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While the oil market and analysts are trying to guess how much Iranian oil the U.S. sanctions will stifle later this year, they all agree that the return of the sanctions will be the market’s key bullish driver.

The U.S. sanctions will remove much more than 1 million bpd of Iranian oil from the market. Considering the low spare capacity for a quick ramp-up of production elsewhere, some hedge fund managers expect oil prices to jump to as high as $150 a barrel in 18 to 24 months.

To lose between 1.3 and 1.4 million barrels [of output] a day, is a very big number. Ultimately, we could see losses from Iran exceed 2 million barrels a day.

Because OPEC has the lowest spare capacity ever right now, there is going to be a real issue. This helps why, prices will be above $150 in less than 2 years.

The loss of 2 million bpd of Iranian oil is the assumption in the hedge fund’s bet on $150 oil in a year or two. Iran’s oil exports peaked in April this year at 2.7 million bpd,

According to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the USA might be able to take around 500,000 bpd of Iran’s oil from the market, not more, because importing countries like India and China do not comply with Washington’s behavior.

Yet, the U.S. Administration’s efforts to persuade as many countries as possible to drop imports of Iranian oil have intensified over the past month, and many analysts now see 1 million bpd as the more realistic assessment, instead of the initial estimates of some 500,000 bpd.

Brent Crude clicked $80 per barrel today, while West Texas Intermediate hovers around $70 per barrel.

Oil Price.com / ABC Flash Point Oil News 2018.

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FREE USA Standard Delivery

Pink Braided Leather Bracelet 16cm-22cm

A beautiful pink leather snap clasp charm bracelet available in a range of sizes from 16cm up to 22cm.

For children ages 3 upwards to adults.

Fabulous pink braided leather with a silver plated clasp. Enjoy blinging up your bracelet using our fantastic range of charms and beads.

When selecting your charms we recommend that a clip or stopper bead is placed right at the end of the bracelet. This will keep your charms and beads in your bracelet when opening and closing the clasp. If you are purchasing charms at the same time as your bracelet, we will assemble and style your bracelet so it is ready to wear.

Supplied gift wrapped in tissue and presented in a velvet pouch with presentation box.

Size Guide: Most accurate if you can measure wrist directly. When measuring the wrist please add 2-3cm to the wrist measurement to allow for the beads.

General Size Guide:
Children Age 5-8 = 16cm
Children Age 9-13  / Extra Small Adult = 17cm
Small Adult = 18cm
Small-Medium Adult =19cm
Medium Adult = 20cm
Medium-Large Adult = 21cm
Large Adult = 22cm

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C2C: day 11, Grisedale Tarn to Haweswater

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.
– Edward Abbey

Hiker coming around the bend in Patterdale.

I just might be at the most beautiful wild campsite yet, and the last of the wild sites. Tomorrow, when I hit Shap and cross the M6 motorway, the lakes will be just a memory – and most camping will happen next to pubs.

Last night was cold and damp. The sky was clear and some very bright planet peaked into the alicoop from the south across the Tarn. I shivered when I emerged into the wind and before I could make tea, a chilling mist sneaked up the dale “on tiny cat’s paws” covering the sun, causing me to shiver. The hardest chore camping is to take down in the rain. But taking down in the cold is right up there in challenge, when your frozen fingers can barely work as they touch metal and you try to roll up the tent and carefully stuff it in the bag. I sang to myself to move faster and stay warm as I left that lovely place, down and down to Patterdale.

Mist creeping in at Grisedale Tarn.

I always worry the impression I make when I enter town and need to buy things. I see myself as strong and intrepid, having added ten major peaks to the trail plus a day’s climbing. But the impression I must give is a bit raggedy, my hair squashed into a buff and held tightly off my burned face, my hands dry as crocodile leather, and my body smelling like a barnyard, and that’s an insult to barnyards everywhere.

But what a delight to discover that haggard hikers is the norm and I fit right in. All the action is at the local post office – part store, part cafe, part charging the electronics pit stop. Apparently it was the favorite of Alfred Wainwright himself, and the first to carry his beautifully illustrated trail books. BBC broadcaster Julia Bradbury hosts a special on her top Wrainwright walks and raves about the bacon baps at this very spot, so I was found mid-morning enjoying one myself.

Resupply at Wainwright’s favorite post office.

A thru-hike never really feels like a thru-hike until it’s time to resupply. On the Colorado Trail and the John Muir Trail, I sent my food ahead, but here, like France, I knew I’d drop into towns and could pick things up as I went along. Of course, you’re at the mercy of what’s available, like potted soup, random bars and “smash.” The tea selection was good and I was surprised the tiny store carried isobutane for the Jetboil.

It was hard to leave, but I needed to make some miles today, so crossed the beck and looked for the trail headed straight up the next set of hills. As I moved up, a few RAF jets came careening down the dale, the sound sudden and terrific.

Trail crew.

Up the trail, I finally saw trail workers laying the stone paths, young people I asked might show me how strong they are for a photo, and replying “but we are strong!” Now on the official C2C, more people shared the trail. Many a “hiya!” and “awright” as I meandered up the path.

If a walker sticks to the classic route, this one will be the hardest they hit. After so many peaks tackled, I was feeling pretty cocky. This is gonna be a breeze as one false summit after another was crossed. The map was clear, I’d walk nearly four miles before hitting the highest point at Kidsty Pike, but I obstinately believed each rise was my destination, even after passing the shapely Angle Tarn, only half-way up.

Kidsty Pike before the midges took control.

I only took a few wrong turns, quickly corrected, before seeing the obvious pointy brow of the pike and the long gulley leading to Haweswater. It was a lovely perch of jagged rocks framing the high peaks of the lakes I had only recently climbed. But as I admired the view, the wind dropped and the midges rose, as if one amorphous organism setting down on my face and hands. Think African Queen, no swatting would keep this evil cloud away, so it was out of there as fast as I could. It seems it’s not just water that attracts these buggers.

The next stage made me a bit nervous as my official guide warned of a steep, rocky descent where hands would need to be used. The first part was velvety grass, the type fell runners crack straight down. I’ve gotten pretty good at that myself, even with a pack. Sticks help the technique of placing your feet facing down, bending your knees, leaning back and running in smallish steps. You really move. No more zigzagging for this #blissfulhiker!

Beautiful Angle Tarn.

But the fun was over when the stones appeared. Wainwright himself suggests your best defense is to use your bum. There’s certainly no shame in it, and I have the snagged trousers to prove it. So I was fully prepared to get down in whatever undignified way necessary. It was a bit of challenge; a wee bit. I guess if this was your very first big pull, a fair warning might be useful, but I’ve been hiking now nine days, so just flew right down.

Looking down at my (hopeful) campsite.

Haweswater is a reservoir, one that completely buried a village. In drought it’s said the ghost town comes into view. Right now, all that can be seen are crumbling rock walls and overgrown trees. My site is next to a small stand of tamarack next to a burbling creek. Idyllic and absolutely at peace. Hoping for Shap and Orten tomorrow, and on to the Pennines!

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Foot Switch Bracket #3DPrinting #3DThursday

00bf82420b3e45958e2d5fab9997c8fd preview featured

grumbel shared this project on Thingiverse!

A very basic bracket to hold foot switches together. The thing is made for two foot switches, but multiple of them can be glued together to allow more footswitches.

Print with 100% infill. A bit of heat after the print can be used to provide a better fit.

The foot switches themselves can be found on Aliexpress and Co. for cheap. An Arduino Pro Micro is used to convert them into a USB mouse/keyboard device.

See more!

Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.

Join 8,700+ makers on Adafruit’s Discord channels and be part of the community!

CircuitPython – Python on Microcontrollers is here!

Have an amazing project to share? Join the SHOW-AND-TELL every Wednesday night at 7:30pm ET on Google+ Hangouts.

Join us every Wednesday night at 8pm ET for Ask an Engineer!

Follow Adafruit on Instagram for top secret new products, behinds the scenes and more

Maker Business — Bill Gross’s 7 lessons to help you and your business succeed

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Electronics — = != ==.

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Python for Microcontrollers — Python powers costumes, and community @circuitpython @micropython @ThePSF #Python

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Have you ever been thrown into the middle of ocean, and you don’t even know how to swim? Well, I have lived this experience, both literally and figuratively. This week it was the latter! But let me assure you, it felt exactly the same both times. Therefore, I am writing this blog for anyone who is just starting with designing Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) for the first time. I will be explaining and detailing how I started, what I have learned and the problems I wish I was told about earlier. Every week I will be writing a blog entry showing my progress, but if you have any questions or advice, drop them down in the comment section. Now let’s get started.

Circuit Schematics and PCB Layout

I was assigned this week a new task, to design a printed circuit board for our product. The circuit is moderately complex, as it contains an FPGA and a PIC18 microcontroller. In some companies, the electronics engineer who will do the circuit schematics is a different person than the PCB designer whose responsibility is to create the physical layout of the board. But in our case I will be doing both, and hence, that was my first lesson; creating the circuit schematics – to some extent – is a different task than laying out the PCB. But that is not exactly correct, as there are many PCB concepts the circuit designer must keep in mind when designing the circuit. Therefore, this week I read about PCB designing process, and next week I will be talking more about creating the schematics.

When I was assigned to the task I started searching and reading about designing PCBs. The problem with most tutorials on the Internet is that they are either very simple non-technical overview of the process of creating (manufacturing, not designing) PCBs, or they are overwhelming technical papers (mostly dealing with RF noise and Electromagnetic Interference EMI).

The way to go

So as a beginner, what is my advice to you? As my supervisor explained to me, PCB designing is not an exact science. It is an ART. That is why you will not find a step by step guide of how to design a board. Nonetheless, you will find many guidelines. In fact, the huge number of guidelines is what made the process seems overwhelming. But it is not. To make your life easier, here are the steps I think will get you into the game:

Understand the basics of PCBs

You must first understand what PCBs are. Start with the basics. Know that PCBs can have many copper layers separated by layers of insulators. These copper layers are etched to create traces for the current. Get familiar with the language and terms of the PCB, such as via, blind and buried via, pads, traces, planes, solder mask, silkscreen… etc. Also, get to know the different types of components and their packages, such as plated-through holes PTH, surface mount technology SMT, DIP, BGA, CSP, and so on.

At this step I started learning how to use a CAD software. For designing PCBs, there are many good programs, but I think the big players are KiCAD, and Eagle. Both are very affordable, and powerful. You can’t go wrong with either one. Here we are using KiCAD, and as such, I got to learn its basics. All the schematics and layouts you will be seeing in this blog will be made using it. KiCAD is a collection of tools, for creating the circuit schematics, components footprint, and PCB layout. There is a big number of tutorials for it, but I need to remind you that you need to get familiar with the PCB terminologies first, so you can use them comfortably inside the software.

Read about EMI

Now you have the vocabulary to “talk PCB”, it is time to read about one of the most important (if not the most important) concerns when designing a board, Electromagnetic Interference EMI. Here is where things get messy, and you need to pay attention. From what I found out, this topic is huge, and there are many books and published papers about EMI. The good news is that you don’t need (and most probably can’t) cover it all before starting designing your board. And for most low speed boards (highest frequency is less than 50MHz) you can survive knowing only the basics. You will understand why in multilayer PCBs, you need to have one or more complete layers for ground, and one or more layers for power, why you need to separate the analog ground from the digital ground, and also you will understand concepts such as Crosstalk, Signal Integrity… etc.

A good starting point that was suggested to me by my supervisor is TI’s “PCB Design Guidelines For Reduced EMI”. It is general guidelines not specific to a certain design. Once you grab the basics, move on to the next step.

Start with your design

Remember when I said that you will not find a step by step designing tutorial? Well, one of the reasons is that every design depends completely on the components used in it. And as such, you will need to figure out what the guidelines are for every component you are using. In my specific case, I am using a Spartan-6 FPGA in our design, hence, I needed to read the guidelines for PCB design for it here “Spartan-6 FPGA PCB Design and Pin Planning Guide”. Also, I will need to read the design guidelines for the PIC18 as well.

The implementation of this step will differ from one person to another. I just hope that along the way the complete picture of will become more vivid.

That’s it for my first week as a PCB designer. Next week I will talk in more details about our project. Please keep in mind that I am a beginner to designing PCBs, so my opinions and understanding might not be exactly right, or just outright wrong! So if you see anything that needs to modified, the comment section is all yours.
Talk to you next time.

Categories: Experiential

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Starting with Eeschema | AESTE · 2015-05-18 at 10:14

[…] Resuming from last week, I continued working on the PCB design for our product. Last week I talked about my experience with learning the basics of designing PCB layout. The first half of this week I studied Xilinx’s PCB design guide for the FPGA, while I focused on creating the schematic for the circuit in the other half. […]

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Texas Drought: A Fingerprint

Drought has a variety of impacts.  Some droughts can hit agriculture hard.  Others affect water supplies.  Others affect fire danger.  Most affect all three, to varying extents.  The length and timing of the drought relative to such things as the growing season determines the impact profile.

I like to compare drought intensities through a type of diagram I created.  (Maybe someone else created it before me, but at least I created it independently.)  I call it the Drought Fingerprint Diagram.  It’s drawn relative to a particular month of the year.  Here, we’ll talk about the July diagram.

The x-axis is the number of months of accumulated precipitation.  Suppose the precipitation in July 1993 at a particular location was 2.00 inches.  Then the one-month data point for 1993 would be at 2.00″.  If June 1993 brought 1.50″ of precipitation, the two-month accumulation would be a total of 3.50″, so that’s the value plotted at two months.  Another 3.00″ of rain back in May means that the three-month total is 6.50″, and that’s what’s plotted at three months.  And so on, as far back as you’d like to go.

All the lines slope upward to the right, because each point adds more precipitation from an older month to the current total.

Here’s such a diagram for Texas for the period 1898-2010:

Texas Drought Fingerprints, 1898-2010

There are 114 lines, one for each July in the period.  Some of the more extreme lines are labeled.  For example, the driest 4-month period ending in July took place in 1998.  Other prominent drought years are 1917, 1956, 1925, and 1918.  Conversely, it was very wet leading up to and including July 2007, 1941, and 1992.

Okay, it’s time to play a game we like to call “predict the likelihood of an extreme event”.  Based on historical data such as this, civil engineers all the time have to come up with the probability of an extremely rare event occurring.

In practice, they do this by fitting a probability distribution to the data, meaning they figure out which bell curve (for example) best fits the distribution of the data.  With the curve in hand, they can directly calculate the probability of any event occurring.  In principle, they can do this even for events that lie outside the envelope of past events, though the farther you get from the envelope the less accurately you can estimate the probability.

So we’ll do it the simple way: by eye.  Ready?

Okay, look at the graph and estimate for yourself the accumulation over 7 months that would correspond to a 1 in 100 dry event, that is, an event with a probability of 1%.

Since we’ve got about a hundred lines plotted, the simplest approach would be to take the lowest value among the data already plotted.  Since 113 out of 114 events were wetter than that in the past, it’s reasonable to guess that about 99 out of 100 future events will also be wetter.

Maybe you’re already beyond that point.  Maybe you’re looking at the graph and seeing that the number of dry outliers (graphs that lie well below the general cluster) is quite small, especially for the period 5-10 months.  Meanwhile, at the high precipitation end, the spacing between the lines tends to spread out more gradually.  Maybe you’re thinking that we’re overdue for a dry outlier.

Maybe you’d like to take climate change into account.  Precipitation in Texas has been increasing over the long-term, and you can see that the highest graphs tend to be more recent than the lowest graphs.  That would make a dry event less likely.  Conversely, climate models project a slow decrease in precipitation: is a dry event more likely?

Okay, that’s fine for a 1 in 100 event.  What about a 1 in 200 year event?  1 in 500?

Here’s the same graph again, except I’ve added in the 2011 data.

Drought Fingerprints, 1898-2011

The year-to-date precipitation (7-month accumulation period) for 2011 is about 6 inches.  The next lowest value is about 9 inches, and most curves seem to be concentrated around the 15-20 inch mark.

2011 is not the low mark just at 7 months.  It also takes the record for the following durations ending in July: 2 months, 3 months, 5 months, 6 months, 8 months, 9 months, 10 months, 11 months, and 12 months. Everything from 5 to 10 months breaks the record by a large margin.  In fact, everything from 8 to 10 months breaks the record for consecutive months, no matter the ending month.

So we now have a dry outlier that’s even more an outlier than the wet outlier of 2007.  What are the odds of such an event occurring?  I had them at about 1 in 250.  What about you?

Whatever the exact value, it’s obvious that Texas is living through a very unusual weather event.  I don’t consider it to be the worst drought on record, because the 1950s drought lasted for seven years, and 1956 alone gives 2011 a run for its money.  But, combine it with July being the warmest month on record for Texas, and it probably becomes the most unbearable.  It may well be the worst drought on record for agriculture.

John Nielsen-Gammon


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Dallas Children's Theater Blog

Astonishing Kids And Families With The Fun of Broadway-Like Plays and A Lot More!

Ryan Diller with CaterpillarCaterpillar pops out of egg. Caterpillar eats a lot. Caterpillar gets a stomachache. Caterpillar builds a cocoon around himself. Caterpillar becomes a butterfly. Caterpillar sells the second highest number of picture books of all time (and keeps inching towards Peter Rabbit’s 67-year head start).

But there’s more: this hungry little caterpillar has appeared in the form of paper plates, hand shovels, cupcake wrappers, binoculars, key chains, stuffed animals (one of which is proudly owned by this blogger), and too many other products to name.

Why? How has such a basic story left such a deep imprint on our hearts and imaginations? What is it about The Very Hungry Caterpillar?

Personally, the book reminds me of the joy and discovery that seems to go hand in hand with childhood. But is that just nostalgia talking? Surely there has to be more than that. I may cherish the other books of my youth, but I have this particular sense of wonder towards that little caterpillar and his big appetite.

So let’s start there: the hunger.

Children don’t lack for hungry characters. Winnie the Pooh, Cookie Monster, and Garfield have happily stuffed their faces for decades, to the delight of young people everywhere. The satisfaction of good food is a basic thrill, and the hunger for more is a universal drive.

Eric Carle evokes these elemental feelings simply yet viscerally. Who can forget the excitement of feeling those small holes in the book’s pages, the gradual escalation of the foods, and the soft humor when the caterpillar overdoes itself and munches through cake, pickle, salami, and beyond?

That playfulness resonates with children and the inner child of adults, and it brings out the best in Carle’s artwork. Anything is possible in his illustrations; you never know if you’ll encounter a purple cat or a blue horse, or a caterpillar with wide, infant-like eyes.

And Carle presents all of it through that beloved childhood form, brightly colored collage. In a video celebrating Caterpillar’s 45th anniversary, Carle happily remarks while recreating his signature character, “Just like in kindergarten.” He may possess the attention to detail of a seasoned professional, but Carle’s artwork shows that any child – with practice – can become an artist like him.

“Many children have done collages at home or in their classrooms,” says Carle. “In fact, some children have said to me, ‘Oh, I can do that.’ I consider that the highest compliment.”

Indeed, Carle believes that both Caterpillar’s pictures and words alike serve to show children that they are capable of doing wonderful things.

DCT's THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR SHOW“I think what it is is it’s a book of hope,” he explains. “You little, ugly, little [sic], insignificant bug: you, too, can grow up to be a beautiful, big butterfly and fly into the world and unfold your talents.”

That rings true to me, though I’ve never consciously thought of it all these years, nor did Carle when he wrote the book. But that’s part of the book’s beauty: it never preaches to the child, never moralizes nor embellishes. It presents, simply, one of nature’s tiny miracles through the eyes of an adult’s loving wisdom and a child’s colorful imagination. To a child, it shows that transformation is possible, that exciting changes await them. To adults, it preserves that magic of childhood, of innocently crawling along the ground driven by simple needs, discovering the world along the way.

While THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR SHOW is being performed on the DCT stage, I encourage those who know the book to bring their loved ones and relive their memories, and I hope unfamiliar audiences will treat themselves to Eric Carle’s world. I’m willing to bet each of these groups will leave inspired, empowered, and treasuring the experience for a lifetime.

To learn more about THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR SHOW and to purchase tickets, visit dct.org or call the DCT Box Office at 214-740-0051.

Ryan Diller is a DCT Guest Writer. He is the former Web Editor of 1966: A JOURNAL OF CREATIVE NONFICTION, and his writing has appeared in MULTIBRIEFS and HOT PRESS. He is currently working towards an MFA in Playwriting at the University of Calgary.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of Ryan Diller, and Eric Carle; Photo by Linda Blase

Image Credits:

THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered marks of Eric Carle LLC, © &™

Paper Dessert Plate source: orientaltrading.com

Cupcake Wrappers source: walmart.com

Plush Stuffed Animal source: amazon.com

Hand Shovel source: shop.carlemuseum.org/caterpillar-hand-shovel

Binoculars source: shop.carlemuseum.org/caterpillar-binoculars

Caterpillar and Sun Keychain source: shop.carlemuseum.org/category/clothing-accessories/accessories/key-chains

Category: Uncategorized

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14 posts

Installing Volumio in Proxmox (installing a .img in Proxmox)

Proxmox is a fabulous hypervisor (or more properly, a fabulous management suite for the KVM hypervisor) but its storage model is a little strange. It works great unless you need to do something a little odd, and then it gets difficult to deal with. I wanted to install Volumio audio player as a centralized audio server in Proxmox,...
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Transparent SSL Interception Bridge with mitmproxy

Hopefully you've heard of mitmproxy, a wonderful little Python tool for intercepting, decrypting, and dissecting SSL traffic. It also makes it very easy to decrypt SSL traffic for an entire network with Wireshark/TShark (see bottom of article). Image Credit: Nick Charlton It's a fabulous tool, but the setup instructions in the documentation are less than fabulous. If...
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Calculating amperage (load) of a diesel locomotive

This is yet another ZephyrCab physics post. It's worth noting that this post's math is almost entirely theory, basically cobbled together by me for the sake of this software. So take it with a grain of salt. If you don't know, diesel locomotives have an ammeter in the cab to indicate load on the traction motors. This is...
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The best Arduino Arc Welder

You've no doubt seen the various arc welder simulation circuits available for model train layouts. They're available from companies like Circuitron, and basically consist of a circuit with screw terminals with which you power a lamp. The circuit randomly flashes the lamp to give the effect of an arc welder. It's a fairly simple thing to do, especially...
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Fix chattering Cherry MX switches in Xubuntu

Backstory I own one mechanical keyboard: a cheap ThermalTake eSports Poseidon something-or-other with blue backlighting and blue switches. For the price it's a pretty awesome keyboard, except for one fatal issue (and I might have favored the slightly-more-expensive Cooler Master keyboard had I known about this): most of the keys have a tendency to trigger twice. After extensive...
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Home » Computer » Network » Cloud » IBM 的 50 qubit quantum computer

IBM 在展示他們做到了什麼：「IBM makes 20 qubit quantum computing machine available as a cloud service」。

不過重點應該在目前已經拉出 50 qubit prototype 了：

The company also announced that IBM researchers had successfully built a 50 qubit prototype, which is the next milestone for quantum computing, but it’s unclear when we will see this commercially available.

18 個月從 5 qubit 到 20 qubit：

IBM has been offering quantum computing as a cloud service since last year when it came out with a 5 qubit version of the advanced computers. Today, the company announced that it’s releasing 20-qubit quantum computers, quite a leap in just 18 months. A qubit is a single unit of quantum information.

如果是以這樣的速度成長 (每 18 個月變成原來四倍)，五年後就有機會殺 RSA 2048 bits 了？(大約需要 4000 個 qubit)

這比想像中快好多，難怪現在密碼學都在討論抵抗 quantum computer 的演算法...

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An Act of Piracy – CCGS Corporal Mclaren is Damaged

Early Saturday morning, the CCGS Corporal Mclaren was sabotaged, when 2 cables and a chain were cut at the CME Shipyard in Sambro Head. the cradle the boat was on slid back, and the MSPV came off the blocks. there was some water ingress.

From statements made by CME, we know the ship was fine at the midnight check, and in the water at the subsequent check. A call to Halifax fire for fuel leaking from a boat was reported at 0751 by @hrmfirewire on twitter. the yard has cameras, but no fence, so its easy to gain access, though its unclear if anything was caught on tape.

the boat was on the lift for 6 weeks of maintenance. general repair and upkeep. A few modifications were being made the vessel, including new electronics, rope cutters on the shafts, and additional limber holes in the engine room bilge.

the ship was built by Halifax Shipyards, as the 6th of 9 Hero Class midshore patrol vessels. she first emerged for painting in in May 2013, and the ship was launched in September 2013. the launching was witnessed by Corporal Mclaren’s family, after i was contacted by Canadian Heros, and they were able to get an invite to the launch. the ship was fitted out at pier 9, and went on trials in October, and was accepted by the coast guard at the end of the month. She was formally commissioned in June of 2014, at a ceremony at BIO

CME Posted these photos to their facebook page of the work period.

Coast Guard Icebreaker, Balder Viking’s New Name revealed.

Noticeably absent from the announcement yesterday by Davie of the re-floating of the Balder Viking was the ships new Coast Guard name.

I’m told this ship will be named the CCGS Captain Molly Kool – Named after the the first woman In North America to hold a Master Mariner License. The ship will be Commissioned in St. John’s

Wikipedia has a brief biography of her life. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Kool

Update – the ship was imported and registered as Balder Viking, and it has not yet been renamed. i also goofed and used Vidar viking as the name, not balder – these points have been corrected.

This post costs 30% more then planned – The weekly news #25

Consider becoming a member. 2$ a month really helps cover costs, and in return you get the site Ad Free. For latest port conditions, Including Weather,Wind, Tides, Arrivals and Departures be sure to visit the Port Report

1.Lifeboats head west

2. Openhydro continues

the latest on openhydro

3. BP doesnt find oil.
BPs partner has announced in a filing that commercial quantities of oil were not found in its drilling program. Shell returned their leases, presumably after not finding anything either.

4.Vidar Viking finished.
Davie announced the completion of the first ship, However with the first ship complete, Canadian Press is reporting Davie and Federal fleet have delivered on time, but not on Budget, with the costs of the project increasing by 217 million.

5.Open House Saturday

6. Job Fare – Be a SeaFarer
Want to be A Seafarer? Attend SIU’s job fair tonight.

Nov 13 1915 – Barque Calburga floundered in heavy weather off Strumbel Head, Wales, while carrying timber from Halifax.

Nov 12, 1928 –  The Lamport and Holt Lines passenger ship Vestris sank in the Atlantic after being swamped by two huge waves.

Nov 11, 1976 – HMCS ALGONQUIN assists fisheries protection vessel Chebucto in arresting two Cuban fishing vessels suspected of illegal fishing in the Halifax approaches

Nov 10, 1813 – The warship Atalanta was wrecked near Halifax Harbour. The ship sank in only twelve minutes but the entire crew were saved.

Nov 8, 1728 – Captain James Cook Born on this day.  He spent his early career in Canada

Weather delays

once again weather is restricting movements into and out of the Harbor. CATHARINA SCHULTE and BOMAR REBECCA were both due at Halterm overnight, but are still sailing around the mouth of the Harbour. the Bulker Algoma Integrity was due to depart from national Gypsum, but remains tied up there.

winds are still strong, at 23 Knots, Gusting to 34, and are forecast to remain so until tomorrow evening, however waves appear to have subsided with a Max height now just 4′ compared with 10′ last night.

UPDATE 0930 – CATHARINA SCHULTE took her pilot and is headed inbound.

Saturday Weather.

Weather was an issue on Saturday, with some ships moving, and others waiting it out. CMA-CGM Chennai, at just over 10000teu was forced to wait out her call until 15:00 on Sunday. She was worked over night, and sailed before noon on Monday.

With CMA-CGM Chennai not entering port Saturday morning, other container ships were moving.

Dimitra C, the former MOL Priority, arrived, and  waited in the basin for Dalian Express to free the Western birth. With Dalian Express Clear, she backed in and tied up.

also working Fairview Cove on Saturday was Atlantic Sky in the the West birth.

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March 2014
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May 2014

April 2014

Clearing the Doctorate

Just a quick note to say that I appear to have hurdled the final step of the bureaucracy required to complete my Doctorate… thus unlocking additional bureaucracy pertaining to storing my doctorate in the library system. It would be nice to feel some sense of achievement or triumph at becoming the first person to have a doctorate in the aesthetics of play but it is more akin to that frustrating boss that you finally take down hours after it ceased to be fun…

The Calm Before the Storm

With a new baby approaching at the end of this month, I am about to go on Paternity leave. I will tie up the blogs when my leave begins, for now I am working hard on finishing up the script to Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms, and arranging the first voice recordings (more on this soon!). Here’s a few snippets to keep you going:

  • I am giving a talk on games as art at a gallery in Edinburgh on Thursday 1st May. The details are not confirmed yet, I will promote it here once the ink has dried.
  • Chaos Ethics is in production, and I expect to have galley proofs within a month – the PDF will then be available to reviewers, academics and bloggers.
  • From May, I will be running the largest Game Design internship programme in the world (40 interns!) – sorry, there is no availability remaining for new applicants.
  • My defection from Google Drive to has been a success (see Defecting from Google Drive for the background and a referral link). I had to use their customer support the other day – they replied within 12 hours, two humans assisted me, the problem was solved within two days. Compare this to Google’s policy of ‘you can complain, but we won’t listen to you because we always know best’.
  • My backlog of games now includes Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs and Dominique Pamplemousse in It's All Over Once The Fat Lady Sings!, both of which I’m looking forward to playing when I have time. If anyone has any time to give me, do let me know!

Something to say to me? Comments and blog-letters are always welcome!

Cross-posted from Only a Game.

Defecting from Google Drive

After Google Drive decided I could choose between having duplicates of all of my folders or deleting all of my files, I decided to defect. I plan to be free of Google for productivity software in three years, if I can.

My new choice for cloud storage is, which starts with 15 GB (+5 GB if you sign up with a referral link). Two features I really like:

  1. Backup Shortcuts: you can drop shortcuts/symbolic links into the folder to automatically arrange for the originals to be copied onto the cloud as a backup.
  2. Human Service: you can email the support desk and eventually summon a human. This beats Google’s method of “compete to see if we care!” approach to support.

If you fancy trying for yourself, here’s my referral link.


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12 July, 2018

Expanding Our Product Line With Nora

Throughout our history at Interface, customers have guided our development. With your questions, your input and your challenges, you’ve helped us pioneer carpet tile, reinvent it with biophilic design, rethink how industry deals with sustainability, and, recently, integrate our design approach with hard and soft flooring surfaces. And, over the years you’ve rewarded us for…

13 June, 2018

Better Products Make for +Positive Spaces

People’s expectations of interior spaces are becoming increasingly complicated. To keep pace (and even outpace) our complex lives, today’s built environments must offer more than ever before. It’s not enough for the spaces we live and work in to simply exist – they need to contribute to our lives, offering something positive.

29 September, 2017

The True Cost of Noise

Dead silence can be an intimidating working environment. Some sound in any workplace is generally desirable: pleasing background sounds like the gentle, indecipherable babble of colleagues speaking, one’s own choice of music or perhaps the sounds of nature coming through an open window. However, much of the sound in typical workplaces is undesirable: ringing phones,…

20 April, 2015

Sick Building Syndrome and the Importance of Good Air Quality

We are all familiar with the term ‘Sick Building Syndrome’ as a term that is bandied around to imply an unhealthy environment to be in. But what makes a building ‘sick’? And what are its effects? Sick Building Syndrome affects the well-being of those who spend time within it. The symptomatic effects are a sore…


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Boothless Audiometry VS Audiometry Without A Sound Booth

At first glance, this title may seem like a redundant statement, but, in reality, these are vastly different concepts and the sooner we address them the better. Let us first remind ourselves of what a soundbooth is actually for.

There is little consensus among standards for sound booths globally, there are also many countries where standards don't exist and where they do, they can differ from state to state and may never actually be enforced at all. With that said, there is one overarching concept that I am sure we can all agree on.

“Any test environment, whether screening or diagnostic, should be quiet enough to ensure that ambient noise levels do not interfere with the patient's ability to hear the tones being presented“

Audiometry without a booth.

Testing without a sound booth is not as rare as some might think. In fact, when it comes to “portable audiometers” the fact that most audiometers still need a sound booth or at least a test environment so quiet that a soundbooth would not be necessary is never really discussed.

Just because you can move an audiometer does not make it portable in the sense that its use still requires a soundbooth which, in my books, is about as portable as your fridge. Sure, you could move it, but, ice boxes and cooler bags exist so that you never arrive at a picnic with your fridge strapped on your back.

That being said, of course it is possible to test without a soundbooth. But, whether you should or not, will depend on whether the test space is quiet enough.

So how can you tell if your environment is quiet enough?

The easiest way to do this is to purchase a sound level meter. This will measure the ambient noise in the space and if this is in line with MPANL then you should be able to test.

But this has its own problems, not dissimilar to the problem with room certifications.

Obtaining a reading that shows the room is quiet enough is simple enough, but, not actually very helpful. Unless the space surrounding that room is under control and remains at that way, which is highly unlikely, testing without a soundbooth is simply not a reliable option for quality audiometry.

Boothless Audiometry

The soundbooth provides much needed attenuation which is an imperative when it comes to audiometry. The keyword here is ATTENUATION.

Boothless audiometry removes the need for a soundbooth but does not remove the key element of attenuation. Instead, boothless audiometry only alters the method of attenuation. This means that you are able to test outside a soundbooth but still retain the ability to attenuate sounds at the same level as a standard booth would.

Much like the problems faced with room certification, sound booths, quiet spaces and our own innate inability to subjectively monitor ambient noise correctly, we still need to account for intermittent sound that may penetrate and interfere with the test tones presented.

This not only needs to be accurate and objective but also needs to happen in real-time.

The main reason anyone would be interested in boothless audiometry is for the benefits it provides in portability that traditional equipment lacks.

While there are many “portable” audiometers on the market, one cannot ignore the fact that these audiometers do not perform any role in providing sound attenuation. In almost every case, these “portable” devices would still require a soundbooth or, at least, a controlled test environment that is so quiet a soundbooth would not be necessary. This almost completely negates the proposed benefit of portability.

Another misconception is that in order to achieve the portability that boothless audiometry offers one would need to compromise by losing some of the features available in traditional audiometer/booth combinations. .

This is no longer true.

The Solution

The KUDUwave offers an all-in-one, fully featured, portable solution that offers truly boothless audiometry. It attenuates to the same level as a standard soundbooth and includes active noise monitoring which protects from ambient noise peaks in real-time. The KUDUwave can either automatically retest the affected frequency or report on affected frequencies for retesting.

In terms of features, the KUDUwave offers AC, BC, High-frequencies, speech testing, tele-audiology, automatic and manual testing, calibration verification, cloud storage, assistive interpretation tools, patient management, and very soon, built-in tympanometry too.

This makes the KUDUwave the first of its kind and only audiological device that offers unflinching quality and uncompromised boothless portability.

The KUDUwave is available in three different variants. The KUDUwave Prime screening audiometer , the KUDUwave Plus diagnostic audiometer and lastly the KUDUwave Pro high-frequency audiometer

Practices can now rely on a single device for all their testing needs. The future is truly here.

Find Out More About KUDUwave Audiometers Thinking out the booth

Grant Slabbert

Written by Grant Slabbert

Grant heads up marketing and distribution at eMoyo. With over 20 years in creative marketing and entrepreneurship, he is passionate about helping hearing health professionals meet the needs of patients by improving their access to care.

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Smithsonian Libraries Presents: 50th Anniversary Lecture Series

by Erin Rushing

In 2018, the Smithsonian Libraries will celebrate 50 years as a unified library system. In honor of this special anniversary, the Libraries will host a lecture series celebrating the history of the Smithsonian and the role that books and literature have played in its growth over the years. These lectures are free and open to the public with the first on January 18th, 2018 (details below). We invite you to come learn with us!

Stipple Engraving of Portrait of James Smithson at Oxford. Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Archives, MAH 9077.

James Smithson and His Library

Heather Ewing
Author, The Lost World of James Smithson

Leslie Overstreet
Curator, Natural History Rare Books, Smithsonian Libraries

Thursday, January 18th, 2018. 6:30pm
National Museum of American History
Coulter Performance Plaza

Free and open to the public. RSVP here: http://s.si.edu/2klncN9

James Smithson (c.1765-1829), an 18th-century gentleman of science, included his library with his bequest to the United States, and those books now reside in the vault of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries’ Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History. The collection consists of 126 titles, primarily scientific monographs and journal articles, but also history and memoirs, political pamphlets, travel books and museum guides, and a few household items like cookbooks.

In honor of the Smithsonian Libraries’ 50th Anniversary, Heather Ewing, author of The Lost World of James Smithson, will offer a brief biography of the fabled Smithsonian donor, with discussion of how the library reflected the man. Leslie Overstreet, Smithsonian Libraries Curator of Natural History Rare Books, will follow with a few words about the history of the books at the Smithsonian and how these books relate to the formation of the Smithsonian Libraries. The presentation will include a display of selected books from Smithson’s collection.

S. Dillon Ripley Views Quadrangle. Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Archives, SIA2007-0157.

And save the date . . .

Writing Dillon Ripley: From Archive to Book
A talk with Roger D. Stone and Stephen T. Moskey

Friday, February 23rd, 2018
Ripley Center Lecture Hall.

Additional details coming soon!

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Filipino Food Pick: Tapsilog

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They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day since it fuels us with energy we need to start our day. So in today’s Filipino Food Pick, we highlight one of the best-tasting Filipino breakfasts known as Tapsilog.

Tapsilog is short for tapa (fried beef strips), sinangag (garlic-fried rice), and itlog (fried egg) – a very popular breakfast combination that is widely served in the Philippines. Just like any other Filipino meal, Tapsilog comes in a variety of flavors. For the tapa, some prefer it to be salty and spicy while others want to it sweet and peppery. But the best-tasting tapsilog is the one that has able to perfect the combination of these flavors. Serving this meal with an atchara, a pickled unripe papaya, will enhance and define its flavors more.

Today, a lot of ‘silog’ meals are available in numerous restaurants and food chains in the Philippines, thanks to the original and undeniably delectable tapsilog. Among the famous ‘silog’ meals include tocilog (fried sweetened pork), bangsilog (fried milkfish), porksilog (fried pork), and chixsilog (fried chicken). Best served at breakfast, these meals, just like tapsilog, can also be charmers at lunch and dinner.

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By: Ling Gomez


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Fighting for Frequent Deploying

by Michael Scepaniak on March 27, 2013 in software development

Pebbles in the Stream

You’re a software developer. You’ve been there. You (or your team) has just pushed a highly-anticipated release out to production. Success!

But, one/four/eight hours later, you start hearing customers complain about something being broken. The release contains a defect! Crap.

And so, the team scrambles into action. Developers diagnose the issue and ascertain the source of the defect. QA reproduces the defect in the test environment. A fix is coded and the project/support manager is brought up to speed on options. The change manager is notified of a coming emergency release and procedures are put into motion. A build is prepared and the fix is verified. Customers are notified of the coming fix and necessary downtime to get it into production. Apologetic calls are made to significant others and yet another Friday night is sacrificed in the name of making things right and keeping the customer happy(ish).

The next-day fallout is predictable. Calls are made for more code reviews, more unit tests, more regression tests, more sign-offs, and, of course, less frequent release cycles. In other words, more of everything but the actual deployments. Because, obviously, none of this would have happened if the defect hadn’t actually been put into prod! The response is predictably cautious and conservative. And, to me, maddening.

Mistakes will happen. There’s no getting around it. You can reduce the chances, frequency, and impacts of mistakes, but you can’t eliminate them entirely. The closer you get to zero defects, the closer you get to zero profits. In other words, it’s too expensive. Expensive in terms of IT budget and expensive in terms of market opportunity.

Given the inevitability of mistakes, you’re much better off planning how to correct them (as quickly as possible) rather than trying to prevent them (to an absolute degree). I know that the conventional corporate posture is cautious and measured. But I say fight it! Be aggressive. Be dynamic.

  • Instead of lengthening the release cycle, shorten it.
  • Instead of pushing back the deployment window to the middle of the night, put it smack in the middle of the day.
  • Instead of branching into a safe sandbox, merge into the main codebase continually.

From a traditional corporate IT standpoint, these actions would appear foolish. And, if you were to just lunge headlong into doing them without proper thought and planning, foolish is what you’d be. But there’s nothing foolish about targeting these actions as whatever-term goals. Because achieving them will make your IT department into a more motivated (“No more midnight deployments! Yay!“), more responsive (“Yes, ma’am. We’ll have that bug fixed for you right after lunch.“), more efficient (“No more merge hell! Yay!“) asset to the corporation.

The more often you do something, the better you get at it. Production deployments are no exception.

Have you worked someplace that went this route? Did it provide the benefits I envision? Am I off-base here?

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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

John March 27, 2013 at 9:57 pm

Good one Mikey. We are working on a Continuous Delivery initiative now. Releases should be a non-event. Etsy pushes to Production 15 times a day. There are a lot of details missing however… One thing you really need to do is measure your automated test cases. IMHO, you do this with code reviews and code coverage statistics. If you cover > X% of your code base with a regression, the release proceeds… Otherwise it doesn’t. I think this makes sense for unit/integration testing as well.

Michael Scepaniak March 28, 2013 at 6:37 pm

Thanks, John.

I intentionally avoided speaking of CD because I feel that most IT shops basically file it under “pipe dream”. But, the awesome thing about simply shooting for CD is that it requires excellence in so many supporting practices of your IT department:
– a “full” coverage, robust, fast-running unit test suite
– automated regression testing
– code metrics
– small batch commits
– sophisticated networking, clustering, and database admin/design
– code reviews
– etc.

Good luck with the initiative.

Matthew Reid September 24, 2013 at 10:52 am

I completely agree with this article. The push for continuous delivery continues..

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Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Competitor to the iPhone?

htc_leo_10 Looks like the World-conquering iPhone will soon have a rival in the shape of the (codenamed) ‘Leo’ from HTC. Web-wise, it’s about the company’s worst kept secret with quite a few photographs showing up on various geeky sites.

A little early for full specifications, but it has a 4.3 inch screen, running Windows Mobile 6.5 and is rumoured to utilise the new ‘snapdragon’ chip. That means big and fast!!!

Launch date is apparently November/December - I’m in the queue!!!! Yum Yum!!

More rumours


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Sunday, March 25, 2012

Birthday Girl

It’s Ann’s birthday today and together with Lee, we’re off to the Fortescue Arms in Billingborough to meet up with Denis, Bev and her bf, Liam for a celebratory lunch. It’s certainly doesn’t seem like a year ago that we were all at Club Diana in Wellingborough celebrating Ann’s ‘significant one’!!! Where has the past 12 months gone??

When we arrived, Denis, Bev and Liam were already there, as we’d taken the slightly longer route via Bourne to get there. We settled down with a drink and the menus and caught-up with everyones’ news.

When the food arrived, we were suddenly reminded how large the portions were ...and how hot the food was - ‘giant’ and ‘scorching’ in that order!!

Ann and I couldn’t recall the last time we’d been here, but looking back through my blogs it must have been prior to 2004 as there were no blog entries at all for this place.

We had a good chat and two hours later, suitable stuffed, we said our goodbyes and headed home – this time via the shorter route through Stamford.

We had a good journey back – 15 minutes quicker and covered it in just over an hour. Time for a chill-out and an early night in preparation for my taxi at 3.15am tomorrow morning.


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Screen Shot 2015-10-30 at 11.17.06 AMTexas attorneys can earn continuing legal education ethics credit by watching the inspirational video Courage, Hope, Help—TLAP Is There through TexasBarCLE starting now through the end of the year.

TexasBarCLE is featuring the video as part of its free online CLE offering titled “Not Alone—Help and Hope for the Impaired Lawyer,” which is available at for registration from November 2 to December 31. Attorneys who view the course can earn 0.5 hour of ethics credit.

The video, an initiative of 2015-2016 State Bar of Texas President Allan K. DuBois, introduces viewers to the life-saving services of the Texas Lawyers’ Assistance Program through the stories of three Texas attorneys who resumed successful lives and practices after seeking help for substance abuse problems. TLAP helps lawyers, judges, and law students whose professional performance is impaired because of substance abuse, dependency, or mental health issues.

All communication with TLAP is confidential by statute. Seek help now by calling 1-800-343-8527.


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As Austin grows larger—and less diverse in some respects—what is happening to the makeup of the city’s law firms? According to a report released August 9, some firms increased their hiring, retention, and promotion of attorneys of diverse races, genders, and sexual orientations during 2015.

The Austin Law Firm Diversity Report Card grades each firm that has responded to a survey assessing the office’s percentage of minority attorneys and partners over the previous year. The report card—started in 2011—is a collaboration among the Hispanic Bar Association of Austin, the Austin Black Lawyers Association, the Austin Asian American Bar Association, the South Asian Bar Association of Austin, and the Austin LGBT Bar Association.

To receive a grade of “A” on this year’s report card, Austin offices of responding firms had to be comprised of at least 15 percent minority attorneys, which is the percentage of minority attorneys practicing in Travis County. If a firm had less than 7.5 percent minority representation, it received a failing grade. Twenty-four of the 28 firms contacted by the group responded to the survey.

Here are some key takeaways from the report card, which can be downloaded and read in full at the Austin Black Lawyers Association website.

  • Notably, for the first time, the report card features data on women attorneys and partners at the various firms. But because its aim is to focus on racial and ethnic diversity, the report card did not consider these statistics when assigning grades.
  • Eight firms have hired openly LGBT attorneys, an increase from last year’s total of six. These included: Gardere Wynne Sewell, Husch Blackwell, The Fowler Law Firm, Baker Botts, Jackson Walker, Scott Douglass & McConnico, Norton Rose Fulbright, and Graves Dougherty Hearon & Moody. (According to the report card’s methodology, the final grade for each firm increased by no more than one letter as a result of the LGBT data.)
  • The total number of minority attorneys at the city’s largest firms increased to 195 in 2015, up from 173 in 2014 (and up from 121 minority attorneys reported in 2011).
  • Eleven firms earned A’s, including many that also received the top grade last year:
    • Andrews Kurth
    • Baker Botts
    • Duggins Wren Mann & Romero (up from last year’s B grade)
    • The Fowler Law Firm
    • Gardere Wynne Sewell
    • Husch Blackwell
    • Jackson Walker
    • Lloyd Gosselink Rochelle & Townsend (up from last year’s B grade)
    • Thompson, Coe, Cousins & Irons (up from last year’s B grade)
    • Vinson & Elkins
    • Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati


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Do You Have A Kong Toy For Your Dog? You NEED To Read This!

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Kong toys are amazing! They provide mental exercise, a source of entertainment for your pup, and are extremely versatile! Kong toys are durable, they can handle the cold of the freezer or the heat of the microwave, and are even dishwasher safe, which makes cleaning out what your dog can’t reach a breeze! Whether you have a puppy, a senior dog, an average chewer, or an aggressive chewer, there is a kong toy that will fit any personality! There are a ton of ways to play with your dog using a Kong toy.

Fill It: Peanut Butter

Probably the most common way to fill a kong is peanut butter. Dogs love it because of its amazing smell and taste, and people love it because it is relatively cheap and easy to stuff into a kong! Peanut butter can be a wonderful and easy way to fill a kong toy for your dog to enjoy, but as with any treat, moderation is key here.

Hide And Seek

A great rainy day game is hide and seek! The Kong’s hollow center allows you to stuff pretty much any treat you can imagine into it. Stuff it full of your dog’s favorite goodie, hide it around your house and let them search for it!

Fill It: Carrots

Carrots are an excellent treat alternative for dogs! Not all dogs like carrots, but many enjoy the crunchiness of them. I actually potty trained my dog using carrots as rewards! Filling your Kong with carrots will delight your pup, but do it in moderation. It is smart to remember that too much of anything is unhealthy, even healthy food!

Play Fetch

The shape and size of the Kong gives it an erratic bounce, which makes play time especially fun! My dog loves when I toss her Kong into a pile of snow and she has to go digging for it. Toss it across the yard, at the dog park, into the water, or wherever your favorite place to play is and watch your dog go crazy.

Fill it: Apple Slices

Apple slices are wonderful treats for your dog. They are crunchy, juicy, and delicious! Stuffing a few into a Kong will make any pup a happy pup. It is important to remember to NOT feed your dog the core of an apple.

Sniffing Game

When you have more than one Kong, you can line them up and hide a treat under just one of the Kongs. Bring your dog into the room and watch as they sniff out the Kong that has the hidden treasure!

Fill it: Plain Yogurt

Plain yogurt is a great source of calcium and protien for your pup, and an excellent choice for stuffing a kong. Try freezing it for a wonderful summer treat! Take care to choose a yogurt that has no sugars or artificial sweeteners. Some dogs do not do well with dairy, so make sure to avoid foods that upset your dog’s system.

Kong Popsicle

Stuff your Kong with peanut butter and stick a dog bone out of the end and before putting it in the freezer. Wait a few hours, pull it out, and you have a Kong popsicle for your pup to enjoy!

Change it up! Use the different suggestions in this article to mix up your dog’s Kong activities. You don’t want him to get bored or lose interest with the same thing every day. Keep in mind that whatever you are adding to your dog’s Kong will increase their calorie intake for the day. Give them treats in moderation, and always consult your veterinarian with any questions. Get your own Kong here!

How do you use your Kong?

Tearful Reunion As Cat Found After Camp Fire And 9 Days In The Wild: Click “Next” below!

Alli B. was born and raised in the Great Lakes State. She is a proud dog mom to an adorable mutt named Rue, a three-legged pup named Tripp, and a crazy cat mom to two feisty felines, Louie and Pikachu. She spends her days exploring all that Michigan has to offer with her husband and their fur-babies.
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Need a Good Read? Check Out Iowa City's Haunted Bookshop That is Scary Good!
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Need a Good Read? Check Out Iowa City's Haunted Bookshop That is Scary Good!

If you aren’t an Iowa City resident, odds are you’ve never heard of The Haunted Bookshop. This peculiar small business is nestled away in the Northside District of downtown.

The Haunted Bookshop was founded in 1978 and is Iowa City’s oldest second-hand book shop. While they’ve only been in their current location for three years, the roots of the residence on Gilbert Street run deep. The historic single-family Wentz House was built in 1847 and is a historic site because of its rare Greek Revival style.

The building is now filled with chairs and a couch for lounging. A lone table serves as a gathering place, and a piano is available for those who want to flex their musical muscles. Soft lighting from lamps fills nooks in the evening, while natural light from the large windows fills the shop during daylight hours. The shop even has pets, two cats named Nierme and Logan, who will pop up next to you when you least expect it.

Rooms that were once bedrooms and parlors have turned into mazes of bookshelves filled with the aroma of aged paper. Visitors learn quickly that trying to walk up the narrow stairwell quietly is impossible. Instead of the quiet hush of a library, The Haunted Bookshop is filled with the sounds of creaking wood, padding paws, and the occasional lilting notes of music.

For the past 38 years, the shop has kept an inventory of more than 50,000 used, vintage, and collectible books that cover more than 50 subjects. The Haunted Bookshop also carries a wide selection of games, toys, and cards.

The staff are always helpful and ready to share quirky book facts with you. Customers walk into what could’ve once been a sitting room to see a cash register counter and a desk piled with books and paperwork.

The big question many people ask is: How is it haunted? While many customers go there expecting to see flickering lights or experience a sudden drop in temperature, the shop is actually named after a novel of the same name by Christopher Morley.

Ghost or no ghost, The Haunted Bookshop is still a great place to go to find unique books for yourself or a friend. You never know what you might discover, and the staff is always adding more to the collection.

Photo credit: The Indie Bob Spot

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  1. Travel Iowa Team
    Travel Iowa Team
    This sounds like an absolute "don't miss" on our next visit to Iowa City! Thanks so much for the post.
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About that bite

There seems to be little doubt that Suarez, the Uruguayan biter, had to be punished after what he did during the match against Italy. I was watching the game on ESPN and saw when, for the first time in this World Cup, the nice and wired soccer commentators from ESPN looked mad – really mad. They were saying things like … Continuar lendo


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Friday, April 30, 2010

Faculty/Staff Golf Tourney

Today is the day for the faculty/staff golf tourney. The weather will hopefully hold up and I can hardly wait to get on the course! It rained most of the night, but now it appears it might clear off. We will have to wait and see what happens. We are to play rain or shine, so as long as the lightening stays away, it will be a good time.

I have only managed to play a few times so far this season. I am hoping to pick that up by a lot in the upcoming weeks. Get in some full rounds instead of just nine holes here and there. Hey, I take what I can get.

Anyway, everyone have a great weekend and I will post a update about the faculty/staff golf tourney hopefully next week... maybe some pictures and video too!

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Day 12 – First full day in Pune.

January 16th, 2010 by under Uncategorized. No Comments.

The differences between Delhi and Pune are super obvious!  Lets see, my teeth aren’t chattering, sound is only 74% car horns and overall it appears much less crowded.

Our first meeting was with Tata Ryerson, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Steel, the second most geographically diversified steel manufacturer in the world.   Tata Ryerson is the largest processor of steel in India.  You only need to walk around a major city in India and see the construction to realize steel is big business around here.

We got the opportunity to hear about the Tata Ryerson joint venture as well as the recent buyout of Ryerson’s 50% stake by Tata Steel Ltd.  Afterwards we split into groups and toured the processing plant.  As I walked around the facility I thought about my grandfather who worked for Great Lakes Steel just south of Detroit, MI and I remembered the mill along the river near my hometown that used to light the night sky bright yellow every time it poured molten steel.  The steel industry has undergone quite a transformation (to say the least) as a result of globalization.

Our next stop was the Ashraya Initiative for Children (AIC).  This was easily the most memorable of all of our company visits so far.  We met with Julia, one of the founding members of the Ashraya executive team and were astonished by how much she and her team have accomplished!  The initiative has two focuses.  The first is a residential program for 11 kids in need of permanent housing and a loving family atmosphere (the goal is to take on 15 kids when they get enough funding).  The second is an educational outreach program that provides meals and tutoring to 150 kids each day!

Julia walked half of us to the local slum all of her kids call home while the other half stayed behind to help the kids paint a wall with colorful handprints.  When we got to the entrance of the slum Julia hesitated to take us in.  She said that our presence would cause quite a scene.  An elderly woman appeared and greeted Julia.  The woman, a friend of Julia’s invited all of us into her home.  We walked past the only bathroom in the slum, through the narrow walkways and past countless children, removed our shoes and entered the woman’s home.  Immediately she ran off and secured two bottles of Pepsi to share with us.  I was struck by the woman’s generosity.

It was a matter of seconds until the entire doorway was filled with onlookers.  I’m pretty sure part of the curiosity was spurred by the fact that none of the kids had ever seen a size 14 loafer.  I think three kids sailed one of my shoes around a puddle.

All jokes aside these kids pushed and shoved to get into the house to see us.  It was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.  They went wild for the pictures and videos we took of them.  They would pose for a photo with a friend or sibling (the oldest would do the time honored and global tradition of putting “rabbit ears” on the younger kids’ heads) and then they would all gather around us to see their picture on the backs of our camera.  At one point there must have been over twenty people inside a 12 x 8 ft room!

The poverty in India is both overwhelming and heart wrenching.  It’s amazing to know that there are people like Julia and her team out there helping kids in need!


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We had a few people from the NetWeaver Gateway and Duet Enterprise product management and development teams attending and presenting in a lot of sessions during this years SAP TechEd in Amsterdam. My colleague Ella Morgulis already created a great look back (Amsterdam TechEd is closed… stay in touch till we meet next time!), so I do not want to focus too much on the “pure” NetWeaver Gateway related topics. Instead, I want to  concentrate on the Microsoft / SAP specific topics.

I have to say I am really amazed. I have been working in the SAP / Microsoft space for quite some time now but during this TechEd I was overwhelmed by the response. My very first Networking Expert session on Microsoft / SAP interoperability attracked easily more than 50 people. And that for a “simple” networking session. The response for the second session was equally great and we always had some very fruitful discussions during and after these session.

In addition to these two networking sessions, we also hosted two customer roundtables for T-Systems and Kaefer Wanner. Here both customers talked about their experience during their latest Duet Enterprise projects. We had scheduled both sessions for 1,5 hours — but in both cases I think we could have easily extended the time to 2 hours. The interest and discussions were just great.

Finally at the pod the traffic was also really good. I had lots of very interesting discussions and the feedback that we got both from customers and partners was very encouraging. Not only Duet Enterprise, but also the new NetWeaver Gateway Productivity Accelerator for Microsoft is very well received.

We clearly heard that a lot of SAPs customers are using Microsoft Office (and like mentioned in a recent study by Forrester it is not always the latest and greatest Office tool) and are looking for ways to enrich these productivity tools with data from SAP. When I demoed how easy it is to bring workflows, contacts or calendar objects with a few clicks in Outlook, I could see eyes lightening up. All the technical plumbing starting with SSO, Supportability or things like CSRF token handling is already done for you. It is not a fixed scenario, but now you have a great foundation to build applications that are designed for life from the very beginning.

One other interesting fact was the great collaboration that we have with Microsoft. Their pod was only a few meters away from ours and quite often we either asked customers to get additional information from Microsoft, or we got customers who were directed from the Microsoft pod to our demo pod. It was really a great team-work and we also had quite a few discussions together.

Of course there were also quite a lot of (similar) questions and I noted them down. Very soon we will publish an FAQ and list down all these questions (and their answers of course :-).

In the meantime — please feel free to reach out to us. We have also scheduled a Webinar for November 12th where we will talk about

NetWeaver Gateway Productivity Accelerator for Microsoft . Feel free to register at:

Update 23.11.2013:

During TechEd I also had the opportunity to interview William van Strien from The Next View. The Interview is now available on YouTube.

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Here’s a step by step Tutorial

You know, there are sometimes other systems putting textes in your system and the customer want to print it out without a difference in it.

Normally the Form has 72 Characters printing in a Line.

So, here’s a possibility:

It’s a german system, So, the Settings are below the hat-symbol 😉

The copy is from the SAP-Form “SYSTEM”

Create your own Sapscriptform with the dimensions you need. Perhaps another Font, recommended is Courier.

Then go to SE75

Display the Text Objects and IDs, search your Object, you want to change. This is what you see ( It’s just an example, so don’t be surprised by not finding the same names)

Last column, there is the form, used for the printouts

Change the Form to your new developed and the output will match as you mentioned.

If there is something missing or not that good to understand, just let me know.

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Environment: SAP S/4HANA and SAP Fiori hub deployment

Versions: SAP Fiori Front End server 3.0 and SAP S/4HANA 1610 FPS 00

This document will help you to understand how to achieve the connectivity between your Fiori and S/4hana landscape systems which will be having multiple clients for testing purpose in sandbox or quality system environment.

Scenario: Two clients in both front end and back end systems and need to establish connection between individual clients

Example: 500 and 510 are two clients in front end server (SGQ), 200 and 210 are two clients in back end (SSQ) server. Connection needs to be established between SSQ200 to SGQ500 and SSQ210 to SGQ510.

  1. Need to remove client and user in all ABAP RFCs for Standard Aliases. Check Current user and Make Trust relationship active

2.  Need to create two HTTP destinations with names suggested as <SID><CLNT> in frontend system

3.  Mention different clients in both destinations and maintain logon procedure as trust relationship and current user with SSL Active.

4.  Maintain the table /UI2/V_ALIASMAP with mapping between source and target system alias as below.

In the same way we need to maintain for all other standard aliases also which we use in our configurations.

After this tried to login to WD and GUI for HTML Apps and its going to correct clients.

5.  For remaining standard Fiori Configurations for second client please refer the guide from below link.

Also please refer KBA 2460414 for more details.

Please post your comments and questions.

Thanks and Regards,

Karthik Kanagala

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  1. Former Member

    Hi Former Member

    Thanks for very good doc.

    Kindly guide me, How to configure from one Front end Client( say 200)  with Two Backend Client (300 & 400).

    Thanks / Amit Sharma

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New Outlook Calendar best practices document for Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013

For about as many years as you’ve used Outlook, you’ve likely used the guidance in the older Outlook meeting requests: Essential do’s and don’ts article. However, if you read the older document, you almost certainly noticed that the document only generally applies to newer Outlook versions. Over the last few years, many enhancements were made to the Outlook Calendar. This made much of the guidance in the older document unnecessary.

The new Best practices when using the Outlook Calendar document was created exclusively for Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013 clients. It supplements (not replaces) the Essential do’s and don’ts document. The older document still applies to Outlook 2003 and earlier versions.

Read the entire article carefully. You will notice there are many changes, including clearly marked sections directed at Exchange mailbox users.

This newly published best practices document is the culmination of many months of work by numerous individuals and was developed with the help of the support and product teams.

Abdias Ruiz

Comments (2)
  1. asgaitonde says:

    nice developments–MICROSOFT ENGGS.

  2. TL_guy says:

    nice to have those best practices revisited and up to date. Always comes in handy when talking about user education.

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Ride like an ANZAC! Share the spirit of the Australian Maccabees

The 100th anniversary of the Battle of Beersheba is such an important historical milestone in Australia’s psyche that the Australian Prime Minister will visit Israel for the first time to attend the commemoration with Prime Minister Netanyahu at his side. I encourage you to join this unforgettable journey through history with its joyful, infectious spirit.

On October 31, exactly 100 years since the heroic battle, Israelis, Australians, New Zealanders and anyone interested will be given the opportunity to ride like an ANZAC and revive history. The Centennial bike tour will take you back 100 years, in a 100 Kilometers track (covered over two days) that follows the trail used by the ANZACs (Australian & New Zealand Army Corps) that conquered the city of Beer Sheba and opened the path to Jerusalem.

This amazing bike ride is attracting hundreds of mountain-biking enthusiasts from around the world who are coming to enjoy the famous single-biking ANZAC trail of Kibbutz Beeri to Beer Sheba via Ramat ha Negev. Three tracks are being organized to suit all levels of riders; a 2-day 100km trail, a 1-day ride and a 13km family and community ride on 31st October.

Riders will also enjoy an Australian and New Zealand cultural event with a kosher BarBQ. The climax of the event will be witnessing the spectacular reenactment of the horse charge by some of the original descendants of the soldiers, fully dressed in their grandparent’s WW1 military uniforms mounted on horseback and charging into the sunset.

Preparing the Anzac ride with former Ambassador to Israel, Dave Sharma (in red)

How is it that this miraculous event is commemorated 14,000km away in Australia but is unheard of in Israel? Throughout Australia and NZ, in small towns and cities there are war memorials that commemorate the Anzacs who fell in the Middle East campaign. Tens of thousands of Australians wake up for the dawn service to commemorate the fallen every year and the crowds are increasing every year. The three thousand seats reserved for the centennial commemoration at the cemetery in Beersheba were booked out in March this year mainly by Australians coming for the event. A waiting list of another 3,000 people has accumulated to date. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs cannot believe the enthusiasm and will have difficulty offering seats to their VIPs.

As an Australian/Israeli parent with two children in the Israeli school system, I am surprised to see that war history is focused on post 1948. As we continue to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem and prepare for the 70th anniversary of independence, we mustn’t forget the 100th anniversary of the liberation of Jerusalem from the Ottoman Empire. This compelled me to highlight this chapter of Australian history as it is an important chapter in Israel’s history that few Israelis know about or appreciate.

The Anzac victory in October 1917 set in train some of the most remarkable events in modern history—the Balfour Declaration, the liberation of Jerusalem, the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the British Mandate in Palestine and ultimately the establishment of the State of Israel. There is no doubt that the Battle of Beersheba and the last cavalry charge in modern history by the Anzac light horseman freed the path for General Allenby’s soldiers to advance to Jerusalem and change the course of history in the Middle East. As a child brought up in the local Australian school system we were taught of the 8,709 Anzacs who tragically lost their lives in Gallipoli, Turkey and the gallant victory of the 800 Anzacs in Beersheba, Palestine.

Infatuated with tales of bravery, mate ship and sacrifice, the Anzac soldiers were a mythical historical version of Israel’s earliest pioneers. They were kind characters and role models of treating others with equality.

Most recently, the 20th Maccabiah opening ceremony hosted 10,000 Jewish athletes from 80 countries in the world during Jerusalem’s 50th year celebration. 580 of these Jewish athletes were from Australia in the second largest overseas delegation. This is a remarkable representation from the Australian Jewish community of 80,000. As a former Australian who represented Australia in 5 Maccabiah games as well as world championships in karate, I take great pride in living in Israel during this historical and joyous time. I welcome you and your families to join me in the upcoming exciting reunion between Israel and Australia in a fun, historical and unforgettable experience.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull sending a personal message to the 580 Australian Maccabiah athletes at the opening ceremony of the 20th Maccabian Games.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull sending a personal message to the 580 Australian Maccabiah athletes at the opening ceremony of the 20th Maccabian Games.

Danny Hakim, a dual Australian and Israeli citizen and two-time world karate silver medalist is the founder of Budo for Peace, Chairman of Kids Kicking Cancer Israel and a board member of Maccabi World Union.

The ride is organized by two nonprofit organizations – Budo for Peace and SHEKEL, and all revenues will support empowerment programs for children with cancer through Kids Kicking Cancer and special needs with Shekel.

To register and more information see the Anzac Ride website. Places are limited.

About the Author
Danny Hakim is Founder and Chairman of Budo for Peace and Chairman of Kids Kicking Cancer Israel. Danny - a 2 times world silver medalist holds a 7th-degree black belt in Karate from Master Kanazawa and was inducted into the Maccabi Hall of Fame. Budo for Peace, an educational NGO uses martial arts as a platform for empowering children and promoting peace.


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So for my birthday back in the Summer, my darling boyfriend bought me a Fitbit flex 2.

The first thought that ran through my mind was,”Is he trying to tell me something? Do I look like I’ve put on weight?” Well, actually I have, 5kg to be precise, oops, it’s true what they say, this whole being in a relationship thing and being ‘comfortable’ definitely makes you put on weight!

He assured me however that this wasn’t the case and that it was because he know’s I like going to the gym and going on long dog walks and thought I’d like to track my activity.

Well, it’s since become an obsession, nothing beats that feeling when your wrist starts buzzing and the disco lights start flashing, letting you know that you’ve smashed your 10,000 steps target.

I tend to feel particularly smug if I’ve gotten up early, been to the gym in the morning and smashed the target before noon.

And then there’s the flip side, when you’ve been to the gym in the morning and you’re on track and then you go out with the dog and half way round your walk, you realise that you forgot to put your Fitbit back on when you got out of the shower! Nightmare!

I’m pretty active anyway so on a day when I’ve been to the gym, it’s not unusual for me more than double the target.

Fitbit Flex 2 had been great for tracking my morning runs which are usually done on the treadmill in the gym and my dog walks with Dolly, it’s even counted some of my erm ‘bedroom activities’ as ‘steps’ . . . Oh well, I guess sexercise is a real thing, Queen Kylie did sing a song about it after all!

Now I just need to lose that 5kg before my Christmas holiday!


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Robert Pinsky on the poetic biblical translating of Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke

November 3, 2012

Anthologists, eager to compensate for patriarchal societies, sometimes appear to scrape up women for inclusion in their books. No apology is required for Mary Herbert’s accomplished, inventive work as a translator. Her version of “Psalm 52” uses rhyme— that barbarous, jangly departure from classical dignity—as part of an angry, urgent music. Interestingly, “Psalm 52” denounces those who are great and prominent, but false: a phenomenon that the Countess of Pembroke was well placed to observe.

Her version is less compact than the other great translation of her time, and more performative. The King James prose version has the force of simplicity and compression, a clinching denunciation. Mary Herbert makes the psalm into more of a song: an inspired rant, extravagant yet disciplined. (In her final line, “annoy” has become a weaker word in contemporary English than its root, which indicated hatred.) Comparing and appreciating the two translations, prose and poetry and appreciating both, can be a lesson in writing.

Robert Pinsky, translator poet in Slate Magazine (the rest here)

2 Comments leave one →
  1. November 3, 2012 8:39 pm

    That comment didn’t work – sorry – It’s on Page 91 of an online Google book, but Iframe html was disallowed by the comment code.

  2. November 4, 2012 9:14 am

    Thanks, Bob. This got me looking more closely again at the Sidney Psalms.

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The problems with MOOCs 1: Robo-essay grading

April 5, 2013

Massively Open Online Courses (MOOC) are all the rage in 2013 academia. These are free courses offered on the Web designed to be taken by tens of thousands of students at a single time – offered at no cost to the student.  There is much that is desirable about the MOOC model – in the same way that public libraries are desirable.  But the quality of the total educational experience is dubious.

Several of the MOOC providers are for-profit. (How will they make money?  Perhaps by selling certificates attesting to students’ participation in MOOCs.)  But arguably the most aggressive and prestigious MOOC consortium is EdX – it currently offers courses from Harvard, MIT, and UC Berkeley; and beginning in Fall 2013, it will expand to include more schools from the US (U. Texas, Rice, Georgetown, Wellesley), Canada (McGill, U. Toronto), Europe (TU Delft, EPFL) and even Australian National U.  I’ve been focusing my attention on EdX – both because of the prestige of member schools and because it is non-profit.

As I will report in subsequent posts, I’ve discovered some questionable pedagogy in several courses I’ve examined.  But before discussing my own investigations, I’d like to point to a news story from yesterday – John Markoff’s New York Times report that EdX is releasing software to allow MOOC instructors (or a conventional college instructor) to have computers auto-grade essays.

There are many problems with auto-grading essays – contemporary automated graders cannot actually “understand” the essay, so instead it must depend on superficial features – features that can be gamed.  In particular, automated graders cannot address the underlying logic, factual assertions, or actual meaning of a student essay.  MIT’s Les Perelman has demonstrated this repeatedly.  The BLT blog previously reported how a nonsense essay by Les Perelman (quoted in red here) received the maximum possible grade from automated grading software.  (Perelman gives a good critique of studies of automated grading software here.)

Using automated grading software in an online environment will allow students, as they repeatedly use the software, to learn what superficial features (e.g., “use big words”) cause the automated grader to give high grades.  We will not be teaching students skills in critical thinking or cogent writing, but rather conditioning them to successfully “game” automated grading software.

I’m simply stunned that EdX member institutions are taking this seriously.  But, according to Markoff’s report, they are:

[T]he growing influence of the EdX consortium to set standards is likely to give the technology a boost. On Tuesday, Stanford announced that it would work with EdX to develop a joint educational system that will incorporate the automated assessment technology.

Indeed, one of the founders of one of the commercial MOOC provider argues that this training students to “game” the grader is actually a benefit, since it will make learning fun:

“It allows students to get immediate feedback on their work, so that learning turns into a game, with students naturally gravitating toward resubmitting the work until they get it right,” said Daphne Koller, a [Stanford] computer scientist [professor] and a founder of [for-profit MOOC provider] Coursera.

Teaching good writing is admirable.  Teaching critical thinking is admirable.  But the MOOCs are proposing something different:  teaching students to submit and resubmit an essay until a student learns the idiosyncrasies of the automated grading software and is able to regularly “trick” it into giving good grades.

6 Comments leave one →
  1. April 5, 2013 9:26 pm

    FWIW I wrote parts of some of the automatic grading engines in use today. Those were never intended to grade for more than style. They was a content engine that could deconstruct individual sentences that could be fed an essay and then pair off sentences against gradable frequently occurring claims. But that would only work for very narrowly defined questions. Otherwise these things were designed to speed up the process of human graders.

    They were never meant to be used independently when they were built. I don’t think it was ever even discussed given how unsuitable they obviously were.

  2. April 8, 2013 4:45 pm

    CD-Host — thanks so much for your frank comment.

    I had an animated discussion with some faculty colleagues on this today.

    What amazes me is that there is a significant fraction of colleagues who are perfectly OK with automated grading.

  3. April 8, 2013 5:00 pm

    What amazes me is that there is a significant fraction of colleagues who are perfectly OK with automated grading.

    Maybe if they knew what we were doing behind the scenes they wouldn’t be. I’ll give you an example. I wrote a collocations part which matches pairs of words that occur frequently together in english: domestic cat, web posting… Certainly colocations are used by foreigners with a high degree of frequency (mistakes). Certain colocations are used by smart writers. Certain colocations are used by terrible writers. Statistically we can group these into about a 1/2 dozen groups and score an essay.

    The computer has no idea what these colocations mean! We are literally saying this is the sort of word pair people from southern asia who have language difficulties use so it is statistically more likely you are making all sorts of other grammar errors. We are literally saying this is the sort of word pair people who study hard used so it is statistically more likely you are saying something correct.

  4. April 8, 2013 5:09 pm

    I had an animated discussion with some faculty colleagues on this today.

    I had to read this twice. In the context, at first glance, the sentence read: “I had an animation discussion … on this today”

  1. The problems with MOOCs 2: | BLT
  2. The Problem with MOOCs 3: Homework | BLT

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