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Circulating biomarkers continue to dominate cancer research by detecting the elusive signature in blood, serum or plasma. Isolation and characterization of circulating tumor cells and cell-free DNA enable the precise diagnosis and monitoring of cancer but significant challenges remain in validating methods for clinical use. This conference will showcase advances in technology and clinical applications and ultimately decide which will be the most robust technologies for personalized cancer care.
Scientific Advisory Board
Stefanie Jeffrey, M.D., John and Marva Warnock Professor, Surgery; Chief, Surgical Oncology Research, Stanford University School of Medicine
Klaus Pantel, M.D., Professor and Founding Director, Institute of Tumor Biology, University, Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf
Steven A. Soper, Ph.D., William H. Pryor Emeritus Professor, Biomedical Engineering and Chemistry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Avraham Rasooly, Ph.D., Health Scientist Administrator, Cancer Diagnosis Program, National Cancer Institute
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Plenary Session | Download Brochure
Monday, February 16
10:30 am Conference Program Registration
11:50 Chairperson's Opening Remarks
Stefanie Jeffrey, M.D., John and Marva Warnock Professor, Surgery; Chief of Surgical Oncology Research, Stanford University School of Medicine and Klaus Pantel, M.D., Professor and Founding Director, Institute of Tumor Biology, University, Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, University of Hamburg
12:00 pm CTC: Current Clinical Utility and Future Prospects
Jeffrey Smerage, M.D., Ph.D., Clinical Associate Professor, Division of Hematology and Oncology, University of Michigan
CTC enumeration is clearly associated with poor prognosis in several epithelial malignancies. A prospective randomized clinical trial in metastatic breast cancer (S0500) demonstrated that failure to clear CTC harbors a terrible prognosis, but that switching to a different chemotherapy is of no value. Future studies will focus on molecular characterization of CTC and investigating genomic, targeted therapies based on these results.
12:30 Qualifying Blood-Based Molecular Assays for Targeted Therapies in Cancer
Daniel C. Danila, M.D., Assistant Attending, Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Unmet needs in cancer drug development and patient management are the ability to monitor treatment benefit and to identify the target of interest in a tumor at the time treatment is being considered. Given the effort and cost to new blood biomarkers, it is essential to develop metrics to determine which promising assays warrant prospective testing in large-scale phase III trials to establish qualification in the context of use.
1:00 Session Break
1:15 Luncheon Presentation I: High Sensitive Detection of Circulating Tumor Cells Including EMT-CTCs in NSCLC Patients by TelomeScan F35
Shinsaku Togo, MD, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Division of Respiratory Medicine, Juntendo University Faculty of Medicine & Graduate School of Medicine
We established a unique CTC-detecting platform using TelomeScan F35, a telomerase-specific replication-selective adenovirus expressing GFP. In clinical feasibility studies, we demonstrated that TelomeScan F35 is useful to detect alive and EMT-induced CTCs from patients of various types of cancer. In NSCLC, CTCs were sensitively detected from patients with early clinical stage (Stage I) and it suggests TelomeScan F35 is a powerful surrogate indicator and liquid biopsy for cancer diagnosis.
1:45 Session Break
CHARACTERIZING CTCs
2:30 Chairperson's Remarks
Klaus Pantel, M.D., Professor and Founding Director, Institute of Tumor Biology, University, Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, University of Hamburg
2:40 Circulating Tumor Cells in Lung Cancer, Biomarkers, Biology, and Mouse Models
Caroline Dive, B.Pharm, Ph.D., Professor & Senior Group Leader, Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology Group, Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute
Dr. Dive will discuss the current utility of CTCs in lung cancer in early clinical trials and the challenges associated with use of new marker independent CTC enrichment platforms in clinical trial samples. She will also focus on the development of patient derived CTC explant models that now offer unique opportunities to study lung cancer biology, discover new drug targets, understand drug resistance mechanisms and test novel therapies.
3:10 Novel Approaches to Enable Molecular Characterization of CTCs
Nikolas H. Stoecklein, M.D., Professor, General Visceral and Pediatric Surgery, University Hospital of the Heinrich-Heine, University of Düsseldorf
The talk will cover a recently established workflow to enable high-resolution genomic analysis of single CTCs and will discuss the concept of diagnostic leukapheresis (DLA) to increase the detection rate of CTCs by screening larger blood volumes.
3:40 Deep Sequencing of Circulating Tumor Cells as a Window into Disseminated Cancer
Jens Lohr, M.D., Ph.D., Instructor in Medicine, Medical Oncology, Cancer Program, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Broad Institute
We have developed targeted and whole exome sequencing frameworks to explore the genomics of circulating tumor cells (CTCs), with a focus on defining somatic mutations in single CTCs. We are investigating how the genetics of CTCs evolve over time and how they compare to primary tumors and metastases.
4:10 Characterization and Molecular Profiling of CTCs using DEPArray™ and Ampli1™ Technologies
Farideh Z. Bischoff, Ph.D., Executive Director, Scientific Affairs, Silicon Biosystems
DEPArray™ allows sorting and recovery of target cells using image-based identification of specific markers. Enriched cell suspensions can be used to recover rare cells with 100% purity. Using this
approach, CTCs have been successfully recovered for downstream molecular profiling and NGS.
4:25 Clinical Impact and Future Developments of Circulating Cancer Cells
Patrizia Paterlini-Brechot, M.D., Ph.D., Professor, University Paris Descartes, Inserm Unit 1151 and Rarecells Diagnostics SAS
Circulating Cancer Cells are tumor cells which are extracted from blood without any bias and identified through a diagnostic approach, cytopathology. They are the basis for clinical and molecular studies avoiding the classical troubles which affect Circulating Tumor Cells.
4:40 Break and Transition to Plenary Session
5:00 Plenary Session Panel
6:00 Grand Opening Reception in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing
7:30 Close of Day
Tuesday, February 17
7:00 am Registration and Morning Coffee
8:00 Plenary Session Panel
9:00 Refreshment Break in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing
CELLS VS. CIRCULATING BIOMARKERs
10:05 Chairperson's Remarks
Stefanie Jeffrey, M.D., John and Marva Warnock Professor, Department of Surgery, Chief of Surgical Oncology Research, Stanford University School of Medicine
10:15 Platforms for CTC Isolation and Analysis
Z. Hugh Fan, Ph.D., Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Florida
We will present our recent results on integrating aptamers, antibodies, nanoparticles, and multivalent binding mechanisms with microfluidics for the isolation of cancer cells, as well as on the correlation between CTC enumeration and therapy responses of pancreatic cancer patients. Other platforms for CTC isolation and analysis will be reviewed and examined. Parameters for platform comparison will be discussed.
10:45 Circulating Tumor DNA: Opportunities and Challenges on the Road to Clinical Utility
Mark Lee, M.D., Ph.D., Google[x] Life Sciences
The advent of new technologies for sensitive and specific detection of cell-free, circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in plasma has generated considerable enthusiasm for this new class of biomarkers to improve clinical decision-making in oncology. Emerging evidence suggests a number of promising potential clinical applications. Considerations and strategies to establish clinical utility of ctDNA will be discussed.
11:15 Biology and Function of Exosomes
Raghu Kalluri, M.D., Ph.D., Professor & Chair, Cancer Biology, MD Anderson Cancer Center
The lecture will discuss the biology and function of exosomes in cancer detection and progression of cancer. DNA, RNA and protein profiles will be discussed with specific emphasis on early detection of cancer.
11:45 Microfluidic Isolation of Microvesicles and Circulating Tumor Cells from Cancer Patients
Shannon L. Stott, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and microvesicles (MVs) are found in the bloodstream of cancer patients and have the potential to help guide cancer treatment. Through a collaborative effort between bioengineers, biologists, and clinicians, our group at MGH has developed microfluidic devices to isolate these rare circulating biomarkers from whole blood. I will describe our recent efforts to molecularly characterize CTCs and MVs, and the insights gained from our analysis.
12:15 pm Session Break
12:25 Luncheon Presentation I: Circulating Tumor Cells: From Enumeration to Comprehensive Characterization
Nicholas C. Dracopoli, Ph.D., Vice President, Oncology Translational Research, Janssen R&D, Johnson & Johnson
This presentation will describe a novel platform for the capture and analysis of circulating tumor cells (CTC). The platform is antibody independent and delivers viable CTCs in suspension. This novel platform enables routine enumeration of all tumor derived cells, ex vivo propagation of the CTCs, and comprehensive molecular and protein analyses using single cell analytical methods to characterize tissue of origin, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, stem cells and functional biomarkers.
12:55 Luncheon Presentation II: Exosomes and cfDNA: Complete Nucleic Acid Analysis from a Liquid Biopsy
Johan Skog, Ph.D., CSO, Exosome Diagnostics
Detection of circulating nucleic acids in the blood allows longitudinal monitoring of cancer patients, but any diagnostic test that uses biofluids needs a platform to maximize the capture of mutations. Plasma contains two cell-free sources of nucleic acids: cfDNA, generated from dying cells, and exoRNA enclosed in exosomes, which are actively secreted by cells in the body. The amount of nucleic acids in biofluids is limited, so co-isolation of exoRNA and cfDNA out of plasma maximizes sensitivity of detection.
1:25 Refreshment Break in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing
BEYOND SELECTION: Single Cell Analysis on CTCs
2:00 Chairperson's Remarks
Steven A. Soper, Ph.D.
2:10 Drug-Induced Damage of Genomic DNA Harvested from Circulating Tumor Cell Sub-Populations
An innovative assay combined with groundbreaking hardware for the isolation and processing of distinct sub-populations of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) for a patient's cancer will be discussed. The assay quantifies response to therapy using three pieces of information for different CTC sub-populations; (1) CTC number; (2) CTC viability; and (3) frequency of DNA abasic (AP) sites in the CTCs' genomic DNA.
2:40 Isolation and Downstream Analysis of Circulating Tumor Cells
Daniel T. Chiu, Ph.D., A. Bruce Montgomery Professor, Chemistry & Bioengineering, University of Washington, Seattle
This presentation will describe advances we have made with the eDAR platform for the isolation of rare cells, with emphasis on employing eDAR for the downstream analysis of circulating tumor cells.
3:10 Single-Cell Analysis Using Drop Based Microfluidics
David A. Weitz, Ph.D., Mallinckrodt Professor, Physics, School of Engineering & Applied Sciences, Harvard University
Drop-based microfluidics have enabled large numbers of cells to be encapsulated in individual drops, a few picoliters in volume, immersed in an inert carrier oil. Each drop can be precisely controlled and analyzed, enabling large numbers of cells to be screened and specific cells identified for further analysis using either PCR or next generation sequencing. This technology has great potential for studies of circulating tumor cells.
3:40 Isolation and Characterization of Circulating Melanoma Cancer Cells by Size Filtration and Fluorescent in Situ Hybridization
Masahiko Yanagita, M.D., Ph.D., Research Fellow, Translational Research Laboratory, Dana Farber Cancer Institute
Isolation of circulating tumor cells from blood of melanoma patients has been difficult owing to inconsistent expression of surface antigens. Here we report on the isolation, detection, and characterization of circulating melanoma cells (CMC) from blood of melanoma patients using a combination of microfiltration and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) and/or immunofluorescence (IF).
4:10 Mardi Gras Celebration in the Exhibit Hall with Poster Viewing
5:00 Breakout Discussions in the Exhibit Hall
This interactive session provides attendees an opportunity to choose a specific discussion group to join. Each group has a moderator to ensure focused discussions around key issues within the topic. This format allows participants to meet potential collaborators, share examples from their work, vet ideas with peers, and be part of a group problem-solving endeavor. The discussions provide an informal exchange of ideas and are not meant to be a corporate or specific product discussion.
New Technologies for CTC Analyses: Is Selection and Enumeration Sufficient
Understanding the Positive and Negative Effects of Chemotherapies on Circulating Tumor Cells
Stuart S. Martin, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Physiology, Greenebaum Cancer Center, University of Maryland School of Medicine
6:00 Close of Day
Wednesday, February 18
7:00 am Breakfast Presentation (Sponsorship Opportunity Available) or Morning Coffee
9:45 Refreshment Break and Poster Competition Winner Announced in the Exhibit Hall
TECHNOLOGY STRIDES FOR CTCs
10:35 Chairperson's Remarks
Dino Di Carlo, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Bioengineering, California NanoSystems Institute, Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, Los Angeles
10:45 Vortex Technology for CTC Collection and Automated Image Cytometry for CTC Detection
Dr. Di Carlo will introduce the vortex cell isolation and concentration technology and discuss the latest results in isolating and characterizing circulating tumor cells using label-free imaging approaches.
11:15 Nanoroughened Surfaces for Efficient Capture of Circulating Tumor Cells without Using Capture Antibodies
Jianping Fu, Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering & Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) detached from both primary and metastatic lesions represent a potential alternative to invasive biopsies as a source of tumor tissue for the detection, characterization and monitoring of cancers. Here we report a simple yet effective strategy for capturing CTCs without using capture antibodies. Our method uniquely utilized the differential adhesion preference of cancer cells to nanorough surfaces when compared to normal blood cells and thus did not depend on their physical size or surface protein expression, a significant advantage compared to other techniques.
11:45 Geometrically Enhanced Differential Immunocapture (GEDI): Informing Surgical and Medical Cancer Treatment via Capture of Circulating Tumor Cells
Brian J. Kirby, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Cornell University
We will present results for early-stage circulating cell capture and its use to stage surgical decisions, as well as late-stage circulating tumor cell capture and its use to inform choice of chemotherapy. CTC capture is performed with Geometrically Enhance Differential Immunocapture, a microfluidic systems that uses both immunocapture and size-based cell trajectories to optimize efficiency and purity.
12:15 pm Enjoy Lunch on Your Own
1:00 Refreshment Break in the Exhibit Hall and Last Chance for Poster Viewing
CLINICAL USE OF CTCs
1:40 Chairperson's Remarks
1:50 Detection and Molecular Characterization of CTCs in Glioma Patients
Klaus Pantel, M.D., Professor & Chairman, Tumor Biology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf
Glioblastoma multiform (GBM) is the most frequent and aggressive brain tumor in adults. The dogma that GBM spread is restricted to the brain was challenged by reports on extracranial metastases after organ transplantation from GBM donors. The CTC detection approach developed in this study is easily applicable as a companion diagnostic to identify patients with extracranial tumor cell spread, and it might be advisable to exclude these patients as organ donors.
2:20 Single Cell Genomic Analyses of Circulating Tumor Cells
Sunney Xie, Ph.D., Mallinckrodt Professor, Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University
We have demonstrated whole genome sequencing of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) with multiple annealing and looping-based amplification cycles (MALBAC). We discovered that CTCs of the same patient exhibit reproducible CNV gain and loss patterns, which are similar to the patterns of metastatic sites. Patients with the same cancer type have similar patterns while patients with different cancers have dissimilar patterns. The fact that CTC's CNV patterns are tissue and cancer dependent offers prospects for noninvasive cancer diagnostics.
2:50 Targeting Microtentacles on Circulating Tumor Cells to Reduce Metastasis
Tumor cells generate dynamic membrane microtentacles (McTNs) in free-floating microenvironments, that promote the reattachment of circulating tumor cells in distant tissues. These McTNs arise from imbalances between microtubule extension and contraction of the actin cortex, and are detectable in freshly-isolated tumor cells from patients. By defining the cytoskeletal mechanisms underlying McTNs, we are clarifying how existing chemotherapies affect CTCs and identifying new therapeutic opportunities..
3:20 Late Breaking Presentation
3:50 Refreshment Break
CTCs FOR COMPANION DIAGNOSTICs
4:00 Chairperson's Remarks
4:10 CTCs in Mouse Models
Jen Jen Yeh, M.D., Associate Professor, Surgery and Pharmacology, UNC Chapel Hill Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center
This presentation will provide an overview of the data on CTCs in mouse models and their possible uses as biomarkers.
4:40 Challenges and Opportunities in the Use of CTCs for Companion Diagnostic Development
Elizabeth Punnoose, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Oncology Biomarker Development, Genentech, Inc.
Circulating tumor cells offer promise as a surrogate source of cancer cells that can be obtained in real time and may provide opportunities to evaluate predictive biomarkers that can guide treatment decisions. In this review, we consider some of the technical hurdles around CTC numbers and suitability of various CTC capture and analysis platforms for biomarker evaluation. In addition, we consider the potential regulatory hurdles to development of CTC-based diagnostics. Finally, we suggest a path for co-development of anticancer therapeutics with CTC-based diagnostics that could enable clinical validation and qualification of CTC-based assays as companion diagnostics.
5:10 Circulating Tumor Cells: What Is in It for the Patient? A Vision Towards the Future
Paul A. van de Wiel, Ph.D., Senior Director, Precision and Decentralized Diagnostics, Philips Research
Knowledge on signal transduction pathways as drivers of cancer growth has fuelled development of targeted therapy. However, good companion diagnostic tests to determine the tumor driving pathways are still lacking. We will discuss novel approaches of assessing active tumor pathways based on advanced staining of CTCs in combination with automated image interpretation on a digital pathology platform, and by PCR-based analysis of isolated CTCs.
5:40 Close of Conference Program
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Rip Van Winkle Determined Winner of QEII
Rip Van Winkle held off a stubborn Zacinto in the final furlong to claim his second group I victory of the season, taking the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes (Eng-I) by a determined 1 1/4-lengths at Ascot Sept. 26.
Aqlaam broke sharply under Richard Hills and went straight to the front with Rip Van Winkle, under Johnny Murtagh, hot on his heels. The two colts pulled a few lengths clear from the remainder of the field as they led through the early stages of the race.
Copyright © 2015 The Blood-Horse, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

subset: commoncrawl


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Islanders gear up for Southland
Conference officials to visit A&M-CC campus next week
Southland itinerary
A&M-Corpus Christi athletic director Dan Viola reviewed the
itinerary for the Southland Conference site-visit team.
The Islanders and the Southland Conference still are ironing out minute details of a campus visit by conference officials on July 14-15, but most of the particulars have been set.
Southland Conference commissioner Tom Burnett said, during the visit, he will be joined by Southeastern Louisiana president Randy Moffett, Texas State athletic director Larry Teis, and Liz Dalton, an associate athletic director and senior women's administrator at Texas-San Antonio.
Moffett is the chair of the conference board of directors. Conference officials are visiting A&M-Corpus Christi and Central Arkansas before deciding if they want to expand.
Burnett said the key date for the process hasn't been set, as the expansion committee does not have a time finalized for voting on increasing Southland membership.
The site-visit team will arrive in Corpus Christi on Thursday afternoon and be treated to a reception that night in a suite at Whataburger Field. A&M-Corpus Christi athletic director Dan Viola wanted to take the visitors to a Hooks game, and two suites were put at his disposal.
"It's going to be for 50 people, invitation only," Viola said.
The next day, the team will get down to business, exploring the university's academic and athletic programs.
"We're going to visit with a number of people, and visit some of the higher-profile academic programs," Burnett said. "It will give them an opportunity to tell us some things we don't already know. This opportunity, for lack of a better word, gives them the chance to show off."
After visiting with the academic side, the site-visit team will meet with coaches and athletes, and tour athletic facilities before heading to the American Bank Center for lunch on the arena floor. After an exit interview, the site-visit team will meet with media.
A visit Thursday by associate commissioner LaRon Black preceded the group visit, as Black discussed compliance issues at the university.
The group touring A&M-Corpus Christi is different from the one that will go to Central Arkansas.
Burnett said Northwestern (La.) State president Randall Webb, Nicholls (La.) State athletic director Rob Bernardi, and Texas-Arlington athletic director Pete Carlon will accompany Burnett on July 19-20.
While Burnett wished to have the same site teams, schedule conflicts made that impossible. Maybe, it will work out for the better, he said.
"I wanted to have the same team at both sites," Burnett said. "But it can be beneficial having different people with different viewpoints take separate visits."
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Friendship is the trump card in the movement for equality, not etiology.
This equality is quite different from the type he sought in terms of civil rights.
Would he tell his daughters not to believe in equality for the sake of their ability to take a joke?
late 14c., "evenness of surface, uniformity of size;" c.1400, in reference to amount or number, from Old French equalité (Modern French égalité, which form dates from 17c.), from Latin aequalitatem (nominative aequalitas) "equality, similarity, likeness" (also sometimes with reference to civil rights), from aequalis (see equal). Of privileges, rights, etc., from 1520s.


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Community Status Updates
EK! Can't wait until the new Tamagotchi friends comes out! I'll be sure to buy one off eBay!Nov 17 2013 12:19 AM
Eternal Mametchi FanI can't wait either!
Nov 17 2013 12:25 AM
*Hayden*KE, Can wait until the old Furby Enemies doesn't come out! I won't be sure to sell ten off Amazon
Nov 17 2013 01:39 AM


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The new model (which obviously won't go by the nickname "PSpee") will come in black, silver, and white, and it will also have a quarter of an inch shaved off its thickness. 4GB of NAND flash storage will reputedly be included as well, saving gamers a whole lot of money on memory sticks for media and other applications--playing with homebrew, for instance.
Word of an integrated camera may be the most interesting news, however, with a stock camera used in Sony Ericsson phones to be placed directly in the PSP logo below the portable's screen to take photos and record video. All of the video-streaming capabilities are supposed to be tied in to the rumored PlayStation HUB service, bringing one more media expression to Sony's next-gen convergence device (if this rumors pans out, of course).
[Thanks, TIP; also via Engadget & PSP Fanboy]
See also:
- Key specs
- Reviews • 18
- Prices
- Discussions
- Game format Optical disc, Downloadable
- Online features Multiplayer, Voice chat, Video chat, Store, Browser
- Drive capacity 250 GB
- Controller type Wired, Wireless
- Motion controls Accelerometer, Gyroscopic
- Video outputs HDMI (v1.3), RCA / composite
- Released 2012-09-25
Sony PlayStation Portable PSP-2000


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* Prices may differ from that shown
After my holiday last year my skin was tanned but feeling very dry and peeling. My husband was also suffering from dry skin that had had two weeks in the sun, pool and sea and was feeling in need of some care.
At the time there were offers on in Sainsbury's for Vaseline body lotions and I bought three different varieties from the range to try. I didn't think my husband would be too keen on the cocoa lotion but I thought I would be quiet and let him try it before saying he wouldn't like it.
Vaseline Essential Moisture Cocoa Radiant Lotion is, in my opinion, an excellent product. After using the lotion after showering for just a couple of times I could feel a difference in my skin. It certainly helped with the flakiness of my skin due to too much Mediterranean sunshine, if there can be such a thing.
My skin tends to itch at times and especially after holidays but this lotion helped to put some moisture back into my skin and to sooth it. What's more is it does make one's skin feel pampered after using it. I would say that it doesn't absorb as quickly as some other lotions from Vaseline but if that isn't a problem then it's worth waiting the few extra minutes to allow it to seep into your skin and then wait for it to do its job.
This lotion has a lovely scent of cocoa butter but it isn't too strong for me.
As for hubby, well he did try this lotion. He is very fussy with creams and can't stand anything that doesn't absorb very quickly into his skin so he preferred other lotions. But he does often remark that I smell nice when I have applied this lotion onto my skin.
Vaseline Essential Moisture Cocoa radiant Lotion can be purchased from most supermarkets and chemists:
Boots £2.99 (200 ml)
Sainsbury's £2.75 (200 ml)
After tying out a variety of different body lotions,creams and butter to help improve my dry skin in the winter, I decided to try out Vaseline coca radiant lotion. I already use the Vaseline lip balms and they work great for when I have dry lips so I hade high hopes for this lotion. I didn't have to purchase the body lotion since my mum was already using it so I decided to use her one and see it my skin improves. After I used the lotion for a month I did notice that my skin did improve compared to what it was like before, my skin was soft ,moist and looked rich. However the body lotion was not an amazing product for me yes it did improve my skin but now I hardly use it unless I remember too, This is not my top moisturiser although I will still recommend this as a product that improves skin and does what it claims.
I tried Vaseline Essential Moisture Cocoa Radiant Lotion as I have dry skin and rely on products like Palmers Cocoa Butter Formula to relieve the dry, tight feeling in my skin. As this product was reduced I thought I'd give it a go.
Smell and texture:
Cocoa Radiant lotion has a very strong smell. It's a sweet honey/chocolate smell that does feel nice once applied on the skin. For me, it's a little too sickly sweet, especially in comparison to the more subtle smell that the Palmer's equivalent has. The texture was too thin for me which made the product messy to get out of the bottle. It also meant the lotion didn't seep into the skin very easily. The lotion has an orange/yellow colour to it which will stain if it gets on clothing or carpets so be careful where you use it.
Does it moisturise?
I have dry and sensitive skin and rely on cocoa butter lotion to relieve it. I usually apply all over my body both morning and evening as well as after a bath or shower. Vaseline Essential Moisture Cocoa Radiant Lotion did relieve this sensation initially but after 2 uses, left my skin feeling itchy, red and irritated. I wouldn't say this is suitable for sensitive skin at all. I had to stop using it so that my skin could recover.
Price and value for money:
At about £3 for 200ml, this is cheaper than other cocoa butter lotions on the market. However, for me, the product smelled a little cheap, was too thin, and was not suitable for sensitive skin. As a result, I would suggest paying more for a brand like Palmer's, or buying the Cocoa Butter Lotion from a chain of pound shops that works equally well as Palmer's.
My body can tell that Winter is approaching as my skin has been getting pretty dry so I decided to use cocoa butter as its the one thing that never fails to give great moisturisation. My usual go-to product is Palmer's Cocoa Butter but I saw Vaseline's Cocoa Butter when I was out shopping and I thought I'd give this one a go.The bottle is made of a fairly soft, squeezable plastic and has a sturdy flip-top lid which makes it very easy to use. The lotion has a fairly thin consistency which flows easily from the bottle with little effort.The texture of the lotion is smooth and creamy and it glides easily over the skin meaning a little goes a long way. It has a lovely sweet cocoa scent to it which is not overly strong like many cocoa butter products, but I do think the sweetness of it makes it a love it or hate it kind of thing.It massages really easily into my skin and absorbs almost instantly, leaving no greasy residue. My skin feels immediately softer and smoother and looks brighter and healthier with a slight dewy sheen to it. I suffer from dry, patchy skin on my arms and legs and I found after just a couple of applications of this lotion these areas were feeling much smoother and more hydrated, and within a week all signs of dryness had completely disappeared. It's as effective as much richer products such as body butters, but without the heavy feel.
Overall a fantastic body moisturiser which, at the very reasonable price of £3.55 for a 200ml bottle.
I recently bought the Vaseline Aloe Fresh Lotion on offer and loved it, so when I spotted the other 2 new Vaseline Essential Moisture lotions on offer in Morrisons I picked up one of each; the Essential Moisture Clean Feeling Lotion, and the Cocoa Radiant Rich Feeling Lotion, and this Cocoa Radiant one was the first I tried. I'm not sure how much I paid for it at the time but the usual price for a 200ml bottle is about £3.50.
It comes in a nice looking brown plastic bottle with a flip top lid which makes it easy and convenient to use. The bottle isn't too rigid which means you can squeeze it easily to get the lotion out even when you get down to the last bits.
The lotion has a medium consistency, not too runny or thin and not thick or heavy like a body butter or cream. It has a smooth, creamy texture and a sweet cocoa butter scent. I'm often not keen on cocoa butter products as I find the scent too sweet and overpowering, but this one is actually quite subtle and nice.
The smooth texture means it massages easily over the skin, and a little does go a long way. It absorbs pretty quickly leaving my skin feeling soft and smooth with a dewy finish. It doesn't feel greasy or sticky, or make my skin feel coated, and I can get dressed after about a minute after applying.
This leaves my skin feeling really soft and easily deals with dry skin patches that I get from time to time. I've also been using this on my feet and it has left them feeling brilliantly soft and smooth, and smelling sweet too! I really like how this manages to leave my skin super-soft and smooth without leaving it feeling greasy or clammy like richer products do.
Overall I'd definitely recommend this for anyone with areas of dry skin who doesn't like the feeling of heavy creams or butters.


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ALL BUSINESS: Be tough with your financial adviser
Congress will begin putting together a final bill on financial reform next week. There are still big gaps in how the House and Senate want to handle the disclosure of conflicts of interest for brokers.
The House bill would require the SEC to issue rules giving stock and insurance brokers the duty to act in their clients' interests. But that would only happen when brokers offer "personalized investment advice" to retail customers.
There are concerns that the language in the bill is too general and open to interpretation. A broker may act in a client's best interest when telling an investor how to allocate a portfolio, but then might not disclose conflicts of interest when peddling a specific product.
"You don't want brokers taking off their fiduciary hat and then putting on their sales hat," says Knut Rostad, a registered investment adviser at the Falls Church, Va.-based firm Rembert Pendleton Jackson and chairman of The Committee for the Fiduciary Standard, a professional group.
The Senate bill only requires the SEC to study gaps in the current regulations and then issue rules, if necessary.
Not surprisingly, the insurance industry and brokers favor the Senate bill.
Sheila Owens, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, says the SEC study from 2008 didn't go far enough in accessing the differences in oversight of investment advisers and brokers.
"We cannot support making changes that will affect consumers and the marketplace without first determining what steps are necessary to get it right," Owens said in an e-mail.
What she didn't say is that changing the rules will cost the industry more. Financial and insurance firms would have to offer clients more investment alternatives. Since fees and commissions would be disclosed, they could also lose sales if investors choose less expensive investments.
Some investors also could lose out. Brokers might choose to focus on wealthier clients, says Cerulli's Smith.
BU's Frankel is skeptical that lawmakers will enact meaningful reforms. That's why she thinks investors should seek out registered investment advisers who already have to disclose all conflicts.
"Then," Frankel says, "you don't have to worry about anyone saying 'Just trust me.'"
Rachel Beck is the national business columnist for The Associated Press. Write to her at rbeck(at)ap.org
The Associated Press


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Arts and Sciences
Activities and research related to trades, crafts, occupations, or daily life in the Middle Ages, as well as performing and fine arts.
Harvest Captaincy
Submitted by Milica on Wed, 2004-08-25 09:47
Winter's Gate presents Harvest Captaincy, September 4-5, 2004 at the Wilderness Pavillion, Alaskaland/Pioneer Park in Fairbanks, Alaska.
St. Augustine's Faire
Submitted by Milica on Tue, 2004-08-24 10:22
The Shire of Heraldshill proudly presents St. Augustine's Faire Aug. 27, 2004 at 5 PM until Aug. 29, 2004 at 12 PM (noon).
Emerald Beast IV: Hunt for the Beast
Submitted by Mathilda on Mon, 2004-08-23 20:33
Labor Day Weekend, Sept. 3-5, just north of Tiffin in northwest Ohio. Site opens 5pm Friday, closes Sunday afternoon after cleanup. The site includes cabins, a camping area, a large fire ring, fields, woods, a feast hall, showers, and flushies. Site is wet.
Fortuna's Champion
Submitted by Milica on Mon, 2004-08-23 12:11
The Shire of Isengau in succession of the Canton Roterde holds once again the quest for Fortunas Champion.
Sacred Stone Baronial Birthday
Submitted by Milica on Mon, 2004-08-23 11:51
The Barony of the Sacred Stone would like to welcome each of you to our fine Barony to celebrate our Baronial Birthday with us which will be held at Kings Mountain State Park in northern South Carolina, September 10-12, 2004.
Kingdom of Atenveldt Arts and Sciences Results
Submitted by ianuk on Wed, 2004-08-18 10:15
Lady Ianuk provides a summary of the recent A&S competition in Atenveldt, along with a link to a photo album.
Fete des Bois
Submitted by Milica on Fri, 2004-07-30 11:36
Come and join us for the anniversary celebrations of the Canton of Boise Ardent! The feasts of Boise Ardent are known for their abundance, their quality and their conviviality.
Position Available: Society Minister of Arts & Sciences
Submitted by Justin on Wed, 2004-07-28 18:40
The SCA Board of Directors has announced that applicants are being sought for the position of Society MOAS.
Best of Griffin's Tor Edition Two
Submitted by Milica on Wed, 2004-07-28 15:08
Let it be known that the Best of Griffin's Tor Edition Two will take place on the weekend of the 30th and 31st of October 2004.
Tip of the Tente
Submitted by Milica on Wed, 2004-07-28 15:01
Well, we're coming up on it again. That's right, the Tip of the Tente never really went away, it was just postponed!
Partito Di Autunno
Submitted by Milica on Tue, 2004-07-27 12:17
Greetings good gentles! Come one, come all... the cry goes out for supporters of Italy, France and Spain! Ask not what your country can do for you... but what you can do to earn points for the country of your choice.
Silver Chalice XVII
Submitted by Milica on Mon, 2004-07-26 12:30
In Hidden Mountain, we are celebrating! The harvest is in, and it is time to test our skills in the arts of War, and gentler arts as well.
Drachenwald Kingdom University
Submitted by Milica on Mon, 2004-07-26 11:19
This year the Drachenwald Kingdom University will take place the weekend of November 5 through 7, 2004, in two locations: the main campus being held in the Shire of Ad Flumen Caerulum (Austria), and the adjunct campus being held in the shire of Adamastor (Capetown, South Africa).
Thegns and Thralls: A Night in Heorot
Submitted by Milica on Thu, 2004-07-22 13:49
Woods have grown frosty, winds howl,
Rime scours stones. Winter comes,
Promising long nights of hall joys.
Barre, guardian of warriors, and gold-bright Cordelia
Call battle-brave nobles. Prove your prowess,
Whether your wyrd be to win gold
By courage or be seized by battle.
Feast and Festival of Lammas
Submitted by Milica on Wed, 2004-07-21 10:10
Come one and all to Thamesreach shire at the end of August to celebrate the Lammas Feast.
Lochac Chooses New A&S Champions
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 2004-07-13 12:12
Lady Katerina da Brescia, Lochac Arts & Sciences Minister, has announced the results of the recent Kingdom A&S Competition.
Royal University of Scir Hafoc (R.U.S.H.)
Submitted by Milica on Tue, 2004-07-13 10:56
Activities will include classes and demonstrations of medieval fighting, costuming, weaving, dying, woodworking, the bardic arts, and other diverse arts and sciences.
Benevolence Crusade
Submitted by Milica on Tue, 2004-07-13 10:32
After some delays we have finally got confirmed dates and prices for this year's Benevolence Crusade!
Niebelungenkrieg 2004 Photos Online
Submitted by Milica on Mon, 2004-07-12 11:12
Owen en Deredere has posted photos from Nibelungenkrieg VIII which took place July 2-6, 2004 in Euskirchen, Germany.
Equestrian and Medieval Skills Ithra
Submitted by Milica on Mon, 2004-07-12 10:52
The Barony of Stromgaard is hosting an Equestrian and Medieval Skills Ithra http://www.ithra.antir.sca.org/idisplay.php?topic=classes&it=5330&
Pennsic class schedule online
Submitted by Milica on Fri, 2004-07-09 09:27
Mistress Chai, Class Co-ordinator for Pennsic War XXXIII, has announced that the class schedule is now available online.
Stefan's Florilegium Files for July
Submitted by Milica on Wed, 2004-07-07 16:01
Stefan is working hard to convert all 1800 of the Florilegium files to a new data format, but still found time to add a number of new items this month.
Bows and Blades
Submitted by Milica on Fri, 2004-07-02 10:01
This will be an exciting event with varied activities, including a catapult water balloon contest, open ranges for shooting Royal Rounds, Rapier Tourney, and more. Plus lots of classes. http://www.ithra.antir.sca.orgidisplay.php?topic=classes&it=5338&
Defender's Tourney
Submitted by Milica on Thu, 2004-07-01 13:56
Shire of Sylvan Glen - Defender's Tourney - July 9-11, 2004 Poorhouse Farm Park, Martinsburg WV
Southern War Practice and A & S Symposium
Submitted by Milica on Thu, 2004-07-01 13:48
Feast of St.Bruno, The Extended Edition
Submitted by Milica on Wed, 2004-06-30 10:46
Lots of fighting and classes in the extended version of the Feast of St. Bruno event.
Polderslot Byzantine Pentathlon
Submitted by Milica on Tue, 2004-06-29 10:49
In these cold seasons, when the fruits have departed the trees, the leaves are falling and the weather is declining, the sunny days are longing in the back of our minds, and thus, the shire of Polderslot is proud to host the Polderslot Pentathlon. An event where we will entertain ourselves with byzantine games and sports, and pretend the weather is gorgeous, the sun is shining and warmth is radiating from the sky.
Gentle Side of Vikings
Submitted by JaneStockton on Mon, 2004-06-28 09:15
According to this report in Buxton Today, the common image of Vikings as marauding raiders overlooks their many contributions to the gentler arts and sciences.
West/AnTir War to Feature A&S War Point
Submitted by Milica on Fri, 2004-06-25 12:39
Sabrina de la Bere, Minister of Arts for the Kingdom of the West, has announced that there will be an A&S War Point at this year's West/An Tir War July 2-5, 2004 in Crescent City, CA.
Tip of the Tente [POSTPONED]
Submitted by Milica on Fri, 2004-06-25 10:11
You've heard of the tip of the iceberg? Well, this is the Tip of the Tente!
La Grande Tente will be holding a summer event the weekend of July 10, 2004. Please join us! There will be:
There will be NO feast this year, but there are grills available for your use and a firepit for post-revel.
We will be holding this event at Black Hawk Park, on Lone Tree Road, in Cedar Falls, IA.
Site opens 4 pm Friday and closes noon Sunday. Troll opens 4 pm Friday. The park closes at 10 pm and opens at 6 am each day. If you are arriving after 10 pm let the autocrat know!
Directions: Take your best route to Highway 218, North of Cedar Falls. Exit at the Lone Tree Road exit, and turn west (right if coming from the North, left if coming from the South) onto Lone Tree Road. Slow down for the tracks and proceed to the stop sign, somewhere around 3 miles. Go forward, and keep going forward. The road will veer to the right, but the entrance of the park is forward and slightly left. We are to the right, once you enter the park--just keep following the signs!
Fees: site is $5 (with an additional $3 for non-members), $3 for children 13 to 18, and ages 12 and under are free Make checks payable to: SCA, Inc., Shire of La Grande Tente Camping fees are to be paid to the park, and are $11.00 per tent.
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Re: But Diaspora is Haram*!
The headlines today. An SAS mission to delivered 1Direction and Justin Bieber to ISIS has succeeded.
4160 posts • joined 18 Jun 2009
The headlines today. An SAS mission to delivered 1Direction and Justin Bieber to ISIS has succeeded.
When do children become people?
I'm not exactly sure. I'd say at about age 25? Once they've learned to wash regularly, mostly got a decent haircut and turned their music down.
And got off my lawn, obviously.
Lionel Baden,
The hoover doesn't cut the mustard. There's an escalating scale, according to a friend of mine who's terrified of them. Really small ones, she can bear to approach, and gets with the insect spray. Or if she doesn't like the look of it, she's been known to throw the can at them. Bigger ones get the hoover. But the hoover then has to be placed outside, for some friendly person to come and decontaminate. Only in the case of really huge ones does she now run screaming from the room.
To repurpose an old joke:
"The artifact's in Australia. I hate snakes!"
"Nah worries Indy mate. The spiders killed all the snakes."
Insects? Pah! It's obvious the city slickers are gorging themselves on McDonalds and kebabs. Once they've worked themselves up a bit more, they'll move on to cats and small dogs. Then it'll be children, and finally people.
It's quite clear that the only way we can stop this is to evacuate Australia, before the animals learn how to consume us puny humans, and then take over the world. Or maybe it's even too late for that, and we'll just have to nuke the place. But that's got to be a last-ditch solution, as the risk of giant, radioactive mega-spiders is just too high. Plus, imagine how huge the drop bears would get...
The Samsung pen software isn't as good as the Microsoft stuff. Disclaimer, I'm out of date. My last major use of an MS tablet was with Vista and a rotating hinge HP laptop. Mostly it was a dodgy compromise, though at £600 I was very happy with it. But the handwriting recognition and palm rejection was excellent. And I'm sure it's improved or stayed the same since.
Neither recognition, nor palm rejection were as good on the Note II. And Samsung's software was a touch more confusing as well. Not to mention the fact that the Note came with 2 different pieces of Sammie software to do the same job, which they then changed to 3 with an update, but disabled access to the best one from the photo app. I am however a huge fan of the Note II, and Samsung for seemingly being the only people who recognised that a stylus is crap and annoying for navigating round the software, now we've got decent capacatitive screens. But that a stylus is second-to-none for text input on a mobile device. Shame they charge double for their Note tablets, over the normal ones though.
If I could have an iPad with a proper stylus for writing and drawing, I'd be a happy camper. My next tablet may not be Apple because of their irrational hatred of the stylus.
No, no no! You've got this wrong. Only an idiot would program their autopilot to avoid trees. If you tell the aircraft that their are trees, it will find them! This is a cast-iron law of aviation. You simply whistle quietly to yourself, muttering, "Trees? Trees? No, none of those round here." Then hope it doesn't notice.
I have to dispute your statement here. Many dinosaurs survived the Late Maastrichtian period.
Obviously the Majorsaurus died out quite quickly, along with the Portillodon. But the Redwoodopteris, BillCashasaurus, Whittingdaledactyl are still very much with us. Not to mentin the IainDuncanSmithasaurus Rex...
I'd probably best get my coat.
The European Arrest Warrant was not designed for "serious criminals and terrorists". It's part of the EU delusion of statehood. As well as being quite a sensible response to having a single immigration and working area covering a large chunk of a continent, so that police can operate across borders (as criminals do). I don't approve of the loss of sovereignty myself, and think extradition is the appropriate tool, but if the EU really does break down the barriers to the free movement of people (so it's as easy to move house and job within the EU as the US), then there's a perfectly fine argument for it.
I'm no expert on Swedish law, but I'd imagine an arrest warrant is exactly what it is. Arrest before charging is normal. In the UK system, you usually arrest someone before an interview if you think that there is a serious chance of charging them. If someone has buggered-off (in Assange's case out of the country) after being called to that interview, you might issue an arrest warrant, to ask other police to go out and get him for you.
There's no media exaggeration. Most stories I've seen have used the term sexual offences, rather than rape. Although rape is an accurate reflection of the charge according to the UK's Supreme Court. What there actually is, is a campaign of trivialisation of serious allegations by Assange, his legal team and his supporters.
He gets the benefit of the doubt, innocent until proven guily is important. But by fleeing justice, and lying about how serious the allegations are, as well as lying about leaving Sweden with permission, when his lawyer had already been told he was wanted for questioning again, I am a lot less inclined to assume his innocence than I'd otherwise be.
Just to clear this up yet again, he's accused of rape. I haven't seen the sex by surprise crap defence trotted out by his supporters in a while now...
Go and look up the Supreme Court judgement: at this link here.
The court sat on the legality of the European Arrest Warrant system. I think this was the test case for it. And accepted it. That was the only legitimate matter under discussion, since the system as set up does not allow for political or judicial interference in the process. So long as a police force / prosecutor can get the right paperwork in their own country, the other country's police and courts are simply supposed to shut up and hand their citizen over. This is the reason I personally oppose the EAW system, and prefer extradition, even though it's more expensive and time-consuming.
However, the court then went on to consider Julian Assange's other legal arguments. Despite the fact that they were totally irrelevant to the UK courts, and were therefore made for PR purposes only. As I (and the court) said, the EAW doesn't give discretion to this country, we've simply handed some of our sovereignty over to the Swedish prosecutor's office.
The court decided that there was prima facie evidence for 2 counts of rape. It might have been 3, I can't remember if ripping the condom is even still on the charge sheet, or be bothered to check. The first is that he's alleged to have held the first victim down, with his weight rather than by violence, and tried to force himselve on her. She'd said no sex without condom. That is rape in anyone's book (if true). He's then supposed to have stopped that, put his condom on like a good boy, and is alleged to have deliberately damaged it while she wasn't looking.
The other accusation was that he waited until woman number two was asleep, she'd also said no sex without condom, and then had sex with her without one anyway. The Supreme Court ruled that this was also rape under UK law, as it's sex without consent. He'd have had consent with a condom, but none without and someone who's asleep, unconscious or drunk can't give consent.
As Ken Clark got in trouble for saying, some rapes are more serious than others. Assange didn't force himself on some random stranger at knife-point. But what's accused of is a hell of a lot more serious than some 'bedroom hijinks'. And his supporters, and he, do their case a lot of damage by trying to pretend that these charges aren't very serious.
Given it's their word against his, I'd have thought he's quite likely to get found not guilty whatever the truth is.
Finally I don't think you can apply for an EAW unless the alleged crime carries a possible custodial sentence.
Speaking as a member of the unwashed masses (an ironic comment given that Assange seems to be a bit of a soap-dodger, by the accounts of journalists he's worked with), I feel I have every right to make unfavourable comment about Julian Assange. Which I would be perfectly happy to say to his face, were the occasion to arise.
You see he's come to my country and abused its freedoms. At quite considerably cost to us poor, put-upon, unwashed tax-payers. And incdientally a few of the more credulous celebrities who chose to support him and/or his cause. He's bitched and moaned about the rather excellent due process which we allowed him. Then abused the fact that he was granted bail to fuck off to a foreign embassy to hide for a couple of years, avoiding the consequences of the mess he got himself into in another country.
I don't believe in pre-judging the outcome of trials. However he's not exactly acting like someone who's innocent. Now admittedly his suddenly developed fear of US extradition could be his well-documented paranoid tendencies showing through. But it's funny how he was willing to ask for residence in Sweden before the accusation was brought against him, and when he fled Sweden it was to the UK. Both of us have extradition treaties with the US - and that only seemed to start bothering him after he was wanted for questioning on 2 rape cases.
As you say though, he's not very good at handling PR. Or people in general, I rather suspect. And he does seem to be a rather mixed-up guy. But I find a lot to disapprove of in both his personal and professional actions. And the fact that he's so obsessive about protecting his personal details, while happy to leak others' - along with his cavalier attitude to what Wikileaks published and what its money got spent on (i.e. himself) - I'd be grateful if he'd stop ponficiting on how unfair life is on poor old Julian.
he is being used as a distraction from some serious issues that certain people need accounting for
Careful, your tinfoil hat is slipping here... Used? Used by who? If he's a distraction from the causes he supports, then that's because he continues to act like an egotistical arsehole. Getting himself mixed-up in not one, but two, rape allegations doesn't exactly help. I do feel sorry for him, as I suspect it isn't much fun to be Julian Assange. But he has a choice about what actions he takes. And he does seem to leave a trail of betrayed friends and colleagues. Which doesn't speak well for his character.
Hmmm. Placebo police.
The placebo police dismisseth us.
Howsabout: Policebo? Plodcebo? Pneumati-pig / pneumati-plod? Blowbobby?
This idea has potential. Inflatable police cars in turnings near accident black-spots. Everyone slows down. We could have inflatable anti-terrorist policemen at Glasgow airport, after all they've got the hardest baggage handlers in the land (John Smeaton), so we can save the expense...
He's not the Messiah you know, just a very naughty boy
Oh dear. Does that mean he's going to take all his clothes off, and address the adoring masses through the embassy window?
In which case, can I vote for the BBC not to send any cameras...
To be fair, the definition of a press conference is a meeting to gain media attention.
Obviously in this particular case he is an attention-whore. It's interesting that Ecuador's foreign minister was just whining in the Guardian about how the UK had apparently violated his human rights by not letting him flee from justice, but forcing him to face his accusors in court like anybody else.
He even had the cheek to say to the Guardian that only his legal team and the government of Ecuador were behaving reasonably. I don't know how the UK could have been any more reasonable. He brought his troubles here of his own accord, was given bail, a transparent legal process and the right of appeal.
Admittedly I don't approve of the European Arrest Warrants, because they're open to abuse from legal systems that are worse than our own. But I wouldn't say that about the Swedish system. And Assange can't really claim that either, given that he applied for residency in Sweden not much before running away from the place - which makes his arguments about US extradition look rather rubbish.
Nope. They just chuck everything into the big blue bin provided.
I appear to be suffering from a severe case of grocers' apostrophitis at the moment. I come back to El Reg to see if anyone's replied to my posts, only to find that I've used who's and it's, instead of whose and its. It's terrible.
Seems to be a typing tic, rather than my brain forgetting all the grammar that I wasn't taught in english lessons. Fortunately my latin teacher, who failed to force much latin into my head, did manage to teach me how to solve the Telegraph crossword alond with some grammar. I can't type London, without first typing Lodno and then correcting. Similarly confustion is an almost inevitable typo, but I quite like it as a word.
Far better for daylight is to have a genuinely reflective display such as e-ink rather than a transmissive (light emitting) display such as the usual OLED / LED displays. However reflective displays are not so useful in the dark and colour accuracy depends entirely on the light source you are lighting it with.
Wearable tech is the future, right? Or so I keep reading. And if the industry analysts say so, then they must be right!
So all you do is have a reflective display, and a head torch, which outputs the correct colour temperature. It would have a light sensor on it, and a built in Bluetooth earpiece. Perhaps a pluse sensor and a thingy that detects how long your hair has grown, and automatically books your next appointment at the barbers. This way the phone can be smaller, as it doesn't need a battery for it's backlight, and it won't at all look odd wearing a giant torch on your head.
Remember you heard it here first. Who'll fund my Kickstarter campaign?
Question to the Aussies: What's this "sun" thing you keep talking about?
Utilities are not cheaper on the continent, although railways are. I still pay 50% less for my electricity now than I did when I lived in a similar sized flat in Brussels 15 years ago. French rates are similar, and in Germany domestic rates are much higher, as they've been using green levies on domestic power to cross subsidise industrial energy costs. For which effective subsidy the European Commission is currently considering enforcement action.
By the way, it's perfectly possible to have a social conscience and believe that the more right-wing economists are correct. It says nothing about one's societal values, that you happen to believe that one economic theory works better than another. So the Scandinavians can run very free markets, but with high taxes, and very strong social safety nets.
It's all very well claiming to be more-caring-than-thou. But it's not much good to people, if in the process you fuck up their economy.
We elect the politicians. But we also pay for the newspapers. That's democracy. We can't complain that politicians both bend to loudly expressed public opinion and that they don't listen to us. People need to grow the fuck up and start taking responsibility. You can't whine about taxes, and whine about lack of government spending. It's got to be both or neither.
Many politicians go into politics because they believe in something. And would like to see some of it implemented. That means they have to deals with enough other politicians to form a governing group, and get at least some of what they wanted. That's life in the grown-up world. You can't always get what you want.
Much of this politician bashing is cheap, lazy and often ill-informed. How many people before the last election said they wanted no-one to win, and a coalition. And have complained ever since about having got a coalition? Because neither party stuck to their manifesto. Well of course they didn't! They didn't win. The voters told them to compromise. They did. They did it in a reasonably amicable and sensible manner, with the minimum of stabbing. And then the voters accused them of having no principals. The voters should take a long hard look at themselves.
Obviously no sensible politician should say that. And we should stilll keep an eye on them, so they don't get out of order.
Markets aren't perfect. Very few people claim that they are. Markets don't solve all problems. What markets can allow you to do is to allocate resources in the way people want them allocated. In some ways it's democracy in action. Except you only get as many votes as you have pound notes, so it's not all that fair.
Take education as an example. Everyone knows there are good schools, OK schools and a few truly crap schools. Talk to the parents in an area, and they all know which is which, and which they really don't want. At the moment you broadly get into the good schools by living near them. So house prices are higher in the catchment area. Obviously it's more complicated than that.
But in a lot of cases, you get what you're given. There's been an attempt by government to have inspections, and try to force change on some of the worst schools. Which has had mixed success. It's a big old unweildy system, and there's a lot of competing interests pulling in slightly different directions.
Another approach might be to give all parents a voucher, and let them spend it where they will. With safeguards. It could be chaos at first, and this might make it unworkable. However, there's a chance that it might lead to a more responsive system. And fewer kids might get a chance at a decent education that otherwise wouldn't have been open to them.
One advantage of this, is that we could re-open the village schools. If parents wanted it, they'd pool their vouchers. It probably wouldn't be enough to pay for it alone, but with use of say a free church hall, some volunteer help and top-up from parents or the parish council, it could be possible to have a village primary again. Which would be a decent example of local democracy in action, something this country could do with.
To be honest I'm not sure about education vouchers, and whether they're workable. But there's a perfectly valid argument for them. Monolithic state services tend to get into a habit of saying "you'll get what you're given."
What I think would benefit from change is the NHS. Take Belgium as an example. You get a better service over there, and it costs them less money. As a country they're far to the left of us, and yet their health service is semi-private. The state and universities run the teaching hospitals, there are private ones, state ones, charity ones, union ones and company ones. Your GP will point you in the direction of where to go. Ten years ago they were doing heart bypass surgery for 1/3rd the cost of the NHS, with better survival and post-op infection rates. And virutally no waiting lists. My friend ran a company bringing UK private and government patients over for treatment. They took 1/3rd and spent it on hotels, travel, translation, hand-holding, form-filling and profit for them, the UK patients or taxpayer saved 1/3rd. Admittedly I wouldn't go for the complex mutuelle and top-up insurance system that pays for it, I'd go with taxation and vouchers. But no-one complained that GPs were never nationalised in this country, and have always been private contractors to the NHS. I think a mixed system would be much better, and could be achieved piecemeal as well.
You're massively unfair on the 1945 Attlee government. They were one of the greatest governments this country has ever had. And I say that as a Conservative with certain Thatcherite economic tendencies, even if I am a social liberal.
There were good reasons for the decision to build new steam locos after the war. They weren't in a position to transition to diesel, but they needed new rolling stock. I'm not sure if Beeching didn't cut too far. But predicting the future is hard.
Remember that they were a government who'd been through two World Wars and one Depression. They had different experiences and wanted to try and work the economy a different way. They also had to deal with horrendous war debts, damage at home, and a horrifically complicated international situation. So while creating the health service, they were actually increasing defence spending over what it had been pre-war as a percentage of GDP. Secretly building a nuclear bomb, preparing for the Cold War, dealing with the Berlin airlift. Also having to maintain rationing in Britain inorder to be able to afford to feed the Germans in the British Zone, who's economy had collapsed.
If they made some mistakes along the way, they did a fuck of a lot, in a short time. They got the NHS and social security model about right. It was later generations of politicians who failed to adapt them to changing times and society.
I broadly agree that central planning doesn't work. I'd say that politically it had to be tried in 1945, because of what had happened in the 20s and 30s. Politics often trumps economics. In the short term at least.
Pete 2,
I don't deny the need for census data, and nor does government. They just don't think they can get it. Understand that they're not dumping the paper census for all lovely computerisation. The problem isn't the paper. The problem is the people. The people who don't fill the forms out. Sadly a large proportion of these are the exact people who move around a lot, and so the ones they most want to know about.
I'd imagine what they'll do is some sort of weighted survey. Rather like the unemployment figures. They have a number gathered from people going to job centres, but the one they mostly look at is a giant survey which picks up more data. Then you have to extrapolate to the national level. The assumptions I've seen from people are that this data will be worse, but it's all we're likely to get, and being cheaper we can at least run it more often.
I certainly didn't say there was no point in even trying. For example, I support HS2, even though the economic case supposedly doesn't stack up. Because we need more north/south links, and I suspect a new motorway would be even less politically acceptable. Only government can do stuff like that.
Government is best placed to run some services. Others it could usefully outsource. Here I don't mean give it to some other monolithic incompetents like Crapita. I mean give the service users the money to spend with whoever they want. That would spread the government coffers to less avaricious local companies, and force the big boys to actually deliver the service they promise or lose all the cash. Something government seems to be terrible at doing. For an example of this I suggest the Belgian/German/Dutch healthcare systems.
Anyway ignoring that, semi-privatising parts of the NHS to make it more like the more socialist Northern European model might be better than our current system, but would be electoral suicide. There's plenty to argue about what government can and can't do, but running a full planned economy is just impossible. It's just too complex. We'd need to have a department to work out sandwich production, another for tablets, another for fizzy drinks. Plus cars, racehorses, football teams. Just look at the quality of cars that planned economies have produced.
Or take the crappy solar industry the last government bequeated us. So fat with subsidy that it was possible for the greedy fuckers in the solar PV companies to give their panels away free - in exchange for the user signing away the flow of taxpayers cash. Meanwhile the far more useful heat-pumps and solar thermal systems didn't get the subsidy, even though they actually work in this climate on domestic properties. They also subsidised them on houses, which don't often use leccy during the day (as people are out). Whereas if they'd put them on the far larger rooves of schools and offices, they'd have actually made a difference to the climate.
Government also backed wind. Which has turned out to be about half as useful as we expected. This is because governments are crap at picking winners. Actually, so is the market. Some company would have set up to deliver solar PV. And would have gone bust to the guys doing heat pumps or solar-thermal. Not that I say no government. Because none would get off the ground without government persuasion. But something like the Merton Rule or Code for Sustainable Homes would have been a better route. With smaller subsidies to retrofit on suitable buildings.
The government is crap at getting the right number of schools and hospitals in the right place. For years, successive governments have been trying to get the NHS to cut a few of the well-known inner-London hospitals, and build hospitals in outer London, where the people actually live. But no bugger will do it, and no Health Secretary wants to cop the horrendous publicity for doing it.
The last Labour government lost track of immigration from Eastern Europe between 2 censuses (censae?). Thus places like Slough and Hillingdon kept running out of money because they'd had vast increases in population which no-one was tracking. A perfectly easy problem to deal with, if only we had the information to know what to do. But we couldn't get that, because a lot of these immigrants turned out not to answer the door to the census people, or fill out the forms. There's a strong feeling that 2011 will be the last census - because the data quality is getting so much worse.
We had an un-planned net immigration spike of something like 2 million people in under 5 years. Many have since gone back - but that's an example of central planning being really hard.
How would the central planners know how many sandwiches to produce each lunchtime, for the whold nation?
It's just too damned difficult.
Harri Koppel,
Remember that we can't predict GDP even a quarter in advance, to any decent degree of accuracy. Most countries can't even get their GDP calcs right in the month after the quarter has ended. It's not uncommon for major, sophisticated economies to adjust their quarterly GDP data by as much as 0.3%age points - on figures that are usually less than 1% to start with.
It takes a few seconds from a Central Bank changing the base rate of interest for it to start affecting the market. Stock and bond markets first, then business and consumers' perceptions of how the economy is going. But the main effects of a change don't start to really change the real economy for around 3-6 months. And those changes can be slowly cascading through the economy for 2-3 years. All at a time when our figures on what the economy is doing are months out of date.
This is simply too complex to control. It's impossible to know what's going on in the economy now, let along what effect changes will make. And yet people think we can run a command economy?
Britain made a decent fist of it during World War II. It's the most effective example of a command economy I can think of. Most major combatants were doing the same, to various levels of success. But that was deliberately short-termist, aimed at an objective. And major nationalisations were inevitable in 1945, because so much of the capital infrastructure was worn out through over-use and under-investment. Then again, that seems to happen to most command economies, even when they're not fighting to win the biggest war ever.
Even if a command economy were desirable (which I don't believe it is), it's simply not possible. We don't have the data. Or the theory to know how to use it. Price is still the best way we've come up with to ration demand and signal what the market wants/needs.
I'm sure it would taste considerably nicer than the pies you get at many football grounds...
Now who's for a Wahabi Wagon Wheel to follow their Bin Laden Bovril and Jihadi Jumbo Sausage? My round, I'll just get them from the Allahu snakbar...
[it's probably best that I get my coat at this point]
Of course that was far too simple but, more importantly, doesn't provide a gravy train to ride.
How exactly does one ride a gravy train, without drowning in brown liquid?
Of course all those sub-par BT homehubs and other pieces of cheap ISP shite won't, but that's not my problem :)
Alan Brown,
Thanks for caring. Of course, when hundreds of millions of those unprotected domestic users are joined into a giant mega-botnet DDoSing and spamming their way round the network, plus turning peoples' IoT lights and heating on and off at random, you might not be quite so sanguine...
Any internet design that isn't hardened against incompetent users and cheapskate ISPs, is not fit for purpose. And whoever designed it is an imbecile.
IPv6 looks to me like a slow-motion car crash. I'm no network techie, in fact although I speak geek fluently enough to order dinner or a hotel, my only possible claim to techie-dom is water systems design.
But for years now, I keep reading stories about how we're all going to have to go IPv6 RIGHT ABOUT NOW!!!! Well, it's usually in a couple of months' time - becuase someone's just found another block of v4 addresses down the back of the sofa.
And then I read about what it can't do. Because apparently NAT smells of poo. And everything must be connected to everyone else. I wasn't aware that it would bugger up backup network connections for example.
It's a bit like reading about the Euro crisis, for which I have enough economics to understand. A high priesthood have ordained a thing. And so it shall be done. But it can't be done. Oh, but it will be done [cue sinister voice]... It's all going to go wrong. No it isn't. Look guys, this isn't the ideal world where academics and dreamers live. This is the real world, where people fuck up, penny-pinch, cheat, or steal. It's all going to go horribly wrong.
The only difference is the Euro-fanatics managed to just get over the line, and get their dream built before they ran out of political momentum. Just in time for it to slowly turn into a nightmare. Whereas IPv6 seems to be stuck forever in limbo.
It makes my brain hurt. I hope all the plug and pray stuff works properly, if it ever does come in. Because I have enough trouble with home/small office IPv4 networks - and I'm never going to remember one of those huge IPv6 addresses.
I think the idea is to achieve as much independence as possible. This is why blind kids are mostly put into main-stream schools now. The special schools are reserved for the much less able kids. In essence the idea is that anyone who's going to have any sort of independence goes the main-stream route, so they can learn to do their bouncing off of other people and coping early. They'll then get separate mobility and life-skills training. There are still options like Worcester College for the Blind, which is a residential secondary school. Both systems have their advantages and disadvantages, but it's too easy to institutionalise kids, and leave them effectively in a ghetto with few sighted friends.
For things like walks to the shops and work, there is local mobility training. People learn the number of bins, bus-stops, types of kerb, pavement surfaces, sounds, roadside railings, etc.. With a bit of practise this builds up into a map of the local area, so blind people can be independent.
I also came across a really nifty reverse sat-nav a few years ago. They built a fully talking touchscreen sat-nav. But it was too hard for many people to use. My Mum can barely use hers, and that's pretty simply, and she can see it. When you've got to find and remember your place in about 15 levels of sub-menu - with only audio cues, it's a right old bugger. So they built one that you program from your PC. It only holds about 5 destinations. And it can tell you where to go, but mostly it tells you where you actually are. Say, "you're on the corner of Oxford Street and Bond Street facing North". So you can sit on the bus and have it call out what roads you're going down, so you don't miss your stop. Or progam in an appointment beforehand. It'd be even better if they could link up to Google Maps public transport (or Nokia's HERE equivalent).
That sort of technology linking is the dream of indepence. Stuff people can control themselves. So blind kids now get laptops and scanners. Plus Braille laptops, that have 6 key input and a pin display instead of a screen. This means you can scan class work (once they're older they have to do this themselves), and then either get it read back as text, or get the Braille Note out and take it as Brailled text. This makes it a lot easier for blind people to get jobs, without needing a secretary to handle correspondence as well.
As speech recognition and OCR improves, this kind of stuff will only become more useful. Along with mobile phone apps, and more-and-more data being published. So barcode / RFID scanners to help with shopping, public transport info, better online maps etc.
Did you go to Sight Village? I'm afraid that the current situation is a hundred times better than it used to be, even 10 years ago. Because the NHS and local government have historically dominated purchasing, we weren't getting the shiny stuff they had in the US. Of course a large single market also made it easier for small companies to trade. Whereas export is harder.
I went to one about five years ago, with the idea of starting an Internet business in this area. To try and get some of the American goodies over here. As well as to try and create an online community to talk about and review shiny tech. But a lot of that stuff had already got over here. Also, there's a lot of technology that can be repurposed to do the job. You can also pick up cheap magnifiers, binoculars, monoculars and the like. Stuff that simply wasn't affordable 10-20 years ago.
To be fair to these companies, hardware production is still relatively expensive in small runs. It's a small market. And a lot of purchasing decisions are still being made by cautious bureaucrats. None of the kit that I get from the NHS is even vaguely close to the cutting edge of what's available. And they're still buying very expensive products from the same suppliers they always used. Even though there are now much cheaper options available. Probably because the people making the decisions haven't looked at what's available in the market since they trained.
A chap in my office building was referred to a local resource centre with his wife, looking for stuff to help with her macular degeneration. I don't think any of the kit there was newer than 10 years old. Except some of the little portable CCTV's. Which are still better than trying to do the same job with a mobile phone camera. And now cost peanuts. However, all she needed to help with her reading was A4 Kindle, and help with setup. Sadly, the local library service, use Adobe Digital editions. Which is an utter pile of useless shit. It can't even enlarge text it's so primitive. It's also unable to authorise a better piece of software access content on the same device. So you'd have to authorise another laptop, in order to be able to use better software to read the content you downloaded to the first laptop. Or you just use available tools to crack the encryption. But that ended up being too much hassle, and so she stuck with the limited range of available large print books, and put up with the arthritis pain that manhandling these huge tomes causes. I guess it's still better than large print, where the Lord of the Rings runs to 13 volumes of 18 inch square and an inch thick.
Asking for help is also an issue of independence for some people. Whereas, an app which you control and pay for, is a whole different kettle of fish.
A chap I used to know, had a roving blind spot. Unpredictably so. He said one of the worst things was being helped across the road by little old ladies...
When I've asked for help, there are plenty of times when I've got a bemused reaction, and been told that the information is on that sign over there. Even at so-called information points. Not that I'm saying people aren't mostly nice, because they are. I suppose one answer to this, would be to make things more obvious with a big fuck off pair of dark glasses. Or perhaps a flashing sign?
I did confuse the bag search at Lord's, last time I was there. Then again two pairs of binoculars, monocular, reading glasses, distance glasses, and two types of sunglasses might be considered a little excessive by some.
A lot of places seem to have just about worked out what wheelchairs are for, but do far less well with visual impairment, which is ironically easier. For example, 90% of museums put the item descriptions inside the display case. Usually in about 14 point type. So not only is it far away, but it's behind a distorting and reflective layer of glass. The cost of putting 2 signs (at either end), on the outside of the case, in say 20 point type is basically bugger all. Admittedly decent audio guides are a lot harder. But then, with proper signage, wouldn't be needed by as many people.
My local council, have just replaced the orange LED signage on the bus stops, with far prettier LCD screens that show adverts. Shame no one thought that LCDs aren't readable in sunlight. Or that halving the text size might be a bit annoying…
To all those who complained about JJ Abrams, look at all that lens-flare? Of course he also likes to have it inside his ships...
Once Lohan gets off the ground, these images will be put in their place, and SST will be shown up for the puny organisation they are, in comparison to the mighty Vultures.
I'm astounded how good online and cloud services have become in the last 2 or 3 years. I don't think I can remember in that time a single service falling over. I've seen all the statements. And the worst that has happened is that a few customers were affected for a short time, before the dedicated engineers solved the problem, and everything in the garden was rosy again.
I put it down to marketing becoming responsible for service status updates, rather than tech. As you will all no doubt agree, marketing (with all their MBAs) are far better qualified to run complex systems than mere IT-scum. Hence this recent vast improvement in fault tolerance.
Lost all faith,
I'm pretty sure it's true. Part of the deal was that MS licenced Nokia's patents for 10 years or so, and the name for 2 years I think. They only get to keep the Lumia brand permanently, and so will have to change over to that.
This gives Nokia the ability to go back to producing phones in future, should they choose to. Although I can't see why they'd bother, having only just managed to dump their phone division.
I strongly disagree. The Internet of Things is the future. As all right thinking people know. We can leverage the synergies into a new paradign of strategisation.
Also once this is done, I'm going to be the thought-leader of the next big thing. The IoW - Internet of Weapons. There are so many advantages to this. Why have journalists on the ground, when all bombs can send their camera footage direct to the BBC. Why pay expensive intelligence analysts, when the wisdom of crowds can be leveraged to gain accurate targeting information. I have seen the future, and it's online voting to set the targets for Britain's nuclear deterent*
*Obviously it'll be Paris. Or depending on how September's vote goes, Edinburgh...
For a moment there I thought you were having a go at French toast, which you may know as eggy bread. I've tried eggy bread with maple syrup at home and it's not to be sniffed at.
Richard 81,
My arteries now hate you. I've not had eggy-bread in ages. It's OK with ketchup, but I'd not tried it with maple syrup. Which I have in, as I was given some US breakfast pancake mixture by a relative.
To all other sceptics in my country I should point out that American/Scottish pancakes are an execllent substitute for the usual fried slice or toast option. Actually US biscuits are quite nice too. Although I'm not so sure about country gravy. The pancakes, bacon, sausage and maple syrup go very well together, with a bit of fried egg and some beans on the side. I'm not so sure about adding blueberries to the whole thing though.
Talking of US breakfasts I'm not a fan of the hash browns you can get in England. They're not the same as what you get in the US anyway. But I sometimes have some potato croquettes with my brekkie. Sauteed tatoes are good too.
To push the American thing even further, my brother introduced me to the breakfast burrito. TexMex at it's finest (or worst). Take a nice tortilla, spread some salsa on it, add a rasher or two of bacon, scrambled egg, a little grated cheese, roll up and consume. Yummy. Also works with sausage. The salsa should have a decent chilli kick, without being overpowering.
I must confess to eating a Linda McCartney veggie sausage with my fry-up recently. I had vegetarians over, and couldn't be bothered to cook two kinds. I had proper bacon of course, I'm not a pervert. Those things are truly horrible. I think veggies must eat them in order to avoid temptation - as a sort of re-inforcement to make them think that meat is horrible tasting. Bleurgh!
Your arteries say Thank You!
No. I think his arteries say:
"NnnnnnnnnNNNnnngggggggrrrrrrrrrAaaaaaarrrrrrggggghhhhhhhhhHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! Make it stop! Yum. Yum. Nomnomnom. Aaaaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhhhhh!!! Yummy. Oh dear. Make it st... Oh bugger it! Moooooooorrrreeeeee! Mmmmmmmm. Yum!
Yes and I'm hopping mad about it!
I doubt you can turn text messages off. You can however turn their notifications off, and remove the link to the text app from the home page of your chosen mobile OS. Hide it in a folder somewhere. Then hey presto: No texts.
Personally I don't like texts. But my Mum does, as do several friends (with a mix of smartphones and dumbphones) At work sometimes, people are in bad coverage areas and need information like addresses, which can be sent by SMS. On a smartphone it's as easy to input as email anyway.
As with any technology it's horses for courses. You use what gets the job done most efficiently, and get on with your day. Adults don't get dogmatic about their favourite platform...
Are you sure you've got that right? Isn't it that every time a cat video is uploaded to the internet, an analyst has to release a report full of bollocks?
Stop uploading those cat videos now!
You say that, but it's not so easy. Sure you don't need much propellant to escape lunar gravity, but then you have to deal with the Clangers with their tractor-beams and death-rays. What did you think really happened to Apollo 13?
Nice post. You are correct that I go for a french press/cafetiere nowadays. I dumped my drip machine a while back, as it took up too much space and the hot plate seems to bugger up the second cup. So my nice stainless steel insulated jobbie comes and sits on the coffee table by my chair. It's so much easier.
I probably need to do some investigation. To replicate tastes from my days living in Belgium, and trips to Spain/France. To repeat a good cafe au lait / cafe con leche is one job.
At least I havve managed to copy the perfect mojito from the cuban bar I used to drink at in Brussels (they closed for a month in January to go home to Cuba, and August for a European holiday).
I had a cheap-ish espresso machine with milk frother years ago, but it was too difficult to get consistent results. And I decided that I'd prefer the money in my pocket and do without. Plus the limescale in the South kills them.
It is amazing how much you can get all trainspotter-y about food. And how far you can go, if you let yourself. My brother has started curing his own ham and bacon (and salmon). Next he wants to get into smoking. Then he'll be making sausages. That doesn't appeal to me. But I've already started making bread, and I want to do all my own cakes and biccies too. It's a question of experimenting and finding what's worth doing and what's too much trouble. I decided espresso was too much trouble. Perhaps I should try an air press though.
I can't stop myself here. I must really love downvotes (given the site I'm posting on)...
I don't get this espresso thing. Perhaps I've just not drunk the right stuff, but I've drunk quite a bit of it and there only seem to be 3 flavours of espresso. Pathetically weak and watery, rancid or strong and quite nice.
Since the beans have been roasted to buggery, I've yet to detect significant difference in the taste of different espressos. Although I've read that there's been a recent fashion for using medium roasted beans, in order to get a fruitier coffee flavour into it. Which many espresso fans don't apparently like.
So you need a decent machine. Or possibly (so I've heard) one of those aeropress thingies? But you don't need to grind freshly, so long as you're not just shoving the ground stuff in the cupboard for several weeks.
What's then truly disappointing is when you ask for coffee and get watered-down espresso. Which is Americano as I understand it. Mostly what I want to drink is coffee. Get some light/medium roasted beans, grind and place in hot water. Drink black. Savour flavour. If I can't have that, I'll take a cappucino or cafe au lait. Or black tea.
Is a flat white more like a cafe au lait? I think we suffer from the collision of American and European terminology. So a latte doesn't seem to be the same as a cafe au lait, it's more like a coffee-ish milkshake.
I'm happy to be educated about espresso, and pointed in the right direction to learn the 'error of my ways'.
It's 2014! Doesn't everyone drink vodka now?
Drink! Drink?
It's 2014! One doesn't drink for heaven's sake. This is the future! One takes ones vodka in pill form. To do anything else would be terribly passe.
My friend's Dad was a navigator on Lancasters in WWII. He was known as 'old man', as he was the oldest surviving guy in the squadron for a long time, including the CO. He was 24.
On a more cheerful note, the trans-Atlantic crossing reminds me of a documentary I caught some of - and didn't manage to track down. Don Bennett was given the job of getting US and Canadian built planes across to Blighty in the war. That flight was a dangerous and difficult passage in those days, with inexperienced crews not helping. Apparently (according to said documentary) he trained his navigators and crews so well, that he didn't lose a single plane when in charge. Although losses were rather higher once he'd left.
He then was put in charge of setting up the RAF's pathfinder force. Which he was also very good at. Again from documentary he was at an Air Ministry meeting asking for more Mosquitoes for the pathfinders, to be told they were impossible to use at night, due to the flames from the engine exhaust. To which his response was, "that's funny, I've been flying one all this week."
I think there's only one flying Mosquito, and that was rebuilt and lives in the US. So I'd guess something else is more likely.
So they're bang-up candidates for Management then!
The only downside being the wining and tantrums. But I'm sure the 6 year-olds will be willing to put up with that...
I'm sure more people can work from home. Many more in fact. However many can't. That's not including the unwillingness of management to lose physical access to their staff. Also, having done so myself, I'd say that quite a lot of peole aren't suited to it. It can be quite a lonely life and there are two temptations to avoid. One is that seeing as the work's there you can end up burning out by doing too much. And/or the opposite, where the cricket's on and the sun's out. So get a beer, and relax... It's also (in my opinion) morally wrong to take business calls while naked. At the moment I work from the office, but we have 3 people working from home. However we've recruited two people who hated it, and left.
Personally I don't think that HS2 is all that relevant to commuting anyway. Most users won't be commuters, they'll be travelling for meetings and visits.
You need to have posted 5 times, in order to be able to start your own thread: linky
It's in the house rules, just above the posting form. You've only posted 4 times, so you just have to reply to me saying thanks, yaboosucks, or go-stick-your-head-in-a-pig, and you'll be good to go.


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2011 April Rosemont CSNS Signature & Platinum Night US Coin Auction #1154
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Donald E. Stephens Convention Center
5555 N. River Road
Rosemont, IL 60018
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1899-S Liberty Ten, MS661899-S $10 MS66 PCGS. The incredible Eliasberg specimen is the finest surviving 1899-S Liberty eagle, graded MS67 PCGS prior to its August 1991 auction appearance, and more recently graded MS69 NGC. The PCGS Population Report no longer records the MS67 coin but does list one piece certified MS68, probably a resubmission of the Eliasberg coin before it was sent to NGC.
Second Finest Known
Second Finest Known
Next in line is the present Premium Gem, also an amazing survivor from the mintage of 841,000 coins. As usual, nearly all gold coins struck in San Francisco entered circulation or were exported, creating a long line of condition rarities.
This specimen has satiny yellow-gold luster with bold design elements, and brilliant, pristine surfaces. A few tiny marks are inconsequential, and small copper toning splashes will assist the pedigree researcher. Population: 1 in 66, 1 finer (3/11).(Registry values: N1) (NGC ID# 267L, PCGS# 8744)
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