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Logitech Comfort Lapdesk Keeps Legs Cool

Logitech Comfort Lapdesk Keeps Legs Cool

endurance laptop users now deceive yet another way to fight off the swampy lap and cramped wrists that arrive from sitting a furnace of a computer on your legs for hours at a time. on monday, logitech announced its modish comfort lapdesk, a padded, heat-shielded buffer to make laptop buying more comfortable. the wedge-shaped lapdesk uses a curved hindquarters home that touches the legs in four places, letting air roll beneath the laptop and helping to freedom heat. it also elevates the rear of the notebook by 12 degrees, putting the keyboard in a better typing position for seated use. the non-twig surface has been de

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De la hoya

Oscar de La Hoya VS Manny Pacquiao

here’s a breaking dirt of the winning fight of the filipino’s pride, manny “pacman” pacquiao. pacquiao tkos de la hoyafilipino ring hero manny pacquiao continued to validate his importance as the world’s top pound-for-pound fighter when he defied the odds in knocking out boxing icon oscar “golden boy” de la hoya in their welterweight conjure up match at the mgm grand arena in las vegas saturday sunset (sunday in manila).there was no knockdown but a relentless pacquiao gave de la hoya all that he could handle, before the “golden boy” called it quits at the outclass of the eighth round, prompting referee tony weeks to avouch the filipino the winner by technical knockout.it was only the second time in de la hoya’s 16-year pro hurtle that he was stopped in a scrap, and it was made even more shocking because it came at the hands of a fighter who fought at just 129 pounds months earlier. at the age of 35 de la hoya seemed not only well beyond his prime, but unable to offer any answer to the punches that pacquiao was landing almost at will.more on this article hereto those who haven’t seen the fight of manny, here’s a round by blunt coverage of their fight from yahoo! sports by kevin iole - paquiao makes de la hoya discontinue after eight

ROUND 1 De La Hoya closed as a 2-1 favorite. De La Hoya is minus-200 and Pacquiao is plus-170. The over-under is 9? rounds. Pacquiao comes out with a slight weight advantage tonight. On the unofficial HBO scales, he weighed 148? and De La Hoya was 147. De La Hoya is the aggressor early, but nothing lands in the first minute. Straight left from Pacquiao and then a combination from Pacquiao connects. Lead left by Pacquiao. Right to the body by Oscar. Manny misses a big hook. Straight left by Pacquiao. Combination to the head by De La Hoya backs Pacquiao up. Right by Oscar connects. Straight left by Manny.Iole scores it 10-9, Pacquiao

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ROUND 2 Lead right by De La Hoya and a right hook from Pacquiao. Double jab by De La Hoya. Pacquiao is circling away. Combination from Oscar but doesn’t land flush. Combination to the body by De La Hoya. Right-left from Pacquiao. De La Hoya’s face is reddened from the punches. Pacquiao left lands and then an uppercut. Lead left by Pacquiao keeps getting through. Difference in hand speed is stark. Hard jab and then a left by Pacquiao. Lead left by Pacquiao.Iole scores it 10-9, Pacquiao.

ROUND 3 Lead left from Pacquiao to open the round connects. De La Hoya has to stop that. De La Hoya is doing nothing offensively in first minute of round. Pacquiao flicks a jab that is short. Right to the head and left to the body from De La Hoya. Lead left again by Pacquiao. Left to the body from Pacquiao. Oscar seems befuddled. Right hook to the body from Pacquiao.Iole scores it 10-9, Pacquiao

ROUND 5De La Hoya connects with a jab, but first 30 seconds of round are very slow. They’re circling but not throwing much. Pacquiao lands a right hook. Triple jab from Pacquiao. Combination from Pacquiao backs De La Hoya up. The way this is going, it wouldn’t be a shock if De La Hoya were to quit on the stool at some point. He’s taking a tremendous amount of punishment. Body shot by Oscar lands and then two lefts. Oscar’s left eye is closing. He looks like a beaten, old and shot fighter.Iole scores it 10-9, Pacquiao

ROUND 6Nothing happens in first minute of round. Pacquiao lands left to body and a left to the cheek. They trade in the corner and Pacquiao gets the best of it. Straight left from Pacquiao lands. Hard straight left by Pacquiao snaps Oscar’s head back. De La Hoya’s left e

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El paso texas

Brett Dennen: Hope for the Hopeless

Brett Dennen

Brett Dennen sings the kind of songs that fits tearjerkers and sitcoms. It’s all about feelings, a losses and, of course, hope. In short, he has all the trappings to be a housewifes hero. Hell, he is even all about good causes too.

His album Hope for the Hopeless has been saved from the cut out bin by using vintage organ sounds and a few nice guitar licks. He is without a doubt a nice guy. Being nice all the time is pretty boring, but he might show more balls when he is one stage.

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live dates:

MP3: Brett Dennen - Make You Crazy (stream)

» brettdennen.net » myspace.com/brettdennen

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We are scientists

Veruca Salt: Still Demanding

VerucaFans of Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory will love www.stilldemanding.com, a site created by Virgin Holidays. Virgin has enlisted Julie Dawn Cole, who played the original Veruca Salt, and sent her off to South Africa to make some videos.

It’s an innovative idea and we think it works really well. Although we might have suggested some additional activity around it - some podcasts, a Facebook page, put all the videos on YouTube…

Just as a footnote, while searching around for links to write this post I came across an article by Hank Williams (not this Hank Williams) who argues that by behaving just like dear Veruca, we are all responsible for the torrid state of the economy.

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Ah well. Watch the videos on Virgin’s site and they might just cheer you up.

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National finals rodeo

On A Rush

i need to send those holiday cards thriving overseas by friday the latest. i don’t know what i was thinking, but this year is even worse than last year. at this time last year, they were already sent out. knowing how snail mail can be so delayed at this but of the year, i should … related posts: related posts brought to you by yet another tied up posts plugin.

Conference Championship Weekend

with the college football regular season involving at a close, this weekend is championship week for the elite conferences in the ncaa. on saturday december 6th the atlantic beach seminar (acc), big 12, and southeastern conference (sec) whim all crown their champions of football. while a lot of pride comes with triumphant each respective conference championship, each of these games resolve have a major change on the bowl championship cialis kaufen ohne rezept series (bcs) standings and the pairing for the bcs move viagra kaufen ohne rezept games (including the national championship game). the acc championship (sports/college-football-tickets/acc-football-championship/)game will be held this saturday at raymond james colosseum in…

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Lovie smith

Florida State Has One Too Many Problems

what in the the human race is prevalent on with head coach bobby bowden’s florida nation football team?one second they’re up. the next secondarily they’re down.one minute we’re talking about myron rolle winning the rhodes scholarship, the next minute we’re talking about 5 wide receivers catching fists instead of passes.then we’re talking about a big persuade over maryland, but somehow bert reed and cameron wade are turning themselves into the leon county jail. while the arrests stem from that fight from 2 weeks ago, it’s still an distribute, especially now that the cooperate consists of two players on the roster that are currently out on bail.you have to wonder how all of this is happening to the winningest college football guide ever? has the luster of his hall of fame career worn off so much that even the players he recruits don’t set up enough common sense not to act foolishly in a bobby bowden football program?maybe that’s just it. afterall, coach joe paterno has gone through similar incidents at penn state in recent years. he too has had disciplinary issues with intractable players who definitely don’t know what it means to be qualified to movement for what is perhaps one of the top 5 head coaches in the history of college football.but why? is it not the reputation and standing of a man like bobby bowden that got them to approach to florida state in the first place? bowden has done nothing to tarnish his image?at least not publicly. so why the immature behavior by some of his players?peradventure there is something more bowden that makes players lose that misgivings of god that all football players should maintain seeking their coaches. not to mention that players shouldn’t have a working relationship with their coach, but in my dealings with good football coaches, the most common characteristic among them is the fact that when they tell their players not to do something, they don’t do it.i had several coaches throughout highschool?different ones benefit of each sport. i remember my football coach, a perfect good coach with the regard for of all the players, told us to make sure we didn’t go revealed at all on halloween because he trifle we’d do nothing but get into trouble. tautological to whisper, right after he told us that i asked a teammate what we were active to do that night. he said he wasn’t doing anything because he didn’t want to mess around and get caught. so i asked another instrumentalist, and he said the same thing. fast-forward to basketball season, when our basketball coach told us not to go out on new year’s eve, an event succeed less celebrated by teenagers. after he told us that, i went into the locker latitude and not lone did my teammates have plans, but they in truly were throwing the party themselves.want to guess which direct put the crap-shooter product on the field/court?of tack, it was the football coach. but bobby bowden is very successful! even despite having more than a show share of unruly football players on his fsu squad.so is it old age?does he just not care anymore?do the athletes run the school?who knows?but i do know one thing. florida magnificence football won’t be florida state football for much longer if it continues liking for this. sure, myron rolle makes the entire program look fetching impressive satisfactorily now, but when that fades and the at leisure-field issues continue, then what?as good of a coach as bobby bowden is, he doesn’t plain to be much of a disciplinarian. and even the most top-drawer of programs (i.e. miami) have fallen victim to troublesome kids and a be without of correct within the program.

Nov 27, 2008

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Oldest person to ever live

I Can No Longer Say…

that i haven’t seen a james bond movie.because i have.i went to see quantum of reassure and honestly download sci-fi liked download horror it! it was bursting of action and drama.and i also think that i’m a teeny equity in dear one with daniel craig.

Obviously

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Put this in the category of “most obvious White House hire”:

President-elect Barack Obama today announced two new members of the White House staff. Jonathan Favreau will serve as Director of Speechwriting, and Cecilia Muñoz will serve as Director of Intergovernmental Affairs.

I’d say Favreau was the most certain Obama staff appointment of all. Don’t you think?

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Dry turkey rub

Baggage-sniffing federal beagle retires in style at LAX

A_retiring_geagle

The khat dog sniffed out his final smuggler at LAX on Tuesday.

After that, Shiloh the beagle high-tailed it home to Long Beach to live the high life with his handler, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Canine Enforcement Officer Donna Kercher.

For nearly eight years Shiloh’s keen sense of smell uncovered fruits, vegetables and other foods possibly infested with dangerous insects that were carried illegally into the United States by international travelers. He also scored drugs for customs inspectors.

Last month he intercepted 70 pounds of khat, an east African and Middle Eastern plant that contains a stimulant called cathinone. It wasn’t the first time he had zeroed in on khat being sneaked in.

His nose for naughtiness made him top dog at the Bradley International Terminal, where LAX first employed beagles as sniffer dogs in 1984. But as a government employee, Shiloh always faced a mandatory retirement age–in his case 9. On Tuesday, he padded through the terminal arrival area one last time, giving bulging bags rolling off the huge luggage carousel the sniff test.

When he found something…

suspicious, he sat down, alerting Kercher that something was amiss. Sometimes it’s a false alarm. Food or fruit brought onto the plane as an in-flight snack was eaten en route, but left its scent behind. Other times, apples or bananas tucked into carry-on luggage in Addis Ababa or Bangkok went uneaten and forgotten.

But the threat to U.S. agriculture from pests such as Medflies and guava flies, or of diseases carried in meats, is significant enough that incoming food and plants must be seized and destroyed, officials say.

Over the years, Shiloh has detected more than 20,000 prohibited agriculture items, said Kercher, 40. With his friendly tail-wagging, he’s managed to do it in a non-threatening way too. Kercher will continue as an agricultural enforcement officer working solo, checking bags by unzipping each of them and poking around corners and into containers with her gloved hands.

What a trained agriculture dog can do in seconds takes 15 or 20 minutes for a human officer to do fully. “I’ll miss the passenger interaction, parents teaching children about working dogs. That’s really been fun,” she said. “I’m so attached to Shiloh. I don’t know if I could get another dog like him.”

During his final rounds Tuesday, Shiloh wore buttons stating “It’s my last day — ‘Bye” and “I’m retiring” pinned to his uniform — a blue vest that bore the Homeland Security emblem and the motto “Protecting American Agriculture.”

Attached to his collar was a tiny gold U.S. Customs and Border Protection badge with the number 58. A new plant sniffer is joining LAX’s 10-dog beagle brigade starting today. But on Tuesday, seven members of the canine corps lined up with their handlers to say goodbye to Shiloh. About 25 other agriculture officers and border protection agency Port Director Carlos Martel joined them.

Supervising inspector Diana Verity laughed as she recalled how Shiloh once alerted Kercher to a luggage cart piled with numerous bags. Kercher “asked which bags? And he put his nose on two different bags. Turns out there was fruit in both bags.”

“Another time he found a sausage hidden in a concealed place in a bag. He’s awesome,” said Verity, herself a former canine officer.

Shiloh and other baggage beagles never get to eat what they find. Instead, they are rewarded with doggy treats from their officer-handlers. But on Tuesday a canine cake was served in Shiloh’s honor at his retirement party.

Another agriculture dog handler-officer, Leticia Hale, baked it with peanut butter, carrots, flour and honey. “He’s allowed to eat it. He’s a civilian,” joked U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspector Michael Fleming.

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As the other beagles watched with tongue-dripping envy, Shiloh eyed the cake and then looked at Kercher for approval. She said yes. Shiloh didn’t turn up his nose at his one last airport treat.

– Bob Pool

Photo: Bob Chamerlin/Los Angeles Times

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C

Raytracing 4D fractals, visualizing the four dimensional properties of the Julia set

image

my main area of interest in programming during my view and university years was in computer graphics. i did a allotment of hobby programming with games, like the quake buy cialis 3 mod rocket arena 3, and specifically with fractal graphics. this generated a quite acute follow-up during a course on exploration methodologies where i together with a friend wrote a scientific assignment on 4d julia rendering.

The 2D Julia fractal to the left is a shape that everyone recognizes. The simple formula that defines the Julia and Mandelbrot set is also something that many know:

image

The variable z and constant c are in a normal 2D Julia set complex numbers. A complex number is a tuple of two values, a real and imaginary part, which can be visualized in the complex pane, which is a 2D geometric representation of complex numbers. 

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image

Complex numbers can be extended to a four-tuple value with one real and three imaginary units. These are called Quaternions and can be visualized as a four dimensional space. When using the Julia equation with Quaternions we can define a 4D dimensional object. It becomes a lot trickier to visualize however. What is needed is a 4D camera from which you can cast rays (vectors). The algorithm traverse these vectors step by step (from the camera) and for each point the Julia equation is recursively run to determine if the point is part of the Julia set or not.

Here is 2D illustration of how a ray is thrown and sampled at regular intervals:

image

The process of sampling each point can be very time consuming so the distance between sample points can not be to small, but it can not be the to high either as it directly relates to the point resolution you get as exemplified by these two images:

image

The left image has a higher distance between sample points compared to the image to the right. You can clearly see the artifact of how the algorithm works in the rings in the image to the left (each ring is a sample point along the ray). To optimise the sampling process we can move back after a sample hit and then move forward in smaller steps.

image

Here is the Julia set viewed from the side, the constant (Julia seed) is (0.4 0.5i 0j 0k).

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The raytracing gives coordinates in a 4D space that belongs to the Julia set, each point can be given a color depending on how far the point is from the camera (as above). Further each point can be lighted and shaded. To accurately light a point you need it’s surface normal, these normals can be calculated by lo

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Liturgical calendar

Take Action: Make Something Day

By Steve Knight:

Friday, November 28 is Make Something Day.

As Jason Evans explains,

For some helpful caveats to Make Something Day, check out Julie Clawson’s recent thoughts.

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steve knight is local organizer for the charlotte emergent comrade and a member of the coordinating squad conducive to emergent village.
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