text:
Spa BUSINESS: DAYSPA Attends ISSE Long Beach 2013
DAYSPA editors' heads are still reeling from their visit to the International Spa and Salon Expo (ISSE) in Long Beach, California, January 26-28. With more than 40,000 beauty professionals in attendance, a sold-out expo floor of some 400 beauty brands, nearly 200 educational classes, live stage performances and hair and nail competitions, the event proved to be the ultimate beauty bash. The editors sound off on their ISSE experience:
"I keep thinking about the presentation I attended by STX's Jon Maple and Jeff Mason about inventory management for spas and salons, and how much I realized I didn't know before! Jon and Jeff had some fantastic strategies to share for helping owners create a healthy inventory turnover rate and rev up sales. Key pieces of advice: Know what's selling and what isn't; set minimum quantities properly; order more frequently to reduce amount of cash outlay at any one time; and don't let sales consultants do your ordering for you. I can't wait to develop this new-found knowledge into a useful DAYSPA article for readers!" – Linda Kossoff, executive editor
"The open-air bazaar feel of ISSE always makes it one of the most colorful stops on my trade show circuit! From edible massage candles to crushed-diamond nail polish, the event serves as a stimulating reminder that the world of beauty and wellness is ever-expanding, and never ever dull. A personal highlight was attending 'Survival Tactics for the Social Age,' presented by MindBody's Stephanie Jennings. There's no denying the social media revolution for any small business owners, and this seminar took a lot of what can be overwhelming information and broke it down into simple, accessible pointers. Key among them: As every business is unique, pay attention to what engages your specific clientele before shelling out the big bucks to hire a social media guru; focus on making your website and channels as tablet-friendly as possible, in keeping with consumer purchasing trending away from desktop use; pay close attention to review sites, as they play an increasingly key role in SEO; and get to know tools that will help you streamline all of your social media channels, and put each to work in a complementary fashion. Our readers are the perfect audience for these kinds of insights!" —Katie O'Reilly, managing editor
"As a first-time attendee of ISSE, I was blown away by the numerous options available to beauty professionals. The show's offerings really ran the gamut: the latest beauty trends, business and marketing seminars and good old-fashioned networking. The energy was incredible! I loved the live demonstrations provided by skincare pros such as SAIAN. The company's founder Margarita Saian offered audiences a step-by-step lesson on the brand's treatments for acne and anti-aging. It's always helpful to gain knowledge about specific brands from the people who know best! It appears I'm not the only one who shares this sentiment—SAIAN's tutorial space was jam-packed with eager attendees—I couldn't even find a seat!" —Angela Melero, assistant editor.


text:
The Guardian Creates Hyper-Local Newspaper For A Single Coffee Shop [Pics]
Stories curated to fit the clientele but also still contain top stories.
Localized search is an important part of finding what you want near where you live, which is one reason why Google places more emphasis on local businesses in their search results. In a similar, but much more extreme vein, the Guardian teamed up with Newspaper Club to launch a newspaper that is specific to just one coffee shop in London. They call it an "algorithmic newspaper," but it also goes by the more customer-friendly option of the "Long Good Read."
Newspaper Club co-founder Tom Taylor recently explained the concept in more detail for Gizmodo:
We wrote some software to extract all the recent articles from the Guardian's API. It selects the meaty, long form stuff and runs analytics against it (website traffic, comments, Tweets, likes, etc.) to find the most interesting articles.
An editor selects from those, and quickly assembles a newspaper. It's all laid it out with our semi-automated software in under an hour, then sent to print (about 500 copies) and delivered to the Guardian's coffee shop in Shoreditch for anyone to read over their cappuccino.
The coverage is still international and includes many of the paper's normal stories, the difference is that it's been trimmed and cut for the specific interests of a local reading audience. While it's still "rough around the edges," it might not be long before paper's are completely personalized.
Source, images: Gizmodo

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Green: I want to destroy Jones
By Ray Wheatley — World of Boxing
IBO cruiserweight champion Danny Green is confident that he will destroy challenger Roy Jones Jr. when they clash on Wednesday at the Acer Arena, Homebush, Sydney, NSW, Australia. With a capacity attendance of 20,000 fight fans Green has promised not only to defeat Jones but make Jones' first professional fight outside the USA the biggest mistake he has made in his professional career. "I want to destroy him," proclaimed Green. "I picture his legs wobbling and me delivering the KO punch. I see him unconscious on the canvas. He's slumped on the canvas. I picture him asleep on the canvas. His corner runs into the ring, mine run into the ring. I see them picking him up and mine lifting me onto their shoulders – after I make sure he's all right. I don't want to just defeat Roy Jones Jr. I want to destroy him!"


text:
AMP Camp 6 will be held at UC Berkeley and live-streamed online on November 19 and 20, 2015. Videos and exercises from the event will be available on the AMPCamp 6 page.
AMP Camps are Big Data training events organized by the UC Berkeley AMPLab about big data analytics, machine learning, and popular open-source software projects produced by the AMPLab. All AMP Camp curricula, and whenever possible videos of instructional talks presented at AMP Camps, are published here and accessible for free.
Looking for the most reliable custom essay writing company? Place your order at http://stablewriters.com. The best essay writing service in the US.
About the AMPLab
The UC Berkeley AMPLab works at the intersection of machine learning, cloud computing, and crowdsourcing; integrating Algorithms, Machines, and People (AMP) to make sense of Big Data.


text:
Follow Harriet on Twitter
About Harriet
- The Poetry Foundation's blog for poetry and related news.
- More about Harriet
- Contributors
- Archive
Writing and Failure (Part 1)
Greetings, everyone….
Today marks my initial posting to Harriet, and of course I am looking forward to contributing to the discussion on this website. For now, I am hoping to begin (on a mild note of mischief) by thinking out loud about the intensified irrelevance of poetry as a cultural activity. I might suggest that, despite the enthusiasm of both writers and critics alike, on various weblogs such as this one, most poetry has all but forfeited its status as an artform at the forefront of innovative expression; instead, poetry has allowed itself to devolve into a quaint subset of artisanal practices, like blacksmithery or cabinetmaking, which do little more than preserve an antiquary skill, long since relegated to an exhibit at your nearest Pioneer Village….
Writing is an arduous process that often takes a toll upon its practitioners, particularly among avant-garde poets, who must often commit to their artistic vocation with only the faintest promise of success. Even the most extolled literati have had to endure bouts of failure, contending with editorial dismissal, chemical addiction, aesthetic paralysis, or cultural abjection, and in each case such writers must find ways to transform such markers of failure into a formula for success. Who among the vaunted members of the avant-garde have not presumed in advance that their doomed labour begins by acknowledging the protracted atrophy, if not the consummate failure, of literature itself? Has not poetry declined so steadily from its historic position of cultural prestige that, in the modern milieu, poets have all but resigned themselves to their own inconsequence (much like the industrious, but otherwise incompetent and therefore obsolescent, factotums who mutely endure their recurrent demotions, while other, far more skilled workers in other, far more popular careers, get rewarded with wealth and renown)? Has not the poetic legacy of the avant-garde already begun to resemble a blasted library, bestrewn with the unburied cadavers of lunatics and suicides—all the beautiful, but misguided, losers who have martyred themselves to untelevised revolutions? Do not critics who study this holocaust always express dismay at the squandered potential of such talent and the unrewarded foresight of such genius? We always seem to say that, alas, these poets have failed, not because their work lacks aptitude, but because a philistine readership has failed to appreciate the contemporary significance of such art.
Comment (1)
Poetry writing is just a skill among many. To denigrate other skills and dismiss them as outmoded when thei practitioners may labour a lifetime and with inadequate financial reward because they choose to strikes me as arrogant. Hypocritical.given the content of much of this posting.
I can't believe that you seriously hold the views expressed. If you do then I think you are a woefully inadequate ambassador for avant garde poetry and ipoets
Posted in Uncategorized on Wednesday, September 12th, 2007 by Christian Bök.


text:
Palmetto Paws
purveyors of fine pet products
Since October 2003, Palmetto Paws has been providing the finest pet products
to Mount Pleasant, SC & the Lowcountry.
We offer a wide selection of Holistic & Organic Pet Foods, Raw Foods, Supplements, Natural Treats & Chews, & the highest quality accessories & gifts
your furry friends could desire.
Palmetto Paws also offers our furry friends & their humans the ability to use our
self-serve bath & grooming area.
We feel if it isn't good enough for our pets then it isn't good enough for yours!!
Purrs and Wags Guarenteed!!
Palmetto Paws is located in
Northcutt Plaza
976 Houston Northcutt Blvd. Ste. D
Mount Pleasant, South Carolina 29464
We are open Monday- Saturday
last bath of the day start by 5:30PM
Telephone: 843-216-3995
Email: email@example.com
Facebook: palmettopaws
Upcoming Events
November 27th, 2013
Palmetto Paws will close at 3:00PM
Wednesday for the Thanksgiving Holiday
November 28th, 2013 Thanksgiving Day
Palmetto Paws will be closed Thursday
for Thanksgiving Day.
We will resume regular business hours
Friday November 29th, 2013
December 7th, 2013 Reindeer Run
Palmetto Paws is a Sponsor for The 23rd Annual Reindeer Run benifitting MUSC Children's Hospital.
Join us in Downtown Charleston
for this fun event and watch
Santa's Reindeer & his Elves arrive
in The Holy City in Style.
The store will be open regular hours
December 24th, 2013
Palmetto Paws will close at 3:00PM
Tuesday for Christmas Eve
December 25th, 2013 Chrsitmas Day
Palmetto Paws will be closed Wednesday
for Christmas Day.
We will resume regular business hours
Thursday December 26th, 2013
December 31st, 2013
Palmetto Paws will close at 3:00PM
Tuesday for New Year's Eve
January 1st , 2014 New Year's Day
Palmetto Paws will be closed Wednesday
for New Year's Day.
We will resume regular business hours
Thursday January 2nd, 2014
Spring Meet & Greets
Spring Meet & Greet Schedule To Be Announced
All Rescue Groups are registered as 501c3 non-profit organizations with the IRS & the state of South Carolina.
All donations & monies raised for these organizations during store Meet & Greets will be donated
to the Rescue Groups.
Palmetto Paws has no affiliation with the rescue group of the same name; they can be contacted via their website on petfinder.com


text:
Canberra's cafes and classrooms are benefiting from an influx of skilled migrants under a federal government program.
The number of overseas university lecturers coming to the ACT jumped from 20 to 30 last year, cafe and restaurant managers rose from fewer than five to 10, but the number of nurses slumped from 100 to 20.
The trend for foreign recruits in accommodation and food services is also reflected across the nation, according to figures released on Sunday. Cooks topped the list, with 1250 coming to Australia in the year to last November.
The breakdown of migrants entering under the 457 category confirms a slowdown in the mining and construction industry in Western Australia.
The Department of Immigration and Citizenship granted 390 of the 400 applications by ACT employers to import skilled workers. On broader occupation categories, the number of managers from overseas starting work in the ACT rose from 40 to 60, technicians and trades workers increased from 50 to 70 while ''professionals'' dived from 450 to 250.
The number of skilled migrants arriving in Canberra from India dropped from 130 to 70 while those from Britain fell from 110 to 50. The entrants from China doubled, from 20 to 40. Ross Peake


text:
UK Athletics Announces Department Restructuring
March 1, 2012
LEXINGTON, Ky. – University of Kentucky Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart recently announced a restructuring plan of the UK Athletics department, which includes the promotion of Sandy Bell, Marc Hill and DeWayne Peevy to executive associate director of athletics.
The restructuring fills the roles vacated over the last year and a half when former deputy director of athletics Rob Mullens accepted the athletics director position at Oregon in 2010, along with Mark Coyle, who followed Mullens at UK as deputy director of athletics before accepting the athletics director position at Boise State. It also fills the needs due to the departure of former senior associate director of athletics for internal operations/senior women's administrator Lisa Peterson when she accepted the senior associate director of athletics position at Oregon.
"I'm excited that we were able to give an opportunity for Sandy Bell, Marc Hill and DeWayne Peevy to take on the roles of executive associate director of athletics," Barnhart said. "They are very deserving and bring a variety of experience in the world of college athletics. The initial reaction to an opening is generally to go outside of the current structure of your department. We are very fortunate at UK to have a very talented group of people working here within our family."
Bell will oversee academics and tutorial services, athletic training, compliance, ticket operations and serve as the senior women's administrator. Hill will oversee business operations, equipment, event management, facilities & operations, strength & conditioning and serve as the baseball administrator. Peevy will oversee development, marketing, media relations, publications, sports video and serve as the men's basketball administrator.
Six former administrators have developed under Barnhart and gone on to athletics director jobs at Bowl Championship Series schools. Barnhart is pleased to present the opportunity for advancement to employees within UK Athletics.
"I'm proud of the staff we've assembled over the years as several members of our staff have become athletics directors and hold high ranking positions at other schools," Barnhart said. "We have structurally changed our senior leadership positions based on the assembled group of talent we currently have on our staff. I want to reward those that have laid the foundation for our success. We have good people here and it allows us to also be good stewards of our finances within our budget structure."
In addition to the promotion of Bell, Hill and Peevy, several members of the athletics department will take on new responsibilities to complete the restructuring plan. The following is a full list of UK Athletics administrators with 2012-13 day-to-day sports administrative responsibilities (in parentheses):
- Executive Associate AD for Student Services – Sandy Bell (senior women's administrator)
- Executive Associate AD for Internal Operations – Marc Hill (baseball)
- Executive Associate AD for External Operations – DeWayne Peevy (men's basketball)
- Senior Associate AD for Development – Candice Chaffin (women's basketball)
- Senior Associate AD for Facilities and Operations – Russ Pear (men's & women's tennis)
- Senior Associate AD for Corporate/University Relations – Jason Schlafer (m/w swimming & diving)
- Associate AD for Academics – Bob Bradley
- Associate AD for Administration – John Cropp (football, softball)
- Associate AD for Development – Katie Eiserman (volleyball)
- Associate AD for Finance – Melissa Gleason (women's soccer)
- Associate AD for Event Operations and Championships – Kevin Saal (men's soccer)
- Associate AD for Ticket Operations – Joe Sharpe (rifle, women's golf)
- Associate AD for Basketball Operations – Chris Woolard
- Assistant AD for Compliance – John Butler (men's golf)
- Assistant AD for Facilities – Scott Clark
- Assistant AD for Women's Basketball – Ukari Figgs
- Assistant AD for Academics and Eligibility – Heather McAtee (gymnastics)
- Assistant AD for Marketing and Licensing – Nathan Schwake
- Assistant AD for Event Management – Rodney Stiles
- Stephanie Tracey-Simmons (m/w indoor & outdoor track and m/w cross country)


text:
outdoor water pipes
I have pvc piping to the outside spigots. EVERY year when i turn the water back on, they are cracked and I have to start all over replacing some of the piping and all the spigots. out well water is corrosive, so no copper. i know i'm doing something wrong, but don't know how to fix it. and yet, i open the spigots and turn the water off inside the house. suggestions please.
Insulation On the pipes will help. I have out side spigots & haven't had any problems .. I keep them covered for winter & they are insulated
There is also a spigot with a longer "neck"
This shuts off the water inside the wall of the building
Instead of allowing water all the way tio the outside
I have a shut off valve inside for each spigot
I shut the water off, open spigot to drain, then close the spigot before cold weather hits. If you leave it open cold air can enter
Is the PVC outside?
Or in an unheated crawlspace?
if you have one water line feeding the spigots from the inside shut off you need to add a union on the line going out from the water shut off.then in the fall you shut the main water feed going out open the spigots outside and crack the union and VENT the lines from the open spigots.you were draining partial water out by just opening the spigots after closing the water off for the season.
outdoor water pipes
message l: against a stucco wall...can't figure out how to insulate spigot.
message 2: shutoff is about 1' inside wall. yes pvc extends thro the wall to the spigot outside
message 3: that's what i do.
and still - cracks appear
Do your lines go to a crawl space or a basement? You should be able to shut the water off in a location that stays warm all winter. If not add one. If the lines go into a basement I would install a frost free sill cock. You can get these in varying lengths just make sure to get one that goes into the heated portion of your home.
When you are shutting the water off are you leaving the sill cocks open? You should also not leave any hoses connected so it will drain. Make sure you turn it off early enough in the fall to allow all the water to drain out. Some shutoffs have a little bleeder valve to open to speed up this process.
edit: one other thing to consider is when you repair the lines make sure they slope toward the spigot. Also check your shut off valve as it may be leaking ever so slightly. If so replace with ball valve.
If all else fails you have to get air into where the shutoff is, so it drains and sloped down to spigot. Either you need another valve that admits air or need a bleeder on it to allow air. If water is air trapped in there it will still freeze. In conjuntion with a frost proof sillcock. If your unfamiliar with what that is go to the big box stores and ask for them,,,they make all the difference in the world. You MAY just not understand the terms used here,,,quite understandably.
|All times are GMT -5. The time now is 11:19 PM.
vBulletin Security provided by vBSecurity v2.2.2 (Pro) - vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2017 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.
User Alert System provided by Advanced User Tagging (Pro) - vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2017 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.


text:
During the 1950's, Georgia was in many ways a study of contrasts. Much of the state retained its rural character, with people leading lives that had strong links to earlier decades. At the same time, Atlanta was beginning its great growth, with the first segments of the interstate system being constructed, television sets being installed in many homes, and the first major shopping center being built.
It is only about 60 miles from Franklin to Atlanta, but within that area the old and new Georgia were existing side by side. To today's typical eighth graders, Heard County in 1950 could have been 1850 when looking at the recreational outlets for kids.
Jane Adamson Pike, Virginia Teal, Benjamin Franklin Rogers, and Marion Couch were all in the eighth grade in 1950 and they recount what it was like growing up in rural Heard County back then.
The lack of video games, computers, shopping malls, and McDonald's is mentioned but the emphasis is on what they did have - church picnics, school parties, reading, radio, crafts, swimming holes. Extensive use of photographs from the period illustrates the wide variety of activities that made up these teenagers' lives.


text:
Mapping a suburb with a single camera using a biologically inspired SLAM system
Milford, Michael & Wyeth, Gordon (2008) Mapping a suburb with a single camera using a biologically inspired SLAM system. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 24(5), pp. 1038-1053.
This paper describes a biologically inspired approach to vision-only simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) on ground-based platforms. The core SLAM system, dubbed RatSLAM, is based on computational models of the rodent hippocampus, and is coupled with a lightweight vision system that provides odometry and appearance information. RatSLAM builds a map in an online manner, driving loop closure and relocalization through sequences of familiar visual scenes. Visual ambiguity is managed by maintaining multiple competing vehicle pose estimates, while cumulative errors in odometry are corrected after loop closure by a map correction algorithm. We demonstrate the mapping performance of the system on a 66 km car journey through a complex suburban road network. Using only a web camera operating at 10 Hz, RatSLAM generates a coherent map of the entire environment at real-time speed, correctly closing more than 51 loops of up to 5 km in length.
Impact and interest:
Citation counts are sourced monthly from Scopus and Web of Science® citation databases.
These databases contain citations from different subsets of available publications and different time periods and thus the citation count from each is usually different. Some works are not in either database and no count is displayed. Scopus includes citations from articles published in 1996 onwards, and Web of Science® generally from 1980 onwards.
Citations counts from the Google Scholar™ indexing service can be viewed at the linked Google Scholar™ search.
Full-text downloads:
Full-text downloads displays the total number of times this work's files (e.g., a PDF) have been downloaded from QUT ePrints as well as the number of downloads in the previous 365 days. The count includes downloads for all files if a work has more than one.
|ID Code:
|Item Type:
|Journal Article
|Boi-inspired robotics, vision simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM)
|Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification > INFORMATION AND COMPUTING SCIENCES (080000) > ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND IMAGE PROCESSING (080100) > Adaptive Agents and Intelligent Robotics (080101)
|Copyright Owner:
|Copyright Statement:
|Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.
|Deposited On:
|23 Jun 2010 00:48
|Last Modified:
|29 Feb 2012 14:14
Export: EndNote | Dublin Core | BibTeX
Repository Staff Only: item control page


text:
- Score:
- rated 3.78 / 5 stars
- Views:
- 202,601 Views
- Share Links:
- Genre:
- Puzzles - Quiz
- nintendo
- nes
Credits & Info
- Uploaded
- Apr 27, 2006 | 9:36 PM EDT
- Frontpaged April 28, 2006
- Daily 2nd Place April 29, 2006
If you liked this, check these out!
Plenty more like this here!
Video Game Parodies Parodies of all your favorite video games, whether 8-bit, 16-bit or a bazillion bits!
Author Comments
Rated 4 / 5 stars
It's fun little NES quiz.
This is a nice way to test out how much you know about the NES. I can't really say the graphics are great, considering there's only one drawn picture (Mario). But the best part of this quiz is Mario's comments; he says things like, "Even Princess Peach got that one a-right" and, "Your brain is the size of a Koopa!" LOL, this is a great quiz. I loved it.
Rated 4 / 5 stars
Nice job!
Well, Mario hosting it was awesome. The hint system was pretty good. The various levels of dificulty good. The display awesome with box art and screneshots. A rather funny and good game. I don't usually give these good scores.
Rated 5 / 5 stars
One quiz I don't mind taking!
Do not read until you have played the game!
(My funny experiences with this quiz)
In the 1942 question, I wrote 1941 and the game said it was right!
In the Megaman 3, I wrote Megaman and the game said it was wrong :o
In the Rad Racer, I wrote Radical Racer XD wrong answer
In the Ice Climber question, I wrote Ice Climbers and it was wrong :(
In the Hogan's Alley question, I wrote Alley Hogan! LOL wrong too
Bug report (spoiler)
In the Rush N Attack question, the fact presented is of the Keystone Kapers one in the atari quiz. Please fix!
Main review:
I got most of the questions right (except for some of the impossible ones) This was a lot easier than the atari one! XD I never even saw an atari system before. Keep making more of these quizzes! An SNES/Sega Saturn plus all the other systems until you reach the next-gen ones XD
awesome Unit3d, thanks for all the catches of mistakes. Thanks to you:
- MegaMan 3 now takes a bunch of options (see review above)
- Rad Racer now accepts "radical racer"
- Ice climber now accepts "Ice Climbers" as well as "iceclimber", "ice climber", "ice climbers", "iceclimbers", "ice climer", "ice climers", "iceclimers"
-and sorry, I'm not going to accept "Ally Hogan", that's stretching it!
Rated 3.5 / 5 stars
You need to make more errors correct-a.
In the ice climer part,I put an "s" at the end,and I got it wrong.What the heck???There ARE two ice climers!Another time,I missed the silent "b",and got it wrong AGAIN!By the way,it got annoying when Mario kept on putting "-a" at the end-a.
Anyway,good game,I can't wait until the next games
got it! Thanks! See above for the ICE CLIMBER changes!
Rated 4 / 5 stars
i liked it
i didnt score very high but it brought back memories of some games i had played before. thanx for the trip down memory lane.


text:
- English
- German
- Spanish
- Dutch
- French
- Swedish
- Danish
- Norwegian
Getting Out of the Starting Gate: A Guide For Elance NewbiesGuest_Blogger | Apr 09, 2012
So you've joined Elance and you want to know what's the best way to get out of the starting gate and become a serious contender in the bidding wars. You've probably noticed that there's often fierce competition for projects, that some Elance contractors bid low, some Elance clients offer low prices, and that seasoned Elancers have a big head start when they have lots of great reviews.
On the flip side, I see new contractors coming on like a storm all the time. There they are, brand new, and lo and behold they have 4 or 5 projects in the first couple of weeks with 4 or 5 great reviews. And they don't necessarily have amazing credentials—just some good basic experience and probably some good samples. When I see their quick success, what does that tell me?
- They're serious about starting their business.
- They probably have a competitive streak (a good attribute in this business).
- They've been bidding a lot—you have to bid a lot when you're just getting started.
- They've been buying extra Connects so they can keep bidding. (Note: spending $20 or $30 or $40 on extra Connects the first few months is not a big cost for starting a business!)
- They're probably checking for new projects every couple of hours because they've figured out that with newly posted projects there is less competition. (The projects come rolling in all day long and many clients choose someone quickly.)
- They're choosing small projects to get started, knowing that seasoned contractors usually bid on larger projects.
- They've been careful to pick decent projects with good clients (more about that later).
- They must have done a good job because they've received good reviews.
The First Great Big Goal
So there you go. Once you have 4 or 5 good reviews, you're on the map! You're a bona fide Elance contractor. You're a player in the bidding wars. For that first batch of jobs, pick small jobs and bid low to get started—the important thing is to get started. If the project takes way longer than you figured, it's okay; you're learning. The idea is to end up with your first little batch of projects, all with great ratings (you're aiming to score 5s, but high 4s are okay).
The Starting Gate
Okay, so now let's back up. How did you get to those first five projects? Like a race horse heading for the starting gate, there's lots of preparation involved before you can stand at the gate. Basically, there are three stages you have to go through:
Stage #1: Research: What Does My Competition Look Like?
…and what can I learn from them before I start competing against them? You'll learn all kinds of things by checking out your competition, both before you start and regularly after that. On the top menu of Elance, go to "Hire" instead of "Work." If you're a writer, for example, click on the Writing & Translation section. Your fellow writers will be listed, starting with who's making the most money. Then you can refine your search by putting "web content" or "press release" or "ghostwriting" or "manuscript" in the search bar—depending on what type of jobs you want to pursue. Again, the top earning writers in that particular category will be listed first. Check out what kind of projects they've been getting and how much they charge. You can also go from there to their Profile, Portfolio or Job History. You can look at a competitor's overall Elance Profile and say, "This is what I want to be doing; this is what I want to aspire to."
Stage #2: Complete Your Profile
- Complete your Profile.
- Choose 10 Keywords that describe what you do or want to do.
- List 8 Skills; you can test them later. Some clients like to check out what you consider your particular skills.
- Start building your Portfolio. You can add more samples later. And check out the Portfolio of your competitors to see what you think works best.
- Do not have any typos in your Profile (an amazingly common occurrence, even with writers and editors!)
Stage #3: Create Your Samples
- Samples are your number one sales tool. Before you start bidding, create samples—a sample or two for every type of service you're going to offer.
- Create a file of samples so that it's easy to grab one or two and attach them to your proposal. Many clients will not take the time to look at bidders' Portfolios, especially if they have 10 or 20 bids.
- Samples do not even have to be something you did for a client. For example, you can create a press release that shows you know how to write a press release. You can create a website or a logo for a friend. You can edit an essay for a student whose first language is not English.
- Be absolutely sure your samples have no mistakes or typos.
- You can also add testimonials from clients.
The Bidding Wars
- When you're first starting, pick projects that are uncomplicated, short, and easy for you to do.
- Pick clients who are experienced, who explain exactly what they want, and who have a history on Elance of giving feedback to clients and often giving a 5. (Just click on the client's name when you're bidding to see his History.)
- Bid on lots of projects. Your total cost of joining Elance so far is $10. Spend money on extra connects. This is your total financial cost to starting your business. Where else can you start a business for less than $100? Do lots of bidding but pick carefully.
- Bid frequently during the day. Projects come rolling into Elance all day long. Pick your categories and check what's come in every hour or two. Many clients choose as soon as they have a few good bidders, and many have tight deadlines.
- The default time for posting a project is 14 days. Those projects get huge numbers of bids, and quite often the bidder doesn't choose anyone! Make sure you spend most of your bidding time on projects that are relatively new—a couple of hours, a couple of days. If you have lots of time to bid, then you can make your way through everything else too.
- When you start bidding, bid low. Get experience. Then when you're in the game, decide on what price range you're willing to work in and what kind of projects you like doing.
- Note that, in every niche, there will be a wide range of Elance contractors and they will charge a very wide range of fees. Find your sweet spot. Are you a hot dog stand, a McDonald's, an Italian deli or a fancy French bistro? It takes trial and error and more research to find out where you fit. You're an entrepreneur, and that means you're competitive, flexible, innovative, and resilient.
- Congratulations on getting started! Enjoy the ride and revisit your business plan every few months.
Have other tips for new contractors? Share them on the Elance Facebook page!
About the Author
Cathy has been working on Elance for 3 years, writing and editing for clients in 38 countries and counting. Her summary of the experience: "I've worked with some great clients and learned about so many countries and all kinds of fascinating subjects—it's like taking an advanced degree in globalization."
- << 2010 SXSW Highlights
- The World's Largest Blackout In India >>
- Log in to post comments
April 10, 2012 - 9:01am
That's a great article. It is necessary for every newbie that these are the essentials and the starting with a complete profile will lead towards the success. I also focused on my article in my website http://freelancefront.com/why-freelancers-failure-to-get-freelance-jobs & I tried to expose a common mistake that majority of newbies usually make. Nevertheless You have total control. Thanks for sharing
- Log in to post comments
April 10, 2012 - 6:24pm
What a relief to learn that clients' "tight deadlines" only matter when bidding, not after the contract is awarded! (" If the project takes way longer than you figured, it's okay; you're learning.")
- Log in to post comments
April 10, 2012 - 9:43pm
I can't believe elance paid someone to write this.
"When you start bidding, bid low.
Get experience.
Then when you're in the game,
decide on what price range you're willing to work in
and what kind of projects you like doing."
WOW. I guess elance is no longer an online platform for professionals.
Now elance is just an online place for people to "get in on the game" or
pick a price range, and find projects they like doing?
- Log in to post comments
June 21, 2012 - 2:14pmUmar-H-Nawabi
Nobody is a professional from day one. So stuff it.
- Log in to post comments
April 25, 2012 - 4:10pm
Cathy, what a potential and helpful post! Yesterday before going to bed I was wondering that why I don't have any success on Elance? I'm working as a Freelancer since 2009, I'm from Pakistan but my normal working hours are US business hours, I figured that I'm not consistently bidding due to low number of connects but I'm writing cover letter according to client's job description, attaching samples but no luck! One more thing I noticed that I'm not bidding low may be it's a main factor in getting my first project. Your suggestions are going to help and now I'm on fire, confident to get my first today!
- Log in to post comments
June 24, 2012 - 11:01pm
This is a very good article to address the needs for those getting started on this venture in working for a company such as this. I do not understand some of these comments here. Sadly, some people just do not understand the importance of basic information that is needed to get started. I appreciate what you are offering to us. My question is this, when you mentioned that you should have a portfolio of work that you offer, what would be the best thing to do? I have not done any work for any customer here. I am a transcriptionist/editor. I can do almost any typing job for doctors, dentists, teachers, professors, spiritual leaders, and so forth. Can you please advise? I would greatly appreciate your input. Thank you.
- Log in to post comments
June 24, 2012 - 11:04pm
Thank you for the tip about bidding low at first. That makes sense and I did not think about that. Great advice.
- Log in to post comments
August 20, 2012 - 4:36pm
Thank you for this wonderful guide. It's really helpful, and just what I need as a newcomer.
I have one comment, and that is about bidding low. I understand the temptation to do this, but, based on experience in another online business, I feel it can actually be counter-productive.
If a seller/contractor prices his product low, it can look like a Walmart service ("Always the low price!") and, by association, a lower-quality service. The potential buyer can get a sense of desperation, as if the contractor doesn't have confidence in his work.
This is especially true if the new person is experienced. For instance, I'm new to Elance, but a 20-year veteran of business and academic writing. If I submitted a bid for $10 an hour, a potential client could well think "Wow. It's not like she's fresh out of college. What's wrong with HER?"
I think we should charge what we're worth. Doing so tells the world "I may be new to this website, but I believe in my work, and so should you."
- Log in to post comments
October 14, 2012 - 7:05pm
I was looking for something else when I came across this article. My inclination is to agree both ways! I agree with the writer, and when I started, I began lowering my bids so that they were around the "average" mark, but having thought about it (and getting a couple of really poorly-paid gigs that took way too long to do, because I follow that old rule of "a job worth doing" ) I'm beginning to realize that I am coming across as second-rate or just plain desperate, so I agree with Barbara as well!
- Log in to post comments
October 23, 2012 - 3:21pm
These are some great, helpful tips! As a newbie, I appreciate any and all advice that can help me get on my way to a successful freelance career!
- Log in to post comments
November 14, 2012 - 10:46am
I'd like to see some example of feedbacks left from contractors to their clients. I can't find them on Elance.
I've just finished my first project and the client left me with a perfect feedback, but I'm not sure what to write back or if writing a feedback is worth at all.
- Log in to post comments
August 29, 2013 - 7:59am
Im new to Elance. i got my first job the 1st week. using all my connects. now that i upgraded my account to have connects again i spent my money that i got from my 1st job just for connects. im not getting jobs!! whats wrong???
- Log in to post comments
December 18, 2013 - 7:35am
Great article. Honestly I didn't do a lot of preparation before jumping in and now I wish I had come across this article. From my experience greenhorns often have to settle for "bulk" work that pays low. As the author said experience counts and these early jobs should be seen more from an experience than a money angle.
On one point I'd like to add though - bid often is good enough but make sure you bid for what you can do. Quite often the seasoned freelancers will shy away from a job that demands rare skills or excessive effort (because they know what level of effort is needed). It is insanely tempting to jump in, but one should always read the job description carefully before bidding. There's nothing better than getting a good job in the first week, but there's nothing worse than getting a bad review on your first job.
- Log in to post comments
February 5, 2014 - 2:20pm
- Log in to post comments
May 12, 2014 - 12:01pm
But I don't want to pay for anything ! I'm quite happy for them to take a commission from what I earn, but I don't want to pay out upfront. Do I still have a chance ?
- Log in to post comments
May 12, 2014 - 12:01pm
But I don't want to pay for anything ! I'm quite happy for them to take a commission from what I earn, but I don't want to pay out upfront. Do I still have a chance ?
- Log in to post comments
May 12, 2014 - 12:02pm
But I don't want to pay for anything ! I'm quite happy for them to take a commission from what I earn, but I don't want to pay out upfront. Do I still have a chance ?
- Log in to post comments
May 12, 2014 - 12:02pm
But I don't want to pay for anything ! I'm quite happy for them to take a commission from what I earn, but I don't want to pay out upfront. Do I still have a chance ?
- Log in to post comments
May 26, 2014 - 5:40amnikisha09
when you start bid ,bid low, then get experience.
- Log in to post comments
August 19, 2014 - 3:00pm
Thank you for your article - I appreciate it! I have been in design and advertising agencies for 20 years and have never had to solicit my own work. Thank you for the help at getting started - I needed a rah rah!!!
- Log in to post comments
January 29, 2015 - 9:36pm
This look like great tip for me! Excited about the stuff and new things here. Lets see the result what I get from here.
- Log in to post comments
February 11, 2015 - 11:44amnypple
We just created a piece about the same topic, but refers more to href="http://www.imcreator.com/blog/get-more-projects-on-elance">web designers starting out on Elance
I hope you'll like it
- Log in to post comments


text: Hello all. I've had several Glocks in the past but not for a few years. I'm seriously considering purchasing a G23 RTF. I've not felt the new style grip but once briefly in a gun shop. It felt pretty good to me but I'd like to get some opinions from those that have had some time shooting with that grip. Positive or negative, any information would be greatly appreciated.


text:
Greg Hintz says he's got a reputation as a joker among his colleagues in law enforcement, but there's something in his friendly, heavy-lidded appraisal that suggests he doesn't suffer fools gladly. Captain Hintz is the county's acting coroner. He doesn't miss much. If your bones ended up somewhere they don't belong, you'd be glad to have him looking out for them.
It doesn't happen very often, but human bones turn up in unlikely places in Missoula County enough for people—mostly hunters and hikers, Hintz says, and mostly in the spring and fall when more of them are out in the woods—to find them. And when human remains do turn up, Hintz is usually the first to know.
This week he's waiting for a human jaw to arrive by registered mail. Part of an incomplete skeleton found by a mountain biker in Sawmill Gulch last month, the mandible has been in Great Falls for the past few weeks, where it's being examined by a dentist. Although the case is still being treated as a potential crime, Hintz says he's essentially ruled out the likelihood of foul play. But, if the dental profile provided by the Great Falls dentist can be matched to existing dental records in a missing-persons database, he might still be able to match the skeleton—skull, mandible, 10 teeth, left and right femur, tibiae, pelvic cradle minus the pubis portions, left radius and right fibula—to its former owner.
Then again, maybe not. There's already a stack of potential candidates—missing persons—half an inch thick sitting on his desk. Right now, waiting for the jawbone, Hintz doesn't seem to hold out much hope for answers to many of his questions.
Fifty-year-old blood
You never know when you're going to go, but for many of us it's a matter of no small comfort to make arrangements, while still alive, for the final disposition of our earthly remains—interred next to a loved one, maybe, or cremated and scattered around a favorite fishing hole. No one ever thinks their bones are going to come to rest in a ditch by the highway, or in the pit of an outhouse, or tossed around an alpine meadow, ravaged by bears and gnawed on by rodents.
But it happens.
When human bones turn up in unlikely places—in the woods, on the future site of a new septic tank or school building—one story ends and another begins. A second journey, you could say, that might take the bones through the offices, delivery trucks, examination rooms and laboratories of nearly half a dozen different agencies, departments and organizations. It could be years, or even decades, before such bones well and truly come to rest.
Hintz's office is the on-ramp for the journey ahead. Once the coroner has had a look, the next stop for skeletal remains found in Missoula County, and anywhere else in Montana, is the Forensic Science Division of the Department of Justice, better known as the state crime lab.
Lab administrator Bill Unger says that skeletal remains arrive at the facility, tucked away in a professional suite just off West Broadway in Missoula, four or five times a year. If that. Most of the material the lab receives is mineral or vegetable—clothing, baggies of marijuana, sachets of white powders—and less often animal. But, as with the coroner's office, all material, including skeletal remains, is treated as evidence in a potential crime.
Dr. Gary Dale, a Choteau native and one of three certified forensic pathologists in Montana, is the person at the crime lab in charge of sorting out human remains. Old bones represent a very small fraction of his annual caseload, and they don't usually lie around long before he calls someone from UM's anthropology department to come pick them up. They're the ones, Dale says, who will spend the most time actually examining them.
Once in a great while, however, bones come back a second time for DNA analysis. Not long ago, says Unger, a law-enforcement agency in the state sent them remains that had been in storage since around 1950 for DNA testing.
"It was an old case," he recalls, "where everybody involved has since gone. And I don't know if they made the DNA to a particular individual or not, but we got a great profile off 50-year-old blood."
For cross-referencing purposes, technicians at the lab use "junk" DNA, the genetic "padding" in the double helix common to humans, rats, chickens and fish, and dating from a time when all shared a common ancestor—about 400 million years ago. Junk DNA, as Unger explains, reveals practically nothing about a person's physical makeup. Of the 16 genetic markers lab technicians use, "male/female" is the only one that can be expressed in words. The other 15 are just numbers and Greek letters.
But the industry-standard 16 markers technicians look for are extremely effective in matching DNA samples extracted from evidence with blood, hair or cheek-swab samples taken from potential suspects. If even one marker doesn't match, the person from whom the sample was collected could not have provided the DNA lifted from the remains. But if all 16 markers match, the statistical likelihood of someone besides the suspect leaving a genetically identical sample on the evidence can be calculated in the billions- or even trillions-to-one.
It rarely comes to that with thoroughly skeletalized remains, though. If the soft tissue has been obliterated over time, says Dale, it's probably not—or at least no longer—a criminal issue. Likewise, if bone still has soft tissue on it, it's generally not historical.
"It's a lot harder than you'd think to make the age of skeletal remains," Dale says. "But if there's soft tissue, even if it kind of looks like jerky, then it's probably something contemporary, as opposed to a 200-year-old Native American burial. Those are pretty obvious."
If UM anthropologists Garry Kerr or Randall Skelton agree with Dale that the remains appear to be Native American in origin, the bones have arrived at their first big fork in the road.
The question of ownership
"So let's say," says Forest Service archaeologist Mike Beckes, "that these things are found indeed to be modern and potentially a victim of some sort, or a lost person. That goes off into the criminal justice system, end of discussion. If the remains appear to be prehistoric—American Indian—then a whole different process kicks into gear."
It's only happened once that Beckes has found human remains where he wasn't specifically looking for them. As a student, he recalls, he was walking down a dry arroyo in Texas and saw what looked to him like human bones poking out of a cut bank. Further investigation revealed that there had once been a native village in the vicinity.
Beckes likens bones to arrowheads. He could give a rodent's behind, he says, about finding arrowheads for the sake of finding them—what matters is what they can tell him about the people who made them. Normally, he says, when he's out in the field he isn't looking for bones at all.
"If I were to look at human remains coming out of a cutbank or an arroyo or something exposed by erosion," he explains, "I wouldn't be looking at the bones so much as the associated artifacts—ash, burned rock, things that might suggest a fire hearth, things that to an archaeologist would say 'American Indian.'"
That, Beckes admits, is a fairly rare occurrence around here. In this region over the last decade, he estimates—speaking of an area encompassing Montana, Northern Idaho, the grasslands of North Dakota and "one little grassland" in South Dakota—it's happened maybe six times. And when pre-historic remains do turn up, they rarely fit the romantic picture of a complete skeleton reposed in a cave.
"The idea of finding the classic skeleton is a very rare event," says Beckes. "You generally wouldn't even recognize what you found as human. It would more likely just be a disarticulated bone brought out by natural forces or burrowing animals—badgers and things like that."
Still, the procedure for reporting such finds is the same: Notify the local law enforcement agency first. If the remains are found on National Forest land, Beckes says, calling the local ranger or Forest Service station is a good idea as well. Regardless of where they turn up, the remains should not be disturbed, much less removed from the site, until the proper authorities can be notified and summoned to the scene.
The most recent case Beckes can recall of someone finding human remains in his region involved a boater on Lake Koocanusa, who spotted what turned out to be a partial skull of Native American origin on a remote beach. Reservoirs, says Beckes, are likely places for remains to turn up because of rising and falling water levels, slumping banks and wave action chewing away at beaches.
Land ownership is the most important determining factor in the disposition of American Indian remains unearthed by erosion or excavation. Private land, Beckes says, is a little different than state land, which is a little different than federal land.
"There are different controlling statutes," he explains. "If human remains are encountered on private or state land, the controlling regulation is the Montana State Burial Law. Montana has a pretty strict, explicit burial law that instructs law enforcement how to behave if they encounter human remains, or if they get a phone call from a hiker saying 'hey, I found something out in the woods.'
"On federal land," Beckes continues, "there's a law called the Native American Graves Protection Act—NAGPRA for short—that adds an additional level of regulation to state law. Obviously, we comply with state law, but we also have the additional federal requirements."
NAGPRA was signed into law by former President George Bush in late 1990—the result of decades of concerted effort by Native American groups to protect burial sites from desecration, stop illicit trafficking in Native American remains and artifacts, and recover sacred cultural objects in possession of federal and state agencies and museums.
"American Indians," says Beckes, "had literally gone to Congress and said, 'Hey, when the Corps of Engineers built all those big reservoirs on the Missouri River, they flooded sites that my great-grandfather lived in! They flooded his grave! Or they dug it up and took it back to the Peabody Museum, or Harvard, or God knows where else, and I want them back!' Congress finally heard that and decided it wasn't just the values and interests of science that needed to be considered. It was also the relatives of these people."
In cases where the remains or artifacts in question prove to be many thousands of years old, however, the issue of ownership can get a bit contentious.
"The way NAGPRA was written," Beckes says, "and the reason it was written, had to do with fairly recent ancestors. It can be oral history, it can be archaeology, it can be ethnohistory, it can be forensic data, but you need a preponderance of evidence that you indeed have a cultural affinity to these remains—that they are, let's just say, Blackfeet or something like Blackfeet. More than just a map. More than just somebody asserting that claim loudly."
Which, he continues, is precisely why federal judges ruled against the various tribal claimants in the case of Kennewick Man, a 9,000-year-old skeleton found under the surface of Lake Wallula—a reservoir—on the Columbia River in 1996. The extraordinary age of the remains simply made it impossible for the various American Indian groups asserting claims to conclusively demonstrate that cultural affinity.
"My guess," says Beckes, "is that they'll seek a legislative remedy and try to amend the law. But the way it's written now—well, you saw how it came out. The judge ruled the only way he could have, given what the law says. You read it as it's written, not how it ought to be or how you want it to be or how you wish it would be."
Nothing so rancorous has ever happened around here; if American Indian remains were discovered in the greater Missoula area, Beckes reckons, a call to the Salish-Kootenai would "pretty much get it covered." Not so in eastern Montana, where the extreme mobility of Plains tribes resulted in overlapping inhabitation of the same piece of real estate. Sometimes, Beckes says, he'll have to consult with officials from five or six different tribal groups before one comes forward with a reasonable claim to remains found on erstwhile aboriginal territory. When that happens, and if no other tribe contests their provenance, the relics or remains are generally handed over with a minimum of publicity—and without many further inquiries.
"We very quietly hand them over," Beckes says. "We keep it low-key because essentially we're talking about religious and ceremonial issues, and they don't want every white guy from here to New York reading about it, or even thinking about it. The stuff is no longer property of the federal government. It is repatriated, and what they do with the remains is their business. We don't ask questions, and we rarely hear."
Does a bear croak in the woods?
Beckes says that he's usually not contacted about human remains found in the wild until a coroner, sheriff and other investigating officials, usually through consultation with UM forensic anthropologists, have determined that the remains are probably not linked to a crime or a missing person. He'll get the call, he quips, after they've established that "It's not Jimmy Hoffa." Before this can happen, forensic specialists first have to determine whether or not the bones are human.
Just as decomposing bacteria make no distinction between a human leg and a Virginia ham, certain mammals demonstrate a distressing lack of respect for human bodies deposited in wild places. Rodents nibble the bones trying to get at the marrow. Larger mammals like bears and coyotes carry off their own prizes, often confusing things further by adding bones from other carcasses and bones of their own. The remains retrieved from Sawmill Gulch in late April, in fact, consisted of perhaps a dozen human bones, not counting teeth, mixed in with six times as many animal bones—and a stick.
UM anthropologists usually pass the animal bones along to zoologist Dave Dyer, who identifies them before packing them away in one of the brown cartons stacked to the ceiling in his jumbled animal ossuary in the Health Sciences building. Where there's a question of species, Dyer says that deer and elk bones are the usual suspects. A turkey bone once threw everybody for a loop before Dyer identified it. But perhaps the most unnervingly humanoid animal bones to be found in Montana's wild places, he says, belong to bears.
Dyer keeps a mostly decomposed bear paw encased in a saucer-sized chunk of plastic resin. Minus the fur and the opposable thumb, the bear's flattened phalanges are dead ringers for human digits—little surprise, Dyer affirms, that anyone would leap to the direst conclusions if they found something similar.
Though really, he says, you'd be surprised at some of the conclusions people leap to when they find bones in the woods. He chuckles as he hefts the fibrous dome of a caribou skull—the person who brought it in was sure it belonged to a sasquatch. A disappointingly small sasquatch, to be sure, but such is the intrigue of finding bones. The temptation to read too much into them can be great.
Dyer quickly discerned, from the position of the hole in the base of the skull where the spinal cord would have attached to the brain, that the skull belonged to a quadruped—not a trait generally associated with sasquatches. The holes where the antlers once sprouted have been worn smooth by the elements. Dyer keeps it around as a kind of object lesson in leaping to conclusions.
And because he keeps almost everything around. Dyer's collection is the last stop for animal bones turned over to the university. He rarely throws anything away, and new specimens come in all the time, waiting to be filed away somewhere between the opossum bones on his work-table and the slab of whale baleen sitting on top of a cabinet. And the desiccated ostrich currently getting the Dermestid beetle treatment in his Plexiglas "bug box." If you think the bug box stinks now, says Dyer, you should have smelled it the time a student filled it with fresh bobcat.
The way of all flesh
When something big dies in the Montana woods, Dermestid beetles are among the last to arrive on the scene. They feed on dried tissue, which is usually all that's left by the time anaerobic bacteria have had their feast, causing the carcass to bloat with gas produced by their metabolic activity, and the larvae of various fly species have made off with most of the biomass. Dermestid beetles, with their finicky diet requirements, are useful to zoologists and taxidermists for removing the last scraps of soft tissue from things to be stuffed, mounted, or wired together.
Bone doesn't generally last long in hot, humid climates—one of the reasons tropical areas generally produce fewer prehistoric human remains than areas with temperate climates. Repeated freezing and thawing, which essentially describes Montana's climate, is tough on bone, too. Under certain circumstances, however, decomposition of human remains skips the usual routine and proceeds to alternate processes.
They're not mummy mummies, trailing tatters of embalming cloth, says Gary Dale, but Montana's dry climate does sometimes produce partially mummified remains. Generally infants and fetuses, which haven't yet recruited the full army of bacteria lurking in the human body, like a Fifth Column, to start dismantling it once it's stopped working.
Then there's adipocere, another relatively rare state of decomposition produced under special circumstances. Adipocere is a waxy substance that clings to bone when bodies decompose in wet, oxygen-poor environments like coldwater springs. It's basically natural soap caused by the hydrolysis of fatty acids, and its antibacterial properties may preserve the remains in that state for decades. It also stinks to high heaven, says Dale, who vividly recalls the time he examined a body recovered from a car that had been in a Texas pond for over 10 years.
Dale performs most of his examinations in a mortuary with some unlikely decorative touches inherited from a co-worker—lots of SpongeBob SquarePants paraphernalia, including a pair of SpongeBob boxer shorts sagging from the pelvis of "Oscar," the resident skeleton (obtained, mind you, through a reputable scientific supply company).
He rarely sees skeletal remains—most of what he gets to work with is considerably fresher when it arrives at the crime lab. Like Greg Hintz, however, he's obliged to treat all remains, even those that clearly look very old to him, as though they were evidence from a crime scene. Occasionally he'll simmer skeletal remains in a solution of trisodium phosphate with a few added ingredients—secret recipe of UM forensic anthropology professor Garry Kerr, who sometimes assists Dale with examinations. Dale also assists Kerr: When Kerr took some of his anthropology students to the Petty Creek site where a man had been killed by his family, incinerated in a woodstove and thrown down an outhouse, Dale went along to take pictures. He says he's got a great shot of Kerr and an assistant tipping over the outhouse.
Removing the last of the flesh affords Dale, and Kerr, a better view of any "defects" on the bones—not congenital or pathological ones, but marks like cuts or scrapes that might have been caused by stabbing. Once in a great great while, Dale says, skeletal evidence reveals foul play that might have occurred decades earlier.
"We've had at least one case like that," says Dale, "where there was cut-up bone. They were from the basement of a bar in Ryegate. They weren't missing anybody in that small town, so we figured they had probably been there since the 1930s. Somebody ran the head through a bonesaw. The butcher shop was right next door at the time."
Pictures from an excavation
In a room down the hall from his office, coroner Hintz sets up the projector for a grim slideshow he sometimes gives to high school students. There's Betty Beavertail, her weatherbeaten bones wedged against a chain-link fence east of Rock Creek where a railroad worker spotted them, perhaps 30 feet down the embankment from the place where someone rolled or threw her from the shoulder of the road. She was subsequently identified through the Green River Task Force as a runaway from the Seattle area.
And there's the skeleton of a man found in the woods up Pattee Creek, flesh still clinging to the ribs in greasy brown ribbons. Astonishingly, crime lab technicians were still able to lift a fingerprint and make another positive ID.
"See that trauma up around the ribcage?" asks Hintz, jabbing the screen with his finger. "He'd been shot with a .303 rifle. And there were no clothes on the scene. That tells you something's wrong."
And there's the Petty Creek investigation that Gary Dale took pictures on, the case of the man shot with a .22, burned in two locations and thrown down the family outhouse. What Garry Kerr's students retrieved from the privy pit looks more like potsherds than bone, but here, too, police were able to make an ID from a surgical pin found in a piece of ankle not much bigger than a coin. The victim's wife had already confessed.
"But you have to make an identification," says Hintz. "Who's to say that his brother isn't down there, too?"
There's Debbie Deer Creek, one leg sticking out of the shallow grave where a hunter and his dog found her on December 18, 1984. Investigators set up a tent and installed a heater to thaw out the ground. There's an arm, says Hintz, and an elbow. Debbie Deer Creek's first name is thought to be Robin, and that's nearly the extent of what authorities know about the person. Her bones offer many clues as to how she lived and how she died, but they're conspicuously silent on where she's from or who might miss her.
And there, finally, is what's left of Chryssie Crystal Creek (if "you call 'em all Jane Doe," says Hintz, "you get mixed up."), scattered around an East Missoula drainage not far from where Debbie Deer Creek was found, each piece marked with an orange plastic flag. For Chryssie Crystal Creek's bones, and for those of Debbie Deer Creek, it's been a long detour on the road to resting in peace.
The road home
If no modern crime is suspected, bones with no more tales to tell are eventually returned to the submitting agency in the county where they originated. Once there, Greg Hintz says, they'll probably be buried, in some cases a second time, with a minimum of fanfare. You're unlikely to see them on display in your county museum, adds Mike Beckes.
"Display of human remains is pretty much passé," he says. "Our social conscience has moved beyond that. There used to be some pretty garish sideshow-like displays around this country—come see the two-headed calf and the skeleton of the Indian! and all that—but that is a rare event anymore. People are offended by it, and it rarely happens."
In life, bones provide structure. And so they sometimes do in death. Skeletal remains supply a significant amount of hands-on training to UM anthropology students. For that very reason, forensic anthropology professor Randall Skelton is currently declining interviews. So is Garry Kerr. As Skelton explains:
"Out primary mission is our students, and they come first. At present we enjoy an excellent reputation with the law enforcement community, and therefore they send us cases. Working with these cases is a vital part of my students' education. However, if we speak with even one reporter in a way that seems inappropriate to the law enforcement community, they won't send us cases. We have had this happen in the past and spent years rebuilding our reputation."
Faculty are bound by law and rules of evidence, Skelton adds, from commenting on any open case; Debbie Deer Creek and Chryssie Crystal Creek, though old now, are still open cases. Law-enforcement officials, on the other hand, can share many details of these cases that would be verboten coming from Kerr or Skelton. It's a professional courtesy, adds Kerr—a world-class talker who, in this case, simply can't talk.
One person who can, and who has permission to do so from all agencies concerned, is Syd Wimbrow. Wimbrow is writing a paper for her master's degree in forensic anthropology on Chryssie Crystal Creek, whose bones are now lying, more or less reassembled, on a lemon-yellow bedsheet in a lab on the UM campus. Ordinarily, Wimbrow prefers to work with bones on a red cloth, a color that confers respect in many Native American cultures. There's nothing in the skeletal morphology of Chryssie Crystal Creek to indicate Native American ancestry, but Wimbrow generally observes the tradition just in case. As it happens, yellow is just more photogenic.
Forensic anthropologists make a cumbersome number of distinctions when it comes to skeletal parts. A skull, for example, is not always a skull. Without the mandible, it's the cranium. If it's missing the face, what remains is the calvarium. If it's just the face, it's a splanchnocranium. If it's the cup-like dome of the skull without the base, it's a calotte. Anthropologists also differ in their pronunciation and pluralization of certain bones: One's radii are another's radiuses.
"Some forensic anthropologists," Wimbrow says, "just make up their own words for everything."
Wimbrow suspects that she differs from most forensic anthropologists in referring to her subject as "she." For her paper, a detailed forensic report on Chryssie Crystal Creek, Wimbrow says she finds ways around it, generally with definite articles instead of personal pronouns, and by calling her "the victim." But privately, among friends, she's "my girl."
Syd's girl was shot twice in the head and apparently dumped in a creek bed near East Missoula, probably in early 1984. By the time a bear hunter found her in September, 1985, all that was left was hair and bone, which Wimbrow retrieves one piece at a time from a box of individually labeled freezer bags. Some of the bones have been nibbled by rodents; Wimbrow knows every tooth mark. The clump of brown hair is matted with dirt and leaves, but Wimbrow plucks a single curl from the tangle that looks like it could have been swept from a hairdresser's floor yesterday.
She marvels at her girl's dental work—so unique, she enthuses, that it's amazing no one has been able to identify her. She has a root canal under one of her incisors. And gaping cavities in some of her molars. Wimbrow suspects that her girl had access to excellent tooth care until about a year before her death, when she "let them go to pot." One of the things Wimbrow wants to know is why. Other examiners have speculated that Chryssie Crystal Creek was a smoker and, judging by the distribution of the tobacco stains, that she was right-handed.
One expert has speculated from the condition of the pelvis, which was found in three pieces, that she had had a baby. They base this assumption on a tiny divot called the preauricular sulcus. Others contend that the preauricular sulcus doesn't necessarily have anything to do with childbirth. Striking a balance between objectivity and subjectivity, science and its interpretation, is one of the things that intrigues Wimbrow about forensic anthropology.
"What I think is so interesting about it is solving something. I like to figure things out, from the TV remote to the new stereo to a bone. It's also interesting to me to know what the body's made of. I'd like to have a full x-ray of my bones because I'm not going to be able to see them when I die, but I'm really curious about them.
"Also," Wimbrow adds, though hardly as an afterthought, "it bothers me that she's still unindentified. It bothers me that even though this world is so big, some family member somewhere doesn't miss her. I'm not going to be really, really disappointed if I can't determine her identity, but I know that I'm going to have a complete skeletal inventory with details of her bones to give back to the police. I know that what I'm doing is going to give them just a little more information than they already have."
And when they have it, Chryssie Crystal Creek might get her old name back. She might yet make it home.


text:
The science of Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) therapy is still relatively new to the world of orthopedics. As such, there are many studies being performed that test the application of the plasma platelets in various clinical settings. In the rush to show how beneficial PRP applications can be in surgery, only sometimes is there research to show that PRP can be just as effective outside of surgery. Unfortunately, PRP is being studied more as an adjunct to surgery instead of as an alternative to surgery.
Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) in Surgery
Recently we posted an article about "ultra-octogenarian" and stem cell injection therapy – showing research that says you are never too old for Comprehensive Prolotherapy. In this new PRP research, doctors sought to determine if patients deemed too old for a specific surgery could get that surgery if blood platelets were introduced into the equation. New research is applying PRP to microfracture surgery.
Microfracture surgery for articular cartilage repair
Surgeons seem to be sold on microfracture surgery for articular cartilage repair (where the bones under the cartilage are microfractured to stimulate healing). This is not a surgery we recommend as we feel that Comprehensive Prolotherapy is more effective without fracturing bones. But surgeons want it to work, so the use of stem cells, as reported in our recent article on surgery and stem cells, and now PRP, is the focus of current research striving to prove the addition of these applications make surgery more successful.
This PRP research has one message: patients under 40 benefit the most from microfracture. With the addition of PRP, patients under 50 benefit the most.
New research: PRP and microfracture surgery
Knowing that people under 40 benefit most from microfracture, researchers set out to find how they could extend the age of patients who benefit from this surgery. Here is the gist of the study:
"The aim of this study was the first to report the results regarding the PRP as an adjunct for arthroscopic microfracture in the early osteoarthritic (OA) knee with cartilage lesion over 40 years of age. 49 patients who underwent arthroscopic microfracture for cartilage lesion sized less than 4 cm(2) with early OA, aged 40-50 years, were enrolled and randomly divided into 2 groups: a control group with only arthroscopic microfracture (25 patients) and a study group with arthroscopic microfracture and PRP (24 patients). . . In the postoperative 2 years, clinical results showed significantly better in the study group than in the control group. In post-arthroscopic finding, hardness and elasticity degree was better in the study group. The PRP injection with arthroscopic microfracture would be improved the results in early osteoarthritic knee with cartilage lesion in 40-50 years old, and the indication of this technique could be extended to 50 years."1
Therefore, if Platelet Rich Plasma Therapy is included in the surgery, it makes the surgery work better for older patients. So are you too old for PRP? Evidently PRP can extend the effectiveness in the older patient in cartilage repair as documented by this study's discussion of stronger, harder, more elastic soft tissue (cartilage.)
PRP as an alternative to surgery
Again we always have to ask, if the PRP did all these amazing things within the surgical context- make surgery work for patients too old, wouldn't it be just as effective as an injection for articular cartilage repair?
The answer is yes if included in a comprehensive program offered by a Prolotherapy doctor. This is discussed in our article Science Shows Platelet Rich Plasma is Not a Single Injection Treatment. PRP Prolotherapy is a successful, non-invasive and cost-effective treatment for patients of all ages. For more on Prolotherapy information.
1. Lee GW, Son JH, Kim JD, Jung GH. Is platelet-rich plasma able to enhance the results of arthroscopic microfracture in early osteoarthritis and cartilage lesion over 40 years of age? Eur J Orthop Surg Traumatol. 2012 Jul 5. [Epub ahead of print]


text:
"woolwash disappointment"
Gail Harada
16 May 2014
Having recommended your 'Martha Gardener' lavender woolwash to friends and family over many years I was so disappointed to find that it has been replaced by a wholly inferior product. I have bought the new product twice but will now search elsewhere for a gentler, non-toxic product. I'm afraid I will never again find such a useful, kind and pleasant-to-use washing liquid. The real lavender oils kept my woollens fresh and moth-free in storage. I was still able to buy the Australian lavender room/linen freshener last week - I trust you won't discontinue this!
A note from the team
Thank you for placing your review. We're sorry you were disappointed with this product.We'll be in touch soon.


text:
Soliman returns Aug 16!
By Ray Wheatley–World of Boxing
Former world super middleweight challenger Sam "King" Soliman (35-11, 13 KOs) will return to ring action when he will clash with Thailands Sintung Kietbusaba (11-6, 10 KOs) over twelve rounds at the Peninsula, Shed 14 Central Pier in Docklands, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on August 16. IBF and IBO Regional titles will be up for grabs. This is Soliman's first fight since dropping a controversial decision to Anthony Mundine in a WBA 168 pound challenge in 2008. Punch stats later revealed that Soliman had outscored Mundine in there twelve round bout. Soliman has scored many of his best victories in the USA when he outpointed world rated middleweights Enrique Ornelas in 2007, Fernando Zuniga in 2005 and Raymond Joval in 2004. The fight that lifted Soliman's profile was when he dropped a controversial decision to Ronald Winky Wright in 2005. Punch stats in that fight also had Soliman outscoring Wright.
"I am now boxing in my correct division. I am a middleweight – I only took the fights at super middleweight against Mundine because it was a world title opportunity. After two or three fights I will be ready to fight the best middleweights in the world," said Soliman.
On the undercard: heavyweight Solomon Haumona (16-0-1, 14 KOs) will meet Justin Whitehead (3-0, 2 KOs) over ten rounds. Super middleweight Serge Yannick (3-0, 2 KOs) will clash with Kashif Mumtaz(5-9-1, 4 KOs) over eight rounds. WBO rated welterweight Samuel Columban (12-3, 5 KOs) and WBO rated super bantamweight Daniel Iannazzo (13-0, 2 KOs) will be in action over six rounds. Promoters Brian Amatruda and former IBF junior lightweight champion Barry Michael.


text:
Western High School Class of 1988 Reunion
Joe Huy
Saturday, August 17, 2013 from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM (PDT)
Who's Going
San Francisco, California
London, United Kingdom
Florence, Italy
Event Details
Hello Class of 1988 Alumni:
I hope this message finds you and your family well. Our 25-year Western High School Class Reunion is quickly approaching. It seems just a little while ago that we were all celebrating our 20 year reunion at the Fairmont hotel in Newport Beach. Time is flying by and now it's time to reconnect. We only have a few months left, so we hope that you will be able to join us for a great evening of fun and laughter with old friends. We have had a tremendous response on Facebook from alumni and now is the time to buy your tickets. This is going to be an event that you don't want to miss, so quit procrastinating and get your tickets now! The earlier you buy, the cheaper the tickets.
There will be a cocktail reception from 6:00 - 8:00 pm with dinner and dancing to follow. Dinner will include a buffet style fajita dinner with all the fixings including unlimited soft drinks. A cash bar will also be available to serve up your favorite adult beverages and don't forget the dance floor!
Early bird tickets are 30% off and are on sale now until June 9th! After that the tickets will be at the regular price. Click on the link above to get your tickets now while the price is discounted.
If you have any questions please contact me at the "Organizer" link on this page.
Joey Huy
When & Where
Dave & Busters
20 City Blvd W
Saturday, August 17, 2013 from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM (PDT)
Add to my calendar


text:
At this point you might be expecting a moan about the quality of the games or the visuals, but nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, InstantAction isn't going to give us the next Gears of War or Gran Turismo 5, but what games there are, are surprisingly polished and make effective use of the Torque engine's advanced lighting, texture mapping and shader processing capabilities. The games look good enough not to horrify an audience familiar with modern console games, without excluding anyone through huge downloads or high system requirements. Better still, these are games designed to be enjoyed by a wide audience - they're easy to pick up, accessible and immediately fun.
The pick of the bunch at the moment is Marble Blast Online. For those of you who haven't played it, it's a marble-rolling arcade puzzle game in the vein of Super Monkey Ball or Marble Madness, with a range of tricky courses dotted with power-ups that you'll need to use wisely to get through them, and crystals which you'll need to collect. You can enjoy it as a single-player game if you want, but - as you can guess from the word Online - it also features a fun multiplayer mode where you battle other marbles to collect the most crystals on each map. It looks good. It plays well. It's fun.
My second choice is ThinkTanks, another old Garage Games favourite given an InstantAction spin. It's basically a simple tank-based shooter with deathmatch and capture the flag modes, where you trundle over a bumpy little world blasting your enemies and helping your friends win the game. Solid handling and physics and a strong range of power-ups add to the fun, and you can choose from a selection of tanks offering different combinations of manoeuvrability, firepower and armour. ThinkTanks has a nice line in cute cartoon graphics and it's easy to pick up and play, making it a real contender if you fancy a quick blast.
Finally, I'd have to go for Rokkitball. Imagine a weird combination of Basketball, Quake and the old classic Speedball, where our futuristic players are packing jet-packs and rocket launchers. It takes a little practice, but the principles are easy enough to grasp and the action is furious and enjoyable.
Several other games are also trialling on the service at the moment, including Cyclomite, an interesting action puzzle game, Zero All Productivity (love the name), a 2D multiplayer shoot-em-up that plays a little like Time Pilot meets Geometry Wars, and Screwjumper, a weird futuristic base-jumping game where you dive down a vertical tunnel crashing into glowing green objects while avoiding those of other colours. These games don't feel quite as fully-formed yet, but we're still talking early stages at the moment.


text:
Ranking Members Johnson and Miller Comment on Competes Reauthorization and the Republican FIRST Act
(Washington, DC) – Today the Chairman of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology joined the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Research and Technology in introducing the FIRST Act of 2014, a bill to reauthorize research, innovation, and STEM education programs at the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. These agencies were last authorized in the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010, which also included authorizations for research, innovation, and STEM education programs at the Department of Energy, the Department of Education, and the Department of Commerce.
Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) made the following statement:
"I join my Republican colleagues in supporting the goal of reauthorizing the Competes Act. We must continue to signal to the nation and to the world our intent to continue to lead in an increasingly competitive global economy and to secure the future for our children and grandchildren. However, while there may be some Democratic Members whose priorities are reflected in the FIRST Act of 2014, overall it is a missed opportunity. The bill stops much too short of renewing our commitment to maintaining our scientific and technological leadership now and into the future. Last week I and the other Democratic Members introduced the America Competes Reauthorization Act of 2014, a comprehensive reauthorization of the 2007 and 2010 Competes Acts. Our bill reflects input from across the research, innovation, and STEM education stakeholder communities. I look forward to full committee consideration of the FIRST Act, where we can have a good debate about the merits of the bill and hopefully have the opportunity to strengthen the message it sends."
Original cosponsors of Ranking Member Johnson's America Competes Reauthorization Act of 2014 include all of the Democratic Members of the Committee: Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL), Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD), Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL), Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), Rep. Dan Maffei (D-NY), Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-MA), Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA), Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-WA), Rep. Ami Bera (D-CA), Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-CT), Rep. Marc Veasey (D-TX), Rep. Julia Brownley (D-CA), Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA), and Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL).
Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Ranking Member of the Committee on Education and Workforce, Rep. George Miller (D-CA) are also original cosponsors.
Rep. George Miller (D-CA) said, "The America Competes Reauthorization Act of 2014 introduced by Congresswoman Johnson will propel our nation forward by investing in research and innovation. I am particularly grateful to my Democratic colleagues for putting forth a bill that would create an Advanced Research Projects Agency for Education (ARPA-ED). Through this agency, the Department of Education could more vigorously pursue technological breakthroughs, and transform teaching and learning the way the Internet, GPS, and robotics have transformed commerce, travel, and the way we live our daily lives."


text:
Golfer Removes Pants Before Hitting His Shot (Video)
Subscribe to WBSM-AM/AM 1420 on
Danish golfer Andreas Harto had a difficult shot. Not only was the ball on the edge of the water, stuck in the mud, but he didn't want to get his pants dirty. Sooooo, he took his pants off. It's especially fun to watch him waddle over the mark his ball.


text:
Science Explains Your Boring, Repetitive Musical TasteBy
In an era in which we're supposed to have shortened attention spans, hit songs seem to stick around forever. Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines started burning up the charts at the beginning of the summer, and the thing's still impossible to escape; Thicke will be one of the stars of this Sunday's Grammy Awards show. And while it may feel like this has ever been so, it hasn't.
An interesting story last week in the Wall Street Journal found that traditional broadcasters are, in fact, playing fewer songs than they used to, keeping the same few megahits on constant rotation, when a decade ago they would have tried out new songs on listeners. Blurred Lines, the Journal reports, "aired 749,633 times in the 180 markets monitored by Mediabase. That is 2,053 times a day on average. The top song in 2003, When I'm Gone by 3 Doors Down, was played 442,160 times that year." The piece focused on how services such as Spotify and Pandora are driving the trend. With more and more options available for music listeners, traditional "terrestrial" radio stations want to wring every last drop of commercial potential out of each hit.
The story also noted, however, that part of what's going on is that broadcasters have better tools for tracking what people actually listen to. Radio programmers used to have to rely on handwritten diaries to find out what listeners preferred; now electronic devices track listening habits for them. The new technology is a lot more accurate, and one of the things it reveals is that listeners are not as interested in novelty and variety as they say they are. When something new comes on the radio, people turn it off.
Not everyone, of course. People's tastes and their appetite for the new obviously vary, and there's always the social cachet of being the first to know about something and spread the word. But the Journal's finding matches up with research in psychology literature. Itamar Simonson, a marketing professor at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, has done research on shopping decisions. He found that when people are buying groceries to last a few days, they choose a variety of flavors and products—different flavors of yogurt, a mixture of snack foods—but if they go to the store every day, they just buy the same flavor over and over. In the first version of his study, Simonson had people imagine they were going to the store; in a later study he tracked actual store purchases.
The behavioral economists Daniel Read and George Loewenstein followed up Simonson's research with a more in-depth set of studies (PDF), published in 1995. They found, among other things, that if people who had chosen what to eat in advance were asked on the days of consumption if they wanted to change their mind, they tended to say yes, preferring to eat the same thing they had the day before.
A 1992 study led by Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist who would later win the Nobel prize for economics, had subjects eat a bowl of yogurt while listening to the same piece of music at a specified time on seven consecutive days. (It is unclear why yogurt figures so prominently in this sort of research, though the fact that Simonson and Kahneman are both from Israel may have something to do with it.) When asked on the first day how much they thought they'd enjoy the yogurt and the music by the end of the study, the subjects predicted they would be sick of both. But in fact, they were not—the subjects actually grew to like the yogurt more.
Behavioral scientists continue to debate what's behind this so-called diversification bias, the tendency to assume we'll want more diversity in our lives than we actually do. Simonson suggests it's a hedge against the possibility that our tastes will change and we'll be stuck with a bunch of stuff we no longer like. Read and Loewenstein argue that it's not so rational and that the bias springs from the limits of the cognitive shortcuts humans use. For example, we tend to contract time as we look toward the future: When we're asked to think about what it would feel like to listen to the same song once a day for seven days, we actually imagine something closer to listening to it seven times straight.
For the music industry, these findings have different implications, depending on the business model. Music purveyors that rely on delivering ears to advertisers and need to get listeners to stay tuned in—i.e., traditional radio stations—would do well to stick with the megahits. The same would apply to free, ad-based streaming music services.
But Pandora and Google Play also rely, in part, on persuading listeners to pay for a premium version of their service. In that case, they might be better off highlighting the diversity of music they can offer. Users debating whether to make the jump to a premium version are imagining the way they'll use the station and therefore assuming what they'll want is a variegated cornucopia of musical choice. Even if, in the end, they end up just listening to Blurred Lines like everybody else.


text:
Shop owner tells job-seekers what he thinks of the 'wassup' generation
28 August 2009 , 7:30 AM by Bernadette Majella Marsden
A New Zealand shop owner who became fed up with the poor standard of job applicants has found a new way of finding the best workers.
Murray Crane runs a men's clothing store in Auckland, and he says 95 per cent of the people who apply for a job in his shop have no idea what's required.
He says once a young man texted him, "Hey wassup, how 'bout hookin' up for a job interview."
And so, in his latest job advertisements, he decided he would be brutally honest.
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
Comment about surprise that Gen-Y still 'acting up' in GFC... What do they care? How many have houses, large families to support - if even a partner - have tens of thousands of dollar debt whether loans or credit card, have brand new cars...
They've either not noticed any price increase in the products they consume, or see it as the 'norm', which has been steadily increasing since they've had pocket money... or they're uni students who have been living a scant existence in share houses since before the GFC anyway. In fact, people like I've described (and as someone who is just shy of 30, self employed-no major assets or debts- inner city renter, this still includes me) are actually having a better time of it than any other generation or social sector of the community.
While I agree the behaviour of younger job applicants can be quite appalling... Why is it that a decent work ethic was instilled in myself and my peers, and yet mere years later there seems to be such a drop in general understanding of appropriate behaviour – social, professional or otherwise..? What does it say about the people who raised or educated these 'Gen-Y' heathens everyone seems to be gunning for...?
A fair a question as those that wonder why Gen Y are the way they are, no? Or is it a 'give but can't take' scenario when it comes to Gen-Y bashing?
Posted by: Missy | 28 August 2009 at 12:34 PM
To quote Bart Simpson:
"If the world looks a bit rooted, don't blame us — it was like that when we got here."
This is not new, generation bashing. Appalling actually, that people still get away with generalising an entire group of people based on age.
Posted by: Juliette | 31 August 2009 at 10:50 AM
Verify your Comment
Previewing your Comment
This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.
As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.
Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.


text:
International Edition
June 24, 2017
About Us
Contact Us
H1 property transactions near 9-year low: ministry
CNA Sunday, July 29, 2012, 12:05 am TWN
TAIPEI--Property transactions in Taiwan for the first half of this year fell to an almost nine-year low, reflecting the implementation of the luxury tax which aims to curb market speculation, according to the government statistics released by the Ministry of the Interior Saturday.
According to the statistics, transactions of residential and commercial properties on the island in the past six months fell 20.9 percent to about 159,000 units.
The luxury tax, which took effect in June 2011, imposes a 15-percent sales tax on second homes sold within one year of purchase and a 10-percent sales tax on properties sold between one and two years after they were purchased.
The statistics showed Yilan County recorded an increase in property transactions during the six-month period, while other counties and cities around the island witnessed their numbers fall.
Kinmen County suffered the steepest decline in transactions number, down 37.97 percent from a year earlier, ahead of Taipei City with a drop of 36.48 percent and New Taipei with a fall of 33.93 percent, the statistics indicated.
The ministry said property transactions largely took place in the five municipalities — Taipei City, New Taipei City, Taichung City, Tainan City and Kaohsiung City — and Taoyuan County. The six areas accounted for 78 percent of the total property transactions.
New Taipei made up 20.1 percent of the island's total property transactions, the largest portion, followed by Taoyuan with 14.2 percent and Taichung with 14 percent.
The average floor area per unit of Taipei property transactions was the smallest in the local property market with 25.41 pings (83.85 square meters) after Keelung City with 25.91 pings, and New Taipei with 28.73 pings.
Yunlin County had the largest average floor area per unit in property transactions with 52.06 pings, ahead of Changhua County with 50.44 pings and Nantou County with 48.47 pings.
According to the statistics, the number of properties that were sold for the first time, largely new homes, in the past six months fell 3.7 percent from a year earlier to 44,000 units.
However, the total floor area of the particular segment rose 12.4 percent from a year ago, the statistics said.
One dead, several injured in northern Taiwan amid torrential rain
80% of the electric scooter market in 2 years: How did Gogoro do it?
Food Taipei: A springboard for El Salvadoran products
"Beyond Beauty" director reportedly killed after aircraft crashes in Hualien
Taiwan's gay marriage ruling raises hopes across Asia
10 reasons working at a Taiwanese convenience store is anything but convenient
Taiwan president condemns Beijing for Panama defection
Panama severs diplomatic ties with Taiwan
Taipei ups precautionary measures to counter flood threat
There are rumors iPhone 8 testing is going badly and could mean a 3-month delay