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WASHINGTON (TheBlaze/AP) -- Just when you thought scandals surrounding American generals had reacher their pinnacle, yet another incident -- this one somewhat less salacious -- has come to light. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has demoted the former head of U.S. Africa Command who was accused of spending thousands of dollars on lavish travel and other unauthorized expenses, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
Panetta stripped Gen. William "Kip" Ward of a star, which means that he will now retire as a three-star lieutenant general. Ward also has been ordered to repay the government $82,000.
Secretary of the Army John McHugh concurred with Panetta's decision, Pentagon press secretary George Little said in a statement Tuesday.
This Oct. 1, 2008 file photo shows Army Gen. William E. "Kip" Ward, Commander of U.S. Africa Command, speaking at the Pentagon. A senior U.S. official says Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has demoted, Ward, the former head of U.S. Africa Command who was accused of spending thousands of dollars on lavish travel and other unauthorized expenses. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari, File)
The demotion came after retired Army Gen. David Petraeus resigned as CIA director because of an extramarital affair and Marine Gen. John Allen was being investigated for potentially improper communications with a woman.
"Secretary Panetta insists that leaders within the Department of Defense exemplify both professional excellence and sound judgment," Little said. "The secretary is committed to ensuring that any improprieties or misconduct by senior officers are dealt with swiftly and appropriately."
A spokesman for Ward said Tuesday that the general "has never been motivated by personal gain and fulfilled each and every mission assigned to him and served his country and the men and women assigned to his commands with distinction."
"While Gen. Ward is not perfect he has always been guided by his faith in God and the belief that there is no greater honor as a patriot than to lead those who choose to serve our nation in the armed forces," spokesman Chris Garrett said in a statement.
Retiring as a three-star general will cost Ward about $30,000 a year in retirement pay, giving him close to $208,802 a year rather than the $236,650 he would receive as a four-star general.
Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had urged Panetta to allow Ward to retire at his full four-star general rank, according to defense officials.
A report by the Defense Department inspector general found that Ward used military vehicles to shuttle his wife on shopping trips and to a spa and billed the government for a refueling stop overnight in Bermuda, where the couple stayed in a $750 suite. The report detailed lengthy stays at lavish hotels for Ward, his wife and his staff members, and the use of five-vehicle motorcades when he traveled to Washington.
Photo Credit: AFRICOM
The report also said Ward and his wife, Joyce, accepted dinner and Broadway show tickets from a government contractor during a trip during which he went backstage to meet actor Denzel Washington. The couple and several staff members also spent two nights at the Waldorf Astoria hotel.
Other charges were that Ward often extended his overseas trips - particularly those to the U.S. - for personal reasons, resulting in "exponential" increases in costs.
Although the report included responses from Ward to a number of the allegations, investigators often found records and statements that contradicted his explanations. At one point, Ward defended the Bermuda layover, saying that it came up on short notice, which is why his security team had to stay there longer. The report found records showing that the layover had been planned for at least four days in advance.
A common theme running through the report was Ward's insistence that his wife travel with him at government cost, even though it was often not authorized and she performed few official duties. It said he also routinely stayed in high-priced suites in luxury hotels rather than in standard rooms or less expensive locales.
The allegations, coming after a 17-month investigation, delayed Ward's planned April 2011 retirement. And they were an embarrassing end note to his career, since he had claimed a place in history as the military's first commander of Africa Command.
Panetta's options regarding Ward were limited by complex laws and military guidelines. He had only one real choice: Allow Ward to retire as a four-star or demote him and force him to retire as a lieutenant general.
In order for Ward to be demoted to two-star rank, investigators would have to conclude that he also had problems before moving to Africa Command, and officials said that does not appear to be the case.
Flickr/The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS)
The investigation dragged on for so long that that Ward was temporarily dropped to two-star status. Under military guidelines, if a full general is not serving in a four-star command or office for more than 60 days, he or she is automatically reduced to two-star rank. Ward would not be able to recoup any back pay for the time at the two-star rank, even though he is being retired at the three-star level.
Major general, or two-star, is the highest rank to which an officer can be promoted by regular military action. Becoming a three-star - lieutenant general - or a four-star general requires a presidential nomination and confirmation by Congress. It, therefore, is not considered permanent and lasts only as long as the person is serving in a job of that rank.
That technical demotion is not uncommon as generals move from job to job and unexpected delays occur. It would not have affected Ward's ability to retire as a four-star, if he had been cleared of the charges.


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D&D 4e Encounter Builder
Create a combat encounter for Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition by adding and removing creatures either manually or from the compendium, which you can save for use later or share with others. Full directions are below or in each header.
Looking for 5th Edition? It's right here.
You can also view encounters others have made in the public encounters list.
Main [?] [hide]
Compendium [?] [hide]
Party Size:
Party Level:
Monster level:
Monster Type:
|XP Value: 393
|Budget: 400
|Difficulty: None
Current Encounter [?] [hide]
|XP Value
|Battletested Orc
|Orc Raider
|Kobold Cleaver
[ Add to Toolbar ]
Save/Load [?] [hide]
Encounter Name: [Permalink]
Encounter Notes:
You need to log in first to save encounters.
Directions [?] [hide]
Select your party level and size under Main. If this is a shared encounter you may first need to click the Reset Encounter button, under the Main section above. Then add creatures to the encounter by selecting the monster level and its type (standard, minion, elite, or solo) and click the add button. Monster levels highlighted in green are likely too easy for your party, while monster levels highlighted in red are likely too hard.
You can also use the DDI compendium to build encounters. Search for enemies based on level, role, difficulty, and/or name and click search. You'll get the creature's name and a link to the creature's statblock in the compendium for referencing. Click on the creature's name and then click add to add it to the encounter with its name and statblock link.
The current XP value of your encounter (XP Value), as well as your target xp amount (Budget), and its difficulty are displayed under Current Encounter. You can adjust the amount of monsters or remove them in the Qty row in Current Encounter. If you use the Compendium Builder there will also be a clickable name that will take you to that creature's statblock. Clicking the [e] in the Names column allows you to edit the names of creatures in the encounter.
You can save or load encounters to/from your desktop, clipboard, or account. If you register or log in an account on the left you can store the encounter on the site and access it again from anywhere; if you choose to make the encounter public when saving to your account you can also share the URL to it with others, allowing them to view and use your encounter. Be sure to include some notes on how the encounter should be played and the general monster strategy.
Shout outs: Stacey, Matt Price, Das Meses, Woxper Rabbit, Yuki, ShortyMcgibble, Mr. Vinclair, Alice Downing, casey wilson, Rosa Hendrie, connor howard, Knot Sure, Sarah Banford, Alex Lavigne, email@example.com, Parker VanDerMeide, KFB_Patreon, teszt, Alex Reyes, David Davidson, eric sun, Benoit David Baillargeon, Jordan Jorgensen, Jason Wenneman, Mike Kemmerer, Katherine Ekes Lewing, Matthew payne, Jacob Plummer, RiGarou, Rebecca Montelli, Logan Patterson, Gage Lahr, H, Sagwopper, John Karels, wintersanctuary, Dylan Williams, Donovan Nordick, Snowy Snow, Jakasaras 4che, Nahellion, Ben Pytlik, Robert D O'Dell, Scarlett, Chris Francis, Cameron Kleine, Serena Verden, Alexander Griffiths, SnipsGTI, Brian Sousa, bilbens baggo, Stuart, IbKelek, Galygious, Nicole Patten, Clementine Turner, ted valen, T. Alexander, Tim Mason, Darren Hilbring, Gannon Dubay, George V Crain, Brian allbritton, Aaron Teupe, Moonstone, Megan Haines, Matthew Newton, Celso R Garcia III, Felix Schmäche, Corwin Lum, John, Rob Garner, Matt Houghton, Rune Anjum, Brice Carpenter, Jordan Brazeal, Jake Lane, Adam Ruiz, Daniel Whelan, Nathan Tracy, Balanced Game Review, Jordan Fountain, Stefan Gottschalk's, Bartis Edmond Hawley-Wall, Kyler Havard, Zealot23, Nich Smith, Chris Mulvihill, Keaton Permenter, Shazear, Leanna Orr, John Nazario, Gary, Gordon Alexander Fallon, Max Puplett
Their contribution stands as a beacon of hope for all adventurers!

subset: commoncrawl


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TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwired – Oct 4, 2013) – Bombardier Aerospace announced today that Luxair, the national airline of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, has placed a firm order for a Q400 NextGen turboprop airliner and has also taken an option for an additional Q400 NextGen aircraft. The airline currently operates a fleet of six Q400 and Q400 NextGen aircraft.
Based on the list price of the Q400 NextGen airliner, the firm order is valued at approximately $32.2 million USD. The value could increase to $65.78 million USD should Luxair exercise its option.
"As part of our ongoing plan to further strengthen our business and increase regional frequencies, we have been utilizing the Q400 aircraft for over seven years, and today we are pleased to announce that our fleet modernization continues with the addition of another one of these high performance turboprops," said Adrien Ney, President and Chief Executive Officer, Luxair. "The Q400 NextGen aircraft have provided us with operating and performance flexibility, while enhancing passenger convenience and overall comfort."
"Luxair, though steeped in over 50 years of aviation heritage, has grown today into one of the most modern airlines with one of the youngest fleets in Europe. The many attributes of the Q400 NextGen aircraft – its size, speed, comfort, economics and environmental credentials – have helped position Luxair as a leader in the short- to medium-haul market segment," said Mike Arcamone, President, Bombardier Commercial Aircraft. "Overall, the Q400 NextGen aircraft continues to deliver unmatched performance and operating economics and we're delighted that Luxair has been experiencing success with its fleet," added Mr. Arcamone.
The order announced today increases firm orders for Q400 and Q400 NextGen turboprops to 476 aircraft.
About Q400 NextGen aircraft
The Q400 NextGen turboprop is the most recent development in the evolution of the Q400 aircraft and the advanced successor to Bombardier's Dash 8/Q-Series family of aircraft. Optimized for short-haul operations, the "comfortably greener," 70- to 80-seat Q400 NextGen aircraft is a large, fast, quiet and fuel-efficient turboprop. It provides an ideal balance of passenger comfort and operating economics with a reduced environmental footprint.
Worldwide, Q400 and Q400 NextGen aircraft have transported more than 243 million passengers and have logged over 4.2 million flight hours and more than 4.5 million take-offs and landings. The Q400 and Q400 NextGen aircraft program includes some 50 customers and operators in over 30 countries on five continents.
About Bombardier
Bombardier is the world's only manufacturer of both planes and trains. Looking far ahead while delivering today, Bombardier is evolving mobility worldwide by answering the call for more efficient, sustainable and enjoyable transportation everywhere. Our vehicles, services and, most of all, our employees are what make us a global leader in transportation.
Bombardier is headquartered in Montreal, Canada. Our shares are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (BBD) and we are listed on the Dow Jones Sustainability World and North America Indexes. In the fiscal year ended December 31, 2012, we posted revenues of $16.8 billion. News and information are available at bombardier.com or follow us on Twitter @Bombardier.
Notes to editors
Images of Q400 NextGen aircraft in Luxair's livery are posted with this press release at www.bombardier.com.
Additional information on the Q400 NextGen aircraft is available at www.q400nextgen.com.
Follow @Bombardier_Aero on Twitter to receive the latest news and updates from Bombardier Aerospace.
Bombardier, NextGen, Q400 and The Evolution of Mobility are trademarks of Bombardier Inc. or its subsidiaries.
Marc Duchesne
Bombardier Commercial Aircraft


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Jackson County Population Demographics and Statistics
The American Community Survey (ACS), conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, publishes detailed estimates of the population each year. .
Unlike the Census—which is an exact count of people and households every ten years—ACS statistics are estimated based on a representative survey sample.
For locations with populations under 60,000, the ACS is only available in 5-year estimates, rather than single-year periods. The 5-year estimates provide greater geographical granularity but a less granular time period.
How many people live in Jackson County, Mississippi?
Note: Hover over a census tract to see its population. To see data from different time periods, use the time-slider beneath the chart.
How is Jackson County's population distributed by race?
This chart shows the proportion of each racial group as a percentage of the total population. The ACS adheres to definitions of race and ethnicity set forth by the 1997 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) standards. These categories are based on self-identification and are "not an attempt to define race biologically, anthropologically, or genetically," according to the Census Bureau.
According to the OMB standards, the category of "Hispanic" maps to the concept of ethnicity, not race, and so is not included in this chart. A person who identifies as Hispanic may be of any race or combination of races.
How does the population in Jackson County differ by age and sex?
Biologically, humans are slightly more likely to give birth to boys than girls—all other factors being equal, the natural ratio is about 105 boys for every 100 girls. This slight imbalance is apparent in the U.S. population data. At the other end of lifespans, women in the United States are more likely to live longer than men.
About the Data
Data is from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS), 5-year estimates. The following tables are used:
• Total Population trend and map: Table B01003
• Total Population by Race: Table DP05
• Total Population by Age and Sex: Table B01001
This report uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.


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Total Carnage Cheats and Codes
Welcome to the Total Carnage Cheats and Codes page where our team of contributors will help you with a set of cheats, codes, hints, hacks, tips and unlockables.
If you are stuck on something specific and are unable to find any answers on our Total Carnage Cheats page then be sure to ask the Total Carnage Forum / Community for help and advice in the discussion box below and they will get back to you as soon as possible with an answer!
Finally, if you have been playing Total Carnage and wish to help other users, feel free to sign up and start contributing!
Total Carnage Overview
Total Carnage is a shooter game developed by Midway and released on Amiga, Amiga CD32, Jaguar, MS-DOS, Super Nintendo Entertainment System.


text:
Difficulty in Obtaining or Maintaining a Normal HARD Penis Erection for More than just 26 minutes is called Erectile Dysfunction or E.D. and quite simply, occurs in One in Four of All Men, of All Ages!
Gain Harder
Erections and Cure Impotence.
Erection problems
An erection problem is the inability to get or maintain an erection that is firm enough for a man to have satisfactory intercourse. You may be unable to get an erection at all, or you may lose the erection during intercourse before you are ready. If the condition persists, the medical term is erectile dysfunction.
Erection problems are common in adult men. In fact, almost all men experience occasional difficulty getting or maintaining an erection. In many cases, it is a temporary condition that will go away with little or no treatment. In other cases, it can be an ongoing problem that can damage a man's self esteem and harm his relationship with his partner, and thus requires treatment.
If you have difficulty having or keeping an erection more than 25% of the time, it is considered a problem.
In the past, erection problems were thought to be "all in the man's mind." Men often were given unhelpful advice such as "don't worry" or "just relax and it will take care of itself." Today, doctors believe that when the problem is not temporary or does not go away on its own, physical factors are often the cause.
One way to know if the cause is physical or psychologic is to determine if you are having nighttime erections. Normally, men have 3 to 5 erections per night, each lasting up to 30 minutes. Your doctor can explain a test to find out if you are having the normal number of nighttime erections.
In most men, erection difficulties do not affect their sex drive.
An erection requires the interaction of your brain, nerves, hormones, and blood vessels. Anything that interferes with the normal process can lead to a problem.
Common causes of erection problems include:
Erection problems tend to become more common as you age, but they can affect men at any age and at any time in their lives. Physical causes are more common in older men, while psychological causes are more common in younger men.
Low levels of testosterone rarely lead to erection problems, but may reduce a man's sex drive.
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text:
The average Brighten Business Consulting Sdn Bhd monthly salary ranges from approximately RM3,881 per month for Senior Programmer to RM6,364 per month for Programmer Analyst.
Please note that all salary figures are approximations based upon third party submissions to Indeed. These figures are given to the Indeed users for the purpose of generalized comparison only. Minimum wage may differ by jurisdiction and you should consult the employer for actual salary figures.


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I am pleased and honored to present the first three of our new writers: Rose L. Chou, Ashley Wescott and Teresa Silva. We are very excited about their contributions and unique points of view, so please help me in welcoming them.
- Rose L. Chou – San Jose State
Rose L. Chou is nearly halfway through the program at San Jose State University, where she is focusing on archives. Originally from Greenville, SC, Rose lives in the Washington, DC area and works as a Circulation Specialist at the American University Library. LIS interests include archives of color, archival reference, digital preservation, and diversity. Non-LIS interests include pop culture and social enterprise. Rose tweets as @roselovecand blogs at anthroarchivist.
- Ashley Wescott – University of N. Texas
Ashley Wescott is currently earning an MLIS from the University of North Texas online. She is interested in youth services and library advocacy. Ashley works as a children's services associate at a Chicagoland library, and as a research analyst for a marketing consulting firm. Her spare time is spent discovering great books, walking my rat terrier and seeing plays with her husband. Follow her on Twitter as@2thelibrary.
- Teresa Silva – Pratt Institute
Teresa Silva is currently packing up her belongings and getting ready for her cross county move from the west coast to the east coast, to start her first year at the Pratt Institute School of Information and Library Science in New York City. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of California Berkeley in Ethnic Studies. It was while attending college and working at the university libraries that she became drawn to the library and information science field. Teresa is interested in learning the ins and outs of becoming an information professional, in particular museum librarianship and archiving. She looks forward to learning more about the challenges that confront LIS students and writing about them. She'll be documenting her life as a student once again and living and new city on her blog. Follow her (brand new!) Twitter account @bibliotree.
Hello readers!
Here at HackLibSchool HQ we're always trying to stay ahead of the curve, providing good, thoughtful writing on issues and ideas related to our growth as information professionals. As you may know, this fall will be the beginning of our first official full school year as a blog. Semester one, this past spring ('Best of' here), and this summer (recap coming soon) have been extraordinarily exciting for the writing team. I'd like to briefly recount the past, present and future of this here blog, for those who have been readers since the beginning, but especially for those who will be starting graduate school this term.
- Oct 13th, 2010 – Hack Library School began as an article published on the fabulous blog In The Library with a Lead Pipe. It was a call to redefine our curriculum and start to bring together students under one central banner, discussing, sharing and challenging our graduate experience in library and information studies.
- December – After overwhelming response to that first post, centered around a Google Doc and subsequently a wiki, the idea was hatched to have the conversations continue in a blog format. 6 LIS students, who had been active and excited about the project from the beginning, agreed to serve as Editors, writing regularly, collecting guest posts, tweeting up a storm, and serving the blogging community with all around great content that produced some really amazing and sometimes difficult conversations.
- Jan 2011 – The blog had a soft launch in the first month and a half of the year. Excitement started to build.
- Feb 14th – Hack Library School kicked off officially with a post titled "Big Tent Library School," calling students to rally together as our profession is redefined, and create change that serves to unite librarians of all types, archivists, museum curators and anyone else interested in our ideas.
- Feb 25 – The original 6 Editors were happy to be joined by Annie Pho, who was an early fan of the blog, and approached us about being involved. Annie has become an integral part of the writing team – read all her posts here.
- March 9th – Zack Frasier is drafted to the writing team after we became fans of his blogs, tweets and point of view on LIS education. Read his stuff thus far.
- late May – Upon invitation, Turner Masland and Rebecca Halpern rounded out the Hack Library School writing team, bringing us to an even 10 with representation from 10 different LIS schools, and the gamut of interests and specialities.
- June 14 – Hack Library School was awarded the "Best Newcomer Library Blog" by Salem Press.
- June-August – We continue to write, develop our ideas and think about how to continue to hack library school.
Somewhere in the midst of the whirlwind, the original 6 of us graduated. Julia, Heidi, Britt, Lauren and Nicole and myself (Micah) have invested much in this project, and spent many late, long nights writing posts when we should have been writing papers because this mattered and we wanted it to be a great resource for our fellow students and colleagues. So, how do we handle the whole "graduation" thing for a blog focused around being in school?
Simple – we recruit new writers!! The OG HackLibSchoolers will stay on as Editors, serving as mentors to our newer writers, and generally supporting the continued development of this blog as long as we feel connected to it. Expect a post here and there from The Alumni, but the majority of the writing will be done by our stellar writing team, including some new faces.
Categories: Hellos & Goodbyes


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Have an event we should know about? Please Contact Us
Learn and Play Tampa Bay – North Tampa
April 2, 2024 @ 10:15 am - 11:45 am
|Recurring Event (See all)
An event every week that begins at 10:15 am on Tuesday, repeating until April 12, 2024
Weekly In-Person 90-minute Play sessions in community locations.
Online Library of curated content for ages 5 and under.Songs, stories, and interactive play in English & Spanish.
Register here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JXHKBCG


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- In total defense, OSU ranked 94 out of 120. The only opponent we faced last year with worse numbers was Central Michigan (#105) who we scored 56 on.
- In rushing defense, OSU was a more respectable 52nd. Of our opponents last year, only Auburn and Kentucky were worse at 55th and 57th respectively.
- In scoring defense, they were 77th, ahead of only Central Michigan at 90th.


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Tagged: Buster Olney
MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference 2013- Day 2
A quick update before I get started (because no one reads them when I put them at the end of entries):
I did a couple of videos on my YouTube page in the time since the last entry, if you want to check them out. They haven't been embedding well as of late, so I'll first try to embed them and link them if the embed doesn't work once I publish the entry. Anyway, the first video is one I did for a public speaking class entitled: "How to do a last-minute speech." And yes, it is what it sounds like:
The second is me saluting the fact that Opening Day is almost here while taking a subtle jab at Spring Training games:
If you liked those and would like to find out about them not weeks after they were uploaded, feel free to subscribe to the channel. I don't have a regular posting schedule (we all know how well that has worked out for the blog these past few months), but I do plan on uploading videos and making them public there before they ever get on a published blog entry. For example, I may or may not have uploaded the video later on in this entry publicly before I published this entry
Apparently one day of sports analytics wasn't enough, so I came back for some more in a second day:
And I got to begin it with this beautiful panel of people:
That would be the "Staying on the Field: Injury Analytics" panel. It was compromised of the following panelists:
Stephania Bell (moderator):
Senior Writer, ESPN.
Stan Conte:
Vice President of Medical Services (whatever that means), Los Angeles Dodgers.
Peter Wehlig:
Director of Center for Molecular Medicine and Orthopaedics, Düsseldorf, Germany. You may recognize him better as the surgeon who performed the blood-spinning operation (I think that's right.) on Kobe Bryant and a couple athletes.
John Brenkus:
Founder, BASE Productions. Or perhaps known better as the host of Sports Science (is that one word like Sportscenter?) on ESPN.
This was really interesting once it got started, but there were technical difficulties with the Stan Conte's slides–which while we're listing off things I didn't like about the panel, slides don't integrate well into almost any panel. Probably the one thing I will always take with me from the panel was Conte's story about Mike Matheny and what eventually convinced him to retire. If you don't know the gist of the story, Matheny retired due to excess concussions from taking foul tips to the head. Apparently what happened was Matheny was talking to whoever the Cardinals back-up catcher was at the time and telling him that he blacked-out for a second every time a ball hits his mask, which he described as being perfectly normal. It was upon the back-up catcher telling him that it wasn't perfectly normal that he black out every time a ball hit his mask that Matheny reconsidered that, shall we say, "sanity," of him continuing his career any longer.
After that it was back up the Grand Ballroom for Monday Morning Quarterback. This was one of the more entertaining and by far the most engaging panel. It was compromised of the following panelists:
Tony Reali (moderator):
Host, Around The Horn (ESPN).
Herm Edwards:
Former Head Coach and NFL Analyst, ESPN.
Thomas Dimirtoff:
General Manager, Atlanta Falcons.
Jack Del Rio:
Defensive Coordinator, Denver Broncos.
Brian Burke (no not that one):
Founder, Advanced NFL Stats.
Like I said, this was the most interactive and fun of the panels. What it was is we watched videos of different scenarios of plays (mostly involving the people on the panel) and then the audience voted on what they though the coach should do on that particular play. We then got to see what the statistics dictated the coach should have done. It was a fun time.
Then I went ahead and filmed a mini-tour of the conference grounds. So here that is:
After that I went ahead to the Stying Relevant: Social Media Analytics panel. That was these people:
Gary Belsky (moderator):
Columnist, Time.com.
Jayne Bussman-Wise:
Digital Director, Brooklyn Nets & Barclays Center.
Gary Vaynerchuk:
CEO, VaynerMedia, who for both better and worse completely dominated the speaking time by the panelists.
Omid Ashtari:
Head of Sports and Entertainment, Twitter.
Chad Finocchio:
Co-Founder, Bleacher Report.
This was interesting insofar as how it may pertain to this blog and social media outlets thereof. I may change my New Year's goals because of it eventually. Like I mentioned, Vaynerchuk completely took over the panel, which was not necessarily a bad thing, because he had knowledge of the subject some good things to say, but also it was a brilliant overall panel and not just him, so I would have liked to hear a lot less of him and a lot more of the other panelists.
Then, for my final panel of the conference, I headed over to Hall of Fame Analytics, which was these people:
Chad Millman:
Editor in Cheif, ESPN the Magazine.
Buster Olney:
Senior Writer/Baseball Analyst, ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com.
Peter King:
Senior Writer, Sports Illustrated.
Dean Oliver:
Director of Production Analytics, ESPN Stats & Information.
And sadly, although he was initially slated to be a part of it, John Thorn could not make it to the panel. Thorn, if you did not know, is a fellow MLBlogger. Besides this, the panel was really great. While he may not have been viewed the same way to other people in the audience, Buster Olney stole the show in this panel for me. I've disagreed with many of the positions Olney has taken when it comes to Hall of Fame voting in the past, but I realize that this was the case in many scenarios because he was confined by the schmushed time slots ESPN has given him. It was in this panel where he got to fully explain his point and develop his argument that it became clear he was the baseball writer of decades and I was the jerk at home who thought he was an idiot who I knew more about baseball than. I mean he didn't convince me that Jack Morris belongs in the Hall over Bert Blyleven (though he did argue that) but he did get me on his side of the fence on a couple other points and helped me beter see his perspective on a couple others.
After that it was off to the closing ceremonies and the Alpha Awards for exceptional performances in the field of sports analytics. Whatever that means. I actually don't have my program with me since I left it in New York, so I can't tell you what any of the awards were, so I'll just end this entry with a series of pictures and you can create your own storyline to accompany them.
And thus, the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference came to a close. I hope you guys enjoyed that entry. Thank you for reading. And considering I am going to Opening Day in less than 24 hours, be on the lookout for the entry from that game. While I will miss the free time I have during the offseason, I'll say it's about time baseball got here.


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Aaron Hernandez's probable cause hearing delayed
Hernandez accused in death of Odin Lloyd
A judge on Wednesday gave prosecutors more time to present evidence to a grand jury in their murder case against former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez.
Hernandez was in court for what was supposed to be a probable cause hearing, but prosecutors said the grand jury is still considering the evidence against him.
Judge Daniel O'Shea considered defense objections to a delay but decided to reschedule the hearing for Aug. 22. Hernandez will continue to be held without bail until then.
Hernandez has pleaded not guilty to murder in the death of Odin Lloyd, a 27-year-old Boston semi-professional football player whose body was found June 17 in an industrial park near Hernandez's home. He had been shot five times.
Bristol County Assistant District Attorney William McCauley said additional evidence includes boxes of ammunition found at a condominium Hernandez leased and a magazine for a .45-caliber Glock in a Hummer registered to him. Authorities say Lloyd was killed with a .45-caliber gun, though it apparently has not been recovered. McCauley said the ammunition box had Hernandez's fingerprints on it.
Hernandez attorney James Sultan objected to the delay, saying his client has already been jailed for four weeks and that the district attorney could have waited to bring charges, but chose to go ahead last month.
"He made it sound like a slam dunk case," Sultan said.
Outside court, another of Hernandez's attorneys, Charles Rankin, said he was "extremely disappointed" that prosecutors weren't prepared to go forward and that he's confident Hernandez will be exonerated.
Hernandez's girlfriend, Shayanna Jenkins, was in court for the hearing - Hernandez mouthed "I love you" in her direction before he was led out - but she did not respond to reporters' questions as she left the courthouse.
Members of Lloyd's family also attended the hearing but did not comment.
Also Wednesday, O'Shea ruled in favor of media organizations, including The Associated Press, that were seeking access to more documents in the case, including two arrest warrants, additional search warrants and other materials. The records will be released at 3 p.m. Thursday if no one appeals.
Sultan objected to the documents' unsealing, saying he understood the media's "insatiable appetite" but that the release of records is undermining Hernandez's right to a fair trial.
Prosecutors say Hernandez orchestrated Lloyd's killing because he was upset at him for talking to people Hernandez had problems with at a nightclub a few days earlier.
They say Hernandez and two associates, Ernest Wallace and Carlos Ortiz, drove with Lloyd to the North Attleborough industrial park. Authorities have not said who fired the shots, but documents filed in Florida - and released since Hernandez's last court appearance - paint the former Patriot as the triggerman. According to the records, Ortiz told police that Wallace said Hernandez fired the shots.
Hernandez was kicked off the team within hours of his arrest. New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick broke his silence Wednesday, saying the Patriots will learn from "this terrible experience," and that it's time for New England to move forward.
"We'll continue to evaluate the way that we do things, the way that we evaluate our players and we'll do it on a regular basis," Belichick said. "I'm not perfect on that, but I always do what I think is best for the football team."
Wallace and Ortiz also are facing charges. Wallace pleaded not guilty to a charge of being an accessory to murder after the fact. Ortiz has pleaded not guilty to a gun charge.
Warrants released Tuesday in Hernandez's hometown of Bristol, Conn., show police found ammunition, a gun box and documents tied to Ortiz and Wallace at Hernandez's uncle's home.
The warrants were used to search that home, where Ortiz said he lived; an apartment also linked to Ortiz; and a rental car police say was used by Wallace and Ortiz to return to Connecticut after the shooting.
The items seized from the home included clothes, Correction Department documents linked to Ortiz and Wallace, a plastic gun box and two boxes of .38-caliber ammunition.
Bristol police also have been investigating a possible link to a 2012 double fatal shooting in Boston, and earlier said they had seized an SUV wanted in that investigation from the uncle's home. Court records say it had been rented in Hernandez's name.


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How bad are the sex scenes in Holly Peterson's The Manny? Let's just say that one begins with "Now she was on her knees …" and ends with "like a fire hose in her expensive mouth." What if you're tempted to buy The Manny (Dial, 368 pp., $12), anyway, now that the novel is out in paperback? Maybe you know it involves a Park Avenue mother who hires a male nanny for her 9-year-old son. And you think: With that catchy premise, how bad could it be? Here's a sample line of dialogue: "We're in the modern era, baby, you spoiled, Jurassic, archaic, Waspy piece of petrified wood!" (And, yes, that comes from a character we're supposed to like.) Lines like that one earned the novel a spot on the shortlist for the 2008 Delete Key Awards for the year's worst writing in books. You'll find others in a review and Totally Unauthorized Reading Group Guide to The Manny, published in separate posts on June 26, 2007 oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2007/06/26/.
© 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.


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An artist's studio is a room or space where the artist paints, sculpts, draws or just sits and thinks of ideas! Francis Bacon had many studios in London but in 1961 he moved to 7 Reece Mews in London. Walking through the door he immediately decided that this would become his studio. There was a very steep wooden stairs leading up to his studio with an old rope as a handrail. In his studio Francis Bacon gathered all sorts of things he was interested in and needed for his painting. These piled up over the years – 31 years in fact!
Francis Bacon had a bedroom and kitchen across the hallway, so he was never too far away from his paintings. However, while his studio looked higgledy piggledy, he always kept his living area neat and tidy. In his studio, Francis Bacon liked being surrounded by lots of things as he could then easily reach for one of his many art books, photographs, or newspaper clippings while he was painting to look for ideas and inspiration. Francis Bacon's Studio was donated to the Hugh Lane gallery by John Edwards, Francis Bacon's friend and heir, and the studio will be permanently on display in the Gallery.


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CycleStreets is launching a funding drive to enable routing improvements and a large number of feature requests to be undertaken.
Our key target is for £90k to enable funding to pay for two full-time development positions for 18 months, plus smaller miscellaneous funds. With this, we believe the project will then be self-sustaining.
By way of brief background, CycleStreets is the UK-wide cycle journey planning system. Users can plan routes from A-B anywhere in the UK, receiving three route solutions (the quietest and fastest routes and a balance between the two). Routes can then be printed or exported to a handlebar-mounted device. A range of new mobile apps, enabling route planning on-the-go are already using our routing services.
Over a third-of-a-million routes have been planned on the system, and usage rates are increasing. This amounts to 3.85 million km of route planning, equivalent to cycling round the earth 100 times.
CycleStreets is set up on a not-for-profit basis, and is free for people to use. However, this does not mean that it costs nothing to run.
Unlike large mapping companies, or the government's Transport Direct project, we do not have large financial backing. All funding so far has come from tiny grants of up to £5k, from pieces of consultancy work, and donations from users of the site.
The natural channel for funding should be from national bodies such as Cycling England. But they have an allegiance to the Transport Direct project which, despite its much greater costs, is (we believe) only serving about one-tenth the number of routes as CycleStreets. It is disappointing that so far they have not finally supported a community-run project that is helping break down barriers to getting more people cycling, more often, although we remain in talks, and the data collection aspect of their project is something that OpenStreetMap (and thus CycleStreets) may be able to benefit from.
Nonetheless, CycleStreets needs to stand on its own two feet and move to a fully-funded model.
CycleStreets does not currently pay full salaries to the core developers, meaning that only limited time for improvements is available. We have to survive and so have other jobs that take up our time. With full-time development staff, CycleStreets could reach its full potential much more quickly.
CycleStreets is run on a low-cost basis. We do have neither software licensing costs nor data licensing costs - the data is obtained freely from the excellent OpenStreetMap (OSM) project.
Our key requirements are development time, particularly for the core routing engine, and hardware costs (i.e. the webservers which run the site).
In total, £130k.
With 18 months of two full-time-equivalent development roles, we would be able to:
This list is based on themes which continually come through in feedback reports.
Although in the longer term, the open-source model of a development team is where we wish to be at, routing work is complex and requires often weeks of solid, concentrated work. This makes it difficult to get volunteers, as they are more likely only to be able to 'dip in' to the code; the latter is useful for a range of smaller improvements, but more limited in terms of our core competency of endeavouring to create world-class cycle routing.
We would welcome recommendations of people who could undertake this work, if our funding drive reaches its target.
In terms of funding streams we see several potential sources towards our main £90k target:
Advertising/co-branding is not listed here, as we feel this would weaken the credibility of the site, distract users (by definition, advertising is intended to take users away from the site) and would not raise significant levels of funding.
In terms of income prior to this funding drive, the project has obtained:
These funds have enabled much to be done, but are not on a scale to enable full-time developers to be taken on for a determined period of 18 months.
We are also in talks with two cycling NGOs and one governmental organisation regarding development work.
Competition in the sphere of route planning remains likely (and more route-planning availability means more cycling), but we feel that CycleStreets will always have a distinctive (and hopefully large) niche even if/when big players come on the scene.
We see CycleStreets as more than just another routing engine, but something with much more added-value. We have taken care to build up a reasonably diverse set of infrastructure (covering journey planning, infrastructure implementing the concept of crowd-sourcing of public infrastructure problem locations, and the ability to add layers to the mapping). And our key asset, detailed understanding and analysis of cyclist preferences, means we will always strive for ever-higher-quality routing.
Furthermore, we remain strongly of the view that a system with community roots and good connections to the cycling community will result in the best quality routing.
We are hard-working people whose aim is to help get more people cycling, more often. We hope we have already demonstrated that we offer a system for which there is demand.
If you can offer funding and share this aim, or have projects we can help with, please do get in touch.
CycleStreets is from CycleStreets Ltd, a UK company run on a not-for-profit basis. Company no. 06948959; Company office: CycleStreets Ltd., 80b York Street, Cambridge, CB1 2PY.


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Once again, I am taking a "page" out of Marian Pierre-Louis's blog Marian's Roots and Rambles; this time it is a different post, and I am not the first. Please take a look at Marian's post, "The Top 5 Books on My Bookshelf," and the post "My Top 5 Genealogy Research Books," from Greta's Genealogy Blog. These two posts–and hopefully others to come from other bloggers–provide recommendations for their 5 favorite genealogy books.
Here are my five, in ascending order:
5. Marsha Hoffman Rising, CG, The Family Tree Problem Solver: Proven Methods for Scaling the Inevitable Brick Wall (Cincinnati, OH : Family Tree Books, 2005): This book is the only standard methodological text that I consider absolutely necessary for every genealogical researcher. Ms. Rising goes through many different methods. There is also a newer book by the same author, entitled The Family Tree Problem Solver: Tried and True Tactics for Tracing Elusive Ancestors, published in 2011. I have not read this book yet, and do not know whether this is the same text or entirely new material. If it is new material, then I would once again have to recommend it.
4. The Board for the Certification of Genealogists, The BCG Genealogical Standards Manual (Orem, Utah : Ancestry Pub., 2000): The BCG standards require a high degree of thoroughness and accuracy in your research, but isn't this what we all strive for? After all, who wouldn't hate to discover that after years of research, you had been tracing someone else's family? Many of the standards also deal with the work products of genealogical research, such as compiled genealogies and research reports.
3. Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, editor, Professional Genealogy: A Manual for Researchers, Writers, Editors, Lecturers, and Librarians (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2001):
2. Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, Evidence Explained:Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace, 2nd Edition (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2009):
I admit it–I cheated a little bit. There are really 6 books on my list, because I could not decide which of the next two books was more important. So first place is a tie between these two books.
If you have read these books, you will understand. If not, you must read them. Though I had years of research experience before I ever read them, these two books changed the way that I look at evidence and genealogical research in general. I am proud to say that I have now met both of these authors personally.
1. Christine Rose, CG, Genealogical Proof Standard: Building a Solid Case, Third Edition (San Jose, Calif. : CR Publications, 2009): This is an updated third edition of the book, but I originally discovered the second edition several years ago. The small book uses examples to show how important it is to (1) conduct a search for all pertinent records related to your genealogical problem, (2) fully and accurately cite your sources, (3) analyze and correlate all relevant information, (4) reconcile all contradictory information, and (5) form a logical written conclusion based on the evidence.
1. Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1997): This book was the precursor to Evidence Explained (see above), written ten years previously. It discusses how researchers should evaluate their sources. It also contains the first citation models for commonly-used record types, though most of them have been adjusted in at least minor ways in EE. Both of these concepts were expanded in EE, but I actually prefer the discussion on evidence in this book.
You will notice one difference between my list and several of the others: I do not name any location-specific or record-specific books. These are important, and I would recommend that every researcher have them, but the best books in this category will vary from location to location. I have many in my library, mostly concerning Maryland, but also several related to Virginia, New York, Delaware, South Dakota, and other states. Your library's needs in this area are up to you and what you research.
But the research skills that you will need are foundational. Research guides and finding aids will help you in a specific area, but your basic research skills will be the same whether you research in New Hampshire, Florida, Washington (state), or New Mexico, or even Saskatchewan, Galway, Istanbul, or Zimbabwe. For more on this, read my post "Shouldn't we all be 'Primary Care Genealogists'?"
If you would like to cite this post: Michael Hait, "The top 5 books on my bookshelf," Planting the Seeds: Genealogy as a Profession blog, posted 8 Jul 2011 (https://michaelhait.wordpress.com : accessed [access date]).


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In case you've missed my previous posts, you can catch up by clicking the button below.
Purple Swamphen of India
69 comments:
LOL - My pen name on Squidoo is Pukeko, which is a purple Swamphen in New Zealand. Ours is no where near as lovely as these birds. Check out NZ's purple swamphenReplyDeleteReplies
Nice shot... Unique colors... [www.ajeethboaz.com]ReplyDelete
- AnonymousFriday, January 11, 2013
Different and beautiful birds.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousFriday, January 11, 2013
intriguingly beautiful pair - nice captureReplyDelete
Absolutely gorgeous colours. Wonderful imageReplyDelete
A beautiful image of beautiul birds. Such wonderful colours and HUGE feet! I suppose they need them to stop themselves falling over? Love itReplyDelete
Wonderful image!ReplyDelete
Lindos pássaros diferentesReplyDelete
- AnonymousSaturday, January 12, 2013
I have never seen beautiful birds like 'Pukeko' before.ReplyDelete
Great pictures!!
Thank you for sharing,
- AnonymousSaturday, January 12, 2013
Wow...these birds are beautiful! I have never heard of them before.ReplyDelete
Please join us each Friday for Photog Friday at www.photogfriday.blogspot.comReplyDelete
for those who enjoy and want to share beautiful photography. Share your photos from the week and connect with other photogs.
And be sure to sign up on our site to get an email notice when the next Photog Friday is live.
So Beautiful capture.ReplyDelete
Thanks for sharing. Have a nice weekend
that´s an oddlooking bird. You have to love it.ReplyDelete
Wow, they are beautiful birds. Great shot!ReplyDelete
wow, strange birds. Great shot and wonderful colourReplyDelete
Amazing shot of a very beautiful bird ~ Wow!ReplyDelete
(A Creative Harbor ~ Carol L McKenna)
Lovely. So unique and the color! Happy Critter Day!ReplyDelete
what amazing looking coloration! beautiful!ReplyDelete
Interesting looking birds.ReplyDelete
Love the background behind the birds!ReplyDelete
They are so incredibly colorful, Shiju. You always come up with something special.ReplyDelete
Wow these birds are wonderfully colored and you got such a great shot...love them and the shot!! These are unique!! Thanks for sharing them with us!!:-)ReplyDelete
Very cool birds, great capture!ReplyDelete
What interesting and colorful birds.ReplyDelete
What brilliant colour! I love the yellow background too!ReplyDelete
Great photos! A very odd-looking bird!ReplyDelete
Oh my goodness...I've never seen nor heard of this species. And, look what I've been missing. What an incredibly beautiful bird. A purple swamphen. I want them here in my part of the world.ReplyDelete
Thanks for linking up this week at the Bird D'Pot. Your post is a remarkable addition for all.
- AnonymousSunday, January 13, 2013
What amazing colors!! I love the yellow background! Stunning photo.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousMonday, January 14, 2013
What a colorful pair!ReplyDelete
Great colors!! Boom & Gary of the Vermilon River, Canada.ReplyDelete
Unusual blend of colours in these pukekos! I have only seen the dark blue and black ones! So love the buttery, golden yellow background highlighting them!ReplyDelete
Just a small note! You have linked to the meme Monday Mellow Yellows! Would you include a link back in your post please - to alert your viewers to others participating too! If you are not sure, visit other contributors to see how it may be done! Thank you so much!
wow!these are great and just look like artworks.ReplyDelete
Gorgeous birds.ReplyDelete
Corned Beef Soup
awesome birds!ReplyDelete
Oh my goodness, what beautiful birds. Never seen them before. Thanks for sharing.ReplyDelete
Never seen something like this before!ReplyDelete
Absolutely grand!
They are so colourful!ReplyDelete
I have already said how much I love this - now I am returning to say thank you for sharing it on Mandarin Orange Monday:)ReplyDelete
- AnonymousTuesday, January 15, 2013
Oh my - so gorgeous and colourful!ReplyDelete
That is a frame worthy photo.ReplyDelete
Wow! beautiful and the colours are so vividReplyDelete
Have a fantabulous week ;-)
Beautiful photo! Thanks for sharing this at Wordless Wednesday atReplyDelete
Create With Joy
Gorgeous birds! Love the colours!ReplyDelete
Happy WW!
They are so cute, Rhonda !ReplyDelete
Beautiful colors... love them.
Have a nice week and warm greeting, Anna
Never heard or seen these birds before. Quite unusual looking. A case of once seen never forgotten.ReplyDelete
As cores são muito interessante...observar pássaros é um dos meus hobbies preferidos. Um abraço!ReplyDelete
Now these are cool!ReplyDelete
So glad I dropped by. Would have hated to miss these interesting and fascinating birds. Job well done.ReplyDelete
look at those toes!ReplyDelete
enJOYIng the unusual birds. Colors are fantastic!ReplyDelete
So pretty! I love all of the colors!ReplyDelete
Magnificient bird....the colors, how proud they stand. Nice composition of image.ReplyDelete
JM Illinois
I can['t imagine there are birds as beautiful and colorful as these birds!ReplyDelete
Great colors of the birds as well as the background. Keep up the good work!ReplyDelete
Beautiful pictures interesting birds. Thanks for sharing with us.ReplyDelete
I have never seen these birds before. thank you for sharing.ReplyDelete
Wonderful capture!:)ReplyDelete
Amazing Picture.ReplyDelete
Nice birds, a good shot!ReplyDelete
i love the colors of their feathers! so cute! :) Nice shot!ReplyDelete
Happy Wordless Wednesday! My entry is here , thank you. -Raquel-
What funny little fellows!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousFriday, January 18, 2013
- AnonymousFriday, January 18, 2013
LOVE it! I'm so glad you came by to share on Weekly Top Shot #65!ReplyDelete
Truly Awesome birds! WOW!!ReplyDelete
Thank you for visiting. I genuinely value the feedback I receive. If you can spare some time, let me know what you think.


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An Austrian daredevil survived a jump from a balloon more than 24 miles above earth on Sunday morning. In the process, he set a world record for the highest jump and became the first skydiver to break the speed of sound, according to various news reports.
Felix Baumgartner stepped from an enormous helium balloon that, at 128,100 feet above the eastern New Mexico desert, was at the edge of space. He wore a pressurized suit to protect his body from the near vacuum, which because of the extremely thin air, allowed his free fall to reach the speed of 690 miles per hour in the first 40 seconds according to CNN. His highest estimated speed was 833.9 mph, a would-be world record. His free fall lasted for four minutes and 21 seconds, falling a total of 119,846 ft.
It took the 43-year-old Baumgartner two hours and 21 minutes to reach the altitude. The ascent included a critical 4,000-foot stretch known as the "dead zone," during which it would be impossible for him to parachute to safety should something have gone amiss, The New York Times reported. His balloon was made of 40 acres of ultrathin plastic that was described as an inflated dry-cleaning bag big enough to fill the Los Angeles Coliseum. It was the largest balloon ever used for a manned flight.
To prevent his body from spinning out of control during the descent, Baumgartner had carefully rehearsed a bunny hop off the capsule that was attached to the balloon. The maneuver allowed him to rotate into a headfirst position. The super thin air minimized the shock waves that are often experienced when aircrafts break the speed of sound. Scientists had been unsure what the effects might be when a human body reached such speeds. Once Baumgartner reached the ground following the opening of his parachute, he fell to his knees, then lifted his arms in victory.
During his ascent, Baumgartner's suit experienced problems with the heating system in his visor, causing it to fog up. He experienced similar problems during his fall, but they didn't seem to impede his control.
There are many more details available on the official website documenting the mission. Baumgartner spoke at a press conference this afternoon that streamed live on the Red Bull YouTube channel. Ars will update this brief if more information becomes available.


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Steve Carell
Personality Profile
" What kind of person would have a real craving for gummy worms?"
Who is Steve Carell? He is an American actor, comedian, director, producer and writer who was nominated as "America's funniest man" in Life magazine, and received a Golden Globe Award Best Actor in TV Series for his work on the American version of The Office. He was born on Thursday August 16th 1962, in Concord, Massachusetts, United States.
Steve Carell holds great compassion and seeks to be of service to others. He is a healer, and capable of giving comfort to those in need - he will frequently offer a shoulder for others to cry on. But actually, Steve's mission in life is to develop the tools that allow him to be truly helpful to others rather than just a sympathetic ear. Steve Carell must find the balance between help and interference, and the delicate art of the counselor who knows when to leave the struggle to others and when to avoid taking away the necessary experiences and lessons of life.
It is in Carell's nature to take on responsibility, to fill the void left by others, and to not turn away from personal sacrifice, albeit at times, he may feel overburdened by the travails of others. However, the love others bestow upon him is his well deserved reward.
Steve seeks marriage and is often a wonderful parent, offering warmth, protection, and understanding to children. However, he must be careful not to choose partners for the wrong reasons, and to not let sentimentality influence his decision, especially those involving the choice of a spouse. Steve Carell needs to be needed, but must learn to discriminate between those he can help and others who are made weaker by his care. After all, it is in Steve's nature to be attracted to the weaker brothers and sisters among us. The temptation for Carell is to think of himself as the savior of the world, carrying the burdens of others on his shoulders.
Steve Carell is blessed with musical talent, as well as in the visual and performing arts, and can be successful in a number of artistic fields - even when experiencing inability to fully recognize his own talents. He also has enormous talent in business, and his great deal of charm and charisma can be used effectively to attract the people and support he needs. More...
More flavors to Steve's personality
Steve Carell tends to be quite adaptable, and he finds it easy to fit into most social set ups and vocational fields.
There are no particular virtues that can cause an imbalance in Steve's personality and life, but he has to work hard and persistently to develop those special strengths that he desires to attain.
Learning to be wisely assertive is a major lesson to be taken by Steve Carell throughout his life.
Tour Steve's menu and gain more insight into his personality traits, relationships, strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, compatibility with you and with others, and much more.
We invite you to create your own free personality profile, in private and for your eyes only!.
Steve Carell feels a lack of support from others on February 4th 2023, but this is only a way to call him to be independent and take charge.
This is a good day for Steve to finish one project and start a new endeavor. He may also be introduced to someone new who will turn to be important for Carell.
Steve Carell must be cautious today of possible material loss, and carefully watch his keys, wallet, etc.


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Installing Joomla! for the first time is very easy. Joomla!'s built-in web installer makes setting up your new site a breeze.
Before we start installing Joomla!, there are a couple prerequisites that need to be met to install Joomla! <translate>
successfully. These apply whether you have a dedicated server, a shared hosting plan server, or are installing a copy on a local computer for testing or development.
|PHP (Magic Quotes GPC off)
|5.4 +
|5.3.1 +
|Supported Databases:
|MySQL[1] (InnoDB support required)
|5.1 +
|5.1 +
|10.50.1600.1 +
|10.50.1600.1 +
|8.3.18 +
|8.3.18 +
|Supported Web Servers:
|Apache(with mod_mysql, mod_xml, and mod_zlib)[2][3]
|Microsoft IIS
You will need two complete two tasks before you can install Joomla! on your server. First, you will need to download the Joomla! package files. Next, you will need to have a database for Joomla! use.
</translate> ]
If you unpack the files on your own computer, then copy them to your server, be sure to move only the folders and files contained INSIDE the Joomla! package. If you unpack the folders and files into a folder, for example called,
Joomla and then upload that folder, your site will have to be accessed at
yoursitename.com/Joomla instead of
With the above requirements met, a database created and the required Joomla! files in place, you are ready to install Joomla!. Start the Joomla! web installer by opening your favorite browser and browsing to the site's domain name. On host installation you will use
http://www.yoursitename.com. If your are installing Joomla! locally, you will use
http://localhost/<path to joomla files>, and you should see the installation screen.
Joomla! will try to identify the Select Language field automatically from your browser's language. You can change this if needed.
Fill in the following information.
yoursitename.com to view the home page. No - this means the site is live when you browse to
yoursitename.com to view the home page. You can use the Site Global Configuration in the Administration interface to change the Offline status at any time.
When everything on the first page is completed, click the next button to proceed:
You will need to enter the information about the database you will use for Joomla! now. It was suggested to write this information down under "Prepare for Install" tab. You may also read or review Creating a Database for Joomla!.
For simplification, these intructions are a reference to installing with a MySQLi database. The instructions on the installation page are self explanatory, but here they are again:
localhost, but some hosts use a specific database server such as
jos3_ can be used. Just don't forget to put the underscore character(
_) at the end of the prefix.
All these choices can be edited on the Site Global Configuration page, under Server options after the installation is completed. Note, you will break your installation if you change these settings after installation unless you have a complete copy of the current database being used by the Joomla! installation. Common uses would be to update the username and password of the database or to complete a move of an existing installation to a new host with different parameters.
When all the information has been filled in, click the next button to proceed:
It is now time to finalise the Joomla! installation. The last page of the web brower installation contains all the information about the installation. This includes the options(at the top) for installing sample data and the installation's configurations(at the bottom).
The first options are for automatically installing sample content to the website and emailing the configuration settings.
If you are new to Joomla! it would be benefical to install some sample data to see how Joomla! works. You can at this time choose to have the configuration settings emailed to you. If the Email Configuation choice is selected, the Email Password choice will appear. The email password is off by default for security. You can choose to have the password included, just click Yes.
Time to check the configurations of your install and the environment of the installation.
If everything is in order, you will see the install at the top of the overview page. If not, this is the place to check and see what may be causing an issue.
The section is broken into 4 groups:
If everything is correct and all checks are passed, you may now click the Install button in the top right corner of the Overview page. This will start the actual installation process.
After you click the Install button, you should see a progress bar with additional information of the installation. Once the installation completes, you should see the success page!
Congratulations! Joomla! 3 is now installed, but there is one last step to complete the installation and start using your Joomla! powered site. You must delete the Installation Folder. Click on Remove Installation folder and a success message will appear. Now you can navigate to the Administrator log in by clicking Administrator or go right to your site by clicking Site.


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CNN's Deb Feyerick reports on the Rockaways, a neighborhood in Queens, New York without electricity 12 days after Sandy. New York Governor Cuomo says the Long Island Power Authority "should be held accountable for their failure" to restore power to 150,000 homes. Burglary there has increased by 7%, police say. One resident worried about defending the belongings he has left tells CNN "They just forgot about us."
Post by: Deb Feyerick
Filed under: Hurricane Sandy
Funny how Governor says: "We PAID them...and we GAVE them a franchise because they presented themselves as EXPERTS at doing this." My question to the Governor......"Have you ever worked in an electric plant? Who was the person that "paid them...and gave them?" My dear, dear....misguided man...As the residents without power (living in that VERY EXPENSIVE area of Long Island) may know...or, may not know.......Any idiot would tell you that before you GIVE someone money for something....especially like seeing to the welfare of masses of people.......YOU or WHOEVER you DIRECTLY responsible for the PAYMENT and the OBSERVATION and APPROVAL of OPERATION of the system by a PROFESSIONAL within that field should be held MORE accountable than the company and their workers.....In other words: You GET what you PAY for. And you PAID people who obviously knew how to mislead someone else in how an electric company should be ran.
Can someone explain why there are no solar generators being set up for the interim while the power is out? With all of the money pouring into New York and New Jersey somebody should have looked at other energy sources for the short term. They sell them at the hardware/home building supply stores. People need to think outside the box. They could distribute solar ovens, which could be used to cook food, heat water, and to heat rocks that could be brought inside to heat at least a small room in the home or the bed to keep people from freezing at night. Some cultures around the world have used hot rocks to stay warm. These rocks would not be hot enough to cause a fire. What about battery operated LED lights for the dark stairwells in apartment buildings? They are cheap, much cheaper than caring for seriously injured people that might fall in the dark apartment building stairwells. Battery-operated lights can be installed on the wall with double-sided tape. Just these small things could help bring some comfort and hope. And, why aren't we providing individuals with some of the lamps and home water purification systems that we distribute in third world countries? They are cheap and effective. Obviously we have other resources we could be using and we are not? Investigative reporting?????? Why not??? These people are desperate. The next big crisis will be health issues for them because they are living in substandard conditions. They are going to need a hospital ship in the harbor and fully staffed Army field hospitals in the hardest hit areas to get care to babies, diabetics, and the elderly who are not getting care. People probably are, and certainly will, start dying. And, we will need massive vaccinations for tetanus, hepatitis, and other possible pathogens. There is no excuse for not getting some of these things done. NOW. Get outside the box. While natural gas and electricity are not working, do something else. These people can't wait.
Well said Suzanne. Act Now!
My question is where is the Red Cross and FEMA to help these people? They should be leading the orgainizing effort! Please ask these questions.
That is my question to..where are they..we sent a team from ND...is the job more than they can handle? Quite simply ...I just don't get it....One of my friends in Brooklyn has been without power and heat for two weeks today...People are going to get ill from this...it is cold...people need to be warm and need to eat..the same friend had to hitch a ride to travel 3 miles one way to get a free meal from the Red Cross and was told she had to come back three times a day...not everyone owns a car, not everyone had gas...it makes no sense...it makes me so m
I hear 2nd hand that some utility contractors are getting turned away from helping utilities affected by Sandy in the Northeast, simply because these companies are non union. This should be investigated, as it is wrong.
That is very interesting about local utilities turning away non-union helpers......bad news for all concerned...I know Excel Energy sent people there last week...that is volunteering on their part ...people of Mn are paying the bill...why should it matter ...the job needs to be done...how very selfish ...when the situation is so desperate!!!! Thanks for your sharing ! People have to know this. Thank you !
Anderson Cooper goes beyond the headlines to tell stories from many points of view, so you can make up your own mind about the news. Tune in weeknights at 8 and 10 ET on CNN.
Questions or comments? Send an email
Want to know more? Go behind the scenes with AC361°


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Firefox 23, released today, contains the usual mix of security work, standards conformance improvements, and minor bug fixes that we've come to expect from the regular browser releases. On top of these, it sports a trio of changes that you might actually notice.
Most visible of all, Firefox has a new icon. Don't worry—the lovable firefox is still embracing the globe and still has its back rudely turned toward us. The blue marble is, however, much less shiny than it once was.
The other changes are both important for their security implications. First, Firefox at last follows the lead of Internet Explorer and Chrome, blocking mixed use of (non-secure) HTTP content from (secure) HTTPS pages.
Previously, a page loaded over HTTPS in Firefox could freely load JavaScript, CSS, images, and other content from HTTP URLs. This meant that although the page's HTML was secured, its other features, including the scripts it ran, were not. This in turn left users susceptible to attacks that undermined the security that HTTPS should provide.
Internet Explorer has defaulted to blocking mixed content for many years, showing a warning each time it does so. In times gone by these warnings were dialog boxes; in current versions of the browser, they're shown as information bars along the bottom of the page. Other browser vendors, however, continued to freely load the insecure content.
Chrome 14 betas, in June 2011, started showing warnings when loading insecure scripts from HTTPS pages. The block-by-default behavior was first rolled out in Chrome 19. The protection was strengthened in Chrome 21, with stricter blocking and a less invasive UI.
Firefox's protection splits content into two kinds: "active" content (including scripts, stylesheets, and content embedded in frames) and "passive" content (such as images and videos). By default, Firefox 23 will only block the mixed active content, as in principle, the mixed passive content shouldn't pose a security threat.
When content is blocked, rather than showing a highly visible alert (as Internet Explorer does, and Chrome did prior to version 21), a grey shield will be placed in the address bar. Clicking the shield will reveal information about what was blocked and allow unblocking. This is very similar to the system that Google uses in Chrome 21 and beyond.
The rationale for this change is that disabling JavaScript universally breaks too much of the Web. It's not an option that should be turned on by accident or without understanding the (substantial) functionality repercussions, and as such, it's not appropriate to show it to non-expert users. Users concerned with security are better with an extension such as NoScript, which allows selective blocking of JavaScript without disabling it globally.


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"Euphoria" (Atlantic Monthly Press), by Lily King
Lily King's new novel, "Euphoria," unfolds on a South Pacific island where a trio of young anthropologists lives among isolated tribes to make groundbreaking studies of primitive cultures.
Rich in detail, at times fascinating and harrowing, the story offers a many-sided look at love and eros — and bracing doses of reality.
The time is the early 1930s. A married couple and a single man, struggling with their field studies, have just hit low points when they cross paths in the jungle backwaters of New Guinea.
The novel's opening sequence is arresting. The couple — New Yorker Nell Stone and her Australian husband, Schuyler Fenwick, known as Fen — are hastily leaving a violent tribe where their work has not gone well. Stone has skin lesions and is feverish, but Fen seems abusive to her anyway.
Soon they will meet the third part of their triangle, Andrew Bankson, a Britisher in a black mood. He helps Stone regain her health, and directs the couple to a more suitable tribe to study, not too far from his own site.
Around these main characters, King weaves in touches of historical context from the field of anthropology when Margaret Mead was producing best-selling books on her studies of young people in Samoa and New Guinea. In many ways, Mead's life is reflected through Stone.
Stone is a well-regarded researcher whose book, "The Children of Kirakira," has been a success, and, like Mead, she has unconventional views of sex roles. Gender issues, sexual customs and taboos are themes that turn throughout "Euphoria," some in dark ways.
When Bankson steers Stone and the erratic, less-disciplined Fen to a mostly gentle lakeside tribe, the Tam, they find that females rule the social structure. Stone is soon making copious notes of her observations and analysis of Tam culture, particularly the ways of its women. Fen, shunning the typewriter, spends his time mostly engaging with the native men.
The novel is told, for the most part, by Bankson, reflecting back from a distance of many years. But Stone's voice also appears in the form of journal entries she wrote after she had met him and began experiencing life among the Tam.
King, the book's author, lives in Maine and earned praise for her first three novels. In the well-researched "Euphoria," she hits just the right tone. Voices of British, Aussies and Americans ring true for the period, and King brings vividly to life the distant world of South Sea island natives and the crosshatch of cultures with Western strangers in their midst.
Bankson, Stone and Fen may have ventured to this lost world in search of keys to primitive lives, but along the way they also begin unlocking doors to their own lives, psyches and fates.
Filipino scientist remakes Noah's Ark tale in US-published novel
Emily Giffin branches out with 'The One & Only'


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Rappel Knot Fails, Climber Falls 300 Feet to Death
Accident in Yosemite underlines the need to backup a popular rappelling method
On the afternoon of Friday, May 7, Japhy Dhungana and Brian Ellis finished the popular Yosemite eight-pitch linkup of Serenity Crack (5.10d) to Sons of Yesterday (5.10a) and started rappelling. When they reached Sunset Ledge at the top of Serenity Crack, Ellis tied their two ropes together with an overhand knot, threaded his Trango Cinch (an "auto-lock" belay device for single ropes) onto the 10.2-mm rope, clipped in and prepared to descend. Dhungana and Ellis were using the Reepschnur rappel method, in which a thin cord (in this case a 6-mm line) is tied to a thicker rope. The knot joining the ropes jams against the rappel rings, making it possible to descend on a single line and then pull the thin cord to retrieve the ropes. Ellis tested the set-up to make sure that the knot would not pull through the rings, then rappelled about 15 feet and stopped to photograph another party on the third pitch of Serenity. He moved right and left to get different angles, then began rappelling again.
The knot had pulled through the rings. Ellis fell 300 feet to the base of Serenity Crack. He died at the scene.
According to Dhungana , Ellis was fond of rappelling on a single line with his Cinch, a method that depends on the knot jamming against the rappel rings. He had used this system successfully many times in the past, but in every other scenario, he had rigged a backup in case the knot pulled through. In order to back up a Reepschnur, climbers must tie a figure eight on a bight in the retrieval rope, clip a locking carabiner to the bight, then clip this 'biner to the thicker line. This prevents the rope from running freely in the event that the stopper knot pulls through the rings.
Dhungana wrote, "When Brian set up this system and tied the knots (I was coiling the ropes in the meantime preparing for tossing), he forgot to tie the backup knot. When I checked the system for him, I, too, committed the same mistake and only observed the main knot." Ellis checked the system three times, Dhungana wrote, without noticing the missing backup. "The only explanation I have for this is distraction and complacency."
In this instance, the worst-case scenario happened. The knot popped through the rings and a backup wasn't rigged.
The Reepschnur method is a good way to descend on a single rope using an auto-locking device, and still be able to retrieve the rope. It is especially handy when you want to save weight by pairing a climbing rope with a thin cord. The method does have limitations, however. First, the rappel station must have rings with a diameter small enough to trap the knot. The climbers here used an overhand knot, which is popular. Note that if the anchor has slightly larger rings you can tie a bulkier knot. You cannot use this method to rappel at stations with large rings or carabiners, however, or on alpine routes where webbing is used without rings. Second, you must always rig a backup. [See photos for the correct way to rig a Reepschnur rappel.]


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Couples Therapy Cast Evacuated After House Fire
TV Guide
The cast of VH1's Couples Therapy was evacuated Wednesday after a fire broke out in the house where they live, TMZ reports.
Someone called 911 shortly before 5 p.m. to report the blaze, but the crew managed to put out the fire before firefighters got to the scene, according to TMZ. No one was injured and production is expected to continue on schedule.
TV Scorecard: What's renewed? What's canceled?
The fire started when a production light burned a couch, sources tell TMZ.
This season of Couples Therapy features Flavor Flav and his fiancée Liz Trujillo, among other celebs.
View original Couples Therapy Cast Evacuated After House Fire at TVGuide.com
Other Links From TVGuide.com


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2013 NFL Season — 5 Things We Learned From Week 2
Teams were already facing big games in the second week of the 2013 NFL season. Here are the five most interesting things we learned from Week 2:
The Seahawks Might Be the Best Team in the NFC
Seattle has become the toughest road date in the NFL. Ask the defending NFC champion 49ers, who were dominated by a fierce Seahawks' team in a 29-3 loss on Sunday night. Pete Carroll's defense forced San Francisco's Colin Kaepernick into four turnovers — and kept him from the end zone/kissing his own bicep. Meanwhile, Seattle's Marshawn Lynch broke out the Skittles early and often against the Niners' defense. He finished with 98 yards and two touchdowns.
The Chiefs Are Much Better This Year
Kansas City was the worst team in the NFL in 2012; they won't be in 2013. While the Chiefs couldn't claim to be much improved after beating hapless Jacksonville in Week 1, their 17-16 win over Dallas in Week 2 illustrates that new head coach Andy Reid and new quarterback Alex Smith might be a great pairing. Smith's two touchdown passes were just enough to help his team past the Cowboys. Reid now gets to travel to Philadelphia for a Thursday night game. Expect more than one Eagles' fan to make a Kool-Aid Man joke at the expense of their former head coach, but 'Big Red' might be the one saying "Oh yeah!" after the game.
Chip Kelly Is Known For Offense, Not Defense
Chip Kelly's Eagles' offense was still very good in Week 2, but his team's defense was terrible during Sunday's 33-30 home loss to San Diego. The Chargers held the ball for 40:17 minutes to the Eagles' 19:43, and San Diego quarterback Philip Rivers threw for 419 yards and three scores against the Philly pass defense. If Philadelphia is going to make a habit out of allowing that many points, Kelly will have to at least teach his team how to get final possession.
The Giants Might Be in More Trouble Than the Jets
New York Giants' head coach Tom Coughlin has two Super Bowl rings from earlier in his tenure, but that jewelry isn't preventing his team from turning the ball over at a frightening pace in 2013. 'Big Blue' had four more miscues in the 41-23 loss to Denver on Sunday. Quarterback Eli Manning has now been picked off seven times in two games, a pace that could start to cause comparisons between him and the Jets' Mark Sanchez. The Giants may be a butt-fumble away from putting Coughlin on a seat as hot as the one under Rex Ryan.
Washington's Defense Deserves To Be Called Bad Names
Aaron Rodgers threw for 480 yards and four scores in the Packers' 38-20 rout of Washington. The Redskins looked lost on defense for the second week in a row. While the debate rages on in D.C. about the franchise's insensitive nickname, the Washington defensive backs – and coaching staff – are the names most likely to change if there isn't improvement soon.


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A1. Why did the Alaska legislature form the Alaska Vaccine Assessment Program (AVAP)?
A2. How does the program save money?
A3. How does AVAP work for payers and providers?
A4. Who oversees the program?
A5. Are insurance carriers the only entities paying the assessment?
No. Self-insured employers, Third-party administrators (TPAs), health maintenance organizations (HMOs), and other payers are also subject to assessment. These payers fund the purchase of vaccines for all privately insured children and adults.
A6. What does "assessable entity" mean?
A7. Must both the employer and the insurer, or third-party administrator (TPA) administering the plan, pay the assessment for a given covered life?
No. AVAP avoids counting any covered life twice by holding the entity that pays for the vaccine administration cost also responsible for paying the assessment.
A8. Must Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) plans pay the assessment?
A9. Are publicly funded health care benefit plans mandated to participate in AVAP?
A10. How are an entity's assessments determined?
A11. What is the current assessment rate?
A12. Are the childhood and adult vaccine-eligible populations combined to form a single assessment cost per payer?
A13. Are payments made by assessment payers accountable as medical expenses?
A14. Does the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) preempt any provisions of the AVAP?
No. The ACA does not preempt any provision of state law unless a state law prevents the application of an ACA requirement. AVAP supports the ACA requirement that coverage be provided without the imposition of cost-sharing for immunizations for routine use in children and adults.
A15. Where can I find more details about the AVAP assessment rate calculation?
A16. When are assessment payments due?
AVAP operates on a calendar year running from January 1 to December 31. Quarterly assessments are due 45 days after the close of each quarter, meaning reports and payments will typically be due on February 15, May 15, August 15, and November 15. Quarterly payments are based on the number of covered lives an entity reports for the three months in each preceding quarter.
A17. What if AVAP collects too little?
A18. What if AVAP collects too much?
A19. If I am a Payer, where do I go to complete the online assessment?
Click here for the online assessment. First-time users must register before they can log in to the assessment system. Please note that because of the system's security features, there may be a delay of up to 30 minutes before a new account can be accessed for data entry.
A20. Are there any tutorials on the use of this system?
A21. What if I have registered in the assessment system, but I need to change some of my information?
A22. If I make a mistake in my report, how can I correct it?
A23. I accidentally overpaid. Can I be reimbursed?
A24. How do I submit my payment?
A25. What if I submit a late report or payment?
Please prepare your report as soon as possible. KidsVax® will report your late payment to the AVAP Council. The AVAP Council will take enforcement action, should that become necessary.
A26. How do I create a password for the assessment system on www.akvaccine.org?
A27. What should I do if my company has created a password for the assessment system on www.akvaccine.org, but I no longer have it?
A28. Can payers opt out of the Alaska Vaccine Assessment Program?
A29. Is the assessment voluntary?
A30. Will participating payers save money starting in 2016?
Covered Lives
C1. Must entities report only child covered lives, or should adult covered lives be included as well?
C2. What are "adult covered lives"?
C3. What are "child covered lives"?
C4. Must an entity file reports even if it does not provide medical benefits and therefore has zero covered lives?
C5. If an entity files a Permanent Zero Covered Lives Report, but it later has covered lives, what should it do?
C6. If my company has filed an Annual Zero Covered Lives Report, when should we file our next report?
An Annual Zero Covered Lives Report covers one calendar year. You should plan to file your report again by February 15th of each calendar year.
G1. Has AVAP changed anything for the federally funded Vaccines for Children Program (VFC) or state-sponsored medical plans?
G2. Do providers still need to screen for VFC eligibility?
P1. Does this program affect how providers receive vaccine?
P2. What are the benefits for my practice in receiving state-supplied vaccine through AVAP?
AVAP is able to buy vaccines at discounted rates off a bulk contract compared to market prices. Providers can then receive state-supplied vaccines for all covered patients and avoid the financial and administrative burdens of purchasing vaccines and maintaining separate vaccine storage and tracking systems.
P3. Can providers still purchase vaccines privately?
P4. Do providers need to pay for state-supplied vaccines for children and covered adults?
No. Providers do not need to pay for state-supplied vaccines. Providers can receive state-supplied vaccines at no out of pocket cost for all children vaccines and select vaccines for adults covered by participating payers. The assessment for this vaccine is paid by the assessable entities that provide health care coverage for these patients.
P5. How does this program affect patients?
P6. Are health care providers who care for uninsured adults required to participate in the assessment?
P7. Could providers get vaccine for uninsured adults, funded by surplus funds, even if they don't opt in?
P8. Will providers incur a higher assessment cost for adult vaccines than they are currently paying?
P9. How will providers be compensated for the administration of vaccines?
P10. Are pharmacists able to participate in the program?
Yes. Pharmacists may also enroll in the Vaccine Distribution Program to receive state-supplied vaccine for all children and for adults who are covered by participating payers.
P11. Should providers bill $0.00 or $0.01 for state-supplied vaccines?
P12. How do providers enroll to receive state-supplied vaccine?
P13. How can I get updated information on AVAP?
P14. What patient eligibility (VFC) Codes should be used?
P15. Will providers have a choice of which vaccine brands to use?
V1. Who sets vaccine policy?
V2. What vaccines are covered by the Alaska Immunization Program?
V3. Is the cost of seasonal flu vaccine included in the assessment rates?
V4. Does AVAP establish a vaccine mandate?
V5. What is VacTrAK?
V6. Does AVAP impact my taxes?
V7. How does AVAP know the amount of vaccine it needs to purchase?
V8. Does DOH expect vaccine uptake rates to increase once AVAP goes into effect?