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Diane Freeman gives answers for some of the top excuses people use for not getting on a bike.
Diane Freeman, a Waterloo, ON, city councillor, like many, had a million excuses for why she didn't want to ride her bike around town. But since she started riding, she simply can't get her off of her bike.
Here, Diane answers five of the top excuses people have for not riding their bikes:
Excuse 1 "I need to look professional."
Wearing a suit and tie? Carefully pack your jacket and tie in a saddlebag and consider a short-sleeved cotton shirt. Wearing a dress or skirt? Try having a skirt guard installed on your rear wheel to keep long skirts clear of the spokes. Short skirt? Wear biking shorts underneath your skirt; or pack your skirt. Long Skirt? Try the Bird Industries Bicycle Skirt Garter.
Excuse 2 "There are no showers at my destination."
Ride ready for the day. You do not need to ride like you are in the Tour de France so keep your speed around 12 mph (20 km/h) and bring a water bottle along with you. Upon arrival, allow your body to naturally cool down and dry. If you have long hair, braid or bundle it up under your helmet, release it upon arrival, and do not brush it until it dries out or pack a portable hair dryer and give it a quick dry.
Excuse 3 "The forecast says rain."
You are not the Wicked Witch of the West and will not melt in the rain! Your bike's okay with the rain too. For urban commuting, you need to invest in a full set of fenders, waterproof panniers, and some good rain gear. Cleverhood has several options for rain capes and at Showers Pass they have a variety of head-to-toe rain-proofing protection. I got my gear in Europe because they figured out the benefits of active transportation decades ago and bike gear is cheap. Remember to look for gear that is fully waterproof and breathable. My gear kept me 100 percent dry and, to be honest, I felt a sense of real accomplishment when I completed the ride. Just go for it!
Excuse 4 "I live too far away from work."
Use Google Maps for your route by using the bike option to find off-road trails. You might find a new, more direct path with fewer hills to climb! Any commute 6 miles (10 km) or less is a perfect distance for me. It is also easy to ride to the bus depot and board the bus. E-bikes, like the Kettler Twin electric bike, are a great alternative for those with longer commutes. Sometimes it's perfectly okay to let an engine do a bit of the work when commuting to and from the office.
Excuse 5 "I am out of shape and have bad knees."
Buy a bike from an actual bike shop. An excellent bike shop owner will help "fit" the bike to you based on your commute and ability. Do not go into commuting with the expectation that you have to be in great shape, it will come over time. Set your own pace based on how much energy you have and how confident you feel on the road. Dismount at crosswalks and walk your bike or take regular breaks along the way to catch your breath if needed. There are many "pedal forward" urban commuting bikes built especially for people with knee complaints, like these:
Too far, too sweaty, out of shape, bad knees are all areas an ebike can help you with. Unfortunately a lot of already fit cyclists are campaigning against them which is a shame.


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Seriously. Does anyone really think this team (with...keep your fingers crossed...Cordero and Kubel) can make the playoffs, much less go anywhere if it does?
With Baker as manager?
And if by some miracle it did, are you all itching for another 2 or 3 years of him???
Matthew Pouliot from HBT said it well:
Still, this looks like a pretty classic overpay from a frustrated GM in Walt Jocketty. The Reds plans had been stifled all winter to date. Now Jocketty has resorted to using the Reds two-best trade chips, their still tantalizing reclamation project and one of the games best relief prospects, all in the same deal.
The Reds had no choice but to give up Grandel and Alonso. Volquez is a roid created creature. Nothing more or less. A throw in so the rebuilding Padres could fill a spot. Without it, he can't throw above 92mph to control the baseball. Maybe he will put up "decent" numbers at that park, it made Harang look alot better than he really was. Bailey would probably look like a stud there as well.
Box being in the deal hurt. Yeah, maybe hurt bad. He has a live arm and weakens are pen for 2011, but other teams were after Latos and we had to sweeten the pot to complete the deal.
Last edited by The Rage; 12-18-2011 at 08:35 PM.
I'm afraid that the Cardinals winning the WS last year made it all too personal for Jocketty. He probably felt had to go for broke before Votto (probably) leaves.
Instead, he should have followed the Hippocratic Oath: "First, do no harm."
The Reds FO sensed that the club's best opportunity to win is the next few years and traded surplus parts to give the team the best opportunity to win in that window. The 2012 team is undoubtedly better than it looked like it would be a week ago.
I just don't understand all of this hand wringing about what may happen three or four years down the line.
1. Was this team going to contend next year with Alonzo in left (or on the bench), Volquez in the starting rotation (or at Louisvile), Grandel at Louisville, and Boxberger as a set up man?
Answer - No.
2. Will this team contend next year with Latos in the starting rotaion?
Answer - Yes.
Nuff said.
Now go out and find a left handed batter.
In any deal, you always want the best player...present or future. Seems like we got that. You don't win a World Series without having one of the best pitchers. Grandel, Alonso, Volquez nor Boxberger is that person, or could be that person. Latos can be. The REDS vaulted themselves to another level. The organization was hitting-strong and pitching-weak. They changed that.
you throw Mes in with Ryan and we have our catchers for foreseeable future minus any injuries...Yasmani very well could be our catcher in 2016 and if thats how far anyone is looking then you might have a argument there, but I am not looking 5 years ahead....
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If the 19th century was about discovery and the 20th century about obtaining efficiency, then the 21st century will be about living with complexity. Complex adaptive systems are so big and interconnected that any interference with their workings causes unpredictable side effects. In these systems (such as a city) you are almost always dealing with situations that need to be addressed and rarely with problems that can be solved. For this new way of working, where every step forwards needs to be taken with caution, we need a new method, a new language and a new approach. The finding and fine-tuning of this way of working with the world was what for me the UrbanIxD summer school was about.
The challenges for cities are many: what should they expect from technology? How will the networked computer change the way we work? What are the possibilities and limits of urban change in a democratic framework? What about our environment and resources, and how can we include other people, legislations and resources in this challenge?
In April I attended UPLondon, an event dedicated to Smart Cities. 3 days, 20 talks and 4 debates later however, I understood less about the topic than I did before. As if the writers of The Wire had decided to turn Calvino's Invisible Cities into a mini-series, everything connected, everyone had a hidden agenda, and every decision caused more side effects than solutions. It made it clear that cities are complicated systems, where every attempt to define a city creates a new city on the spot.
Although grand goals are easy to distinguish and to agree on, who wouldn't want a sustainable, safe city with equal opportunities for everyone? The details of, and conflicts between, these goals is where well-lit boulevards quickly turn into dark alleys. The simple idea of a Smart City, turns out to be an endlessly interconnected situation where no one person can understand, measure, determine or plan what to do next.
One thing that contributes to Smart City's ambiguity are the many ways people relate to data. There were people who converted data into data, turned data into plants, who gave away money for good usage of data, who used data to sync desk lamps, people who worried about the lack of privacy, or too much privacy, about traffic light sensors, about parking lot sensors, about air sensors, about equality and inequality, and the eternal question of who would pay for all this.
Overall, there were many good ideas presented. Here's my list of 8 of them in order of appearance:
1. System thinking
"We're more interested in looking at systems instead of sectors" said James Taplin of Forum for the Future. Splitting up problems into ever smaller parts has done wonders for creating the most complex society in history, but it has come with painful downsides that cannot be solved by even more specialisation. Thinking about a city as a collaborative/ social/ technological/ economical/ physical/ political/ cultural/ legal/ political entity might not be the easiest, but surely is the only realistic way forwards. If designers could contribute anywhere, creating insight in this complex system would be a great place to start. Hopefully we can soon see talks appearing on lean urbanism, urban pair design, strategic design, urban prototyping and balanced urban teams.
2. The poetics of digital technology
Marjan Colletti spoke about the poetics of the digital and hiding technology behind a more human face. A world less obsessed with pictures under glass, with data and efficiency and more interested in exploring the poetic side of technology and the eternal ambiguity of being alive sounds a lot more interesting than the visions that Microsoft and Nokia try to feed us.
3. Start small and reuse
Mischa Dohler spoke about using ugly cash to kickstart a smart city revolution. He gave the example of his project of implementing sensors in parking lots. The data can be used to find a parking spot, but the sensors are paid for by people who overstay or forget to pay for their parking spot. Besides using ugly cash, I'm also wondering if we can (re)use the hundreds of daily data streams that are already recorded by companies such as Tesco, Sainsbury, Addison and Lee, DHL and Royal Mail. Perhaps their data could be used by local government to do better traffic planning and infrastructure management at a cost a lot lower than placing sensors everywhere themselves.
4. Trust proxies
Several people wondered how the Internet of Things could be adopted by more people and companies. One answer to get make IoT more ubiquitous and get things like house automation, automatic heating and intelligent lights widely adopted is through trusted proxies such as the iPhone and iPad. It's interesting to see the enormous influence that the introduction of these devices has been on the rise of Internet-enabled devices. These days there is hardly a sensor left without an iPhone app.
5. Smart cities are not about technology
That cities are for people came up many times, interestingly, to argue for opposite positions. On the one hand people argued that smart cities could be rolled out in no time if only citizens, bureaucrats and business leaders wouldn't stand in the way. On the other hand, speakers argued that it's not about using technology to solve problems, but about enabling people to become smart citizens. In our hastiness to see technology as the answer to unasked questions, we keep on creating problems much bigger than the ones we tried to solve.
6. Privacy
Privacy was also often discussed, almost always in the form of a question. Should cities be allowed to demand data from companies and individuals to effectively run their operations more efficiently? Should people be able to trade their data as a commodity? Should those who refuse to share be defended? If you drive the only anonymous car on the road, you're pretty easy to spot. Should the city's data be centralised in large databases where one small hack can reveal a whole city or should people own their own data and share it at their own choice? Should people be allowed to opt out, even when this means society as a whole is worse off? Thanks to Google glass we finally have an object that we can start using as an artefact for many of these debates, and I'm curious to see when the first court cases will show up.
7. What is tracking me?
Dr. Ian Brown wonders how we can agree or disagree to be tracked. Should devices send out special signals to notify that they are watching you? Should every wall be covered with lists of sensors listening in? Should our only means of action be to avoid these locations? Can we get data from the sensors in our periphery? Again, more questions than answers.
8. The system had a sick day
Mischa Dohler mentioned the problem with parking sensors: if the sensor spots a car who hasn't paid, it automatically sends out an inspector. But, what if there is a very reasonable reason to park there? Perhaps the driver felt unwell and parked the car as soon as she could. Could the inspector make a human decision and pretend it was a sensor malfunctioning? Can we build space for ambiguity and exceptions in our system and refer final judgement always to a person?
The UPLondon event is a great addition to the Smart Cities and Internet of Things landscape and brought together an amazing range of speakers and ideas. I hope it will return next year and I can't wait for the future to arrive.
* Header image by Giovanni Battista Piranesi
For the third year running, The Design of Understanding dedicates itself to escaping the ruins of the Cartesian project. René's rules of science that helped kick-start the enlightenment project "to divide each of the difficulties […] encountered into as many parts as possible" [1] enabled humanity to decipher the earth, the universe and the human body at a speed never seen before. Yet as it now slowly starts to dawn upon us, this idea of dividing does not help much when we have to unwrap the complex system of our current world and even less in suggesting what should be done to create positive change in the future. Mapping the old theory of science on the complexity of the world leads to a situation once humorously explained by Borges through a fictional Cartographers Guild:
In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it [2]
If Descartes' rules don't bring us any closer to understanding our now and building our future, what should we do? Some try to find the answer in ever more data points, others turn to new-age religions and yet others start to play with the information at hand. In this quest for a post-Cartesian understanding of what the world is, could, and should be, the Design of Understanding provides a helping hand.
Luckily, these 'as many parts as possible', be it words, atoms, bits or people, behave, although not perfectly predictable, also not entirely at random. The Lorenz system (see image on top) as shown by Beeker Northam is a great visual representation of this.
Matt Cottam tells the story of Tellart, a 21st century industrial design company, who worked with Google to create an installation to make the internet understandable. Moving from the digital to the physical world came with unexpected constraints. Lawyers pointed out that children needed to keep their privacy; how though can you do this whilst also allow them to connect their museum visit with their computer at home? A colourful personal logo-card turned out to be the solution. Physical scale started to play a role too: you might be able to make a hundred thousand facial drawing print-outs for actual visitors, but what about a hundred million web visitors? Suddenly virtual turns out to be not so virtual at all and take lots of material and maintenance. To make sure the Amazon rainforest had any chance of survival they skipped printing on paper and invented a sand-drawing robot and also the world's first whiteboard eraser robot.
Joe Parry, builder of the network visualisation tool Keylines, mentioned how hard it is to understand networks. We cannot understand a network unless we see it, and even when we see it we cannot understand anything with more than a 1000 nodes. Because of the size and complexity of networks in a remarkable amount of cases the easiest way to gain understanding is by printing everything out and placing it on the wall. His tool Keylines allows users to go through large datasets with more ease and at higher speed. It allows to answer questions such as: who are the network leaders, who are effective communicators, what are the effects when person x leaves the network? Ultimately understanding the network means understanding the place of each node in the network and being able to explain the network in both in and at a high level.
Phil Gyford tells the story of his decade-long project of blogging Samuel Pepys's diary at the speed of one entry per day, laughingly quoting Steward Brand "A building is not something you finish, it's something you start". He also noted the ability of a web-based diary to map the world in time and space, and wondered where do you stop explaining: there are always more maps, paintings and articles –more context– you can add.
Llyod Shepherd, writer of historical fiction goes through his process of note-taking. With better tools and more information at our disposal note-taking has become easier. Choosing which notes to take though has become a lot harder. And the act of sense-making has become an ongoing tour-de-force. To deal with an abundance of data, note-taking ultimately becomes a personal and aesthetic act.
Justin McGuirk shows various Latin American architecture projects, demonstrating that designing houses is the easy part. For architects the hardest part and the part where they can make the biggest difference is in influencing the system: talking to politicians, to neighbourhood committees, to lawyers and the police to make it possible to not only build new housing but to change the infrastructure and the way the city functions. He shows an example of a project where instead of building the conventional solution of a road to connect the suburbs to the center, the architects managed to build a cable car cutting down the transport time from two hours to nine minutes, all without massive physical changes to the urban environment. He ends with a set of guidelines that are as true for architects as they are for designers: to achieve the impossible you have to focus on redesigning the system by being an extrovert, a catalyst, a connector of the informal with the formal and a performer in a show of policies, laws, developers and inhabitants. What you design is not so much the object as the system in which this object can exist.
More reviews:
Design of Understanding 2013 — Aden Davies
Design of Understanding 2013 — Rodcorp
Design of Understanding 2013 – Mark Barratt
Sketchnotes — Eva-Lotta Lamm
Sketchnotes — Boon Yew Chew
Lanyrd page
Last year's review
We've become too practical
I'm a big fan of agile, prototyping and lean. I think a hands-on, iterative and getting-things-done process is great. But we've lost something. The obsession with making things real limits the scope of the things we can make real. It limits us to what is possible within the constraints of our current understanding. Companies due to their nature, are obsessed with tangible details and their delivery focused operations keep us on the path of incremental innovation. We get what we optimised for, an endless series of extrapolations: faster, lighter, bigger, cheaper. All very useful, but what about a different world? A space far beyond the horizon of the next sprint, the next launch, the next round of funding? A world of dreams, of ideas, a stranger world?
Recently I was approached by Hatch – a startup run by a good friend – asking if I could do some UX for them. Since working with startups has always been a great experience, I was more than happy to help. To find out how I could bring their product closer to their ambitions, I outlined a plan that allowed me to understand the product and the business vision, the current and potential customers and the environment in which they want to place themselves.
Understanding the business and defining the project goals
When I came in, Hatch was already six months in development and wanted to strengthen their focus on agencies and partners and make it a pleasant experience to build applications on top of the platform. This helped me formulate a goal for the two weeks of work: to understand the audience, to address usability issues, to create items for the roadmap and to start with a redesign for the home page.
Find potential customers to test and interview
First, I split up 'the user' into several distinctive roles (designer, developer, community manager) and outlined their presumed workflow. Second, I approached some people in agencies to take part in usability testing and contextual interviews. I made some short scenarios and a set of questions to create a framework for exploring and discussing the platform. The tests helped us uncover expectations and a list of enhancements. This allowed Hatch to better prioritise their road map and to immediately update the platform based on the findings.
What we found
Interviewing our participants lead to two interesting findings. First, for their own projects people prefer WordPress, a blogging platform, over specialised CMS platforms such as Drupal and Joomla (something that matches general statistics). The second finding especially useful for the communication is that the platforms agencies worked with, Sharepoint, Lithium, SiteCore, were often not their choice but a platform already chosen and paid for by their clients.
The short schedule created a strong focus, testing and interviewing users early on and during the whole process enabled us to focus on addressing the things that mattered, which were often different from those we had thought were important. The schedule of one testing session every other day allowed to test all the changes directly. The results from the interviews made it possible to outline the features and benefits our participants deemed most essential and therefore should be communicated in the site redesign.
Two weeks might not sound like much, but when you have direct access to developers and customers a lot can be done. The main thing to focus on is not the artifacts but effective communication. Since the developer was sitting next to me, creating sketches for items he was working on and enhancement and bug reports for things he would be working on in the weeks to come was enough of a deliverable to keep things moving forward.
This is a write-up of a talk I gave at Geeky
Thanks to a side project on time mapping I became interested in the design implications of a set of questions that are collectively known as the eternal questions.
1. What are eternal questions?
Eternal questions are concerned with meaning. They arise from people's experiences with the world, and have no definitive answer. Famous questions are: what is the meaning of life? What is a good life? What makes a good person? What is beauty? What is love?
Although they cannot be answered definitively, this doesn't mean that they cannot be productively discussed. Through the centuries countless people have come up with answers. Some believed they answered a question once and for all, others were more modest and saw their answer only as one of many possibilities.
Many of us are familiar with Douglas Adams' answer from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: "42″, the answer to life, the universe and everything. But there are many others:
Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?
Inspired by the simple and colourful life of Tahiti, Paul Gauguin wondered: Where did we come from? What are we? Where are we going? And came up with a surprisingly colourful answer.
In what turned out to be his final work, Dostoevsky created The Brothers Karamazov a story about three brothers and a father with very different ideas about what makes a good life.


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IBEROSTAR Marbella Coral Beach
Our guests reviewsIBEROSTAR Marbella Coral Beach
Kazza says: 10 months
"Everything from the moment we arrived to the moment we left was fantastic. All staff were friendly and accommodating; nothing was too much trouble. The room was excellent, breakfast amazing and the massage we had was the best! Being situated very close to the beach front and so close to Puerto Banos was a bonus. We would definitely be back to this hotel and also look for other Iberostar Hotels throughout Europe. Thank you for a great few days."Rating: 10,0
D.M.Ball.(Mrs). says: 10 months
Very good.
"Excellent hotel and very friendly/helpful staff. The dining room experience is to be commended with food of exceptional quality and variety.I would suggest that the arrangements for the evening shows be revisited, customers on full or half board do not necessarily want to fit in with the current arrangements.However as this is the second time that we have stayed at an Iberostar facility I would recommend this Company for quality and value for money. "Rating: 9,0


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Please stop that bashing...
View Single Post
Registered User
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 182
Re: Please stop that bashing...
I'm not saying it's wrong to address problems. I see those problems as well. But either I am too old to let me slow down by them (haha, got it? *slow down*) or mine are not as bad.
I just agree to the topic: This whole thing mutated to stupid bashing. This won't help in any way. My next card might be an ATI or whatever as well and I am also frustrated I even HAVE to take this step. But unfortunately this is what you have to expect by such a company:
They begin to fix stuff when enough ppl complain about. And before KDE4 was out I DOUNT NVidia gave a sh** about it... as said - you can'T expect more by monopoilists like big N and big A.
I remember ATi some years ago... and some released specs do not convince me it will be any better in the future...
So I keep my tricks and go around the binary stuff if necessary... this makes my life easier and stops me from bashing while I wait for the 177.x release.
If THAT is out, then we can see if I am still that quiet.
View Public Profile
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- Filed Under
Oconto County authorities are investigating the cause of fires that destroyed two vacant houses early Monday morning.
The Oconto County Sheriff's Department also is continuing to look into the cause of at least two other fires earlier this year. No one was injured at either fire early Monday.
Sheriff Mike Jansen said it's unclear whether the fires were suspicious. The second fire was six miles away and about 45 minutes after the first blaze, which was reported about 2:30 a.m. ...


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Tag:David Wear
Posted on: May 25, 2010 2:15 pm
Edited on: May 25, 2010 2:20 pm
Wear Twins enrolling at UCLA
Former North Carolina reserves David and Travis Wear have signed scholarship agreements with UCLA and plan to enroll in the first session of summer school, the Long Beach Press-Telegram reported Tuesday.
They will sit out next season per NCAA transfer rules and play for the Bruins in 2011-12.
Both have three years of eligibility remaining.
David Wear averaged 10.5 minutes per game this season at North Carolina while Travis Wear averaged 10.3. Both were McDonald's All-Americans coming out of high school, and they spent a summer playing for a travel team that featured former UCLA standout Jrue Holiday and current Bruins Reeves Nelson and Jerime Anderson.
Category: NCAAB
Tags: David Wear, North Carolina, Travis Wear, UCLA
Posted on: May 6, 2010 8:40 am
Edited on: May 6, 2010 8:43 am
Wear twins reportedly transferring from UNC
Former McDonald's All-Americans David and Travis Wear are transferring from North Carolina and hoping to get their releases "as early as Thursday," the players' father, Dave Wear, told Frank Burlison of the Long Bech Press-Telegram.
"When they return home (to Huntington Beach, Calif.), we will sit down as a family and review their basketball and academic options," said Dave Wear. "... They decided they didn't want to return to North Carolina."
David Wear averaged 10.5 minutes per game this season while Travis Wear averaged 10.3.
The departures leave UNC with just two experienced players who are taller than 6-feet-4 (Tyler Zeller and Jon Henson) on next season's roster. The Tar Heels' three-player recruiting class does not include any power forwards or centers.
Category: NCAAB
Tags: David Wear, North Carolina, Travis Wear


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Photos: After double disappointments, result brighter for Mavs in win over Suns
Photo: Jennifer Stewart-USA TODAY Sport/USA TODAY Sports
Feb. 1, 2013; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Dallas Mavericks center Bernard James (5) congratulates guard Mike James (13) on the court during the game against the Phoenix Suns in the second half at US Airways Center. The Mavericks defeated the Suns 109-99. Mandatory Credit: Jennifer Stewart-USA TODAY Sports
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Fancy Holiday Stuffing
13 Nov 2009
|24 Ounce (2 packages (12 ounces each) All-Natural Roll Sausage)
|Unsalted butter
|3⁄4 Cup (12 tbs) (1 1/2 Sticks)
|3 Medium, coarsely chopped
|Chopped celery with leaves
|2 Cup (32 tbs) (Including Tops)
|Day old white bread loaf
|3⁄4 Pound, torn into small pieces (3/4 Of A 1 Pound Loaf With Crusts)
|2 , lightly beaten
|Frozen chopped spinach
|10 Ounce, thawed and squeezed dry (1 Package)
|Canned whole water chestnuts/1 chopped apple
|8 Ounce, drained and coarsely chopped (1Can)
|Chopped fresh parsley
|1⁄2 Cup (8 tbs)
|Poultry seasoning
|4 1⁄2 Teaspoon (1 Tablespoon Plus 1 1/2 Teaspoons)
|2 Teaspoon (Adjust Quantity As Per Taste)
|Freshly ground pepper
|1 1⁄2 Teaspoon
Crumble sausage into large skillet.
Cook and stir sausage over medium-high heat until cooked through (no longer pink but not dry), about 5 to 8 minutes.
Transfer sausage and drippings, if desired (there will be less than 2 tablespoons) to large mixing bowl.
Melt butter in same skillet over medium heat.
Saute onions in butter until tender.
Add celery and continue cooking 2 to 3 minutes.
Add onion mixture to sausage.
Add remaining ingredients, mixing thoroughly but gently.
Use to stuff turkey loosely just before roasting.
Place any remaining stuffing in greased baking dish.
Bake in 325°F oven 30 minutes or until thoroughly heated.
Recipe Summary
Difficulty Level:Easy
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Fancy Holiday Stuffing Recipe


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Date: Sunday, 4-Nov-2012 11:59:31
This is an Awareness Blog to consider the future of your world. Actions are being done now to restore our world. Watch and become AWARE! This blog is an online legacy of John Machaffie a super patriot who gave everything to help his fellow man. Send comments/news to email@example.com 3.5 MILLION VIEWS PER MONTH 65,832,224 VIEWS total
Well I have had it. I will not conform.
Whether that be spiritual Jesus, Obama or Saul I am not going to follow them by wearing a tag.
I will not follow any Messiah, Christ or the Antichrist who requests I wear a harmless chip to join their new family. That is how I know.
I know I will not be deceived because I simply am not interested in that, that to me is not freedom. That is power! I will not join another herd.
This to be is such a sick society it will be a long time in coming before I'm interested to follow any Messiah...whether real or false.
Barack Hussein Obama is definitely the twelvth Imam and sounds exactly like the Antchrist down to the fact everyone agrees with him.
No one has been so brainwashed before, until now when the nice guy with a smile speaks!
This is the link to apply for the OPC Needs list:
Needy Person Online Application
This is the link for OPC donors when they are ready to assist with funding to help these applicants:
This is the link to apply to work for OPC; to join John's "angels":
Operation Compassion Angel Application
DISTRESS YOUR HELP NEEDED (John would still want this message posted for his good friend Lynda,
and she needs $215.00 by the 4th so please help with some amount if you are able to. God Bless)
Lynda is a good friend and soul mate helping us getting the word out.
She is one of my intelligence gathering ladies.
She is a 65 yr light worker who has always helping others.
She has been evicted out of her home in GA.
Lynda has been Homeless and she is disabled stuck in a motel since Oct 9, 2014 .
Unable to pay all her bills as she is on disability. She needs help desperately.
People have been stepping up helping her but they can't help no more due to the economy.
She will need money for food and motel bill.
If you can help please do a PayPal email@example.com
Lynda's phone number is 404 977 3322. Give her a call.
Any amount will do small or large until the RV is here when funds start flowing.
I have a large donation for her after the RV and global reset.
Until then the Bad Hombres are blocking our blessings.
Let's continue to show the world what big hearts you have.
Referred by John Machaffie – a good friend


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Individuals May Be Coming Back to Stocks, Bespoke Says
(Corrects bond inflows value in seventh paragraph of story published yesterday.)
Sept. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Individual investors may be moving back into stocks, as gains in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index this month occur at the start of the trading day, the time when they enter most transactions, Bespoke Investment Group LLC said.
The S&P 500's average hourly change between the prior close and 10 a.m. is 0.45 percent, higher than the 0.18 percent that occurs in the next 60 minutes until 11 a.m., according to a Sept. 17 report sent to clients by Bespoke. The difference during the remaining one-hour segments of a session is less than 0.1 percent. The benchmark index for American equities has risen more than 8 percent this month.
The increase in the hourly percent change is a reversal from the last two weeks of August, when most of the declines happened in the first half hour of trading, Bespoke said. The S&P 500 averaged a drop of 0.43 percent each day through 10 a.m. during that period, while no subsequent hour had a mean decline of more than 0.1 percent. It fell 6.5 percent during that time.
"The individual investor either can't make up his/her mind, or simply doesn't even want to," according to the report from Bespoke, which was founded by Paul Hickey and Justin Walters. Investors are "looking out of the side window and reacting to the financial news of the day (or hour, for that matter)."
The declines in the early part of the sessions in August created a bullish signal in the "Smart Money Indicator," the report said. The SMI says retail investors, or individuals, trade near the start of sessions, while institutional investment actions are carried out mainly near the close.
Lack of Conviction
"Lack of conviction in the marketplace can certainly cause the long-term investor to become frustrated with the market's ups and downs," Bespoke said, "but it can also lead to temporary dislocations in the market that create enormous opportunities."
Almost $57 billion was withdrawn from U.S. stock mutual funds from May through August, the most during any four-month period since 2008, according to data compiled by the Investment Company Institute. At the same time, about $100 billion was stashed in bond funds.
Indicators such as cash flow and dividend yields suggest equities are cheap, and S&P 500 companies are forecast to post the fastest profit growth since 1988. That has been ignored in the past few months by investors burned by the 2008 financial crisis, who got another reason to be wary on May 6, when $862 billion was erased from share prices in 20 minutes.
Jobs, Housing
Sustained job growth, consistent improvement in the housing market or stabilization in the European Union economies may lure money back to stocks, said Alan Gayle, senior investment strategist at RidgeWorth Capital Management in Richmond, Virginia, which oversees $63 billion.
"For a lot of retail investors, investing in equities has been like slogging through the rain the past 10 years," he said. "They need a sign. They want something they can see, they can touch, they can feel. The question is what the catalyst is, what is it that's going to generate that sustained growth?"
To contact the reporter on this story: Joanna Ossinger in New York at firstname.lastname@example.com.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nick Baker at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Is it just me, or does F# not cater for cyclic lists?
I looked at the
FSharpList<T> class via reflector, and noticed, that neither the 'structural equals' or the length methods check for cycles. I can only guess if 2 such primitive functions does not check, that most list functions would not do this either.
If cyclic lists are not supported, why is that?
PS: Am I even looking at the right list class?


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About us
- Corporate Social Responsibility
Commitment to the environment >
- Fleet
- Subsidiaries
- Awards
Our Commitment to the Environment
As part of our commitment to the continual improvement of environmental performance, we have taken a number of measures to address key areas of environmental concern linked to operations, both on the ground and in the air. Information on our key environmental activities and performance is published in the Singapore Airlines Sustainability Report FY2013/14.
Some of our environmental initiatives are detailed below:
Harapan Rainforest Initiative
Singapore Airlines is pleased to be the exclusive airline partner for the Harapan Rainforest Initiative, a groundbreaking project aimed at conserving and protecting over 100,000 hectares of one of the most biodiverse rainforests in the world. Located at Indonesia's Jambi and South Sumatra provinces, the Harapan Rainforest is managed under a 100-year licence awarded by the Indonesian government to a consortium of international non-governmental organisations including BirdLife International, Burung Indonesia (BirdLife Partner) and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (BirdLife Partner in the UK).
The Harapan Rainforest is one of the few remaining tracts of lowland rainforest in Indonesia, which could otherwise face illegal logging or be converted to either oil palm or timber plantations. Over 300 bird species and 55 mammals, including the critically endangered Sumatran tiger and Malayan tapir, call the rainforest their home. The Initiative also plays a significant role in engaging the local indigenous Bathin Sembilan community by providing social development and employment opportunities.
For more details on the Harapan Rainforest Initiative, visit http://harapanrainforest.org/.
Embracing New Technology and Green Initiatives on the Ground
Singapore Airlines embraces new technology from aircraft and engine manufacturers. We often order new aircraft types before they're built, because we believe in backing manufacturers to develop innovative technology. As such, the Airline operates one of the youngest and most fuel-efficient fleets in the skies. We also take pride in being the first to operate the Airbus A380, one of the cleanest and greenest aircraft in operation today. In addition, firm orders have been placed for the Airbus A350-900 and Boeing 787-10, which are made from lightweight carbon composites and have high fuel efficiency. On the ground, the Airline continues to do its part for the environment with electronic ticketing across its network –- an initiative that not only reduces costs but saves trees as well. We embrace energy and resource conservation, in addition to green building designs at the workplace to reduce energy usage and waste generation.
Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group (SAFUG)
Singapore Airlines believes the use of sustainable aviation fuels has the potential to meet the industry's carbon neutral growth goals as well as reduce the dependence on fossil fuels. We are a member of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group (SAFUG), which is focused on accelerating the development and commercialisation of sustainable aviation fuels. As a member of SAFUG, we are committed to working with key stakeholders on the potential future use of sustainable fuels in aviation.
Fuel Productivity Initiatives
Our aircraft fleet renewal policy, improvements in flight operation procedures such as continuous descent operations, and participation in route planning/restructuring at international levels place us at the forefront of technology and fuel efficiency. Other initiatives include airframe and engine performance improvement packages, usage of lightweight crockery and cargo containers, reduction of operational items, as well as employment of mobile ground power units and pre-conditioned air units to reduce on-board auxiliary power units. These measures further improve our overall fuel efficiency.
Participation in the Asia and Pacific Initiative to Reduce Emissions (ASPIRE) Programme
In January 2010, Singapore Airlines partnered aviation authorities in Singapore, the US and Japan to carry out the first multi-sector demonstration green flight under the Asia and Pacific Initiative to Reduce Emissions (ASPIRE) programme. SQ11, which operated from Los Angeles to Singapore via Tokyo, employed a series of efficiency measures for all phases of the flight, and operated under optimum air traffic conditions with the help of air traffic controllers. As a result, it was able to use around 6 per cent less fuel than normally required for a similar flight.
The ASPIRE Programme has also included the Oceania region since 15 September 2012. Selected daily flights operating between Singapore and Melbourne and between Singapore and Sydney are under the daily ASPIRE Programme, and more recently this was extended to New Zealand flights covering Auckland and Christchurch. In total, these flights contributed to a savings of about $1 million per year.
Commitment to Achieving Carbon-Neutral Growth
Singapore Airlines will continue to stay at the forefront of aviation's drive towards carbon-neutral growth with the aim of a sustainable future for the airline industry. To this end, the Airline supports the International Air Transport Association's commitment for the industry to achieve carbon-neutral growth through a set of three sequential goals: - 1.5% average annual improvement in fuel efficiency from 2009 to 2020; - Carbon-neutral growth from 2020; and - 50% absolute reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. We are committed to reducing our carbon emissions through technological, infrastructural and operational measures. We will also support cost-effective market-based measures at a global level to maximise environmental integrity while minimising competitive distortion and administrative complexity.


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Near Drowning
Lifeguard Helps Rescue Boy From Acton Pool
A young boy nearly drowned in an Acton pool, but witnesses say a lifeguard's quick actions helped save the child.
2 Girls In 'Life-Threatening' Condition After Being Pulled From Yarmouth Hotel Pool
Two young sisters are fighting to survive after they were pulled from the bottom of a pool at a hotel on the Cape.
2 Young Sisters Pulled From Bottom Of Hotel Pool In Yarmouth
Two young sisters were pulled from the bottom of an indoor pool at a hotel in Yarmouth Wednesday night.
Boy Who Nearly Drowned On Cape Cod Conquers Fear
Cameron Guershuny's mother says her son is getting a second chance at life.
5-Year-Old Recovering After Nearly Drowning In Lowell Pool
Family members say a five-year-old boy from Lowell who fell into a pool and nearly drowned on Thursday is recovering in the hospital.
Five-Year-Old Rescued After Nearly Drowning In Lowell Pool
A five-year-old boy was hospitalized Thursday after being rescued from a swimming pool in Lowell.
10-Month-Old Boy Pulled From Koi Fish Pond Behind Littleton Home
A 10-month-old child was pulled from a shallow body of water in Littleton this weekend.
Young Boy Nearly Drowns In Falmouth
A young boy was flown to a Boston hospital Saturday after nearly drowning in Falmouth.
Mom Grateful After 8-Year-Old Daughter's Near-Drowning In Yarmouth
A local mom says she's grateful her 8-year-old daughter is still alive after nearly drowning.
Yarmouth Considers Pool Safety Changes After Two Near Drownings
There are 91 pools in Yarmouth where a pool safety program is already in place. Now town officials are looking to see what else can be done to keep everyone safe.


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Crysis Warhead Patch in The Works
View Single Post
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: California
Posts: 3,566
Re: Crysis Warhead Patch in The Works
Warhead Patch - Coming Soon!
As promised in the last monthly update, the Crysis Warhead Patch is almost ready for release! The patch will be launched soon but to keep you guys as up to date as possible, we're giving you the full patch notes now. So without much further ado, here they are.
Patch Notes
These are the full patch notes as seen in the readme file with the patch. There is still no date set for the release of the patch, but we want to keep you up to date.
General Fixes/tweaks
Windows Vista: Mouse cursor should no longer have an offset in the menu.
Windows Vista: Unrequested launches in windowed mode should occur less often now.
Timedemo can now be started from the command line.
Better dynamic texture support for enthusiast mode.
New Features
Added 64-bit executables for Windows XP x64 and Windows Vista 64-bit version
. In Windows XP x64 a new shortcut will be placed under the Crysis Warhead program group. In Windows Vista right-click the Crysis Warhead icon in Game Explorer and choose to run the game in 64-bit mode.
Known Issues
Games saved in 32-bit won't work properly when running the 64-bit version and vice-versa.
Note: After applying the patch the version displayed (lower right corner of menu) is 18.104.22.1680.
Although there is no set date for the release of this patch, it will be very soon. A full news piece will be posted when the patch is made available. The revoke tool was released prior to this patch, for full information on that, please check earlier news posts.
- MyCrysis Team
View Public Profile
Find More Posts by mojoman0


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If you love food trucks, get ready for the festival rolling into Kings Island this summer. At Kings Island's Food Truck Festival July 18-19, try everything from award-winning waffles, to gourmet grilled cheese and mouthwatering ribs.
All week long, tune in to Mornings with Dave O'Brien at 8:40 AM to find out Dave's Prize Password! Enter the correct password below for your chance to win this week's prize:
- A Family Four Pack of tickets to the IPRA Rodeo at the Hendricks County Fair on Friday, July 24th
Downtown Indianapolis is coming alive this summer. The city is buzzing with concerts, wine tastings, Indians games and so much more. You could join in on the fun. Register to win a Downtown Indy Prize Pack.
HANK FM and Miller Lite have the VIP hook up for the Brickyard! Watch the race from the pits! Or from the ulimate party on the Miller Lite Party Deck! It's exclusive, it's VIP and it's FOR YOU! Enter here for your chance to win!
A portion of the proceeds generated from the Kenny
The Rathskeller is a great summer concert destination this summer, thanks to Strongbow. You can check out these 4 country concerts: 6/4-Natalie Stovall, 6/6-Caroline Kole, 7/9-The Railers and 7/11-Clare Dunn. Enter to win tickets to see The Railers here!
Register to win a pair of tickets to Holiday World & Splashin' Safari.


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Most people realize you need to provide proof of residency to vote.
But what if you don't live in the same place all the time?
Or what if you're homeless or broke or don't have anyone in your life who cares enough to offer a roof over your head?
None of that by itself should take away your right to vote.
State Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) knows about the segment of the voting population that often falls between the cracks or exists under the radar. She knows because she's seen it firsthand in some neighborhoods in Milwaukee where adults without stable households depend on food pantries and homeless shelters.
Taylor and her mother, Lena J. Taylor, have a history of helping such people.
They've been doing it for years at a home at 1018 N. 35th St. where Taylor's mother lives with a group she considers her spiritual family. The senator owns the home; her mother leads the spiritual family.
The house became the focus of critics looking for voter fraud under every rock or pebble.
A group called Media Trackers released a report accusing the Taylors of aiding and abetting voter fraud after finding 36 people listed the home as their residence.
Media Trackers is a nonprofit group that does political research targeting liberals, which includes Taylor - one of the Wisconsin 14 senators who fled the state during the battle over collective bargaining for public unions.
Taylor strongly insisted that her mother was not participating in voter fraud. She also felt her mother's role had been miscast and misunderstood. For years, Taylor's mother has been a community leader and religious leader for a group of underprivileged residents.
"She takes people in, she has a spiritual family," Taylor said. "She doesn't ask for a cent."
Taylor said her mother has been taking in needy individuals for nearly 15 years, ever since her mother was "delivered" from a drug and alcohol addiction. (Her mother prefers to call herself "delivered" from her addictions, not recovered.)
Taylor understands her political enemies targeted her with the Media Trackers report, but she was more offended by the way her mother's actions were depicted.
"Her ministry isn't political," she said. "She should be commended for what she's been doing."
According to Susan Edman, executive director of the city of Milwaukee Election Commission, providing the correct residence information is important for the voting process to work.
"It's all based on honesty and integrity," she said.
The rules dictating how long a voter must live at a certain address before being eligible to vote might be confusing to some, but Edman said people who lived transitory lives needed to check to make sure they were voting in the right ward where their residence was listed.
At least one resident at the Taylor home may have voted illegally due to a felony conviction, according to the report. But the senator believes no case will be made against her mother.
"I know they want me, I get that. But I think it's shameful they target my mother like that," she said.
When it comes to allegations of voter fraud, most politicians - particularly liberals - better get used to extra scrutiny.
After all, this is Wisconsin, where every vote will count.
Contact Eugene Kane at (414) 223-5521 or firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @eugene_kane


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A&M-Kingsville men fall at St. Edward's
AUSTIN - The Texas A&M-Kingsville men's basketball team's first road game didn't turn out well with the Javelinas turning the ball over 23 times in a 78-71 loss at St. Edward's on Tuesday.
The Javelinas, who beat St. Edward's 60-52 two weeks ago, evened their record at 4-4.
A&M-Kingsville trailed 38-29 at halftime, and could never quite get over the hump. the Javelinas cut the lead to four points twice in the first three minutes of the second half, but never took the lead.
St. Edward's went up 11 with 5:37 remaining before A&M-Kingsville made one last run. The Javelinas pulled within 66-60 with 4:20 remaining when Adam Mughmay made one of two free throws. Rashad Basey came up with a steal on the next possession that led to a Marshall Bonds III bucket to cut the lead to 68-64. That would be as close as the Javelinas would get.
Basey led the Javelinas with 19 points while Dwight Taylor added 12 and Jamahl Brown had 10 points and nine rebounds.
James Stukes led the Hilltoppers with 19 points.
A&M-Kingsville will play at Texas A&M-International on Thursday night.
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Press release from PR Newswire
Norfolk Southern Names Weaver VP Labor Relations; Mobley Retires
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Norfolk Southern Names Weaver VP Labor Relations; Mobley Retires16:34 EST Tuesday, February 07, 2012NORFOLK, Va., Feb. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Scott R. Weaver has been named vice president labor relations for Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE: NSC), with headquarters in Norfolk, effective March 1. He will report to John P. Rathbone, executive vice president administration.(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120207/PH49424 ) Weaver succeeds Harold R. Mobley, who retires after a 44-year career in the railroad industry.Weaver joined Norfolk Southern in 1989 as a labor relations specialist and served in various positions of increasing responsibility in the labor relations department until being named assistant vice president labor relations in 2008. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Davidson College.Mobley, who holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Valparaiso University, began his railroad career with Penn Central as a yard brakeman in 1968. He joined Southern Railway Company (a Norfolk Southern predecessor) in 1971 as a management trainee. He served in a number of positions in the engineering, transportation, and labor relations departments and was named vice president labor relations in 2008."Norfolk Southern thanks Harold for his long and outstanding service and for guiding our labor relations department through some challenging times," said Norfolk Southern CEO Wick Moorman. "We wish him the best in his well-deserved retirement."Norfolk Southern Corporation is one of the nation's premier transportation companies. Its Norfolk Southern Railway subsidiary operates approximately 20,000 route miles in 22 states and the District of Columbia, serves every major container port in the eastern United States, and provides efficient connections to other rail carriers. Norfolk Southern operates the most extensive intermodal network in the East and is a major transporter of coal and industrial products.Connect with NShttp://www.nscorp.com/ http://www.facebook.com/NorfolkSouthern http://www.flickr.com/photos/norfolksouthern http://www.twitter.com/nscorp http://www.youtube.com/user/norfolksoutherncorpSOURCE Norfolk Southern CorporationFor further information: Media, Frank Brown, +1-757-629-2710, firstname.lastname@example.com; Investors, Michael Hostutler, +1-757-629-2861, email@example.com


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Connacht v Ulster - RaboDirect PRO12 match preview
Last Updated: 19/04/13 6:52pm
Eric Elwood: Has opted against making any changes
Connacht have opted to name the same side for Friday's RaboDirect PRO12 clash with leaders Ulster.
Following their 32-24 win over Edinburgh at Murrayfield last time out, coach Eric Elwood has kept faith in his squad.
Ulster, on the other hand, have made five personnel and two positional changes to their line-up.
Jared Payne, Chris Henry, Andrew Trimble, Paddy Jackson and Lewis Stevenson come into the side after missing the win over the Dragons.
The inclusion of Trimble means Tommy Bowe switches to the left wing, while Jackson's return means Ruan Pienaar starts in the No 9 jersey.
Iain Henderson, Johann Muller and John Afoa are named on a strong bench, along with Paul Marshall.
Connacht: 15 Robbie Henshaw, 14 Danie Poolman, 13 Eoin Griffin, 12 Brian Murphy, 11 Gavin Duffy (capt), 10 Dan Parks, 9 Kieran Marmion, 8 George Naoupu, 7 John Muldoon, 6 Mick Kearney, 5 Mike McCarthy, 4 Michael Swift, 3 Ronan Loughney, 2 Adrian Flavin, 1 Brett Wilkinson.
Replacements: 16 Ethienne Reynecke, 17 Rodney Ah You, 18 JP Cooney, 19 Andrew Browne, 20 Mata Fifita, 21 Paul O'Donohoe, 22 Miah Nikora, 23 Fetu'u Vainikolo.
Ulster: 15 Jared Payne, 14 Andrew Trimble, 13 Darren Cave, 12 Stuart Olding, 11 Tommy Bowe, 10 Paddy Jackson, 9 Ruan Pienaar, 8 Nick Williams, 7 Chris Henry, 6 Robbie Diack, 5 Dan Tuohy, 4 Lewis Stevenson, 3 Ricky Lutton, 2 Rory Best (c), 1 Tom Court.
Replacements: 16 Rob Herring, 17 Callum Black, 18 John Afoa, 19 Johann Muller, 20 Iain Henderson, 21 Paul Marshall, 22 Michael Allen, 23 Peter Nelson.


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This is by far the best place in NY to get your hair done. I get my cut and highlighted. Prices are much lower than other but she does a better job than the more expensive places. Shes very friendly and fast.
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Russian oligarchs, Middle Eastern royalty and Ecclestone sisters, get out your wallets. Gianni Versace's sumptuous mansion is back on the market. Now used as a boutique hotel, Casa Casuarina in Miami Beach, Florida, has been put up for sale with a hefty £80 million price tag.
Whoever buys it will need to share the tastes of Versace, that is certain. The couturier spent millions transforming the 10-bedroom South Beach property into an Italian villa, complete with frescoes, statues and stained glass, ever ready for a visit from Elton and the like.
What all those involved are less keen to trumpet is that 1116 Ocean Drive is also where Mr Versace was shot dead on the steps in 1997. Could this tragic aspect of its past prove a problem?
"Not at all," says Jill Eber, one half of The Jills, the glamorous real-estate duo handling the sale. "It did not happen in the residence. If anything, I think there is so much history to the property, it only adds to the attraction for someone. It's a positive. The buyer for this property will get instant celebrity status."
This is not a prospect that would appeal to all. But then, whoever snaps up Casa Casuarina, where even the swimming pool is tiled in 24-carat gold, is unlikely to be a shrinking violet.
Still, most houses saddled with notoriety cannot rely on fabulous luxury to lure a buyer. What happens to them?
I admit a personal interest. Oakleigh, a rambling Victorian house in Bowdon, Cheshire, once the home of a childhood friend, holds happy memories for me. But it is also where a subsequent owner, a local lawyer, stabbed his wife to death in 2005.
Since then, the house has served as a reminder of the horror, boarded up and overgrown with weeds. Last year it made the papers as the "mansion no one wants to buy".
In certain cases, destruction is the only option. At 25 Cromwell Street, the Gloucester address of Fred and Rosemary West, the council even ground the rubble to dust. Yet the reality is that most homes that were the scene of a serious crime will remain standing – if not unscathed.
A high-profile crime can have a "significant" impact on a property's worth, is the verdict of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Staff cite a property in a small Scottish village where a woman was murdered by a relative, which was eventually valued at 20 per cent less than it would have been otherwise. But, crucially, this hit to the price is "usually temporary". Time is a healer, after all.
Of course, it also increases the likelihood that a buyer is unaware of a house's unsavoury past – and could be in for a shock.
Kevin Firth found himself in this position, after he and his then partner bought their terrace house in Anfield, Liverpool, back in 1996. It was a taxi driver who dropped the bombshell: their new home had witnessed one of Britain's most notorious unsolved murders.
In their sitting room, the couple learnt, Julia Wallace had been beaten to death in 1931. Her husband had been convicted of murder, but later got off on appeal. "Wallace couldn't have done it, and neither could anyone else," was the verdict of the crime writer Raymond Chandler.
Cue busloads of tourists pulling up to take pictures, and even one bold soul climbing through a window to ask, "Is this the murder house?" during the 10 years Firth lived there.
"Apart from that I was happy there," he says. "It would have been easy for us to have a sense of moral indignation and say, 'They should have told us.' I wish I had known – I would have negotiated a lower price. But there's an old legal maxim, caveat emptor [buyer beware], and people do well to remember that."
He is right – sellers are not strictly required to reveal a property's grisly history. That is because an issue must be disclosed only if it "materially" affects the property. So, an ongoing row with a neighbour who throws his hedge cuttings into your garden would fall into this category, say estate agents, but not the fact that, to put it crudely, a house once held a body.
A landmark court case reinforced the principle of buyer beware in 2004, when one unfortunate couple discovered via a television documentary that their West Yorkshire home had been the scene of a brutal murder in 1985.
So traumatised that they sold the house six months later at a loss of £8,000, the buyers held that the vendors should have told them. But the county court rejected their case, and an appeal was also turned down.
There is still no regulation that a crime must be revealed, according to the Office of Fair Trading. But, aside from the law, there is morality to consider. "If there was a ghastly murder two years ago in a house, it would probably be ethically wrong if not illegal [to keep it quiet]," says Ben Pridden, of Savills in York. "If it was 22 years before, it might be different."
As it was, having bought his Anfield house for £33,000, Kevin Firth sold it to a couple aware of its past a decade later and thinks it did not make a "blind bit of difference to the price" – about £90,000. Certainly, homes in the same street have fetched similar sums.
However, estate agents warn that even though the price might hold up, the pool of potential buyers is probably reduced. Just as a house next to a graveyard might see one in 20 immediately rule it out.
For some, there is a strong taboo against living in homes with the slightest hint of trouble. Hugo Thistlethwaite, head of Prime Purchase, recalls how the sale of a village house near Winchester was scuppered when the seller cheerfully revealed to the buyer that "even the ghosts are friendly".
"Such associations don't have much effect on the value of a property directly, but can limit its saleability," he says. "By the same token, a positive association, for example a grand past or association with celebrity, can enhance the appeal of a house without necessarily boosting its value."
Not that it is always clear-cut into which camp a property falls. There were pages of newsprint recently, when the three-bedroom house in Camden, north London, where the singer Amy Winehouse lived and sadly died was put on the market for £2.7 million. But any buyer could expect at least a few fans arriving on their doorstep to pay tribute.
Still, not all potential buyers will react with horror to even the most blatant memento mori, says Ben Pridden at Savills. "We sold a house in York recently with, literally, a skeleton in the basement," he says. "It was an old Roman burial chamber, and if you opened a door and shone a torch, there was a complete set of bones. It was extraordinary. But because it was history and not ghoulish, I think people didn't really mind."
And there lies the key point – with enough time, most events can be consigned to history, if not forgotten entirely.
And what of my old playground, Oakleigh? Having ended up in the hands of receivers, it was quietly advertised as a 1.95-acre site with planning permission. At the time of writing, a developer was waiting to exchange. That house will be a home again, it seems.
Buying tips
1 Don't be shy if you know something has happened in the property you are after. Raise it with the agents and the sellers early on.
2 You can often get the agent to disclose a house's history, by asking a few pointed questions. But a word of warning: the agent won't necessarily know.
3 The internet may reveal a house's secrets, although a clean digital history is not fail-proof. Wikipedia entries, for example, can be rewritten.
4 Try old-fashioned research too. Visit the local pub and ask if there's anything to know about the place.
5 Look for signs that the history is problematic. Has the house had a name change recently? If so, for how long?
6 If there is a blot on its past, consider how much it really matters to you and how long you plan to stay there. If you are unfazed and looking to the long term, you could take advantage of any initial hit to the price to secure a bargain.
7 Think about a property's potential. Could it be redeveloped so its old associations are less of a problem?
8 Consider arranging a blessing or other "cleansing" ceremony for others' – if not your own – peace of mind.
9 Don't assume you are the only one interested. If you can stomach the idea of a purchase, so will others.
10 But don't dismiss any feelings of unease. Homes are not just about four walls and a roof. It is essential that you feel comfortable there, too.
To see inside Gianni Versace's house, see Gianni Versace's Miami home: in pictures
- Gianni Versace's Casa Casuarina: The Jills (001 305 341 7447; thejills.com)
- Amy Winehouse's property is for sale through House Network (0845 199 1000; housenetwork.co.uk)


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Kays Naturals Review
What You Should Know
Click Here To See Our Highest Rated Review
Kay's Naturals is a food company that specializes in low calorie, low carbohydrate, low fat and specialty diet foods. The website includes a complete listing of products and testimonials or reviews from customers who have ordered Kay's Naturals foods. All products are listed with a complete ingredient breakdown.
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Gluten free, all natural and diet friendly foods.
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Kay's Naturals offers a unique line of foods for people with special dietary interests. Among the food categories is diabetes friendly food and foods compatible with bariatric surgery patients. Many of the foods listed on the Kay's Naturals website are gluten free, high protein and low carbohydrate choices which allows them to fall into several of the dieting categories.
While food choices are very important to weight loss, Kay's Naturals charges much more for cereals, cookies and salty snacks that comparable brands found on grocery store shelves. Cereal, for instance, comes in packs of six boxes for $30.00 plus shipping and handling. That breaks down to more than $5.00 per box which may be too expensive for some dieters.
Weight loss is not the first priority for Kay's Naturals which means many of the products are higher in calorie than diet alternatives. Kay's Naturals Protein Cereal is packed with protein but also a higher calorie count. Just


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Press release from Business Wire
Illinois Cook Chosen as a Finalist in the Seattle's Best Coffee "Red Cup Showdown" National Coffee Drink Competition, Hosted by TV Chef Jeff Mauro

 Finalist Anthony Karas of Chatham, Ill., to Compete in New York City for $10,000 Grand Prize

Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Illinois Cook Chosen as a Finalist in the Seattle's Best Coffee "Red Cup Showdown" National Coffee Drink Competition, Hosted by TV Chef Jeff Mauro16:03 EDT Wednesday, August 15, 2012 SEATTLE (Business Wire) -- At the 160th anniversary of the Illinois State Fair, Red Cup Showdown contestants spent the morning spicing, icing and glittering their coffee beverages during the fourth Red Cup Showdown - Seattle's Best Coffee's summer search across state fairs and on Facebook for the most imaginative new coffee drink. Taking home the first place blue ribbon was Anthony Karas of Chatham, Ill. for his rich, chocolaty "Café Mocha en Fuego" coffee drink. TV Chef Jeff Mauro with the Illinois State Fair Red Cup Showdown winners. Left to right: 3rd Place Winner Patricia Keim, Judge Jeff Mauro, 1st Place Winner Anthony Karas, 2nd Place Winner Maureen Squires. (Photo: Business Wire) "The 13 contestants threw down at the showdown in Illinois, incorporating international flavors, playing off classic candy bars, and celebrating the season's fresh fruits in their coffee drinks," said TV Chef Jeff Mauro. "In the end, Anthony Karas' impressive blend of spicy and sweet in his 'Café Mocha en Fuego' had the perfect kick to win first place." Karas whipped, mixed and sprinkled his drink in front of a live audience and the Red Cup Showdown judging group made up of TV Chef Jeff Mauro, Nancy Sweet from Lincoln Land Community College and Sam Asay of Seattle's Best Coffee in the Hobbies, Arts and Crafts Pavilion at the Illinois State Fair. Maureen Squires from Springfield, Ill. came in second place for her "Seattle's Best Almond Joy" coffee drink and Patricia Keim of East Peoria, Ill. took home the third place ribbon for her "Christmas in July" cold coffee beverage. Karas will travel to New York City to compete in a live coffee-making battle against finalists from the California, Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa state fairs as well as one Facebook finalist for the $10,000 grand prize and the chance to have their drinks featured at Seattle's Best Coffee locations nationwide. In addition to a trip to the Big Apple in late August, Karas received $500 and free coffee for a year. Illinoisans can show their support of their hometown winner by participating in public voting on the Seattle's Best Coffee Facebook page Aug. 18-22. The grand-prize winning coffee drink will be selected based on the vote of the judging panel at the New York finale, as well as Facebook votes. This summer, creative cooks from across the country are entering their ideas into the Red Cup Showdown by submitting a recipe on the Seattle's Best Coffee Facebook page or participating in one of the live coffee competitions that Seattle's Best Coffee is hosting at the California, Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa state fairs. About Seattle's Best Coffee Seattle's Best Coffee LLC has been roasting premium coffee since 1970 and today roasts more than 20 million pounds of coffee every year and millions of cups of our coffee are served every day. A freshly-brewed cup of Seattle's Best Coffee is currently available in more than 50,000 locations including cafes, college campuses, restaurants, hotels, airlines, cruise ships, grocery stores and movie theatres. Seattle's Best Coffee is a featured brand within Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX). For more information, please visit Seattle's Best Coffee online at www.seattlesbest.com, become a member of the coffee community at www.facebook.com/SeattlesBestCoffee or follow Seattle's Best Coffee on Pinterest for unique coffee inspiration at www.pinterest.com/seattlesbest. For information about our retail franchise opportunity, please visit www.seattlesbest.com. About Jeff Mauro Jeff Mauro, winner of the seventh season of Food Network Star, graduated from California's Hollywood Kitchen Academy, and has worked in the food industry since high school in various roles, including line cook, caterer and chef instructor. After pursuing a career as an entertainer and comedian in Los Angeles, Jeff returned to Chicago to spend time doing what he loves: cooking. His down-to-earth personality coupled with his comic skills make a great combination in the kitchen. In his Food Network cooking show, Sandwich King, Jeff proves you can turn any meal into a sandwich and any sandwich into a delicious meal. Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=50378804&lang=en Seattle?s Best CoffeeJenny McCabe, email@example.com GroupSarah Rosanova, firstname.lastname@example.com


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July 4 - evening closure - NCAR Mesa Lab and road more info>
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The Sun in a Sky full of Stars: Understanding Solar-Stellar Magnetism
The magnetic activity of stars influences their space environment and forces planetary atmospheres. Most of our understanding of this intimate relationship between parent stars and planets that they host is based on studies of our own solar system. In the first part of this lecture, I will highlight some of the important ways in which magnetically active stars modulate their environment and how one may gain an understanding of coupled star-planet evolution through studies of other Sun-like stars. In the second part of this lecture, I will focus on the theoretical underpinnings of the sunspot cycle and describe our quest to understand the physics of solar cycle predictability.
The `Kriging' algorithm, central to spatial statistics, is O(n^3) in computation time for n observations. The biggest computational burden lies in the required Cholesky decomposition, which is also O(n^3), and is associated with the evaluation of the data likelihood function given the spatial model covariance parameters. In this talk, I introduce the `fields' package, a freely available R package used for spatial statistics, and discuss the results of accelerating its Cholesky decomposition using the Matrix Algebra on GPU and Multicore Architectures (MAGMA) library. Timing results are given for both MAGMA's single and double precision Cholesky decompositions using Caldera computational nodes on the Yellowstone supercomputing environment and a mid-2014 MacBook Pro laptop with stock GPU. In addition, I show that reducing the precision of the Cholesky decomposition does not, in general, significantly affect the likelihood maximization accuracy, yet can substantially improve performance on the mid-2014 MacBook Pro.
Thursday, July 9 12:00PM
ML Directors Conference Room
(Bring your lunch)
Hugh Morrison (1) with Jason Milbrandt (2)
1. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado
2. Environment Canada, Montreal, Canada
The representation of cloud microphysics continues to be a major source of uncertainty in atmospheric models. Traditionally, microphysics schemes partition ice-phase particles into pre-defined categories with prescribed bulk characteristics. This approach, which is used in nearly all existing schemes (bulk and bin), is intrinsically restrictive and imposes the need for conversion between categories, which are poorly constrained processes and often unphysical.
Over the past few years there has been a paradigm shift in the parameterization of ice microphysics towards emphasis on the prediction of bulk hydrometeor properties, rather than pre-defined categories. As part of this shift, a fundamentally new approach is proposed and a new microphysics scheme has been developed. In the new P3 scheme, ice particle properties are predicted and evolve by prognosing four independent mixing ratio quantities for each "free" ice-phase category. From these variables, important physical properties that describe the ice hydrometeors at a given point in time and space can be derived. This allows the full range of ice particle types to be represented in P3 even in the single-category configuration.
A detailed overview of the P3 scheme will be given and results from model simulations will be presented.
This seminar will be webcast live at:
Recorded seminar link can be viewed here:
Thursday, 9 July 2015, 3:30 PM
Refreshments 3:15 PM
NCAR-Foothills Laboratory
3450 Mitchell Lane
Bldg 2 Main Auditorium, Room 1022
Koepping is the founder of the Arctic Arts Project, which is capturing the art of Arctic change including a range of parts of the Earth system including permafrost soils, rock formations, glaciers, sea ice, human cultures, and plants.
Challenges to water resource management in the western US include increasing and changing demands, over-allocated and depleted water supplies, natural climate variability, and the impacts of anthropogenic climate change. Tree-ring records of hydroclimatic variability over past centuries can be used to provide a baseline for the conditions that have occurred under natural climate variability. While the conditions of the past will not be an analogue for the future, these records do document the range of conditions (droughts in particular) that have occurred in the past and could occur in the future, under natural climate variability alone. Water managers have used tree-ring data in a variety of ways, from basic awareness-raising to input into water system models. I'll talk about my work in the Colorado River basin, the Rio Grande, and in California, including the challenges of collaborating with water resource managers.
Multimillennial solar activity reconstructions: Knowns and unknowns
Solar activity is dominated by the 11-yr Schwabe cycle, but there is also essential centennial variability expressed as modulation of the 11-yr cycle. For many purposes it is important to know the long-term solar activity. The direct record of sunspot number exists for the last four centuries and depicts a great deal of variability from the Maunder minimum up to the Modern grand maximum of activity. In order to go beyond the direct record, on has to use indirect proxy, such as cosmogenic radionuclides in natural archives. In this talk, the method of the cosmogenic proxy is described, its advantages and weaknesses are discussed, recent reconstructions of the multi-millennial solar activity are shown. Special emphasis is given to the Grand minima and maxima of solar activity. Possible uncertainties are discussed.
You are invited to participate in an afternoon of statistics seminars at NCAR.
We have three speakers lined up for this year's edition. Each presentation will be followed by a short discussion and a coffee break.
Efficient Computation of Gaussian Likelihoods for Stationary Markov Random Field Models
Joe Guinness, Department of Statistics, North Carolina State University
We introduce new methods for efficiently computing the Gaussian likelihood for spatial models that consist of a Gaussian Markov random field (GMRF) with stationary covariances and an additive uncorrelated error term, when the data locations fall on a possibly incomplete regular grid. The calculations can be made exact up to machine precision and are efficient both in memory allocation and computation time and are particularly fast when the uncorrelated error term is not present. Our approach handles boundary effects and missing values in a natural fashion. Frequentist methods are highlighted, but the availability of the likelihood allows for Bayesian inference as well. We demonstrate our results in simulation and timing studies, as well as with an application to gridded satellite data, where we use the exact likelihood both for parameter estimation and model comparison.
Statistical Analysis of Remote-Sensing Datasets Using Basis-Function Representations
Matthias Katzfuss, Department of Statistics, Texas A&M University
The spatial statistical analysis of remote-sensing datasets poses several challenges. The datasets are large or even massive, which leads to computational infeasibility. Often, it is advantageous to combine ("fuse") measurements on the same or related spatial processes from several instruments, but these instruments typically exhibit different spatial footprints and measurement-error characteristics. In addition, complementary, massive datasets might be stored in different locations and are costly to move to one location, which means that the analysis must be moved to the data, instead of the other way around. I will discuss how all of these problems can be tackled using statistical models that can be written as linear combinations of spatial basis functions at multiple resolutions. These basis functions can represent arbitrary processes, allow change-of-support, and enable scalable, parallel, and distributed computations.
Analyzing Spatial Data Locally
Tailen Hsing, Department of Statistics, University of Michigan
Stationarity is a common assumption in spatial statistics. The justification is often that stationarity is a reasonable approximation if data are collected "locally." In this talk we first review various known approaches for modeling nonstationary spatial data. We then examine the notion of local stationarity in more detail. In particular, we will consider a nonstationary model whose covariance behaves like the Matern covariance locally and an inference approach for that model based on gridded data.
After the seminar sessions you are welcome to join the group for Happy Hour at Under the Sun at 5:00pm
We look forward to your participation!
Dorit Hammerling and Doug Nychka, NCAR organizers
Join us for a summer, all-staff party TODAY at 3:00 on the patio at Center Green 1! Appetizers and drinks will be served. Bring your families and take some time to relax with your colleagues!
Please plan to attend!
Let's call it a day at 3:00 pm at CG1!
The New Sunspot Series, Methods, Results, Implications, Opposition
We have reconstructed the sunspot group count, not by comparisons with other reconstructions and correcting those where they were deemed to be deficient, but by a re-assessment of original sources. The resulting series is a pure solar index and does not rely on input from other proxies, e.g. radionuclides, auroral sightings, or geomagnetic records. 'Backboning' the data sets, our chosen method, provides substance and rigidity by using long-time observers as a stiffness character. Solar activity, as defined by the Group Number, appears to reach and sustain for extended intervals of time the same level in each of the last three centuries since 1700 and the past several decades do not seem to have been exceptionally active, contrary to what is often claimed.
Solar Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) radiation creates the conducting E–layer of the ionosphere, mainly by photo ionization of molecular Oxygen. Solar heating of the ionosphere creates thermal winds which by dynamo action induce an electric field driving an electric current having a magnetic effect observable on the ground, as was discovered by G. Graham in 1722. The current rises and sets with the Sun and thus causes a readily observable diurnal variation of the geomagnetic field, allowing us the deduce the conductivity and thus the EUV flux as far back as reliable magnetic data reach. High–quality data go back to the 'Magnetic Crusade' of the 1830s and less reliable, but still usable, data are available for portions of the hundred years before that. J.R. Wolf and, independently, J.–A. Gautier discovered the dependence of the diurnal variation on solar activity, and today we understand and can invert that relationship to construct a reliable record of the EUV flux from the geomagnetic record. We compare that to the F10.7 flux and the sunspot number, and find that the reconstructed EUV flux reproduces the F10.7 flux with great accuracy. On the other hand, it appears that the Relative Sunspot Number as currently defined is beginning to no longer be a faithful representation of solar magnetic activity, at least as measured by the EUV and related indices. The reconstruction suggests that the EUV flux reaches the same low (but non–zero) value at every sunspot minimum (possibly including Grand Minima), representing an invariant 'solar magnetic ground state'.
And last, but not least: Update on progress since this was written [June 16, 2015].
Speaker: Michael Scheuerer
Date: July 22, 2015
Time: 3:30pm
Place: FL 2 – Rm 1001
Title: Statistical Post-Processing of GEFS Ensemble Forecasts
for Precipitation Accumulations
Authors: Michael Scheuerer and Thomas M. Hamill
We present and compare two different methods for statistical post-processing of ensemble precipitation forecasts which are developed and demonstrated with GEFS precipitation reforecasts over the conterminous United States and verified against an 1/8-degree climatology-calibrated precipitation analyses.
The first approach is non-parametric and forms, for each location, an new ensemble from the analyzed precipitation amounts by identifying dates in the past that had reforecasts similar to today's forecast. A variant of this method is presented that augments the data at each location by finding supplemental locations with similar characteristics (climatology, terrain, etc.). The resulting increase of training data will be shown to be particularly beneficial for the probabilistic prediction of rare events.
As a second approach we consider a parametric method that generates full predictive probability distributions for precipitation accumulations by fitting shifted, left-censored gamma distributions to statistics of the raw ensemble forecasts. This distribution type is shown to be adequate for modeling the distribution of analyzed precipitation accumulations given the ensemble forecasts both in situations with good predictability (e.g. at short lead times) and decreased predictability (e.g. at longer lead times or during summer months).
Probabilistic forecasts by both methods will be verified using common metrics (skill, reliability, and so forth). We study how the different ensemble statistics and non-linear components in the parametric approach contribute to its performance, and we discuss, for both methods, the effect of training sample size on the reliability and resolution of the post-processed predictions.
Presenter's Bio:
Michael Scheuerer is a Research Scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at CU Boulder and the Earth System Research Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). He received his graduate degree in mathematics from Bayreuth University, Germany, and his Ph.D. in mathematical statistics from Göttingen University, Germany. His research focuses on probabilistic weather forecasting with emphasis on statistical calibration of ensemble weather predictions. In addition, he is developing methods for the evaluation of forecast performance.
This seminar will be available to view via webcast;
UCAR Connect Link & Recorded
Ying-Hwa Kuo
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Boulder, Colorado, USA
Accurate prediction of tropical cyclogenesis by global models is a significant forecast challenge, largely because of the lack of observations in the lower-troposphere over the tropical oceans and deficiencies in model physics. The atmospheric limb sounding technique, which makes use of radio signals transmitted by global navigation satellite systems, has evolved as a robust global observing system, providing very accurate measurements at a high vertical resolution. The water vapor information contained in such measurements within the tropical lower troposphere can be very valuable for the analysis and prediction of tropical cyclones.
In this talk we present a detailed analysis of the impact of GPS radio occultation (RO) data on the prediction of the genesis of Typhoon Nuri (2008), which was observed during the field phase of T-PARC (THORPEX Pacific Asia Regional Campaign) over the western North Pacific. Typhoon Nuri was declared a tropical storm at 1800 UTC 16 August 2008, and its incipient disturbance can be tracked more than ten days prior to tropical storm formation. Nuri was a challenging case for numerical model predictions. The NCEP GFS model failed to predict the tropical storm in operation. The WRF-ARW model, initialized with either the NCEP or ECMWF global analysis, also failed to predict Nuri's genesis. However, with the assimilation of GPS RO soundings obtained from COSMIC and other missions, using a two-dimensional observation operator, the moisture analysis was substantially improved. The improved moisture analysis contributed to a more accurate prediction of the convection associated with the pre-Nuri disturbance, which developed into a robust mid-level vortex as it interacted with an upper-level potential vorticity streamer. This mid-level vortex was responsible for the subsequent formation of Nuri through its interaction with convective and boundary layer processes. Without the assimilation of GPS RO data, the convection was suppressed, the mid-level vortex did not develop, and the model failed to predict the genesis of Nuri. Further experiments on nine additional typhoons over the western North Pacific between 2008-2010 showed that the assimilation of GPS RO data substantially improved the model's ability to forecast tropical cyclogenesis.
The joint Taiwan-U.S. FORMOSAT-7/COSMIC-2 mission will be launched in September 2016, and is expected to provide ~5000 RO soundings per day over the tropics, an order of magnitude more soundings than COSMIC. With an improved design in the RO receiver and antenna, the RO data from COSMIC-2 will also be of much higher quality than COSMIC, particularly in the tropical lower troposphere. The results from this study suggest that COSMIC-2 will have a significant impact on the prediction of tropical cyclonegenesis.
This seminar will be webcast live at:
Recorded seminar link can be viewed here:
Thursday, 23 July 2015, 3:30 PM
Refreshments 3:15 PM
NCAR-Foothills Laboratory
3450 Mitchell Lane
Bldg 2 Main Auditorium, Room 1022
The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model Summer Tutorial will be offered during a two week period from 27 July - 7 August 2015 at the NCAR Foothills Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado.
The tutorial will be divided into 3 sessions. Participants can attend any combination of these sessions:
1. Basic WRF Tutorial (27-31 July 2015) The tutorial will consist of lectures on various components of the WRF modeling system along with hands-on practice sessions. The topics include:
a. WRF Pre-processing System
b. WRF Dynamics and Numerics
c. WRF Physics
d. Software Framework
e. Post-processing and Graphical Tools
2. WRF Chem Tutorial (3-4 August 2015) A WRF-ARW-only chemistry tutorial will be offered for 2 days during the second week of the tutorial. Topics include:a. General overview of WRF Chemistry b. Chemistry options c. Using chemical sources in simulation
Users may attend this tutorial without attending the basic WRF tutorial; however, a basic understanding of the WRF model is required in order to make full use of the WRF-Chem tutorial.
3. WRFDA Tutorial (5-7 August 2015) A WRF-ARW-only data assimilation tutorial (including hands-on practice) will be offered for 2 and a half days during the second week of the tutorial. The topics will include:
a. Compiling WRFDA for 3DVAR/4DVAR
b. Converting and assimilating conventional data using OBSPROC
c. Assimilating radiance data using RTM
d. Background error estimation using GEN_BE
e.Hybrid variational/ensemble assimilation
f. Analysis/forecast verification
Users may attend this tutorial without attending the basic WRF tutorial; however, a basic understanding of the WRF model is required to make full use of the WRFDA tutorial.
The Graduate School of Mathematics at Nagoya University Japan hosted a meeting on turbulence in 2014 entitled, "Fundamental Aspects of Geophysical Turbulence." The workshop touched on turbulence in the atmosphere, the ocean, and the sun and covered a broad range of scales, topics, and approaches. See the following link for more information: http://www.math.nagoya-u.ac.jp/en/research/conference/2013/geophys-turbu.html
The meeting environment was casual, interactive, and stimulating - attendees and organizers completely enjoyed the event. Thus, we wish to continue the dialogue at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), in Boulder, CO in the summer of 2015.
August 11 - 14, 2015
NCAR Facility
3450 Mitchell Lane, Boulder, Colorado
GSI & EnKF - Starting Tuesday Morning on August 11 - 14, 2015
EnKF Only - Starting Thursday Afternoon on August 13 - 14, 2015
GSI knowledge is required for the EnKF Only Session
The combined Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation and Ensemble Kalman Filter (GSI/EnKF) Community Data Assimilation System Tutorial will be offered at the NCAR Foothills Laboratory, in Boulder, Colorado on August 11-14, 2015. This will be the sixth Community GSI tutorial, but the first time EnKF will be included.
GSI is the operational data assimilation (DA) system being used by various national operational and research centers, including NOAA and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It is traditionally a three-dimensional variational DA system and has been extended to run with advanced features, including the hybrid ensemble-variational data assimilation technique and the four dimensional EnVAR technique.
The EnKF system is a Monte-Carlo algorithm for data assimilation that uses an ensemble of short-term forecasts to estimate the background-error covariance in the Kalman Filter. The EnKF uses the observation operators in the GSI system to transform model variables to observed variables in observation space. Therefore, the types of observations available for use in the EnKF match those for the GSI. Currently this EnKF is running operationally as part of the GSI based hybrid data assimilation system for the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) global applications.
The combined GSI/EnKF Community Tutorial will be held over the four days of August 11-14. The GSI/EnKF tutorial will consist of both lectures and hands-on practical exercises. The lecturers are invited from various GSI and EnKF development/support teams including NCEP/EMC, NASA/GMAO, NOAA/GSD, NCAR/MMM and DTC. The practical sessions will provide the necessary skills to run both the GSI and EnKF systems for both basic and advanced implementations. The tutorial will be tailored to the upcoming release code (GSI and EnKF) scheduled for June, 2015
The tutorial consists of a combination of classroom lectures and a hands on practical session. We offer a choice of two registration options:
Full GSI/EnKF Tutorial (4 days): $400 (includes lunch and refreshments)
EnKF Only Tutorial (1.5 days): $130 (includes lunch and refreshments)
There will be NO refunds for cancellations made on, or after 3 PM MT on Friday July 31th, 2015. Prior to the July 31th deadline, we will refund the registration fee, less $25.00 to cover administrative costs.
To register use the link to reg-on-line (https://www.regonline.com/2015gsicommunitytutorialcopycopy) - More information can be found at the tutorial webpage (http://www.dtcenter.org/com-GSI/users/tutorials/2015.php)
If you have any questions or are unable to register please e-mail: MaryBeth Zarlingo (email@example.com)
- Due to seating limitations, the registration is limited to 40 participants.
- 31 July, 2015: Last day to register if you need a temporary account on NCAR's Yellowstone computer for the hands on practical exercises.
- Before 3 PM MT on Friday 31 July 2015, we will refund your registration fee less $25.00 to cover administrative fees.
- After 31 July 2015, there will be no refunds.
We are looking forward to your attendance!
The Engineering for Climate Extremes Partnership (ECEP) is a collaboration between Industry, Commerce, Society, Academia and Government facilitated by NCAR with the goal of developing robust, well-communicated predictions and advice on the impacts of weather and climate extremes to support robust/resilient decision-making. (www.ecep.ucar.edu)
Please join us at a Workshop for the Engineering for Climate Extremes Partnership, to be held at NCAR, Boulder, Colorado on August 19-21 2015
ECEP arose out of a series of cross-disciplinary meetings and was formally launched in late 2014. The aim of this year's meeting is to review the first year of the Partnership, and to identify future strategic directions.
The workshop will provide the opportunity for community members to share best practice and to feedback their priorities for research and information needs to facilitate decisions and to enhance community resilience to weather and climate extremes. Posters are invited, and several will be selected for oral presentation.
Participants include representatives from Indigenous Americans, Re/insurance, Local Government, Industry and Business, and National and International Universities.
Liz Marsis
Administrative Support
+1 303.497.1657