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Three orange engines sit in a building on the sprawling grounds of the Back River wastewater treatment plant, producing a steady din. And about 20 percent of the electricity the facility needs.
"It's basically a mini power plant," said Ted Atwood, director of the Baltimore City Energy Office.
This is "microgeneration" — operations that look nothing like the sprawling complexes that most of the country relies on for light, heat and air conditioning. Making electricity on site isn't new, but advocates say interest is growing among significant energy users, driven by cheaper prices for natural gas to fuel systems and reliability worries in the aftermath of extreme weather.
The goal: keep electricity flowing even when nearby power lines go down — and save money to boot.
Baltimore's city government, which runs the Back River facility, plans to expand capacity there and build power-generation systems at other sites.
"We're moving forward aggressively," Atwood said. "I'm looking at one building where the energy costs are about $800,000 a year, and after we put this facility in, we will save about a quarter of a million dollars per year."
What Baltimore wants to build are "combined heat and power" systems, more efficient than conventional power plants because their owners can use both the electricity and heat they produce. The heat can be used to heat water or produce steam, which can in turn be used to power absorption chillers that help cool the air.
President Barack Obama called last August for a 50 percent increase in combined-heat-and-power capacity by 2020, directing federal agencies to assist in the effort.
"Meeting this goal would save energy users $10 billion per year, result in … in new capital investment in manufacturing and other facilities that would create American jobs, and would reduce emissions equivalent to 25 million cars," the White House said at the time.
Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. and two other Maryland utilities now offer incentives for building combined heat and power systems, part of an effort to meet state goals for reducing energy use. BGE, which launched its program last summer, said about a dozen projects have applied for the program in its territory.
In the Baltimore region, five were built in the past 10 years, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
The new applicants include hospitals, industrial users and local government — Baltimore's planned projects are in the mix.
"Customers can save energy, not through behavior or conservation but through using high-efficiency equipment," said Bill Wolf, manager of energy-efficiency programs for BGE.
Because they're already on site, combined heat and power systems don't have to rely on overhead power lines to deliver what they produce. They can be engineered to disconnect from the larger electrical grid when disruptions hit and keep going.
That makes the systems more cost-effective than generators meant only for emergencies, Wolf said.
"If you're going to put out money for a backup generator, you could put a little bit more in and get a CHP unit," he said.
Upfront costs vary by system size and requirements but can run $2 million to $3 million for a 1-megawatt system, Wolf said. The incentives offered by BGE are designed to offset 30 percent or more of the installation costs.
Wolf said the proposed systems range from 75 kilowatts — enough power for a building the size of a small elementary school — to 2.5 megawatts, the equivalent of 33 of those schools.
Even 2.5 megawatts is small scale for a power plant, though. The nuclear reactors at Calvert Cliffs in Southern Maryland produce more than 1,700 megawatts of electricity.
Though the BGE incentives aren't for homeowners, companies do sell combined heat and power systems meant for individual houses, which really puts the micro in microgeneration. Still, experts warn that big and small users of electricity alike aren't necessarily good candidates for the systems because they need to have a continual use for the heat, too.
Thomas Edison's Pearl Street power station in New York was a 19th-century version of combined heat and power, using the "waste" heat given off in the making of electricity to warm nearby buildings. And some of the systems in Maryland go back more than half a century.
Despite that long history, there aren't many in the state — fewer than 25, the Energy Department said. Users range from military bases to the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Now their number seems poised to expand. Veolia Energy, which operates energy networks in Baltimore and across the world that supply heating and cooling to customers, is just one of the companies thinking of adding combined heat and power systems in the city. The company said it already is one of the largest operators of such systems worldwide.
"Combined heat and power is a proven technology," said John Gibson, vice president of Veolia Energy North America's South region. "It's been around for a long, long time."
Rob Thornton, president and CEO of the International District Energy Association, expects growth in all sorts of "microgrids" that allow users to operate independently from utilities when necessary.
"What I think is driving this notion of microgrid has been just the frequency and severity of grid interruptions," said Thornton, pointing to last year's derecho and superstorm Sandy as recent examples.
Connecticut launched a microgrid pilot project last year, an idea born of widespread power outages the year before. It's a shift from the long-standing assumption that bigger — and farther away — is better when it comes to power generation.
Cost alone drives some of the interest. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in an interview earlier this year that she wants to push energy expenses down so that money can be spent on other priorities.
"I get excited when we talk about ways we can generate more energy ourselves," she said.
The city's nearly 5-year-old combined heat and power system at Back River, on Eastern Avenue in Baltimore County, runs on biogas created by the waste digesters on site. That means lower greenhouse gas emissions but also less power generation than the engines could otherwise produce — often 2 megawatts rather than 3 — because the amount of available biogas varies.
It's cost-effective even so, said Atwood of the city energy office. But he's planning to bring the system up to at least 4 megawatts — 40 percent of the facility's average usage — and supplement it with natural gas. He already knows what they'll use the extra heat for.
"There's a big tank of sludge that needs to be heated up before it goes into the digester," Atwood said.
The city is seeking BGE incentives for that project and for other wastewater and water treatment facilities and city buildings. Atwood said microgeneration has interested him for a while, but he got serious about it after the lower cost of natural gas made such projects more cost- effective.
The trio of engines that constitute the city's system at Back River are each about 6 feet wide and 22 feet long, not counting the bevy of pipes snaking out. Atwood is excited about the potential for more power plants this size in a country long accustomed to thinking big.
"Now it's like thinking small," he said.


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Even more rumors are surfacing regarding an LG Optimus Nexus phone, making the possibility of the device more and more credible every day. The latest rumors even give detailed specs for it. Here's a breakdown:
- The device is based on the Optimus G but doesnt look the same
- Updated Android release (currently 4.2)
- Quad Core Snapdragon S4 processor
- 1280×768 True-HD IPS screen
- On screen soft keys (of course)
- 8 Megapixel Camera
- No microSD slot
- 8GB and 16GB versions only (at least initially)
- Non-removable battery
- Wireless charging built in
- The retail name of the device is yet to be decided.
What is strange about this list is that the device will only have up to 16GB of storage and no microSD slot. Still, for most users this may not be that much of an issue. Apparently, this rumor also comes with the caveat that the phone will not look very much like the LG Optimus G that we have seen pics of already. Regardless, this seems like a pretty beastly phone. As always, we will keep you apprised with more details.
Source: Modaco

subset: commoncrawl


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It certainly has been a strange year, both in the Church at large and with your local blogger. The following items may or may not be in any order, chronological or otherwise:
1. The rule of law in this country has been dying from a thousand cuts for quite a while now, and I don't wish to analyze just which cut was first. But I can certainly tell you which one was last: the decision of the Supreme Court, authored by Catholic Chief Justice John Roberts, to pretend that Obamacare was permitted under the Constitution. Excrement on paper would have been more defensible. There is no longer a Constitution, if there was one. There is no more rule of law. There is only one political party-- the government party. Its judicial appointees serve to provide a veneer of legality to government whim. There is only tyranny, enforced by ever more intrusive technology.
2. It has been a strange year on the blog front, too. The gains of traditional Catholicism within the universal Church go on, but on a very definitely less spectacular scale than from 2005-2008. Though the news of the universal Church is covered on many Catholic blogs, some of them quite good, the news of the Church in Saint Louis is covered by few. Frankly, there hasn't been much, and what news there has been has typically been bad. Thus my own writing has been streaky-- sometimes I feel the old creativity, and sometimes I can barely look at it (yes, dear reader, I know, you feel the same way). One of the things I have liked about this site is that it is a mix of original writing, devotional material, humor, news and expanded Church bulletin stuff. Plus the writer has impeccable taste in music and movies. That being said, I am tired of the cut and paste news stuff, and in the New Year I hope to write more original posts, even if it means posting somewhat less. If I can't, here is the first warning shot that the blog may go away.
3. I have been ruminating quite a bit over the arbitrariness of life, and the many natural attachments that Our Lord strips from us in order to find that our true happiness lies only in Him. It seems like I am entering the proverbial desert.
In more conventional detachment news, many friends my wife and I have come to know through the Church have left town in the past year, or will in the new year. Some are particularly hard to take. It is unusual to find a friend with whom one has so much in common, and yet whose differences are such that make the common experiences of friendship so enjoyable. The desert beckons. Spiritual directors, friends, priests, prelates, and family all can lead us to Him, but they are not Him. May God's will always be done, and may I be given the grace not only to endure it, but to lovingly accept it and will it myself.
4. Finally, the Christmas season has again led me to reflect with gratitude to God that the Church really is the Body of Christ, and the Church visible on earth is where we encounter our foretaste of heaven. Comparing gatherings with our friends and family in the Church with our more secular gatherings this season drives the point home clearly, at which the rest of the year only hints.
May God bless you abundantly in the coming year.
Christus nobis natus est! Venite adoremus!
|TE DEUM laudamus: te Dominum confitemur.
|O GOD, we praise Thee: we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.
|Te aeternum Patrem omnis terra veneratur.
|Everlasting Father, all the earth doth worship Thee.
|Tibi omnes Angeli; tibi Caeli et universae Potestates;
|To Thee all the Angels, the Heavens and all the Powers,
|Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim incessabili voce proclamant:
|all the Cherubim and Seraphim, unceasingly proclaim:
|Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth.
|Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts!
|Pleni sunt caeli et terra maiestatis gloriae tuae.
|Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of Thy glory.
|Te gloriosus Apostolorum chorus,
|The glorious choir of the Apostles,
|Te Prophetarum laudabilis numerus,
|the wonderful company of Prophets,
|Te Martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus.
|the white-robed army of Martyrs, praise Thee.
|Te per orbem terrarum sancta confitetur Ecclesia,
|Holy Church throughout the world doth acknowledge Thee:
|Patrem immensae maiestatis:
|the Father of infinite Majesty;
|Venerandum tuum verum et unicum Filium;
|Thy adorable, true and only Son;
|Sanctum quoque Paraclitum Spiritum.
|and the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.
|Tu Rex gloriae, Christe.
|O Christ, Thou art the King of glory!
|Tu Patris sempiternus es Filius.
|Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.
|Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem, non horruisti Virginis uterum.
|Thou, having taken it upon Thyself to deliver man, didst not disdain the Virgin's womb.
|Tu, devicto mortis aculeo, aperuisti credentibus regna caelorum.
|Thou overcame the sting of death and hast opened to believers the Kingdom of Heaven.
|Tu ad dexteram Dei sedes, in gloria Patris.
|Thou sitest at the right hand of God, in the glory of the Father.
|Iudex crederis esse venturus.
|We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge.
|Te ergo quaesumus, tuis famulis subveni: quos pretioso sanguine redemisti.
|We beseech Thee, therefore, to help Thy servants whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy Precious Blood.
|Aeterna fac cum sanctis tuis in gloria numerari.
|Make them to be numbered with Thy Saints in everlasting glory.
|V. Salvum fac populum tuum, Domine, et benedic hereditati tuae.
|V. Save Thy people, O Lord, and bless Thine inheritance!
|R. Et rege eos, et extolle illos usque in aeternum.
|R. Govern them, and raise them up forever.
|V. Per singulos dies benedicimus te.
|V. Every day we thank Thee.
|R. Et laudamus nomen tuum in saeculum, et in saeculum saeculi.
|R. And we praise Thy Name forever, yea, forever and ever.
|V. Dignare, Domine, die isto sine peccato nos custodire.
|V. O Lord, deign to keep us from sin this day.
|R. Miserere nostri, Domine, miserere nostri.
|R. Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us.
|V. Fiat misericordia tua, Domine, super nos, quemadmodum speravimus in te.
|V. Let Thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, for we have hoped in Thee.
|R. In te, Domine, speravi: non confundar in aeternum.
|R. O Lord, in Thee I have hoped; let me never be put to shame.


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Andrew Thomas and Toby Gleason are two men who can't be pinned down. "Don't consider us filmmakers," Thomas advises. "Consider us cultural anthropologists."
Thomas, an Emmy award&–winning documentary maker, collaborated with Gleason, a KRCB jazz DJ, voice actor and son of Rolling Stone cofounder Ralph J. Gleason, to create a filmic tribute to Bay Area jazz luminary Vince Guaraldi. Haven't heard of him? Think again. The jazz world lauds Guaraldi for his performances with Woody Herman's band and Bola Sete, as a member of the resident trio at the hungry i nightclub and a regular performer at Sausalito's Trident Lounge, but everyone else knows him as the "Peanuts" composer.
"I think that to the generation of 'Peanuts' fans, he's almost the world's best-known jazz musician whose name you don't know," Gleason says.
Gleason and Thomas present their documentary about the artist, The Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi, to North Bay audiences at the Sausalito Film Festival Aug. 14.
Guaraldi's propensity for pop/jazz crossover sealed his legacy as one of the only jazz musicians ever to break into pop radio's Top 40. He bridged the gap in 1963 with his hit single "Cast Your Fate to the Wind." But Gleason knows him first and foremost as a family friend. "[Vince] and my father were very close during the late '50s up to about the mid- to late '60s," Gleason remembers. "In my formative years, he was around a lot. I liked him. He was fun. He gave me yo-yo lessons. He took me for a ride in his black Porsche that he got from his first royalty check from 'Cast Your Fate to the Wind.' I always felt a special fondness for Vince."
Gleason's affection for the friendly man with the thick black mustache and thick black glasses went beyond his general affability. "One of the reasons I liked him more than I liked a lot of other jazz musicians is that he was very good with kids, and he was small for an adult, so he was a lot closer to our physical size," he laughs. Gleason estimates Guaraldi's height at around 5-foot-4, give or take a few inches. Perhaps his short stature and easy rapport with youngsters contributed to his talent with cartoon scores.
"Vince had an innocence and childlikeness within him and an ability to compose jazz music that was as much for children as it was for adults," Gleason says. "Not a lot of artists can have that light, that innocent, that joyous of a touch."
Video footage of Guaraldi was hard to come by. Fortunately, Ralph J. Gleason's friendship with Guaraldi elicited hours of exclusive performances and interviews of a man known for not leaving much of a visual record of his life. "My father filmed him more than probably anybody else in the world," Gleason says. Some of this footage comes from Ralph's Jazz Casual, a television series in which he gave oft-shortchanged jazz musicians extended airtime. Guaraldi appeared as a guest on the show twice.
Still more filmic record of Guaraldi comes from a 1963 documentary Gleason made with his friend entitled Anatomy of a Hit in reference to Guaraldi's breakout success, "Cast Your Fate to the Wind." Since Gleason and Thomas estimate that they drew about half of their new movie from this past doc, they titled their work The Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi as a nod to Ralph's work.
Although Jazz Casual is currently out of print, Gleason released it through Rhino Records in the 1990s. That's where he met Thomas, then a Rhino employee, who helped him package the video release.
Gleason originally conceived of the project as a rerelease of 1963's Anatomy of a Hit. Thomas suggested going even further. The new film could extend Guaraldi's story beyond 1963 and thus delve into the part of his career that had not yet occurred at the time of Ralph's film, heightening its relevance to the modern audience.
But even with the world's largest trove of Guaraldi footage at their fingertips, Gleason and Thomas did not have nearly enough materially or philosophically to carry the film on the old video alone.
They sought out other jazz musicians that Guaraldi had known, as well as other prominent members of the North Beach scene.
"If you're going to say 'What's it like to be a jazz musician in North Beach in the '60s?' you have to rely on what is the ethos of the people who were living and performing there," Thomas explains. "When you start a project like this and you're really talking about the existential essence of somebody, you really need to come at it from a more ethereal place. Who Vince really was has to be examined in a more existential vein." Most of the people interviewed were Gleason's longtime friends; he describes the filming process as "old home week."
Thomas used a stabilizing device called a fig rig for his camera when taping interviews. The fig rig looks like a steering wheel with a horizontal bar cutting across the bottom quarter on which the filmmaker rests his small camera. This casual setup allowed Thomas to converse with his subjects comfortably.
"Each conversation would be three or four hours," Thomas says. "We'd talk about all sorts of things, not just Vince. After a while, they'd forget that there's a camera, because it's just me sitting in a room with this thing on my lap. We got recollections that nobody else would ever get. Dave Brubeck doesn't perform 'Take Five' on our film; he sings it. That's different. There's no other place where you'll find Dick Gregory whispering, 'I finally had to get away from Lenny Bruce because the trial fucked up his head so badly.'"
Gleason and Thomas' immense enthusiasm was unfortunately not matched by an ample budget. "We started [filming] on the day Obama was elected president," Thomas says, marking his past with a reference to progressive politics, a subject that he consistently and easily slips into conversation. "I had to take off for a month and a half in March because we had no money," he continues. "We did this all with pocket change and what we could find in the cushions of the couch. There was no funding for this at all."
Thomas, who has worked extensively with Disney, A&E, Discovery and Fox, avoided seeking corporate sponsorship on purpose. "I discovered that when corporate media is paying the tab, they have, legitimately, the right to tailor the content of the piece to their own sensibilities," he says. "There was no way corporate America was going to allow us to talk to jazz musicians about the necessity of smoking pot or to have an aging gay priest talk about Hiroshima." Thomas laughs. "There are some rather pointed and angry statements in the film."
Artistic freedom came at a price. "I'd [take the money I had] and I'd fly to New York, rent a car, sleep in the car, drive from place to place, sleep in the airports," Thomas confesses. "Eventually, I actually lost my house. I was living up in Sonoma. At a certain point, you say, 'Roll the dice.'"
Yet Thomas' unwavering devotion to the importance of pure art has never been clearer. "If you're going to have credibility as an artist, and if you're going to have the kind of independence that you think the subject deserves, you have to be willing to make some sacrifices," he says. "To be honest, the way the world is now, if the sacrifice is economic, that's a small price to pay."
As economically tough as the project was, Gleason and Thomas' art karma has rewarded them in full. "Everything we did was serendipity," Thomas says. "Why would the people who were in the film be available at the only time we could do it? We were dirt poor, but the one time I happened to be driving through northern Pennsylvania, Dave Brubeck was there. The one time that Toby and I happened to be doing a thing in Oakland, Jerry Granelli came to visit his daughter in San Francisco for the first time in 30 years."
Thomas notices a confluence of happy accidents surrounding both his and Gleason's experiences with Guaraldi. "The film is actually about serendipity," Thomas says. "Nothing happened in [Guaraldi's] life that wasn't the product of serendipity. He happened to be in the right place at the right time for every goddamned thing that happened to him. I think that that's reason for celebration. It says that the cosmos works."
Thomas hopes that Guaraldi's knack for lucky happenstance will inspire audiences. "To me, without being either maudlin or a Pollyanna, our theme of serendipity is probably the most hopeful idea that we can give the public today. It says that things can work out thanks to just the general clockwork of the universe. If you just hold on, it will come together. That's what it's about."
The Sausalito Film Festival runs Aug. 13&–Aug. 15. 'The Anatomy of Vince Guaraldi' makes its Bay Area debut on Saturday, Aug. 14. The Rev. Malcolm Boyd performs after the film. Cavallo Point, 601 Murray Circle, Fort Baker, Sausalito. 7pm. $25. 415.887.9506.


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A 13-floor retro-look new-build in bustling Microcentro. Barcelona's Contemporain Studio maximized interiors with nautical space-saving techniques—steel-trimmed modular furniture, myriad mirrors, trompe l'oeils of latticed woods and backlit louvers—and acres of virginal-white paint offset by bold aquamarine and black. Pinstripe acoustic wallpaper and double-glazed windows keep Microcentro's commotion at bay.
A 13-story design hotel with an opaque-glass exterior on a jacaranda-lined block in swanky Recoleta. Winegrower César Catena's 30-room newcomer occupies some of the country's priciest real estate, a few blocks from Evita Perón's final resting place. All rooms have balconies that overlook august apartments owned by Argentina's most patrician families.
Thirty-four suites in a converted university dormitory off the Ringstrasse in the newly cool Seventh District, with a funky terrace plunked on the rooftop. Read More
Six tented suites on the edge of a lagoon in a 450,000-acre private game reserve. A contemporary interpretation of the classic safari aesthetic, seamlessly integrated into the natural environment. Each suite is individually decorated in calming colors that mirror the sun-bleached landscape.
Seventy rooms in a tranquil, leafy, sprawling property minutes from Sisowath Quay, the Royal Palace, and the National Museum. Read More
The hotel draws weekday suits, younger couples on spa retreats, and weekenders from neighboring cities in for a game (Toronto's three major league teams play within punting distance) or a show (the theater district is a block away). On weekends, the crowd kicks up a fun ruckus at TOCA, a steak-focused locavore restaurant and bar, but the less-trafficked cocktail bar Deq is a better bet; its patio features a fire pit in summer, and the cozy fireplace nook is the nicest spot in the hotel.
A historic downtown hotel with 156 rooms and suites and a prime location—across the street from the Vancouver Art Gallery, one block from the famous shops of Robson Street, and within walking distance of Stanley Park. Georgian Revival elegance with a Papa Hemingway feel—lots of burnished wood paneling, clean lines, and an extensive modern and contemporary Canadian art collection.
Fourteen sleek cottages on a 140-acre plantation that's been harvesting cocoa since the 1700s. The estate is owned by Hotel Chocolat, the U.K. confectioner, and the buildings' dark-wood floors and whitewashed walls are reminiscent of the brand's elegant stores. Instead of colorful Caribbean kitsch there's an understated luxury with a hint of sex appeal.
A revamped late-1960s resort with 22 cottages on a 115-acre private island in the Grenadines, 20 minutes by boat from Union Island. Robinson Crusoe with deep pockets—local stone (called bluebitch...go figure) and wood, an open-air beach bar with a thatched roof, and a view over the reef that's so breathtaking it could be a screen saver.
A 57-room hotel fashioned from a 1915 cold-storage plant near Puerto Natales, gateway to Torres del Paine National Park. Estancias once shipped their sheep to the frigorífico, where hundreds of workers prepared the meat, wool, and hide for export to Europe. Governed by strict conservation rules, Chilean architect Pedro Kovacic left the brickwork and still-functioning machinery intact and installed a funicular that rises soundlessly from the hotel's entrance—the old tannery and herding pens—to the reception area, a glass cube suspended above century-old pulleys, pumps, and pipes. Ample guest rooms are decorated with Edwardian-style good taste (mahogany writing desks, brass side lamps), and a glass wall overlooks the wind-whipped shore of Last Hope Sound.
A luxe mountain lodge with 24 suites, situated where three valleys meet in the Chilean Cordillera, less than three hours from Santiago and near the Argentine border. A sleek wooden structure, from Chile's NOI chain, with pine walls and hardwood floors. Volcanic stone, found wood, and handwoven blankets and rugs decorate the minimalist space; floor-to-ceiling windows face a spectacular tri-valley vista. Nooks and terraces of all sizes provide the setting for a bar, lounge, library, open fireplace, and game room.
A renovated 1927 mansion with 14 rooms in Santiago's vibrant Lastarria neighborhood. Read More
A 312-room hotel in a glass-and-chrome tower above a luxury mall in Kowloon, a half-hour from the airport. The building looms over the landscape like the lair of one of Batman's villains and wouldn't look out of place in Dubai. Inside, everything that stood still has been plated with marble or travertine (including the elevator handrails). The 1980s power-decorating effect isn't necessarily tacky, just very corporate, with lots of black glass, taupe silks, dark woods, and chrome.
Courtesy Naked Stables
A 401-room beach resort in South China with five restaurants and views of the landscaped grounds, the pool, and Yalong Bay. St. Regis–brand luxury in a beachside setting.
A super-chic 28-story hotel with 307 rooms, across the street from the Xintiandi shopping and eating hub. Spare and mod, with a few special touches such as the curved, woody hallways decorated with commissioned art illustrating such Chinese sayings as "a crane standing among the chickens"—that is, a person who stands out from the crowd.
A 401-room high-style hotel across from the international exhibition center in Pudong. Read More
A 31-story, 574-room luxury business hotel in the center of Pudong's frenetic business district. Modern elegance in earth tones.
A cozy nine-room Chinese chalet overlooking terraced rice fields in northern Yunnan, bordering the Tibetan plateau. Read More
An intimate 14-room beach resort and spa hidden down a dirt path in the fishing village of Manzanillo del Mar, 15 minutes by taxi north of Cartagena's old walled city. Tropical beach lodge, with an emphasis on natural elements—thatched roofs, stone walls and floors, driftwood chairs, and lots of bamboo.
A 248-room design hotel in Zlatni Rat ("Golden Cape") Forest Park, a coastal reserve on the Istrian Peninsula. The showpiece town of Rovinj is a short stroll away. A contempo take on a classic 1970s Adriatic resort hotel, designed down to the deck chairs by an all-star team with Croatian architectural studio 3LHD at its helm. The gleaming-white Y-shaped building rises out of the forest like a landlocked cruise ship; light-flooded, airy interiors incorporate flowing beige-golden fabrics, hanging gardens, rich murals, and an ethereal suspended steel sculpture in the six-story lobby.
A 44-unit design hotel in the remote mountains of the eastern Czech Republic, near some of the country's best links. Urban cool in a pastoral setting—raw concrete, hard angles, lots of black and white with touches of bright color. Well-chosen artworks in public spaces feature names such as Damien Hirst, Henry Moore, and Basquiat. Sleek bedrooms emphasize space and light with little decoration and tall picture windows.
A 31-room, three-story 1926 mansion in old Quito, the first city to make UNESCO's World Heritage List. The third-floor wraparound terrace overlooks Plaza San Francisco and La Compañía, a seventeenth-century Jesuit cathedral widely considered to be among South America's most beautiful. Newly restored Art Nouveau elegance. The hand-painted ceilings are original, as are trims, friezes, and murals. Antique chandeliers light pre-Columbian ceramics on loan from the Casa del Alabado museum, and a glass-enclosed courtyard yields flowers for guest rooms and hallway tables, splashing tropical colors on the otherwise muted palate. The high-ceilinged rooms have pale carpets, heavy golden drapes, Osborne & Little wallpaper, and Statuarietto marble bathrooms.
An iconic hotel, built on a granite cliff facing Elephantine Island in 1899. A three-year makeover by the Sofitel chain has reduced the number of rooms by half and increased the proportion of suites. The colonial-era palace has 76 rooms with gold and maroon interiors and sunset Nile views; the modern tower wing has 62 rooms, all with Nile-facing balconies, and a sumptuous new spa. Rooms have deep tubs or rain showers, all with Hermès toiletries. If you've ever been tempted to pack a vintage tuxedo or evening gown, this place provides the perfect backdrop. The restored 1902 restaurant, modeled after Cairo's Ibn Tulun mosque, looks like a film set for Death on the Nile. Art Deco meets Mamluk glamour in the chandeliered palace, its halls adorned with photographs of royals, artists, and other luminaries who've stayed here. The tower's contemporary decor echoes ancient Egyptian motifs.
A locavore kitchen with 26 guest rooms in a limestone seventeenth-century manor house and redbrick dependency buildings 13 miles from Southampton. It's surrounded by kitchen gardens, open fields, and one of Britain's national treasures, New Forest National Park. English-country-house shabby-chic complete with worn kilims, artfully mismatched furniture, and, in the front hall, lined-up wellies and a watering can.
A beyond opulent 294-room hotel in a vast Belle Époque building formerly occupied by the Ministry of Defence. The property is a block from the Thames and a short stroll from Trafalgar Square, St. James's Park, and the theaters of the West End. The look: A study in polished marble and Baccarat crystal that just manages not to stray into bling. The lobby lounge sets the tone with a 1,001-bulb chandelier, velvet chairs, and petal-perfect flower arrangements. The Northall restaurant has a marble bar and leather banquettes; the striped pillars of the Massimo Restaurant & Oyster Bar recall Siena's Duomo; and things go Art Deco in the David Collins–designed cocktail bar. Rooms have a masculine feel (neutral palette, dark walnut, chrome Deco touches). The impeccable marble bathrooms have separate showers and underfloor heating.
A pair of five-story Georgian townhouses fused into 39 ultra-high-tech guest rooms fronting a pretty garden square in Pimlico, edging tony Belgravia, a short stroll from Victoria Station. Minimalism infused with traditionalist elegance. Mushroom-gray walls and striking gray-and-white herringbone-tiled floors are left bare, but ceilings retain ornate moldings, and subtle light is shed by exquisite antique crystal chandeliers.
The latest satellite in the Dorchester's expanding "Collection" is fundamentally a steak joint with rooms. Much of the public area is gobbled up by Cut, Wolfgang Puck's gastro-temple dedicated to the worshipful consumption of hefty slabs of beef. The largely petro-dollar clientele is most evident at Bar 45, on the mezzanine, where Middle Eastern lovelies pack the red leather seating. The guest room layout optimizes all available space, especially in the luxurious bathroom with its marble-encased tub and separate rain shower, in-mirror TV, and high-tech Japanese toilet. Touch-screen phones control the shades, which open onto perfect Hyde Park views.
A just-renovated 1899 hotel with 331 rooms in Westminster, close to the abbey, Houses of Parliament, and Big Ben. The six-story redbrick building is arrayed around a tree-planted open courtyard. A theatrical mise-en-scène, opening with a delicious confection of a lobby exuberantly devised by a Victorian set designer—rococo plaster ceiling, grand staircase sweeping up to balustraded balconies, sparkling chandeliers, and marble floors and fireplaces. Backstage: Guest rooms are soothing with light-green walls, fabric shutters, and botanical prints; the bar and restaurants are warm and casual.
A refurbished nineteenth-century railway hotel, now managed by Marriott, with 38 rooms in the historic wing and a new 207-room annex. High Victorian with soaring ceilings, dazzling colors, and ecclesiastical architectural details in the original building; drably contemporary in the annex.
Courtesy Zetter Townhouse
In Clerkenwell, a 15-minute bus ride from Shoreditch, the 13-room Zetter Townhouse is a quirky offshoot of the Zetter Hotel (20-7324-4444; doubles from $386).
A puckishly hip ten-room hotel opened by Anselme Selosse, one of the great small Champagne makers, in a handsome nineteenth-century neoclassical manor house with sweeping views of the vineyards. Read More
A 28-room nineteenth-century wine estate—with a limestone château, grape pickers' cottages, and an orangerie—located a mile from the Canal du Midi in Languedoc and surrounded by vineyards. Rooms are light and airy, with high ceilings and dove-gray walls. Each is individually designed with a mix of traditional and modern French furniture.
Thirty-four rooms on a quiet residential street in the sixth arrondissement, steps from the Luxembourg Gardens and St-Germain-des-Prés. Nineteenth-century Paris salon revisited, with touches of mid-century modernism (note the Jens Risom chairs) and oversized Apple monitors. Each floor is inspired by a different chapter in the life of the beautiful Empire–era socialite Juliette Récamier (who was immortalized by the painter Jacques-Louis David) and is adorned with portraits of her closest companions, from her best friend Madame de Staël to her lover Chateaubriand. The relaxing but small rooms are decorated in mauve, lavender, or blue with ornate moldings. The well-appointed bathrooms are tiled with mosaics.
A 57-room high-design aerie conveniently located in a former hôtel particulier almost next door to the Grand and Petit Palais. Black, white, and trompe l'oeil. A serene, playful modernity pervades the public spaces—white slip-covered chairs and sofas whose legs seem to float (they are actually supported by central pedestals); a passageway done entirely in silver foil.
A 138-room ultramodern palace on the rue St-Honoré. Rooms are plush and technologically state-of-the-art. This luxury hotel for the new millennium has a vaguely Oriental, perceptibly feminine, history-of-modern-fashion aesthetic—no boilerplate faux-château gilt trip here. Behind the Art Deco facade you'll find a sleek sumptuousness in the all-white dining room by Patrick Jouin and Sanjit Manku, the low-lit bar sculpted from a nine-ton block of gray Spanish marble, and the guest rooms swathed in neutrals with bright flourishes.
Forty-eight delightfully renovated rooms and suites in a garden-surrounded neoclassical mansion built in 1892 in the elegant sixteenth arrondissement. The hotel is steps from the Place Victor Hugo and a short walk from the Champs-Élysées and the Bois de Boulogne. Rich yet irreverent, Napoleon III whimsically interpreted by British designer Bambi Sloan. Rooms and suites, many with Juliet balconies (aah, Paris), are all individually and boldly decorated in jewel-like colors and with great attention to both comfort and style.
A distinctively modern 88-room, Nordic-style chalet with ski-in/ski-out access to the Trois Vallées. At 7,545 feet, this is the highest resort in the Alps (translation: great snow). Slick and Scandinavian-inspired, with lots of light-colored natural wood and stone, faux fur, and playful touches (such as the giant snowflake cutouts and stylized reindeer heads mounted on lounge walls). The laid-back bar/library and cozy lounge areas have large sofas and log fires.
A revamped 1958 landmark (the former Olympic Palace), with 79 rooms in the center of Athens, two blocks from the Parliament. Sexy salvage—Brazilian designers Humberto and Fernando Campana mixed reclaimed furniture with contemporary art by Jenny Holzer and Laurie Anderson and their own offbeat designs. Lobby walls are a collage of deconstructed chairs and desks; low-lit corridors are clad in bark cloth; the small spa and gym are coated in glittering PVC, an homage to the basement's past life as a disco. Bedrooms are sparer, with wall decorations inspired by souvenir shops.
An eighteenth-century sponge and silver market converted into a five-room hotel in a landmarked district. Canopied daybeds on the rooftop terrace overlook the neoclassical mansions and oversized yachts of the horseshoe harbor. Decorated with sumptuous silks, carved headboards, and antique prints, each room is inspired by a different trade route: Ottoman, Venetian, Arabian, and Alexandrian. Original flagstone floors and arches blend with modern luxuries (percale linens, rain showers).
A seven-story "business resort" with 101 guest rooms and 19 suites in Bangalore's affluent IT district. Read More
A lush 28-acre resort with 314 rooms and suites, seven restaurants and bars, a 34,000-square-foot spa, and indoor and outdoor pools. The palatial complex of 9 two- and three-story edifices is arrayed along scenic Bambolim Bay, 25 minutes from Goa's airport. Read More
A 202-room stainless steel–and-glass low-rise tower close to the international airport (but far from downtown New Delhi). Rooms overlook a central reflecting pool or an acre of landscaped gardens; a separate tower houses the lobby, restaurants, a piano bar, and a cigar lounge. Unobtrusively neutral with accents in cardinal red and occasional nods to tradition (silk embroidery, mother-of-pearl inlay). The diverse artwork is commissioned through a program supporting contemporary Indian artists. At night, the reflecting pool is lit by torches that seem to float upon the water.
An opulent new 260-room high-rise in New Delhi's diplomatic district. Over-the-top fin-de-siècle maharaja luxe—double-height reception rooms hung with massive chandeliers and filled with gilded furniture, the couches plumped with elaborately brocaded pillows, tables laden with vast urns of flowers, and piccolo variations of the same played through the foyers and guest rooms.
A five-story, 237-unit hotel built around a lagoon pool on one of the best stretches of the Seminyak shoreline; 76 rooms in the main wing face the sea. The prime location is within walking distance of many of the island's best new restaurants on booming Jalan Petitenget. Futuristic—more South Beach than Balinese village—with an emphasis on natural woods and gray volcanic stone. The spa is an architectural tour de force, with rounded corners, recessed blue lighting, and the aura of an elegant spaceship.
A 15-room country retreat on a Georgian estate in Laois (pronounced leash), an hour and a half from Dublin. Eighteenth-century elegance: oil paintings of the former lords and ladies of the house, tufted banquettes, glittery chandeliers, elaborate cornices and friezes, and a secret door that leads to a glass conservatory decorated with Greco-Roman statues.
A 111-room new-build on the rim of the Ramon Crater, in the heart of the Negev Desert, a two-hour drive from Tel Aviv. The 40 one- and two-story buildings are clustered on 12 acres, and most rooms face the 24-mile-long crater. An infinity pool seems to flow into the crater itself. Read More
Two nineteenth-century villas on the Italian Riviera with hilltop views of the Ligurian Sea. The Byzantine-domed Villa della Pergola has large balconies and a sweeping white-marble staircase; the Villino della Pergola resembles an Indian plantation house, with parquet floors and shaded terraces. The showstopper is the two-acre garden, with its wisteria-covered pergolas, little fountains, quiet leafy areas, and climbing roses.
A former convent turned spa resort, with 18 guest rooms and views of Mount Subasio. Original details from 1275, revamped with wood beams, terra-cotta floors, and glass walls. Bedrooms combine historic features (religious frescoes, stone arches) with modern comforts (LED reading lights, Mies-style ottomans).
A 100-room grande dame on the river Arno at one of Florence's most enviable addresses. Renaissance nostalgia—frescoed walls, rooms draped in velvet, gilded mirrors the size of barn doors. Views of the river are the main event.
A 95-room manse in the heart of Milan's fashion district. The A-shaped (from the air) 1937 rationalist-style building also houses Armani concept stores. The wow factor is the incredible attention to detail. Armani is said to have designed or approved everything himself, down to the length of the bath towels, the mother-of-pearl doors, the beige leather-lined walls, the backlit headboards.
A restored eleventh-century fortress overlooking Tuscany's Val d'Orcia, with Monte Amiata sleeping in the background. The 46 rooms are divided between the original castello and a new wing that also houses a jewel-in-the-crown thermal spa. Siena is a half-hour drive away. Medieval castle on the outside, Italian renaissance on the inside, with views framed by colonnaded arches. Painted ceilings, heavy silk curtains, marble bathrooms, and decorative fireplaces conjure up the past, while flat-screen TVs ground you in the present. All rooms have views of the surrounding hills.
Twenty-nine rooms in a superbly renovated nineteenth-century building on a quiet street in Rome's historic center. Rooms are distributed around a light-flooded central atrium with white wrought-iron balustrades. Communal spaces are rigorously black-and-white; contemporary paintings and sculptures add splashes of color and wit. Room decor is warmer, with fabric-covered walls and carpets in relaxing taupe, heavy dark-blue velvet drapes right out of Gone With the Wind, and a headboard library stocked with art books.
A ten-room octagonal Art Nouveau villa set high on a bluff overlooking the sea. The historic center of Alghero, a fortified sixteenth-century Aragonese showpiece, is a short walk away, and the town is a gateway to Sardinia's beautiful and lesser-known western beaches.
Six tents and a dining lounge at the top of a valley in the 55,000-acre Naboisho Conservancy. The camp is unusually family-friendly, with Masai bodyguards who entertain youngsters too restless for game drives. Tents with king-size beds have indoor showers and toilets, outdoor decks, and space for children's beds. Inside, white-wood laminate floors and campaign-style white-canvas ceilings showcase well-curated Moroccan kilims and Congolese kuba cloths.
Just 25 minutes from Nairobi's safari hub of Wilson Airport, this luxurious private estate bordering a giraffe sanctuary in the green Langata district has six rooms in the main house and seven rooms in a converted stable. Cozy, contemporary colonial with fireplaces, bronze animal sculptures, leather couches and chairs, flowery curtains, and Oriental carpets.
An oasis of 169 candy-colored rooms within an 18-floor tower overlooking Kuwait Bay. Branded, from the towels to the espresso cups; even the bottom of the tiled swimming pool is striped like a Missoni blanket. Higher-grade rooms have furnishings by architectural heavyweights Eero Saarinen and Hans J. Wegner.
A 28-room hotel with a landmark eighteenth-century house as its linchpin, located on Luxembourg City's main square. Notable features include black-and-white marble baths with Penhaligon's amenities, heated towel racks, and tub-and-shower combos at a time when European hotel renovations are pushing the bathtub toward extinction. Neo-Baroque furniture and lots of mirrors add shimmer to sturdy bourgeois bones, the latter showing through in the oak banisters, Art Nouveau stained-glass windows, and exposed limed beams in some of the third-floor rooms. Result: a daringly modern renovation that takes a leaf from Philippe Starck's Royal Monceau Raffles Paris.
An all-suite resort 30 miles north of the equator, with 22 villas on a speck of an island and 16 overwater villas a half-mile offshore. Haute tropical modern—teak-and-glass residences amid lush natural vegetation or above beautiful coral formations; ten-foot-wide beds; gargantuan marble baths with Hermès toiletries that will put customs officials on alert; private (swimmable!) pools.
An eco-friendly resort with 97 thatched-roof villas in the southern Maldives. Beachfront villas are backed by a mangrove forest; overwater villas have decks leading to a blue lagoon. Ian Schrager in an Out of Africa mood—pistachio daybeds; outdoor rain showers and tubs; rooftop decks for stargazing.
Kid-heaven luxury beach colony with 255 rooms, a nightclub, a climbing wall, and, in addition to three swimming pools, a 1.3-mile-long beach and full array of water sports, including "undersea walks" à la Jules Verne. Volcanic rock and textured white-plaster exteriors channel Fred Flintstone and Mies van der Rohe. Postmodern white rooms have leaf-green and turquoise textile accents.
This 58-room resort overlooking the Adriatic is actually two distinct properties joined by a narrow isthmus. The stone houses of the fortified island date back to the fifteenth century, and the eight-room mainland villa was built in 1934 as a summer residence for the Yugoslav royal family. Mediterranean Zen—oak parquet floors covered with leather-edged jute rugs, Shaker-style chairs, natural linen sofas, stylized fishermen's lamps, and exposed beams and stone walls. Spacious bathrooms come with deep soaking tubs, stone-floored showers, and double vanities. Rooms at the Villa Miloer are more dressed up, with ethanol-burning fireplaces, potted orchids, and cocoa silk-tweed sofas with suede pillows.
A series of low-slung terra-cotta-colored bungalows next to Menara Gardens, a 220-acre rosebush-strewn patch of green. The 141-room hotel is ten minutes from the airport and five minutes by taxi from Djemaa el Fna Square. Rooms have private balconies. There are some lovely touches, such as the filigreed-silver cabinets on each floor's landing, but the cream-and-taupe palette will disappoint Moroccan maximalists.
An 1896 neo-Renaissance landmark on a bend of the Amstel River in central Amsterdam. Owned by Heineken, the 111-room hotel has expanded, following a two-year renovation, into neighboring buildings, including a former bank from the same era. Coral-, Prussian blue– or saffron-tinted rooms are decorated with details of Old Master paintings—lush tulips or a lace handkerchief, say—blown up to wall size.
Five luxury suites annexed to a newly restored Victorian homestead built in the 1920s for the local bishop. The 20-acre private estate is five minutes by car from the center of artsy-craftsy Nelson and within easy reach of the national parks and beaches for which this South Island region is famous. Wedding-album perfect right down to the 1877 working chapel. Fresh flowers are everywhere, and the antique safe is so large you can climb right in. Look closely in the chapel and you'll see how the local Arts and Crafts movement was influenced by Maori motifs.
A 178-room hotel on Lake Wakatipu, five minutes by car from the nearest airport and ten minutes by water taxi from Queenstown, New Zealand's buzzy adventure capital. Asian-inspired serenity with Maori touches.
A 36-room, four-story hotel on Calle Uruguay in the core of the nightlife district. Drafted by local firm Mallol y Mallol, the Manrey is a Schrager-esque mix of whimsy and clean lines—chandeliers resemble giant loops of construction paper, and a life-size iron horse by Eduardo Navarro rears in the lobby. Rooms, accessed via skinny hallways lined with backlit white panels, have a pared-down aesthetic and a color scheme of black, white, chrome, burnished silver, and concrete gray.
A 301-room glass tower on the edge of San Isidro, Lima's financial district. The first Westin in South America is also the tallest building in Peru, and from the high-design glass exterior to the smart escalators, state-of-the-art is not a subtle notion here. Tony Chi's glitzy interiors incorporate mahogany and leather amid all the shiny metal. Rooms have floor-to-ceiling windows, leather desk chairs, and oversized bathrooms with marble double sinks. Peruvian textiles help preserve a sense of place.
A rebuilt 15-unit hacienda on 2,000 private acres in Tambopata, one of the Peruvian Amazon's top natural reserves. Read More
A 22-suite wine resort in the gentle hills of Alentejo, less than an hour east of Lisbon. All suites have terraces with fireplaces; some have bedroom ceilings that open to the stars. Minimalist Mediterranean—whitewashed villas, leafy patios, interiors of natural slate and eucalyptus wood.
A 32-acre estate with seven guest rooms in a converted country house. The property is an hour from Lisbon and a ten-minute drive from the city of Évora, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Rustic chic accented with quirky antiques (an 1867 Hornung & Møller piano in the lounge, vintage neon signs by the circular pool).
A fin-de-siècle seaside villa with two modern annexes in one of the Algarve's most popular resort towns. Decks have stunning views of the breakers, and giant palms shade the pool. Read More
Photograph courtesy of InterContinental Porto
(doubles for $240; entrées from $27)
A 203-room new-build on the site of the old Hotel Minsk, within a mile's stroll of the Kremlin and a straight shot by car or train from Sheremetyevo International Airport (no small plus in traffic-clogged Moscow). The look: Art Deco and Russian avant-garde inspired, with lots of glass.
A sleek seven-story, 45-room hotel with a tidy Bauhaus facade overlooking Studentski Trg, one of the city's prettiest squares. It has a terrific location steps from Knez Mihailova, a trendy pedestrian street, and Kalemegdan Fortress, at the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers. Designed by Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld, Square Nine gives a dose of modernity to the block without jarring its Secessionist neighbors. The open lobby has the same low lighting, parquet floors, local antiques, and Danish modern–style furniture found in the guest rooms. Walls are hung with sepia postcards of Belgrade—sounds tacky, looks great—and covered with natural linen or cumaru-wood paneling.
Eighty-six villas, all with butlers and private plunge pools, set along cement "streets" for golf carts that ferry guests up and down a stony green hill falling to a powdery white sand beach. Shared facilities include two pools and a spa with 13 treatment pavilions. The cluster of roofs poking out of the tropical terrain looks uncannily like a luxury vision of a Brazilian favela. Fortunately, villas are spacious and modern with huge private decks and picture windows even for the bathtub; carpets and textiles with coral or leafy patterns echo the natural environment.
Thirteen suites with kitchenettes in a sixteenth-century pedigreed palace in the heart of Ljubljana. The small, elegant reception area and lounges have polished stone floors and are furnished with antique silver coffee pots and vases of white lilies. Rooms have blond oak-parquet floors and traditional furnishings (leather-topped desks, damask-upholstered sofas). Baths come with large soaking tubs—some rooms have hot tubs and separate showers.
A 26-room hotel in a pre-Cubist nineteenth-century building on the edge of the old town. The white-painted facade has cool glamour when the sun goes down. Inside, you get a Slavic take on mid-century Palm Springs style: gold-on-gold geometric wallpaper, plush carpets, wood-grained built-ins, and table lamps like pretty bouquets of wired silk cocoons. Spacious baths come with L'Occitane toiletries and separate tubs or showers.
A 21-suite historic property on 11-plus acres of landscaped gardens in semi-rural Constantia, the Cape's oldest wine-growing valley. The Alphen, a national monument dating back to the late seventeenth century, has hosted the likes of Mark Twain and Captain Cook, and its role in Cape history is a colorful one. If these whitewashed walls could speak, they'd no doubt tell stories of the political intrigue and hedonistic parties for which the property was known. Read More
A design-conscious hotel with 35 rooms in Cape Town's V&A Waterfront. Guest rooms are decorated in a soothing palette of silver, gray, and taupe. Porcelain-tiled bathrooms have restored antique vanities and original artwork.
A 63-room design hotel in the upscale Eixample district. Lots of stark white and mirrored walls, sometimes on three sides, making this not a place for bad-hair days.
A 74-room urban sanctuary five minutes by foot from the Plaza de Catalunya. Strenuously fashionable, from the strangely eyeball-like orbs that cascade over the facade, to the all-black lobby, to the rooftop terrace.
Ten quiet rooms in Córdoba's cobblestoned historic quarter, a few steps from the famous Mezquita. Cozily pretty, with antiques scattered throughout the public spaces and flowers spilling over the interior courtyards.
A sprawling 19-room hotel and spa on 173 forested acres three miles from the beaches of the Costa Brava and 40 miles from Barcelona International Airport. A Baroque-inspired modernist fantasy, its towered silhouette rising like a fever dream out of the pine-clad hills.
A converted Baroque-Romanesque abbey surrounded by vineyards, a two-hour drive north of Madrid. Medieval chic. Vaulted ceilings, thick stone walls, and a silent cloister are made bright and airy thanks to modern furniture, warm wood, and soaring windows.
The palacio you always wished your great-grandparents had had the good sense to purchase, set smack in the historic center of Palma de Mallorca. Upscale Mediterranean, with just enough English country house to suggest that its owners may have another home in the Cotswolds—this is the kind of genteel taste that can only be inherited.
A 99-room landmark with a glamorous past (Liz Taylor, Grace Kelly, and even Albert Schweitzer slept here), recently reopened after a two-year renovation, in the heart of pretty little Bern. This handsome sandstone mansion turned hotel appears to have changed little since the early 1900s—until you step into the small lobby and encounter the trapezoidal lit-from-within white-onyx reception desk. The Park Avenue goes postmodern vibe is further enhanced by blond-oak herringbone floors; crystal chandeliers; and an anthracite, bone, and taupe decor.
A 70-room timber-and-glass low-rise set on the highest point of the tiny village of Surlej, three miles from St. Moritz. A glass-enclosed bridge connects the hotel to the Corvatsch cable car, which ascends to 10,800 feet. Modern and pared-down with traditional Swiss touches—antlers, a woodpile under the staircase, cowhide couches, sheepskin throws. Rooms have a balcony or a garden patio—and there might be a bedside copy of Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra (in German) for long, dark, thoughtful nights.
A 19-room glass-fronted high-design hotel in the shadow of the Matterhorn, steps from the terminus of the Glacier Express train. SoHo loft meets Swiss chalet. Vaulted interiors are decked out in brushed stainless steel, distressed leather, and recycled doodads, such as the chandeliers constructed from trumpets, violins, strands of silver beads, and disco balls in recognition of the hotel's cultural-center underpinnings.
A luxury lodge with 12 chalets on a boulder-strewn hilltop—a prime location for observing the annual wildebeest migration. Four-bed chalets are suitable for families with children. California in the Serengeti—a bar furnished with tractor seats, a central lounge with plush white couches and African artifacts.
Sixty-six villas scattered over an 80-acre compound. All have butler service and plunge pools; some open directly onto a mile-long white sand beach flanked by coconut palms. A simplified blend of styles—Swahili, Omani, Indian, British colonial—reflecting the island's mix of influences. The minimalist rooms have huge mosquito-netted beds and freestanding egg-shaped tubs.
Fusing a restored nineteenth-century Swahili sultan's palace and Zanzibar's first photographic studio, this multi-storied small hotel has an inner courtyard, six unique antiques-filled rooms, and one of Zanzibar's best restaurants. Romantic, with blue-, pink-, and violet-painted walls, rich textiles, deep baths, and high beds.
Ninety-four rooms in a high-rise just off the business district's main drag. The Hansar's immediate neighbors are mostly condominiums, but the St. Regis and the Four Seasons are practically next door. The open-air hallways and the street-view terrace with lap pool wouldn't look out of place across from Ipanema Beach, yet dark-wood accents and raw-silk walls remind you where you are. Too bad the views are mostly of other people's balconies and laundry.
Thirty-six glass-fronted cubical beach villas in quiet Khao Lak, about a 90-minute drive north of Phuket Airport. Brutalism in paradise—think minimalist lines rendered in concrete, stone, and glass, a welcome departure from the standard landscape of generic teakwood and Jim Thompson silks.
A restored landmark building with 23 rooms and a prime waterfront location in the hopping party-and-restaurant district of Ortaköy. Palatial and airy, with wraparound balconies and light-filled interiors in a pale, subdued palette. Custom furnishings by Autoban include low-slung divans and brass "pill" lamps in the award-winning Turkish design team's signature mid-century-modern style.
Six solar-powered chalets on stilts (with two more in the works) overlooking the grassland savanna and volcanic crater fields of Queen Elizabeth National Park. The haunting blue silhouettes of the Rwenzori Mountains rise in the distance. Thatch ceilings and corrugated-iron roofs blend into the farm community that surrounds this former coffee-processing plant. Chalet interiors are more Scandinavian than African, with clean lines and pale-wood surfaces.
A 66-floor Xanadu in a five-tower office-condo complex owned by a cousin of the ruler of Abu Dhabi. Bespoke touches include agate-lined elevators and a lobby ceiling dome inlaid with Czech crystals. Flanked by other futuristic buildings, the hotel is urban in ambience but backs onto a small beach. The 382 rooms have floor-to-ceiling windows and vistas of the Persian Gulf.
Modish 306-room beach resort and spa on Saadiyat Island (future site of the Abu Dhabi Louvre). Modern Arabian, with scattered references to classical Islamic art and a white Cubist exterior. High-ceilinged rooms, all with balconies, feature Nespresso machines, freestanding bathtubs, and wave-shaped metal sculptures.
A palace-style 405-room beach hotel on a man-made palm tree–shaped island. Updated Ottoman seraglio. The opulent decor—think Delacroix meets Vanity Fair photo shoot—is especially evident in the men's Turkish bath, where paintings of sheet-draped harem girls adorn the walls. Richly decorated rooms, suites, and private villas have silks, brocades, and huge bathrooms with rectangular marble tubs big enough for a sultan and at least three members of his retinue.
A four-unit desert retreat 15 minutes north of downtown Palm Springs. The house was designed by a protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright and built in 1947 as a movie producer's getaway. Read More
Shuttered for two years to undergo a top-to-bottom reno, Hollywood royalty's favorite hideout reemerged last fall with a La Prairie spa, a pricey Wolfgang Puck restaurant, and 103 sumptuously furnished rooms and suites (up from 91). A collection of graceful Spanish mission-style buildings, with a fresh coat of "Bel-Air pink" paint, nuzzled against the side of a canyon. Twelve acres of fragrant gardens were spiffed up too, but they seem deliciously unchanged since the hotel opened in 1946, with their burbling fountains, stone cherubs, and trysting spots aplenty. Same goes for the famed pool—a simple, perfect oval that beckons year-round (it's kept at 82 degrees in winter). Every other inch of the hotel has been utterly remade. Most rooms are creamy confections: ivory-colored walls and marble floors, and ceilings paneled in bleached oak. The many Art Deco flourishes—black-and-white floral curtains, for one—bring to mind the boudoir of a '50s starlet (fitting, since most of them stayed here at some point). Sky-lit bathrooms are stockpiled with La Prairie toiletries. Canyon view and loft suites are just as swank, if fairly generic.
A renovated 285-room hotel in a prime Gold Coast location, a short walk from Lake Michigan and the Magnificent Mile. Contemporary elegance with a dash of whimsy. The brick facade is all that remains unchanged of the 86-year-old Ambassador East following Ian Schrager's top-to-bottom redo. The lobby's classic moldings and columns are painted in the softest of whites, giving the space the feel of a stately cloud. The Pump Room, a dark and clubby celebrity haunt since the 1930s, is now an open and airy Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant, with a galaxy of gently glowing orbs suspended like planets throughout. Bright guest rooms are decorated Zen style, with bare walls, low platform beds, and bathrooms that glisten in porcelain whiteness.
A renovated 135-room hotel on Lee Circle, away from the hubbub of the French Quarter and a short walk to the Superdome, the Convention Center, and New Orleans's underrated museums. Streamlined and essential, with bursts of color—IKEA meets Marimekko.
A 166-room, $45-million renovation of the century-old Audubon Building, in the northwest corner of the French Quarter close to the Superdome. The Burgundy Bar is a study in bordello chic, with deep-red banquettes and Venetian plaster walls; the restaurant is bathed in white. Hand-painted murals of old New Orleans decorate the eight-story stairwell; minimalist modern guest rooms are plain but comfortable, with indigo ceilings and white-lacquered furniture.
A glassy Inner Harbor 256-room tower that easily outdoes every other hotel in town. Plush-but-generic rooms are secondary to an excellent restaurant and fourth-floor infinity pool backed by a bi-level sundeck and grill. Very beige, although the lobby's six-foot quince-and-rose-filled flower arrangements impress, as do rooms' huge bathrooms, which have walk-in showers, soaking tubs, and lots of sinkside space.
A souped-up 1950s motel with 19 cabins on the eastern tip of Long Island. The three-acre property is across the road from Montauk's Fort Pond and a beach-cruiser ride from Ditch Plains, the East Coast's best surf break. Rooms are simple—verging on spartan—and small, with cedar-plank walls, hammocks, oatmeal linen curtains, wicker bedsteads (sheets are deliciously soft), vintage photos of palm trees on the walls, and diminutive shower rooms with organic John Masters products. Fairy lights strung throughout the grounds add a festive feel.
A seven-room B&B on 46 acres of golden grassland about an hour and a half from both Austin and Houston. Owner Rachel Ashwell, mother of the Shabby Chic Couture brand (known for frills, rose prints, and banged-up pastel furniture), envisioned the kind of place where Marie Antoinette would stay if she went to Texas. Every window has a flower-print treatment, and every light is fitted with a pretty chandelier; vintage chiffon prom dresses hang on the walls; and beds are covered in linens so sumptuous that you can hardly see your partner across the California king.
A riverside camp of four tents furnished with four-poster beds, cotton percale sheets, bucket showers, and flush toilets. The entire camp is run on solar power, from the open-air kitchen's freezer to the gooseneck reading lights. Classic bushveld safari—handwoven grass mats, mosquito netting, campaign furniture, custom pieces handcrafted from repurposed wood.


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Lady Gaga now has control over a part of her past.
The singer recently bought back her previously unreleased music from her former manager, Bob Leone, before it went to auction, Reuters reported.
Gaga purchased the music—consisting of six CDs, along with a DVD—from Leone for an undisclosed sum. The items, some of them autographed, also include a 2002 demo recording when the pop star was known only as Stefani Germanotta.
U.S. & World
The songs were originally slated to be auctioned off online through GOTTA HAVE IT! Collectibles, Inc., with minimum bids at $1,000 for each item.
"She wanted to purchase them. We sent her an offer on behalf of Bob Leone. She countered and we made a deal," said company co-founder Peter Siegel, who also said that Leone never had the intention of duplicating the items.
In other Gaga news, the star was recently challenged by Los Angeles singer Alisa Apps to a televised sing-off with the winner walking off with a $1 million prize, Billboard reported.
"I feel sorry for Lady Gaga -- she's just a plastic doll generated by the music money marketing machine," Apps said in a statement. "This contest gives people a chance to choose which they prefer -- plastic or real."
Each singer would perform a set of songs. The contest would occur either at Madison Square Garden or in London's O2 Arena.
Gaga hasn't responded to the challenge so far, according to Billboard. However, Apps later told the publication that this is not a publicity stunt.
"For me, it's more of an intellectual competition. [Gaga's] fans, in particular, are making this into an ego thing."
Apps didn't make clear of who would offer the prize money.


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If you are new to the forums please feel free to introduce and write a little about yourself, such as age, if you blade skate or bike, where you live, if you have or are building a ramp, and whatever else you want.
I'll give a little background on myself...
My name is Bobby, i'm a student at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles majoring in math and computer science. I grew up in Minnesota on a hobby farm with a couple of barns. When I was in 7th grade I was into aggressive skating and one of the skate parks I skated closed down and asked if they could store the wood in one of my barns. Long story short I waited a couple of months then built up an 8 foot high 16 foot wide half pipe in my barn (see http://www.xtremeskater.com/verthalfpipeplans), after a while they told me I could just keep the wood.
I skated on and off for the next six years, junior year of high school I started taking it a little more seriously and started to learn flips on the halfpipe. Unfortunately shortly after learning flips on skates I broke my leg is a weak skateboarding fall (360 pivot on the half pipe gone wrong ), since getting my cast off I haven't taken skating too seriously, just doing tricks I know for fun. I knew that I would be getting out of Minnesota soon and going to a college near the ocean so I could surf, which is what I do now, spending as much time as I can find at El Porto and Sunset Beach. I was also "studying abroad" in New Zealand last semester (feb - june 07), which was pretty much an extended surf vacation.
While I am more into surfing than skating these days, I still enjoy skating and building ramps, then making websites is pretty much the profession I'm going for so I enjoy working on this site and helping people out.


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Justice Holmes: A New Path for American Jurisprudence
Gerald Postema, LEGAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: THE COMMON LAW, Springer, 2011
33 Pages Posted: 29 Jun 2011
Legal Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: The Common Law World (Springer, August, 2011) offers a critical history of Anglophone jurisprudence since 1870. It is the tale of two Boston lectures, Holmes's, "Path of Law," (1897) and Hart's Holmes Lecture, "Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals" (1958), and their respective legacies. "Justice Holmes: A New Path for American Jurisprudence" is chapter 2 of this larger work, setting the context and a framework for understanding Holmes's justly famous lecture. Focusing strictly on Justice Holmes's jurisprudential writings, the last of which was published in 1899, it defends a new interpretation of his understanding of law. It sets his early work along-side that of his life-long interlocutor, Frederick Pollack. This reveals Holmes to be equally inheritor and critic of classical common-law theory and practice of law, departing only modestly from the alleged formalism of Langdell. His early static or synchronic conception of law ("enforcement positivism"), developed from a critique of Austin's sovereignty-focused positivism, stands behind and informs the dynamic or diachronic conception Holmes worked out in The Common Law. According to this account, the, "sovereign prerogative of [judicial] choice," is framed and constrained by a collective effort to give effect to past judicial decisions and the legal issues they define. Keenly aware of both role and limits of theory in legal reasoning and adjudication, Holmes's deep skepticism of morality and human reason generally led him to a decisively conservative view of proper judicial decision-making which stands in sharp contrast to the radicalism of American legal realists who claimed him as intellectual father. Holmes was not without responsibility for the radical directions in which his thought was sometimes taken by later generations of (largely American) legal theorists, since he was always willing to sacrifice precision and care for the bold and provocative bon mot. However, a sober assessment of the jurisprudence underneath his rhetoric reveals an innovative legal theorist working within and revising somewhat classical common-law understanding of law and the role of practical reasoning in law. [NOTE: references for this chapter are not provided, but they may be obtained by request from the author.]
Keywords: Holmes, jurisprudence, common law, positivism, realism, legal reasoning
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation


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Welcome to our Wedding Photography Directory. Below you will find a list of Wedding Photographers and photography goods supplying to your chosen area.
Some of the vendors featured in our Wedding Photography Directory have chosen to include e-mail addresses, website details and map links alongside their basic contact details - just click the appropriate icons on each listing for more information.
From candid and portrait photographers, to disposable cameras, album suppliers and more, there is many great ways to capture your big day on film, and the suppliers featured below in our Wedding Photography Directory will help you achieve just that.
QUICK LINKS : Photography Ideas & Advice Photography Q&A Photography Forum
Your search of our for Wedding Photography Directory has produced the following results. If you would like to modify your search, simply use the dropdown boxes below.
Wedding Photography | Wedding Photography UK | Overseas Wedding Photography | Wedding Photo Editing | Wedding Photographers


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Ed Hardy Koi Bikini
I fell in love with the new line of Ed Hardy swimwear this summer and got this yellow Koi fish bikini with a photo shoot in mind. Cancun's carribean waters seemed perfect. Unfortunately on the day we did the shoot, there were heavy rain clouds hanging over the beach and it even started drizzling a bit. We wrapped up early to beat the inevitable downpour. A few days later, we were scheduled to go on a tour to Tulum, a beachside archeology site, as well as the water park Xel-ha. We thought it would be worth a try to shoot again since I would have to be in swimwear anyway all day. Thankfully it was gorgeously sunny that morning and we got some colorful and fun shots in Tulum.


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William T. West, 29, of 3300 Linden St. NW, was arrested at 3:10 p.m. Tuesday.
A township man was arrested after police raided his home and seized child pornography.
William T. West, 29, of 3300 Linden St. NW, was arrested at 3:10 p.m. Tuesday at the Uniontown Police Department on a felony charge of pandering obscenity involving a minor, Stark County Jail records said.
Jail records said police searched his home and found "materials depicting minors engaged in obscene activity."
Stark County court records show he remained in the jail Wednesday, held in lieu of bond pending a hearing in Canton Municipal Court.
Reach Lori at 330-580-8309 or on Twitter: @lmonsewiczREP


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Residential Surveyor Required – Canterbury
One of our long-standing panel manager clients now has an urgent need for experienced residential surveyors to fill vacancies as a direct result of both new panel management contracts as well as strategic acquisitions nationally.
Positions are offered with above-market basic salaries, low threshold/high percentage bonus schemes, quality company car (or allowances) and better than most benefits (pension, death in service etc.)
In addition, our client works at sensible volumes (5 point max) ensuring an excellent work-life balance and market leading OTE (bonus is paid on the GROSS fee).
We are now seeking to arrange a quick turnaround interview in:
Suitable Surveyors will need to hold MRICS/FRICS/AssocRICS qualification and VRS with direct experience of Mortgage Valuations and Homebuyer Reports for main lenders locally.


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Embezzler sentenced to prison
A 29-year-old former bank teller, who admitted embezzling $66,000 from elderly clients, was sentenced Tuesday to three years in Nevada state prison, and ordered to pay restitution after she gets out.
District Judge Michael Gibbons, acknowledging that defendant Jeanne Dey had no prior criminal record, said he couldn't overlook the intentional and premeditated nature of her crime, in taking money from her clients' accounts over a 14-month period until she got caught.
"These people were particularly vulnerable, they were elderly, some with deterioration of their mental health. This is the worst kind of crime," Gibbons said.
The crimes reportedly took place in 2010 and 2011.
Dey was accused of setting up accounts, then archiving the accounts so the victims didn't receive statements.
She withdrew money from the accounts.
The thefts came to light when a victim's daughter discovered $8,000 had been withdrawn from her mother's account within 12 hours of her death.
According to the criminal complaint, Dey embezzled $16,000 from the 82-year-old victim who died; $29,000 from an 89-year-old man and his 85-year-old wife, and $8,000 from an 83-year-old man and his 86-year-old wife.
The fourth count involved $13,675 from a victim who was not elderly.
Gibbons said a crime of this nature affected its victims as if it were a crime against a person.
"This isn't going to go away," Gibbons said. "People (victims) feel like they've been stabbed in the back. They are very angry. It will take a long time to recover."
"There aren't words I can say for the amount of remorse I feel for my victims," Dey said.
She said she suffered from mental illness "which causes erratic behavior. I do things out of character. I do accept full responsibility and want to make restitution," she said.
She asked Gibbons for leniency as she is the sole custodian of her young son.
"I know this is very difficult on your family and your child," Gibbons said, "but you brought this on yourself. You had the chance to stop, to make it right, and you didn't do it. I look at it in terms of the repeated nature of the offense,"
Dey must serve a minimum of 12 months before she is eligible for parole.
Sentencing was continued from Monday after questions were raised about Dey's employment and her ability to pay restitution.
Prosecutor Erik Levin said his investigator was unable to prove that a Texas company or its employees existed which Dey claimed was holding a position for her depending on whether she went to prison.
Levin said he believed the information was fabricated in an effort for Dey to get probation.
He accused Dey of "high-tech grave robbery," noting that she embezzled $8,000 from a client's account 12 hours after the woman died.
"It was despicable," Levin said. "She's a thief, she's a liar, she's a con artist, and the court is the intended victim for her next scam."
Dey presented Gibbons with a $10,000 restitution check on Monday from the account of her boyfriend's father.
Levin read a letter from Elaine Roper, whose deceased mother was one of Dey's victims.
"You are the worst kind of predator," Roper said. "You apparently don't have a conscience, or you wouldn't have looked me in the eye with tears in your eyes telling me how much you loved my mother. Then you took $8,000 from her account within 12 hours after she passed away."
Roper said Dey told her not to worry about the money, that the bank would cover it. She said her family felt so close to Dey that the defendant was invited to take clothing that belonged to her dead mother.
"That small amount of money you took represented a lifetime of hard work by my mother and my father. My mother wouldn't ever touch the money. She wanted to leave it to her three children," Roper said.
Two U.S. Bank officials testified Monday they would rather see Dey go to prison, even though probation might mean she could start paying restitution sooner than if she had to wait until after her sentence was served. After her arrest, they said Dey manufactured e-mails supposedly sent by them where she claimed they took responsibility for what she did.
"She damaged our reputations and we could have been let go for what she said in those e-mails," said Brynn Bertucci, manager of the Gardnerville branch.
Bertucci said Dey's former clients continue to question whether their accounts are accurate.
The losses were covered by the bank which is out $58,675, according to court documents.
Dey's attorney, Richard Davies, asked for probation for his client.
"This is a property crime, which is distinctly different from a crime against a person. She (Dey) has no criminal history and expressed regrets. It's egregious, these are vulnerable victims, It's bad, but weigh it against what it is. These things can be fixed."
He argued if Dey went to prison, it would be unlikely that she would be able to pay restitution when she got out.


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Get exclusive
bonuses & discounts
Rules For Renegades Synopsis
Renegade entrepreneur—and runaway success story—Christine Comaford has lived the kind of life most of us can only dream about. From model to monk to multi-millionaire, she has always gone after what she wanted—and gotten things done. She's won, lost, worked, played, and every step of the way, she's written her own rules.
Now Christine is ready to tell her story in her New York Times bestseller, Rules for Renegades. In ten outrageous life lessons, she'll show you how to make your dreams come true. Your way. Your rules.
Rules for Renegades is the distillation of what Christine has learned as she succeeded (and failed) in business, built strong relationships (and some disasters), and evolved spiritually and professionally. If you want to become financially independent, she'll show you how to do it. If you want to build your confidence and self-esteem, she'll give you a crash course. If you want a meaningful life full of rich connections, she'll share her secrets. Christine shows you just how exhilarating, creative, and kick-ass business can be by revealing the triumphs and train wrecks of her incredible life.
Ultimately, she'll let you in on the greatest secret of all—how to build a fulfilling life while rocking your career. She's also filled her book with lots of cool free stuff: links to a sample business plan outline, tutorials on sales and marketing techniques, and tools to help you enhance your own power. You'll learn the surprising truth behind her most offbeat rules…
- RULE: Everything's an Illusion, So Pick One That's Empowering.
- RULE: Rock Rejection and Finesse Failure.
- RULE: Learn to Love Networking.
- RULE: Work Your Money Mojo.
Rules for Renegades is one of the most unusual and ingenious "business" books you'll ever read. It's not just the story of a remarkable woman. It's an amazing approach to life that breaks the rules—and makes life work for you.
About the Author
Christine Comaford is a five-time CEO and company founder—and all five businesses grew to be either acquired or taken public. She has 20 years' experience in operational high-tech positions with Microsoft, Lotus, Adobe, and Apple. She has assisted 700 of the Fortune 1,000 companies and 300 small businesses in accelerating innovation, and has consulted with the Clinton and Bush Administrations on tech and small businessstrategies.
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BANGKOK (March 6, 2:35 p.m. ET) — Indorama Ventures Public Co. Ltd. has agreed to buy 100 percent of the PET assets of PT Polypet Karyapersada in Indonesia.
The assets, with capacity of 100,800 metric tons of PET per year, are situated adjacent to the purified terephthalic acid assets of PT Indorama Petrochemicals (formerly known as PT Polyprima Karyesreska) at Cilegon, West Java, which Indorama acquired last year.
Approximately half of Polypet's output today is for the Indonesian market, Indorama said in a news release.
Indorama expects to close the deal in the second quarter of this year.
"The synergies created by integrating the two plants will lower costs through shared services and logistic cost saving and will be accretive to the bottom line," said Indorama CEO Aloke Lohia.
"Indonesia is a fast-growing market for our customers with an attractive potential for future growth. Low energy and other costs make this a very attractive place for long term investment," he said.


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Tales Of Graces
Namco Bandai considering future US releases of "Tales" titles
Following confirmation of a February 2012 US launch for 3DS RPG Tales of the Abyss, Namco Bandai has said it's pondering the franchise's stateside future "much longer term".
Tales Of Graces headlines
Thursday Shorts: Origin, MW3, GE Show does Minecraft, Lots of Tales stuff
Settle in for another large batch of shorts. Don't be afraid. Hit the jump.
Tales of Graces characters in Gods Eater Burst
Here's two obscurely geeky Japanese things rolled into one: Tales of Graces characters in Gods Eater Burst. Somewhere out there, somebody just suffered a massive nosebleed.
Tales of Graces fan translators take on Tales of Vesperia
The cult-favourite Tales series of RPGs is unlikely to make much impression on the Final Fantasy-drenched collective Western consciousness if publishers fail to fund a localisation. This message may be lost on business types but the die-hard fans of the franchise have sworn to rectify that mistake by releasing a fan-translation patch for 2009's Tales of Graces.
More games in Tales series coming for PS3 and PSP
Looks like fans of the Tales series can look forward to more titles hitting retail – if leaked information from an upcoming issue of Jump is anything to go by.
Tales of Graces recalled in Japan
Namco Bandai's is recalling Tales of Graces for Wii in Japan.
Tales of Vesperia not coming to the Wii, says voice actor
Did all you Wii fanboys wee yourself just a little bit when you seen that Tales of Vesperia was coming to the Wii?May want to clean yourself up there, Radiohead. It ain't happening, says the voice actor who started the whole furlong.Rikiya Koyama, who said it was coming to the Wii, revealed he had his […]
Namco Bandai announces TGS line-up
Namco Bandai has announced the titles that will be playable or on display during TGS.Here's the full thing:Playable titles Tekken 6 (X360/PS3) Gundam VS Gundam Next Plus (PSP) Super Robot Taisen Neo (Wii) Macross Ultimate Frontier (PSP) Tales of Vesperia (PS3 — already out) Tales of Graces (Wii) Summon Night X: Tears Crown (DS) Blue […]
New Tales of Graces images are quite lovely
Dengeki Online has 12 shots up for Tales of Graces.Looks lovely.The RPG's for Wii, and is due out this winter in Japan and 2010 in Europe and North America.Thanks, GoNintendo.
Official websites for all three new Tales titles go live
The official website for all three of Namco's upcoming Tales games went live today.And just as a treat for JRPG fans, Sega and Tri-Ace's End of Eternity now has a site as well. What are the chances?On the Tales of Vesperia site is a PS3 trailer showing Patty Fleur, new events, two new bosses, a […]
Tales of Graces gets first trailer
Namco's has released a video for Wii's Tales of Graces. After the break.You'll play 18 year-old Aspe in the game, which is due out this winter in Japan.The RPG's expected in 2010 for Europe and North America.
Tales of Vesperia for PS3, tons of other Tales stuff in Jump
The latest issue of Japan's Jump magazine has confirmed Tales of Vesperia for PS3. Never saw that coming.There was lots of other Tales related stuff included. And here it is: Tales of Graces will be released for Wii later this year. Not much else is known other than you have to protect people and you […]
Tales Of Graces latest
Namco Bandai considering future US releases of "Tales" titles
Thursday Shorts: Origin, MW3, GE Show does Minecraft, Lots of Tales stuff
Tales of Vesperia for PS3, tons of other Tales stuff in Jump


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Signum Salomonis
(Study of comparable Etnography)
Leite De Vasconcelos
(1858 – 17 May 1941)
Published in (1918)
Translation from Portugese
(of most of the introduction - some words or sentences
were omitted for the sake of clarity)
were omitted for the sake of clarity)
Signum Salomonis [Solomon's Seal] which spread over a vast part of the globe since ancient eras, enjoys great vitality in Portugal's beliefs and culture, and has, there and overseas, different shapes, such as those shown in the following illustrations:
1. pentagram [1]
Fig. 2 is Fig. 1 but upside-down:
3. hexagram (six-pointed star) [2]
our people gave the name "Folded Solomon's Seal" to the following shapes or to some of them:
[1] Pentalpha, from penta, meaning "five", and alpha, name of the first letter of the alphabet. It shows "five alphas" - according to the shape's appearance. Pentalpha is a word used by several scholars, like, for example:
Chr. A. Lobeck, Aglaophamus sive de theologiae mysticae Graecorum causis, 1829, p. 1346;
Minervini, Novelle dilucidazioni sopra un antico chiodo magico, 1846, p. 23;
Le Blant & Renan, in Revue Archéolog., II, 345;
Teixeira de Aragão, Moedas de Portugal, I, 147;
Head, Historia nummorum, p. 465 (pentagon or pentalpha).
Scholars also call it: pentagram, pentagon and starred-polygon.
The English say pentacle (see Webster's Dictionary).
In Magic books you can find it as Mercury's star, as in Secrets merveilleux de la magie naturelle et cabalistique du Petit Albert, translated from Latin, Lyon, France, 1791, p. 147.
And there are other names as well.
Model of Mercury talisman
From the above mentioned book
People also gave, pretty improperly, the name Solomon's Seal to an armillary sphere* which you can see in certain Portuguese coins from the XVIII and XIX centuries
[3] See O Archeologo Portugues, x, 171.
The page from Vol. X (1905) of O Archeologo Portugues mentioned above
Which is the journal of the Porugal Ethnological Museum
Edited by Leite De Vasconcelos
Which is the journal of the Porugal Ethnological Museum
Edited by Leite De Vasconcelos
* "An armillary sphere is a model of objects in the sky consisting of a spherical framework of rings, centred on Earth, that represent lines of celestial longitude and latitude and other astronomically important features" (Source: Wikipedia)
[2] Hexalpha, from six and alpha. Synonym: hexagram.
Designed by Ze'ev Barkan


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Export 1 results:
Filters: Keyword is data visualization and Author is Dario Bruneo [Clear All Filters]
"A smart city lighting case study on an OpenStack-powered infrastructure", Sensors, vol. 15, no. 7: MDPI AG, pp. 16314-16335, 2015.
"Stack4Things: Integrating IoT with OpenStack in a Smart City context", Proceedings of the 2014 International Conference on Smart Computing Workshops (SMARTCOMP Workshops), Hong Kong, China, 5 November 2014, IEEE Computer Society, pp. 21-28, 2014.


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Of Dice and Men
Un libro in lingua di Ewalt David M. edito da Simon & Schuster, 2013
- € 21,80
- Il prezzo è variabile in funzione del cambio della valuta d'origine
The Hobbit meets Moneyball in this definitive book on Dungeons & Dragons—from its origins and rise to cultural prominence to the continued effects on popular culture today.
Even if you've never played Dungeons & Dragons, you probably know someone who has: The game has had a profound influence on our culture. Released in 1974—decades before the Internet and social media—Dungeons & Dragons is one of the original ultimate nerd subcultures, and is still revered by more than thirty million fans. Now, the authoritative history and magic of the game is revealed by an award-winning journalist and life-long dungeon master.
From its origins on the battlefields of ancient Europe, through the hysteria that linked it to satanic rituals and teen suicides, and to its apotheosis as father of the modern video game industry, Of Dice and Men recounts the development of a game played by some of the most fascinating people in the world. Chronicling the surprising history of D&D's origins (one largely unknown even to hardcore players) while examining the game's profound impact, Ewalt weaves laser-sharp subculture analysis with his own present-day gaming experiences. An enticing blend of history, journalism, narrative, and memoir, Of Dice and Men sheds light on America's most popular (and widely misunderstood) form of collaborative entertainment.
Informazioni bibliografiche
- Titolo del Libro in lingua: Of Dice and Men
- Sottotitolo: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Play It
- Lingua: English
- Autore : Ewalt David M.
- Editore: Simon & Schuster
- Collana: Simon & Schuster (Hardcover)
- Data di Pubblicazione: 20 Agosto '13
- Genere: SOCIAL SCIENCE
- Argomenti : Dungeons and Dragons (Game) History
- Pagine: 276
- Dimensioni mm: 228 x 152 x 0


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Rider Profile: Nils Mindnich
While Hans Mindnich and Nils Mindnich are obviously two very different boarders I'll talk about them together since that's how I always saw them for the first five years I knew them. Having spent a few seasons myself as a Stowe local I was keen to keep an eye on these Mansfield prodigies. Seeing them all suited up in Big B head-to-toe with wings on their helmets kinda turned me off right out of the gate, though. Then I walked into the Burton team house at Hood and caught them watching and laughing at my Trailer Park Boys DVDs and I began to look at them differently. Then we went to New Zealand together when they were fourteen and fifteen on some sort of Austrian-infused biometrics training camp that Red Bull was doing. On the last day, I got to take a few free runs with Hans and Nils and showed them the finer points of Low Impact firsthand. They took to it pretty good. Then they started coming to The Launch and it wasn't long before they became two of our go-to guys for the senders. They always landed and they didn't give a fuck. They are probably the two most naturally talented riders I have encountered since Travis Rice pointed it onto the world stage in 2001. – Pat Bridges
DOB: December 23, 1994
Stance: Goofy
Home Mountain: Stowe, Vermont
Instagram: @bear_nils
Sponsors: Salomon, The North Face, Giro, Elm Company