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|15th Jan 2013, 11:36
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Dell rumoured to be looking for a buyer
Company planning to go private, sources claim.
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|15th Jan 2013, 13:52
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Profit margins on the standard issue 15" laptops are rock bottom, proper pcs don't sell, dell has pretty much given up on the tablet / smartphone market and their dirt cheap looking plastic cases on most stuff give the brand a poundshop reputation, so really they are missing the mobile revolution and missing out on the lifestyle crowd that apple attracts.
So what does that leave them with? Businesses who buy dell desktops out of habit and their attempts in the server business.
However Businesses are holding back on investments in IT due to the global economy still going down the drain, plus there is the problem that you can easily ruin the latest software on ancient hardware, hell something like an E8400 is still plenty fast for office use.
So not really surprising to see them looking at a very major overhaul.
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|15th Jan 2013, 13:53
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They surely can't be short on cash, they must have a monopoly on offices. I'm curious to see if anyone expresses interest. Hopefully HP will steer clear!!
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|15th Jan 2013, 14:03
[DELETE] means [DELETE]
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Any company who is selling computers to a consumer market and hasn't adjusted their supply towards phone and tablet items is bound to struggle. The pc production should have been scaled back in line with the inevitable pc sales decline and those resources moved to electronics that people are actually buying. The drop off in desktop sales is no surprise. Anyone who didn't expect it is clearly living under a rock on Mars. Anyone who thought that a new windows version would make a significant impact on pc sales must be living under a similarly located rock. Especially since you could upgrade a recently bought windows 7 machine for very cheap.
I agree that dell have a bargain bin image. If someone buys the company expect either a brand over haul or further delve into the bargain bucket end of the market.
|15th Jan 2013, 15:59
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Group buy, anyone?
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|15th Jan 2013, 16:05
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1/2 billion US dollars split between 54,000 members = APPROX 9000 dollars each
........... (checks pockets). LOL
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|15th Jan 2013, 16:30
How many wifi's does it have?
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Laptops and Desktop computers aren't dead. Desktop market has shrunk a lot, but Laptop are still relevant. What Laptop has that tablet don't, is a a more confotable setup to use, more power, more battery life (sadly this is not the case today, but it is douable).
Right now, people go with tablets, as laptops sucks, and Desktop are meh, OR goes buy a MacBook Pro or iMac, as they are the most powerful and highest build quality systems on the consumer market, and also they are not a monstrosity with minutes of battery life like gaming laptop (more like portable desktops).
Here is what I think Dell should do, to be relevant on the market:
-> Have 4 desktop: All in one, High-End Home, Med range Business, and Workstation
-> Have 5 laptops like now: Low-end Home, High-end Home, Low end Business, High end Business, and portable workstation.
-> Home warranty service make it the same quality as Dell Business.
-> High End Home laptop -> XPS -> High resolution screen IPS panel, Core i5 or i7 options, 4GB of RAM minimum, drop the price of SSD upgrade, have DisplayPort, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, 9hou of battery life with a 9-cell battery option, that doesn't not lift the laptop, quiet operation with smart cooling engineering and quiet fan(s). Med-range to high-range Nvidia or AMD GPU options. Magnesium alloy contruct, like the Latitude E series, NON-chickless keyboard, backlit, glass surface touchpad, 3 YEAR warranty minimum (with a big push on that), metal hinge system, no more Alps touchpad, no more IDT sound chip, and finally, hire designers.. with good tastes, and make a proper looking one. Non glossy screen should be an option.
Price should range between 1500$ to 3000$. No more Alienware (as this series will replace it). Laptop size should be: 10-12inch* (I'll get to that), 14inch OR 13inch, 15inch.
10-12inch model are a tablet, using Intel GPU.. but the like the ASUS transformer, it can be plugged to a keyboard that not only provides a keyboard, and battery, but also have a Nvidia or AMD med-low range GPU (optional, for those who don't need it can have the Intel GPU). So now you have a portable tablet, but also if you need the GPU, you can attach the keyboard.
-> Low-end laptop Home - Inspiron: Can be made of plastic, but not glossy, TN panel, but still high resolution, or the reverse (IPS but low resolution), Intel GPU only, HDMI out only is fine, 2 year warranty (to push consumer in thinking that this is not like before, and that this laptop will last), standard keyboard and the rest. No IDT sound chip, No Alps touchpad. 14 and 15inch version should be available
Price should be 800-1500$
Warranty extension is a good. It allows the consumer to think that the product is higher quality, especially when advertise it. Also, its essentially included in the price, and like any warranty extension, it boosts profits. The low-end system option isn't pushing boundaries, and everything is normal, nothing really special in terms of specs, making idea to charge a high than normal price system, providing increase profit.
-> Desktop High-end home - XPS: Provide better GPU options, keep the price the same, make the system much quieter, include as option high current PSU with dual PCI-E power connector, offering users to be able to upgrade their GPU later on. It is a gamer system after all. Inside should be clean and nice.
Business class system should be similar to Home, but even better build quality for their low and high range system, better looking than what it was now (hire designers!), all monitors should be non-glossy as it is now, warranty the same, VGA ports on both models (a must for businesses, still today, sadly), and business features.
All systems of Home comes junk free, and provide as options: Recovery disks, and OS disk. It is fine if you pay more for them.
Desktops for business needs to be cleared. Waaaayyy too many models under the Optiplex series.
-> They need to reinvent the image of the company. That means: Drop the Inspiron and Vostros name, and NO OPTIPLEX, find new names. For those who don't know, Dell fell into a bad contract with the capacitor provider (like many companies), and received inferior capacitor that broke easily. This destroyed the Optiplex series name. New name, and all business class system should come with solid capacitors exclusively, and should advertise that. Even if most people won't understand what it means.. just say Using solid capacitor 50 000 hours operation, made in Japan, like what Gigabyte does, even thought "made in Japan" means nothing... like anything made anywhere, it can be crap or good.. that's not the point.. it sounds good.
As for the all in one systems. Do like HP all in ones
See this video and product wants to make me buy one.. like rigth now. Its a shame it has flaws:
-> No touch screen option
-> No digitize screen option (also the stand must have a look option, and fall in more flat by coming close to you when put in flat, so that you can rest your arm better when you draw).
Other than that, looks awesome.
Of course for home, remove the fancy Quadro, and put an optional Nvidia or AMD low-med range GPU like Apple, and you can remove the easy serviceable options. But IPS panel and proper 27inch resolution should continue to be used.
This is what I would do if I had Dell in my hands. What do you guys think?
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|15th Jan 2013, 16:59
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Shrinking Consumer PC market towards Tablets and smartphones suggests dell may have problems.
There is not alot of people left who dont own a computer already in the 1st world countrys you only really need 1 computer no point buying a new one when the current one works.
if you got your hands on dell they would be bankrupt a long time before your reimage comes to light.
1. Alienware brand has made Dell Cash and alot of it if you look at the financials for the last year.
2. The big business that foke on here are trying to get them to avoid is 50% of there total revenue.
3. Servers are where all the profits are for the IT sector, alot of Dells profits come from this sector more so than HP.
4. People who want an all in one computer will buy a mac.
5. Ultrabook sales suggest laptop market is indeed dead, If you combine them all together ( removing apple) they = the total macbook air that are sold buy apple in a year and its not alot between 2-4mil units per quater. Thats from about 10 companies selling high end laptops. ( and 8 of those companies are loosing money acording to financials)
6. The market for a specialist gaming laptop is smaller than the market for an ultrabook.
7. Not up to dell to find a solution to battery life and to expect a laptop to last the time a tablet does is crazy.
Dell are probably not short of cash
but for Feb 2012 they lost 61mil dollars. Feb 2011 they made 3.2billion dollars.
Guessing they are expecting Feb 2013 to be a bloodbath.
|15th Jan 2013, 17:09
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Strange, in the last two years I've bought quite a lot of kit from Dell, as it's actually better than what I'm getting in the enthusiast market. Power supplies from their top-end workstations and gaming machines are flat out amazing. When I wanted a new dually, I picked up a used Precision T7400, as it's not only a lot more to build similar, I would have lots of problems engineering such a flexible platform. I guess I'm just the minority, but I hope the new workstations end up being as awesome when they get into the range I can afford one.
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|15th Jan 2013, 17:13
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I've been on the Dell website recently, looking for a new laptop. Unfortunately I didn't find anything that matched my criteria at the right price point. Basically, I can get a machine with an i7 and GTX660M for less money from their competitors in a better looking chassis.*
The XPS 12 did pique my interest, as did the Lenovo Yoga. The ability to convert the laptop into a heavy-ass tablet would have it's uses and make a little more sense of Windows 8. Unfortunately, Atoms, i5's and Intel integrated graphics are completely useless. If they offered a 15 inch version with the right hardware 'shutupandtakemymoney.jpg', but I don't think the market is going in that direction.
*Importantly not a 'gaming' chassis. Most 'gaming' laptops look like a 12 year old vomited LEDs over a Gundam toy.
|15th Jan 2013, 17:49
How many wifi's does it have?
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I agree with you. But considering that they used to put what you are looking for.. or maybe it would be a GTX 640M-650M (adapted to today specs) instead, in a 12inch laptop, with a powerful Core 2 Duo (so Core i7 now), and still be quiet, with the fan rarely spinning, and 9h of battery life with the 9-cell battery. That was 6 YEARS ago! Where processors were much hotter than now, and consumed much more power.
Why isn't it possibly to do this now? Why not in a 13-14inch laptop with those specs at least (to try and make it thinner). 15inch is way too big in my opinion. 14inch is the max I would go for a laptop. 15inch is way too heavy, bulky.. feels like I am crying a desktop.
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Last edited by GoodBytes; 15th Jan 2013 at 18:41.
|15th Jan 2013, 18:12
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I guess 15 would be a bit much for hand-holding, but I figured that laptop mode could be used for gaming at friend's houses and tablet mode could be used on a desk as a secondary system to my computer. It'd be ideal for recording audio, where I could just poke the screen rather than fiddle with a track pad.
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|15th Jan 2013, 19:11
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As I said before, the cheap plastic cases and some incidents with low quality make it hard to sell the profitable lifestyle gadgets Apple makes billions with. Simply put, no one would ever put a Dell desktop on a desk and think it looks good and if you have to hide it anyway you at least want it to be cheap (and with it low profit for the manufacturer).
Remember the ill fated Dell Adamo? how many people do you know who would choose that over a MacBook Air? To sell a premium product you need a brand that is associated with premium, not one that reminds people of the 10 year old el cheapo desktop in a flimsy plastic case at work.
As you said (in a lot of detail) they pretty much need to redo their entire lineup from scratch and come up with new product names.
Although funny enough, I couldn't be happier with my ancient 16:10 24" Dell monitor.
|16th Jan 2013, 02:59
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Dell is EOL. They made their money selling computers that weren't upgradeable and had a relatively short life span. Most people have moved on to other brands if in the market for a laptop or gone for a tablet if appropriate. I don't know why people feel the need to save things that now no longer have a place. If Dell had responded to the changing market maybe I would feel different, but they didn't, and there are plenty of companies doing what people want.
|16th Jan 2013, 03:21
How many wifi's does it have?
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That is not true. Then again you get what you paid for. You got a 300$ laptop, you get a 300$ laptop that will last what a 300$ laptop will last... 1-2 years.
But in general Dell products last a very long time. 5-6 years even 7 years, easy.
Dell monitors are extremely competitive, and have a very high reputation of reliability.
Dell also has the least amount of junk per-installed on their system, even the low end models.
Also, Dell doesn't care what OS you have, changing the OS won't void the warranty. With Toshiba, and Lenovo home computers, if you update to a new version of Windows -> warranty voided.
HP for years and years they produced laptop and desktop that didn't pass 1-2 years before something breaks or completely breaks down.
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|16th Jan 2013, 06:04
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The Dell monitors I agree with, but I get more people moaning about Dell laptops breaking. Toshiba and HP laptops of a similar price tend to last a lot longer from what I have seen, for say the last 5 years.
|16th Jan 2013, 16:13
Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 20
They also did respond to the market - they were one of the first to market with both Android tablets (Streak) and Windows 7 Phone - and they've thrown some mega products out there if you look for them.
The problem is, nobody wants to buy desktop computers or laptops at the moment because they're happy with Windows 7, don't want 8 or are saving for an Apple. Also, like the motor trade, it's a self-defeating market that tries to offer extremely reliable goods but demands semi-yearly product churn so that the companies exist when it comes to finally changing.
|16th Jan 2013, 17:47
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 56
I agree with you on toshiba being pretty good, at least they get them fixed and back to you quickly when they break. We sell Asus and Lenovo in my shop and have only had customer-caused incidents with them. We see Dells and HPs all the time with motherboard issues, especially HPs. One customer I checked in this morning was telling me she had the motherboard replaced 3 times under her 1 year HP warranty. The Dell Inspiron line from the last 2 generations have horrid build quality, especially with the hinges. The hinges themselves don't break, but the screws pull out of the PLASTIC frame of the laptop.
|16th Jan 2013, 18:02
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I'd say that Dell's business grade items such as monitors are brilliant, as is their customer service and warranty to go with them. The flat out consumer PC world stuff however...
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We work in some of London's busiest areas to identify people who are sleeping rough and to help them find accommodation.
Our outreach teams comb the streets looking for homeless people who need help; aiming to help people into accommodation as fast as possible.
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Sleeping rough is harmful and dangerous. We believe no one should end up sleeping rough in the UK in the 21st century.
Within London, we are members of the Mayor's London Delivery Board, which is a strategic partnership set up to end street homelessness in the capital by the end of 2012.
From April 2011 a new pilot initiative came into place called No Second Night Out. This involves rough sleepers being supported into an outreach hub and assessment centre, staffed 24 hours, where a professional team will talk to people about the personal options open to them. Our street outreach teams refer to the assessment hub.
To make a referral nationally, call StreetLink on 0300 500 0914 and help connect anyone rough sleeping to local services.
Read more about our innovative work - Long Term Rough Sleepers - Innovation and Recovery and statistics on rough sleeping.


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eliasoz commented on an old post called "top 50 blogs segmented by language", which made us realize how long it has been since we've updated that list - i guess the main reason is that blogslounge has solved this with their interesting website, but what we've been doing is the segmentation the list by language, so here's the latest one as of today.
a lot of blogs are out of the top 50 list and so many new ones are in - for some reason blogs lounge is not listing 248am, danderma, kuwait blogs suck and kuwait music, so we added those to the list.
the great news is that we are now the second english blog in town and i hope we stay there, we've been up and down that list for so long but we've always been in the top 20 general ranking and always in the top 5 english blogs.
a great place to be, now our job is even more difficult as we need to maintain our current position for some time - thanks for our fantastic readers who have put us in such a nice place.


text:
Peach melba
According to Mrs Beeton's Book Of Cookery And Household Management, Georges Auguste Escoffier created, for Dame Nellie Melba, a dish that "consisted of ripe peaches poached in vanilla syrup and arranged in the centre of a bowl of vanilla ice cream". Cold Melba sauce, made from sweetened raspberries, was poured over the peaches and the bowl containing the dessert was presented on a dish of crushed ice. Dame Nellie Melba was born Helen Mitchell in the Australian city of Melbourne, from which she took her stage name. Chambers Biographical Dictionary tells us that she "appeared at Covent Garden in 1888, and the wonderful purity of her soprano voice won her worldwide fame".
I never doubted that I would see this ghost again. Even when I was married and busy with a job that made absurd demands on my time, even in the first days of solitude, when I realised that, of all the final states I had imagined for myself, I had never once considered that of widower, I thought she would reappear, not as a phantom, but as a palpable being. I once dreamed that my wife and I had a child, and it grew up to be a replica, in every detail, of this dark-eyed Italian woman whom I had known for less than an hour, 25 years before. There were times when I would wake in the dark and imagine that I had committed some terrible crime, a beautiful, perfect crime that had gone undetected for a lifetime, but must now be confessed and, if possible, forgiven. I would lie there for long minutes in a state of panic, trying to remember what I had done; and it was the fact that I could not remember that troubled me, far more than the notion of having done something terrible. How could I be forgiven, if I could not remember my sin? How could I ever repent, if I imagined myself blameless?
Yet I was blameless - and in my waking hours I knew it. If I thought about it, if I considered the facts, I could say: I met her by accident, in the ice-cream parlour she ran with her husband and his mother; I met her by chance, because her children, Vincent and Angela, were at school with me, and if the fault belonged to anyone, it was theirs. Vincent was the classroom heart-throb, a confident, slightly cruel boy with Hollywood-Italian, matinée idol looks in the making, and I admired him desperately. He was clever, but never a show-off; he had a wonderful disdain for priests and teachers, which he managed to communicate without ever being openly impolite; he was beautifully arrogant, with that air of knowing something that I could only guess at. His sister was a year older, but she and Vincent were very close, almost unnaturally so. He was the only boy she tolerated; the rest she looked down upon with the contempt of a girl already on her way to developing breasts and a pair of wide, Sophia Loren eyes, and who was therefore an object of bedazzled curiosity for every boy she met. Like Vincent, she knew things; like Vincent, she saw through everyone - and this was their special secret, this private knowingness that they had agreed, at some point in their young lives, not to turn upon one another. At home, they spoke Italian with their grandmother; in that mostly poor town, they had books of their own that were not borrowed from the school library, or a sympathetic teacher. Their father gave them outrageous sums of pocket money and took them in his car to places we could not have visited on the bus. One year they went "home" to Italy, to see relatives, and they came back brown as berries, with the knowing half-smiles of children who have visited the outside world, and had secrets they could have told, had they so wished.
Most of all, they lived in The House Of Ice Cream. That was the name of their father's ice-cream parlour, a play, as I now know, on the family name. It was a beautiful name: della Casa, perfectly Italian somehow, and I thought, when I first learned what it meant, how foolish their father had been to squander that music just for the sake of wordplay. But then, that was part of the della Casa charm, that ability to squander. The sweets they made - peach Melba, Neapolitan ice, knickerbocker glory, banana split - were luxurious and gaudy confections that, in those years just after rationing, seemed extraordinary self-indulgences, and the only way to mark a special occasion, for adults and children alike. Yet it wasn't the ice creams that made for glamour so much as the fact that these children virtually lived in the shop, helping out, or minding the till, wandering into the kitchens where other children were never allowed, sitting at their own table with cups of coffee and talking quietly to one another in their own secret talk, or calling out in Italian to the women in the back of the shop, to the grandmother, who was only rarely seen, and to the mother, who was more or less invisible. No wonder I knelt down at Mass and, with a lingering sense of committing some terrible blasphemy, prayed, in my own fashion, for them to accept me, to take me in, to make me a creature of their world, however lowly, and for however short a time.
The soul is present at the beginning, like mind, or grammar, but it takes a lifetime to emerge fully into its true being, like those desert plants that flower only once every hundred years or so. Everyone is headed towards a specific end, everyone is travelling towards the inevitable: not death, or not just death, but something equally mysterious. For me, it is a memory, a single, perfectly defined moment for which all the other moments have been surrendered, and to that extent it is a matter of choice. A choice made in the darkest shadows of the psyche, perhaps, but a choice, nevertheless. We are, as we grow older, the products of the choices we make, both conscious and unconscious, and the only wisdom we can ever attain is the wisdom to know how the process works, at the most hidden level. Our conscious and our secret choices sometimes contradict one another, that is only to be expected. There are choices we learn to make, and there is the matter of the soul, which operates beyond convention or common sense. The best fortune a man can have is to choose with his soul, rather than with his heart or his head because, then, there is always a secret, there is always a place in his marrow that remains intact, sacred and untouchable, a noli-me-tangere place, like that shadowy place in the garden where Mary encountered Jesus, and didn't even know who he was.
I was shameless in my pursuit of the della Casas, which seems odd, looking back, after a life in which friends mattered little to me, a life in which my colleagues, my neighbours, even most of my family are barely remembered. Perhaps it has to do with what happened that summer. I am not one to believe in simple cause and effect, especially of the psychological variety, but the fact is that I have never had, nor have I ever missed having, any particular or special friends. So why I should have wanted so much to be friends with the della Casas is something of a mystery to me now. Perhaps I was piqued by their initial lack of interest, an obvious indifference that, because they were so much better than me, bore no trace of malice or venom. I suspect nothing is as beguiling to a child as disdain - and Vincent della Casa was a child prodigy in the art of disdain. In fact, it was only through his sister that I ever got to speak to him at all.
I had tried for months to befriend Vincent, to no avail. Then, all of a sudden, everything changed. It was late in the holidays: the Thursday before the carnival, as I recall. I was standing by myself at the back wall of the play park, at the single vantage point that allowed me to see into the neighbouring garden, where the Covington sisters lived. The Covington sisters, Martha and Mary, loved wildlife, and they had arranged their garden to draw in birds I had never seen anywhere else: tree-creepers and nuthatches, long-tailed tits, odd, unidentified migrants that had strayed off their normal course. The Covington women were spinsters and they had lived together in that house since the dawn of time. Nobody ever spoke to them; even the baker and the butcher's boy exchanged their goods for the correct sums of money, counted out in advance and silently handed over on the doorstep. Sometimes, however, if I was patient, I could hear one or other of them speak in a quiet singsong, and I was enchanted by the sound, enchanted by the way they were slowly changing, one day at a time, into the things they most loved.
It was Angela who found me there. She appeared at my shoulder, as if from nowhere, and gave me a curious look. "What are you doing?" she asked.
I didn't know what to say. I waved my hand vaguely in the direction of the Covingtons' garden, and hoped that would be sufficient explanation.
Angela smiled. "Bird-watching," she said.
I nodded. Someone else laughed, somewhere behind me, and I turned. I hadn't known Vincent was there, too, watching from about 10 feet away, and I felt suddenly unhappy, as if they had caught me doing something foolish or private.
"You like birds," Angela continued. She smiled patiently, as if addressing a child.
"Yes," I said. "They're all right."
Vincent came closer. "There's a carnival, this Saturday," he said.
I nodded. "Yes," I said. "I know." The fair came to town every summer but, that year, the council had decided it would be a carnival. To us, it had the sound of new times, of glamour and money and the end of the postwar austerity that had designated everything from sausages to kisses, if not scarce, then unjustified indulgences. Times had been hard and now they were going to be better. If only the powers-that-be had thought of it before, all they needed to keep us happy and malleable was a man on stilts and a parade along the high street, with ponies and ballerinas, balloons and floats, children waving flags and cheering, grown-ups in their church clothes eating candyfloss.
"Are you going?" Vincent asked.
I wanted to seem nonchalant. I knew how unattractive eagerness seems to people like the della Casas. "Of course," I said. "The whole town will be there."
Vincent laughed at my quaint expression and gave Angela a meaningful look. "That's right," he said, to her only. "The whole town. Everybody except our mother."
Angela seemed annoyed. "I think what my moron brother is trying to say," she said, quietly, "is, would you like to come to the carnival with us?"
I couldn't believe it, of course. Next, they would be suggesting we all meet up at The House Of Ice Cream for a vanilla sundae before the carnival began.
"Well?" Vincent was watching me with some amusement. I suppose I looked as surprised as I felt. "You could come round to the shop. Our grandmother could make us some coffee before we go." He peered at me, as if he were looking at some alien life form. "You do drink coffee, don't you?"
I nodded. I had never drunk coffee in my life.
Angela nodded back. "That settles it, then," she said. "We'll see you at our place on Saturday, at one o'clock."
Vincent studied me a moment longer, then turned and began walking away. "Don't be late," he called back, without turning around. "Or we'll go without you."
If I said, now, that I couldn't wait for Saturday, I would be guilty of a half-truth. The fact is, I was almost as afraid of that blessed day as I was looking forward to it. I spent the whole of Friday wondering what I would say to these golden children, what I would do, how much money I could get out of my parents, whether I should offer to pay for my coffee, and a hundred other minor details of form and etiquette. Today, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see that the day we had planned to spend together would have been a disaster of the kind that makes a person self-conscious for years, if not for a lifetime. As it happened, however, I need not have worried. I didn't have a date with Vincent and Angela, I didn't go to the carnival and, betrayed, ashamed, and so liberated from all further concerns with the social niceties, I didn't have to be anything other than the awkward and solitary child I had always been. I didn't even get to taste coffee until much later.
Somewhere, in some virtual library, there is a book to which my life is one long commentary. Not, I suspect, Moby-Dick or Bleak House, or even How To Win Friends And Influence People. Maybe something more like Household Management, by Mrs Beeton, all recipes and tips on etiquette, the cure for croup or how to get dried bloodstains out of suede. What that book should contain is a matter of some importance to me: no scriptures - that goes without saying - but maybe the odd, more or less dubious, more or less true old wives' tale, some fragments of history and geography, a few tables and logarithms, perhaps, and - of this I feel quite certain - several pages of nothing but lists. There will be some foxing, naturally, and possibly a dark, camel-shaped ink stain on the spine, but what matters is that, somewhere in a margin, or in a tiny, almost illegible footnote, all of my real and imaginary lovers are mentioned by name.
When I arrived at the shop, nobody was there. I had never seen The House Of Ice Cream empty before, and it was eerie, standing in that sunlit space, all the booths empty along the wall, the tables by the window deserted, nobody hurrying about taking orders, nobody behind the counter, watching the till. I didn't know what to do, finding it so still and, for a moment, I felt like an intruder, a burglar maybe - or maybe a ghost. Then a tall, dark, astonishingly beautiful woman appeared from the kitchens, wiping her hands on a crisp, white tea towel as she wandered through to the front of the shop with the air of someone who'd be glad to be alone. I'm not sure that she saw me at first or, if she did, she seemed not to be convinced I was really there, and it made me feel more like a ghost than ever. She waited a long moment, a puzzled look on her face, as if she had found some exotic animal in her ice-cream parlour, and wasn't quite sure how to handle it. Then she smiled. "Hello," she said. "Can I help you?" She had a strong accent, but I understood her. It was just that I didn't know, for a minute, what to say. Her smile dimmed. "Are you OK?" she asked. "You look..."
"I'm fine," I said. "It's just..." Suddenly I was aware that I was staring at her. She was, I realised, Vincent and Angela's mother, the famously reclusive Mrs della Casa, who always stayed in the back rooms and never spoke to anybody. "I'm Henry," I said. "I'm a friend of Vincent's." This wasn't exactly a lie, but I could see that she didn't quite believe me. "I was supposed to meet him here. We're going to the carnival," I added, having come to the realisation, at that very moment, that we were not.
"I'm sorry," she said, "but Vincent isn't here. I thought he had already gone..." She gave me a weak smile to hide a concern that had more to do with my presence than with her children's bad manners. "They're not here," she added, a little shamefaced, as if she thought I thought she was lying.
I looked around the empty shop. "No," I said. "I suppose I made a mistake... "
"No!" She seemed offended by the idea. "I'm sure it's not your fault." She shifted awkwardly from one foot to another. She was a very beautiful woman, perhaps the most beautiful I have ever seen, and at that moment, awkward, embarrassed, unsure of what to do next, she looked more beautiful to me than seemed possible for any merely human creature.
"Anyway," I said. "I'd better get off."
She seemed even more offended by this. "No," she said. "You wait." She glanced briefly at the back of the shop, as if she were afraid someone was listening, then she continued. "Listen," she said, "I'm going to make you a peach Melba. Have you ever had a real peach Melba?"
I shook my head. I wanted to say that I would have preferred a coffee, but I didn't. "It's all right," I said lamely. I was remembering my mother's favourite advice to me, offered in every possible situation, an ugly phrase that every child loathes. Don't be a bother. And the truth was, I didn't want to be a bother. I wanted to sneak off home and lick my wounds.
But Mrs della Casa had different ideas. She had allowed herself to be offended by some idea that had crossed her mind and was off again before I could say anything. "I don't mean peach Melba the way some people make it," she said. "I mean proper, the way we make it here at The House Of Ice Cream." The way she said it, with just a hint of absurd exaggeration, made me realise she had been against the idea of the anglicised sign that hung outside the shop. She was Italian, and she saw no reason to be anything else, I suppose. "The way I make it," she said. "The best peach Melba ever."
I nodded. I really hadn't wanted to be a bother, but I couldn't resist the offer and, besides, it seemed to me that she wanted to make this exotic dessert even more than I wanted to stay and eat it. "I don't want to be any trouble," I let out weakly.
"No trouble," she said, serious again. "You sit. Over there, by the window. I'll be back in 15 minutes."
So I sat. Part of me expected Vincent and Angela to turn up after all, but the thought gave me no pleasure. Suddenly, it was a pleasure to be there, in that empty place, while everyone else was a few streets away, out in the glare of the sun, unblessed by these soft shadows, by the gold of the muted light behind the counter and the quiet that ruled while, somewhere in the kitchen, Mrs della Casa made me a peach Melba the old-fashioned way, with fresh peaches and crushed ice, and her own special raspberry sauce that, when the dish arrived, seemed impossibly crimson. It took less time to create than I had expected, but it was, as she had predicted, a kind of miracle, a magical thing that, sitting there on the table before me, seemed beyond time, beyond the flow of ordinary events and worries, beyond everything but love and art.
"Enjoy!" Mrs della Casa said as she presented me with this masterpiece; then she started away, still half-smiling, pleased, it seemed, to have done this one thing for a boy she had assumed must be sad, or lonely, or upset. I wanted to detain her, then; I wanted her to stay with me, so I could let her see that I was none of those things, that I was, in fact, quite inanely happy. "I'm just going to the kitchen," she said as she passed the counter. "I'll let you enjoy it by yourself, and when you're finished, you can tell me how you liked it." And with that she disappeared, out of the column of gold sunlight where she had been standing and into the darkness beyond.
I sometimes ask myself what happened to the boy I am remembering now. Was he me? Am I him? I can imagine him disappearing a long time ago, leaving a space that anything could have filled - a potted plant, a cat, a photograph album - a boy with my face and hands who woke one morning and left the house early, dressed in the usual clothes, with a satchel on his back, a boy who seemed like any other, going about the usual work of a Wednesday morning. He got up, splashed cold water on his face, put some books and pencils into that bag and left the house, but he never appeared in school, not that morning, and not on any of the mornings that followed, a boy with my name and blood cells and hair, dressed in my waterproof jacket and gloves, walking away in the morning rain, his absence at morning assembly green as the scent of thuja, his Latin Primer still buried amongst the slut's hair and apple cores in the desk he left vacant, four places from the front of the class, between Laura Costello and Tom Morgan, children he had known all his life who only noticed him when he was gone, and only noticed then to wonder, for a few days, or a week at most, whether there was more to the story than whatever explanation they were offered for his sudden disappearance.
A short time later, Mrs della Casa returned to the front of the shop. She was still smiling and I knew I wasn't being a bother, that she wasn't hurrying me to leave, but I could see that she did have something on her mind. She stood a moment at the till, thinking about something, perhaps working out what she wanted to say. Finally, she turned to me. I wondered if she knew how beautiful she seemed to me, at that moment, if she knew that my heart was fluttering in my throat. "The peach Melba," she said, serious again. "It's good?"
I wanted to say it was perfect, that it was a miracle in a glass bowl, an impossible event in a world where peaches came from tins and ice cream tasted like wax, but all I did was nod.
"Listen," she said, "I don't think Vincent will be here for a while."
I shook my head. I knew by now that I had been stood up. Vincent and Angela were probably laughing at that very moment about the trick they had played on me. Or, more likely, they had forgotten me altogether.
"But I have to go out somewhere," Mrs della Casa continued, looking worried. "I have to go out for some minutes, no more." She gave me an uncertain look, as if she were trying to do some piece of complicated arithmetic in her head.
"I can stay here," I said. I wasn't sure about this, about whether this was what she wanted, or whether I could do it, but I didn't really have a choice.
"Can you?" She looked relieved. "I won't be gone for long."
I nodded, sure of myself suddenly. "Absolutely," I said. "I'll stay and keep an eye on things. Take as long as you like."
She smiled again at this, though there was a darkness in her face still and I knew the errand she had to run was something she would rather have avoided. "You're a good boy," she said. "I don't know why Vincent isn't here."
I shook my head. "It's fine," I said. "It was probably just a misunderstanding."
Neither of us was convinced. Mrs della Casa stood a moment longer, watching me, curious, a little puzzled. What was I doing in her ice-cream store on that particular Saturday afternoon, when the whole town was elsewhere? Why was I missing the carnival? Looking back, I see now that it was then, at that very moment when Mrs della Casa looked at me with that question in her eyes, that my fondness for solitary weekend afternoons was born. It had never occurred to me before, but I was one of those souls who prefer to be somewhere else when the carnival is passing along the high street, just as it had never occurred to me that unrequited love could be so precise and deliberate a thing, a choice that I had just that moment made, and would continue to make all my life, a private matter that had almost nothing to do with the object of that love. Now the two are moulded into one: solitude, quiet, the unregistered joy of sitting at a cafe window, gazing out at an empty street, the delicious sense of balance that comes of putting down a book and crossing an empty room to look out at the gardens, empty and still in the middle of the afternoon, when my neighbours are out at football games or supermarkets. A cat sits on the wall, a blackbird pauses on the lawn to look up, a shadow forms among the shadows in the holly tree, not a presence but an event, the world happening in its own time and space, outside the mind, unpeopled, witnessed by nobody - by nobody, really. Even if I am standing there, looking out, listening, it is the past I am seeing, the past I am hearing. I never catch up, I am never fully there. I am a millisecond behind the moment - and part of me is further back still, further away, sitting in an empty cafe, watching a woman turn away, hearing her say something, I'm not sure what, then seeing her pass through the double doors and out, in her gold cotton summer dress and her miraculously white apron, out into the street, out into the sunlight, out into...
Eternity. Which is to say: into the moment when she stops at the kerb, remembers she is still wearing her apron, and pauses a second - a second, no more - to take it off. It's only the briefest of pauses, only the slenderest moment of inattention but, in that second, on a day when there had been no traffic for as long as I had been sitting in The House Of Ice Cream, a van came speeding along the road - a little blue van, like the one the butcher used for deliveries - and struck her, full-force, throwing her up into the air and away, out of my line of vision. For a moment it seemed unreal, like a trick she or someone was playing on me, or a rehearsal for something that wasn't decided yet. Then I heard the noise of the brakes, as the van screeched to a halt, and somebody screamed. I jumped up and ran to the door - and all of a sudden, as if they had all been waiting for something to happen, there were people everywhere: a man bending over the fallen woman, another man standing by the door of the van, where the driver sat, staring at what he had done, in total shock. It wasn't the butcher. It was someone I had never seen before. I'm not sure what I would have done, or what I wanted to do. Perhaps I would have run to where Mrs della Casa lay, so still, so obviously dead, but someone else had come, also from nowhere, and he was holding on to me, holding my shoulders just enough so I could give in and not move, so I could only stand and stare as, for one long minute, everything stopped, and a hole appeared in the universe I had known till then, a hole that was tiny and white and lit by the sun, a hole that, to any other eye, looked like a clean but slightly creased apron, lying on the Tarmac, where Veronica della Casa had dropped it.
I have forgotten most of my life so far. People told me, when I was young, that I would remember more when I was older and I trust that I will. I trust that, as this quiet time in my final home lengthens and deepens, I will stop remembering every detail of the book I just read, or the conversation I had at the butcher's yesterday, and my mind - stiller now, quieter - will begin to piece together the corpus of my life, moment by moment, year by year, as an archaeologist puts together a man from a scatter of bones he has found in a midden. I look forward to that. I look forward to the day when I pass a girl on the library steps and, because patchouli is back in fashion, or because her hair has been brushed back in a certain way, I will remember myself as a young man, and so solve the mystery of who it was lived in my place, breathing and eating and making love through all those lost years. I look forward to remembering my wife as she was when we met, and not the golden, but slightly distant creature she became later. I look forward to having memories that I can see and smell: brief, but intense madeleine moments when everything comes back to me in gorgeous detail. I rather suspect, however, that I will, instead, continue to live in this limbo of unclassified sensations and mental snapshots till that promised moment when, at the very last, everything flashes before my eyes once more, a whole history unfolding and coming to life behind my eyes in milliseconds, like those Japanese paper toys that, the moment they are immersed in water, blossom into extraordinary and elaborate flowers: peonies, chrysanthemums, lilies. Perhaps then the moment when Mrs della Casa died will be just one of many moments, one flower in a bowl of brilliantly coloured flowers, unfolding and spreading in my memory, one petal at a time.
On Saturdays, I make myself a peach Melba. I make it the way Mrs della Casa made it, or I like to think I do. It never quite tastes as it ought, but then I could hardly expect a miracle of such proportions. These days, I could use better ingredients - freshly picked peaches, fuzzed with warmth and static; organic ice cream; vanilla pods from the Fairtrade store - but I stick to what she was obliged to use, because what I am searching for is not a perfect peach Melba, not a copy of Escoffier's original recipe, but the repetition of a moment. When I am done, I sit down at the table by the window and think about the high street, about the people elsewhere, crossing roads, shopping, meeting friends, stopping to talk for a moment, then moving on. I have to admit, I feel a certain quiet, slightly detached affection for them all: men, women, children; shop assistants, cooks, hospital porters; police superintendents. I think of The House Of Ice Cream as it was long ago - it calls itself a bistro now, and the della Casas are long gone - and how it might have been, had it survived. This is a scientific experiment, an attempt to fix a soul in place, like a butterfly on a pin, to see it entire and motionless for a moment. I think of sunlight on a plate-glass window and a blue van passing along a street, then I try to slow it all down, to see what really happened, to isolate the moment when I became someone other than I had been, someone other than the person I had been destined to be. It's the only moment of my life that I remember, and even then I cannot quite see it entire.
Here, from where I am sitting, I can see the garden, where a wave of forget-me-nots flows from under the shade of a currant bush and fades out into the gravel path. I can look up and watch the swallows flicker out from the brickwork on James and John Street, watch them scouting the warm air above the hedges, a constant play of shadows and light, but even as it happens it is receding into the past, it is all going and, when I try to grasp it, there is no now, no present moment, no fixed self to slip into and be, once and for all. I would like to say that peach Melba - the taste of the ice cream, or the way the raspberry bleeds into the ice and stains it a dark crimson - I would like to say that something brings it all back to me, but I cannot. What I taste is ice cream and peaches, what I see is crimson, what I hear is the twittering of the swallows overhead and, after all these years, I still cannot tell where my self leaves off and the world begins, as everything - self and world, soul and matter - falls away into nothingness, beautifully, elegantly and, as it must, leaving me stunned and bereft, and alone in my house, lost, or perhaps merely suspended, in the lingering and slightly overblown perfection of peach Melba. ·
© John Burnside, 2007


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Cognitive Mapping and Radio Drama by Alan Beck - Consciousness, Literature and the Arts, Volume 1 Number 2, July 2000
also at http://blackboard.lincoln.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/users/dmeyerdinkgrafe/archive/cog.html
4.1 Referentiality
My discussion is also crucially about the final stage of a text's reception, in the mind of the reader. So I am concerned here with the fictions of radio drama and the connections these make with the listener's own real-life interaction, the Lifeworld - the listener's own existential situation; and also how radio represents the Lifeworld or what I term the 'extra-radio world'. This article looks at how the listener actively completes the fictional scenery from the necessarily sketchy information given in broadcast, in the 'blind' medium.
The term for this making of connections by the reader is referentiality, as I introduced above. It is the act of making reference, in a work of fiction, to the extraneous world outside, and to various objects or referents, believed to exist independently, outside the realm of the fiction. It is how the fiction work points outside of itself. I take the common-sense attitude that real objects exist independently of their being observed (metaphysical realism) and that, unless problematized by an author such as Samuel Beckett, referentiality is possible.
Referentiality is also used in linguistics to mean the relationship between words and the objects that the words represent. As a term, it is more familiar in study of the novel, and it is not established in theatre studies, and it has come to the fore recently in countering structuralist and poststructuralist views of the text as a closed, self-contained system (the prison-house of language). It is now possible to argue that literature is not closed off from the world outside of it, and so to take a stance against radically nominalist assumptions found in post?Saussurean critics. But in this postmodern 'moment', we are meant to be free of such master-narrative dogmatics.
So this article is but one aspect of the overall referential dimension of the radio play, and indeed, of literature. How does radio drama evoke coherent, recognisable worlds for the listener? What is the relationship between radio fictions and reality, and on right through to the listener, to how the fictional world becomes 'concretized' (Roman Ingarden's term, Ingarden 1973) in the imagination and becomes applied to the listener's own existential situation.
In particular, I will be examining how the radio 'mise en scène' takes its part in generating the fictional world. I will not, however, be considering how referentiality has been problematized by certain radio dramatists (Tyrone Guthrie, Samuel Beckett, Howard Barker, Barry Bermange, and Lucy Gough, for example).
TO - SECTION 5 - Phenomenology, Reception theory
SECTION 1 - Introduction - Way-finding SECTION 2 - Previous discussions SECTION 3 - Cognitive mapping SECTION 5 - Phenomenology, Reception theory SECTION 6 - Perspective SECTION 7 - Way-finding in radio drama SECTION 8 - Problems with radio reception theory SECTION 9 - Listener positioning SECTION 10 - Objects in outline Gestalts SECTION 11 - Cognitive mapping in the radio studio SECTION 12 - Final remarks Glossary Notes Works sited - bibliography Welcome Page for 'Cognitive Mapping'
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Lucas (Smash Wars)
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Lucas has been confirmed to return as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Smash Wars.
Special MovesEdit
Lucas's Special MovesEdit
Standard Special Move = PK Freeze
Side Special Move = PK Fire
Up Special Move = PK Thunder
Down Special Move = PSI Magnet
Final Smash = PK Starstorm
Final Smash #2 = PK Thunderstorm
Final Smash #3= PK Ruption
Alternate Costumes
Lucas' alternate costumes affect the color of his shirt and, sometimes his hair.
Snake's Codec ConversationsMei Ling: I see you're fighting Lucas, Snake.
Snake: Lucas?
Mei Ling: That boy has PSI powers, which he can use for different kinds of attacks. But the poor little guy's had such a hard life. His mother was killed when he was young, and he was separated from his brother. After that, he faced all kinds of senseless hardships, and he slowly grew stronger.
Snake: Senseless hardships--yeah, I had a lot of those, too. The question is how you translate those hardships into a better future.
Mei Ling: ...Mmm. Well, I hope things turn out OK for him.
Character Quest EndingEdit
(Ending coming soon.)


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Sydney Engagement Session from MMG Photo + CinemaIt doesn't get any sweeter than this vintage styled picnic e-session! Infused with some of the yummiest treats we ever did see, it totally captures this couple's love of all things vintage and sweet. We love the addition of the
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The First Grader Parent Review
"The First Grader" is a powerful reminder that illiteracy is a prison itself. But one that can be unlocked if the right keys are available.
Movie Review
When is a person too old to learn? According to teacher Jane Obinchu (Naomie Harris), it is when your ears are full of soil. Kimani N'gan'ga Maruge (Oliver Litondo) might be 84-years-old but he is still above ground. In his mind, at least, that makes him eligible to take advantage of the Kenyan government's 2003 initiative to offer free primary education to the post-colonial populace.
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Although he is decades older than the other students in the rural school near his home, Maruge takes the government's announcement seriously and begs to be admitted into the classroom. He even comes wearing a uniform and carrying the mandatory school supplies. While Maruge's ambition is admirable, his desire to be in the classroom forces Jane to take sides against school administrators (Vusi Kunene) and her fellow teachers (Shoki Aokgapa, Alfred Munyua). The resulting threats and media attention strains relations with her husband Charles (Tony Kgoroge) as well. Fortunately Maruge proves to be a valuable role model to his young classmates who must learn under circumstances that most students in first-world countries can't begin to comprehend.
Many of the villagers also argue he is taking precious resources away from the younger generation, the ones who are the future of the country. And some audience members may agree. Are educational opportunities wasted on a man of his age who has little hope of ever graduating?
Apparently Director Justin Chadwick didnt think so when he took a skeleton production crew with him to Kenya's Rift Valley with the intention of telling Maruge's story. Hiring many locals and filming inside a real school with real students, Chadwick produces an authentic and moving look at one man's quest for education.
As a former fighter in the Mau-Mau Rebellion that pitted natives against the British Army, Maruge suffered brutal treatment at the hands of the invading military, including being forced to watch his wife (Emily Njoki) and children shot in front of him. Other violent beatings and torture methods are depicted in flashback scenes. Those portrayals, along with some brief male nudity in a prison scene will likely make this story too intense for preteens. Unfortunately the flashbacks are interjected in a way that makes it difficult at first to know what era the action is taking place in.
Having known an elderly woman who never learned to read, I understand Maruge's frustration at being unable to make sense of the words on a page. As these students struggle to learn in an overcrowded classroom without any advantages other than a dedicated teacher, The First Grader is a powerful reminder that illiteracy is a prison itself. But one that can be unlocked if the right keys are available.Directed by Justin Chadwick. Starring Oliver Litondo, Naomie Harris, Tony Kgoroge, Sam Feuer. Running time: 104 minutes. Theatrical release June 16, 2011. Updated July 12, 2016
Get details on profanity, sex and violence in The First Grader here.
The First Grader Parents Guide
Do you agree with Maruge's desire to go to school? Was the primary institution the best place for him to attend? Did his presence help or hinder the other students?
How do tribal differences continue to haunt Kenyan society? Why is it difficult to leave prejudice behind? How do those who did not side with the British view those who did?
In September 2005, Maruge addressed the United Nations. Do you think this kind of publicity helps make others aware of needs or is it simply a good photo op for politicians? What efforts are being made to fight illiteracy? How can you be involved in your own community? Learn about some projects that are underway at Literacy.org.


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Originally Posted by RedFlames
so this was the game so bad Joe [pretty much] refused to play it...
Originally Posted by CardJoe
I didn't refuse to play it - though I did admittedly drag my heels writing the review. So, so dull...
Originally Posted by Passarinhuu
How does such a great franchise end up presenting us with a crap game like this one?
You might be interested in Pathfinder: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG (just classical p&p)Originally Posted by matiss
and I will cling to D&D 3.5 and all the old good games that still deserved to be called D&D RPGs.
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Daughter of 90-year-old woman who was mugged is taking action
PUEBLO, Colo. - The daughter of a 90-year-old woman, who was mugged last Tuesday, is taking action to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else.
The crime happened at a Pueblo Walmart on Northern Avenue.
The daughter wants to warn people but chose not to be identified because she fears retailiton.
She said her mother has bruises on her hand from thieves ripping her purse away.
The woman's family is starting a petition to make stores, like Walmart, add more security.
"I want these corporations to make it safe for their customers and not be afraid when they go shopping," the daughter said.
Pueblo Police Officer Shelly Taylor said theives like to target people who are elderly and alone.
She said times are tough, but mugging is not the answer.
"I don't think this is a way to make a living. Obviously someone is suffering now," Taylor said.
The daughter said her mother is in good spirits, but has a message for the people who mugged her 90-year-old mother.
"Find peace in your heart after doing something like that. Realize, you can't be doing that to other people," she said.
If you have information about the person who attacked her mother call Crime Stoppers at 719-542-7867.


text:
Article Preview
BROAD RISE MADE IN LONDON STOCKS; International Issues Strong Shares Ease in Paris
International issues led a strong advance yesterday on the London Stock Exchange.
January 06, 1967
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New Year Starts…
Well, the busy keeps on coming… I worked more the last 3 weeks of the year than I have in a long time. It was a lot easier when I was younger… sigh. (Okay, Pity party over) Good news: CAROLINA … Continue reading
Posted in Barack Hussein Obama, Civil War, Democrats Tagged Black Racists, Blacktivists, Boehner, New year, Racists Comments Off on New Year Starts…
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McCain Calls New Blood "Wacko's"
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Hire Felons? Lowering the Bar…
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American Revolution 2013?
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The End (of Retail Price) is Nigh!
The leather patches are not included. You've gotta sew those on yourself.
If you believe a certain contorted interpretation of Mayan mythology, the world is going to end this December 21. Our Armagedd-Off 2012 Woot-Off will not only prep you for the big day - it'll keep you occupied hunting for special "trading cards" in some sales. What? You got something better to do with your last days?


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Chernobyl has made a chilling contribution to medical history, accounting for the largest group of human cancers associated with a known cause on a known date, ECCO 11 - the European Cancer Conference heard in Lisbon today. (Tuesday 23 October)
Nearly 2000 cases of thyroid cancer have been linked to the world's worst nuclear accident which occurred in Ukrainian city 15 years ago - and the number is still rising.
Professor Dillwyn Williams, of The Strangeways Research Laboratory, Cambridge University, told the meeting: "Four years after the accident, an excess of thyroid cancers was noted among children who had been exposed to fall-out from the disaster. That increase has continued and new cases are still being seen in those who were children at the time of the accident".
Dr. Elaine Ron, of the US National Cancer Institute, in Bethesda, Maryland, explained: "Following external radiation exposure, the elevated risk of thyroid cancer appears to continue throughout life, but there is some indication that the risk may be highest 15 to 19 years after exposure.
External radiation is the only well established cause of cancer of the thyroid gland. People under 20 are at a significantly increased risk of thyroid cancer after exposure to isotopes of iodine. It is estimated that in the accident, the Chernobyl-4 reactor released all of the xenon gas, about half of the iodine and caesium and about three to five per cent of the remaining radioactive material.
Professor Williams said: "Exposure to isotopes of iodine gives the thyroid over a 1000 times the average dose to the rest of the body. The particular sensitivity of children to thyoid cancer after radiation exposure can be linked to a combination of a higher thyroid dose and the biology of thyroid growth - which falls to a very low level in adult life. Few of the patients with thyroid cancer have died, but help is still needed".
The UN recently marked the 15th anniversary of the disaster with an appeal for aid. According to one report, five million people in the former Soviet Union were exposed to radiation or other health hazards by the Chernobyl catastrophe. Although only 31 people died in the immediate aftermath of the accident, hundreds of thousands were reported to have abandoned entire cities and settlements within the 30 kilometre zone of extreme contamination.
Dr. Williams said: "The effects of Chernobyl differed very greatly from those after the atomic bomb explosions. In Japan, the exposure was very largely to whole body radiation from gamma rays and neutrons. After Chernobyl the exposure was to isotopes in fall-out, and apart from the inert gas xenon, the largest components were radioactive isotopes of iodine".
Post Chernobyl cancer risks are not restricted to the thyroid gland the meeting was told. Mr. Victor Chizhikov, of the Cancer Research Center, Kashirskoye, Moscow, reported that a study of former 43 Chernobyl "clean-up" workers had shown them to be at a significantly increased risk of lung cancer. Comprising 36 smokers and seven non-smokers, they all had evidence of inhaled radioactive dust in their lungs. They were compared to a control group of 21 smokers and 23 non-smokers who had never been exposed to radiation.
Story Source:
Materials provided by Federation Of European Cancer Societies. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
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text:
ED Magedson – Founder
Ripoff Report
Thomas Law FirmInternet USA
Thomas Law Firm, "Dwayne McGuire" American Cash Threatened to be taken to jail for fraud by this "lawyer" representing this "loan company" Franklin, Tennessee Internet
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On July 1st, 2014 while at work I recieved multiple phone calls from 615 567 4250. Finally, I answered and a Mr. Dwayne McGuire with a very thick Middle Eastern accent from the Thomas Law Firm informed me that I had "stolen" 849.51 from American Cash, apparently a payday loan company and the police would be at my door in 24 hours to arrest me. (Of all the times, my birthday is tomorrow).
I obviously had no clue what he was talking about, he would not tell me the date I "stole" the money, the origional amount of the loan I "stole", nor would he send me the "contract" I had apparently signed as he stated it was "not his problem I did not get the emails from him", nor would he tell me the dates the emails were sent. He was unable to provide me with my email address, however he did have my social security number, and bank account information. He was very verbally abusive, calling me names and threatening me- "bad people like you deserve to be in jail", "you're going down" etc etc. He hung up on me, I then called back and the phone was answered with a "hello?"- not exactly a law office greeting and spoke with the cretian again to make sure I had the spelling of his "name" correctly.
I have since contacted Washington State Financial Institution, reported the fraud, the loan scam FTC, internet crime complaint as well as called my bank. I hope I covered all my bases.
This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 07/01/2014 03:07 PM and is a permanent record located here: http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/thomas-law-firm/internet/thomas-law-firm-dwayne-mcguire-american-cash-threatened-to-be-taken-to-jail-for-fraud-1158857. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year.
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Posted by ESPN.com's Pat Yasinskas
ARLINGTON, Texas -- Since right about the time he toted the ball for the 376th time last season, it has been fair to ask if perhaps the Atlanta Falcons wore out Michael Turner.
The question no longer is just fair. It's necessary. The man who carried the Falcons to the playoffs last season hasn't gone much of anywhere this season. After running for 1,699 yards last year, the days of triple-digit rushing yards have dried up. Turner has hit the 100-yard mark only once this season, and that was back in Week 2 against a Carolina team that essentially was playing without defensive tackles.
So is Turner facing the same fate as all those other running backs who went into big declines after carrying 325 or 350 times in a season? Let's go straight to the best source.
"I'm still healthy,'' Turner said after a 37-21 loss to Dallas on Sunday. "It's not a health issue. I still feel fine.''
But Turner and the running game haven't been looking fine and what happened against Dallas may have demonstrated there's a problem that's getting worse instead of better. Turner carried 18 times for 50 yards. That's a 2.8 average, which would translate into a 0.8 if this were a grade-point average.
"Concerned? I don't know that I'd use that word,'' Turner said. "But it is something we need to get better at.''
Apologies to Turner, and I fully realize the Falcons were without injured fullback Ovie Mughelli and backup running back Jerious Norwood, but I will use the word concerned. The Falcons should be extremely concerned about their top running back and their running game in general.
Not even the seven carries for 68 yards by backup Jason Snelling were enough to give the Falcons anything close to a passing grade on the ground, and we'll touch on the passing too, because it wasn't very good. Matt Ryan was 19 of 35 for 198 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions. Uncharacteristically, he made bad decisions and, just as uncharacteristically, he got poor protection.
But I'm going to go ahead and place the blame for Atlanta's offensive struggles on the running game. It's supposed to be the core character of the offense and it hasn't been close to that all season. The lack of productivity in the running game is throwing everything out of whack. When Turner's not running clock, that means a defense that really isn't all that talented has to spend a lot more time on the field and that's a problem.
Worse yet, what happened with Turner and the running game wasn't just a blip. It's a growing and very disturbing trend. Even in last week's win against Chicago, Turner carried 13 times for 30 yards. Glance back at the opener against Miami, where he carried 22 times for 65 yards or the Week 3 loss to New England, where he gained 56 yards on 15 carries.
"We're not running the ball nearly as effectively as last year,'' coach Mike Smith said. "It's something we've been working on and will continue to work on.''
The Falcons better hurry up and get in some more work in on the running game.
"This week is an opportunity for us to get better,'' Ryan said. "We've got an extra day of practice because of the Monday night game and we've got to use it to get better.''
Ah, the Monday night game. We can't forget that. A week from Monday, the Falcons travel to New Orleans to play the Saints. The Falcons are 4-2. The Saints are 6-0. The Saints also have a defense that suddenly has become good.
If Turner and the running game don't snap the slump, Atlanta's entire team again will be thrown off its formula and any chance at an NFC South title could forever slip away. Just imagine what Drew Brees can do against Atlanta's struggling defensive backs if Turner and the offense keep going three and out?
"Those are all alarms,'' Smith said of his running and passing games.
But let's sound a three-alarm blast for Atlanta's running game. Without it, the Falcons have no chance against the Saints and they're in big trouble the rest of the season. Without even the threat of a running game, defenses can go after Ryan, as the Cowboys did Sunday.
"We had some good runs on first downs,'' right tackle Tyson Clabo said. "But we didn't do anything on second downs. That set up some third-and-long situations and we just didn't protect Matt like we should have.''
Yes, give the offensive line some blame for not protecting Ryan very well. But give that line even more blame for not opening holes. Give Turner blame for not hitting the holes. Give Atlanta's coaching staff blame for not making things work in the running game.
But that's enough blame for now because the Falcons have time to save their season. They've got that extra day of practice that Ryan referred to.
Just a thought here, but maybe Smith should sit down Turner, the offensive line and really the whole offense in one of those film rooms at their Flowery Branch complex. Then, he should break out the tapes of all those games Turner ran for 100 yards last season. There was a common theme in those eight games. The Falcons were undefeated.
Let's take it one step further and add in the 105-yard performance against Carolina and let's bend the rules a bit and include 97 yards on 22 carries in a victory at San Francisco two weeks ago -- Turner easily could have gone over 100 yards, but the Falcons pulled him because they were winning big.
Let's do the math. Since the start of last season, the Falcons are 10-0 when Turner has a big game. They're 5-7 when he doesn't.
I'd say take those numbers and consider the recent trend. It's time for Turner and the Falcons to be more than concerned about their running game. It's time to fix it, before it's too late.


text:
ED Magedson – Founder
Ripoff Report
M Qube, Mobile Messengerwww.m-qube.com. www.mobilemessenger.us Internet U.S.A.
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This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 12/20/2006 10:16 AM and is a permanent record located here: http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/m-qube-mobile-messenger/internet/m-qube-mobile-messenger-fraudulent-unauthorized-instant-messaging-billing-through-sprint-226438. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year.
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SBC 392 or 396 fueling for economy advice please
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Pum's Photo Album
Thanx for all the replies and advice.
Intake manifold is Edelbrock Torker (1990 vintage, as was engine build.) I'm liking the idea of a Performer + spread-bore quadrajet of some sort, but will wait till I know all the facts about the engine.
Having done further research I think the engine is probably 396 (4.030" bore x 3.875" stroke) as this seems to be the most usual config at that sort of capacity.
The 1990 vintage Dart II heads appear to have been available in 64cc or 72cc chamber capacity - which is more likely? I'm guessing 64cc.
With 3.875" stroke, 64cc heads and flat top pistons, compression ratio should be around 11.5:1 yes?
I'll check distributor and vacuum advance.
Has thick, good condition spark leads.
I agree that I need to find out for sure what it all is, so I'll get the cam profile, bore, stroke and compression ratio measured when I can get it in the shop (which will be spring when I have my other car back on the road, and hopefully also have a job.)
I quite like the idea of swapping in a used LS engine if I can sell my engine for decent money - I'll keep that idea in mind too.
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Case Study: UltraSPARC-based systems from Sun Microsystems
A research laboratory proves that choosing the right computing environment can significantly improve performance
This Article Covers
Data centre
UltraSPARC-based systems from Sun Microsystems are helping the Medical Imaging Research Laboratory expand its research horizons and, at the same time, improve the delivery of radiological services to healthcare providers in the Salt Lake City area. The laboratory is the research arm for image processing and computing in the Department of Radiology at the University of Utah's School of Medicine. It also provides a central computing resource composed entirely of Sun servers and workstations for nuclear medicine and diagnostic radiology activities at University Hospital, the local Veteran's Administration Hospital and a private managed care company.
All-Flash: The Essential Guide
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Love his brided hair on the side O.O
Very nice! <3
Nice work. How's it going?
I saw this and I thought: How is this not yet in my favourites??
So I quickly fixed that.
Amazing work on the iguana and everything else *_*
So I quickly fixed that.
Amazing work on the iguana and everything else *_*
this is amazing!!
I really like the colors!
oh wow... That is just beautiful *v* and da colors are so pretty! ~
really awesome work !!! >v<
really awesome work !!! >v<
Love the colors and tribal-ish designX3
Amazing ! and the iguana is very impressive !
Iguana's are awsome. Just awsome.
That. Is. AWESOME!!
Sweet mother of..... this is AMAZING! COOL , AWESOME! great colors, great draw , the iguana (L) Oh my... you'r so talented!
Wow, he is so cool!
wooow that's so gorgeous! *w*
I love this colors and all details, realy great job C:
*fav fav fav*
I love this colors and all details, realy great job C:
*fav fav fav*
Shoot. This is really awesome.
*_____* beautiful
Amazing, as always.
Cool concept!
Really cool colors and style!
Oh gosh so beautiful!
That is one sexy iguana.
I've always been a fan of our reptilian cousins, I love the pairing on the Iguana and the elf. Great work!
Wow, he's awesome looking.
This is some serious inspiration for me. I loove it.
omg so awesome! *__* your coloring is really beautiful and inspiring ;A; <333
Wooh.. :3 Awesome.!
Fantastic desing!
x.x I want this printed out as a poster... deviantart charges too much for prints, you should use like shutterfly or something of that sort.
Th-the details... all the prettyful details ;___; *tears of joy*
That iguana looks like real *A* as always you draw everything so perfectly T___T <3
That looks awesome! Love all the details, you put on it.
Nice colors.
Wow that is so Awesome
this looks frickin' amazing...!
woah it looks so cool!!
I looove the colors!!
It'so beautiful *^*
It'so beautiful *^*


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Books for All Kinds of Readers. ReadHowYouWant offers the widest selection of on-demand, accessible format editions on the market to-day. Our 7 different sizes of EasyRead are optimized by increasing the font size and spacing between the words and the letters. We partner with leading publishers around the globe. Our goal is to have accessible editions simultaneously released with publishers' new books so that all readers can have access to the books they want to read.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
CHOICE Outstanding Academic Book
"This beautifully produced book is a joy to read and demonstrates the real pleasures to be derived from meticulous attention to detail and the highest standards of scholarship."American Literary Scholarship.
"The first of the Cather Scholarly Editions sets a high standard of quality. . . . Text and context reveal the splendor of O Pioneers! and enrich both the experience and study of Cathers extraordinary prose."Western American Literature.
Willa Cather said that O Pioneers! was her first authentic novel, "the first time I walked off on my own feeteverything before was half real and half an imitation of writers whom I admired." Cathers novel of life on the Nebraska frontier established her reputation as a writer of great note and marked a significant turning point in her artistic development. No longer would she let literary convention guide the form of her writing; the materials themselves would dictate the structure.
The paperback edition contains all the text and scholarly apparatus found in the original Willa Cather Scholarly Edition. Edited according to standards set by the Committee for Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association, this volume presents the full range of biographical, historical, and textual information on the novel.From the Back Cover:
The land belongs to the future... that's the way it seems to me....I might as well try to will the sunset over there to my brother's children. We come and go, but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it -- for a little while."
O Pioneers! (1913) was Willa Cather's first great novel, and to many it remains her unchallenged masterpiece. No other work of fiction so faithfully conveys both the sharp physical realities and the mythic sweep of the transformation of the American frontier -- and the transformation of the people who settled it. Cather's heroine is Alexandra Bergson, who arrives on the wind-blasted prairie of Hanover, Nebraska, as a girl and grows up to make it a prosperous farm. But this archetypal success story is darkened by loss, and Alexandra's devotion to the land may come at the cost of love itself.
At once a sophisticated pastoral and a prototype for later feminist novels, O Pioneers! is a work in which triumph is inextricably enmeshed with tragedy, a story of people who do not claim a land so much as they submit to it and, in the process, become greater than they were.
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Book Description ReadHowYouWant, 2012. Paperback. Book Condition: New. book. Bookseller Inventory # 1442933984
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Book Description ReadHowYouWant, 2012. Paperback. Book Condition: New. Large Print 16 pt. Bookseller Inventory # DADAX1442933984
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Book Description ReadHowYouWant, 2009. Paperback. Book Condition: Brand New. large print 16 pt edition. 256 pages. 10.00x7.75x0.63 inches. This item is printed on demand. Bookseller Inventory # zk1442933984
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text:
Colorado Anemometer Loan Program
Link: Colorado Anemometer Loan Program
Location: CO
Contact: Mr. Michael Kostrzewa, P.E., Director, Colorado Anemometer Loan Program, Colorado State University
Phone: (970) 491-7709
The website has information for various types of users including wind developers, potential Anemometer Loan Program applicants and small-scale wind aficionados. Visitors can find information about the collected wind data from previous and current Anemometer Loan Program sites, general wind resource information, and an online application form.
This information was last updated on November 01, 2011


text:
ED Magedson – Founder
Ripoff Report
Spokeable, Florida USA
Spokeable Worku Ventures International Anthony Worku Unpaid Wages, Unpaid Invoices Miami Florida
Does your business have a bad reputation?
Fix it the right way.
Corporate Advocacy Program™
Do not download, work with, sign up for or work for Spokeable, Worku Ventures International or Anthony Worku.
The company has left behind a trail of unpaid empoyees and unpaid invoices, false promises of payment and then, complete silence on the issue of non-payment.
Worku Ventures has created an interesting marketing tool for small businesses. I began working for the company in December 2013. In mid-January, I received payment for the first my work there during the first two weeks of December. At the beginning of February, I received payment for the last two weeks of December. However, given some of the internal company dynamics and the difficult process it took to get those first two invoices paid (several emails, phone calls, invoices, long delays), I realized that my January wages were not going to be paid, and that any further time I invested would be lost. As a result, I left the company in February. I worked with Spokeable as an independent contractor
In the first week of February, Anthony Worku promised that my January wages would be paid by the end of February. It is now April and I still have not received payment. I spoke with him regarding those unpaid wages and he told be that he was a man of his word, that the company could absolutely be trusted to pay the outstanding invoices for the work completed in January by March 21st. That deadline passed without payment. Instead, I received an email stating that 'funds did not come through' and the payment could not be processed. The payment has still not been processed and the company no longer responds to emails or phone calls or even certified mail.
Unfortunately, I am not the only one in this situation.
Unless you can afford to work for free, do not work for or work with Spokeable, Worku Ventures International or Anthony Worku.
This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 04/18/2014 12:58 PM and is a permanent record located here: http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/spokeable/florida/spokeable-worku-ventures-international-anthony-worku-unpaid-wages-unpaid-invoices-miami-1139949. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year.
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Skip to Content - Skip to Navigation
Home > Academics > Colleges > Humanities and Social Sciences > English > News
Department of English
Dr. Tim Hibsman, English Department, presented his paper, Teaching Writing Across the Curriculum with Technology, at the Teaching Professor Technology Conference in Atlanta, GA, on October 6, 2013.
Tim Hibsman, EdD, Indiana University firstname.lastname@example.com
Sample student assignment: Which are good questions and why.
Which are not and why?
Write an answer for:
1. A general audience
2. An academic audience
3. Your peers
Posted on 10/21/2013 1:56:12 PM
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text:
Category page
11,737pages onAdd New Page
this wiki
this wiki
This category lists all freeways and highways in the GTA series.
Pages in category "Freeways"
" Route 22 is one of the Numbered Highways in San Andreas. It is a major east-west urban highway...
Route 22
Media in category "Category:Freeways"
Posted in: State of Alderney


text:
Hemophilia Awareness Month
According to the National Hemophilia Foundation more than 70% of people around the world who suffer from Hemophilia still do not have access to the treatment they need. March marks National Hemophilia Awareness Month, so what better time to raise both awareness and money for such a great cause? Motivators offers a variety of products that, once handed out, serve as lasting reminders to people who either do not know about the disease or are working their way through treatment. Medical offices can provide giveaways to patients and organizations can use them to help raise donations. So make sure you spread the word about hemophilia awareness this March.
|Copyright © 1996 - 2017 Motivators Inc. Promotional Products All Rights Reserved.


text:
Packing Party For The Santa Train
KINGSPORT, Tenn. - Assembly lines work like well-oiled machines unpacking boxes and filling totes to take to the Santa Train.
"Little animals, lots and lot of Moon Pies," says volunteer Ruth Collins.
For some volunteers helping out for the Santa Train is like a trip down memory lane.
"50 years ago this was me up on the rail road tracks waiting for candy and stuff to be thrown out and we come back every year this is my 16th year being here," adds Collins.
The Santa Train tradition is something passed down through generations and each year it helps people get ready for the holidays.
"This is something that people really look forward to. It kind of kicks off the Christmas season and a lot of different generations come out to see Santa on the back of the train," says Jamie Horton with Food City.
On Saturday the train will travel through 13 different stops and all of the items packed up will be tossed out to families waiting for the train's arrival.
It?s something young volunteers say they remember vividly.
"I just thought I?d help out because this is awesome what they're doing here so the least I can do is help out and help them get the trash out of the way," says volunteer Chris Greer.
It didn't take long Wednesday night for the Santa Train volunteers to pack up nearly 20 tons of goodies that will be passed out with Santa on Saturday.
Here are some more Santa Train facts:
The train started in 1942 and it always runs the Saturday before Thanksgiving.
It originally started as a way for Kingsport businesses to thank people for coming to the area and shopping throughout the year.
Saturday?s journey will start early. The train leaves Shelby, Kentucky at 6:30 a.m. and will arrive in Kingsport at 3:08 p.m.
Country duo Thompson Square will be the celebrity guests on this year's Santa Train.
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