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#Fundingwire is your dose of notable investment announcements in the technology ecosystem. The firms which have recently raised investment include ZiPi, Joolz, Buttercups, Cuberoot and Zenoti.
ZiPi Raises Investment from Swan Angel Network
Indore-based ZiPi has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Swan Angel Network. The firm provides a chatbot platform to allow users to engage with local business and services.
ZiPi was founded in October 2015,and was launched in January 2016 for public by a 15-member team led by Sukrat Ray, Pranav Singhi, Sumay Dubey & Siddharth Ray. It plans to use the funds to accelerate sales and continue developing technology that securely connects businesses with their customer by means of bots and conversational interface.
Also Read: Zipi: An App Aggregating Apps For Daily Needs
Jewellery marketplace Joolz Raises Rs 3.3 Cr in Pre-Series A
Mumbai-based online jewellery marketplace Joolz has raised Rs 3.3 crore in a pre-Series-A round led by Silicon Valley-based Powerhouse Ventures and Japan's M&S Partners.
Joolz was founded in June 2015 by Arnaud Lorie and Eli Atlas, the latter left the firm in November 2015. GSF Accelerator alumni firm will use the raised investment to grow operations, products, marketing and further build up its team. Read More
Online Lingerie Brand Buttercups Closes Pre-Series A
Bangalore-based online lingerie brand Buttercups has raised an undisclosed amount of investment in pre-series A round from online marketplace Snapdeal's former chief product officer Anand Chandrasekaran, and its existing angel investors Kanwaljit Singh and Manoj Varghese.
Buttercups was founded in 2013 by Arpita Ganesh. It sells its products via both online and offline stores. Read More
Audience Management Platform Cuberoot Raises Close to $500K
Gurgaon-based audience management platform Cuberoot has raised $500,000 from investors whose names haven't been disclosed. It provides data driven insights to brands, advertisers, agencies, publishers, etc. to advertise to their target audience better.
Cuberoot was founded in April 2015 by Nishith Srivastava, Atul Soni and Sandip Kumar. It plans to expand to overseas markets in the coming months. Read More
Zenoti Raises $15M Led by Norwest Venture Partners
Cloud-based spa and salon management software Zenoti has raised $15 million in investment, in a round led by Norwest Venture Partners with participation from existing investor Accel India.
Founded in 2010 by Sudheer Koneru, the company claims to provide services to 5000 businesses across 32 countries in the domains of beauty and wellness. Read More


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U.S. Coast Guard Doing Less with Less
The Administration's budget request for FY 2016 calls for a 6.2% decrease in Coast Guard funding
Funds appropriated for use by the US Coast Guard are about to be decreased – again. The service's funding has decreased in four of the previous five fiscal years, generally by 1% each year. The Administration's budget request for FY 2016 has just been submitted to Congress. It calls for a 6.2% decrease in Coast Guard funding. For FY 2015, the Coast Guard was appropriated $10,438,120. For the upcoming year, the Administration is requesting only $9,796,995.
The budget request identifies various minor cuts. These include a reduction of 574 full-time equivalencies (FTE) [approximately 1.1% of the present 50,926 military members and civilian employees]; the decommissioning of two of the old High Endurance Cutters being replaced by new National Security Cutters; decommissioning of eight 110-foot patrol boats being replaced by new Fast Response Cutters; adjustment of HC-144A Ocean Sentry aircraft annual Programmed Flight Hours from 1,200 to 1,000 hours per aircraft; removal of the fixed-wing Bravo-Zero readiness requirement from all but two air stations; and closing of one aids to navigation team (ANT) and reduction in billets at some other ANTs. These are drops in a leaky bucket and will not compensate for the significant funding cuts anticipated by the Administration.
The Coast Guard famously does more with its relatively meager funding than any other comparable agency. Whatever fat there may have been in the budget in earlier years has long since vanished. Operating and support units are operating on starvation funding. Taking across-the-board cuts, as was done in previous years is a recipe for disaster. It is time to do less with decreased funding than has been done in prior years.
Cuts should, in my opinion, start with a reduction in performance measures. The Coast Guard establishes performance measures for each of its 11 statutory missions. Both the Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) then evaluate actual performance against the target performance measure. In FY 2012 (the last year for which data is fully available, the Coast Guard met or exceeded 20 of the 23 summary performance measure targets for its 11 statutory missions. The performance measure targets serve as the Coast Guard's forecast to the Department of how it thinks it will do during the upcoming year in accomplishing its varied missions. With significantly less funding expected in the pipeline, the Coast Guard must lower expectations across the board.
Another means of reducing costs is by flattening the organizational structure. The primary organization of the Coast Guard consists of the following: one Headquarters; two Area Commands; nine District Commands; and 36 Sector Commands. Sector Commands serve as the primary operational units of the Coast Guard – accomplishing such missions as search and rescue (SAR), general law enforcement, maritime security and marine safety and environmental protection. Districts coordinate activities of and provide support to the Sectors and oversee operations of units such as buoy tenders and medium endurance cutters. Areas coordinate activities of the Districts and oversee operations of high endurance cutters, air stations and polar icebreakers. Headquarters provides support for the entire service via the chain of command.
I propose that Districts be disestablished and that some of the flag billets that serve as District Commanders be abolished rather than be reassigned. The Coast Guard adopted the concept of geographic Districts when the Lighthouse Service merged with it in 1939. Prior to that, most support for units came directly from Headquarters, with coordination being provided by small cadres on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Districts have served the Coast Guard well over the years, but times have changed. Until about eight years ago, each Coast Guard unit had only a few missions. Group Offices were in charge of search and rescue and general law enforcement for a defined small geographic area. Marine Safety Offices were in charge of marine safety and environmental protection for another separately-defined geographic area. Coordination was vital and this task fell to the District Offices. Area Commands were small and largely confined to coordination of major operational activities.
All of this changed. Sectors were established to provide the public and other stakeholders with one-stop-shopping. They combined the functions of Group Offices and Marine Safety Offices and established one set of geographic boundaries for those functions. At about the same time, the tasks of the Area Commands were increased. Now, Area Commands largely resemble District Commands in scope of mission coverage.
The Coast Guard can no longer afford two sets of mid-level bureaucratic overseers. At the same time that District Commands are disestablished, I recommend that a third Area Command be established for the Gulf of Mexico region. The Area Commands will need some beefing-up to handle the increased workload inherited from the Districts. Each Area Command, headed by a Vice Admiral, should have two Rear Admirals – one to coordinate operations and one to handle support functions. Area Commands currently have one Deputy with the rank of Rear Admiral.
The Coast Guard may not need, or be able to afford, all of its current Sector Commands and smaller field units. Analysis should be done to identify the two or three Sector Commands with the least activity and geographic coverage. Similar analysis should be done with respect to stations and sub-units. Cutters should not be immune from downsizing. Consideration should be given to decommissioning the small harbor tugs and the small inland buoy tenders, both classes having far exceeded their planned life cycles.
Personnel reductions will be necessary to conform to the decreased funding. For rough numbers, I suggest an 8% reduction in the commissioned officer corps and a 4% reduction in the enlisted ranks. Civilian employee staffing should adopt corresponding reductions.
The cuts I have proposed above will obviously be painful. They, or some alternative thereof, will be necessary though, if Congress goes along with the Administration's proposed FY 2015 budget. The federal budget pie has gotten smaller. Each agency will have to make tough decisions regarding how it will continue to provide vital services to the American public in times of austerity. Non-vital activities must be eliminated so that vital services survive.
The Coast Guard may find other ways to work within its new budget constraints, but the above provides a straw man for due consideration. The service cannot continue to operate at its present high level when funding is being drastically reduced. Such blind inertia is unfair to its many dedicated personnel, setting them up for failure. Now is the time to do less with less.
The Author
Dennis L. Bryant is with Maritime Regulatory Consulting, and a regular contributor to Maritime Reporter & Engineering News as well as online at MaritimeProfessional.com.
t: 1 352 692 5493
e: firstname.lastname@example.com
(As published in the April 2014 edition of Maritime Reporter & Engineering News - http://magazines.marinelink.com/Magazines/MaritimeReporter)

subset: commoncrawl


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I will have to let this one go as is, though I can ALWAYS find things to tweak.
Oils on gessoboard
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thanks so much Sharon..this one is on my redo list ....SOMEDAY! I have so much to catch up on!! I appreciate your looking & commenting:)
Nice critique from Richard!!! ..Well done Lori!!
This has great spotlight effect...very nice!
Beautiful colour combination and dramatic light effect! So impressive, I love it.
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I have contemplated what the "best case scenario" might look like from the vantage point of someone in a motorized wheelchair, and though there are days when things are far from perfect, I do realize that I am incredibly lucky. I have a better emotional support system than I probably deserve, I live in a beautiful and accessible house with two supportive parents, I own an accessible van, and I have found a number of excellent caregivers. What I do not have however, is a dog–friendly dog. And what makes my dog even trickier is that she is completely inconsistent. She is angelic with my mom's two little dogs, she is great with my brother's goldendoodle, she adored my old dog walker's little Chihuahua, and despite a minor snafu (which resulted in a small amount of bloodshed), she was best friends with my old roommate's pit bull mix, Sadie. However, despite her occasionally saintly behavior, she also has sent more than one dog to the vet's office, has been kicked out of more than one dog park and will never, ever, even on her best day, be considered trustworthy.
So what to do about the fact that my girlfriend owns Truman, the most precious Boston Terrier in the history of Boston Terriers? It took months, but Kelly and I thought we had a solution: get the two used to each other while Izzy wears a muzzle, keep them separated, and always keep a sharp eye on both of them. After a few weeks, Izzy graduated from a muzzle to a snoot loop and shortly thereafter from a snoot loop to just a collar and leash and eventually to well supervised freedom. Kelly and I were cautious, but it seemed that my dog respected Kelly enough that she was remarkably tolerant of Truman. Fast forward to the last weekend in February. Izzy and I had just arrived at Kelly's house and Izzy was quietly chewing a stuffed snake. Truman walked over, sniffed the snake and unknowingly incited chaos. Before Kelly or I could even say stop (or no, or leave it, or any type of command), Izzy's teeth attempted to pulverize 15 pound Truman. Kelly descended upon the two dogs with the speed and direction of a superhero and managed miraculously to protect Truman from any serious harm. I cannot provide any sort of detailed account of what happened from that point forward, because I think I went into a semi-conscious state of shock, anger and fear. All I know is that at the end of the attack, Truman was fully traumatized yet miraculously uninjured, Kelly was bleeding and Izzy, completely unfazed, returned to peacefully chewing the stuffed snake (I am pretty sure such behavior qualifies her as a legitimate sociopath).
Things I never again want to hear out of my partner's mouth include: "Look Kate, you can see my muscles moving under the skin" or "Wow, I think that is a tendon". How would able–bodied Kate have responded? Hopefully I would have gone into triage mode and put Izzy in the crate downstairs, checked Truman for any puncture wounds and drove Kelly to the hospital. As it was however, all I could do was stare in shock and disbelief, tell Kelly that we had to get to the hospital and try to stay as calm and still and un-needy as possible.
This was completely new territory for me. I am unfortunately used to dealing with the limitations of my disease and its effects on family, friends and caregivers. I am not, however, used to seeing its effects on my partner. I have no idea how to reconcile my vision of the partner I want to be with the partner I am. I want so thoroughly to be helpful: to do the dishes after she cooks, to vacuum after one of the dogs pulls all of the stuffing out of a toy, to help her fold the sheets or do the laundry or clean the toilets. And above all the routine duties I wish I could help with, I want desperately to take care of her when she is sick or, in this particular case, when she is suffering a ligament–exposing bite wound imposed by my dog.
But, I cannot. Instead I remained quietly in the wheelchair, and watched as she took Izzy to the crate downstairs. She checked Truman over for bite marks and eventually, once convinced that he was okay, we headed slowly to my van. En route, I tried carefully to stay on the ramp despite a treacherous coating of ice. Right before reaching my van's slightly less slippery metal ramp however, I felt my back wheels start to spin out and slide, in slow-motion into the snow. So much for my attempt to be unneedy, I thought as Kelly struggled to push my almost 400 pound wheelchair out of the snow and onto the sidewalk with one hand (her second superhuman feat in a 10 minute span). Once safely in the car we proceeded to the hospital's emergency room to begin our Friday evening of waiting. Hopefully, I suggested, we might still make it to the Cornell hockey game at 7:30.
Sitting in the waiting room I felt the subtle but insistent need to pee. As I'm sure I once mentioned in an earlier blog, I do not pee like a normal person. I had a fancy surgery in 2010 that used my appendix as a conduit between my bladder and my belly button and now I can catheterize through my belly button whenever I have to pee (Information here: Mitrofanoff_appendicovesicostomy). Unfortunately though, without functioning hands, someone else needs to set everything up and with Kelly's hand still bleeding profusely I did not want that someone to be Kelly. So I pushed the urge to the back of my head and decided to wait until we were finally out of the hospital's lobby and in an actual treatment room. Of course, once that happened I was more focused on whether or not Kelly needed stitches or had any broken hand bones and completely forgot about my need to pee. As it turned out, ignoring the urge was easy to do because unbeknownst to me, my belly button had taken matters into its own hands and leaked all over the waistband of my jeans, my tank top, my sweater and even my scarf. My entire torso was soaked in urine.
I cannot emphasize enough how angry I was with myself (I should have known by now not to hold it) and with my body (my belly button is supposed to function as a continent stoma, not as an incontinent stoma). Despite my protests, Kelly insisted on changing me out of my saturated sweater in the small treatment room while we waited for a radiology technician. Her intentions were good, she wanted me out of my urine soaked clothes, but pulling the sweater over my head while I was holding a rapidly filling urinal proved disastrous. When she leaned me forward I proceeded to dump the entire half full urinal all over the floor of the hospital room. At precisely that moment, as I sat in a pool of my own pee, wearing only a bra and urine soaked jeans, the male radiology technician entered the room to escort Kelly to her x-ray. Awkwardly, he glanced between Kelly and me, nervously checked his clipboard and mumbled, "Umm, let me give you guys a minute." My brain was somehow able to bypass embarrassment and go straight to guilt.
I felt like typhoid Mary. Unknowingly destroying everything in my wake – first with my dog, then with my wheelchair and finally with my bladder.
Clearly we never made the hockey game.
Thankfully Kelly suffered no broken bones and avoided an infection.
Izzy was quarantined for 10 days by the Ithaca health department. Rabies–free, it was unofficially concluded that she is a psychopath.
Izzy will likely never again spend time with her little brother unmuzzled.
Truman will likely never again be able to relax or enjoy his life with Izzy in the vicinity. Muzzled or not.
Considering the size of my dog, I realize that things could have been much worse. But I am left with one vital question: how can I properly protect and take care of the person I love? Thinking back to the blog I wrote months before embarking on my first serious relationship in over a decade, I wonder if my decision to be someone's partner was fair. Kelly once told me that people make decisions out of fear or out of love and that I should always choose love. I did. And I would do it again. But when Kelly is heaving my wheelchair out of a snow bank with one hand I cannot help but wonder once again, is my love really enough?
Considering the size of my dog, I realize that things could have been much worse. But I am left with one vital question: how can I properly protect and take care of the person I love? Thinking back to the blog I wrote months before embarking on my first serious relationship in over a decade, I wonder if my decision to be someone's partner was fair. Kelly once told me that people make decisions out of fear or out of love and that I should always choose love. I did. And I would do it again. But when Kelly is heaving my wheelchair out of a snow bank with one hand I cannot help but wonder once again, is my love really enough?


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With its clear and simple operation concept, the DS-3500 ensures maximum efficiency and productivity. It has a 2" colour TFT LCD with 65,000 colours and white LED backlight. Access to all main commands is cleverly positioned on the unit side to allow intuitive operation via push buttons. For conference recording it also provides additional audio codecs. With an external stereo microphone you can create stereo* recordings in MP3 or PCM (WAV). This the first Olympus device of its kind, a Professional dictation device as well as a high quality stereo* meeting recorder all in one fantastic package. (* additional stereo mics required)
- 2″ full colour display (65,000 colours)
- Control via Push buttons
- 256 bit file encryption with DSS Pro audio codec
- Perfect for recording conferences and interviews in stereo (with external stereo microphones)
- Flexible dictation tagging (with DSS Pro)
- Geared for Dragon Naturally Speaking
- Device lock by PIN code
- Editing functions (overwrite/insert/delete/security lock)
- Customise functions to user needs
- Hands free dictation with optional footswitch + docking station.
- Digital Voice Recorder in full metal body
- Full integration into professional workflow possible
- PCM (WAV) and MP3 recording / playback format
- Convenient data transfer to PC via USB, SD-Card or USB docking station (not included)
- ODMS v.6 Pro software
For detailed box contents, click here


text: On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 09:05:57PM +0200, Clément Bœsch wrote: > Fix Ticket #1617. > --- > libavformat/oggdec.c | 11 +++++------ > 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) i suspect this can cause issues with ogg_save/restore if a new stream is created between, and possible other cases [...] -- Michael GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB If a bugfix only changes things apparently unrelated to the bug with no further explanation, that is a good sign that the bugfix is wrong. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 198 bytes Desc: Digital signature URL: <http://ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/attachments/20120822/716ce17f/attachment.asc>


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Cynthia never wears shoes before the first frost. On the walk from the cabin to the shore—surely one of the last barefoot this season—the dewed stones outside the door chill her awake. She gasps sharp air. Thick grass slides between her toes; the soil keeps its warmth better than the stones. She passes the first trees covering the cliff leading to the water, making sure to touch their trunks. The bark is smoother where her hands have often passed over it.
Moss lines the steep descent, coating Cynthia's feet in slime. She holds on to chest-height limbs to keep her balance until the cliff eases to a gentle grade by the water. After she emerges from the trees, there is sand, stone, and sea—all gray beneath low morning clouds.
Stone to stone, Cynthia hops across the beach—no footprints—to the water, where the waves rush over her ankles. Her skirt clings to her shins. She focuses on the firmness pressing into her arches.
Where they go must have stone and trees, both old enough to be smooth.
With all the lumber he has accrued, and all the time he spends there, Harold has built a small shack by the jetty. November wind can be cruel, especially on the water. In the shed he keeps his tools, a small generator, a space heater, a chair, a blanket, and a map of the planet. The map is covered with pencil lines marking wishful destinations; the most exciting of them are circled again and again.
Harold's hammer is nearly silent beside the din of crashing waves. The craft is nearly complete, but Cynthia has not seen it. Down the beach, when she wades into the water, she always looks away from the jetty. At first, Harold invited her every day, hoping she would join him at the gangplank. They could sit together in the shack and admire their vessel as it took shape.
I will see it when we sail, she said. Now he simply wakes before dawn and begins working; the sooner he finishes, the better—and winter's on its way.
Only the final touches remain. He places another nail in the molding above the helm compass. A clip will go above the flat surface by the wheel to hold maps. Screws…he needs screws for the map clip. And the cleats for the lines. Wax—he needs wax for the lines.
Ten thousand little things, but still in all… He looks out over the twin hulls he has made by his hands alone. As the ship bobs up and down in the shallow sea, he feels trust in the deck. This can work; we can travel someplace fresh. Someplace brighter. Maybe someplace with fewer stones.
Harold looks up from the helm to see Cynthia turned toward him. His heart races, and he waves to her.
She does not wave back, only walks along the stones to the tree line. Harold shrugs, and turns to the shack to find some screws.