and then truly appreciating the spring thaw. You can make tremendous mental and physical gains from pushing through a tough winter of training to ready yourself for a spring goal race. Plus, you appreciate the hell out of the summer once it finally and mercifully arrives!

The winter cap/bathing suit combo look is not easily pulled off in warmer climates.

Please give a warm welcome back to all my blog friends who participate, and drop all kinds of running knowledge, right here where you need it. We’re here for you runners!

What is your favorite thing about winter running or just winter?

Least favorite?

If you live somewhere warm, tell us something awful about it. Please!

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  1. As sad as it sounds I think my decades on the east coast would have been FAR MORE FUN had I known to dress properly.

    I had no clue. I was always freeezing and damp.
    CARLA recently posted…One year. 75 times.My Profile

    1. It’s not sad, it’s TRUE! You learn so much over the years about how to make it tolerable 🙂 I’m still learning a lot about cycling and swimming that way so you are not alone.

  2. My favorite part of winter running? The looks that I get from people as they drive by in their toasty warm cars. Yeah, that’s right. I’m a crazy running badass!!!! Lol! Actually, they probably leave the badass part off and just think I’m absolutely nuts. Oh well!
    Angela @ happy fit mama recently posted…Winter Running Gear Every Runner NeedsMy Profile

    1. I have to agree with the insane part because I get the same looks!!

  3. My one goal with winter running is to keep going through it. The minute I stop, or start running inside, I cannot get myself to go back out there!
    Susie @ Suzlyfe recently posted…Prevent Injury with Glute Engagement (Coaches Corner)My Profile

    1. I hear you! It’s funny that I can RUN outside for an hour or more but then, after I shower and go back out to run errands or something, I’m whining about being cold within like 5 minutes.

  4. New clothing! YES!

    I always like that I don’t come back sweating a storm. This was a great and hilarious post.
    Hollie recently posted…Running Books I’m ReadingMy Profile

    1. So true about the sweating!! Where were you when I was writing this? LOL – I’ll have to add that to my next one!

  5. Ok, I’m probably going to hate myself for this in a couple of weeks, but where the hell is winter? It’s going to be a runfession but you’re hearing it first…I kind of miss the snow! I do love a good snow run and I’ve had one this year. It’s kind of messed up. Oh, but that whole climate change thing? Nah.

    I want to try snowshoeing!
    Wendy@Taking the Long Way Home recently posted…It’s my Blogaversary!!!!My Profile

    1. You are 100% right on!! If it’s going to be cold then I want SNOW!! I have only had one snow run myself and it was amazing. There was also very little fluffy snow when we have been snowboarding so there’s that too. Maybe we will get walloped next month? And, of course, we will complain like crazy 🙂
      I don’t know what you mean by “climate change?” LOL
      You haven’t tried snowshoeing??? As soon as you get snow, rent some and get out there!

  6. I think I need more mittens and gear, thanks Allie for making me wanna shop–again! lol! I need your attitude when it comes to winter running. Running in the snow around these parts is highly dangerous because people will ABSOLUTELY think I’m out of my mind haha…but now I’m tempted 🙂
    Nellie recently posted…5 Winter Running Mistakes You Should AvoidMy Profile

    1. I’m not sure I can condone running in the city in snow. Maybe in the park? I don’t know anything about your city snow running issues – sorry!!! But yes, get more mittens and a neck buff asap! There are at least 3 posts on gear today – LOL!!

  7. Ha ha ha ha… you crack me up. I hate winter running. The good thing that comes out of it is that once spring rolls around, we’re going to be running laps past all the fair weather runners. SUCKAHS.
    Suzy recently posted…We’ll All Have AnotherMy Profile

    1. I was actually thinking about you running in your frigid garage on the treadmill so, even when you’re “running inside” your in outside temps! You know how to work it mama!!

    • Ana on January 25, 2017 at 11:58 AM
    • Reply

    This is hilarious! I especially loved this one “Think about those poor, suffering women in the sunshine states who only have shorts and tanks to mix up their wardrobe with. So sad.” This is perfection! who doesn’t need 4 pairs of lined leggings and three neck sweaty thingys.. I forget what they are called. Thanks for this!

    I once visited Florida in November, and thought that I had been running in the cold for so long, that a hot / warm run would be welcome! I was wrong and dying! It’s so different to go from our 30’s to their 75s with humidity. I always block out the humidity !
    Ana recently posted…What I Ate SundayMy Profile

    1. I’m so glad you could get a good laugh 🙂 And yes, neck thingys describes them perfectly!

      So true about the humidity. I will take year round running in the north before summer running in the south. The humidity will a kill a runner! Here’s hoping there’s none in Hawaii!

  8. I love how positive you are about winter! Thankfully, this year has been pretty mild so far… I can handle it. But I’m never happy to come back to cold after a warm getaway!
    Laura recently posted…Use low-monotony weeks to improve your fitnessMy Profile

  9. I’m dying laughing over here with your line about neighbors thinking you’re crazy. Running during the winter rains (like, when it’s justtttt enough above freezing to be rain and not snow) gets crazy looks from passers-by here. I usually smile and wave at them, and they just look at me as if I have a screw loose.
    Cold weather running is my favorite! I like temperatures in the 20-40 range. Anything above 55 is too hot. I actually sort of enjoy the cold snaps here because of all the fun gear…just as long as the cold snaps don’t come after the rain and everything’s iced over.
    Laura @ This Runner’s Recipes recently posted…Favorite Winter Running Gear {Run It}My Profile

  10. Yes!!! The mental effort of getting out in the cold and snow and ice and getting it done? Huge. Likewise, training for a fall Marathon in the dead of summer helps so much with race day performance. Give me cold weather running ANY DAY over summer though!!

  11. I can’t relate to this at all! I live in Texas and we literally never had a winter this year… I think I wore a jacket 3 times? It’s unbelievably hot and humid all the time. I’m totally living vicariously through you all up there and have been doing cryotherapy to give me that amazing freeze sensation. LOL
    have an amazing time on the islands! aloha owahu kona banana!!!!
    danielle recently posted…WIR sleep less play moreMy Profile

  12. My favorite part about winter running is not having to get up at the break of dawn (…..or before) to do a long run before it gets too hot. I’m not a morning person, so it’s great for it still to be chilly later in the day!
    Susan – Nurse on the Run recently posted…Bilateral Labral Tear Surgery – The Return to Running UpdateMy Profile

  13. Sooooo… SoCal running. on cooler day I wear a t-shirt instead of a tank top. Mwhahaha! Come visit!
    Laura @ Sprint 2 the Table recently posted…Flourless Brussels Sprout Quiche with Cauliflower Crust [Recipe]My Profile

  1. […] Allie wants to make winter running great again. […]

  2. […] Allie @ VITA Train 4 Life Shares Her 8 Best Winter Running Things! […]

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Sunday, November 21, 2010

Promissory notes

Vince Cable’s brain may be starting to melt under the pressure:

Business Secretary Vince Cable has denied breaking promises on university tuition fees, insisting the Liberal Democrats' pre-election pledge to oppose any rise was not binding. …
Dr Cable said the Lib Dems "haven't betrayed anybody" and that the coalition agreement struck with the Tories was their only binding commitment.
"We didn't break a promise. We made a commitment in our manifesto, we didn't win the election. We then entered into a coalition agreement, and it's the coalition agreement that is binding upon us and which I'm trying to honour," he said.

First, the pledge that the Lib Dems proudly signed didn’t require them to “win the election”. It was: “I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative.” Cable could have honoured this promise had he been the only Lib Dem MP in a parliament where the Tories had a majority of 200.

Second, the coalition agreement is no more “binding” than their manifesto. Neither is legally enforceable; both are political statements. What happens if either is broken? The Tories/voters respectively would/will have to decide, ad hoc, how they want to react. That’s all.

Third, given this, the statement that the coalition deal is more important than anything they had previously said to the public to win votes is not going to foster much trust in their reliability in the future.

Fourth, the coalition agreement doesn’t commit them to support raising fees. It says: “We will await Lord Browne’s final report into higher education funding, and will judge its proposals” based on several criteria, including “the impact on student debt”. Either they abandoned their anti-fees promise well after the coalition deal, or they contracted out this “judging its proposals” to the Tory part of the government, or they were just lying so they could back out of a promise they’d never really meant.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

My dependency culture

My name is Tom and I live a life of economic dependency.

I depend for my livelihood on all the strokes of luck – most obviously my parents’ dedication, a hefty amount of genetics and a good, free education – that gave me the qualities I have. More immediately, I depend on an economic system that values these qualities, so that there have (mostly) been job vacancies in the right place at the right time, with a level of pay that covers my needs and even my tastes.

On top of that, I’m willing to work to earn this pay; for this, I’ll take some personal credit (although plenty of people worse off than me have stronger work ethics). But apart from that, I’m responsible for none of the circumstances that allow me to convert my willingness into comfort.

My job, while mostly tedious and often frustrating, rarely places too much strain on me – and is occasionally rewarding. Now and then, if I do something particularly well, I might feel proud of what I’ve achieved. But a moment’s reflection tells me that the more pertinent feeling is gladness at a situation where I have the ability to achieve such things and the opportunity to use that ability (and to sell it for a decent price).

I’ll never be rich, but I’m still dazzlingly lucky. What separates me from all the people who’d like to work but can’t, or want decent work but can only find back-breaking, soul-destroying, minimum-wage drudgery, is sheer chance. They may be dependent on benefits to keep the wolf from the door; I’m dependent on the coincidence of supply and demand that happens to define my labour as valuable. The labour market may more or (often) less efficiently rate our merit as employees, but it isn’t a fair judge of our virtues as people.

Moral crusaders against ‘dependency’ need to remember this.

(This train of thought, if you can call it that, was set off by two good posts from Peter Ryley and Paul Sagar.)

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Missing voters: one cheer for Clegg

This is absolutely right:

Up to 3.5 million potential voters are to be targeted by the government as it seeks to ensure that the "missing millions" who fail to register are given a voice in elections, Nick Clegg will announce today. …
Clegg will say: "It is not good enough to simply ignore the millions who aren't registered, especially when you look more closely at where the problem is worst: among the young; among black and ethnic minority communities; in areas with high social deprivation."

Good. I hope it works.

My quibble is how this fits with the timing of the government’s boundary review, which seeks to cut 50 MPs and equalise constituency sizes. The review will take place before any voter registration push, and so the new constituency sizes will disregard these millions of people. The result will be to more deeply entrench an electoral system that under-represents “areas with high social deprivation”.

But it’s nice that Clegg now admits this.

Presenting an image

In order to understand a political U-turn, you need to get answers to both of these questions:

  • Why have you taken the new position?
  • Why did you take the old position?

For instance, Nick Clegg on tuition fees has been trying to focus on the first question, allowing him to plead the necessity of tough decisions, while avoiding the second: the issue of whether his pre-election promises were idiotic or dishonest.

In the case of David Cameron’s very recent decision to put his personal photographer and film-maker on the public payroll, and his decision today to take them off it again, the only explanation we have so far is:

A source has told the BBC that Mr Cameron now accepts it "sent the wrong message" to employ them at a time of public sector job cuts.

From this we can see that the answer to both my questions above is: ‘To make me look good.’

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Useless polls on the tuition fees protests

This week has offered an excellent case study in what effect public protests – including small but prominent violence – have on public opinion. The Sunday Times YouGov polls this weekend and last asked about the government plans for tuition fees.

Unfortunately, the two polls used very differently worded questions, so the results are not comparable. A pity.

For what it’s worth, last weekend’s poll found 11% in favour of universities setting whatever fees they wanted, 26% in favour of the government policy of a £9,000 fee cap, and 50% in favour of a lower cap or no fees at all. It also found 51% in favour of and 32% against the government policy on repayments of student loans (raising the earnings threshold to £21,000 and having higher earners pay more interest).

This weekend’s poll, using very different wording to set the background, had a single question that covered both the increase in the fees cap and the raising of the repayment threshold; 35% supported this, 52% opposed it.

There’s not really anything we can conclude from that.

The new poll did ask about the protest, though:

Earlier this week there was a violent demonstration against the proposed rise in tuition fees, which included protesters invading and damaging the building containing the Conservative party's headquarters. How much sympathy do you have with the demonstration?
I sympathise both with the demonstration and the direct action against the Conservative party headquarters – 13% (inc. 20% of 18-24-year-olds)
I sympathise with the demonstration, but not the damage caused to the Conservative party headquarters – 52% (inc. 47% of 18-24s)
I do not sympathise with the demonstration, nor the damage caused – 32% (inc. 23% of 18-24s)

Do you think this week's demonstration against tuition fees and the violent scenes at Conservative party headquarters helped or damaged the protesters' cause?
Helped their cause – 11% (inc. 18% of 18-24s)
Damaged their cause – 69% (inc. 58% of 18-24s)

Neither of these, though, comes close to being a measure of how the protests actually changed public opinion – if at all.

And there was a standard question about whether you think the government “will be good or bad for people like you”. Before the protests, 29% of people said good and 48% said bad; after, 28% said good and 48% said bad. Basically, no change. But among 18-24-year-olds, last weekend 24% said good and 46% said bad, while this weekend 27% said good and 40% said bad. This suggests a swing towards the government among those likeliest to empathise with the protests, but breaking the poll down into age groups means you have much less reliable sample sizes (about 130 in each poll).

I don’t think this tells us anything. A wasted opportunity.

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

“An important diagnostic tool”

Sometimes the stuff I have to edit for work is borderline incoherent, sometimes it’s full of painfully misjudged jargon and sometimes it barely even exists. This sort of thing can exasperate and entertain me in equal measure.

But the latest gem is none of these; it’s a simple yet massive failure of perspective:

In medicine, identifying changes in handwriting may provide an important diagnostic tool to monitor neurological disorders and motor function.
In the case of Lord Nelson, British Naval Officer, his handwriting changed dramatically after the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (1797), when he lost his right arm.

Saturday, November 06, 2010

Something new every day

Guy Keleny’s superb Errors and Omissions column in the Independent has delighted me today, by giving me a piece of knowledge that makes sense of a little bit of the English language – and that immediately makes me wonder why I hadn’t already realised it.

Living things are categorised by kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species (‘keep playing church organs, for god’s sake’). Scientists normally use the last two of these to identify organisms: Homo sapiens, Panthera leo, Tyrannosaurus rex, Staphylococcus aureus and so on. The genus identifies the wider group and then the species narrows it down.

What Keleny reveals (in the process of making an entirely different point) is that the adjective for species is specific and that for genus is generic.

Obvious, really.

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Government uneasy about allowing prisoners to vote

A Conservative minister said:

Look, we’ve got these people locked up for the very good reason that they can’t be trusted to be responsible on their own. Fortunately, their collapsed poll ratings make it impossible for them to leave the coalition until they’ve served the full five-year sentence – so frankly, it’s the safest place for them.
Yes, we want to reform them into decent, law-abiding right-wingers, and we’re making good progress. But allowing them to have a say over the government’s policy direction before they’re properly rehabilitated would just mean they’d revert to their bad old ways.

Entente cordiale for now, but we may fall out later…

Congratulations to David Cameron for his negotiating skills. I can’t help but feel we’ve got the better end of this deal:

The UK and France have signed treaties agreeing to military co-operation including testing of nuclear warheads. One centre will be set up in the UK to develop nuclear testing technology and another in France to carry it out.