onoway

A friend had a heart attack over the holidays and is now suffering from double vision which is making her feel depressed and isolated. She had a cataract operation some years ago and has had perfect vision since until this. I was wondering if anyone knew of any good voice activated (is that the term?) programs which would enable her to deal with things such as email, although I'm sure she would love to be able to participate again on BBO, should that be possible. Does anyone have any knowledge of such programs that they could recommend or how a person would go about finding a good one?

Too late already did and it seemed to be popular. but thanks for your input anyway:)

What are the optimum settings for these? There seem to be several options and if people have figured out what works best then I would appreciate learning what has worked for them rather than just going by guess and by golly. I had to learn the hard way that you need lots of tables for it to work at all. Thanks for any help!

Many of the references are British but the rant is likely just as appropriate for Canada and the US.

If you scroll back earlier in the thread it was generally agreed that Trump wouldn't get near sniffing range of being the candidate and if he did he didn't really want to be President anyway, he was just messing about. Neither of those things seem to be holding up very well... Although he may well change his mind about being President if he ever actually got into the Oval Office..it's a bit inconceivable to me that he doesn't want to be able to say he did. Sort of a more grandiose thing than making Clinton come to his wedding. It's all about ego and power.

According to Google, "moving to Canada" is now trending..we have got a lot of good people over the years who freaked out about what was going on in the US and abandoned ship, not just the ones we got during Viet Nam. Perhaps that part of the reason the what's happening now IS happening now, too many people who have a different vision of a good place to live came here and left too few in the US to fight the good fight...

Not trying to start anything at all here, just got this email and wanted to share it. An atheist was walking through the woods. 'What majestic trees! 'What powerful rivers!a 'What beautiful animals! He said to himself. Suddenly, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. He turned to look .... . . and saw a 7-foot grizzly bear charge towards him. He ran as fast as he could along the path. He looked over his shoulder & saw that the bear was closing on him .... He looked over his shoulder again, and the bear was even closer .... and then ..... He tripped and fell. Rolling over to pick himself up, he found the bear was right on top of him ......... reaching towards him with its left paw ..... and raising the right paw to strike ... At that instant the Atheist cried out, 'Oh my God!' Time Stopped ... The bear froze ...... The forest was silent .... A bright light shone upon the man, and a voice came out of the sky ... "You deny my existence for all these years, you teach others I don't exist and even credit creation to cosmic accident ........ Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament?" "Am I to count you as a believer?" The atheist looked directly into the light .... "It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now ... but perhaps you could make the BEAR a Christian?" ... a pause ... "Very well," said the voice ... The light went out. The sounds of the forest resumed .... the bear dropped his right arm ... brought both paws together ... bowed his head & spoke... "Lord, bless this food, which I am about to receive. Amen."

Trying to navigate the forums on an IPad and was just told I've used up my quota of down votes. Since I didn't knowingly make any down votes I apologise to whomever got nailed when I inadvertently waved a finger too close to the screen or hit the down vote instead of the page change or changed how I was holding the thing or however it happened. Is there any way of finding out what you voted on and if so is it possible to change it? I've absolutely no idea what I might have voted against.

I am astonished to learn that as a member of IAC you apparently don't know we run tourneys regularly, and have done for months, where all systems are specifically encouraged to participate, or that all the tourneys are open to all systems. This dismays many members who are outside their comfort zone playing for instance against Precision opps, but they have learned to live with it. BUT...we insist that the bids MEANING be made clear to the opps. If you think this is unfair, then we have nothing to discuss.

Perhaps it is pertinent to remember that few of the players in IAC are experts and many are not even advanced. So by far the majority will be making assumptions about what a bid means. As far as that goes, anyone who has played more than 3 hands anywhere on BBO knows that few people alert many bids, even if they are required to do so, so players are often going on assumptions. Certainly at least in this club, if a pair claims to be playing 2/1 then if an auction goes pass 1♥(♠) pass 1N pass or 1♥ (♠) pass 1N pass, by far the majority of the opponents will absolutely be expecting opener to bid again. It seems to me then, if that is not necessarilly the case, then the bid must be alerted or announced or else it is a special agreement that the opps are not aware of. The pair were not players unknown to each other, in fact the conversation suggested this was a deliberate strategy, and that's what caused me concern. They can bid whatever they want, but the opps MUST be able to understand what their bids mean or it's all code and presumably alerts or announcements are designed to prevent that being the case. We are trying to get more people playing not drive them away with deliberately misleading bidding. Few things are as effective at making bridge players feel abused and indignant. We generally follow the ACBL guidelines as most of the regular players are from North America, with a few twists.. I allow psyches and multi in my tourneys as does one of our two ACBL directors,the other does not. (Neither of them were the directors I asked, as neither happened to be around at the time) We have some players who play multi but it seldom comes up, and both times this year a player has tried to psyche he got punished by the opps rather severely so I doubt psyches will come up again in a hurry. Thank you all for your input, much appreciated.

THis may be a silly question but I have had several people weigh in on the discussion and they do not agree. A pair states they are playing 2/1. These are not beginners, one claims to be an expert ( and possibly is) the other has had wins at the National Level. The bidding goes pass 1♥ pass 1NT pass. The opener then passes. They said that 1NT is NOT forcing which to my understanding , in that sequence, if playing 2/1, it is. If they play it as non forcing then it seems to me it ought to be alerted as most opps will be confused by openers pass and wonder if it is a misunderstanding or what did the opening bid show and are they playing 2/1 and at the very least be distracted and confused. When discussing the bid, a kib chimed in and said that Fred plays it as nonforcing, so therefore it isn't. The implication was that he doesn't alert it which I strongly suspect is making an assumption that it isn't on a CC or alerted if not. In any case, none of these players are or ever will be at that level. Someone else suggested that it was semiforcing. The notes I have for Mike Lawrence says it absolutely is forcing, even if opener has only a 3 card minor he or she MUST bid something. SO what's the story? And what if any, should be the penalty? I would assume if it was ALERTED as nonforcing it would be perfectly acceptable. If not alerted it seems to me to be on the edge of special partnership understanding, and therefore subject to penalty if that information is not made available to the opps. After all, the opps may well be assuming opener has to bid again so they will get another kick at the cat so to speak, so pass.. and then are left beached when opener passes . One ACBL director told me it is not forcing, and another one told me it was. This actually didn't happen in a tourney but at a table, but directly after a conversation with someone else entirely about how confusing it was to meet so many different versions of 2/1 in tourneys and how she never knew what was going on. Until this hand, I had never (knowingly) run into this. If it's turning up at the table it's only a matter of time before it shows up in a tourney. I dislike this sort of issue coming up in tourneys and am thinking to specify in my own tourney rules that the default is that this sequence IS forcing and any deviation must be alerted. Feedback would be helpful.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1505660#t=article The New England Journal of Medicine article calls for mandatory labelling of GMOs. Germany reportedly has recently banned the growing of GMO crops, I haven't seen the article or tracked it down yet. It was sent to me as an adjunct to the news that Germany has also banned fracking. Perhaps the insistence of these companies that only self serving "scientific studies" are valid is finally backfiring. It's encouraging to think that a country such as Germany is apparently showing some sense of responsibility to future generations. Now if only others - or at least ours - would follow suit..

Personally I've no problem with a monopoly on pesticides or even fertilizers produced from diminishing resources, it's been very well established that with healthy soil, well designed water harvesting systems, and a diverse ecology, neither are needed to any great degree if at all. Check out Dr Elaine Ingham's work. It's ironic that if anything GMOs and chemically supported monocropping on which it relies are far more likely to cause starvation than cure it. Topsoil is the number one export from the US and it isn't being sold, it's being lost, even USDA scientists say up to an inch a year per acre. When a field collapses and the plants will no longer produce a good crop, such as sugar cane if Florida, they simply clear more bayou and start over. When a field is taken over by a weed that's evolved to thrive on poisons, they try to develop a more virulent poison. What's it called when you keep doing the same thing over and over and expect things to turn out differently? Whatever it is, it certainly doesn't seem like science to me. It's a pattern happening all over the world backed by government pressure. However, in some places, they are getting off the chem-ag merry go round, and finding that working within natural systems tends to have much greater reward. There are some unbelievably encouraging success stories around the world, from those who are actually growing food, not just messing about with seeds in a lab. Seeds are a different issue. The progress of agriculture has been historically from developing landraces, some deliberately bred from various varieties of their (or closely related, like wheat and rye) species, many accidental but saved and propagated by observant farmers. These have evolved to be particularly suited to the environment in which they live, so the various crops we use have a huge genetic diversity. What is happening with the control of the seed left in the hands of 4 or 5 companies is that genetic diversity is being wiped out wholesale, discarded as being of no interest to the companies who now "own" the seed. Farmers are being legally restricted from saving their own seed, prevented from developing landraces suited to their conditions, perhaps even more important now than ever with weather becoming so unpredictable. I know of one man who has been developing his own landraces for years from open pollinated heritage seeds in a very difficult and unpredictable climate. He has felt the need to hide seeds in various areas as well as distribute them to friends across the country so that they won't be lost if the government comes with a swat team one night - as happened to a man who had over years developed a breed of bee which seemed to be unusually resistant to chemical stress. (All his hives were taken, and other beekeepers in the area are now refusing to register their hives in case the same thing happens to them.) This man's seeds are in strong demand as they not only taste wonderful and keep well for their type, but they deal with weird weather swings and stress much more effectively than any others available, all without any chemicals or artificial fertilizers. That's what GMOs were promised to do, and what they have utterly and completely failed to do. When the GMO corn in the US failed a number of years ago the ONLY genetic material that was available to counter the problem was a landrace corn found in China. Having only the same or almost the same genetics in a crop is a disaster waiting to happen, as the Irish found when the Irish Cobbler variety of potato came down with blight and wiped out the crop. Whether or not that should have led to the consequences it did is a different discussion. The fact remains that virtually the entire potato crop failed because it was genetically identical - and susceptible to that strain of blight. Besides that, seeds ought to be able to grow on their own, and they decidedly can, if they are given the right conditions. After all, they managed to do so for millennia without any of the chemicals people have now been brainwashed into thinking are essential. They were also much higher in food value than what we are developing now. (Golden Rice was a pr stunt, equal in arrogance and integrity to Nestle telling mothers in Africa to use their formula instead of breast milk as it was better for the babies and they could be sure their babies were getting enough, an insidious and thoroughly nasty ploy to work on women's insecurities.) Some researchers have reported that to get the nutrition your grandfather got from two SLICES of bread, you would have to eat more than two LOAVES of bread.*This is assuming the widespread commercial bread, not artisan bread) Any thoughts on how this might be contributing to obesity? If you don't fertilize gmo corn to a fare-thee-well it WILL fail as was demonstrated in Africa when even Monsanto admitted to at least a third of the crop failing to produce any kernels because they hadn't specified sufficient amounts of fertilizers. A third of a crop is a very large failure and many farmers would go under without some sort of insurance to cover their losses. Your tax dollars at work, both in unseen subsidies for the chemicals in the first place, and then insurance to the farmers when the crops fail. You may think you have cheap food but you are paying a great deal more for it than you think, it's just hidden in subsidies/programs paid for by taxes. It occurred to me that an analogy would be to punish anyone who played anything but one type of music, for example, if they played anything but polkas, they'd be legally liable to punishment. Except.. while that might lead to malnutrition of the spirit, seed restriction might well be leading to malnutrition of the body. It's most certainly leading to all sorts of problems. To be trite, it's going back to a very old saying of not putting all your eggs in one basket. Legislation to prevent any competition from existing in terms of seed saving, development or access, even on small local scale, in the name of profit for chemical companies, is absolute stupidity of the highest order, to be generous.

It's perhaps interesting that although the price of cattle right now is very high, farmers are in a bind because drought has had a severe impact on hay supplies. Big bales normally selling for around $50 are now being advertised for $250 and even two and three year old weathered bales are going for big dollars. Even so, it won't be enough. In the meantime, Allan Savory's methods have allowed farmers like Greg Judy to get through the winter without putting up hay even in Iowa, and to reduce the amount of hay needed for many other farmers while still having their cattle come through the winters in excellent condition. Droughts have little impact because the soil can hang on to the water it's got over previous years, so there is a much longer period of time before lack of rain has any significant impact. Permaculture systems of water harvesting and storage are being adopted widely in Australia ( and other places) because of this, but the system is totally incompatible with monocropping and the use of chemicals which destroy the soil's ability to hold water, among other things.

It HAS been and is being done, look up the work of Allan Savory and the success his system has allowed farmers who were going bankrupt using the industrial ag model. Greg Judy is one, easilly found on You Tube, there are many others, more all the time. Look at the work being done by Geoff Lawton and Mark Shepherd and Joel Salatin and Will Allen and so many many MANY more. Many of these people are regularly asked by official ag groups to come and help, Geoff Lawton has been approached by the US Federal Dept of Agriculture to help with the growing disasters of pollution, erosion, desertification and drought which are the inevitable eventual results of GMO monocrop cultivation. The Red Wattle was indeed the product of breeding as well as running almost feral when the originator died, but none of them were ever genetically modified so (as an example) they could be fed strychnine and thrive. You are such a smart person, such comments as you regularly make in these threads truly astound me they are so disconnected and misleading. The thing about GMO's is while they in and of themselves may or may not be bad for us, though there is lots of evidence that they are, but that the major specific modification done to them is to allow them to grow while ingesting ( so to speak) poisons designed to kill anything other that that particular plant. Those poisons are part of the food we eat every day, even the FDA recognizes that. These plants are developed by companies whose major business is selling chemicals of one sort or another. When one stops working they'll invent another, but they are obviously not going to be interested in developing crops with no need for their chemicals. There's abundant evidence that the reverse is true. Perhaps you are comfortable eating foods embedded with poisons and perhaps you believe that somehow man alone has a special privilege in that he alone won't be affected by such poisons..even though the chemicals are derived from those developed ONLY to kill people. Do you think there is divine dispensation or privilege or whatever, that humans alone should be considered to be above the natural laws which apply to all other creatures of which we are aware? Are you one of those who jeer at people who profess to follow a religion and yet you think that somehow humans are impervious to poisons if given in minute doses daily, although drinking those same chemicals is frequently used as the method of choice for farmers committing suicide? That seems to me a leap of faith at least as odd as burning bushes talking to people. Or perhaps you believe in mithridatism. After all, it was supposedly practiced by the Medici among others. Even so, there is surely an ethical question whether it should be a process imposed on people without their knowledge or consent. In the meantime, the man who was VP of public policy for Monsanto is now - as of last year- Deputy Commissioner for Foods, in the Food and Drug Administration. There is a wonderful side by side photo which I cannot figure out how to get out of Facebook and into here. Both are photos of Michael Taylor and the first says " I poison the food supply" The second says "I'll protect you from guys like Michael Taylor".

If any of you have ever had pork or chicken or beef raised in accordance to the animal's natural style of living, you would know there is an enormous difference in the final product. Animals raised in cages with barely enough room to stand up or lie down, fed artificially concentrated feed full of additives (antibiotics etc.) is tough, dry and flavourless unless drenched in all sorts of sauces and herbs. Properly raised and humanely slaughtered pork is full of juice and flavour, pork chops can almost be cut with a fork they are so tender without any special treatment. Even the ubiquitous Yorkshire, bred to have as little fat as possible, is infinitely better. If you happen to luck into pork from a Red Wattle or Berkshire raised naturally you are in for ambrosia. This bill would ..if applied as is to animals and not plant foods.. say that animals raised in highly artificial environments with a highly artificial and heavilly chemically dosed diet could be advertised as naturally raised. It's an example of the peevish Alice in Wonderland comment: ""When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." although what industry is saying is not what anyone other than a "spin" doctor would recognize as having that meaning. Ah yes, we can trust the governments or the industries to look after our interests..when a bunch of people die and the cause is clear and almost immediate. That's how we ended up with diseases such as mad cow disease, when animals such as cows and sheep were being fed ground up offal from slaughterhouses. When that experiment proved to be fatal to some people, the practice was stopped.If it had taken longer for the disease to develop it would have taken much longer for the practice to be stopped, and many many more people would have been affected. If it isn't clear and simple, with a direct (and fast) path from a to b, politicians don't want to know. And at least in Canada, the government has actively dismantled almost all independent research and fired all the scientists who might have some research results other than those stridently promoted by industry...no matter what industry. As someone mentioned above, how long did it take for the politicians to do anything about tobacco? It's a very good analogy, it also was regarded as a wonderful product, endorsed by doctors for years. And..nobody was actively restricting research into tobacco. That said, I personally think if people want to smoke, they should be able to do so where they are not impacting other people without their consent, but they should know exactly what risks they are running, and most decidedly people should not be forced to use it daily in some form without their knowlege.

If any of you have ever had pork or chicken or beef raised in accordance to the animal's natural style of living, you would know there is an enormous difference in the final product. Pork from animals raised in cages with barely enough room to stand up or lie down, fed artificially concentrated diet full of additives (antibiotics etc.) is tough, dry and flavourless unless drenched in all sorts of sauces and herbs. Properly raised and humanely slaughtered pork is full of juice and flavour and can almost be cut with a fork it is so tender. Even the ubiquitous Yorkshire, bred to have as little fat as possible, is infinitely better. If you happen to luck into pork from a Red Wattle or Berkshire raised naturally you are in for ambrosia. This bill would ..if applied as is to animals and not plant foods.. say that animals raised in highly artificially confined and stressful environments with an equally restricted and artificial diet could be advertised as naturally raised. It's an example of the peevish Alice in Wonderland comment: ""When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." although what industry is saying is not what anyone not a "spin" doctor would recognize as having that meaning. Ah yes, we can trust the governments or the industries to look after our interests..when a bunch of people die and the cause is clear and almost immediate. That's how we ended up with diseases such as mad cow disease, when animals such as cows and sheep were being fed ground up offal from slaughterhouses. When THAT experiment proved to be fatal to some people, the practice was stopped. If it had taken longer for the disease to develop it would have taken much longer to make the association and the practice would have been allowed for much longer; if it isn't clear and simple, politicians don't want to know. And at least in Canada, the government has actively dismantled almost all independent research and fired all the scientists who might have some research results other than those stridently promoted by industry...no matter what industry.

would it be possible to put on the RKC alert WHICH version the GIBs use? I can never remember if it's 1430 or 3014; no way to make player notes for the GIBS and it's really frustrating/irritating to miss a slam because I forgot which version they use and answered wrong.

Good to hear your cat has found a new home, it must have been a worry for you. Best wishes in your new home and job.

thanks that's similar to what I've found on the internet, though much much more sugar..possibly depending on how sour the cherries are. Nice to hear that at least one person has positive thoughts about it all:)

I have a huge crop of sour cherries.. has anyone ever preserved cherries in alcohol of one sort or another? I'm not set up to make wine.... several internet sites talk about dumping them in brandy or vodka... anyone have any experience with this/ have any comments? One tree the cherries are quite sour, the other the fruit is sweet enough to eat out of hand, though not nearly as sweet as a true sweet cherry like Bing.

I am not a lawyer, so don't pretend to know the ins and outs, but will take the word of a group of lawyers who think it goes well beyond that. It also begs the question as to how a food is to be considered safe if no independent research is permitted, only that provided by the companies which stand to profit? This has been the rule so far, without any iota of evidence that that is about to change.

Mike ( and Gerben42 ) you simply don't recognize the difference between genetic modification done with genes which are to some degree compatible to each other and those imposed with a deal of effort and failure on genes totally incompatible with each other, or the imposition of genes which allow the organism to take up poisons which disrupt or destroy hormonal and endocrine systems which are then passed on to us in the food..and not only expecting it to have no effect on us, but actively disallowing any research to see if that is a valid assumption. Perhaps you don't mind eating minute quantities of poison daily, there are others who would prefer to have the choice not to, and certainly not to feed it to their children. During World War One people were told to eat rhubarb leaves as a substitute for other unavailable greens. After causing several deaths, they are now considered toxic. People are warned to somewhat limit their daily intake of such things as spinach which naturally has oxalic acid, because although it is also highly nutritious, how much the body can cope with (especially raw) without causing health issues is unknown. Yet on a daily basis we are taking in substances embedded in the food which were adapted from chemicals whose only purpose was to kill humans, which are in their present form also proven to be poisonous even by the FDA. Perhaps this makes sense to you, it doesn't to many of the rest of us.

I disagree with you but defend your right to think so and to access such food if someone chooses to grow it. The question is, would you do the same for me?

There is also the question as to why the producers of food produced naturally should bear the cost of labelling. If someone wants to go to extraordinary lengths to produce "food" in a totally different way then why should they not be proud to say so, and bear the costs of labelling and advertising it as such?