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Public Garden at the Museum

Public Garden finally returns to the National Museum this coming weekend, and we’ll be there too! (Please note that the shop at Normanton will be closed the same weekend)

Learn more about our country’s history, and browse the best from Singapore’s independent retailers at the same time – what could be better?

Date: 27 and 28 Sept  (Sat and Sun)

Time: 1-7pm

Location: National Museum of Singapore

For more information, go to

We’ll be posting some sneak peeks of what we’ll be bringing to the flea soon, so watch this space!

Public Garden Graphic Banner 27 - 28 Sep 2014

Filed under I heart vintage

Vintage-themed Wedding

Make your weddings even more special with our vintage props! Here are some ideas:

– ham it up with a vintage microphone at the photo shoot

– flaunt a suitcase stack at the reception

– get your friends to type their greetings on a typewriter

– use a vintage cosmetic case to store your ang pows.

What other ideas do you have in mind? Let us know, and we might just have the props for it! All for sale and rent.

Vintage luggage

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P1050619 IMG_2059

Vintage microphones

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Cosmetic case for ang pows

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Filed under Decor, I heart vintage, Props

Nice & Nautical

If you’ve been to our shop, you’ll know what an extensive collection of nautical items we have – from pulleys and compasses to diving helmets and steering wheels! Here’s a taste of the latest vintage items.

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Filed under Antique, Decor, Props

Exquisite Chinese Antiques

Did we mention we have lots more items of antiquity than what you see in the shop? There’s also a great collection of Chinese antiques we’re making available now. These carvings, decorative items, wooden screens, and more, have been in our collection for years, and the quality is hard to find now. We especially love the lifelike carvings which are truly dynamic and lively. They’re available for viewing, so give us a call! Check out the “Chinese Antiques” tab above for the catalogue of items.

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Filed under Antique, Decor

We’re closed this Sat

Our shop will be closed this Saturday 16 Aug. Drop us an email or give us a call if you want to drop by on Sun! 🙂

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Filed under Uncategorized

See you at Public Garden!

The Great Singapore Sale is in full swing, but there’s only one place you can score really unique buys without breaking the bank – at the Public Garden flea market!

Come by our stall this weekend at Scape in the heart of Orchard Road!

Date: 21 and 22 June (Sat & Sun)

Location: Scape Playspace (Behind Orchard Cineleisure)

Time: 1-7pm

Nearest MRT station: Somerset MRT

This edition is held in conjunction with Noise Singapore, so there’s an added bonus of local bands performing from 3-9pm!

Check out Public Garden and Noise Singapore for more info!

Public Garden-Scape

Weekend Noise

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Filed under For Fun, I heart vintage

Typewriters (updated)!

Hi, here’s an update on the typewriters we have available at the moment. They’ve all been serviced and in ready-to-type mode!

To view, come by on Saturday from 12-7pm. On all other days, we are open by appointment.

Royal typewriter

Royal typewriter

Hermes 3000 typewriter

Hermes 3000 typewriter (sold)

Wellon typewriter (Japan)

Wellon typewriter, Japan (sold)

Olympia Traveller de Luxe

Olympia Traveller de Luxe

Filed under I heart vintage, Props

National Treasure

Have you been watching Treasure Hunt on Channel News Asia? Now catch the exhibition The People’s Collection at the National Museum! They might not be priceless artefacts but these items mean more to us as Singaporeans – part of a real-life account of what life used to be in the past. We were featured in the episode focusing on the 60s’; see our vintage cash register, brass toast grille and kopitiam cup.

The exhibition runs from now till 29 April at the National Museum, Stamford Road. Here are some highlights from the launch event.

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Filed under I heart vintage

Watch CNA’s Treasure Hunt today!

We’re honoured to be selected to feature on Channel News Asia’s Treasure Hunt programme where they feature items of historical significance to Singapore! The episode we’re in focuses on the 1960s and in it, we’ll be introducing some beautiful items from traditional kopitiam (coffeeshop) culture.

Catch the show (and us) with host Anita Kapoor at 8pm, Channel News Asia, on 26 Feb (today!)

Behind the scenes!

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Filed under I heart vintage

Our first flea of the Year!

It’s a breezy sunny Saturday. Take a walk in the Public Garden flea market today and tomorrow. We’ll be there and bringing lots of vintage treasures.

Where: National Library Building, Middle Road at the open-air atrium
When: 22 and 23 Feb (Sat & Sun)
Time: 1-7pm

Check out their blog for more information.

The shop at Normanton will be closed this weekend.

See you!! 🙂

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Filed under For Fun, I heart vintage


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Dr. Saturday - NCAAF

Case Keenum drops 9 touchdowns on Rice, and another record hits the floor

Houston 73, Rice 34
Another week, another broken record for Case Keenum. And he's making it look way too easy.

Keenum's nine touchdown passes against the hapless Owls were more than any other I-A/FBS quarterback has thrown in more than a decade, moving his career total to 139 touchdown passes, more than any other college quarterback has thrown, ever. Eight of the nine Thursday night covered at least 20 yards. Eight of nine came before the start of the fourth quarter. His 534 yards through the air set a single-game high for the season. His top receiver, Patrick Edwards, set a season high with 318 yards and five touchdowns.

Keenum's fifth scoring strike of the night — a 64-yarder to Edwards — gave the sixth-year senior the NCAA's all-time career touchdown mark previously held by former Texas Tech quarterback Graham Harrell. This a week after he set the FBS record for total offense.

Case Keenum drops 9 touchdowns on Rice, and another record hits the floorThe incredible part: The overwhelming majority of the damage came in just two quarters, between a slow start — the Cougars didn't score on offense until the final play of a rain-soaked first quarter — and a merciful finish, after they called off the dogs early in the fourth. Keenum threw so many touchdown passes in such a short window, he lost track of who was on the other end.

"Maybe if I thought about it, [but] I don't know if I could list them off to you right now," Keenum said. "It was a blast. That was probably the most fun I've ever had playing football."

Chances are if Keenum had said Edwards' name on any of the touchdowns, he probably would have been close. While Keenum found four different receivers for at least four catches and one touchdown apiece, it was Edwards — who is probably best remembered for suffering an ugly broken leg in a nationally televised game against Marshall in 2008 — who stole the show on scoring strikes covering 57, 64, 37, 22 and 47 yards. His other two catches on the night covered 43 and 48 yards. Let's do the math: That's an average of 45.4 yards per catch, on seven catches.

Now the Keenum record-breaking tour continues with his sights set on the FBS all-time passing yards record of 17,072, which is held by former Hawaii quarterback Timmy Chang. Keenum needs just 267 yards to top that mark and based on his previous performances this season, he should get that in the first half — maybe the first quarter - against UAB.

With roughly a quarter of the season remaining, Keenum's long-shot Heisman campaign looks a little like this: He should take a commanding lead in national total offense and passing yards per game and will continue to climb in passing and pass efficiency, where he's already in the top seven nationally on both counts, by the end of the weekend. Also, Houston is 8-0 for the first time since 1990, when it finished the season 10-1. Sounds like a legitimate candidate to me.

Keenum will always be held back because he's a "system quarterback," putting up gaudy numbers against some of the worst defenses in the country in Conference USA. But he still has to execute the system, and few have ever been executed to such devastating effect on such a consistent basis.

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Bucs' Doug Martin 'laying in the weeds,' looking to sneak up on competition again

Yahoo Sports

TAMPA, Fla. – Doug Martin hates the nickname, but it seems to keep resurfacing.

"What's that they call him?" asked teammate and offensive lineman Demar Dotson after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' 20-14 preseason loss to the Miami Dolphins on Saturday. "Helmet monster?"

It's actually "Muscle hamster," though "Helmet monster" is perhaps more fitting for such a menacing rusher. Martin is, like his label suggests, hard to track and harder to stop. He's withstood quite a bit in two seasons in the pros. The Bucs' franchise was completely overhauled this offseason, with a new coach, general manager, offensive coordinator, quarterback, receivers, and even uniforms. Yet there's Martin, still front and center – despite a torn labrum that cost him most of the 2013 season.

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Doug Martin eludes Dolphins DE Olivier Vernon during a first-quarter run Saturday. (AP)

Doug Martin eludes Dolphins DE Olivier Vernon during a first-quarter run Saturday. (AP)

The Bucs drafted running back Charles Sims in May, and there was wonder what that meant for Martin considering Bobby Rainey and Mike James combined for three 100-yard rushing games in Martin's absence last year. Sims impressed in rookie camp, and although Martin was a Pro Bowler in his only full season, names of star rushers like LeSean McCoy always come up before his.

Yet after two preseason games in 2014, the Tampa offensive line is thin and shaky, Sims is out 12 to 14 weeks with an ankle injury, and James is now sidelined at least for a few days with a shoulder ailment. Suddenly Martin is reemerging as a savior for Bucs fans and fantasy owners alike.

Martin's upset that his running mates aren't healthy, but he's not at all offended that many people might have forgotten just how good he is.

"I'm just laying low in the weeds," he said by phone on Sunday. "Ready to pounce, ready to attack. I like it that way: lay in the weeds and pounce unexpectedly."

That pounce showed up Saturday in a short appearance against the Dolphins. Martin got the ball from new quarterback Josh McCown on the second play of the game and immediately juked safety Louis Delmas before hurtling forward for a good gain. "I can see that burst," McCown said. "I can see that toughness." Both the burst and the toughness are vintage Martin, even though the third-year player really hasn't had enough time to be vintage.

There's reason to believe Martin will be better than vintage this season. When he found out Jeff Tedford was coming in as the Bucs' new offensive coordinator, he called up former Cal running back Shane Vereen to get some intel on the new scheme.

"I'm loving the offense," Martin said. "It's not just the running. The route combinations are something I like – something that challenged me from the beginning."

Fullback Jovorskie Lane called the offense "perfect for Doug."

"It's a gap team," he said. "It's a gap offense. And he's a downhill runner."

View gallery

Doug Martin's season came to an end last season in Week 7 against the Falcons. (USA TODAY Sports)

Doug Martin's season came to an end last season in Week 7 against the Falcons. (USA TODAY Sports)

Part of what's somewhat misleading about Martin is his size. He's short (listed at 5-foot-9), so he's assumed to be a scatback, like Barry Sanders. But he's far more "muscle" than "hamster."

"He's a hard runner," said Rainey, Tampa's leading rusher last year. "Something he does really well. I'm more of a finesse runner and one thing I've seen from him is knowing when to hit it hard."

Yes, Martin moves fast. But he's more damaging in the way he moves forward. And that will be needed behind an offensive line that hasn't been as airtight or healthy as everyone in Tampa would like. Dancing behind the line of scrimmage won't work as well as simply plowing ahead.

"You don't have to hold blocks that long with Doug," Dotson said. "He's made our offensive line look good. He has made guys miss."

And although Sims was brought in partially to give Martin a lighter load, Martin might thrive with more carries.

"Every running back wants every carry to go to him," he said. "I know it's a physical game. But I can take a heavy workload."

He said he's "95 percent" ready, and that extra five percent will come from more reps.

"You start to get your groove [in preseason games] and they take you out," he said. "With my game, I feel like it's stronger at the end of the game."

Stats bear him out: Martin averaged more than 100 yards per game in November and December of his Pro Bowl rookie season. He ran for 820 yards following halftime of games (including one overtime) that season compared to 586 in the first and second quarters.

So the hype on offense has gone to Vincent Jackson, Mike Evans and Austin Seferian-Jenkins – the tall pass-catchers threatening to stretch defenses more than the plodding Bucs usually do. But the front man still matters most. It's not just the "Dunkaneers"; it's Doug and the Dunkaneers.

"I'm right where I want to be," Martin said. "My mind is right. I'm right there."

The helmet monster, laying in the weeds.

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Business and trade

Our canals and rivers are used by more people and for a wider variety of purposes than ever before. We need to keep one eye on future possibilities, while of course preserving the historic and natural environment of our waterways.

To that end, we work with a large number of organisations across Britain in the public, private, third and voluntary sectors. It goes without saying that the money we earn is always re-invested in our canals and rivers.

Find out more about opportunities to get involved with the valuable work of the Trust via the links on the right hand side of this page.


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Mozilla Open Badges: the ecosystem begins to take shape

08/01/12: Updated, see bottom of post.

A lot has been happening in the Open Badges world: we’ve been attending and speaking at conferences (ePIC, Gamification Summit, OSCON, ISTE); developing new outreach efforts; having fantastic conversations with significant potential partners; facilitating discussions about the future of alternative credentialing at CGI America; thinking through web literacies, skills and competencies; and working on developing Mozilla webmaker badges based on those web literacies. (And we’re also working on developing an “OBI compliant” tag for use on partner sites. Fun!)

As I’ve been traveling around and thinking through these issues, rationalizing different versions of assessment criteria, hacking through what folks mean when they mention 21st Century skills, I’ve felt the need to put a few things into a more visual representation. The first is how I see the development of Open Badges understanding happening. It’s fairly anecdotal and yet useful to begin talking about where the level of public understanding resides and where opportunities still exist. (Speaking of understanding Open Badges, if you’re not following us on Twitter at @OpenBadges, now is the time to start. And if you’re not joining our weekly Open Badges community calls (you missed a great one last week on validation), now is the time to start.

Impression of public understanding of Mozilla Open Badges

This graphic presents a pretty DML / Mozilla -centric view but it’s one I believe accurately represents how much we’ve accomplished in bringing the public up to speed in a relatively short time period. That said, I will also note that we have quite a way to go until the term “Open Badges” (and not just digital badges) can be used and understood in common speech.

A prime differentiator, and one that tends to get lost in cursory understandings of digital badges, is the idea that an Open Badge carries with it its own credentials: it’s evidence based documentation. Additionally, an Open Badge is a sort of diplomat that can freely cross disciplinary & institutional boundaries. From a systems standpoint, no Open Badge lives alone: each one resides in a larger badge ecosystem. As the ecosystem gains breadth, questions arise about the depth and rigor of each badge—as compared to the current understanding of social, professional, and academic currencies. Many, if not all of the questions of validity will be addressed through not only the methods by which each Open Badge is created but also by the community that develops around it. Endorsers will play a significant role in linking an ecosystem together as will Issuers & Displayers, but then so will “consuming” organizations like employers, academic institutions, community groups, etc.

But, in the interest of making this a briefer post with other pretty graphics about the concept of validation and trust networks I just referenced to come later (I promise—they’re already done), here’s an initial take on dividing up the academic world into traditional vs. non-traditional, accredited vs. non-accredited as it currently stands.

Traditional vs. non-traditional, accredited vs. non-accredited

Obviously, this is an abbreviated, highly selective version of that world but I would love to hear your responses to not only where you see you/your organization appearing on this graph, but also your thoughts on the validity of it. It would also be great if you felt the desire to talk about the future of this system and whether or not this approach will retain its validity or if we’ll need an entirely new one after Open Badges enters common parlance. Additionally, if this is an omniscient take or if there are different visions for each of the three primary players: earners, issuers and displayers.

And of course, I would love it still more if you would let me know your thoughts on where we’ve been, where we’re headed and what we have left to do. Thanks!

– – –

More soon.

UPDATE 08/01/12: After discussing this on the Open Badges community call, I’m even more torn by the dichotomy imposed by combining traditional & formal and non-traditional & informal (not to mention the extreme mental shorthand with which I’ve written this post). It’s possible to have traditional pedagogical techniques performed in informal settings. Consequently, I’m reworking this second graphic to include the subtleties that are lost when traditional & formal and non-traditional & informal are so unceremoniously combined.

As I mentioned in a few emails to those of you who wrote responses to this post, there will most definitely need to be a series of these graphics to articulate what we’re saying when we talk about Open Badges and its ecosystem. Lenses, layers, and conceptual frameworks are all still very much in process: I’m working on graphically representing all of these and I appreciate all the community participation I can get. Thanks!

4 thoughts on “Mozilla Open Badges: the ecosystem begins to take shape

  1. Pingback: Mozilla Open Badges: the ecosystem begins to take shape | Badges for Lifelong Learning |

  2. Pingback: Mozilla Open Badges: the ecosystem begins to take shape | Persona | Digital Badges |

  3. Dominik Lukes

    Thanks for clarifying the second graphic. I found it hard to reconcile Montessori with non-traditional. Perhaps the label should be non-mainstream or minority models. You would also need a dimension for the mode of delivery and things like learner autonomy. Khan academy is quite formal in style and mode of delivery but with high degree of learner autonomy. Montessori is informal in mode of delivery and high on learner autonomy. But even in learner autonomy, they are not the same. The Khan Academy gives you the option to choose where and when you study and perhaps the sequence but not really what to study (assuming you follow a curriculum elsewhere) and how to study it. Whereas Montessori does give students the option of where and when (with some exceptions) but gives them a huge amount of independence in the choice of content and medium of delivery.

    I guess, the more you think about these things, the more confused they become. So perhaps the original graphic makes as much sense as anything else.

  4. Pingback: Catching up with open badges | Persona

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Ring the Bells -Upcoming Christmas Geneameme

It’s been a long while since we’ve had a geneameme and I thought it might be fun to  do a Christmas Geneameme-after all it’s not as if we’re busy or anything <smile>. If we get participation from readers around the world it will be a fun way to learn how others celebrate Christmas.

Do you want to join in? I’ll be posting the geneameme on 2nd December, the start of Advent, and will collate all the responses on Sunday 16th December so there’s time for people to get involved.

Maybe you haven’t been involved in a geneameme and aren’t sure what to do….

Here’s how the Geneameme works

Copy the list from my 2 December post into your blog

Add your comments after each question (writing your comments in a different colour/italicised makes the responses easier to read).

Try to add more than a yes/no answer so we can learn more about everyone’s experiences.

If there’s something I’ve missed feel free to add another question/comment.

Please leave a link in the comments section of my blog or on Google+ or use a #xmasgeneameme Twitter tag. (Google alerts aren’t always reliable).

On 16th December I’ll post a link to all our posts. (I figure after that everyone will be in manic-Xmas-preparation mode, or maybe travelling).

If you don’t have a blog you can still participate by sending me a comment with your responses (or to my email -see the right hand bar on the home page).

10 thoughts on “Ring the Bells -Upcoming Christmas Geneameme

  1. Yes, count me in! Like Kristen, I was hoping there would be something different from the Advent Calendar I have participated in (and enjoyed) the last two years. I look forward to finding out more. I do like your holly motif – very cheery on a bitterly cold frosty day in Scotland – 32F.

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View Thread: Why are string types immutable in C#?
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    Sven Groot

    Manip, although you are correct, this has nothing to do with why the String object is immutable. If I append a few characters to a StringBuilder, the same move/copy/free thing is done, but the StringBuilder class is not immutable.

    Let's take a look at an example with a method that both the StringBuilder and String classes have:

    String x = "hello";
    String y = x.Replace('e', 'u');
    StringBuilder a = new StringBuilder("hello");
    StringBuilder b = a.Replace('e', 'u');
    Console.WriteLine("x: " + x);
    Console.WriteLine("y: " + y);
    Console.WriteLine("a: " + a.ToString());
    Console.WriteLine("b: " + b.ToString());

    What's the output of this program:
    x: hello
    y: hullo
    a: hullo
    b: hullo

    As you can see, the Replace call did not change the String class instance, but it did change the StringBuilder instance (the only reason why StringBuilder.Replace also returns an instance is to make it possible to chain calls. In fact, it doesn't return a new instance, but the same one, so you'll find that Object.ReferenceEquals(a, b) == true).

    Now as to why. I don't know all the reasons, but one of them is this. In .Net, String is a reference type, so it is never copied, but passed by reference. Compare this to the C++ std::string object (which is not immutable), which is passed by value. This means that if you want to use a String as a key in a Hashtable, you're fine in C++, because C++ will copy the string to store the key in the hashtable (actually std::hash_map, but still) for later comparison. So even if you later modify the std::string instance, you're fine.

    But in .Net, when you use a String in a Hashtable, it will store a reference to that instance. Now assume for a moment that strings aren't immutable, and see what happens:
    1. Somebody inserts a value x with key "hello" into a Hashtable.
    2. The Hashtable computes the hash value for the String, and places a reference to the string and the value x in the appropriate bucket.
    3. The user modifies the String instance to be "bye".
    4. Now somebody wants the value in the hashtable associated with "hello". It ends up looking in the correct bucket, but when comparing the strings it says "bye"!="hello", so no value is returned.
    5. Maybe somebody wants the value "bye"? "bye" probably has a different hash, so the hashtable would look in a different bucket. No "bye" keys in that bucket, so our entry still isn't found.

    Making strings immutable means that step 3 is impossible. If somebody modifies the string he's creating a new string object, leaving the old one alone. Which means the key in the hashtable is still "hello", and thus still correct.

    So, probably among other things, immutable strings are a way to enable strings that are passed by reference to be used as keys in a hashtable or similar dictionary object.


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Tag Archives: ramblings

The Mantle of the Vicious Bitch

8 Mar

I’ve been in television hibernation this past month, and it took the centenary of women’s day to draw me out. I’ve always been iffy on the subject of women’s day — why, precisely, are we celebrating half of humanity? I guess any publicity- look, we exist- is better than none.

Here I am. Watch me exult.

The excuse for my telly fest (which concluded last week) was my contribution to Popmatters’ Whedon retrospective, which will go up later this month on bogey. The inspiration for my little rant below was Darla, that first modern working girl.  For a feminist writer, Whedon is uniformly unkind in doling out her fate, though perhaps after 500 years of killing she was due some dying. Multiple times, even.  Darla, Angel’s sire,  is the vampire we meet in the first scene of Buffy. Dusted by Angel in season one, she is revived by Wolfram and Hart three years later, tormented in assorted ways (including one ill-fated pregnancy) until she finally kills herself. Amazing how often that happens in Angel: women sacrificing self for spawn. Though I guess Illyria is not, strictly speaking, spawn.

My title, for whedon-trivia, is borrowed off Cordy, from my favourite Angel episode. This would be Billy, in which Lilah kills her misogynist client. What can I say? Lilah’s got me on my knees. Remember when she gives Wesley The Divine Comedy before he goes all dark and they get all horny? In the original Tuscan, too, so classy and clever, which almost made me want to be a lawyer again.

Billy, though, is in close competition with Guise will be Guise, where Wesley impersonates Angel while the original and a fake swami have the following conversation:

Magev:  “You’re deeply ambivalent.”
Angel:  “Yeah, well, I am and I’m not.”
Magev:  “You need to get over her. – Okay, what does she [Darla] look like?”
Angel:  “She’s beautiful. – Small, blonde…”
Magev:  “Right.  So here’s what you do.  You go out and find yourself some small, blonde thing.  You bed her, you love her, you treat her like crap, you break her heart.  You and your inner demon will thank me, I promise.”

And, in spirit with these serendipitous times, a poem I found on Spaniard in the Works,

Chewing slowly,

Only after I’d eaten

My grandmother,

Two brothers-in-law,

And father-in-law

(His big family included)

In that order,

And had for dessert

The town’s inhabitants,

Did I find, says Kabir,

The beloved that I’ve become

One with

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Simple Twist of Fate.

9 Feb

This birthday post is for someone I have shared my life with for the better part of four years. You might recognise him as the voice of reason in “Books, Boyfriends, and Bandits“, and it has often been claimed (and not only by him) that he is the saner of the two of us. Personally, I think a fruit fly is capable of more sense, but I can’t deny it was the paradox of pragmatic recklessness that drew us together in the first place. As Yeats once said, some people are bred to harder things than triumph. He was always one such, and it was a lucky day that law school threw us in each other’s paths.

That said, I have an aversion to mush, so shall we move right on to the poems part of this post?

First, a description…

Child on the Curbstone.

The headlights raced; the moon, death-faced,
Stared down on that golden river.
I saw through the smoke the scarlet cloak
Of a boy who could not shiver.

His father’s hand forced him to stand,
The traffic thundered slaughter;
One foot he thrust in the whirling dust
As it were running water.

As in a dream I saw the stream
Scatter in drops that glistened;
They flamed, they flashed, his brow they splashed,
And danger’s son was christened.

The portent passed; his fate was cast,
Sea-farer, desert-ranger.
Tearless I smiled on that fearless child
Dipping his foot in Danger.

— Elinor Wylie.

Continue reading

The Training of Trapeze Artists.

15 Sep

The first installment of my Rep Ipsa Loquitor column for mylaw.net, which talks about Aamir Khan, monkeys, and Midas. Do check out the website, especially if you’re in the legal field: it has all sorts of oddities and amusements.

The Bibliotheque Nationale.

“The diploma gives society a phantom guarantee and its holders phantom rights. The holder of the diploma passes officially for possessing knowledge, and comes to believe, in turn, that society owes him something. Never has a convention been created which is more unfortunate for everyone- the state, the individual, and in particular, society.”

Paul Valery

This Independence Day, a friend studying at NLSIU wrote an exam on Private International Law. The special repeat in question (more on those in a minute) was scheduled for the previous afternoon and postponed at the last minute at the request (presumably) of Rahul Gandhi’s security detail, which occupied NLSIU’s academic block all afternoon. ‘We figured the exam was cancelled’, said my amused friend that evening, ‘when we were waved away from the building by a guy with a gun’. Mr. Gandhi was coming later that day to address a student body directed to bedeck and bejewel themselves in his honour whilst refraining from spontaneous displays of political acuity.

That a politician could halt and censor the administration of the best legal school in the country isn’t the amazing part of this story (though is it only alumni who remember when Yasin Mallik was to be found waiting to give his talk at tea-shops outside law school?). Of the four people who wrote the exam the following morning, a final roadblock for the weary, only three passed. It was a somnolent public holiday, not to mention the Sabbath, yet the college revived itself from the festivities long enough to shaft someone. Maybe I reread Little Women a few too many times growing up, but does this sound like an allegory of Pilgrim’s Progress already? And I’m just getting started. If only a German professor could come rescue us.

The culturally appropriate reference here is probably 3 Idiots. Its themes will be familiar to anyone who spends time in institutes across the country: the suicides we avoid, the intellectual tyranny we try escape, vindictive and petty teachers, the formalisation of an education system focused more on job training and less on creativity. In science circles, this means the invention-cycle gets derailed and we expend our brains to help other people make discoveries; in legal circles, it means we care less about policy and big pictures and more about dodging regulation and honing the company line. Other elements in the movie are clearly theatrical. Colleges punish slackers, true, but they punish the genius maverick just as much. Rather, they define and distort such people until either the genius or the maverick in them is burned out. Perhaps, though, that is only my college. Did yours happen to fail anyone on Independence Day?

Continue reading

Res Ipsa Loquitor

14 Jul

Law School.

Requiem for a Dream

I started National Law School (hereinafter NLS or law school) when I was 17.  I entered a college of 400 people (the LLMs and sundry researchers we deemed too irrelevant to measure) in a class of 80. I was told at the time that it was the most broad-based liberal arts program in the country. By a miracle, I left when I was 22, a year and some ago today.  I left also with almost-80 people, but they were by no count the same 80.I know now that I was deceived, but only by a thin margin: India is not a country that trucks in the humanities.  I found in law school standards both duplicitous and dangerous, as well as unkind to the likes of me.  Even so, I can hardly deny that the average star in our firmament was obscenely bright; law school gathers oddities and outrages like so many moths to a flame. By the same counter, our douches are far douchier than your everyday college possesses, and far more of them exist than we will ever tell you.

A few years ago, two friends and I, tipsy on terrace-wine, postulated the existence of magic batches in law school, the batches that Shook Things Up. These batches come around every four years, we said, and ours was (naturally) the latest incarnation. I have very hazy memories of the reasons justifying this periodicity (almost certainly hokum) but to prove this was not a vanity project, we allocated the most dubious of credits to ourselves: as a batch, we had shed more batch-mates than any previously or (at the time) since.  We were also the most enthused of.. intoxicants, but hush.

With that, onward and ho.

Cartoons courtesy Steve Brodner.

A note on law school failure

The NLS system involves taking 4 courses every trimester: 12 in the course of an academic year. ‘Passing’ in law school implies acquiring a ‘B’ grade, or 50-55/100 in the given subject. The highest grade, ‘O’ , involves scoring above 70 in the given subject. The 100 mark evaluation is broken down into project-viva marks (35), examination marks (60) and attendance marks (5).

Upon failure to reach the 50% cut-off, one is allowed a ‘repeat’ examination during the holidays between trimesters, making internships more difficult to sustain, vital though they are to one’s career. There is no provision to resubmit projects and thus raise one’s score, and creative teachers usually find those 35 marks the more effective way to regulate their students. A project-total of less than 15 spells doom for the best examinee. The highest exam marks awarded in NLS range in the mid-40s.

The schedule is this: two projects each month for the first two months of term, finals at the close; and, in the early years, midterms. Only in the final year could the exam be suspended at the teacher’s discretion in favour of ‘research’.

Passing is further contingent upon minimum 75% attendance, in the absence of which one fails automatically, without repeat reprieve. Medical leave entitles one to a further 10%. This latter failed state, also applicable to those who fail to make it up to 50 post-repeat, is known as a “carryover”. People are allowed three carryovers per year which they must make up in the following; if they gather more they are trickled down one batch. The same result obtains upon repeat-failing any single carryover (i.e. one can’t carry over a carryover).

The onerous attendance requirement is what makes a difficult schedule a punishing one, and stacks the cards against people with irregular timetables.  Missing a month of class can, and does, tank a full year of exemplary behaviour.  An alarming, and growing, statistic in law school is the number of people who “lose” more than one year (this is an intuitive claim with no research except for observation). Consequently, any batch in law school is a hardy, backstabbing band that travels together; a herd of folk continually trimmed of the weak, the exhausted, the unlucky, replaced by similarly worn seniors.

Liberal Interpretations

The one thing mildly interesting about academic life in national law school is project writing.  Teaching is a shambles and course material is apportioned by an administration as fussy as a matron slick with illicit candy. Grading is, well, a joke. I was memorably failed in my final year because the teacher disapproved of my describing, in a paper on ‘transitional justice’, what the given society (Lebanon) was transitioning between and questioning how ‘transitions’ are measured and determined.  But the papers rescued the education for me: every trimester, I found myself a canvas or two that threw up absorbing problems. Every so often, I was granted the rare clutch of three, and once, remarkably, four.  Apart from teaching me a few things about research, the discipline provided a rhythm to my thought that my anarchic reading sorely lacked. On a reread of five years of slush, I find that I  doubled back time and again, sometimes inadvertently, sometimes to score an easy 1000 words. Some themes-culpability, choice, communalism, flexibility, freedom, gender- echo across the years. ‘Justice’ I consulted never once.

A project begins when one is handed a ‘topic’- a phrase, a concept, a thought, a movement- and allowed as free rein as teacher and imagination allow.  The usual project is about 5000 words, though beefy prospects impress teachers and butchers alike. Mine struggled valiantly to this goalpost, often flagging off at 4500 words, though they soar majestically on occasion. My last seminar paper sailed on for 15000 words of utter chaos.

The principle I followed in my monthly turnings-in was to find one thing interesting to read about and then jargon it up. Many projects, especially towards the close of law school life, were undertaken as psychological exercises- overblown diary entries- which is how I wound up with a seminar paper that was a manifesto and a tax paper about criminal jurisprudence.

Continue reading

Pitching SpaceTime

9 Jul

A pitch for the combined reading of

Ranajit Guha, History at the Limit of World-History and
Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject.

In two interlocking review-essays.

was roundly rejected.

for it featured most alarming graphs.

Limits, in math, are a clever, offside approach to concrete integers. If you apply them to functions, they can illuminate indeterminate relationships and make them almost comprehensible. Ranajit Guha attempts something similar in his book. He sneaks upon the Geist-of-the-world, the angst of world-history: Spirit, Reason, God, all wrapped up into one. He studies modernity-minted “stages” in history, laying out, in parallel, the invention of prose. He demonstrates, very effectively, the irrationality at the heart of rational-minded positivist historiography. He contests the view that historiography can be tied down to specific places, people and times; suggesting that E Pluribus Unum is a doctrine better suited to zealotry than to history.

To use the supremely rational art of math to make my point.

He contests a linear approach to history, like so:

Cartesian History

In favour of a reciprocal relation; or if that be too simple, a secant-function.

Inverse History

Reverse History

Though he concedes that sometimes a mere change in co-ordinates, from prose to poetry, does the trick.

Polar History

My approach was undergirded by Guha’s insistence in History at the Limits of World History that conceptualising history as a path along which we plod, qua Hegel, is flawed: what we need is a more diverse, fragmented historiography, the better to frame our fragmented selves. Different models need to be adopted for different phenomena: a narrative on colonialism can use reverse-history where one on the postcolony might find the inverse-history formula more appropriate, while globalisation can only be described as a polar phenomenon.

My other point was the ol’ paradox of rationality: an argument stolen from Mahmood Mamdani, among oh-so-many others. Those enlightenment-bogies, the neo-liberals, wage war masquerading as a defense of “liberal values”. They have inherited a particular thought-system from their forbears, as have we, to some degree: one which equates progress with rationality and rationality with mathematico-empirical inquiry. My outrageous graphs were an attempt to formulate those premises within drastically different arguments. Maths itself, it should be noted, sees no causality between reason and increment.

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Help shape the future of your local community

It’s short notice due to the approaching deadline of the consultation period, but the Charlton Riverside Action Group are meeting to discuss the newly produced master-plan for the area.

Antony Rifkin, Director of Allies and Morrison Urban Practitioners, who produced this document has kindly said he will come along.

Once again we hope our local councillors and our MP will be in attendance. As well as local stakeholders and members of neighbouring resident’s groups.

However, most importantly we need you and your views.

Hope you can make it.

About Matt

SE7 resident, journalism student.
This entry was posted in Charlton, Charlton news. Bookmark the permalink.

14 Responses to Help shape the future of your local community

  1. Ashleigh says:

    How can an action group develop a formal response with Councillors and developers’ representatives present? Even if they leave the room later it doesn’t make sense to let them start off the discussions.

  2. Matt says:

    I wouldn’t think of it like that Ashleigh. I see it as a chance for residents to put their views to developers and instantaneously get feedback on what’s workable or not. Therefore producing a more concrete response that’s going to make more sense and be more useful once submitted. If elected representatives leave with a better idea of what residents do and don’t want, then that can only be a good thing too.

  3. Brenda says:

    Matt, the Club issued a statement with regard to the plans last week and it may be worth asking Stephen Kavanagh if he were interested in attending?,,10267~2621336,00.html

  4. Brenda says:

    Cut and paste the whole link, it should work then.

  5. Ashleigh says:

    I’m sorry Matt? You want these numpties to tell you what’s workable? They are working to kick out the poor. Think that’s about it. Which side are you on?

    • Matt says:

      I can reveal to you that members of CRAG and the Charlton Society are pushing for mixed-use, mixed tenure and low density housing. Would love to have you along to add weight to that argument and see what the developers have to say. Emails and blog comments are great but there’s nothing quite like talking face-to-face in an open forum.

  6. Ashleigh says:

    Think I’d rather learn a trade, but I’ll try to steel myself to come along.

  7. Matt – How does the PLA stuff sit with all this?

    The posts from Roy T rather made it sound like the Riverside Masterplan had been released early and was already being discounted by the higher authority of the PLA.

    I’m not suggesting the meeting won’t be very useful and a good chance to put views (and correct names of churches) to the consultant guys, but has there been any clarity given to the PLA comments?

  8. Matt says:

    Yes, it does seem that the PLA haven’t been consulted on this. I’ve also been told this is just a ‘spatial strategy’ and not a development proposal – I’m not sure of the difference to be honest.

    The leader of the council mentioned at a meeting that more documents are due with more consultations and plans for this area will slowly narrow after each stage – meaning it probably will end up being consultation overload.

    I hope to ask the developers tomorrow about the PLA’s concerns – will let you know how it goes.

  9. Chris says:

    I was going to come to this, but sadly my wife and daughter are Tom and Dick so that’s that.

    Anyway, as you will have seen from previous posts elsewhere I’m interested in the fate of the Murphy’s plant. I’m also worried that the Churchill industrial estate will be demolished because it has the word industrial rather than ‘eco’ in it. It is home to some great local businesses.

  10. Chris says:

    Yee Gods! Have made a mistake of Churchillian proportions.

    Make that Westminster estate!

    Aging is a terrible thing…..

    • Matt says:

      No worries Chris, will try and let you know any outcomes. I’m quite a fan of Murphy’s myself, although I’m told the recent removal of a dust-wall has meant passing cyclists have been getting a bit of a mouthful.
      It has a ten year lease anyway according to our local MP.

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Back Like a Lion

Well. The last time I disappeared from my blog I reappeared with a baby. No baby this time, but I do have news: I have a new job. After nearly six years at Boston University, I packed up my things and said goodbye to Kenmore Square. Tomorrow morning is my first day at The Perkins School for the Blind, just over the river from us in Watertown. And no more development research; I’m trying my hand at stewardship. The easiest way to explain it is that I will be writing donors to tell them how their gifts are being used. There will also be some proposal writing and research drawing on my past job.

But anyhow, my job search explains my absence. I spent a good portion of this past month applying, interviewing and submitting writing samples, and I’m excited that I ended up at such a great place and so close to home and daycare for Lilli. I’m sorry I was gone for so long, but if there was a month to disappear in, March is really the one to skip. Nothing really grows in March, and we’ve reached the end of cabbage and kale. Honestly, the only thing you missed was Lilli dressed as a Leprechaun for Purim this year.

Lilli the leprechaun

Consider yourselves caught up!

Now it’s practically April, which means asparagus and ramps and fiddlehead ferns. My new job is about a mile from Russo’s, which should mean there’s now time to shop for produce after work before I pick up Lilli at daycare. And while leaving BU means no more Ward’s Berry Farm CSA, we’ve already signed up for a new one at Red Fire Farm which starts in early June.

I’m sorry for disappearing, but I’m so happy to be back.


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Economic Perspectives, 4, No. July/August, 1980
The History of Potential Competition in Bank Mergers and acquisitions
The theory of potential competition and its application to the banking industry has been a subject of continuing controversy since the 1960s, when banks and bank holding companies (BHCs) began to expand the geographic scope of their activities through mergers and acquisitions. During the past decade the policy of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System toward acquisitions involving potential competition has come full circle. Prior to 1975 potential competition was accorded an important role in Board denials. Then, between May 1975 and November 1979, with one limited exception,' the Board did not deny an application solely on the basis of potential competition. Since then, however, potential competition has again been emphasized in the Board's analysis of the competitive effects of bank mergers and acquisitions. The past, present, and future roles of potential competition in the regulation of banks and bank holding companies are discussed in this article.

Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, 230 South LaSalle Street, Chicago, Illinois 60604-1413, USA. Tel. (312) 322-5322

Copyright © 2016. All rights reserved.

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Materialized Views in Oracle (8.1.5/8i/9i/10g/11g)

29 Apr

A materialized view is a database object that contains the results of a query. They are local copies of data located remotely, or are used to create summary tables based on aggregations of a table’s data. Materialized views, which store data based on remote tables are also, know as snapshots (in previous versions of oracle), Materialized Views can increase many times the speed of queries that access huge data records.

A materialized view can query tables, views, and other materialized views. Collectively these are called master tables (a replication term) or detail tables (a data warehouse term).

For replication purposes, materialized views allow you to maintain copies of remote data on your local node. These copies are read-only. If you want to update the local copies, you have to use the Advanced Replication feature. You can select data from a materialized view as you would from a table or view.

For data warehousing purposes, the materialized views commonly created are aggregate views, single-table aggregate views, and join views.

Oracle uses materialized views (also known as snapshots in prior releases) to replicate data to non-master sites in a replication environment and to cache expensive queries in a data warehouse environment.

Working of Materialized Views:

There is one mandatory INIT.ORA parameter necessary for materialized views to function, this is the COMPATIBLE parameter. The value of COMPATIBLE should be set to 8.1.0, or above, in order for query rewrites to be functional. If this value is not set appropriately, query rewrite will not be invoked.

There are two other relevant parameters that may be set at either the system-level via the INIT.ORA file, or the session-level via the ALTER SESSION command.

Unless the value of this parameter is set to TRUE, query rewrites will not take place. The default value is FALSE.

This parameter controls how Oracle rewrites queries and may be set to one of three values:

ENFORCED – Queries will be rewritten using only constraints and rules that are enforced and guaranteed by Oracle. There are mechanisms, by which we can tell Oracle about other inferred relationships, and this would allow for more queries to be rewritten, but since Oracle does not enforce those relationships, it would not make use of these facts at this level.

TRUSTED – Queries will be rewritten using the constraints that are enforced by Oracle, as well as any relationships existing in the data that we have told Oracle about, but are not enforced by the database.

STALE TOLERATED – Queries will be rewritten to use materialized views even if Oracle knows the data contained in the materialized view is ‘ stale ‘ (out-of-sync with the details). This might be useful in an environment where the summary tables are refreshed on a recurring basis, not on commit, and a slightly out-of-sync answer is acceptable.

The needed privileges are as follows:

Finally, you must be using the Cost Based Optimizer CBO in order to make use of query rewrite. If you do not use the CBO, query rewrite will not take place.

Here we will create a simple materialized view and prove that it will be faster then a normal query.

I am performing this on a table named cdr_data containing a huge data about 82 Million records for a month’s CDR, I will write a summary query and a materialized view and check the response time in both the cases. I have Oracle Ware House Builder 10g installed on my PC, You can test it on your machine if you have a huge data table or you can create a table and insert huge redundant data by inserting into itself.

SQL> Desc cdr_data ;

  MonthYear      VARCHAR2(7)
    Terminator      VARCHAR2(30)
    callDuration      number(15,3)
    TRUNK_IN      VARCHAR2(15)
    TRUNK_OUT      VARCHAR2(15)
    ZONE_ID      number(17)
    ZONE_CALLS      number(10)
    ZONE_MIN      number(170)

SQL> Select count(*) from cdr_data ;

SQL> set echo on

SQL> set termout off

SQL>analyze table cdr_data compute statistics;

Table analyzed.

Initially this quewry will require a full scan of the large table.

SQL> set autotrace on ;

SQL> set timing on

SQL> select originator, count(*) from cdr_data group by originator;

    Originator      COUNT(*)
    —————————— ———-
    PTCL            52703459
    Worldcall       27296541
    Callmate         2046952
    4B Gental             2168
    Burraq                64008
    Call 2 Phone         3016
Elapsed: 00:01:05.04
Execution Plan
Plan hash value: 2770205009
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time —-
0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 6 | 32 | 15791 (6)| 00:03:10 |
1 | HASH GROUP BY | | 6 | 32 | 15791 (6)| 00:03:10 |
2 | TABLE ACCESS FULL| cdr_data| 2116K| 16M| 15446 (2)| 00:03:06
1             recursive calls
0             db block gets
969909    consistent gets
452485    physical reads
0             redo size
6565        bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
4381        bytes received via SQL*Net from client
2             SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
0             sorts (memory)
0             sorts (disk)
6             rows processed

I have a user named cdr_user, in order to create a Materialized view we have do the following:

SQL> grant query rewrite to cdr_user;

Grant succeeded

Elapsed: 00:00:00.09

SQL> alter session set query_rewrite_enabled=true;

Session altered.

Elapsed: 00:00:00.00

SQL> alter session set query_rewrite_integrity=enforced;

Session altered.

Now we create the Materialized View

SQL> create materialized view mv_cdr_data
build immediate
refresh on commit
enable query rewrite
select originator, count(*)
from cdr_data
group by originator ;

Materialized view created.

Elapsed: 00:01:12.78

SQL> analyze table mv_cdr_data compute statistics;

Table analyzed.

Elapsed: 00:00:00.17

Basically, what we’ve done is pre-calculate the object count, and define this summary information as a materialized view. We have asked that the view be immediately built and populated with data. You’ll notice that we have also specified REFRESH ON COMMIT and ENABLE QUERY REWRITE. Also notice that we may have created a materialized view, but when we ANALYZE, we are analyzing a table. A materialized view creates a real table, and this table may be indexed, analyzed, and so on.

Now let’s see the materialized view in action by issuing the same query again.

SQL> set timing on

SQL> set autotrace trace only

SQL> select originator, count(*)
from cdr_data
group by originator;

Elapsed: 00:00:00.22

Execution Plan

Plan hash value: 2009291467

Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time

0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 4 | 52 | 3 (0)| 00:00:01 |

1 |MAT_VIEW REWRITE ACCESS FULL| MV_CDR_DATA |4|52|3(0)| 00:00:01 |

    1      recursive calls
    0      db block gets
    4      consistent gets
    0      physical reads
    0      redo size
    565 bytes sent via SQL*Net to client
    381 bytes received via SQL*Net from client
    2 SQL*Net roundtrips to/from client
    0 sorts (memory)
    0 sorts (disk)
    6 rows processed

SQL> set autotrace off

SQL> set timing off

Here we can see that the time elapsed in first query without materialized view is far greater then the time consumed for the same query by using materialized view.

Time elapsed without Materialized view: 00:01:05.04

Time elapsed with Materialized view: 00:00:00.22

Uses of Materialized Views

This is relatively straightforward and is answered in a single word – performance. By calculating the answers to the really hard questions up front (and once only), we will greatly reduce the load on the machine, We will experience:

Less physical reads – There is less data to scan through.
Less writes – We will not be sorting/aggregating as frequently.
Decreased CPU consumption – We will not be calculating aggregates and functions on the data, as we will have already done that.
Markedly faster response times – Our queries will return incredibly quickly when a summary is used, as opposed to the details. This will be a function of the amount of work we can avoid by using the materialized view, but many orders of magnitude is not out of the question.

4 Responses to “Materialized Views in Oracle (8.1.5/8i/9i/10g/11g)”

  1. rahul October 29, 2009 at 1:58 am #

    Nice explanation. How to check which materialized view available in oracle database.Is there any depdencies between materialized view and AQ in Oracle?

  2. Terresa Salus January 16, 2010 at 4:40 pm #

  1. Oracle10g Privileges to Create Materialized Views « Mike R’s Blog - June 30, 2008

    […] Additional information on materialized views from Oracle8i to Oracle11g can be found on this post. […]

  2. Icinga Database View Model - - Icinga - December 11, 2009

    […] data in the defined target table. I know this is not 100% true for every database, because we have various view types in oracle, but for now it is the only important thing. With this first early version we tried to solve these […]

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Home > My Fiction, Star Trek > Once again, how many words?

Once again, how many words?

Wow, I just realized it’s been over two years since I last did an overview of the word counts of my published fiction. So it’s high time for an update. This list includes all my paid, published work through September 2016 (including the upcoming “Murder on the Cislunar Railroad” and DTI: Time Lock, both of which have been copyedited, so their word counts are unlikely to change). I’ve left out the unpaid essays I’ve contributed to various sites, since it’s hard to keep track of them all, and I do so much unsolicited blathering online as it is.

Default universe:

  • Only Superhuman: 118,000 words

  • “Aggravated Vehicular Genocide”: 12,000
  • Among the Wild Cybers of Cybele”: 9400
  • “The Weight of Silence”: 7600
  •  “The Caress of a Butterfly’s Wing”: 8900
  •  “Murder on the Cislunar Railroad”: 8200

Total story count: 46,100 words

Total default universe: 164,100 words

Hub universe:

  • “The Hub of the Matter”: 9300
  •  “Home is Where the Hub Is”: 9800
  •  “Make Hub, Not War”: 9800
  •  Hub Space: Tales from the Greater Galaxy: 33,300 (preceding stories + 4400 words new material)

Total: 33,300 words

  •  “No Dominion”: 7900

Total original fiction count:  205,300 words

  • X-Men: Watchers on the Walls: 83,500
  • Spider-Man: Drowned in Thunder: 71,000

Total Marvel novel count: 154,500 words

  • Ex Machina: 110,000
  • Orion’s Hounds: 105,000
  • The Buried Age: 132,000
  • Places of Exile: 55,000
  • Greater Than the Sum: 78,500
  • Over a Torrent Sea: 89,000
  •  Watching the Clock: 125,000
  • Forgotten History: 85,500
  • A Choice of Futures: 81,000
  • Tower of Babel: 84,000
  • Uncertain Logic: 109,000
  • Live by the Code: 106,000

Total ST novel count: 1,160,000 words

  • Aftermath: 26,000
  • Mere Anarchy: The Darkness Drops Again: 28,900
  • Typhon Pact: The Struggle Within: 25,400
  • DTI: The Collectors: 35,400
  • DTI: Time Lock: 26,500

Total: 142,200

  • “…Lov’d I Not Honor More “: 12,000
  • “Brief Candle”: 9800
  • “As Others See Us”: 9100
  • “Friends With the Sparrows”: 10,300
  • “Empathy”: 11,000

Total: 52,200

Total ST short fiction count: 194,400 words

Total ST fiction count: 1,354,400 words

  •  “Points of Contention”: 1040
  •  “Catsuits are Irrelevant”: 1250
  • “Top 10 Villains #8: Shinzon”: 820
  • “Almost a Completely New Enterprise”: 800
  • “The Remaking of Star Trek“: 1350
  • “Vulcan Special: T’Pau”: 910
  • “The Ultimate Guide: Voyager Season 3″: 1170 (not counting episode guide)
  • “Star Trek 45s #11: Concerning Flight”: 1000

Total article count: 8340 words

All told:

  •  Novels: 1,432,500 words
  • Short fiction: 281,700 words
  • Nonfiction: 8,340 words

Total fiction: 1,714,200 words

Total overall (rounded): 1,722,500 words

So I’m well on my way to my second million, and I’ve surpassed a million words’ worth of Star Trek novels alone. My default-universe content is close to catching up with my Trek short-fiction content and now surpasses my Marvel output. But my original fiction output constitutes less than 1/8 of my total published work, which is a ratio I still hope to improve on.

Other details: I have 15 published novels to date, with an average word count of 95,500 words. As of September 2016, I shall have 5 published novellas averaging 28,440 words, and 14 published novelettes averaging 9650 words (not counting the expanded Hub Space material).

And I’ve still never sold an actual short story (i.e. 7500 words or less)!

  1. April 5, 2016 at 8:33 pm

    How did you chose Abramson for the name of “Earth’s most famous recluse” in your Rise of the Federation novels? There have been two or three Abramsons who have had some national prominence; but it isn’t that common of a name.

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Mother, Mistress, Moon

Mother, Mistress, Moon
By Christopher Vera

Note: This essay was published on National Public Radio’s “This I Believe” website.

Sometimes to me the moon is male, jealously pursuing the attentions of the earth whom he believes is in love with the glorious sun. He weeps gently while she sleeps through the night.

But most often I see the moon as female, accompanying me on my long walks through the dark as the mist creeps up over the land from out of the Pacific ocean. Usually she’s a matronly older woman humming softly to me while I walk away my angers and frustrations of the day.

Once in a brief while though, when I gaze up at her in the sky, she’s my young Juliet, looking at me from her bright and lofty perch, waiting for me to recite to her ancient words that men have always whispered to their true loves.

At those times, I stop and forget to breathe and for those long moments while we stare quietly into each other’s face, I can feel the earth turning under my feet. My pulse beats to the vibrations of distant waves pounding against the California shore. I can feel my cells burning as they fire their chemical reactions. When I finally inhale, her perfume is the damp manzanita in the canyon below me soaking in the night’s moisture.

In that moment there is no sound but the autumn breeze picking its way through the tall bones of leafless trees standing like me transfixed while the moon turns her achingly beautiful orbit across the sky.

In that moment I can sense the primal elements churning inside me: earth, air, fire, water. The entire universe is her and I and the small space between us.

In that moment, I am alive and I am here right now.

2 responses to “Mother, Mistress, Moon

  1. Pingback: Lunar Symphonies « Grapes of Wrath & Love

  2. I like this one. I have this one shared via my FB account. I also have a poem written for Diana, the Moon. It is a love poem.

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Review: London Philharmonic Orchestra

One of the likely classical music highlights this month, the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance at Colston Hall last Sunday, the first in Bristol for ten years, promised great things. It did not disappoint. The opening item, Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1 Classical, was a model of elegance and balance, a reflection of the influence of Haydn and Mozart on the composition of the work. Lead by Vassily Sinaisky, Chief Conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, the orchestra played impressively throughout, particularly so during the well-executed scalic flourishes towards the end of the final movement.

The LPO was equally impressive in their performance of Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2. An extensive and brooding work, the symphony felt perhaps a little too long in relation to the overall length of the programme, but was nevertheless exciting and engaging, thanks both to Sibelius’s inventive orchestration and the fervent work of the conductor. Sinaisky coaxed real drama from the players, producing a stirring Vivacissimo and a magnificent Finale.

Easily the highlight of the concert, however, was Sol Gabetta’s enthralling performance of Elgar’s infamous Cello Concerto. From the striking opening to the equally remarkable ending, the award-winning cellist’s dynamic playing engaged both the audience and orchestra alike. Combining wonderful lyricism and faultless technique, this was a truly exceptional performance of Elgar’s haunting concerto. No surprise then that the young Argentinian’s recording of the great work won her her third Echo Klassik award. Simply stunning.

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  1. lukemills07 · · Reply

    London Philharmonic provides best Bristol orchestra. In this orchestra you will get best singers and dancers that entertains you a lot.

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Try our beta test site

Combination Chemotherapy Plus Rituximab in Treating Patients With Recurrent or Refractory Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma

This study has been completed.
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
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Last updated: June 25, 2010
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Tag Archives: veronika maine

Black & White

today’s closetcast: Sunday INSPO

Really feeling a black and white palette this morning. Don’t you just love how crisp and clean it looks? Even on a pair of sneakers, there is a certain formality to it that creates such a polished look. I am naturally drawn to these colors in silks, leathers, and mixed like that beautiful Haider Ackermann coat and those Veronika Maine pants. What do you guys think of this palette?

1. Topshop leather top; 2. Veronika Maine Dandelion pants; 3. Stephen Webster necklace; 4. Mango drop waist dress; 5. Haider Ackermann wool blend coat; 6. Saint Laurent two-tone penny loafers; 7. Givenchy Antigona bag; 8. Ganni Lavish blouse via Need Supply; 9. Nike Thea sneakers


text:
Opened 8 years ago

Closed 5 years ago

#11166 closed Bug (fixed)

{% widthratio 0 0 100 %} returns an empty string, rather than a 0

Reported by: Ludwig Pettersson Owned by: nobody
Component: Template system Version: master
Severity: Normal Keywords:
Cc: Triage Stage: Accepted
Has patch: yes Needs documentation: no
Needs tests: no Patch needs improvement: no
Easy pickings: no UI/UX: no

When supplying the {% widthratio %} template tag with both a value and max of 0 - you get an empty string returned (), rather than a 0. Mathematically, this is correct - since typically division by zero results in undefined, but I wouldn't say this is the expected behaviour when using this to create charts, where a 0 rather than nothing, would be expected.

This would produce:

Now, in the first example, the difference is only semantic - but the second one creates invalid css as well, not such a big of a deal, but, gets troublesome when you *need* a number returned, such as when using {% widthratio %} with the google charts api. (sparklines, for example, require a number between 0-100 - anything above 100, such as 550, is visually returned as 100 in the chart - so you can't have empty values.)

But, when would anyone ever encounter this problem? I personally do when displaying data over a time period, where in some cases, nothing may have happened - leaving everything at 0, both the values and max values - which then results in everything showing up empty, rather than defaulting back to 0.

I realize this is easy to work around, but I thought I would put it out there since at least I wasn't expecting this behavior and it seems a bit weird, especially when this is mainly used to create charts in templates.

(Patch is for the latest svn checkout as of this writing, rev 10833)

Attachments (1)

django-diff.txt (1.4 KB) - added by Ludwig Pettersson 8 years ago.
svn diff of patch

Download all attachments as: .zip

Change History (6)

Changed 8 years ago by Ludwig Pettersson

Attachment: django-diff.txt added

svn diff of patch

comment:1 Changed 8 years ago by Ludwig Pettersson

Component: UncategorizedTemplate system
Has patch: set
Version: 1.0SVN

comment:2 Changed 8 years ago by Chris Beaven

Triage Stage: UnreviewedDesign decision needed

comment:3 Changed 6 years ago by Julien Phalip

Severity: Normal
Type: Bug

comment:4 Changed 5 years ago by Aymeric Augustin

Easy pickings: unset
Triage Stage: Design decision neededAccepted
UI/UX: unset

I agree that the empty string is technically the "correct" output (the template engine returns nothing whenever an exception occurs), but that in this case "practicality beats purity".

comment:5 Changed 5 years ago by Aymeric Augustin

Resolution: fixed
Status: newclosed

In [17224]:

Fixed #11166 -- {% widthratio %} should return 0 when the maximum is 0, no matter the value.

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text: id,summary,reporter,owner,description,type,status,component,version,severity,resolution,keywords,cc,stage,has_patch,needs_docs,needs_tests,needs_better_patch,easy,ui_ux 20936,"When logging out/ending a session, don't create a new, empty session",Matt Robenolt,Matt Robenolt,"Previously, when logging out, the existing session is overwritten by a new sessionid instead of deleting the session all together. This behavior adds overhead by creating a new session record in whichever backend being used, db, cache, etc. This extra session is unnecessary at the time since no session data is meant to be preserved when explicitly logging out. See: https://github.com/django/django/pull/1487",Cleanup/optimization,closed,contrib.sessions,master,Normal,fixed,"session, logout, auth",,Accepted,1,0,0,1,0,0


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Fine grained access control

Robin Wilson
Posts: 22
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In a typical access control model (ie. JAAS), access to an "object" or functions is controlled. I have a need to control access based on the properties of the requested/returned data, and the attributes of the user (Principal/Subject) making the request. For example:

User_A can access Application_A, and perform all functions contained in that application. However, if User_A requests data that contains his own "Customer Number", he is not allowed to change the data, nor even access the data.

A real-world example of this would be a representative of a credit card processing company can normally process credit card transactions, but if the transaction is for his own card number, he can't process those transactions because there would be a conflict of interest.

Now, if the user's "Subject" contains a list of credit cards that the representative personally "owns", any request for a new transaction could compare the Subject's "owned cards" against the card number from the transaction data, and deny access for that card.

There are 2 possible scenarios for managing this as an access control issue:

1) The card number of the transaction is part of the request from
the application when the user asks to process a new transaction.
In this case, the request could be denied before any data is
collected to respond to the request. (Call this a "pre-eval" for
access control.)

2) The card number of the transaction isn't known until after the
data is being collected for the response. The request is based on
some other attribute of the transaction (e.g. trans number), so
the request doesn't even know what the card number is. (Call this
a "post-eval" for access control.)

So, the question is... "What are my options for implementing such a solution?" Is there a standard already in existence (XACML, SAML, etc.) that provides this level of fine-grained access control automatically, or do I have to build this from scratch?

In the past, I have implemented such features by embedding fine-grained access control logic in the application's business logic. I'd like to abstract this (the same way that JAAS abstracts role-based access controls) from the application entirely - so that the container can be configured to manage fine-grained access control policies, without modifying the application logic...
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    Marvel Zombies 3 #1 (of 4)

    Board up Avengers Tower! Lock down the Baxter Building! The ravenous hordes of Marvel Zombies are invading...the Marvel Universe! That's right, the next chapter of the Marvel Zombies saga is a non-stop in-continuity gorefest!
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    24 Pages

    Print Release Date

    October 8 2008

    Digital Release Date

    March 30 2011

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    12+ Only

    2011 Marvel Characters, Inc.

    Welcome to Marvel's new Digital Comics Shop!

    Here you can easily find and buy single issues and collections in digital format to read online and through the Marvel Comics app for Android and iOS.

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Sochi Olympics Watch #20

Sometime before the Sochi Olympics opening ceremonies in 58 days, try to set a little time aside for this 17 minute excerpt (as viewed on RFE/RL by permission) from Putin’s Games, a film by Director Alexander Gentelev. From the fim’s website:

“The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia will be the first ever to be held in a subtropical resort. The most expensive games ever break all records when it comes to corruption and megalomania. Putin’s administration has everyone at its beck and call, from oligarchs down to the ordinary people who have to pay the Olympic bill. Both the powerful and the weak speak out in this investigative documentary, which unveils the hidden story behind Putin’s games. Government critic Garry Kasparov says that Putin’s Olympic propaganda is really all about speeding up the privatization of land in Sochi. Many inhabitants have had to make way for hotels, ski jumps and a large harbor, which were subsequently swept away by storms and landslides – the Olympic village was built on a swamp in the hottest region of Russia. To a large extent, the story of these environmentally unfriendly Olympic Games is one of threats and enormous misappropriations of money. The 45-kilometer (28-mile) road to the Olympic Village was so expensive that it might as well have been paved with gold or black caviar. Director Alexander Gentelev got to speak to many key figures, from the mayor of Sochi and corrupt contractors, senators and lobbyists to the president of the Russian National Olympic Committee.”

Meanwhile Foreign Policy magazine has photos and excerpts from what looks like a huge coffee table book, The Sochi Project, An Atlas of War and Tourism in the Caucasus.

Both show all the fun, clean, aw shucks, doggone it, GOOD FEELING that’s building in southern Russia around these Olympics. Heck, you can almost feel it from here.

2 thoughts on “Sochi Olympics Watch #20

  1. Pingback: Corruption—Not Just Terrorism—Threatens the Sochi Games

  2. Pingback: Corruption—Not Just Terrorism—Threatens the Sochi Games | PolitiTalk

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CLOSED: United Conveyor Corporation Scholarship, Due on 11-6-13

Version 2

    This scholarship is exclusively for Mechanical Engineering (ME) students here at MSOE. The award is $10,000 in additional scholarship money along with the opportunity to intern with United Conveyor Corporation (UCC). Please see the attached flyer for more information, including additional eligibility requirements.

    To apply, fill out the Scholarship Report Form and return it to the Financial Aid Office.

    Best of luck to those who apply!