The concept of disability has changed significantly through history. At one point, disability was seen as the result of sin, either by the person with the disability or his or her parents. Disability was associated with guilt and shame, and people with disabilities were hidden away.
Merriam-Websterís definition of disability: limitation in the ability to pursue an occupation because of a physical or mental impairment; lack of legal qualification to do something; or a disqualification, restriction or disadvantage. Most of the time, we apply these definitions to a person who ďhasĒ a disability. What if it is society that has the disability, not the individual?
With the advent of modern medicine, a medical understanding of disability developed. In a medical model of disability, the person with a disability is seen as having an illness, which presumably should be cured. The person with a disability, as someone who is sick or diseased, is excused from normal life and responsibilities such as working, family obligations and household maintenance.
The approach of the Social Security Administration supports the idea of disability as something that excludes one from a normal life. To fit the administrationís definition of disability, a person must be able to prove that he or she is incapable of gainful employment. The inference is that by having a disability, one remains outside mainstream society.
Yet there is another way to view disability. This view considers disability as a normal part of life. After all, most of us will have a disability, whether temporary or permanent, at some time in our life. As many people with disabilities will attest, their disabilities are integral to what makes them who they are. It isnít the disability that needs to be changed. The physical and attitudinal barriers people with disabilities face are what need to change.
For example, people who are unable to walk may still be able to move around as much as anyone with the use of wheelchairs and other assistive technology. The inability to use their limbs may be less of a limitation than heavy doors that donít open automatically or stairs that keep them from a building.
Similarly, culture and environment can dictate whether something is a disability. In a culture where healers and shamans regularly interact with a spirit world, hearing voices isnít a disability. Only in societies where reading is essential to daily functioning is a learning disability recognized. In our society, a vision impairment that necessitates wearing glasses isnít considered a disability, but a mobility impairment that requires a person to use a walker is. Disability is defined by context. It follows, then, that what makes something a disability is external to the individual.
If we presumed that people with disabilities were able to live full and enriching lives, participate fully in their communities and have adult responsibilities, couldnít we make it so by removing the societal barriers that we create? When we view disability as a natural part of life, our entire approach to disabilities has to change.
Tara Kiene is the director of case management with Community Connections Inc.


Treating Hirschsprung's disease
requires surgery to remove the affected bowel
and then join the healthy bowel segments. There are three different approaches, each with a high rate of success. The choice depends on the overall health of the child and the training and experience of the surgeon
Sometimes a single surgical procedure is recommended to remove the aganglionic segment
, then bring the healthy bowel down into the rectum
, and join it to the rectal wall
: this is called a "pull-through
. If an infant
is too small or a child is critically
ill, a temporary colostomy
may be necessary prior to the pull-through.
In a colostomy, the colon is brought out to the surface of the abdomen
so that stool contents can be discharged
into a special bag for disposal
Subsequent to the colostomy, the pull-through surgery can be planned. The colostomy opening can then closed at the time of the pull-through, or, in some cases, at a third operation after it is clear that the pull-through is working.
For most children with Hirschsprung's disease, there are no long-term complications
after successful surgery. A significant minority of children, though, are troubled with persistent constipation
), or persistent enterocolitis
Personal Note: Being affected with this disease, and not having had the surgery due to incorrect early diagnosis, I am inspired to say that living with this problem without surgery is very difficult. You may experince humiliation due to inability to control bowel movments, severe pain when having bowel movments, and constant illness due to the inability to remove toxins from the body. Please do not allow a child to grow up with this disease.


Intellectual knowledge appears to be innate and privy to the few, but in fact, access to information, development of intellectual work skills, time investment, and the maintenance of intellectual appearances are key to being perceived as an intellectual.
To make education more equitable, professors must go beyond knowledge transmission and instruct students in the concrete skills of knowledge acquisition and knowledge presentation. Instruction in intellectual skills-acquisition implies the breakdown of the traditional professor-student relationship and of the academic intellectual hierarchy and professors must learn to cope with the consequences of adopting new pedagogies. If we wish to share the secrets of our professions, how do we prepare our students for such a democratic approach and at the same time maintain our professional status?
The author, a professor of Spanish language and literature, presents strategies for democratizing education and demystifying intellectual work through the application of skills-based pedagogical methodologies to the teaching of literature. The implications that these strategies have for a new type of learning and the impact that they have on social stratification will also be discussed.
|Keywords:||Democratizing Education, Demystifying Intellectual Work, Knowledge Acquisition Skills, Interpretative Skills, Teaching Literature, Skills Based Teaching|
Assistant Professor of Spanish, Department of Literature and Languages, Roosevelt University, Chicago, Illinois, USA
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A new study shows that inheritance may be the cause for the rise in diabetes in the U.S.
Scientists are studying additional forms of inheritance, besides DNA, like metabolic programming, which can occur in the womb or shortly after birth, and causes permanent changes in metabolism.
Researchers in the study looked at mice with diets high in saturated fat and studied the results in the mice and their offspring. They found that a high-fat diet brought on type 2 diabetes in the adult mice.
If a pregnant female mouse stayed on a high-fat diet, their offspring had a greater chance of developing diabetes, even when given a moderate-fat diet.
Researchers say that these studies have only been tested on mice, so there’s no further reason as of yet to warn mothers to eat differently during pregnancy. Even mated with healthy mice, the next generation offspring could develop diabetes as well.
This study was published in the September issue of the Journal of Lipid Research.
Source: Journal of Lipid Research


See also the
Browse High School Calculus
Stars indicate particularly interesting answers or
good places to begin browsing.
Selected answers to common questions:
Maximizing the volume of a box.
Maximizing the volume of a cylinder.
Volume of a tank.
What is a derivative?
- Deriving Simpson's Rule [06/07/1998]
Can you show me a derivation of Simpson's Rule?
- Deriving the Area of a Sphere [10/21/2003]
I know the area of a sphere is 4phi(r^2), but I'm wondering how to
derive that formula. I know it should be done in cylindrical
coordinates, and I'm thinking that the arc of a circle is defined as
rd(theta) and it's multiplied with rd(phi) to get (r^2)d(theta)d(phi).
Could you please help explain this?
- Deriving the Gamma Function [12/15/2000]
How can you prove that sqrt(pi)/2 = (1/2)!, and what is a fractional
factorial like that equal to?
- Deriving the Integral for the Surface Area of a Sphere [06/28/2001]
I need to find the cost per square foot of steel that makes up a tank, so
I need a way to derive the surface area of part of a sphere with a given
- Deriving the Quotient Rule [9/5/1995]
How do I prove this derivation: (f/g)' = fg'-fg'/g^2 ?
- Deriving Trig Functions; Taylor Series [05/01/2001]
How would I find, from first principles - no tables, no calculator - for
example, 32 degrees? If I use a formula, how is it derived?
- Descartes' Method for Tangents [09/02/1998]
Can you help me find the equation of the tangent of y^2 = 2x using
- Design a More Efficient Soda Can [4/23/1995]
The problem is to design a more efficient soda can that holds the regular
12 oz. of liquid. The can needs to have the least possible surface area.
- Determining Tangent to an Ellipse, Minimizing Area [02/20/1998]
Find the equation of the tangent to the ellipse that forms, with the
coordinate axes, the triangle of smallest possible area.
- Determining the Length of a Coil of Ribbon [08/31/2001]
How will calculus give me the same answer I found with algebra and
- Determining Whether a Function is Continuous [06/10/2000]
How can you tell whether or not a function is continuous?
- Differentiability, Intervals, Inflection Points of Piecewise Function [05/13/1998]
For what values of k and p will the function be continuous and
differentiable? On what interval will it be increasing? Find all points
- Differential Equations and Flow Rate [02/14/1999]
A solution containing 3 lb/gal of dye flows into a 100 gal tank at 5
- Differential Notation [04/16/2009]
Why is the second derivative written as d^2y/dx^2?
- Differentials [09/18/1998]
What is the difference between finding the derivatives of a function
(dy/dx), and finding its differentials (dy,dx)?
- Differentiate Twice [11/14/1997]
If y = xsin(3x) prove that y''+9y = 6cos(3x), where y'' is its second
- Differentiating [01/14/1998]
Please help me differentiate (y^2) * cos (1/y) = 2x + 2y.
- Differentiating and Integrating the Formula for Area of Circle [05/11/1998]
The formula for a circle's circumference is the derivative of the formula
for its area. What is the significance of this?
- Differentiating a Polynomial [04/25/1999]
Differentiate with respect to x: f(x) = x^8 + 3x^5 + (3-5x)^4.
- Differentiating the Ceiling Function [10/16/2000]
How do I find dD/dp for an equation involving the ceiling function? How
do I minimize D as a function of P?
- Differentiating the Rate of Decay [3/14/1996]
A lump of radioactive subtance is disintegrating at time 't' days after
it was first observed to have mass 10 grams and: (dm/dt) = -km (where k
is a positive constant). Find the time, in days, for the substance to
reduce to 1 gram in mass, given that its half life is 8 days.
- Differentiating Under the Integral Sign [01/11/2001]
Can you give me an example of the integration method called
"differentiating under the integral sign"?
- Differentiating y with Respect to ... y? [11/05/2010]
A student familiar with differentiation struggles to take the derivative of a function with
respect to the self-same variable. Doctor Ali puts the student back on track with a
- Differentiating y = x^x [11/3/1994]
Please could you differentiate y=X^X (that's X to the power of X)?
- Differentiation Problem [11/15/1997]
A light shines from the top of a pole 50 ft. high. A ball is dropped from
the same height at a point 30 ft. away from the light...
- Distance From a Point to a Plane [03/31/1998]
Can you show me the proof of the formula for the distance between a point
and a plane?
- Distance to the Sun [04/16/1999]
Find the distance from Earth to the sun when t = 90 days...
- Does f Have a Local Extrema at x = 0? [07/10/2003]
f(x) = (x^3)/6 + (x^2)/2 + cosx - 1. Does f have a local extremum at x
- Domain, Asymptotes, Intercepts of a Function [04/01/2003]
What is the domain of this function? What asymptotes does it have?
What are the x and y intercepts? Etc...
- Domain/Range of a Function [01/22/1997]
How do you find the domain and range of the function f(x) = 2x^2-3x+1?
(Both with and without calculus.)
- Dominant Terms [03/25/1998]
What are dominant terms, and how do you obtain their values?
- Donkey Grazing Half a Field [08/08/1997]
A donkey is attached by a rope to a point on the perimeter of a circular
field. How long should the rope be so that the donkey can graze exactly
half the field?
- Double Integration in Polar Coordinates [03/27/2003]
Evaluate double integral x-y/x*2+y*2 over x*2+y*2 equal to or less
- e as a Series and a Limit [03/30/1998]
Why does e = 1 + 1/2! + 1/3! + 1/4! + ... and lim (1 + 1/n) ^ n, as n --
- An Easy Definition of Calculus [9/4/1995]
What is calculus?
- e^(e^x) = 2 [01/28/2002]
I have been trying to solve e^(e^x) = 2. Help!
- An Ellipse Or A Circle? - Parametric Equations [12/05/1998]
Is this parametric equation elliptical or a circle?... And how do I
compute the slopes at points 0, pi/4, pi/2, 3pi/2,and 2pi?
- An Elliptic Integral [01/05/2003]
- Epsilon/Delta Definition of Limits [08/26/1999]
Can you explain how to use the epsilon/delta definition of limits?
- Epsilon-Delta Proofs [09/28/2004]
An explanation of the thinking behind two epsilon-delta proofs, one
from a calculus textbook and one from an answer in our archives.


(Phys.org)—Controlling "mixing" between acceptor and donor layers, or domains, in polymer-based solar cells could increase their efficiency, according to a team of researchers that included physicists from North Carolina State University. Their findings shed light on the inner workings of these solar cells, and could lead to further improvements in efficiency.
Polymer-based solar cells consist of two domains, known as the acceptor and the donor layers. Excitons, the energy particles created by solar cells, must be able to travel quickly to the interface of the donor and acceptor domains in order to be harnessed as an energy source. Researchers had believed that keeping the donor and acceptor layers as pure as possible was the best way to ensure that the excitons could travel unimpeded, so that solar cells could capture the maximum amount of energy.
NC State physicist Harald Ade and his group worked with teams of scientists from the United Kingdom, Australia and China to examine the physical structure and improve the production of polymer-based solar cells. In findings published in two separate papers appearing this month online in Advanced Energy Materials and Advanced Materials, the researchers show that some mixing of the two domains may not be a bad thing. In fact, if the morphology, or structure, of the mixed domains is small, the solar cell can still be quite efficient.
According to Ade, "We had previously found that the domains in these solar cells weren't pure. So we looked at how additives affected the production of these cells. When you manufacture the cell, the relative rate of evaporation of the solvents and additives determines how the active layer forms and the donor and acceptor mix. Ideally, you want the solvent to evaporate slowly enough so that the materials have time to separate – otherwise the layers 'gum up' and lower the cell's efficiency. We utilized an additive that slowed evaporation. This controlled the mixing and domain size of the active layer, and the portions that mixed were small."
The efficiency of those mixed layers was excellent, leading to speculation that perhaps some mixing of the donor and acceptor isn't a problem, as long as the domains are small.
"We're looking for the perfect mix here, both in terms of the solvents and additives we might use in order to manufacture polymer-based solar cells, and in terms of the physical mixing of the domains and how that may affect efficiency," Ade says.
Explore further: Femtosecond 'snapshots' reveal a dramatic bond tightening in photo-excited gold complexes
More information: "From Binary to Ternary Solvent: Morphology Fine-tuning of D/A Blend in PDPP3T-based Polymer Solar Cells", Advanced Materials, 2012.
In the past decade, great success has been achieved in bulk hetero-junction (BHJ) polymer solar cells (PSCs) in which donor/acceptor (D/A) bi-continuous interpenetrating networks can be formed and in some recent reports, power conversion efficiency (PCE) even approach 8%. In addition to the intrinsic properties of active layer materials, such as band gaps and molecular energy levels, morphological properties of the D/A blends including crystallinity of polymers, domain size, materials miscibility, hierarchical structures, and molecular orientation, are also of great importance for photovoltaic performance of the devices. Therefore, several strategies including slow growth, solvent annealing, thermal annealing, selection of solvent or mixed solvent have been applied to modify or control of the morphology of the D/A blends. Among these, binary solvent mixtures have been successfully used in morphology control. For example, the dichlorobenzene (DCB) or chlorobenzene (CB)/1, 8-diiodooctane (DIO) binary solvent system has been widely applied in PSC device fabrication process. By mixing a few volume percent of DIO with the host solvent (DCB or CB), efficiencies of many kinds of polymers can be improved dramatically. Besides DIO, other solvents, like 1, 8-octanedithiol (OT), N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP), 1-chloronaphthalene (CN), chloroform (CF), can also be used. According to these works, it can be concluded that crystallinity, as well as domain size in the blends can be tuned effectively by using binary solvent mixtures, and thus binary solvent mixtures play a very important role in high performance PSCs.


WASHINGTON, DC — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the launch of a website, DOepatents, which allows search and retrieval of information from a collection of more than 20,000 patent records. The database represents a growing collection of patents resulting from R&D supported by DOE and demonstrates the Department’s considerable contribution to scientific progress from the 1940s to the present.
“From helping the blind to see again to identifying hidden weapons through holographic computerized imaging technology, the U.S. Department of Energy has supported and will continue to support research addressing some of the world’s most pressing scientific challenges,” Under Secretary for Science Dr. Raymond L. Orbach said. “Content within DOepatents represents a truly impressive demonstration of DOE research and development and technological innovation.”
Highlighted at DOepatents is a compilation of noteworthy DOE innovations from the past few decades. These technologies have improved quality of life and provided national economic, health and environmental benefits. One such invention is the Artificial Retina, a collaborative research project between DOE national laboratories, universities and the private sector aimed at restoring vision to millions of people blinded by retinal disease. Another invention is the DOE National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s pioneering multi-junction solar cell. A cell based on this design set a world efficiency record in converting sunlight to electricity. The DOepatents database also includes inventions of Nobel Laureates associated with DOE or its predecessors such as Enrico Fermi, Glenn Seaborg and Luis Alvarez, along with other distinguished scientists.
patents consists of bibliographic records, with full text where available via either a PDF file or an HTML link to the record at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The DOepatents database is updated quarterly with new patent records. The website is updated on a regular basis with news and information about significant and recent inventions. Resource links for inventors are included at the site, as well as Recent Inventions and Patent News pages. DOepatents was developed by the DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) and may be viewed at http://www.osti.gov/doepatents/.
OSTI, a part of the DOE Office of Science, accelerates discovery by making research results rapidly available to scientists and to the public. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the nation.
Jeff Sherwood, DOE, (202) 586-5806
Cathey Daniels, OSTI, (865) 576-9539


Heel Bursitis is another type of heel pain. The sufferer of this kind of heel pain experiences pain at the back of the heel when the patient moves his joint of the ankle. In the heel bursitis type of heel pain there is swelling on the sides of the Achilles’ tendon. In this condition the sufferer may experience pain in the heel when his feet hit the ground. Heel bruises are also referred as heel bumps they are usually caused by improper shoes. The constant rubbing of the shoes against the heel.
What is bursitis?
Bursitis is the inflammation of a bursa. Normally, the bursa provides a slippery surface that has almost no friction. A problem arises when a bursa becomes inflamed. The bursa loses its gliding capabilities, and becomes more and more irritated when it is moved.
When the condition called bursitis occurs, the normally slippery bursa becomes swollen and inflamed. The added bulk of the swollen bursa causes more friction within an already confined space. Also, the smooth gliding bursa becomes gritty and rough. Movement of an inflamed bursa is painful and irritating.
“Itis” usually refers to the inflammation of a certain part of the body, therefore Bursitis refers to the constant irritation of the natural cushion that supports the heel of the foot (the bursa). Bursitis is often associated with Plantar Fasciitis, which affects the arch and heel of the foot.
What causes bursitis?
- Bursitis and Plantar Fasciitis can occur when a person increases their levels of physical activity or when the heel’s fat pad becomes thinner, providing less protection to the foot.
- Ill fitting shoes.
- Biomechanical problems (e.g. mal-alignment of the foot, including over-pronation).
- Rheumatoid arthritis.
Bursitis usually results from a repetitive movement or due to prolonged and excessive pressure. Patients who rest on their elbows for long periods or those who bend their elbows frequently and repetitively (for example, a custodian using a vacuum for hours at a time) can develop elbow bursitis, also called olecranon bursitis. Similarly in other parts of the body, repetitive use or frequent pressure can irritate a bursa and cause inflammation.
Another cause of bursitis is a traumatic injury. Following trauma, such as a car accident or fall, a patient may develop bursitis. Usually a contusion causes swelling within the bursa. The bursa, which had functioned normally up until that point, now begins to develop inflammation, and bursitis results. Once the bursa is inflamed, normal movements and activities can become painful.
Systemic inflammatory conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis, may also lead to bursitis. These types of conditions can make patients susceptible to developing bursitis.
- Cold presses or ice packs.
- Anti-inflammatory tablets.
- Cushioning products.
- Massaging the foot / muscle stimulation.
- Stretching exercises.
- Insoles or orthotics.


Green building facts
- Buildings consume 32% of the world’s resources including 12% of fresh water and 40% of the world’s energy (7).
- In Australia commercial buildings produce almost 9% of our national Greenhouse gas emissions (8).
- To make way for the new Law School the Edgeworth David building and the Stephen Roberts lecture theatre were demolished in 2006. Over 80% of the materials from these buildings were recycled including the valuable copper from the roof of the lecture theatre
The new Law School Building
7. “Environmentally Sustainable Buildings: Challenges and Policies” OECD (2003)
8. “Australia State of the Environment Report” Department of Environment & Heritage (2001)


Fri 23 Sep, 2011
Tags: 1920s, 1930s, Agness "Aggie" Underwood, gold diggers, Hazel Glab, Herald-Examiner, Los Angeles Record, murder, Robert J. James, snake handlers, William Randolph Hearst
Los Angeles has always had more than its share of creative felons, so it stands to reason that it would take an equally creative, gutsy, and dedicated reporter to cover them. One of the most revered reporters who ever worked in Los Angeles was Agness “Aggie” Underwood.
Underwood began her career at the LOS ANGELES RECORD in the 1920s. She was sharp, but there were lots of sharp people in the news business at that time. What made Aggie great were her instincts. She seemed to know just how to approach a story to get the most from it. By relying on her gut feelings she managed to keep several paces ahead of her competition, and to earn a reputation for solving crimes.
When the Los Angeles Record folded in the mid-1930s Aggie, who by this time loved the newspaper business (and needed the money), agreed to work for William Randolph Hearst’s Los Angeles daily, THE HERALD-EXAMINER.
Her decision to join Hearst’s paper was the making of her career. Twelve years after joining the paper she was promoted to editor. Agness Underwood was the first woman in the U.S. to become the editor of a major metropolitan newspaper.
Aggie Underwood’s work as a reporter inspired the lecture that I’m going to give on October 8, 2011, 2 p.m., in the Taper Auditorium at the Central Library in downtown Los Angeles.
The lecture is entitled “GOLD DIGGERS & SNAKE HANDLERS: Deranged L.A. Crimes from the Notebook of Aggie Underwood” and it is sponsored by Photo Friends. Photo Friends is a non-profit whose mission is to promote and to preserve the photographs in the collection of the Los Angeles Public Library.
I hope that you’ll join me as I examine two murder cases from 1936, both of which were covered by Aggie Underwood.


The atoll is closed to the public and travel to the island is not allowed.
Both the US and the Kingdom of Hawaii annexed Johnston Atoll in 1858, but it was the US that mined the guano deposits until the late 1880s. Johnston and Sand Islands were designated wildlife refuges in 1926. The US Navy took over the atoll in 1934, and subsequently the US Air Force assumed control in 1948. The site was used for high-altitude nuclear tests in the 1950s and 1960s, and until late in 2000 the atoll was maintained as a storage and disposal site for chemical weapons. Munitions destruction is now complete. Cleanup and closure of the facility was completed by May 2005. Toxic waste from both operations is buried on the island.
The Fish and Wildlife Service and the US Air Force are currently discussing future management options, in the interim Johnston Atoll and the three-mile Naval Defensive Sea around it remain under the jurisdiction and administrative control of the US Air Force.
Tropical, but generally dry; consistent northeast trade winds with little seasonal temperature variation.
Strategic location in the North Pacific Ocean; Johnston Island and Sand Island are natural islands, which have been expanded by coral dredging; North Island (Akau) and East Island (Hikina) are manmade islands formed from coral dredging; egg-shaped reef is 34 km in circumference some low-growing vegetation. Highest point: Summit Peak, at 5 meters
 Get in
 By plane
There is an abandoned airstrip on Johnston Island.
 By boat
[add listing] Buy
There is currently no economic activity on Johnston Atoll.
[add listing] Sleep
There are no public accommodations on Johnston Atoll.


In Writing Secure PHP, I covered a few of the most common security holes in websites. It's time to move on, though, to a few more advanced techniques for securing a website. As techniques for 'breaking into' a site or crashing a site become more advanced, so must the methods used to stop those attacks.
Most hosting environments are very similar, and rather predictable. Many web developers are also very predictable. It doesn't take a genius to guess that a site's includes (and most dynamic sites use an includes directory for common files) is an www.website.com/includes/. If the site owner has allowed directory listing on the server, anyone can navigate to that folder and browse files.
Imagine for a second that you have a database connection script, and you want to connect to the database from every page on your site. You might well place that in your includes folder, and call it something like connect.inc. However, this is very predictable - many people do exactly this. Worst of all, a file with the extension ".inc" is usually rendered as text and output to the browser, rather than processed as a PHP script - meaning if someone were to visit that file in a browser, they'll be given your database login information.
Placing important files in predictable places with predictable names is a recipe for disaster. Placing them outside the web root can help to lessen the risk, but is not a foolproof solution. The best way to protect your important files from vulnerabilities is to place them outside the web root, in an unusually-named folder, and to make sure that error reporting is set to off (which should make life difficult for anyone hoping to find out where your important files are kept). You should also make sure directory listing is not allowed, and that all folders have a file named "index.html" in (at least), so that nobody can ever see the contents of a folder.
Never, ever, give a file the extension ".inc". If you must have ".inc" in the extension, use the extension ".inc.php", as that will ensure the file is processed by the PHP engine (meaning that anything like a username and password is not sent to the user). Always make sure your includes folder is outside your web root, and not named something obvious. Always make sure you add a blank file named "index.html" to all folders like include or image folders - even if you deny directory listing yourself, you may one day change hosts, or someone else may alter your server configuration - if directory listing is allowed, then your index.html file will make sure the user always receives a blank page rather than the directory listing. As well, always make sure directory listing is denied on your web server (easily done with .htaccess or httpd.conf).
Out of sheer curiosity, shortly after writing this section of this tutorial, I decided to see how many sites I could find in a few minutes vulnerable to this type of attack. Using Google and a few obvious search phrases, I found about 30 database connection scripts, complete with usernames and passwords. A little more hunting turned up plenty more open include directories, with plenty more database connections and even FTP details. All in, it took about ten minutes to find enough information to cause serious damage to around 50 sites, without even using these vulnerabilities to see if it were possible to cause problems for other sites sharing the same server.
Most site owners now require an online administration area or CMS (content management system), so that they can make changes to their site without needing to know how to use an FTP client. Often, these are placed in predictable locations (as covered in the last article), however placing an administration area in a hard-to-find location isn't enough to protect it.
Most CMSes allow users to change their password to anything they choose. Many users will pick an easy-to-remember word, often the name of a loved one or something similar with special significance to them. Attackers will use something called a "dictionary attack" (or "brute force attack") to break this kind of protection. A dictionary attack involves entering each word from the dictionary in turn as the password until the correct one is found.
The best way to protect against this is threefold. First, you should add a turing test to a login page. Have a randomly generated series of letters and numbers on the page that the user must enter to login. Make sure this series changes each time the user tries to login, that it is an image (rather than simple text), and that it cannot be identified by an optical character recognition script.
Second, add in a simple counter. If you detect a certain number of failed logins in a row, disable logging in to the administration area until it is reactivated by someone responsible. If you only allow each potential attacker a small number of attempts to guess a password, they will have to be very lucky indeed to gain access to the protected area. This might be inconvenient for authentic users, however is usually a price worth paying.
Finally, make sure you track IP addresses of both those users who successfully login and those who don't. If you spot repeated attempts from a single IP address to access the site, you may consider blocking access from that IP address altogether.
One excellent way to make sure that even if you have a problem with someone accessing your database who shouldn't be able to, you can limit the damage they can cause. Modern databases like MySQL and SQL Server allow you to control what a user can and cannot do. You can give users (or not) permission to create data, edit, delete, and more using these permissions. Usually, I try and ensure that I only allow users to add and edit data.
If a site requires an item be deleted, I will usually set the front end of the site to only appear to delete the item. For example, you could have a numeric field called "item_deleted", and set it to 1 when an item is deleted. You can then use that to prevent users seeing these items. You can then purge these later if required, yourself, while not giving your users "delete" permissions for the database. If a user cannot delete or drop tables, neither can someone who finds out the user login to the database (though obviously they can still do damage).
PHP contains a variety of commands with access to the operating system of the server, and that can interact with other programs. Unless you need access to these specific commands, it is highly recommended that you disable them entirely.
For example, the eval() function allows you to treat a string as PHP code and execute it. This can be a useful tool on occasion. However, if using the eval() function on any input from the user, the user could cause all sorts of problems. You could be, without careful input validation, giving the user free reign to execute whatever commands he or she wants.
There are ways to get around this. Not using eval() is a good start. However, the php.ini file gives you a way to completely disable certain functions in PHP - "disable_functions". This directive of the php.ini file takes a comma-separated list of function names, and will completely disable these in PHP. Commonly disabled functions include ini_set(), exec(), fopen(), popen(), passthru(), readfile(), file(), shell_exec() and system().
It may be (it usually is) worth enabling safe_mode on your server. This instructs PHP to limit the use of functions and operators that can be used to cause problems. If it is possible to enable safe_mode and still have your scripts function, it is usually best to do so.
Finally, Be Completely and Utterly Paranoid
Much as I hate to bring this point up again, it still holds true (and always will). Most of the above problems can be avoided through careful input validation. Some become obvious points to address when you assume everyone is out to destroy your site. If you are prepared for the worst, you should be able to deal with anything.
Ready for more? Try Writing Secure PHP, Part 3.


Electrical workers by Shutterstock
- It is undeniable that the unemployment rate would be lower if fewer government jobs had been cut.
- Private sector employment is important for the simple fact that state & local tax revenues fund public sector salaries.
- The private sector, despite turbulent economic times and uncertainty, continues to be the engine of economic growth.
Editor's note: This article originally appeared in The New York Times' Room for Debate in response to the question: Are government layoffs the problem? What effect have public-sector job cuts had on the economy? Could governments have responded to the recession in any other way?
It is undeniable that the unemployment rate would be lower, and the recovery more pronounced, if fewer government jobs had been cut. But if the private sector is "doing fine," as President Obama famously said, could one reason be those losses in state and local jobs? The answer is yes.
During 2009 and 2010, President Obama and Congress spent 2.6 percent of gross domestic product at the state and local level primarily through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. But despite this huge stimulus spending, the share of G.D.P. contributed by state and local governments has collapsed since 2007.
While state and local spending accounted for nearly 13 percent of G.D.P. in 2008, barely 11 percent of G.D.P. comes from state and local spending today.
Meanwhile, the private sector, despite the turbulent economic times and the recent uncertainty surrounding the fiscal cliff talks, has continued to be the engine of economic growth. Despite shedding a large number of workers at the start of the recession, the private sector has added 5.0 million new employees since June 2009 as state and local governments have dropped 682,000 jobs. Private sector G.D.P. has continued to grow as businesses innovate and become more productive, finding ways to survive and grow in a challenging business environment.
Public sector workers, particularly those involved in education, have an important role to play in the economy. In most states, they account for about 14 percent of all jobs. But real economic growth has to start in the other 86 percent of the economy, where most workers earn their living. Indeed, private sector employment is important if even for the simple fact that state and local tax revenues fund public sector salaries.
As of January, the unemployment rate for those classified as government workers by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is only 4.2 percent, compared to 8.6 percent unemployment in the private sector. Clearly, if we care about economic recovery, we should focus our efforts at combating the specter of private sector unemployment. In a study of data from 1939 to 2008 the economist Valerie Ramey concluded that an increase in government spending typically causes private spending to fall significantly.
That should mean that the current recession-driven cuts in public expenditures may be exactly the stimulus needed to get the private sector on the road to recovery.


So I've been reading a LOT of Carl jung's works recently. In 'Dreams, Memories and reflections' as well as 'the archetypes and the collective unconscious', he describes in great detail various communications he has made with his unconscious mind, which manifest themselves in all sorts of figures and scenes. Many of the experiences he describes were prophetic in nature and in my opinion, his description of the archetypes is incredibly fascinating and links in with Tony's idea of the Daemon.
In 'On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry' Jung writes :-
'The primordial image, or archetype, is a figure--be it a daemon, a human being, or a process--that constantly recurs in the course of history and appears wherever creative fantasy is freely expressed. Essentially, therefore, it is a mythological figure. . . . In each of these images there is a little piece of human psychology and human fate, a remnant of the joys and sorrows that have been repeated countless times in our ancestral history.. '
Concerning direct communication with this 'Daemon' archetype Jung came up with a method called 'active imagination', which he said he had used on himself and his patients to communicate with their subconscious (their daemon).
Copied from wikipedia:-
Active Imagination is a concept developed by Carl Jung between 1913 and 1916. It is a meditation technique wherein the contents of one's unconscious are translated into images, narrative or personified as separate entities. It can serve as a bridge between the conscious 'ego' and the unconscious and includes working with dreams and the creative self via imagination or fantasy. Jung linked Active Imagination with the processes of alchemy in that both strive for oneness and inter-relatedness from a set of fragmented and dissociated parts.
Key to the process of active imagination is the goal of exerting as little influence as possible on mental images as they unfold. For example, if a person were recording a spoken visualization of a scene or object from a dream, Jung's approach would ask the practitioner to observe the scene, watch for changes, and report them, rather than to consciously fill the scene with one's desired changes. One would then respond genuinely to these changes, and report any further changes in the scene. This approach is meant to ensure that the unconscious contents express themselves without overbearing influence from the conscious mind. At the same time, however, Jung was insistent that some form of participation in active imagination was essential: 'You yourself must enter into the process with your personal reactions...as if the drama being enacted before your eyes were real'.
Of the origination of active imagination, Jung wrote:
“It was during Advent of the year 1913 – December 12, to be exact – that I resolved upon the decisive step. I was sitting at my desk once more, thinking over my fears. Then I let myself drop. Suddenly it was as though the ground literally gave way beneath my feet, and I plunged into the dark depths.”
Carl Jung developed this technique as one of several that would define his distinctive contribution to the practice of psychotherapy. Active imagination is a method for visualizing unconscious issues by letting them act themselves out. Active imagination can be done by visualization (which is how Jung himself did it), which can be considered similar in technique at least to shamanic journeying. Active imagination can also be done by automatic writing, or by artistic activities such as dance, music, painting, sculpting, ceramics, crafts, etc. Jung considered indeed that 'The patient can make himself creatively independent through this method...by painting himself he gives shape to himself'. Doing active imagination permits the thoughtforms of the unconscious, or inner 'self', and of the totality of the psyche, to act out whatever messages they are trying to communicate to the conscious mind.
For Jung however, this technique had the potential not only to allow communication between the conscious and unconscious aspects of the personal psyche with its various components and inter-dynamics, but also between the personal and 'collective' unconscious; and therefore was to be embarked upon with due care and attentiveness. Indeed, he warned with respect to '"active imagination"...The method is not entirely without danger, because it may carry the patient too far away from reality'. The post-Jungian Michael Fordham was to go further, suggesting that 'active imagination, as a transitional phenomenon ...can be, and often is, both in adults and children put to nefarious purposes and promotes psychopathology'.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_imagination
Has anybody tried this method or done any further research into it?


Guest Author - Preena Deepak
Music and dance rituals were an important aspect of temple worship in ancient India. In this pretext it was also a common Hindu tradition to dedicate or commission young girls to gods. These girls called ‘Devadasis’ were then separated from their families and trained in music, dance and a unique lifestyle within temple gates unlike their counterparts outside. Their life was from then on, one of service to the gods.
When a Devadasi attained puberty, she was married to the deity in a religious ceremony. From then on she would become a temple prostitute. Indian temples always had the patronage of Kings who ruled the country and in many instances devadasis became the concubines of the kings. In other cases, devadasis lived with their patron who provided them with property and wealth.
Marriage was forbidden for Devadasis who were eternally bound to the deity. However Devadasis became available to anyone who was able to ‘afford’ their keep.
The word ‘Devadasi’ means ‘Servant of God’. The girls dedicated to become Devadasis were mostly from poor, lower caste families for whom devoting one child to the god only meant less pressure on the family’s meager finances. Devadasis were considered blessed as entering into wedlock with the god protected them from widowhood. As a result of these reasons several young girls were pushed into prostitution, under the safe banner of religion.
Traces of the Devadasi system can be seen in many parts of India, particularly in South Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. It is believed that the Devadasis of Orissa, called ‘Mahari’ did not practice prostitution but devoted themselves to temple service and had special duties assigned to them.
With the decline of monarchy in India and with the invasion of Moghul and British rulers, the Devadasi system began to deteriorate. Christian Missionaries who worked in India, Social Activists and Reformers also had a share in putting an end to this grotesque Indian custom. The Indian Government banned the Devadasi system in 1988. However in spite of this, the Devadasi system continues under cover in India.
Under the burden of poverty, many young girls are still commissioned as Devadasis though Indian temples no longer have music and dance rituals or dedication ceremonies. These girls are married to the god and then sent for prostitution in red light areas. Unlike olden days, most of these girls do not have regular patrons and suffer under many men before succumbing to AIDS and other venereal diseases.
The children born to Devadasis are forced to follow along the footsteps of their mothers, since they live alienated from main stream life and are rejected from social institutions. This creates a vicious circle in which many young girls in India get trapped even today.


Log Boat is an uncommon type of boat that is made with a unique part of hollowed wood, Called “Monoxylon” is the oldest type of boat than have been found by the archeologist, these boats are similar in many countries, but the denomination is very different for example in Germany is called “einbaum” and in South America are called Canoas.
Its construction considers several basic steps:
The uses that people gave to this boat were very diverse, for example:
In South Africa: In Africa was there was many types of fishing boats, Log-Boat were very common in Limpopo River, and many rivers. Log Boat in South Africa used to be used for transport, fishing and hunting.
In Europe: If we talk about Log Boat in Europe we will find a big history around these boats. For example Byzantine Empire has used this boat to attack Constantinople, and many people gave different uses such as transport, fishing and hunting.
In North America: In North America these boats were famous, with different uses. These boats were used for ceremonial purposes.


In the realm of spirituality, Sri Aurobindo remains an enigmatic Indian personality and philosopher. He is one of the giants of modern Indian spirituality, who along with Vivekananda, Tagore, Gandhi and Radhakrishnan, was responsible for putting forth Indian philosophy in a comprehensive modern context, which then could be understood by the Western world at large. Sri Aurobindo's work is the least known of these five, but his teachings of philosophy and spirituality have the wisdom and appeal for a longer survival, similar to those of Vivekananda. Sri Aurobindo's evolution of consciousness was his life's experience that he documented in series of writings, in the process offering the world a critical and original philosophical system.
In his formative years, Aurobindo surmised that the oppression of Indian thought by the ruling British had deleterious effects on it. He thus became a revolutionary inCalcutta, working against the British rulers. Four years before Gandhi started political revolution in India, Sri Aurobindo had spent time in Alipore jail in the year 1910, charged with sedition and conspiracy. In the prison, Sri Aurobindo experienced the strength of his inner consciousness and emerged as a spiritual Yogi. His Ashram in Pondicherry has survived until today under the guidance of the spiritual Mother.
It is intriguing as to how a boy, who was being groomed to become an 'English Gentleman' by his father (who seemed to loathe anything 'Indian') could transform into a revolutionary freedom fighter first, and then a premier world renowned Yogi, with his own brand of spirituality and philosophy. His life-changing experience, according to him, was a result of an inner consciousness that took shape long before it could be expressed to the outer world. This perhaps explains his intuitive affinity towards his motherland, the culture of which was foreign to him during his childhood.
Sri Aurobindo was the fourth child of Dr. Krishnadhan Ghose, a surgeon, who was a District Medical Officer at Khulna, East Bengal, and Swarnalatha Devi Ghose. He was originally named Aravinda Ackroyd. He was born on August 15, 1872 (that date was to become very significant in Indian history, seventy-five years later). At age five he was sent to Loretto Convent School in Darjeeling for two years. He then was sent to Manchester, England, to be home-schooled by the Dewett family until he was twelve years old. High school was finished in St. Paul's School in Cambridge followed by two years of college at King's College, Cambridge (1890-92).
While at college he addressed the Indian student group called Indian Majlis and advocated freedom for India from the British. His formative years had been spent with a culture alien to India, educated by the Irish nuns of Darjeeling first, and then by the ministers and dons of the Church of England. By the time he finished college he could speak English and French fluently and also could read Greek, Latin and Italian. He could manage to speak Bengali, his mother tongue, only a bit.
His affinity for his motherland had been kept alive by a radical newspaper, The Bengalee, which published articles about maltreatment of Indians in the hands of Englishmen. The paper was committed to Indian independence from the British and this fanned the affinity Aravinda Ackroyd had for his motherland, and gave him a patriotic sense of belonging. He returned to India in 1893 with great anticipation. Upon reaching the shores of Bombay, he had an intense and profound spiritual experience, 'a calm that lasted for several months' - as he would later recount.
Parallel Course of Politics and Spirituality
Aurobindo had already dropped the name Ackroyd and joined the service of Maharaja of Baroda. He taught English and French at Baroda College and later became Vice-President of the College. During his twelve year tenure in Baroda, Aurobindo learnt many Indian languages. He became fluent in Sanskrit, Marathi, Gujarati and Bengali. In April 1901 he married Mrinalini Bose, a pious Hindu, barely half his age. While at Baroda he wrote a series of literary works, translations and political commentaries which gave him the ability of raising the consciousness of Indians, both in the political and social circles. His own mental development seemed to have progressed along two prongs. He was having unexplained spiritual experiences, seemingly accidental that pushed him more and more towards spiritual quests of higher levels. These experiences were enhanced by his meetings with Sister Nivedita in 1902 and an experience of 'the vacant Infinite' at the Sankarachaya hill in Kashmir in 1903.
Mrinalini Bose, the young wife of Aurobindo had not been able to join in her husband's spiritual journey, and their differences became more than just the differences in their ages, as he became more involved in politics and yoga. Five years after his marriage to her, he wrote to her saying that he was suffering from madness. He categorized his madness at three levels. First, was that he realized his talents and resources had to be used for one purpose only i.e. for God's work. His second madness he describes as his quest to have a direct 'Realization with God'. Thirdly, to him India was the Mother, the divine embodiment of sakti that propelled him towards politics.
Politically Aurobindo was becoming more and more determined to help the cause of independence for Indians from the British. He was convinced that the Western influence on the Indian mind was an impediment for the Indian spiritual maturity. He moved to Bengal in 1906 to become the principal of Bengal National College. Here he joined secret political societies, and orchestrated an underground organization with printing of anti-British pamphlets. The same year he assisted Bipin Chandra Pal in founding the radical newspaper, Bande Mataram. Later, he took over the editorship of the newspaper and succeeded Bipin Chandra Pal as the leader of National Party in Bengal. He wrote several articles including the one called 'The Doctrine of Passive Resistance,' that later became the main instrument of Gandhi in his freedom struggle to oust the British from India. For his article in Bande Mataram, he was arrested in 1907, on charges of sedition and then released on bail.
Even in his development as a political revolutionary, Aurobindo went through several evolutions as well. First he was the secret revolutionary, advocating and preparing for an armed insurrection. Secondly, he undertook the task of convincing the nation that its citizens deserved and could attain independence. The country was in a state of forced subjugation, and thought that the British were too powerful and Indians too impotent to dream of independence. Moreover, Indians were under the impression that the lofty idea about independence was impractical, unattainable and almost an insane chimera. Lastly, Aurobindo had come a full circle when he wrote articles and assisted in organizing people to passively resist and practice non-cooperation.
Aurobindo resigned from Bengal National College and became a leader of the nationalist movement, giving several speeches both in Bengal and Western India. In January of 1908 he met Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, a yogi in Baroda, who taught him the technique of silencing the mind and experiencing the timeless Brahman, a form of spiritual Realization.
He was again arrested in 1908 in connection with Alipore conspiracy case and spent a year in jail, including in solitary confinement. He utilized his time in jail studying the Geeta, meditation and practice of yoga. After his acquittal, he started publications of two weeklies - Karmayoga in English and Dharma in Bengali. During his stay in Calcutta for a period of five years as a revolutionary leader, Aravinda Ghose tried to prove to the Indians that a politically oppressed population could not express its distinctive spiritual and cultural genius. Move to Pondicherry
Aurobindo had concluded that independence for India was inevitable, and he then embraced the spiritual evolution of the soul with the same fervor as he had in raising the consciousness of Indians.
In the year 1910, when Aurobindo was 37 years old, he abruptly withdrew from active politics and moved to Pondicherry to continue his spiritual work. There he met Paul Richard, a French diplomat who became an ardent fan of Aurobindo. Mira Richard, ** his wife was a spiritual personality (born Mira Alfassa on February 21, 1878 in Paris), who had mystic and psychic experiences during her adolescence. After hearing about Aurobindo she met him in 1914, an encounter instantly and profoundly spiritual for both. Mira Richard was to become “Mother” later, a symbol of sakti who was to play a central role in the creation of the Aurobindo Ashram and Auroville in Pondicherry. Mira Richard saw Aurobindo as the divine hero of tomorrow and hope for all humanity. The day after her meeting with him she wrote in her diary:
“Little by little the horizon becomes precise, the path becomes clear. And we advance to an even greater certitude. It matters not if there are hundreds of beings plunged in densest ignorance. He whom we saw yesterday is on earth: His presence is enough to prove that a day will come when darkness shall be transformed into light, when Thy reign shall be indeed established upon earth.”
In 1915 Paul and Mira Richard returned to France and later went to live in Japan until 1920. Then Mira sailed to Pondicherry to begin her spiritual mission with the man she saw as an avatar of the Divine. She stayed in Pondicherry in a journey with Aurobindo, where each became integral part of their quest – he as the Divine Yogi and she as the Mother sakti.
After being estranged from him for more than ten years, in 1918, the ill-fated Mrinalini, Aurobindo’s wife, finally decided to go to Pondicherry to join her husband. As fate would have it, they were never meant to see each other again. She was about to embark on her journey to Pondicherry, when she contracted influenza and died.
Sri Aurobindo lived in Pondicherry until his death on December 5, 1950 at the age of seventy-eight. India attained independence that he had dreamed of, on August 15, 1947, coincidentally on his seventy-fifth birthday. The date did not go unnoticed by Sri Aurobindo. He mentioned it in his speech to the nation after attaining independence. He was a satisfied man, to find India finally rid itself of foreign occupation, a task he had worked so ardently during his younger years.
A Personal Journey
While Indian philosophers like Radhakrishnan, Bhattacharya and Dutta have put forward comprehensive systems of Indian philosophy, they pale in comparison to Aurobindo’s richness in detail and range of topics, as evident in his vast array of writings. Moreover, Aurobindo’s system of philosophy is autobiographical, an account of his personal experience and experiment. As he became more and more knowledgeable during his personal journey of his spiritual quest, he did not hesitate to continually revise his earlier writings and teachings. Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol, Sri Aurobindo’s 24000 line epic poem about spiritual ascent and transformation of the physical world, was revised and added on to until the last days before his death. He also revised his other writings, notably The Life Divineand The Synthesis of Yoga, in order to express his more advanced experiences of his later years. All of his works except Savitri (namely The Essays on the Gita, The Human Cycle, The Ideal of Human Unity, The Secret of the Veda, and The Life Divine as well as The Synthesis of Yoga) were serialized in his philosophical publication Arya. Here he put forward comprehensive and systematic philosophical compilations based on his own personal experiences. Unlike Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi, Sivananda and J. Krishnamurti, who also expressed their experiences in philosophical terms, Sri Aurobindo was successful in developing an original critical and practical philosophical system, including theories of knowledge, existence, the self, natural order and the aim of life.
Integral Yoga and Religion
At least since 1926 his spiritual eminence was well recognized and the suffix ‘Sri’ had been added to his name. It was the same year when he withdrew completely, claiming day of siddhi (day of victory), and left the chores of establishing the Ashram and the management of the disciples to Mother. Through his four decades of practice of yoga (sadhana), Sri Aurobindo had published thirty volumes of systematic writings and correspondence. He consistently distinguished his spiritual discipline from traditional religion. He was worried that his work could some day be mistaken for a new religion and repeatedly asserted that he did not want it to be so. Perhaps he did not want his teachings to be construed in a religious sense akin to what developed from profound spiritual experiences of Gautama (Buddhism) and Jesus (Christianity), much after their passing.
“Our goal is not…. to found a religion or a school of philosophy or a school of yoga, but to create a ground and a way which will bring down a greater truth beyond the mind but not inaccessible to the human soul and consciousness….”
Sri Aurobindo believed in the creation of Divine life, in the existing human life, in its current form. He believed that it was not inaccessible for an ignorant mind, through discipline, to bring down a greater Truth from beyond, to the human consciousness. It is not only possible to rise out of the ignorant world-consciousness, but it is also possible to bring the supramental powers down (a descent) to the ignorant mind. This can only help in the transformation of ignorance of the mind, body and life, in order to manifest the Divine here, while on earth.
Religion to him was an anathema. He however conceded that religion could be used as the first step toward achieving the supramental enlightenment. He made a clear distinction between religion and the spiritual. To Sri Aurobindo it was clear that there were three paths a human could take in his journey through life; A spiritual journey (adhyatma-jivana), a religious journey (dharma-jivana), or a journey of ordinary human life (of which mortality is a part). The laws of ignorance guide the ordinary life of average human consciousness. It is separated from its own true self and from the Divine. The religious life is led by some sect or creed that claims to have found the way out of the bounds of earth-consciousness into some beatific Beyond. The religious life is as ignorant because it often is only mired in rites and rituals, ceremonies and practices or set ideas and forms, without any attempt at dispelling ignorance. The spiritual life, in contrast, proceeds directly by a change of consciousness, wherein one finds one’s true self and comes into direct and living contact and into union with the Divine. For the spiritual seeker this change of consciousness is the one thing he seeks and nothing else matters.
Aurobindo taught us the possibility of transformation of the world-consciousness through a spiritual journey of discipline and yoga. Though the potential is inherent in all, it is a receptive mind that through discipline can grasp the profound and succeed in attaining Realization. In his series of articles that became increasingly more informative as his consciousness matured, he showed us his way of self discipline through integral yoga. He never discounted the fact that this realization is possible for the ignorant during one’s lifetime. He used Mother to achieve his own personal spiritual journey (and vice versa), and considered Mother as an expression of his own consciousness. But it was the Mother who was truly the chief organizer of the Ashram in Pondicherry.
The Mother: Architect of the Future
In 1951 Mother founded the Sri Aurobindo International University to modernize and expand the scope of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry. In this endeavor she also established the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Delhi Branch together with Surendranath Jauhar in 1956. The Mother's International School, which is also located in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram (Delhi Branch), has since grown into one of the biggest and most important schools of its kind in India.
There was a danger that after his death, his teachings might not have the same appeal. However, Mother and his other disciples successfully ran the Ashram in Pondicherry and then in 1968, at the age of ninety, Mother began the Auroville project (with the architect Roger Anger), in expectation of a new species of enlightened humans, and to accommodate such species. “A new species of higher consciousness will be revealed to us, little by little and Auroville wants to consciously hasten that advent. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Auroville belongs to no one and belongs to humanity as a whole. To live in Auroville, one must be a willing servitor of Divine Consciousness.”
It is here where Aurobindo’s vision of spiritual discipline and selfless action (Karmayoga) are implemented. In addition, on Mother’s commission, cyber-artist, musician and futurist Michel Montecrossa established Mirapuri center in Italy, which is actively spreading the ideals of Sri Aurobindo in the international scene. A Miravillage, a satellite of Mirapuri is also attracting disciples in Germany.
Then in 1973, the year she died, she also gave her blessings to Michel Montecrossa to establish a cultural center and guest house for the Friends of Mirapuri in Auroville. It is named 'New Community' and is located in the Auroville settlement 'Certitude,' opposite the building called 'Auroson's Home'.
Throughout her life she wanted to create a new type of city for all those who wanted to develop their consciousness for a spiritually inspired evolution. In 1957 ideas for such a township again were in the air but did not materialize. In 1967 plans were made and some land acquired to found a city in the Indian state Gujarat, which she named Ompuri. This project also did not move further. There have been other disappointments. In 1982, an organized attack on Auroville by violent and sectarian movement that halted all progress at Auroville and its promise of becoming a place of peace for world unity as envisaged by the Mother came to an abrupt halt. This led to the creation of Mirapuri, that later opened its branches in Italy and the Miravillage in Germany.
The Mother continued the work of Consciousness Evolution, leaving a stunning legacy of wisdom, knowledge, realization and impulses for making the Integral Yoga physically effective, in a life where Spirit and Matter are one. Mother died in 1973 at the ripe age of ninety-five, twenty three years after the Master had passed on. Sri Aurobindo’s legacy and teachings have survived and are thriving internationally today, thanks to the brilliant planning and forethought of the Mother.
** Mira Alfassa (Richard) studied art and became an accomplished artist and musician. 1897 she married Henri Morisset and gave birth to her son André. In 1905 she began to study parapsychology and occult sciences in Algeria together with Max Theon and his wife. After her divorce from Henri Morisset she founded a group of spiritual seekers, which was named l'Idée Nouvelle.
In 1911 she married Paul Richard and traveled to India with him, where she met Sri Aurobindo for the first time in 1914, and started together with Sri Aurobindo and Paul Richard the journal 'Arya', which became the birth place for most of the writings of Sri Aurobindo, which later appeared in book-form.
Till 1920 Mira Alfassa stayed in Japan and then came back to India to live with Sri Aurobindo. They both collaborated to further develop the Integral Yoga. Sri Aurobindo and Mira Alfassa founded the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in 1926 to accommodate the growing number of people who became interested in the Integral Yoga. After 1926 Mira Alfassa became known as The Mother, the individual expression of the power of spiritual consciousness.


Pop-up book of Ancient Egypt, £14.99
Explore / Online Tours
Word into art
Word into Art
This tour brings together the work of contemporary artists from the Middle East and North Africa. The use of writing - quotations, words and even single letters - has emerged as a common theme in this vibrant and original art. Each object presented here is inscribed in or draws its inspiration from Arabic, the main script of the region used to write a variety of languages including Persian.
A Sacred Script looks at artworks which are based around the holy texts of the Qu'ran and the Bible. Literature and Art shows how poetry and the rich literary traditions of the Middle East have inspired artists in different ways. The works in Deconstructing the Word have been created using single words or letters. History, Politics and Identity examines how art has responded to crises and wars that have affected the Middle East. In the entry for each work, the artist's country of origin is cited first after their name, and their current place of residence second.
The tour includes highlights from Word into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East, a free exhibition at the British Museum (Room 35) from 18 May to 3 September 2006. The exhibition draws mainly on works collected by the British Museum, with some loaned objects. It includes pieces by about eighty different artists, some of whom are represented here. This tour shows how writing, so important as both a method of communication and an art form in the ancient and Islamic cultures, continues as a powerful thread running through the art of the region today.
The exhibition was part of Middle East Now, a season of special events which includes lectures, films, poetry readings and music. The exhibition and the season were produced in partnership with Dubai Holding.


This week Intel privately shared parts of
its roadmap for memory technologies through 2008. Intel’s
progress on phase-change memory, PCM or PRAM, will soon be
sampled to customers with mass production possible before the end of the year.
Phase-change memory is positioned as a replacement for
flash memory, as it has non-volatile characteristics, but is faster and can be
scaled to smaller dimensions. Flash memory cells can degrade and become
unreliable after as few as 10,000 writes, but PCM is much more resilient at more
than 100 million write cycles. For these reasons, Intel believes that
phase-change memory could one day replace DRAM.
“The phase-change memory gets pretty close to Nirvana,” said
Ed Doller, CTO of Intel’s flash memory group. “It will start to displace some
of the RAM in the system.”
For its implementation of phase-change memory, Intel has since 2000 licensed technology from Ovonyx Inc.. The Ovonyx technology uses the properties of chalcogenide
glass, the same material found in CD-RW and DVD-RW, which can be switched
between crystalline and amorphous states for binary functions.
Every potential PCRAM memory maker thus far licenses Ovonyx technology. According
to Ovonyx’s Web site, the first licensee of the technology was Lockheed Martin
in 1999, with Intel and STMicroelectronics in the following year. Four years
after that, Nanochip signed an agreement. Elpida and Samsung were the next two in 2005,
and Qimonda marks the latest with a signing this year.
IBM, Macronix and Qimonda detailed last December its recent developments on
phase-change memory. Researchers at IBM’s labs demonstrated a prototype
phase-change memory device that switched more than 500 times faster than flash
while using less than one-half the power to write data into a cell. The IBM device’s cross-section is a minuscule 3 by 20 nanometers in size, far
smaller than flash can be built today and equivalent to the industry’s
chip-making capabilities targeted for 2015.
Intel’s initial phase-change technology, however, is already
a reality, as the chipmaker revealed that it has produced a 90
nanometer phase-change memory wafer. At the 90 nanometer process size, the
power requirements to write are approximate to that required for flash. Intel
said that its early test work shows data retention abilities of greater than 10
years even at temperatures of 85 degree Celsius.
Intel touts PCM as a “new category of memory,” as its
attributes are distinctly different, and typically superior to many of the
memory technologies today as it combines the best attributes of RAM, NOR and
NAND. Intel wouldn’t give a firm date on the availability of its phase-change
memory as several details still need to be finalized after the sampling
“We're going to be using this to allow customers to get
familiar with the technology and help us architect the next generation device.”
Doller said. “We're hoping we can see [mass] production by the end of the year,
but that depends on the customers.”


....that indigo is one of the oldest dye stuffs in the world? For millennia this dye provided the only color fast and light fast clear blue that there was for fabrics. It was very valuable for trade and recipes were often closely guarded secrets. It has been used all over the world to make everything from intricate Japanese kimonos to Levi Jeans for the original 49ers.
The thing that is special about indigo is that in its normal state the dye molecules are insoluble in water, they will just sink to the bottom of the vat unless a chemical reducing agent is added. Reducing agents steal a hydrogen atom from the dye molecule, this allows it to try and form lose bonds with the hydrogen in the water so it dissolves and creates the vat. There are all kinds of reducing agents that can be used, from yeast or live bacteria in a fermentation vat to dangerous chemicals like Lye (Sodium Hydroxide). We have a somewhat safer and effective recipe using our Dye House Color remover (Thiorea Dioxide) and Soda Ash. In Europe, one of the oldest reducing agents, and the cheapest, was stale urine. Oral dye history is full of stories about European dye houses that would put out pots for people to donate their urine and dye houses that would be built next to taverns, which provided a steady supply. It is purported that due to the smell of the dye houses they where often restricted to the outskirts of town.
This amazing dyestuff naturally occurs in indigo containing plants of the tropical genus Indigofera, which grows in many countries, as well as a less concentrated form in a plant called Woad, which is native to temperate Europe. The most well known, indigofera tinctoria, was native to India, which may have been the earliest major player in the lucrative indigo trade. The name of the compound that makes up the dye is called indican. It is extracted from the plants buy crushing the leaves and soaking them until they ferment and release the indican, which was precipitated and dried in cakes. The cakes were than ground to a powder by the user.
Designs on indigo cloth are achieved with various tying techniques, such as traditional Shibori and tie-dye techniques. Other types of resist such as rice paste and wax are also used to protect areas of the fabric to create intricate patterns. Indigo was also be used for printing and painting with use of different chemicals like Arsenic trisulfide, or iron sulfate and thickeners.
When indigo is in solution it is a yellow green color but often the top layer of the vat is blue because it is exposed to the air. Indigo is sometimes called a magic dye because of the way the fabric changes color from a yellow green to the deep blues as the air oxidizes the dye. As the dye molecules oxidize they become insoluble in water again so they don't wash out of the fabric. The fabric is dipped in the indigo vat to soak up some dye, and then hung in the air to oxidize where it turns blue. Another feature of indigo is the ability to build up the depth of color by repeated dippings into the bath. Successive dippings and airings give you darker and darker blues. Shades can thus range from pale sky blue to deepest dark navy indigo.
We are all familiar with the characteristic way in which indigo fades as the fabric is used and worn, such as the fade lines on your favorite jeans. This is because indigo does not actually chemically bond to the fabric. Instead it becomes insoluble in water again when it reacts with the air and becomes lodged in the small spaces with the fiber. Over time as the fibers are rubbed with wear it rubs out some of the dye creating faded lines.
Indigo dyed fabric can also do something called crocking where it rubs off on things, and you, if not properly laundered before use. If you dont want to try out for the Blue Man Group, be sure and wash newly dyed or store bought Indigo dyed fabric and clothing with hot water and Synthrapol. Our Dharma Dye Fixative or Retayne in a hot soak can cause the fabric to retain more of the Indigo before washing, so you will get less fade on the first washing, and still no crocking after.
Since indigo was one of the only natural blue dyes, and the best, it was often used to over dye yellow fabrics to make greens. In museum tapestries you will often see that many plants are very bluish, this is because natural yellow dyes are more sensitive to fading from UV light than indigo and over time the indigo has become the predominate color in the fibers.
These days most indigo dye in commercial use is made synthetically, but you can still enjoy the magic of true indigo with our wonderful natural indigo. Granted it is a little more work then pre-reduced synthetics but it also has greater depth and variation which is all part of the magic.