text:
Welcome to the future with 50y old technology. There is an obscure emacs extension, swank js, that runs a nodejs daemon that speaks slime to emacs.
It allows you to work with js the same way you'd work with lisp, evaling lines or buffers into a live nodejs instance.
I use it (in combination with org-babel) to talk to live instances of remote services, to inspect data, experiment, but also as kind of an on-the-fly UI
It allows you to inject js into a browser as well, handy for js dev or even on the fly data scraping/web manipulation. Super useful yet not very well known.
klymit, pads are inexpensive, super light and surprisingly comfy
you usually make an open fire, but sometimes you need a stove? you don't want to carry something heavy or something that uses weird fuel that you can't get everywhere?
alcohol stoves are great in general, and this one in particular: vargo decagon
It was a bit slow to prime (should get to a certain temperature before it starts shooting flames from the sides) but I deal with this by just covering the whole thing with alcohol setting it on fire, primes it immediately :D
(if you get a vargo triad, you should have an alcohol bottle with about 1mm nozle, it has just a tiny hole to fill it through)
you can also always make a DIY super cat or something on the cheap, and you should use a windscreen, these can be sensitive to wind. yes putting random stuff around is fine-ish, but those aluminum foldable ones are reliable, cheap and light.
Are you having trouble falling asleep during conversations?
Are you in a disco, finding in hard to focus on computer programming?
I have a solution for you, just pop one of these babies in. http://lesh.sysphere.org/dump/weirdforest.mp3
Its a sound that I made that I play when I need to focus and zone out. It has some rain, weird thunder, owls, someone shuffling sticks around and whale noises of course.
I guess it will sound a bit ominous at first but it grows on you
I feel like people aren't freaking out enough about how awesome it is that big universities are publishing their lectures online, some of my favorite ones are
Justice, Michael Sandel (Harward)
Human Behavioral Biology, Sapolsky (Stanford)
I turned these into podcasts that you can download here
about behavioral biology letures, in order to fall in love with Sapolsky, check his short talk on toxoplasmosis parasite
Also, I think his lecture on biological underpinnings of religiosity that is a part of this course is not in the playlist, I think because its pretty controversial, you can find it as an old recording here
will add more stuff to this folder with time.
10$ power bank / battery charger combo that you can use for day to day stuff but also outdoors.
Had to implement some small but serious infrastructure.
Needed some usual things for internet operations these days like system monitoring, smart logging, graphing and alerting, high availiability, cloud, ids/ips, and mucho security.
Did this many times for random projects but this one was more serious and so I decided to rethink everything with focus on the security infrastructure. Manuals were read and quite a few quick projects were made and there is more to come so this post will be updated with time. I'll quickly go through the novel things I implemented and novel thoughs I have on the subject. This post will be a mess and there is a lot to write,
this is boring and already exists but I like the way I do things.
lego is a node app plugin system, works by looking for node_modules modules with certain prefix, supports dependency trees and a central config file.
ribcage implements some common things apps need, works on top of lego, has plugins to do logging, remote logging, db connections, web server and some such.
munin is a collection of perl? scripts from '98 ran by crontab. UGH. nagios is.. yeah, same thing.
went with logstash -> elasticsearch -> kibana for data collection/graphing and riemann for alerting. Didn't figure out active system checks yet (a job for nagios usually. stuff like pinging, checking if websites render correctly, potentially crawling them and such)
all kinds of apps write to logstash. my node apps, log data collectors (lumberjack), local system checks IDS, and such, it works well. Data from everywhere is aggregated and graphed together. I've written something simmilar to this stack as one off apps for debugging complex architecture a bunch of times, was very happy to find out that someone actually already works on such a thing pretty seriously.
didn't like collectd as it seemed like something that hangs out in a munin/nagios oldies crowd. so I wrote:
it supports plugins, they are super easy to write. one of the plugins is a meta plugin that runs munin scripts because I'd rather kill myself then write all these data collectors myself.
csi-internet is there for you if you want to draw some computer stuff on a map. Also good to impress your girlfriend if she got used to cmatrix. As a test of a graphing engine it can ping around, do traceroutes and draw heatmaps. Messy atm as looking at pictures was more fun then looking at good code. work in progress. works on top of d3 and datamaps.
Writing tons of iptables rules is for robots and not humans and so I'd fuck it up eventually. pyromaniac is a thing that renders JSON into iptables commands.
hosts =
ip: '10.66.1.70'
port: 443
ip: '10.66.1.11'
port: 22,
from: 'vpn'
port: 666,
from: 'all'
ip: '10.66.1.51'
port: 22
from: 'all'
ip: "10.66.1.2-254"
exports.settings =
forward: [
{ from: 'vpn', to: 'all', comment: 'vpn to everyone TCP' }
{ from: 'vpn', to: 'all', proto: 'udp', comment: 'vpn to everyone UDP' }
hosts: hosts
this program is highly specific to my scenario (machines behind a NAT hypervisor with strict control of each connection) I'm showing an aproach here more then sharing my code as something that will work for you.
I really like this part, but will write it up later when I have more to show
Quick review of Yuneec e-go cruiser as there aren't that many of those around. I'll try to mention things I was wondering and wasn't able to find out about online. I'm also lazy, so not that many links in this text, use google.
This is a chepaest longboard of a new generation (lipo batteries, sub 10kg) with also one of the best specs.
6 kg, one of the lightest boards around, until marbel comes out and changes the playing field.
Official site claims 30km range. My experience in the real world is closer to 10km.
I'm a dumb kid, I like going fast, and top speed of this board is 20 km/h which seemed slow, but its not. Longboard is not a bicycle, small obstacles would become too dangerous at higher speeds. In order to safely achieve higher speeds in city like environments wheels would have to be at least two times bigger, and then this wouldn't be a typical longboard anymore and it wouldn't be light.
The board is not totally quiet but the noise is nothing too much, some people might even enjoy it.
I don't feel comfortable climbing up sidewalk borders higher then ~5 cm, not sure if it's the lack of experience or just not the thing you would normally do with a 6kg longboard.
Its not waterproof. It will handle some splashing but it happened a few times that I couldn't turn it off before it dried. Its easy to entirely disassemble and assemble, you even get the tool for it with the board.
Yuneec is not friendly about it. I asked. But I'm guessing the board itself would be pretty friendly. Speed could be changed in order to kill myself more easily, I'm light, I'm pretty sure it could go faster then it does, I could for example just change the transmission, or perhaps replace the firmware or the speed controler entirely. And regarding the remote controler, the board supports bluetooth connection to iphone, this could be reversed and a custom controler could be made, for example just a glove which measures how bent your fingers are.
Great, if you talk to European branch. Asian branch is slow to respond if they respond, with bad english. After a week my wheel randomly fell off, the bearing broke. These are good longboard bearings and they said they've never seen this happen before, in a few days I've received a whole new set of wheels.
I never skateboarded but got a hang of it pretty quickly regardless of my awful computer programmer leg coordination. Had it for about a month. The better I get the more fun I have, and I keep thinking how "I could be skating right now". There is like 10% of the people that go insane when they try it and they seem to be ready to sell their soul to satan to get one.
It does perfectly what it intends to do, it's called a cruiser and its a great product for fun commuting.
It turned out that I really like this technology and I'll get a Evolve carbon board which seems to be the best board I can buy right now, its heavier, with big wheels and costs as much as a car so its definetely not for everyone, but putting it out there also. Marbel board looks like an e-go killer, but its not out yet.
When buying, I've made this quick table, haven't found comparisons like this online surprisingly, so I'll share this too.
marbel 40kmh 20km 4.4kg 1299 usd
e-go 20kmh 30km 6.3kg 750 usd
bamboo 38kmh 30km 8kg 1240 usd
bamboo terrain 35kmh 15km 10kg
carbom street 38kmh 40km 8.5kg 1700 usd
carbon terrain 35kmh 25km 10.5kg 2000 usd
boosted 32-35kmh 10km 6-7kg 1300 usd
z-board pro 32kmh 20km 11kg 750 usd
Owned the board for about 4 months now. I've had a lot of hardware issues. Luckily, the support is very good. Drive wheel fell off - bearing broke, they sent me new wheels. Then, the whole board randomly died, shipped it to them, they fixed it, it randomly died again a week later in a slightly different way, shipped it again, waiting to get it back. deliveries in eu are fast (3-4 days one way) but still, the whole process takes at least 10ish days when there is an issue like this. I think 25% of the time I've owned the board, I couldn't use it.
I also met another person which owned a board for much longer then me, treats it badly, and have had 0 issues.
Initially I will use two different sensors for obstacle avoidance. lidar for closer range 2D image of space (obscale avoidance, scanning ground before landing, maybe SLAM)
and laser rangefinder for long range 1D distance sensing (looking for high buildings, maintaining altitude precisely, maybe high speed obstacle avoidance)
I went with cheapo robopeak hobby lidar, which seems to work well, here is a git repo for the library (node and beaglebone) (I also considered a lightweight hokuyo lidar) and for laser range finder I'll go with something like SF02 from paralax
these might be used in combination with some simple IR or just cameras (need more CPU but could double as optical flow sensors) used to locate becaons for landing or grabbing things
Ideally, both sensors should have an unobstructed front view on pitch dimension, with aditional unobstructed jaw dimension for LIDAR. Both sensors need to be able to independantly rotate on pitch axis for compensation of the angle of the drone when flying, and for scanning up and down (going in through windows, looking down when landing, etc) maybe rangefinder should also rotate on jaw axis on some fast servos for looking around independant of the drone orientation. not sure yet.
IR and ultrasound were also options, they are cheap but tricky and unreliable, (ultrasound behaves extra badly due to propeller noise on drones) These things can be compensated for, but laser rangefinding will always afaik give more accuracy and reliability at a price.
people often ask me why I own a drone, what is it for, and then half of the time they say that I could use it to record weddings and get some cash flowin'
If mention of recording weddings doesn't kill all my will for conversation, I'll say drones are so simple to make these days that I find it hard to justify not owning one. also, at the time there is no regulation and no one ever counts on you owning a flying robot, so its a sweet spot to own one. a drone is a flying sidekick, it can, in theory, do whatever a flying sidekick can do. it can enter through windows and steal jewlery with its tiny robot hands. Sounds ridicilous but technically it is not hard to do. In the following years we'll have to rethink space and what can be done, and before that happens, I get to be a kind of a superhero.
today, drones are very primitive. I'll fix some parts that I care about. and if I make anything useful, Im guessing drone related kickstarter projects would be welcome.
a few ideas,
few concrete things to work on, sorted by priority
this is a lot of work, but none of it is far fetched and all of this will be done soon, if not by me, then by someone else
if you care about this project, you can follow it at http://lesh.sysphere.org/tagcloud/personal_drone rss @ http://lesh.sysphere.org/tagcloud/personal_drone/rss.xml
We've discovered a strange man made island while looking at satelite images of cebu bay 10.284983,123.902841
I'm publishing this information as the last info I could find online was a few years old and we didn't know what to expect.. This is what we knew,
Formerly a Fuel Depot of Shell Pilipinas. It was return to the government in 1990's. There was some Human Rights issues raised after the government took control because it was made as a "temporary housing" facility for known petty criminals one week before a Sinulog Festival. They were herded and housed for two weeks or during the duration of the festival.. a free board and lodging..
We approached the island from mactan side in a small kayak, we had 5 km to pass through a strange shallow shrubberish water, I'd recommend approaching from cebu side which is cleaner and is only 1 km away from the island. Some people live there, they were not particulary happy or sad to see us, they've built a small duck farm in one of the buildings and a few dogs are roaming around. Industry on the island has been entirely stripped down, a few buildings are still standing and the most interesting thing is a half sunken 15m-ish boat in what remains of the port.
So, we'd like to carry a boat for going down rivers and exploring curious things on water, while being self sufficient with food and camping equipment. Giving up on the boat and building bamboo rafts was one of the propositions:) We ended up buying a small 12kg inflatible kayak that packs in a 60L backpack,
I've discovered today that we are completely defeated by this awesome guy 200 years ago.
1840s, Peter Halkett Invented an unusual boat.
Halkett had long been interested in the difficulties of travelling in the Canadian Arctic, and the problems involved in designing boats light enough to be carried over arduous terrain, but robust enough to be used in extreme weather conditions. the hull of the boat could be worn as a cloak, the oar used as a walking stick, and the sail as an umbrella
Spurred on by the successful testing of the boat-cloak, Halkett designed a larger version that folded into a knapsack. When inflated, it could carry two men, operating a paddle on each side, and when deflated served as a waterproof blanket to allow the users to camp on wet ground Although the Admiralty saw no use to which Halkett's designs could be put in general naval service, this larger design was extremely well received by explorers
I like creating and building things and I own a grappling hook. This site will be an partial dump of projects I work on and things I've written down.
I'm into evolvable programs, designs inspired by nature, philosophy, computer security - malware specifically, robots and such. I've worked as a software engineer and I've worked for artists on tech art pieces as that's more fun. These days I tend to travel so expect stories on hitchiking, stealth camping, urban exploration and nature.
Check out the tagcloud to find if there is something here that you care about.
Here is my contact info and PGP key
First prototype in python, work in progress, I should think of more interesting project names.
an algoritmic music generator that interprets cellular automata as notes, its an alsa MIDI device.
Cellular automata rules are described by a simple RAM machine language and are evolved. There are some interesting things about the language itself, I'll post the details later.
Fitness function is a human clicking on "the nice ones".
Ended up sneaking past a few guards, one of them taking a shower. The building below us has 20-30 stories, I'm guessing the crane was 80-100m high? A long climb. Where do crane workers go to toilet? Also. my god! I want to do this again.
"Ivan I don't know what kind of thing can satisfy us.
After the crane.
Crane was awesome, it was dinosaur and monster.
After the crane, I feel a little bit empty, that's the thing."
- Kanghee Rhee
I'm surprised I couldn't find this..
async object or json pattern matching/validation used for validating function/process arguments, api call permissions, messages, etc. supports serialization/deserialization of patterns themselves, which I used to implement a generic db query language on top of this. for now, tests are documentation
extras repository contains cuter things like
After looking at the rorschach test, I wanted more. supirisingly, I couldn't find any rorschach generators online, so, python, tkinter and randomwalk with random size blobs and simmetrical reflection, I thought that some tweaking or more complicated algorithm would be needed but this works great.
click on a canvas for (re)generation.
a bunch of selfish prisoners having sex and mutating. WHOA. a very basic evolutionary algorithm, a last night's play.
Prisoner's dilemma is a scenario in a game theory (check it out if you don't know about it) its interesting to me in part because it explains human moral intuitions through a selfish evolutionary perspective, in other words, why people are generally nice to each other.
In the iterated prisoners dilemma the game is played repeatedly thus each agent has an opportunity to learn about other agents behaviours and potentially punish noncooperation. Cooperation may then arise as an equilibrium outcome.
I didn't get tit for tat which I originaly expected, nor did I manage to get any other cooperative equilibrium. cooperation does evolve, but it doesn't last, strange, I expected that cooperative species will raise and stay dominant as I enlarge the number of interactions before a step in the evolution. (its rational to be nice if you need to stick around) need to investigate and think about this some more.
I'll post more info and code later or never. screenshot and someone with a different approach and a spacial dimension.
uses a few of my libs like nodejs-graph, nodejs-subscriptionman, nodejs-validator2 and others
I've implemented some protocols above this, like
I use it for all kinds of things, like
and I've built a few libs on top of this
We are talking to a random french couple, answering common questions and ending up explaining that we've met by going into the subway tunnels through an airduct. They mention seeing some photos of us climbing a building in hongdae park and I wonder if that was the night when the crazy guy in the underwear climbed it with us. At some point I say something like
remember that girl from yesterday that wanted us to smuggle diamonds from africa? I think she might be a stripper.
To which a guy asks us if those are real events or are we talking about a spy movie, and I realize how weird our conversation sounds from another persons perspective, and how most of the things that have been happening would sound, and I conclude that we did good.
I bought a climbing equipment and all places are reacheable now. I'm living with Kanghee, and a great group of friends are around. We are planning to buy a ~15 meter sailboat and sail through philipines to papua new guinea next year. we'll see how that goes. we'll have a lot to learn before doing this.
I wrote down few phrases in japanese and went hitchiking towards the I read abandoned jungle theme park about online.
It was super easy. a lot of japanese react as if someone is doing something insane and exciting and are happy about it. Most of them are also too shy to stop and they would even cover their smiling faces if I maintained eye contact for too long <3
Izu peninsula has two sides, people call them a female and male side, one is full of fine sand beaches and the other is made of rough steep vulcanic rocks.. I'm guessing that strong waves tend to hit it from the female side.
My favorite ride was this businessman, it seemed that what was happening was a way bigger adventure for him then for me. He would start laughing histerically out of excitement whenever I'd speak. So naturally, I wanted to speak as much as possible but that was hard as he didn't understand any english.
Arrived to Irozaki port-o fairly quickly and started a hike up the hill towards where the jungle theme park is supposed to be.
Found bunch of abandoned buildings and infrastructure at the top but couldn't find the main dome, ended up exploring the peninsula.
Climbed an antenna tower to look around (kinda. half way. it was scarry. note to self - learn how to make a harness out of climbing rope, I could have secured myself). found the dome - its not a dome. didn't look at the online photos good enough, and found a coast that looked so amazing that it stole my attention. I wanted to quickly check it out before heading out to the park but the place was great and I ended up spending the night.
Everything seemed totally devoid of life but it turns out, the place becomes a spiderland during the night. I don't know what they eat, each other? I tucked my shirt in my pants.
I'm super happy with the funny-shoes. Japanese people say b ooooooooooo ninja shoesb and they are right! they are quiet and great for climbing and I have a lot of control on the rough terrain. a downside is that you freak people (including yourself) out, and need to talk about them a lot. its not worth it in the city.
It was a great night. I realized that I was alone for the first time in three months. There was a huge lighthouse spotlight sweeping the panorama and big ships passing by on their way towards port of Tokyo. The next morning I discovered that all the bread I bought is filled with chocolate and that all the cans I have are the same discusting fish. Had a breakfast that stimulated my taste buds and left to quickly explore the rest of the theme park.
Turns out, a few years have passed and big parts of the park are overgrown now. It was quite late and quite hot and quite overgrown and there was noone around to encourage me so I decided to keep going towards Kyoto and give up on getting inside.
on the way there I couldn't pass on the opportunity to sneak into some classuy star hotel onsen for the third time.
ok, enough writing!
I'll finish this later or never. pictures are on Flickr
Japan has a notoriously high suicide rate, which doesn't seem entirely justified considering it's 10th in the world, with south korea for example being 50% worse.
This forest was always shifty, but its popularity grew due to a contraversial book, The Complete Manual of Suicide where it is described as the perfect place to die. Over 100 bodies per year are discovered there, a lot more probably don't ever get found.
I don't want to repeat things too much, vice has a good 20 minute documentary on it.
To make things comically creepy, the forest lies on some large magnetic rocks, which make compasses useless. my gps seems to rely on a digital compass, so I quickly rehersed the night before on how to orientate myself by the sun.
The place is fairly touristic, it has a few hiking trails, and it lies just below mount Fuji. When we got there they told us that a black bear was sighted today exactly where we were going. We ended up yelling and clapping our hands a lot to scare it away. We walked a lot, not knowing exactly where we should go, and got off the trail a lot, relying on a bad tourist map.
A small culture grew around suicides in the forest. for example, people that think that they might change their minds, walk in leaving a trail of (usually nylon) string, which makes parts of the forest look really strange, with nylon strings going everywhere. The whole place is full of strange objects that seem to have been used in ritual like situations. Compass and gps ended up working well for the most part, with occasional crazyness.
hello world
I've been hoping to write this for a while, its not a very exciting project so I've been working on this when I'm tired.
its a bit unusual, nodejs-blosxom, ~400 lines of coffescript. this is very much a work in progress, I'd advise you to use it as inspiration more then as a code you run. templates related to my own homepage are included in the repo. might move them laters.


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For the homeowner who is after of the elegance and timeless beauty a countertop must bring, the glass, ceramic tiles, stainless steel and granite are among the top choices. Each possesses distinctive qualities.
Several materials are being widely used nowadays for the different home's kitchen countertop. One of the most important considerations before choosing between the several available kitchen countertop ideas is the homeowner's lifestyle. The daily activities done in the kitchen, most importantly, the ones staged on the countertop, must be considered. Kitchen countertop materials include granite, stainless steel, natural stone, glass, laminates, and ceramic tiles, among others. Each has different characteristics and qualities that make them worthy of the confused homeowner's attention; and just any other thing, each of them also has its respective downsides.
Let's start with options for those with more dash than cash. If you are on a tight budget, and renovating your whole kitchen, you may want to choose to save on kitchen countertops for the moment, and rather spend more money on the parts of the kitchen that aren't easily upgraded, like kitchen cabinets. Kitchen countertops are replaced relatively easily, so if you are look at which type of countertop is best for you, you can take your finances into account. For the budget conscious, you have the option of laminates and ceramic tile. Laminates are made of plastic-coated synthetics - they are easy to install and easy to clean, and they are very durable. There are a lot of colours and patterns available, and you can get a very good effect. The downside of laminates is that once they are scratched or chips, you can't really repair them - they have to be replaced. Another inexpensive option for kitchen countertops is ceramic tile - it's also easy to install and keep clean, but you will have a slightly uneven surface, the tiles can crack, and the grout tends to stain.
Brice Levasseur Kitchen Countertop Wednesday July 18th, 2018 03:46:00 AM
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Advance Auto Parts Appoints George Sherman as President; Announces Leadership Changes
Advance Auto Parts Appoints George Sherman as President; Announces Leadership Changes
ROANOKE, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- In an effort to simplify its organizational alignment, improve role clarity and provide a more intense focus on strategic and operational execution, Advance Auto Parts, Inc., (NYS: AAP) , a leading automotive aftermarket retailer of parts, batteries, accessories, and maintenance items, today announced several organizational changes.
George Sherman will be joining the Company as President. In his role as President, Mr. Sherman will be responsible for growing Commercial and driving excellence throughout the Company's operations. Mr. Sherman will lead the Company's Commercial Sales, Field Operations, Store Operations Support, Merchandising, Marketing, Supply Chain and Ecommerce Teams.
Mr. Sherman served as an officer in the United States Air Force for seven years. Afterward, he was with Target for 15 years where he worked his way from Store Manager to Regional Vice President, then served as Senior Vice President, Store Operations for their Mervyn's department stores. He then moved to Home Depot where he led their installation business as Senior Vice President and President of their Home Services Division. Most recently, Mr. Sherman served as Senior Vice President, Best Buy Services, which included leading the Geek Squad. Mr. Sherman will report to Darren Jackson, Chief Executive Officer and will relocate to Roanoke, VA.
Charles Tyson, who currently serves as Senior Vice President, Merchandising and Marketing, has been promoted to Executive Vice President, Merchandising, Marketing and Supply Chain. Mr. Tyson joined Advance in 2008 as Senior Vice President, Merchandising and has been instrumental in improving the Company's gross profit rate, strengthening its parts assortment and positioning the Company as an industry leader in inventory availability. In his new role, Mr. Tyson will report to George Sherman, President.
Jim Durkin, who currently serves as President, Autopart International (AI), will assume the new role of Senior Vice President, Commercial Business. Mr. Durkin will be responsible for the Company's Commercial Sales Team, Commercial Marketing and AI. Mr. Durkin joined AI in 2011 and under his leadership AI has seen its largest period of growth and expansion. Before joining AI, Mr. Durkin led the global business segment of OfficeMax where he served as Executive Vice President. Prior to OfficeMax, Mr. Durkin served as Vice President, Sales for ARAMARK Corporation. Mr. Durkin will report to Mr. Sherman and will relocate to Roanoke, VA. All changes outlined above are effective April 21, 2013.
Tammy Finley, who most recently served as Vice President, Employment Counsel and Government Affairs, has been promoted to the role of Senior Vice President, Human Resources, effective immediately. Ms. Finley joined Advance Auto Parts in 1998 and has served in several human resources and legal capacities including Vice President, Human Resources. Ms. Finley's tenure and background in human resources will be a tremendous asset as she takes over leadership of the Company's human resources functions including team member relations, organizational development and staffing. Ms. Finley will report to Darren Jackson, Chief Executive Officer and will continue to be based in Roanoke, VA.
"I am thrilled to welcome George to the Advance Team and I am excited about the promotions of Charles, Jim and Tammy. Advance's future success lies in our ability to empower and enable our team to drive outcomes and grow sales," said Jackson. "In order to allow our leaders to better inspire their teams, serve their customers and grow our business, we needed to simplify our business alignment and clarify roles so we can work together to build on our capabilities, accelerate our Commercial growth and improve our profitability."
As a result of these changes, Darren Jackson, President and CEO will continue to operate as the Company's chief executive officer and will focus on strategic and leadership development. Additionally, the role of chief operating officer, which is currently held by Kevin Freeland, has been eliminated. Mr. Freeland, who has been with the Company since 2008 has been a critical part of the Company's success over the past five years and has helped build stronger Ecommerce, Supply Chain and Inventory capabilities. The role of Senior Vice President, Commercial Sales and Marketing, which is currently held by Donna Broome, has also been eliminated. Ms. Broome joined the Company in 2008 and has played a key role in developing the Company's commercial sales force. Mr. Freeland and Ms. Broome will both remain with the Company for a period of time to allow for a smooth transition of their leadership responsibilities.
"I would like to thank both Kevin and Donna for their many contributions to Advance and wish them the best in their future endeavors," said Jackson.
About Advance Auto Parts
Headquartered in Roanoke, Va., Advance Auto Parts, Inc., a leading automotive aftermarket retailer of parts, accessories, batteries, and maintenance items, in the United States, serves both the do-it-yourself and professional installer markets. As of December 29, 2012, the Company operated 3,794 stores in 39 states, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Additional information about the Company, employment opportunities, customer services, and online shopping for parts, accessories and other offerings can be found on the Company's website at www.AdvanceAutoParts.com.
Advance Auto Parts, Inc.
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Shelly Whitaker, APR, 540-561-8452
Investor Contact
Joshua Moore, 952-715-5076
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text:
Police are appealing for witnesses to an attempted robbery in Wirksworth on Tuesday.
At about 3pm on Tuesday, July 8 a 17-year-old local youth was assaulted as he was walking along Water Lane in the town. A group of three or four teenage boys allegedly hit him and demanded money.
Several people have already come forward with information but officers are appealing for anyone else who was in the area to contact them. They would particularly like to hear from a woman who was waiting at the bus stop.
Witnesses or anyone with information should call Derbyshire police on 101, quoting crime reference 28372/14. Anyone with information can also call Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.


text:
Are you and your family drinking enough water to stay healthy?
Do you have illness that may be caused by dehydration?
What if you could stop taking medications and started having another glass of water?
Drinking Water to help You Stay Healthy
This post will tell you a breif reveiw of an interview that Mike Adams of Natural news had with Dr. Batmanghelidj, author of Water For Health, For Healing, For Life.
This is something you will want to read to help you and your kids stay healthy. Summer is coming fast and staying hydrated is a must. Do not wait until you are thirsty to get some water.
Sheryl Loch


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A few weeks ago, my parents arrived at our house for a week's stay. But unlike Aran's parents, they didn't find lavender sachets under their pillows, or beautiful chocolate pistachio cakes waiting for them. Instead they found sanding paper, a heatgun, paintbrushes and tins of paint.
Just in case you're wondering, of course we don't make all our houseguests work for their stay – my parents had offered to come and help us out for a week. So, while S and were sitting behind our computers at work, mom and dad were hard at work in our house, leaving us with beautifully painted ceilings and woodwork when they returned home a week later. We still haven't finished renovating the entire house, but at least all the big jobs are done and a few more weekends of painting and decorating should be enough to get us nearly there, so we can finally put up christmas decorations and a proper tree for the first time in years. Thanks mom and dad for helping us!
Until a few hours before my parents arrived, our house was completely upside down. Luckily I managed to make our guest room look decent enough for them to actually stay there, but with our big sofa stored on its side in our kitchen, I wasn't able to do any baking at all, so no fancy cakes or desserts for the parents this time. To keep up with all the DIY, they needed something more substantial anyway, so I made a big pot of soup to get them through the week (and of course we cooked them proper dinners every night as well). It's one of my favourite winter soups: hearty, warming and filling. I originally found the recipe in a 2002 christmas supplement of LivingEtc. (as a way of using up left-over turkey) but have changed the recipe quite a bit over the years. My version takes a bit of prep work, but it's absolutely worth it. And it will keep you going all day when doing DIY.
spiced chickpea soup
1 large onion, roughly chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
10g cumin seeds
10g coriander seeds
40g harissa
2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes
500g dried chickpeas
1.5l chicken stock
2 chicken breast fillets
Soak the chickpeas overnight (8-10 hours) and then boil them for 2 hours. Dry roast he cumin and coriander seeds in a pan until they start popping and release their fragrance, then grind them roughly with a pestle and mortar. Boil the chicken fillets in water, when cool enough to handle, tear them by hand into small strips.
Fry onion and garlic in some olive oil. When the onion has softened, add cumin and coriander seeds and harissa and fry for a further 5 minutes. Then add chickpeas, tomatoes and stock and simmer for 30 minutes. Purée about half the soup in a blender, then add chicken and coriander. Enjoy.
And you could easily substitute dried chickpeas for canned ones and use cumin and coriander powder instead of seeds, to make it easier.
* I learned this expression from a neighbour only last month; when I told her my parents were visiting for a week to help us with the DIY, she said 'oh, a busman's holiday then', meaning it wouldn't be a holiday for them at all, but work.


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Fishing is usually my husband's deal. And this vacation was no exception. While he was out on the dock, losing fancy lures and catching inedible creatures, I preferred to sit on the beach and commune with the waves.
But there was one fishing project the whole family got involved in—crabbing.
We found crab traps underneath the house on our first evening there, and couldn't wait to put them in the water. On our first trip to the store, we bought packages of chicken—apparently considered a crab delicacy (maybe there really is such a thing as chicken of the sea?)—and excitedly dunked them in the water under the dock the second we got home.
From that moment on, "going to see the crabbies" was at least a thrice daily event. Tori loved to count them (although her math is a little off), and any time I wanted to avert a temper tantrum, I'd carry her down to the dock and haul 'em up.
As the days went on, we accumulated more and more crabs.
Naturally, the conversation soon turned to what we should do with them. Or, more precisely, how we should cook them.
"You know we have to boil them alive, right?" Brian said to me.
"Oh, there's no we in that. You will boil them. I will be somewhere I can't hear them scream."
"They don't scream, Amber."
"How do you know? Have you ever boiled a crab?"
"Well no, but…"
"Trust me, they scream. Wouldn't you, if you were being boiled alive?"
As you may have guessed from this exchange, I was a bit hesitant to cook the crabs.
Because, the thing is…they're kinda cute in a strange sort of way. And they were fighting so hard to stay alive (there may have been some cannibalism involved). I began to feel sorry for them.
But, of course, I didn't tell Brian he couldn't cook them—that's too straight forward for me. Instead, I presented him with "alternatives."
"Doesn't cracking all those crabs open and digging out the meat seem like a lot of work? We could just go get some from the store…"
And, playing off his insecurities:
"If you're not sure you can cook them right, we could just go out to dinner instead. Way less stressful."
And the trump card?
"You know, I don't think Tori will even eat crab. And we're all out of hot dogs."
I'm not sure which of my oft-repeated reminders did the trick, but in the end, I got my way. We set the crabs free.
Of course I was supposed to pretend that we actually did cook them (to save his pride), but, well, I'm a blabbermouth. And I like to think that somewhere in Mobile Bay, a few crabs are telling their crab nieces and nephews about their adventures—and about the kindhearted woman who saved them.


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Kevin Martin Leads Streaking Rockets – Weekly NBA Roundup [VIDEO]
Philadelphia, Atlanta, Memphis and the Los Angeles Clippers are all unlikely division leaders as the NBA nears the end of its first full month of play. Here's what's happening in the association:
Team on the Rise: Memphis Grizzlies
As a result of a dominating 128-95 home win over Sacramento on Saturday night and Houston's win over San Antonio, the Memphis Grizzlies (10-6) vaulted past the Spurs and into the Southwest Division lead. Memphis notched its seventh straight victory by rallying to beat Golden State 91-90 on Monday night. Forwards Marreese Speights and Rudy Gay have created a significant problem for Grizzlies' opponents on both ends of the floor, while guard Mike Conley averaged 18.2 points and 8.4 assists in the last five games heading into Monday.
Team on the Decline: New York Knicks
Six straight losses have left the New York Knicks with a 6-10 record and a lot of doubts. During the losing streak, Carmelo Anthony and Iman Shumpert have had poor shot selection and Amare Stoudemire has been especially silent. Coach Mike D'Antoni may not get any help from the front office, which watched former Knick Danilo Gallinari score a career-high 37 points for Denver in a 119-114 double-overtime win over New York on Saturday. Point guard Baron Davis, whom the team signed in the off-season, began practicing with the Knicks on Monday. New York needs someone to distribute the basketball better, and Davis is their best hope. The team starts a four-game road trip in Charlotte on Tuesday, which includes a Friday night contest against the Heat in Miami.
Play of the Week: Kevin Love, Minnesota Timberwolves
Watch Minnesota forward Kevin Love stick a 3-pointer at the buzzer to beat the Clippers 101-98 on Friday night.
Player on the Rise: Kevin Martin, Houston Rockets
Kevin Martin has been terrific during the Houston Rockets (10-7) current seven-game win streak. Including a 31-point performance in Monday's 107-92 win over Minnesota, Martin has led the team in scoring in each of its last three games. With an 18.8 points per game average, the 6'7″ shooting guard is second only to Kobe Bryant in scoring at his position. Martin is also shooting 94.2 percent from the free throw line, second-best overall in the league.
Player on the Decline: Tyrus Thomas, Charlotte Bobcats
The Charlotte Bobcats are running out of excuses for the mediocre play of power forward Tyrus Thomas this season. While he missed the first six games on the schedule with a sprained left ankle, Thomas has been less than productive since, averaging just 6.7 points per game, which is almost four points fewer than his 2010-11 campaign. The former top five NBA Draft pick must improve if Charlotte wants to avoid the Eastern Conference cellar.
Coach on the Hot Seat: Flip Saunders, Washington Wizards
Few analysts expected Washington (2-15) to be a playoff contender, but the terrible start is creating the need for something to be done to make the Wizards look more competitive. Washington fell behind by as many as 34 points midway through the third quarter against Philadelphia on Monday, as they dropped a 103-83 decision to the 76ers. The Wizards are now 0-7 on the road. Worse, coach Flip Saunders seemed personally defeated by the team's sloppy and listless play.
Bizarre Stat of the Week: Denver Nuggets
After Saturday's 119-114 double-overtime win over New York, Denver is 30-12 in the regular season since the trade that sent Carmelo Anthony from the Nuggets to the Knicks last February. New York's record during that time is 20-24.


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More than 140 people suffered burns or other injuries Friday in Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia, when bunches of balloons at a concert and political rally exploded.
The balloons were supposed to be filled with helium but may have instead been filled with methane, said Aghasi Yenokyan, director of the Center for Political and International Studies, a Yerevan-based think tank.
The incident occurred in downtown Republic Square during events organized by the ruling Republican Party of Armenia as part of the parliamentary election campaign.
During the concert, teenagers were holding hundreds of balloons in their hands when they suddenly exploded in a huge ball of fire. Dozens of people were taken by ambulances to various city hospitals, and then the show went on again.
-- Sergei L. Loiko, Los Angeles Times


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Obama: Don't Take Away MID for Middle Class
Commentators, bloggers, and the Twitterverse have been abuzz with praise for the rousing speeches coming out of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., this week, culminating Thursday night with President Barack Obama accepting his party's nomination. But now that the political festivities have come to a close, where did housing fall in the ranks of Democratic priorities?
Although not as prevalently spotlighted as jobs, healthcare, or education, housing—specifically the mortgage interest deduction (MID)—did receive a nod in Obama's acceptance speech.
"I refuse to ask middle class families to give up their deductions for owning a home or raising their kids just to pay for another millionaire's tax cut," Obama said in his acceptance speech. In a jab at what Democrats see as a Republican platform that favors the wealthy, Obama said, "I want to reform the Tax Code so that it's simple, fair, and asks the wealthiest households to pay higher taxes on incomes over $250,000—the same rate we had when Bill Clinton was president, the same rate we had when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest surplus in history, and a whole lot of millionaires to boot."
On Wednesday night, President Clinton also criticized the Republicans' tax reform plan, saying it puts deductions such as MID and others in jeopardy, which would result in a greater tax burden for middle-class families.
At the Republican National Convention in Tampa last week, challenger Mitt Romney was mostly silent on housing. However, Republicans did pledge support for the MID—in the absence of tax reform. The party's 2012 platform says, "We strongly support tax reform; in the event we do not achieve this, we must preserve the mortgage interest deduction."
Obama also touched on the need for a consumer protection in the mortgage lending process, stressing the administration's proposed guidelines to ensure borrowers are qualified and discourage risky lending.
"We believe that when a family can no longer be tricked into signing a mortgage they can't afford, that family is protected, but so is the value of other people's homes, and so is the entire economy," Obama said.
Read more in REALTOR® Magazine's Daily News: Obama Promises to Protect MID for the Middle Class
Remember that Mr. Romney said after his acceptance speech that he only will talk about "what's important" in his speeches. Not bringing it up, then, says a lot. It seems the campaign staff spends a great deal of time on "corrections" and filling in blanks. The Romney/Ryan ticket will not disclose what deductions are on the chopping block. Since mortgages over $1,000,000 are already exempt, and most buyers in that price range pay cash for their primary and second (and presumably fifth) homes, this is not a deduction likely to be seen as anything of importance to them. I think MID at all levels is in real trouble if this team takes over the Oval Office.
I'd really like to know what President Obama considers 'Middle Class'. Does he take National Income or State Income? Or perhaps, he uses some other method. In some areas of the country it takes much more income to live the same lifestyle as other areas.
Most people believe they are Middle Class and most likely would fall into a higher income bracket. What then?
Apparently, the MID is as good as gone if Obama is re-elected. I hope you have noticed that, in almost all cases, what he does is actually the exact opposite of what he says.
Keep in mind that ALL budgets must pass both the House and Senate. Both Obama and Roomey should be judged on Leadership and Skills. I watched both conventions and listened to both sides. I feel strongly that the Roomey/Ryan team will NOT take away the Mortgage Interest deduction. It is a clear business decision that a takeaway in this area would hurt Real Estate which is a main driver of the economy. Although MID and budget are extremely important, the decision can not be made by the White House alone. Important issues do not include excuses, blame and finger pointing.
We better be concerned, since whatever he says, he does the opposite…look out…he primary objective is to "dimish America"…that would be another way to accomplish that. I suggest that all go see the movie "2016" a real eye opener.
The MID is the least of our concerns in this Post Constitutional America.
President William Jefferson (BJ) Clinton, who brought total disrespect to "The Office of The President", was impeached and lost his law license is not someone who should necessarily be placed on a pedestal. The fact is that there was no surplus during the Clinton presidency ….
"While not defending the increase of the federal debt under President Bush, it's curious to see Clinton's record promoted as having generated a surplus. It never happened. There was never a surplus and the facts support that position. In fact, far from a $360 billion reduction in the national debt in FY1998-FY2000, there was an increase of $281 billion."
In addition "Obamacare" is A Tax. The IRS will be involved in collecting from those who do not purchase the mandatory health care insurance, while the government officials can will keep their Cadillac plans that "We The People" pay for. What's to prevent the IRS from placing tax liens on private homes if we don't pay up?
Remember Kelo vs. The City of New London" (Eminent Domain) Look it up.
Obamanation (One painting that says it all)
If you get half- 50%- of your yearly income from Earned Income not Capital Gains such as Dividend Stocks and other Capital gains instruments then you are most likely are in the middle class. Not the 5% of the Rich population which Romney will represent. Don't be fooled!
Let's hope for some change! To move "Forward" we need a president qualified for the job. A president that stands up for our ideals and principles, and especially one that's fiscally responsible. We need a strong leader, and one that understands capitalism. Clearly, it's not Obama. It feels like we're falling apart as a country slowly but surely in every respect.
Unless you're ok with working hard while subsidizing those that don't (spreading the wealth=socialism-lots of taxes & big government) Obama is your man.


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Child care is available through The Fort Hood Area Volunteer Childcare Fund for some volunteer positions. Please call 287-8657 or stop by the Lane Volunteer Center for more information.
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Representatives from units and organizations benefiting from volunteer service meet quarterly to share volunteer and community news and network to support the installation and surrounding communities. This vital and informative meeting is held on the first Friday of each February, May, August, and November unless that Friday falls on a holiday or training holiday, in such case, the meeting will be rescheduled. All council meetings are held at the Lane Volunteer Center at 0930. For an invitation please call the Army Volunteer Corps office at 287-8657.
The Army Volunteer Corps (AVC) Presents...quarterly volunteer management seminars. Are you an effective volunteer manager? Would you like to learn how to better manage, recruit, sustain, and train volunteers? Then join the ACS, AVC for one of these new exciting seminars and learn the tricks of the trade! For more information please call 287-8657.
This annual event is an opportunity for the installation and local communities to participate in a "national day of doing good." The 4th Saturday of October, units, organizations, and individuals set out to do something positive for the community, such as conduct food drives, repair homeless shelters, visit veterans and the elderly, etc. For more information on how you can get involved in Make a Difference Day, please call 287-(VOLS) 8657.
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A quick awards reference matrix is available here.
For more information please call the Army Volunteer Corps office at 287-8657 or 286-5913.


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Green and Sweet Photo Gallery
You can see the name of the apple when you hold your mouse over any of the images below.
Click on any of the images to see a larger version. Then you can...
- navigate forwards and backwards through the images by clicking on the arrows.
- see a slideshow of all of the images by clicking the 'play' arrow underneath the image. The slideshow will end when it reaches the last apple.
- click on the apple name to link to the page that will give more details about that apple.
Click on the X at any time to end the display, or just click anywhere outside of the image.