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Chowhound Cake Day - June 29, 2013
My friends and I are having our annual Cake Day on June 29, and I thought it would be fun to have a virtual Cake Day with Home Cooking crew...because Cake Day is one of the happiest days of the year!
I'm thinking there are two ways to participate:
1. Hold your own Cake Day with friends at your place on the 29th. Gather some like minded bakers and spend the day baking, decorating and eating cakes. For kitchens with a single oven, a comfortable number of people/cakes is probably 4. For kitchens with double ovens, it's double that, though it really helps to have a second mixer and baking station. It's helpful to pick cakes that don't have multi-stage prep, though we've had people bring cakes partially or fully done. Having friends bring extra cake pans and cooling racks is important.
2. Bake a cake yourself on the 29th to share in spirit with the Home Cooking board.
In either case, make sure to take pictures of the finished cake, as well as a slice of the cake so we can all see the inside, too! Post the photos and descriptions on this thread for all to see.
If you're doing option 1, make sure you have parchment and cake boxes for people to take pieces of all the different cakes home. We've found it works best to cut a slice of each cake and pass the slices around for everyone to sample, and then divvy up the remainder of the cakes for the take home boxes.
(Description of last year's day here: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/853324)
Don't know if this will fly, but let's have a go! I hope lots of you will join in. :o)
a comfortable number of people/cakes is probably....??? missing a number here.
great idea, I love cake!
re: cleopatra999
I'm estimating 4 people/cakes for a single oven kitchen. Of course that depends on how long you're willing for the day to be. Year 1, we did 7 cakes, year 2, we did 8 cakes (I think) in a double oven kitchen. Started at around 11, eating cakes by 5 or so. Next cake is being prepped while prior cake is baking. And then you need to factor in cooling and frosting time. So if there are cakes that don't need frosting, it's best to make those last.
Pictures from previous cake days below.
I don't know how I missed the fun last year but I just finished reading the last post thru. What fun!
I'll be following along. I hope the recipes will be included (more) this time.
Hi everyone! It's one week to Cake Day! I hope you're all perusing cake recipes and deciding what to make.
Here's my warm up for next Saturday:
I found a salted caramel ganache recipe that looked way too good, so I was going to make my old standby chocolate cake with the ganache. There turned out to be several others in my group making a chocolate cake of some sort, so I decided to make something else for cake day and instead make it this past week for my visiting niece's birthday. I have to say that this was one of the most delicious frostings I've ever tasted. I can definitely recommend the combination of caramel, salt and chocolate!
This is the ganache recipe I used (but not the cake):
Based on a couple of reviews, I upped the chocolate to 12 oz. and the ganache was still too runny for my personal preference. I prefer a ganache that is pourable while warm-ish but which solidifies when totally cooled. However, the taste was sooooo delicious that I will play with it in the future. I'm thinking of either increasing the chocolate to a full 16 oz or reducing the amount of cream in the caramel. Because it was so runny, I chose to whip up some of the ganache for the filling. Now THAT worked like a charm. So if I'm ever looking for a whipped frosting, this is a winner.
Honestly, that ganache would be delicious on just about anything: cookies, ice cream, a spoon...
Here's a photo of the finished cake. It's a bit sloppy because A) I was in a massive hurry to finish this before I left for the airport to pick up my family, and B) the ganache was too runny to fill in the imperfections on the sides and spread into a nice smooth coating.
And no, I didn't make the cookie flowers. I happened to have them from a food event the previous night, so I decided to use them to decorate the cake. Reduce, reuse, recycle, right? :o)
Happy Pre-Cake Day!
My cake day practice cake was a bust, so now I'm all consternated and addlepated about what to bake for cake day. I need a new recipe, but since I won't have time to try it out between now and Saturday, I need a new recipe that's a guaranteed success.
I'd prefer to avoid chocolate cake since there are quite a few of them already on the roster this year, and ideally, the cake would work well with cream cheese icing, since I already bought the cream cheese. I like fruit-flavored cakes like lemon cakes or cherry cakes or banana cakes moreso than plain white cakes or chocolate cakes. The cake that didn't work was pineapple based, so I also have a couple of cans of pineapple that I bought for cake day that could be redeployed, but they could also just be eaten off a spoon, so they don't need to be used in the recipe.
Anyone have a tried and true recipe for an awesome, interesting cake they can throw out here? Something cool and interesting with a bit of a wow factor, would be great, because as you may have seen in TorontoJo's thread about last year's cake day, standards are high!
Well Cake Day has come and gone, and for me and my crazy cake-baking friends, it was an amazing day. This year, we had 13 bakers, and ended up with 19 cakes! Several of us chose to bake a cake in advance, in addition to the cake we made the day of.
Here are a couple of shots of the final table. I'll be back later to post details.
re: TorontoJo
Fabulous Cake Day, Jo :) Thanks for organizing and hosting!
My Cherry Bundt (left side of the table) was based on Good Housekeeping's Blueberry Crumb Ring http://books.google.ca/books?id=KgVtR... . I substituted fresh pitted cherries for the blueberries. I didn't have a tube pan with a removable bottom handy, so I put the crumbs and some cherries in the Bundt pan before adding the batter, rather than adding the cherries and crumbs last, on top of the batter, as set out in the recipe. The crumb topping would have had a slightly more crumbly texture, and the cake probably would have been better looking, if it was made in a tube pan with a removable bottom.
re: TorontoJo
My cakes for the day were a strawberry custard cake (same as I made last year, but with no frosting and a different decorating style) and David Lebovitz' fresh ginger cake that I added a thin layer of caramel cream cheese frosting to. The ginger cake was delicious, even though I accidentally added only 1 tsp of baking soda instead of 2. I'll definitely make it again, and skip the frosting when I do, as the cake is delicious on its own.
re: TorontoJo
Other cakes from yesterday, pictured below:
- Black Pearl cake, based on the Vosges chocolate bar flavors: chocolate cake with ginger and wasabi, black sesame ganache, cooked flour frosting (instead of whipped cream)
- Chocolate cake with toasted marshmallow cream filling and a malted chocolate buttercream. I could have eaten the entire care...
- Stunning Mont Blanc cake.
- Root beer chocolate bundt cake -- I loved the intense root beer flavor of the cake. We all agreed that the chocolate frosting was superfluous on this.
- Red wine velvet cake -- amazingly moist with great depth of flavor from the red wine. The frosting was an incredibly buttery German buttercream.
- Pistachio petit fours cake -- beautiful layers of ganache and marzipan.
- Lemon curd layer cake -- lusciously lemony and creamy.
- Mondrian cake -- art as cake, or cake as art. Amazingly complex to make -- fun, but a lot of work!
Not pictured:
- Earl Grey tea cakes with a lemon lavender glaze
- Butter pecan cake
- Raspberry buttermilk cake
- Gateau Breton
- Bakewell cake
- Two tres leches cakes, one with a pistachio cardamom top
- Cherry bundt cake
- Rum cake topped with Luxardo cherries
All of the cakes were beautiful and delicious. I'm so lucky to have such talented bakers for friends! We had so much fun baking cakes all day. Watching the Mondrian and Mont Blanc cakes come together was amazing.
I hope other people baked, too. If you did, please share what you made!
re: TorontoJo
re: biondanonima
Have you tried galleygirls's pear tart before? I think the recipes are similarly easy and delicious.
re: biondanonima
re: gingershelley
Here you go - just an incredibly delicious result for so little effort!
I made it with peaches and served it with some blueberries, cherries and strawberries that I had tossed in a little honey with mint. SO good!
re: TorontoJo
These are beautiful! Wish I had friends who could bake and would do a cake day with me. I am curious now, looking at the size of the cake slices, do you eat big slices of every cake? Do you not eat all day in anticipation of all the cake you will consume. Are you sick of cake by the time you've tasted everything?
re: Jpan99
Somewhat surprisingly, we spend most of Cake Day eating things other than cake. I think we went through something like 17lbs of pork in two different preparations, plus there was japchae and this amazing mushroom pate and some other bits and bobs to eat throughout the day.
We actually consume only small amounts of cake on Cake Day -- we set aside one slice of each cake for tasting and everyone has a bite of each, but usually not much more than that. When you have 19 cakes to taste, you don't need more than a bite of each.
re: Jacquilynne
re: Jpan99
re: Jpan99
Here's a picture of one of the take-home boxes of 19 different cake slices. Someone weighed it and it came to 6 lbs of cake!
My strategy is to freeze all of the individual slices, then wrap each separately and stick them all into big freezer bags. I then get to selectively take out and enjoy a slice of cake whenever I feel like over the next few weeks. It's kind of awesome.
re: TorontoJo
re: TorontoJo
I ended up doing a butter pecan cake, inspired somewhat by this recipe: http://laurassweetspot.com/2012/05/09...
I started with Rose Levy Berenbaum's White Velvet cake as a base. (PDF of the recipe here, on Rose's site: http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/rec... )
To it, I added some toasted chopped pecans (2 cups pecans, 1/4 cup butter, toast over medium heat in a skillet, try not to burn the first batch, especially if you've accepted your gracious host's offer of some of her pecan supply or if there are 11 other people in attendance who will have to smell your burnt pecans).
I also made a batch of buttered pecans that in advance that I food processed into a grainy sort of butter -- 3/4 lb of pecans baked in the oven with 3 tablespoons of butter and then pulsed with another 3 tablespoons of butter once cool. I added this to about a quarter of my batch of cream cheese icing and used it both to fill the layers and to crumb coat the cake, before frosting with the rest of the cream cheese icing. I actually think I should have just made a little more of this and not bothered with the outer cream cheese layer -- it was more interesting looking and more stable than the cream cheese icing proved to be anyway.
Realistically, I could have made one large batch of pecans either on the stovetop or in the oven instead of two separate batches by two separate methods, and then just food processed part of the batch. That would have worked out just fine, as well and been fewer dishes.
re: TorontoJo
Yay for cake day! Here are the two I contributed.
____Rum Cake (Bouchon Bakery)____
Perhaps I'll snag a slice if I hit up a Bouchon Bakery soon, just to compare, but I wouldn't make this again. I didn't think the taste was really so good or the texture so fine. Maybe I just didn't make this right. It was, however, super boozy. Despite having checked, what I really wanted to make was a baba au rhum, which isn't the same thing. So... I'll be making a baba at some point in the future to compensate.
- The icing topping? Whoa, terrible. Heat that water up a bit or something, as it was very gritty. Also use the nicer rum for this one.
- If you unmould it badly, like I did, skip the icing topping and just slice off the top and put some fruit on it. Works wonders. I added some Luxardo maraschino (more booze!) and fresh cherries on top.
- I liked the crust that the dusting of sugar in the pan created. But use spray first. Lots and lots of spray.
recipe: http://www.cookthatbook.com/recipes/r...
____Mondrian Cake____
Because the rum cake was a make-ahead, I didn't want to be sitting out the entire day eating only savouries and watching the fun in the kitchen. You can imagine my pitiful expression, nose pressed up against the (non-existent) glass window, yes?
Anyway, someone had seen the new book out from Caitlin Freeman on the MOMA desserts and had jokingly said I should make it. Well, CHALLENGE ACCEPTED then. This was going to be more of a technical exercise, as the core cake was a simple pound cake.
- For the recipe, I subbed in a teaspoon of fresh lemon juice and a freehand amount of zest from half a lemon. That's it.
- Use a ruler, but I think better would be to have a pre-sized stick in full and half widths. There was a lot of measuring involved.
- Forgot to cut off the ends of the cake for display. A brick of ganached-covered butter cake isn't nearly as photogenic.
- If your cream is too hot and you scorch the chocolate for the ganache, pull out your hand mixer and beat it (in fact, upon reviewing the video, Freeman beats her ganache - and, apparently, adds water).
- If the oils should separate from the chocolate, add in some liquid glucose or some white corn syrup. And beat it.
- all you really need is a pretty thin layer of chocolate for the interior pieces. I see why now Freeman used the non-coated edges on the outside - helps for consistency when you pour the final ganache, but I didn't think it was a huge deal.
recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Buttermi...
method: http://books.google.ca/books?id=MSCty...
video: http://vimeo.com/63949405
Overall, taste-wise, my cakes were so very meh. The Mondrian was a real looker though! I've had good reactions from those who've seen it.
My write-up and photos of all the cakes:
So much fun. Thanks to TorontoJo for being a wonderful host!
TorontoJo's post here, and her photos and stories from last year, put me in a cake-making mood on the weekend. Mine was a solo cake day, but the cake - an orange lavender almond cake with ricotta topping, from a Diana Henry recipe - turned out wonderfully. Moist and really delicious!
But man, you guys really outdid yourself with the beautiful and creative cakes. Well done!
This sounds great -- and the cakes look fab -- let's do it!!!
re: buttertart
re: TorontoJo
re: buttertart
re: buttertart
Virtual Cake Day for Home Cooking denizens everywhere?
We cannot wait for Chowhound Cake Day - June 29, 2014


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Guest Columnist
If you have been keeping up with the news, the petition for creating a $500 million bond issue to help local schools build storm shelters was officially filed. We have 90 days from September 18th to complete the task of getting a minimum of 160,000 registered Oklahoma voters to sign this petition to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot to allow for this program to occur. The legislature has twice refused to discuss this issue, so I am hoping we will be able to get this to a vote and passed by the people. If you would like more information on this program, go to their website and read more about the program, or please email a request for signature sheets and help us get the petition signed with the emails provided on the site. You can learn more on Facebook by searching for Take Shelter Oklahoma for their page, or going to: www.takeshelterok.com
It was a busy week with more than storm shelters to be discussed. I held an interim study on the possible effects of pension reform in Oklahoma. Rep. Randy McDaniel, R-OKC and I both had persons in to look at the positives and negatives of changing the current seven retirement systems by consolidating them into one and also by changing the programs from Defined Benefits to Defined Contributions. I am very much opposed to consolidating the systems and I do not think it is in the best interest to modify the plans. State employees have not seen a pay raise in almost a decade, along with school teachers, so the retirement system is one of the few benefits they receive which keeps good employees in state service. This will affect public employees, teachers, firefighters, law enforcement and elected officials with any potential changes. I see this as a part of their annual salary which they receive, with this portion delayed until they retire and can draw those benefits.
Proponents of change say that this will increase salaries on the short term, and that is a possibility. The problem we would see is that less will likely go into retirement, which means those who do not invest their savings wisely will not have that monthly check in their later years. An additional problem with not having a stable defined benefit is that each retiree will see a different size check and if the market crashes, then there is less likelihood that the retirement program will be stable with fewer persons participating, along with the percentage placed in by the employer.
Under a defined contribution plan, the employees often bear 100 percent of the market risk and pay high fees for administrative costs, along with fewer protections for catastrophic injuries that lead to early retirement. This is very similar to the proposals we saw a decade ago to modify Social Security as proposed by some in the federal government. I have great fear that by tinkering with the systems, we will see fewer solvencies and also place the entire bond rating of the state at risk. Any proposal which is brought forth needs to be thorough and have many safeguards in place to not only protect those currently in the retirement system, but also those who will receive those benefits in the future, along with the solvency of the systems.
Other than studies and collecting signatures, I had the great pleasure of visiting with the Mission Academy last week. This is a school located in Oklahoma City which specializes in assisting students with drug dependency issues. The school helps the students overcome their addiction, while continuing their coursework to keep them up with their grade-level education. This program is very unique and provides an avenue for students, and their families, to help conquer the problems facing this young adult. I look forward to working with them in the future to provide greater services across the entire state. To learn more about this program, check out their website: https://www.teenrecoverysolutions.org/
Finally, I want to thank everyone for the great birthday wishes I received, and I also want to wish my mom, Jan Dorman, a very happy birthday!

subset: commoncrawl


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By Brenda L. Holmes
Sean Garber has been playing backgammon on a regular basis since 1993. He's now the director of the Hoosier Backgammon Club which will be competing in the Ohio Valley Challenge Cup this weekend in Indianapolis.
"Our club plays every Wednesday night," Garber said.
The Hoosier Backgammon Club meets at 6:30 p.m. each Wednesday at the Buffalo Wild Wings in the Willow Lake East Shopping Center at 86th Street and Township Line Road.
Players with little experience to those who are veterans of the game are welcome to join the group for an evening of play. There is a $10 entry fee each week and there is a small amount of prize money involved. The second Tuesday of each month the club plays for free.
"We usually have between eight and 10 people show up every week," Garber said. "It varies from week to week."
He said he helped form the group back in 1993 when he read an article in Games Magazine.
"There was a number to call to help organize a local club," he said. "That's when the Hoosier Backgammon Club started."
Each year, backgammon clubs from around the Midwest travel to a city for the Ohio Valley Challenge Cup. The location rotates between Indianapolis and several other cities.
This year's event has been organized by the Hoosier Backgammon Club, which is currently the two-time defending champion.
"It's the biggest backgammon event in Indianapolis," Garber said. "There are other larger events in other parts of the country, but this is one of the highlights for our club each year. Especially since we're the defending champions."
Each club competing will register its top six players.
"Teams are made up of six players which are determined by points standings for the year," he said. "All clubs keep their standings."
When the competition is held, the number one player from both teams play each other, the number two players from both teams play each other, and so on.
Scores from each match are compiled and the teams with the top numbers take home the cup and earn bragging rights for the year.
"Games go up and down in popularity," Garber said. "I just really enjoy playing."
Backgammon was always known as the game on the other side of the checkers board. It surged in popularity in the 1970s and '80s and is still popular worldwide. But the game itself has been around for thousands of years.
The Ohio Valley Challenge Cup is March 16 and 17 at the Wingate by Wyndham, 6240 Intech Commons Drive, Indianapolis. Preliminary events for individual players are noon and 7 p.m. March 16. The cup competition is March 17.
For more information about the Hoosier Backgammon Club, contact Garber by calling 241-0605 or by e-mailing to firstname.lastname@example.com. New players are always welcome.


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Sawmill Gravy16 Reviews 2 Pics
Prep20 m
Cook15 m
Ready In35 m
"A thick milk gravy. Serve on biscuits with sausage and eggs."
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Adjust Servings
Original recipe yields 4 servings
- Place sausage in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium heat until evenly brown. Drain on paper towels, reserving 2 tablespoons fat in skillet. Stir in flour, salt, and pepper. Cook, stirring constantly, until flour is brown. Add chopped green onion, and cook until tender. Gradually stir in milk, and cook until thickened. Add more milk if necessary to achieve preferred consistency. Serve with sausage.
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Reviews (16)Rate This Recipe
What you have is a Sausage Gravy, not a Sawmill Gravy. What makes it Sawmill Gravy is CORNMILL. you add cornmill to give it a gritty taste like saw dust. Thats why itd called Sawmill Gravy.
Tamara Revis
i just made this gravy along with some biscuits and it was absolutly wonderful. The only adjustment i made was to cut the amount of sausage in half. 5 stars for this very very good sausage gravy!
Butterfly Flutterby
Hmmmmm, well. I think that gravy is a very personal dish. And, whether someone likes it or not probably is tied to the region in which they live. For me, this recipe needs improvement. I cut the sausage into slices and set aside, reserving two patties to be crumbled and placed back in the gravy at the end. With the sausage being salty already, I think that the salt in the recipe is too much. I had to use more black pepper for our tastes than listed here and we don't care for the green onions. You have to play with flour and milk amounts so I think that that is understood by most gravy cooks. Also, speed of your wrist (stirring) and heat play a factor. By the way, you can sub ham for the sausage and call it red-eye gravy.
Similar Recipes
Sausage Gravy I
Sausage Gravy III
Easy Sausage Gravy and Biscuits
Country Sausage Gravy
Sausage Gravy
Pork Sausage Gravy
Amount Per Serving (4 total)
- Calories
- 512 cal
- 26%
- Fat
- 46.6 g
- 72%
- Carbs
- 7.1 g
- 2%
- Protein
- 15.3 g
- 31%
- Cholesterol
- 80 mg
- 27%
- Sodium
- 1067 mg
- 43%
Based on a 2,000 calorie diet
previous recipe:
Sausage Gravy I
next recipe:
Pork Sausage Gravy


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3 Ways Businesses Can Make an Impact in Their Communities
Companies wield a lot of power; particularly in their local communities. They have the means to financially influence people without spending a lot of money and can influence others to do the same.
|John Hope Bryant
|Social Responsibility/Policies
|July 25 2014
Soldiers to Software Engineers: How One Company Transitioned Heroes Into Corporate America
It's truly astonishing that many of our most accomplished military veterans will return home to face one more battle: That of successfully transitioning into the civilian workforce. According to the Labor Department, the current unemployment rate for veterans is 6 percent, and 650,000 are jobless.
|Joe Cowan
|HR/Employee Strategies
|July 25 2014
How to Reignite Financial Performance by Empowering Your Employees
You're halfway through the year and the company's financial performance is below plan. You need to act! The most common response is to cut costs to improve the bottom line and/or fire or reassign a senior executive to create a sense of urgency. These actions create disruption and distraction at a time when the organization needs to be aligned and focused. There's another approach.
|Brian S. Cohen
|HR/Employee Strategies , Leadership , Strategy
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Onshoring vs. Offshoring: Service/Support Businesses Are Coming Back Home
Word has been spreading in the last few months that offshoring may no longer be the best option and that the United States is increasingly becoming more competitive for everything from manufacturing to IT to customer service. How should a CEO decide whether offshoring or onshoring is best for his or her firm?
|John A. Meyer
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10 Principles for Finding the Right CEO
People set strategy. Directors and executives who know where the company should be going will be best equipped to get it there.
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Improving Worker Productivity Through Job Ownership
Most workers have no interest in changing the world. Most don't even like their jobs. Increasing employees' job engagement pays high dividends, so how do you motivate the disenchanted on your team to join the job ownership ranks? Through communication, motivation and reward.
|Laura Stack
|HR/Employee Strategies
|April 16 2014
A Smart Manufacturing Summit Roundup
Chief Executive's Smart Manufacturing Summit is in full swing in Peoria, Ill., home to Caterpillar Inc.'s global headquarters. Caterpillar Chairman and CEO Doug Oberhelman opened the two-day event this morning. Trending right now: Tours of the Caterpillar facility are underway.
|Lynn Russo Whylly
|May 21 2014
New Data Helps Manufacturers Determine Where to Expand
The 2014 Manufacturing and Logistic Report gave Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, Oregon and South Carolina an "A" for manufacturing health, while five states received Fs and 10 received Ds.
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|July 7 2014
Manufacturing Is on the Rise Across 15 Sectors
The Institute for Supply Management's (ISM's) New Orders Subindex rose slightly—from 56.9 in May to 58.9 in June. The increase was subtle on a month-over-month basis, but of more significance, it was the highest reading since December.
|Lynn Russo Whylly
|July 7 2014
Encore Wire CEO Announces $30M Texas Expansion
Following in the footsteps of Kohls, Toyota and several other organizations that have either moved to Texas or expanded their operations there, Encore Wire Corporation President and CEO Daniel Jones announced that the company, which is celebrating 25 years in the McKinney, Texas community, will invest more than $30 million to expand its manufacturing facilities and provide more than 125 new jobs in the Texas town.
|Lynn Russo Whylly
|Daily Best of the Web , Manufacturing
|July 30 2014
The Payback Potential of Power
By Chris Curtis
How Dow Corning Beat Commoditization By Embracing It
By Mark W. Johnson
Why Businesses Should Shift from Cost Management to Cost Leadership
By Jonathan Schiff and Allen Schiff
Scaling Up When You're Still Small
By William J. Holstein
By Dale Buss


text:
Forbes gives snapshots of various jobs that humans will eventually surrender to machines or, in the case of miners, bacteria:
- Bacteria like Thiobacillus ferooxidans can be used to extract metal from ore. If there are further advances in the science of biomining, expect the guys with coal-darkened faces to take above-ground occupations.
Those of us who've fumbled our way through automatic checkouts at grocery stores won't be surprised to find cashier on the list:
- In fact, all jobs dealing with paper money, including bank tellers and toll booth operators, could be obsolete in two decades, as we rely more on credit and digital money.
Some other jobs on the list: CD store manager, construction worker, union organizer, and even the job so closely tied to outsourcing fears: call center rep.
Apparently, machines will also muscle out Maverick, Goose, Ice and other fighter pilots. Once again, The Simpsons was ahead of the times. Six years ago the military school Commandant (voice by Willem DaFoe) said this at a graduation ceremony:
- The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea.
They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall
mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by
small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is
clear: To build and maintain those robots.
Related: Robots to Takeover Oldest Profession
And how about Forbes slowly morphing into US Weekly? The "Hottest Billionaire Heiresses" list is here.


text:
Find all the secrets to getting unlimited lives and crushing your way through the levels to pass your friends in the Candy Crush Saga game by using the #1 Candy Crush Secrets Guide on the market. Click the link below for more information.
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I purchased this mattress pad first for myself as I wanted the soft feel of a luxurious hotel bed. This did not disappoint. I was so pleased I bought another one for my parents. They were also very pleased with it. I have had mine now for about 2 years and it has not broken down. Would highly recommend.
We have a latex mattress, and it is divoted where we sleep but not enough (of course) to get a new mattress per the warranty. We had a regular mattress pad on there, but it ripped, and I bought this one after looking at several on Amazon and Overstock. This one was $10 cheaper than one with a very similar photo available on Amazon, and we are so pleased with it! It has decreased the divot "sensation" quite a bit, which I think will increase the life of our mattress. As some others commented, I can occasionally feel a seam here and there, but it is a very small price to pay for such a fantastically plush matress pad. Don't hesitate - get one today!
I was very pleased when the mattress topper came in.It arrived very quickly and I put it on the bed right away. Very plush. I had been waking upduring the night with sore spots, this seems to have helped.
I decided to buy this mattress pad after reading all the wonderful reviews. I cannot believe that no one mentioned the fact that on the bottom side there is a hard seam on all four sides of each block where they are stitched together. It is not just a few blocks, it is every block. If this excess material had been trimmed off it might be okay but it was not. If it wasn't for the fact that I have it on top of a memory foam topper and these hard seams sink into it making them somewhat less noticeable, I would not be able to sleep on it. I sometimes wonder if the one I received is defective because it seems as though this would be a major complaint from everyone. I wish I had sent it back.
Pleasantly surprized with the quality and texture, we needed to "comfort up" a tired hard mattress and replace a mattress pad in our spare bedroom. I added this over the top of a 3 " memory foam pad also purchased from Over stock. In stead of just buying a mattress pad we bought a slice of heaven...
It's n my bed and I love it..It makes for a omfortable sleep
Very soft material. It adds bonus to the mattress, but do not expect something that will make your bed pillowy.
A Good Buy. Adds padding, without wadding up, to a very hard matress. Fits and holds place over the matress.
We`'re so pleased because it even fits over our waterbed! That's a challenge. That's the reason we can never purchase sheet SETS. Contour sheets don't fit. This mattress pad DOES fit. Thank you.
The pad slides around on the bed because the material is slick feeling and the part that tucks in as too slick and won't stay tucked in
Usually leaves our warehouse in 1-2 business days. *
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ASHTABULA — Betty Virginia Braun, age 90, passed away Thursday, Sept. 26, 2013, at Carington Park.
She was born June 21, 1923, in Ashtabula, the daughter of Lewis T. and Esther (Bliss) Webb and had been a lifelong Ashtabula resident. She graduated in 1941 from Ashtabula High School where she was head drum majorette and was elected May Queen. She later became a member of the last graduating class of the Ashtabula General Hospital Nursing Program.
She met Bill Braun at the Sugar Bowl while he was stationed here in Ashtabula for the U.S Coast Guard and married him in October of 1943.
A registered nurse at the Ashtabula General Hospital for 35 years, she was truly dedicated to her job, a career she had always wanted to join since her childhood. She enjoyed taking care of all her patients (especially those on the 2 North surgery floor) and the new mothers and babies on the maternity floor.
Betty was proud to be baptized by the Rev. Dr. Stephen R. Long, Pastor of First Presbyterian Church on March 9, 2010 at the Ashtabula County Nursing Home. She enjoyed shopping, reading, and Pepsi cola. She liked pansies and was especially fond of her beloved Pomeranian, "Sara." A wonderful mother and grandma, she was also a best friend to her children. The three children have wonderful memories of the times they enjoyed at their cottage on the Grand River when they were young.
Her survivors include three daughters, Becky (William) Halman of Ashtabula, Beth (Ken) Hoyle of Mayfield Heights and Bettina Braun of Ashtabula; six grandchildren, Aaron, Sarah, Eric (Jen), Carrie, Cathy and Crissy Hoyle; and four great-grandchildren, Erin, Rachel, Jay and Alyssa Hoyle.
She was preceded in death by her husband, William Braun on June 2, 1996; one grandson, Jay Hoyle; one sister, Ida Jeanne Myers; one brother, Terry Webb; and her parents.
A Service for family and friends will be held 1 p.m., Tuesday, Oct. 8th, at the family gravesite at Ridgeview Cemetery. The Rev. Dr. Stephen R. Long, Pastor of First Presbyterian Church, will officiate.
Contributions may be made to the family. CHILDS & WILLIAMS FAMILY FUNERAL HOME is in charge of arrangements.
Obituary at www.ducro.com and starbeacfon.com.


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Saturday, January 19, 2013
© Copyright 2014 Gwinnett Daily Post
ATLANTA -- In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, LEGOLAND Discover Center is inviting students to submit a photo depicting their "perfect world" for a chance to win a field trip to the attraction.
The Draw Your Dream art contest is open to classrooms and students in kindergarten through fourth grade. Sample themes for the artwork include equality, character, society and/or an eco-friendly environment.
One winner will be selected, and their classroom will receive a free trip to LEGOLAND Discovery Center Atlanta. The drawings will be on display in the attraction following the contest.
All artwork must be submitted by Friday. For contest rules and information about submitted, visit www.legolanddiscoverycenter.com or "Like" LEGOLAND Discovery Center Atlanta on Facebook.DULUTH -- High school seniors preparing to go to college or technical school this fall are eligible for the Vernon E. Carne Scholarship, an award given in honor of the Georgia United Credit Union's founder.
The scholarship competition focuses on a short essay of 250 words or less. This year's topic is "Explain how the credit union philosophy of 'people helping people' helps consumers during these difficult economic times, while providing an alternative to large commercial banks.'"
In addition, students need to complete a Georgia United scholarship form and include a copy of their high school transcript and a letter of acceptance from the college or technical school they will attend. Students are encouraged to explain why they are applying for this scholarship and include any special challenges they may have, scholastic standing, special achievements and leadership.
The $10,000 Vernon E. Carne Scholarship award will be distributed as follows: First place, $3,000; Second place, $2,000; third place, $1,000; and eight runners up will receive $500 each.
Georgia Untied also offers two Catholic Scholarships. The Catholic scholarships are given in honor of Archbishop Emeritus of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, the Most Reverend Archbishop John F. Donoghue.
The $2,500 Archbishop Emeritus John Frances Donoghue Scholarship will be distributed as follows: First place, $1,500; and second place, $1,000.
For applications and program rules, forms can be downloaded at www.georgiaunitedcu.org. Entrants may also call 770 476-6409 to have an application mailed. All entries must be sent to Georgia United's Community Development Department, 6705 Sugarloaf Parkway, Suite 300, Duluth, GA 30097 by March 1. Winners will be announced April 1.LAWRENCEVILLE -- Students can exercise their creative imaginations and doodle about their best day ever as part of the 2013 Doodle 4 Google contest.
Google gives K-12 students across the United States the chance to display their own Google doodle on www.google.com through the contest.
In addition to seeing their doodle displayed on the homepage in May, the winners will also receive a $30,000 college scholarship and a $50,000 technology grant for their school. Last year, a record 114,000 submissions were received.
Students can submit doodles until March 22, and the company will announce a winner from every single state on May 1. Last year's 2012 Georgia winner was Anoushka Misra, a 9-year-old student from Johns Creek.
For information about the contest, visit www.google.com/doodle4google.
Gwinnett Gab appears in the Thursday and Sunday editions of the Gwinnett Daily Post. To submit an item to Gwinnett Gab, email email@example.com.
More like this story
- Suwanee student wins statewide Google design contest ( May 2, 2012 )
- Peachtree Ridge student gets $3,000 scholarship ( April 14, 2012 )
- GAB: Third annual Amazing Entrepreneur Contest begins ( December 8, 2012 )
- GAB: Woman's club accepting scholarship applications ( March 7, 2012 )
- GOOD NEWS FROM SCHOOLS: Council for Exceptional Children honors Gwinnett teachers ( May 3, 2014 )


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Please use the Admissions Contact Form or contact the Admissions Office by phone at 800-729-4732 or by email at firstname.lastname@example.com.
The university is located on a rolling 107-acre campus in the north central part of Fort Wayne. Beautiful walkways, woods and Mirror Lake adorn the grounds.
Mailing AddressUniversity of Saint Francis
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Keep Calm Moms: Maternal Stress During Pregnancy Linked to Asthma Risk in OffspringAug. 1, 2014 During pregnancy, many women make a concerted effort to keep stress levels low -- and for good reason. Maternal stress has been linked to a number of negative outcomes for women and their infants, ... full story
Teen Insomnia Linked With Depression, AnxietyJuly 30, 2014 A study of high school students has shed new light on the links between insomnia-related mental health conditions among teens. "People with insomnia find it difficult to fall asleep or stay ... full story
Learning the Smell of Fear: Mothers Teach Babies Their Own Fears Via Odor, Animal Study ShowsJuly 28, 2014 Babies can learn what to fear in the first days of life just by smelling the odor of their distressed mothers', new research suggests. And not just "natural" fears: If a mother experienced ... full story
Teens Pay High Psychiatric Toll When Raised in Conditions of Political ConflictJuly 24, 2014 Israeli youths exposed to protracted conflict suffer far higher levels of anxiety, phobia, fear, depression, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and paranoia than their counterparts in the US. The largest ... full story
How Stress Hormones Promote Brain's Building of Negative MemoriesJuly 23, 2014 Scientists have discovered a key component to better understanding how traumatic memories may be strengthened in women. Their study's findings suggest that developing clinical treatments that ... full story
When It Comes to Depressed Men in the Military, Does Size Matter?July 23, 2014 Both short and tall men in the military are more at risk for depression than their uniformed colleagues of average height, a new study finds. "To our knowledge, there are no preventive programs ... full story
Mental Health Issues in Children With Relatives Who Participated in Manhunt After Boston MarathonJuly 21, 2014 Children with relatives who were called upon to participate in the interagency manhunt following the Boston Marathon attack carried a particularly heavy mental health burden, according to a study ... full story
Mothers of Children With Autism Benefit from Peer-Led InterventionJuly 21, 2014 Peer-led interventions that target parental well-being can significantly reduce stress, depression and anxiety in mothers of children with disabilities, according to new findings. In a ... full story
Experts Urge New Discipline Combining Benefits of Neuroscience, Psychology TreatmentsJuly 18, 2014 For some conditions, such as bipolar disorder, psychological treatments are not effective or are in their infancy. A 'culture gap' between neuroscientists and clinical scientists is ... full story
Exercise, Relaxation Activities Positively Impact People With Social Anxiety DisordersJuly 17, 2014 New research has shed light on how exercise and relaxation activities like yoga can positively impact people with social anxiety disorders. The study found that exercise and relaxation activities ... full story
What Are the Risks of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder After an Accident?July 17, 2014 Many patients continue to suffer from symptoms (headaches, pain) several months after an accident. Now, a research team has studied the subsequent development of 1,300 people who were admitted to ... full story
Brain Responses to Emotional Images Predict Ptsd Symptoms After Boston Marathon BombingJuly 15, 2014 By using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging scans from before the attack and survey data from after, the researchers found that heightened amygdala reaction to negative emotional stimuli was a ... full story
Beneath the Surface: What Zebrafish Can Tell Us About AnxietyJuly 14, 2014 One researcher has focused how genetics influence responses to stimuli that can trigger anxiety, and he's using zebrafish -- a tropical member of the minnow family named for the black stripes on ... full story
After a Concussion, Which Teens Will Have Emotional Symptoms?July 10, 2014 After a concussion, teens who are sensitive to light or noise may be more likely to also have emotional symptoms such as anxiety, according to a new ... full story
Effect of Depressed Mood on Pulmonary Rehab CompletionJuly 9, 2014 People with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who are also depressed have difficulty sticking to a pulmonary rehabilitation program, a study shows. This appears to be particularly true for women, ... full story
L-Dopa Medication Could Be Helpful in Treatment of Phobias, Post-Traumatic Stress DisorderJuly 9, 2014 A drug used to treat Parkinson's disease could also help people with phobias or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), scientists report. They are currently exploring the effects of ... full story
Holistic Approach to POW TraumaJuly 7, 2014 The compounding effects of war captivity and war trauma on prisoners of war has been the focus of a recent study. While symptoms of psychological illness are often pigeon-holed as specific individual ... full story
Does Depression Require Hospitalization?July 6, 2014 A new study has analyzed the difference between day hospital and inpatient stay in depression. Depending on the severity of depression, patients may be treated at different levels of care with ... full story
Personality and Heart Attacks: A New LookJuly 6, 2014 A new study has addressed the relationship between personality and heart attacks. Distressed (type D) personality (TDP), characterized by high negative affectivity (NA) and social inhibition (SI), ... full story
How You Cope With Stress May Increase Your Risk for InsomniaJuly 3, 2014 A new study is the first to identify specific coping behaviors through which stress exposure leads to the development of insomnia. Results show that coping with a stressful event through behavioral ... full story
- How stress hormones promote brain's building of negative memories
- When it comes to depressed men in the military, does size matter?
- Mental health issues in children with relatives who participated in manhunt after Boston Marathon
- Mothers of children with autism benefit from peer-led intervention
- Exercise, relaxation activities positively impact people with social anxiety disorders
- What are the risks of post-traumatic stress disorder after an accident?
- Effect of depressed mood on pulmonary rehab completion
- L-dopa medication could be helpful in treatment of phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder
- Trial examines treatment for psychogenic nonepileptic seizures
- New approach to treating conversion disorder reduces seizures, improves co-morbid symptoms
- Potential drug target for PTSD prevention
- Videoconferencing with family, friends lowers stress for pediatric patients
- Early traumas and young people's reactions to terror
- Anxiety-like behavior in invertebrates opens research avenues
- No evidence of long-term PTSD risk in patients with awareness during surgery
- Depression linked to higher heart disease death risk in younger women
- Low cortisol levels may increase risk of depression in bipolar disorder
- Worry, behavior among teens at higher risk for breast cancer: Focus of new study
- Antipsychotic medication during pregnancy does affect babies, study shows
- PTSD treatment cost-effective when patients given choice
- Dialysis patients' anxiety, depression linked to physical impairments
- Dealing with stress: To cope or to quit?
- Why retailers need to pay attention to the smell of their stores
- Many children affected by PTSD after traffic accidents, Swedish study finds
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder questionnaire may give clues to other mental health problems
- E-cigarettes and mental health: People with depression, axiety more likely to try e-cigarettes
- Athletes' fear of failure likely to lead to 'choke,' study shows
- Psilocybin inhibits the processing of negative emotions in the brain
- Discrimination associated with mental health woes in black teens: Racism a common 'toxic stressor'
- Nightmares may signal a child is being bullied
- Yoga can help keep expectant mothers stress free: First evidence found
- Your stress is my stress: Observing stress can trigger physical stress response
- Not all wedded bliss: Marital stress linked to depression
- Gene mutation, key symptoms of autism appear to be linked
- Recurrent violence linked to substantially higher rates of mental disorders in post-conflict communities
- Brain circuits involved in emotion discovered by neuroscientists
- Depressed? Researchers identify new anti-depressant mechanisms, therapeutic approaches
- Neurotics don't just avoid action: They dislike it, study finds
- Inhibited children become anxious adults: Examining the causes and effects of early shyness
- Boosting depression-causing mechanisms in brain increases resilience, surprisingly
- Intravenously administered ketamine shown to reduce symptoms of chronic post-traumatic stress disorder
- Local homicide rate increases cause more elementary students to fail school
- Collaborative care model manages depression, anxiety in patients with heart disease
- Domestic abuse linked to mental health problems in new mothers
- Poor neighborhoods create misfortune, ill health
- Intranasal ketamine confers rapid antidepressant effect in depression
- DNA modifications measured in blood signal related changes in the brain
- Genes increase the stress of social disadvantage for some children
- Children see domestic violence that often goes unreported, research finds
- Switching off anxiety with light: Cone opsins coupled with serotonin receptors
- Kinder, gentler med school: Students less depressed, learn more
- Anti-anxiety drugs, sleeping pills linked to risk of death
- What psychosocial factors can help IVF patients?
- Depression, anxiety linked to poor diabetes management among Mexican Americans
- Chronic stress in early life causes anxiety, aggression in adulthood, neurobiologists find
- Strong evidence for a new class of antidepressant drugs revealed by research
- Precision drugs sought for anxiety disorders
- Keep calm and don your video glasses: Television shows keep patients calm during medical treatment
- Psychiatric complications in women with polycystic ovary syndrome most often linked to menstrual irregularities
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In agile development, what happens to the traditional business analyst? Consider Scrum, currently the most popular agile method. In Scrum, there is no "business analyst" role. In fact, there is not an explicit role for tester, project manager, architect, developer, data administrator, user experience designer, customer support representative, or product trainer. Instead, Scrum has three roles: the product owner, the ScrumMaster, and the delivery team. Their collective goal is to deliver high-valued product needs continually. So, where and how can a business analyst contribute?
One possibility is the ScrumMaster role. Great ScrumMasters are facilitative leaders with a diverse set of analysis skills and strong communication and facilitation abilities. In addition, they have a sound understanding of the business domain. Business analysts and project managers with those strong skills are good candidates for the ScrumMaster role.
Another possibility is the delivery team. On some Scrum teams we've coached, the business analyst blends into the delivery team, participating and often leading the activities of planning, analyzing, testing, and demonstrating the product. Using Scrum terminology, that work is burned up and burned down, along with the work of design, development, and so on.
The Business Analyst Is Not the Product Owner, Unless ...
The product owner role requires deep domain and product knowledge to guide decisions about what to build and when to build it. The product owner, in collaboration with the delivery team, explores and evaluates product needs to make those decisions. That's business analysis work.
The product owner may choose to explicitly and transparently delegate decision-making authority. We've seen this responsibility delegated to a business analystwho reports within the business or product management organization and has the requisite domain and product background.
Strategic and Tactical Work of the Product Owner
The product owner role in Scrum is crucial for success. The product owner is responsible for the planning, analysis, communication, and decision making to ensure that the right product is delivered.
Strategic product owner responsibilities include:
- Lead customer and product-discovery activities.
- Create strategic product plans and define business value (product profitability).
- Communicate the product roadmap and plans to internal and external stakeholders.
- Develop and manage a lean, dynamic product backlog (also called "pruning" or "grooming" the backlog).
- Select and analyze product backlog requirements to prepare them for agile planning workshops.
- Identify themes for each planning cycle.
- Lead or participate in agile planning and retrospective workshops.
Tactical, day-to-day product owner responsibilities include:
- Participate in product backlog grooming (e.g., work ahead, make ready, planning, agile analysis, and pruning workshops) to prepare backlog items for estimating and planning.
- Specify acceptance criteria for each backlog item.
- Review and approve user stories.
- Attend daily stand-ups and the end-of-iteration and end-of-release demonstrations and retrospectives.
That's a lot of responsibility—and it's time-consuming, to boot. In addition, most product owners wear many other hats. In commercial software organizations, they may be product managers. Or, in organizations that develop software to support their internal IT operations, product owners may be mid- or senior-level business managers. No wonder the product owner needs help!
User Comments
nice article. you can also refer to http://www.scrumstudy.com/free-resources.asp">free resources in agile and scrum and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP3TBpWWwJ8">scrum video to sharpen your knowledge on scrum


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TechCrunch Open Sources Its WordPress Async Task Library
When we started working on the TechCrunch redesign last year, one of the major goals was to improve site performance. During the development process, we implemented several tools to help achieve that goal. One of the approaches we took was to offload time-consuming tasks into background tasks. We built a library called WP Async Task to structure those background tasks. Read More
Wikipedia Revamps Its iOS App With Offline Access, Support For Editing While On The Go
Wikipedia has today made a significant update to its iOS application, which most noticeably features a cleaner, "distraction-free" design, as well as the ability to edit Wikipedia articles from your smartphone or tablet device. Under the hood, the app received a number of other improvements as well, including speed increases, offline access, a reading history, and more. Read More
Play Chef With Forage's Twist On Restaurant Delivery
San Francisco is a great town for foodies and Forage, the brainchild of Foodzie founders Rob and Emily LaFave has emerged as an option for those who want to cook their favorite restaurant dishes at home. The service, which launches today, gathers all the ingredients used in selected restaurant recipes and hand-delivers them right to your door. The promise is that amateur chefs will be able to… Read More
Microsoft Loses Email Privacy Case With U.S. Gov, Will Appeal
Microsoft lost an appeal today, as a federal judge ordered that it must comply with a U.S. warrant seeking email data on servers located in Ireland. During this process, it has been Microsoft's contention that a warrant issued by the U.S. doesn't have legal standing because the data being sought is stored abroad. Judge Loretta A. Preska disagrees. Read More
Stripe Backs Non-Profit Decentralized Payment Network Stellar, From Mt. Gox's Original Creator
There's Bitcoin, the asset and hedge against fiat currencies and the politics of their central banks. And then there's Bitcoin, a fundamental innovation around a distributed public ledger of transactions. Many crypto-currencies try to split or play with the distinction between the two. An early attempt was the Ripple, from OpenCoin. But the team behind that startup split. Read More
Snapchat VP Of Engineering Peter Magnusson Departs Startup After Just 6 Months
Snapchat's VP of Engineering, Peter Magnusson, has left the company only six months after the L.A.-based startup was able to poach him away from Google. Magnusson was a particularly high-profile win for the ephemeral messaging app maker, as he had previously headed up Google's App Engine, a cloud-based platform that counts Snapchat as one of its largest customers. Read More
Timely Turns Your Calendar Into A Time Tracker
One of the most important things a small business manager can do is make sure that everyone is taking on a fair share of the workload. If some are taking on a bigger share of the work than others, it can lead to hurt feelings and inefficiency. Timely is an app that hopes to make that task easier to manage by thinking about how much time everyone is spent on work in total. Read More
Pure Storage's Scott Dietzen And Sutter Hill's Mike Speiser To Talk About Building For The Long Term At Disrupt SF
Pure Storage is upending the enterprise storage industry by fully utilizing flash memory technology into their product. Scott Dietzen, the current CEO of Pure Storage, and Mike Speiser, managing director at Sutter Hill Ventures, are working together to grow Pure Storage into an industry leader in flash-based enterprise data storage and they'll be joining us onstage at Disrupt SF 2014. Read More
Audi Tests Self-Driving Cars On Florida's Roads
Self-driving cars are making their way to Florida. Well, to "connected car" testbeds in Florida, that is. Automaker Audi was recently the first to try out a section of highway in Tampa, which has been designated by the state as a testbed for automated driving. Here, Audi tested an initial version of "Piloted Driving" – something it calls "Traffic Jam… Read More
Oculus Rift DK2 Gets Torn Apart, Revealing Its Samsung Innards
You may not be able to get your hands on the very-much-backordered second generation Oculus Rift, but you know who did? iFixit — the guys who tear apart pretty much every device they can get their hands on to get a better look at the hamster wheels inside. So what'd they find? Read More
Twitter Acquires Password Security Startup Mitro, Open Sources Its Product
Twitter is acquiring a small password security startup called Mitro for its New York office. Mitro built a way that multiple people can share or control passwords to a single account. The most obvious use case would have been in the enterprise where team members need to share a single password for an account. Twitter isn't keeping the product and we hear that the team will likely be… Read More
The NFL Gets Quantified Intelligence, Courtesy Of Shoulder Pad-Mounted Motion Trackers
The NFL is making a move to integrate RFID-based activity-tracking tech to give fans, coaches and players more information about what exactly athletes go through during each game. The Zebra Technologies tracker systems will mount to player shoulder pads and communicate with receivers installed in 17 stadiums during the 2014 season. They will provide information about each player's… Read More
Fotopedia Will Shut Down Its Apps And Website On August 10
About six years ago, former Apple Application Division CTO Jean-Marie Hullot founded Fotopedia, a startup that in its early days tried to bring the coffee table book experience to the iPad (and later iPhone). It focused on travel-related apps and quickly gained traction with users and advertisers. By late 2012, the company had already served up over 3 billion image views, but since then, it… Read More
Venrock Closes $450 Million Seventh Fund To Invest In Tech And Healthcare Startups
Long-running venture capital firm Venrock just closed its seventh fund, bringing in $450 million in new capital. The firm, which has been around since the '60s and counts the Rockefeller family as one of its big LPs, will use the new money to continue investing in early-stage tech and healthcare companies. Read More
Mobile Ad Startup AppLovin Says It Has Reached A $100M Revenue Run Rate
Mobile marketing company AppLovin only came out of stealth mode a couple months ago, but CEO Adam Foroughi says it has already reached a $100 million run rate for annual revenue. To be clear, that's gross revenue (i.e., revenue before paying publishers). And AppLovin actually has been in business for a little more than two years — it was "stealth" in the sense that… Read More
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Government Requests For Twitter Account Data Up 46% Since Second Half Of 2013
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Wunderlist 3 Gets Real-Time Sync And Public Lists
You may have thought of Wunderlist as that popular to do list app, especially since that's how it has been marketed since its launch. With today's release, Wunderlist 3 wants to become the world's hub for lists. Read More


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Jim Handy, Contributor
I am an industry analyst covering the semiconductor market
Many of us rely on Yelp for advice on restaurants, dry cleaners, retailers, handymen, gardeners, and so on under the assumption that it is a democratic site that supports all comments, good and bad, without bias.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
I found yesterday that Yelp filters results according to certain arcane rules that are not even disclosed to the reviewers who donate their time and efforts to the website's benefit. When a business patron writes a review it may or may not remain on the Yelp site according to these rules. There's no real way of knowing what will stick and what won't.
I found this out when I posted a glowing review of South County Process Service. This company, which was recommended to me by a close attorney friend had but one Yelp review at the time, and it was scathing. As opposed to that reviewer's experience, my dealing with them was laudatory, warranting a very positive review.
When I notified County Process Service that I had posted a good review (my first on Yelp), they replied: "We'll see if yelp filters the review. All of our good reviews get filtered. I'm not sure why yelp thinks our good reviews are fraudulent."
When I checked a week later, Lo and Behold! My review had been removed. Did Yelp tell me about it? Not one word!
My wife, a Realtor, had a similar experience: "They seem be wary of first-time reviewers. If your first review is negative then they let you post other reviews, but if your first review is positive then they remove it. The same goes if all your reviews are positive."
She went on: "I called Yelp after a business associate posted a positive review about me which was later removed. They hinted that if I advertised on Yelp this may not have occurred."
Yelp's illusion doesn't match reality.
I contacted Yelp's press office asking what they had to say about this (and disclosing that this story was headed for a Forbes blog) but after 24 hours received no reply.
That's just bizarre. My first 'review' was 3* with what some praise and some of what I thought was constructive criticism. We went back and the problem (quite a big one) had been corrected. So I went to update the review, being a conscientious customer and all. That review, plus several subsequent reviews for other restaurants (with a range of ratings) had been filtered. I feel like I wasted my time and don't feel to inclined to waste any more effort on Yelp. I have heard from multiple people that they think the system is corrupt, and I am now inclined to agree. I was looking for a way to be 'unfiltered' but I guess I can't prove that I'm a real person…so why bother to review?
As a business owner I know far too well how Yelp is hurting businesses.
I have never asked my clients to write a review on Yelp, however each time a good review is posted it's taken down in a few days. Thankfully my clients have written other good reviews on other websites, but the fact remains that any negative review can have an impact on a business when other positive reviews are removed. I don't appreciate how Yelp only wants to post bad reviews. The website should be banned.
I don't mind that they filter reviews at all. But I do mind that they only have a tiny faded link at the bottom of the page that takes you to the filtered out reviews. It should be clear that there are more reviews.
Want to prove Yelp extorts companies? Here is how you do it. Find any small business of some financial value that has a small business grade website.
Search for exactly that business name in Google. 9/10 times the Yelp Business Page will outrank the company website. Yelp uses SEO in a clear attempt to outrank the business's they list and become a funnel point to consumers trying to reach that business, especially if the company is of some financial value.
Whether or not said business has a good ranking has little to do with paid advertising. Yelp is out to boost their website, not the business's listed on Yelp. Yelp thrives because they steer consumers to go through them first.
Collect a enough of data on Yelp and you can see a correlation and you can prove they are using SEO experts to choke mom and pop shops into advertising. they clearly tune content for SEO by filtering reviews.
I have a solution for many small business owners to this problem.
Run your business just like they do their business.
You can scrape the content and repost the reviews to your own website instead of letting yelp extort you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I had the same thing happen to me, I wrote a great review for a cafe and it was removed. Yelp is completely biased
Thank you for writing this article. I am a business owner with numerous glowing reviews, all of which, but one were "filtered." I did contact Yelp numerous times about the filtering process and to express my frustration as my one *but lengthy) negative review was done by a client that was looking for "compensation" by being impossible and posing ridiulious claims.
As a small business owner, this issue was very frustrating to me. Yelp did call me to purchase advertising and when I explained that I was not interested in purchasing advertising with a company that had no answers as to how this filtering occured and basically would allow my business to be falsely reviewed, there was no resolution or explaination other than "the computer does the filtering but I don't know how." I had clients that approached me baffled that their reviews were removed due to filtering. Needless to say, I don't use Yelp, to me, its biased and a poor representation of what good business means.
I forgot to mention, this same single person who left a negative review of my business, then went on to review another business of mine, which she had never used and left a negative review. After repeated calls and emails to Yelp, after one year of having that negative post up, Yelp declared she did not have a first hand experience of my business and removed it. This action ignited her more and she called my business with repeated threats. She told me during this phone conversation that if I compensated her with free services, she would re-write her review. I'd like to note this is the second time this woman has requested free services from me to solicit a positive review. I feel that this woman is using Yelp to extort business owners and Yelp is supporting her because she is a regular reviewer on this site.


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One of the big movers and shakers of the day was our own Oklahoma City Thunder. They made two surprise moves, and according to most of the analysts and pundits, came out as big winners. Let's take a look at what happened:
1. OKC traded forward Jeff Green, center Nenad Krstic and a draft pick they had from a Clippers' trade to the Boston Celtics for center Kendrick Perkins and guard Nate Robinson.
2. OKC traded forward DJ White and guard Morris Peterson to the Charlotte Bobcats for center Nazr Mohammed.
In a basketball sense, I like these moves. They give the Thunder some size and experience up-front, and the only thing the guys in blue really had to give up was a position-less forward in Green, Krstic's haircut, some scrubs and a draft pick. That works for me.
Anyway, here are some other thoughts I have regarding the trade madness:
—It's OK; Green (pictured above) is still alive. Judging by fan reactions on blogs, Facebook and Twitter on Feb. 24, you would think that Green was either dead, missing or had been kidnapped by Somali pirates. Players get traded and change teams all the time. When it happens, don't act like the world has ended or that your friend ate the last piece of pizza without asking. You'll find a new average and overrated player to like.
—"The Nenad" hairstyle was just starting to take off, too. Yeah, I'm really going to miss the endless supply of Krstic hair jokes. I'm not going to miss trying to pronounce his name after downing five Oklahoma City Arena beers.
The Legislature has to be flipping out that the Thunder now has a guy named Nazr Mohammed on the roster.
—Apparently, someone named Morris Peterson played for the Thunder. If you had to sum up the trade for Mohammed to a casual fan, this is how you probably described it: "And they also traded for a quality back-up center for a couple of bench players that you've never heard of."
—The Oklahoma Legislature has to be flipping out that the Thunder now has a guy named Nazr (pronounced NAH-zee) Mohammed on the roster. As a result, expect bills to be introduced soon that will allow people to bring open-carry firearms into sporting events and ban referees from using Shariah officiating techniques during games.
—With Perkins and Kevin Durant, the Thunder now have two players who share last names with Oklahoma towns you would probably never want to visit. If I had to pick staying the night in Perkins or Durant or eating my own beard, I'd pick the beard.
—The Thunder are going to win it all! OK, not really. But the trades of last week are pointing them in that direction. That's pretty damn cool.
Patrick is the founder and editor of the local news and entertainment blog TheLostOgle.com.


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By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS
TRAVERSE CITY — Jeff Boucher has shot dozens of films, from a documentary about the weird and wacky culture of morel mushrooming to TV reality show pilots about Vietnam paramedics, Tijuana police officers and Afghanistan bomb squads.
But nothing has been as personal as his current project, a documentary tentatively titled "Elephant in the Room."
The film examines the handling of elephants (and other animals) in zoos, circuses and private facilities. One method relies on fear and dominance using bull-hooks and million-volt tasers, he said, the other on positive-reinforcement and trust using food and attention.
"There's a lot of controversy in the (animal) industry," said Boucher, a former Kalkaska resident who now divides his time between the Detroit area, where he owns the Vanguard Media production company, and Elk Rapids, where his sister lives. "Some people think (fear-based training) is the way it has to be done. A lot of these people are well meaning. They say they love their elephants. We just don't agree with them."
"We" includes project partners Thad Lacinak and Angi Millwood, founders and co-owners of Florida-based Precision Behavior, which trains animal trainers around the world in positive reinforcement principles.
"They're leading the way to change from 'free contact' to 'protected contact,'" said Boucher, 51, a graduate of Michigan State University's early video program. In fact, Lacinak was instrumental in transitioning Busch Gardens Tampa, one of the world's premiere animal training programs, from one to the other.
With the free contact method, trainer and elephant share space without barriers and the trainer controls the elephant by inspiring fear with physical threats and aversion training techniques. Currently about half of U.S. zoos and all circuses — including Ringling Bros. — use free contact as a way of training and disciplining animals, according to the Oakland Zoo, the second zoo to abandon the practice.
In Asian countries like Cambodia, where Boucher is filming this week, elephants used in logging, tourism and street begging are routinely struck and stabbed in the sensitive head, mouth and inner ear area by "mahouts" or elephant riders with chains and sharp hooks.
"How they break an elephant is what made my blood boil," said Boucher, referring to a brutal Asian ritual documented in a United Nations report in which handlers "crush" a young elephant's spirit by tying the animal immobile in a cage and then beating it and depriving it of food, water and sleep. "It's just not necessary. You don't have to treat them like that. They're intelligent and gentle."
Not all free contact management is as severe, said Boucher, who is a staunch supporter of good animal facilities and their ability to inspire generations of conservationists, trainers and animal lovers. And many organizations — like Busch Gardens' "sister sanctuary" in Cambodia and the American Association of Zoos and Aquariums — are working to change traditional elephant management methods.
By 2014, all AZA-accredited institutions will be required to practice protected contact, meaning that zookeepers and other elephant care professionals will be required to have a barrier between themselves and the animals at all but very specific times. It also means captive elephants will be protected from abusive trainers.
But the policy won't affect circuses and other private enterprises that use elephants. And a documentary can go only so far in fixing the problem, said Michele Wolf, president of the Traverse City-based nonprofit For Animals, which works to end the abuse and exploitation of animals.
"I'm glad that (Boucher) is doing this to expose the horrific ways that these animals are treated," Wolf said. "The only problem is it's not just these training methods. It's the fact that the animals are being trucked around daily and the poor health care they receive and the diet that they have and the fact that they're not free. They're being forced to perform for the circus' monetary gain. The elephants don't have a choice in the matter. So whether you train them 'compassionately' or with these barbaric methods, it's still the same."
Boucher hopes to educate viewers about both sides of the issue through his film, expected to be completed by spring. He said he's aiming at a balanced documentary that will include interviews with everyone from mahouts, circus trainers and trainers at private facilities to leaders in the positive-reinforcement movement, animal rights organizations, elephant rescue groups and celebrity animal lovers like actress Carolyn Hennesy ("True Blood," "Cougar Town").
It also will include live-action footage of elephant training and care around the world, including at Busch Gardens Tampa and San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park, another leader in animal training, and of existing videos of incidents and historical footage.
Now he's trying to raise funds for final on-location filming and post-production editing — some 400 hours of film already have been shot — through the online funding platform Kickstarter. When the film is finished, he plans to shop it at film festivals and animal training conferences, and to entertainment industry executives.
"I would love to see it on National Geographic or HBO or PBS as a one-hour documentary," he said.
For more information, visit http://www.facebook.com/ElephantInTheRoomDocumentary. To donate or view a trailer, go to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/elephantdocu/elephant-in-the-room.


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William T. Vollmann
A Critical Study and Seven Interviews
Michael Hemmingson
McFarland & Company ($39.95)
by Jeff Bursey
Ill begin with the negative. The proofreading of William T. Vollmann: A Critical Study and Seven Interviews is shoddy, with words and parts of words dropped, italicization missing, and names misspelled (Blaise Cendrars is rechristened Blaise Cendrares, though you wont find him in the index anyway). Perhaps the publisher issued the book too hastily to coincide with the release of Vollmanns Imperial, but the National Book Award-winning author deserves much better—especially when one considers how, with his own CoTangent Press, he carefully puts together art books. The errors irritate, and get in the way of the reading. Its a pity, for as Michael Hemmingson writes in the preface: This is the first book-length critical work on Vollmann; it is my intention that this study will be the starting point for all Vollmann studies.
Those faults aside, this is a worthy critical study and interview collection for those both familiar and new to Vollmanns work. Hemmingson follows his preface with an introduction that provides some biographical details about Vollmanns life and career, then moves into thematic discussions that link his fiction and nonfiction (though You Bright and Risen Angels and Rising Up and Rising Down get separate chapters). The Seven Dreams fictions are summarized concisely, as are Vollmanns most recent works, Poor People (2007), Riding Toward Everywhere (2008), and Imperial (2009). Hemmingson is throwing a net at a very fast-moving and productive target. If you are reading this years after the 2009 publication date, he writes, there are most likely half a dozen Vollmann titles not addressed herein.
Its not easy to summarize such lengthy and/or complex works, and Hemmingson allows himself only eighty-one pages to do so—making it clearer than ever that the time is well overdue for a collection of essays by various hands on Vollmanns work, as Hemmingson can only graze the many topics found therein. He sets out the main ones in the heading for Part I (the critical study portion): Freedom, Redemption, and Prostitution. There are more to the books than this, of course, and one looks forward to more in-depth examinations of, for instance, Vollmanns methodology, language, and sentence structures; how pastoral, rural, industrial, and war zones exist side by side in his work; his quest for freedom and apparently careless regard for his own life; how character is developed; what captures his photographers eye; class striations; and the reception of his work in different parts of the world.
Part II, Seven Conversations, points to some of these topics, although what gets highlighted depends on who is doing the interviewing, and not every conversation is at the same level of intensity. Moth to the Flame (1991) with Larry McCaffery is of a high quality, as is Vollmann Shares Vision (2000) with Michelle Goldberg; A Day at Vollmanns Studio (2007) with Terri Saul explores his art objects, thoughts on painting, and other less-visited terrain, and is enjoyable for this novelty. Naturally there is some repetition, particularly about his early books, but having these pieces assembled in one place is useful, and Hemmingson has chosen well.
In The Subversive Dialogues (2006), an amusing interview, Vollmann tells Kate Braverman The New York Times tends to not like my work. Their reviews can be scathing. I get good reviews in Europe. True to their history, Times reviewer Lawrence Downes declared in July that Imperial is a vast, forbidding, monotonous, sprawling book for one reason: The problem isnt the subject; its the author. The problem may be this: instead of coloring within established lines, Vollmann is intent on capturing the drip or deluge of his (and others) notions, fantasies, realities, and the factual and fictional aspects of anything he looks into. Life and art are messy. This little corner that he can mark with his own piss, as he describes part of his career in Moth to the Flame, is his alone, with his own rules.
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Rain Taxi Online Edition, Spring 2010 | © Rain Taxi, Inc. 2010


text: Publications Search Results Your query returned 1 citations. Use the search box below to revise your search, or start a new search. Results 1 - 1 Results per page: 25 50 100 Sort by: Pub Date (newest) Title Recent Additions Author [1] Clear All Pub. Year Citation 2008 Broz, Dita, Ouellet, Lawrence J. Racial and ethnic changes in heroin injection in the United States: Implications for the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Drug and Alcohol Dependence. 94, (1-3), 221-223. Full Text Options: DOI Worldcat Google Scholar Export Options: RIS EndNote XML Results 1 - 1 of 1 [1]


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Chris Tamor of Phenix City knows all too well how tough the local housing market has been coming out of the Great Recession.
Those passing by the Fifth Avenue -- or Riverchase Drive -- home he has had for sale about two years get the message loud and clear. A large sign in the front yard exclaims: PRICE REDUCED $50,000.
Ive had it sold about five times and then, when it comes to the financing, people just cant get financed, Tamor said of the 3,058-square-foot brick house he bought to remodel and resell.
The four-bedroom, three-bath property near Idle Hour Park appraises for $320,000, he said, and was originally listed for six months by an agent for $309,000. His sign now offers it for $50,000 off an even lower asking price of $279,000.
Ive been doing it about five or six years now, Tamor said of his remodeling projects and home flipping. This is basically the first one that Ive got hung out on. But the market tanked about three months before I got it finished.
Asked Thursday if he thinks the dwelling might finally sell in 2012, he responds, Im hoping.
Thats the big question facing the Columbus and Phenix City-area housing market coming off a 2011 that saw home sales rise about 3.3 percent from 2010 following a decline of nearly 5 percent in 2009, according to Multiple Listing Service data.
Preliminary figures show 2,827 homes were sold collectively in Columbus, Harris County, Chattahoochee County, Phenix City, Fort Mitchell and the Smiths Station area last year. Thats up from 2,737 in 2010. However, the median sales price slipped from $158,699 to $155,901, or about 1.7 percent, year over year.
I would say that 2011 was a fair year in real estate locally, not a whole lot of improvement, but we didnt go backwards, said Jack Key, a partner with Coldwell Banker/Kennon, Parker, Duncan & Key, a Columbus-based real-estate firm that does business in Georgia and Alabama.
It took us a long time to get into this and to get this deep into it, and its going to take a while to get out, he said. I think were looking at several years, really, to gain a lot of traction in getting our (home) values back.
Factors that influenced the market in 2011 included the culmination of a six-year Base Realignment and Closure process that brought the U.S. Army Armor School to Fort Benning. That and other post expansion moves originally were projected to boost the local population by 28,000 men, women and children. The number was revised downward last year to about 20,000.
The Columbus-Phenix City apartment and rental market also continued its hot streak, with more properties being built and more people than expected -- soldiers and civilians -- opting to lease rather than commit to a 15- or 30-year home mortgage loan.
Real-estate agents on both sides of the Chattahoochee River got their expectations up over the last few years that an influx of Fort Benning-related people would ignite a boom market, said Reynolds Bickerstaff, a Realtor with Columbus-based Waddell Realty.
Its not that 2011 was a bad year. But it was expected to be a lot more, said Bickerstaff, who also believes consumer confidence -- or the lack thereof -- helped take a bite out of any prospective sales.
A lot of consumers just arent confident right now in the housing market, even with the rates being low and prices for real estate being at levels that we havent seen since 2000 or 2001, he said. Theyre just not confident in the job market or confident that theyre going to get a return on investing in a home.
Financing for a new or existing home also has become more troublesome with lenders having raised their requirements amid a stream of federal regulations aimed at protecting consumers from unscrupulous companies and themselves. In essence, loans without a hefty down payment have virtually vanished.
You might qualify income-wise to meet the payments that are required to purchase a $300,000 house, Bickerstaff said. But you may not meet the down-payment requirements. You may not have enough cash on hand to meet those lending guidelines. Some people start to get a little concerned that theyre having to put down 10 to 20 percent to purchase a home.
Its those critical issues -- financing and BRAC fading into history, as well as the overall uncertainty in the U.S. economy -- that will shape what kind of year 2012 turns out to be on the home-sales front, say real-estate professionals.
Homebuilder Dave Erickson, for one, is bracing for a much more difficult period because of more intense competition for a shrinking pool of prospective homebuyers. The president of Columbus-based Grayhawk Homes said his company closed on 248 home sales in 2011. But he expects that to possibly fall as low as 200 this year.
I expect the whole region to drop off for new construction a fair bit, he said. I can see other competitors dropping off 50 percent or more easily. Theres no longer an abundant number of people coming in looking for a house everyday. Its now a few here, a few there.
Erickson said hes noticed other builders, particularly those who ventured into the market to specifically build for BRAC, have started becoming aggressive with discounts, apparently to clear out inventory and raise cash.
Phenix City, specifically, did see a drop of more than 12 percent in homes sales from 2010 to 2011, although the southern Russell County burg of Fort Mitchell continued to sizzle. The unincorporated community near Fort Bennings back entrance saw an 18-percent leap in sales year over year as the Armor Schools move was completed in September.
Theyre still selling homes down there, but not quite at the pace that they were before, Key said. Weve noticed some builders have increased their selling-side commissions significantly to try to move some inventory down there.
Pricing pressures are having significant impact in multiple areas of the housing industry, said Bradley Jones, president of the Greater Columbus Homebuilders Association. He and his father, Brock Jones, are prominent Columbus-area builders who construct custom dwellings and do some remodeling work.
Builders have had to keep an eye on costs over the last couple of years, said Bradley Jones, while also being mindful of avoiding construction of riskier speculative homes in areas not already proven for attracting buyers. Its a balancing act, he said.
I think what youre seeing is were having to offer more open floor plans and larger homes for less of a price than weve been getting in the past, he said. Were achieving that mainly by working with the suppliers and subcontractors to get our costs down. Everybodys just trying to do everything they can to keep their costs down.
Acknowledging that 2011 was a slow year for many area homebuilders, Jones said the hope is that those left standing in the industry have weathered a storm that wont get any worse.
There should be a little bit of progress, but not a whole lot, Jones said of 2012. I hope things dont go the opposite way ... I hope were going to have people who think that the markets at the bottom and feel its the right time for them to buy a home.
Key, of Coldwell Banker, also prefers to take a more optimistic approach to a housing market that could go either way in terms of sales depending on the myriad factors now in play. He points out that mortgage rates are now at record lows of less than 4 percent, the stock market seems to have a bit more positive energy and consumers may be sensing home prices wont fall much, if any, lower.
I would say that if theyre not at the bottom, theyre pretty darn close, Key said. The inventory levels are shrinking a little bit. Thats a good thing, because prices will never heal until the inventory reduces and gets back to a more neutral level.
The number of homes now for sale in the Columbus metro area is just over 1,500, according to the MLS statistics. Thats the lowest level since July 2009 when 1,600 homes were on the market. The current supply level is about 10 or 11 months, while a neutral market would be about six months.
The market is heavily weighted to buyers right now, Key said. If we can get that level down to six months or so then it would be back to a healthy market with price appreciation.