Each person is triggered by a unique set of stressors. It’s common not to be sure what the best way to deal with a stressful situation is. The following article is full of great tips that are going to help you cope with your stress in a positive way and make your way through life that is more relaxed.

Know where your stress comes from. You should look for the places in your life that are having an impact on your stress. Almost anything can cause stress, whether it is a person or an event. Once you get a handle on what is causing your stress, it becomes much easier to lessen it or get rid of it completely.

Prepare the day and evening before for what you need for the next day. Taking even the smallest item off of your plate can help reduce your stress immediately. Everything that happens day by day can cause stress, so plan ahead to save time and stress.

You can use music to help relieve stress. Music has the ability to affect us in various ways. Research has shown that just hearing music can be relaxing. Find the music that truly works to help calm your nerves. This will be different for every listener.

Take the time to be proactive about your health to alleviate your stress. Having frequent suspicions about your health will of course bring on more stress, but avoiding steps in preventative care is a great risk to your long term health. Go to the doctor regularly, adopt a good diet and exercise every day so you do not have to worry about your health.

Alcohol should not be the answer after a stressful day. Though enjoying a few beers with pals is fun, make sure to not rely on it on a daily basis. You need to rely on your own resources to relieve your stress, not become dependent on a drug like alcohol.

Consider using a different word when you want to refer to “stress”. If you keep thinking about something, you will only make the sensations even worse. Just thinking of the word may even result in you feeling it more, so instead of falling into this trap, try and come up with an alternate word for what you are experiencing!

Getting some mud on your shoes and green on your thumb is part of what makes gardening a great hobby for dealing with stress. If you live in a house, build a small garden in your back yard or other area around your home.

One way to lower your stress level may be to spend time with pets. There is research that indicates that simply petting an pet for a couple of minutes lowers stress levels.

Try to replace unhealthy habits with healthy, productive ones. If overeating is one way you deal with stress, try exercising instead. If you find better techniques to deal with your stress, your mind and body will be able to maintain their integrity, which makes it easier to cope with the stress you experience.

Putting pen to paper (or fingertips to keyboard) can go a long way in stress reduction. Sometimes people feel stressed about a situation that they can’t reveal to others. In these cases, writing about the situation can be very therapeutic. By recording these thoughts and feelings, you can chronicle your experiences and identify which methods or thoughts offered the most favorable results.

Hot baths are a great way to alleviate stress. Add scented oil or soap to your bath water for an added aromatherapy boost. Furthermore, you can use this time to listen to relaxing music or read a book. Soaking in the warm water is a very effective way to allow your brain, soul and body to become rested and less stressed.

Let people know that your stressful reactions have nothing to do with them. Often family members, especially children, can feel like it is something they have done that has upset you. Your stress is your problem; you should never put the burden upon those whom you love.

To keep anxiety at a minimum, always conduct yourself and your affairs honestly. It has been proven that even the smallest lie can lead to a great deal of guilt and increase stress in any relationship.

At your job or any work environment, it is best if you have some control over the music you can listen to, this can help you feel much better. Playing softer music will help you feel calm and relaxed. If you prefer upbeat music, stick to something that has happy lyrics and a fun tempo.

One way to reduce the effects of stress is to make your lifestyle as healthy as possible. Try to get more exercise, improve the foods you eat or get a good night’s sleep to help your body fight anxiety or stress. This will help you be more confident in who you are, letting you relax a little in situations which would normally be stressful.

There are a number of things that can stress you out. Use the techniques in this article to manage stress effectively, and reduce the level of stress in your life.

To lessen the amount of stress in your life try deep breathing exercises. You have probably noticed that you breathe in a shallow way when you feel stressed, so it is important to learn to breathe in the proper manner. This is an excellent way to relieve stress, so therefore, it should be done daily to ensure your stress levels don’t get too high.

Stress kan give Rejsningsproblemer
TrÃ¦ning hjÃ¦lper mod stress


Changes in 3.5

Below is a summary of changes from V3.4. Commercially licensed users may obtain the detailed change list / release notes from

Production release date

Enhanced debugger

In V3.5, the debugger has been extended to include the backtrace of the q call stack, including the current line being executed, the filename, line and character offset of code, with a visual indicator (caret) pointing to the operator which failed. The operator and arguments may be captured programmatically for further propagation in error reporting. Backtraces may also be printed at any point by inserting the[] command in your code. Please see here for further details.

Concurrent memory allocator

V3.5 has an improved memory allocator which allows memory to be used across threads without the overhead of serialization, hence the use-cases for peach now expand to include large result sets.

Kdb+ manages its own heap, using thread-local heaps to avoid contention. One complication of thread-local heaps is how to share allocations between threads, and avoid ballooning of allocated space due to the producer allocating in one arena and the consumer freeing that area in another arena. This was the primary reason for serialization/deserialization of the results from slave threads to the main thread when peach completes. This serialization and associated overhead has now been removed.

Socket sharding

V3.5 introduces a new feature that enables the use of the SO_REUSEPORT socket option, which is available in newer versions of many operating systems, including Linux (kernel version 3.9 and later). This socket option allows multiple sockets (kdb+ processes) to listen on the same IP address and port combination. The kernel then load-balances incoming connections across the processes.

When the SO_REUSEPORT option is not enabled, a single kdb+ process receives incoming connections on the socket.

With the SO_REUSEPORT option enabled, there can be multiple processes listening on an IP address and port combination. The kernel determines which available socket listener (and by implication, which process) gets the connection. This can reduce lock contention between processes accepting new connections, and improve performance on multicore systems. However, it can also mean that when a process is stalled by a blocking operation, the block affects not only connections that the process has already accepted, but also connection requests that the kernel has assigned to the process since it became blocked.

To enable the SO_REUSEPORT socket option, include the new reuseport parameter (rp) to the listen directive for the \p command, or -p command-line arg. e.g.

q)\p rp,5000

Use cases include coarse load-balancing and HA/failover.

When using socket sharding (e.g. -p rp,5000) the Unix domain socket (uds) is not active; this is deliberate and not expected to change.

Improved sort performance

Kdb+ uses a hybrid sort, selecting the algorithm it deems best for the data type, size and domain of the input. With V3.5, this has been tweaked to improve significantly the sort performance of certain distributions, typically those including a null. e.g.

 q)a:@[10000001?100000;0;:;0N];system"t iasc a" / 5x faster than V3.4

Improved search performance

V3.5 significantly improves the performance of bin, find, distinct and various joins for large inputs, particularly for multi-column input. The larger the data set, the better the performance improvement compared to previous versions. e.g.

q)nn:166*n:60000;V1.50?V2.neg[100]?`2;t1:`c1`c2`c3#n?t2:([]c1:`g#nn?V1.c2:nn?V1.c3:nn?V2.val:nn?100);system"ts t1 lj 3!t2" / 100x faster than V3.4
q)a:-1234567890 123456789,100000?10;b:1000?a;system each("ts:100 distinct a";"ts:1000 a?b") / 30% faster than V3.4

Added hopen timeout for TLS, e.g.

NUCs – not upwardly compatible

We have tried to make the process of upgrading seamless, however please pay attention to the following NUCs to consider whether they impact your particular installation

  • added ujf (new keyword) which mimics the behaviour of uj from V2.x, i.e. that it fills from lhs. e.g.
q)([a:1 2 3]b:2 3 7;c:10 20 30;d:"WEC")~([a:1 2]b:2 3;c:5 7;d:"WE")ujf([a:1 2 3]b:2 3 7;c:10 20 30;d:"  C")
  • constants limit in lambdas reduced from 96 to 95; could cause existing user code to signal 'constants error. e.g.
q)value raze"{",(string[10+til 96],\:";"),"}"
  • now uses abstract namespace for Unix domain sockets on Linux to avoid file permission issues in /tmp. N.B. hence V3.5 cannot connect to V3.4 using UDS. e.g.
  • comments no longer stripped from the function text by the tokenizer (-4!x); they can be stripped explicitly from the -4! result with
 q){x where not(1<count each x)&x[;0]in" /\t\n"} -4!"/a comment\n{2+ 3; /another comment\n3\n\t/yet another\n \n} /and one more"
  • the structure of the result of value lambda, e.g. value {x+y}, is:

- `m`: bytecode to source position map, -1 if position unknown
- `n`: fully qualified (with namespace) function name as a string, set on first global assignment, with @ appended for inner lambdas. () if n/a
- `f`: full path to the file where the function originated from, "" if n/a
- `l`: line number in said file, -1 if n/a
- `s`: source code

this structure is subject to change.

Suggested upgrade process

Even though we have run a wide range of tests on V3.5, and various customers have been kind enough to repeatedly run their own tests during the last few months of development, customers who wish to upgrade to V3.5 should run their own tests on their own data and code/queries before promoting to production usage. In the event that you do discover a suspected bug, please email

Detailed change list

There are also a number of smaller enhancements and fixes; please see the detailed change list (README.txt) on – ask your company support representative to download this for you.


Wine and Bowl

Woodland Bowl is hosting a Wine and Bowl league! Well, it's not so much a league, more of a program where you get to bowl as you drink wine and taste our food pairings each week!

Wine and Bowl is starting this September 27th on Wednesday Nights at 6:30pm. Each team will have four players, you can form your own team, or we can add individuals and pairs into teams of four. Each week is $17 and goes for 10 weeks. That means:

You get 10 bottles of wine for your team,
You get 10 food items specifically paired to your wine of the week,
You get 20 games of bowling!

If you have never joined a league before, then check this one out! We are so excited for any new bowler to join this program because everyone will be whining about how they bowl, while they drink wine! (Get it?)

Sign up by clicking below!


You are here

Antioch College is an innovative and progressive institution and community, dedicated to pursuing new and better ways of living and learning in our world.

Founded in 1850 by the eminent scholar Horace Mann, Antioch is centered on the pillars of campus and experiential education, co-op and community. At Antioch, education and opportunities for growth are not confined to the classroom, but take place throughout the campus community, and in the world at-large. The Antioch experience encourages students to explore broad perspectives on critical issues, and innovative approaches to learning and living differently in the world.

Antioch’s hallmark cooperative program (“co-op”) expands education through work and experiential learning. Students alternate academic terms on campus with terms on full-time work, where they learn to navigate complex environments, negotiate for themselves, and experiment with solution-oriented approaches. In applying themselves to real-world situations, they explore their interests and develop practical skills.

Community is the guiding principle of campus life. Antioch was among the first colleges to incorporate community governance, through which students, faculty and staff participate jointly in institutional decision-making. The process of community building at Antioch promotes the creation of “deep democracy,” encouraging individuals to work together in developing greater group cohesion and resilience.

The words of Loren Pope, former education editor of The New York Times and author of Colleges That Change Lives, speak to Antioch’s unique capability: “Antioch is in a class by itself. There is no college or university in the country that makes a more profound difference in a young person’s life, or that creates more effective adults. None of the Ivies, big or small, can match Antioch’s ability to produce outstanding thinkers and doers.”

167 years after its founding, Antioch College continues to innovate in higher education, and continues to attract students seeking the tools to innovate in their communities and careers.

Antioch College is located in Yellow Springs, OH, in the heart of the Miami Valley, and is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.


Watsonians winners in Berwick sevens

editorial image

Berwick hosted its annual sevens tournament on Sunday, with plenty of shocks and surprises providing great entertainment.

As usual there was a strong Borders presence, with Melrose, Watsonian, Peeebles and Selkirk all attending. Edinburgh was represented by its University team and the Accies.

There was also a strong Northumberland delegation, consisting of relatively unknown quantities Morpeth, Newcastle Agrics .

The upsets began immediately. Last year’s Kings of the Sevens champions, Jedforest, many people’s tips for the final, were dumped out unceremoniously in the first round, going down 29-19 to Peebles.

Another strong Borders team, Hawick, who recently won an unprecedented sixth of seven home tournaments, came up against a strong Melrose team, featuring former Berwick player and current Scotland sevens international Andrew Skeen.

Hawick struck first, and made Melrose work hard, but were knocked out, eventually losing 21-12.

Watsonians were forced to make a late comeback against Morpeth, who also featured a former Berwick player, Seb Trotter, facing his former club. The very last action of the tie was Watsonians’ winning try. Gala had a similar escape, requiring a late, late Grant Somerville try to get past Selkirk.

Hosts Berwick, captained by Jack Webster, put in a strong performance against Earlston, running out easy winners at 36-5. Their game was full of strong running and flowing rugby, and they several times managed to run the ball from their own tryline to scoring positions at the other end.

This win earned them a quarter final tie against Musselburgh, who had overcome Rugby MAD, a Dutch team, in the first round.

Tit-for-tat tries through the first half kept things interesting, before Musselburgh’s strength in possession paid off, and they put on 38 points to Berwick’s 12.

Elsewhere, in the quarters, Peebles continued to look as if they could go all the way. They cruised through to the semis, despatching Edinburgh University 34-5.

Melrose continued to put on a display of attacking rugby, but were somewhat fortunate against Edinburgh Accies, with the difference being a single try. This quarter final showed how vital it is to have a player capable of making difficult conversions to keep the scoreboard ticking over, and Melrose’s Skeen was close to metronomic all day.

Melrose went on to defeat Musselburgh 33-12, with Richard Mill, Skene and Sam Chalmers puncturing the Lothian side’s defence at will. However, Melrose were caught on the break several times despite their dominance of the ball, a worrying sign as they came through the more gruelling side of the draw.

In the final, Melrose came up against a Watsonians side who were showing their class, coming through quarterfinals and semis against Gala and Peebles without conceding a single point.

Melrose’s efforts in the earlier rounds seemed to have deprived them of some of their sparkle, and they went in at half time trailing 24-5, their try coming thanks to a 10m penalty for interference.

The Edinburgh side’s captain Mike Ker kept them in front with clever kicking - possession from their restarts was a feature of their play all day - and he capped off a 50-12 win with a try he made himself with two neat grubber kicks.

Watsonians’ victory takes them up to third in the 2013 Kings of the Sevens table after four events, behind Hawick and leaders Gala.


Itemized Wages Statements

Let me start with the lawyer’s disclaimer up-front: this Friday’s Five list has no scientific or statistical backing whatsoever, I generated it based on the cases I’ve been litigating in 2014. My experience may be (and probably is) skewed a bit, but nevertheless California employers should pay attention to the following areas of potential litigation.

1. Meal and rest break litigation.

Meal and rest break class action litigation is still very prevalent in California. While employers are becoming more sophisticated in ensuring compliance with their obligations, the litigation has turned to more nuanced issues, such as the employer’s failure to record meal breaks or provide a full 30 minutes for the meal break. Meal and rest break policies and procedures should always been under review by employers to ensure compliance.

2. Rounding policies.

There have been a number of cases I’ve litigated this year involving time rounding policies. It is important for employers to simply no use the default settings provided by their time keeping software, but instead ensure that the rounding complies with California law.
The Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) provides the following guidance for California employers in regard to time rounding:

…the federal regulations allow rounding of hours to five minute segments. There has been practice in industry for many years to follow this practice, recording the employees’ starting time and stopping time to the nearest 5 minute s, or to the nearest one-tenth or quarter of an hour. Presumably, this arrangement averages out so that the employees are fully compensated for all the time they actually work. For enforcement purposes this practice of computing working time will be accepted by DLSE, provided that it is used in such a manner that it will not result, over a period of time, in failure to compensate the employees properly for all the time they have actually worked. (See also, 29 CFR § 785.4 8(b))

3. Private Attorneys General Act claims.

In 2014, the California Supreme Court held that class action waivers in arbitration agreements are enforceable. Click here to read more about the holding, Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, LLC. This holding provided a tool for employers to reduce their class action liability by entering into arbitration agreements with their employees. However, Plaintiffs continually challenge class action waivers on numerous grounds, and it is critical employers’ arbitration agreements are properly drafted and up-to-date. In addition, while courts will uphold class action waivers, the California Supreme Court held that employee may still bring representative actions under the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA). PAGA claims are limited to specific penalties under the law, and have a much shorter one year statute of limitations compared to potentially a four year statute of limitations for most class actions. Given that the California Supreme Court found that the arbitration agreements could not have employees waive their rights to bring “representative actions” under PAGA, the PAGA claims are more prevalent and being litigated harder by both plaintiffs and defendants.

Click here to read more about PAGA and what do to in response to receiving a Private Attorney Generals Act notice.

4. Required information on pay stubs/itemized wage statements.

Employers are cautioned to rely on their payroll companies for compliant itemized wage statements, as these companies often times do not understand the legal requirements. Ensuring the required information is properly listed on the itemized wage statements is an item that employers should review at least twice a year for compliance.

Labor Code Section 226(a) requires the following information to be listed on employees’ pay stubs:

1. Gross wages earned
2. Total hours worked (not required for salaried exempt employees)
3. The number of piece-rate units earned and any applicable piece rate if the employee is paid on a piece rate basis
4. All deductions (all deductions made on written orders of the employee may be aggregated and shown as one item)
5. Net wages earned
6. The inclusive dates of the period for which the employee is paid
7. The name of the employee and the last four digits of his or her social security number or an employee identification number other than a social security number
8. The name and address of the legal entity that is the employer
9. All applicable hourly rates in effect during the pay period, and the corresponding number of hours worked at each hourly rate by the employee

Here is an example of an itemized wage statement published by the DLSE:

Also, do not forget that with California’s paid sick leave law taking effect July 1, 2015, employers will have additional reporting information regarding employees’ accrued paid sick leave and usage. Employers must show how many days of sick leave an employee has available on the employee’s pay stub or a document issued the same day as a paycheck.

5. Off the clock claims.

Litigation alleging that employees were not paid for all time worked was continuing strong in 2014. This claim arises in various scenarios. The basic claim is that the employee clock out from work and was required to or voluntarily continued to work. This type of claim is usually very difficult to have certified as a class action because the employer’s liability for not paying for off the clock work is whether the employer knew or should have known that the work was being performed and that the employee was not compensated for the work. Anther common scenario given rise to an off the clock claim is when employees have to do some task before or after clocking or out for their work. While the U.S. Supreme Court recently held that security screenings of employees at the end of their shifts to ensure they were not stealing product was not compensable time, employers need to review their practices to avoid these types of situations in their workplace.

There are some significant changes regarding California employers’ duties in 2013. This list is an overview of the major changes that employers should consider and be aware of at the beginning of 2013.

Employers Cannot Ask Applicants Or Employees For Social Media Passwords – AB 1844
This law created Labor Code section 980, which is effective 1/1/2013. The law prohibits employers from asking employees or applicants for passwords to their social media accounts, accessing their accounts in the presence of the employer, or divulging any personal social media. There are two exceptions to this: (1) if the request is made to a current employee as part of an investigation of allegations of employee misconduct or violation of law, and the request is based upon a reasonable belief that the information is relevant, and (2) to devices issued by the employer.

Commission Agreements Must Be In Writing – AB 1396 and 2675
Beginning 1/1/2013, when an employee is paid commissions, the employer must provide a written contract setting forth the method the commissions will be computed and paid. The written agreement must be signed by both the employer and employee. Commission wages are “compensation paid to any person for services rendered in the sale of such employer’s property or services and based proportionately upon the amount or value thereof.” Commissions do not include (1) short-term productivity bonuses, (2) temporary, variable incentive payment that increase, but do not decrease, payment under the written contract, and (3) bonus and profit-sharing plans, unless there has been an offer by the employer to pay a fixed percentage of sales or profits as compensation for work to be performed.

Breastfeeding is added to definition of “sex” under the Fair Employment and Housing Act – AB 2386
The new law clarifies that the definition of sex under the FEHA includes breastfeeding and any medical conditions relating to breastfeeding. This amendment makes breastfeeding and the related medical conditions, a protected activity and therefore employers cannot discriminate or retaliate against employees on this basis under California law. While the amendment is effective 1/1/13, the law states that the amendment simply is a statement of existing law, and therefore employers should treat this amendment as existing law immediately.

New Religious and Dress Standards – AB 1964
The new law clarifies that religious dress and grooming practices are protected under FEHA. The law explains that “religious dress practice” is “shall be construed broadly to include the wearing or carrying of religious clothing, head or face coverings, jewelry, artifacts, and any other item that is part of the observance by an individual of his or her religious creed.” The law continues in defining religious grooming as: “Religious grooming practice shall be construed broadly to include all forms of head, facial, and body hair that are part of the observance by an individual of his or her religious creed.” The law also states that it is not a reasonable accommodation it the action requires segregation of the individual from the public or other employees.

Changes in Calculating Employees’ Regular Rate of Pay – AB 2103
The new law revises Labor Code 515(d) to clarify that “payment of a fixed salary to a nonexempt employee shall be deemed to provide compensation only for the employee’s regular, nonovertime hours, notwithstanding any private agreement to the contrary.” Therefore, overtime must be paid above any nonexempt employee’s agreed upon salary. This law was in response to the court opinion in Arechiga v. Dolores Press. The legislature history described the opinion in Arechiga as follows:

In the Arechiga case, a janitor and his employer agreed that payment of a fixed salary of $880 a week would provide compensation for 66 hours of work each week. The Court of Appeal held that this method of payment comported with California overtime law, and that no additional overtime compensation was owed. The Court rejected the employee’s contention that existing Labor Code Section 515(d) prohibits any sort of agreement that would allow a fixed salary to serve as a non-exempt employee’s compensation for anything more than a 40 hour workweek.

New Penalties For Violations On Itemized Wages Statements – SB 1255
The new law provides that employees are deemed to have suffered injury for purposes of assessing penalties pursuant to Labor Code 226(a), if the employer fails to provide accurate and complete information. Furthermore, a violation occurs if the employee cannot easily determine from the wage statement alone the amount of the gross or net wages earned, the deductions the employer made from the gross wages to determine the net wages paid, the name and address of the employer or legal entity employing the employee, and the name and only the last 4 digits of the employee.

New Requirements On Retention And Inspection of Itemized Wage Statements and Personnel Files– AB 2674
Under Labor Code 226, employers must keep copies of employees’ itemized pay statements for at least three years, at the site of employment or at a central location within the state of California. The new law, effective 1/1/13, clarifies that the term “copy” means either a duplicate of the statements provided to employees, or a computer generated record that shows all information required under Labor Code 226. In addition, the law sets a new deadline for employers to either provide a copy or permit the employee to inspect the personnel file within 30 days after the employer receives the request. The employer and employee may only agree to extend this time period out to 35 days. The employer may also redact the names of any non-supervisory employees in the file. It is important to note, this requirement does not change the 21 day time period to produce or make available for inspection an employee’s itemized wage statements under Labor Code 226(c).

Itemized Wage Statements And Wage Theft Notices For Temporary Service Employers – AB 1744
This new law requires temporary service employers to provide wage statements that list the rate of pay and total hours worked for each temporary assignment. A “temporary service employer” is defined in Labor Code 201.3(a)(1) as a company that contracts with customers to supply workers to perform services for the customer. This is effective 7/1/2013. Furthermore, the law requires temporary services employer to provide Wage Theft Notices required under 2810.5 and include additional information regarding the name, the physical address of the main office, the mailing address if different from the physical address of the main office, and the telephone number of the legal entity for whom the employee will perform work, and any other information the Labor Commissioner deems material and necessary. This requirement is effective on 1/1/2013.


Stallones was a dairyman, too; he was also a highly influential spokesperson even though he only had a fifth-grade education. He unified Tomball's dairy farmers under the existing South Texas Producers Association and became their leader. In negotiations with wholesale distributors, Stallones demanded that the farmers get more money for their milk.

His demand got rejected, and distributors responded by lowering the milk price again. At B.E.'s instruction, farmers then refused to supply them with milk. The dairyers' battle to preserve their livelihood lasted for weeks.

During that time, Stallones' opposition set fire to his house in an attempt to get him to call off the boycott, but Stallones did not back down. His effective plan forced wholesalers to pay local dairymen more.

B.E. managed South Texas Producers until his death in 1958. He presided over the Texas Dairy Association for a while and sat on the board of the National Dairy Association. A milk producers' publication (1980) rightfully dubbed Ballard E. Stallones "the father of dairy cooperatives in the southwest." Without this man's courageous guidance, independent dairying would have been eliminated.


Worst Max Contracts in NBA History

In addition to there being several types of max agreements variances depend on years of service, annual raise rates, and who’s offering the deal in the first place there’s rarely a consensus that the player receiving one of these designated deals deserves it.

For our purposes, we’ll confine the term “max” to mean the most years possible (either four or five under today’s rules but longer in the past) with the largest annual salary and raises permitted by the CBA.

Most importantly, we’re only considering contracts agreed to after the max label showed up following the ’99 lockout.

Arenas left $16 million on the table when he inked a six-year, $111 million contract with the Washington Wizards in 2008.

He logged only two contests in the first year of his new deal, missed 50 more games the following season and was then traded for Rashard Lewis and his own albatross salary.

Arenas agreed that his contract might have been the worst in NBA history, but it wasn’t a true max.


Renew your expired passport

Is your Kenyan passport valid? Please do not get caught with an expired passport. Kenyans resident in the US are encouraged to renew their passports six months before expiry. To apply for a new 10- year passport, please visit:

Why is it important to have a valid passport?

Possession of a valid passport enables you to travel in and out of the country and is a valid form of identification.

The Embassy has stopped renewing 5-year passports. Anyone whose passport has expired should therefore apply for a new 10-year passport. This will take approximately 4 weeks to issue.

Please note for international travel, passports must be valid for six months or more.


NOTCH1 mutational status - high risk of transformation and poor outcome

NOTCH1 mutational status - high risk of transformation and poor outcome

NOTCH1 mutations identify a genetic subgroup of chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients with high risk of transformation and poor outcome

From the Spanish research Abstract

'NOTCH1 has been found recurrently mutated in a subset of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

To analyze biological features and clinical impact of NOTCH1 mutations in CLL, we sequenced this gene in 565 patients. NOTCH1 mutations, found in 63 patients (11%), were associated with unmutated IGHV, high expression of CD38 and ZAP-70, trisomy 12, advanced stage and elevated lactate dehydrogenase. Sequential analysis in 200 patients demonstrated acquisition of mutation in one case (0.5%) and disappearance after treatment in two.

Binet A and B patients with NOTCH1-mutated had a shorter time to treatment. NOTCH1-mutated patients were more frequently refractory to therapy and showed shorter progression-free and overall survival after complete remission.

Overall survival was shorter in NOTCH1-mutated patients, although not independently from IGHV. NOTCH1 mutation increased the risk of transformation to diffuse large B-cell lymphoma independently from IGHV, with this being validated in resampling tests of replicability.

In summary, NOTCH1 mutational status, that was rarely acquired during the course of the disease, identify a genetic subgroup with high risk of transformation and poor outcome.

This recently identified genetic subgroup of CLL patients deserves prospective studies to define their best management.'

Also see...

Trisomy 12 and NOTCH1

New NOTCH1 tests are beginning to become available at a few major CLL research facilities in the U.S. How they will be accepted clinically remains to be seen.

Last edited by

9 Replies

  • In Australia, the only place that I know of where NOTCH1 testing can be done is at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne and that is only as part of a research project by Dr Constantine Tam, where they are also testing IgVH, FISH, P53, SF3B1 and BIRC3 in a study to show that the technology works and to determine which of these predict for progression.

  • I am a bit confused as to the difference between NOTCH1 and FISH testing? Also I thought that TRI 12 was an OK mutation to have but it appears not from these results.

  • This is a different genetic test than FISH. There will be a number of these new test in the future, looking at sub clonal genes, like SF3B1, BIRC3 etc. They are probably 2 to 3 years out from clinical use, if there is a reason to test for them, CLINICALLY.

  • I'm not a medical expert, but have been dealing with CLL Trisomy 12 since 2008. In FISH testing a few specific gene locations are selected and tagged with a fluorescent marker- these identify the deletions like 17P, etc. but the targets are limited. I had NOTCH1, and 6 other "new" suspects tested as part of a research trial, and I believe the testing is new and not commonly done. My doc explained that the NOTCH1 differentiates between Tri 12 patients that are higher risk for quick progression vs a slower group. It also is one of 3 markers that together forecast a high risk of Richters transformation- independent of the CLL progression.

  • Medscape has a good article on NOTCH1 and its interelationship with some cases of trisomy 12 and MYC.

    There is ~50% risk at 15 years post diagnosis of developing Richter syndrome in this Trisomy 12 subgroup. Not all Richters follows this senerio either, but it is likely the most common...

  • Thanks for that information, it's very clearly put. I have asked about Tri 12 before at my onc clinic check ups but not had a straight answer, usually due to lack of time.

  • They wouldn't know if you are Tri12 unless you have had a FISH panel done...

  • My husband had the test done at Dana Farber in Boston and it showed a "slight" positive for the Notch 1 mutation. Since the test is so new, the doc said the test may have a false positive. Anyone else have any information? I couldn't find much online.

    Thanks in advance.

  • Hi kreale,

    I can't help with specifics on NOTCH1, but here's some general background on the challenges associated with determining if a test is positive or negative for a given mutation.

    In addition to the difficulty of getting consistent testing results from different laboratories that could result in a false positive, there's the issue of what the cut off percentage is for a test to be considered positive or negative for a given mutation. From what you've been told, your husband is close to that cut-off percentage and just slightly into 'positive' territory.

    This cut off figure can perhaps be better explained by an analogy. It's like looking at security camera picture of a crowd at an international airport and classifying the crowd as asian, caucasian, etc, if more than 20% of the crowd belongs to one particular ethic group.

    Also that cutoff percentage point can vary between different centres with an agreed cutoff point gradually becoming defined, following experience gained from following the progression of a range of patients.

    Finally, with CLL, it seems that it's total picture of genetic mutations that's important and how they interact, though some carry more weight in influencing outcomes than others.

    Have you read these blogs by Dr Sharman that touch on NOTCH1?

    Another post on this site providing more information on NOTCH1:

    As Cllcanada said above a year ago "Note: New NOTCH1 tests are beginning to become available at a few major CLL research facilities in the U.S. How they will be accepted clinically remains to be seen."

You may also like...


Prenatal Terms

Pregnancy and prenatal terms (Chapter 4)
Condition in a female of having a developing embryo and fetus in her uterus for about 40 weeks.
A period of three or about three months; especially: any of three periods of approximately three months each into which a human pregnancy is divided.
The female reproductive cell.
The process of releasing a mature ovum into the fallopian tube each month.
Beginning; forming of an idea; fertilization; V. conceive: form an idea in the mind; devise; become pregnant; inception.
The fertilized egg; it enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo.
The developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month.
The developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth.
Prenatal Development
Period of development that begins with fertilization, or conception, and ends with birth, The development of a zygote, embryo, and fetus before birth.
Amniotic Fluid
Fluid within the amniotic sac that surrounds and protects the fetus.
The vascular structure in the uterus of most mammals providing oxygen and nutrients for and transferring wastes from the developing fetus.
Descent of the uterus into the pelvic cavity that occurs late in pregnancy.
The stage of pregnancy at which the mother first feels movements of the fetus.
A hollow muscular organ in the pelvic cavity of females.
The fine downy hair covering a human fetus.
Vernix Caseosa
At birth the baby's skin is covered w/ cheese like substance (it protects the baby's skin from amniotic fluid).
A male reproductive cell; a spermatozoon.
"Morning sickness" associated with pregnancy.
Etimated date of delivery.
Using the reflections of high-frequency sound waves to construct an image of a body organ (a sonogram).
Absence or suppression of normal menstrual flow.
Independent adoption
An adoption in which a person works out the details between the birth and adopting parents.
The inability to conceive a child.
Agency adoption
A type of adoption in which birthparents & adoptive parents arrange an adoption through a state-licenses adoption agency .
Closed adoption
The adoptive and biological families have no communication and do not know one another's identities
Open adoption
Involves some direct contact between the biological and adoptive parents ranging from one meeting before the child is born to life long friendship.
Extraction by centesis of amniotic fluid from a pregnant woman (after the 15th week of pregnancy) to aid in the diagnosis of fetal abnormalities.
A doctor who specializes in pregnancy, labor, and delivery.
Umbilical cord
A structure with blood vessels that connect the embryo to the placenta.
Congenital disabilities
Conditions existing from birth that limit a person's ability to use his or her body or mind.
The basic building blocks of heredity.
Amniotic sac
A fluid-filled sac that cushions and protects a developing embryo and fetus in the uterus.
Outermost layer of the two membranes surrounding the embryo; it forms the fetal part of the placenta.
Multiple pregnancy
Two or more babies developing in the same pregnancy.
Identical birth
Derived from a single egg or ovum (of twins).
Fraternal birth
Derived from two separate fertilized ova (of twins).
Mixed type birth
Derived from two separate fertilized ova (of twins) and can be both sexes.
Germinal stage
The first phase of prenatal development, encompassing the first two weeks after conception.
Fetal stage
Embryonic stage

Flickr Creative Commons Images

Click to see the original works with their full license.


Facultad de Ciencias, Edificio B, Universidad de Zaragoza, September 14-18, 2015

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
10h Rosa Miró-Roig Ichiro Shimada Juan Viu-Sos Hiroo Tokunaga
11h Coffe Break Coffe Break Coffe Break
11h30h Miguel Marco Jean Vallès José I. Cogolludo Enrique Artal
12h30 Jacky Cresson Laurentiu Maxim Delphine Pol
15h Michel Granger Vincent Florens Ignacio Luengo Simón Isaza
16h Dan Avritzer Botong Wang Visit to Town Michael Lönne

LÖNNE, Michael
$\pi_1$ of discriminant complements of isolated quasi-homogeneous hypersurface singularities of chain type
A distinguished Dynkin diagram for the singularities of the title, $x_1^{k_1}x_2+x_2^{k_2}x_3 \cdots x_{n-1}^{k_{n-1}}x_n +x_n^{k_n}$ can be obtained by a method given by Gabrielov. It encodes the algebraic monodromy and thus information on the discriminant knot group, the fundamental group of the discriminant complement. We will first explain how the diagram of Gabrielov encodes a finitely presented group $\pi= \pi(k_1,k_2,\ldots, k_n)$. A closer look at a very degenerate plane section of the discriminant will then lead to a strategy to show that $\pi$ is the discriminant knot group. Finally we will sketch a complete proof of the claim in case $n=2$.

MAXIM, Laurentiu
Motivic infinite cyclic covers

Abstract: To an infinite cyclic cover of a punctured neighborhood of a simple normal crossing divisor on a complex quasi-projective manifold we associate (assuming certain finiteness conditions are satisfied) an element in the equivariant Grothendieck ring of varieties, called motivic infinite cyclic cover, which satisfies birational invariance. Our construction provides a unifying approach for the Denef-Loeser motivic Milnor fibre of a complex hypersurface singularity germ, and the motivic Milnor fiber of a rational function, respectively. This is joint work with M. Gonzalez Villa and A. Libgober.

The classification of smooth Togliatti system of cubics

The goal of my talk is to establish a close relationship between a priori two unrelated problems:
  1. the existence of homogeneous artinian ideals $I \subset k[x_0,\cdots,x_n]$ which fail the Weak Lefschetz Property;
  2. the existence of smooth projective varieties $X \subset \mathbb{P}^N$ satisfying at least one Laplace equation of order $s\ge 2$.
These are two longstanding problems which lie at the crossroads between Commutative Algebra, Algebraic Geometry, Differential Geometry and Combinatorics. In the toric case, I will classify some relevant examples and as byproduct I will provide counterexamples to Ilardi's conjecture. Finally, I will classify all smooth Togliatti system of cubics and solve a conjecture stated in my joint work with Mezzetti and Ottaviani. All I will say is based in joint work with either E. Mezzetti and G. Ottaviani or M. Michalek.

POL, Delphine
Logarithmic residues along plane curves

Reduced plane curves are always Saito free divisors, and thanks to a result of M.Granger and M.Schulze, we know that the module of logarithmic residues is the dual of the Jacobian ideal. I will give some consequences of this duality, in particular, I will explain the symmetry I have proved between the set of values of logarithmic residues and the Jacobian ideal, which is in fact a generalization of the symmetry of the semigroup of reduced reducible plane curves proved by F.Delgado de la Mata.

On the topology of projective subspaces in complex Fermat varieties

Let $X$ be the complex Fermat variety of dimension $n=2d$ and degree $m>2$. We investigate the submodule of the middle homology group of X with integer coefficients generated by the classes of standard d-dimensional subspaces contained in $X$, and give an algebraic, or rather combinatorial, criterion for the primitivity of this submodule.
This is a joint work with Alex Degtyarev.

Integral sections of rational elliptic surfaces and contact conics to an irreducible $3$-nodal quartics.

Let $\varphi:S\to\mathbb{P}^1$ be a rational elliptic surface with a distinguished section $O$. A section $s$ of $\varphi$ is said to be integral if $s$ does not meet $O$. In this talk, we study integral sections of certain rational elliptic surfaces. As an application, we study geometry of contact conics to an irreducible $3$-nodal quartic. This is a joint work with K. Tumenbayar.

Free divisors in a pencil of curves

A projective plane curve $D$ on a field of characteristic zero is free if its associated sheaf $\mathcal T_D$ of vector fields tangent to $D$ is a free $O_{\mathbb{P}^2}$-module. Relatively few free curves are known. I will prove that the union of all singular members of a pencil of plane projective curves with the same degree and with a smooth base locus is a free divisor, as it was conjectured by E. Artal and J.I. Cogolludo.

The conference is organized by the Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour and the Instituto Universitario de Matemáticas y aplicaciones, from the Universidad de Zaragoza.

Financial supporters

We would like to thank the financial support from the following institutions and grants: GDR CNRS 2945 "Singularités et Applications", GDR CNRS 3064 "Géométrie Algébrique et Géométrie complexe", ANR GEOLMI ANR-11-BS03-0011, PHC-SAKURA 31944VE, Laboratoire de Mathématique de Pau (LMAP).

To add your name to the list of participants, just fill this form.


I’m overweight in stocks, by most people’s standards, so I’m looking to reallocate some money, and also exploring some “safer” investment options for future investment contributions. In this post, I’m going to explore the idea of paying down the principle of my mortgage as a low risk option for future investments. Almost all of my stock holdings would be sold at a profit at the time of writing, so the idea of selling them and incurring capital gains taxes to pay down my mortgage isn’t all that appealing. That could change if the market goes down in 2017 and I can offset those gains with capital losses, but for now I’ll keep the lens on future investment capital.

In my current situation, I owe a little over $360,000 on a house with a value of roughly $775,000. In 2013 I took out a 30 year fixed rate mortgage at 3.75%, the current monthly payment is almost $2600, including taxes. About $700 a month goes towards principal, with $1,150 going towards interest, and the rest is set aside for escrow/taxes. Add in the fact that I’m in the 33% tax bracket, that makes my effective interest rate 2.5% after the tax credit.

Most people will tell you that it’s downright silly to make investments with an expected return of 2.5%. Then there’s the competitor in me that thinks, “hell yeah I can beat that, probably triple it without even trying too hard”. Add on the power of inflation that is working in my favor if I don’t pay it off. Let me explain, as inflation rises, each dollar has less purchasing power that it did in the past. Let’s say inflation is steady at 3.0% over the next 20 years, which is actually lower that the actual 3.29% it’s averaged over the last 100 years. In 2027, that $2600 payment that I would be making will have the purchasing power that $1937 does today. Extend that out another 10 years, and in 2037 if will shrink to $1440, almost half what it is today.

So, paying off my principle isn’t looking so hot yet, is it? One other factor that I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk about is the lack of flexibility one gets when putting cash into paying down their principal. My monthly payment isn’t reduced as my balance goes down. If I make a lump sum payment of $100,000 tomorrow, next month’s payment is still going to be $2600, as are all the rest after that. The other point to consider is that if I all of sudden lose my job, that $100,000 is gone, it’s out of my hands forever. What if the stock market loses 75% and there are deals of a lifetime to be had, or say the perfect business opportunity comes along and I need $100,00? I could potentially refinance or get a HELOC, but there’s no guarantee that is possible and even if successful, would likely comes with a higher interest rate.

Some options would be to set up a separate account and invest the $100,000 into some safe investments like government bonds or set up a fixed rate annuity. Chances are I could earn more than 2.5% right and end up net positive right? It’s highly likely that I could even invest in something like an S&P 500 ETF and still come out ahead even if the market had a catastrophic meltdown by the time my loan is due in 2043. Seems like I’m on to something here.

But wait, let’s explore the other side of the argument. There’s something to be said for the piece of mind that comes with a guaranteed return on investment. While 2.5% is not an ambitious goal, it’s guaran-freakin-teed baby! No stress, no worry about it ever going down. Market crashes, guaranteed 2.5%. Market soars, don’t need to worry about whether or not it’s time to pull out. It’s done, over, no mind space needed, go stress about something else, plenty of options out there.

Let’s explore one other avenue that I don’t think gets enough air time. As long as I’m still working, I should be able to make that $2600 payment without any problem. However, I don’t want to work for 26 more years, not even close to that long! So if I put the early retirement/ 4% withdrawal lens on that $2600 monthly payment, I will need to have $780,000 in investments ($780,000 X .04 = $2600). There is no flexibility with that either. If the markets go way down, I can’t just pay less, I will still need to have $780,000 allocated to paying off that $2600.

I don’t know that I’ve ever met or heard of anyone who wishes that hadn’t paid off their house sooner than they did. While it may not be the most logical economic choice, the idea of owning my house outright is amazing. I must say that the idea of carrying almost $400,000 in debt is overwhelming at times, so much so, that I try to just avoid thinking about it sometimes. While I’m pretty sure there are other more logical money moves, there is a part of me that thinks, how much flexibility would I have with another $2600 to work with a month?

I’ll keep you posted on what path I take.

Hang Loose!


Watch: World's smallest monkey gives birth to tiny twins at Chester Zoo

Chester Zoo has welcomed its newest arrivals - twin eastern pygmy marmosets.

The marmosets are native to the rainforests of western Brazil, south-eastern Colombia, eastern Ecuador and eastern Peru where they are threatened by both habitat loss and being captured for the pet trade.


The Community for Technology Leaders
2017 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops (CVPRW) (2017)
Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
July 21, 2017 to July 26, 2017
ISSN: 2160-7516
ISBN: 978-1-5386-0733-6
pp: 699-708
Performing large scale hypothesis testing on brain imaging data to identify group-wise differences (e.g., between healthy and diseased subjects) typically leads to a large number of tests (one per voxel). Multiple testing adjustment (or correction) is necessary to control false positives, which may lead to lower detection power in detecting true positives. Motivated by the use of socalled "independent filtering" techniques in statistics (for genomics applications), this paper investigates the use of independent filtering for manifold-valued data (e.g., Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Cauchy Deformation Tensors) which are broadly used in neuroimaging studies. Inspired by the concept of variance of a Riemannian Gaussian distribution, a type of non-specific data-dependent Riemannian variance filter is proposed. In practice, the filter will select a subset of the full set of voxels for performing the statistical test, leading to a more appropriate multiple testing correction. Our experiments on synthetic/simulated manifoldvalued data show that the detection power is improved when the statistical tests are performed on the voxel locations that "pass" the filter. Given the broadening scope of applications where manifold-valued data are utilized, the scheme can serve as a general feature selection scheme.
Testing, Manifolds, Tensile stress, Brain, Imaging, Statistical analysis, Diseases
Ligang Zheng, Hyunwoo J. Kim, Nagesh Adluru, Michael A. Newton, Vikas Singh, "Riemannian Variance Filtering: An Independent Filtering Scheme for Statistical Tests on Manifold-Valued Data", 2017 IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops (CVPRW), vol. 00, no. , pp. 699-708, 2017, doi:10.1109/CVPRW.2017.99
88 ms
(Ver 3.3 (11022016))


Countries such as Australia took the initiative and established effective AIDS prevention policies in the mid-80 which, in general, there was a rapid decline in the number of new HIV infections.

But in most of the world, social, political or religious reasons, effective prevention or not applied at all or did the extent necessary to be noticed the difference.

Current prespectivas indicate that the annual number of new infections continues to decline worldwide. From the High Point that were 3.4 million new infections in 2001 to 2.3 million in 2012. Thus decreased as the number of people infected with HIV and treatment are more widespread and effective, we can say that AIDS recedes.

In 2005, some 2.3 million people died of AIDS, this number dropped to 1.6 million in 2012. Foulbrood These figures suggest we evolved from AIDS to HIV.

With treatment, people who previously would have died of AIDS are living reasonably well with HIV; the number of children born with HIV is declining drastically and millions of people who previously have been infected with HIV, they do not.

The world is now halfway between AIDS and future HIV cure, but none of the major progress achieved would have been possible without the sustained funding commitments by governments and NGOs, over years and decades.

We follow the right strategies, with adequate funding, we are closer to the end of HIV and AIDS than in any time in the last three decades.

Now is the time to keep fighting!


American Flag around Nelson NE 68961

The American Revolutionary War
Exactly how the American Flag became

The history of the United States is substantial as well as complex, yet can be broken down into milestones and also time periods that split, merged, as well as transformed the United States into the nation it is today. The American flag really did not look like it does now. Besides that, it went through a great deal of changes and also alterations.

The American Revolutionary War

Enter the American Revolution. Often referred to as the American War of Independence, or the Revolutionary War, it was a conflict which lasted from 1775-1783 and also allowed the original 13 colonies to stay independent from Great Britain. Starting in Great Britain in the late 1790s, the Industrial Revolution eventually made its way to the United States and changed the emphasis of the country’s economy and the way it manufactures items.

These conflicts emerged from expanding tensions between residents of Great Britain’s 13 North American colonies and the early american government (which represented the British crown). Attempts by the British federal government to raise income by taxing the colonies (especially the Stamp Act of 1765, the Townshend Tariffs of 1767 and the Tea Act of 1773) met with violent demonstration amongst numerous colonists, that disliked their lack of representation in Parliament as well as demanded the very same legal rights as other British subjects.

via Wikimedia Commons

The Continental Congress convened in May 1775 as well as consented to raise an army. George Washington was made its leader. Congress hoped they might force the British to bargain yet George III chose not to compromise. Instead, in August 1775 he proclaimed that all the American colonies were in a state of disobedience. Rule by royal governor broke down as well as the individuals required government without imperial interference. In May 1776 Congress decided that royal government must discontinue and government needs to be ‘for individuals’. Subsequently the colonies formulated state constitutions to replace their charters.

The movement for American freedom successfully won at Yorktown, modern historians did not see that as the definitive triumph. British and American negotiators in Paris authorized initial peace terms in Paris late that November, as well as on September 3, 1783, Great Britain officially acknowledged the freedom of the United States in the Treaty of Paris.

Exactly how the American Flag became

In 1818, after a couple of style adjustments, the United States Congress made a decision to maintain the flag’s original thirteen stripes as well as add new stars to show each new state that got in the union.

Washington asked if Betsy might make a flag from the design. Betsy reacted: “I don’t know, yet I will certainly try.” This line was made use of in the sworn declarations of many of Betsy’s household members, suggesting that it is a straight quote from Betsy. As the tale goes, Betsy recommended changing the stars to five points rather than six.

However, nobody can be so certain who developed the American flag. The American flag is the spiritual symbol of the country. It symbolizes the peoples’ birthright, their heritage of liberty bought with blood as well as grief. The title deed of freedom, which is the country’s to delight in and also keep in trust for posterity. Infinite vigilance is the rate of liberty. As you see the flag silhouetted against the calm skies of the country, you are reminded that the American flag represents just what you are – no more, no much less.

Top American Flags close to Nebraska state

As taken from the Star Spangled Banner:

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

ZIP codes in Nelson we serve: 68961


American Flag around Stafford KS 67578

The American Revolutionary War
Just how the American Flag happened

The history of the United States is vast and also intricate, yet can be broken down right into moments and periods that separated, merged, and also altered the United States right into the country it is now. The American flag did not appear like it does now. Aside from that, it went through a great deal of modifications and adjustments.

The American Revolutionary War

Enter the American Revolution. Often referred to as the American War of Independence, or the Revolutionary War, it was a war which lasted from 1775-1783 and also allowed the original 13 colonies to continue to be independent from Great Britain. Starting in Great Britain in the late 1790s, the Industrial Revolution eventually made its path to the United States and also transformed the focus of the country’s economic situation and the method it produces items.

For more than 10 years before the episode of the revolution in 1775, conflict had actually been building between colonists as well as the British authorities. These stress occurred from expanding stress in between locals of Great Britain’s 13 North American colonies and also the colonial government (which stood for the British crown). Attempts by the British government to raise earnings by taxing the colonies (especially the Stamp Act of 1765, the Townshend Tariffs of 1767 as well as the Tea Act of 1773) met heated objection among lots of colonists, who resented their absence of representation in Parliament and demanded the exact same rights as other British subjects. Colonial resistance led to violence in 1770, when British soldiers opened fire on a crowd of colonists, killing five people in exactly what was called the Boston Massacre. After December 1773, when a band of Bostonians dressed as Mohawk Indians boarded British ships and unloaded 342 chests of tea right into Boston Harbor, an annoyed Parliament passed a collection of steps (known as the Intolerable, or Coercive Acts) designed to reassert royal authority in Massachusetts.

via Wikimedia Commons

George Washington was made its commander in chief. Congress hoped they could force the British to negotiate yet George III rejected to negotiate. Instead, in August 1775 he proclaimed that all the American colonies were in a state of rebellion.

By the fall of 1781, the American army had actually managed to require the adversary to withdraw to Virginia’s Yorktown peninsula, near where the York River clears right into Chesapeake Bay. Stating disease, the British general sent his deputy, Charles O’Hara, to surrender; after O’Hara came close to Rochambeau to surrender his sword (the Frenchman deferred to Washington), Washington provided the nod to his own deputy, Benjamin Lincoln, who accepted it. After French assistance assisted the Continental Army require the British surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781, the Americans had actually efficiently won their self-reliance, though combatting would not formally finish until 1783.

The motion for American freedom effectively won at Yorktown, contemporary historians did not see that as the definitive triumph. British armies stayed posted around Charleston, and the powerful major military still stayed in New York. The British removal of their soldiers from Charleston and also Savannah in late 1782 lastly pointed to the end of the conflict. British and also American mediators in Paris signed initial peace terms in Paris late that November, and on September 3, 1783, Great Britain formally acknowledged the freedom of the United States in the Treaty of Paris. At the same time, Britain signed separate peace treaties with France as well as Spain (which had gone into the dispute in 1779), bringing the American Revolution to a close after 8 long years.

Just how the American Flag became

In 1818, after a few design changes, the United States Congress made a decision to keep the flag’s initial thirteen stripes as well as include new stars to show each brand-new state that joined the union.

While there is no doubt that the genuine Betsy Ross deserved interest in her own right, it is the legend of Betsy sewing the first stars and stripes that has actually made her an unforgettable historic figure. The Betsy Ross story was brought to public attention in 1870 by her grandson, William Canby, in a speech he made to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Canby and various other members of Betsy’s family members authorized sworn testimonies specifying that they heard the story of the making of the initial flag from Betsy’s own mouth.

Washington asked if Betsy could make a flag from the style. Betsy reacted: “I do not know, yet I will certainly try.” This line was used in the vouched declarations of a lot of Betsy’s relatives, suggesting that it is a straight quote from Betsy. As the story goes, Betsy suggested changing the stars to five points rather than six. She demonstrated to them how you can do it with just one snip of her scissors. They all agreed to alter the design to have stars with 5 points.

Some chroniclers believe that it was Francis Hopkisnon who provided birth to the suggestion of the Stars and Stripes. Francis Hopkinson was a prominent patriot, a legal representative, a Congressman from New Jersey, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, poet, artist, and also distinguished civil servant.

Best American Flags near state of Kansas

As taken from the Star Spangled Banner:

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

ZIP codes in Stafford we serve: 67578


23 September 2010

Wordcatcher Tales: Kamigata, Kudarimono, Edokko

Remnants of Early Baltic Settlers

I find two of Palmer's linguistic explanations almost laughable.

(1) Are Finns and Estonians the only "peoples with traditions of folk epic handed down orally," the only peoples whose "languages were shaped before the coming of written words"? Does he doubt that Norse sagas were orally transmitted long before they were written down? Does he realize that legions of illiterates have done far more over the millennia to influence the structures of the languages they speak than literates have?

(2) Were academics the saviors of Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Occitan, Sorbian, and Kashubian? Are those languages only spoken in classrooms? If so, then they are not yet saved. Academics may have documented those languages and first reduced them to writing, but they haven't saved them until people pass them on to their children and use them in a wider variety of settings.

19 September 2010

Westernized Edo-period Woodblock Prints

Gennai, who was well versed in Western art and painted in oils himself, was surrounded by a cultural group whose role in Edo-period culture can hardly be overestimated. Gennai's coterie included scholars of Western learning, doctors practicing Dutch-style medicine, scholars of Chinese literature, calligraphers, and many others. The interaction of these men led to the creation of a number of ukiyo-e and books.

Nishiki-e were an artistic development that stood in sharp contrast to earlier Japanese prints. In Japanese painting before the age of nishiki-e, empty space was charged with great meaning. Use of blank areas was deeply related to the Buddhist notions of emptiness (), to specifically Japanese ideas of space (ma), and to Japanese philosophies of nature. These concepts are in turn related to the idea of nothingness (mu) found in Eastern thought in general. From the time of Harunobu's nishiki-e, however, virtually the entire surface of the picture was filled with color. Moreover, many nishiki-e employed Western techniques of perspective. This denial of the Eastern concept of mu and departure from the design and coloration of previous Japanese pictorial art was in part the result of a familiarity with Western techniques of oil painting and copperplate etching. Not everything was taken from these sources, but the works of Harunobu, Haruaki, Sharaku, Utamaro, and Hokusai unambiguously show such influence. These men (with the possible exception of Sharaku) often attended the daishōkai [calendar designing and printing events] and were good friends with Hiraga Gennai, Shiba Kōkan, and Gennai's outstanding disciple Morishima Chūryō.

The establishment of nishiki-e with perspective within the context of traditional "flat" Japanese painting was an epoch-making event in the history of Japanese pictorial art. Western techniques had here been completely absorbed into Japanese culture. Although the roots of these techniques could be traced back a century and a half to Western influence at the start of the Edo period. Western procedures now reemerged as something entirely new. Nishiki-e met with such unusual acclaim by the Japanese commoner population because Western techniques had been so thoroughly assimilated.

This process of assimilation also led to the nishiki-e fads in Europe and the United States. From the end of the Edo period to the early years of the Meiji era, a tremendous number of nishiki-e masterpieces were sold to foreigners. The works of Hokusai, which were perhaps the most Western in tone, were especially prized and often became the subject of scholarly studies.

16 September 2010

Edo-period Sinophilia & Hollandophilia

There is yet another reason why Edo-period culture has not been properly appreciated: the influence of Chinese culture has not yet been properly understood. During the Edo period Chinese culture was highly venerated. Its deep and lasting influence was important, not just for Japanese Confucianism and Confucian scholarship, but for a whole range of other pursuits as well. The effect of Chinese poetry and literature, or of Ming and Qing dynasty art and scholarship, can hardly be overestimated. For example, the book Tianxia yitong zhi (Records of All the World) greatly influenced the fudoki (gazetteers) produced throughout Japan. This volume was published as Dai Min ittō-shi (Records of the Ming Dynasty) at the beginning of the Genroku era (1688–1704) by a warrior from the Wakayama domain. Similarly, the volumes Gai yu congkao (Gaiyō sōkō in Japanese) by ZhaoYi (1727–1814) were also profoundly influential. The respect for things Chinese lasted until the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), but thereafter the fact that Chinese culture had once been of great importance faded from memory.

Similarly, "Dutch learning" (that is, Western learning, rangaku) was also highly important during the Edo period. Over one hundred times throughout the Edo period, the chief of the Dutch settlement at Dejima in Nagasaki came to Edo to receive an audience and present gifts to the shogun. For some twenty or thirty days during the spring, the chief and his retinue stayed at the Nagasaki-ya, a lodge at Hongoku-chō. From around the middle of the Edo period, a number of cultured individuals made use of these few weeks to engage in unfettered cultural exchange widi the Dutch. Japanese were strictly forbidden to enter the Dutch outpost of Dejima in Nagasaki, but within Edo much free activity was possible. After the Meiji Restoration, however, the diplomatic relations maintained by the Tokugawa bakufu with the Dutch were overshadowed by the Meiji government's policy of strengthening ties with England, France, Germany, and the United States. In turn, much that concerned rangaku was forgotten. Although cultural exchange with the Dutch was once of great significance, its conditions and historical role have only recently begun to receive scholarly attention. Such examples show that Edo-period culture demands reevaluation. The type of historical perspective suggested here should begin to make a correct appraisal possible.

The Strength of Edo-period Culture

The strength of Edo-period culture is not to be found in extant artifacts of the era. Rather, its strength lies chiefly in its spectacular breadth and diversity. This was a period of unprecedented cultural prosperity. Even the general public took part in leisure pursuits and played an active role in the creation of new cultural forms. The average commoner read books or visited the theater; some even wrote haiku verses and senryū (seventeen-syllable comic verse) or performed musical genres such as gidayū, kato bushi, shinnai, or nagauta. Others went on pilgrimages sponsored by religious associations (kō) and toured distant places. The Edo period saw a rise in the quality of culinary fare that commoners consumed; clothing and housing too showed marked improvement. Even the poor managed occasionally to indulge in the luxury of purchasing a "custom-made" comb or an ornamental hairpin. The demand for such cultural items fostered the development of a highly refined handicraft industry. Never before had there been such an extraordinary variety of hand-made cultural artifacts in Japan.

Even in remote areas in the countryside or on distant, isolated islands, inhabitants cultivated rare varieties of flowers and trees and marketed unusual rocks or curiosities. As Suzuki Bokushi (1770-1842) noted in his Akiyama kikō (Autumn Mountain Travelogue, 1831), people in every corner of the land were busy manufacturing local specialties. Such articles were being produced, one by one, by thirty million people. By the late Edo period this activity had stimulated an unprecedented development of the transportation network. Mountain roads, waterways, and sea routes were extended in all directions to every nook and cranny of the country. Indeed, the construction of footpaths during the late Edo period can be seen as a kind of symbol of this golden age of handicraft culture.

No doubt, Japan today boasts a high level of culture. But the price has been high as well: severe environmental pollution and the wholesale destruction of nature. Until the end of the Edo period, red-crested cranes could still be seen soaring through the skies over the city; swans and geese flocked to Shinobazu Pond in Ueno Park. Foxes and badgers were found everywhere, and cuckoos (hototogisu) flourished in such numbers that their song was considered a nuisance. Even during the late Meiji period the water of the Sumida River was clean enough to be used for brewing tea while boating. Human activity imparted only minimal damage to nature. Viewed in this way, Edo-period culture seems almost ideal.

Certain elements of the Edo-period cultural heritage were vulgar, no doubt, but a more comprehensive view of the period reveals an almost infinite number of admirable qualities. Nevertheless, after the Meiji Restoration of 1868, governmental policies of modernization and westernization dictated a wholesale rejection of the preceding feudal era. Even the best elements of Edo-period culture were deemed outdated and vulgar and were thought to require prompt and thorough extirpation. That the true value of Edo-period culture could not yet be properly assessed had much to do with the lack of any inquiry into its origins and actual conditions. Recent research, however, has shown that Edo-period culture was outstanding in its own way and not at all inferior to the culture of earlier or later periods.

06 September 2010

Wordcatcher Tales: Birds for Trains

"So what is a shirasagi, anyway?" I asked the JR clerk in Nagoya Station who had initiated our rail passes and booked reservations on the Shirasagi Limited Express to Hida Takayama. "Could it be a white rabbit (shira- 'white' + usagi 'rabbit')?" She had no idea. But I should have known it would be a bird.

Before the advent of the Shinkansen bullet trains in 1964, the most famous limited express train along the Tokaido Main Line was the Tsubame 'swallow'. In fact, the Japan National Railways (JNR, 国鉄) used a swallow logo on its bus system and called its professional baseball team the (Kokutetsu) Swallows. Two other notable limited express trains we rode in those days were the Hato 'dove' and the Kamome 'seagull'.

Most express trains were named for destinations, like the Miyajima Express that I used to ride home to Hiroshima from boarding school in Kobe, but the fastest limited express trains tended to be named for birds. The first bullet trains went for even speedier names: Kodama 'echo' (speed of sound), Hikari 'flash' (speed of light), and the latest, postmodern-sounding Nozomi 'desire'. But regional bullet trains have revived a lot of the old limited-express bird names: Hayabusa 'peregrine falcon', Kamome 'seagull', Toki 'crested ibis', Tsubame 'swallow'.

On our latest trip, we were in the Hokuriku region, off the Shinkansen grid, where the fastest trains are traditional limited expresses, so we encountered several bird-named trains that were new to me. Shirasagi can be translated 'snowy egret' (Egretta thula), although sagi labels the whole family of herons (Ardeidae), as in aosagi (lit. 'blue heron') 'gray heron' (Ardeia cinerea).

Coming back to Kanazawa from Nanao on the Noto Peninsula, we rode the Sandābādo/Thunderbird, whose name left me a bit nonplussed until we paired it with Raichō 'rock ptarmigan' (Lagopus muta), a limited express that runs from Osaka through Kanazawa to Toyama. Thunderbird began operations as Super Raichō (Thunderbird), and Raichō (雷鳥) literally translates as 'thunder bird'. The rock ptarmigan is a symbol of Toyama Prefecture's Tateyama, one of Japan's 三霊山 Sanreizan 'Three Holy Mountains', along with Fujisan and Hakusan. (Doesn't the Rock Ptarmigan sound like a good name for a smaller version of Ford's SVT Raptor?)

Another limited express we rode between Kanazawa and Toyama was the Hakutaka, whose name is always written in kana, not kanji, and whose train cars carry an emblem with the English words "White Wing." The name evokes an old Tateyama legend about a white hawk (白鷹, which would normally be pronounced shirataka), but also evokes the name of a long-distance train, Hakuchō ('white bird' =) 'swan' that used to run all the way from Aomori (where the swan is the prefectural bird) via Ueno and Kanazawa to Osaka. The name Hakutaka was independently used for trains running on the leg between Ueno and Kanazawa until that leg was disrupted by the extension of the Shinkansen toward Nagano and Niigata in 1982. In 1997 it was revived for limited express trains running along the Japan Sea coast between Fukui and Niigata prefectures.

The first Japanese long-distance trains to receive names seem to have been the Fuji and Sakura, which began running between Tokyo and Shimonoseki in 1912, but were not named until 1929.

The first train named Hato 'dove' was an express on the South Manchuria Railway (満鉄 Mantetsu) running between Dalian and the new (in 1932) Manchukuo capital, 新京 Shinkyō (now Changchun). The limited express on that route was named あじあ Ajia 'Asia'.

POSTSCRIPT: The first trains named Hikari and Nozomi were Mantetsu expresses running between Busan (釜山) and Shinkyō (新京). (Japanese Wikipedia offers very detailed coverage of Japanese train systems, past and present.)

And, speaking of Imperial Japan, many of the same bird names were used for Hayabusa-class torpedo boats built between 1900 and 1904 that served so well in the Battle of Tsushima in the Russo-Japanese War.

04 September 2010

Wordcatcher Tales: Two Lakes Ōmi, Near and Far

Japan's largest freshwater lake, 琵琶湖 Biwa-ko 'biwa lake', got its current name from its elongated shape, which vaguely resembles that of the biwa, a Japanese lute, sharper at one end, rounder at the other. But the older name for the lake and the land around it (now Shiga Prefecture) was Ōmi 淡海 < awaumi 'light (= freshwater) sea'. (Compare the native Japanese reading for 湖 'lake' mizu-umi lit. 'water-sea' and the Sino-Japanese compound 淡水 tansui 'freshwater').

The older name, Ōmi, still shows up in a host of local place names—Ōmi-Hachiman (近江八幡), Ōmi-Imazu (近江今津), Ōmi-Maiko (近江舞子), Ōmi-Shiotsu (近江塩津), etc.—but nowadays it's always written as 近江 lit. 'near-bay/inlet/river'. (江 is the e of 江戸 Edo lit. 'bay-door'.) What's up with that?

Well, it turns out there was another notable freshwater lake near Hamamatsu in what is now Shizuoka Prefecture. To the Kinki hegemons of the Nara and Heian periods, it was the 遠つ淡海 Tōtu-ōmi 'far freshwater sea', later shortened to 遠江 Tōtōmi 'far waters', which was also the name of the surrounding province.

The lake closer to the capital was distinguished as the 近つ淡海 Tikatu-ōmi 'near lake', shortened in writing to 近江 'near waters', but pronounced simply Ōmi, since it was, after all, The Lake (like 'The City').

Nowadays, the two lakes are no longer sibling rivals. A major earthquake in 1498 breached the narrow shoreline that separated Lake Tōtōmi from the ocean, leaving its waters brackish, though still very productive. It now goes by the rather prosaic name Lake Hamana (浜名湖 Hamana-ko 'shorename-lake'), while Lake Ōmi sports a more poetic moniker, Lake Biwa: 琵琶湖 Biwa-ko 'lute lake'.

01 September 2010

On Rewriting While Translating

In translating I have striven to remain faithful to the spirit rather than the letter of Nishiyama's prose. Some therefore may wish to label this book an adaptation rather than a translation. Nishiyama writing style is stiff and often thrives more on a general tone of enthusiasm for the subject than on logical connections between sentences or paragraphs. Such a style, informed by the conviction that a good point bears repetition and that the relevance of an example need not be clarified until the very end of a section, entirely rules out literal translation. I have thus pruned judiciously, rewritten, rethought sentence and paragraph order, but refrained from adding anything substantially new to Nishiyama's writing. The only exceptions to this rule are a few brief definitions of terms unlikely to be known to a nonspecialist Anglophone readership and, moreover, the endings of Chapters 7, 8, and 9. In the original, these chapters simply stop when Nishiyama has run out of things to say. Such a writing style, common enough in Japanese academic prose, often irritates Western readers, who tend to prefer more synthetic conclusions. In these chapters, therefore, I have added summaries of Nishiyama's major points, thereby bringing the chapter to a smoother close while not adding anything new.

Since the studies translated here were not conceived by Nishiyama as forming one volume, much material is repeated. In some cases I have simply excised such duplication. The largest cut occurs in Chapter 6. Here I have eliminated or moved to other chapters most of the information that is presented in the first half of the original study, which repeats much of what has already been translated as Chapters 1 through 5. All major changes have been discussed with Professor Nishiyama, who himself occasionally suggested alterations and corrections.

Documentation in the original studies is often lacking and sometimes erroneous. In an effort to complete as many references as possible, I have started from scratch. Unless otherwise indicated, therefore, all notes are by the translator. Rechecking sources has allowed me to uncover several errors and misprints, which have been silently corrected after confirmation by the author.

The selection of illustrations and maps, the transcription of musical examples, and the production of the glossary are also my responsibility. Other editorial additions include dates and footnoted biographical information on individuals, details of geographical location of small towns and villages, variant names and performance dates of kabuki plays or musical works, and dates of publication of books. Names of individuals have presented a special problem, since Nishiyama endows the use of pseudonyms (geimei) with a special significance. Edo-period writers, actors, musicians, and artists often assumed a large variety of pseudonyms, forcing the translator to select one of several names for the sake of consistency. I have generally selected the name most likely to appear in biographical dictionaries.

Translating the titles of books or kabuki plays presents yet other obstacles. Titles of novels, plays, or collections of poetry are often the source of cryptic puns—and in cases where a work no longer exists, the exact reading and meaning of the title are anybody's guess. For extant books I have usually followed the reading of titles found in the Kokusho sōmokuroku. Kabuki titles are given in the version most likely to appear in kabuki dictionaries; alternative titles are given in the notes. A rough translation of a title's most obvious meaning follows the original in parentheses; when such a translation appears in italics, this indicates that the book has been published under this title in English. The reader should note that the names of Buddhist temples end with the syllables ji, in, tera, or dera; Shinto shrines often end with sha, gu, or miya.


RP-VITA was developed as part of a suite of remote presence medical robots by iRobot and InTouch Health. The robot provides the usual telemedicine remote presence functions, such as an audio/visual connection between the patient and the doctor in a form factor that suggests something of actual presence. It also enables smooth communication with hospital staff and access to medical chart information.

A remote physician using RP-VITA to talk with the patient and facilitate a physical examination

The most remarkable ability of the RP-VITA, however, is that it can proceed from point to point in the hospital autonomously. The designers realized that they should not waste the time of either the physician or the hospital staff in guiding the robot around the hospital – that would rather defeat the goal of using the time of live people efficiently. RP-VITA was given the ability to move around the busy halls of a hospital by itself.

The robot knows the layout of the hospital, keeps track of its own location, and uses an array of sophisticated sensors and programming to autonomously move about a busy space without interfering with people or other objects. The doctor need only click on the location of the next patient to visit, and RP-VITA signals when it has arrived on site. The video at the bottom of the page shows RP-VITA making its way around a hospital.

The FDA clearance specifies that RP-VITA can be used for active patient monitoring in non-surgical patients, and before, during, and after surgical care. It can also be used in testing patients, including cardiovascular, neurological, prenatal, psychological and critical care assessments and examinations.

The RP-VITA was not evaluated for performing operations remotely, at least partially because it has no hands or other manipulating appendages. However, iRobot and InTouch Health are developing a similar unit which has extendable pan, tilt, and zoom lenses designed so that a remote surgeon can collaborate with, or guide and mentor, an on-site surgeon. These functions have not yet been evaluated by the FDA.

Source: iRobot

View gallery - 2 images


Tag Archives: Robin Barooah

Toolmaker Talk: Robin Barooah (Equanimity)

This is the first post in a new series of “Toolmaker Talks” we’re starting on the Quantified Self blog. There are many conducting personal QS projects, and much of what is featured on the QS blog is about: what did they do? how did they do it? and what have they learned?  Now, we want to also hear from those closely observing all this QS activity and developing appropriate tools: what needs have they observed? what tools have they developed in response? and what have they learned from users’ experiences?

Equanimity, an iPhone app, is a beautiful timer and journal for meditation. Its functionality (timers, logs, charts) and design support your meditation practice in an appropriately non-intrusive way. As one reviewer noted: “Meditating is all about letting go of your frustrations and achieving peace of mind. … [Equanimity] is easy to use and everything about it is focused on offering you a calm experience.”

Developer Robin Barooah explains what led to its creation and the impact it has had.

Q: How do you describe Equanimity? What is it?
Barooah: In the most basic sense, Equanimity is an iPhone app that I designed to help me meditate regularly.  It does this in two ways. First, by providing a timer that’s easy to use and not distracting.  That helps with the meditation sessions themselves because it provides a well-defined end time so I don’t have to worry about going on for too long and disturbing my daily routine.

Secondly, and to me more importantly, Equanimity keeps a log of the meditations it has timed, and provides clear graphical feedback on how frequently I meditate, and how long and how consistently I’ve maintained my practice for.  It also provides a gentle reminder in the form of an indicator that shows whether I’ve meditated yet that day.  The idea behind these features is that they provide an honest reflection of my meditation practice, and that this reflection influences my behavior.

Before I used Equanimity, I found that I would meet resistance in my practice and have an inaccurate perception of how much I was meditating.  I found it easy to think I was meditating every other day, though actually only doing it twice a week, if I didn’t keep a record.  I’ve found it’s even possible to forget during the day whether I’d done it or not.  Since I do actually want to meditate each day, this kind of gentle feedback is enough to help me keep on track in a way I found very hard before.  It’s basically an antidote to self-deceptive or inaccurate thoughts.

Q: What’s the back story? What led to it?
Barooah: I had gone through a particularly stressful couple of years and even though the stress was over, I found that I was experiencing anxiety and lowered concentration. Meditation is associated with spiritual benefits and self-knowledge too, but at the beginning of the project I was just looking to recover.  I had previously meditated in various classes and knew that meditation could help me, but I hadn’t managed to establish a practice outside of a class.  I knew that I wasn’t the only person who had trouble making meditation part of their routine, so I thought that if I could solve the problem for myself, my solution would be useful for others too.

I’d experimented with keeping track on paper and using a coffee timer in the past, without success.  That would often break down because I wouldn’t have the paper and timer with me when I thought of meditating.  I experimented with building a web application, but it became clear that an iPhone app had the potential to be much more personal, and was more likely to be with me when I needed it.  Also, having a computer sitting in the background didn’t feel right.

Q: What impact has it had?
Barooah: I think I can now say that I meditate every day.  It took much longer for me to get to that point than I anticipated, though — something like 18 months.  Over that time, by looking at my meditation history I was able to learn about things that disrupted my practice and make adjustments.  Doing meditation early in my day is much more reliable than later, for example.  More interestingly, I could see from the annual chart that things like traveling, illness, and minor depressions all had the potential to significantly disrupt my practice.  They still do have an effect but now typically only for a day at most, because I understand what’s happening and can adapt my routine accordingly.

I think it’s also helped me grow significantly in patience with myself, by revealing what I would probably have thought of as a series of independent failures to be a slow learning process leading to success.

As far as other people go, it’s a little harder to say. I don’t collect user data because I think that would interfere with the sense of meditation being a private experience.  There are thousands of users, though, and I have heard from many people who also say that it’s helped with their practice. There are also regular meditators who had no trouble practicing regularly before, but use Equanimity because they just like the design.

At some point I would like to ask people to sign up for a study so I can learn more about the range of experiences, but I never feel good about  software that persuades people to give up personal information, so that will be a separate project that people can volunteer for.

Q: What makes it different, sets it apart?
There are a few other well-produced meditation apps available for the iPhone.  Each has a different focus.  I think Equanimity is unique in being directly focused on solving the problem of cultivating a daily practice.

I use it myself every day, so I’ve removed all the friction I can from the daily meditation process.  The feedback charts are carefully designed to provide information that is useful at different stages in the process of developing a practice without needing any work.  For most people it’s self-explanatory and doesn’t need any setting up.  The more advanced features only come into view when you need them.  As I learn more, I’m steadily developing the app while maintaining its simplicity.

Q: Anything else you’d like to say?

Thanks for asking me about this project!  It’s nice to have a chance to reflect on it.  I think that now that we have truly personal computing devices we are starting to learn how to use them to learn more about ourselves as human beings.  To me, this presents genuinely new and optimistic possibilities for improving our lives.  I’m looking forward to learning more about the stories behind other projects as you continue this series.

Product: Equanimity
Website: http://meditate.mx/iphone
Platform: iPhone
Price: $4.99

(If you are a “toolmaker” and want to participate in this series, contact rajivzume@gmail.com)

Posted in Toolmaker Talks | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments


What is the Lymphatic system?

The human lymphatic system is, in a sense, the body’s second circulatory system. It is made up of lymphatic vessels, lymph nodes, lymph (the interstitial fluid drained through the vessels), and lymphocytes (specialized immune cells). The tonsils, adenoids, spleen, and thymus are all part of the lymph system.

The lymphatic system has no “pump” of its own to move lymph through the system, as the circulatory system has the heart. Rather, bodily movement and breathing function to move liquid lymph through the vessels and filters of the lymph nodes. For people who get too little exercise and eat too much processed food, the lymphatic system can easily be overtaxed – resulting in a body that is susceptible to infection and disease.
Learn more:  http://www.naturalnews.com/038162_massage_lymph_drainage_health.html#ixzz2SzF86TKC

The Lymphatic system is involved in the removal of waste products, toxins and debris from the body. There are various gentle, non-invasive therapies that employ drainage techniques, for example, the work developed by Ross Emmett among others.  It can help decrease symptoms such as swelling in the feet and ankles, abdominal swelling and similar symptoms in the arms thereby easing stiffness and increasing mobility.

The lymph nodes in the neck are very near the surface, as are some veins in the legs. It’s important to use a very light touch when doing lymphatic drainage.  This very gentle therapy can have very profound effects on the body. The same is true with yoga – gentle poses and deep breathing techniques can stimulate lymph  flow, helping you feel better without the need for a strenuous asana  practice.

N.B. If you  suffer from long-term lymphedema, or localized swelling related to lymph system  blockage, it is advisable to check with your GP first.


About EcoMobility

EcoMobility is a term used to describe travel through integrated, socially inclusive, and environmentally friendly options: namely walking, cycling, wheeling and public transport options.

EcoMobility World Festivals

The EcoMobility World Festival and congress are part of the EcoMobility activities. The Festival was initiated to show that an ecomobile lifestyle can be promoted in cities all over the world. The Festival transforms a neighborhood for an entire month and demonstrates the possibilities of an innovative and forward-thinking urban transportation culture in cities. Kaohsiung City will be the host of the next EcoMobility World Festival in October 2017, be part of it!.

The EcoMobility Alliance

The EcoMobility Alliance is a group of enthusiastic local governments with a common goal: to create and implement urban mobility strategies that prioritize people and the environment. Since its creation in 2011, the EcoMobility Alliance has worked to become a truly global actor by engaging with a geographically diverse range of cities and partners. In addition, the Alliance aims to engage public and private actors in advocating for EcoMobility at a global level.

EcoMobility SHIFT

The EcoMobility SHIFT scheme is a total quality management tool created by academia, nongovernmental organizations and cities for use and implementation by and in cities. The tool enables cities to measure the performance of urban mobility, to create a baseline and to identify areas for further development, ultimately helping cities to change their urban transport development trajectory and mobility plans.