I am sharing the information below because I feel it is comprehensive, easy to read, and authoritative. I am not the author. This information was obtained from another source and sent to me by a naturopathic and nutraMetrix practitioner by the name of Dawn Swanson of New Dawn Health with her added commentary. It includes some very strong statements from several MD’s.

These issues are so important for us to understand, especially those of us with children. Some key points:

1. H1N1 vaccine has not been proven safe or effective and may even be extremely harmful.
2. Building the body’s immune system with a healthy vegetable-rich diet, avoiding use of antibiotics, and supplementing with Vitamin D is a much safer and more reliable method of defense. Additional immune support can be obtained by supplementing with antioxidants such as Vitamin C, OPC-3, Curcumin, and a high-quality mercury-free Omega-III supplement.

Please read the complete article for a full understanding of the issues and your choices.
 

H1N1 Information From Other Sources For Your Information

President Obama and his top health officials are engaging in a major public relations effort that is diverting attention away from whether the swine flu vaccine is effective and safe by focusing attention on whether there is enough of it to go around. And the media is cooperating fully.

Increasing numbers of scientists and doctors are issuing harsh criticisms of the government’s plan to vaccinate virtually the entire U.S. population with a poorly tested vaccine that is not only ineffective against swine flu, but could cripple and even kill many more people than it helps.

The CDC’s public relations campaign has been running “scare” ads that portray swine flu as a full-blown “pandemic” responsible for snuffing out countless lives. But scientists and health officials throughout the world have called the governments claims unjustified and deliberately misleading.
Source:  Global Research October 29, 2009

A recent study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 35 children who died from H1N1 from April to August did not have chronic health conditions.  However, all had a co-occurring bacterial infection.  The most common infection that causes flu-related deaths is staphylococcus aureus.  A third of the population carries it, most often in the nose or on the skin. The flu causes upper respiratory damage, which allows the staph to make its way into the lungs. 

Unfortunately, methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has become a serious problem and is getting worse.  One reason it is getting worse is due to the over use of antibiotics in medicine and conventional farming.  We can help control this problem by restraining our use of antibiotics in medicine and in choosing the foods we eat. 

The CDC study did not indicate if the children had been taking any medication, or if they had been vaccinated for the flu recently or in past years.  It did not indicate if they were positively lab confirmed for H1N1.  It did not indicate if they received Tamiflu or other anti-virals prior to death.  It did not indicate how many had been treated in the past with antibiotics.  It did not indicate how many were obese, which increases the risk factor 6 times.  These questions need answers.

A Canadian study suggests that those who have gotten the seasonal flu vaccine in the past may be at greater risk for getting H1N1 complications.

The National Vaccine Information Center is calling for a comparison of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated individuals and their outcomes so that in the future we can make informed decisions about vaccines.  It is scary that these studies have not been done before the campaign to get everyone vaccinated.   

Dr. Anthony Morris, a distinguished virologist and former Chief Vaccine Office at the U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA), states that “There is no evidence that any influenza vaccine thus far developed is effective in preventing or mitigating any attack of influenza” and that “The producers of these vaccines know they are worthless, but they go on selling them anyway.”

The media has over stated the severity of the flu.  Below is a letter written by Dr. Russell Blaylock who has done extensive research on flu immunization.  (I have inserted a few comments as noted.)  Dr. Blaylock’s credentials are listed, as well as a link to an interview.  It is worth reading and listening to for a better understanding of the potential life threatening or life altering risks of the vaccine. 

If you decide to get the flu immunization or not, please do all you can to boost your immune system this winter including taking therapeutic doses of Vitamin D3, taking a good quality probiotic and/or aloe juice, taking a good quality Omega 3 supplement, detoxifying, eating at least six servings of vegetables and two servings of fruit per day, NOT eating sugar, avoiding products with antibiotics, getting at least 7 hours of sleep per night, and exercising and laughing often. 
Letter from Dr. Blaylock

No one should take the swine flu vaccine. It is one of the most dangerous vaccines ever devised. It contains an immune adjuvant called squalene (MF-59) which has been shown to cause severe autoimmune disorders such as MS, rheumatoid arthritis and Lupus.  This is the vaccine adjuvant that is strongly linked to the Gulf War syndrome, which killed over 10,000 soldiers and caused a 200% increase in the fatal disease ALS (Lou Gehreg disease). This virus H1N1 kills by causing a “cytokine storm,” which means that it cause the body’s immune system to overreact and that is why it is killing young people and is a mild disease in the elderly. (The elderly have weakened immune systems.)  This vaccine is a very powerful immune stimulator and carries the real possibility of making the lethality of the virus much greater. 

One’s best protection is vitamin D3. One should take 5000 IU a day now and when the disease begins to spread increase the dose to 15,000 IU a day. Vitamin D3 modulates the immune reaction, reducing the chance of an overreaction and stimulates the body to produce what are called antimicrobial peptides, which are powerful killers of viruses that does not involve immunity. This is dose related, which means the higher the dose of vitamin D3 the better the protection. 

Fish oils also reduce immune overreaction. One teaspoon per day should be sufficient.  For severe symptoms, one teaspoon twice a day.  (Dawn’s comment – there are also good fish oil capsules.) 

Antioxidants of various kinds also  help (Dawn comment: OPC-3 is great and/or Natural Cellular Defense). This includes, quercetin, curcumin, grapeseed extract, vitamin C and natural vitamin E. A good multivitamin/mineral is also essential.

Feel free to spread this around. People need to know how to protect themselves.

Here is a link to an interview with Dr. Blaylock: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/11/03/What-We-Have-Learned-About-the-Great-Swine-Flu-Pandemic.aspx

RUSSELL L. BLAYLOCK, M.D.
______________________________________________

Dr. Blaylock is a board certified neurosurgeon, author and lecturer. He attended the LSU School of Medicine in New Orleans and completed his general surgical internship and neurosurgical residency at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, South Carolina . During his residency he ran the neurology program for one year and did a fellowship in neurosurgery after his residency.  For the past 25 years he has practiced neurosurgery in addition to having a nutritional practice. He recently retired from both practices to devote full time to nutritional studies and research. 

During his residency training he worked with the eminent neurosurgeon, Dr. Ludwig Kempe. Together they developed the transcallosal removal of intraventricular tumors, which is still used today. Dr. Blaylock presented their cases utilizing this technique to the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. They also developed the ventriculolymphatic shunt in the treatment of hydrocephalus. In addition, they conducted neuroanatomical studies together with the aim of developing improved approaches in vascular intracranial surgery.

It was during his residency that Dr. Blaylock did much of the primary work on intraventricular monitoring of craniocerebral trauma patients, which was reported in the scientific literature.  He also worked closely with Dr. Peter Jannetta during Dr. Jennetta’s early research on vascular compression of the cranial nerves as a cause of trigeminal neuralgia and hemifacial spasm. Dr. Blaylock was one of the first neurosurgeons to utilize high-intensity nutritional supplementation in craniocerebral trauma patients, which met with great success.

Dr. Blaylock has written and illustrated three books. The first book was on the subject of excitotoxins (Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills ) and how they are related to diseases of the nervous system.  His second book, Health and Nutrition Secrets That Can Save Your Life, covers the common basis of all diseases, nutritional protection against diseases of aging, protection against heavy metal toxicity, the fluoride debate, pesticide and herbicide toxicity, excitotoxin update, the vaccine controversy, protection against heart attacks and strokes and contains a new chapter on omega-3 fats. This book has been newly revised as an oversized paperback. His third book, Natural Strategies for Cancer Patients , was released in April, 2003 and discusses the ways to defeat cancer, enhance the effectiveness of conventional treatments and prevent complications associated with these treatments. In addition, he has written and illustrated three chapters in medical textbooks, written a booklet on nutritional protection against biological terrorism and written and illustrated a booklet on multiple sclerosis. He has written over 30 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals on a number of subjects.

Since the publication of his first book he has been a guest on numerous national and international syndicated radio programs and appeared on the 700 Club several times. He appeared on Nutritionally Living with Dr. Ward Bond. Presently, he is engaged in a monthly radio program discussing his book, Health and Nutrition Secrets on Raymond Francis’ program Beyond Health. The series will run for 12 months. He lectures widely to both lay and professional medical audiences on a variety of nutritional subjects.

Dr. Blaylock serves on the editorial staff of the Journal of the American Nutraceutical Association and is the associate editor of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, official journal of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.  He has a monthly nutrition newsletter, published by NewsMax.com, The Blaylock Wellness Newsletter.

Dr. Blaylock serves as the medical consultant for the Fluoride Toxicity Research Collaborative . He was recently awarded the Integrity in Science award by the Westin Price Foundation.  Presently, he is a visiting professor in the department of biological sciences at Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi.

At present he is a member of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, the American Nutraceutical Association, the International and American Associations of Clinical Nutritionist, the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology, American College of Nutrition, American Association for Health Freedom, National Health Federation, American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine and the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation. He was recently appointed as a member of the Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine and the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation. He was also recently appointed as a member of the Scientific Advisory Panel of the Life-Extension Foundation.

I discovered the connection between antioxidants and improvements in arthritis quite by accident several years ago. At the time, I had a lot of inexplicable pain in my muscle tissue, on top of some nagging arthritis that I had come to accept as part of the deal of growing older. A friend of mine recommended an antioxidant for the pain, explaining that body aches can be caused by chronic inflammation which can be a by-product of free radical damage. Since free radicals in the body cause a degenerative effect known as oxidative stress (think of the way an apple browns after you cut it in half and expose it to oxygen), an anti-oxidant can help mitigate the effects.

I had no idea what she was talking about. I just took the stuff.

Then, lo and behold, my pain began to improve. Over the following weeks of taking an isotonic version of an antioxidant made from pine bark extract (“Pycnogenol”) known as Isotonix OPC-3, the pain slowly ebbed away. Which was exciting enough. But then I also realized that it wasn’t just the muscle pain that was reduced; my arthritis was better as well. My flexibility improved so that I could fully flex my hands again, and the swolen feeling in my hands and knees over time was eliminated completely. Four years of taking this supplement almost daily and I have had only a few flare ups with the arthritis during particularly stressful periods.

I learned that I was not the only one. As I did a bit of research, I found that there are many many stories like mine. I began to share my story with other people, to help them get ahold of the supplement, and to collect testimonials. What follows is a testimonial I would like to share by a young women with not only an early case of arthritis, but tendonitis, carpal tunnel, and fibromyalgia as well….

But first, I want to make an important statement. This gal talks about getting off of her medications, and I want to be very clear that I never recommend this to anyone, unless they are under the supervision of their doctor. Working with your doctor on your wellness plan is absolutely critical. Now if your doctor will not discuss supplements and lifestyle changes with you, I will admit that you have a challenge there. You may want to interview doctors that will have this discussion.

If you have read any of my past writings, you know that I work with health practitioners to help them incorporate wellness solutions into clinical practice to improve their patient outcomes. Wellness as an adjunct to traditional medicine represents a paradigm shift in our society that eventually all of modern medicine will need to be completely on board with. And you can help make it happen by letting your doctor know that you want him or her to work with you to optimize your health. There are educational programs for them, and guidance through Nutraceutical and Anti-Aging Consultants such as myself where they can get the information they need to truly and proactively help their patients live better longer.

Alright, that’s my soap box speach of the day. Without further ado, here’s the cool testimonial from a young woman who improved her arthritis with two powerful antioxidants known as Isotonix OPC-3 and Isotonix Antioxidant Fomula.

“I would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to you for your Isotonix products.  It has given me back my life.  I am twenty-six years old and have been diagnosed with combined conditions of chronic tendonitis, arthritis, and fibromyalgia, a non-degenerative muscle disease. Modern medicine failed me. I was unable to treat any of the conditions in a conventional manner because of the adverse reaction it would have on one of the other conditions.  It was recommended that I give up working and accept a life of constant pain.

I am a production worker and due to that type of work, I have developed carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive motion injuries.  My hands deteriorated to the point of being unable to hold a coffee cup by the handle.  One of the most difficult things for me to do was to purchase a soda from a vending machine.  My writing had become illegible and I had to start printing again.  I was unable to pick up change from a flat surface. This is just a small list of the changes which affected the quality of my life.  I remember at one point when my husband shut the bedroom door before leaving for work and it took me a half hour to get it open.

My mornings started by soaking my hands in hot water to remove some of the stiffness so I could hold a cup of coffee with two hands.  After using OPC-3 and the Antioxidant Formula for a week, I can do all the things I have mentioned and then some.  These products have given me the most relief I have experienced to date. I stopped taking all of the prescription medication two months ago due to constant nausea that was a side effect of the drugs, so I am positive the results I am experiencing are solely from the Isotonix products.  I have an increase in flexibility, mobility, a decrease in swelling, and best of all, a drastic reduction in pain which has remained at a tolerable level without any medication.  Please try it!!

I have so much hope for the future. I feel great. It is incredible. 

Diana“

If you know of anyone with chronic aches and pains, repetitive stress challenges, or arthritis, please send them a link to this blog entry, and give them a ray of hope. You may be able to do a world of good. And by all means, let your physician know that there are natural solutions that should be evaluated as part of their work with their patients. I would be happy to have this discussion with any health practitioner.

To your health!

Jayna

 Making my way through Machen’s excellent Shorter Writings I came across a great article on Christian schooling (originally delivered by Machen in 1933 before the Educational Convention of the National Union of Christian Schools in Chicago, IL.).  As always, Machen is clear and quite thought-provoking.

His first reason why Christians should favor Christian schools is for the maintenance of American liberty (p. 161).  This whole section is worth reading, but I’ll quote just one part that I enjoyed. 

“If parents cannot have the great incentive of providing high and special educational advantages for their own children, then we shall have in this country a drab and soul-killing uniformity, and there will be scarcely any opportunity for anyone to get out of the miserable rut.  … Every lover of human freedom ought to oppose with all his might the giving of federal aid to the schools of this country; for federal aid in the long run inevitably means federal control, and federal control means control by a centralized and irresponsible bureaucracy, and control by such a bureaucracy means the death of everything that might make this country great” (p. 167). 

“Against this soul-killing collectivism in education, the Christian school, like the private school, stands as an emphatic protest.  In doing so, it is no real enemy of the public schools.  On the contrary, the only way in which a state-controlled school can be kept even relatively healthy is through the absolutely free possibility of competition by private schools and church schools; if it once becomes monopolistic, it is the most effective engine of tyranny and intellectual stagnation that has yet been devised” (Ibid.).

Those words are worth pondering, even if one disagrees.  Secondly and more importantly to Machen than liberty, in his own words, the Christian school is “necessary to the propagation of the Christian faith” (p. 167).   Machen is quite firm here.

“I can see little consistency in a type of Christian activity which preaches the gospel on the street corners and at the ends of the earth but neglects the children of the covenant by abandoning them to a cold and unbelieving secularism.  If, indeed, the Christian school were in any sort of competition with the Christian family, if it were trying to do what the home ought to do, then I could never favor it.  But one of its marked characteristics, in sharp distinction from the secular education of today, is that it exalts the family as a blessed divine institution and treats the scholars in its classes as children of the covenant to be brought up above all things in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (p. 172). 

Machen praised Christian school teachers: “When I think of such true Christian heroism as yours, I count everything that I ever tried to do in my life to be pitifully unworthy.  I can only say that I stand reverently in your presence as in the presence of brethren to whom God has given richly of his grace” (ibid.).

I’m not looking for a storm of controversy here.  Homeschooling might be the right choice for certain families in certain places; charter schools might be a good possibility, and perhaps some public schools still have vestiges of decency in them.  Also, to be sure, many Christian schools are doctrinally messy or focused on athletics to the detriment of Bible education, so it is not as if all Christian schools are equal.  Furthermore, as Machen noted, Christian schools are neither religious day care nor do they take away the parents’ primary Christian task of training their children in the scriptures.

Basically, I posted this because I thought it was worth pondering.  So ponder on…

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Reprezentanţii Comisariatului Judeţean pentru Protecţia Consumatorului (CJPC) Cluj au decis să închidă birourile UPC Cluj de pe strada Constantin Brâncuşi numărul 147, în urma mai multor reclamaţii primite de la clujeni. Astfel, comisarii CJPC au pus sigiliul pe mai multe birouri şi au solicitat firmei să înceteze practicile comerciale incorecte, interzicând totodată încheierea unor contracte noi. Măsura a fost luată după ce mai mulţi clujeni au reclamat faptul că au primit acasă nişte somaţii din partea firmei, prin care li se cerea să achite sume restante vechi de câţiva ani.

“Am fost astăzi împreună cu o echipă de jandarmi la birourile UPC de pe Brâncuşi, unde am pus sigiliul. Din păcate, nu am găsit pe nimeni cu care să discutăm, firma neavând nici un reprezentant legal la Cluj. Le-am cerut să desfiinţeze call-center-ul, să angajeze un purtător de cuvânt, precum şi să delege un manager zonal cu putere executivă, care să reprezinte instituţia”, a explicat Mircea Radu, directorul CJPC Cluj. Conform acestuia, somaţiile trimise clujenilor nu au nici o valoare pentru că nu au la bază o factură. Prin aceste somaţii UPC le cere clienţilor să achite nişte sume vechi, din anii 2001-2007.

“Este un haos în evidenţele lor. UPC a preluat unele societăţi care aveau de recuperat nişte sume şi aşa au apărut aceste restanţe. Au trimis însă somaţiile unor persoane care au decedat sau care s-au mutat, fără a fi trecută pe ele o persoană de contact, o semnătură sau o ştampilă. În plus, prin aceste somaţii clienţii sunt acuzaţi de furt şi li se spune că dacă nu plătesc urgent sumele restante, vor ajunge la închisoare. Aşa ceva nu se poate”, a adăugat Radu. Acesta a precizat că somaţiile sunt făcute, în medie, pe sume de 50 de lei şi că oamenii preferă să le plătească decât să rămână fără cablu. “Aceste somaţii nu ar trebui plătite”, a conchis şeful CJPC. Chiar dacă birourile manageriale ale UPC au fost închise până la soluţionarea problemei, birourile de service, revizie şi furnizare vor funcţiona în continuare. Pentru trimiterea acestor somaţii UPC a primit o amendă de 30.000 de lei.

You know what?!?! DCOM sh*ts me to tears. I am not kidding. This is not going to be the last you hear about this so brace yourself. DCOM, which stands for Distributed Component Object Model, is a Microsoft proprietary technology invented to make life of developers easier. It, supposedly, aids in the communication between software models across a distributed network. It does if a gazillion settings are set right and both computers are made ‘attack-prone’. NOT!!! (trust me I cannot stress the NOT part enough)

If you are at all concerned about security on your PC, oh No, Big NO NO, suddenly DCOM starts to give you weird errors and nothing works on your client server model~ Great, just great. Best of all, I’m running freaking Windows Security, not as if I’m running some better-off-freeware for protection. How can DCOM not work hand-in-hand with Windows when Microsoft created both of them in the first place!!! Gosh…. Is it because those two departments were located in different cities that they had no form of communication with each other. Best one yet, Windows Vista has problems with DCOM. Grrr…. Top of the list of my all-time-hate-microsoft-products-list. Vista. Haven’t even tried 7 yet. I hope it’s as sweet as everyone tells me it is. For now I’m sticking with good-old XP, thank you.

Major shocker is today, for no apparent reason, DCOM decided to play nice with Vista. Don’t ask me why. I have no freaking idea~~~ When the sales guys saw that, they were full of praises, but all I could manage was “I PLAYED NO PART IN THAT!!! I HAVE NO IDEA WHY IT’S WORKING. IT WASN’T LAST WEEK!!! @.@” Do my head in while you’re at it, windows security!!! I could go on for as long as you want. For any of those out there who are having the same freaking DCOM issues as I am, you might want to consult this site to set everything up correctly (at least this is proven to work on XP boxes). And may I add, get out  a bunch of ‘joss sticks‘ and start praying for luck in the meantime.

A seguito di una richiesta presentata da GP International Holding BV presentata ai sensi dell’articolo 14 del Regolamento (CE) n. 1924/2006 tramite la competente autorità tedesca, è stato chiesto al gruppo di esperti sui prodotti dietetici, l’alimentazione e le allergie di esprimere un parere scientifico su OPC Premium^TM e la riduzione del colesterolo nel sangue.

L’alimento oggetto della dichiarazione sulla salute è OPC Premium^TM, che contiene per ogni capsula 40 mg di procianidine oligomeriche (OPC) e 400 mg di una miscela di bacche.

L’effetto dichiarato è “riduce il colesterolo nel sangue e può quindi ridurre il rischio di malattie cardiovascolari”. I beneficiari sono maschi e femmine di oltre 30 anni di età.

Sulla base dei dati presentati, il gruppo di esperti conclude che non è stato stabilito un rapporto di causa ed effetto tra il consumo di OPC Premium^TM e la riduzione delle concentrazioni del colesterolo LDL nel sangue.

Fonte: http://www.43zero58.com

Internetul merge, in continuare, cand are el chef. Turbez. Amenint cu OPC-ul. „Se lucreaza. Maine reparatiile vor fi finalizate. Va multumim pentru intelegere.”

Momentele in care internetul merge sunt de scurta durata si haotice. Deschid mailul cu cele 30 de mesaje necitite. Multe din mesaje: spamuri din Facebook. Cateva din mesaje: chestii importante. Deschid primul mail. This page takes more time to load than usual. Click here to retry!

Ma conectez din nou. Reusesc sa citesc toate mailurile. Ura! Incep sa-mi verific blogul si ce mai am pe la blogroll. Incep sa raspund la un comentariu de pe blog. Dupa vreo inca 12 secunde, internetul intra din nou in stare de soc. „Heart rate’s 180… Still dropping… 50 over 10… V-fib! Charging! Clear!”

In momentul asta, imaginea mea despre cum e reparata reteaua este o maimuta catarata pe un stalp, bagand si scotand aleatoriu niste cabluri dintr-un switch. Apoi, intreaga viata a internetului meu imi trece prin fata ochilor: primele conexiuni dial-up la Romtelecom, chaturile pe mIRC, prima data cand am folosit Yahoo! Messenger, prima data cand am achitat o factura la internet… Si deodata, imaginile se distorsioneaza, iar singurul lucru pe care il mai vede internetul meu este o lumina mare…

Pe care scrie:

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Can cars been photographed interesting way? / ¿Puede coches fueron fotografiadas con manera interesante? / Peut des voitures été photographiées avec la façon intéressante?

I say yes, if we use nice backgrounds, different seasons of the year and when lying on the ground. / Digo sí, si utilizamos fondos bonitos, temporadas diferentes del año y al estar acostados en el suelo. / Je dis oui, si nous utilisons des fonds jolis, difereéts saisons de l’an et en étant couches par terre.

My car / Mi carro / Ma voiture

My car / Mi carro / Ma voiture

My car / Mi carro / Ma voiture

My car / Mi carro / Ma voiture

My car / Mi carro / Ma voiture

My car / Mi carro / Ma voiture

My car / Mi carro / Ma voiture

My car / Mi carro / Ma voiture

My car / Mi carro / Ma voiture

My car / Mi carro / Ma voiture

My car / Mi carro / Ma voiture

My car / Mi carro / Ma voiture

My car / Mi carro / Ma voiture

My car / Mi carro / Ma voiture

My car / Mi carro / Ma voiture

My car / Mi carro / Ma voiture

My car / Mi carro / Ma voiture

Heart irregularities come in many forms and by many names. They can be mild and unpronounced, or serious and even life threatening. There’s a great description on Wikipedia of the vast array of conditions that fall into the category of Cardiac Arrhythmia.

What’s exciting to me is that nutrition and lifestyle changes can play a role in promoting regular heart beat and reducing the severity of cardiovascular risk factors. For example, mild irregular heart beat that is set off by periods of anxiety or extreme stress can often be improved with stress reduction techniques, such as medition, yoga, and regular deep breathing practice. Practicing breathing may seem almost silly when you think about the fact that breathing is an unconscious act that happens from the moment we are born and throughout our lives, whether we think about it or not. And yet, the way we breathe can be affected greatly by the stresses of an over-scheduled life.

To practice improving your breathing technique, sit quietly for a few minutes each day, clear your mind, place your hands gently over your stomach, and focus on your breathing. With each inhalation, you should feel your stomach gently distend outward as oxygen fills your lungs. With each exhalation your stomach should feel like it is slowly shrinking. Test yourself to see if you have this backwards. If so, or if you feel tension in your stomach, chest, or shoulders when you try it, or you have “monkey mind” and cannot force your to-do list out of your consciousness, it’s a good sign you need to practice healthy breathing and stress reduction. If you regularly experience mild arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat), good breathing techniques and stress reduction may help.

When symptoms are more severe, your doctor may recommend medication. You may also want to try nutrients that can have a positive impact on heart function, such as Omega-III fish oils and antioxidants. Some of the most heart healthy antioxidants are Coenzyme Q-10, OPC-3, and Resveratrol. Because heart health can be severely impacted by bacteria and toxins, antioxidants can play an enormous role in supporting healthy heart function. I have many testimonials regarding improved cholesterol levels and blood pressure levels with the use of antioxidants, so please feel free to contact me if you would like this information.

The testimonial I want to share with you today is from the wife of a heart patient with an irregular heartbeat who experienced some excellent improvements with the use of OPC-3 and Resveratrol.

“My husband was diagnosed with irregular heartbeat in March 09. . . . His heart ejection fraction number was 45%. Normal is about 65%. Got him on OPC-3 immediately. Added Reservatrol in June 09. He had a couple follow-up appointments and the doctor was pleased with progress.  He’s on digoxin, cardizem, water pill and potassium. Has a tiny leak in one valve. Got to the point  where he was having a hard time breathing.

Anyway, saw doctor on 10/9/09 and I ordered another echocardiogram. The doctor said he heard a lot less noise in his heart and was very pleased with his progress. HIS HEART EJECTION FRACTION NUMBER WAS 55%!!!!!  THIS IS A HUGE INCREASE!”

The doctor was truly impressed with the patient’s progress and asked what he was doing differently. The patient explained that he was taking two antioxidants each day, and he was very excited not only to see the difference in the numbers, but to feel much better as well.

I think as a society we often undervalue the importance of good nutrition and a healthy lifestyle, and the impact they can have on our daily lives and long-term health. And doctors that face perplexing challenges each day such as heart arrhythmia can certainly have a hand in better patient outcomes by employing these principles in their clinical practice. Together we can make the world a healthier place.

To your health!

Jayna

This past few weeks I’ve been focused on one product, and one product only. You probably know which that is by now, if not, get out of my blog. Just kidding. The product I’ve been buying nonstop is O-Pee-Chee’s 09-10 Hockey. I love it, I really do. No, I haven’t gotten any really big hits yet, but the design is just awesome. It has that vintage-feel to it, but it’s not too overwhelming.

My favorite part about it is the inserts that you get. I’m not talking about AU’s or GU’s, I’m talking about the “In Action” and “Rainbows” you get in it. My only problem with the inserts is the fact that they’re so damn glossy it’s not even funny. Seriously, I’ve ruined a card because of that. I use Ultra-Pro Semi-Rigid Card Holders to keep my cards in, and once you put them in, you can’t get them out. Thank god for me though, because now you don’t have to have the same problem. Simply put them in a penny-sleeve, and THEN into the holder, and walah, you have it! It’s easily removable and you won’t screw up your cards!

The Retro cards are really cool as well, they really do look retro this time! They don’t have the sky blue border, they’re just really simple. They also have a neat little logo in the bottom left hand corner of the picture that shows OPC’s old logo (I think). They really are neat, and they aren’t ridiculously hard to pull! I don’t have much experience with 08-09 OPC, but 07-08 was insane with Retro’s. I bought like 10-15 packs and got 2 retros! All the cards except the inserts are a little flimsy, but it’s not too bad.

Overall, I really like this product, the packaging, the design, and the inserts. I would highly recommend you take a trip to your local Target and get a tin or fat pack of these things, they really are great.

Awesome

• Really nice looking cards
• Sweet Retros
• Very good ratios

Needs Work

• Ridiculously glossy surfaces on inserts
• A little flimsy

The Bottom Line
9/10

08.10.2009 – Spokane, Estado de Washington, EUA / Roubo de tabaco

Um bom exemplo da utilização de viaturas furtadas para a prática de assaltos. A potência do carro é utilizada tanto para arrombar como para fugir. Em Portugal a mesma técnica é utilizada para o arrombamento das grades de gasolineiras, de ourivesarias e de lojas de roupa. A solução passa pelo reforço do patrulhamento em zonas comerciais com a articulação entre os OPC’s e as forças de segurança locais. Neste tipo de crime, o “chibo” (aquele que fornece informação relativa aos autores/receptores) é da maior importância. Os informadores locais podem ajudar a resolver um crime em apenas algumas horas.

I am back after 2 months. This post is about the various coding events at Shaastra 2009. There were 6 of them, I took part in 5 out of 6 as I could not participate in Search 3.0.

• Frugal
• Hackfest
• Online Programming Contest
• Polyglot
• Search 3.0
• SimChamp

First on the list is Frugal. A competition that was supposed to require minimal knowledge of coding and algorithms. The participants were expected to solve problems like finding square roots of a long long integer without using multiplication, division and bit shifting. Quite easy a n00b would say but all that 10000 times, in 1 second, no n00b can achieve that. After a whole day of coding I managed to submit 3 problems successfully. I did attempt 2 more problems but got small errors which I couldn’t fix in time. I finished at the 9th position, sadly no consolation prizes .

Here is some code that I wrote. No divisions or multiplications, calculates sqr root of a long int :-
The code is supposed to be as short as possible, have as few key words, semicolons, commas as required, should include only stdio.h and worst of all, should be written only in C.

I was one of the coordinators for HackFest. It was a non-competition hands on event. It was one of the biggest successes this Shaastra. It had two speeches, one by Atul Chitnis on FOSS and technology and the other by Shreyas Shrinivasan on FOSS Foundry on the first day of Shaastra. The two above speeches were targeted at a general audience with little knowledge on the open source world. It was supposed to kick start people who were ambitious to get into the world of FOSS.

In the evening were lighting talks by the pro-hackers at hackFest. The organizations that were invited included the linux kernel, firefox, KDE, GNOME, sugar and FFmpeg. In the night people hacked the software that they had chosen. The hacking nights were scheduled to start at 10:00 but we started it at 9:30 and taught people about xchat and the IRC. A lot of unregistered participants turned up and had to be allotted to the organizations that were free.

The three kernel hackers where the most enthusiastic people in hackfest. They taught the students from the basics and gave out free T-shirts for people who answered questions. They retained their enthusiasm till 5:00 in the morning consuming just 1 expresso shot somewhere in the midnight.

Firefox hacking was done by sid0 from IITK, he used jet-pack to help people create their own add-on which checks for unread messages in gmail. Gnome and KDE hacking brought up some potential contributors. Around 5 patches were submitted in Gnome and KDE. Vimzard took care of GNOME hacking and KDE was taken care by kstar, praaksh and yours truly. I made people create basic Qt applications, the other two took care of building KDE and hacking KStars a desktop planetorium software. Other organisations like FFmpeg and Sugar were also hacked.

The next event, the OPC was what I felt was one of the most challenging programming contests I have ever seen. It was tougher than google code jam round 1 or the ACM ICPC and the questions were tougher than most problems in spoj, Euler, uva and usaco. I teamed up with friends Garimella and RajKishan. We got the algorithms for a couple of problems. We actually solved one of them. The problem called power. At the end we stood at position 25. Sadly again, no consolation prizes.

The next contest was polyglot. We had to write a single file program that would get compiled by different compilers successfully. There were a lot of languages which we could use. We solved 7 out of 8. Unfortunately we had trailing white-spaces in a few of our solutions so only 3 were considered to be correct. We won the 3rd prize at the end (team rocket Kashyap R Puranik and RajKishan G).

Here is a program I wrote that prints POLYGLOT in C++, python, perl, brainf**k and ruby.

Here is a program we wrote that reverses a string in 3 languages. python, brainf**k and C++

As I said, I couldn’t participate in search 3.0 which was the most generous among the events, gaving out 25K to 3 people.

Simulation Championship was a great contest where the coordinators had selected 16 teams for the finals. 6 teams for Ant colony simulation, 5 each for Rescue bot and Viral marketing. Me an Rajoo decided to attempt both the ant simulation and the rescue bot problem statements.

We used Qt and C++ for both the problem statements, we did not have time to finish the rescue bot program. Our entry won the first prize for the ant simulation problem statement. Here are some screen shots of the same.

Here you can see the trails left behind by ants, and you can see some ants following the food source.

Here is a picture of the rescue bots UI we made.

de Sorin Badea

Episodul pomisor, ziua a doua. M-am dus la oficiul 66 de pe Titel Petrescu pentru a-mi recupera coletul. Ma gandeam ca daca trebuie sa primesc un arbust de 35-40 de cm inaltime (fara ghiveci) atunci el va veni impachetat asa cum trebuie. Ei bine, nu. La Oficiul 66 ma asteptau 3 lucruri care aveau sa imi darame ideile despre viata. In primul rand, la ghiseu era o doamna cu glas de fumator inrait care urla la oamenii de la coada ( peste 20 ), apoi coletul meu era chiar o cutie micuta ce era purtata de colo colo (la un moment dat si scapata pe jos) de un manipulator de colete… blond. In ultimul rand , desi pe devizul electronic din calculatorul lor scria ca ma cheama Badea, pe cel scris ( sa strigam de 3 ori ura pentru birocratie) era inscriptionat cu litere de tipar numele de Sadea. Am stat si am parlamentat cu duduia de la ghiseu incercand sa ii explic cu calm ca Badea si Sadea stau la aceeasi adresa (a se vedea ce scrie pe hartiute) si mai mult…tot eu sunt!!!. M-am umplut de nervi cand am vazut ca pentru a doua oara coletul meu era scapat pe jos. Am facut scandal. Mi-am iesit din pepeni. Mi-am dat arama pe fata, cum sa va spun, m-am transformat in „tigan”, am urlat, am facut reclamatie, am scris, am sunat la OPC…of…dar ce nu am facut? Dar sa incheiem. Am ajuns acasa, am desfacut cutia. Pomisorul meu iubit era uscat, are 7 cm in inaltime si…are varful rupt. Sa nu-i futi? Vorba bancului cu taranul a carui casa a fost devastata de un elefant: apoi sa nu-l bagi in p…….?! Ba da. Si posta romana si muierea de la ghiseu si firma Bakker si manipulatorii de colete si coletaria si devizele scrise gresit si OPC-ul si romanii si mentalitatea si tara asta. A fost pentru ULTIMA data cand mai comand ceva de pe internet care ar trebui sa ajunga la mine prin Posta Romana.

Ps: la un moment dat am lasat o mama cu un copil de 3 anisori sa intre in fata mea la ghiseu. Mi s-a parut de bun simt.
Duduia de la ghiseu: pai ce facem doamna?! Ne bagam asa in fata ca nesimtitii?!!
Eu: stati linistita ca eu am lasat-o pe doamna pentru ca are copil…
Duduia: pai daca face toata lumea ca dumneavoastra nu mai plec de aici pana maine dimineata!! Nu vedeti cati stau la coada?!

Q.E.D.

Jurnalistii de la Evenimentul zilei au facut o pagina minunata in editia de azi. E despre E-on Gaz. Pentru cei care nu au ziarul, este aici un link. Lectura placuta!

http://www.evz.ro/articole/detalii-articol/870639/Debransati-fara-preaviz-de-la-gaz/

The chaps and helpers over at the opc foundation have been beavering away for the last few years and the result is about to hit the streets with the first UA “universal architecture” 1.00 release. I’ll leave others to explain what opc is and how the new opc-ua is even better.

I’ll summarise a few of the benefits from my perspective,

• Nicer box, it tidies up lots and packages together things that previously were separate
  (DA + A&E + HDA + …)
• Platform independent
  we’re no longer locked into just Microsoft COM based platforms so it’s much easier to embed in devices or use with java in web apps
• Rich functionality improvements (modelling, organisation, methods,..)
• Security gets a complete makeover, no more dcom, its certificates now

But where will it take us in the future, I reckon over time when adopted maybe,…

1. OPC will get embedded in PLCs, DCSs, devices. It makes so much sense
   slow death to middleware driver providers, the usual proprietary suspects will of course slowly drag it out
2. Java SDK means that ‘open source’ can make a serious entry into the Microsoft dominated automation sphere.  The quality of various open-source offerings is very good, I can see major advances coming but not from the current market leaders.
3. More cut out the middleman, this connectivity plus will bring some very interesting new architectures and applications.

When will the future arrive ?

Ca să vedeţi că nu am scos baliverne, OPC a amendat E-on Gaz, nu doar pentru cazul meu, ci şi al altor 17.000 de consumatori. Amenda oricum e una fictivă pentru E-on Gaz, nu sunt mulţumit, au primit doar 5.000 de lei. Însă, e un început! Trebuie să facem un prim pas în ţara asta.

Am investigat cazul şi am aflat de ce şi-au permis cei de la E-on Gaz să facă prostii, să debranşeze zeci de mii de oameni, aşa, pe facturi fictive. Compania şi-a pierdut baza de date, cu contractele aferente, adică, mai pe scurt, nu mai aveau contractele originale şi şi-au permis să debranşeze oamenii ca să îi oblige să semneze un nou contract. Ce s-au gândit ei … luăm amendă maximă de 5.000 de lei, că aşa e legea, dar debranşăm vreo 17.000 de oameni, le punem facturi fictive de acum 2-3 ani şi oricum ieşim în câştig, taxa de rebranşare fiinde de 32 de lei. Şi au ieşit într-un foarte mare câştig! Dacă măcar 5.000 din aceşti 17.000 de consumatori ar da E-on Gaz în judecată ar ieşi ceva extraordinar, s-ar face dreptate. Nu au cum să dovedească gazaţii că facturile de acum câţiva ani sunt neplătite, ar fi trebuit debranşaţi de atunci oamenii. Cu nişte avocaţi deştepţi, cei care dau în judecată E-on Gaz vor avea cu siguranţă câştig de cauză. Avocaţii ar trebui să se gândească practic: pe lângă faimă, dacă ar cere 5% din câştigul fiecărui client, s-ar îmbogăţi şi ei şi ar lupta mult mai cu suflet. Ce ziceţi, stimaţi avocaţi ai poporului, vă ţine? Sunt dispus să mă alătur câtorva mii de oameni într-o asemenea chestiune, sigur am avea câştig de cauză. Vă ţine? Are toată lumea cohones?

Iată şi un articol de pe agenda, editia online, pe această temă: http://www.agenda.ro/news/news/23345/e-on-gaz-amendata-dupa-ce-a-trimis-facturi-vechi-de-3-ani.html … Dar fiţi liniştiţi, am auzit aşa, din surse, că zilele următoare o să apară într-un alt ziar, naţional de data asta, un caz asemănător cu cazul meu. Sau poate o fi chiar vorba despre ce am păţit eu, cine ştie?

Wind Farms consist of a number of wind turbines that are used to generate electric power. An individual wind turbine is a complex piece of machinery that needs to be managed by their owners for two key reasons: their operational efficiency and the measurement of the energy and hence revenue being generated by the equipment. There are a number of challenges that Wind Farm operators must meet to achieve these goals.

An individual wind farm may consist of a number of wind turbines but, in general, the turbines in a given wind farm come from the same manufacturers. If an operator has more than one wind farm, however, they may find themselves in the situation where they have to manage turbines from different manufacturers. Individual wind farms are managed by the turbine manufacturers’ SCADA system offering (SCADA stands for Supoervisory Control And  Data Acquisition). SCADA systems are powerful systems that supervise the operation of the wind turbines and the wind farm as a whole. Through the use of the SCADA system, operators can assess how much energy a farm is producing and hence how much revenue they are generating.

This situation is complicated where there are wind farms with multiple manufacturers as operators as they then have a situation where they have a SCADA system for each manufacturer. In a worst case sencario, operators may have to manually add up the output of each SCADA system to ascertain the revenue figures. Some SuperSCADA systems have been developed where turbines from multiple manufacturers and hence multiple wind farms can be managed. One such system has been developed by the Technical University of Denmark – see http://tinyurl.com/no2ezs and http://tinyurl.com/mu8269 for more detailsfor more details.

SuperSCADA systems offer one solution to the problem of managing several wind farms with multiple wind turbine manufacturers but Vertoda can offer another solution. Vertoda can aggregate the data produced by different vendors’ SCADA systems and can present maintenance, energy production and revenue information in a unified fashion. Vertoda provides a central data repository for the data generated by wind farms and makes this information available in a timely fashion to the rest of the Wind Farm operator’s IT systems and software. Users can then view this data from both fixed and mobile devices.

A key metric of wind turbine performance is its availability. Unfortunately for operators, different vendors have different ways of calculating availability. Unsurprisingly, given their complexity, wind turbines can be temperamental. A typical service agreement would be 97% availability for 50 weeks of the year with 2 weeks set aside for maintenance, 1 week every 6 months is standard. This is key data regarding wind turbine performance but can be difficult to obtain. Using Vertoda enables a wind farm operator to assess the availability performance of their wind farms at a high level and at an individual turbine level. Revenue is lost when a turbine is unavailable so without this data accountable losses are not accrued correctly and operators can’t quantify how manufacturers are performing.

In addition to availability, the other key metrics for assessing wind turbine performance are production and wind speed. These metrics can be viewed as interdependent. For example, if a wind turbine is unavailable during a period of high wind speed operators lose more revenue than during a time of low wind speed. Metrics therefore need to correlated and Business Intelligence is required for assessing operational performance using the Vertoda Framework.

Typically, a wind turbine is exposed through a firewall and has an IP Address and port that can be accessed. To access a wind turbine, its OPC interface needs to be opened by the manufacturer, usually for an extra fee (OPC stands for OLE for Process Control, OLE in turn stands for Object Linking and Embedding.). We previously discussed how Vertoda can read output from OPC Servers. OPC hardware exists at the hardware level. Without access to an OPC interface, the only route to accessing a wind turbine’s data is through its manufacturer’s SCADA system. Vertoda can make wind turbine data available by accessing either the SCADA system or the OPC interface.

Access to the OPC interface determines the realtime availability of data. If an operator elects not to open the OPC interfaces for their turbines, realtime data is unavailable. It can take between 6 and 24 hours for performance data to be made available without access using OPC as data is collected for SCADA systems only once a day.

There is a potential alternative here as some wind turbines can send email and SMS text messages. The Vertoda Framework can access, centralise and parse these messages and publish them on Desktop, Web and Mobile User Interfaces. This would be a richer presentation than is possible with an email or SMS client and enables realtime data without an OPC interface.

Existem duas características do OPC UA que são aparentemente incompatíveis: o elevado número de funcionalidades e a escalabilidade. Apenas como ilustração, o OPC UA disponibiliza:

• um modelo de objetos poderoso capaz de integrar toda a informação disponibilizada em servidores DA, A&E, HDA.

• um modelo completo de autenticação, autorização e criptografia.
• várias opções de transporte, como SOAP/XML e UA TCP.
• independência de plataforma.
• mecanismos robustos de publicação de dados.

A escalabilidade foi um requisito primário para os projetistas das especificações do OPC UA. Assim, espera-se que aplicações OPC possam preencher ambientes desde um simples equipamento embarcado de baixo custo até uma estação poderosa responsável pelas operações ERP de uma empresa.

Porém, como garantir que apesar da heterogeneidade dos ambientes os produtos possam agregar todas as funcionalidades que o tornam um produto OPC UA?

Os profiles são a chave para gerenciar este problema. Os profiles, definidos na parte 7 da especificação, são agrupamentos de funcionalidades que as aplicações devem (no caso do profile ser mandatório) ou podem (no caso do profile ser opcional) implementar. No estabelecimento de uma sessão UA, o cliente e o servidor trocam os profiles (através dos seus certificados de software) que eles implementam, assim verificando se as funcionalidades requeridas pelas aplicações estão disponíveis.

Sendo mais específico, as funcionalidades são agrupadas em unidades de conformidade (”conformance units”, CUs daqui em diante). Como ilustração, vamos analisar uma CU definida para um servidor OPC UA:

Título: Session Base

Descrição: Suporte aos serviços CreateSession, ActivateSession e CloseSession, exceto o uso do ActivateSession para alterar o usuário da sessão.

Esta CU agrupa as funcionalidades de gerenciamento de sessões de um servidor OPC UA. Como o gerenciamento de sessões é algo inevitável, esta CU deve ser sempre implementada.

Os profiles são apenas agrupamentos de CUs. A parte 7 define as várias CUs e também como os profiles organizam tais CUs.

Como uma uma imagem (na verdade uma tabela) vale mais que mil palavras, vamos olhar um profile real. A OPC Foundation armazena aqui as CUs e os profiles definidos na parte 7. A lista de profiles é mantida pela OPC Foundation, que detem o direito de criar novos profiles, que eventualmente são espelhados nesta página.

Acesse a página, e no menu à esquerda, procure por Server Category -> Facets -> Core Server Facet. Este é um profile básico que todo servidor deve implementar. Note que o profile possui um URI (http://opcfoundation.org/UA-Profile/Server/CoreFacet), que é usado pelas aplicações para identificar os profiles disponíveis. Na tabela à direita, estão todas os CUs que compõe este profile. Em Session Services é possível encontar a CU que discutimos anteriormente, “Session Base”. Note que esta CU não é opcional, como supomos. Na última coluna da tabela podemos encontrar a descrição de qual profile a CU origina. Isto indica que um profile pode consistir de CUs e também de outros profiles. Para visualizar isto, selecione a opção “Show also conformance units from included profiles”, disponível no topo da página.

Para que toda essa complexidade? Não vivemos todos os anos de OPC DA sem essa parafernália toda? A resposta é que o número de funcionalidades presentes no OPC UA é muito superior ao número presente no OPC clássico, e não é razoável exigir que todas as aplicações implementem o conjunto completo. Os profiles são uma resposta adequada para essa nova situação.