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Enable Disabled Serbian Latin Google Fonts

Enable Disabled Serbian Latin Google Fontsis a WordPress plugin (download) that enables loading of fonts used by bundled themes (Twenty Thirteen, Twenty Fifteen, Twenty Sixteen, Twenty Seventeen) from Google Fonts that were previously disabled by Serbian language package.

Those fonts were disabled by default because they don’t support Serbian Cyrillic scripts, but since they do support Serbian Latin scripts this plugin re-enables them. Fonts that support both scripts are already enabled while fonts that do not support either script continue to be disabled.

It is a very lightweight, it has no settings, just activate it and it works immediately.

Enable Disabled Serbian Latin Google Fonts is released under the terms of GNU General Public License. It is completely free so if you find it useful you can give something back to author. Your help could be done by giving donation, sending pull request on GitHub, sending bugs and suggestions, promoting plugin in blogs, forums, social networks, and other websites.

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House Shaped Like Elephant (Jan, 1937)

House Shaped Like Elephant
A HOUSE built in the shape of an elephant is located at Margate City, N. J. Erected in 1882 by James V. Lafferty, the novel home is said to be the only one of its kind. The body is 38 feet long, the circumference, 80 feet. The head is 26 feet long and 48 feet around. Legs are 22 feet long with a diameter of 10 feet. Glass eyes have an 18-inch diameter.

  1. Firebrand38 says: June 23, 20092:33 pm

    And still around too http://www.lucytheeleph…

  2. Repack Rider says: June 24, 200912:02 am

    What happens when you flush the toilet?

  3. Firebrand38 says: June 24, 200912:26 am

    As profiled on the Weird USA show a while back…

    And the original patent for Lucy http://upload.wikimedia…

  4. Steve says: June 24, 20098:23 pm

    I’m so happy its still there. Its a NJ landmark. 🙂

  5. Julia says: August 20, 20094:41 pm

    Lucy is the best!

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Jones to season-ticket holders: ‘There’s no country club at Valley Ranch’

Per, here are some highlights from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones’ conference call Wednesday with some of the team’s season-ticket holders.

On Valley Ranch having a country club atmosphere: “I don’t think that we do have a country club atmosphere around here. There’s too much competition. These players recognize how fortunate they are to be in the NFL, to have these opportunities. We’ve got as good or better leadership than my experience in 24 years with the Cowboys has seen.”

On the field at safety, which includes veterans Barry Church, Danny McCray and Will Allen; second-year pro Matt Johnson and third-round pick J.J. Wilcox: “I think we’re in good shape at safety…I don’t know when I’ve ever seen a player impress our staff without having played in a ballgame any more than Matt Johnson.”

On whether the Cowboys have any interest in signing Tim Tebow as a third-string quarterback: “We really feel good about Kyle Orton and that’s where it all starts and stops right there. He will be used differently to some degree than we use (Tony) Romo, but he’s capable of winning big games and we know how important that backup slot is, especially if it’s temporary if you don’t have Romo. We’re pretty set at quarterback there. We wish Tim all the luck and the best in the world.”

On the defense: “The defense should be the strength of our team arguably, the defensive line can be the strength of the team.” Later Jones said, “Our defense will fit Monte Kiffin’s scheme. It actually will be a simpler defense for this group to get. The adjustment from where we were in the 3-4 to the 4-3 will not be as significant as it might appear.”

On the health of nose tackle Jay Ratliff, who missed 10 games because of injuries last season: “We don’t think Jay Ratliff is injury prone. He had possibly three different injuries last year. He is further down the road in his career than he was a few years ago. But we think of all that he’s very sound physically and we think he’ll flourish in this defensive scheme. He’s a natural three technique.”

On the Cowboys being 0-4 against the Giants at Cowboys Stadium: “It is a pain.”

Tom Orsborn


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Blog brothers discuss Spurs heading into the summer

It was the equivalent of the Yalta meetings in terms of blog brother starpower.

Andrew McNeill and TimVarner of 48 Minutes of, Dale Dye of Pounding the, Wayne Vore of Spurs and Jeff Garcia of  Project got together for a wide-ranging podcast about the Spurs heading into the summer.

As you would expect, it’s a great listen.

Here are a few other Spurs and NBA-related stories from around the web.

Tim Griffin


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Monday links

NutritionLabel_ManReading_blogDon’t have time to scour the internet for the latest animal science, food safety, and agriculture news? Relax, we’ve got it covered.

Food Safety

Senate Agrees on Nationwide GMO Labels – Food Safety Magazine
U.S. Senate lawmakers reached an agreement regarding how foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) will be labeled. The deal comes just one week before Vermont’s precedent-setting GMO labeling laws go into effect on July 1.

Foreign catfish discover the U.S. really does have borders – Food Safety News
The U.S. border has suddenly become meaningful to importers of siluriformes, including foreign catfish. It’s all happened during the past four months since the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s catfish inspection program began. And it’s occurred while Congress is still considering ending the USDA program of continuous inspection.

Animal Science

Composting manure to reduce antibiotic residues – Drovers Cattle Network
Composting can reduce the concentration of antibiotics in cattle manure, but the degree of that reduction can vary depending on how it is tested.

Summertime means heat stress in cattle – Farm Talk
It seems like we have missed a transition period on the temperatures and went straight from nice and 75 degrees to a scalding 90 degrees. These hot temperatures are not only hot on us, but it can be detrimental to your cattle.

Fusarium head blight guidance – Michigan State University
Head scab can be a disastrous disease to high-quality malting barley.

Thirsty corn: New report says 44% of Iowa abnormally dry or worse – The Gazette
What farmers think of this year’s growing season depends upon the amount of rain that has fallen on their fields.

E-cigarette use modifies gene expression important for upper airway immune defense – News Medical
When we smoke cigarettes, dozens of genes important for immune defense are altered in the epithelial cells that line the respiratory tract. Several of these changes likely increase the risk of bacterial infections, viruses, and inflammation. Now, UNC School of Medicine scientists report that vaping electronic cigarettes alters those same genes and hundreds more.

Art Really Can Reduce Stress, Even After 45 Minutes – Good News Network
Ever wondered why those adult coloring books became so popular so fast? New research shows that doing something creative reduces levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

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Monday, September 12, 2016

PRICE REDUCED! Fly Into Fort Peck Montana Separate 2 Bedroom Apartment Panoramic Views

Ideal retirement home for sale located in the heart of Montana sportsman's paradise, Fort Peck, Montana. This open, spacious 5 bedroom home features a light, bright and airy kitchen that flows freely into the living room. The master bedroom and bathroom suite feature lovely walk in closets and jetted bath tub! Property highlights 3 bedrooms on the main floor and a separate 2 bedroom apartment in the walkout basement for the mother in law. This house is energy efficient with triple pane windows, highly insulated walls and ceiling for low cost living. Attached 3 car finished and heated garage. Relax on 1 of the 3 decks enjoying the Montana sunrises and sunsets. Move in ready with lawn tractor, furnished apartment, gun safe, and much more. Check out the 40 x 43 x 12 foot heated airplane hangar with work benches and shelving! If you need that quick weekend getaway Perch Bay, Fort Peck Campground, Fort Peck Lake or the Missouri River are all within a short distance! Call The Helland Agency for your private showing today! 406-228-2114. Priced at $475,000.

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Educator Insights: Mr. B's Habit of the Week - Be Observant

Habit of the Week:  Be Observant - Gather data through all senses

Did you know that over 95% of what we communicate is not from our words. Better said, our non-verbal communication has a lot more to say than what we said :-) Our tone of voice, facial expression, body posture, and physical gestures communicate meaning with great impact. I share this fact because I believe that a conscious effort to listen and communicate with compassion and understanding can go a long way to improving our communication with our children. The simple act of crouching down to their eye level says a lot about our willingness to listen and understand what they are trying to say. A gentle touch on a shoulder with a smile can change a poor disposition in a heartbeat. Using a tone of voice that sounds like caring can draw a child in to us instead of shutting them down. Our conscious choice to be present to our children with all of our senses will greatly improve our relationships and teach our children that thoughtful non-verbal communication is so much more effective than unrestrained bouts of our limbic system. Think growth language instead of grouch language. Check out the parent link below for some ideas on how to productively phrase growth language.

Here are a few ways to help our children with this habit.

  • Heart - intentionally listen without talking to an entire thought being expressed by a friend or family member.

  • Mind - turn off the sound on the television while watching a show and try to explain what the conversation is.

  • Body - try to explain something by only using body language.

  • Soul - take the time to use all of your senses to understand something new.

“Must we always teach our children with books?  Let them look at the stars and the mountains above.  Let them look at the waters and the trees and flowers on earth.  Then they will begin to think, and to think is the beginning of a real education.” - David Polis

Parent Link

A Growth Mindset


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May 232014
2015 STI and WRX Dyno Time

STI Dyno Session Pretty much every tuner in the world thinks the 2015 STI is the same old boring EJ25 engine and that it’s going to tune the same and make the same power. Well I hate to say it, but they’re all wrong (as was I)! Our initial dynoing of the 2015 STI showed something very interesting. It made more power than all previous STI’s. I’m not talking about a couple WHP, but more like 20 Wheel HP at […Continue Reading…]

 Posted by on May 23, 2014 About Your Car, Dyno Test & Tune Tagged with: , , , , , , ,
May 222014
2015 WRX and STI Exposed

As you know we have been busy fitting parts, re-designing parts, and coming up with completely new parts for these cars for a few weeks now. It’s time to get on with the pictures and commentary some of you have come to expect from us every time a new car comes out. Where’s the FA25DIT!! I have been dying for a new car from Subaru for a long time. It had been since 2007 (Model Year 2008) since Subaru launched […Continue Reading…]

 Posted by on May 22, 2014 About Your Car, New Cars Exposed Tagged with: , , , , , ,


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PreSonus Blog

Recovery day

The Future Music Producer Sessions went great. We had a room alongside Moog and Arturia, both of which are excellent companies, and the three of us had a damn good time together and packed the place with users all weekend. Studio One was a big hit, and a steady stream of people were running up to Absolute Music‘s stand on the 4th floor to take advantage of their 10% off deal if you bought it at the show. Major thanks to the guys at Future Music for putting this on, you kick ass.

It’s Monday now, and boy am I tired. The show was spread over 6 floors and I ran up and down the stairs a fair few amount of times over the weekend, and lugged boxes of gear in and out etc.; and then I drove something like 6 hours home on Sunday night. So today my body is really feeling it. Unfortunately  I have way too much to do to be able to rest… Maybe later…


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January 18th, 2017

bicycle protest

Change is in the air with the inauguration of a new American President and many protests planned around the country. It got us thinking about how the bicycle has been used as vehicle of protest over the years and in different parts of the world.

Here are some examples of the bicycle as protest that immediately come to our minds. Please comment with other examples to share.

Critical Mass
Critical Mass is a misunderstood direct action that involves hundreds and sometimes thousands of bicyclists meeting in one location at a designated time and riding through the streets en masse. It started in San Francisco and spawned hundreds of other regular monthly rides around the world. The rides have no leaders or designated route. While some people argue that Critical Mass is more a celebration of the bicycle than a protest, in the early years Critical Mass was an opportunity to visibly demonstrate what public streets could look and feel like when the bicycle, and not the car, is the king or queen of the road.

bicycle protest nuns nepal

Buddhist Nuns Protesting Human Trafficking
We love this story about 500 Buddhist nuns in Nepal and India completing a ~2,500 mile bicycle trek to highlight human trafficking issues in their region. These women are awesome. Who doesn’t love nuns on bikes?

bicycle protest golden era

The Good Roads Movement
In the late 1800s, before the rise of the automobile, the bicycle was taking cities by storm and it led to the Good Roads Movement. The Golden Era of the Bicycle galvanized hundreds of thousands of new bicyclists to protest and organize for better roads. Popular demand for bicycles led to improved road conditions, which ironically, set the stage for better roads for automobiles once the car supplanted the bicycle as the aspirational choice for private transportation.

Women’s Rights in Iran
When the Supreme leader of Iran issued a fatwa banning women from riding bicycles in public in 2016, it called attention to the disparity in women’s rights in a regressive regime. In response, women around the world starting highlighting the issue using hashtag #IranianWomenLoveCycling. The bicycle represents independence and freedom and a ridiculous ban of public biking by any group is an affront against everyone.

Advocating for Sensible Traffic Enforcement and The Idaho Stop Law
When the police start cracking down on non-harmful, non-dangerous traffic violations like bicyclists rolling safely through intersections, it can sometimes lead to a counter-response. San Francisco bicyclists organized a massive protest against police efforts to cite bicyclists for simply rolling through intersections at a popular bicycle route called The Wiggle. Hundreds of bicyclists demonstrated what traffic might look like if every bicyclist obeyed traffic laws “literally.” Many of these activists have been fighting for city leaders to support the Idaho Stop Law, which basically “allows cyclists to treat a stop sign as a yield sign, and a red light as a stop sign.”

Amsterdam Protests For Safer Streets
Much has been written about the 1960s efforts to reduce child fatalities in Amsterdam from fast moving automobiles. These organizing efforts helped put bicycles front and center as the preferred, safer mode of transportation within the city core. Pedestrians and bicyclists shared similar goals to create safer public spaces for everyone. All of this led to policies and city planning that eventually helped Amsterdam become the bicycle capital of the world.

Change comes from many places, within and outside of government, but it also comes at the ballot box when we elect our local City Councilors, Mayors, statewide and national elected officials.

As advocates of the bicycle and public spaces as important gathering places (even for protest), we at PUBLIC recognize that protests can serve as organizing tools to encourage more people to make substantive changes through voting and by pressuring lawmakers, whether your cause is healthcare, immigrant rights, women’s rights, or even the rights of bicyclists to safely move through our cities.

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Predicting the Weather for Your Outside Wedding

by Jenny Bryde 13. July 2013 15:30

During the last rounds of storms earlier this summer, I sat huddled in my basement with my husband, child, dog, cat, and a healthy supply of fish crackers for sustenance.  While we were only in the basement for about ten minutes while the storm ransacked our neighborhood, I was fuming at the weather forcast which still showed zero percent chance of rain on my weather app.  I then started thinking about how at least we didn't have any specific plans that were ruined due to the storm.  Then, of course, I started thinking about weddings and how we balance the gamble of weather versus outdoor festivities.

It rained on our wedding day.  Yes, everyone has told us that it was lucky, but I still grumble that we lost out on having our outdoor reception (and the unrefundable money we plunked down for outside decor).  Would it have helped to have had an accurate weather forecast from the get go?  Definitely, but no one knows for sure when the skys will ultimately open up and be a buzz kill.

With so many people wanting outdoor weddings, what's a girl (or guy) to do???  The best our news stations can give us is ten days which doesn't help when we plan our weddings on average a year in advance.  Has anyone tried using the Farmer's Almanac to help make a decision on our wedding day?

Going to, you can see the Farmer's Almanac website where under the long ranger weather forecast for the Heartland (us), it will tell you about general predictions through the end of October.  You can pay the $4.99 to see week by week detailed forecasts, or you can just glance at a copy of the Farmer's Almanac in a book store or other retailer.

Directly from the site, here's what we can expect for the forseeable future:

Annual Weather Summary: November 2012 to October 2013

Winter temperatures will be higher than normal, on average, with precipitation and snowfall near normal in the east and below normal in the west. The coldest periods will be in late December, early January, and early and mid-February. The snowiest periods will be in mid- to late November, mid- to late December, early January, and early March.

April and May will have near-normal temperatures and rainfall, on average, with hot temperatures in late May.

Summer will be drier and slightly cooler than normal, on average, despite hot spells in late June, mid- and late July, and mid-August.

September and October will be slightly drier than normal, with near-normal temperatures.

Temperature and Precipitation November 2012 to October 2013

Temperature and Precipitation Graph

I'm wondering if we reconvene this conversation in November if we will be able to look back on this forecast as valuable and helpful when planning our fall weddings????  Thoughts?

Jenny Bryde

Rain on Your Wedding Day?

by Jenny Bryde 11. May 2012 00:37

No one plans for it, but you need to be prepared for it.  And I don't just mean by remembering to pack an umbrella in your duffel bag o stuff that you take with you to the chapel.  I mean you need to make the most out of your wedding day, rain or shine, and this sometimes takes some mental preparation.  The week before our wedding, the forcast became more and more grim as we approached the big day.  The night before when I had come to terms with the fact that our plans for a mostly outdoor wedding were not going to be realized, I had a mini-melt down.  I gave myself ten minutes to cry and feel sorry for myself, and then I had to snap out of it.  Our wedding was beautiful and amazing and definitely one of the most important events of my life, and I'm glad that I was able to pull my head out of my sorrows in order to enjoy it whether it was inside or outside.  One positive of a rainy day is that umbrellas and puddles make for amazing pictures!  In fact, photographers will tell you that they prefer an overcast day when shooting outside because the shaddows on people's faces are not as sharp as they are under direct sunlight!

Check out how these couples made the most of a gloomy day...

Source: via Jen on Pinterest

Source: via Jen on Pinterest

Source: via Jen on Pinterest

These pictures are priceless, and from the looks of it, the rain was the least of their worries!  So pack a cute umbrella, a spunky pair of boots, and get your smile ready, rain or shine!

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Simple Tricks To Keep Your Guests Cool and Happy

by Jenny Bryde 11. May 2011 05:05

Finally!  We've broken through the winter/spring rut of groggy days and murky weather to beautiful sunshine and warm temps...REALLY warm temps!  Yesterday, my (non-airconditioned) office thermostat let me know that it was a lovely 87 degrees.  While us summer brides may love the warmth, our guests may have mixed feelings about traveling or sitting outside on a summer day.  And while the day IS in fact for the bride and groom, ya gotta keep those guests happy as well.  Children, pregnant woman, or elderly guests can are more easily affected by extreme temps as well.

Here are some tips to keep those guests cool and happy...

1) Alert your guests to the fact that your wedding is outside, if that is the case.  Knowing ahead of time that they will be sitting outside in July will give guests a chance to make appropriate outfit choices.

2) Consider portable shelters or air conditioning.  It's amazing how far venue supply rentals have come.  You can rent tents that have misters or even air conditioning units to keep the cool air flowing.

3) Avoid metal.  Some rental companies offer metal chairs which could burn someone if left out in the sunny weather.  Opt for plastic or wooden chairs if possible.  Heat can easily scorch someone's bare skin or even go through some lighter clothing.

4) Give out "cool" favors such as sunscreen, blotting papers, handkerchiefs, fans, parasols, or water bottles.

5) Keep the cool drinks flowing.  Iced beverages taste especially nice on a hot day.

So this is just a start... There are tons of other things that you can do to keep your guests happy!  Remember - happy guests equal great photographs, good groove on the dance floor, and fantastic memories of your wedding day!

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Advice | favors | Food and Drink | Health and Wellness | Jenny Bryde

Mother Nature is a Fickle Fiend

by Jenny Bryde 18. September 2010 06:49

Rain is lucky on your wedding day, correct?  Hmm...who came up with that cliche'd omen?  Probably some mother or wedding planner who was trying to console a bride on the verge of tears as her outside alter washed away in the rain.

Anyhoo, today is our wedding day!  I was going to write this weather post yesterday, but it would have been a bitter, bitter thing, and this is a happy place.  So I waited until I had come to terms with the onset of rain drops.

Mother Nature really played me for a fool this past week.  With a wedding day full of outside activities, I happy stalked the 10 day forcast for the past 10 days.  Here's a recap of the forcast for today on each of the ten days:  sunny, sunny, sunny, sunny, cloudy, rain, rain.

Eeks!  So what's a girl to do?

First of all, I think it's necessary to say that when you plan an outdoor wedding, you need to have a back up location on site like a building or something unless you are totally cool with the moisture.  Maybe a covered tent would work as well...  We have a location on site and a fantastic site coordinator with TPC Deere Run, so we knew we could take the weather gamble.

Second of all, don't stalk the ten day forcast.  Until three days out, it was totally incorrect about what I am seeing now that we are here.  Just ignore it.  Pretend it doesn't exist.  Find something else to obsess over like the seating arrangement or your nails.

Third of all, even if you have a freak thunderstorm that melts your makeup and blows your ceremony to smithereens, realize that this is your wedding day.  It's not about the rain.  It's about your love and about opening a new chapter in your life.  Enjoy the day no matter what.

And rain drenched brides and grooms make for hot and amazing pictures, so let your photog play up the moment and smile.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go repowder my nose and check the status of my rain poncho.  :)

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About the Blog

Hi!  Welcome to the blog!  My name is Jenny, and I am a Quad Cities bride to be.  Our goal for this blog is to share information on all things wedding including local vendors, new trends, and amazing inspiration.  Let us know if there is something you'd like to see on here!

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Wednesday, February 17, 2016

The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis seeks comments on how to end "Too Big To Fail".

A friend suggested I submit something, so maybe I'd be heard.  So, here goes.  I am simply submitting a link to this blog post:

I've written before how to do this conceptually, but here I'm giving slightly more detail:

Banks engage in two unrelated businesses:
  • Banks make loans;
  • Banks accept demand deposits.
We only think these activities are related because that's how banks have always worked.

TBTF status arises because banks currently face a mismatch between demand deposits and loans.  You can't call all the loans to return cash to depositors.  FDIC works for small, idiosyncratic risks of bank failures.  Not giant or systematic ones.  If we separate those activities, we shall see that the companies that accept demand deposits cannot fail and the companies that engage in lending fail to the detriment of their risk taking investors, not the public.

Three simple steps separate these activities:

First, Allow anyone to own a bank with 100% reserves.

Regulations today put severe restrictions on who can own banks.  For the most part, non-financial companies cannot own banks.  Regulators worried that bank deposits might end up supporting non-bank operations.  Additionally, lending to competitors of the non-bank company might lead to anti-competitive behavior.  (Imagine you made a loan to your competitor widget producer, and threatened to call the loan if they lowered their prices below yours.)

Now suppose you had a special class of bank that did not make loans.  This bank held physical currency, Treasury securities and reserves as the Fed.  This bank only deals in demand deposits and riskless securities.  This bank cannot lend to companies or people.  This bank cannot have a run.

This bank is not very profitable.  This bank makes money on the spread between interest paid on reserves, Treasury securities and transaction fees.  It might pay interest, depending on expenses.  Who engages in this seemingly capital intensive, not very profitable business?  Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Costco immediately start banks.  They have stores full of tellers and cash.  Currency is simply a product they already carry in their stores.

Second, Modify FDIC pricing

 FDIC protects bank customers from bank runs.  Because it protects bank customers, it protects bank shareholders.  FDIC (and the risk of exceeding FDIC limits) are the source of TBTF.  Bank customers treat bank deposits as riskless because they've been trained by FDIC to believe it.  Corporate (and very wealthy) customers with deposits exceeding limits do not have a riskless alternative EXCEPT TBTF.  If my company's payroll is $100 million a month, where do I put that cash so that it is absolutely safe?

New FDIC rules say banks with 100% reserves do not have to pay for FDIC insurance.  Note: I'm not saying (right away) eliminate it.  That would not be perceived well by the public.  But, it's free.  Because FDIC has no risk.

(Eventually, FDIC goes away.  Or, maybe, since FDIC is much smaller than the industry of banking oversight in general, FDIC becomes the official organization that looks at a bank's balance sheet for about 10 minutes a quarter to say: Yup, you have no loans, and your cash plus Treasury securities plus reserves at the Fed equals your deposits.  You're good to go!)

At the same time, ramp up FDIC insurance pricing quickly to banks with less than 100% reserves.  Price increases will control the speed with which we separate demand deposit management from lending.  FDIC transitions from an insurance handout encouraging TBTF to a painful tax on commingling demand deposits and lending.

What happens to the existing banks?  They restructure into a banking subsidiary managing deposits and an investment manager running mutual funds, (because in the next step we kill money market funds!)

Third, eliminate money market fund pricing exemptions

Money market funds exist to deceive the public.  I'm not overstating this in any way.  If we remove the exemptions that allow money market funds to manipulate their net asset values so they look riskless, then the public will understand that bank deposits (in a 100% reserve bank) have no risk, but that money market fund's share price bounces around a little because it is risky.  The money market fund is pretty darn available for withdrawal, but the price moves.

Under these circumstances, the saving and investing public makes clear distinctions between storing money in a way that is always available (saving), and lending money for risk taking purposes (investing.)

I suspect this third step would be the end of money market funds.  Money market funds would become ultra short term bond funds...because that's what they are without the regulations designed to deceive us.  At that point, however, there would be no reason NOT to let them fail.  You, the investor took a risk.  Too bad.  You had an alternative.

Monday, April 13, 2015

Malcolm Forgot Who Stands In The Middle: Why American Taxpayers Don't Cheat

Malcolm Galdwell hit the Sunday TV circuit this week in preparation for dreaded Tax Day.  In this video from CNN, he reiterates his standard trope about legitimacy.  He tells us that cheating on our income taxes carries little risk because the IRS audits so few, and the penalties lack teeth.  But, we pay anyway because we think the system is legitimate.

Gladwell needs to read some economics.  Seriously.  Tirole.  Milgrom.  Holstrom.  Something on principal agent problems?!?  Unless you follow the Wesley Snipes strategy and just don't pay, (which lands you in jail,) cheating on your taxes is pretty darn hard.

The United States taxpayer faces a uniquely complex, arcane and ridiculous system.  Gladwell has that one right.  Knowing little about the (vast number of) readers of this blog, I suspect only my mother prepares her taxes unassisted by anything more than IRS instruction documents and a sharp pencil.  No software.  No accountant.

Even minor complications cause the average American to toss her hands up and hire a professional.  Given the vast sums spent advertising by low cost tax prep companies, I'd imagine the vast majority of even "simple" returns have professional help.

(Yes, refund anticipation loans may drive the profits of these shops, but that tells us people have decided that the value of the loan is worth more than the expected value of their ability to cheat successfully.)

So, why is Gladwell delusional?  He ignores the principal-agent problem the tax code manufactures.  We Americans cannot file our own taxes.  Therefore, we cannot cheat without a colluding professional.  That professional's entire career depends on a working relationship with the IRS.  Your tax gal will not let you cheat.  She monitors you, on behalf of the IRS.  And, for this you willingly pay her!

An early Happy April 15!

Monday, February 9, 2015

Sam Peltzman on World Cup Skiing

That's Bode Miller last week in Beaver Creek, CO, not me.  Looks like he could use an airbag.  The thing is, skiing airbags exist, but no one will wear one.

In this New York Times story, Marco Sullivan, U.S. Olympic skier notes "If you're the only guy wearing it, it's probably a disadvantage as far as speed goes."  In fact, the author notes less than a second separated gold from 12th place.  Six one-hundredths of a second separated gold from silver.

Sam Peltzman earned his fame demonstrating that seat belts made drivers faster and more reckless. They compensate for their increased safety.

I am far from a skiing expert, but I have to imagine that the marginally faster/more reckless skiing due to wearing the airbag more than makes up for the weight differential, and just might make up for that 0.06 seconds for second place.

Thursday, May 29, 2014

The Ultimate Short Volatility Trade

My mother-in-law has a magic nose.  She diagnosed a gas leak in our main feed into the house in 2009 that the "electronic nose" the PSE&G guy carries took an hour to find.  So, when she arrived tonight and announced she smelled gas, I called the emergency hotline.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Flash Bubbes: An Ebay Revolt

My mother-in-law (or Bubbe, to my kids,) takes ebay very seriously.  Anyone in the family needing to sell must run the gauntlet for her to consider risking her reputation on an item.  She won't let you photograph it yourself.  She won't let you ship it yourself.  But, if you sell with her username, you have instant credibility.

However, when it comes time to buy, what does she advise? Turn to Michael Lewis' villains, the high frequency traders.  The guys who throw massive computing power and light speed technology at their trades.  She never buys without a "sniper"--that's ebay lingo for a high frequency trading operation.  You tell them your limit price.  They take care of the bidding.  They place orders for you, at the tail end of auctions.  The more you pay, the longer they'll wait.  They virtually guarantee shaving a few bucks off that singing fish.


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An October Garden

The last of the Verbena flowers set against a backdrop of yellowing cornus leaves. They will soon drop off to reveal bright red twiggy stems.

I have become a bit of a fan of pot culture in the border. It is so practical. Firstly it allows me to fill vacant spots with temporary plants, and I can squeeze a plant with a short flowering period onto the centre stage. Secondly, plants that are susceptible to slug and snail damage can fare better in a pot with a band of copper tape encircling it. An example is Chrysanthemum ‘Innocence’ (pictured) which I grew successfully in a pot last year. I planted it in the ground in the spring and it was beleaguered by gastropods all spring and summer. I finally dug the tattered remains up in August and put them into two pots. Since then they happily put on a good deal of fresh growth, and started flowering towards the end of October. The pot is obscured by hardy geraniums in the front. Autumn Asters can be treated in the same way – I grow these in pots as I can minimize slug damage, and as they only start flowering in late September I can place the pot into the border where a spring/summer plant has finished flowering and has been cut to the ground (e.g. poppies, aquilegia).

Birds are becoming more visible in the garden during the colder months as they seek supplementary food and a cosy place to shelter. I watched this little wren spend a busy few minutes amongst the tangle of honeysuckle and pyracantha, seeking out insects and larvae. This must be a bountiful time for wrens, judging by the amount of spiders in the garden! It is quite amusing to visually follow their trail through the bushes – their presence only being given away by the occasional abrupt juddering of a branch or twig. Their elusive nature belies the fact that they are Britain’s commonest birds. They’re also one of the loudest – you may hear them rather than see them. Their birdsong can be heard here.

I haven’t seen the hedgehogs since 30th September. I can’t believe they went into hibernation then as it was still warm, so I’m hoping they’re okay and living in someone else’s garden. I’m a bit peeved that all my preparations for their cosy retreats in the garden and garage have gone unnoticed though!

The common evergreen shrub Euonymus (here ‘Emerald ‘n’ Gold’) is most often used as a hedging plant in a similar way to privet. As it is usually clipped into a formal shape it rarely gets a chance to keep its flowers and subsequent fruit. We have a mature plant of this type growing as an informal wall shrub at the bottom of the garden, which I trim only lightly and occasionally when a straggly branch grows outwards. It has produced its yearly show of unassuming white pods, which split open to reveal bright orange fruits.

This plant is from the same botanical family as the deciduous Euonymus or spindle tree, the only obvious similarity being the fruiting pods. Its wood used to be employed for making spindles and pipe stems.

I love the way these leaves change colour.

Nandina domestica, or Heavenly Bamboo is not a bamboo at all. It is a useful evergreen foliage plant that turns a deep red in the autumn/winter. Its immature berries shown here will soon turn bright orangey-red, a welcome splash of colour for the wintertime.

For most bumblebees species, winter is a time for hibernation. The Buff-tailed bumblebee however, is usually fully active throughout winter in warmer parts of the UK, even when temperatures are close to freezing. This enormous queen has been buzzing about the garden lately, feeding off the dwindling sprays of honeysuckle flowers.

Here’s one for you Chris. Now you can see inside those Chinese Lanterns!

Frames of reference
This entry was posted in Birds, Flowers, Fruit, Gardens, Insects and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to An October Garden

  1. Thanks Karen. Here’s another skeletonised capsule of physalis.

  2. Sue says:

    Beautiful photos, as usual. I am going to take your tip of putting potted plants in amongst the shrubs – great idea for an instant splash of interest.
    Might have to get a Heavenly Bamboo – love the colours.

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Telstar 1

Fifty-one years ago this week, the United States successfully orbited the world’s first active-repeater communications satellite.  Known as Telstar 1, the satellite successfully relayed through space the first television pictures, telephone calls, fax images and provided the first live transatlantic television transmission.

Telstar was a development of the Bell Telephone Laboratories for the American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) Company.  The concept involved orbiting of a satellite that could receive, amplify and retransmit electromagnetic signals around the globe.

The Telstar satellite was spherical in shape, had a diameter of 34.5 inches, and weighed about 170 lbs.  Its external surface was covered with solar cells for electrical power generation.  Telstar 1 was equipped with a single transponder and an externally located antenna array.

On Tuesday, 10 July 1962, Telstar 1 was launched into space aboard a Thor Delta launch vehicle.  Lift-off from Cape Canaveral’s LC-17B came at 08:35 UTC.  The satellite was successfully placed into a highly elliptical 3,046 nm x 510 nm orbit with an inclination of 45 degrees and a period of 157.8 minutes.

Telstar 1′s non-geosynchronous orbit limited its availability for transatlantic signals to about 20 minutes during each orbital pass.  The power of the satellite’s transponder was quite low.  To compensate, ground station antennas had to be very large.  These units measured 177 feet in length and weighed around 750,000 lbs.

Once in orbit, Telstar 1 went right  to work.  On Wednesday, 11 July 1962, the satellite successfully relayed its first television signals in a transmission that originated in the United States.  Specifically, images of the American flag were relayed to a ground station in France.  While image quality was crude by today’s standards, Old Glory still looked pretty good in this first broadcast.

Telstar 1 made its inaugural public transatlantic broadcast on Monday, 23 July 1962.  This historic broadcast featured the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, remarks by President John F. Kennedy, excerpts from a baseball game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Chicago Cubs, images of the American flag waving in the breeze, and pictures of Yves Montand, a then-popular French singer.

Telstar 1 transmitted more than 400 telephone, telegraph, fax and television transmissions during a rather abbreviated operational career.  In November 1962, Telstar 1′s onboard electronics malfunctioned due to the harsh radiation environment encountered during repeated passage through the Van Allen Radiation Belts.  Residual space-borne radiation from recent U.S. and Soviet nuclear weapons testing in space also contributed to the satellite’s demise.

Telstar 1 ushered in a new era in global communications.  Its revolutionary technology profoundly changed life on earth in that global connectivity became more immediate and intimate.  Telstar also spawned a new industry that has evolved into today’s massive global telecommunications market.  Not too bad for a little ball filled with transistors, broadcasting with a weak transponder and orbiting high in the radiation-drenched heavens.

J. Terry White


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Can Dogs and Cats Be Friends?

My Boyz

copyright 2010 Diane Rich

Included in my job description is helping owners integrate their new puppy with the resident cat or helping a resident dog accept a new cat. Can these two species become friends? The answer is sometimes.

Cats, in some cases prefer to be only children. The antics of an unsupervised pup can wear on even the most patient of cats. These two species may not become the best of friends but can learn to live with some sort of tolerance of each other. On the other side of that furry coin, some canines and felines absolutely adore each other and love playing together.

The introduction is very important.

Puppy Training

7.5 week old Shiba learning to ignore the resident Bengal cat who we are also training to sit, stay and watch

I have had many breeds stay with us at Camp Fraser which includes cohabitating with our resident cat that uses the same doggie door as the dogs. Our cat thinks he is a dog. The guest dogs are educated from minute one how to integrate with our cat and are taught the rules. The Golden Rule is: They cannot harm or kill the cat!

By the way, just because your dog likes or loves your cats does not mean your dog will like cats outside the family.

Terrier-Shiba Mixed Breed and Aussie

These dogs at Camp Fraser had to be trained not to chase the cat (copyright 2010 Diane Rich)

Tip on Preserving Hardwood Floors
If you want to preserve hardwood floors from damage due to dog nails, I recommend rubber back carpet runners.

Although any dog can be nasty with cats, some dogs are notorious cat killers such as Malamutes, Sighthounds and Airedales. Doesn’t mean they cannot be trained to get along with the cat and best done when the dog is a puppy.

Airedales are not known for their positive relationships with cats. This pup never met a cat before and is being trained to down-stay and leave it (copyright 2010 Diane Rich)

Dubs, the U.W. Mascot; Malamute

Another breed not notoriously great with cats. Even though he lives with multiple cats he needed more advanced training at Camp Fraser on his leave it skills
(copyright 2010 Diane Rich)

Your Responsibility:
1. Keep your dog/puppy on a leash to help acclimate the dog and keep the cat safe
2. Be calm and confidant when creating the introduction
3. Be quiet. People tend to be chatty with pets and that chattiness can amp up the dog or make either species nervous. Just relax and calmly control interactions,
4. Teach your dog obedience commands such as down – stay a solid “leave it”
5. You can use confinement options for dogs, such as crates, gates or exercise pens so all animals have their safe zones.
6. Calmly praise great behavior with both species.

Some cats are fighters and love to stalk the dog and make his or her life miserable.

Felines and Canines do not understand each other’s body language. A play bow from a dog may be interpreted as predatory behavior by the cat. The cat’s swishing tail indicating agitation or I am going to strike may seem like a fun moving toy to a rambunctious puppy.
Wishing you a peaceful multi species home!

Woofs and Meows!

Here’s hoping all your pets can live in harmony.

Diane Rich Dog Training, LLC

Follow me on Twitter

Diane Rich


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Breed of the week: the intelligent Irish Wolfhound

The Irish Wolfhound is one of the tallest breeds in the world, often reaching the height of a small pony (which translates to around 7 feet tall when balancing on their hind legs).

Brendan, the Irish Wolfhound with his owner and breeder Frank Winters (who is 6’1″).

The Irish Wolfhound’s name originates from its wolf-hunting prowess, rather than from its appearance, as the uninitiated might assume. Despite this wiry-haired hound’s sometimes intimidating looks, they are known for their sweet-temper and friendly and patient demeanor. Because they tend to greet everyone as a friend, it’s best not to rely on them as a serious watch dog. However, their giant presence alone may serve as a significant-enough deterrent to ne’er-do-wells. Intelligent, willing and eager to please, they are unconditionally loyal to their family.

Share pictures of your happy hounds in our new Irish Wolfhound gallery!

The Irish Wolfhound was originally bred as a “war dog,” and was trained to drag men out of chariots and off horseback. Their graceful but powerful gait also made them excellent hunting dogs, which were frequently used to hunt the Irish elk and wolves. It’s said that when the last of the wolves in Ireland was killed (the elk had become extinct long before), the breed dwindled and almost died out.

In the middle of the 19th century, Captain George Augustus Graham undertook the Irish Wolfhound’s resuscitation, which he did by collecting what he considered to be the last specimens of the breed and crossing them with the deerhound, Great Dane, Borzoi and Tibetan Mastiff to regain the size and type of the original hound. Graham founded the Irish Wolfhound Club in 1885. The American Kennel Club recognized the breed in 1897 and the Irish Wolfhound Society was founded in 1981.

Just as with other dogs, early socialization is critical for the development of a well-mannered, well-adjusted hound. And although they are exceptionally gentle and good-natured around children, the same can not always be said about their behavior around animals, including house pets. Anyone who cannot accept the possibility of their dog chasing, catching and potentially killing a field rabbit or other small animal should probably not choose to adopt a wolfhound or other hunting-type dog. This being said, there are, of course, exceptions to every rule.

Here is one story from that I found particularly endearing:

“When the pack was let out for a run, they would all hurtle off across the fields after rabbits but Goldie would follow slowly in the rear looking for the rabbits that had simply “gone to ground.” When she found one, she would push it with her nose and, if it didn’t move, she would then stamp her forefeet on either side of it. If it still stayed still, she would go off and look for another one. If it ran she would chase it, but never attempt to grab it. When we had a particularly bad bout of myxomatosis in the local rabbit population, she would pick up the sick rabbits and carry them to her bed. She had a very soft mouth and they were completely unharmed. We often found her lying beside the bed with four or five rabbits sitting in it.”

The Irish Wolfhound is relatively inactive indoors and does best with a large yard and daily walks. This giant breed is often slow to mature in both body and mind, taking about two years before a dog is considered fully grown. While it is important to exercise a growing pup, strenuous activities may be too taxing for a young dog’s body.

The Irish Wolfhound, mascot of the Irish Guards with the Queen Mother.

The Irish Wolfhound, mascot of the Irish Guards with the Queen Mother.

Irish Wolfhounds don’t typically live very long lives. Estimations vary between 5 and 10 years, but some may live as long as 12 or 13 years. Dilated cardiomyopathy and bone cancer are the leading cause of death and like all deep-chested dogs, gastric torsion (bloat) is also common.

This is a very old breed. They were held in such high esteem that Irish Wolfhounds were often given as royal presents and battles were even fought over them. Like the nobility they served, the hounds were often bejeweled with chains and collars studded with precious gem stones and metals. There is indication that they existed as early as 600 BC when the Celts sacked Delphi. Survivors left accounts of the fierce Celts and the huge dogs who fought at their side. They were also mentioned by Julius Caesar in his treatise, The Gallic Wars. The Roman Consul, Quintus Aurelius, is said to have received seven of them as a gift to be used for fighting lions, bears, that “all Rome viewed with wonder.”

The Wolfhound is sometimes regarded as the national dog breed of Ireland, but no breed has ever been officially adopted as such. The Wolfhound was historically a dog that only nobles could own and was taken up by the British during their rule in Ireland, making the dog unpopular as a national symbol. However, more recently the Irish rugby league accepted the nickname the Wolfhounds, and in 2010, the Irish Rugby Football Union, which governs rugby union, changed the name of the country’s A (second-level) national team to the Ireland Wolfhounds.

For more information about these gentle giants visit the Irish Wolfhound Club of America and PetWave’s breed center. For a list of Irish Wolfhound rescue groups, click here. You can also check out for a list of adoptable (and adorable!) Irish Wolfhounds and mix breeds.

Irish WolfHound | Dog Breed


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Monday, 20 August 2012

Accessing the Shut Down Windows Dialog from Windows 8 Start Menu

I've only just started using Windows 8 on my work PC and the first thing I miss is the simplicity of accessing Shut Down or Sleep from the Start Menu. For whatever reason (I'm leaning towards Microsoft wanting people to use hardware sleep controls) the Shut Down menu isn't as easily accessible as it used to be.

I've seen several blog posts on pinning shut down, restart, sleep, etc, shortcuts to the new Start Menu ("Start") but having separate icons for each function seems a bit of wasted screen estate. I then found someone suggesting pressing "Windows+D" to minimise to the desktop and then pressing "Alt+F4" to bring up the Shut Down dialog.

I figured that since the "Shut Down Windows" dialog was accessible in this manner then it should be accessible some other way. I played around with RunDLL32 commands to no avail but thought perhaps AutoIt could do something. A quick search and I came across the following four lines of code that do the trick

From this I've created a simple AutoIt app that will show the “Shut Down Windows” dialog:

To use, extract the .exe, save it somewhere and right-click “Pin to Start”

Then drag the icon to where you want it on your "Start" (Menu)…

Monday, 5 December 2011

Windows 7 "Please Wait" or Welcome Screen hang

Just thought I'd share a hotfix that resolved an issue that has been plaguing our Windows 7 desktop PCs for the past few weeks. Hopefully it will save someone all of the investigating we had to do!

Windows 7 (SP1) hangs for up to 60 minutes either at:

the"Please Wait" screen before logon screen
the "Welcome" screen after logon (Somebody coined this the "Welcome Screen of Death")
or occasionally at log off

You may see events in the Application Log under ID 6006:
The winlogon notification subscriber took xxxx second(s) to handle the notification event (CreateSession) - "Please Wait" hang
The winlogon notification subscriber took xxxx second(s) to handle the notification event (Logon) - "Welcome" screen hang
The winlogon notification subscriber took xxxx second(s) to handle the notification event (Logoff) - log off hang

This event clearly suggests a problem with the GPClient (Group Policy Client)  so we started  moving the PC to an OU with limited GPOs which reduced the problem. However, the problem is apparent when there is a large number of user profiles on the system (we had ranges of 50 to 250) and deleting profiles can appear to alleviate the problem. The more profiles, the longer the delay.

We only spotted the root cause of the issue by removing and re-applying group policies whilst logged onto a problem PC and noticing that RSOP was hanging. Using Process Explorer we spotted that one of the svchost processes was using an entire CPU core. Since this instance of svchost runs both the Winmgmt (WMI) service and the gpsvc (GPClient) service (amongst other key Windows services) so it appears that the GPClient has to wait for WMI to finish, causing the long delay.

Install hotfix kb2617858

"This issue occurs because the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) component unnecessarily performs a full validation of the WMI repository"

Since each user profile adds to the WMI repository, the more profiles, the longer the delay (although their seems to be a limit of 60 minutes).

See also kb2505348 which references kb2617858

Tuesday, 8 March 2011

Emails from "Microsoft Exchange" classed as "Outside the organization" in Transport Rules

It appears that emails from the built in "Microsoft Exchange" sender in Exchange 2007 are classed as "Outside the organization" in Exchange Transport Rules. Here's how I discovered the issue and was able to work around it:

It’s quite common at the moment for phishers to send “Your mailbox is almost full” type messages, requesting users to click on a link, ultimately compromising their email accounts. One of the methods our organization uses to block such messages is to have an Exchange Transport Rule to block emails with such subject lines and redirect the emails to a monitored mailbox, but for external senders only.

I don’t normally look after this system but I checked the monitored mailbox this morning and found it was full of genuine “Your mailbox is almost full” messages from the “Microsoft Exchange” sender. Numerous users won't have received this message and will potentially hit their quota, and not be able to send emails in the next few days.

My first port of call was the check the Transport Rule was set to only apply to external senders, or as Microsoft put it "from users Outside the organization", which it was. I assumed, therefore that the "Microsoft Exchange" sender is classed as being external as it has no real mailbox.

Comparing the message headers from a genuine "Microsoft Exchange" email and a phish email, I noticed the genuine email is automatically stamped by Exchange with an SCL of -1

X-MS-Exchange-Organization-SCL: -1

I added this as an exception to the Transport Rule using "except when the text specific words appears in a message header" using X-MS-Exchange-Organization-SCL as the message header and -1 as the value.

Messages that match the subject line but come from "Microsoft Exchange" now reach their intended recipient.

Friday, 12 March 2010

Showing the last error in an SCCM OSD Task Sequence

Any of you that use SCCM / Configuration Manager to deploy operating systems will know what a pain it is to trawl trough the log files to determine why a build failed. I wanted the end user to see why the build had failed and there didn't seem to be a built in way to do this so I created a script that parses the SMSTS.log file for the last error that occurred before the task sequence fails and show it to the end user.

We use a customised Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) task sequence to build our desktop PCs so the script gets called as the last step in the "Gather Logs and StateStore on Failure" group:

The script is called as "Run Command Line" step running "cscript.exe "%deployroot%\scripts\UWEShowBuildError.wsf"

and will show the something like this if an error occurs during the task sequence:

The script will also create a small log file recording this error UWEShowBuildError.log which ends up with the rest of task sequence logs (System32\CCM\LogFiles)

Download the script here.
(I use the pre-fix "UWE" on our scripts, variables, etc to distinguish them from the Microsoft scripts)

Tuesday, 8 April 2008

Virtual Machine - Endpoint format is invalid

Just came across a VMware virtual machine issue which jogged my memory from a few months back.

Basically, when a user was trying to RDP to a new VM, built from a syspreped template, they were unable to logon and received a strange error message about an "Endpoint format" being invalid. I thought I'd seen this before and remembered that the problem was to do with VMware tools. The problem does not seem to be very well documented but can be found if you Google for problems joining the domain, another manifestation of the problem:

Basically the way we fixed the problem, with minimal reboots, was:
  • Disjoin the VM from the domain and uninstall VMware tools, then reboot.
  • Then rejoin to the domain, install the VMware tools and reboot again.

Tuesday, 19 February 2008

SoftGrid error code: xxxxxx-xxxxxx0A-20000194

Just had this error when accessing SoftGrid applications and not obvious how to resolve it. A "Launch Failed" error occurs with an error code ending 20000194. On further investigation the error was only occurring when the client was talking to one of the two NLB SoftGrid servers.

According to one of the causes for the 20000194 error is that "The path or the .sft file name that is specified" is invalid and that we should look at the sft-server.log on the SoftGrid Virtual Application Server (normally in "C:\Program Files\Softricity\SoftGrid Server\logs")

The sft-server.log for the problem server showed "File not found: C:\Program Files\Softricity\SoftGrid Server\content\.......sft" and "Unable to open C:\Program Files\Softricity\SoftGrid Server\content\.......sft"

The path "C:\Program Files\Softricity\SoftGrid Server\content\" for our setup where we have the SoftGrid content set as "D:\SoftGridContent\" (specified during setup), was incorrect.

Nowhere in the SoftGrid management console was I able to find the SoftGrid content location but a search of the registry on the offending server showed the following key to be incorrect:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Softricity\SoftGrid Server\CurrentVersion

Once this was changed to the correct content location, and the SoftGrid Virtual Application Server service restarted, all was ok.

How this had come to be incorrect, I'm not sure but we did recently move the SQL database so perhaps this had confused SoftGrid and caused the setting to default to C:\Program Files.

And to answer the question why SoftGrid uses a local path such as D:\SoftGridContent\ for its content directory, this is because this is the part of SoftGrid (the .sft stream) which is served out as an RTSP stream by the Virtual Application Server so only the server needs to be able to see the content location. In contrast, the .ico and .osd files need to be accessible over the network via UNC or HTTP as this is what the client needs to know about where to find the application.

Thursday, 14 February 2008

VMware Storage VMotion from the VI Client GUI

You might have heard that VMware were bringing out the ability to migrate ESX VMs between storage areas (e.g. to different SAN LUNs or local disks) whilst running. Good news is that it part of ESX 3.5:

Bad news is that is that Vmware haven't integrated the functionallity into their Virtual Infrastructure Client, however a clever person at LostCreations has created a plugin:

To use this fantasic tool, you'll need servers running ESX 3.5 and to install the LostCreations SVMotion plugin for Virtual Infrastructure Client following the installation instructions on:

(you don't need to install the VMware Remote CLI which is required for "manual" storage vmotion)

Have tested and works a treat with no interruption to the VM during migration.


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06 September 2013

What I've Been Doing, and a Flashback Friday About Rocks

Some of you may have noticed I've been a little MIA lately. I haven't abandoned you, dear reader, I promise! What started out as an innocent attempt to rid myself of some paper clutter has turned into a much larger task. Though it is not really represented on the blog, I've been doing a lot of compilation work on Macon, Georgia's historic Rose Hill Cemetery. Transcribing obituaries, cataloguing photos, and the like. I'm up to more than 520 individuals in my Family Tree program. Rose Hill Cemetery contains thousands of graves, so I have a long way to go. What's exciting, though, is the number of obituaries that I have found regarding individuals that are not in the major databases, including Rose Hill's records online. I suspect these may belong to the many unmarked graves in the cemetery.

Since I'm still working on a pile of printed articles and obituaries, I thought I would at least throw in a Flashback Friday post here at Southern Graves. If you haven't read it before, it's one of the most popular posts in my almost six years of blogging.

Rocks, Rocks, and More Rocks

Why do people put rocks on grave stones? Some time ago, I learned that the rocks signified a visitor. That is true enough, but I decided to learn a little more about the custom and share my findings with you.

Putting rocks on tombstones is most often described as a Jewish custom. There are many "Ask a Rabbi" columns out there, but I did not find one that knew for sure where the custom originated. They all agreed, however, that a rock symbolized a visitor and when put on a tombstone said, "I remember you." I also read that some people pick up a rock wherever they are when they think of a person that has passed. Then, the next time they visit the grave, they place the rock to say, "I wish you were here."

Rabbi Shraga Simmons offers a deeper meaning: "We are taught that it is an act of ultimate kindness and respect to bury someone and place a marker at the site. After a person is buried, of course, we can no longer participate in burying them. However, even if a tombstone has been erected, we can participate in the mitzvah of making a marker at a grave, by adding to the stone. Therefore, customarily, we place stones on top of a gravestone whenever we visit to indicate our participation in the mitzvah of erecting a tombstone, even if only in a more symbolic way."

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef says this, "In former days one did not mark a grave with marble or granite with a fancy inscription, but one made a cairn of stones over it. Each mourner coming and adding a stone was effectively taking part in the Mitzvah of matzevah ("setting a stone") as well as or instead of levayat ha-meyt ("accompany the dead"). Of course, the dead were often buried where they had fallen, before urbanization and specialization of planning-use demanded formal cemeteries...Therefore in our day one tends to stick a pebble on top of the tombstone as a relic of this ancient custom, and it is still clear that the more stones a grave has, the more the deceased is being visited and is therefore being honored. Each small pebble adds to the cairn - a nice moral message. This has become slightly spoiled by the cemetery authorities clearing accumulated pebbles off when they wash down the gravestones and cut the grass."

Finally, Rabbi Andrew Straus offers the following: "Ritual is a way of expressing our emotions and spiritual needs. We need physical acts to express these things for us, to make them concrete. Placing a stone on a grave does just that...(1) It is a sign to others who come to the grave when I am not there that they and I are not the only ones who remember. The stones I see on the grave when I come are a reminder to me that others have come to visit the grave. My loved one is remembered by many others and his/her life continues to have an impact on others, even if I do not see them. (2) When I pick up the stone it sends a message to me. I can still feel my loved one. I can still touch and be touched by him/her. I can still feel the impact that has been made on my life. Their life, love, teachings, values, and morals still make an impression on me. When I put the stone down, it is a reminder to me that I can no longer take this person with me physically. I can only take him/her with me in my heart and my mind and the actions I do because he/she taught me to do them. Their values, morals, ideals live on and continue to impress me - just as the stone has made an impression on my hands - so too their life has made an impression on me that continues."

So do all these explanations mean placing a rock on a tombstone is only a Jewish custom? While I would consider it likely when visiting a gravestone with rocks placed on it, it may not always be the case.

Cemetery symbolism author Douglas Keister reminds us, "In Christian lore, rocks are a powerful symbol of the Lord." There are many places in the Old Testament Bible that compare God to a rock. One being Psalm 18:2 -- "The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my strength, in whom I will trust, my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower."

So the placing of a rock on a tombstone could represent a belief that the deceased is with God.

Keister further states, "In almost all cultures, rocks represent permanence, stability, reliability, and strength."

All in all, placing and finding rocks on a tombstone is a nice tradition. Whatever the culture or religious faith, the rocks represent an honorable memory of the deceased.

Note: the photo above (© 2009 S. Lincecum) is of the gravestone for Robert H. Sanders (28 Apr 1920 - 8 July 1998) & Mary A. Sanders (24 July 1919 - 14 Jan 2006) at Roberta City Cemetery in Crawford County, Georgia.

One last item; a little link love. When researching this article, I came across a website that offers paintings on river rocks to be placed on the gravestones of loved ones. I thought it was a neat idea, so here's a link to Judaic Stones.

J. Paul Hawthorne said...

I forgive you for being MIA...It sounds like you've been hard at work on other projects. So much to do, so little time. Glad to have you back!

Stephanie Lincecum said...

Thanks, Paul!

Taphophile said...

I envy your time at Rose Hill. It's a truly beautiful cemetery.

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Follow Up: New Year’s Resolutions

Back on December 30th, the FBFF theme was New Year’s Resolutions, and I posted about mine here.  In short, I was resolving to get back to the gym, cook more and eat out less, wear jeans less, shop my closet more, thrift/swap more and buy less new stuff, and do more DIY.  Now that it’s July, I figured I’d take a look at all of my resolutions and see how I was doing.  After all, what’s the point of making resolutions if you’re not going to keep them, or even look back to check to see if you are keeping them?  Not much, if you ask me.

  • Resolution 1: Get back to the gym.
    I’ve actually done a pretty good job of this, thanks to my husband talking me into going with him one day, and his trainer taking me on to train alongside them.  I started going in mid-January or so, and since then have significantly toned up and even lost 2″ from my hips!  I’ve also really increased my strength, started to change my eating habits, and just generally feel better about myself.  I blogged about my thoughts on fitness for FBFF, if you want to read about that.
  • Cook more, eat out less.
    This one’s been tough.  Hubs and I have been non-stop gogogo it seems, and it’s been hard to cook at home all that often.  I find it so hard to cook for two, let alone one (for the nights I’m on my own), and it’s often easier to just grab something on the way home.  Not to mention keeping somewhat healthy food in the house and using it before it spoils.  I have been buying more snacks to have at work, which is a good start.  Plus, there’s still time to pick this one back up, and probably as fall gets near, it will be easier to make soups, chili, and all that good hearty stuff that works nicely in the crock pot.
  • Wear jeans less.
    I’ve been doing a pretty good job of this one I think.  With the amazing weather we’ve been having, jeans have actually been cumbersome.  It’s been much nicer to wear skirts and dresses, so that’s what I’ve been doing more of.  In fact, if you look at the last 7 months of Random Outfits, you’ll see that I’ve only worn standard blue jeans 9-10 times.  If you count colored denim, that goes up a bit to 18 times.  That’s not that bad, especially if you consider that I used to wear jeans 4 days a week, at least!
  • Shop my closet first.
    I’ve also gotten better at this, trying to wear a few more closet orphans or revive old favorites.  But at the same time, I’ve done a fair amount of shopping and thrifting recently, and still have a ton of new stuff, as well as some DIY projects I need to get started on.  So this one is kind of a wash, unfortunately.  However, perhaps the second half of the year will bring more closet shopping, now that I’ve added some great new stuff to it.
  • Thrift and swap more, buy less brand new stuff.
    This is definitely something I’ve gotten better at.  I shopped for sport-style gear at Salvation Army and Goodwill for a recent shoot and didn’t buy a single new item of clothing for that shoot, which is really satisfying, because I hate buying new clothing just for shoots.  In fact, when I decided I wanted a new outfit to wear out for my 30th, I started at thrift stores!  I didn’t find anything that suited what I was looking for, and ended up getting something from the Forever21 sale rack, but  my impulse seems to have shifted.  Now when I “need” something new, I start at thrift stores first, instead of heading over to the local mall.  That, for me, is a big step… and one in the right direction!
  • More DIY!
    The thought is definitely here on this project.  I have 2 suits I need to alter, one  dress, two skirts, and a couple other random things set aside for fun DIYs.  But I haven’t had the time to tackle the projects, and don’t want to rush them–I want to make sure that when I do them, I do them right. I have shortened a dress, made a pair of cutoff shorts, painted a pair of Bobs, glittered boots, dyed 3 pairs of jeans, 1 skirt, and 1 sweatshirt, and bleach-dipped a denim shirt.  That’s a pretty good start… but it’s a drop in the bucket if you look at everything I have set aside in my craft room!

So overall, I’m making pretty good progress on my resolutions.  I’ve stuck to the vast majority of them and still have time to work hard on keeping to them more and more.  I think of all of them, I’m most proud of sticking to getting to the gym more.  I feel much better about myself and find that I do actually enjoy working out (having a great trainer helps a ton though, seriously).

How about you? Did you make New Year’s Resolutions?  If so, have you stuck to them, or did they go out the window by the end of January (like resolutions tend to do)?  If you have stuck to them, what are you most proud of?

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3 comments for “Follow Up: New Year’s Resolutions

  1. July 11, 2012 at 6:25 PM

    Is the fact that I don’t see anything wrong with wearing jeans a lot an indicator that I know nothing about fashion? LOL. Looks like you are doing pretty well with your resolutions!

    • July 11, 2012 at 9:05 PM

      LOL I don’t see anything wrong with wearing jeans either but don’t want to wear them too much at work.

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Random Outfits: August 29: Grunge-Inspired Floral Maxi Skirt

This was a really fun look that I enjoyed both putting together and wearing. The last weekend in August we were up in Michigan at my parents’ summer home. We were invited to a backyard anniversary party for friends of theirs, and I wanted something that was both cool temperature-wise and that showed off my style well. I’d ordered this floral maxi from Forever21 and was delighted that it came in time for the weekend, because I knew this was exactly how I wanted to wear it for the first time.

Grunge-Inspired Floral Maxi Skirt

Having really liked how my olive booties looked with my fringe skirt and this sheer back tee for this look, I knew I wanted to wear them both again with this skirt. I did opt to change things up a bit in terms of my hair and accessories though. I threw my hair in braided pigtails (partially because I liked the look, but also because I didn’t feel like drying my hair) and rocked some different necklaces. Shockingly, I didn’t need anything to keep me warm, since it was a nice summery evening.

Random Outfits: August 29: Grunge-Inspired Floral Maxi Skirt

I managed to catch a shot of that awkward moment when a neighbor calls you out on randomly taking full-length selfies in the middle of the street.  I’m not big on being seen when I take my outfit shots, so it threw me off a  bit. I forgot to get a good shot of my necklaces, which was unfortunate. I wore my Stella & Dot Rebel Pendant with my gold monogram necklace from 9thandelm.com. An easy, mixed metals combination that got me quite a few complements throughout the evening.

Random Outfits: August 29: Grunge-Inspired Floral Maxi Skirt

Here’s a look at my booties, which are Nine West, but were a Plato’s Closet find. I confess, I originally got them to wear for my pirate costume, but fell in love with them shortly after trying them on. Gotta love a pair of booties that work for both “serious” looks, and costumey ones! These have definitely paid for themselves and have gotten quite a bit of wear since I picked them up.

Random Outfits: August 29: Grunge-Inspired Floral Maxi Skirt

I really liked this look!

I hope I’ll be able to figure out a way to wear this skirt to work this fall.  I’m thinking that with leggings, I’ll be able to pull it off, but we’ll see.  It did ride up quite a bit when I sat (I’m between sizes enough where the large slid down too much and the medium bunched at my hips a little, but fit better than the large despite that, so I gotta deal with a little riding up and bunching here and there), but I’m thinking 100% opaque leggings will minimize that and make it work for work.

Disclaimer: This post contains Stella & Dot and affiliate links, so if you click and buy something, I might get a commission.

Let’s get social!

Follow me on all of your favorite social media sites! Just click the icon to go!

You can always email me at suburbanstylechallenge@gmail.com

7 comments for “Random Outfits: August 29: Grunge-Inspired Floral Maxi Skirt

  1. trish
    October 9, 2014 at 3:59 PM

    So cute

  2. Jennifer Hiles
    October 10, 2014 at 2:42 PM

    What a fun outfit you put together. I wish I had a better sense of style but I’m working on it! I just love the booties you paired with this. Those and the cool necklace are the perfect touch. I think leggings would work with that skirt. Hope you take pics and show us!

  3. Alona Y
    October 13, 2014 at 7:50 PM

    I love this! This has a 90’s feel that I really can relate to with my own clothing style, and I seriously want those boots.

  4. Sarah L
    October 14, 2014 at 5:30 PM

    Nice skirt and love the boots.

  5. Wendi S
    October 15, 2014 at 10:29 PM

    I like it, I think you look great in it and I would remember having met you. You have a stand out factor.

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Local Current Blog

Zachary Scot Johnson’s Song a Day Project lights up YouTube with guest turns from Jeff Daniels, Noel Paul Stookey, and more

Even under the fuzz of a speakerphone, the voice of Zachary Scot Johnson was clear as a bell, full of more pep than I would except from someone who woke up at a hotel somewhere in Door County. He was there because because it was the weekend, and for Johnson, weekends are for touring.

“I graduated college in 2006 and that’s when I started hitting it really hard,” he says. “It” means touring, and “hard” means nearly 800 shows in eight years.

Stillwater is home, but “it’s rare that I get to be in the same place for three days or more,” he told me. Despite this grueling schedule, he sounds no worse for wear.

If and when he hits it “big,” no one will deem it an overnight success. For nearly two years now, Johnson has had a regimen. He’s not just constantly touring, he’s constantly recording. No matter where he is, he learns and records a cover song every day and posts it to YouTube.

The motivation for the Song a Day Project is two-fold. First, the videos generate exposure. The first couple months of the project Johnson only garnered a couple hundred views. After covering Elliott Smith’s “Waltz #2 (XO),” though, something clicked: 50,000 people, to be specific. It was then that Johnson decided to commit more than the original 100 days to the project. He’s now posted over 700 videos, and he shows no sign of stopping.

The second benefit of the project is the practice. Early in the project, Johnson could just pick one of the many, many cover songs he had in his repertoire from playing four-hour bar gigs. He quickly ran through those, though. Now, “I’m not just playing a new song every day,” he says. “I’m learning a new song every day.” Often this just means piecing together a simple chord progression, but there have been some notable challenges. Johnson spent a string of days—somewhere in the 500s, on his video count—covering Joni Mitchell’s entire debut album Song to a Seagull.

“It was really tough on me,” he said. “There was something about that that I liked, though, because doing this can feel routine or easy sometimes.”

In September, Johnson will celebrate the second anniversary of his project with a very special guest: Academy-Award-winning actor (and noted singer-songwriter) Jeff Daniels. Daniels will join a roster of other notable musicians—including Noel Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul, & Mary—to have joined Johnson in the daily videos.

“I’ve had some people who I couldn’t believe said yes,” he says.

The Song a Day Project has built a solid fan base for Johnson, who says he’s noticed greater attendance at his shows. Plus, the strict scheduled has helped push him to work more consistently on his original material.

“I’m a really slow writer. I write more frequently now,” he tells me, as if needing to prove he’s a hard worker. As if he didn’t record video #703 minutes before our interview.

Johnson’s next local gig is at Patrick’s Cabaret on Sept. 20.

Nina Slesinger is a student at Macalester College.


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Special Entities

February 3, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Featured, Special Entities, W3C, Web 2.0

The following table gives the character entity reference, decimal character reference, and hexadecimal character reference for markup-significant and internationalization characters, as well as the rendering of each in your browser. Glyphs of the characters are available at the Unicode Consortium.

With the exception of HTML 2.0‘s ", &, <, and >, these entities are all new in HTML 4.0 and may not be supported by old browsers. Support in recent browsers is good.

Character Entity Decimal Hex Rendering in Your Browser
Entity Decimal Hex
quotation mark = APL quote " " "
ampersand & & & & & &
less-than sign < < < < < <
greater-than sign > > > > > >
Latin capital ligature OE Œ Œ Œ Œ Œ Œ
Latin small ligature oe œ œ œ œ œ œ
Latin capital letter S with caron Š Š Š Š Š Š
Latin small letter s with caron š š š š š š
Latin capital letter Y with diaeresis Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ
modifier letter circumflex accent ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ
small tilde ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜
en space
em space
thin space
zero width non-joiner
zero width joiner
left-to-right mark
right-to-left mark
en dash
em dash
left single quotation mark
right single quotation mark
single low-9 quotation mark
left double quotation mark
right double quotation mark
double low-9 quotation mark
double dagger
per mille sign
single left-pointing angle quotation mark
single right-pointing angle quotation mark
euro sign

Entities for Symbols and Greek Letters — Special Characters

February 3, 2009 · 1 Comment
Filed under: Creative Website Design, CSS, Featured, W3C, Web 2.0

The following table gives the character entity reference, decimal character reference, and hexadecimal character reference for symbols and Greek letters, as well as the rendering of each in your browser. Glyphs of the characters are available at the Unicode Consortium.

These entities are all new in HTML 4.0 and may not be supported by old browsers. Support in recent browsers is good.

Character Entity Decimal Hex Rendering in Your Browser
Entity Decimal Hex
Latin small f with hook = function = florin ƒ ƒ ƒ ƒ ƒ ƒ
Greek capital letter alpha Α Α Α Α Α Α
Greek capital letter beta Β Β Β Β Β Β
Greek capital letter gamma Γ Γ Γ Γ Γ Γ
Greek capital letter delta Δ Δ Δ Δ Δ Δ
Greek capital letter epsilon Ε Ε Ε Ε Ε Ε
Greek capital letter zeta Ζ Ζ Ζ Ζ Ζ Ζ
Greek capital letter eta Η Η Η Η Η Η
Greek capital letter theta Θ Θ Θ Θ Θ Θ
Greek capital letter iota Ι Ι Ι Ι Ι Ι
Greek capital letter kappa Κ Κ Κ Κ Κ Κ
Greek capital letter lambda Λ Λ Λ Λ Λ Λ
Greek capital letter mu Μ Μ Μ Μ Μ Μ
Greek capital letter nu Ν Ν Ν Ν Ν Ν
Greek capital letter xi Ξ Ξ Ξ Ξ Ξ Ξ
Greek capital letter omicron Ο Ο Ο Ο Ο Ο
Greek capital letter pi Π Π Π Π Π Π
Greek capital letter rho Ρ Ρ Ρ Ρ Ρ Ρ
Greek capital letter sigma Σ Σ Σ Σ Σ Σ
Greek capital letter tau Τ Τ Τ Τ Τ Τ
Greek capital letter upsilon Υ Υ Υ Υ Υ Υ
Greek capital letter phi Φ Φ Φ Φ Φ Φ
Greek capital letter chi Χ Χ Χ Χ Χ Χ
Greek capital letter psi Ψ Ψ Ψ Ψ Ψ Ψ
Greek capital letter omega Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω
Greek small letter alpha α α α α α α
Greek small letter beta β β β β β β
Greek small letter gamma γ γ γ γ γ γ
Greek small letter delta δ δ δ δ δ δ
Greek small letter epsilon ε ε ε ε ε ε
Greek small letter zeta ζ ζ ζ ζ ζ ζ
Greek small letter eta η η η η η η
Greek small letter theta θ θ θ θ θ θ
Greek small letter iota ι ι ι ι ι ι
Greek small letter kappa κ κ κ κ κ κ
Greek small letter lambda λ λ λ λ λ λ
Greek small letter mu μ μ μ μ μ μ
Greek small letter nu ν ν ν ν ν ν
Greek small letter xi ξ ξ ξ ξ ξ ξ
Greek small letter omicron ο ο ο ο ο ο
Greek small letter pi π π π π π π
Greek small letter rho ρ ρ ρ ρ ρ ρ
Greek small letter final sigma ς ς ς ς ς ς
Greek small letter sigma σ σ σ σ σ σ
Greek small letter tau τ τ τ τ τ τ
Greek small letter upsilon υ υ υ υ υ υ
Greek small letter phi φ φ φ φ φ φ
Greek small letter chi χ χ χ χ χ χ
Greek small letter psi ψ ψ ψ ψ ψ ψ
Greek small letter omega ω ω ω ω ω ω
Greek small letter theta symbol ϑ ϑ ϑ ϑ ϑ ϑ
Greek upsilon with hook symbol ϒ ϒ ϒ ϒ ϒ ϒ
Greek pi symbol ϖ ϖ ϖ ϖ ϖ ϖ
bullet = black small circle
horizontal ellipsis = three dot leader
prime = minutes = feet
double prime = seconds = inches
overline = spacing overscore
fraction slash
script capital P = power set = Weierstrass p
blackletter capital I = imaginary part
blackletter capital R = real part symbol
trade mark sign
alef symbol = first transfinite cardinal
leftwards arrow
upwards arrow
rightwards arrow
downwards arrow
left right arrow
downwards arrow with corner leftwards = carriage return
leftwards double arrow
upwards double arrow
rightwards double arrow
downwards double arrow
left right double arrow
for all
partial differential
there exists
empty set = null set = diameter
nabla = backward difference
element of
not an element of
contains as member
n-ary product = product sign
n-ary sumation
minus sign
asterisk operator
square root = radical sign
proportional to
logical and = wedge
logical or = vee
intersection = cap
union = cup
tilde operator = varies with = similar to
approximately equal to
almost equal to = asymptotic to
not equal to
identical to
less-than or equal to
greater-than or equal to
subset of
superset of
not a subset of
subset of or equal to
superset of or equal to
circled plus = direct sum
circled times = vector product
up tack = orthogonal to = perpendicular
dot operator
left ceiling = APL upstile
right ceiling
left floor = APL downstile
right floor
left-pointing angle bracket = bra
right-pointing angle bracket = ket
black spade suit
black club suit = shamrock
black heart suit = valentine
black diamond suit

Web Site Optimization: 13 Simple Steps

August 24, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Creative Website Design, Featured, W3C, Web 2.0

Earlier this year, Steve Souders from the Yahoo! Performance team published a series of front-end performance optimization “rules” for optimizing a page.

This tutorial takes a practical, example-based approach to implementing those rules. It’s targeted towards web developers with a small budget, who are most likely using shared hosting, and working under the various restrictions that come with such a setup. Shared hosts make it harder to play with Apache configuration — sometimes it’s even impossible — so we’ll take a look at what you can do, given certain common restrictions, and assuming your host runs PHP and Apache.

The tutorial is divided into four parts:

  1. basic optimization rules
  2. optimizing assets (images, scripts, and styles)
  3. optimizations specific to scripts
  4. optimizations specific to styles
Credits and Suggested Reading

The article is not going to explain Yahoo!’s performance rules in detail, so you’d do well to read through them on your own for a better understanding of their importance, the reasoning behind the rules, and how they came to be. Here’s the list of rules in question:

  1. Make fewer HTTP requests
  2. Use a Content Delivery Network
  3. Add an Expires header
  4. Gzip components
  5. Put CSS at the top
  6. Move scripts to the bottom
  7. Avoid CSS expressions
  8. Make JavaScript and CSS external
  9. Reduce DNS lookups
  10. Minify JavaScript
  11. Avoid redirects
  12. Remove duplicate scripts
  13. Configure ETags

You can read about these rules on the Yahoo! Developer Network site. You can also check out the book “High Performance Web Sites” by Steve Souders, and the performance research articles on the YUI blog by Tenni Theurer.

Basic Optimization Rules

Decrease Download Sizes

Decreasing download sizes isn’t even in Yahoo!’s list of rules — probably because it’s so obvious. However I don’t think it hurts to reiterate the point — let’s call it Rule #0.

When we look at a simple web page we see:

  • some HTML code
  • different page components (assets) referenced by the HTML

The assets are images, scripts, styles, and perhaps some external media such as Flash movies or Java applets (remember those?). So, when it comes to download sizes, you should aim to have all the assets as lightweight as possible — advice which also extends to the page’s HTML content. Creating lean HTML code often means using better (semantic) markup, which also overlaps with the SEO (search engine optimization) efforts that are a necessary part of the site creation process. As most professional web developers know, a key characteristic of good markup is that it only describes the content, not the presentation of the page (no layout tables!). Any layout or presentational elements should be moved to CSS.

Here’s an example of a good approach to HTML markup for a navigation menu:

Home

About

Contact

This sort of markup should provide “hooks” to allow for the effective use of CSS and make the menu look however you want it to — whether that means adding fancy bullets, borders, or rollovers, or placing the menu items into a horizontal menu. The markup is minimal, which means there are fewer bytes to download; it’s semantic, meaning it describes the content (a navigation menu is a list of links); and finally, being minimal, it also gives you an SEO advantage: it’s generally agreed that search engines prefer a higher content-to-markup ratio in the pages that they index.

Once you’re sure your markup is lightweight and semantic, you should go through your assets and make sure they are also of minimal size. For example, check whether it’s possible to compress images more without losing too much quality, or to choose a different file format that gives you better compression. Tools such as PNGOUT and pngcrush are a good place to start.

Make Fewer HTTP Requests

Making fewer HTTP requests turns out to be the most important optimization technique, with the biggest impact. If your time is limited, and you can only complete one optimization task, pick this one. HTTP requests are generally the most “expensive” activity that the browser performs while displaying your page. Therefore, you should ensure that your page makes as few requests as possible.

How you can go about that, while maintaining the richness of your pages?

  • Combine scripts and style sheets: Do you have a few


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Altschuler Answers Bishop’s Job-Creation Video

Republican NY-1 candidate Randy Altschuler is out with a reponse to a video released yesterday by his Democratic opponent, Rep. Tim Bishop, assailing his job-creation record.

“I won’t be lectured on jobs and the economy by a career bureaucrat turned Washington politician whose policies have destroyed more than 30,000 jobs on Long Island since he took office,” Alschuler said in a press release.

“Tim Bishop is a rubber stamp for Barack Obama, and helped push us into the current economic mess by voting for trillions of dollars in higher taxes, wasteful spending and runaway debt as a Member of Congress. This election is a referendum on Bishop’s failed record and I refuse to let him distract voters from it with the same dishonest campaign he ran in 2010.”

“…If the people of Suffolk County want to change Congress, it starts with changing Congressmen. Tim Bishop has been in Washington for nearly ten years and the results have been disastrous. It’s time for a new direction.”

Altschuler, who came close to ousting Bishop in 2010, likened the congressman’s criticism to recent attacks by the Obama campaign on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital – an effort condemned by fellow Democrats like New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker.

The Long Island businessman said Nassau and Suffolk counties have lost 30,000 jobs since Bishop took office, and accused him of only going into attack mode because he has no viable plan to bring them back.

Altschuler also released a letter from his Port Jefferson landlord to Bishop, refuting the congressman’s claim that the office for Altschuler’s firm, CloudBlue, “doesn’t exist.”

According to the landlord, Charles Alter, that claim is “100% factually inaccurate.”

Comments are closed.


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Posts filtered on Category

Category: hockey

US loses hockey, must keep Bieber, Chicago sign alleges

Rubbing more salt on the wounds of Team USA hockey is the unfortunate gamble a Chicago-based transportation company made with Canada. “Loser Keeps Bieber” Oh, the humanity of it all. The billboard was created by Command Transportation and featured the Canadian pop singer in between Chicago Blackhawks center/right wing Patrick Kane and center Jonathan Toews. […]

Woman becomes Olympics star after selfie fail

The Sochi Olympics have had plenty of adorable moments, but nothing quite like this woman attempting to take a picture during a hockey game. Sochi grandma is the best grandma. A woman attempting to take a picture at a hockey game in Sochi today. This may be one of my favorite pics ever. — […]


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Final 8 preview

Grande Zlatan

It’s been an exciting European championship so far, with the best likely to come. Quarter-finals for Euro 2012 start Thursday. There are four different and intriguing matches.

Have you caught any of action? Some instant judgments? Biggest disappointment: Holland. Pleasant surprise: England. Played great but not great enough: Russia and Croatia. Three great matches: Germany’s Super Mario Gomez. Two great matches:  Cristiano Ronaldo, Andrea Pirlo. Best goals: Zlatan Ibrahimovich, Danny Welbeck, Mario Balotelli.

OK, never mind the first round. It was entertaining, but we’re moving on to greater and juicier matches. So let’s take a look at what’s on tap.

Thursday  Czech Republic vs Portugal… National Stadium, Warsaw…English referee Howard Webb.

This match features contrasting squads – a Czech team that was virtually written off after Russia blasted them out of the park 4-1 in the competition’s first match. But the team brought it together and won their group. Now they must play Portugal’s powerful  engine jets Ronaldo and Nani. I didn’t think Portugal had as a complete of a team as Holland, but their defense and midfield held up well. Of course, Denmark threw a wrench into the group with its 1-0 win over Holland, who just seemed dead. I don’t see how the Czechs pull this off. Too many holes. Maybe I’m underrating them, but I don’t think so. Prediction 3-1 Portugal.

Friday  Germany vs Greece.… PGE Arena, Gdansk…Slovenia’s Damir Skomina will referee. Well, a lot of political undertones ahead of this match between one nation that is leading the European union’s financial bailout and another that ignited the continent’s debt problems and is experiencing devastating austerity. Greece sneaked into the elimination round through a shocking 1-0 win over Russia that resembled their defensive approach of 2004, when they won the Euro trophy through a series of unlikely and low-scoring victories. Germany are the class of the tournament so far with three wins in the “Group of Death.” Gomez looks like the world’s best striker – big, agile, strong, accurate. Thomas Mueller is a work horse, then there’s the regulars…you know them. Greece may frustrate Germany for 20, maybe even 40 minutes, but the reality of the situation will set in. Germany 2-0. Check out highlights from the first match between these two ancient clubs. 😉

Saturday Spain vs France…. Donbass Arena…Nicola Rizzoli of Italy will handle the match. This one has caught my eye. I’m following Spain, and they look good, but not unbeatable. I thought they got some big breaks from the referee in their last match against Croatia. France, on the other hand, has been surprising and then disappointing. They feature Karim Benzema, a lumbering striker with great playmaking skills, and Frank Ribery, an action-packed, scarfaced winger who employs a direct approach to goal. I love Jeremy Menez and Phillippe Mexes, even if both left AS Roma. But France’s defense isn’t equipped to handle Spain’s sleek passing and attacks. Mexes is prone to mistakes. Spain 2-1.

Sunday England vs Italy… NSC Olympic Stadium, Kiev…Pedro Proença of Portugal in charge. Two perennial powerhouses who have made this sport what it is square off in what’s sure to be a cagey affair. England has surprised, some would say flourished, under their new coach Roy Hodgson. They just seem to have momentum. England also plays a style of football that typically troubles Italians – fast and physical. On the other hand, England sometimes suffers in stopping Italy’s guile counters. Italy has appeared poorly conditioned judging by their second half performances. They need Antonio Cassano, Balotelli or Toto DiNatale to bury an early chance and not sit back. Italy look much better than World Cup 2010, but that ain’t saying much, and they looked extremely fragile in the second half in their win vs. Ireland. I say 1-1, England win on PKs.

Dennis Yusko

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3 Responses

  1. Andrew says:

    Solid picks, but I will take Italy.

    It will be interesting to see who starts for Italy…Di Natale or Balotelli. Both have started. Both have scored off the bench.

    Also, I wonder what Italy’s formation will look like. I think they go back to the 3-5-2, especially with Chiellini out. This way, you have De Rossi back there, who can anchor the back line effectively.

  2. Brian says:

    Good picks – I think you’ll end up going 4 for 4!

    Hard to see anyone beating Germany.

  3. u2 says:

    tomorrow’s match should be great.

    France, who seem to have an on/off switch, if it’s on, they will bully Spain. Spain is a tad soft up front.


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Puppet Theater

Written by on in Kids Activities, Kids Crafts with 0 Comments

Puppet Theater

Animate playtime with a puppet theater. Puppet theater can be used to bring children’s stories to life, as a teaching tool or a rainy day activity. Children can use stuffed animals or string puppets as actors. Puppet show scripts are easily created from a child’s favorite story where they can act out their favorite characters.
Puppet Theater

Puppet Theater

Adults can create puppet show scripts to illustrate their own stories about not speaking to strangers, learning manners, or sharing. Divide theater duties between family members (set, script, puppets) for a family reunion production. Puppet theater is a versatile boredom buster that provides hours of activity for family members and friends. Visit www.treasureboxkids.com for children's clothing and ideas. Be sure to look through our archived blog posts for more activities, fun kids crafts, tips and birthday party ideas.
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