Recording PC setup for Data Acquisition¶
Setting up the Operating System¶
Install Ubuntu¶
This document is based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS installation. Instructions can be found on Ubuntu website.
((During installation agree to using 3rd party repositories))
((Make sure you keep the option the ask for password on startup))
If the PC has multiple hard drives, then Ubuntu may put the boot loader (the thing that starts the Operating System) on a different hard drive than the one where Ubuntu files will be. To have control over this, you will need to use the option that also requires you to set up partitions manually. Preferably you would want to have the boot loader on the same drive as your Ubuntu installation. See below.
During installation you can also manually edit the partition sizes and have a separate partition for the Home folder. To do this, use the Something else option when the installation prompt asks how to set up the Disks. Use this guide manual partitioning for setting up the paritions. Here Primary Type option was used for all partitions and Swap was placed to the end of the drive.
Fix slow shutdown issue¶
This is an optional step, if this issue occurs with your PC setup. It may happen that after installation shutdown process is very slow, which you would notice as you restart your PC. In this case during shutdown, when you see Ubuntu loading logo, hit F12 on the keyboard. If over the next few minutes check if you see similar error messages to the following:
ata2.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen
ata2.00: status: { DRDY}
ata2.00: revalidation failed (errno=-5)
If you see similar error messages, do the following to fix it (It is based on the 2nd solution in this post)
Open Dash and search for Software and Updates
. Open Software and Updates -> Go to Developr Options -> Tick the box next to where it says Pre-released updates (xenial-proposed). It will promt you to Reload your sources, which you should do. After this Update the system. After restarting the computer again, this problem should no longer occur.
This is a temoporary fix. It could be a hardware configuration incompatibility with Ubuntu that will be permanently fixed in a future release.
Connect to the local network¶
The Recording PC will need to be connected to the internet for installing software, even if not for later work. Setting up networking to connect to the internet can influence how the associated devices (Camera and other Raspberry Pis) can be connected to the Recording PC. This manual describes how to achieve this, assuming that the networking on the Recording PC is set up in the /etc/network/interfaces
file, as described below.
Recording PC should be connected to the internet by editing /etc/network/interfaces
with the terminal command sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces
. An example file will look like this:
# Static IP for internet connection
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
auto enp0s31f6
iface enp0s31f6 inet static
address <IP_ADDRESS>
netmask <IP_ADDRESS>
gateway <IP_ADDRESS>
dns-nameservers <IP_ADDRESS> <IP_ADDRESS>
You can get the correct values for these numbers from the network administrator. The value enp0s31f6 here is the network adapter name. This is usually the first adapter in the output for the terminal commant ifconfig
.
Update the system¶
Use the terminal commands:
sudo apt-get update # Fetches the list of available updates
sudo apt-get upgrade # Strictly upgrades the current packages
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade # Installs updates (new ones)
This should be done regularly as the machine is being used and especially before any major changes, such as installing new software or drivers.
Install additional drivers¶
You may be able to get the very latest drivers only from the website of your hardware manufacturer. E.g. for NVIDIA GPU drivers you should go to http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
Installing drivers, especially the latest ones for most up-to-date hardware can be challenging. The easier and minimal step for ensuring you have all necessary drivers available is to use Ubuntu built-in utility. To do this, open Dash (Windows start menu equivalent) and type in Additional Drivers
. Open the tool that comes up and select the preferred drivers where possible and click Apply Changes.
((In the case of the PC which this readme is based on, the available NVIDIA driver was version 340.101, while NVIDIA website provided version 340.102. Since the difference is not likely to be so great, I used the Additional Drivers utility to update the graphics drivers.
Other useful steps¶
Setting up the programs described in this part is not necessary for taking recordings and doing preliminary analysis. However, they can be useful otherwise and following these guidelines should ensure that setting them up doesn’t interfere with the recording part of the system.
At the very least, you should install git and map a network drive to which to transfer the data.
Install git for using github¶
This program is essential for interfacing with github as well as installing some of the programs for using OpenEphys. Install git with terminal command sudo apt-get install git
.
Connect to a network drive¶
Use this guide to mapping a network drive to map a network drive permanently.
Here are the steps using as an example a server named QNAP:
sudo apt-get install cifs-utils
sudo mkdir /media/QNAP
sudo gedit /etc/nsswitch.conf
Find the line looks like:
hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns
change it into:
hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] wins dns
Run below terminal command so that your Ubuntu can resolve Windows computer name on a DHCP network.
sudo apt-get install libnss-winbind winbind
Reboot Ubuntu
Enter your username and credentials into a text file .smbcredentials
using gedit with terminal command gedit ~/.smbcredentials
as follows:
username=enter_your_networkdrive_username_here
password=enter_your_networkdrive_password_here
Now get values for your gid and uid by typing into terminal id enter_your_pc_username_here
. Use these values to edit fstab
file by typing into terminal:
sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab_old
sudo gedit /etc/fstab
Add to the end of this file as a single line the following after modifying it to your configuration:
//<IP_ADDRESS>/share /media/QNAP cifs credentials=/home/enter_your_pc_username_here/.smbcredentials,iocharset=utf8,gid=1000,uid=1000,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777 0 0
<IP_ADDRESS>/data - should be replaced by the IP of your server and the shared folder if applicable.
/media/QNAP - should be replaced by the folder you created in the beginning of the network mapping tutorial.
credentials=/home/enter_your_pc_username_here/.smbcredentials - should be modified to include your username.
gid and uid values as you found using
id enter_your_username_here
.
Save the file.
You can now mount the drive with terminal command:
sudo mount -a
This may need to be run each time you reboot.
Install Google Chrome¶
Download Chrome for Ubuntu from official website. Install by just double-clicking on the file and selecting install in the new window. This may not work, in which case you need to use an alternative Debian package manager, called GDebi. Install this with terminal command sudo apt-get install gdebi
. Now right click on the file -> Open With -> GDebi Package Installer. Click on Install button.
You can open Google Chrome from the Dash. It can also be dragged to the side-bar.
Install Sublime Text 3 for editing scripts¶
Download the latest Ubuntu 64 bit version from Sublime Text website. Install by just double-clicking on the file and selecting install in the new window. This may not work, in which case you need to use an alternative Debian package manager, called GDebi. Install this with terminal command sudo apt-get install gdebi
. Now right click on the file -> Open With -> GDebi Package Installer. Click on Install button.

Install using terminal command sudo apt-get install python-sphinx
.
If you have already existing source files for documents you would like to edit, such as this one, you can simply copy the root directory to your PC and skip using
sphinx-quickstart
.If you’d like to start creating brand new documents, then navigate to a folder where you would like to store the documents and run
sphinx-quickstart
in terminal. Answer questions with default answers. (Be sure to say yes to the “autodoc” extension.)
In the root directory of your document scripts, run terminal command make html
to update files in Build folder, where you can see the results by opening the index.html
.
To use the Sphinx RTD Theme as in these docs, you may need to install it with the following terminal command pip install sphinx_rtd_theme
.
Turn off screen lock¶
To avoid interference with recordings, you might want to stop Ubuntu from automatically turning off the screen and locking it during periods of inactivity.
Open Dash and type Brightness & Lock
and press Enter. Choose desired settings: e.g. Set “Turn screen off… ” setting to Never and un-select “Lock” settings.
Install convenient brightness controller¶
During experiments you may wish to reduce any excess illumination coming from the computer screen(s). Install Brightness Controller to tune screen brightness from inside Ubuntu, instead of using the monitor controls. To do this, use the following terminal commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:apandada1/brightness-controller
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install brightness-controller
Now you can open Dash and search for Brightness Controller. Click to open the application. To make it easily accessible, right click on it in the Launcher (windows taskbar equivalent) and select Lock to Launcher.
Install Open Ephys GUI¶
Instructions are also on the Open Ephys website. The exact steps I made are as follows:
Install Dependencies¶
OpenEphys plugin-GUI is being developed rapidly, and the latest developmental version maybe better than the used at the time of writing this ReadMe. This page is for the specific commit used and on which the instructions are based. The instructions should mostly work for later releases as well.
To install the latest version of plugin-GUI from OpenEphys github run the required scripts in your home folder:
mkdir Programs
cd Programs
mkdir OpenEphysGUI
cd OpenEphysGUI
# The below line should give you the latest developmental version
git clone -b development --single-branch https://github.com/open-ephys/plugin-GUI
cd plugin-GUI/Resources/Scripts
sudo ./install_linux_dependencies.sh
sudo cp 40-open-ephys.rules /etc/udev/rules.d
sudo service udev restart
cd ~/
Install More dependencies with terminal commands:
sudo apt-get install libtool pkg-config build-essential autoconf automake libudev0:i386
Install libsodium with terminal commands:
git clone git://github.com/jedisct1/libsodium.git
cd libsodium
./autogen.sh
./configure && make check
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig
cd ~/
Install More dependencies with terminal commands:
sudo apt-get install libxrandr-dev # To fix a compilation error in JUCE library
sudo apt-get install libzmq3-dev # ZeroMQ version 3 is required
sudo apt-get install libhdf5-serial-dev # HDF version 1.8.12, or higher, is required
Add the necessary third-party plugins to the ~/Programs/OpenEphysGUI/plugin-GUI/Source/Plugins
folder. The necessary plugins are:
Each of the plugins github code contains a folder with the plugin name, e.g. VirtualRef
and files with .cpp
and .h
endings in that folder. Copy that entire folder to plugin-GUI Plugin directory ~/Programs/OpenEphysGUI/plugin-GUI/Source/Plugins
. As you compile the Open Ephys GUI Plugins following instructions below, these plugins will also be compiled and made accessible in the GUI.
Install Open Ephys¶
First you need to add some text to the code that compiles the main GUI and also the one that compiles the plug-ins. Open the first file with the terminal command gedit ~/Programs/OpenEphysGUI/plugin-GUI/Builds/Linux/Makefile
. Find the place in the file, where CPPFLAGS are defined, such as:
CPPFLAGS := $(DEPFLAGS) -D "LINUX=1" -D "DEBUG=1" -D "_DEBUG=1" -D "JUCER_LINUX_MAKE_7346DA2A=1" -D "JUCE_APP_VERSION=0.4.1" -D
There should be 2 such occurances. They might not be exactly identical to this example, but CPPFLAGS :=
should definitely be there. Add -D "JUCE_DISABLE_NATIVE_FILECHOOSERS=1"
to the list of CPPFLAGS. See the below for an example how the above code was changed:
CPPFLAGS := $(DEPFLAGS) -D "LINUX=1" -D "JUCE_DISABLE_NATIVE_FILECHOOSERS=1" -D "DEBUG=1" -D "_DEBUG=1" -D "JUCER_LINUX_MAKE_7346DA2A=1" -D "JUCE_APP_VERSION=0.4.1" -D
Save the edited Makefile and then also edit the Makefile.plugins file which you can open with the terminal command gedit ~/Programs/OpenEphysGUI/plugin-GUI/Builds/Linux/Makefile.plugins
. Make the same changes.
You are now ready to compile Open Ephys. Do this with the following terminal commands:
cd ~/Programs/OpenEphysGUI/plugin-GUI/Builds/Linux/
make
make -f Makefile.plugins
Create a shortcut for OpenEphys application in the home folder. Use terminal command gedit ~/OpenEphysGUI
to create the file and add these lines to the file to link it to the compiled application:
#!/bin/bash
cd ~/Programs/OpenEphysGUI/plugin-GUI/Builds/Linux/build
./open-ephys
Run this terminal command to make the file executable
chmod +x ~/OpenEphysGUI
You can now run Open Ephys GUI by opening the terminal (by default it starts in your home folder) and typing in command ./OpenEphysGUI
.
Intan Headstage setup¶
Reference and Ground¶
By default, at least on the 64-channel headstage, the Ground and Reference are not shorted. This can be done manually by soldering a wire between the REF and GND pins on the headstage. This can also be achieved by connecting the two pins on the drive connector.
In case of two headstages connected with an adapter, they also share a Ground and a Reference. Therefore, there is no need to reference both headstages.
Install LEDs on Intan Headstage for tracking¶
The image below shows an Intan Headstage with an LED bar attached to it. The RED wire is connected to the Ground (note, this should be shorted to Reference), while the YELLOW wire is connected to VDD pin. In case of a 64-channel headstage the VDD can be accessed by soldering the wire to left side of C1 capacitor. The YELLOW wire leads through a 130 Ohm capacitor to a infrared LED. This is in turn connected to another infrared LED with lower luminance, which is then connected to the RED wire. The tracking and processing programs assume the LED with lower luminance rests on the animals head. This is because that one is more likely to be occluded by wires.
The following image show the same LED setup, where an additional wire has been added to the connection between RED wire (Ground-Reference). This can be used to connect Reference channel on the headstage to a Reference Pin on the animal’s implant. This is not necessary if the implanted drive’s reference is wired to a reference screw in the animal’s skull.
Setup Recording PC for using Recording Manager¶
This part describes how to set up the Recording PC to use the custom Python scripts and GUI that interfaces with the Raspberry Pis and handles the Open Ephys data.
Installation of the Python package is straightforward:
pip install openEPhys_DACQ
openEPhys_Configuration # Starts package configuration script
To start the Recording Manager, use terminal command:
openEPhys_RecordingManager


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Jesus is a student of the Computer Science & Engineering department at UC San Diego that will be graduating in 2015. This is a relevant list of courses that he has taken:Relevant Courses: Calculus Series, Analytical Geometry, Linear Algebra, Organization and Systems Programming, Math for Algorithms and Analysis, Intro to Discrete Mathematics, Data Structures and Object Oriented Programming, Intro go Java Programming, Advanced Data Structures, Programming Languages: Principles and Paradigms, Components and Design Techniques for Digital Systems, Software Engineering, Product Marketing and Management, Design and Analysis of Algorithms, Intro/Theory of Computation. This is a simple webpage that includes some things about me that I created with free hosting and its included free page creator: http://chuyinki.com


UPS Stark country 3000 online.
Template based on “Template_UPS_Inform-flexipower”
Sergey Prisada
There are no macros links in this template.
There are no template links in this template.
There are no discovery rules in this template.
| Name | Description | Type | Key and additional info |
|---|---|---|---|
| Battery charge |
An estimate of the battery charge remaining expressed as a percent of full charge.
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvBatteryCapacity
Update: 30
 |
| Battery voltage |
-
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvBatteryActualVoltage
Update: 180
 |
| UPS software version |
-
 | SNMP agent |
upsIdentUPSSoftwareVersion
Update: 3600
 |
| The present bypass frequency |
The present bypass frequency.
 | SNMP agent |
PresentBypassFrequency
Update: 30
 |
| Load current in procent |
The percentage of the UPS power capacity presently being used on this output line, i.e., the greater of the percent load of true power capacity and the percent load of VA.
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvOutputCurrent
Update: 30
 |
| Ups bat est charge remaining |
An estimate of the battery charge remaining expressed as a percent of full charge.
 | SNMP agent |
oid.companymib.upsbattery.upsbatstatus
Update: 30
 |
| Input frequency |
The present bypass frequency.
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvInputFrequency
Update: 180
 |
| Output voltage |
The output voltage of the UPS system.
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvOutputVoltage
Update: 30
 |
| Input voltage |
The input utility line voltage.
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvInputLineVoltage
Update: 30
 |
| UPS name |
-
 | SNMP agent |
upsIdentName
Update: 3600
 |
| Output frequency |
The current output frequency of the UPS system
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvOutputFrequency
Update: 180
 |
| Battery status |
The indication of the capacity remaining in the UPS system’s batteries. A value of batteryNormal indicates that the remaining run-time is greater than upsConfigLowBattTime. A value of batteryLow indicates that the remaining battery run-time is less than or equal to upsConfigLowBattTime. A value of batteryDepleted indicates that the UPS will be unable to sustain the present load when and if the utility power is lost (including the possibility that the utility power is mandatoryly absent and the UPS is unable to sustain the output). unknown(1), batteryNormal(2), batteryLow(3), batteryDepleted(4), batteryDischarging(5), batteryFailure(6), batteryReplace(7), batterysilence(8)
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvBatteryReplaceIndicator
Update: 180
 |
| UPS model |
-
 | SNMP agent |
upsBasicIdentModel
Update: 3600
 |
| Extend work temperature |
The ambient temperature at or near the UPS Battery casing.
 | SNMP agent |
iemStatusProbeCurrentTemp
Update: 30
 |
There are no triggers in this template.
UPS Stark country 3000 online.
Template based on “Template_UPS_Inform-flexipower”
Sergey Prisada
There are no macros links in this template.
There are no template links in this template.
There are no discovery rules in this template.
| Name | Description | Type | Key and additional info |
|---|---|---|---|
| Battery voltage |
-
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvBatteryActualVoltage
Update: 180
 |
| UPS model |
-
 | SNMP agent |
upsBasicIdentModel
Update: 3600
 |
| Input frequency |
The present bypass frequency.
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvInputFrequency
Update: 180
 |
| Battery charge |
An estimate of the battery charge remaining expressed as a percent of full charge.
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvBatteryCapacity
Update: 30
 |
| Output frequency |
The current output frequency of the UPS system
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvOutputFrequency
Update: 180
 |
| Extend work temperature |
The ambient temperature at or near the UPS Battery casing.
 | SNMP agent |
iemStatusProbeCurrentTemp
Update: 30
 |
| UPS name |
-
 | SNMP agent |
upsIdentName
Update: 3600
 |
| Load current in procent |
The percentage of the UPS power capacity presently being used on this output line, i.e., the greater of the percent load of true power capacity and the percent load of VA.
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvOutputCurrent
Update: 30
 |
| Ups bat est charge remaining |
An estimate of the battery charge remaining expressed as a percent of full charge.
 | SNMP agent |
oid.companymib.upsbattery.upsbatstatus
Update: 30
 |
| Input voltage |
The input utility line voltage.
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvInputLineVoltage
Update: 30
 |
| Battery status |
The indication of the capacity remaining in the UPS system’s batteries. A value of batteryNormal indicates that the remaining run-time is greater than upsConfigLowBattTime. A value of batteryLow indicates that the remaining battery run-time is less than or equal to upsConfigLowBattTime. A value of batteryDepleted indicates that the UPS will be unable to sustain the present load when and if the utility power is lost (including the possibility that the utility power is mandatoryly absent and the UPS is unable to sustain the output). unknown(1), batteryNormal(2), batteryLow(3), batteryDepleted(4), batteryDischarging(5), batteryFailure(6), batteryReplace(7), batterysilence(8)
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvBatteryReplaceIndicator
Update: 180
 |
| UPS software version |
-
 | SNMP agent |
upsIdentUPSSoftwareVersion
Update: 3600
 |
| The present bypass frequency |
The present bypass frequency.
 | SNMP agent |
PresentBypassFrequency
Update: 30
 |
| Output voltage |
The output voltage of the UPS system.
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvOutputVoltage
Update: 30
 |
There are no triggers in this template.
UPS Stark country 3000 online.
Template based on “Template_UPS_Inform-flexipower”
Sergey Prisada
There are no macros links in this template.
There are no template links in this template.
There are no discovery rules in this template.
| Name | Description | Type | Key and additional info |
|---|---|---|---|
| Battery voltage |
-
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvBatteryActualVoltage
Update: 180
 |
| UPS model |
-
 | SNMP agent |
upsBasicIdentModel
Update: 3600
 |
| Input frequency |
The present bypass frequency.
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvInputFrequency
Update: 180
 |
| Battery charge |
An estimate of the battery charge remaining expressed as a percent of full charge.
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvBatteryCapacity
Update: 30
 |
| Output frequency |
The current output frequency of the UPS system
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvOutputFrequency
Update: 180
 |
| Extend work temperature |
The ambient temperature at or near the UPS Battery casing.
 | SNMP agent |
iemStatusProbeCurrentTemp
Update: 30
 |
| UPS name |
-
 | SNMP agent |
upsIdentName
Update: 3600
 |
| Load current in procent |
The percentage of the UPS power capacity presently being used on this output line, i.e., the greater of the percent load of true power capacity and the percent load of VA.
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvOutputCurrent
Update: 30
 |
| Ups bat est charge remaining |
An estimate of the battery charge remaining expressed as a percent of full charge.
 | SNMP agent |
oid.companymib.upsbattery.upsbatstatus
Update: 30
 |
| Input voltage |
The input utility line voltage.
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvInputLineVoltage
Update: 30
 |
| Battery status |
The indication of the capacity remaining in the UPS system’s batteries. A value of batteryNormal indicates that the remaining run-time is greater than upsConfigLowBattTime. A value of batteryLow indicates that the remaining battery run-time is less than or equal to upsConfigLowBattTime. A value of batteryDepleted indicates that the UPS will be unable to sustain the present load when and if the utility power is lost (including the possibility that the utility power is mandatoryly absent and the UPS is unable to sustain the output). unknown(1), batteryNormal(2), batteryLow(3), batteryDepleted(4), batteryDischarging(5), batteryFailure(6), batteryReplace(7), batterysilence(8)
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvBatteryReplaceIndicator
Update: 180
 |
| UPS software version |
-
 | SNMP agent |
upsIdentUPSSoftwareVersion
Update: 3600
 |
| The present bypass frequency |
The present bypass frequency.
 | SNMP agent |
PresentBypassFrequency
Update: 30
 |
| Output voltage |
The output voltage of the UPS system.
 | SNMP agent |
upsAdvOutputVoltage
Update: 30
 |
There are no triggers in this template.


Over the last several years
I've volunteered time with TCC Hawaii, an organization behind the TCC Conference - credited as the first fully-online conference to exist. The web was young in 1996, and the conference relied upon a listserv (mailing list) to connect all the attendees and support conversation around online learning. You can check out a fun presentation from Alan Levine here, with a rundown of how technology (specifically ICT) and education have changed in the last 20 years.
Two years ago, co-designed the participation badges offered at the TCC conference with the conference organizers Bert Kimura and Curtis Ho, along with grad students in the ETEC department. This year, we worked on the conference's branding and logo, testing out designs I made entirely with free software and some good feedback from other folks working behind the scenes. I wanted to document the process for a couple reasons, but also that I want to be able to reference the process the next time I need to use these tools.
Free things
Things that you don't have to pay for are great. And things that you can do anything you want with (on top of just using as-is) is even better. Fortunately, the software I used to create the flyers, stickers, and the stage banner for TCC are all free software. The icons came from the Noun Project, and the font from Mozilla. Here's a rundown of the free stuff I used:
- GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program) // raster graphics editing
- Inkscape // vector graphics editing
- The Noun Project // various icons/shapes, pattern-making tutorial
- Fira Sans // Mozilla font
Interestingly enough, I wouldn't say it took any extra effort to use free/open content and software to create these media bits. It's more evident that the workflows I've been following have removed the need for most non-free resources when designing media. Here are my notes about creating these things openly.
Iconifying things at the Noun Project
I ventured to the Noun Project to take a look at the latest icons that might represent Hawaii (where the conference is based), online education, and community. Here's a snapshot of the icons I downloaded while poking around:
You might notice that some of the icons are replaced with a black box. This appears to be a Noun Project glitch, and I haven't looked into why this happens. I occasionally find icons that have anomolies in them, sometimes corrupting only the SVG but not the PNG file, or vice versa.
At any rate, I downloaded the PNGs to Google Drive and had the conference social media team offer feedback on the designs. After several iterations, we settled on using a globe icon with a hibiscus overlay (which began as 2 separate icons), and a Hawaiian canoe for the main design. I also chose another flower design to create the patterned background for the flyer and stage banner.
The image above show the second-iteration sticker designs, but there was a unanimous vote for the canoe icon to be used, but on a round sticker. The blue and green colors were found after dropping the conference website's base colors into Adobe's Kuler tool and looking for colors that would play nice with the existing branding TCC has in place.
Patterns a plenty
After having come across a handful of neat-looking patterned backgrounds on websites and print media, I was lucky enough to spot a tutorial shared through the Noun Project's Gazette newsletter that explained the process. The author used Adobe Illustrator in the tutorial, so I had to adapt the process for use with GIMP. Aside from menu items being in slightly different places, and the UI looking somewhat different, I'm not missing anything that could be accomplished by paying for software to get this job done.
How to make a repeatable pattern in Illustrator
The process essentially helps you create a pattern tile that can be placed into the program files of your image editing program (in my case Inkscape) and then used as a pattern fill in GIMP. At first I created a much more complex pattern, but opted for a more simple design after exporting it and testing it as a fill.
Locating the folder I needed to copy the pattern image file into (seen above) was a pain, as it wasn't documented very well anywhere I could find quickly. I thumbed through several tutorials that led users through a similar file structure and generalized their directions for GIMP. Once the pattern was in the folder and GIMP was restarted, my pattern appeared as a fill option.
From GIMP to print
I used GIMP to create PNG and PDF image files for the print media, which the icons and patterns would be a part of. I use GIMP fairly often, and this time it allowed me to construct print media ranging from 2" round stickers to the 70"x24" stage banner. Printing costs weren't terrible, ~$120/ea for the large banner and several hundred stickers. The 11"x17" flyers worked out to about $3/ea, which seemed a bargain.
Rounding it out
Well, that's the gist of how I used free software and a few hours here and there to create conference media for TCC 2015. Documenting and reflecting on work projects is something I lost touch of over the last several years. With any luck (and the recent standing up of my Jekyll-based blog on Github pages), there will be more to come soon.
*All icons on the page are used under a CC BY license or are in the Public Domain. Yes, I paid $1.99/ea on the Noun Project to the creators of icons I used in the print media but did not provide attribution for. Totally worth it.


3 Indicators
3.1 CMAM coverage
CMAM coverage usually pertains to coverage of SAM treatment. Historically, there have been two coverage estimators in common use: point and period coverage.
Point coverage is the number of current SAM cases in a treatment programme divided by the total number of current SAM cases.
Point coverage uses data for current cases only. It is calculated using the following formula:
$nbsp;
\[\begin{aligned} \text{Point coverage} & ~ = ~ \frac{C_{in}}{C_{in} ~ + ~ C_{out}} \\ \\ where: & \\ \\ C_{in} & ~ = ~ \text{current SAM cases in the programme} \\ C_{out} & ~ = ~ \text{current SAM cases out of the programme} \end{aligned}\]
Point coverage provides a snapshot of programme performance, putting a strong emphasis on the effectiveness and timeliness of case-finding and recruitment (Myatt et al. 2012).
Period coverage, on the other hand, uses data for both current and recovering cases. It is calculated using the following formula:
\[\begin{aligned} \text{Period coverage} & ~ = ~ \frac{C_{in} ~ + ~ R_{in}}{C_{in} ~ + ~ C_{out} ~ + ~ R_{in}} \\ \\ where: & \\ \\ R_{in} & ~ = ~ \text{recovering SAM cases in the programme} \end{aligned}\]
Period coverage is the number of current and recovering cases in a treatment programme divided by all current SAM cases and recovering cases. It approximates treatment coverage much better (albeit with limitations) as it accounts for children who are no longer cases but are in the programme.
Point and period coverage both have their limitations.
Point coverage of a programme with good case-finding and recruitment and short lengths of stay can be misleadingly low because there are too few current cases. For example, a coverage survey found:
| Number of current cases | 2 |
| Number of current cases in the programme | 0 |
| Number of current cases not in the programme | 2 |
| Number of recovering cases in the programme | 34 |
In this scenario, the point coverage estimator returns:
\[ \text{Point coverage} ~ = ~ \frac{C_{in}}{C_{out}} ~ = ~ \frac{0}{2} ~ = ~ 0 ~ = ~ 0\% \]
but the period estimator returns:
\[ \text{Period coverage} ~ = ~ \frac{0 ~ + ~ 34}{0 ~ + ~ 34 ~ + ~ 2} ~ = ~ 0.944 ~ = ~ 94.4\% \]
In this regard, the point coverage estimate penalises good performance and the period coverage most likely better depicts the coverage of the programme.
On the other hand, a programme with poor case-finding and recruitment and long lengths of stay due to late presentation and/or late admission may have a period coverage that is misleadingly high because of high number of recovering cases. In such a scenario, the two estimators will yield very different results. For example:
| Number of current cases | 12 |
| Number of current cases in the programme | 3 |
| Number of current cases not in the programme | 9 |
| Number of recovering cases in the programme | 22 |
\[ \text{Point coverage} ~ = ~ \frac{C_{in}}{C_{out}} ~ = ~ \frac{3}{12} ~ = ~ 0.250 ~ = ~ 25.0\% \]
but the period estimator returns:
\[ \text{Period coverage} ~ = ~ \frac{3 ~ + ~ 22}{3 ~ + ~ 22 ~ + ~ 9} ~ = ~ 0.735 ~ = ~ 73.5\% \]
In this example, point coverage is the more reflective coverage of the programme.
It should be noted also that period coverage has a tendency to an overestimation bias. This is because the current period coverage estimator does not take into account cases of acute malnutrition who have recovered spontaneously but were never enrolled in any treatment programme.
An estimator of coverage that does include both recovering cases that are in the programme and recovering cases that are not in the programme and, thus, provides an unbiased estimator of overall programme performance is:
\[\begin{aligned} \text{Single coverage} & ~ = ~ \frac{C_{in} ~ + ~ R_{in}}{C_{in} ~ + ~ R_{in} ~ + ~ C_{out} ~ + ~ R_{out}} \\ \\ where: & \\ \\ R_{out} & ~ = ~ \text{Recovering SAM cases not in the programme} \end{aligned}\]
It is for these reasons that the coverage assessment technical guide (Myatt et al. 2012) recommends that only one of these estimators be reported and the choice of estimator to report should be guided by specific programme features and characteristics (such as lengths of stay in the programme) that would justify the choice of reported estimator. In a recent Epicentre review (Epicentre 2015) this has been highlighted as a source of confusion and issues given the possibility of period coverage being chosen more as a coverage estimator rather than point coverage because of it being a higher estimate even if the programme characteristics do not merit its use. The review suggests that both coverage indicators could be reported, with sufficient context (e.g. on length of stay, timeliness of admissions, etc.) to allow for their interpretation.
In response to the review and to address the limitations of the coverage estimators, development work has been conducted on further developing and improving the coverage estimators to address this confusion and the issues around them (Balegamire et al. 2015). This work focused primarily on improving the period coverage estimator to address the overestimation bias described earlier and to make it more closely approximate the treatment coverage estimator formula shown above.
The problem with this estimator is that \(R_{out}\) (i.e. the number of recovering cases that are not in the programme) is unknown and may be difficult to collect accurately. This problem of estimating the number of recovering cases not in the programme (\(R_{out}\)) may be addressed using a simple mathematical model2 proposed by Balegamire et al. (2015).
\[\begin{aligned} \frac{C_{in} ~ + ~ C_{out}}{C_{in}} & ~ \approx ~ \frac{R_{in} ~ + ~ k ~ \times ~ R_{out}}{R_{in}} \\ \\ where: & \\ \\ k & ~ = ~ \text{a correction factor} \end{aligned}\]
\(R_{out}\) can then be expressed in terms of the known variables:
\[ R_{out} ~ \approx ~ \left \lfloor ~ \frac{1}{k} ~ \times ~ \left ( ~ R_{in} ~ \times ~ \frac{C_{in} ~ + ~ C_{out}}{C_{in}} ~ - ~ R_{in} ~ \right ) ~ \right \rfloor \]
Given the possibility that no cases in the programme (\(C_{in}\)) are found, the calculation is adjusted by adding 1 to \(C_{in}\). To arrive at a whole number value for \(R_{out}\), the calculation is rounded off towards zero.
\[ R_{out} ~ \approx ~ \left \lfloor ~ \frac{1}{k} ~ \times ~ \left ( ~ R_{in} ~ \times ~ \frac{C_{in} ~ + ~ 1 ~ + ~ C_{out}}{C_{in} ~ + ~ 1} ~ - ~ R_{in} ~ \right ) ~ \right \rfloor \]
This leaves the problem of deciding a suitable value for the correction factor (\(k\)). A reasonable candidate for \(k\) is the ratio of the mean length of an untreated episode to the mean length of a CMAM treatment episode.
\[ k ~ = ~ \frac{\text{Mean length of untreated episode}}{\text{Mean length of a treatment episode}} \]
Possible value for mean length of untreated episode is 7.5 months (Garenne et al. 2009) which is the common value used when estimating programme case-loads from prevalence estimates (Myatt 2012). Mean length of a treatment episode can be estimated by calculating the mean length of stay in the CMAM programme using routine monitoring data. In general, A value of 2.5 months could be used in the absence of better information or when the validity of routine programme monitoring data is suspect. Using these values, k is:
\[ k ~ = ~ \frac{\text{Mean length of untreated episode}}{\text{Mean length of a treatment episode}} ~ = ~ \frac{7.5}{2.5} ~ = ~ 3 \]
The inclusion of recovering cases means that the single coverage estimate is mathematically constrained to return a coverage estimate that is greater than or equal to the point coverage estimate. The underestimation present in the point coverage estimate has, to some extent, been corrected. The inclusion of recovering cases that are not in the programme means that the single coverage estimator is mathematically constrained to return a coverage estimate that is less than or equal to the period coverage estimate. The overestimation present in the period coverage estimate has, to some extent, been corrected.
Given this single coverage estimator, a shift in terminology is proposed that is more descriptive and specific with regard to what the estimator is actually measuring, allowing both measures to be reported together without confusion. Point coverage is now named case-finding effectiveness to more precisely reflect it as a measure of the programme’s ability to find and recruit current cases. This indicator assesses how good the treatment programme is in finding cases of SAM and then getting them to treatment. Period coverage that has been improved into the single coverage metric is now named treatment coverage as this is the estimator that approximates this coverage indicator the closest.
3.1.1 Requirements
This indicator will require additional programmatic information to be operationalised specific for Liberia.
It would be ideal that a Liberia-specific value for mean length of a treatment episode be estimated using routine programme data from a selection of cured cases from a selection of health centres providing CMAM services in the two counties in which the survey is to be implemented. This data should be collected from the beneficiary cards of cured cases. For each county, a total of 30 health centres from the full list of health centres in the county can be selected systematically. Of these 30 health centres, a sample of 30 records of discharged cured cases should be selected. From these records, data on date of admission and date of discharge should be extracted collated into a data format (ideally a comma-separated value or CSV file) with each of these values in a separate column.
This data will allow the calculation of the mean length of stay in the CMAM programme of discharge cured cases.
\[ \text{Mean length of stay} ~ = ~ \frac{\text{Length of stay in programme (days)}}{\text{Number of records}} \]
For data collection, enumerators will require:
A height board;
A digital weighing scale; and,
A MUAC tape.
Traditionally, if data collection is done using pen and paper, enumerators are provided with z-score tables for weight-for-height so that they can determine if child is SAM. Since this survey will utilise digital data collection (see Section 5), the digital form will determine whether the child is SAM by MUAC and/or weight-for-height and/or oedema and will instruct the enumerators on what to do next if the child is a SAM case.
Referral slips will also be needed so that children who are identified as SAM but not in the programme can be referred.
3.2 Vitamin A supplementation
The standard estimator for vitamin A supplementation is the proportion of children aged 6-59 months who received two age-appropriate doses of vitamin A in the past 12 months.
In standard surveys such as the DHS and MICS, this indicator is adjusted to a recall of 6 months for a single age-appropriate dose of vitamin A.
In order to determine whether supplementation with vitamin A is age appropriate, vitamin A supplementation should first be assessed on the child’s health card. Provision of vitamin A card is usually recorded on the child’s health card with the corresponding does given. If health card not available or if health card is lost or if the child doesn’t have a health card at all, then the mother/caregiver will have to be asked whether their child has received vitamin A in the past 6 months and respond by recall. If the mother/caregiver says yes, then the next question to ask will be which type of gel capsule was provided. The blue vitamin A gel capsule containing 100,000 IU of vitamin A is given to children 6-11 months. The red vitamin A gel capsule containing 200,000 IU of vitamin A is given to children 12 - 59 months. A sample of the blue and the red gel capsule (or a photo of the capsules) can be used to aid the mother/caregiver in answering this question.
Given this, two indicators can be reported on vitamin A supplementation.
Any vitamin A supplementation in the past 6 months.
Age-appropriate vitamin A supplementation in the past 6 months.
3.2.1 Requirements
Either samples and/or photos of both the blue and red gel vitamin A capsules will be needed per enumerator to use in aiding the mother to answer which type of vitamin A gel capsule has been provided to the child.
3.3 Iron-folic acid (IFA) supplementation for pregnant women
Population-based surveys typically report the percentage of women with a live birth in the two to five years before the survey who received and took IFA supplementation during their most recent pregnancy. Because antenatal care (ANC) is typically the main platform for IFA supplement distribution for pregnant women, survey questions on antenatal care attendance and timing of the first antenatal care visit can provide information on the use of this platform to deliver IFA supplementation. Sununtnasuk, D’Agostino, and Fiedler (2015) propose a falter point framework3 that utilises four indicators that proxy the four critical points at which the ANC approach to IFA distribution might falter in IFA supplementation coverage to pregnant women. These indicators are:
At least one ANC visit during most recent pregnancy
Receipt or purchase of IFA tablet/s
IFA consumption
Adherence to 180 days of supplementation
3.3.1 Requirements
It would be ideal for each enumerator to have a sample/s and/or photos of an IFA tablet to show the respondent as an recall aid or prompt. Given that some mothers may have to recall as far back as 5 years and that they might not be able to remember that the tablet is called, showing them a sample of the tablet might help them remember if they have taken it.
3.4 Micronutrient powder supplementation
The indicator for coverage of micronutrient powder supplementation is the proportion of children aged 6-23 months who consume micronutrient powder supplements. Depending on the programme protocol on mechanism of distribution and effective intake of MNP, a full indicator set on MNP supplementation can be devised that will be similar to the IFA supplementation falter point or bottleneck framework. For example, if MNPs were being provided through the health centres or health posts, then the following indicators can be assessed hierarchically:
Health centre / health post attendance in the past month
Awareness of MNP
Consumption of MNP
3.4.1 Requirement
It would be ideal to provide enumerators with sample/s and/or photo/s of MNP sachets used in Liberia. If there are various brands of MNP distributed, it would be good to have sample/s and/or photo/s of each one. These sample/s and/or photo/s can be used to help mothers or caregivers recall or know what an MNP is and be able to ascertain whether they do know it or have heard of it and whether their child has consumed it.
3.5 IYCF counselling
There are no standard indicators for IYCF counselling. Any indicator developed for this programme will depend on the mechanics of how the IYCF counselling is delivered and who the target beneficiaries are. In terms of mechanism, what is known so far is that these sessions are delivered via the health clinic/health post and that the target beneficiaries are pregnant women. Given this, similar approach to the IFA supplementation coverage of falter points/bottle necks can be used with the following indicators:
At least one ANC visit during most recent pregnancy
Awareness of IYCF counselling (have they been advised IYCF counselling when they attended ANC)
Attendance to IYCF counselling
3.5.1 Requirement
It would be ideal to have the training materials used for IYCF counselling and the materials used when conducting IYCF counselling. These materials can be used as a recall aid for mothers/caregivers who are being asked about whether they know or have heard about IYCF counselling and whether they have attended.
References
Myatt, Mark, Ernest Guevarra, Lionella Fieschi, Allison Norris, Saul Guerrero, Lily Schofield, Daniel Jones, Ephrem Emru, and Kate Sadler. 2012. Semi-Quantitative Evaluation of Access and Coverage (SQUEAC)/ Simplified Lot Quality Assurance Sampling Evaluation of Access and Coverage (SLEAC) Technical Reference. Washington, DC: FHI 360/FANTA.
Epicentre. 2015. “Open review of coverage methodologies: Questions, comments and ways forward.” Epicentre.
Balegamire, Safari, Katja Siling, Jose Luis Alvarez, Ernest Guevarra, Sophie Woodhead, Alison Norris, Lionella Fieschi, Paul Binns, and Mark Myatt. 2015. “A single coverage estimator for use in SQUEAC, SLEAC, and other CMAM coverage assessments.” Field Exchange, March.
Garenne, Michel, Douladel Willie, Bernard Maire, Olivier Fontaine, Roger Eeckels, André Briend, and Jan Van den Broeck. 2009. “Incidence and duration of severe wasting in two African populations.” Public Health Nutrition 12 (11): 1974–82.
Myatt, Mark. 2012. “How do we estimate case load for SAM and / or MAM in children 6 59 months in a given time period ?” CMAM Forum.
Sununtnasuk, Celeste, Alexis D’Agostino, and John L Fiedler. 2015. “Iron+folic acid distribution and consumption through antenatal care: identifying barriers across countries.” Public Health Nutrition 19 (04): 732–42.


A Tribe Called Quest was an American hip hop group that was formed in 1985
Find Out MoreQ-Tip and Phife Dawg were childhood friends who grew up together in Queens, New York. Initially, Q-Tip performed as a solo artist (MC Love Child), occasionally teaming up with Muhammad as a rapper/DJ duo. While the duo frequently made demos with Phife (as Crush Connection), Phife only became a full member once Jarobi joined. The group's final name was coined in 1988 by the Jungle Brothers, who attended the same high school as Q-Tip and Muhammad.[4] Q-Tip made two separate appearances on the Jungle Brothers' debut album, Straight Out the Jungle, the songs "Black Is Black" and "The Promo".
In early 1989 the group signed a demo deal with Geffen Records and produced a five song demo, which included later album tracks "Description Of A Fool", "I Left My Wallet in El Segundo" and "Can I Kick It?". Geffen decided against offering the group a recording contract and the group was granted permission to shop for a deal elsewhere.
After receiving lucrative offers for multi-album deals from a variety of labels, the group opted for a modest deal offered by Jive Records. Jive Records was then known as an independent rap label that specialized in, and owed its success to, building careers of artists like Boogie Down Productions and Too Short.


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[% # # Translators: Please note this file and the vendor section # is intentionally only in English! # %] [% page.title = "The NTP Pool for vendors" %]
Anyone distributing an appliance, operating system or some other kind of software using NTP.
From What is NTP? at ntp.org.
Time usually just advances. If you have communicating programs running on different computers, time still should even advance if you switch from one computer to another. Obviously if one system is ahead of the others, the others are behind that particular one. From the perspective of an external observer, switching between these systems would cause time to jump forward and back, a non-desirable effect.
As a consequence, isolated networks may run their own wrong time, but as soon as you connect to the Internet, effects will be visible. Just imagine some EMail message arrived five minutes before it was sent, and there even was a reply two minutes before the message was sent.
Even on a single computer some applications have trouble when the time jumps backwards. For example, database systems using transactions and crash recovery like to know the time of the last good state.
Therefore, air traffic control was one of the first applications for NTP.
NTP is a service typically running quietly in the background. When servers are chosen they will typically remain in the configuration "forever". If the client traffic causes trouble for the server it is extremely difficult to mitigate if not carefully planned for in advance.
A couple of examples in the past years are Flawed Routers Flood University of Wisconsin Internet Time Server in 2003 and the D-Link misconfiguration incident in 2006.
You must get approval from the server operator before you hardcode any IP addresses or hostnames. This is easy to get if your own organization runs the NTP servers you are planning to use. In most other cases you will not get it.
Do not use the standard pool.ntp.org names as a default configuration in your system. The NTP Pool can offer services for you, but it must be setup in advance (see below).
Typically the best solution is for your organization to setup your own cluster of NTP servers, for example ntp1.example.com, ntp2.example.com and ntp3.example.com and use those as the default in your configuration.
The NTP Pool Project was started in 2003 as a response to the rapidly increasing resource consumption at the popular NTP servers and the problem of these servers then closing their operations. Today it has grown to be central to the operation of millions of systems around the world.
Rather than establish and maintain your own cluster of NTP servers or negotiate with individual server operators to use their server, you can use the NTP Pool.
[% #Using the pool is usually free. If you have a very large number of clients we might ask for # contributions to help scaling the pool to meet the demands.
%]To allow you to use the pool as the default time service in your application, we will set you up with special hostnames, for example 0.vendor.pool.ntp.org, 1.vendor.pool.ntp.org, 2.vendor.pool.ntp.org and 3.vendor.pool.ntp.org.
You must absolutely not use the default pool.ntp.org zone names as the default configuration in your application or appliance.
You can apply for a vendor zone here on the site.
If you have an open source ntpd implementation or an operating system including ntpd, we ask that you make a reference in the configuration file or documentation encouraging people to join the pool.
If you are a commercial / closed-source vendor we will ask for a small contribution to help scaling the pool to meet demands.
Questions? Email<EMAIL_ADDRESS>The pool is currently keeping the time of an estimated 5-15 million systems accurate.
With our technology and expertise we can vastly expand the number of supported systems with relatively modest contributions.
You can choose either to implement a full ntpd server or a simpler SNTP implementation. A few more pointers and ground-rules:
We can refer you to consultants with vast expertise in the NTP protocol and time-keeping applications who can help. Just email Ask Bjørn Hansen at<EMAIL_ADDRESS>Open Source projects are of course particularly welcome to use the pool in their default setup, but we ask that you get a vendor zone when using the pool as a default configuration.
Most questions should be answered elsewhere on the page. Here are some that didn't fit in above.


On Cue™WiCS Hacks 2018 project by Aish S, Claire D, and JosieKate C, using Microsoft Cognitive Services |
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On Cue™WiCS Hacks 2018 project by Aish S, Claire D, and JosieKate C, using Microsoft Cognitive Services |
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Component Library
Here is the component library for the portfolio.
@typography
This is normal text looks like in your site
this is the smaller text
@containers
@fluidcontainer
This is going to be fluid container.
@center Container
this is going to be center container.it will change according device width.
@links
Primary Link
Secondary Link
@lists
unordered list
we dont have to show bullets in unordedrd list.
- item one
- item two
- item three
inline lists
instead of going in a new row,we will create a list which will take columns.
- item one
- item two
- item three
reversed orderd list
- item one
- item two
- item three
@nav
navigation is used on the top of the page and used to get
to different pages
@header
this is heading h1 inside header
@section
A section is used to separate parts of pages.
@normal section
heading inside section
Text defining this action and many more things
Primary Button
@an off white section
inside off white section
Text defining this section and many more things
Primary Button
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Broadcast Channel
Broadcast Channel
Broadcast Channel MDN
Show multiple windows using the broadcast channel to communicate
guid:
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From Message


Like Ecstasy, Only More... Ecstatic
| DOSE: T+ 0:00 |
25 mg |
oral |
AMT |
(powder / crystals) |
| T+ 14:00 |
1 |
oral |
Cannabis |
(cookie / food) |
A few weeks ago I was given the opportunity to try AMT. I'd been told that it was a social drug and that I should make sure to have some friends around to talk to, I was a little bit stupid and didn't, but I live in the dorms at a fairly large university so I knew that if I needed to I would be able to find people.
I dissolved 35 mg in water and drank it around noon and went out into a meadow near my dorm. After wandering around for about an hour I began to notice some speedy effects but oddly enough I felt tired so I came back to my room, put on some music (Belle & Sebastian has never sounded so incredibly good) and talked to a few friends from back home on AIM.
2 Hours in there was a distinct feeling that something was 'off' with the world, it felt somewhat like the come up of mushrooms but with the speedy and somewhat empathogenic effects lending a bit of an ecstasy feeling.
The main difference between AMT and these two drugs though was the amazing lucidity. I wanted to avoid too much contact with strange people because I was unfamiliar with the drug but I honestly could have carried on perfectly normal (if a bit sped up) conversations with just about anyone at the time and indeed I did. About 3 hours in I went up to a friend's room and started talking to him, but he had to go to work so I walked to work with him and then back on my own, this was quite nice because the path was throught the woods so I had the opportunity to experience both what the drug does when people are around (it caused the same warm, talkative happy feeling that x does) and what it was like to be alone with my thoughts in the woods (like low doses of mushrooms but with a speedy edge).
Basically I spent the next 6 hours alternating between these two states, talking with friends or chilling in the woods tripping out on stuff, all with a lucidity that amazed me at the time because I'm used to drugs causing a marked loss of communication skills.
About 9 hours after ingestion I started coming down and, whereas most other comedowns I've experienced have been somewhat unpleasant like I was losing something, I felt great all through this one. 12 hours after ingestion I went with some friends to see Rocky Horror and when the movie was over I was still in the comedown stage, I ate a pot cookie after the show which didn't really change the feeling much but probably extended it a little and fell asleep an hour or so later.
The next day I was extremely hung over, I had drank a fair amount of water but apparently not enough, the hangover sucked but I felt it was worth it. Oddly enough the day after the hangover it almost seemed like I was back in the comeup or comedown from the drug, the whole day was just fantastic, this might not have had anything to do with the AMT but it seemed connected to me.
I will definitely do this again, this experience was basically what I thought x would be before I tried it. The only recommendations I can give are drink lots of water and don't redose if it doesn't hit you immediately, it will take a good hour or two before you feel anything but don't worry you're in for a good 6-10 hour peak and adding to your initial dose could cause problems.
Experience Reports are the writings and opinions of the individual authors who submit them.
Some of the activities described are dangerous and/or illegal and none are recommended by Erowid.