text:
Oak View, Ocean View parents, teachers, students speak out against Rainbow re-zoning

Oak View neighborhood residents and people with ties to the Ocean View School District showed up in force to Monday’s City Council meeting to express opposition to a zoning change for property owned by Rainbow Environmental Services.

Many feared that the proposed zoning change for the property near two school sites would do nothing to solve health issues that come from Rainbow’s waste dump.

The Council ultimately voted 4-3 to pass the zoning change, but not until after roughly two hours of public comment.

“The conditions my students and staff live with daily are nothing less than terrible,” said Oak View Elementary School Principal Laura Dale-Pash. She mentioned the stench coming from the dump as well as dust that settles over the school from Rainbow’s operations. “I cannot imagine more industrial activity in our small area.”

A longtime teacher at Oak View Elementary, Linda Saez brought up concerns about health issues in the area being linked to poverty.

“I can’t help but wonder how different the situation would be if Rainbow was located in any other Huntington Beach neighborhood,” Saez said. “I can’t help but wonder if the demographics of our almost exclusively Hispanic neighborhood have been relied upon heavily because (residents) won’t complain or protest.”

One student at Ocean View High School, Leslie Gaspar, said her mother would have liked to speak at the hearing but couldn’t because she only speaks Spanish.

“Everything going on is bad for us students,” said the sophomore, who also attended Oak View elementary and preschool. “My siblings have asthma. Them breathing this (dust) affects their lungs and then they’ll not attend school because they’re sick. Because I have a large family and my dad doesn’t get much income, we can’t pay for all these medicines.”

But as Saez also said, the relationship between the Oak View neighborhood – where residents live at poverty levels much higher than other parts of Huntington Beach – and Rainbow is complicated; many people who live in Oak View work at and have stake in the company.

“We are ingrained in this city,” said Rainbow spokeswoman Sue Gordon. “We are also ingrained in the Oak View community. Some of the employees live and own property there … We’ve invested over $75,000 in the past 10 years to keep the community clean.”

Despite citizen concerns and photos presented by a school district attorney of pollution surrounding the two schools, council members largely responded by explaining that the measure before them on Monday had nothing to do with air quality in the neighborhood.

“I am definitely a partner with Oak View (Elementary) School,” said Councilman Jim Katapodis. “But that’s not what this is about today. It’s about re-zoning to make it industrial instead of residential.”

While the resolution did narrowly pass to re-zone the property, Mayor Connie Boardman, Councilwoman Jill Hardy and Councilman Joe Shaw voted in opposition.

Contact the writer: azak@ocregister or 714-796-7845

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text:
Suns still upbeat despite Game 5 loss

The Phoenix Suns are not only a resilient bunch, but an optimistic group of players, too.

First they bounced back from a 2-0 deficit in the best-of-seven Western Conference finals to even the series then quickly shifted their focus from a surprising loss Thursday to forcing a possible Game 7.

The Suns lost Game 5 on Thursday on a last-second shot by Ron Artest that gave the Lakers a 3-2 edge in the series, but they weren't despondent or even discouraged by the sudden turn of events in the waning moments of the game.

Phoenix, which trailed by as many as 18 points in the third quarter, caught the Lakers down the stretch and tied the game on Jason Richardson's 3-pointer with 3.5 seconds left.

"We just fought back," Channing Frye said. "We just started believing in each other and just kind of started playing our style of basketball, just picking up the pace. The guys were playing extremely unselfish, attacking the rim and being aggressive."

On the next possession, though, Kobe Bryant took a pass from Lamar Odom, but his jumper fell short of the basket and Ron Artest took the rebound and put it back for the game-winner. The Suns, stunned by Artest's shot, walked dazed off the court.

Their shock didn't last long, though.

"We got back into the locker room (and) we already started shifting our focus to Game 6," Suns guard Steve Nash said. "If we continue to encourage each other, continue to draw the best out of each other, you know, I think we can have a lot of positive energy back home in Game 6. Our fans will be terrific and we have a lot of belief (in ourselves)."

Nash has seen his share of remarkable game-winners and this was just one more.

"We just got to be really fortunate it didn't happen in a deciding game," Nash said. "So at the end of it, we go home and got a chance to hold serve. And like I said, we have a great opportunity after that to come back here for a Game 7 and avenge this one."

Said Amar'e Stoudemire: "We got to swallow this one .... We had a chance to win. We didn't quite pull it out. We got to get back to Phoenix, try to get that win, tie the series back up. See if we can do that."

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text:
Clark's heroics fail to lift Lakers

View slideshow
The Lakers' Robert Sacre (50) is blocked by San Antonio Spurs' Tim Duncan, center, while trying to score during the first quarter on Wednesday in San Antonio.ERIC GAY, AP

SAN ANTONIO – Once the proud favorites, the Lakers have now tried the scrappy underdog thing. They don't win that way, either.

Despite summoning some inspiration from an out-of-nowhere outing from Earl Clark — "Earl-sanity"? — the Lakers still lost to San Antonio on Wednesday night, 108-105, dropping their record to 15-20.

The New York Knicks were 8-15 to start last season before Jeremy Lin suddenly took over Mike D'Antoni's team and then conquered the world through his "Lin-sanity" dominance, spurring seven consecutive victories by the Knicks, who eventually did make the playoffs. Clark's 22-point, 13-rebound splash was similarly shocking considering he had scored 12 points all season.

The bottom line, though, was that Clark missed a desperation 3-pointer at the buzzer — after Kobe Bryant twice and Antawn Jamison once also could've tied it down the stretch — and the Lakers lost for the fifth consecutive time.

Not quite a Cinderella story there.

"It's mental lapses as much as anything," Lakers guard Steve Nash said of the feeble defense that was limited for the second consecutive game by the physical absences of injured big men Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol and Jordan Hill.

San Antonio led, 103-91, when Clark re-entered the game for rookie Robert Sacre with 5:09 to play. The Lakers got hot, the Spurs lost their focus, and the Lakers at least could take something of a moral victory into another daunting game Friday against visiting Oklahoma City.

Gasol is scheduled to be examined by a neurologist today to determine if he could return Friday. The takeaway from Wednesday is certainly that with a little better defense, similar effort and the return of Howard and Gasol, maybe the Lakers won't stay this pumpkin.

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text:
Bears maul Cougars

Robert Griffin ran for 220 yards with two touchdowns in leading the Baylor Bears to a 45-17 win over the Washington State Cougars on Friday night.

Baylor easily covered the 5-point spread, and the 62 points sailed OVER the posted total of 50.

Griffin completed 7-of-15 pass attempts for 130 yards and a TD in the win.

Chantz Staden ran for 25 yards off seven carries with a TD in the loss.


text:
Yankees knockoff Dodgers

The New York Yankees scored four runs in the top of the ninth Sunday night and Robinson Cano delivered a two-run home run in the tenth, as they defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 8-6.

The Yankees were a -110 favorite in the game and the 14 runs scored went OVER the posted over/under total (7).

Alex Rodriguez hit a two-run home run for the Yankees and Chad Huffman was 2-3 with two RBI.

Rafael Furcal was 2-2 with two RBI and a run scored for the Dodgers, while Reed Johnson was 3-4 with two runs scored.


text:
Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament - Clemson Defeats Georgia Tech 69-65 - Recap

Clemson grabbed a 69-65 win over Georgia Tech on Thursday, behind an 18-point effort from K.J. McDaniels at Greensboro Coliseum.

Bettors who backed Clemson were disappointed, as they failed to cover the closing number of 4.5.

Clemson got 12 points from Damarcus Harrison and another 10 points from Rod Hall. Rod Hall contributed 2 assists, while Jaron Blossomgame cleaned the glass with 9 rebounds.

Georgia Tech got 23 points from Trae Golden in a losing cause and another 13 points from Robert Carter, Jr.. Marcus Georges-Hunt contributed 3 assists for them, while Robert Carter, Jr. had 9 rebounds.

Clemson trailed at halftime, 29-27.

Clemson won the battle of the boards, outrebounding their counterparts 40-37.


text:
Teacher had been investigated before

David Bond
David Bond
The teacher sentenced this week for the indecent assault of a boy was investigated by the Teachers' Council three years ago.

David Russell Bond, 62, was sentenced in the Dunedin District Court after he indecently assaulted a boy at Wanaka on May 18, 1975.

He received four months' home detention and 100 hours' community work and is to pay $4000 emotional harm reparation.

The Otago Daily Times sought comment from both the Ministry of Education and the New Zealand Teachers' Council about their involvement with Bond.

New Zealand Teachers Council director Dr Peter Lind said Bond had signed a formal undertaking not to teach, and "is being investigated by the council's complaints assessment committee at present".

He confirmed the teacher had been investigated by the committee in 2011, and "there was insufficient evidence to revoke his practising certificate at that time".

The committee introduced rigorous monitoring of Bond's interaction with pupils, which lasted for two years.

Ministry of Education enablement and support sector head Katrina Casey said the ministry was advised at the start of this year of the allegations of historic offending.

"Ministry staff have worked closely with [the] school where Mr Bond was teaching when the investigation began.

"We are aware of the action the school is taking and can say that it has sought appropriate advice and support, is taking appropriate action as the current employer and following their employment processes."

Bond had not been teaching at the school since the start of this year.

All schools had employment processes in place to appropriately manage situations such as this, she said.

Specialist advice was available to boards of trustees from the New Zealand School Trustees' Association and they could call on the ministry or take independent legal advice, she said.

The ministry treated seriously matters of sexual offending by anyone working in a school or with pupils, and was available to provide advice and support as needed.

"The two critical things from our perspective is that action is taken when allegations are made to ensure no student in the school setting is at risk and that the right employment processes are followed to ensure a defensible and appropriate outcome."

A police spokeswoman said police evaluated all the information provided and which led to the subsequent court action.

"As with any case, if we receive any further information that we are able to act on, we will follow it up."

Police were pleased with the quick resolution of this case for the victim's sake, she said.

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text: RT Generic A1 Holz, Carsten A. T1 OECD — China Governance Project JF OECD Statistics Working Papers YR 2005 FD Jan 19 AB The purpose of this working paper is to provide an overview of recent discussions on the quality of Chinese data, and to describe and evaluate the institutional organization and methods of data compilation in China. The first part outlines key criticisms of Chinese data and examines their validity. The second part describes the institutional organization of statistical data compilation in China--with a focus on the National Bureau of Statistics as China's statistical authority--and the latest innovations in data collection. The third part evaluates institutional aspects and data collection methods with reference to the data problems noted in the first part by pointing out some shortcomings and discussing various reform proposals ... PB Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development DO 10.1787/640443218516 UL http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/;jsessionid=3s6nu93vdpmhf.x-oecd-live-02content/workingpaper/640443218516


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text:
George Mason, Harvard, Stanford get national academic honor

Three NCAA Division I-II men’s volleyball teams received a national honor for their performance in the classroom during the 2011-12 school year.

The American Volleyball Coaches Association announced Friday that George Mason, Harvard and Stanford earned the annual Team Academic Award.

To be eligible for this award, a college or high school volleyball team must have at least a 3.30 cumulative team grade point average on a 4.0 scale or have a 4.10 GPA on a 5.0 scale.

Stanford, George Mason and Harvard were among the 534 teams ranging from boys’ and girls’ high school volleyball to men’s and women’s college volleyball to receive the AVCA award. The 534 teams was an all-time record — beating the previous record of 481 set last year.

This is the fifth consecutive year that Stanford has received the Team Academic Award. The Cardinal was also one of six men’s volleyball teams to score a perfect 1,000 in the NCAA’s latest Academic Progress Rate released earlier this summer.

George Mason’s Team Academic Award was the first time in its program history that it received the annual honor. In addition, Harvard before this year last won the Team Academic Award in 2009 and 2010.

Along with these three Division I-II schools, four Division III teams — Bard College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, NYU and Vassar College — received the academic honor.

The seven teams marks the most NCAA men’s volleyball teams to earn the Team Academic Award in a single year.


text:
Albania heavy oil field in redevelopment

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Dec. 8 -- A unit of Bankers Petroleum Ltd., Calgary, is redeveloping giant Patos-Marinza heavy oil field in central Albania under an existing license between state Albpetrol SHA and the National Petroleum Agency of Albania.

Reworking and equipping wells with progressive cavity pumps brought production to 2,300 b/d from 57 wells in early December compared with about 600 b/d when Bankers signed the contract with state Albpetrol in mid-2004. Bankers unit Saxon International Energy Ltd. holds 100% working interest in all of the field's 2,500 original wells.

Albpetrol separately produces 3,000 b/d from 600 wells in the field.

Patos-Marinza, discovered in 1928 and placed on production in 1939, is producing 10-11° gravity oil from an estimated 1.95 billion bbl of original oil in place in the Driza, Marinza, and Gorani formations at 300 ft to 5,900 ft deep. Historical recovery rates have been only 6% of OOIP, Bankers said.

Bankers plans to submit a final development plan to Albpetrol by yearend. That plan is to involve recompleting a total of 600-900 wells to western standards under primary heavy oil recovery techniques.

Bankers exported 22,000 bbl of Patos-Marinza crude from the Adriatic Sea port of Vlore, Albania, to an undisclosed Italian refinery and plans a second shipment soon.

Patos-Marinza is one of continental Europe's largest onshore oil fields in terms of OOIP. The 44,000-acre field peaked at 13,000 b/d in the early 1960s. Consulting engineers estimated P50 reserves at Sept. 30, 2004, at 35 million bbl proved and 98.2 million bbl proved plus probable.

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Save Article Instructions

Front crude futures contract approaches $75/bbl

Sam Fletcher
Senior Writer

HOUSTON, May 3 -- Front-month crude futures prices again approached $75/bbl May 2 as the standoff between the United Nations Security Council and Iran over that country's nuclear program fanned fears of possible supply disruptions.

Traders also were nervous after the Bolivian army seized oil and natural gas fields in a move by President Evo Morales to nationalize the entire chain of Bolivia's hydrocarbons industry. The leftist president with close ties to Fidel Castro in Cuba and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela had vowed during his election campaign to increase state control over Bolivia's natural resources. Meanwhile, a fire shut down an Italian refinery in Sicily (OGJ Online, May 2, 2006).

At a May 2 industry panel session at the annual Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Mohammed Hamel, head of the energy studies division of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, blamed increased trading in the commodities futures markets for exacerbating volatility in energy prices. That is due to market fears rather than any real shortages of crude, he said. "Even after the hurricanes (Katrina and Rita in 2005), there were no shortages of energy," Hamel said.

US inventories
The Energy Information Administration said May 3 that commercial US crude inventories increased by 1.7 million bbl to 346.7 million bbl during the week ended Apr. 28 and are at the highest level since May 29, 1998. Gasoline stocks rose by 2.1 million bbl to 202.7 million bbl in that same period, "due to a large build in blending components," said EIA. Distillate fuel fell by 1.1 million bbl to 114.5 million bbl, with declines in both diesel and heating oil.

US imports of crude were down by 53,000 b/d to 9.8 million b/d during that week. Input of crude into US refineries declined by 21,000 b/d to 15 million b/d, with units operating at 88.8% of capacity.

Energy prices
The June contract for benchmark US light, sweet crude finished at $74.61/bbl, up 91¢ for the day, after trading at $73.50-74.90/bbl May 2 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The July contract increased 84¢ to $76.06/bbl. On the US spot market, West Texas Intermediate at Cushing, Okla., was up by 91¢ to $74.62/bbl. Gasoline for June delivery gained 2.85¢ to $2.18/gal on NYMEX. Heating oil for the same month advanced by 2¢ to $2.08/gal.

The June natural gas contract increased by 5.1¢ to $6.60/MMbtu on NYMEX, as it followed the crude market higher. "The fear in the market lured more hedge fund money, which has flooded in across the commodities complex," reported analysts at Enerfax Daily.

In London, the May IPE contract for North Sea Brent crude climbed by 75¢ to $74.64/bbl. Gas oil for May escalated by $11.25 to $644.75/tonne.

The average price for OPEC's basket of 11 benchmark crudes increased by $2.16 to $68.40/bbl on May 2. So far this year, OPEC's basket price has averaged 59.31/bbl, up from $50.64/bbl for all of 2005.

Contact Sam Fletcher at samf@ogjonline.com.

To access this Article, go to:


text:
TouchTable MultiPlay Roulette

TouchTable MultiPlay Roulette (Image courtesy TouchTable)
By Andrew Liszewski

If you’ve already dropped $30,000 to add the X10 Automated Poker Table to your gaming room, you might as well try and get your hands on one of these MutliPlay Roulette tables as well. While it still features a conventional roulette wheel that’s operated by a dealer, the rest of the table, including chips and financial transactions, is all operated by a large 56 inch touch screen. In fact the touch screen has a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160, which makes me wonder if it isn’t one of Westinghouse’s quad HD displays that’s been upgraded with a touch interface. And speaking of the interface, the MultiPlay Roulette table can accommodate up to 7 players at once thanks to a patent pending technology that allows it to tell the individual players apart as they interact with the touch screen.

Unfortunately though, it seems like you might not be able to buy a MultiPlay table for your home since the company (TouchTable) is targeting them towards actual casinos as a more profitable alternative to traditional Roulette tables.

TouchTable MultiPlay Roulette provides a number of major advantages to the casino. The time to run a game cycle is lowered considerably – especially when many guests are playing at once – since the dealer does not have to handle payouts for every game. The consequence is significantly increased profits for the casino. Also the casino’s costly handling of chips is eliminated. The electronic handling of money minimizes the risk of dealer errors and cheating. Disputes are handled efficiently by easy access to the stored game histories.

But if you’d like the opportunity to try one out in person, TouchTable apparently started installing them in casinos in May of last year. So did anyone happen to see one the last time they were in Vegas?

[ TouchTable MultiPlay Roulette ] VIA [ BornRich ]


text:
Table of Contributors   Table of Contents   Return to Encyclopedia Home Page

The Duchies of Parma, Moderna and Lucca The rapid growth of the Risorgimento during the 1840s in the duchies, typical of Italy as a whole, was encouraged by a complex diplomatic transaction in late 1847. The powers had agreed that Parma should be ruled by Napoleon's wife, the Habsburg Archduchess Marie Louise, but that at her death it would be transferred to the Bourbon Duke Carlo II of Lucca; Lucca would then be joined to Tuscany, while several transfers of territory among Tuscany, Parma and Moderna would simplify their borders. These arrangements went into effect when Marie Louise died in December 1847, arousing much discontent: the Luchese resented the loss of their independence, while those of territories transferred to Moderna dreaded the rule of its Duke Franscesco V, the most reactionary of the Italian princes, and there was general indignation at transfers carried out without the consent of the peoples concerned. In consequence, discontent and liberal agitation grew rapidly.

News of the revolt in Lombardy arrived in both Duchies on March 19, 1848, and provoked increasingly violent demonstrations. Francesco V tried to resist, but was driven out on March 21. Carlo II attempted to conciliate liberals with promises of a constitution and other concessions, but he, too, was forced to flee on April 13. In both duchies, liberal provisional governments were set up which joined in the war against Austria and held plebiscites in early May which voted for union with Piedmont. However, Piedmontese defeat at Custozza and the subsequent armistice allowed Austria to reoccupy the duchies in August. Francesco V returned to take charge of the restoration, but Carlo II never returned, preferring to abdicate in April, 1849, in favor of his son, Carlo III. In both states, the old order was restored, accompanied by severe repression. Nonetheless, the old order had been fatally undermined, for public opinion was firmly opposed to the restored dukes, who were kept in power only by Austrian support.
Alan J. Reinerman

The best overview of the Duchies is provided by:

Antonio Archi, capitale (Modena, 1961).

Franco Boiardi, Lineament storici del Risogimento modenese (Modena, 1961).

______. Gli ultimi Asburgo e gli ultimi Borboni in Italia (1814-1861) (Bologna, 1961).

On the individual states, see:

Cesare Sardi, Lucca e suo Ducato dal 1814 al 1859 (Florence, 1912).

Glauco Lombardi, Il Ducato di Parma nella Storia del risorgimento italiano (Parma, 1911).

Table of Contributors    Table of Contents    Return to Encyclopedia Home Page

JGC revised this file (http://www.ohiou.edu/~chastain/ip/parma.htm) on October 25, 2004.

Please E-mail comments or suggestions to chastain@www.ohiou.edu

© 1999, 2004 James Chastain.


text:
Guest Spotlight: Hunter Carpenter (Part One)

Friday, July 25, 2014 - 12:00am

In this first installment of a two-part series, Oil and Gas Investor managing editor Susan Klann discusses an emerging source of capital for the energy industry—the family office. With fewer constraints and generally a longer investment window, high net worth families are investing more heavily—and more directly with E&P and midstream companies.

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38 Hebron, IL Man

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  • Ages 24–45
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6′ 0″ (1.83m)
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Atheism, but not too serious about it
Taurus, but it doesn’t matter
Graduated from university
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Open relationship
Mostly non-monogamous
Doesn’t have kids
Likes dogs and has cats
English (Fluently)
My self-summary
Write a little about yourself. Just a paragraph will do.
I am quiet, reserved, interested in listening more than talking, intelligent, have a somewhat sarcastic sense of humor (and a great appreciation of that in others!), and you can probably out-reference me when it comes to pop-culture.

I grew up on a farm located exactly between Milwaukee and Chicago, so I'm either a rural farmkid who grew up in the suburbs, or a suburban kid who grew up in the country. Depends on the day. I work professionally in agriculture sales.

When I'm not thinking about how to grow more bushels of corn, I'm bicycling or running or brewing beer or going to science fiction conventions or reading or playing on the internet or watching something on the Roku or playing one of my growing collection of board games.

I'm married and polyamorous, which is a big mouthful of a word that means my wife and I are open to dating and relationships outside of our marriage. I like friendship and real connections, and the sparks that can come from that.
What I’m doing with my life
Don’t overthink this one; tell us what you’re doing day-to-day.
Working a job that I mostly enjoy. Plotting my next cheap vacation. Searching out craft beer breweries I haven't tried. Playing board games with a group of crazy friends.
The first things people usually notice about me
I’m an empty essay… fill me out!
I have a big, often goofy grin.
Favorite books, movies, shows, music, and food
Help your potential matches find common interests.
This section was mostly written a long time ago, and I don't want to update it. It is accurate for a certain subset of interests.

I'm an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy with many favorite authors. A tiny sampling: David Weber, Lois McMaster Bujold, Larry Niven, Ann Leckie, Neil Gaiman, Glen Cook, CJ Cherryh, Charles Stross, Mira Grant, Alastair Reynolds, John Scalzi and many more...I need more bookcases. Or finally commit to buying only ebooks.

(Music) Dropkick Murphy's, Freelance Whales, Nine Inch Nails, Flogging Molly, Green Day, Carbon Leaf, Linkin Park, amanda palmer, Fatboy Slim, Moby, Pearl Jam, They Might Be Giants, The Naked and the Famous, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Cake, Johnny Cash. Lately, a lot of Lumineers, Arcade Fire, Trampled By Turtles, and other things with banjos.

(Movies) Miyazaki, Pixar, Satoshi Kon. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Matrix (the first one), Pirates of the Caribbean (again, the first one), The 5th Element, classic Star Wars, Zombieland, 28 Days Later, Dark City, V for Vendetta, Lord of the Rings, Kill Bill, Oceans 11, LA Confidential, Avatar, anything from the Coen brothers, classic Akira Kurosawa stuff. I don't see a whole lot of movies in the theaters, but my Netflix subscription keeps me going.

(Television) modern Battlestar Galactica, Firefly(may it rest in peace), Castle, Stargate: Universe, Eureka, Deadliest Catch, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Dr. Who (behind a few seasons...make me catch up!)

(Webcomics) xkcd, Digger, Sinfest, Surviving the World, Devil's Panties, Girls With Slingshots, Married to the Sea...any suggestions?

(Food) Yes, please.

(Sports) Hockey, if spectating. Running or bicycling if doing it myself.
The six things I could never do without
Think outside the box. Sometimes the little things can say a lot.
The Internet
Good craft beer
The most private thing I’m willing to admit
I’m an empty essay… fill me out!
My wife has a boyfriend. He and I are friends.


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Firefox for Mac
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Firefox 30.0 (Beta 3)
Supported Systems
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Mac OS X 10.1 (Firefox 1.0.8), OS X 10.2 and OS X 10.3 (Firefox, Mac OS X 10.4 (Firefox 3.X), Mac OS X 10.5 or above (Current Version)
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  • Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) (Intel)
  • Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) (Intel)
  • Mac OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) (Intel)
  • Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) (Intel)
Program Information of Firefox 30.0 (Beta 3)
Version Name:
Firefox 30.0 (Beta 3)

File Size:
57.63 MB

Released Date:
09 May, 2014 (1 year ago)

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About Firefox for Mac

Mozilla Firefox is a graphical web browser developed by the Mozilla Corporation and a large community of external contributors. Firefox started as a fork of the Navigator browser component of the Mozilla Application Suite. Firefox has replaced the Mozilla Suite as the flagship product of the Mozilla project, under the direction of the Mozilla Foundation.

To display web pages, Firefox uses the Gecko layout engine, which implements most current web standards in addition to several features which are intended to anticipate likely additions to the standards. Latest Firefox features include tabbed browsing, spell checking, incremental find, live bookmarking, a download manager, private browsing, location-aware browsing (also known as "geolocation") based exclusively on a Google service and an integrated search system that uses Google by default in most localizations. Functions can be added through add-ons, created by third-party developers, of which there is a wide selection, a feature that has attracted many of Firefox's users. Mozilla Firefox is a cross-platform browser, providing support for various versions of Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Firefox Features

  • Improved Tabbed Browsing
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  • Live Titles
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Updates : Firefox for Mac Updates


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Today's News

  • Oldham police officer graduates from DOCJT’s basic training academy

    Oldham County Police Officer Dwaine M. Durrett was among law enforcement officers from 22eeagencies across the state to graduate recently from basic training at the Kentucky Department of Criminal Justice Training.

  • New warden will lead women’s prison

    The state’s only prison for female offenders has a new warden.  Janet Conover has been promoted to warden at the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women in Pewee Valley. Conover has served as interim warden of the prison since October. Commissioner La Donna Thompson said Conover has served the department of corrections in a multitude of jobs and has excelled.  “She is a very effective manager and an asset to this agency,” Thompson said.

  • Oldham County Day needs a grand marshal

    The Latest: Members of Project Guild of La Grange are planning for Oldham County Day on July 17. One of the first orders of business is to seek nominations from the community for the grand marshal of the Oldham County Day parade.  Nominations may be sent to Project Guild, P.O. Box 31, La Grange, Ky., 40031, or by e-mail to  AnnBrownOldhamClerk@yahoo.com before March 12. Project Guild members will choose the grand marshal. The deadline for nominations is Feb. 16.

  • Veterans’ wounds aren’t always physical

    To the editor:   The wounds of war are not always easy to see. In addition to the physical injuries sustained in conflict, countless servicemen and women have experienced psychological symptoms directly related to their deployment.  Recent studies estimate that 300,000 men and women have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with severe depression or post-traumatic stress. And there are 18 suicides on average each day among America’s 25 million veterans.

  • Fire truck crash injures 3

    When a fire truck slammed into a series of utility poles early Sunday, an Oldham County dispatcher coordinating rescue efforts had no idea her husband would be the firefighter loaded into a medical helicopter bound for Louisville. Three North Oldham firefighters were injured as their vehicle crashed about 1:20 a.m. in the 11950 block of U.S. 42 in Goshen.  The crew was one of several responding to Paramont Estates subdivision on the report of a residential fire alarm.

  • Game Bytes

    TENNIS   Quigley reaches SEC semifinals When: Sunday.  Where: Lexington.  What: Former South Oldham High School tennis star Eric Quigley reached the semifinals of the Southeastern Conference Indoor tourney. Quigley, a sophomore from Pewee Valley, fell to Javier Garrapiz of Georgia 6-3, 2-6, 2-6. Quigley defeated Sekou Bangoura of Florida 6-3, 7-5 in the quarter-finals.

  • Sheriff’s report

     Justine D. Feagans, 20, 4900 18 Mile Creek, Westport, arrested by OCSO Dec. 17, indictment.

  • Agency to coordinate homeless count in Oldham, Henry and Trimble counties

     Local officials will soon participate in a statewide count of homeless people to determine how much funding will be available for homeless assistance in Kentucky.

  • Shams proves he’s for real in win

     BUCKNER – When it counted, North Oldham got more of the good than the bad from point guard Kameron Shams as they held off Oldham County 58-51 Friday.

  • Athlete of the Week

    Name: Hope Sample. School: Oldham County Middle School. Sport: Basketball. Age: 14. Position: Forward/center. Hometown: La Grange. Accomplishments: A 5-foot-7 forward/center for the Lady Colonels, Sample was a starter this year and has since moved up to play on the Oldham County High School freshman team.


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TV Shows Entourage

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Rating: Rating 4.4
 (192 Ratings)
Network: HBO
Actors: Adrian Grenier,
Kevin Connolly,
Jeremy Piven,
Jerry Ferrara,
et al.
Genres: Comedy,
First Aired: July 18, 2004
Runtime: 30 minutes
Vincent Chase is a young actor whose career is on the rise. Joining him on his journey to stardom are his childhood buddies Eric, Turtle, his brother Johnny Drama and his hot-tempered agent Ari Gold. Together, they'll navigate the highs and lows of Hollywood's fast lane, where the stakes are higher -- and the money and temptations greater -- than ever before.
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Genres: Music Theme Pop / Rock
Descriptive "tags": punk punk rock scum punk hardcore punk destructo rock hardcore american Powered by AudioScrobbler
Decades Active: 1980s 1990s 2000s
Links online: MySpace Official Homepage Wikipedia

There have been countless three-chord shock punk bands over the years, but few have lasted as long and played with such continuous vigour as Antiseen. Originating from Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, the band has been together in one form or another since 1983, although vocalist Jeff Clayton and guitarist Joe Young have been mainstays throughout. Clayton’s lyrical subject matter is often designed to provoke certain members of society (namely animal rights and religious groups), a stance he has unapologetically adopted since the band’s early days. With a line-up originally comprising Clayton, Young, Tom O’Keefe (bass), and Doug Throgmorton (drums), Antiseen did not get around to issuing any official recordings until five years after their formation, but after debuting with 1988’s Honour Among Thieves, they made up for lost time by issuing subsequent albums at a steady rate. Numerous drummers passed through the band’s ranks during this...

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Liz Carroll Double Play

Double Play
19% OFF
Rating 4.9
9 ratings
List Price: $16.98
Sale Price: $15.28
JULY 4TH SALE: $13.75 Limited Time Only
You Save: $3.23 (19% Off)
Available: Usually ships in 1-3 business days
Item:  COMP 4502
on most orders of $75
Brand New

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CD Details

  • Released:
  • Originally Released: 2009
  • Label: Compass Records

Entertainment Reviews:

Dirty Linen - p.40
"Carroll's playing is consistently flawless, but the disc really provides an opportunity for Doyle to show his diverse talents on 12-string guitar, bouzouki, and mandolin..."

  • Buy for $0.991.The Chandelier / Anne Lacey's
  • Buy for $0.992.Before the Storm / The Black Rogue
  • Buy for $0.993.A Pound a Week Rise
  • Buy for $0.994.Lament for Tommy Makem / Within a Hen's Kick / The Slippery Slope
  • Buy for $0.995.Nearby, Long Ago
  • Buy for $0.996.Ricky's White Face / The Boys from Bolinas
  • Buy for $0.997.Down at the Wakehouse / The True Love of My Heart
  • Buy for $0.998.Paddy Glackin's Trip to Dingle / On the Lam / The Waves at Dingle / The Top of the Stairs
  • Buy for $0.999.John Cahill's Jig / Tommy Doyle's
  • Buy for $0.9910.The Hare's Lament / Pat Mahon's Jig
  • Buy for $0.9911.Castle Kelly / Galway Rambler
  • Buy for $0.9912.Little Christmas / The Old Course / The Twilight Child
  • Buy for $0.9913.Rushin' Dressing / The Quitter / Remove the Rug

Product Description:

Personnel: Liz Carroll (fiddle); John Doyle (vocals, guitar, 12-string guitar, bouzouki, mandola); John Burr (organ); Kenny Malone (percussion).
Audio Mixer: Erick Jaskowiak.
Recording information: Compass Sound Studio, Nashville, TN.
Photographer: Robert Hakalski.
Arrangers: Liz Carroll; John Doyle .
With these two together, you know it's a class act of Irish and Irish-American music, and Double Play never disappoints. The two have superb communication, and, of course, the skills to transform music into magic. There's also the added bonus of John Doyle's singing on a few tracks. He doesn't possess the greatest voice, but there's something quite affecting about it, especially on the mining song "A Pound a Week Rise," delivered with powerful conviction. The two guests are used sparingly, although the organ adds a lovely touch to "Nearby, Long Ago." The sets are all excellent, played with the kind of brilliance that comes from not having to prove anything and simply enjoying performing, with a mix of traditionals, originals, and contemporary material. It's a record where you can justifiably expect great things, and you won't be disappointed. ~ Chris Nickson

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Customer Rating: Rating 4.9
Based on 9 ratings.
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Product Info:

  • UPC: 766397450223
  • Shipping Weight: 0.12/lbs (approx)
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Charlie Parker Bird at St. Nick's (Live)

Bird at St. Nick's (Live)
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Rating 4.1
8 ratings
Out of Print: Future availability is unknown

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Item:  OJC 604122
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CD Details

  • Fantasy Warehouse Clearance Sale product may be specifically marked for one-way sale
  • Released:
  • Originally Released: 1991
  • Label: OJC

  • Buy for $0.991.I Didn't Know What Time It Was
  • Buy for $0.992.Ornithology
  • Buy for $0.993.Embraceable You
  • Buy for $0.994.Visa
  • Buy for $0.995.I Cover The Waterfront
  • Buy for $0.996.Scrapple From The Apple
  • Buy for $0.997.Star Eyes / 52nd Street Theme
  • Buy for $0.998.Confirmation
  • Buy for $0.999.Out Of Nowhere
  • Buy for $0.9910.Hot House
  • Buy for $0.9911.What's New?
  • Buy for $0.9912.Now's The Time
  • Buy for $0.9913.Smoke Gets In Your Eyes / 52nd Street Theme

Product Description:

Personnel: Charlie Parker (alto saxophone); Red Rodney (trumpet); Al Haig (piano); Tommy Potter (bass); Roy Haynes (drums).
Recorded at Saint Nicholas Arena, New York, New York on February 18, 1950. Originally released on Jazz Workshop (5000). Includes liner notes by Jimmy Knepper.
Digitally remastered by Kirk Felton (1992, Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, California).
Jazz Workshop Records do not apologize for the low fidelity recording here; we are happy that one of [Parker's] blowing nights remains for musical posterity." So say the original liner notes by trombonist Jimmy Knepper, a contemporary of Parker's when this quintet was recorded playing a dance at the St. Nicholas Arena in New York City in 1950. Indeed, hearing the incendiary altoist stretching out in front of a live audience under casual circumstances is worth putting up with the accompanying hiss, background chatter and the occasional "yeah!" that comes through.
Parker blows through many of the staples of his repertoire, both standards he came to possess, like "Out of Nowhere" and "Embraceable You" and his own compositions (often built off the chord progressions to standards) such as "Ornithology," "Scrapple From The Apple" and "Hot House." There are no solo spots by the other musicians. The original tapes only included the moments when Parker was playing, and these fragments have been meticulously spliced together to create the generally successful illusion of whole tunes--though they feature nothing but Bird's head statements, solos, fours with his sidemen, and out-choruses.

Music Lovers' Ratings & Reviews:

Customer Rating: Rating 4.1
Based on 8 ratings.
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Product Info:

  • UPC: 025218604123
  • Shipping Weight: 0.25/lbs (approx)
  • International Shipping: 1 item


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 Dodge Brothers Club
DODGE BROTHERS CLUB©,INC. Founded 1983 Incorporated 1986 For the research and preservation of Dodge Brothers Motor Vehicles and Graham Brothers Commercial Vehicles 1914-1938 DODGE

What are the benefits of membership?

--Six full magazines per year. Each issue includes Flea Market, "Q&A" (a question and answer department in which you can post specific questions or discuss problems you are having), several feature articles, letters to the editor, and general hobby or club news. Every few years the "Directory of Vendors" is updated and published in the magazine, listing suppliers and services recommended by members.
--Roster listing members by name and by year of vehicle owned. The latter is useful in contacting owners of cars like yours. Roster also lists members by location, useful when you travel. Roster is updated and sent to all current members free of charge every two or three years. New members get the latest roster upon joining (until the supply runs out).
--Technical advisors for your vehicle (with a few exceptions)
--Annual meet. A chance to meet with others and to see cars similar to yours. Share solutions and discuss problems you have.
--Help in locating parts: Flea Market ads in the magazine and on website, access to vendors specializing in DB/GB parts, access to individuals who are reproducing needed parts or offering specialized services.
--Club store with discounts for members
--Hershey Annual dinner, club Flea Market tent at Hershey
--Regions. While we only have a few, you can form one in your area with guidance from the club directors
--Archives. The club is building up a substantial collection of manuals, technical literature, and other information. We hope to begin offering these materials on CD-ROM sometime soon.
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Chicago Trip

  • Friday, October 18
    Eat. Shop. See the sights.

  • Trip options

    • Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Federal Reserve Bank (limited to 30)
    • *Double Decker Bus Company- on and off privileges all around the Loop, Navy Pier, Field Museum, The Magnificent Mile shopping, etc.
    • Chicago Art Institute (tour guide included)
    • *Lincoln Park Zoo (Faculty and students will be available on site for questions.)
    • Field Museum of Natural History
    • Pacific Garden Mission tour with optional stop at Chinatown (limited to 30)
    • US Cellular Field (White Sox Stadium) behind the scenes tour. Sorry, no game included. Optional stop at Chinatown (limited to 25)

    (* tours that are more self-guided)

    If you cannot go to Chicago, some local options will be available.  You may stay on campus and network, or relax at the hotel.

    Free destinations

    After you finish your chosen event or tour, there are many free places and events you can enjoy before dinner, such as:

    • Millennium Park
    • Chicago Cultural Center
    • The Magnificent Mile, Michigan Avenue shopping
    • We will also be offering a hospitality room with refreshments in the Hotel Inter Continental on North Michigan Avenue from 1 to 6 p.m.

    Dinner on your own in the city

    Considering the busy Friday nights in Chicago, we suggest you make early reservations for 5 or 5:30 p.m. Following is a list of popular restaurants:

    • More than a dozen restaurants in the Chinatown area, available on the Red Line
    • Michael Jordan’s Steak House
    • Walnut Room at Macy’s
    • Lowry’s Steak House
    • Grand Lux Café
    • Berghoff Restaurant
    • Billy Goat Tavern, original and at Navy Pier
    • Ed Debevic’s
    • Ruth’s Chris Steak House
    • Mike Ditka’s Restaurant
    • Harry Caray’s Italian Steakhouse, both in the Loop and at Navy Pier
    • UNO Chicago Grill
    • Rick Bayless' Frontera Grill
  • CBFA Chicago Trip


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Steak and Cake Combo

Steak and Cake Combo

Steak and Cake Combo  4143WZH

  • 4 (5 oz.) Filet Mignons
  • 4 Stuffed Baked Potatoes
  • 1 (6 in.) New York Cheesecake
Now Only $125.00
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If you're looking to impress, then the Steak and Cake combo is sure to get the job done. Start with four luscious Omaha Steaks Filet Mignons add to it our delicious Stuffed Baked Potatoes for the finale, treat your guests to our prized New York Cheesecake and you've got a meal to remember!

Filet Mignons  Product Information  &   Preparation Instructions:
See Steak Cooking Chart
Ten Tips for Perfect Grilling
Click here for Nutritional and Ingredient Information

Omaha Steaks Beef, Pork, Lamb, Veal and Poultry have been born, raised and harvested in the USA.
Stuffed Baked Potatoes  Product Information  &   Preparation Instructions:
Bake: Preheat oven to 350° F. Remove potato from package. Place desired number of frozen portions on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake 40 minutes, until heated through and lightly browned.
Grill: Preheat grill. Remove potato from cellophane package. Place frozen potatoes on a sheet of aluminum foil. Wrapping foil around potatoes, leaving top half exposed. Grill on medium-high heat. Cook with grill lid down for 35 to 45 minutes.
Microwave: Remove potato from wrap. Place one frozen potato on microwave safe dish. Cook on high for 21/2 to 4 minutes rotating at half way point. To cook two potatoes, increase cooking time to 4 to 6 minutes.
Click here for Nutritional and Ingredient Information

New York Cheesecake  Product Information  &   Preparation Instructions:
Remove cheesecake from box. For best results, place in refrigerator and thaw overnight. Cheesecake may be thawed at room temperature for 1 to 2 hours maximum. Slice and Serve. Cover and refrigerate any unused portions for 5-7 days. To make the New York Cheesecake more festive, top with fresh fruit or fruit sauce.
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Signature Sampler

Signature Sampler

Signature Sampler  47296WZH

  • 4 (6 oz.) Top Sirloins
  • 6 (4 oz.) Omaha Steaks Burgers
  • 6 (5.75 oz.) Stuffed Baked Potatoes
Now Only $112.00
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Our Signature Sampler combo features our great-on-the-grill Top Sirloins, juicy Omaha Steaks Burgers and generous Stuffed Baked Potatoes. So fire up the grill and get yours today!

Top Sirloins  Product Information  &   Preparation Instructions:
See Steak Cooking Chart
Ten Tips for Perfect Grilling
Click here for Nutritional and Ingredient Information

Omaha Steaks Beef, Pork, Lamb, Veal and Poultry have been born, raised and harvested in the USA.
Omaha Steaks Burgers  Product Information  &   Preparation Instructions:
Grill or Broil: Thaw burgers. Grill or broil for 5-6 minutes per side until internal temperature reads 160°F. Overcooking can result in a dry product.
Contact Grill: Grill for a total of 5-6 minutes until internal temperature reaches 160°F. It's easiest to remove burgers from the wrap while still frozen! Pan Fry: Preheat a small amount of cooking oil in non-stick pan over medium heat. Add burgers, pan frying for 6-8 minutes on each side or until internal temperature reaches 160°F.

Click here for Nutritional and Ingredient Information

Stuffed Baked Potatoes  Product Information  &   Preparation Instructions:
Do not thaw.
Bake: Preheat oven to 350°F. Remove twice baked potato from package. Place desired number of frozen portions on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake 40 minutes, until heated through and lightly browned.
Grill: Preheat grill. Remove twice baked potato from cellophane package. Place frozen potatoes on a sheet of aluminum foil. Wrap foil around potatoes, leaving top half exposed. Grill on medium-high heat. Cook with grill lid down for 35-45 minutes.
Microwave: Remove twice baked potato from wrap. Place one frozen potato on microwave safe dish. Cook on high for 2 ½ - 4 minutes rotating at half way point. To cook two potatoes, increase cooking time to 4-6 minutes.
Click here for Nutritional and Ingredient Information

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Filet Mignons
One of our most popular gifts

Filet Mignons
(4.89 stars based on 19 customer reviews)

8 (6 oz.) Filet Mignons  515WZA

Reg. $179.00  I  Now Only $110.00
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Cut from the heart of the tenderloin, using the finest grain-fed beef, Omaha Steaks Filet Mignon is aged to peak flavor and tenderness, vacuum wrapped and flash frozen to lock in freshness.

Filet Mignons Product Information & Preparation Instructions:
See Steak Cooking Chart
Ten Tips for Perfect Grilling
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Excellent taste and tenderness.
Frederick V. - La Porte, IN
My husband says that Omaha filets are the absolute best! I love the way they are individually packaged. Perfect for the freezer and for thawing.
Annette S. - Concord, CA
Easy to cook, juicy and tender.
Kimberly M. - Riverside, CA
Absolutely scrumptious. We barbecued at the beach with a few friends and everyone was truly satisfied with the filets! And when I told them where they came from, they said they would love to order too!
Catherine S. - Deer Park, NY
Always delicious. Mouthwatering.
Winona F. - Hopewell, NJ

Shop our featured wine selections to pair with all your favorite Omaha Steaks.
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Reintroduction and Translocation Project

The Analamazaotra Special Reserve is an evergreen rainforest, which is a short, three-hour drive from Madagascar's capital city of Antananarivo. This reserve remains one of the most popular tourist destinations in Madagascar due to the guaranteed opportunity to view quite closely the Indiri, the largest remaining lemur.

Historically, the reserve was part of a continuous forest that included Mantadia National Park to the north, Maromizaha Classified Forest to the southeast and Anosibe an'ala to the south. However, due to habitat destruction, the four forests are now relatively isolated yet remain home to vast biodiversity, including many endemic rare and endangered species.

The endangered Diademed sifaka and the critically endangered black and white ruffed lemur were once among the fauna found in Analamazaotra Special Reserve. In 1973, hunting pressures led to the regional extinction of the Diademed sifaka. Three years later, the black and white ruffed lemur followed. Although forest management regimes have improved protection efforts of the forests, not all of the voices of the forest have returned.

Dr. Louis and his field team were recruited by Madagascar National Parks and Eaux et Fôret (Malagasy Forestry Service) to initiate the first-ever attempt to recover a species' former distribution in Madagascar. In January 2006, after more than four years of planning and adherence to the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) guidelines, Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium initiated the Analamazaotra Reintroduction and Translocation Project by re-establishing the Diademed sifaka and black and white ruffed lemur back into their historical habitat range within Analamazaotra Special Reserve.

The collaborative multi-disciplinary project has evaluated the biomedical, genetic, habitat, nutritional and reproductive parameters through the daily monitoring of 34 radio-collared translocated/reintroduced lemurs, including 26 Diademed sifaka and eight black and white ruffed lemurs from nearby forests. These translocated lemurs created new groups and have produced numerous offspring in the following years.

The project has succeeded by re-established the wild lemur populations, collecting data, preserving fecal samples for hormone analysis, increasing protection within the reserve and habituating the re-introduced groups to human presence. These introduced lemurs, taken from threatened populations or small, unsustainable forest tracts, are doing so well that visitors have been lucky enough to see three generations of babies born at the park. This project has also helped the Malagasy community through the training of Malagasy doctorate and graduate students and local field guides and educating the local communities about the biodiversity of their local eco-region.


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Ubuntu Invaders: First the wallpaper, now the game

Ever wanted to control an Ubuntu-logo shaped space-ship to blast bugs out of the sky with? Well, it’s coming.

Earlier this week we posted an Ubuntu-themed Space Invaders style retro wallpaper that left many of us wanting it to be that little bit more than a collection of static pixels sat stagnant on our desktops.

Luke Benstead, who writes for our sister site, has begun working on a working, controllable, shoot ’em up, blast-o-rama, you-in-the-cock-pit version of this very game.

Unlike most alien-related YouTube videos this one doesn’t contain camera shake or dubious tin-foil flying saucers: –

Oh yes.

I’d love to see the 3D perspective of the wallpaper incorporated into the game so that you’re playing at an angle…

As soon as you can lay your hands on a copy we’ll let you know but so far – top work Luke!


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Coding Practices

A little over a year ago, I moved from a free-wheeling web development job to a more technically demanding job at Johnson Space Center. I was very optimistic about the experience and the cool technologies I would get to see.

Most of all, I was ready for a chance to work for an organization that enforced uniform coding standards. For those of you that do not program, coding standards are important. It can be the difference between spending an hour or two debugging a problem and spending a week understanding what is going on before you even can start debugging a problem.

I was not let down. My first week, I was given several documents that delineated the code practices at NASA. For three months (until I received my security clearance to actually log in and work) I read about the processes that NASA put in place for engineers to get things done. The documents had great suggestions.

Then I logged in and began maintaining existing code. The first sign of danger was the entire code base is written in C, while the vast majority of JSC software is written in C++ or Java. C is not necessarily a bad language, (in fact is it a very powerful language) but it will let you do just about anything you want, anyway you want without checking up on you at all. It fosters an attitude of clever solutions to problems and, because it lacks many of the built in benefits of object-oriented programming, these solutions will often be repeated, line for line, in different files.

My system, for security reasons I will call it the Current Resource Analysis Program (formally a piece of the System Heuristics Information Tracker), was a hodge-podge of different programmers being clever.

I should explain that clever is not always a good thing in programming. A clever solution often solves a problem in a manner that no one has before utilized. Sometimes a clever solution will get the job done in fewer lines (sometimes referred to as elegance) than another less clever solution. Many times, clever programmers fail to properly comment clever solutions, making them impossible to figure out unless you know the original programmer or spend some quality time with the code and a debugger. My first point, with regard to coding standards, is that if you want to be clever, you had better document what you did for the poor schmuck that follows after you.

I will give you an example of a clever solution that is currently executing in my system, the CRAP:

v.d = ((double)*((unsigned long*)(dc->d[i].v[j]))) + 0.0;

Ah. So elegant. It gets the jobs done and does so fairly quickly. This statement properly takes the value stored in the value array and converts it to a usable double. One problem though: Why, in God’s name, do it this way? Leaving the poor variable names for later discussion, why the cast/deference/pointer cast of a value that is only used here? I am not sure if this is clever or ridiculous, but is more indicative of the programming choices made by CRAP developers.

Variable Naming

for(ss = s->ss; ss; ss = ss->ss);

What the heck:

  1. Does s stand for?
  2. Does ss stand for?

For those of you that are interested, the line traverses a linked-list of sources and sub-sources to process the values inside (loop block omitted). But it took a good deal of research to figure that out, because there were no comments and the variable names, well, suck.

This brings me to my next point about coding standards:
Names (method, function, class, variable) are important and programmers should not overlook them.

Most of the variables in CRAP are one or two letters long. Originally, this was due to the memory constraints involved when programmers first designed and built the system. Some of the code guilty of one and two letter names was written in the late nineties. The explanation told to me was that CRAP programmers took it as a badge of pride that their code was so hard to understand and it was a sort of initiation test to new team members to understand the code despite the poor variable names. (My current teammates and I are currently rectifying this issue, but CRAP is a big system and it still is not always clear what dc or v do.)

If you have a variable that is a rating of employees at an organization, organizationEmployeeRating is not a ridiculous name, while erating is.

If you have a method that calculates the risk of an investment, name it calculateInvestmentRisk(), not risk().

A name should inform what the code selection does without needing to have intimate knowledge of the program.

Code Comments

A college professor at Texas A&M, Dr. Salih Yurtas told us that he believed comments were useless. His argument was that people rarely pay enough attention to code comments and that since developers often add them at the last minute after the program is finished, they are often incomplete. In its place, he suggested that code should be self-documenting instead. Whether you want to comment your code or not, self-documenting code is a good habit to get into.

Source Formatting

Many programmers need not worry about this anymore with IDEs like Eclipse and .NET offering functions that will automatically format your code for you. Me? Here in the space program we code in good ol’ vi, or gvim if we are lucky with our terminal.

Source formatting is usually dependent on the language you are using, but the most important thing is that everyone on the team (or in the organization if necessary) agrees on a standard format for code. Poor or variable formatting can create difficulties in understanding code until familiarity is gained with a certain piece of software.

CRAP has all of the following ways of defining an if-else statement:

if(test) do_something()
else dont()

if (test) {
} else {

First off, use brackets. because if your if statement goes from:

You probably are not going to get the functionality you were expecting. Second, brackets let other programmers know what you intended the scope of a statement to be.

But most important is that everyone agrees on a style and that they communicate that style to any new hires that may in the future work on your system.

David Wheeler once said:

All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection 1

And Kevlin Henney answered

…except for the problem of too many layers of indirection. 2

Indirection (and its cousin Abstraction) is a supremely useful tool in programming. C programmers often fall prey to the fault of too much indirection. Consider the example s->ss->dc.d->v + i. If that seems incomprehensible to you, join the club. The C programming paradigm does nothing to help this monstrosity, but in general this many layers of abstraction is just a poor design. There are times when a problem will require something like this level of complexity, but during those times, ensure that the variables are meaningful and that the line makes sense. If you cannot do that, rethink the logic.

The other side of C/C++ indirection is pointer logic. Pointers are powerful, but dangerous. For now I will just say try to stay away from statements like:

int ***values;

Instead, try C++’s STL Containers .

Further Information

This is really a very small piece of what good coding practices entail, and some of the ideas presented are nothing more than my preference. Coding Practices help extend the lifetime of a piece of software by easing the effort required to maintain it. It also helps extend the lifetimes of software engineers tasked to work on it.

In the mean time, there are many excellent guides available for coding standard ideas. A few that I have found useful are:

The GNU Standard
Java’s Coding Conventions
C++ Code Style
Perl Standards

1 Diomidis Spinellis. Another level of indirection. In Andy Oram and Greg Wilson, editors, Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think, chapter 17, pages 279–291. O’Reilly and Associates, Sebastopol, CA, 2007.
Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indirection_(programming)”

2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indirection_(programming)

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Good God, I feel your pain! I’m currently working for a major defense contractor and I see a lot of that going on in some of the device driver code. (well, not as much anymore, but 10 years ago it was insane)

You’d get things like a variable called “data” that is of type InfoStruct and a variable called “info” that is of type DataStruct. Both struts contain pointers called either data or info that point to a variable of the other type. No comments. Comments are for the weak! (sarcasm)

That kind of thing makes programmers violent. I prefer less elegant code. “Sophisticated as a club to the face” is my mantra.

Any kind of convention, whether it’s Literate Programming, Self Documenting Code, or or even just a strictly maintained indention and style guide is vital.

On the other hand, I worked on one project in ada where they required us to write the comments and tests for the 25% code review and not a single line of code, (well, other than function stubs) just to impress upon us how seriously the project lead took proper documentation and testing.

You should have plenty of content to contribute to the DailyWTF at least.

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interesting by Anonymous

A college professor at Texas A&M, Dr. Salih Yurtas told us that he believed comments were useless. His argument was that people rarely pay enough attention to code comments and that since developers often add them at the last minute after the program is finished, they are often incomplete. In its place, he suggested that code should be self-documenting instead. Whether you want to comment your code or not, self-documenting code is a good habit to get into.

I find this interesting. At Georgia Tech, one of my profs is a co-PI working on NS3, a complete rebuild from the ground up of NS2 (a very poorly commented Network Simulator). The biggest debate topics they have happen to be over “coding ettiquette” and proper commenting. Coincidentally, the prof was one of the original authors/coders of GTNetS which is considered one of the top network simulators around because of its extensive documentation and comments…people seem to pay attention when comments are good and raise hell when comments suck…..

I find that my coding practices are much better since I started using TextMate. I’m far more likely to use a nice long name for a variable when I only have to type it once and then just the first letter or two and then hit esc to auto-complete it.

I really like writing in Ruby too. Take the OmniNerd application for example. It’s pretty large and not something I work on every day. I don’t write tons of comments, but I find with Ruby it’s not as big of a deal because the code is more like English. A trivial example is making good boolean names and using the short “if” syntax. So you could have “this_is_a_valid_statement = true” and a counter called “position = 0” and then later write something intuitive like “position.next if this_is_a_valid_statement”. I find stuff like that needs no commenting, whereas something like “if(x==1){p++;}” is just cryptic even if it is simple. So when I come back to some Ruby code that I wrote over a year ago, it’s very quick for me to pick up where I left off due to the readability. When the application was in PHP, this was definitely not the case.

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Clean Code by scottb

On this general topic, let me offer a plug for the book Clean Code, by Robert C. Martin.

Aside from the absolutely horrible chapter on error handling (which was contributed by Michael Feathers), the book has a lot of sound advice for writing good, clean, readable and maintainable code.

More importantly, much of the advice is concrete and actionable—it’s not vague platitudes like “use descriptive names”, it spends an entire chapter on what makes a good name.

Read this book (just skip chapter 7), and the next piece of code you write will be better. Get the whole team on board and the whole project will be better.

I know I sound like an advertisement, but clean code is something of a soapbox issue for me, and this is an excellent contribution to the subject. I just can’t imagine what possessed Uncle Bob to use that abysmal chapter on errors, though.

C.A.R. Hoare:

There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.

You can guess which path my system designers went with.

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Indirection by Anonymous

I have heard this kind of pointer dereferencing referred to as a “train wreck”

2 Votes  - +
Bad naming example by Anonymous

I have to disagree with this statement:

“If you have a method that calculates the risk of an investment, name it calculateRiskInvestment(), not risk().”

Functions that have no side effects should have nouns or noun phrases for names, with the noun describing the return value 1. Save the verbs for functions that change state. A better name is simply “RiskInvestment”, or, for those who like some space between words, “risk_investment”. The word “calculate” is superfluous (everything you’re doing is a calculation of some sort); it reduces readability because you have to read half-way into this long name before you get to something that has some information content.

1 An exception: side-effect functions that return Boolean values are usually better named with adjectives or adjective phrases, e.g. the “empty()” (could be “is_empty()”) method of C++ STL containers.

Nice article. Here is some of the tips I’ve picked up along the way…

  1. As someone who has been programming for 20+ years, I strongly disagree with Dr. Salih Yurtas. Ideally comments should be written BEFORE the code. Namely:
    • Code tells you ‘HOW’ it is being done,
    • Comments tell you ‘WHY’ it is being done. This is ESPECIALLY important for bug fixes to minimize the explicit side effects and ramifications.
    • This prevents useless trivial comments such as: “x++; // inc x” while still allowing elegant or beautiful code.
  2. I have always maintained that if you can’t name something descriptively, chances are, you probably don’t understand the problem.
  3. Pick a naming convention
    • Using the ‘verbNoun()’ function naming convention also minimizes confusion of what a function does.
    • Using ‘On*()’ for "callbacks and pseudo-callbacks helps alert the reader when they are triggered.
    • CamelCase for functions may also be helpful.
    • Using an underscore ‘_’ in between function words is also an alternative.
    • Using an underscore at the end of parameter names lets the caller know that it will be modified, instead of clumsy IN OUT clutter.
    • Using an underscore in front of a variable lets programmers know that it is a private member variable.
  4. The most important thing: Pick one standard, and stick to it !

michael [AT] House Of Sas {dot} com

whats wrong with the code? NOTHING

easy to read? YES

dont need comments if you understand programming, should be a quick glance and you understand what it does.

Ive spend 25+ years writing code from games, control systems, compilers, satellite receivers to police sirens, ive worked from scratch with no spec except what the hardware designer wants, i worked from a 1000 page specification, ive worked on an idea with no input from the client, “we need something to do this”

And all along ive had programmer who keep asking, “Why dont you comment your code more”, my answer is that if they need comments to work out what the code is doing they should find another easier programming job.

Ive also worked with a 18 year old french guy whom was the same as me, i gave him my code, he added in features, gave me the code back, i added more features, and not once did we need to have “comments” to tell the other person what was going on,

To me you can either read and understand the code or you cant, if you need lots of comments to understand the code your working on you need to find a simpler project.

if you don’t know what for(ss = s→ss; ss; ss = ss→ss); does then you shouldn’t be writing C code!

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A few more I use by Anonymous

Good article. Here are a few that I like to impart to my team.

1. Avoid nesting loops. Refactor the sub-iteration to a separate method. It will eliminate the possibility of using the wrong index variable or inserting statements in the wrong scope. It will also make the code easier to understand.

2. Avoid nesting conditionals. Combine them into a single boolean statement if possible, or better yet, check disqualifying conditionals for a chance at returning from the method early or continuing a loop early. Your computer science professor told you to only have one return statement in a method and never use breaks or continues. He was completely wrong. Used correctly, these create more readable and much less error-prone code.

3. In general, keep code as “flat” as possible. Commenting closing brackets isn’t a good solution. It doesn’t work and everybody knows it.

4. Comments should never describe what code is doing. They should describe why the code is executing. They should help the programmer understand a system or customer process better. They should provide information that can’t be provided in the code itself. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen:

// Increment x

I have to disagree with this guy completely.

I think mainly he is complaining about his lack of experience using C. I used to think other peoples code was CRAP before I had any experience. I’m sure I would think the same way again if I tried to jump disciplines to web development.

Indeed, it’s a good, bad code example.

Not because I don’t understand what it does, or can’t work out what it does; Because it’s a non-standard pattern/use of the ‘for’.

It runs the risk of the next person not seeing the subtle deviation in the use. Worse still, they may not ‘clever’, or otherwise understand the code (because they’re junior developers, for example).

That alone is reason enough not to be ‘clever’ when you don’t need to be.

In fact, if you want to be clever, you should purposefully dumb down code where possible, so that you can hand it off to the next maintainer.

That way, you easily move onto other newer/more exciting projects, and you don’t need to be pulled back into something that no longer excites you.

That’s clever. :)

1 Vote  - +
Bad example by Anonymous

for(ss = s→ss; ss; ss = ss→ss);

> What the heck:
> 1. Does the statement accomplish?
> 2. Does s stand for?
> 3. Does ss stand for?

I think you picked a very bad example here.

1. Any experienced programmer should see the linked-list-walk pattern leap right out at them from that code
2,3. s is the head of the list and ss is the current node, and you can tell that without even having to look up their datatypes; anything else you want to know about the nodes themselves you’ll have to look up the type defintion.

For those of you that are interested, the line traverses a linked-list of sources and sub-sources to process the values inside.

4. No it doesn’t. You put a semi-colon at the end of the for, closing the loop, so actually it just walks directly to the last node in the list. Then falls off the end, uselessly leaving ss as NULL. ROFL, I imagine you didn’t mean to do that, but attention to detail is actually quite important in programming.

If that was the worst example you could find, that and a few bits of bad formatting and some under-informative variable names, it seems your problems are trivial and could be more or less entirely solved by mechanical refactoring. And frankly, when you’re dealing with some code that deals with concepts like empoyees and ratings, “erating” should seem more obvious to you in context.

-1 Vote  - +
Learn to program by Anonymous

The things you mentioned are perfectly fine and acceptable. The only things you mentioned with possible merit is the notion of using curly braces to avoid accidentally inserting code outside of the scope of a block that is being evaluated either iteratively or once (e.g. succeeding an if statement) and using the C++ STL, although the C++ STL is not available in C for obvious reasons.

Everything else you said demonstrates a complete lack of understanding when it comes to programming and if you need to spend weeks figuring such simple things out, you are in the wrong line of work.

To illustrate just how bad your education is, I am a computer science undergraduate student and I recognized what “for(ss = s→ss; ss; ss = ss→ss);” did without issue. I guess I have the C class I took that is neither required nor an elective for my major to thank for that, but honestly, I have written plenty of C code for fun and many times, I found myself writing statements identical to that (with different variable names and with a block in place of the the semicolon; otherwise it is the logical equivalent of “ss = 0;”).

By the way, since I feel like practicing my Latin; here is a maxim you should learn:

Cognita ante dices.

The syntax of a C(++)-like language lacks the expressiveness to explain all sorts of things you need to know before you understand any nontrivial program, including the meaning and purpose of its abstractions, assumptions about what is going on in the rest of the program when a method is called, constraints on how mutually-dependent entities may interact, the possible ways the state of a program may evolve (it’s not just a disjunction of all the states each object, considered individually, could be in)… A design-by-contract language like Eiffel might help with explaining some of these things, but I’m sure it cannot cover everything. I leave the question of whether such information should be in code comments, or elsewhere, as an exercise for the writer (look up ‘literate programming’ for an approach once championed by Knuth.)

On the other hand, one has to assume a certain level of knowledge of both programming and the problem domain, or else writing the documentation would become an impossible task. Deciding what to comment (and how) is a matter of judgment that cannot be reduced to painting-by-numbers coding standards.

0 Votes  - +
clever? by Anonymous

Wow.. I was expecting you to say people wrote things like:

Wow.. I was expecting you to say people wrote things like:a = C >> 2 % 5 | Y > 1;
(artificial example.. but obscure nevertheless)

Wow.. I was expecting you to say people wrote things like:a = C >> 2 % 5 | Y > 1;
(artificial example.. but obscure nevertheless)Your examples weren’t ugly enough to get me worried.

After reading so many of the snarky, self-important replies to this, I felt I should say I actually do like C. C was my first experience with programming (in high school and college). C-style languages are my preferred tool when approaching a problem. That is one reason why all of our scripts are written in Perl now instead of bash or ksh or other shells… I like the C feel of the code. Of course, I apparently fail to write classic (ie using conventions created in the 80s when lack of memory was a problem) C, but I still like C nonetheless.

VB makes me want to kill myself in its efforts to make the code understandable to the everyday joe.

But in this day and age, when you use one letter instead of a word, you are just being lazy (and I am not talking about iterators, psychos), or trying to keep your job by ensuring that no one who comes after you could maintain your code.

For the other posters who are against writing code that us idiots at NASA can understand, I found a link to your standards document. A good read. Too bad I didn’t include it in the references section.

2 Votes  - +
Also worked at JSC by Anonymous

I worked at JSC as a contractor for 7 yrs on real-time fight control systems and mission control center code used around the world, on the shuttles and space station.

While I can’t comment specifically on the CRAP system or any other that I didn’t work, I can assure you that for the 4 systems on which I worked with teams of 3 to over 500 developers:
a) code maintainability was as a critical aspect
b) efficiency was an issue, almost always (imagine running on 15+ yr old hardware and still adding code to it with the old RAM still inside)
c) reformatting code just to make it pretty was against the coding standards. We didn’t touch a line if we didn’t have clear authority to change it for functional reasons. We did make it pretty while working on it, just not when checked in.
d) self documenting code is a good idea, provided the coders aren’t small minded and can step back and think like the next coder will. That is a rare skill, in my 20+ yrs of coding. Commenting based on what the next guy wants to know isn’t easy. Some compilers had stupid limitations on variable lengths.
e) nobody should be allowed to write new code until they’ve been a maintenance programmer for 2 years. You learn a ton on how not to code that way. It doesn’t really matter what language.
f) for systems that allowed dynamic memory allocation, a memory leak was considered a Sev 1 bug. Real-time FC systems don’t usually allow memory allocation.
g) unclear code comments were considered minor bugs, including spelling errors. Had to be corrected before the code was submitted.
h) every line of every program was reviewed by at least 2 other people who physically signed a piece of paper saying they didn’t find any errors. When you sign your name to a review and hand it in, you tend to actually perform a careful review. That paperwork with my signature can still be found, I’m certain.
i) if someone assigned to review design, code, or test work wasn’t ready, we held up the review until they were. PERIOD. If they didn’t consistently review and catch errors that other reviews found, they were encouraged to “find someplace else” to spend their days via peer pressure. This wasn’t needed very often. We all counted on each other to catch mistakes that could get people killed or destroy billion dollar vehicles.

For the GN&C software I developed, only 2 errors made it outside our group in over 5 years were attributed to me. I introduced many errors, but the team caught almost all of them. I caught my share of errors in other peoples’ code too. When I left that team, all 11 remaining developers introduced less than 1 error every 2 years combined.

Last I heard, a few of the guys now work at pace maker companies writing software. My mother has a pace maker and I’m very happy these guys probably ensured it works perfectly, EVER TIME.

Wow. You found a part of NASA that actually has any coding standards at all? I assure you that they aren’t NASA-wide standards. I worked at NASA for over 35 years (retired about 3 years ago), and for the last decade or so of that, I pushed in vain to get the center I worked at to establish any coding standards at all.

I was greatly disappointed when I was directed at what was alleged to be the software development standard, only to find that it had not one word or one reference that had anything to do with coding. It was mostly about such things as management responsibilities and various required paperwork.

Heck, I’d have even been happy with the single requirement that each major application must be accompanied by documentation of what the coding standards for that particular app were. It wouldn’t have to be onerous documentation either; a one-line citation of a reference would be fine, or perhaps citation of a reference plus a list of allowed exceptions/extensions. I could not get people to even document things like what language extensions were used, much less style matters. More than once I turned in a bug report about the use of some nonstandard syntax which hindered porting an app to a different compiler/machine. The usual reply was that it worked on the compilers they were using, which seemed to be the only coding standard they had. They wouldn’t write down even that much as their standard (perhaps because it would have looked too obviously bad?).

1 Vote  - +
Pointers by Anonymous

Hello world.
I understood pointers in c, also pointer arighmetic in c, when I started learning assembly. I saw that a compile-time-known-table-in-c generated element acces code different that a pointer. Pointer in c needed a dereference. At least one instruction more in x86. To you all: make some simple examples and generate assembly code from *.c files. Then see how it is done in asm by your compiler.
It was like lux-veritatis for me. After I understood this, I stop investigating asm, and started to make really magic c programs using pointer arithm. Tables, no, no more. Linked lists ? – double dereference. List scanning – simple for loop with double dereference (first element of node is pointer to another node.) Use C casting from (Some_node_t *) to (void *) and make your code fly. Greets.

… but it should be immediately obvious what the code does (leaving aside the extraneous semi-colon). In fact I would say it’s the canonical way to walk a single-linked list in C.

So this strikes me as an example of poor style (variable naming, commenting) but it’s not “clever” in your sense of the word.

1) Code for yourself, so you can get back into it six months later.
At 3 a.m.
With a 6 a.m. do or die deadline.
On a 300 baud line.

2) The best comments start with "At this point…’

I’m afraid the for loop example was rather poorly chosen.

The principle of expressing a unidirectional traversal of a linked list in a single statement is the ‘right thing to do’ since before I start reviewing the code in the loop I already know how the loop works.

The same simply isn’t true of:

ss = s;
while (ss) {
/* stuff */
ss = ss→ss;

Since I won’t know the loop is a linked list traversal until the end.

Naturally using sensible variable names is helpful but the pattern you identified is better than a comment since from its form I know the code is correct (or more accurately I know to review the code in the braces for element removal).

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