text:
Science Blogs
SmoothHound – a new angle for wireless guitarists
I've been casting around for a good way to avoid the trip hazard that is the generic guitar lead, they're tiresome in my home "studio" where wires are everywhere, but, also a mission critical problem in the small venues I've gigged at, especially when fellow musicians tread on them mid-song and suddenly I'm unplugged and silent…
Turns out there's a local company here in Cambridge, SmoothHound, who have weighed in with a clean and lean piece of kit that could be the best catch for the home musician, street buskers, the semi-pro (and probably even) pro gigging players. Their classic Wireless Guitar System uses digital wireless audio to get rid of the wire but avoids that whole bulky belt pack transmitter technology too. In fact, having tried it out in a live setting a couple of times, I can vouch for the fact that you almost forget it's there, it just jacks into your guitar (electric, electro-acoustic, bass, whatever) almost out of sight and out of mind. The receiver simply plugs into the desk or your amp and sends out rich, high-fidelity sound, that picks up every nuance of your tone without any of the nasty hiss of the outmoded VHF-type systems out there.
It's all very easy to setup. Just plug it in and switch on. The system automatically adapts to the environment and avoids interference from any nearby Wi-Fi gadgets. Moreover, the SmoothHound has an ARM chip in the transmitter and in the receiver to encode and decode the signal from your guitar without any loss of quality and does all that pretty much instantaneously giving it a very low latency, which worked perfectly playing live with my electro-acoustic Taylor six-string recently). Speaking of which, the system has a range of about 60 metres, which is more than adequate for your home studio or the upstairs room at the local pub.
The two AAA batteries in the transmitter last about 15 hours, which would be plenty even for Springsteen, and the mains-powered receiver has a charge indicator for transmitter battery strength so your guitar tech (yeah, right) knows when to run to you with replacements, preferably not mid-song. Oh, and here's a top tip: being wireless at your soundcheck means you can step away from the performance area and listen to the full band (and you), which is a very useful thing to be able to do when setting up!
I've been fishing for an angle for this review and so I'm reeling in a few puns I've hooked just to say that the SmoothHound frees you entirely from the guitar lead that so often gets snagged and tangled while you play whether you're gigging or riffing on a chair at home with your Marshall cranked up to 11. Highly recommended. Weigh up SmoothHound here or sail on over to amazon to land one right now.
Original source: SmoothHound – a new angle for wireless guitarists by David Bradley.
Worrying about microbeads?
Are you worried about the microbeads used in your facial scrub and toothpaste? Risk Bites takes a look at where these tiny polythene beads end up and explains why experts are becoming increasingly concerned about their potential environmental and health impacts, along with micro plastic particles.
Original source: Worrying about microbeads? by David Bradley.
Aurous for free music
Listen up!
Aurous…nice name…ish…as you may have heard will look a bit like Spotify, behave a little like Apple Music and will be far more unsinkable than The Pirate Bay. If you liked the original music P2P systems, Napster, Kazaa, Audiogalaxy, Limewire, IRC sharing channels, Usenet binaries, and then Bit Torrents, cos you didn't want to actually pay for music, then Aurous will be your go to outlet. This site could be the final death knell of a nineteenth century copyright industry that began with sheet music and rolled on through wax cylinders, 78s, 45s, CDs, mp3s and streaming…made billions for a tiny few and left millions of artists and music fans floundering in its wake for decades.
The RIAA, copyright trolls, industry mobsters and all the others will soon be as dust. But, then what of the songwriters and musicians? Well, many of them have already turned to a new 21st model of making a living from their music that might work for some but for most will not, sadly. The industry as we knew it with its sharp, cutting contracts, its years and years of record shop hype, its supposed vinyl revival, it's "pay-what-you-want" offers, even its cassette reissues(!) will be pretty much gone within a year or two. It may rise Phoenix like into some other manifestation, but its wings will be scorched and it will never fly again.
Original source: Aurous for free music by David Bradley.
Facebook traffic light system
There are numerous traffic light systems around the world, obviously there are actual traffic lights to control vehicular movements, but there are also traffic light information systems for the salt, fat and sugar levels in processed foods you might buy from the supermarket. There are traffic lights for health checks (for those who ignore the food traffic lights). There are traffic lights for educators, for journalists, for nurses. There is even a traffic light system for open access publishing.
Now, Sciencebase introduces version 0.1 alpha of the Facebook Traffic Lights system for determining whether to share, unfollow or unfriend someone based on their latest status update.* Did a friend share a "joke" or meme that is more than a week old? One that everybody has already shared a million times or that is just so lame that it is zero (the opposite of LOL in otherwords). Did they share a lame quiz or propagate scam/spam/fakery? Have they mentioned Trump in a non-ironic way? Don't get caught at the lights, printout our handy schematic at a suitablke size and nail it** to your laptop/tablet/phone.
*Readying the hoisting apparatus for my own petard
**Not really
Original source: Facebook traffic light system by David Bradley.
Smell of walnuts
Walnuts are an odd fruit…nut… I plucked one from a tree on a recent dogwalk and when I cut off the fleshy out coating this evening to get to the kernel the overwhelming odour it exuded took me right back to the first flat I shared with Mrs Sciencebase where we had a walnut tree. Of course, unprocessed you have to remove that outer flesh and then crack the soft(ish) shell and then remove the bitter pith to eat the deliciously sweet kernel. The pith is very bitter and to be honest, I don't enjoy ripe walnuts of the kind you used to get on a Walnut Whip and that are ubiquitous in a Christmas bag of mixed nuts.
Anyway, I was curious as to what the odour of slightly unripe walnuts is musing with a chemist's brain that there might be a single compound responsible. There isn't, there's a whole collection of compounds that give walnuts their distinctive scent: pinocarvone, aa-aldehyde canfolenic, chrysanthenone, trans-pinocarveol, trans-ßß-farnesene, trans-ßß-verbenol, aa a-terpinene and aa a-terpinolene (the a and aa in prefixes should be alphas, and if the betas aren't translating, they're betas).
Intriguingly, a quick Google on walnuts revealed some work on using these various compounds and pest insect lure compounds as alternatives to conventional pesticides, more on that here. It's too late in the evening for me to ChemDraw those compounds (i.e. it is well past beer o'clock and I have a curry bubbling in the pan) but I may update this post if there is demand from botanical/natural product chemist friends who don't believe I could produce the chemical structures of all those alphas and betas…
Original source: Smell of walnuts by David Bradley.
Read without your reading glasses
Here's a neat trick for long-sighted readers that exploits the underlying concept of a pinhole camera to let you read in close-up even if you forgot your reading glasses. The video also explains what it is about a pinhole versus a fixed lens that allows it to project a sharp image of something at any distance and why depth-of-field is bigger with a smaller aperture (bigger f-stop) in your standard camera
Here's the link for those of you whose smart phones cannot render the embedded Youtube clip ;-)
Original source: Read without your reading glasses by David Bradley.
Superduperbloodyruddyharvester moon eclipse
I generated a back of the envelope graphical representation of last night's blood-red supermoon total lunacy eclipse that's 99% clearer than 99% of the iPad photos posted after the event:
Original source: Superduperbloodyruddyharvester moon eclipse by David Bradley.
Emission control
Car manufacturers have been fiddling the books when it comes to pollutants for years, the latest scandal involving VW's alleged "defeat device" is just the latest in a long line, the US EPA gave other manufacturers a hard slap on the wrist back in 1998, for instance.
Thing is…this "defeat device" isn't really a device at all, it's just engine management that detects when emissions are being tested (basically watches to see when the steering wheel isn't moving and a couple of other things) and switches the car to low-pollution mode. So, why don't all cars simply run on the roads in low-pollution mode if that's something that they can do through engine management software?
Well, basically low-pollution, means low-performance, and we, as drivers, are on the whole not interested in driving cars that are unresponsive and do not accelerate quickly to the speeds at which we like to drive. Fundamentally, the emissions regulations are set too low for the kind of society we have where drivers like nippy cars. Nippy cars sell. One slight aside, manufacturing a car uses about the same amount of energy as driving it for 100,000 miles, if we take into account the cradle-to-grave lifecycling of mining and refining the metals, making the rubber tyres, all the bits of metal and plastic and the countless assembly and delivery processes (that includes non-petrol and hybrid cars too).
Anyway, bottom line: All cars pollute. Some less than others. Cleaner cars are boring to drive.
If we want to clean up the atmosphere we have to admit that and switch to low-performance, low-pollutant cars…or better still get back on our feet and on our bicycles.
Original source: Emission control by David Bradley.
Adding up Hinkley Point nuclear power station
The British government is going to sub the Chinese and EDF to build a new reactor for Hinkley Point nuclear power station. Estimates suggest Hinkley will cost £25 billion to build. But, as is the way with such things there will be delays and hidden costs. Look at London 2012 Olympics, the original estimate when we were applying to host it said something like £3billion if I remember rightly, total cost ended up being three times that, although they claimed a half a billioon saving overall!
So, let's be generous, Hinkley will power 6 million homes eventually and probably the total bill (not counting ongoing costs) might be £50 billion. Now, solar power isn't perfect, basically cloudy days and energy storage are an issue, but we could save a few Watts of nuclear if we panelled up those 6 million homes instead of lumbering ourselves with outdated nuclear technology. Solar cost is currently about 6000-9000 per home, so giving away the panels would cost about £42 billion, which might leave £8 billion or so to install biogas-powered fuel cells, or a couple of wind farms to help make up the difference, and all without having to dispose of nuclear waste from old-school nuclear tech…
Original source: Adding up Hinkley Point nuclear power station by David Bradley.
The apple story…
…no, not that one…not that one either…just the fruit.
Now, our dog is a fruitarian. Well, actually that's not strictly true, she's a carnivore, a coprophyte, a toastaholic, a pescatarian, a big fan of blackberries, which she nibbles from the brambles, she's a sloe learner too, similarly nibbling off the tiny, plum-like produce of the blackthorn bushes. In fact, I should just confess, she's a labrador. She will eat anything, and anything foul-smelling she doesn't eat, she will roll in. Labrador guardians will know exactly what I'm talking about. As a puppy she dug up and attempted to devour all the heathers we'd planted in the garden, she tried to tear the painted, wooden skirting boards from the kitchen walls and had a good go at the plastic handle of of my half-decent (but freebie) carving knife.
And, she likes apples. Whether we're walking through a woodland with windfall crab apples or the little red numbers that fall from our tree in the garden, she will munch them down, seeds and all. If any of the family, their friends, just anyone in her vicinity is eating and apple (or toast), she will sit expectantly until those in the know throw her their core. Only stuff she doesn't eat are grapes, garlic, onions and chocolate (but that's not her choice, that's us avoiding her being poisoned)
Okay, so that's the backstory. This year, our apple tree is overburdened with fruit, the lower branches are bent under the weight, almost touching the lawn. They are, needless to say, very much at nose height for a canine malophile, who was caught, not one hour ago, selecting a shiny red specimen and tugging it from its arboreal offshoot. Caught red-pawed, my wife verbally chastised the dog and then proceeded to harvest the remnants of the low-hanging fruit.
For the next hour or so, I could hear the food processor with its "juicer" grinding away those apples to relieve them of their acidic liquor and into the pan it went. Not surprisingly it having taken on the brown hue of apple exposed to the air and having undergone enzymatic browning. Now, the curious thing is, my wife added some sugar and ascorbic acid (vitamin C) to this simmmering brew. The addition of the vitamin C visually reversed the browning and the pan is now gently bubbling with fifty shades of green…not even a hint of beige to be seen.
So, what's going on? As a lowly chemist, I'd always assumed that the oxidative and enzymatic degradation of apples to that brown colour was an irreversible biochemical process. Indeed, an apple expert tells me this indeed the case, the PPO is kept separate from phenolics in a health uncut and unbruised apple; discussed in detail on the Okanagan Specialty Fruits. Obviously, you can use lemon or lime juice to stave it off (ascorbic, anti-scurvy, acid, you see?) but once it has gone over to the brown side, I'd assumed (again, as a lowly chemist) that that was it.
A quick Google, with their simplified, serif-free new logo, brought up a paper from a journal I'd not heard of, but with the obvious title of HortScience. This is promising. In a paper entitled, "Enzymatic Browning, Polyphenol Oxidase Activity, and Polyphenols in Four Apple Cultivars: Dynamics during Fruit Development" (even more promising), a team at the University of Santa Catarina in Brazil have this to say:Enzymatic browning is one of the most important reactions that occur in fruits and vegetables, usually resulting in negative effects on color, taste, flavor, and nutritional value. The reaction is a consequence of phenolic compounds' oxidation by polyphenol oxidase (PPO), which triggers the generation of dark pigments. This is particularly relevant for apples, which are rich in polyphenols and highly susceptible to enzymatic browning.
As plant secondary metabolites, phenolic compounds produce colours, astringency, flavour, and have nutritional qualities in fruits and vegetables. Now, I should have known, and maybe I did in my past life as a lowly chemist, these compounds are perhaps acting as indicators of oxidation state and thus, as with many other indicator compounds will exist in equilibrium and thus oscillate between colours (or colourless states) depending on the concentrations of other chemicals (acids, alkalis) resident in the mix. Further Googling revealed that various people who put sliced apple in their kids' school lunchboxes discovered that a sprinkling of vitamin C protected the slices from browning, but at least one "mom" discovered that it reversed the browning, even after a day abandoned in a lunchbox…making it fine for eating as an enforced, after-school snack for "Junior"…
There are countless web pages with tips for malophiles with the knowledge to keep their beloved fruit of life from turning brown. But, of course, you might soon be able to buy genetically modified apples approved early in 2015 by the US Department of Agriculture that have the gene for that PPO enzyme disabled, which means you should never need to just add vitamin C to keep them whiter than white, or is that greener than green?
The original condensed version of this article appeared as one of my twice-monthly Comments in the journal Materials Today.
Original source: The apple story… by David Bradley.
Hickory dickory dock is that bomb in your bag just a clock?
Pictured below is a homemade clock an American boy took to school to impress his engineering teacher. Presumably, his engineering teacher said: "What the f*ck have you brought that to school for? Sheesh, it looks like a f*ckin' bomb! Put it in your bag and don't let anyone see it!" The one thing he presumably didn't say, is disconnect the 9V battery so that the alarm you set doesn't go off later in the day and scare your English teacher…you probably all know how things panned out…
A 14-year old boy in Texas was arrested in school (and later released without charge) having turned up to class with a home-made digital clock in a box. A photo was shown at the PD's press conference of the clock, it has a digital display, batteries, a transformer, wires, and such, neat, huh? In a video, the boy discusses the incident, which has led to outrage in the US and beyond. The boy is adamant that he is always inventing stuff and has wires and circuit boards and all sorts of items lying around his bedroom, which is fine, he probably does. He even wears a NASA teeshirt to school.
Now, there is an "#IStandWithAhmed" hashtag – oh, did I mention his name was Ahmed" – and, an outcry about school and police over-reaction especially given his ethnicity and religion.
As a junior school-aged kid I was caught brewing up some chemical nonsense in a plastic vial and my parents being called in to the school, I assume now that they thought I was either trying to make explosives with washing up liquid and iron filings or else they thought I was sniffing glue. Moving on from my first chemistry experiment, I can well imagine building an entirely innocent electronic contraption of some sort in my early teens and then wanting to show it off, perhaps gaining a few extra Brownie points with the science teacher for my wonderful invention. I can also imagine someone being rather mischievous and taking the showing off a little too far…perhaps kidding themselves that their invention was a little more sinister than it actually was and taking it to school not to get a gold star from the teacher, but to garner some rather lacking street cred with their schoolmates, who might no longer see them as that nerdy swot with the lame teeshirt. Of course, a non-science teacher seeing that "invention" might panic, especially if a beeping alarm goes off in something hidden in a bag under a desk. The police might even be called…
Imaginings aside, the reaction to Ahmed's clock was extreme, even in a school with zero tolerance policies couldn't they have just taken him aside and explained how his gadget might be perceived by technophobes subjected to endless media scaremongering? Indeed, the first teacher to see it apparently had warned him to not show it around because it might cause problems and it was the alarm going off that annoyed the English teacher and disrupted the class. A firm warning and then a show-and-tell might have been the best way forward. I have to say, it's obvious, the school never thought it was an actual bomb, not after the second teacher's initial shock, perhaps. But, it doesn't look like a "cool" clock as President Obama tweeted*. If you got an unexpected parcel in the post and opened it to find that inside, you'd extrude a brick from the lower end of your alimentary canal pretty rapidly (unless you were au fait with electronic components), go on, admit it, you would.
According to CBS News even the Islamic Association of North Texas kind of agrees and doesn't blame the school or the police for what happened. It's spokesman, Khalid Hamideh, had this to say, CBS reports:"We're not pointing a finger at the school district or the police department," Hamideh said. "Under the current climate that exists in this country, you can't really blame them because when they see something like that, they have to react."
There is a bit of confusion in the various stories out there as to what actually happened. At a broadcast press conference, the boy says he wanted to impress his teacher but when he showed it to her, she thought it was a threat to her. That's not how the earliest, outraged reporting had it, that had said he'd showed it to a male engineering teacher who told him not to show any other teachers because of how it looked (so that teacher new it looked dodgy). It was supposedly only later when the clock's alarm went off that the female English teacher was disturbed by what he had brought to school and events unfolded.
As a footnote, I searched online for novelty timebomb alarm clocks, there is, seriously, at least one here. If you were a teacher and a student turned up to school with this toy in their rucksack what would you do? Remember, NASA teeshirts whether S, M, or XXXL are not bulletproof.
*As I was writing the first draft of this, I saw that Obama had tweeted the following: "Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great."
Talking of which, Wired magazine has an interesting article on how to make your own clock that isn't a bomb and the makers of the Raspberry Pi minimalist computer are seeing the incident as a way to encourage youngsters to fall in love with technology and inventing, and rightly so.
It seems poignant to recall my post about juvenile experimenters and inventors that I wrote at the beginning of the year.
Original source: Hickory dickory dock is that bomb in your bag just a clock? by David Bradley.
Barefoot running – watch your step
Usually, as small children we spend a lot of time running around barefoot, as we grow shoes and trainers become de rigeur for most of us, especially if we're involved in sport. And, Zola Budd and other top athletes aside, there were few who went running barefoot, at least until about ten years ago when barefoot, or "minimalist", running started to become trendy. It is purportedly better for you in terms of the body's biomechanics, the stresses and strains and the possibility of injury. Of course, unless you're somewhere pristine, like a gym treadmill, there are the risks of thorns, stones, broken glass, dog mess and more if you're a minimalist runner out in the field, as it were.
But, are those claims for BF running valid? A friend of mine who had a motorbike injury many years ago that left him unable to run reckons he's rediscovered his ability to run by going minimalist. And, good luck to him! But, I did a very quick scan of the scientific literature on BF running, there are quite a few papers around and notably one published in the August issue of Human Movement Science (2015 Aug; 42:27-37. DOI: 10.1016/j.humov.2015.04.008) that suggests that just 30 seconds on a treadmill barefoot, even if you usually wear trainers to run, is enough for the body to adapt to the new format. However, there are significant changes in the kinematics and electrical activity of muscles in the lower leg, not all of which are positive, according to the paper. First, BF running seems to be performed with higher cadence and shorter strides, there is an increase in ankle ROM (range of motion) but this decreases in the knee and hip. Activity in the gastrocnemius goes up, but falls in the tibialis anterior. This preliminary study was small, just ten volunteer runners.
The team point out that although the runners adapt to barefoor running on a treadmill quickly, "these rapid adjustments in muscle recruitment and kinematics did not appear to reduce stress on the lower limb, since tibial shock was significantly higher during the BF running" at all three running speeds tested. They conclude that, "It therefore remains to be seen if a transition to running barefoot is truly desirable for improved performance or reduced risk of injury," and add that, "Further research examining long-term injury rates is therefore required before a transition to barefoot running can be recommended."
Original source: Barefoot running – watch your step by David Bradley.
Music: emotion by proxy
I've always loved music, in the words of the song, "music was my first love". From the time when I'd listen to my mother trilling the songs of Dusty Springfield on washday, to my Dad's Big O and Frank Ifield impressions. From the time I had my first toy glockenspiel and a miniature guitar, through the time my little sister decided she didn't want to learn to play guitar and I was riff happy to take the axe off her hands (still got it along with a few additions in the intervening four decades or so) to the present day and my deluded attempts to reinvent my middle-aged self as a hybrid of David Bowie and Peter Gabriel but without the masks, makeup and gold lame hotpants…
We talk about music evoking emotions, about moving pieces of music, and I remember as a small child being brought to tears by the theme tune to the French children's drama about a small boy, Sebastian, and his a Pyrenean mountain dog Belle set in Belvédère in Alpes-Maritimes, that seemed to be repeated endlessly during the long school summer holidays.
In a classic TED Talk, conductor Benjamin Zander talks of one-buttock piano playing and has his captivated audience in tears explain the emotive power of Chopin's use of chordal suspense and musical resolution in one of his preludes. Music captivates, fascinates, makes us cry, makes us laugh, rouses and arouses us, angers us, amuses us. And, that's even before anyone has added any words to an instrumental piece and called it a song.
But, something about music bothers me. It's an emotional placebo, isn't it? Am I right? The emotions we feel when we listen to music, they're real, but they are triggered by something that is somehow not real. A song that makes you cry is triggering something emotionally, but it's not a genuine unhappy occasion that brings one to tears, it's a succession of notes and chords, a tune, a melody… not a real sad "event", it's just noises. It's not an incident, nor an accident the likes of which would make you truly sad. Accidents will happen as Elvis Costello taught us so evocatively, but what is it
that we are feeling when we listen to music that brings us to tears or makes us want to rhythmically jump for joy? I remember an interview with Phil Collins in which he mused that when you're feeling sad you put on a sad song for the purposes of emotional reinforcement, I assume, he meant, again it's as if we also want to bolster our emotions with the placebo-like trigger.
It may well be that a particular piece of music reminds us of something sad, something happy, or whatever emotion is being triggered, but what did the three-year old me watching Belle and Sebastian and listening to the theme music have to be sad about? What was that tune reminding me of? Why did it make me cry? It wasn't the words, they were in French and I didn't learn my "schoolboy French" with Mrs Nancarrow until I was…a schoolboy…several years later. Moreover, there are definitely cultural differences too and the dirges of western funeral music is in sharp contrast to the happy-sounding jangly bells and percussion of some Pacific cultures.
A new clue to help explain why music is emotional emerged this month from medical science because of renewed interest in the therapeutical potential of psychedelic drugs such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). It is well known that LSD was widely used by artists and musicians in the 1950s and 1960s and one might imagine that it isn't just Lucy in the sky that owes her existence to the substance (allegedly), but many other songs and concept albums and their covers! Now, a modern placebo-controlled study of whether or not LSD enhances the emotional response to instrumental music has shown in a small group of volunteer daytrippers that the drug apparently boosts emotions such as "wonder", "transcendence", "power" and "tenderness". Given that other drugs can cause or "simulate" excitement (caffeine, cocaine, amphetamines), empathy (ecstasy), relaxation (cannabis), sensual pleasure (heroin, chocolate), depression and loss of inhibitions (alcohol) it's perhaps not a shock that another drug can affect other emotions.
Mark Changizi in his book "Harnessed", as I've discussed in the blog before (November 2011), suggests (I do believe) that music moves us because it hooks into a primitive part of our brain that hears sounds in terms of our fellow apes moving around and or predators and prey coming and going. The Doppler effect lets us know whether those heavy steps are running towards us or away. So, sounds might trigger primitive emotions by hooking into the fight or flight response and setting us up to lash out or run away, perhaps. While other sounds might be evocative of prey to be stalked or a mate to be wooed? Maybe too, there are noises of sadness that one might hear if someone is sick or dying.
"I suppose I might suggest they're real emotions, albeit evoked by a fictional human mover," Changizi told me this week. Music equates to emotion for so many of us, we love it, cannot live without it, are desperate to hear and make new music as well as keen to listen on repeat to old favourites and golden oldies. And, yet…while the emotions feel so real, they're not as authentic as the emotions we feel when faced by those incidents and accidents, when times are good or bad, happy or sad. Maybe "emotional placebo" is not quite the right phrase, although music is not only emotional but often healing too, an emotional rescue, you might say. It's a stimulus that tugs at our heart's different strings by proxy. Perhaps music is working like a kind of emotional synesthesia. Just as those with that condition can hear colors, smell textures, for instance, perhaps music (which really is just sounds) is stimulating the emotion centers in the brain as if it is a real happy, sad or other happening that we are experience and triggering the same response.
Changizi offers an additional insight, "Is a television show a proxy stimulus? Are the emotions resulting from TV fake?" he asks. Where I argue that music is more abstract than that, he suggests that, "Music is just more abstract fiction than television. But still amounts to a stimulus which seems to your brain like a story of an individual moving around you doing stuff. But a more emotional story, not with the people talking."
As an aside, my good friend James (Fentiger), pointed out to me that the melancholic musical genres in songwriting are often misunderstood. I took this to mean, without his actually saying, that: this kind of emotional music isn't about being negative or down, it's about recognising the human condition, our existential angst, and tugging at our heart strings to make us enjoy the love and beauty in the world more…while we can. "A perfect description," James reckons, "I think it's about connecting to the realities of life, no matter how grim…it's about relating which can be comforting, and bring hope too."
Whatever the answer, I'd just like to say thank you for the music and put another record on.
The Mighty Fall by Dave Bradley
An abridged version of my blog post appeared first in a Materials Today comment piece.
Original source: Music: emotion by proxy by David Bradley.
Nettle stings
Wellcome Images describes its 100,000 strong collection of high-resolution images as "one of the world's richest and most unusual collections". You cannot deny that making a nettle sting the subject of a photo is an unusual thing to do:
The image above is a colourised scanning electron micrograph of the sting cells of a nettle leaf (Urtica dioica). The stings themselves are hollow spikes of silica (sand/glass) that snap easily when your bare knees or other body part brush against the leaves. The stinging contents of the spikes are released from a bulb at the base and contain formic acid (same as ant venom), histamine (also in wasp stings and the same inflammatory chemical released by our bodies when we have allergies), acetylcholine and serotonin (neurotransmitters that stimulate our nervous system), a chemical concoction that is the perfect recipe for pain.
There is no evidence that rubbing a dock leaf on a nettle sting has anything more than a placebo effect, but that can be sufficient when it is temporary, acute pain anyway!
As I've discussed before on Sciencebase, nettles are the only plant on which brush-footed butterflies will lay their eggs.
Original source: Nettle stings by David Bradley.
A conducting wire that can be stretched to 14 times its original length has been developed by scientists at the University of Texas at Dallas, US. They say it could find use in flexible electronics devices and artificial muscles, as well as other devices such as giant deformation strain sensors.
You can read my full news story about this in Chemistry World
Original source: Super-elastic by David Bradley.
Goodbye, Hello Google+
UPDATE: Still not quite out of the door, I've umbuttoned my coat and sat back down to have a cuppa and a slice of cake with the various people who didn't wish me on my way…so, whatever Google actually does with G+ in the long run, I'll sit a spell…
I have been on Google+ from week 1, as with all their other services, I hankered after an invitation to get started as soon as they were announced and did my best to make something of each of them. Indeed, I had 16000+ people circling me on G+ as of this morning and more than half a million views. Little engagement though, very few comments and rarely a share over those four years, which suggests to me either that my content is just too boring for people to comment or else they weren't really there in the first place (I do hope it's the latter or I've been peening in the wind this last quarter century!)
But, I have other evidence beyond my content. I looked at some stats for one of the big outlets and they were seeing thousands of reads/likes on Facebook for each article, a mere dozen or two on Twitter, but just one or two individuals on G+. The outlet is big and I mean big, so one would expect decent stats for all social media and that should include G+ but it simply doesn't. G+ was meant to be more than Facebook, it was always less, despite "Hangouts".
It seems to me like G+ is going the way of so many other Google "services" when the company finally realises that its attempts to emulate the success of other sites isn't working out so well. Remember Google Wave, iGoogle, Orkut, Knol, Google Reader, Google Buzz etc? No? Well I was there when those started and had high hopes for them but they were all ultimately consigned to the web 2.0 scrapheap. Google recently announced that it would no longer oblige users to have a G+ account to use other services as it had before. It's the first hint from them that things aren't perhaps going as planned.
Anyway, I duly announced that I was not going to share anything new on G+ from now on and got more comments on that post than I'd had on any other for quite some time, ironically enough. Generally, I'd say passive-aggressive responses effectively saying "so long" and allusions to my being part of the problem for G+ by disconnecting. Hey guys, there was no need to kick me out of the door just because I reached for my coat…couldn't you have offered me another cuppa and a slice of cake? I am not really having second thoughts though, give it six months and you will remember this conversation with a nod when Google makes the announcement but I'll just not be there to bother saying, "I told you so!"
As an aside: This from John Brandon in Inc echoes the impression I got from the people who commented on my grabbing my coat: "The popular view on Google+ is that it will soldier on and possibly even rebound. I don't think so. When Google closes a door, they rarely open a window. The reason they are splitting up these services is because they want to save their investment in them and salvage the code before shuttering Google+ once and for all."
Original source: Goodbye, Hello Google+ by David Bradley.
A triple A-side meta single
UPDATE: My triple-A-sided single is now an 8-track
Obviously, a good old-fashioned circular slice of polyvinyl chloride, PVC, or just vinyl to audiophiles, is a disc, two sides, A and B, sometimes labelled A and A…but what if you want three sides? Is it possible to have a hyper-disk with an extra groovy surface? In reality, maybe not. In virtuality…
Life, Love and Lonicera by Dave Bradley
Life, Love and Lonicera: My triple A-side single featuring a Pseudo Gabriel pastiche "Push the Button", my feverish asthmatic falsetto in the mock jazz of "Wild Honeysuckle" and the slow build and gospelesque break of "Burning Out" featuring original lyrics by my good friend and singing partner JH Livingstone.
Original source: A triple A-side meta single by David Bradley.
George's Gentle Geordie Geography
The Geordie geography of TV's George Gently (which has been on for years) is quite amazing…I watch it because it's filmed in the land of my birth. But, Scene 1 might be in a children's home in Teesside (which they spell Teeside), next scene is Gently, who's based in Durham, which is on the Wear, nipping down to said kids' home with sidekick mod copper John, then they're back in time for Gently to quickly get to South Shields only it isn't South Shields (on the Tyne), which they call "Shields", it's Seaton Sluice, which is back over the Tyne and further North. Then they're driving into somewhere they said was Whitley Bay, but there are grassy sand dunes and it's so obviously Druridge Bay (where they didn't build a nuclear power station, I was at the punk protest gig in 1977!).
Next, they're in Cullercoasts, where I grew up, but it's not, it's somewhere near Roker, and so on and so forth, until Gently, case solved is standing knee deep in his waders flyfishing on a wear (against fishing rules, I think) in the shadow of Durham Cathedral (his favourite building).
Somehow they span three counties, three rivers, and at least a hundred different attempts at an authentic Geordie accent and all the while not once mentioning The Toon, Mac'ems, or the name of the place they're actually meant to be stationed in. Oh, and they never have scenes where they are driving for more than a few seconds, presumably for fear of framing modern street furniture, like that enormous CCTV pole outside the Spanish City in S02E03.
It is good though…I love the authenticity of the interiors, all that bevelled glass and kitsch ornaments…and it certainly beats Heartbeat. Next week, Sciencebase dissect's Vera's "Geordie accent" and her eternal penchant for the Rendezvous Cafe…
Original source: George's Gentle Geordie Geography by David Bradley.
100 songs
Having mentioned 100 million chemicals just now, be sheer chance, I noticed that "Push the Button" stacks up as my 100th original tune on SoundCloud. It's part of the double A-side "single" – Life Love, and Lonicera, which includes my big time Pseudo Gabriel sledgehammer of a song, "Push the Button" and Wild Honeysuckle which features my feverish festival falsetto, songs of sexuality on steroids…but NOT NSFW ;-)
Life, Love and Lonicera by Dave Bradley
Original source: 100 songs by David Bradley.
100 million chemicals
One little bit of chemistry news that I always try to cover are the milestones as the Chemical Abstracts Service announces the next "round number" in its database of chemical structures. It was September 2007 when I mentioned their reaching 50 million structures, but I am fairly sure I wrote about their 10 millionth in newscientist back in the early 1990s…
This week, CAS announced the 100 millionth chemical substance in its registry in the service's 50th anniversary. That is quite astounding, 100 million chemicals! On average a new substance registered every two and a half minutes since 1965, although three quarters of the entries were added only in the last decade.
The 100 millionth (entry references CAS RN 1786400-23-4) is a drug for acute myeloid leukaemia, developed by Coferon in Stony Brook, New York, USA.
Original source: 100 million chemicals by David Bradley.


text:
All Android applications categories
All Android games categories
by: mappsolutely | 1
This mobile app allows you to view the many great items that are on Murrieta's menu, along with directly calling Murrieta's with one touch.
If you don't know where Murrieta's is located, we have a direction option that leads you turn by turn to our restaurants.
from 1 reviews

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Youth's asset declaration will be voluntary
MUKTAMAR After wrangling with the asset declaration possibility, PAS Youth today announced that its exco line-up will adopt it on a voluntary basis.
For the rest of this story and more, subscribe for only 36 cents a day. If you're already a subscriber, please Sign in.Sign in Subscribe now


text:
Beasts Captured
Share your intuitive photographs of the creatures you come across.
O'Fallon in MR2 Creative SEO Services Company
At Illinois, MR2 Creative is boutique marketing agency service offered in SEO & Web Design service for your better sites development & promotion. For More
Fly Higher Than The Sun...
Hi all, it's been more than a while, right? I tried to post a couple of weeks ago, but there was something wrong with Buzznet so
"Blackbird singing in the dead of night Take these broken wings and learn to fly All your life You were only waiting for this moment to arise" -
But I Keep Cruising...
"...can't stop, won't stop moving..." - Taylor Swift, "Shake It Off". Hi all, it's been more than a while, I guess and I'm sorry I disappeared, I've
silhouette of cows
Just a shot between rain and snow storms today.
Spread Those Wings
Caught this guy right after a rain storm.
13th July 2013
Some pretty swans and their cygnets. One of the baby swans seemed injured; its foot was high above the water resting on its back (you
Don't be afraid, really!
Picture taken at the Cotswold Wildlife Park. I'm glad there was a thick piece of glass between us. When these guys roar, you can hear
Green Eggs and Ham2
Here's the baby bird I mentioned in the previous "Green Eggs and Ham" post :3


text:
Wolf Peach puts its own spin on former Roots space
It shifts a diner's equilibrium to walk into a new restaurant that's taken over the space of an old, familiar haunt.
So it was when I visited Wolf Peach, the restaurant that opened early this month in the former Roots space, to gather a first impression. »Read Full Article(4)
Looking for a restaurant that's open on Christmas?
It can be hard to find a restaurant that's open Christmas Day — or at night on Christmas Eve, for that matter.
Here are some places that will be open for business, traditional and non-traditional choices. In many cases, reservations are recommended. »Read Full Blog Post(5)
Hear Milwaukee singer Mario Brown's take on 'This Christmas'
It's not Dec. 25 just yet, so its not too late to hear a new take on a standard Christmas song. »Read Full Blog Post
On Tap for Today: What to do on Christmas Eve day
The kids are so excited they're about to squirm out of their skin. When you're young, the clock doesn't move fast enough on Christmas Eve.
Here are a few daytime diversions: »Read Full Blog Post(1)


text:
Network Management
The Army is winding down a high-profile IT project that has been years in the making: The migration to enterprise email services is essentially complete.
If all goes according to plan, the Army is expected to announce the transition's completion as soon as July 25, according to Mike Krieger, deputy Army CIO/G-6.
The migration includes 1.5 million users in the unclassified NIPRNet and 100,000 users on the classified SIPRNet. Those figures include almost every Army component as well as related agencies, including the Joint Staff.
The enterprise-wide program for email and other types of communications services within the Defense Department is being carried out in coordination with the Defense Information Systems Agency. DISA hosts the cloud-based email, which also includes services such as a global address list, calendar-sharing and a platform for collaborating across geographic locations.
Work on the program began in 2009, when Army officials announced they would explore the option of commercially managed email with a request for information. In 2010, officials decided to go through DISA instead, citing cost savings.
The road to completion – a target date at least four months behind the March 2013 deadline officials had determined as of last August – has been rocky at times. The project struggled through obstacles that included technical problems, funding hurdles amid questions from Congress and reports of exaggerated savings.
As of August 2012 – the most recent estimate available -- enterprise email was projected to save the Army $76 million in fiscal 2013 and $380 million through 2017.
About the Author
Amber Corrin is a former staff writer for FCW and Defense Systems.
E-Mail this page
Printable Format
Advanced Search
Meet 100 women and men who are doing great things in federal IT.
Click here for the full list
The Census Bureau announced plans to fold in new technology and third party data into its 2020 population count, but questions remain about the viability of the Bureau's enterprise IT.
A technology roadmap can help agencies reap the benefits FITARA has to offer. Here are the four stages of a successful effort.
In the newest Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, feds show they're feeling better than they have over the past few years – but there's still room for improvement, especially in mission-critical IT.
The General Services Administration's Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions contract will anchor the agency's NS 2020 telecommunications strategy.
House and Senate both approve a measure to maintain funding at fiscal 2015 levels through Dec. 11.
The aviation regulator missed a Congressional deadline to develop rules of the sky-ways for drones.
Agency heads, acquisition officers and even CIOs don't need to be hard-core techies. FCW's four-part look at the expertise that's really required to make federal IT run.
FCW recognizes 14 individuals having an outsized impact early in their careers.
As Steve Kelman returns from a summer of aggressive medical treatment, he considers the all-too-common aversion to short-term sacrifices.
Actually the Army issued both an RFI and an RFP presolication notice, then cancelled. Per FedBizOpps "After careful consideration of the current market for enterprise e-mail, and a thorough review of the industry responses to the Draft RFP, it has been determined that additional review is necessary to
re-determine the Army's requirement for e-mail services," the Army said in a cancellation notice posted to FedBizOpps on May 18, 2010.
This article mentions the purported savings, but it does not mention the actual total costs of the system to include design, testing, software, hardware, operations and sustainment and other ancillary costs like needing to upgrade desktops and laptops just to implement.
What are the actual current costs of this system, what do Soldiers and employees say about the user experience from across the Service to include both CONUS and OCONUS bases and operations, how many servers and storage devices were needed that make up the email Pods, and do users have mobile access?
Savings are a fictional number. The new system is unreliable resulting in massively decreased productivity - literally 1-2 hours per day per person in my office. If you factor in the pay for loss of productivity I'd be willing to bet the new system is more expensive.
8609 Westwood Center Drive, Suite 500Vienna, VA 22182-2215 703-876-5100
© 1996-2013 1105 Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only.To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, visit: www.1105Reprints.com


text:
Stylist Shirley Kurata's here to up your wardrobe game.
Plus Size Fall Fashion Trends
This printed dress by Thakoon proves to be this season's versatile statement piece.
Was: $1,350
Now only: $540
Buy it here.
Emanuel Ungaro's satin and lace dress is beautifully delicate and feminine.
Was: $2,340
Now only: $585
Buy it here.
Ornate Expectations


text:
We created Pandora to put the Music Genome Project directly in your hands
It's a new kind of radio –
stations that play only music you like
Don't Stop Believin'
Features of This Trackmild rhythmic syncopation
heavy use of vocal harmonies
acoustic sonority
intricate melodic phrasing
major key tonality
These are just a few of the hundreds of attributes cataloged for this track by the Music Genome Project.show more
Similar Tracks
Say ur crushes name
Close ur hand
Say a school day
Say ur name
Open ur Hand and look at it
Post this to 15 songs and...
Ur crush will say he likes u and will ask u out on the day I chose! Good luck :) u flirt! Lol follow me btw LUV u if u actually read this and if u didnt...I praise u!


text:
Truth of the Christian Religion in Six Books by Hugo Grotius. Corrected and Illustrated with Notes by Mr. Le Clerc to which is Added Two Boo
by Hugo Grotius
Enter your search query for this book.
Results will appear here as you type.
Page loading...
Minimum rating:
Reviews provided by goodreads.com
There are currently no reviews for this book on goodreads.com. You can be the first to write one here.


text:
Posts from Casserole
Recipe: Vegetarian Paella with Red Peppers & Chickpeas
Vegetarian Weeknight Dinner Recipes from The Kitchn
Paella—a Spanish rice dish—is traditionally made with seafood, chicken or sausage, and a seasoning base of saffron and tomato. But in this vegetarian version, I'm swapping the meat and fish for fresh produce and legumes. It's a veggie-filled dinner perfect for any night of the week.
How To Make Classic Baked Macaroni & Cheese
Cooking Lessons from The Kitchn
Everyone needs a solid mac and cheese recipe in their back pocket — one that can be pulled out the instant that craving hits for cheesy pasta, or when a birthday needs celebrating, or when a friend needs comforting. Macaroni and cheese is an all-purpose comfort food, ready and able to assist you with any life event.
This particular recipe puts the capital "C" in classic. It's cheese sauce and pasta, baked in a casserole dish until golden-topped and bubbly. Remarkably, it doesn't take all that much more time and effort than opening a box of the pre-made stuff. Here's a step-by-step recipe that help you make it yours tonight.
8 Essential Types of Freezer Meals
Reader Intelligence Report
Whether you have dedicated cooking sessions to stock your freezer, or it's a landing zone for leftovers, I think we can all agree that freezer meals are beyond amazing. During busy weeks when I simply don't have time, and on the nights I'm too tired to cook dinner, pulling a home-cooked meal from the freezer feels like a gift.
We've shared a lot of our favorite freezer meals with you, but today we're taking a look at your favorite freezer meals. Perhaps you'll see one of your favorites on the list, and maybe you'll even get some new ideas.
Recipe: Baked Spaghetti Squash Carbonara
Recipes from The Kitchn
How do you feel about spaghetti squash? Do you consider it a bad joke of a vegetable, promising carbs without remorse, but actually offering a bowl of slippery, slimy strings? Or do you love it for its teasing imitation of spaghetti, still holding its own with sweetness and a toothsome bite?
Actually — never mind. I don't really care how you feel about spaghetti squash. Because I know how everyone feels about spaghetti carbonara, and this baked spaghetti squash carbonara is going to warm your pasta-loving heart in exactly the same way. Except, with way fewer calories. And isn't that really the point of spaghetti squash, if we're all being honest?
Recipe: Creamy Spinach Bake
Side Dish Recipes from The Kitchn
Everybody loves creamed spinach, even folks who hate spinach! Here's a luxurious baked version that I love serving with oven-roasted pork tenderloin, though it pairs just as well with steak, pork chops, or any other protein on your plate. Splurge on a little mid-week comfort food and make this with your dinner tonight!
Recipe: Lentil, Mushroom & Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie
Vegan Recipes From The Kitchn
When I first made this recipe, it was January, which means we were all craving food that is a little lighter, a little healthier, and a little more in line with the way we've resolved to eat this year. But at the same time, it was January, and when we're wrapped up in sweaters and blankets, it's comfort food we're dreaming about.
That's where this recipe comes in. With its rich, mushroom-studded filling tucked under a layer of soft mashed sweet potato, it has all the hallmarks of a good shepherd's pie, but it's completely vegan — and includes a secret ingredient that adds body and creaminess to the filling, without any cream.
A Sausage Breakfast Casserole Worthy of Dinner
Delicious Links
Tossing a whole bunch of delicious things into a casserole pan and throwing it in the oven to bake until bubbly at 400°F sounds like a great way to welcome the weekend. But, if you can't wait (like me), and want something for brunch-for-dinner tonight, this hearty sausage casserole is the right choice.
12 Hearty Casseroles for Cold Winter Nights
Recipes from The Kitchn
Without fail the cold, dark months of winter make me want to pull on my heaviest sweater and hunker down with a dinner that's simple, warming, and most of all, totally comforting. I can't think of anything that fits the bill better than a hearty casserole. Baked to perfection in a single pan, casseroles are deeply satisfying in all their many variations.
Here are 12 hearty casseroles to fill your belly and keep you warm on cold winter nights.
10 Breakfast Casseroles for Christmas Morning
There are those of us who gravitate towards the sweeter side of things when it comes to breakfast, and those who seek out savory. And we all have our weekday routines and weekend rituals. But when it comes to holiday breakfasts, all bets are off and doing something special and out of the ordinary is the perfect way to set forth new traditions — or just make one truly delicious breakfast.
Thanksgiving Shepherd's Pie: The Best Way to Eat All Your Leftovers in One Delicious Dish
What do you like to do with your Thanksgiving leftovers? There are lots of solutions that will use up some of the meal — turkey soup, a Dagwood-style sandwich — but as delicious as they are, they don't use everything that was on the table. (Unless you put gravy and cranberry relish on your turkey sandwich?)
My favorite post-Turkey Day, clean-out-the-refrigerator dish uses up everything and is delicious to boot. Introducing the Thanksgiving Shepherd's Pie!


text:
Eagle/BSA® Belt Buckle$19.99A great recognition gift! Fine pewter oval buckle is cast with a multidimensional Eagle/BSA® logo. Measures 2 1/4" x 3 1/4". Learn More
Eagle Money Clip$12.99Fine pewter money clip is cast with a multidimensional BSA/Eagle logo. Measures 1 3/4" x 1 3/4". Learn More
Sterling Silver Eagle Scout Pin$19.99Sterling Silver Eagle Scout Pin 7/16" X 7/16" embossed BSA design on the eagle with antique finish, fused post in center with military clutch back. Packaged in clear plastic hinged box. Learn More
Eagle Scout Guest Book$16.99This Eagle Scout guest book is perfect for recording guests at an Eagle Scout reception, and can also be used for any Scouting occasion. The rich cover material is handsomely detailed with an embossed engraving of the Eagle Scout eagle. Inside there are 30 pages for signatures in a ring mechanism that provides flexibility for number of pages, and additional material. Learn More


text:
Jul 27, 2015 RSEM v1.2.22 is online now. Added options to run the STAR aligner.
May 6, 2015 RSEM v1.2.21 is online now. Strip read names of extra words to avoid mismatches of paired-end read names.
Mar 23, 2015 RSEM v1.2.20 is online now. Fixed a problem that can lead to assertion error if any paired-end read's insert size > 32767 (by changing the type of insertL in PairedEndHit.h from short to int).
Click here for full update information.
Bo Li and Colin Dewey designed the RSEM algorithm. Bo Li implemented the RSEM software. Peng Liu contributed the STAR aligner options.
RSEM is under the GNU General Public License
Source Code
Prebuilt RSEM Indices (RSEM v1.1.17) for Galaxy Wrapper
These indices are based on RefSeq containing NM accession numbers only. That means only curated genes (no experimental, no miRNA, no noncoding). Only mature RNAs. In addition, 125bp Poly(A) tails are added at the end of each transcript.
Mouse Indices, extracted from mouse genome mm9
Human Indices, extracted from human genome hg18
Reference annotations and Simulation Data used in the paper
RefSeq and Ensembl annotation GTF files used in the paper
Simulation Data using Refseq set as reference
Simulation Data using Ensembl set as reference
Google Users and Announce Groups
|Subscribe to RSEM Announce
|Visit this group
|Subscribe to RSEM Users
|Visit this group
(last modified on Jul 27, 2015)


text:
- COMIC: Gaming Overdose
- Mornin '15
- FEATURE: AT's Top 5 Silliest Moments in Metal Gear Solid 5
- New Expansions for EverQuest and EverQuest II
- Microsoft Buys Havok from Intel
- Tomb Raider Titles 80% on Steam
- Famitsu Leaks Laura Joining Street Fighter V
- NBA 2K16 Sells 4 Million Copies Worldwide
- Star Citizen Financial Woes And Insider Criticism
- Mornin '15
- Syndrome
Debut Trailer
- Street Fighter V
Zangief Trailer
- Need for Speed
Gameplay Innovations Cars Customization Trailer
- Fallout 4
SPECIAL Video - C is for Charisma
- Armikrog
Launch Trailer
- Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5
Launch Trailer
- Wasteland 2
Director\'s Cut Gameplay Video
- Far Cry 3
Patch 1.05
- Assassin's Creed 3
Patch v1.02 to v1.03
- Far Cry 3
Patch 1.04
- Far Cry 3
Patch 1.02
- Ghost Recon: Future Soldier
Patch 1.4 to 1.5
- Max Payne 3
Patch v22.214.171.124
- Max Payne 3
Patch v126.96.36.199
News Tagged: valve
Tag Results
[Keri "Pwny" Honea]
10:44 am EDT @ March 28th, 2014
Michael Abrash, Valve's head of research and development, announced today that he has left Valve to accept the position of Chief Scientst for Oculus VR. Just in case you thought the news surrounding Oculus VR couldn't get any crazier, random news like this proves that it can. Abrash has been researching VR for some time with Valve, so in that aspect, such a transition makes sense. The news comes from Abrash's post on Oculus' blog.
[Keri "Pwny" Honea]
11:33 am EDT @ January 21st, 2014
Nintendo's Virtual Boy may have been a bust, but Valve really believes that virtual reality is going to be a game changer. "Compelling consumer-priced VR hardware is coming, probably within two years," Valve's Michael Abrash said at Steam Dev Days last week, "and we think it's possible that it could transform the entire entertainment industry...
[Keri "Pwny" Honea]
10:17 am EDT @ January 16th, 2014
Gabe Newell said on Reddit that if EA wants to put their Origin service on SteamOS for Steam Machines, they are more than welcome to do so. That's either being really committed to their promise to keep the OS open or a blatant announcement that they do not fear competition...
[Keri "Pwny" Honea]
07:50 am EDT @ January 09th, 2014
If you've dismissed the list of 14 hardware partners who have presented their Steam Machines at CES in hopes for Valve's first-party hardware, prepare to be disappointed. Gabe Newell announced at CES that Valve would not release their own Steam Machine...
[Uros "Vader" Pavlovic]
07:30 am EDT @ December 10th, 2013
Game designer Markus 'Notch' Persson, best known as the creator of Minecraft, confessed to having turned down a job offer, which was available to him while he was developing Minecraft. As soon as Minecraft became popular before its release, he was invited to Valve's offices and he had a chat with company CEO Gabe Newell...
[Keri "Pwny" Honea]
09:23 am EDT @ November 11th, 2013
Interested in testing out Valve's upcoming Steam Machine? Valve now has a sign-up for a beta test of its In-Home Streaming feature that will take place later this year. Valve is now offering beta sign-ups for its In-Home Streaming feature, which the company says will be available for testing later this year...
[Keri "Pwny" Honea]
12:07 pm EDT @ November 04th, 2013
In an interview with IGN, Valve's Greg Coomer said that the company's new operating system, SteamOS, will not claim exclusives for apps or for games. "You won't see an exclusive killer app for SteamOS from us. We're not going to be doing that kind of thing," he emphasized...
[Keri "Pwny" Honea]
08:11 am EDT @ October 17th, 2013
[Uros "Vader" Pavlovic]
09:17 am EDT @ October 07th, 2013
The Internet was abuzz with rumors related to Valve supposedly filing for a trademark for Half-life 3. According to the report, the filed on September 29 with the European Union's Office of Harmonization for the Internal Market (OHIM). However, the application has now been removed, albeit neither Valve nor the European Registration Office would would not comment on this...
[Uros "Vader" Pavlovic]
05:30 am EDT @ October 05th, 2013
Please, just give us something. AT COMIC: Enough Trollig, Valve
[Keri "Pwny" Honea]
12:05 pm EDT @ October 01st, 2013
Valve has filed for a trademark for Half-Life 3. Cue the Internet going wild with speculation. As spotted via NeoGAF, the trademark was filed on September 29th with the European Union's Office of Harmonization for the Internal Market (OHIM). The trademark covers "computer game software; electronic game software...
[Keri "Pwny" Honea]
10:10 am EDT @ September 27th, 2013
Valve has completed their string of announcements this week for their Steam Machine, and today's announcement was not what everybody wanted (a Half-Life 3 announcement), but a reveal of their controller for the Steam Machine. The controller features a touchscreen, dual trackpads, and haptic feedback...
[Uros "Vader" Pavlovic]
07:48 am EDT @ September 17th, 2013
Gabe Newell revealed that new info on the company's Steam Box is going to come next week, as confirmed by Valve boss during the Linuxcon 2013. He also expressed that the future of gaming will be open platform and pointed towards Linux OS as an example...
[Keri "Pwny" Honea]
08:39 am EDT @ August 09th, 2013
In December 2012, former PopCap staff Tod Semple and Jeff Gates teamed up with Valve to form Valve San Francisco. Now the team has split to form its own studio, Temple Gate Games. "Jeff [Gates] and I are working on indie games again," Semple told IGN...
[Keri "Pwny" Honea]
10:07 am EDT @ August 06th, 2013
While touring Valve's Seattle office, members of the Dota 2 subreddit spotted mentions of Left 4 Dead 3 and Source 2 engine on the company's internal project tracker. The above image has been zoomed in quite a bit to show what the users saw from Valve's office...
If Destiny was on PC:
Vote for us to see more hot babes!


text:
Re: [TrackChasers] Re: Why do dirt tracks have more cars than asphalt tracks?
Expand Messages
- Greetings from your breadman,
Just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents worth. Or is that $2 worth in
these inflated times. One of my favorite ideas from years gone by was the
big race co-sanctioned by ASA, Allpro and ACT. For a few years they managed
to come up with a rules compromise that allowed cars from all 3 groups to be
competitive together. None of those groups exist as they were then, with
Allpro being totally gone. ACT has cut way back on their traveling and
races. ASA has been in a state of flux trying to find the right combination to
keep itself afloat. There was a time pavement racing was more technologically
advanced while being more expensive to go fast. That's no longer true as
dirt racers are at least equal in that way. I believe the endless practice
pavement racers seem to need just adds to their expense way beyond what they
gain in return. They can no longer afford to search for that elusive tenth
of a second. You'd think the tire bills alone would drum some sense in
their heads. All those extra laps just wear cars and components out. You get
far fewer races between motor rebuilds just because of all those wasted laps
As for the mods, Keith Knack started the IMCA deal with his
controversial engine claim rule to keep costs down. I still think a claim is more
efficient in keeping cost down than crate motors are. Too many racers are
already cheating on the crate deal. It's what racers do. They best automotive
minds in the world, i.e. racers, can work their way around any rule. With a
claim you spend whatever you want knowing you could lose all your work and
ingenuity for $500. The problem is racers just don't want to be told how to
do anything. There's no reason Memmer couldn't have gone the same route.
Trouble is, had he not given in to the racers wishes not to have a claim,
UMP probably never would've taken hold. I have no hope the current regime
will add anything positive to the sanction. There never should have been a UMP
or WISSOTA, as the IMCA rules were the right ones. Even IMCA has slipped
since Knack passed away. Both WISSOTA and IMCA now have B-mods that are what
the A-mods used to be. Had the sanctions not given in to the racers
demands to spend more money than necessary they never would have evolved into a
class that's no longer as affordable as it was. I remember talking to Knack
during that first winter in Florida when the class debuted on dirt and
pavement tracks. The initial rules were so good the cars were equally good on
both surfaces. Even the tires were the same. Now you need different cars for
each surface to be competitive.
As for why there are more dirt tracks, I believe the chance for
multiple grooves is always greater on dirt, hence, there is often better racing.
While ill prepared dirt tracks do often lead to single groove racing, too
many paved tracks have that built into them. There are exceptions.
Irwindale, Slinger, Kalamazoo and Thunder Road come to mind. Most paved tracks
require a truly superior car to pass, and superior cars are expensive. Our own
Brian Hickey does engine work for local New England teams and our former
moderator, Andy Ritter, and his dad both race on dirt and dislike the crate
idea. Hopefully, both of them will way in. Anyone else?
**************Looking for love this summer? Find it now on AOL Personals.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
- Gordy,
That was great explanation of the pavement late model situation. I'll add one more.
Asphalt late models went downhill when ASA listened to the automotive companies, who were willing to sponsor the series, but wanted the cars to look more like production autos.
A new car had to be developed, but when it did, it essentially eliminated the local drivers from participation. Before when ASA came into a track the locals would run with them, and sometimes were very competitive.
Dirt track racing was smart enough to allow the cars to remain somewhat the same as weekly tracks. A local can still run with the USMTS, or in areas where they have 410 Sprints, they can run with the WoO or All Stars.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
- --- You wrote:
Before when ASA came into a track the locals would run with them, and sometimes were very competitive.
--- end of quote ---
Same around here as most tracks follow the ACT late model rules. When ACT runs at White Mt., the track considers it their late model feature event with a fair part of the field made up of Saturday night regulars.
- Here's another thought - money and tires.
The typical asphalt series around the south will have a practice Friday night, practice Sat. morning, and more practice Sat. afternoon - and then a 100 lap show Sat. night.
And often the racers are wanting more practice.
If you want to be a leader, you've got to have some new tires for practice and start the race on new tires. Practice is running up the tire bill for asphalt race teams.
On the other hand, the traveling dirt series arrives Sat. afternoon, gets three hot laps, two qualifying laps, and a 30 or 50 lap feature (and maybe a heat race or consi if you're not a top 15 qualifier.
There's no practice, and you can be competitive on used tires.
It's a deadly combo: big asphalt tire bills, and small purses. Minimal dirt tire bills, and bigger purses.
Your message has been successfully submitted and would be delivered to recipients shortly.


text:
Description: I'll cover you
Image was hearted from israblog.nana10.co.il
Other images from this site
Mill was first to heart it
32 people have hearted this image
This image is in 1 collection
You might like these too
Now available in your language!Use in your language! Go back to English
Other images from this site
You might like these too
Sign in with Facebook or Twitter to start your gallery.
Sign in with Facebook Sign in with TwitterDon't have Twitter or Facebook? Skip this step!


text:
Brent Batten: At Naples airport, sentiments, pavement, run deep
It's a factoid sure to send those opposed to the extension of the Naples Airport runway right over the edge.
The asphalt for the planned extensions will be almost as thick as the asphalt on the runway at Southwest Florida International Airport, which can handle just about any plane flying.
A main argument against the runway extension is that it will allow larger jets to land and take off at the "Best Little Airport in the Country," exacerbating a noise situation that has been the bane of the neighborhoods surrounding the airport for years.
Airport officials insist that the self-imposed 75,000-pound limit on planes using the airport is safe and the extensions are being built to handle planes that large and no larger.
Ervin Dehn, director of airport development at the Naples Municipal Airport, said the engineer designing the extensions at each end of Runway 5-23 was directed to abide by the 75,000-pound limit when drafting the plans. Building for larger planes would require more material, and thus be more expensive, Dehn said.
The specifications call for four inches of asphalt on the runway extensions, known formally as displaced thresholds.
By comparison, Southwest Florida International, which can handle even a Boeing 747, has just four and a half inches of asphalt on its 12,000-foot runway.
But asphalt alone does not a runway make, Dehn said.
More important is the foundation under the runway. In the case of the Naples project, that will be eight inches of crushed limerock.
Southwest Florida International has between 12 and 18 inches of crushed rock under its asphalt, said Victoria Moreland, director of public affairs for the international airport.
Calculating the proper mix of foundation and pavement for a runway is a complicated business, Dehn points out.
Factors such as the number of landings, the size of the planes landing, the mix of large planes and small planes and even the tire configuration of the planes all go into the formula.
Soil conditions must be gauged at each site and the climate must be taken into account.
In contrast to Southwest Florida International's less than two feet of pavement and rock, large airports in northern cities can have four feet or more of material to account for the wear and tear freezing and thawing place on pavement.
Oddly enough, the area airport with the thickest runway asphalt is the one carrying the lightest planes.
Page Field in Fort Myers has two runways. One has four inches of asphalt and five inches of rock foundation, Moreland said. The other has eight inches of asphalt and another eight inches of rock.
Once Southwest Florida International Airport opened, Page Field took on a strictly general aviation role, Moreland said. The largest planes to regularly use it are Citation jets, with a maximum takeoff weight of around 11,000 pounds.
Although critics suspect it is just a matter of time before the longer takeoff length gained by extending the runway is used as justification for dropping the weight limit and bringing larger planes to Naples, Dehn said doing so would require the proposed extensions to be dug up and rebuilt. The cost of the impending addition is just under $2 million. Taxiways and tarmacs now stretched to their weight limit by 75,000-pound planes would also have to be rebuilt, he said.
A decade ago, the airport was perceived as dragging its feet in pursuit of a ban on the noisiest jets using the airport. The distrust its critics harbor to this day goes deeper than even the deepest of runway foundations.
Connect with Brent Batten at naplesnews.com/staff/brent_batten
Subscribe to the Naples Daily News
Need Help? Call us at 1-888-878-6842.
Monday-Friday: 6am-6pm / Saturday: 7am-3pm / Sunday: 7am-2pm


text:
Sojing chinese "silent guitar" nylon string electric tuned baritone played w/glass slide direct overdriven into Olympus voice recorder. Converted from ...
before-after distorted blues slide guitar , remix of freesound 111307 by phloord
moped passing by
A loop made from a shortwave data transmission.
Inside of a refrigerated display case in line at the grocery store recorded with Olympus DS-40 and converted to WAV ...
some chords played by an musician in the metro, then looped - tunel reverb
Panasonic vacuum cleaner working on a rug. Audiotechnica BP4025, Shure FP24 preamp, PCM-M10 recorder
Second recording of man with a leaf blowing machine.. not sure what they're called in english !
Panasonic vacuum cleaner working on a rug. Audiotechnica BP4025, Shure FP24 preamp, PCM-M10 recorder
Panasonic vacuum cleaner starting. Audiotechnica BP4025, Shure FP24 preamp, PCM-M10 recorder
India Backwaters House-Boat no. 1. The outboard engine was always on, so you hear its noise, the waves and low ...
A Vacuum cleaner being switched on, moved around a bit and then switched off.
A loop made from traffic sounds recorded at the Broadway tunnel San Francisco ca.
Three sets of sonically diverse tones, all pulsing at the same tempo, peak at different times within the loop. Plenty ...
Created in u-he's software synthesizer Zebra, recorded live to disk in Logic, processed in BIAS Peak.


text:
There are certain rare individuals in this world who seem bereft of all common sense. These are the people who set their eyes upon an objective and immediately all intelligence, logic, good advice, unsolvable problems, and insurmountable obstacles go completely by the boards. The characters we refer to are obviously just plain stupid. What they want to do, just can't be done. The objectives they have in mind are unachievable and anyone with an ounce of brains can tell them so and give them good reasons. They are usually pretty sad cases and often land in the funny house. But then again, some of them go out and discover new worlds.
See it as donating a moment of your social media time, every little thing helps us improve and stay online.
Cara Devon has always suffered curiosity and im... Read more
When the economic downturn ends Matty Cruzs co... Read more
A telekinetic teenager. A telepathic child. A p... Read more
A century after an apocalyptic war reduces all... Read more
Fall in love with the Kensington siblings in th... Read more


text:
A credit score is one of the most important numbers in a person's life. It determines the cost of major purchases like cars and homes. It is a deciding factor for landlords in picking renters and some employers use credit scores to find dependable workers. Unfortunately for borrowers, a favorable credit score is not easy to obtain. The economic crisis that began in 2008 forced lenders to raise their expectations for borrowers in the hopes of lowering their risks. The once "good" credit score of 680 has been devalued in favor of scores of 720 or more. (Follow these tips and techniques to rebuild a ruined credit rating. See 5 Keys To Unlocking A Better Credit Score.)
IN PICTURES: Obtaining Credit In A Bad Economy
Credit scores range from 330 to 830 and the average score in the United States is 698. Even the nation's top average score of 713 in New England is not high enough to qualify for the best rates on loans. This means that many Americans will find themselves spending hundreds or thousands of dollars more for cars, homes and other major purchases.
The Dirty Secret
Lenders evaluate FICO scores based on a tiered system that divides credit scores into five ranges. Scores below 620 are often considered subprime, and borrowers in this range will either be denied loans or be offered higher interest rates and lower loan limits. For example, a non-profit state loan agency set 770 or higher as the top tier of FICO scores. Borrowers in this range received the lowest interest rates. In previous years, the same agency ranked 680 in the lowest tier in which borrowers were subject to interest rates that were 4.15% higher than those with scores in the top tier.
Borrowers with a FICO score of 689 were placed in the lowest tier. A score only one point higher, 690, was enough to be bumped up to the next tier and amounted to an interest rate that was 2.5% lower. These same dramatic jumps in interest rates can be seen in other industries such as home mortgages and car loans. Borrowers are encouraged to shop around for loans because each lender has their own "break point" between tiers. If you can find a lender that places your score in a higher tier, it could result in significant savings over the term of your loan. Another option is to find a co-signer with a higher credit score who would be able to get you placed in a higher tier.
So What Does That Mean?
Using the standards of the nonprofit state loan agency in the example above, imagine that you need a 6-month loan for $4,000. If your credit score is 689, you would be charged an interest rate of LIBOR (London Interbank Offer Rate) plus 6.45%. As of Nov. 17, the LIBOR rate for 6-month loans was 0.44%. Based on those numbers, the interest rate would be 6.89 %. If your credit score was one point higher at 690 you would be bumped up to a higher tier. Your interest rate would be calculated at LIBOR+3.95% which equals 4.39%. Individuals who have poor credit will often be subject to higher interest loans which they might not be able to pay off accordingly; as a result their credit becomes worse and worse untill they are no longer able to qualify for loans. (This influential rate is published daily in Britain and felt all around the world. Check out An Introduction To LIBOR.)
Some experts say that as the economy continues to improve lenders will gradually lower the benchmark for solid credit. In the meantime, consumers with scores in the lower tiers should wait a few months before applying for a loan, and follow basis financial advice such as paying bills on time, monitoring their credit reports and managing debt to help raise their scores.
IN PICTURES: 7 Tips To Bounce Back From A Credit Score Disaster
The Bottom Line
The tier system of credit scores can be extremely fickle. One point can be the difference between hundreds or thousands of dollars in loan payments. With the higher expectations of lenders, it is more important now than ever to shop around for the best rates and make financial decisions that keep your credit score as high as possible. (Credit companies rely on these factors to determine whether to lend to you and at what rate. Read The 5 Biggest Factors That Affect Your Credit.)
Find out what happened in financial news this week. Read Water Cooler Finance: GM's Dramatic Return.
Key Questions to Ask Before Moving in TogetherMoving in together is a big step. Here are some key financial questions to ask your partner before you make the move.
Credit & Loans
10 Ways Student Debt Can Destroy Your LifeIf you're getting a student loan, think critically about how you will manage your loan. Student debt could have a profound negative impact on your life.
Credit & Loans
Your Credit Score: More Important Than You KnowCredit scores affect key aspects of your personal and professional life. Knowing your score and managing your credit input can make a big difference.
Credit & Loans
Bad Credit? You Can Still Get a Home Equity LoanIf your credit history is less than stellar and you need cash, you may be able to get financing – but it will come at a price.
Credit & Loans
Difference Between Restructuring and RefinancingRefinancing and restructuring are very different debt reorganization processes to improve finances and avoid bankruptcy.
Credit & Loans
Does a Lost or Stolen Credit Card Hurt Your Credit Score?Learn the ways in which a lost or stolen credit card can hurt your credit, and understand the steps you can take to protect yourself if this happens.
Credit & Loans
Refinancing vs. a Home-Equity Loan: How to DecideIf you want to pay off debt, make home improvements or just get a better interest rate, you need to know exactly what these terms mean.
Credit & Loans
Millennials Guide: How to Pick the Right MortgageHere's help in finding the perfect, affordable loan for that home you have been dreaming about.
Credit & Loans
How Regulations Protect Reverse Mortgage BorrowersThey're complex animals, which is why there are government guidelines in place to protect borrowers.
Credit & Loans
Millennials Guide: Buying Your First HouseMillennial homebuyers need to research a lot of things, such as how much to pay, down payments, PMI, FHA loans and special programs for first-time buyers.
Will my credit score suffer from debt consolidation or refinancing?You have several options for reducing your debt burden. You can enroll in a professional debt management plan, or consider ... Read Full Answer >>
Can I file for bankruptcy more than once?Filing bankruptcy is never a simple decision, but sometimes it is the best thing you can do in your current financial situation. ... Read Full Answer >>
Why would someone change their Social Security number?In general, the Social Security Administration, or SSA, does not encourage citizens to change their Social Security numbers, ... Read Full Answer >>
What types of liens are seen as good and which are bad for my credit?Creditors that allow purchases to be made through financing often require property to be pledged against a credit account; ... Read Full Answer >>
What are the typical requirements to qualify for closed end credit?Typical requirements for a consumer to qualify for closed-end credit include satisfactory income level and credit history, ... Read Full Answer >>
What is the best way to start to rebuild your credit after a bankruptcy?Bankruptcies can be devastating to your credit score. Even worse, a bankruptcy will be listed on your credit report for between ... Read Full Answer >>


text:
Series, Characters, Authors for Ages 8-10
Series, Characters, Authors for Ages 8-10
The I SPY Challenger series uses photographs from the original I SPY books with new challenging riddles.
Share the I SPY fun with anyone.
Introduce your middle grade reader to Goosebumps, the beloved classic thriller series where kids triumph over evil.
Introduce your child to Beverly Cleary's vibrant characters.
Follow best friends George and Harold's creation, Captain Underpants.
Introduce your kids to the world of Judy Blume.
by Michelle Anthony, PhD
Use the book and author suggestions below to match the reading level and interests of your child.
Whether you want to encourage your beginning reader to dream, help him work things out, or teach him about the world, these engaging series are perfect for reading aloud or on his own when he's ready.
Boost your beginning reader's skills (and confidence) with these fun readers, filled with age-appropriate vocabulary, and of course, Clifford!
Check out these books that inspired Hollywood movie adaptations.
Teach your 8- to 10-year-old fascinating facts with these books that explore science!
Send a chill up your independent reader's spine with these spooky (and funny!) tales.
Learn about Scholastic's new line of illustrated early chapter books for ages 5-8.
Find a true role model in the Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls series.


text:
how to know the field variable name when output by views. eg:now, i want to overwrite a field's output, the name which i added is field_hello. but i don't know what's the variable name of it? namely how to print the variable in views-view-field--field_hello.tpl.php
Using Theme Developer (formerly part of Devel), you can inspect a page and see what variables get passed to it and use them in your own templates.
If you talk about using a variable inside a views field: this is not possible due to security issues. Depending on the fields, there are some variables available and Vies tells you which one but you don't have easy access to ALL the variables that your template is able to process.
In the Views UI, under "Basic settings", you can click "Theme: Information" to get a list of what template files are currently being used and what file names can be used. You'll find all the default templates within your views/theme/ directory. If you copy one of those to create your custom template, e.g. views-view-field.tpl.php, you'll see they're heavily documented with all the variable names available. For field templates, you have $view, $field, $row, and $output. Depending on whether you want the pre-processed value or the processed value, you probably want $field or $output.
The simplest solution is to look inside the views module directory, views/theme/ all of these templates are the default view display and contain code that prints the varibles, arrays etc that your view will generate.


text:
Blaze Fast-Fire'd Pizza today announced that Lessing's Hospitality Group, a New York-based restaurant and catering company, has signed an agreement to develop 10 franchise stores in the New York Metro area, Long Island, Westchester and Rockland counties and southern Connecticut.
This agreement brings Blaze Pizza's total number of franchise stores under development to 24 locations, with several planned to open this spring. This new commitment will allow Blaze Pizza to make its debut in two new states.
"We believe that Blaze Pizza is well positioned to capture the leadership position in the rapidly emerging build-your-own pizza category," said Michael Lessing, chief operating officer of Lessing's. "It's very exciting to be involved in the rollout of a young, well-developed concept and we know that they value our experience and input."
Lessing's Hospitality Group is the fourth area developer in Blaze Pizza's growing franchise network. Blaze Pizza is on track to have 20 area developers under contract by the end of 2013. The first New York restaurant is scheduled to open in Long Island this summer in a location that has not yet been announced.
A sixth-generation, family owned and operated food service business, Lessing's was the first company to serve Coca-Cola in Manhattan. Lessing's full-service restaurants include four-star Mirabelle, the waterfront View Restaurant, and trademark "Main Street" locations including Post Office Café, Maxwell's, Library Café and Finnegan's.
"The addition of stores in New York and Connecticut will really help in our plans to build Blaze Pizza into a national brand," said Elise Wetzel, president of Blaze Pizza.
The New York and Connecticut stores will be part of a plan to build a concentration of Blaze Pizza restaurants in the Northeast, including New Jersey, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.
Read more about franchising and growth.
Topics: Franchising & Growth , Operations Management
Sponsored Links:
Papa John's introduces XL Monster Toppings pizza
Let's Pizza vending machine ready for U.S. debut
Unique toppings: Do they work only as LTOs?
Domino's debuts American Legends specialty pizzas
LIVE WEBINAR - Restaurant Tech 2020: What you need to know NOW to be ready
Pizza Point of Sale | Right the First Time
Pizzeria Planning: Designing and Maintaining an Efficient Pizza Kitchen
6 Steps to Help You Choose the POS Software that Best Suits Your Business
LIVE WEBINAR - Restaurant Tech 2020: What you need to know NOW to be ready
Pizza Point of Sale | Right the First Time
6 Steps to Help You Choose the POS Software that Best Suits Your Business
WEBINAR: Managing customer relationships - what Which Wich learned on its search for the perfect CRM


text:
It may be September, but the Catholic picnic community isn't done yet. St. Leonard offers entertainment and family fun Friday and Saturday evening.
Upcoming Events
Event Finder
Restaurant Finder
The Weekender
Subscribe to The Weekender, Louisville's weekly guide for where to go and what to do!
Most Read Stories
- What to Do in Louisville: Autumn Hit List 2015
- Five Donuts You Should Eat in Louisville Right Now
- SuperChefs is Louisville's Newest Hero
- St. James, Louder Than Life and IdeaFest: Where to Go and What to Do This Weekend in Louisville (Oct. 1-4)
- Lee's Korean Restaurant Made Over
- What to Do in Louisville: Top Ten Fall Festivals
- Fontleroys Gastropub Coming to the Highlands
- CRAFT 2015 Brings Brews and Pizza Together For Cystic Fibrosis
- A Home? Run! High Demand in Louisville's Housing Market
- Louisville Gallery Transforms to 1965 Manhattan for Warhol event


text:
Nina Dobrev
Nina Dobrev (born Nina Constantinova Dobreva; January 9, 1989) is a Bulgarian-Canadian actress, instrumentalist, and model currently living in Canada.Nina Dobrev currently stars as Elena Gilbert in the TV series The Vampire Diaries. Pictures of Nina Dobrev with a sexy smilie
Things have been going quite well for Nina Dobrev as of late, and on Sunday night (October 4) she decided it was time to go public with her new romance.
The "Vampire Diaries" dame accompanied Austin Stowell to the premiere of his new film "Bridge of Spies" and looked gorgeous as she posed on the red carpet outside Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall.
Gearing up for the Autumn season, StyleWatch and Revolve took over the High Line on Wednesday night (August 12) for their Fall Fashion Party.
"Victorious" hottie Victoria Justice rubbed shoulders with "Vampire Diaries" dame Nina Dobrev while Olivia Culpo and Nina Agdal (in Diane Von Furstenberg and Tamara Mellon) worked the paparazzi area.
Gearing up for the Autumn season, StyleWatch and Revolve took over the High Line on Wednesday night (August 12) for their Fall Fashion Party.
"Victorious" hottie Victoria Justice rubbed shoulders with "Vampire Diaries" dame Nina Dobrev while Olivia Culpo and Nina Agdal (in Diane Von Furstenberg and Tamara Mellon) worked the paparazzi area.
He's always had a passion for environmental causes, and last night (July 22) Leonardo DiCaprio hosted a star-studded shindig at Domaine Bertaud Belieu in Saint-Tropez, France to raise money for his foundation.
Stunners like Irina Shayk, Kate Hudson and Nina Dobrev got all gussied up for the affair, joined by hunks like Orlando Bloom and Mr. DiCaprio himself.
Making the most of her tropical getaway, Nina Dobrev pranced around in a flirty two-piece bikini on Monday (July 20) in St. Tropez.
Joined by gal pals like Hillary Harley, Chandler Bailey and Tess Jantschek, the "Vampire Diaries" vixen showed off her sun-soaked physique but made sure to stay safe with plenty of sunscreen and sunglasses.
Always looking for an excuse to party with her pals, Taylor Swift threw a star-studded baby shower for her good friend Jaime King on Sunday (June 14).
The "Should've Said No" songstress snapped photos of the celebrity-laden landscape at West Hollywood's SoHo House, including famous females like Gigi Hadid, Nina Dobrev and Jessica Alba.
Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center was bursting with beautiful people last night (June 1) as the 2015 CFDA Fashion Awards got underway.
Pretty posers like Petra Nemcova, Gigi Hadid, Hannah Davis, Lily Aldridge, Joan Smalls, Bella Hadid, Karlie Kloss, Chrissy Teigen and Erin Fetherston all got gussied up for the red carpet strut while adorable actresses like Vanessa Hudgens, Katie Holmes, Nina Dobrev, Brittany Snow, Emmy Rossum, Amanda Seyfried, Kim Kardashian and January Jones brought plenty of eye candy.
She's done playing Elena on "The Vampire Diaries" and Nina Dobrev posted a heartwarming photograph via Twitter to mark the occasion of the Season Finale last night (May 14).
The beautiful actress shared a shot of herself with Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley and added the caption, "It's finally that time EAST COAST ... The finale begins now. #TVD."
It's an exciting time in the life of Nina Dobrev as she's ready to write the next chapter of her career after "The Vampire Diaries."
In her cover story for the June 2015 issue of Self magazine, the lovely actress explains that taking on new roles will be simultaneously fun and challenging.
It's the end of an era for Nina Dobrev, and as she wraps things up on the set of "The Vampire Diaries" things are getting pretty teary.
The 26-year-old star has been sharing photos from her final scenes via social media, letting fans have an inside look at what she's going through. Nina shared, "Ok, Officially a mess. No hiding it anymore. Today has been a day filled with farewells. I still have 2 more days of shooting before I wrap TVD. But it's officially a wrap on Caroline&Elena&Bonnie. Finished filming with these two beautiful, funny, sweet, sassy, amazingly talented and lovely ladies.... @candiceaccola @katgrahampics. Love you with all my heart and soul forever and always... #TVDFamily."
Hottest Videos
Sign-Up For Celebrity Newsletter
Hottest Stories
- 1)
- 2)
- 3)
- 4)
- 5)


text:
Hands-on: LG G Pro 2 review
LG has shown off the LG G Pro 2 phablet at MWC in Barcelona ahead of the official opening of the trade show and Pocket-lint was on hand to have a look and play with the new 2014 device.
The new device replaces the LG G Pro, looking to expand and enhance its phablet offering.
The follow up to the original 5.5-inch G Pro announced in 2013, the new G Pro 2 features an even bigger 5.9-inch 1920 x 1080 screen that is akin in size to the Samsung Galaxy Note 3. That gives it a pixel density of 373ppi.
Thin, light, and surprisingly not as big as you would expect, the key here is the incredibly thin side bezels and the removal of all physical buttons from the front of the device.
Instead users will be asked to use the rear rocker switch, identical to that found on the 2013 range, and a new unlocking system called Knock Code that means you simply have to tap on the screen in a special combo you select to unlock the phone.
In contrast to the crisp clear glass on the front of the device, the rear is a mottled textured surface that is neither leather or plastic to touch.
On the specs side of things the G Pro 2 is a powerful machine capable of shooting 4K video from the 13-megapixel camera on the rear and processed by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, 3GB of RAM, and 3200mAh removable battery.
It will come with 16GB / 32GB of storage.
As you would expect the phone will run Android 4.4 KitKat from day one and come with LG's tweaks and enhancements, mainly two new features specific to the G Pro 2.
The first is a dual screen mode, which allows you to run two apps on the screen at the same time, and the second is the option to miniaturise the screen from 3.4-inches to 4.7-inches to be able to use the phone one handed - presumably as you walk down the street with your coffee.
In practice and although it's a weird concept, both new options are easy to access and easy to use and we can see it working really well for the single handed user who mostly wants to benefit from a bigger phone 80 per cent of the time.
Other new software features include a selfie mode that will show the camera window smaller surrounded by a white screen so it can throw some light on your face, even it if is just white monitor light.
Quick verdict
Our time with the LG G Pro 2 was brief and crowded, but we like what we see. Sadly at the moment LG isn't confirming that it will be launching the G Pro 2 in the UK, however with a multitude of LG UK people present at the event and a keenness to show press from around the globe the new device, we suspect that the G Pro 2 will be getting a global rollout. Phablet fans will certainly hope that is going to be the case.
Samsung, a new challenger just entered.
Best smartphones 2015: The best phones available to buy today
Best smartphones to look forward to in 2015
iOS 9 tips and tricks: See what your iPhone and iPad can do now
Android 6.0 Marshmallow preview: What to expect from your next version of Android
- Motorola Moto X Play review: Big-battery beauty
- Best smartphones to look forward to in 2015
- HTC One A9: Everything we know about HTC's next hero phone
- BlackBerry Priv: The story so far on the Android slider
- Best smartphones 2015: The best phones available to buy today
- Samsung Galaxy S7 release date, rumours and everything you need to know
- Pepsi might be making a mid-range Android phone called P1
- OnePlus Mini: What's the story so far?
- Best Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P cases: Protect your new Google devices
- Best iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus cases: Treat your new Apple devices
- Motorola Moto X Play review: Big-battery beauty
- Which iPad is best for you? iPad mini 2, iPad mini 4, iPad Air, iPad Air 2 or iPad Pro?
- Best smartphones to look forward to in 2015
- HTC One A9: Everything we know about HTC's next hero phone
- 21.5-inch iMac now available with Retina 4K display, all 27-inch iMacs get Retina 5K
- BlackBerry Priv: The story so far on the Android slider
- Best smartphones 2015: The best phones available to buy today
- Best connected toys for Christmas 2015: The smarter toys your kids will love
- Canon PowerShot G9 X hands-on: G whiz, 1-inch sensor in slender body impresses
- Using Canon's VR headset: Hefty handheld solution wins on resolution, not practicality


text: Facebook [ 'Washington' crosses the Delaware, with better weather By Associated Press December 25, 2014 TITUSVILLE, N.J. (AP) -- George Washington made his Christmas Day trip across the Delaware River - with considerably better weather than the first time. Read More|Comment Category: New Jersey News, News Tags: Delaware River, George Washington Send to a friend! Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Pin it! Reddit This! Share on Tumblr!