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PASA welcomes The Pension Regulator's new code of practice for DC schemes

PASA has issued a response to The Pensions Regulator’s new code of practice for defined contribution (DC) pension schemes, which has come into force today and sets out the standards required for trustees to comply with legislation. Read more...

Thu, 28/07/2016 - 10:45

5.2 Staff Development April 2016

An annual review process to set objectives and identify gaps in knowledge/training is essential in developing competence consistent with the needs of the organisation. A formal staff review and appraisal programme leads to motivated teams with clear goals and objectives

Fri, 29/04/2016 - 16:30

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Article - Impact of the new TPR DC Code

PASA member's can exclusively access Sara Cook's article on The Pensions Regulator’s (TPR) DC code and ‘how to guides’ here.

Fri, 10/06/2016 - 16:45

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New Licensees

Related Information

Obtain a Surplus Lines License

A surplus lines producer license is available to both resident and non-residents in Pennsylvania.

An applicant for a resident surplus lines license shall:

  • Be currently licensed in good standing as a resident Pennsylvania property and casualty insurance producer;
  • Pass the Pennsylvania surplus lines examination — there are no exemptions
  • Submit the appropriate application and pay the required license fee via Sircon using the kiosk at the exam center; and
  • If there is a partnership or corporation involved, Form IDL-22 must also be submitted via Sircon. Applicants can contact the Pennsylvania Insurance Department (PID) for information. The regulations are available online at, Title 31: Insurance.

A non-resident surplus lines license may be obtained by a non-resident producer for the purpose of placing business on behalf of a Pennsylvania resident with an eligible surplus lines insurer.  An applicant shall:

  • Be currently licensed in Pennsylvania as a nonresident property and casualty insurance producer, either pass Pennsylvania’s surplus lines examination or apply under reciprocity if licensed for surplus lines authority in their home state
  • Submit an application and pay the required fee via Sircon or The National Insurance Producer Registry (NIPR).

Individual surplus lines licensees associated with and placing surplus lines business through a business entity must be affiliated with the business entity before they can be associated with a PSLA Customer ID and submit filings through the PSLA Electronic Filing System. If the individual did not include the business entity on the original license application, the principal of the business entity should fill out the Add or Remove Surplus Lines Affiliation form and submit it to the Insurance Department as required by 40 P.S. § 991.1615.

Below are information links frequently used to prepare for the surplus lines licensee test for Pennsylvania. Refer to the Services for Producers and Other Licensees Section and the link, How to Apply for a license area of the PID website for more information.

Refer to the Maintain Your License section on the PID website for requirements needed to maintain your license and to the Add/Remove Surplus Lines Affiliation Form on how to affiliate your individual license with an agency license.

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Resources Contact Us Home
Textile machine controller

Image Number 2 for United States Patent #3983370.

A controller for instructing a knitting machine or the like to make a patterned fabric stores data representing stitch types comprising a subpart of the pattern. The controller determines the location of each stitch on the fabric and relates each such stitch to an equivalent location on the pattern subpart. Data representing the stitch type for the equivalent location is retrieved and instructions issued based thereon which cause the machine to form the retrieved stitch type at the determined location.

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Resources Contact Us Home
Energy-selective x-ray recording and readout system
4578803 Energy-selective x-ray recording and readout system
Patent Drawings:Drawing: 4578803-2    Drawing: 4578803-3    Drawing: 4578803-4
« 1 »

(3 images)

Inventor: Macovski
Date Issued: March 25, 1986
Application: 06/590,533
Filed: March 16, 1984
Inventors: Macovski; Albert (Menlo Park, CA)
Primary Examiner: Smith; Alfred E.
Assistant Examiner: Grigsby; T. N.
Attorney Or Agent: Townsend and Townsend
U.S. Class: 378/156; 378/62; 976/DIG.427
Field Of Search: 378/185; 378/44; 378/62; 378/156; 378/5; 250/482.1
International Class:
U.S Patent Documents: 2541599; 3860817
Foreign Patent Documents:
Other References:

Abstract: Energy-selective x-ray images are produced using two scintillating screens separated by an x-ray hardening filter. Photosensitive surfaces individually receive the light images from each screen. The resultant image transparencies are read out optically using a partially reflecting mirror between the transparencies and detecting the reflected and transmitted light. The x-ray spectral separation between the two acquired images can be further increased by using an x-ray source filter having a K-absorption edge in the vicinity of the region of overlap of the two spectra.
Claim: What is claimed is:

1. In a method for acquiring x-ray image data at two energy spectra the steps of:

exciting a first scintillating screen directly with an x-ray beam having an energy less than 150 kev that has been projected through a body and coupling the light scintillations to a first photographic emulsion;

filtering the x-ray beam after passing through the first scintillating screen to selectively attenuate a first region of the x-ray spectrum and to permit transmission of a second region of the x-ray spectrum; and

exciting a second scintillating screen directly with the filtered x-ray beam and coupling the light scintillations to a second photographic emulsion.

2. The method as described in claim 1 wherein the step of filtering the x-ray beam includes the step of hardening the x-ray beam by selectively attenuating the lower energy region of the spectrum.

3. Apparatus for providing x-ray energy selective light images from an x-ray beam under 150 kev comprising:

a first scintillating screen adapted to be directly excited by and to allow transmission therethrough of an x-ray beam;

a second scintillating screen adapted to be directly excited by the x-ray beam transmitted by the first screen;

an optically opaque x-ray filtering layer between the first and second scintillating screens for selectively attentuating different x-ray energies; and

means for separating the two screens and the optically opaque layer to permit a first substrate with a photosensitive surface to be inserted between the first scintillating screen and the optically opaque x-ray filtering layer and a secondsubstrate with a photosensitive surface surface to be inserted between the second scintillating screen and the optically opaque layer.

4. Apparatus as recited in claim 3 wherein the optically opaque x-ray filtering layer is an x-ray beam hardening filter which selectively attenuates the lower energy x-rays.

1. Field of the Invention

This invention relates to x-ray imaging systems. In a primary application the invention relates to diagnostic x-ray systems where selected images are created representing specific body materials.

2. Description of Prior Art

In U.S. Pat. No. 4,029,963 issued to R. E. Alvarez and A. Macovski a method was described of acquiring and processing x-ray images at two energy spectra. The processed images can subsequently be used to selectively image various bodymaterials. In the referenced patent two photosensitive emulsions are exposed using two scintillating screens. One problem with the system shown is that of achieving sufficient separation of the two energy spectra used to obtain the two acquired images. When these spectra have significant spectral overlap, with relatively small separation in the average energies, the resultant processed images have poor signal-to-noise ratio.

Another problem with the method shown in that patent is that of registration. In the system shown, the films representing each energy spectrum are scanned independently. This can often result in misregistration with the processed imagesbecoming distorted. This registration problem was solved in pending patent application Ser. No. 299,208, filed Sept. 3, 1981 "X-Ray Encoding Systems Using an Optical Grating" invented by R. E. Alvarez, A. Macovski and B. Strul. In that applicationthe information is encoded using an optical grating. Here the two images are represented by different spatial frequencies and can thus remain perfectly registered. In this system, however, the readout operation requires resolving the very high spatialfrequencies of the optical gratings. Thus much of the resolution capacity of the optical scanner is used for the grating frequencies.

An object of this invention is to provide a method of acquiring x-ray projection data onto photographic film at different x-ray spectra with good spectra separation.

It is a further object of this invention to provide a method for reading out the acquired data in good registration without requiring excess spatial resolution.

It is a further object of this invention to provide a dual film system which enables data acquisition with good spectral separation and readout in good registration.

Briefly, in accordance with the invention, individual films are used with two scintillating screens to acquire the low and high energy image data. A beam-hardening filter is placed between the two screens to increase the spectral separation ofthe two acquired images. An additional x-ray filter is used at the x-ray source having a K-absorption edge in the region of spectral overlap to increase the spectral separation. The individual films are joined at at least one edge to assureregistration on readout. A partially silvered mirror is placed between them and they are scanned with a light beam. The transmitted light represents the sums of the two film densities while the reflected light represents the density of the first filmonly. The resultant signals are processed to provide individual representations of the high and low energy acquired data.

For a more complete disclosure of the invention reference may be made to the following description of several illustrative embodiments thereof which is given in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, of which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic illustrating an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 illustrates graphs describing the performance of the invention;

FIG. 3 illustrates another graph describing the performance of the invention;

FIG. 4 is a schematic illustration of an embodiment of a readout system;

FIG. 4a is a closeup of a portion of the readout system;

FIG. 5a, 5b and 5c are alternate embodiments of dual film systems;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of the signal processing system used in the invention;

FIG. 7 is an embodiment of a dual screen system;

FIG. 8 is an alternate embodiment of a readout system using a television camera; and

FIG. 9 is an alternate embodiment of a readout system using a drum scanner.

An understanding of the broad aspects of the invention may best be had by reference to FIG. 2 of the drawings. It is desired to make selective projection images of specific materials of object 10, usually the human anatomy, by makingmeasurements at two energy spectra and processing the measurements. As shown, an x-ray beam 12, produced by source 11 is projected through object 10 onto a parallel array consisting of scintillating screens 14 and 20, substrates 15 and 18 with theirrespective photosensitive surfaces 16 and 19, and an optically opaque x-ray filter 17. As described in the prior art, the lower energy x-rays are selectively absorbed in the first screen 14 with the higher energy x-rays passing on to screen 20. Thelight from these screens is recored on photosensitive surfaces 16 and 19 respectively.

FIG. 2 illustrates typical response spectra for the two screens as graph 30 for screen 14 and graph 31 for screen 20. As is seen the lower energy graph 30 and the higher energy graph 31 have considerable overlap. This reduces the separation intheir average energies and seriously limits the ability of subsequent processing systems. The net result is poor signal-to-noise ratio in the resultant processed selected images.

This problem is greatly alleviated by using x-ray filter 17 between the two screens. This filter can be designed to increase the spectral separation. For example, filter 17 can be an x-ray beam-hardening material, such as copper, whichselectively absorbs lower energies. As shown in the dashed line in FIG. 2, graph 32 illustrates the response of screen 20 with the beam-hardening filter 17. The separation is significantly increased, resulting in improved signal-to-noise ratio. Thethickness and material used in filter 17 are a compromise between spectral separation and the attenuation of the desired higher energy x-ray photons. In addition, filter 17 should be optically opaque to prevent optical cross talk where the lightproduced by the two screens would reach the opposite photosensitive surface. Clearly a unique type of film system is required to enable insertion of filter 17, as will be subsequently discussed.

To further provide spectral separation filter 13 is placed between the x-ray source 11 and object 10. This filter has a K-absorption edge in the vicinity of the region of overlap between the two spectra. The graph of the transmitted spectra ofthis filter is illustrated in FIG. 3. As shown, the K-absorption edge attenuates the region of overlap, thus providing further spectral separation. Representative materials having K edges in this region are the rare earths such as europium andgadolinium, and other materials such as tungsten and tantalum. One desirable characteristic of the filter is attenuation of the tungsten characteristic emission lines from the x-ray source. These tend to reduce the spectral separation.

Having recorded separable spectral information on the two photosensitive surfaces 16 and 19, we must now read them out, after a suitable image development process where photosensitive emulsions 16 and 19 become transparencies. This isaccomplished, as shown in FIG. 4, by placing a partially reflecting mirror 44 between substrates 15 and 18. Here again the unique configuration of the film system, to be described, enables the partially reflecting mirror to be inserted. This mirror canconsist of a metallic layer on some substrate such as mylar. The metal film can be sandwiched between two plastic layers to protect it from scratching.

The partially reflecting mirror enables the readout to two signals; a first signal due to light passing through transparency 16, being reflected by mirror 44 and passing back through transparency 16 and being detected by detector 46, and a secondsignal due to light passing through transparency 6, mirror 44 and transparency 19 and being detected by detector 48. Thus the signal detected by detector 46 represents the first transparency and the signal detected by detector 48 represents the productof both transparencies. Appropriate processing can provide signals representing each transparency. In this way the data is read out with a single light beam, insuring perfect registration. Systems can be used with fully reflecting mirrors and separatescanning beams on each side reading the individual transparencies. These, however, would suffer from potential misregistration problems.

Taking a detailed study of FIG. 4, light beam scanner 40, preferably a laser scanner, produces scanned light beam 41. This is collimated using lens 42. The collimated beam passes through partially reflecting mirror 43 through transparency 16onto partially reflecting mirror 44. The light reflected from 44 goes back through transparency 16, is reflected by partially reflecting mirror 43 onto collecting lens 45 where it is concentrated onto photocell detector 46 to provide signal 49. Thelight transmitted by mirror 44 passes through transparency 19 and is collected by collecting lens 45 and concentrated onto photocell detector 48 to form signal 50. These scanned signals, 49 and 50, define the information stored on the twotransparencies.

FIG. 4a is a detailed look at an embodiment of a focusing system. Here the incoming scanned light beam is represented by converging rays 53 and 54. These are transmitted through mirror 44 and focus on transparency 19, then diverge to form rays55 and 56 where they go on to detector 48. The rays reflected from mirror 48 focus onto transparency 16, then diverge to rays 57 and 58 where they go on to detector 46. Thus the detected signals include focused components of both transparencies.

The photosensitive substrates 16 and 19 and their substrates 15 and 18 can be used in a variety of configurations. In FIG 5a the partially reflecting mirror 44 is bonded to the substrates to form a single bonded sandwich of the various layers. This sandwich can be used in the scanner of FIG. 4 and in the subsequently described scanners of FIGS. 8 and 9. It cannot, however, be used in the system of FIG. 1 where an x-ray filter 17 is placed between the photosensitive surfaces. It thereforecannot use that mechanism of improved spectral separation because of its bonded nature. However, the spectral separation mechanism of x-ray filter 13 can continue to be used.

In order to enable the use of x-ray filter 17, a mechanism must be provided of inserting a layer between the substrates 15 and 18. One method is shown in FIG. 5b wherein the substrates 15 and 18 are connected or hinged at one end with connectingsection 60. This is simply a plastic connection bonding the films at one end. When the x-ray film is exposed as in FIG. 1, the beam hardening x-ray filter 17 can be placed between substrates 15 and 18. On readout, a partially reflecting mirror 44 isplaced between the substrates. The recorded transparencies 16 and 19 remain in perfect registation because they remain connected.

To provide even greater restraint on the relative movement of the individual transparencies the configuration shown in FIG. 5c can be used where the substrates 18 and 19 are joined on three edges, forming an envelope. Here substrates 15 and 18are connected at every edge except the to. Opening 61 can be used for inserting x-ray hardening filter 17 on recording and partially reflecting mirror 4 when reading. The configurations of 5b and 5c are exemplary of a variety of possibilities whichallow insertion of an intermediate layer. For example, the substrates can be joined at two adjacent edges with an open flap, or at specific points around the edges whereby registation of developed transparencies 16 and 19 is maintained.

The detected signals 49 and 50 in FIG. 4 are processed as shown in FIG. 6. To a first approximation, the resultant light transmission of each transparency represents the desired log of the x-ray intensity. Thus first processor 70 in FIG. 6 caninitailly compensate for nonlinearities in the H-D curve of the film emulsion. In addition, it is desired to provide signals which represent the individual transmissions of each transparency. Signal 49 directly represents the signal due to traversingtransparency 16 twice or .tau..sub.1.sup.2. Signal 50 represents the transmission through both transparencies .tau..sub.1 .tau..sub.2. One method of processing involves taking the square root of signal 49 to provide .tau..sub.1, and then dividingsignal 50 by .tau..sub.1 to provide .tau..sub.2. These can then go through appropriate linearity correction to provide signals representing the logs of the high and low energy x-ray intensities, 71 and 72.

These signals are passed on to dual energy processor 73 which is described in the previously referenced U.S. Pat. No. 4,029,963. This processor, using nonlinear combinations of 71 and 72, provides linearized basic images 74 and 75. These caneither represent the photoelectric and Compton scattering components, or preferably the equivalent amount of specific materials used in calibration such as aluminum and plastic. Weighted sums or differences of these basic components are taken in 76 toallow a variety of material selection capabilities such as the elimination or enhancement of any material. The selected image is displayed in display monitor 78. FIG. 7 illustrates an embodiment of a cassette used in the x-ray recording process. Herescintillation screens 14 and 20 are hinged, as in existing film-screen cassettes, to facilitate the insertion of a dual emulsion film. In addition, however, the beam-hardening filter 17 is affixed to the hinge 65. This enables the various separatedfilm structures, as shown in FIGS. 5b and 5c, to be placed with filter 17 between the film emulsions. In this way the important energy spectrum separation is enhanced.

FIG. 4 showed a readout system using a single scanning light beam. FIGS. 8 and 9 show another general approach to readout using two light sources. A front light source, on the detector side, illuminates the first transparency with its lightreflected by mirror 44 into the detector. A second light source, behind the films, transmits through both transparencies to the detector. These light sources require some type of encoding so that they can be distinguished by the detector. Thisencoding can be temporal, spatial, color, polarization, etc.

In FIG. 8 front light source 83 is driven by generator 84 with back light source 85 driven by generator 86. The light from 83 is reflected from partially reflecting mirror 82 through transparency 16 and reflected back through transparency 16from partially reflecting mirror 44. This reflected light is imaged onto TV camera 80 using lens 81. Similarly the light from 85 is transmitted through transparencies 19 and 16 and is imaged onto camera 80 with lens 81.

To separate these signals, the lights 83 and 85 can be turned on alternately using generators 84 and 86. Thus a first frame is scanned by camera 80 representing the reflected light with 83 on and a second frame representing the transmitted lightwith 85 on. The separator 87, in this case is a video storage system which stores at least the first frame. Thus signals 49 and 50 are generated which, as before, represent the light transmitted and reflected through 16 and the light transmittedthrough both 19 and 16.

Other encoding systems can be used where the transparencies 16 and 19 are scanned simultaneously. Lights 83 and 85 can be of different colors with camera 80 a color camera. Here signals 49 and 50 would simply represent the different colorsignals. Also lights 83 and 85 could project different spatial patterns onto the transparencies which could be distinguished by processing the camera output signal. For example, gratings of different frequencies could be projected with separator 87consisting of filters which separate the two frequencies representing the two transparency combinations. Generators 84 and 86 can also be high frequency signals which turn the lights on and off at a relatively high rate. In that case camera 80 must bea non-storage instantaneous camera such as an image dissector to produce the high frequency signals which distinguish the two sources of illumination.

Since some television cameras have limited resolution capability, FIG. 9 illustrates the same system applied to a drum scanner where relatively high resolution can be realized. Here the sandwiched layers of the two substrates 15 and 18 with theintermediate reflector 44 are wound around rotating drum 93. Light source 85 and lens 92 are inside the drum. They are fixed so that they do not rotate or translate with the drum. The light from 85 is focused onto the transparencies 16 and 19 usinglens 92. Similarly the light from source 83 is reflected off partially reflecting mirror 82 and focused onto the transparencies using lens 91. The resultant light from both sources, after interacting with the transparencies, passes through mirror 82onto detector 90. The signal from detector 90 is passed through signal separator 87 which, as before, provides signals 49 and 50 representing the individual light sources.

The encoding, as before, can be achieved by alternately turning lights 85 and 83 on and off using generators 86 and 84 respectively. This should be accomplished at the rate new picture elements are scanned past the focal region. Separator 90will alternately switch the detector output to 49 and 50 to provide the required signal separation. Filters can be used to remove the high frequency switching components. As before the light sources can have different colors with detector 90 being adual detector with different color filters on each photocell. Each output will then directly provide the separable signals 49 and 50.

Systems of this type often require a high degree of accuracy. The separation of the signals from the two transparencies is based on assumed properties of the partially reflecting mirror 44. To insure that variations in the reflectivity andtransmission of the mirror do not cause errors, it can be scanned, with any of the systems shown, in the absence of the transparencies 16 and 19 on substrates 18 and 15. Any variations can be recorded and stored. These can be used to correct signals 49and 50 to avoid errors in the reproduced selective material images.

It should be emphasized that the readout systems shown in FIGS. 4, 8 and 9 have the special quality of automatic perfect registration of the two transparencies. A variety of alternate scanning systems can be used which do not provide automaticperfect registration. These can, however, provide adequate registration if care is taken. For example, if the transparencies can be opened up, as in the configuration of FIG. 5b, they can be scanned separately or in sequence. Registration marks can beplaced on each transparency to electronically identify the relative position of the two transparencies.

If the configuration of FIG. 5c is used, a dual fully reflecting mirror can be inserted between the substrates 15 and 18. In that case the individual transparencies can be scanned individually or in sequence from each side. These methods,however, do not have the automatic registration features of the previously described system.

* * * * *
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Map of US Religious Affiliation by County

This is one of my favorite maps of religion. It was produced by Glemary research, and it shows the predominant religious affiliation in counties nationwide. It demonstrates the many historical patterns that shaped American religion. For example, you can see the westward path of the Methodist circuit riders (in green) plus the immigration of Northern Europeans to the Northern Midwest.

Data and Spirituality
Marti and Ganiel's The Deconstructed Church: Understanding Emerging Christianity
How Christians Vary in their Awareness of God
Denominational Change in American Protestantism since 1972
  • http://www.researchonreligion.org Tony Gill

    Methodists seem to have a hard time going over mountains.

    • http://www.brewright.com Bradley Wright

      According to Stark and Finke, mountain ranges play a surprisingly important role in shaping the spread of religions… Go figure.

  • buddyglass

    It’d be interesting to see a sort of “heat map” for each denomination by itself. The map is cool, but I feel like some information is lost given each county is colored according to the faith with the highest percentage in that county. Baptists are probably pretty prevalent, for instance, in much of southwest Texas; they’re just not as prevalent as Catholics.

    It’s interesting that groups like the Episcopals and Presbyterians aren’t a majority anywhere, despite having more total membership (I’m guessing) than the various Lutheran denominations. They’re just more “diffuse”.

    What’s the yellow category that’s just labeled “Christian”?

    • buddyglass

      Here’s another great map, btw. Has nothing to do with faith issues, but you might find it interesting from a purely sociological point of view:

      I can’t figure out why there’s a pocket of “soda” folks in eastern Missouri & southwest Illinois. Also interesting how Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are split so sharply into “pop” and “soda” halves.

      • http://www.brewright.com Bradley Wright

        I’ve seen that… isn’t it interesting!

  • Jay Egenes

    Any equivalent map that shows actual participation. When I did chaplaincy training in southern California, I was amazed at the number of hospitalized people who wanted to see a Catholic priest, but didn’t know one. So they got me (not a Roman Catholic priest). Also interesting how “my people,” the northern European Lutherans, all landed in the upper Midwest. I would have thought there would be some Lutheran counties in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana or Michigan.

    • http://www.brewright.com Bradley Wright

      Interesting… I’ve seen a map somewhere of religious participation. I’ll have to try and find it.

  • http://krusekronicle.com Michael W. Kruse

    As I recall, there was another version of this map done by a Catholic organization several years earlier. It would be interesting to see how things might have shifted.
    As I recall the earlier map showed Kansas and Nebraska as much greener then this map but this map still shows a high concentration of Methodists. In the years leading up to the Civil War, abolitionist Methodists and Baptists moved to KS and NE to keep them free states. Sometime back I looked up the location of all the Southern Baptist and American Baptist churches in the Kansas City metro (split in half by the MO and KS line). As I recall, 80% of American Baptist churches were on the KS side and 65% of Southern Baptists were on the MO side. We still experience the consequences of decisions made 150 years ago.


text:
Alain de Botton on Meeting Strangers

I am reading through Alain de Botton’s Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer’s Guide to the Uses of Religion one chapter at a time and blogging my responses as I go. In the beginning of his chapter on Community (specifically the subsection “Meeting Strangers”) de Botton paints with pretty prose a picture of profound alienation between people in the [Read More…]

Patheos Atheist LogoLike Camels With Hammers and Patheos Atheist on Facebook!


text:
Quoting Quiverfull: Repent?

by Kevin Swanson from Generations With Vision - Friendly Fire Occasionally, people ask us if we get any push back from the world out there because of our strong calls to faith in Christ and repentance of the socially-acceptable sins of the day.Those Christians who support the murder of children in the uterus, and promote sexual decadence, and work to undermine the biblical order of the family and oppose our efforts are on the increase. … [Read more...]

As Iron Sharpens Iron

by Betty CruxSome individuals, it seems, have been granted a God-ordained license to criticize.When I moved after college, I began work for a certain restaurant known for its chicken appendages and orange shorts. Now before your start clutching your chest, I’m not here to debate the morality … [Read more...]

Holy Terror

by MariI like to tell people that I’m a quarter Lutheran.But I’m really not.I tell people that because it helps them to stay focused on the story — because when someone makes a statement that ridiculous and silly, naturally, everybody’s going to start asking questions.When I was a little kid, we spent a lot of time with my grandparents in South Dakota. I think we visited about one weekend per month (roughly), and we always went to church with them. Hence, my being a quarter Lutheran.Between all the Chapel services, Sunday School and roughly one Lutheran church service per month, by the time I was about 5 I knew just about everything there was to know (from an intelle … [Read more...]


text:
Online Mandaic Lexicon

Charles Häberl, my collaborator on the Mandaean Book of John translation project, has created an online Mandaic lexicon.

It is a work in progress, both in terms of content (lexemes will continue to be added as they are encountered) and in terms of formatting. But those interested in the language will certainly find it interesting and useful immediately!

Stay in touch! Like Religion Prof on Facebook:

How Is Harry Potter Different Than the Bible?
Updated Ten Commandments
Through the Eyes of an Archaeologist
The Canon Card Game Exists!


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Air Force changes mind, atheist holiday display now welcome at Travis AFB

This display will be going up as early as tomorrow morning at Travis Air Force Base, courtesy of American Atheists.

Rawlings says the artwork including images of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is playful. Civilians will probably miss out on the real in-joke here. The entire military has inescapable and seemingly endless ‘safety briefings’. It was pretty hilarious when Travis AFB officials seemed to side against ‘safety’ at first.

As a tradition, every squadron on Travis AFB submits a Holiday card in 4 ft x 8 ft hand painted displays. Each ‘card’ therefore represents dozens, perhaps hundreds of people. Somehow this year two squadrons broke with tradition. One ‘card’ was actually a full-on nativity scene – with figurines, not some painting. A hastily prepared Menorah was added, I guess because they think we are idiots. They are apparently suggesting that an entire unit is Jewish.

I asked the relevant players in the story how I could get into contact with the statistically miraculous all-Jewish unit. The Chaplain told me that he could not answer that question at this time, and directed me elsewhere. Mr. Monroe, Public Affairs for Travis AFB did not return my calls.

An active duty atheist, Staff Sergeant Dan Rawlings’ request to put up a display at Travis AFB was initially denied by his chaplain. The reason given was that Air Mobile Command, the ‘higher headquarters’ for the base, was investigating the situation and could not alter the existing controversial display. This nonsensical answer suggested some sort of ‘crime scene preservation’ strategy.

As the Military Director of American Atheists, I immediately got involved – supporting Staff Sergeant Rawlings noble struggle. Within 24 hours of our outreach, things started changing. The extremely innocuous message – “Have a safe holiday season” – is now allowed. It’s quite puzzling why such a sign was denied in the first place.

Also, aren’t we now disturbing the supposed crime scene? YES.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation had been fighting the illegal Nativity Scene / token Menorah display since even before Staff Sergeant Rawlings contacted American Atheists. Mikey Weinstein, President of MRFF, says the Nativity (crime) Scene, and token Menorah still need to go.

And Mikey is absolutely right. Due to the fact that the base was only willing to actually be pluralistic when the media came around, this new sign does not fix their discrimination. Nor does it remotely come close to making this constitutional. If people are worried about preserving the ‘holiday card’ tradition, they better start calling Travis Air Force Base and demand they remove the Nativity (crime) Scene and Menorah.

American Atheists are proud of Staff Sergeant Rawlings’ efforts. He is not a squadron, but his holiday card efforts have alerted 25 other atheists on base that each seemed to think they were ‘the only one’. They are now organizing on the Travis MASH facebook group, and other efforts are coalescing in the larger ‘national American Atheists Military’ facebook group. Please click both and show these people some love!

So Dan Rawlings truly does represent enough people to earn a holiday card. Still waiting to hear back about the Chosen Platoon of all practicing Jews. Or the entire unit full of Nativity Scene doll and figurine enthusiasts.

If our efforts at American Atheists and MRFF haven’t fixed the situation already, next year’s holiday card will just have to step it up a notch.

Have a safe holiday season, and you know it’s a myth…?” Eh, we’ve got time.

Kevlar and Jesus
Carrie Underwood: Not a Single Atheist Cares What You Sing
The Shaming Of Kim Davis
SWAT Teams Train to Kill 'Extremist Atheist Terrorists' at Gun Show Convention
About Justin Griffith
  • papango

    You mock, but I’ve seen doll collectors at auctions and you’d be a brave brave man to stand between them and a mint 1959 pony-tailed Barbie.

  • Brian Westley

    Maybe the Jewish unit is like the old British Gurkha units?

  • Dan Rawlings

    We are averaging about 8 new members a day! Travis MASH now has 31 not 25 members!

    • papango

      That’s really good to hear. I imagine a lot of them might have thought they were the only one, or been too scared to come forth until you did. Excellent job.

      Hopefully they’ll see this matters to people and get the Nativity moved to a more appropriate location. (It’s a clear and present manager. Ha!)

    • Steve

      When this is over, thank the chaplains for all the publicity


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Friday Quick Links!

January 31st, 2014

1. Lynnie Zula’s illustrations are inspired by her Tanzanian heritage via Miss Moss
2. How awesome is this handmade wallpaper via SF Girl By Bay
3. Pretty drawings by artist Adriana Crespo via booooooom
4. Fun mixed-media collages from Elizabeth Amato via The Jealous Curator
5. Crafts with cupcake wrappers via A Subtle Revelry
6. Loving Pop Plant’s handcrafted concrete planters and holders via The Design Files
7. Furniture by Raúl Téllez Herrera of Arquiteknia via design-milk
8. Beautiful flora and fauna prints from Jonna Fransson via Poppytalk
9. Art from security envelopes via Design Crush
10. Striking generative art patterns created by Jonathan McCabe via Patternbank
11. Sam Songailo’s Zen Garden via The Artful Desperado
12. Rare wildlife illustrations from The British Library via Trendland

Contributed by Emily Gup

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Prosecutor: Accused murderer 'made scene' after being denied cigarette purchase

WATSEKA — Andrew M. Condon appeared “visibly upset” and “made a scene” when a clerk at a Gilman gas station denied him the sale of a pack of cigarettes, some two hours before he allegedly returned with a handgun and shot the clerk to death, Iroquois County’s top prosecutor said Tuesday.

State’s Attorney Jim Devine said the “64,000-dollar question” remains what the 33-year-old Ashkum man’s motive was for allegedly murdering Jonathan D. Rubin, 27, of Danforth, during the early-morning hours of Oct. 27 at the Shell gas station on the west side of Interstate 57.

And Devine said he is not ready to reveal the theory he plans to argue to a jury.

But Devine did disclose previously unannounced details of the crime Tuesday, including that security video shows Condon “visibly upset” after he was unable to produce identification when trying to buy cigarettes from Mr. Rubin.

“He was upset about it,” Devine said. “He made a scene.”

Condon remained Tuesday at the Iroquois County Jail on a $1 million bond, charged with two counts of first-degree murder. In court Tuesday, Condon pleaded not guilty and Kankakee attorney Gregory Morgan entered his appearance to represent him. Arraignment was set for 1:30 p.m. Dec. 10.

Condon was arrested on a warrant for murder on Nov. 9 by Iroquois County sheriff’s deputies and Gilman police, Sheriff Derek Hagen said. The arrest came about a week after police twice searched Condon’s 3-acre farm at 561 E. 2700 West Road, about 2 1/2 miles west of Ashkum, Devine said.

Prior to search warrants being executed, Condon was identified from surveillance video as a suspect, Devine said.

Iroquois County and Illinois State Police investigators first searched Condon’s residence on Oct. 31 to look for evidence linking him to the murder, Devine said. Police found five near-mature cannabis plants growing in a shed, as well as 500 pills of Xanax, Devine said. Other evidence seized in connection with the murder investigation was sent to a state police crime lab for analysis.

Condon was arrested that same day and charged with possession of a controlled substance, possession of cannabis (30-500 grams) and production of five or fewer cannabis plants.

On Nov. 1, investigators returned to the property and searched an earthen berm that Condon had used as a backstop for target practice, Devine said.

Bullets and shell casings found there were determined to be from a Glock 9-mm handgun — a forensic match with the murder weapon, Devine said.

Both Devine and Hagen declined to disclose whether the murder weapon has been recovered.

Condon, who had posted $5,000 cash bond to be released from jail a few days after his initial arrest for cannabis, was then arrested on a warrant for first-degree murder on the afternoon of Nov. 9.

Devine said that 90 minutes prior to the shooting, Condon is seen on security footage attempting to buy a pack of cigarettes from Mr. Rubin, but Condon did not have identification, so Mr. Rubin refused the sale.

After Condon “made a scene,” Condon’s wife entered the store moments later, around 1:55 or 2 a.m., and bought cigarettes, Devine said, adding that she had an ID.
Condon and his wife apparently drove to the store together, although there was no security video outside the store to confirm that, Devine said. They were on their way home from Onarga, Devine said.

Condon allegedly returned to the store about “115 to 120 minutes later,” firing multiple shots at Mr. Rubin and leaving him for dead in a storage room, Devine said.

Mr. Rubin was found inside a storage room near some coolers around 3:30 a.m. by a truck driver who had come in to use the restroom and buy coffee, Hagen has said.

An autopsy determined that Mr. Rubin died from multiple gunshot wounds.

“The fatal wounds were toward the chest, the torso area,” Coroner Bill Cheatum said. “Most of them were to the torso, hitting most of the major organs.”

Devine said Condon’s wife was not in the store when the murder occurred, and she has not been charged with any crime.

The sheriff’s office continues to investigate the murder, Hagen said.

Devine said the two counts of first-degree murder allege Condon shot a person, creating a “strong probability of death,” and that he “created great bodily harm, resulting in death.”

Upon conviction, first-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence ranging from 20 years to life in prison. Devine said the sentence would not allow for day-to-day good-conduct credit.

Meanwhile, Condon is due in court for arraignment at 1:30 p.m. Nov. 19 in the drug case.

Court records show that in Ford County, Condon was sentenced to two years of court supervision in 2001 for possession of a controlled substance; charges of resisting a police officer were dismissed. In 2003, Condon was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of cannabis (less than 2.5 grams) and resisting a police officer, but all of the charges were later dropped.

Also in 2003, Condon was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, and he received one year of probation.

Condon’s only other criminal history in Ford or Iroquois counties was a charge of criminal damage to property in 1997; Condon received one year of court supervision in return for a guilty plea.

Mr. Rubin, a native of the Woodworth and Milford areas, was a 2003 graduate of Christ Lutheran High School in Buckley. He was described as an excellent student who was consistently on the school’s honor roll, earned the American Legion Award his senior year and was named co-valedictorian.

He also graduated from Olivet Nazarene University where he received a bachelor of science degree in geology.

Mr. Rubin had an interest in the Japanese culture and was learning the language. His goal was to become a translator.

Mr. Rubin was buried at Danforth Cemetery. His funeral was Nov. 2.

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Payson Care Center Honored

Life Care Centers of America's Southwest Division recently recognized outstanding associates from its Mesquite Region, which includes eight facilities across Arizona.

"We feel so privileged to have considerate, caring and compassionate individuals working for our residents at Payson Care Center, said executive director Sheila Wiggins. "They truly exemplify the ‘Whatever It Takes and Then Some' attitude with their actions every day. We are excited by the opportunity to honor them for these special achievements and their role in the lives of our residents."

Payson Care Center recently nominated staff members for corporate awards. Those selected for consideration were, from left, Carol Moody, activities director; and Certified Nursing Assistants Jeanie Bland, Barbara Olsen and Debbie McCurdy.

Associates from the Mesquite Region gathered Oct. 26 for an awards banquet at Pointe South Mountain Resort.

In addition to Payson Care Center, facilities from Glendale, Globe, Prescott, North Glendale, Phoenix, Peoria and Yuma were represented at the event. Each facility in the region recognized four associates; three awards honored outstanding certified nursing assistants (CNAs), and one award lauded the associate who best demonstrated team spirit. From these facility winners, one regional CNA award winner and one regional team spirit winner were announced at the banquet.

Local associates nominated included Jeanie Bland, Barbara Olsen and Debbie McCurdy for the CNA of the Year Award. They were nominated for the compassion and kindness they show Payson Care Center's residents.

Carol Moody, activities director, was nominated for the Team Spirit Award. Each year, she makes sure residents have appropriate winter clothing for the cold weather. Moody also has coordinated several memorial services and recently coordinated a successful wedding anniversary party for two of Payson Care Center's residents. Moody was awarded by Life Care with the Regional Team Spirit Award.

"Working with the elderly has been one of the greatest joys of my life," said Moody. "They're all my parents, and I love my parents."

Payson Care Center is one of 18 facilities in Arizona operated by Life Care Centers of America.

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Iran News ...

Families Of Iranian Political Prisoners Complain About Beatings At Evin

Source: Radio Zamaneh

The families of political prisoners in Ward 350 of Evin Prison have filed a complaint against four judiciary officials in connection with recent incidents at the prison.

A protest gathering by families of political prisoners

The Kaleme website reports that the families have filed a complaint against: the former head of Iran's Prison Organization, Gholamhossein Esmaili; the head of Evin Prison, Ali Ashraf Rashidi; Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jaffari Dowlatabadi and Minister of Justice Mostafa Pour Mohammadi.

The complaint is linked to the events of April 17, 2014, when security officers and more than 100 soldiers serving as prison guards attacked and beat the political prisoners in Ward 350. More than 30 prisoners were injured and some were transferred to solitary confinement.

The families refer to the event as a "criminal act" and have called for the investigation of the four individuals in connection with this matter.

Related Articles:

Iran Lawmakers Demand Probe of Alleged Beatings of Political Prisoners

- Several moderate Iranian lawmakers have demanded a probe into alleged beatings of several political prisoners held at Tehran's Evin prison, Iran's official news media reported. The demand comes after foreign media last week reported that more than 30 detainees in Ward 350 at the prison were allegedly beaten, several of them seriously, during a snap inspection on April 17. - 4/25/14

Head of Iranian Judiciary says no rules broken during Evin incident

- Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, the head of Iran's Judiciary, says that no violations occurred during an incident in Ward 350 of Evin Prison and he slammed "seditious efforts at creating adverse publicity." 4/24/14

Iran Replaces Prisons Chief After Protests

- Iran has appointed a new chief of prisons following protests by family members over reports that inmates had been abused at a notorious jail. The official Islamic Republic News Agency said on April 23 that Asghar Jahangir would replace Gholamhossein Esmaili. 4/24/14

Iranian Activists Shave Heads To Support Political Prisoners

- Dozens of Iranian men and women have sheared their hair and posted their pictures online to demonstrate solidarity with political prisoners. The campaign was launched following reports that prison guards had shaved the heads of some political prisoners in Tehran's notorious Evin prison in order to humiliate them after some inmates were reportedly beaten up during an inspection of the facility last week. -Golnaz Esfandiari, RFE 4/24/14

Iran: Rouhani's Silence on Brutal Prison Attack Unacceptable

- A week after a violent raid by prison officials at Iran's notorious Evin Prison led to the beating, injury, and solitary confinement of many political prisoners, Iranian Judiciary officials continue to deny any use of violence while vivid testimonies from the families of the prisoners indicate otherwise. - 4/23/14

Families Of Iranian Political Prisoners Protest Alleged Prison Raid

- Families of political prisoners demonstrated outside the presidential office in Tehran on April 22 to protest what they say was a brutal raid at a notorious prison in the Iranian capital where their relatives are being held. The protesters say several of their loved ones were badly beaten by security forces in the April 17 operation at Evin prison and called on authorities to investigate the incident. -Golnaz Esfandiari, RFE - 4/23/14

Emad Bahavar: "My Body Aches"

- Iranian political prisoner Emad Bahavar describes the severe beatings suffered by him and other prisoners at Tehran's Evin prison when the security personnel and plainclothes officers stormed Ward 350 of the prison on April 17th. -Kaleme (in Persian) - 4/22/14

Iran Disputes Reports of Violent Crackdown in Prison's Political Detainee Block

- Iran's penal authorities sought on Monday to discredit reports of a violent clash last week inside the political detainee block in Tehran's Evin Prison, calling them fabrications fomented by enemies of the government. -NY Times - 4/22/14

Iranian Political Prisoners Call For Investigation Of Beatings At Evin Prison

- As controversy over the alleged attack on political prisoners in Ward 350 of Evin Prison deepens, 74 prisoners have written a letter of complaint urging the Tehran Prosecutor to investigate the matter. The Kaleme opposition website, which first reported on the alleged attack, has now published the prisoners' letter of complaint along with the names of the wounded and details of the incident. - 4/21/14

Security Forces Storm Tehran's Evin Prison

- Dozens of Iranian security forces have stormed a section of Tehran's Evin prison where political prisoners are held, injuring a number of the detainees. Some 30 prisoners were transferred to solitary confinement following the raid on April 17. - 4/18/14

... Payvand News - 03/25/16 ... --

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School of Communication & Media

PBA Theatre: 2016-2017 Season

PBA's theatre program offers a variety of exciting performances each year, ranging from new musicals to classic plays and everything in-between. These performances give all theatre students the opportunity to audition for parts, gain on-stage experience and participate in backstage work. All of our performances, unless otherwise noted, are located at our very own Fern Street Theatre (500 Fern St., West Palm Beach) in the heart of downtown West Palm Beach.

Upcoming Shows

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) (Revised)

By Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield

We wrap up our commemoration of the 500th Anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death with this comic treatment of Shakespeare’s complete opus performed by three actors in less than two hours (give or take, depending on much they improvise, ad lib and shamelessly ham it up.)  It is witty and wise, zany (a word Shakespeare made up) and amazing (another word Shakespeare made up) and a whole lot of fun (a word Shakespeare didn’t make up, but a feeling he pretty much perfected.) To see or not to see. There is no question.

DATES: Oct 6-8 2016 @ 7:30pm; Oct 8 2016 @ 2:00pm

*Recommended for ages 12 and up; Comedy; Some serious subject matter

The Marvelous Wonderettes

Written and created by Roger Bean, Musical arrangement by Brian William Baker

The guys get their turn with Shakespeare, now it’s time for the gals.  If your boy “Lollipop” is a “Dream Lover” but you have to tell him that there is “Lipstick On Your Collar” and to “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me”, you might want to just end it and say “It’s My Party and I’ll Cry If I Want To”.  Those are just some of the tunes you’ll hear when the four beautiful and talented Springfield High Songleaders are pressed into service at the last minute to save their prom.  Yikes!  Can they do it?  Hey, all they’re asking is a little “R-E-S-P-E-C-T”.

DATES: Nov 17-19 2016 @ 7:30pm; Nov 19 2016 @ 2:00pm

*Recommended ages 12 and up; Musical comedy; Some serious subject matter

The Diviners

By Jim Leonard, Jr.

TheatrePBA is revisiting this play after presenting it many years ago; and some of you may remember it, which is fitting, since it is, itself, a memory play. It is also fitting because of its college roots. It was written with the support of The American College Theater Festival and presented at Hanover College before its professional debut at The Circle Repertory Company in New York. Here is a story about doing battle with the inner demons that seem always to haunt and further terrorize victims of tragedy.  It is the deeply felt and beautifully rendered story of a preacher who has lost his calling and the damaged boy he befriends.  It is a play about love and loss, community and family.  It is a story about faith.

DATES: Feb 23-25 2017 @ 7:30pm, Feb 25 2017 @ 2:00pm

* Recommended ages 14 and up; Drama; Serious subject matter

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

By Rupert Holmes

Nowadays simply known as Drood, this charming musical has had two incarnations on Broadway and countless productions around the world.  How do you finish a play based on an unfinished mystery by Charles Dicken’s?  Answer: let the audience do it!  At least that was Mr. Holmes’ solution (Rupert, not Sherlock) and it was a dandy. Drood himself is something of a dandy as that is what the British in the music halls called a “breeches role”, i.e., a man’s role played by a woman. Great fun in this clever whodunit where the audience plays detective…and cupid!

DATES: Apr 26-29 2017 @ 7:30pm; Apr 29 2017 @ 2:00pm

*Recommended for ages 14 and up; Musical

For more information or to reserve tickets, please call Ticket Central at (561) 803-2970

Past PBA Theatre Shows

Includes playwright(s) and composer(s)

A Palm Tree in a Rose Garden; Meade Roberts
Doubt: A Parable; John Patrick Shanley
The Spitefire Grill; James Valcq

Godspell; John Michael Tedelak; Stephen Schwartz
The Student Directed One Acts
The Curious Savage; John Patrick
Little Shop of Horrors; Howard Ashman, Alan Menken

Reeling; Barry Kornhauser
Dancing at Lughnasa; Brian Friel
Seussical: The Musical; Lynn Ahrens and Stephan Flaherty

As You Like It; William Shakespeare
A Doll's House; Henrik Ibsen
You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown; John Gordon, Clark Gesner
Cabaret; Joe Masteroff; Kander and Ebb

Stop the World, I Want to Get Off; Anthony Newley, Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley
A Long Christmas Dinner; Thornton Wilder
Something's Afoot; James McDonald, David Vos, Robert Gerlach, Ed Linderman
The Student Directed One Acts; Tennessee Williams

Pride and Prejudice; Adapted by Jon Jory
Everyman; Unknown
The Drowsy Chaperone; Bob Martin and Don McKellar, Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison

Nunsense; Dan Goggin
A Winter's Tale; William Shakespeare
She Loves Me; Joe Masteroff, Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick
Exit the King; Eugene Ionesco


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PC Connection Clearance Center. Shop Now!

          NEC PH Series Projector Case

          NEC PH Series Projector Case
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            NEC’s PHCASE-01 is an ATA-certified case designed for the shipping and secure storage of NEC PH Series projectors. It offers handles and wheels for easy transportation.
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1890-O $1 MS (PCGS# 7200)

The June 2012 Baltimore Auction

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An intensely lustrous specimen with a wide array of varied rose, violet, and blue pastel iridescence, especially in a bold light source. Far scarcer in Gem grade than its mintage of more that 10.7 million pieces intimates. Destined for inclusion in a high-grade Morgan dollar collection or a PCGS Registry Set. Tied for finest certified by PCGS.
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IncGamers Network

Major RIFT Security Hole Plugged with help from Player

Any MMO launch is daunting for an MMO developer and since RIFT launched TRION has been battling issues with players having their accounts hacked and compromised.
This weekend things took a positive turn after a member of the RIFT community identified a security hole in RIFT’s authentication system which allowed a hacker access to a player’s character login without the need for any credentials whjich could have been one of the causes of the massive ammount of hacking reports.
A player going by the name of ManWitDaPlan got in touch with TRION once he had verified the process worked and informed them of the hole. TRION hopped in the case last night and released a new hotfix patch to resolve the issue.
At the same time as plugging the hole, TRION implemented the new Coin Lock system which prevents hackers accessing an account from an unknown IP and then selling on the account owners items or deleting a character.
When the patch rolled out every account was set to Coin Lock and players had to request an unlock code via email. When the system launched there was an initial problem with emails arriving without the code inside the email. TRION had also forgotten to disable the delete character option so players were finding their characters missing when they eventually logged back in and their account had been compromised.
The Coin Lock issues have now all been resolved and the major security bug squashed thanks to the help of a community member.
This evening RIFT’s Executive Producer Scott Hartsman also issued a statement to confirm all the actions that have been taken.
Hi, everyone — I wanted to get an update out for the weekend after the last day of excitement around here.
On last night’s fix — I’m very happy to confirm that we did fix a login vulnerability, with significant assistance from an extremely clever user.
The root cause was a very subtle bug in error checking of our login validations deep in the server code. No personal information or any such was leaked out, and no outside attacker penetrated our servers, networks, or databases.
We’d definitely like to thank Mr. ManWitDaPlan for the well-timed assist. Sir, we salute you and offer our most heartfelt thanks.
The rest of what I’d like to add isn’t to detract from the above well-deserved compliment, but it’s important to include in the comprehensive picture.
The sobering fact is that account security remains a multifaceted issue, as attacks from other sources continue.
It’s important to remember is that while a hole was identified and fixed as rapidly as we possibly could, there are still hackers and botnets trying account/password combinations from compromised web sites and past MMOs.
They are doing this right now. Those attacks have been coming constantly since we launched the game. The only thing that changes are how many hundreds of computers are trying to get into your account at any given moment, where they’re coming from, and how many are succeeding.
We do block them as they are detected, but the fact that they are using distributed botnets (compromised computers from across the globe) means that this will remain something that we will continue keeping an eye on, forever.
For users getting hacked this way, Coin Lock is currently doing its job protecting people’s belongings, provided that your RIFT password and EMail password are both complex and entirely different.
Both the login fix and the Coin Lock addition have been doing their part in signficantly reducing overall incidents over the last 18 hours.
Neither one is a silver bullet, but so far it is looking to be a solid one-two punch for the weekend.
Then, with two-factor authentication coming very soon, we expect security to be improved even further.
All totalled up, under 1% of accounts with characters have had characters impacted. However, 1% of a surprisingly large number is still very noticeable.
Our staff has been, and will continue to be, working around the clock to get those impacted back in shape. We’ll continue hiring on even more people to help people with issues of all kinds, as quickly as we can. (Another round of hires begin on Monday, and there will be even more to follow.)
As always, thanks very much for your time, your attention, your assistance, and your patience!
– Scott Hartsman
Exec Producer, RIFT
It is heartening to see a community member help TRION resolve the security hole instead of posting the information freely on the Internet which could have caused major problems for TRION. The new Coin Lock feature is also an excellent idea and with any luck it will put pay to a lot of the account hack attempts and platinum selling.
The downside of the Coin Lock is the in-game chat could become gold seller spam heavy so I hope TRION’s filtering and reporting system works efficiently over the coming weeks.

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PALO ALTO, CALIF.—Historically, both the Hot Chips conference here as well as the Microprocessor Forum have been two key venues for the introduction of new processors. Over time, however, the vendors themselves have preferred to stage-manage their own conferences. Two exceptions to the trend will by the IBM POWER7 and the Sun "Rainbow Falls" processor.

Unfortunately, I've already committed to another presentation on Tuesday, which means that I won't be able to attend the Hot Chips presentations by both companies. Fortunately, however, the Hot Chips organizers included both presentations in advance, so I can give you a quick snapshot of what to expect late on Tuesday.

Unfortunately, the spotlight has faded from both Sun and IBM, as the cheaper X86 architectures of Intel and AMD have pushed both out.

In the Top 500 list of supercomputers, for example, just under 80 percent of those on the list use an Intel processor, whether it be an X86 or an Itanium chip. Just 55, or 11 percent, use POWER, and Sun's UltraSparc architecture is found in just one. Compare those figures with ten years ago: the most Top 500 systems, 118 or 23.6 percent, used the POWER architecture. And the Sparc architecture was the foundation for another 95, or 19 percent, just behind the MIPS architecture.

The POWER line originated in 1990 with the POWER1. Since then, the IBM technology has enjoyed a long and proud history. The latest iteration was led by Ronald Kalla, the chief engineer, and Balaram Sinharoy, the chief core architect.

IBM POWER7 Overview I've included a list of specs in the accompanying slide: basically, the POWER7 is an 8-, 6, and 4-core chip with 1.2 billion transistors, running at an undisclosed clock speed. A shared L3 cache of up to 32 Mbytes in size will use eDRAM. The POWER7 will scale up to 32 sockets and 1,024 threads. Not surprisingly, it will be backward-compatible with the POWER6.

IBM's presentation indicates that the chip will be packaged differently for different applications: in a single-chip organic package for 2p and 4p racks; in a single-chip glass ceramic package for mid-range arrays, with two memory controllers, and a quad-chip multi-chip module for compute-intensive apps, with 8 memory controllers.

Each core will have 2 fixed-point units; 2 load-store units; 4 double-precision floating-point units; 1 each of branch, condition register, and vector units; and a 6-wide dispatch. Each core will have 32 Kbytes of instruction and data cache, as well as 256 Kbytes of level-2 cache, according to IBM.

Not surprisingly, the performace of the POWER7 exceeds the POWER6 by a significant amount, although IBM has left off actual numerical comparisons. Application comparisons such as integer workloads seem to indicate an improvement of about 20 percent across the board on a per-core basis, and a 4X to 5X performance when compared chip to chip.

Two low-power modes were added: nap and sleep. The POWER7 appears to share some of the power/performance innovations of its competition: dynamic frequency and voltage adjustments, a "turbo mode" that boosts performance by 10 percent, and power capping.

A number of reliability and availability features were also added, including 64 Kbyte error-correction code on the memory; selective memory mirror capability, and other features.

POWER7 systems are running in the lab, IBM is expected to say.

Sun's "Rainbow Falls"

Sun's latest chip is noteworthy, among other reasons, because it actually doesn't own it. That distinction falls to Oracle, which bought Sun in April for a whopping $7.4 billion. Here's the question likely to make the rounds on Tuesday: who will buy Rainbow Falls?

Perhaps for that reason, Sun's presentation by Sanjay Patel is a much more abstract representation of the architecture. According to Sun, Rainbow Falls is a 16-core architecture, connecting to 16 level-2 banks. Beyond that, Sun has disclosed little.

Instead, Sun seems to be quite proud of its so-called "coherence units," with two interfacing independently to three high-speed links for remote node connectivity. Each coherence unit "supports requests to a memory address whether homed local or remote, and maintains coherence across [the] SMP cluster," according to Sun. A "coherency plane," meanwhile, is a partition of the physical address along with the associated resources.

Sun will also describe a core to L2 crossbar (CCX) solution, allowing two cores to share a level-2 cache.

Quite frankly, Sun's presentation delves deep into the problem of coherency across a multicore system, far deeper than most enthusiasts will likely go. If you're interested, I'd wait for coverage by HPCwire or EE Times, later on Tuesday.

Originally published as an ExtremeTech Lab Note.


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Wireless Digital Music Network

Subject: General Tech | September 6, 2006 - 05:55 PM |

The Sonos Digital Music System is difficult to describe.  The ZonePlayers are the hub of the system, one is connected directly to your router, the rest (up to 32 in total) can then connect to that one ZonePlayer wirelessly.  Designed to play music files from a PC, with a NAS device, you don't even need that.  The ZonePlayers come in 2 flavours, one with a built in  amplifier, and a cheaper one that does not.  Once they are hooked to the network, the ZonePlayer is then attached either directly to speakers, or to an existing stereo setup, and it is all run through one remote control.  CoolTechZone has a much better explanation, so head over to find out more about this unique system.

"We evaluated the original Sonos digital music system back in mid-2005, and needless to say, we were

amazingly impressed with a newcomer that made working with digital music systems so easy. Sonos is a

prime example of how responsible companies should understand a problem and then work on a solution to

remedy them. Think of Sonos as the Apple of consumer electronics. The ZP100 and now the ZP80 are both

built on simplifying the consumer experience with simplicity and reliability at an "affordable" price

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Audio Corner

Source: CoolTechZone

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Ooo this is big news for gamers! DICE has merged with EA!

Recognizing these challenges EA proposed to merge DICE into EA’s subsidiary EA Holding. After thorough deliberation and extensive exploration of alternative options, the Board of Directors of DICE has agreed that such a merger is in the best interest of DICE’s shareholders, DICE and its employees. Following completion of the merger EA will be able to share tools and technology with DICE, which will help DICE to navigate console transition as well as transition to next-generation platforms. In addition, DICE and its employees would become part of a group with significant financial resources, which will be necessary in order to be successful in the coming years as game development is becoming increasingly costly and competitive.

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  • It was a gorgeous, cool and fabulous venue at Salt Point and we want to thank all the volunteers and runners who joined us at this "Serious Fun" run. Salt Point results · Photos: Michael Li-Races · Michael Li-The Views
  • We are planning and looking forward to our next races in September. Headlands Endurance Run offers a morning Marathon, 50 miles, 75 miles and 100 miles run. Test your endurance and sign up today. We also are hosting Night Sweats 15 km and Marathon on Saturday, September 10. Come and join the exciting adventures and enjoy the sights and sounds on Saturday night at the Marin Headlands.
  • If you will be around on the September 10-11 weekend, we are always looking for helping hands at the aid stations, marking the course and sweeping on Sunday. Please Volunteer here.
  • We want to thank everyone who has signed up for Skyline to the Sea. It is Sold Out with a current wait list. Please consider running Eldrith Gosney's Pure Ultra on Saturday, October 22 starting at Santos Meadows near Stinson Beach. We offer 11km, Half-Marathon, 36km and 50 km distances. We are thrilled to have Eldrith also running during the event. Not to be missed.

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How to Avoid the Biggest Web Shopping Annoyances

Score One for the Little Guy

San Francisco blogger Thomas Hawk rallied readers when a camera purchase turned sour.
Photograph: Thomas Hawk
When Thomas Hawk ran into strong-arm sales tactics from an online retailer, he didn't just get mad--he leveraged his popular Digital Connection blog and the power of the Web community to get even.

Hawk's tale, which has become something of a blogosphere legend, started in November 2005 when the San Francisco investment banker (Thomas Hawk is his pen name) ordered a Canon EOS 5D from New York-based Price Rite Photo for $2900. Shortly thereafter a company representative called, ostensibly to confirm Hawk's credit card and mailing information, but also to aggressively pitch pricey accessories. When Hawk declined the add-ons, the salesperson said the camera was out of stock--even though the Web site had indicated that it was available. Hawk canceled the order. "When I told them I was going to write on my Web site about how badly I was treated, they threatened to have me arrested and told me that I didn't know who I was dealing with," Hawk says. Price Rite's sales rep, Hawk adds, said he'd face a 15 percent restocking fee if the order was canceled.

Hawk says he couldn't believe he was hearing all this from a merchant that had high ratings and glowing user reviews on reputable shopping sites, including (which powers's pricing engine) and Yahoo Shopping.

It turned out he wasn't the only unhappy Price Rite customer. The New York state attorney general, the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, and the Kings County (New York) district attorney have all received complaints alleging that Price Rite used hard-sales tactics and bait-and-switch advertising. In a June 2005 complaint to the New York Better Business Bureau, a woman from Pennsylvania said that Price Rite charged her credit card $700 and sent her a rock instead of the camera she ordered.

Despite the threats, Hawk wrote about Price Rite in a blog entry that was picked up by a member of the social news community

The story struck a nerve. users posted Price Rite's aliases, phone number, and address; some also posted warnings about the store, including a link to Hawk's blog, on other sites. Hundreds of digital camera buyers began posting similar complaints on Hawk's blog--and in a matter of days, PriceGrabber, Yahoo Shopping, and other comparison sites dropped Price Rite from their listings.

In December 2005, Price Rite Photo owner Edward Lopez sent Hawk a letter of apology, saying the phone sales representative involved had been fired and offering to sell Hawk the Canon EOS 5D for the originally advertised price of $2900. (Price Rite has not responded to telephone and e-mail queries from PC World about Hawk's experience.)

Hawk declined Price Rite's belated offer. "Companies need to have good business practices and treat their customers well," he says. "If they don't, a customer like me is going come along and write about their experience, and it's going to get around."

Tom Spring is a senior reporter for PC World.

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Are You Being Played in the SOA Game Plan?

If you believe everything you hear, service-oriented architecture is taking over the world, and anyone not in the game is likely to be left on the sidelines. The move to SOA may indeed be inevitable, but it can be hard to accomplish in the current economic environment. Vendors are also struggling with heavy investments in SOA, and they, too, have to make a profit during this economic downturn. This begs the question of whether you truly need to score on the SOA front immediately-or are you just being played?

"Some vendors, those who were a bit too zealous regarding their expectations on volume and buy-in time lines, have ratcheted down the noise and focus on SOA," says Sandra Rogers, director of SOA, Web services and integration research at IDC Research (a sister company of "Meanwhile, other vendors-those who remain committed-are becoming a bit more realistic and mature about the pace and extent SOA will advance. Now they are [better] articulating how it can fit into overall IT strategies."

Vendors who were looking for a fast buck are changing their tune entirely. "Some vendors who promoted composite applications have just changed terminology to promote the same concepts under the banner of mashups," explains Rogers. "While this gains some additional attention, in some cases it may stall interest from those enterprises looking for greater stability to road map, vision and messaging from their vendors."

This sales approach can backfire on vendors. "They may appear to some businesses as more dispensable initiatives at this particular point in time," she says.

Regardless of how SOA is pitched, the payoff is generally real. "Reuse is easier to measure than strategic business benefits, especially in the early days, but the potential financial benefits of reuse are limited to cutting a percentage of your development budget, whereas the value of strategic business benefits is virtually unlimited," explains Larry Fulton, senior analyst at Forrester Research. "So, reuse is a nice benefit and easy to quantify, but it is not the largest potential for SOA by any measure."

Unfortunately, this message gets lost in the pitch and is often even left out of the sales brochure. "SOA is marketed and sold totally different outside the U.S.," reveals Frank Kenney, research director at Gartner. "Here, it's all about reuse; in South America, South Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, it's about business processes. I have faith that the U.S. will eventually catch up."

Given the different pitches by time zone, is the interest in SOA globally high?

"Our current research finds approximately 50 percent of survey respondents, most of whom work for large companies, reporting that they have already deployed either SOA or Web services," reports Julie Craig, senior analyst at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA). "Although the two design choices are technically very different, my experience has been that there is a lot of confusion among consumers as to which is which and how the two are different. So the 50 percent figure could be high, based on that confusion."

In other words, most people think they are into SOA. Funny thing is, most of them are-just not always in the way they think they are.

"One interesting trend is that software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendor products are virtually all SOA-based," says Craig. Just about everyone is using some form of SaaS.

Craig says SaaS vendors are leveraging SOA for the same reasons that companies do: for service reuse, simplicity of deployment, abstraction from underlying infrastructure and ease of modification going forward. In addition, many established ISVs in the enterprise management space are investing considerable resources in rewriting products to run on an SOA, platform-based design. "This is a nontrivial exercise, especially for those vendors with extensive legacy code sets. It is working, but it is slow-and expensive," she says.

With SaaS and other SOA-based vendors struggling to capture a return on investment post-haste, there should be some pricing wiggle room to help you save on your own SOA investments, shouldn't there?

"Absolutely. Even before the current downturn, vendors were experimenting with new pricing models to better match customer's longer ramp-up for SOA," says Fulton. "This is particularly true in the design-time governance space, where vendors are trying things like pricing based on the number of governed services or developers, and I expect we'll see this trend continue in other areas as well.

"Also, this incremental adoption reality makes it very attractive for vendors to get a toe in the door, increasing the likelihood that you will come back for more down the road, so customers have a lot of leverage at this early stage," he adds.

There are other price negotiating advantages that can be leveraged by savvy buyers. "Start with the vendors you already work with," advises Kenney. "You might not have to buy as much to make SOA happen for you. Take, for example, enterprise service buses: Tell your vendors, 'I have problems making your widget work with my SOA plan, so get in here and help me fix it.'"

However, SOA architects aren't feeling any real pricing pressures, so don't expect to reap many savings there. "TCS is not facing pricing pressure for services related to assessment, consulting and architecture definition services," confides Dr. Santosh Mohanty, head of Global Technology Excellence, Tata Consulting Service (TCS). "However, some of the operational-level SOA initiatives have reduced annual budget and hence extended the program, but there is no pricing pressure."

"In case of enterprises that are convinced about the value that SOA will bring to them in terms of adaptability, efficiency and agility, there is no slowdown. And most of these enterprises have a top-down implementation of service oriented architecture," he further explains.

As to where SOA goes from here and whether you should bother with the whole shebang: "If service orientation-even on a modest, initial scale-holds the promise of real competitive advantage for your organization, it follows that this is true for your competition," says Fulton. "It might make sense to prioritize your SOA efforts and focus on those projects with the biggest competitive advantage, but I would be concerned about stopping SOA adoption entirely, since there is no guarantee that the competition will do the same thing, and that could put you at a serious disadvantage."

recommended for you

What's Killing SOA?

Read more »

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Netflix Promises Mac Video Support by End of Year

Netflix on Wednesday promised to release a product by the end of the year which will enable Mac users to use the service's "Watch Instantly" feature.

Netflix is best known for its DVD rental service, which enables users to manage an online queue using a Web site. For a flat monthly rate, the company mails you DVDs or Blu-ray Discs, which you then watch and return without worrying about late fees.

But increasingly, Netflix is having to compete with online services like Apple's iTunes Store, which lets users pay to rent movies online and stream them to a compatible device in their home, like an Apple TV. "Watch Instantly" lets users watch more than 12,000 movies and TV episodes online, using a computer or other compatible device. Unfortunately, it doesn't work with a Mac.

Posting to the Netflix Blog, Netflix spokesman Brent added, "And, for all of you Mac users (of which I am one) we've been busy working getting a solution that will allow you to watch instantly on your Mac. So hang in there - we'll have something for you by the end of the year."

For the moment, Netflix's service remains squarely in the realm of PCs and compatible hardware. Those devices include the Netflix Player by Roku, LG's forthcoming BD300 Blu-ray Network Player, or the Xbox 360 video game console, which Netflix says should be able to work with their streaming service later this fall.

Also announced is a new agreement with Starz Play, the broadband entertainment service from premium cable channel provider Starz. The agreement instantly adds about 1,000 new video choices for Netflix customers, with another 1,500 expected by the end of the year. New movies Netflix users can watch include "No Country for Old Men," Disney/Pixar's "Ratatouille," "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," "Superbad and many more.

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text:
Survey: US residents oppose Internet sales tax

The U.S. Senate has, by a wide margin, supported a bill allowing an Internet sales tax, but the legislation appears to be a tougher sell to the public.

Sixty-one percent of U.S. residents surveyed by online postage vendor Endicia said they don’t support the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states with sales taxes to collect those taxes from large online retailers. The Senate voted 69-27 to approve the Marketplace Fairness Act last Monday.

If the Marketplace Fairness Act passes through Congress, 44 percent of respondents said they would buy fewer products online, and 12 percent said they would buy more products at hometown bricks-and-mortar stores. Another 4 percent said they would buy more at large retail chains, and about 40 percent said the legislation would have no impact on their online shopping habits.

The House of Representatives would need to pass the bill and President Barack Obama would have to sign it before it becomes law. Obama has voiced support for the legislation.

Sixty percent of the 1,095 respondents to the online survey said they believed the legislation would be bad for the U.S. economy.

Endicia’s survey found that 74 percent of respondents had heard of the legislation. Thirty-nine percent approved of the bill, and 35 percent of those who approve said they do so because it would create taxing fairness for bricks-and-mortar and online retailers.

Fifteen percent said state and local governments need the sales tax money. The other 50 percent of respondents who approve of the sales tax said they did so for both reasons.

Of those who oppose the tax, 40 percent said it’s because they are already overtaxed, 14 percent said the tax would be unfair to small Internet sellers and 46 percent said it was for both reasons.

Endicia has taken no position on the Internet sales tax, a spokeswoman said.

The bill would allow states to collect sales tax on large Internet sellers that have no presence within their borders, curtailing the ability of Internet shoppers to avoid sales tax. Now, online retailers only have to collect taxes in states where they have a physical presence, including retail stores and warehouses.

Online sellers with less than $1 million in annual Internet sales would be exempt from collecting the taxes.

Lawmakers have been fighting for more than a decade to pass Internet sales tax legislation, and some businesses have called on Congress to fix the problem since a 1992 Supreme Court case that prohibited states from collecting sales tax from sellers that have no physical presence within their borders.

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