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GBK along with BOP & Tiger Beat, the industry's leading teen entertainment magazines, honored the 2012 Kids' Choice Awards Nominees and Presenters at their annual Gift Lounge held on March 29th and 30th. The event was held at the SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills and also supported three charities, the American Cancer Society, Model Citizen Fund, LLC and Dream Center.
The event was filled with gifts that would put a smile on any kids face and in addition there were plenty of tasty treats on hand to make sure that even adults left satisfied. As tempting as it looked, I did not see anyone take a bite out of the Cake Press Wall created by Bread Basket Cake Company with edible logos created by Ticings®. Before taking a look at all of the companies that were on hand, attendees were able to enjoy some Kobe Beef Sliders and pair those with some fruity liquid nitrogen drinks. Watching those get prepared was almost as fun as drinking them.
The treats continued with a candy and fruit snack buffet provided by Welch's® Fruit Snacks. So many sweet choices; Juicefulls™ Juice-filled Fruit Snacks, Sun Maid® Milk Chocolate Raisins, My M&M'S® Brand Chocolate Candies just to get you started, it was hard to pull the kids away from here. Then everyone was able to walk away with some Sabra Hummus to snack on later. Sabra provided each guest with a custom cooler bag filled with Sabra Hummus and a Sabra Grab N' Go Snack that contains hummus and pretzels. Sabra products are all natural, gluten free and Kosher and you can also find Sabra salsa, veggie dips and guacamole.
Toy State, an innovator and industry leader in the manufacture of licensed and highly-stylized lights and sound toy vehicles, gifted DUB DJz custom vehicles with dual mixing decks, not only great to look at, but so creative every kid will want to get their hands on these cars. SPIN MASTER, a multi-category children's entertainment company, gifted their Appfinity AppBlaster. Once you pick this up, there is no putting it down. Using dual triggers, trigger-tap technology and augmented reality applications, the AppBlaster turns any environment into a virtual gaming experience and connects securely with your iPhone/iPod Touch, this really takes what looks like a typical toy to an extreme level of fun. MGA Entertainment, known for their award-winning brands such as Little Tikes®, Lalaloopsy™, Bratz®, and Moxie Girls™ gifted their Bratz dolls – one packed doll of choice and an invitation to receive the new Bratz True Hope dolls when they arrive in stores in June.
To help make sure all the little celebs get their beauty sleep, MyPillow, was giving away "the world's most comfortable pillow." The pillow promotes health, comfort and durability and MyPillow is one of the top 10 fastest growing companies in the USA.
For those who were looking for the latest in technology, Ematic, a superior technology company featuring groundbreaking innovations in portable media, was providing guests with a chance to try Tablet PCs and MP3 Video players.
There was a number of products to make sure everyone would look their best on the red carpet. RevitaLash ADVANCED, was on site gifting their eyelash conditioner that lengthens and thickens eyelashes, Hair by RevitaLash and RevitaLash Mascara and Perfect Primer. imPRESS Press-On Manicure by Broadway Nails were a huge hit as they showed how simple it is to have fabulous looking nails without of effort. Sweet Dream Girlz provided a natural product line of face, body and hair products made especially for girls.
Other great gifts included clothing from American Apparel; jewelry from RockaBella Jewels; artistic decals for iPhones, iPads and MacBooks by MacSlaps; gift packs from Moshi Monsters™; beverages provided by Peace Tea and Hubert's Lemonade and bracelets from Zorbitz, Inc.
Bios Life Slim was showing everyone an innovative program to help maintain a healthy weight and lifestye. They are the only all natural, clinically proven, patented weight loss product on the market today, and has been shown to have a huge impact on overall health, wellness, and fitness
And of course BOP and Tiger Beat were each giving out the latest editions of their magazines to make sure everyone gets a peak at the latest teen celebrity news. To visit BOP and Tiger Beat online, visit: www.bopandtigerbeat.com
The American Cancer Society - combines an unyielding passion with nearly a century of experience to save lives and end suffering from cancer. As a global grassroots force of more than three million volunteers, we fight for every birthday threatened by every cancer in every community. We save lives by helping people stay well by preventing cancer or detecting it early; helping people get well by being there for them during and after a cancer diagnosis; by finding cures through investment in groundbreaking discovery; and by fighting back by rallying lawmakers to pass laws to defeat cancer and by rallying communities worldwide to join the fight. As the nation's largest non-governmental investor in cancer research, contributing about $3.4 billion, we turn what we know about cancer into what we do. As a result, about 11 million people in America who have had cancer and countless more who have avoided it will be celebrating birthdays this year. To learn more about the American Cancer Society or to get help, call 1-800-227-2345 or visit www.cancer.org
Dream Center – For the past 17 years, The Dream Center has been combating the issues that afflict Los Angeles communities, rescuing people from poverty, homelessness, hunger and substance abuse, and it is now leading the fight against human trafficking by opening the nation's largest shelter for victims of human trafficking. For more information about Dream Center, please visit www.dreamcenter.org
Model Citizen Fund, LLC - A charity that fills backpacks with 150 emergency supply items for the homeless. For more information on Model Citizen Fund, please visit www.modelcitizenfund.com
GBK, formerly GBK Productions, is a luxury lifestyle gifting and special events company, specializing in entertainment marketing integration. Formed in 2000 by Gavin Keilly, the company's Founder and CEO, GBK consists of five divisions: GBK Celebrity Gifting, GBK Special Events, GBK Weddings, GBK Charitable Consulting and GBK Marketing/Public Relations. Widely known in the entertainment industry for bringing that little extra something into the Gifting Lounge environment, GBK offers its clients a full range of marketing services. For more information on Gavin B. Keilly (CEO), Carla Domen (VP) or GBK, please go to: www.gbkproductions.com


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UK Police Target Advertising On Infringing Sites, Opens Door For Scammers And Malware Purveyors
from the replacing-bad-ads-with-foul-software dept
No good deed by government agencies goes unpunished it seems, although it appears the average citizen bears the brunt of these punishments nearly every time. The UK's long-running battle with porn and infringement recently combined to the detriment of computer users across the country.
City of London Police are claiming credit for the suspension of 40 ad-funded websites that provided unauthorised access to copyright-protected content – but may have caused a rise in the number of web ads carrying malware or promoting pornography.That's the upside. Dozens of infringing sites suspended and pleased industry execs smiling warmly at the results of their latest attempt to drain the web of infringement using a handful of thimbles.
Operation Creative has resulted in the suspension of 40 national and international websites by domain name registrars during a three month pilot. The campaign was led by the new Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) in collaboration with the creative industry, as represented by FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft), the BPI (British Phonographic Industry), IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) and The Publishers Association.
The suspensions and extra public attention resulted in a 12% drop in advertising from major brands. But, when you create a hole on the internet, something will rush in and fill it.
[A]dverts that led users to sites with explicit adult content or exposed them to malware increased by 39 per cent during the same period...While infringement may have been dented, the rise in fraudulent activity more than made up for it. And what didn't lead to infected computers led to sites the government is actively discouraging people from visiting with its mandatory porn filtering.
Almost half (46 per cent) of total ads served to the sites were for unknown or unidentified brands which invited users to click through, often to fraudulent scams.
This, of course, was pitched by the masters of the inadvertent disasters as a good thing:
Police put a positive spin on this development, arguing that switching to shadier sources of advertising is unsustainable and that "site owners may struggle to maintain their revenue streams when adverts from established brands are removed".In all reality, relying solely on low quality web ads isn't really a "business model." What the City of London police have done is slow a trickle of income to a halt and allowed those with shadier (but more lucrative) "business models" to fill the void with malware infections and scams.
BPI's statement on the takedowns seems to imply that this activity has made the web safer, despite evidence gathered to the contrary.
Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI, said: "The early results from Operation Creative show that through working with the police and the online advertising industry, we can begin to disrupt the funding that sustains illegal websites. These sites expose consumers to scams and malware, deny creators their living, and harm brands by associating them with illegal and unsafe content."Right. Except that disrupting the sites has led to even more malware and scammy behavior. This may be a small win for BPI and its cohorts, but the consumers aren't being protected in any way. But I suppose that's a small price (for someone else) to pay when fighting infringement. If someone looking for illicit content ends up with an infected computer, it's no one's fault but their own, right?
I'm not suggesting the rights holders are actively working to make the web less safe, but that seems to be the end result, intended or not. Maybe the City of London police will throw a little of its investigative muscle into shutting those operators down, rather than just running interference for the copyright industry. Or maybe it will just continue to "enforce" the law by skirting ICANN policies as it has in the past with its highly-questionable domain takedowns that were backed with threats to hold registrars responsible for the alleged infringement happening on the disabled sites.
Filed Under: advertising, city of london police, copyright infringement, liability, malware, uk
Companies: bpi

subset: commoncrawl


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Beat the Streak: Weekend, May 1-3
Today's recommended picks
Ryan Zimmerman, 3B, Nationals
19-G hit streak; opposing Cardinals starter Todd Wellemeyer: .389 AVG against in '09
Carlos Lee, OF, Astros
6-for-15 (.400 AVG) lifetime vs. Braves starter Derek Lowe; has reached base in 8 of past 10 G
Garrett Atkins, 3B, Rockies
4-for-10 (.400 AVG) vs. Giants starter Randy Johnson; .357 AVG vs. left-handers in '08
Saturday's recommended picks
David Wright, 3B, Mets
14-for-35 (.400 AVG) lifetime vs. Phillies starter Jamie Moyer; .382 AVG vs. left-handers in '08
Justin Morneau, 1B, Twins
7-for-18 (.389 AVG) lifetime vs. Royals starter Brian Bannister; Bannister: .294 AVG against in '08
Joey Votto, 1B, Reds
9-for-21 (.429 AVG) lifetime vs. Pirates starter Ross Ohlendorf; .346 AVG in '09
Sunday's recommended picks
Nick Markakis, OF, Orioles
16-G hit streak; .381 AVG in '09
Magglio Ordonez, OF, Tigers
13-for-37 (.351 AVG) lifetime vs. Indians starter Cliff Lee; .333 AVG vs. left-handers in '09
Aaron Hill, 2B, Blue Jays
4-for-11 (.364 AVG) lifetime vs. Orioles starter Jeremy Guthrie; .365 AVG in '09
BTS all-time leader: Michael Karatzia, 49
MLB all-time leader: Joe DiMaggio, 56
Yesterday's results
It was another successful day for the BTS leader, baltimore20, who is up to 24 games thanks to the selection of Texas catalyst Ian Kinsler (1-for-4). Four more remain close behind at 23 games, which means we could have a couple of fans across the 25-game plateau by the close of the weekend's action.
Yesterday's Top 5 most selected players
1. Albert Pujols (STL): 12.4%, 2-for-4
2. Jacoby Ellsbury (BOS): 9.1%, 1-for-4
3. Robinson Cano (NYY): 8.5%, 1-for-4
4. Ian Kinsler (TEX): 6.2%, 1-for-4
5. Derek Jeter (NYY): 5.5%, 2-for-4
10 Comments
I was wondering how little the percentage of getting 57 hit streak. Did anybody win 1 million last year from this game??
Nobody has won in the 7, 8, whatever year it is, this game has exsisted. The highest someone got last year was 49.
Well, you can canclulate the odds by determining an average percentage of players who succeed each day and then carrying out that chance through 57 days.
So, as an estimate, let us assume that 65% of all players succeed each day with at least 1 AB. That is right on the fringe of a normal pass/fail definition and seems to align well with my own personal observations.
So, 0.65^57 power = 0.000000000216%
Actually, most players will use a very good player, not an 'average' player, therefore the success rate should be somewhat higher. That said, the odds of winning with very good players are about 1 in 90 million. If you identify situations that occur 80% of the time, then your odds increase to about 1 in 344,000. At a 90%, your odds increase greatly to about 1 in 400. Frankly, I am quite surprised that there has not been a winner given the total number of opportunities (streaks started) since inception.
well its not as easy as one might think.
again like the earlier post said, this game has been going on for 6-7 years and the most anyone has done is 49/ lost of pressure.
The weather situation in the north texas area is not good, could have some effect on the Rangers Whitesox games Sat and Sun. nite. i know Sat. games have locked but ya might want to keep this in mind for sundays pick
Chase Utley just ended my hit streak. How do I avoid players as a PH.
if you want to avoid pinch hitters you need to do some research. go to the team websites and find out if a player is going to be starting that day. then you wont have to worry about the player only getting one at bat and screwing you over
Regarding PH, that's a good point. Anyone know of where to look on team sites to know if player is having a rest day or not? I have heard broadcasters mention that a player will have a day off 'tomorrow', so one woud think the roster is made at least 1 day in advance barring late scratches, but where to find that info?
Another thing to look at would be the injury list provided by this site; non-DL related injuries are provided too. If a player (like Delgado yesterday) is sitting out 'cause of aches/pains vs something more serious, he may come in as a PH in the 8th/9th, like he did yesterday and fortunately for 1 on the top 15, he got a hit.
Delgado actually walked, so that guy is even more fortunate, because I don't think Delgado would have got a hit if he put it in play, but ya never know…and if any player gets a day off, it's usually gonna be a day game after a night game unless they're hurting/in a slump, who knows when the manager might give that player a little rest
Aramis Ramirez didn't play. Do I lose my streak?


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Jan Dennis, Business & Law Editor
217-333-0568; firstname.lastname@example.com
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A proposed merger of Delta and Northwest airlines likely won't drive up the cost of flying, but that could change if the deal sparks a flurry of consolidation among U.S. air carriers, a University of Illinois business professor says.
Finance professor Heitor Almeida says Delta and Northwest largely serve different regions, so a merger would not yield a dramatic reduction in routes that would increase demand for remaining seats and, in turn, ticket prices.
Fares could even dip if Delta and Northwest achieve efficiencies in booking and other operations that were touted by company officials Monday when the airlines struck a deal that would create the world's biggest air carrier, he said.
But Almeida says it could be a different story if the proposed merger spawns more consolidations by airlines with overlapping territories, such as a rumored marriage of United Airlines and Continental Airlines.
"If more consolidation follows that brings less competition and fewer routes, then it's possible that prices will go up beyond what is being driven by high oil prices," said Almeida, who teaches classes on mergers.
He predicts federal regulators will approve the Delta-Northwest merger, but says a possible snowball effect will be debated as regulators mull the proposed deal.
"One concern will be that this might spur other mergers that could have worse impacts on the consumer," Almeida said. "They may think if they let this one go through we might have problems saying 'no' to other mergers. It will set the bar."
More mergers are possible in an industry beleaguered by high oil prices and stiff competition that have contributed to a recent spate of airline bankruptcies, Almeida said.
"Oil prices are one factor, but the industry hasn't been doing great for a while," he said. "Part of the problem is there is too much competition. It does make sense for this industry to consolidate a little bit."
He also says the upcoming presidential election may have had a hand in the timing of the proposed Delta-Northwest merger, which would create an airline with more than $35 billion in annual revenues, topping current industry leader American Airlines.
"The simple point is that if Democrats get elected, then regulators are more likely to stop the merger," he said. "It's easier with a Republican administration, so that might be speeding up the timing."
Editor's note: To contact Heitor Almeida, call 217-333-2704; e-mail firstname.lastname@example.com.


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All Parents and Players must agree to and abide by this Athletic Contract when you register for any Hillsbough Youth Lacrosse program. In the event that someone violates the agreement, the coach, his designee or Program Supervisor has the right to banish that individual for a) an unspecified "cooling-off" period; b) the remainder of the game or practice; c) future games or practice; d) remainder of season; e) for life with no refund.
The purpose of this contract is to outline our goals for the season and establish expectations for all involved. As parents, we are in a responsible position to influence the development of our youth by acting as positive role models on and off the field. As players, we are responsible to play by the rules and to respect the players on our own team as well as those we compete against.
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'Find your passion' may not be the best advice after all. As the world becomes increasingly interdisciplinary, having diverse interests can help people make important connections across fields, such as between the Arts and Sciences. A new study suggests that one's belief about the nature of interests might prevent those insights from happening. Source 8w.
, "Your View On The Nature Of Interests" is a Psychology, Special Needs & Health Topic but its lacking your input! Be first to Reply to Your View On The Nature Of Interests! You will then have 1 Posts and 1 Core Posts! now or scroll down for [Fast Reply] box.


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Support for stricter gun control measures has reached a five-year high in the aftermath of the Connecticut school massacre, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll released today.
Fifty-four percent of Americans back new controls on guns — and 59 percent back curbs on the high-capacity ammunition clips used in many of the recent shooting rampages. Still, the overall support for tighter restrictions has increased only modestly in recent years.
Two major differences are evident in the new polling. Partisan and ideological gaps appear to be narrowing on some gun issues, including high-capacity ammunition clips. And most Americans now say that the Newtown massacre reflects broader problems in society rather than an isolated act of a troubled person.
Another shift: Gun control supporters now have more intensity than opponents of stricter controls. Forty-four percent of Americans say they "strongly" favor stricter action while 32 percent say they oppose new controls "strongly." The gap more than doubles when Americans are asked whether they'd ban high-capacity clips: 47 percent strongly favor such a ban while 29 percent strongly oppose it.
Support for stricter gun control peaked at 67 percent in 1999 and 2000 but diminished significantly after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.
Here are the latest support levels for major gun control proposals, according to an ABC poll analysis:
On specific measures, 52 percent favor banning semi-automatic handguns (it's been 48 and 55 percent in previous polls) and 59 percent support banning high-capacity clips that carry more than 10 bullets (it was a similar 57 percent in early 2011, after the Tucson shootings). Banning the sale of handguns entirely (except for law enforcement) remains broadly unpopular, with 71 percent opposed, numerically a new high in results since 1999.
When it comes to banning handguns, the "intensity" factor remains with Second Amendment backers. Overall, 56 percent of Americans say they would "strongly" oppose a handgun ban. Twenty percent strongly favor it.


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Re: The terms, "Biblical Greek" and "NT Greek"
Posted: January 3rd, 2012, 5:51 pm
Yeah...I know.Ken M. Penner wrote:I don't want to cast any shadows on Funk's work, but I want to avoid providing the impression that Funk's BIGHG uses non-biblical literature frequently. BIGHG's abundant examples from the Greek New Testament far exceed any from the Apostolic Fathers, and I don't recall seeing any from beyond these two corpora.MAubrey wrote:Funk is easily the first *teaching* grammar that uses surrounding literature consistently.
Funk wrote:Robert Funk wrote:It had been my original intention to draw far more on texts outside the New Testament and Apostolic Fathers than has in fact been the case. If it proves possible to reduce a significant number of Greek sentences to a code that can be manipulated by a computer, it will be easily possible to work with a much larger body of data. In that case, the promise of the title (hellenistic Greek) will come to fulfillment; as it stands, it is more promise than achievement.
"Consistent" probably isn't the right word. Okay, so may it isn't the right word at all. At the very least, Funk did more than any other teaching grammar to date that I am aware of.


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ACParadise Network: American Cosplay Paradise American Cosplay Experience American Cosplay Snapshots
Cosplayer RevSoul > Convention History
As a Standard member, this cosplayer can only show a basic list of conventions they've attended. Celestial Members get an enhanced view of their convention history, with statistics on costumes worn and conventions attended. Each convention will also have its own "Con Report/Summary" page, with thoughts from the cosplayer, and all their costumes and videos for that convention in one convenient place!
Examples: Celestial Convention History Con Report
If you're interested in this feature, consider upgrading or sponsoring this cosplayer today!
Here are all the conventions I have attended.
- Anime Boston 2011
- Anime Boston 2009
- Anime Boston 2008
- Anime Boston 2007
- Anime Boston 2006
- Anime Boston 2005
- AnimeNEXT 2008
- AnimeNEXT 2007
- AnimeNEXT 2006
- AnimeNEXT 2005
- AnimeNEXT 2004
- Castle Point Anime Convention 2008
- I-Con 2006
- MangaNEXT 2007
- MangaNEXT 2006
- New York Anime Festival 2010


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As environmental art progresses and then doubles back again between earthworks and site-specific land art to more explicitly ecological work, there's a real question hanging in the air these days about what kind of awareness art can or even should bring to the natural world, and what successful environmental art might look like or do. Michael Wang's article in May's Artforum about the contemporary merging of architecture and the environment focused on the process of making the invisible visible—such as the work of experimental architect Bernard Tschumi in Santiago, who uses polluted air as "material for designâ€â€"avoiding simple propaganda about air pollution in making public encounter part of a zone of aesthetic experience that includes the weather. Wang closes his discussion with a call to "make evident†the "dissolution of boundaries†between the human and the natural.
This might seem like an overly-heady invocation to an intentionally very family-friendly art show at the Morton Arboretum—and much of the art doesn't lend itself to much discussing in academic terms, though it's fun for the kids to look at, like a stack of tree logs with a huge bow on top or fluttering wisps of kite-like material improbably named "Soul of the Treesâ€â€"but there are a handful of pieces that are remarkably thoughtful, even groundbreaking in their approach to the question of this boundary between nature and human. While a few works seem completely disconnected from their environment in the arboretum, others offer new perspectives on the framing of nature and the issue of medium specificity. A couple offer explicitly environmentalist messages, and a handful of them—which are as cutting-edge and thoughtful as any other art I've seen in Chicago this year—actually reflect on the work of this frame itself and offer up a strong model for what a critical environmental art practice might look like.
First the slightly less interesting pieces. The You are Beautiful collective presents a huge namesake sign, not unlike the Hollywood sign, at the top of a hill—white from a distance, but yellow on the sides close up. The piece is about the relation of the work to space and the perspective of the viewer, but there's no interaction between the work and its environment; it sits in a clearing, framed by nature. It could be anywhere. Slightly more interesting but falling squarely into the old activist ecological art mold are Theodoros Zaferiropoulos' "How Far Have We Gone?,†which turns cross-sections of a tree trunk into stepping-stones eventually disappearing into a small lake; and Thomas Matsuda's "Purification,†consisting of tree trunks burned to charcoal and displayed provocatively amongst the living trees in the arboretum. Both are visually interesting, but they take up an old rhetoric that sometimes makes my eyes glaze over, and it's hard to read much meaning or self-consciousness into each about the environment of the arboretum itself.
This is where I owe a big citation to Chris Millers' review of the show in New City; Miller points out that the arboretum is "more about science than aesthetics†and is therefore "an appropriate setting for conceptual art.†Just pushing it one step further, I would argue that the arboretum is slightly artificial, itself on the boundary between the human and the natural; many plants growing there are not native to the area, and the only reason that this refuge exists is because the Morton Salt company family are generous and progressive enough to create this sort of natural simulacra. We might even think of an arboretum as having the kind of "dissolution of boundaries†that Wang discusses… and I wish more of the work had commented on this liminal, weird environment in which their environmental art would dwell.
Juan Angel Chávez's "Jimshoe†(named after a homeless man the artist met) seems more challenging. Built with found materials and resembling a cocoon as well as garbage, the piece holds—or possibly vandalizes—a tree that young visitors to the arboretum are encouraged to climb (the day I went, the work was framed off with an orange plastic fence). The work is closed, the tree is framed (twice over for me), and it's hard to tell whether the piece would change much if the cocoon were surrounding an industrial swingset. Similarly, Letha Wilson's "Wall in Blue Ash Tree,†while visually interesting—on one side, a smooth white wall with branches poking through; on the other, as though backstage, the unpainted and patchwork wood, and tree, supports for the piece–also doesn't make any strong claims for nature/art relations or boundaries as such. What makes both pieces interesting visually has to do with the material relation between processed and raw wood, but I wanted more reflexivity about the boundary, about the framing process.
Which brings me to the most unlikely suspect for the kind of thought-provoking, meta-aware praxis of environmental art people are looking for: a crochet-covered tree called "Lichen It,†created by Carol Hummel and a number of volunteers. It looks exactly as you'd imagine, but with garish colors in yellow, red, and purple that make the tree look diseased. It's easily the most popular piece of art, the most photogenic, and the most funny (at least for people who are familiar with yarn-bombing and/or grew up with a plethora of throw pillows and afghans strangling their bedrooms) of any of the works in the show. The first time I saw it, I took some pictures for a couple posing in front of the tree and didn't give it a second thought—until I walked fifty paces away and saw, in a groomed, manicured hedge with flowers growing in between, the same color combination of yellow, red, and purple. This garden was just as unnatural as the crochet, and the juxtaposition posed real questions to me about material, form, the way we frame nature in everyday life as well as art. In other words, it makes the invisible visible. "Nature doubly framed and overly implicated,†the show should read, and the kids would still have just as much fun.
The show runs until November 27, and since I'm writing this delinquently late, you have probably already gone to see it if you were planning to. However, I'd urge you to go again, to see what happens to each work as the natural world, and its relationship to the work, changes.
Monica Westin is the former Deputy Editor and current contributing art editor to Flavorpill in Chicago, where she also regularly writes about art and theater for New City, Chicago Magazine, and the Huffington Post. A current PhD student in rhetoric at the University of Illinois, Chicago, Monica teaches courses on arts writing and new media in DePaul University's Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse department.
Latest posts by Guest (see all)
- The Reality of Rejection - August 9, 2018
- The Kingdom of Kitai at Ulterior Gallery - October 16, 2017
- What We Want Is You. - July 28, 2017


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[...] Cyberdyne Inc. will increase my research funds so that is okay.
So, the T-1002 will be ready about when?
I would suggest using a CPLD of FPGA. Your problem is taking in a lot of data and processing it very quickly. There is no processor out there that will be able to work faster than an FPGA, because it is hardware that you customize to your task. All of he processing in the FPGA is done in parallel. If you don't know what I'm talking about read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fpga.


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Henrique Bardas is a character in the GTA IV Era, appearing in The Ballad of Gay Tony.
Henrique, and his constant companion Armando Torres, are two of Luis' oldest friends, the trio are said to have grown up together, gone to school together, and got in a lot of trouble together. While Luis has left Northwood for the success he found working with Anthony "Gay Tony" Prince, Armando and Henrique remained in the barrio where they are still often found hustling on the streets if Northwood. With Luis not around as often, the trio has become a duo in which Henrique fills the role of dumb muscle to Armando's brains. Henrique is said to not be very bright, but what he lacks in brains he makes up for with toughness, skill with a weapon, and dependability. Henrique provides Luis with vehicles as well as backup on certain missions. He tried to get a job at Burger Shot where his IQ allowed him to be a dishwasher, unfortunately, Burger Shot has no dishes to wash ('It's all polystyrene" says Armando). With the help of Luis, 'Rique and Armando start a drug empire which they build up by ambushing drug convoys, stealing stashes and raiding deals.
Henrique's IQ is said to be 76, and is thereby considered borderline retarded. He seems to show this in the story, as he tends to speak rather slowly with simple words and has difficulty operating technological devices. Having no chances for a normal job, the only way for him to get some money is to help Armando in his street hustling and ripping other dealers off. Throughout the game Henrique speaks somewhat slowly, it becomes apparent that he may not be school smart, but he's intelligent enough to know what is right and wrong. Henrique shows some bit of disdain for Armando always trying to be with and control him, and often tells Luis in secrecy that Armando annoys him somtimes. When Armando insults Luis and vice versa, usually regarding accusations of being gay, or abandoning his friends, Henrique will joins in but if the situation becomes too heated, Henrique will often take the role of peacemaker between the two. It is shown through various conversations that he does not judge Luis as harshly for his new lifestyle as Armando does. On friend activities Henrique will often state that he'd like to settle down, get married, and have a family one day. Despite the fact that he's legally retarded, he's still a good earner, and a loyal friend to Armando and Luis.
- Although Henrique has the same last name as Roman Bellic's girlfriend, Mallorie Bardas, it is unlikely that they are related.
- He, Luis, and Armando have had relationships with Carmen Ortiz.
- Henrique is one of a few characters without an entry in the LCPD database, despite having committed criminal acts.
- One of the reasons Henrique and Armando give for remaining in The Heights is to continue hitting on the college girls in the area. They've apparently been doing this since the summer of 1999.
- Henrique apparently slept with a librarian who worked at a college during the summer of '99. Luis claims he, "fucked her glasses right off her face...". He also had a relationship with Luis' sister, Leta Lopez-Wilkinson.
- Henrique bears resemblance to Lenny Santos, a member of the bachata group Aventura.
- Even though he is really stupid, he can be surprisingly deep in his conversations with Luis.
- Henrique's favorite radio station is Liberty City Hardcore.
- During a drug war, his glasses can be shot off of his face.
Player can call Henrique for bringing a vehicle whenever he wants - while on mission or not.
- Modified Serrano (after completing the mission I luv LC)
- Turismo (after completing the mission I luv LC)
- Buffalo (after completing the mission I luv LC)
- Cavalcade FXT (after completing the mission I luv LC)
- F620 (after completing the mission No. 3)
- Bullet GT (after completing the mission No. 3)
- APC (after completing the storyline)
- When Luis calls Henrique for a car, he will be driving that car while Armando will be driving a black Cavalcade behind him. Henrique will exit the car you request and then enter the Cavalcade. As soon as he closes the door when he is in, he reopens it and exits the car. He is then just a random ped. The associate, however, still drives away in the Cavalcade.


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Whenever life gets busy and slightly overwhelming, my blog is typically the first thing I set aside. I started a new job three weeks ago, and I have projects coming out the wazoo. I plan on posting at least once a week so you can see a little of what I've been up to. One of the projects I completed on Saturday is a cake for a birthday girl who turned one. One a scale of 1 to 10 for cuteness, I think it's a 10. I loved how it turned out.
These are the boob cakes - the start of the owl.
Iced and fondant work
I painted the "feathers" with food coloring for a bit of visual texture.
tuesdays around the world - communal global


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Organ shortages
You can save multiple lives through donationBy B. Denise Hawkins
Those responsible for increasing the level of organ and tissue donation in the U.S. have been renewing the call for donors who can help save the lives of people in need of transplants.
The most pressing need in organ donation remains the shortage of donors. The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, which maintains the nation's transplant waiting list, reported that in the first nine months of 2013, there were 121,076 candidates waiting to receive new organs. New names are added every 10 minutes, and about 18 people a day die while waiting. In North Carolina, more than 3,400 people are awaiting an urgent transplant.
The gift of life
Most organ and tissue donations come from deceased donors — one person can save up to eight lives. But as the need for organs grows, more people are becoming living donors. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that about 6,000 living donations are made annually; the most frequent procedure is a single kidney transplant. Other common living donations include a lung, or a part of the lung, pancreas and intestines.
Of those on the nation's waiting list for kidneys, more than one-third are African-American, according to the National Kidney Foundation. African-Americans suffer disproportionately from high blood pressure, diabetes and certain genetic diseases, which puts them at high risk for kidney disease.
Donor eligibility
According to Donate Life NC, a collaborative group of organizations that promote eye, organ and tissue donation, people of all ages and medical histories can register as donors. Medical suitability is determined case-by-case, at the time of death. Even a person with a serious health problem like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease or other conditions may still be able to donate at the time of death. Potential donors are carefully screened prior to transplant to ensure that organs and tissues are safe for recipients.
Registering in North Carolina
You can register as a donor at a North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles (NC DMV) Driver License office or register online with Donate Life NC (donatelifenc.org/register). If you register via the DMV, a red heart is placed on your driver's license or ID card. This symbol means that you are giving legal consent for the donation of your organs and corneas and eyes after you die. It does not include tissue donation, nor does it include whole body donation.
If you register at donatelifenc.org/register you can be more specific about your donation wishes. For example, you can choose which organs or tissues you want to donate — and exclude those you do not want to donate. Your online record supersedes your DMV record because it is the more specific donation document. It's important to share your decision to be a donor with your family, physician, religious leader and friends, and include organ donation in your advance directives, will and living will.


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Golf Glance
All Times EDT
Site: Fort Worth, Texas
Schedule: Thursday-Sunday.
Course: Colonial Country Club (7,204 yards, par 70).
Purse: $6.4 million. Winner's share: $1,152,000.
Television: Golf Channel (Thursday-Friday, 3-6 p.m., 9 p.m.-midnight; Saturday-Sunday, 1-2:30 p.m., 7-11:30 p.m.) and CBS (Saturday-Sunday, 3-6 p.m.).
Last year: Boo Weekley beat Matt Kuchar by a stroke for his third PGA Tour title.
Last week: Brendon Todd won the Byron Nelson Championship in Irving for his first tour title. Mike Weir was second, two strokes back.
Notes: Adam Scott took the spot in the world ranking from Tiger Woods on Monday. The Australian tops the field along with No. 4 Kuchar, No. 9 Jordan Spieth, No. 12 Jim Furyk, No. 13 Zach Johnson, No. 14 Dustin Johnson and No. 17 Jimmy Walker. ... The 20-year-old Spieth, from the Dallas area, tied for 37th in the Byron Nelson. ... Walker has two top-10 finishes — a tie for eighth in the Masters and a tie for sixth in The Players Championship — in his last nine starts after winning three times in his first eight events of the season. ... Ben Hogan won his hometown event five times. ... The Memorial is next week at Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio, followed by the St. Jude Classic in Memphis, Tennessee, and the U.S. Open at Pinehurst in North Carolina.
Online: http://www.pgatour.com
Site: Virginia Water, England.
Schedule: Thursday-Sunday.
Course: Wentworth Club, West Course (7,302 yards, par 72).
Purse: $6.51 million. Winner's share: $1,085,780.
Television: Golf Channel (Thursday-Friday, 5 a.m.-noon; Saturday, 7:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.; Sunday, 12:30-4 a.m., 7:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.; Monday, 12:30-4 a.m.).
Last year: Italy's Matteo Manassero beat Simon Khan with a birdie on the fourth hole of a playoff. Marc Warren was eliminated on the first extra hole.
Last week: Spain's Miguel Angel Jimenez won the Spanish Open at 50 years, 133 days to break his own record as the oldest European Tour champion. He won with a par on the first hole of a playoff with Thomas Pieters and Richard Green.
Notes: Jimenez, the 2008 champion, also won the Hong Kong Open in December and has 21 European Tour titles. He finished fourth in the Masters and won the following week in his Champions Tour debut. ... Third-ranked Henrik Stenson is in the field along with No. 7 Sergio Garcia, No. 8 Justin Rose, No. 10 Rory McIlroy, No. 18 Charl Schwartzel, No. 19 Luke Donald and No. 20 Ian Poulter. ... McIlroy has only one victory — the Australian Open in December — in 18 months. ... Donald won the European Tour's flagship event in 2011 and 2012. ... Ernie Els, a seven-time World Match Play winner at Wentworth, refurbished the Harry Colt-designed course. ... The Nordea Masters is next week in Sweden.
Online: http://www.europeantour.com
Site: Benton Harbor, Michigan.
Schedule: Thursday-Sunday.
Course: Harbor Shores (6,852 yards, par 71).
Purse: TBA ($2 million in 2013). Winner's share: TBA ($378,000 in 2013).
Television: Golf Channel (Thursday, noon-3 p.m.; Friday, 12:30-3:30 a.m., noon-3 p.m.; Saturday, 12:30-3:30 a.m.) and NBC (Saturday-Sunday, 3-6 p.m.).
Last year: Japan's Kohki Idoki rallied to win at Bellerive in St. Louis. Jay Haas and Kenny Perry tied for second, two strokes back.
Last week: Perry won his third straight Champions Tour major, beating Mark Calcavecchia by a stroke in the Regions Tradition at Shoal Creek in Alabama. Perry won the Senior Players Championship and U.S. Senior Open in consecutive tour starts last year.
Notes: Created at Bobby Jones' suggestion, the event was first played in 1937 at Augusta National. ... England's Roger Chapman won in 2012 at Harbor Shores. ... Gene Fieger won the rain-delayed Senior PGA Professional National Championship last month at PGA Golf Club in Florida to top the 35 club professional qualifiers. He's the PGA director of golf at Hideout in Naples, Florida. ... Sam Snead won a record six times, the last in 1973. ... Jack Nicklaus-designed Harbor Shores opened in 2010. ... The 2015 tournament will be played at French Lick Resort in Indiana. ... The Principal Charity Classic is next week in Iowa.
Online: http://www.pga.com/seniorpga
Champions Tour site: http://www.pgatour.com
Site: Mobile, Alabama.
Schedule: Thursday-Sunday.
Course: Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, Magnolia Grove, The Crossings (6,521 yards, par 72).
Purse: $1.3 million. Winner's share: $195,000.
Television: Golf Channel (Thursday, 6:30-9 p.m.; Friday, 3:30-5 a.m., 6:30-9 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 3-6 p.m.).
Last year: Jennifer Johnson won her first LPGA Tour title, beating Jessica Korda and Pornanong Phatlum by a stroke.
Last week: Lizette Salas won the Kingsmill Championship in Virginia for her first tour title, finishing with even-par 71 for a four-stroke victory.
Notes: Top-ranked Inbee Park is winless in eight tour starts this season. She swept the first three majors last year and finished the season with six victories. ... Second-ranked Stacy Lewis won in 2012, shooting 68-67-67-69. She won the North Texas LPGA Shootout three weeks ago. ... Michelle Wie, the winner last month in Hawaii, has six top-10 finishes in nine starts this year. ... English teen Charley Hull is in the field. ... The ShopRite LPGA Classic is next week in Galloway Township, New Jersey, followed by the Manulife Financial LPGA Classic in Waterloo, Ontario.
Online: http://www.lpga.com
Site: Raleigh, North Carolina.
Schedule: Thursday-Sunday.
Course: TPC Wakefield Plantation (7,257 yards, par 71).
Purse: $600,000. Winner's share: $108,000.
Television: None.
Last year: Chesson Hadley won his hometown event, finishing with a 7-under 64 for a two-stroke victory.
Last week: Max Homa won the BMW Charity Pro-Am in South Carolina for his first tour title, closing with an 8-under 63 for a one-stroke victory over Jonathan Randolph. Homa was the NCAA individual medalist last year for California.
Notes: Carlos Ortiz is trying to earn an immediate promotion to the PGA Tour as a three-time winner this season. The Mexican player leads the money list with $363,058. ... Hale Irwin designed TPC Wakefield Plantation. ... The tour is off next week. Play will resume June 5-8 with the Cleveland Open.
Online: http://www.pgatour.com
COLLEGE: NCAA Division I Men's Golf Championships, Friday-May 28, Prairie Dunes Country Club, Hutchinson, Kansas. Online: http://www.ncaa.com
JAPAN GOLF TOUR: Kansai Open, Thursday-Sunday, Rokko Country Club, Hyogo, Japan. Online: http://www.jgto.org
SUNSHINE TOUR: Lombard Insurance Classic, Friday-Sunday, Royal Swazi Sun Country Club, Mbabane, South Africa. Online: http://www.pgatour.co.za
EUROPEAN CHALLENGE TOUR: Karten Open, Thursday-Sunday, Schloss Finkenstein Golf Club, Godersdorf, Austria. Online: http://www.europeantour.com
PGA TOUR LATINOAMERICA: Panama Classic, Thursday-Sunday, Buenaventura Golf Club, Rio Hato, Panama. Online: http://www.pgatourla.com
NGA TOUR: Bluegrass Open, Thursday-Sunday, Shelbyville Country Club, Shelbyville, Kentucky. Online: http://www.ngatour.com
eGOLF PROFESSIONAL TOUR: Willow Creek Open, Wednesday-Friday, High Point Country Club, Willow Creek Course, High Point, North Carolina. Online: http://www.egolfprofessionaltour.com
COLLEGE: NCAA Division I Women's Golf Championships, through Friday, Tulsa Country Club, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Online: http://www.ncaa.com
SYMETRA TOUR: Symetra Classic, Thursday-Saturday, Raintree Country Club, Charlotte, North Carolina. Online: http://www.symetratour.com
LADIES EUROPEAN TOUR: Deloitte Ladies Open, Friday-Sunday, The International, Amsterdam. Online: http://www.ladieseuropeantour.com
JAPAN LPGA TOUR: Chukyo TV Bridgestone Ladies Open, Friday-Sunday, Chukyo Golf Club, Aichi, Japan. Online: http://www.lpga.or.jp


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Teller (PT)
Davis County, UT
Part-time (25 Hours)
Job Summary
The primary responsibility of this position is to create an exceptional member experience. This is accomplished by developing professional relationships with Goldenwest members for the purpose of identifying their needs and recommending customized solutions to meet those needs. Individualized needs are often met by aligning credit union products and services to each specific member. The primary operational function of this position is to complete accurate teller transactions. Other duties may be assigned based on business need.
Davis County, UT
Schedule Availability
Part-time schedules are flexible and ideal for parent and student shifts. Typical hours of operation are Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m.- 6:15 p.m. and Saturday 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Essential Duties & Responsibilities
To be effective in this position an individual must be able to perform each job duty successfully:
The essential duties and responsibilities listed for this position are representative of the knowledge, skills, and/or abilities necessary to complete the job at an effective level. Reasonable accommodation maybe afforded to enable individuals to perform essential job functions.
Positive, outgoing personality with a willingness to discuss credit union products and services; effective verbal & written communication skills; professional and well groomed; effective mathematical ability; proficient computer operating skills; cash handling skills preferred.
Ability to talk, hear, sit, use hands to handle or feel and reach with hands and arms consistently. Ability to stand, walk, kneel and crouch occasionally. Close vision as clear vision at 20 inches or less, and distance vision as clear vision at 20 feet or more. Ability to lift up to 10 pounds consistently and up to 50 pounds occasionally. Moderate noise such as business office with computers and printers, and light traffic.
How to ApplyApply Now
Goldenwest Credit Union is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants may be subject to a credit and background check to determine employment eligibility.
Other positions to consider:
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Washington Terrace, UT
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Weber County, UT
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Cache County, UT
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St. George, UT
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One of my executive students at HEC Paris asked me this week at what point communication becomes manipulation. After all, many of the rhetorical devices and storytelling techniques used in speechwriting and presentation design are similar to those used by a hypnotist, advertiser or salesperson.
This assumes there is a continuum, with communication at one end, and manipulation at the other end – and the more devices of influence you use, the more you move towards the 'manipulation' end of the scale.
An entrepreneur pitching an investor is aiming to influence that investor. Is that manipulation? The entrepreneur is doing everything possible to make an investor part with some cash, while at the beginning of the pitch the investor's wallet is firmly closed.
A salesperson is always aiming to influence customers' thoughts. Not only do they make you want their product or service where previously you perhaps didn't want it (or didn't realise you wanted it), but they also make you want their exact offering, and not those of your competitors. Is that manipulation? Or is it only manipulation if it is done well?
Let's bring in a dictionary definition of manipulation. Dictionary.com defines 'manipulate' as:
to manage or influence skillfully, especially in an unfair manner: to manipulate people's feelings.
My Chambers English Dictionary defines 'manipulate' as:
to turn to one's own purpose or advantage
So the key factor is not the number of influence techniques used, but the intention of the speaker. Influencing the audience for your own selfish interests is considered manipulation, and has a negative connotation.
Advertising is all about manipulation, of course. Advertisers use every technique in the book to influence our thoughts, almost always for their own interests.
However, not everyone has selfish intentions. Take parents, for example.
Once, when I was a boy, I was flicking elastic bands around, and my father asked me to stop. He told me that once he had seen someone flick an elastic band which took someone's eye out, i.e. it was very dangerous and I shouldn't do it. The story was far stronger than just saying "stop doing that, son" – it certainly stopped me from flicking elastic bands, and I still remember the story over 30 years later. My father was using a storytelling technique to influence me – but for my benefit, so I would avoid a dangerous activity.
Now I am a father, and I use stories all the time to influence my children – for their benefit. This is far from new. Humans have been using stories for millennia to transfer knowledge and influence younger generations into avoiding the mistakes of their ancestors. The fable about the boy who cried 'wolf' is far more effective than just telling kids not to lie.
So while you can indeed have a continuum between ineffective and effective communication, there is another which is equally important: between altruism at one end of the scale – communicating purely for the audience's benefit – and selfishness at the other end.
We can't all be altruistic all the time. But we can at least aim for the middle of the scale: mutual interest.
Let's take a look at what this means, in the Communication Influence Matrix above. In the bottom-left, you have ineffective and selfish communication – which is what poor salespeople dish out to long-suffering buyers. In the top-left, you have ineffective but altruistic communication, an example of which would be most teaching, which is for the benefit of the audience but far too often fails to be effective due to poor use of influencing techniques.
Then, in the bottom-right, you have effective and selfish communication – which could be good advertisements, or a powerful political speech for example. In the middle on the right, you have effective communication for mutual interest, which is what good salespeople will aim for. A good salesperson sincerely believes her customer will benefit from buying her product or service, and focuses on those benefits, while communicating effectively – and without forgetting her own company's interests. Think of any Steve Jobs product launch.
And in the top-right, you have effective altruistic communication, and while I could have put public-service advertisements there, I'm proud to put my dad and his stories in that corner. One day, I hope my own children will put me there too.
Takeaways for presenters
As a presenter, work out how you can help your audience. If you are a salesperson, make your presentation not about your product or service, but about your customer's problem and how it can be solved. You may succeed in making them want to buy your latest widget, but it will be in their interest to do so.
If you are an entrepreneur, talk about why your start-up offers a great opportunity for the investor. You're not just going to them asking for money: you are offering them the chance to make a large pile of cash. You're trying to influence them, of course, but in their interest as well as yours.
The trick is simply to ensure that their interests coincide with yours. If the customer is happy to solve their problem, that's good for you because they're using your widget to do so. If the investor is happy to invest because it's a great opportunity, that's also good for you because it means you have the cash to expand your company.
The audience's own interest is the magical ingredient of any presentation. If you can always clearly act in the audience's interest, you will never be accused of manipulation, no matter how many influence techniques you use. And if you can find a way to meet their needs while also meeting yours, then everybody wins.


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text:
2006 Dodge Magnum
6 Cylinder
City 18/Hwy 26 Estimated By E.P.A. - Actual Mileage May Vary
Dealership Information
Wood Motor Company - Madison
Wood Motor Company
901 East Old Hickory Blvd
Madison, TN 37115
We guarantee all of our vehicles to pass emissions. Our vehicles are checked out by a mechanic and have had an oil change and are thoroughly detailed inside and out before they hit the lot. Our vehicles are so eligible for extended warranty for up to 24 months or 24,000 miles.
- Power Drivers Seat
- AM/FM Stereo - CD
- Air Conditioning
- Cruise Control
- Dual Air Bags
- Driver Side Remote Mirror
- Reclining Seat(s)
- Anti-Lock Braking System
- Traction Control
- Power Steering
- Power Brakes
- Power Door Locks
- Power Windows
- Color Keyed Bumpers
- Trip Odometer
- Tachometer
- Tilt Steering Wheel
- Interval Wipers
- Rear Defroster
- Console
- Carpeting
- Front Bucket Seats
- Cloth Upholstery
- Map Lights
We are an upscale buy here pay here car lot. We guarantee all of our vehicles to pass emissions. We do offer extended warranties on our vehicles. You must have drivers license and full coverage insurance. We have been in business 30 years and have a good reputation in the car industry. Our payments are due monthly. We report to the credit bureau.


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The little dirt road is called Pure Meadows Lane, and to follow it across the slatted wooden cattle guard over the Middle River and into the 550 acres of Polyface farm in Swoope, Va., is to enter a peaceable kingdom, out of time and up-to-date. The oldest wing of the snug white clapboard farmhouse up ahead was built in 1750, and Polyface is just a newfangled name for an idea so old-fashioned as to be revolutionary. In fact, the man who owns and runs this farm may well be Virginia's most multifaceted agrarian since Thomas Jefferson. The big sign above his thrumming computer and cluttered desk reads, "Joel Salatin: Lunatic Farmer," but he is crazy like a fox.
For 44 years on the western edge of the Shenandoah Valley, three generations of Salatins (of which he's the middle) have raised grass-fed livestock on rough and hilly land without recourse to an ounce of chemical fertilizer or a fistful of seed, in close touch with the soil, the seasons and themselves, using methods meant to mimic nature. The result is lush fields of unusual greenness -- even in the sodden melting snow of a late winter morning -- and pork, eggs and poultry of uncommon cleanliness and indescribably good taste.
Along the way, Salatin, a 47-year-old onetime newspaper reporter who calls himself a "Christian libertarian environmental capitalist," has become, in many ways, the high priest of the pasture. He is one of the natural-food movement's most prolific authors, having written numerous articles and five popular how-to books with titles like "Family Friendly Farming"; his latest is "Holy Cows and Hog Heaven: The Food Buyer's Guide to Farm Friendly Food" (Polyface, 2004). He has inspired scores of family farmers to adopt his techniques for raising beef, pork and poultry and attracted admiring visitors from around the world. His services as a motivational speaker and educator are in high demand wherever organic farmers and foodies gather to talk shop, from the University of California at Berkeley to the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, N.Y.
In his wide, webbed suspenders and used service-station shirt, Salatin is part Louis Bromfield and part John the Baptist. And like Bromfield, the mid-20th-century novelist and farmer who was bold enough to doubt "that the impulse of our time toward regimentation, centralization, mechanization and industrialism necessarily represented progress," he is a rebel -- and an evangelist -- at heart. He is also a red-blooded, robust rebuttal to the notion that the sustainable-food movement is a preoccupation of a pampered and unrealistic elite. Nothing could be further from his business philosophy or personal life. With his wife, Teresa, 47; their children, Daniel, 23, and Rachel, 18; daughter-in-law, Sheri, 25; baby grandson, Travis; and Joel's 81-year-old mother, Lucille, Salatin inhabits an ecosystem straight out of Ecclesiastes: there is a season and a time to every purpose. Nothing is wasted. Everything matters, and everyone works, including the four trusty barn cats, diligent mousers all. The farm is pretty, but not precious, and Salatin has mud on his boots and dirt on his hands, "the happiest of men," as Bromfield wrote, "for he inhabits a world that is full of wonder and excitement over which he rules as a small god."
Salatin's own description of his mission is at once humble and grand. "We don't aspire to an empire," he said over a lunch of Teresa's hearty soup (made from their frozen beef chuck) in their knotty-pine kitchen, where a log the size of a small child was ablaze in the big fireplace. "What we aspire to is to have the best food available." And by all evidence, they are succeeding. Their approach is deceptively simple, relying on age-old precepts of organic agriculture, up-to-the-minute technology and, most of all, Salatin's ingenuity. He eschews the government's seal of approval, because he distrusts the bureaucracy and disdains the large-scale officially "organic"
farms that he said have "compromised the movement's values" in favor of mass production. He describes his methods as "beyond organic" and has pioneered techniques that admiring colleagues and competitors describe as above reproach.
"He's not following anybody's blueprint," said Jo Robinson, an expert on the advantages of raising grass-fed livestock, the principal writer for eatwild.com and the author of "Pasture Perfect: The Far-Reaching Benefits of Choosing Meat, Eggs and Dairy Products From Grass-Fed Animals" (Vashon Island Press, 2004). "He's not going back to the old model. There's nothing in county extension or old-fashioned ag science that really informs him. He is just looking totally afresh at how to maximize production in an integrated system on a holistic farm. He's just totally innovative."
Salatin's secret is the grass, and it is in the pasture that everything begins and ends. He believes that every square yard of sward should contain at least 40 varieties of plants, and he calls his fields a "salad bar," a riot of fescues and clovers and earthworms churning the soil. Cattle graze freely on a patch of this super-rich pasture, held in by an electrified wire. Every day or so, they are moved to a new patch, and a succession of chickens (or turkeys, in season) are moved into the plot that the cows just left. Both laying chickens and broilers -- raised for their meat -- have portable shelters for shade and are protected from predators by portable webbed polyethylene fencing interlaced with electrified wire. Buried, pond-fed plastic pipes channel pressurized water, virtually anywhere, on demand. The chickens dig through fresh cowpatties for nutritious grubs and worms, and then scratch the manure into the dirt, aerating the soil and creating compost, so the cycle of growth can begin all over again.
In winter, the approach is, if anything, even more ingenious. Cattle are sheltered in open-sided barns -- with hand-hewn log poles and timbers milled from the Salatins' oak trees. They rest on a thick bed of straw and are fed hay in V-shaped troughs designed by Joel to be raised and lowered on ropes and pulleys. Every couple of days, fresh straw is tossed onto the barn floor, where the cattle each deposit an average of 50 pounds of manure and urine a day, and the feed troughs are raised to keep pace with the rising straw on the floor. As the pile gets higher, sawdust, wood chips and whole shelled corn are mixed in. The result is a sweetly decomposing heap that gives off heat to keep the cattle warm and no odor worse than the pleasant dampness of a breast-fed baby's diaper. Then the cows are turned out, and the pigs (which in summer forage freely on the pasture's wooded hillsides and are moved around with more electric fencing) come in, rooting around through the layers of straw for the nuggets of fermenting corn. Voilà: more aerated compost to be spread over the pasture when spring comes. Joel calls these living machines his "pig-aerators" and proudly notes that, unlike most farm equipment, which depreciates, rusts and costs money to repair or replace, they actually appreciate, get fatter and bring a fine price at slaughter, while doing work for which only their own internal-combustion engine is needed.
All over the farm, some version or another of this system prevails. When Daniel Salatin was 8, he decided he wanted to raise rabbits. He got a book and went to work, while Joel devised a plan for waist-high cages, suspended over the dirt floor of the airy, sunlit, Quonset-style structures where the egg-laying chickens are raised in winter. The rabbit droppings, notoriously high in noxious ammonia, fall onto the straw, where hundred of chickens pick through them and scratch them into -- what else? -- harmless compost. There is a cacophony of clucking and scratching and pecking, but only the soft scent of feathers and fur. "You don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water," Salatin said simply. "There's a big difference between industrializing production of tractors and industrializing production of food. We like technology, but we really like technology that allows us to do better what nature does itself."
That philosophy has made Salatin "sort of the high prophet of sustainable family farming," said Fred Walters, the editor of AcresUSA, the nation's oldest monthly magazine on sustainable agriculture, who has often published Salatin's articles. "I like that he aims for low-tech, simple systems. While conventional agriculture is trying to make agriculture a factory or a physical system, in the end it's a biological system: there's life involved. Joel recognizes the life behind the system. And in doing so, he's created a model that can save the family farm, where people don't have to have thousands of acres and millions of dollars of debt."
If anyone knows how hard it is to make a go of family farming, it's Salatin. His grandfather, an avid backyard gardener and beekeeper in Indiana, was an early devotee of J.I. Rodale, the founder of regenerative organic gardening. In 1961, Salatin's parents bought the land that would become Polyface after losing a farm they had started in Venezuela to political turmoil there. They began raising cattle using organic methods, but decided that, at least until the mortgage was paid off, they could not make a living on the farm, so Joel's father worked as an accountant for other farmers while his mother taught high school physical education.
In high school, Joel began his own business raising chickens. He and Teresa, who grew up on a nearby farm, were sweethearts and went off to Bob Jones University, the fundamentalist Christian school in South Carolina, where she majored in home economics and he in English. They married in 1980, but Joel said: "I didn't really see a way to make a living on the farm. I always loved writing. I was the guy who won the D.A.R. essay contest and things like that, and it was the era of Watergate, and I decided I would be the next Woodward and Bernstein, and then retire to the farm."
So he took a job in Staunton, eight miles from home, at The News Leader ("The Daily Misprint," he calls it now), and Teresa worked in a fabric store. But he grew tired of having his stories spiked when they offended the local powers that be and decided to try farming full time. Joel and Teresa lived in an apartment in the attic of his parents' farmhouse on $300 a month. They had a $50 car and produced their own meat, milk and butter on the farm. Teresa canned applesauce and made bread. They bought their clothes in thrift stores and spent perhaps $50 a week on groceries, mostly for things like shampoo and detergent. "I always said if I could figure out a way to grow Kleenex and toilet paper on trees, we could pull the plug on society," Joel said. When the children came, Teresa schooled them at home, at small desks in the upstairs hallway, and Joel's parents moved into a mobile home a few yards away, where his widowed mother still lives. At 19, Daniel became the president of the state chapter of 4-H, and last year he built his own house, with lumber from the farm and some help from neighbors, on the hillside above his parents' home. Rachel is now at the local community college, interested in culinary training and interior design.
Year by year, as Joel improvised his novel techniques and Teresa kept the books, the farm began to prosper. Now it harvests 30,000 dozen eggs, 10,000 to 12,000 broilers, 100 head of cattle, 250 hogs, 800 turkeys and 600 rabbits a year -- as well as a smattering of blackberries, grapes, vegetables and tree fruit mostly for home use. For some years, it has been classified as a commercial farm under the United States Agriculture Department's definition, meaning its gross annual sales exceed $250,000 (Polyface grosses $350,000). The average net income for such farms nationwide is $156,324, and Salatin said Polyface's runs about that, which he said is proof positive that sustainable farming is not some rarefied niche business serving elite consumers but a viable way to keep family farms together while producing healthy food in harmony with the environment.
Patrick Martins, the president and a co-founder of Heritage Foods USA, an online market clearinghouse for heirloom and artisanal foods, said Salatin has succeeded in part because he is unusually articulate but mostly because he can back up his compelling talk with simple methods, low overhead and equipment costs and indisputable results: "He is a real beacon for farmers all over the place, and yet it comes from how successful he is on the most local of levels."
Organic farming accounts for less than 1 percent of the country's agricultural output, or $393 million in sales of the total $207 billion in 2002, the last year for which comparative data is available. Of 2.1 million farmers, just 12,000 were making certified organic products. But Keith J. Collins, the Agriculture Department's longtime chief economist, said the sector is growing fast. "A lot of people doing what this guy's doing are doing something that adds value in terms of what some consumers want," he said. "Maybe it's quality in taste, maybe it's quality in the way it's produced. How much bigger can this become in American agriculture? I don't really know the answer. I think there's certainly a lot of scope for it to grow."
The Salatins work hard to keep prices more like a supermarket's than a specialty store's by cutting out middlemen wherever possible and eliminating anything that smacks of fancy packaging. Many customers buy directly from the no-frills on-farm sales office, where a giant walk-in freezer holds the inventory. A perfect six-pound chicken; a dozen bright-orange-yolked eggs; a 2.5 pound bone-in pork roast; a pound of sweet Italian sausage; a pound of chicken livers; and two New York strips all cost just under $50 on my recent visit. Restaurant accounts are served by a wholesaler, and every six to eight weeks, a Salatin delivery van takes food to seven "buying clubs" in Virginia and Maryland, where neighbors come with coolers to pick up their custom orders. The Salatins ship nothing by mail, both because it would be too complicated and because they want customers elsewhere to patronize their local farmers.
Elaine Lindholm, the communications director for the Virginia Agriculture Department, with which Salatin has tangled repeatedly, seemed to go out of her way to avoid provoking him, saying, "He provides a very valuable service." But she added: "His is a specialty-niche market. Not everyone could do it. Not everyone would want to do it."
The Salatins see such talk as defeatist. But they concede that many of their own neighbors share that view, though they make no better or steadier income. "They think we're nuts but try to get along with us," Teresa said.
Salatin himself makes no secret of his feelings about the agribusiness bureaucracy: he hates it. A favorite line is, "Everything I want to do is illegal," and he will readily regale a visitor with tales of his travails in keeping the right to process his own chickens in an immaculate, open-air backyard operation (Virginia argued that it was "inherently unsanitary" because it didn't have walls). He bemoans the fact that federal meat-processing regulations force him to send his cattle and hogs to commercial locker-plants and thus surrender control over the final stage of a process throughout which he has tended them with such care. (He thinks the government should allow mobile abattoirs that could do on-farm slaughtering for small-scale operations.) At a time when homeland-security experts warn of the vulnerabilities of a food-supply system based on large-scale production, centralized processing and long-distance transportation, he complains that politicians of both parties call for only "more centralization."
"Not only is there not government support for what we do," he said, "there is a profound antagonism at every level for what we do."
Salatin is not easy to pigeonhole. He speaks with equal contempt of the early American settlers' disregard for Native American agriculture and modern "gene splicing, irradiation and all sorts of things we don't understand." He sprinkles his book with the wisdom of motivational gurus like Stephen Covey and Zig Ziglar and sensible child-rearing advice about the painful dangers of "fussy dads," who drive their children from their farms (and from their arms). He concedes that his views are too Christian for some liberals, too environmentalist for many conservatives, too libertarian for conformists. He greets his hogs with a tender "Hey, piggles," and confesses to an occasional pang when it comes time to kill an especially kindly old cow, but he speaks of the cycles of life in terms that any Eastern mystic might understand. Just as agriculture was the last occupation to enter the industrial age, Salatin believes it will be the last to leave it, and not without a fight. "I would love to sit down on Oprah Winfrey or Tim Russert, across from Don Tyson, and ask him whether it matters if a chicken can express her chickenness!" he exclaimed at one point.
Teresa interrupted with a dry "Of course not!" but Joel continued, undeterred. "Because as soon as you posit any moral constraints, then you have to be able to articulate them."
Salatin has no trouble articulating the Joelness of Joel. "I see myself today as Sitting Bull," he said, "trying to bring a voice of Easternism, holism, community-based thinking to a very Western culture. If we fail to appreciate the soul that Easternism gives us, then what we have is a disconnected, Greco-Roman, Western, egocentric, compartmentalized, reductionist, fragmented, linear thought process that counts on cleverness. Now, how's that for a mouthful?"


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Difference between revisions of "Eclipse DemoCamps Galileo 2009/Budapest"
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# Nándor Előd Fekete, [http://www.quarksolutions.hu Quark Solutions]
# Nándor Előd Fekete, [http://www.quarksolutions.hu Quark Solutions]
# Karoly Belovitz, CIB Bank ZRt
# Karoly Belovitz, CIB Bank ZRt
Revision as of 08:24, 13 May 2009
Portugal Cafe, 1065 Budapest, Nagymező u. 40. map
Date and Time
18 June 2009 19:00
Brandon Ulrich, B2 International
If you would like to present at the DemoCamp, please feel free to add your name and topic to the list. Depending on the number of people interested we may have to limit the number of presenters and time of each demo.
- Name, Topic
Who Is Attending
If you plan on attending please add your name and company to the list below. We'd like to see as many people show up as possible.
- Brandon Ulrich, B2 International
- Balázs Bánfai, B2 International
- Zsolt Török, B2 International
- Szabolcs Bárdy, B2 International
- Gergely Nagy, B2 International
- István Benedek, B2 International
- Bence Oláh, B2 International
- Leo Devai, B2 International
- Orsolya Bali, B2 International
- Auth Gábor, CIB Bank ZRt
- Akos Gabriel, I-Logic Ltd
- Balint Pato, ApPello Ltd
- Ferenc Boldog, Ustream
- Tamás Magyar, I-Logic Ltd
- István Székely, I-Logic Ltd
- Nándor Előd Fekete, Quark Solutions
- Karoly Belovitz, CIB Bank ZRt
- Viktor Tamás


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Amphenol ICC is a world leader providing interconnect solutions for the Information, Communications and Commercial electronics markets.
They design and manufacture a wide range of innovative connectors as well as cable assemblies for diverse applications including server, storage, data center, networking, industrial, business equipment and automotive. With their global presence in R&D, manufacturing and sales, they are well positioned to support customers wherever they operate.
PwrBlade ULTRA® connector have contact choices of High and Low Power and Signal. Made with ultra-high conductivity materials and a new highly conductive plating the combination produces an ultra-low resistance of just 0.4mΩ at end-of-life conditions. Making it the lowest profile power distribution connector capable of delivering more than 200A per linear inch.
Minitek® Pwr 5.7 is a comprehensive solution for power applications with high current ratings up to 23A per contact and wire gauge ranges from 16AWG-12AWG for wire-to-board applications. It features polarized mating geometry to prevent mismating and offers a wide operating temperature ranging from -40°C to 105°C making it suitable for a wide range of applications.
USB 3.1 Type C is the future of the USB technology providing multifunction single cable solution for data, power, audio and video. The reversible design enables quick and easy connections no matter which way it is inserted. It supports scalable power delivery up to 100W and performance speed up to 10Gb/s.
Rugged USB Type C Connectors have a die cast metal housing and are rated IP67 to protect against water and dust in various harsh environments. It has a compact design to save panel space, has an operating temperature range from -55⁰C to +105⁰C and mates with standard USB Type C plugs.
The VerIO™ Connector is a versatile, robust and compact I/O system featuring multiple standard connector interfaces such as RJ45, PoE (Power over Ethernet), Signal, Power and Hybrid. It is easy to install and operate with a swift push pull type movement. It is weather proof and is IP67 resistant making it ideal for industrial applications and harsh environments.
The Minitek MicroSpace™ Crimp-to-Wire connector enables LV214 Severity-2 and performs at 1.8, 1.5 and 1.27mm pitch. Rated up to 100 mating cycles on Gold/GXT® contacts with current ratings up to 4A per contact. It has a high connector locking strength of more than 75N and the LV214 Severity-2 compatibility makes this connector especially suitable for automotive applications.
Industry 4.0 is the fourth generation of the Industrial Revolution resulting in the "Smart Factories" of today.
While the third generation revolution was all about automation that saved human effort, time and resources, Gen 4.0 goes an extra step to "automate this automation".
Amphenol brings a broad array of innovative technology and solutions to support the growth in the automotive industry, particularly in plating, signal integrity performance, and power management. Amphenol has the global quality, disciplines, and commitment to meet the demands and requirements of all these new technologies.
Amphenol ICC offers a comprehensive breadth of products that are used in Intel Omni-Path hardware & Omni-Path based clusters. Amphenol has worked in conjunction with Intel in order to assure these products meet all applicable operational & performance requirements.
Rutronik Elektronische Bauelemente GmbH
Industriestrasse 2
D-75228 Ispringen
+49 (0)7231 801-0


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The 100,000-square-foot NSA data center being built in Bluffdale, Utah, is having trouble handling the power running through it -- enough to power a city of 20,000.
Since the Edward Snowden leaks, it's been made clear that the National Security Agency (NSA) is in the business of spying – it's just not clear exactly which and how much information is being collected. If the size of the NSA's newest 100,000-square-foot data center being built in Bluffdale, Utah, is any indication, the amount is a lot. The data center is one of the largest, if not the largest in the world, with an estimated data capacity of five zetabytes distributed throughout 5,000 servers, which is equivalent to the capacity of 62 billion iPhone 5s.
The NSA collects recordings of 3 billion phone calls each day according to some reports, and is collecting most emails, voicemail messages, and social media communications. And evidently, running a data center capable of storing that much information explodes sometimes. In the past 13 months, there have been reports of 10 electrical surges that have melted metal and blown out circuit boards and cooling components.
Groups of anti-NSA protestors routinely gather on the highway near the data center, picketing and keeping an eye on the data center. They are permitted to do so because they adopted the stretch of road adjacent to the data center through the state's adopt-a-highway program. With anti-NSA sentiment high and protestors milling around the facility, sabotage doesn't seem an unlikely explanation for the electrical explosions. But, it's probably just bad design, IT analyst Rob Enderle said.
With a project this size, especially a government project, Enderle said, it's to be expected that there will be major design faults, "probably because the project was underbid." The NSA's website puts the cost of the data center at $1.5 billion, but with overruns and its as-yet unfinished status, that could change. "The costs with that have to be legendary," Enderle said. "It's just massive and would clearly have major budget overruns, so the amount of scrutiny and pressure to keep the cost down on that would be significant."
The pressure on the NSA to keep the budget down is probably one of the main reasons electrical explosions persist, he said. In such a huge project, the chance for miscommunication between computer hardware people and power supply hardware people is high, combined with the fact that the work they're doing is unprecedented, he added. You can only find a design flaw on a data center this large after you build it, he said, because it's never been done before.
Enderle saw a similar thing happen while working for IBM when it operated one of the world's largest data centers in San Jose, Calif. "In that case, nobody modeled what happened to the water cooling system if we catastrophically lost power and we had a power surge that took out the major transformers, which shut down the power, and caused the water cooling system to shut down, and all the mains broke, and there we were in the biggest building east of the Mississippi, up to our knees in water. Everything was destroyed. It was a nightmare."
Everything in the IBM data center in San Jose was triple redundant, he said, so no one thought to consider the water mains. Similar unforeseen problems are probably occurring at the NSA, he said – it's just what happens with big government projects.
Some reports suggest that the NSA's data center operations are so secretive that the staff may build all their hardware themselves, to avoid leaks by vendors. Others say that the data center is kept pitch black for security purposes, as workers traverse the facility with lights on their helmets, like miners, a practice Google has also reportedly adopted in its data centers.
Exactly what secrecy safeguards the NSA is taking are unknown to him, Enderle said, but it wouldn't be unusual for federal government agencies to take such precautions, particularly when it comes to projects like those exposed by Snowden. Taking pictures is probably out of the question and there's also likely a very high level of monitoring for anyone inside, he said.
"I have a hard time believing they actually had people working with power in pitch blackness because that's a good way to get people electrocuted," he said. But with the high level of security and secrecy around NSA data centers, just about anything could happen inside and the public probably wouldn't find out, according to Enderle, adding that some things that happen during large government buildouts aren't always intelligent, either.
Enderle recalled his time working with NASA for the Saturn lunar rockets, and though many equate NASA with competence and success, many have written books giving their policies and internal politics mixed reviews. In one test process, Enderle said, NASA had three parts being tested and all three parts failed. And then NASA would install one of the failed parts with the expectation that the failsafe would pick up functionality when it failed. "Why would you ever install something that was tested and failed?" he asked, blaming the government policy that emanated from someone who was ordered to keep costs down.
The new NSA facility is expected to consume a continuous 65 megawatts of electricity, enough to power a small city of 20,000 residents.
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SEATTLE – Scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have uncovered a new mechanism by which influenza can infect cells – a finding that ultimately may have implications for immunity against the flu.
Photo by Bo Jungmayer
Influenza viruses have two main proteins on their surface that allow them to do their dirty work: a protein called hemagglutinin allows viruses to infect cells, while a protein called neuraminidase allows viruses to escape from cells.
Now in a paper published online ahead of the December print issue of the Journal of Virology, Jesse Bloom, Ph.D., an evolutionary biologist and assistant member of the Fred Hutch Basic Sciences Division, and Kathryn Hooper, a graduate research assistant in the Bloom Lab, describe the discovery of an influenza virus that instead uses neuraminidase to attach to cells.
The researchers discovered the new mechanism of infection after mutating the hemagglutinin of a lab-adapted strain of influenza so that it could no longer attach to cells.
"We expected that viruses with the mutated hemagglutinin wouldn't be able to infect cells," said Bloom, who also is a computational biologist and an assistant member of the Fred Hutch Public Health Sciences Division. "So we were surprised when a virus with this hemagglutinin started to grow. We were even more surprised when we sequenced the virus and discovered that it had evolved a mutation in neuraminidase."
Hooper began characterizing the new virus in detail. She discovered that the mutation allowed neuraminidase to attach the virus to cells. Hemagglutinin's ability to bind to cells – long considered one of the protein's most crucial and conserved properties – was no longer necessary for infection.
What does this finding mean for influenza in humans? That remains an open question, but Bloom and Hooper have already shown that the neuraminidase mutation they discovered is present in some human isolates of influenza.
"This was not a mutation we expected to find in the lab, let alone in viruses that have infected humans over the past few years," Hooper said. "It suggests there is influenza circulating in nature that may be infecting cells by a mechanism that has been overlooked by others in the field."
The researchers are now carefully characterizing human influenza isolates that have the mutation. They are also looking for other mutations that allow neuraminidase to attach viruses to cells.
They say there is a possibility that these types of mutations may have implications for immunity against influenza, since they might enable the virus to escape from antibodies that block the binding of hemagglutinin to cells.
Grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health funded the research, which also was supported by a National Research Service Award training grant.
# # #
At Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, home to three Nobel laureates, interdisciplinary teams of world-renowned scientists seek new and innovative ways to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer, HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening diseases. Fred Hutch's pioneering work in bone marrow transplantation led to the development of immunotherapy, which harnesses the power of the immune system to treat cancer with minimal side effects. An independent, nonprofit research institute based in Seattle, Fred Hutch houses the nation's first and largest cancer prevention research program, as well as the clinical coordinating center of the Women's Health Initiative and the international headquarters of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network. Private contributions are essential for enabling Fred Hutch scientists to explore novel research opportunities that lead to important medical breakthroughs. For more information visit www.fredhutch.org or follow Fred Hutch on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.
Kristen Woodward


text:
I was delighted to meet Bertie Stephens (Chief Flubitron) from group buying website Flubit during Tuesdays excellent Marketing Masterclass from Grow.
Their pitch is; For any product you want to buy online, tell Flubit, and we'll work our little socks off to get you some wonderful bespoke discounts… for free!
And they already have 17,000 fans on facebook so are off to a great 'pre-start'.
It was great to hear from Bertie how useful they have found the Business & IP Centre in developing their business and protecting their brand. I look forward to them joining the growing ranks of our Success Stories.
Having become disillusioned by Groupon, after too many 75% offers for the Ultimate Facial Using Microdermabrasion, I was happy to sign up to Flubit.
And this was the fun email I received in response:
The Flubitask Force to Manlius
To Balcombe's newest and most wonderful Flubitron,
Honourable Manlius Buggerflub
Welcome to our world.
Now you are officially a Flubitron (an exclusive club we must add), you are one step closer to being part of a new revolution in internet buying. Soon, whenever you want something, you'll be able to get it cheaper, just by using Flubit – how cool is that?! If you haven't already, why not follow us on Facebook or Twitter to keep up with what's new?
Over the next few months we'll be finishing off some bits and bobs, polishing the knobs and preparing to launch this Summer. Hurrah!
So what happens now?
In 2 – 3 weeks you'll receive your official Flubitron membership card (Flubicard – don't worry you'll get used to the terms). With this card you'll have access to a whole range of offline and online benefits. We'll let you know more about this with our introductory letter, or you can have a read here:
OK, so now we're going to go and tell our Flubitask Force to start making your membership card, and we'll be in touch in a week or so to let you know how they're getting on!
Speak soon Honourable Manlius,
Bertie & Dan
Chief & Head of Internal Imagination


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The unranked and under .500 TCU Horned Frogs never trailed in the game and handed the fifth-ranked Kansas Jayhawks their second consecutive loss of the season. Kansas only managed 55 points, its lowest point total in almost six years.
The Jayhawks (19-3, 7-2 Big 12), coming off a loss four days earlier against Oklahoma State, have their first losing streak in more than seven years. They had played 264 straight games since January 2006 without consecutive losses, the longest active streak in NCAA Division I
Kansas did not score a point in the game until the seven minute mark. TCU got its first Big 12 victory since moving from the Mountain West and is now 1-8 in the conference.
Update 12:13 a.m.: Bill Self has a theory as to why Kansas has struggled of late:
No. 5 Kansas loses second straight game in TCU's shocker [ESPN]