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In an effort to extend its reach and "celebrate the written word in action," the annual PEN World Voices literary festival, to be held this year from April 30 through May 6, will include not only panels, readings and lectures but also events that wed literature and live performance. Among the collaborations scheduled is one that will pair the Kronos Quartet with the writers Tony Kushner, Marjane Satrapi and Rula Jebreal and another that will feature puppetry on the High Line by the Processional Arts Workshop.
As in years past, the festival will bring together prominent writers from all over the world, including the Romanian-born 2009 Nobel laureate Herta Muller; Martin Amis of Britain; Ludmila Ulitskaya of Russia; the festival chairman, Salman Rushdie; and a contingent from the Middle East. American authors scheduled to participate include E.L. Doctorow, Jennifer Egan, Paul Auster and Claire Messud, but to a larger extent than in the past, the festival will also attempt to focus on the spoken and acted word.
"This is really coming from a profound belief that literature is way more than the written and published book," said Laszlo Jakab Orsos, director of the festival. "When you think of literature, the first idea that comes up is sitting still and reading. But the philosophy behind this was to actually unveil and show people that literature is way more interesting, sexy and inspirational than people think."
In keeping with that approach, the festival will feature a staging of John Cage's 1989 improvisational piece "How to Get Started," an act of spontaneous creativity in which David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet and the writers Aleksandar Hemon, Etgar Keret and Sonia Sanchez will participate. In addition, the theater ensemble Elevator Repair Service, known for its recent adaptations of works by Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Faulkner, most notably the critically praised "Gatz," will hold workshops that are meant to yield a new piece to be performed at the festival.
Traditionally, the PEN group's central mission has been the defense of free expression, which often takes it to the intersection of literature and politics. This year, reacting to the Arab Spring of 2011, the festival has made a special effort to feature writers from that convulsed region: in addition to Mr. Keret, who is Israeli, Ms. Jebreal, who is of Italo-Palestinian descent, and Ms. Satrapi, who is Iranian, the Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury and the Egyptian-born essayist Mona Eltahawy have also accepted invitations to participate.
"New York deserves this, something to broaden the scope of readers and bring to their attention that there are other cultures and countries as interesting as the usual suspects," Mr. Orsos said. "We really want to have firsthand experience, people who actually come from the region to explain what's going on beyond the news."
Ticket information for the festival is coming.


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Medals for Dearbhaile, Joanna & Eoin in Tullamore sun
Leitrim's next generation of athletics stars continued the county's run of success with three medals from last weekend's Glo Health Athletics Ireland Juvenile Championships in Tullamore.
Mohill & District AC walkers Dearbhaile Beirne and Eoin Gaffey picked up a gold and a silver while Carrick AC's Joanna Duignan brought home a silver medal from the U19 400m on Saturday.
Dearbhaile Beirne was Leitrim's only gold medal winner as the Mohill walker fought out a tremendous battle with Sligo's Orlaith Delahunt in the U17 Walk, winning in a time of 15.21.21 as the Mohill athlete only got away in the last lap.
Beirne led all the way but was tracked closely by the Sligo walker who twice closed down big gaps before the Mohill walker turned on the pace in the last lap. Beirne seemed on her way to a big win but Delahunt again fought back, closing the gap substantially over the last 100m.
However, Beirne had done more than enough beforehand and crossed the line in a time of 15.21.21 to Delahunt's 15.22.54 before she left to take part in Leitrim Ladies U16 B Connacht Final in Charlestown later on Sunday.
Dearbhaile was joined on the podium by young clubmate Eoin Gaffey who fought out an even closer battle with Moycarkey Coolcroo's Liam McDonagh, swapping the lead in an intense battle over the 2,000m.
McDonagh got a gap but Gaffey made a huge surge in the final 100m to finish just over half a second behind in a time of 10.28.51 to 10.27.90.
Joanna Duignan ended an injury hit outdoor season with a silver medal in the U19 400m in a time of 60.03, well outside her best but a great achievement considering her injury problems. Joanna also finished sixth in the 200m on Sunday.
Carrick AC's Caitlin Surliss finished 9th in the U13 Javelin with a throw of 20.18m while Oliver Charles was 12th in the U12 600m in a time of 1.54.13.
Ballinamore's Sibeal Reynolds finished 9th in U16 Long Jump with 4.64m while the U12 Girls 600m saw two Leitrim athletes in action, Ellie O'Rourke of Ballinamore finished 10th in 1.57.28 with Ella McDaid 12th in 1.59.73 in an incredibly fast race.
In the throws, Ballinamore's Ciara McGoldrick finished 10th in the U15 Shot with a throw of 7.86m while Callum Whelan finished 11th in the U17 Javelin.
Last Sunday's event is the last Athletics Ireland Juvenile action of the track season with only the National Community Games Finals in Athlone in August left on the calendar. The emphasis will change to road and cross-country running in the coming weeks.

subset: commoncrawl


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We have three types of jury
- The first deals with Classification of a work
- The second confirms or rejects the classification and says Yea or Nay to a work proceeding further to the third jury
- The third jury confirms the decisions of 1 and 2 juries, and adds a quality rating on the works which have survived the sift. From which contributor rewards are assessed
Jurors are:
- Global
- Never know to one another
- Use usernames only
- Dispersed scattered around the world
- In mixed demographics and social standings etc fields of knowledge
- They check checkboxes for fields of knowledge they wish to adjudicate on
- Juries are formed randomly of these jurors
- One jury is never the same composition of jurors as another
- Thus their decisions cannot be tampered with or unduly swayed
- They are secure from threats or persuasions
- They are paid in DCZ
- At first 9 per jury; thereafter 7 and at last 5 per jury
- As mass adjudications come I, Matthew's algorithm processes stats on each juror
- Those jurors who are on the money stay; others less good or playing us are fired
- Thus we end up with 5 person juries of calibre
- I Matthew write a software tool for administering this global selection of jurors
- Choosing each jury for each work fairly randomly (within expertises)
- Paying them in DCZ for their trouble
- Keeping them anonymous to protect them so and the work
- Stats on who is ace at the work; who poor. Filtering jurors
- Maintaining the pool of potential jurors (a dormant standing army)
- And so on
The power of the world wide web plus the acumen of a world of affictionadoes
from: Matthew Raymer and Peter Smith


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Kings Are Born In 2012
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Now showing items 1-4 of 4
The use of olive tree (Olea europaea L.) leaves as a bioindicator for environmental pollution in the Province of Aydın, Turkey
(Springer, 2011-03)
Introduction: In this study, olive tree leaves, collected from 50 sampling sites throughout the Province of Aydi{dotless}n, Turkey, were used to estimate level of pollution by measuring Al, As, B, Ba, Ca, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, ...
POPs in a major conurbation in Turkey: ambient air concentrations, seasonal variation, inhalation and dermal exposure, and associated carcinogenic risks
(Springer, 2016-11-01)
Semi-volatile organic compounds were monitored over a whole year, by collection of gas and particle phases every sixth day at a suburban site in Izmir, Turkey. Annual mean concentrations of 32 polychlorinated biphenyls ...
Occurrence, oral exposure and risk assessment of volatile organic compounds in drinking water for İzmir
(Elsevier, 2006-10)
Concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were measured in the drinking water in Province of İzmir, Turkey, and associated health risks due to ingestion of these compounds were investigated using population ...
Speciated arsenic concentrations, exposure, and associated health risks for rice and bulgur
(Elsevier, 2014-02)
Arsenic species were determined in rice and bulgur samples that were collected from 50 participants who also supplied exposure related information through a questionnaire survey. Speciation analysis was conducted using an ...


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Quartering Act
From Conservapedia
The Quartering Act was part of the Intolerable Acts in 1774, passed by Parliament as an amendment to the Mutiny Act[1] to control the American colonies. The Act made colonists feed and shelter, or "quarter", British troops in the colonies. Anger over having soldiers forced into their homes caused the inclusion of the Third Amendment in the Bill of Rights.


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Jurassic World hack tool is an poweful hack device that means that you can interact with different like-minded avid gamers from internationally who are seeking to defeat armies, conquer kingdoms and build a base. With this new actual-time strategy recreation, you can finally achieve your dream by changing into a medieval ruler controlling an enormous and ever-increasing world.
Return to Isla Nublar with the creators of the smash hit Jurassic Park Builder in your subsequent adventure: Jurassic World: The Sport, the official cellular sport based on this summer time's epic action-journey. Carry to life more than a hundred and fifty colossal dinosaurs from the brand new movie and problem your opponents in earth-shaking battles. Construct the theme park of tomorrow on this unmatched build-and-battle dinosaur expertise.
Save money through the tutorial! - I do know, it is tempting everybody to accelerate barely all the initial duties and eventually break free from the yoke of the tutorial and transfer on to the actual fun. However, no sense is speed up here anything, as a result of premium currency which you get initially the sport can be extra useful to you later in the enjoyable. That is Jurassic World The Recreation Hack primary! When you've used this tip, you'll have an advantage over the more impatient players.
Step 2 - Extremely vital, comply with the exact steps like we described under! In case you are accessing from your mobile system/tablet(Android,iOS,Home windows) enter your Jurassic World The Game game consumer identify and select your working system!If are you utilizing a computer or a pocket book connect the gadget to COMPUTER,Notebook,Mac via USB cable/bluetooth and choose the system and in the Consumer Name discipline put the name of the system,very important after you join the device,open the game and leave the game open to learn the info from the sport account and click the button Connect.
In the game you can unlock over 50 dino's of varied varieties, carry them forth and develop them to robust warriors to struggle challengers in dino battles. The dinosaur varieties are: carnivores, herbivores, pterosaurs and amphibians. You'll be able to purchase new sorts of dinosaurs from card packages with completely different rareness ranging from frequent to legendary. Construct the most effective and most profitable park that helps your dinosaurs develop using our Jurassic World cheats!


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Growth for enterprise IM will be guided by corporate IT managers rather than the service providers themselves, said Microsoft's David Gurle, product unit manager for the software maker's Windows Real Time Communications division and part of the software giant's Greenwich initiative.
"Today, enterprises are at the mercy of many service providers," Gurle said. "That's going to change."
While AOL, Microsoft's MSN and Yahoo have all unveiled plans to sell enterprise versions of their instant messaging services, Gurle said these efforts were mere baby steps in the face of broader issues hampering the nascent industry. In addition, IT departments will begin dictating demands that service providers such as the Big Three will need to address.
"Once enterprise IT managers start deploying (the technology)...they will be in a powerful position in changing behavior," Gurle said.
Gurle's group, which develops real-time communications technology for the corporate back-end, is separate from the MSN Messenger team, which is a consumer-based service. His team is developing Greenwich, which is intended to let companies offer instant communications features including Windows Messenger, peer-to-peer voice and video conferencing, and voice over Internet Protocol.
Gurle's comments, made during the Instant Messaging Planet conference here, highlighted the crossroads facing instant messaging--a technology once considered a fad for id="984816">teenagers but now deemed a powerful communications platform for businesses.
Instant messaging has quietly begun changing the way people interact in the workplace. Companies big and small are discovering that their employees are using instant messaging clients produced by AOL, MSN and Yahoo to communicate in real-time with business and personal contacts.
This trend has caused headaches for companies and especially their IT managers. Unlike telephones or e-mail, instant messaging clients lack security and accountability features that a technical staff need to control it.
For the Big Three, the trend has posed an opportunity to develop businesses around IM, since they can charge fees for a service that has always been free to download. All three companies have unveiled plans to sell IM versions that include security and accountability features.
However, major hurdles remain standing in the way of broader adoption, most notably the lack of interoperability among the Big Three--none of the services can communicate with any other service. A business that purchases one service risks cutting out contacts using other services. AOL has only just begun testing that kind of connection, with IBM's Lotus Sametime.
Executives from all three providers have echoed the sentiment that interoperability is crucial for enterprise IM to evolve. But although standards have been proposed, the Big Three all believe interoperability will be a business issue rather than a technical issue.
Gurle said that AOL, MSN and Yahoo will need to be convinced that it pays to interoperate.
"The value of the connection has yet to materialize in the minds of service providers," he said in an interview after his speech.


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10 "Pasta" Restaurants in San Francisco.
The Italian Homemade Company in North Beach is a great and easy spot to drop into for homemade pasta.
Pearl is a great option for a long weekend brunch or a casual weeknight dinner in the Richmond.
Flour + Water in the Mission makes the best pasta in San Francisco.
For a casual last-minute dinner in the Marina, The Italian Homemade Co. is a solid option.
The Mission mainstay has changed things around, serving up small plates, but it can't shake it's pricey and fancy training.
A pasta bar in the Mission with very good food, that we wish felt a little less rushed.
We can always rely on Cotogna in the Financial District for an excellent upscale Italian meal.


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Only One Rhino Laundry
No one knows more about dry cleaning equipment than Rhino Laundry. Our experienced staff has seen each and every malfunction possible with the machines you use to operate your business, and they are well-qualified to repair them all.
Any Solvent
Whether you use perchloroethylene or hydrocarbon solvents, the experts at Rhino Laundry will be able to repair your machine. Perhaps there is a leak in your otherwise enclosed machine, allowing some expelled perc to escape instead of it being captured, distilled and reused. We can fix that! Maybe your computer-controlled drying sensor has a problem, and isn't properly sensing when all the perc has been removed from the garments. We can fix that, too.
Any Part
One of the most important part of your equipment is the extraction chamber, or drum, where the clothes are loaded. This is the core of the machine and it must work properly. Whether your machine holds 20 pounds of clothes or 80, or anywhere in between, the pros at Rhino Laundry can repair your dry cleaning equipment.
Any Problem
Another vital part of the dry cleaning machine is the solvent chamber, or cage. If your cage is not properly maintaining a temperature of 86 degrees Fahrenheit, call Rhino Laundry for a repair appointment today. We can also repair distillation tanks, boilers, condensers, and separator units. A fault in any of the solvent-removing features of your machine could lead to impurities in your solvent that could damage clothing in future loads. Don't let this happen to you or your customers! Maintain you machines with the Rhino Laundry team.
Any Concern
Another common problem with dry cleaning equipment is a faulty drum. If your barrel can't spin between 350 and 450 rpm, the solvent will not be adequately flung from the now-clean garment. This would waste valuable, reusable solvent, and could potentially harm the customer. You also want to make sure your aerator is working properly. It wouldn't do to send the garments back to the customer smelling of perc!
We Have the Solution
Whatever woe you face, don't hesitate to call Rhino Laundry for dry cleaning equipment repair in Utah!


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Wayne Rooney is pleased to score a key goal versus the bitter rivals, the Reds, on Sunday. That goal of Rooney helped Manchester United beat Liverpool for the second time in the ongoing season. United had downed the Reds at the start of the season too when they had taken them on at Old Trafford. It was, in fact, a more dominating win of 3-1. Yesterday's game was a bit of a struggle, but, Rooney delivered when it mattered the most and made sure United continued to have a good 2016. The New Year seems to have brought a change of luck for United as they have not had a poor game since the start of it. Of three games that they have played...
posted by admin
Greatest goal ever?
posted by admin
For Steven Gerrard to describe it as the 'greatest goal I have ever seen' – even after all those hours spent on training grounds and football pitches on 13 year professional career – it has to be a bit special. Is THIS the best ever goal scored? Let us know your...


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Can the Pink Moon change your life?
Last night, I was fortunate to catch a glimpse of the April full moon before it disappeared magically, up into a dim bank of dusky cloud and I sensed the turn of the earth and the changing seasons as so many will have done before me. Continue reading Can the Pink Moon change your life?


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Classic Tote - Chocolate
Our Classic Tote is the perfect all-purpose bag from everyday to every adventure for years to come. Crafted in ultra soft aged leather, this work-to-weekend carryall is large enough to hold a laptop and stash your extra clothes for a quick trip to the beach. This bag has a zippered top for travel and one zippered pocket for your small essentials.
16" (L) x 13.5" (H) x 5.5" (w) or base handle drop from center: 9.75


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Court Hears Far-Left Appeals on Boycott BillFar-left groups say a bill that says boycott promoters can be sued hurts their freedom of expression.
Minister Ariel Branded a 'Provocateur' by LeftistsRemarks by Housing Minister anger extreme leftist organization Gush Shalom, which says Ariel is a provocateur.
Gush Shalom Denounces DesecrationRadical left-wing Gush Shalom denounces the desecration of Joseph's Tomb, but also reminds that the area is a part of 'Palestine.'
Weinstein to Defend Boycott LawIsrael's attorney general is preparing to defend the boycott law - which he previously described as "borderline defensible" - before the High Court
Gush Shalom: Cancel J'lem DayLeft-wing Gush Shalom wants Israel to cancel Jerusalem Day saying it is a holiday for "racist nationalists and settler provocateurs."


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Respect the Local Community
Be mindful of your behaviour and attitude and how you treat yourself during the festival. Think twice before intoxicating yourself or wearing yourself thin over the weekend. Good sleep, good health and a clear mind will raise your vibe high and leave you feeling much better at the end. Do you best to be responsible for yourself.
Respect the local community.
As an inner city event, we are surrounded by the local residences. Each year we have to close sections of the park for a period of time for the build of the site, while the event is on and at the end when we dismantle the whole thing. They allow for us to play music for the duration of the weekend, which is at the sacrifice of their peace. The least we can do, is to be respectful and considerate of them in terms of littering, urination and noise when you leave the festival site. Please use the bins and toilets which are situated around the perimeter of the festival instead of someone's garden.
Respect each other.
This is essential for the festival to feel like a community to continue the good work our team has been working towards for the last 7 years.
We have a zero tolerance approach to any acts of violence, bullying or other abusive behaviours, including sexual harassment. Show love to strangers and friends alike and treat others as you would wish to be treated.
Respect the Earth.
Eastern Electrics strives to minimise our impact in various ways. You can do your bit by sharing lifts with friend to the event, using the correct bins on site for recycling and land fill waste. Take your rubbish home, or dispose of it properly, keep this in mind when planning your festival weekend.


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How to Determine Whether the Company Can Pay Its Obligations
Interest expenses for outstanding obligations such as loans, bonds and other long-term liabilities are considered fixed expenses -- expenses that don't change much over time. Although your small business benefits from these liabilities because they increase cash flow, fixed expenses also create risk. Downward fluctuations in your company's earnings before interest and tax -- its operating income -- can leave it unable to pay its obligations. Assess the risk of default by determining the company's times interest earned ratio, also referred to as its interest coverage ratio. The lower the ratio and the longer a low ratio is sustained, the greater the company's risk of default. Optimally, the ratio should stay above 1.5 to 2.
Prepare an income statement to determine your company's operating income. Begin with total revenue. Deduct from that the costs of the goods sold, salaries, rent, utilities and other operating expenses. For example, if sales totaled $50,000 and the cost of goods, salaries, rent and utilities each cost $5,000, for a total of $20,000 in expenses, the operating income is $30,000.
Total the company's interest expenses.
Divide the operating income by the interest expenses. For example, if the interest expenses are $10,000, divide the $30,000 operating income by $10,000 to arrive at a times interest expense ratio of 3.
- The times interest earned ratio provides a current snapshot of a company's ability to pay its bills. It doesn't reflect future risk.
- Income variability influences the level of risk a particular times interest earned ratio represents. Wide year-to-year income swings represent higher risk. Growing companies and companies with stable income can assume comparatively more debt.
- Use the times interest earned ratio in concert with other accounting formulas for a more comprehensive financial evaluation.
- Principles of Financial Accounting; John J. Wild, Ken W. Shaw and Barbara Chiapetta; McGraw-Hill Irwin
- Finance Formulas: Interest Coverage Ratio
Photo Credits
- Photos.com/Photos.com/Getty Images


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Irish tough it out against ChiefsLondon Irish finished the year in the Aviva Premiership Rugby play-off places after moving to third thanks a tough win over Exeter at the Madejski Stadium.ShareCentres Joe Ansbro and Shontayne Hape grabbed Irish tries, whi
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Worcester's 6-0 victory at Adams Park meant Wasps started the new year with a fifth successive Aviva Premiership Rugby defeat, suffering their longest league losing streak in 10 years.Warriors fly-half Joe Carlisle scored the only points of the game - a p


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It is time to seize a fertile opportunity to simultaneously expand global trade and boost the U.S. economy with export opportunities and job creation - by expanding the product coverage of the Information Technology Agreement (ITA).
As the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation shows in a new report, an expanded ITA could remove tariffs on at least an additional $800 billion in global two-way trade in information and communications technology (ICT) products, a 20-percent increase over the $4 trillion now covered annually. This represents a tremendous opportunity for the United States. ITIF estimates that ITA expansion would bring an additional $40.6 billion worth of U.S. exports of ICT products under ITA coverage, while also increasing U.S. exports of ICT products by $2.8 billion, boosting revenues of U.S. ICT firms by $10 billion, and supporting the creation of approximately 60,000 new U.S. jobs throughout the economy.
Negotiated in 1996, the ITA eliminated tariffs on eight major categories of ICT products such as semiconductors, computers, and telecommunications equipment. However, as visionary as it was, the initial ITA agreement still did not cover a number of core ICT products such as DRAMs (dynamic random access memory chips) nor dozens of every-day consumer electronic products, including many types of audio-visual equipment such as audio speakers, DVD players, and video cameras.
Now think of how much information technology has evolved since 1996 - GPS systems, flat panel displays, video game consoles, and remote home and patient monitoring devices (just to name a few!) have become part of daily life. What's more, an entirely new class of semiconductor chips called multi-component (MCO) semiconductors have facilitated a transformative 15 years. But incredibly, many of these products are not covered under the ITA's tariff-eliminating regime, since the product coverage of the ITA has not been updated since the Agreement's 1996 launch.
To be sure, even given its initial limitations and failure to update for a host of innovations, the ITA has worked. Today, 73 nations are ITA signatories, up from 29 in 1996. From 1996 to 2008, total global trade in ICT products increased more than 10 percent annually, from $1.2 trillion to $4.0 trillion. Behind these large numbers are the innovations in trade itself as the ITA has empowered the formation of efficient global ICT supply chains which enabled a shift from a closed, linear innovation model to an open innovation model that leverages close collaboration among suppliers, network partners, and customers to bring breakthrough new ICT products to market. But an ITA that covers an expanded suite of products will work even better, spurring greater global diffusion and adoption of ICT products by lowering their price (through tariff elimination) and inspiring still more innovations in ICT products and services.
With prospects for progress on the Doha round uncertain, ITA expansion presents the global trade community the best option to carry momentum for greater multilateral trade liberalization forward. Such momentum is clearly needed, for-as the move yesterday by the United States and some of its trade partners against China's export restrictions on rare earth minerals makes clear-the free and fair flow of goods and services cannot be taken for granted. An expanded ITA provides both a vehicle-and a shining exemplar-for how to take continued multilateral trade liberalization in the right direction. With economic benefits so compelling-for developed and developing countries alike-now is the time for the United States to take a leading role in promoting expansion of the product list covered by the ITA.
Find the original posting here.


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TOKYO – Helmer Jun Ichikawa, 59, died after collapsing at lunch on Friday and being rushed to a nearby Tokyo hospital. The cause of death has not yet been announced.
The morning of his death Ichikawa was editing his last pic, "buy a suit," which is skedded to preem on October 18 in the Japanese Eyes of the upcoming Tokyo International Film Festival.
Born in Tokyo in 1948, Ichikawa joined a company producing TV commercials in 1975 and established himself as a leader in the field for his award-winning, sales boosting ads.
In 1987 he released his first theatrical pic, "BU*SU," a teen drama starring Yasuko Tomita. In the 1990s he helmed a series of low-key, but sharply perceptive and beautifully shot dramas that were compared to the work of Yasujiro Ozu, an Ichikawa favorite, though he also expressed admiration for countrymen Takeshi Kitano and Shinji Somai, as well as Francois Truffaut, Eric Rohmer, Ken Loach and Mike Leigh.
In 1991 his teen drama "Tsugumi" won him the Best Director prize at the Mainichi Film Awards, a major domestic awards competish. He repeated in 1994 with "Dying at a Hospital," a drama about terminal cancer patients.
His 1995 Ozu homage "Tokyo Kyodai" (Tokyo Siblings) screened in the Panorama section of the Berlin fest, where it was awarded a Special Mention by the FIPRESCI jury. In 1997 "Tokyo Lullaby," a middle-aged relationship drama, earned Ichikawa Best Director honors at the Montreal World Film Festival.
His biggest prize winner, however, was "Tony Takitani," a 2004 drama based on a Haruki Murakami short story about an introverted illustrator (Issei Ogata) with a fashion-crazed wife (Rie Miyazawa) that won the Special Jury Prize, Youth Jury Prize and FIPRESCI Prize at the Locarno fest, as well as many honors elsewhere, including a nom for Best Foreign Film at the 2006 Independent Spirit Awards. It was also released in the US by Strand Releasing and in 10 other countries and territories around the world besides Japan.
Ichikawa's most recently released pic was the 2007 teen drama "How to Become Myself."


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Winter Camp
Join us for Winter Camp weekend at the Zoo!
January 25th & 26th 2020-CANCELED
Join us for Winter Camp weekend at the Zoo!
January 25th & 26th 2020-CANCELED
Ready for a winter break? Send the kids to North Georgia Zoo!
Campers will be getting up close & personal with a variety of animals. They will enjoy learning about animals, creating enrichment, helping with training and much more! Campers will get to be active, growing and learning. We send them home with everlasting memories!
Don't worry we have both indoor and outdoor activities so we won't let them get too cold. Pack for muddy or cold fun though!
Campers can choose 1 day or 2 days. We also offer a overnight option.
For ages 8+. Teens and younger kids on the same weekend. They will be split up for activities. Overnight accommodations areas would be separate for boys and girls.
Full Day: $85 a day 9-5p
Half Day: $50 a day 1-5p
Overnight Option: $200 (This includes all meals)
Check out our Summer Options as well! Day Camp & Overnight Teen Camp available! Click button for more info.
*Cold Weather, we just purchased the new land that has a building on it that can be heated with lots of space to do indoor animal training, activities and games so that will be what we will be working out of. It is still a basic empty building but perfect for the start of a new camp tradition. Over time we will add more to the building (including indoor bathrooms and running water) but for now it is a great large indoor space for lots of educational and fun activities and learning to happen. It will also serve as the sleep over area for some of the campers. If weather is concerning, may look at just dropping off kids later or picking up earlier. We can be flexible.


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The Newton Parks & Recreation Department has been providing year-round recreation programs for individuals with disabilities for 42 years. A forerunner in community-based therapeutic recreation programs for people with disabilities, the department currently serves over 300 athletes with disabilities each year.
The City has a long-standing partnership with Newton Athletes Unlimited, a non-profit that supports the City of Newton's Therapeutic Recreation programs.
Please visit our website Newton Athletes Unlimited for all up to date program information.
Contact Us!
Mark Kelly, Director of Special Needs 617-796-1527
Karen Peirce, Associate Director of Special Needs 617-796-1538
Please note our new address:
246 Dudley Road
Newton, MA 02459
2020 Athletes Unlimited Summer Newsletter & Registration Form
Youth Triathlon Supporting Local Businesses


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Cloud Based Apps to Provide Big Returns for Companies in 2016
|Stuart Parkerson in Enterprise Saturday, December 26, 2015
Appian recently surveyed over 300 IT decision makers to provide insight into how companies will approach mobilizing their businesses in 2016. The survey was conducted by Harris Poll.
According to the resulting report, a majority of the respondents believe cloud-based applications/solutions (70%) and enterprise mobility (61%) will provide the top returns to in 2016, with 87% saying enterprise mobility was critical to their company's profitability.
Other insight from the respondents include:
- 90 percent see enterprise mobility as the critical function for customer engagement, competitiveness and operational productivity in 2016.
- 73% say their companies are planning to mobilize the entire organization.
- Telecommunications (40%), financial services (36%), manufacturing (34%), energy and utilities (32%), healthcare / pharma (32%), transportation (32%) and retail (31%), were cited as the industries most likely to adopt enterprise mobility in 2016.
- 59% say they will increase their custom application development budget in 2016 regardless of company revenue.
- Top drivers for custom application development in 2016 include efficiency (56%), security (53%), speed (48%), operational productivity (42%), and customer engagement (37%)
- 43% indicated it takes their company three-to-six months to deliver a new application to their business.
- 64% cited agility, speed and application security as obstacles.
- Companies with higher revenue ($100M+) are significantly more likely than those at lower revenue companies (under $100M) to report ease of use / user interface as an obstacle (33% vs. 22%).
- 86% are concerned about security in both custom applications and security in pre-packaged applications.
Read more: http://www.appian.com/resources/enterprise-mobilit...


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The New England Patriots new tight end, Rob Gronkowski, is my new favorite player. Called, almost appropriately, "Gronk", he is one of three Gronkowskis in the league this season. Chris Gronkowski plays fullback for Dallas and Dan Gronkowski, is a tight end for the Lions. They are the only set of three siblings in the NFL at this time.
Gronk is an absolute beast. 6'6″ and 264 pounds, and only 21, he is what I like to call a "big fella".
His play during the first half of the Rams/Patriots game tonight solidified my good opinion of him. He's a big, blocking tight end and taking over in a position that's been largely ineffective the last few years.
But that's not all the Patriots did to improve their tight end play.
They added speedy Aaron Hernandez and bull-dozing Alge Crumpler to create a really interesting mix of tight ends that can add wrinkles to the Patriots offense this season.
And tonight, both Gronk and Crumpler have been showing off.
In the first half, Gronkowski literally dragged linebacker James Laurinaitis about five yards before diving and just breaking the plane for a touchdown. He looked like a favorite uncle trying to escape the pesky niece or nephew that just won't let go of his foot. (Video here)
And the Patriots were in the red zone thanks to a huge, on his knees, hands clamped onto the ball catch on the sideline by Alge Crumpler. I'd say that was Sportscenter highlight number one and Gronk's trip to the end zone number two. (Video here)
I would look for Gronk to be a big end zone target in the mold of Mike Vrabel. Vrabel worked as a touchdown target because he was big, quick, and had good hands. Vrabel was two inches shorter and four pounds lighter than Gronkowski.
And Crumpler will not only provide an experienced blocker with good hands, but his ten years of experience will rub off on his rookie counterparts.
How much better is this team going to be when you can't tell if Brady is going to check down to one of his tight ends, or if they will provide blocks for runs or big throws. Plus, it is hard for some of the guys in the backfield, who average about 6′, 200 pounds, to guard someone who is just plain bigger than them.
Now if only some of the awesomeness of the new tight ends will rub off on the defense, the Patriots will be unstoppable.


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The story so far: Broadchurch is a hugely successful and gripping drama set in a small community on the south coast of England, and starring David Tennant and Olivia Colman. It caused such a stir that an American version was made—Gracepoint—also starring David Tennant, which retold the same basic story, but changing the ending.
Gracepoint proved to be slightly less popular than Broadchurch, and subsequent plans to make a Gracepoint version of Broadchurch series 2 (which has started in the U.K.) have been shelved.
But now, in a fascinating twist in the tale, David Tennant has received a People's Choice award for his heroic efforts in essentially playing the same part but with a different accent (and script).
David was voted the favorite actor in a new TV series, beating Ben Mckenzie (Gotham), Laurence Fishburne (Black-ish), Scott Bakula (NCIS) and Dylan McDermott (Stalker). Which must be a nice way to round off an interesting experiment, while everyone gets ready for the next phase of Broadchurch-based emotional turmoil.
Stay tuned for the exciting next episode in this unfolding drama, coming to BBC AMERICA on Wednesday, March 4.
See more:
'Broadchurch's David Tennant and Olivia Colman Were Keen to Return to Dorset, England
WATCH: 'Broadchurch' Season 2 Teaser, BBC AMERICA Air Date Revealed
WATCH: Third Teaser Arrives for 'Broadchurch' Season 2
FIRST LOOK: The Cast of 'Broadchurch' Season Two Report For Duty


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**Warning, this week I am going to be sappy**
I don't blog a whole lot about MM. He comes into many posts based on the fact that we live together, along with Mustang Girl and the menagerie of animals we house, but, I don't think I have ever really sat down and intentionally blogged about HIM.
(Well okay there was that one really fun post about the various methods we met and dated, but he started that on his own blog.)
So this week, because I can, I am going to tell you all Thirteen things I love about Mustang Man.
1. His eyes. The color is gorgeous, to me, green, with some flecks of brown. The brown is more pronounced when he is tired, like he is this week. But beyond the color is the expressiveness of those eyes. He can speak volumes with one look.
2. His hugs. When MM hugs you, his arms are long enough to go all the way around, and strong enouugh to give a good squeeze. You KNOW you've been hugged when you get an MM hug.
3. His sense of humor. Its fun and warm and outrageous, and sarcastic and warped. Just the way I like them
4. His Honesty. The man is honest to a fault, and I really appreciate that, because I have been the victim of the opposite all too many times.
5. He is extremely easy to talk to. We don't lack things to talk about, and the conversation is intelligent. When we want it to be, that is.
6. His work ethic. MM is not afraid of hard work, and when he is doing something, you can rest assured it will be done right.
7. His patience. He has more patience than I think I could ever have.
8. He will help any friend in need who asks it of him. Need help moving? Call MM. (no don't). Want to work on your car? Call MM (depends on what kind of car :) ). No, really, if he is able, he is willing.
9. His sense of self. He is who he is. If you don't like it, then it is your problem. He isn't an egotist, running around, thinking he is perfect, and all that and a bag of chips, but he knows who he is, and what he stands for, and he is not apologetic for it. Nor should he be. He is a wonderful person.
10. His Wild Things tattoo. Nothing says sexy to me like the Wild Things crew marching around his leg. When we go anywhere, we get more comments on that tattoo.... and I get to see it every day.
11. I sleep better when I sleep next to him. Sleeping in the day sucks because I have to sleep alone. More often than not, I sleep in his arms. (or I start off that way). Its a very comfy place to lay my head....
12. His family. He has a great family. This includes his forever friends who live in our area.
13. And, certainly not the least, and speaking of family, his Daughter. Mustang Girl. She is a great kid, despite the raging teen-ness that is surging in our house. She keeps us both on our toes, she's funny, kind, fun to be around. I would not trade her for anything....
So, there you have my Thirteen. For more participants, go here
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Thursday 13
**Warning, this week I am going to be sappy**
Posted by mielikki at 1:41 AM
11 comments:
- sybil law said...
(Someone's gettin' lucky!)
- May 28, 2009 at 5:13 AM
- Daryl said...
Sounds blissful .. thank goodness there is teen angst and pup/cat madness or frankly it would be too sweet ... NOT!
- May 28, 2009 at 6:22 AM
- Mia Celeste said...
Wow, what a wonderful tribute. Mustang Man's lucky to have you.
- May 28, 2009 at 8:04 AM
- I am Harriet said...
Very sweet post!
- May 28, 2009 at 8:36 AM
- Kimmie said...
That's so very sweet! :) My T13
- May 28, 2009 at 8:38 AM
- Alice Audrey said...
Talking about eye color reminds me of when Mr. Al and I were living with his brother. Mr. Al's eyes are a beautiful blue. His brother's brown. One day his brother's girlfriend and I were talking and she started going on and on about what a beautiful color the brother's eyes were. Blue. Uh.... yeah.
- May 28, 2009 at 10:11 AM
- Bubblewench said...
sooo cute! Very nice!
- May 28, 2009 at 10:44 AM
- MM said...
Awww, I'm blushing
- May 28, 2009 at 1:29 PM
- Mimi said...
Sniff, sniff! Fantastic!
- May 28, 2009 at 4:04 PM
- Dianne said...
oh wow! this is a beautiful love story - how amazing that you told it in list form
- May 29, 2009 at 6:46 AM
- Americanising Desi said...
and sappy is just my kinda deal
oohh yum yum
happy TT
did two
- May 29, 2009 at 9:01 AM


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It's Still the Slime Mold Story
Short paths for love and glory as time goes by
Kurt Mehlhorn is a theorist who has made many contributions to almost all aspects of theory. A recurrent theme is the balance of beautiful theory with potential practical applications—most of his work has some of each. He has made contributions to: data structures, computational geometry, parallel computing, VLSI design, computational complexity, combinatorial optimization, and graph algorithms. He is famous beyond the theory community for his work on LEDA, the Library of Efficient Data types and Algorithms. And he has also been the director of the Max Planck Institute for Computer Science.
Today Ken and I want to talk about yet another paper on slime mold—when will these papers stop?
Just kidding. The paper in question is one of the first to study the general computational power of a slime mold, namely Physarum polycephalum. The paper is joint with Vincenzo Bonifaci and Girish Varma, and is about to appear at this winter's SODA conference in Japan. While there are many cool papers at SODA 2012—change that to all papers at SODA are cool— this appears to be the only one with the name of a particular type of slime mold in its title.
As a nod to Wikipedia's "blackout", here is a picture of black slime mold, along with one of slime mold finding shortest paths in a maze:
I have known Kurt for many years, and have always been a great supporter of his and an admirer of his beautiful work. One of the surprising issues that arose early in the LEDA project was the issue of accuracy. I have talked about it before here: the short story is that even simple computational geometry algorithms can fail in practice, if one is not careful with the issue of finite precision. Quite surprising.
Let's turn to the computational power of a class of creatures that are called slime molds—a wonderful name.
Slime Mold
When I worked on DNA computing in the late 1990's, I talked often to biologists. One of the hot areas of research then, and I believe still, is the study of slime molds. I have to admit as a computer scientist that the name of the area did not exactly get me excited, but slime molds are important. There are entire conferences devoted to this single subject, for example.
You may ask why are they so important? A good question. I believe there are several reasons that biologists continue to be so intrigued with slime molds. One is a pragmatic reason: slime molds are easy to work with in the laboratory. They are not hard to grow, to manipulate, or to pay for—mice, for example, are several orders of magnitude more expensive to experiment with. Another is that slime molds have behavior that is more complex than one might imagine, especially given their simple biological structure. Here is a quote on this:
There are few creatures more remarkable than the lowly slime mold.
But is the slime mold really a creature? Or is it a fungus? If it's not a fungus, is it a single entity—or millions? Or both?
Animal, Vegetable, or Model?
Another way to regard their complexity is the Pluto effect. Recall Pluto was once considered a planet and now is no longer one. When scientists change their minds about what something is, that suggests to me that something complex must be involved. Slime molds were formerly classified as fungi, but are no longer considered part of this kingdom.
Perhaps the most important reason is they exhibit interesting behavior. For example, if you physically divide a mass of slime mold into two pieces on a dish they generally find they way back together. One of the world experts on them, John Bonner, states that they are:
no more than a bag of amoebae encased in a thin slime sheath, yet they manage to have various behaviors that are equal to those of animals who possess muscles and nerves with ganglia — that is, simple brains.
This is pretty neat. As a computer scientist it sounds like he is saying: here are very simple little computational agents and yet as an ensemble they can "compute" quite non-trivial things. This is exactly the types of problems we love: a simple computational device that exhibits complex behavior. Even more relevant to today's highly distributed and networked world is the paradox: how can simple local rules afford interesting complex computational behavior? This is where slime molds come in to the picture: indeed here is a picture of one.
Luckily we do not have to look at them too much, or even worse grow them, but we can build a simple mathematical model that appears to give good approximations to their behavior, and thereby try to figure out how they work. This is exactly what Kurt and his co-authors have been able to do, in greater generality than previously established.
The Big Picture
One of the driving forces behind the new computational interest in slime molds is a seminal experiment performed by Atsushi Tero of Hokkaido University. He grew the mold Physarum polycephalum on a standard dish, but placed both attractors and obstacles on the dish. The attractors were food—oat flakes if you must know—and the obstacles were bright light. The mold is attracted to food—who is not?—but is camera shy and tries to avoid bright light. Tero for fun arranged the attractors and obstacles to model the major centers in the Greater Tokyo Area. The mold initially filled the whole dish, but over time evolved into a network that connected the centers in a way that closely approximated the actual Tokyo rail system.
Tero introduced a model that claimed to represent the behavior well. Roughly the model was a time varying electrical network. The next major result was by Tomoyuki Miyaji and Isamu Ohnishi. They proved that Tero's model converges to an optimal solution in any instance of a planar graph.
What this means is that the slime mold units that are initially on non-optimal edges in the graph eventually gain information about this fact and move off them. In the model this is analogized to "taking the path of least resistance" in an electrical network. Here, however, the network itself is adaptive: the resistance an edge changes with time in connection with the organisms' movements as well as the fixed cost of the edge itself. Eventually edges that are not part of any optimal solution see their resistance grow unboundedly. The nodes in the graph have derived potentials, and these regulate the flow of current which corresponds to how the organisms congregate.
The big picture is that millions of years of evolution can generate organisms responding to local properties (like "potential") that still collectively solve global computational problems. We may learn from Nature how best to solve non-trivial problems by cheap local means.
Sketch of Model and Result
As in Tero's original model, every edge in the instance graph has a positive length cost and a time-dependent state called "diameter." The resistance at time is . Every node has a potential at time . Current is modeled as a flow in the graph from a source node to a sink node . The conservation of flow dictates that for every node other than or ,
The current technically has a sign according to whatever orientation is given to the edge , but this does not matter to the fundamental dynamical equation, which depends only on the volume of the current:
The magnitudes are normalized by stipulating an overall flow of from to , meaning is set to and is set to . Since these relations are invariant under an additive constant on the potentials, we can finally fix for all . Then the remaining potentials can be computed at any timestep by solving linear equations in terms of the and the fixed values of . This yields values and hence computes the derivative of for each edge , which then tells how to update the state for the next timestep.
At equilibrium the edge derivatives are all zero, so the normalized current in an edge is equal to the diameter, which in turn models how the slime mold is congregating in edge . The question is whether bad edges get zero diameter. Let be the subgraph of formed by all edges that belong to some minimum-cost path from to , and let denote the collection of all normalized flows just through . If the min-cost path is unique then is just a path and is its flow, but otherwise may have flows that combine two or more optimal paths.
Thus far this is all Tero. The achievement of Kurt and his co-authors is to remove the planarity restriction on , with the slight caveat that in the non-unique case they don't quite prove pointwise convergence to an optimal flow, but only attraction to meaning that for any , the norm between the vector of values and some member of (which could differ for different ) goes to zero. Their main theorem is:
Theorem 1 For any graph as above, the dynamical system is attracted to . If is a unique path then the dynamics converge pointwise to the flow of value along that path.
The main innovation in the proof is finding the best Lyapunov function to impose on the system while attempting to bound it over all iterations. This was actually done experimentally by regarding various instance graphs as parallel networks. This enabled them to handle arbitrary graphs. As usual the considerable details are in the paper.
I like the fact that this work requires the analysis of a dynamical system. Theory is currently great at many things, but the understanding of dynamic or iterative methods is not one of them. Also we see—is this allowed?—the use of continuous differential equations and related methods in a discrete problem.
They further show that the same dynamic electrical system can be used to solve the transportation problem, which is a generalization of the shortest path problem. This leads us to ask, what else can be done this way?
Open Problems
We quote Kurt:
The Physarum computation is fully distributed; node potentials depend only on the potentials of the neighbors, currents are determined by potential differences of edge endpoints, and the update rule for edge diameters is local. Can the Physarum computation be used as the basis for an efficient distributed shortest path algorithm?
Indeed can these or related local rules be used to solve other problems? For instance, can they be upgraded to evaluate networks of Boolean gates, at least heuristically? Note that the circuit value problem is -complete, so this would be a hard step for any parallel model.
[inserted a missing "(t)", added slime mold photos to intro]
January 17, 2012 9:49 pm
A (possibly) related "Is this allowed?" work is Sergey Verlan and Yurii Rogozhin's survey New Choice for Small Universal Devices: Symport/Antiport P Systems :
Abstract Symport/antiport P systems provide a very simple machinery inspired by corresponding operations in the living cell. It turns out that systems of small descriptional complexity are needed to achieve the universality by these systems. This makes them a good candidate for small universal devices replacing register machines for different simulations, especially when a simulating parallel machinery is involved.
Symport/antiport systems lend themselves naturally too, to interesting questions at the microscopic level: How do phenomena associated to spacial separation arise spontaneously in dynamical systems whose Hamiltonian lacks a formal notion of space, but does support symport/antiport dynamics?
Philip permalinkJanuary 18, 2012 4:10 am
A request; could you please elaborate on this thought-provoking comment:
"Theory is currently great at many things, but the understanding of dynamic or iterative methods is not one of them."
Craig permalinkJanuary 18, 2012 1:18 pm
In general, in order to know the outcome of an iterative method, you have to perform the iterative method until it terminates. If you can reduce the iterative method to something simpler, you don't have to go through all of its steps, but this is usually not the case.
Theory usually can only tell you some general characteristics of the outcome of an iterative method (or how fast the method takes until it stops) but cannot tell you the exact outcome.
Suresh Venkat permalinkJanuary 21, 2012 2:56 pm
In the case of the TSP, there is a fair bit that we know about the worst-case behavior of local heuristics (as David Johnson's survey outlines). In general, the 'formal' way to attack iterative methods has been via PLS and PPAD, but it is true that more problems remain open than have been solved.
May 28, 2012 6:04 am
Millions of years of selection. Spend a a week in a forest and you'll see a lot of interesting things..
Bobbie permalinkAugust 1, 2012 12:26 pm
How do we get rid of it if it is found?? We are freaked out.


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Twitter went into a frenzy yesterday – with thousands of One Direction fans fearing that Zayn Malik was dead – after a hoax hashtag was posted that read: #RIPZaynMalik .
The hash-tag sparked a huge reaction from fans until they realised that the singer was in good health, and the whole thing was an April Fool's Day prank.
The 'One Directioners' responded with anger and filled the social media site with furious responses. Fans from across the globe tweeted threats towards whoever had started the prank, describing it as "disgusting" and "idiotic".
The person who did come up with the hash-tag has not been identified, something that may be for the best as one person tweeted: "WHY IS THIS TRENDING #RIPZAYNMALIK?!????? DO I NEEDA KILL SOMEONE?!?!!!? ILL CHOP THEIR BALLS AND SLIT THEIR THROAT!!!!"
Another upset fan tweeted a picture with the following message for whoever was behind it all: "If I had a gun with two bullets. And I was in a room with Hitler, Bin Laden, and you. I would shoot you twice"
Others seemed more bemused at the fact that the boy-band's followers were complaining about the hash-tag trending whilst spreading it further by including it in their own tweets and retweeting other tweets that included #RIPZaynMalik.
The 21 year old has not commented on the prank directly, but by the looks of things his fanatic followers have his back securely covered.
*You can watch music videos and much more on FilmOn


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Using products that coordinate with each other usually makes for a quicker and more visually pleasing layout and the best part about the Memories and More card packs from Stampin' Up! is that the colours coordinate with the other product lines through out the catalogue meaning it is simple for me to pull out things from my stash knowing that they will go together OKAY. A major plus point for Mrs Clashy Clashy over here!
I really wanted to use the Go. See. Do. Card but my photo was too big, I used a technique that I learnt from Hebba over at My Little Journal on YouTube and cut into the sentiment on the card to slide my photo under. This made a lovely little focal point and means I get to use the card. Yay!
As always the full process video is at the bottom of this post. Enjoy!
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With the lack of ice in many areas last winter my ice fishing days were very numbered. They even cancelled the SnoBear Migration on Lake Winnipeg because of the "iffy" conditions. Because of that, and because I had left the Ranger down in Florida, I had a good excuse to go back down south so my wife and I headed back down to Florida for six-days of fun fishing. It's nice to just get away and go fishing without having to shoot TV stuff, do a tournament or have another type of commitment. On these six days there was no commitment, we were just going fishing.
We were stationed in Lake Placid, and Clay Lake was behind the hotel we were staying in. It's a fairly small lake but it's got a great boat launch so we decided that it would be a good spot to go out and have some fun. On day one, Dave Johnson joined us and we caught a few fish here and there before coming across some isolated weeds just off of a boat dock. I threw out a Berkley Havoc Grass Pig and got a hit, set the hook and ended up landing a largemouth that was over eight-pounds! As much as people talk about the giant bass of Florida, I have fished there for over three decades and catching eight-pound fish is not as easy as you might think. Florida does cough up double digit fish every year, but with the amount of year 'round fishing pressure they're under, an eight-pounder is a very respectable bass down there.
On day two we met Dave at the south end of Lake Okeechobee and proceeded to catch 30 or 40 bass, primarily on swimbaits cast over the flats. It was a great day and we all had lots of fun down in South Bay. On day three a friend, Leo Capobianco, flew in to Florida to join us for a couple of days of fun fishing. On the first day we fished three different lakes in the Lake Placid area that I'd never been on before and we caught a lot of fish, but no big ones. The next day we decided to head back down to Lake Okeechobee early in the morning and, once again, we caught 30 or 40 bass in the south end of the lake using swimbaits.
Then my wife and I packed it up and headed over to Bartow, Florida to fish some of the waters at Streamsong Resort. Recreational Director, Tyler Ramsdell, had invited us to go check out some of the lakes on the 16,000-acre Streamsong property. Our good friend, Ward Edmonds, flew in to join us and we fished our brains out. In the course of two-days we fished about five different phosphate pits and ended up catching over 100 bass each day. I would say that at least 80 of them were between four and eight-pounds. It was absolutely incredible fishing and I'll definitely be going back to Streamsong Resort next year.
Then it was time to haul the boat and truck back to Ontario as I had two seminars to do at the Toronto Sportsmen's Show. They moved the show date back into March and the location to the International Centre in Mississauga. The show was very reminiscent of the way it was in the 80s, when it used to be at the old CNE grounds. It was absolutely jammed and you couldn't even get a parking spot without waiting in huge lineups just to get into the lot. It was absolutely a happening and very busy show.
Then it was time to get some work done around home base, tape some radio shows, work on production and a few other things before getting back on the road for a little drive down to the great state of Texas. Canadian fishing guide, Joe Ford, guides down in Texas for a few months every year on Lake Fork. Lake Fork is a renowned big bass fishery and it was exciting for me as I'd only been there once, back about 20-years ago.
Well, we fished hard for two and a half-days but didn't get any quality fish. It just seemed like we missed the bite. Joe had caught fish just under 10-pounds prior to us getting there but we hit a bit of a cold front and things just weren't happening for us. As a result it turned out to be one of those trips that you'll never see on TV because we just didn't get enough fish to make a very good show. It was the old, "you should have been here last week" or "you should have stayed for a few extra days" scenario.
The irony is, just as we were getting ready to leave the big bass started moving up onto the beds in droves. We went into one cove the last day of fishing and every 40-yards there were guys fishing bedding fish. Seven, eight, nine, ten-pound fish were being caught but we just ran out of time. These types of trips humble you a bit but I guess if they all went good every time it would be called "catching" instead of fishing. Oh well, it is what it is.
Then it was off to Oklahoma to my buddy, Dave Smith's private lake. When I say private, there are only five or six properties on the lake. Dave's got a fishing lodge there that he keeps as a bit of a getaway. We decided we weren't going to shoot any video; we were just going to have some fun. As it turned out, we caught 60 or 70 fish up to about six-pounds, including lots of four and five-pounders. It would have made some great video but, even though we didn't shoot any, it was a fun two days of fishing. And that was that for our down and dirty fun fishing trip.
When we got back home I had a dentist's appointment, I got some maintenance done on the vehicle and I did some more radio taping. Then a friend, Steve Joyce from Fox Harb'r Resort, invited us to the Lake Ontario Waterkeeper gala event in Toronto at the CBC headquarters. It was an incredibly fun event and a lot of money was raised for this great cause.
Then it was time to pack up and head to Georgian Bay on our maiden voyage with the new Ranger Z522D bass boat. This boat is definitely the finest big water bass boat I've ever been in in my life. It is a spacious, soft riding, deep boat that will handle whatever the Great Lakes can dish at you. Local guide, Blair McCaffrey, joined us for two days of fishing up there. He guides out of Pleasant Cove for owner, Bruce Bishop. We shot a show and caught some big pike up there about 15-years ago so it was fun to get back up to Pointe au Baril and get out fishing on Georgian Bay. We saw some really big pike and we caught a lot of pike – but we didn't catch any big pike. We did catch an eight-pound walleye on a Berkley War Pig crankbait, which was a nice bonus. We also met up with a Ministry of Natural Resources group who were netting some spawning walleyes and we had the chance to film them netting, measuring and tagging some walleyes up to 12-pounds.
I had a very good conversation with the MNR folks and also spent some time in the evening with them. They told me that the population of walleyes up there is very fragile so if you fish for them you should consider putting some of the bigger fish back. I realize they're good eating, but the best way to help sustain the population up there is to release the big spawning fish.
Then it was time to get the smallmouth stuff ready and head to Wisconsin with my friend, Derek Strub, for the annual Sturgeon Bay Open. Derek keeps a record of every day he fishes and he has detailed notes on every one of our practice days, every one of our finishes, the wind conditions, water temperatures and all those things that really good anglers should keep track of. I'd do it myself but I'd wear out too many pens and too much paper if I did that!
We headed to Wisconsin with high hopes but in all the years we've fished this tournament the conditions have never been the same. When we got to Sturgeon Bay on Lake Michigan the water temperatures were cold and the fishing was tougher than normal, although we did end up catching just under 23-pounds on the first day and were sitting in 24th place.
Day two got cancelled and so we had to wait until Sunday to finish the tournament. They use Sunday as a rain day in case the first or second day gets cancelled. When we got back on the water it was still pretty rough, but not as rough as it was day two. It turned out to be a very tough bite for us. We went to our prime area where we had caught our fish on the first day but only managed to scrape up four fish. After working it all day I looked at the clock and saw that we only had about 20-minutes of fishing time left since we had a long run back to the weigh-in. So we decided to go to an area where we caught one five-pound fish in practice but didn't visit on day one.
We got there and immediately I lost a heavy fish. Then Derek lost a big fish. This tournament has a six fish limit and we only had four fish in the well. Time was ticking and we still had a fairly long run back when Derek hooks up and lands one about 4 ¾-pounds. Now we've got five fish in the well and I'm looking at my watch thinking, man we've got to run, we've got to get back. So we started running back and, about four-miles outside of the weigh-in, we had 14-minutes left. So we stopped at a spot that didn't have anything when we checked it in practice but we have caught fish on in previous years and doesn't Strub set the hook on a 5.83-pounder – number six!
I unhooked his bait and put the fish in the livewell, then right away he sets the hook into a 2½-pounder. The smallest one in our livewell was about 2¾ so we put the smaller fish back, fired up the outboard and ran the new Ranger Z522D wide open through the choppy water to get back to the weigh-in. We made it with about 30-seconds to spare and ended up moving into a pretty respectable 15th place out of 171 boats.
Once I got home I had to unpack then pack up the pike stuff and head back up to Georgian Bay to finish the show. My brother Wayne and I caught a lot of fish with our guide, Blair, and although we didn't get any big ones, we did get enough to finish the show off. We caught most of our fish on the new Berkley Cutter 110 jerkbait. These suspending jerkbaits are reasonably priced and they've got a great action.
Then it was home for a day before packing up for a brook trout and pike trip to Nipigon. I invited my friend John Whyte, from www.timeonthewater.ca and a number of other sites, on this trip. We left in the afternoon on Victoria Day and decided we'd only drive part way up. We got as far as Cochrane that night and did the rest of the drive the next day. On the way up there we got stopped on Highway 11 for about an hour and a half because there were forest fires along both sides of the road in that area. Once we got going again we drove past the smoldering areas on our way our destination at Pasha Lake Cabins.
Chad and Michelle Thompson from Wisconsin have had this operation for a few years now and they do a great job running this fishing camp. They have a number of cabins for rent and they offer their guests fishing on more than 100 lakes in the area, including big Lake Nipigon. Lake Nipigon has been on my bucket list since I got into this business so I was really looking forward to sampling the fishing there.
Most of the guests were concentrating on pike, walleye and brook trout on the smaller lakes in the area and I didn't talk to one of them who weren't catching fish. A father and son talked about the 40-inch pike they had caught after they limited out on walleyes that morning; another guy from Wisconsin was telling me how he caught 40 walleyes that day, and another group of guys were talking about the pike and walleyes they caught. It seemed like everybody was catching fish.
Walleye wasn't open on Lake Nipigon when we were there so our main focus was on brook trout and pike. In the three-days of fishing we had up there we spent 70% to 80% of our time on brook trout and the other 20% to 30% of our time on pike. We didn't catch any really big pike but every time we went into pike-looking bays we would catch dozens of fish. But the real reason we were there was for the brook trout fishing.
The world record brook trout was caught in the Nipigon River back in 1915. Last year we made a trip to Bowman Island Charters on the Lake Superior end on the Nipigon River and, on my third cast, I caught a 24-inch brook trout out on Lake Superior. Needless to say I was pretty excited to fish at the other end of the river, up on Lake Nipigon.
On the first day Chad Thompson hooked us up with guide, Gus Buta. Gus has grown up all his life fishing, both commercially and recreationally. He's a true outdoorsman who lives in Beardmore, just down the road from Pasha Lake Cabins and he's got a wealth of knowledge. When I asked him how the lake trout fishing was, he said they average around 20-pounds. He also told me that they have a derby there every year and there's 40-pound fish caught in Nipigon. He said that at this time of year the fish are scattered but it gets better as it gets later into the season. The brook trout fishing, he said, is amazing, along with big pike and walleye fishing. It's an incredible and diverse fishery up there.
On the first day Gus said he was taking us to a "warm up area" where we would catch lots of 17 to 20-inch fish. Well, John and I ended up going to this warm up area and we caught a dozen beautiful 17 to 20-inch brook trout as well as a few bonus pike.
The first three fish that John caught all came by jigging and snapping a little 1/8-ounce jighead with a Berkley Powerbait Twitchtail Minnow on it. I was using a two-inch Powerbait Ripple Shad on a little tiny swimbait jighead that weighed about 1/16 of an ounce. I was casting it out on four-pound Nanofil line with a fluorocarbon leader and it definitely was the winner as it caught the most brook trout that day. We ended up catching a dozen brookies in total and had an absolute riot getting our show shot.
We decided to go on our own for the next two days and fish different areas. On the second day we caught brook trout up to 22-inches. My son Darren, who is the camera man, took a break and caught three in a row using a blue and silver Johnson Shutter Spoon. In the space of about 10-minutes he got his personal biggest, a four-pounder, then bested it with a four and a half-pounder and then got another personal best 22-incher that weighed about five and a half-pounds! Needless to say it was an amazing day.
The next day we decided we'd go to go to another area about 20-miles away and ended up catching brook trout up to six-pounds. I caught a 22 ½-incher that was around six-pounds, John Whyte caught a 22-incher that was five-plus pounds, we caught another 22-incher, in fact, the smallest fish we caught that day was four-pounds. It was absolutely incredible. I'm glad I got this trip knocked off my bucket list but the problem is, now I want to go back. I'm already thinking of making another trip up there in another two-years or so. I'd really like to sample the walleye fishing there, I definitely want to go after the brook trout again and I want to poke around at some of those giant lakers and pike as well.


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Vintage: The 2013 vintage is even better than the near-perfect 2012 harvest! A warm and dry spring resulted in excellent berry set and a larger crop. Moderate temperatures throughout the growing season easily brought the fruit to full maturity. The wines of 2013 have great intensity and acidity; with beautiful aromas and flavors.
Vineyard: Tempranillo is the noble grape of Spain. It is the predominant varietal in the wines from the famous Rioja region, where it is sometimes blended with Garnacha (Grenache), Graciano, and Mazuelo (Carignan). In 1998 two acres of Tempranillo were planted on an isolated knoll in the southern part of the Truchard Estate Vineyard. The vines grow in volcanic soils and benefit from the cool Carneros temperatures. Tempranillo makes a unique, spicy wine, with deep purple color, lush texture, and firm acidity. It is a wonderful food wine.
Harvest: October 1 • 24.5 º Brix • 3.75 pH • 6.9 g/L TA
Winemaking: The fruit was gently destemmed and crushed into an open top fermenter with approximately 20% whole berries. The tank was inoculated with Pasteur Red yeast and punched down twice daily throughout the fermentation. The temperature peaked at 88º F. After 14 days of maceration, the lot was pressed and allowed to settle in tank before going to barrel. The wine was aged for 10 months in both French (85%) and American (15%) oak; 25% of these barrels were new. The wine was racked only one time before being bottled in August 2014. This wine is 100% Tempranillo. It is approachable right now, but will reward careful cellaring for the next 10 - 15 years.
Wine Analysis: 14.2% alcohol • 3.85 pH • 6.2 g/l TA
Tasting Notes: A complex nose of ripe cherry, cranberry, and cassis with a hint of Earl Grey tea and cedar. The mouth is layered with flavors of red currants, plum jam, and sweet vanilla. Chalky tannins focus the palate and provide a delicate finish of red fruit, mineral and spice.


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The Best VPNs for iOS in 2020
With every new model introduced, the iPhone continues to be one of the most sought-after phones around the world. Apple, along with other popular brands like Samsung and Huawei, have shaped the way we browse the web, with more of us connecting with news sources and doing online shopping and banking via the handheld option every year. The problem here is that our devices offer little to no security to begin with and purchasing apps for security can wind up being pretty expensive.
iPhone users do have passable malware protection, but they're not covered from things like random phishing attacks, nor are they safe in public Wi-Fi spots. When connecting to these vulnerable networks, passwords, banking information and even private images can be exposed and used against you. The best way of securing your iPhone is with a VPN.
How a VPN Works
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) will encrypt all traffic leaving your device, whether from your browser or apps, before passing it through one of its designated servers and decrypting it. This prevents the government, hackers and even your ISP from viewing your activity and knowing the location it originated from. Taking back this level of privacy on the internet is something that benefits everyone, but some more than others. Journalists and citizens of oppressive countries, in countries where VPNs are usually banned, can communicate their experiences online with the world, for example.
Connecting to a VPN server in another country encrypts traffic – but this isn't the only advantage. It also allows you to view region-locked international content that can only be accessed by anyone within that region. For anyone using a VPN locally, they might want to select a nearby server for greater performance and to avoid ISP throttling, whereas someone travelling might want to use their iPhone as a way of keeping up with shows from back home.
The benefits of using a VPN don't just apply to iPhones but rather all devices. Laptops, computers and tablets are also prone to hacking and without a VPN connected, you also won't have the anonymity that it can offer. Here are some of the most important benefits of using a VPN.
The Benefits of Using a VPN With Your iPhone
Added Performance: When left to our ISPs, internet usage can often feel limited and at times very slow. That's because ISPs are known for throttling users indiscriminately and restricting bandwidth. With a decent VPN, users can get around these issues. Connecting to a VPN means avoiding ISP throttling entirely, but choosing one of the best providers means you also get unlimited bandwidth, unlimited server-switching and zero throttling. These features are all essential to consistent performance, especially when it comes to live streaming or any other activity that needs no interruption.
Security: Zero protection is never a good thing and since iPhone security is pretty basic, using a VPN is necessary when out on the move. The cost of purchasing protective apps can be so high on iPhone compared to Android and Windows that it's often not worth the purchase. With a VPN, users get to encrypt their bank information, passwords and everyday traffic when passing through Wi-Fi zones like at an airport or a local coffee shop. Without any security, people leave this information wide open to anyone that might be watching.
Geo-Spoofing: No one likes to be restricted in what they watch on the internet – especially since much of the best sport, news and movies come from abroad. When we're travelling, keeping up with our favorite content can be tough too. With a VPN, users can get around region-locked content simply by connecting to a server in the location of the content you require. For example, being based in the UK and connecting to a server in the US would spoof any website into thinking that user is based in the US.
Accessing Shared Drives: Accessing shared drives while on the move is essential for some mobile workers. Businesses use VPNs in order to keep confidential information secure while being used on other networks and to prevent hackers from using a remote worker's traffic to access the shared drives. The damage here could be in the millions depending on the company, should the hackers decide to hold their sensitive data for ransom. A VPN also allows companies to direct non-important traffic through the user's ISP and the sensitive stuff through the VPN, a feature what's known as split-tunneling.
Privacy on the Move: Privacy has become a luxury on the web and as one of the main reasons for choosing a VPN, it's something we all want more of. A VPN offers users the chance to reclaim their privacy and avoid any snooping from governments, as well as further protection and anonymity against hackers. We often access several different public Wi-Fi zones a day while on our phones, like at work or on a train, and these networks come with zero protection without a VPN. For anyone based in a country that's strict on internet privileges, privacy is essential.
The Features to Look out for
There are plenty of features to consider when buying a VPN, but the most important ones depend on what you need the service for. Many of the essential attributes can be found below.
Number of Servers and Location: All-round performance is essential for any VPN use. No one wants to experience downtime or throttling – it's one of the reasons we choose to use VPNs in the first place. A provider that houses server networks around the world and in popular hotspots like North America and Europe offers greater flexibility for geo-spoofing, as well as consistent speeds and uptime. And with unlimited server switching, users can avoid any congested servers and maintain their activity. Some providers offer this as an automated feature.
Essential Security Features: If a VPN is lacking in security then it's useless. Like nearly all the free services out there, any provider that doesn't invest in privacy and encryption protocols leaves their users exposed to hackers and government surveillance. Alongside the industry-standard 256-bit AES encryption, high-quality VPNs come with a host of features, like the automatic kill-switch, that kills web connection in the event of a VPN connection interference. Look out for integrated tools like split-tunnel, zero-knowledge DNS, DDoS protection, Onion Over VPN and Double VPN. All these features can keep you protected while on the move and in unprotected public Wi-Fi spaces.
No-log Policy: A no-logging policy is something that a lot of VPN providers claim to offer when really, it's not always the case. Storing user data is troubling for several reasons. It offers the provider the chance to sell that data to third-party advertisers, as well as cooperate with government requests and hand over data to be used for incrimination. If a VPN stores a user's data, it's fair to assume that they don't prioritize privacy and would, therefore, hand the data over freely or fold under the pressure. Always be sure to check where the provider is headquartered and verify the claim of zero-logging.
Support: A responsive, round-the-clock support team is one way a VPN can stand out from its competitors. Despite how simple to use VPNs have become, everyone at some point needs to pose their problem, and it's not always during regular business hours. Any high-quality provider will be reachable at all hours and on any day of the week. Whether it's with tickets or through email, phone or live chat, users should be able to have their queries answered at any time, from anywhere in the world.
Multiple Devices: It pays off to keep all your devices protected and not just your iPhone, or the kit you use the most. Most VPNs offer the chance to protect multiple devices at once, making it much more affordable for all-round protection and performance. Not all VPNs offer this feature, however, and not all of them offer the same amount of coverage. While some might only offer a few devices protection, other top-quality providers offer as many as 10. Choose one that will give you enough coverage for the full duration of your subscription.
P2P-Friendly: Not everyone is interested in this feature but it's important to note for those that are. A lot of VPNs aren't equipped for P2P-sharing and some don't openly welcome it on their service. If torrenting is one of your main reasons for buying a VPN then be sure to choose one that's P2P-friendly. The providers that are open to torrenting will optimize their service around P2P and gear their servers to support and protect extensive P2P traffic.
When a VPN on iPhone Can't Protect You
A VPN is mostly faultless in what it provides but there are a few ways they can leave you unprotected. For example, phishing sites can still trick users into handing over login details, and the fact that they come and go rather quickly makes it too hard and almost pointless to blacklist them. Using an old HTTP site instead of a HTTPS can also leave your traffic open to interception, as the VPN's connection to the site, not the user's connection to the VPN, isn't secure. Connecting to a HTTPS site without a VPN, while encrypted, still reveals your IP address. A VPN alongside HTTPS is the best way to stay anonymous, other than Tor.
The Best VPNs for iOS:
The best VPN really depends on what you intend to use it for, whether it's streaming or torrenting or just keeping your information secure, but these are the best all-round services available for iOS in 2019.
Pros: Over 5000 servers, 6 connections, No-logs
Cons: A bit pricey
NordVPN is one of the most respected on the list because of its firm commitment to both privacy and performance. With more than 5700 servers in 60 countries, combined with unlimited bandwidth and server switching, users work with an extensive infrastructure for uninterrupted streaming, torrenting and more. They also benefit from up to six simultaneous devices and a dedicated IP address.
NordVPN protects its customers with military-grade 256-bit AES encryption and with features like Double VPN, DNS-leak protection, Onion Over VPN and zero logs. For any issues with the service, they offer a highly responsive 24-7 support team for quick results.
IPVanish VPN
Pros: 1000+ servers, P2P-friendly, 10 connections
Cons: Not ideal for novices
IPVanish VPN comes recommended by the likes of Mashable and for good reason – it's a decent service. It has more than 1300 servers in almost 80 worldwide locations, making it flexible for anyone at home or on the move. Just like NordVPN, it also comes with unlimited server switching and bandwidth for maximum usage. And for anyone not satisfied with the service, there's a seven-day money-back guarantee.
IPVanish uses 256-bit AES to encrypt traffic, and they also offer multiple protocols, like IKEv2, OpenVPN and L2TP/IPsec. Just like all other good providers, it doesn't log any traffic, but IPVanish offers a staggering number of connections – up to 10 at once.
Pros: Simple to use, P2P-friendly
Cons: Security tools often unreliable
Covering more than 140 countries with over 2000 servers, PureVPN is a suitable option for pretty much anyone. Unlike a lot of other providers, PureVPN owns and operates its own servers without the involvement of third parties, so there's no need to worry about your speed being reduced. While some might not offer all security protocols or provide support for all of them, PureVPN does. It uses Ozone technology, a server-level antivirus and ad-blocker, to block malicious sites and maintain a user's ideal browsing experience.
PureVPN is open to P2P sharing and offers unlimited bandwidth on servers that are optimized for buffer-free streaming. It also comes with a 31-day money-back guarantee.
Pros: No logs, Worldwide server distribution
Cons: Pricey, Geo-spoofing doesn't always work
For anyone looking to access geo-restricted content then CyberGhost is the right choice. It has over 4700 servers in 60 popular countries for entertainment and uses ad-blocking technology to ensure live matches and TV shows go undisturbed. Their VPNs are available on all devices and platforms, not just iOS, and come with up to seven simultaneous connections. They're also growing their infrastructure and will soon be operating their own datacenters.
For keeping its users secure, CyberGhost doesn't keep logs and has optimized servers with the highest level of encryption available. Using 256-bit AES, it ensures that its users and their sensitive data stay private in public Wi-Fi spaces.
Pros: P2P-friendly, Own infrastructure
Cons: Retains some data
Just like PureVPN, VyprVPN runs its own infrastructure too, and is constantly expanding it. More than two-million people worldwide trust it for its stance on censorship, high-speed streaming and worldwide server network. It has more than 700 servers in over 70 countries worldwide, making it a good choice for streaming and geo-spoofing. All Vypr's servers are optimized to offer the best streaming experience, and users get unlimited bandwidth on up to five different devices at once.
Alongside 256-bit AES encryption, VyprVPN employs exclusive DNS and censorship technologies, public Wi-Fi protection features and an automatic kill switch. A 30-day money-back guarantee is available for anyone who changes their mind.
Hide My Ass!
Pros: 1000+ servers, Simple-to-use
Cons: Retains some data, Pricey
With over 1000 servers and more than 290 worldwide locations, Hide My Ass! gives users plenty of opportunity to hide their own. Like some of the others mentioned, many of its servers are optimized for both streaming and torrenting. Their military-grade encryption, or 'donkey-grade' as explained on their website, means users can bank and use their passwords online without worry of hackers interfering.
Hide My Ass! comes with up to five simultaneous devices and access to their 24-7 support team should any questions or unlikely issues arise.
Pros: Based in British Virgin Islands, Privacy committed
Cons: Pricey
Though one of the more expensive providers featured in the list, ExpressVPN is one of the best services available. It has more than 3000 servers in almost 100 different countries and its award-winning software keeps iOS users anonymous. As it's based in the British Virgin Islands, a region with relaxed copyright and data-retention laws, users don't need to worry about their data being passed on to any authorities.
ExpressVPN uses AES-256, the best encryption available, along with zero-knowledge DNS, a network-lock kill switch and split tunneling. It also offers 24-7 live-chat support and a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Ivacy VPN
Pros: Business VPN, Fast streaming
Cons: Some servers can be slow
Ivacy VPN offers their users total anonymity and security in public Wi-Fi zones with numerous features. It uses 256-bit encryption, a dedicated IP, automatic kill switch and Secure DNS, as well as plenty of others. The option of multiple protocols allows for even further security too.
Anyone that opts for Ivacy VPN has access to a network spread across 100 locations and 1000 servers, which is perfect for streaming and avoiding ISP throttling. It supports all devices and even games consoles, with up to five logins per subscription.
Pros: Good speeds
Cons: Some logs, Limited torrenting
Headquartered in Tel Aviv, SaferVPN comes with an easy-to-use interface and a server network over 34 different countries. It offers rapid connection speeds with approximately 700 servers, all of which are managed in-house with no third-party involvement.
As for security, SaferVPN uses the same 256-bit encryption as all other decent VPNs, but it also comes with automatic Wi-Fi security for anyone using public connections. It comes with multiple protocols and anonymous payment for enhanced encryption, and anyone confused with the service can use their 24-7 customer support or step-by-step guides for simple troubleshooting.
Pros: Unblocks various banned sites
Cons: Vague on privacy, small network
Russia-based RusVPN is a bit smaller than its competitors, with only 330+ servers in 30 countries, but it claims to unblock sites like Reddit and even Netflix. It uses solid encryption and features like the kill switch to make sure anyone on their network remains untraceable.
RusVPN has a well-designed interface that's simple to use on any device, especially iOS. It can be used on all recent iPhones, starting from the 5s, and it also comes with a seven-day free trial.
How to Setup Your VPN on Your iOS Device?
iOS users are fortunate in that Apple makes it easy to set up a VPN. All the popular VPN apps offering PPTP, Cisco IPSec protocols, L2TP/IPSec are already integrated into Apple's software. More secure options like OpenVPN require third-party apps.
Downloading and installing these apps requires inputting personal information. You will be required to grant permission to the app for the VPN configuration on your smartphone or tablet. And Touch ID is needed to authorize changes to the VPN settings.
Getting started with VPN on your iPhone:
- Register and sign in to your VPN account. Give your iPhone permission to add a VPN by clicking Allow.
- Next, click Settings - General - VPN.
- Select your preferred VPN from the list and click 'switch on'. You can also turn off the VPN in the same way.
If you wish to avoid third-party apps altogether, there is a more complex manual procedure you can perform. This requires all your setup information including your username/password, remote ID, and the server.
Once you have subscribed to VPN provider all of this information readily available to you. Next, follow these steps:
- Launch Settings - General - VPN - Add VPN Configuration.
- Click Type. Select the appropriate protocol: IKEv2, IPSec or L2TP.
- Choose your VPN type and click Add Configuration in the top left corner.
- Now Enter Your VPN Information. This includes Description (name of provider) Server Location, and Remote ID.
- Verify your Authentication Credentials.
- Click Done.
- To disable VPN, Navigate to Settings - VPN - Turn off
Before iOS 8 launched, VPNs on iPads and iPhones turned off when the device was put into sleep mode. Fortunately, now all devices with their screen turned off are still automatically connected to a VPN.
It doesn't really matter which method you use to set up your VPN, provided you are connected to a reliable VPN network. It is advisable not to use just any free VPN as their security features are sketchy at best. Most of them offer substandard service, poor privacy and they will leak your information.
If you are uncertain about which VPN to use, try a premium VPN service with a free trial. VPNs routinely offer money back guarantees which is a great way to test their services (connection speeds, reliability, functionality) at zero cost to yourself.
Summary of iOS VPNs
Apple devices are generally regarded as the creme de la creme of personal computers, smartphones, tablets, and wearable technology. Given their cost, it comes as no surprise that users want to protect the contents of their iOS devices with the best possible security.
The VPN providers listed above are highly rated by users and industry aficionados. Now, it's possible to use a VPN to protect your iPhone and iPad at the click of a button. VPNs for iOS devices guard against prying eyes, cybercriminals, government agencies, and other bad actors. VPNs truly offer an effective line of defense against threats for Apple users.
What are your thoughts on VPNs for iOS devices? What experiences have you had with malware, adware, tracking or privacy issues on Apple? Feel free to share your thoughts with our community.
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I have my own concerns about anyone who's gone from supporting Bush to supporting Giuliani to supporting Romney. That said, Patrick Ruffini has for a while now offered some of the sharpest analysis of the Republican race that I've seen anywhere. Today, for instance he notes:
The conservative establishment has taken a lot for granted since late December. They watched McCain win New Hampshire, and waited for South Carolina. They watched McCain win South Carolina, and waited for Florida. They then watched McCain win Florida, and switched into panic mode. In effect, they followed in the electoral footsteps of Rudy Giuliani's wait-and-hope strategy.
For a long time, I was like most conservatives. I didn't think John McCain could win. As soon as that assessment changed mid- to late-December, my blogging honed in on McCain. At the time, most of the 'sphere remained obsessed with taking out the niche candidacy of Mike Huckabee.... Six weeks later, here we are, with the hated Mike Huckabee with the same shot he had months ago (little to none), but fighting a desperate rearguard action against McCain with less than a week to execute. Sorry folks, but it's probably too little too late.
If you wanted Romney to be the nominee, you needed to be attacking McCain early and not in the usual ways. You needed to allow for six weeks for a narrative to develop. Huckabee posed a short-term tactical threat to Romney in Iowa; though he hurt Romney, he had no chance of winning the nomination. McCain posed a strategic threat starting in New Hampshire, as evidenced by the floodgates that were opened by that first win. He didn't hurt Romney so much as he cleared the field of acceptable alternatives for the less partisan rank-and-file.
Read the rest here.
--Christopher Orr


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NOTE: TONIGHT's show has been cancelled. We're pulling the plug on this one. It was a fun run! Check NashvilleStandUp.com for other shows in the future.
KEG-STAND(up) COMEDY SHOW @ That's Cool
open mic singer-songwriter stuff happens earlier,
stand-up comedy show at 9
$5 = cover
Co-hosts Mary Jay Berger & Paulina Combow bring you rotating lineups of various hilarious comedians on (most) Thursday nights..
AND several bucket spots available for any comics in the audience.
That's Cool
2309 Franklin Pike
Nashville, TN 37204
(just down the road from Zanies)