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I'm now writing a series of grammar articles for The Saturday Evening Post. It makes me feel old when my friends under 60 ask me, "What city is that newspaper published in?" If you younger readers of this column don't get the point of my lament, ask your chronologically endowed family and friends. They'll tell you about the beloved Norman Rockwell covers and a luminous and patriotic chronicle of our great nation. And, like yours truly, it still has a pulse.
• • •
February comes in a week and is the perfect month to point out how often we drop an r from the middle of a word. While some dictionaries accept "Feb-yoo-ary" as a standard pronunciation, I urge you, gentle readers, to reflect the spelling of the word and to sound it as "Feb-roo-ary." Please don't come foward and mispronounce the likes of the San Bernadino liberry. There is no foe in forward and no berry in library, and you have to wonder why we pronounce both r's in the second word of Rancho Bernardo, but only the first r in the second word of San Bernardino.
• • •
Two columns ago, I lamented the dearth of verbal skills in America. Leave it to late-night comedian Jimmy Fallon to put a humorous spin on the situation. Fallon quips that, on the bright side, the students are too bad at math to realize how sad the situation is.
• • •
In 2012, the Boston Red Sox suffered an embarrassing 69-93 season, and in 2013, the team was rocked by the Boston Marathon bombing. But the outlook gradually brightened, and a grand slam home run by right fielder Shane Victorino in the ALCS propelled the Sox into the World Series, which they won in six games.
When asked what that blast meant to him, Victorino replied, "rejubilation!" — a perfect, albeit inadvertent, blend of jubilation and rejuvenation.
• • •
The bitter cold temperatures that engulfed most of the United States this past week often evoked the word arctic, as in arctic cold and arctic vortex. Did you notice that many broadcasters dropped the first c in arctic?
In Hell, Michigan, the temperature plummeted to -17 degrees — so, literally, Hell froze over.
• • •
In my last column of 2013, I sang of Charles Dickens, whose stories were read by a greater percentage of the literate English-speaking public than those of any other author ever. One signature of Dickens' quotable style is his memorable opening sentences. Identify the Dickensian works that are launched by each of the following "button-holers":
1) "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair."
2) "My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip."
3) "Marley was dead, to begin with. There was no doubt about that."
4) "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages will show."
5) "Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse."
Answers: 1) A Tale of Two Cities 2) Great Expectations 3) A Christmas Carol 4) David Copperfield 5) Oliver Twist


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Bird City Wisconsin Summit
March 21, 2014 - March 22, 2014
Event Navigation
Annual Meeting of the Wisconsin Bird Conservation Initiative
Birds are valuable indicators of the health of our environment, both locally and globally, and add much to a community's quality of life. Bird City Wisconsin helps communities take action to protect birds and their habitats and offers public recognition for their efforts. Whether your area is already one of 76 Bird City communities or would like to become one, join us to learn how to: 1) enhance the environment for birds, 2) educate the public about the interactions between birds and people, and 3) Celebrate Birds!
Who Should Attend?
- Those who wish to strengthen their Bird City conservation efforts
- Those who want to help their community become a Bird City
- Foresters, park directors, sustainability leaders and other conservation-minded officials
- Wisconsin Society for Ornithology, Audubon, Wild Ones, bird, nature and garden club members
- All partners in the Wisconsin Bird Conservation Initiative
- Flying WILD Facilitators and Educators (training for FW educators will be held March 20)
- Anyone else interested in bird education and conservation
Reserve your room by Feb. 26 at the Best Western Premier Waterfront Hotel and Convention Center in Oshkosh, Wis.

subset: commoncrawl


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Related links
Brazilian Journal of Microbiology
Print version ISSN 1517-8382On-line version ISSN 1678-4405
GOMES, Bruna C. et al. Correlation between API 20 STREP and multiplex PCR for identification of Enterococcus spp. isolated from Brazilian foods. Braz. J. Microbiol. [online]. 2007, vol.38, n.4, pp.617-619. ISSN 1517-8382. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1517-83822007000400007.
We evaluated the suitability of API 20 STREP and multiplex PCR to speciate 52 Enterococcus spp. obtained from Brazilian foods. A high percentage of isolates (78.9%) presented discrepant results between evaluated tests. Similar results were obtained for six E. faecalis and five E. faecium. The PCR multiplex was more effective than API 20 STREP for complete identification of the isolates.
Keywords : Enterococcus spp.; identification; API 20 STREP; PCR multiplex; foods.


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A merchant on Amazon.com may have access to 244 million shoppers ready to buy, but it can be tough to stand out from the 2 million other third-party sellers.
There are some tools and strategies out there to help Amazon sellers, but Rick Backus, CEO of San Diego-based e-commerce marketing firm CPC Strategy, believes there's a huge market for more robust information.
"For the last few years, retailers have been coming to us for Amazon-specific advice on what technology to use, how to win the Buy Box and how to grow Amazon sales," Backus said. "We had done a lot of research, and there's a surprising lack of information when it comes to strategy on Amazon."
The company, which offers an array of Google AdWords, Google Shopping and eBay tactics that promise to "turn browsers into buyers," launched an Amazon Sales Acceleration Program this month to help retailers increase their sales in the Amazon Marketplace.
Pro Tips for Amazon Sellers
- Fulfillment by Amazon is a powerful tool to get in front of the 20 million Prime members, and it should be used strategically. Sellers are best suited by leveraging the Fulfillment by Amazon service only for the segments of their catalog where it makes sense. FBA considerations a seller will want to take into account include margin, product competition, FBA handling and storage fees, & product popularity.
- Sellers should have an Amazon-specific content strategy. Sellers should think of Amazon like Google and optimize their titles, descriptions, and search keywords to gain more exposure for their products.
- Submit optional product attributes. These attributes are used by shoppers to refine their product searches. For example, a seller is not required to indicate the style of shoes they are selling on Amazon, but if a user filters their search specific to "boat shoes," products without the matching style type attribute will not be displayed.
Source: CPC Strategy Marketplace Manager Pat Petriello
The program, which costs between 1 and 2 percent of revenue with a minimum of $1,000, was developed by Marketplace Manager Pat Petriello, who built a successful Amazon strategy for San Diego-based electronics cover maker SkinIt before working for Amazon Marketplace. He joined CPC Strategy this year.
The first step of the new program is for the firm to conduct a 90-day audit that helps each client determine what products to list, set prices and decide whether to fulfill the orders and handle customer service or to let Amazon do it. The client is then paired with an adviser or team of advisers to consult weekly about improving on the digital storefront and growing sales.
This isn't the only firm offering tools and advice for Amazon sellers.
Terapeak in Palo Alto makes a product that claims to share data on 20 million Amazon.com product listings, 1.4 million third-party sellers and 215 million offers.
"Amazon has its own version called Strategic Vendor Services for larger brands that appears to do something similar," said Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru-Kodali.. "There are companies like ChannelAdvisor, Mercent and smaller ones like Marketplace Ignition which also help companies on Amazon."
Amazon declined to comment for this story.
The e-commerce giant offers some basic tips on setting up a seller account, but has not historically shared more nuanced advice of the type that can help retailers grow.
By comparison, Backus said, eBay and Google Shopping share new features with marketing firms like CPC Strategy so sellers who really want to can consult those companies to get an edge.
But Backus believes Amazon has more interest in giving customers lots of options than it does in helping sellers compete and drown each other — and its own product offerings, for that matter — out.
That can be discouraging for a retailer who finds hers is one of 56 identical iPhone covers sold in the Amazon Marketplace. In a case like that, it's tough to "win the Buy Box" — or to become the default merchant to receive orders placed for a product offered by more than one eligible seller.
Santa Monica prep apparel retailer Johnnie-O recently began selling a few of its products on Amazon, and Vice President of E-Commerce Kristi Norton quickly realized she would need more specialized knowledge if she wanted to grow that channel. It's important to have a presence on Amazon, she said, because the platform can help Johnnie-O get exposure to thousands of shoppers who might not find the brand's products organically. But growing your shopper base in the Amazon Marketplace can be tough.
A week into CPC Strategy's new Amazon Accelerator Program, she says she has already learned that she needs to offer a much wider assortment of products on Amazon, and that tagging items properly is as important on Amazon as it is on your website. She had already worked with CPC Strategy on other types of e-commerce campaigns, so was confident in the quality of advice she would receive.
"We saw some success with the few products we had on there, it's just that we didn't know how to go from there and expand it and continue to grow," she said. "Without the expertise on how to execute it properly, you can easily languish."Copyright © 2017, The San Diego Union-Tribune


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Curious civilians will soon have the opportunity to sign up for another class, one that the Alamance County Sheriff�s Office says will answer questions about how its agency works.
A year after the Burlington Police Department�s Citizen�s Police Academy started last fall, the sheriff�s office will be offering a citizen�s academy of its own this September.
Randy Jones, public information officer for the sheriff�s office, said some people may not be aware of the law enforcement duties tasked specifically to the sheriff�s office.
�There are (state) constitutional requirements that sheriff�s offices have that municipal police departments or highway patrol don�t have,� Jones said. �We have constitutional mandates for the jail, for courts and for civil processes. A lot of people don�t realize the volume of that.�
The sheriff�s office is now receiving applications for the program, which begins Sept. 9. Classes will be held 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Tuesdays
Jones said participants must be 21, since that is the age requirement for being a law enforcement officer in North Carolina. They�ll also undergo background checks.
Among the activities offered to participants is a tour of the agency and jail; driving, firearm, special response team and K-9 demonstrations; and classes on emergency communications, investigations, patrol operations, and arrest and search procedures.
Participants also will have the opportunity to ride along with members of different divisions of the sheriff�s office.
Jones, a former Burlington police officer, said even people who have gone through a municipal citizens police academy may want to consider learning about specific duties of the sheriff�s office.
�Having been at both, there is a drastic difference,� he said.
The academy is free to participants, and Jones said Sheriff Terry Johnson estimates it will cost the agency about $2,500, which they plan to pull from leftover drug seizure money or from the training budget.
To apply, contact the sheriff�s office at 336-570-6300 or via email at email@example.com.


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The days are heating up, unless you live in SoCal then the days have done already been heated up since May at least. In the summer time, people spend less time indoors reading blogs and I spend less time inside doing blogs. What I'm saying is you might not see the same volume from WYDU as you have in the past. Remarkably, I do have some sort of a life…barely. Have some good times planned this weekend, my man Dino's b-day next week along with the American Independence Day then a trip planned in July, August, and September. By that time, shit will start cooling off and I'll be back on the daily grind. Until then, just enjoy less of me for the next few months. On to the news.
Ras Kass to drop ANOTHER mixtape?
I like Ras Kass more than the average old school head, but damn dude, can we get an album finally? (trav)
RAS KASS PREPS "INSTITUTIONALIZED VOL. II" FOR AUGUST 5th RELEASE ON
One of the most critically acclaimed West Coast emcees of all time,
Ras Kass is renowned for his complex lyricism, sharp battle rhymes and
witty punchlines.
1996′s debut "Soul On Ice" established Ras as one of the front-runners
of the post West Coast gangsta rap movement pioneered by seminal acts
such as N.W.A. and nationally popularized by modern day icons Dr. Dre,
Snoop Dogg & more.
Marrying a hardcore street sensibility with his signature witty
wordplay, Ras built a loyal underground core with subsequent albums
including 1998′s "Rasassination," featuring guest appearances by Dr.
Dre, Xzibit, Twista & RZA (of Wu-Tang) as well as multiple mixtape
Currently serving time, Ras Kass' ambition in the face of adversity is
on full display with the August 5th bow of "Institutionalized Vol. II."
Sure to satisfy Ras' loyal constituency and beyond, "Institutionalized
Vol. 2″ is a testament to both Ras' resilience and the raw skill that
underlies his longevity within the ever-changing hip-hop landscape.
For more information and to sample some tracks, please visit:
Ras Kass
"Institutionalized Vol. 2″
In stores August 5th!
Tanya Morgan – "Hip-Hop Is Dead 2″
"They keep sayin' hip-hop is dead but I just can't believe it, I just can't see it."
The Song:
Instead of arguing or preaching, Tanya Morgan disproves the "Hip-Hop Is Dead" argument with a simple song that demonstrates the existence of good, living hip-hop in 2008. "Hip-Hop Is Dead 2″ features fun rhymes and a beat that samples the smile itself… yet many think the art form is dead? That's pretty incongruous, if you ask Tanya Morgan: "They keep sayin' hip-hop is dead but I just can't believe it, I just can't see it." In other words, so long as heartfelt, playful hip-hop tracks by Tanya Morgan pop up, hip-hop cannot be dead.
The Background:
In 2003, Brooklyn resident Von Pea teamed up with Cincinnati's Donwill and Ilyas to form Tanya Morgan. Three years later, the group's Moonlighting LP took the rap world by storm, receiving a 3.5 mic rating from The Source and high praise in XXL's Chairman's Choice column. Donwill describes the group's uniqueness and appeal: "Instead of jam-packing our releases with different producers and guest emcees for attention, we carefully choose who we work with because we make it a priority to cultivate our own sound and identity. We look to groups like Eric B and Rakim, who honed their own sound and rarely collaborated with other artists." After a brief hiatus from center stage, the crew is back in 2008 seeking the hip-hop triple crown: the release of a mixtape, EP, and LP, all in the same year. Tonya Morgan has performed with Ghostface Killah and has had videos featured on multiple MTV channels. The Bridge EP is available now on via Bay Area label Interdependent Media.
"Hip-Hop Is Dead 2″
"Be You" featuring Czelena
ScholarMan Mi
Download ScholarMan's "The Pull Forward EP Vol. 1" today if you enjoy dope b eats and rhymes!!
The Pull Forward Series pays tribute to artists and tracks made famous during the golden era of hip-hop!
Download volume one today!
New ScholarMan album coming January 2009!!! His latest album "Soul Purpose" now available at online retail outlets!
More info at: www.scholarman.com
LONG LOST ALBUM FROM BOSTON HIP-HOP PION EER AND PERCEPTIONIST DJ/PRODUCER, FAKTS ONE, FINALLY SEES LIGHT O F DAY Long Range, featuring Little Brother, Mr.Lif, Army of the Pharaohs, Boot Camp Clik, Planet Asia , Souls of Mischief and m ore hits stores July 22nd on Greenstreets Entertainment
Long Range, featuring Little Brother, Mr.Lif, Army of the Pharaohs, Boot Camp Clik, Planet Asia , Souls of Mischief and m
ore hits stores July 22nd on Greenstreets Entertainment
DJ Fakts One was a key figure in the Boston Hip-Hop scene for many years. He got his start djing parties and breaking local acts on WERS radio in the late '90′s, through t he popular "89.9 at Night" show. He dropped one of his first mix tapes (yes, on cassette) on the famed Brick Records titled "Heavy Hitters" and instantly started making noise throughout the state. Lending production to many releases by Mr. Lif and Akrobatik, it was inevitable that these three long-time friends would form a trio that was 100% pure hip-hop called The Perceptionists.
Their album "Black Dialogue" was released in 2005 on Definitive Jux to critical claim. With great sales, and a tour that was ready to kick off, this powerhouse of a rap group was about to start taking things over! At the same time Fakts was waiting on his solo record debut to be released, but the label continued to stall, delay and eventually folded into the industry abyss. Then, in a sudden turn of events, Fakts up and left his partners "Lif and Ak" stranded with no DJ at the start of their tour and vanished off the hip-hop map altogether.
Although Fakts One's departure left fans and friends both frustrated and confused, no one could deny his musical talents. Most just assumed that his highly anticipated debut opus " Long Range " would just become another victim of industry politics. It would be yet another rumored release that nobody would ever hear or could prove actually existed…unt il now. Finally, five years after its completion, " Long Range " will be released EXACTLY how he had intended before quitting the business. The album has some of the best MC's around (Little Brother, Planet Asia, Boot Camp Clik as well as his brothers in The Perceptionists; Mr. Lif and Akrobatik) and as one would expect, the beats are that classic boombap sound, drenched with his own blood, sweat and tears.
It's a shame it took so long for this to happen but as they say good things come to those who wait. Hopefully when Fakts hears all his years of hard work finally coming to light, he can sit back (wherever he is), smile and realize it was well worth the journey.
Tracklisting and credits for Fakts One's Long Range :
1.) Ridin' Dirty
2.) Grown Folks f/ Little Brother
3.) Life Music f/ Rocklyn & Maya Azucena
4.) OK f/ Kingsize & Outerspace
5.) Born For This f/Chan
6.) Don't Stop f/Boot Camp Clik
7.) The Showstarter f/ The Perceptionists (Mr. Lif & Akrobatik)
8.) Audiovisual f/ J Live
9) U From The Q f/ Universal
10.) Set The Mood f/ Grayskul
11.) Moments Matter f/ Tajai (of Souls Of Mischief)
12.) Selfish f/ Akrobatik & Iyadonna
13.) Longevity f/ Rasco, Planet Asia & Shakes Da Mayor
14.) The Showstarter (Walkman Remix) f/ The Perceptionists (Mr. Lif & Akrobatik)
"Grown Folks" and it features Little Brother. Fakts produced the track and Phonte and Big Pooh also added some additional arrangement as well.
DL link to Fakts One "Grown Folks" f/Little Brother:
(Gravel Records)
"…it's the construction of the songs that keep Alltruisms solidly grounded in hip-hop instead of wandering off into the land of open mic night at the coffeehouse. K-Kruz gives Alltruisms the sword and shield musically to be a 'Knight in Shining Armor' with the kind of track Vinnie Paz or Esoteric would be proud to rip…The real question about Alltruisms' first major album is not WHETHER he'll be a star in the underground, but how long it will take before people catch on to his steelo. Somewhere between the overdone hype and the understandable skepticism of the new and unproven MC is the chance for one of the Clusterbombs that Alltruisms drops to make a big impact on hip-hop." – Rap Reviews (8/10) (LINK)
"One day, I was walking with Kong Keo through a UXO (unexploded ordinance) field in Phonsavan, Laos, when the metaphor came to me: Cluster bombs are like rappers – we drop, we get spins, some blow on contact, while others… So I titled my debut solo album Clusterbombs, and filled it with stories of Southeast Asian bomb craters and bar girls, political anthems, and funny bone-tickling rants about jobs, cars an d sex lives. This record speaks not only of rap's place in my life, but of the globally limitless reach of the culture I'm a part of." – Ari Shapiro, Alltruisms
Clusterbombs is the debut solo LP from Gravel Records recording artist and Giraffe Nuts member Alltruisms. The album distills 16 fully-realized tracks into a 45-minute journey, guided by a man of our times, who is most of all a traveler. He is like the rest of us. Politically aware, but faced with more immediate job problems, car problems, girl problems, and mostly getting by with a dark sense of humor. He is a bit different from the rest of us. Writing songs in a Laotian bomb crater, building houses after the tsunami in Thailand, four-day hikes in New Zealand, staying with a Fijian village minister's family. Prone to travel solo for months at a time, return and leave again, he brings this dichotomy and unsettled motion to his songs. Clusterbombs is an innovative hip-hop release that is sure to please fans of artists such as Sage Francis, Immortal Technique, Talib Kweli, A Tribe Called Quest, and Atmosphere. Clusterbombs drops July 1st via Gravel Records.
Clusterbombs features production by underground legend J-Zone (Dangermouse, Devin The Dude), and Chicago staples Maker (Glue), Kaz1 (Ill Bill, Sean Price), and K-Kruz (Modill), along with appearances by my Giraffe Nuts crew-mates Verbal Kent (Molemen Records) and Rusty Chains. Kaz 1's "Nine-Digit Number" and Maker's "Rockets Red Glare" are the anthems, calls for change in a time when we convince ourselves that, "Rome's burning but don't worry, forget it / Nero's fiddle solos is the number 1 record." Watch the brutally honest and remarkably high quality music video to "Nine Digit Number" HERE. "Blindfolded" is Alltruisms' second single and has been included in XLR8R Magazine's next sampler CD. Listen to "Blindfolded" (MP3), and sample a more light-hearted side to Alltruisms on "The Birds & The Bees (MP3)."
On "Dry-spell," Alltruisms is looking for love in his own, brutally honest way. On he and Giraffe Nuts declare war on anyone who didn't buy "Eat Them." "Jalopy" and "Hire Me" satirize two cornerstones of our culture, cars and jobs. And on "Nutcamp,""Dear Hip Hop," he and Verbal Kent examine their histories and experiences with their art. And there it might have ended, but Alltruisms thought his title track metaphor was important enough to warrant a remix. The story of a deserted dusty field becomes a meditation on pop cultur e as the defining weapon of our age, in the hands of a "freedom fighter for a new recorded world order / four corners of the globe spread the message to your borders." The production by J-Zone, DJ PRZM, Maker, Kaz1, Earmint, Overflo and 5th Element, provides ample aviation fuel to guide the bomber to his targets throughout. Clusterbombs is a shiny object in this quiet, dusty field we call hip-hop, waiting to get picked up and hear
MP3s: "NINE-DIGIT #" | "BLINDFOLDED"| "THE BIRDS & THE BEES"
Alltruisms – "Nine Digit Number"
Uploaded by FanaticNewMedia
Black Element
You'll be seeing more of this cat in the very near future. He is an up and coming MC, about to drop his free album "A Major Minority" and is getting some love from some of the DJ's I respect, like DJ Hyphen out of Seattle. None the less, here is a track he sent me t hat was produced by another WYDU fav, 6th Sense.
Be Sure to check his amajorminority.com blog to get the full story behind this track or just to check his other stuff if you feel this.
Black ELement – The Itis (Produced by 6th Sense)
Peace Family
Technicali Sound and Gutter Water Music would like to invite you
to pick up a copy of the new project by Ariano and Castor Pollux, entitled "In The Name Of The Father" for FREE
To begin the Download
FOR SERATO DJ's
Get The New Single "Searching" feat. Oddity
B/W "Misunderstood" feat. The Lost Art
(includes clean, dirty, and instrumentals)
Babe of the Day……
Okay, she's not exactly a "rare" find, but she's hot. Stacey Dash has been around for awhile and is the sister(?) of Dame Dash. Not only does she have a killer body, but those eyes give me that warm fuzzy feeling in my special place.
Video Of The Day
Johnson&Jonson – Bout It Bout It


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Results 1 to 2 of 2
Thread: Connection has been preempted
07-03-02, 23:56 #1Registered User
- Join Date
- Apr 2002
- Posts
- 84
Unanswered: Connection has been preempted
I have this exception "SQLException:Connection has been preempted"
in my java program when I try to insert a few (more precisely, 4)
record into DB.
It seldom happened before but just all of a sudden, my codes are
not working. So I doubt there is some change of the WAS/DB
cofigurations. Anyone could help me to confirm this, and what is
the cause of the problem?
07-04-02, 03:54 #2Registered User
- Join Date
- Feb 2002
- Posts
- 2,232
This normally is tied to connection pooling - the connection is idle(orphaned), pooled and is reused. I would take a look at how your connection pool manager is configured. Also, when you handle the exception, add code to retrieve another connection.


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Aderelict-looking Toucan Sam clutches a wad of money in one wing, a paper-bag-wrapped liquor bottle in the other. Behind him Cap'n Crunch and Lucky the Leprechaun (of Lucky Charms fame) are in a purple convertible lowrider; Crunch is riding shotgun, firing a semi-automatic handgun at a Keebler elf and that two-faced Shredded Wheat character. The blast has knocked the Keebler elf backward through the plate-glass window of a sex shop that advertises 25-cent peep shows. In a dark alley around the corner, Snap, Crackle and Pop are mugging a teary Pillsbury Doughboy. BuzzBee (the spokesinsect for Honey Nut Cheerios) lies prone in the street. A fey Tony the Tiger (shirt jauntily tied at the bottom, baring his chest and neckerchief) is watching it all unfold next to a bald, effeminate guy friend in a tight, midriff-baring shirt.
This is a glimpse inside of Canadian artist Spyder Yardley Jones' twisted mind, one which he has thoughtfully re-created in ink for visual consumption. Bert and Ernie being intimate, Batman getting high, the Family Circus being massacred -- these are the sort of deranged pieces that will be on display at "Nasty Spyder Bites," which opens on Saturday at reZurrection Gallery in Tempe.
"What I like to do is get revenge on all these pop culture figures that I grew up with -- Cap'n Crunch, the cereal characters, Walt Disney, Family Circus, the Peanuts -- all those that have become institutionalized where people just feel, Oh no, they're great, doesn't matter what they are, doesn't matter how corny and whitewashed it is,'" the 41-year-old artist says from his home in Edmonton, Alberta. Jones says he ducks copyright-infringement lawsuits by changing the characters just enough so they're not exact replicas.
"Nasty Spyder Bites"
reZurrection Gallery, 601 West University in Tempe
Paintings by Spyder Yardley Jones, Opens Saturday, August 9, at 7 p.m. The show runs through September 10. Call 480-377-9080 for more information.
Anyone tortured in their youth by characters like Bil Keane's pasty-faced Family Circus will applaud Spyder's rendering of a bald vigilante (with a spider tattoo) firing what appears to be a converted fully automatic SKS rifle into the fleshy round bodies of Billy, Dolly, Jeffy, P.J. and their parents.
"That's a personal one," Spyder says, laughing. "When I was small and we were on holiday, we were in this little cabin and I didn't bring any of my cartoon books. The only thing there was edition after edition of the Family Circus. Scarred me for life."
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Cartoons are in Spyder's blood, quite literally. His father, Yardley Jones, was an editorial cartoonist for 32 years, syndicated across North America. "That was the atmosphere I was brought up in, seeing the satirical side of things," Spyder says. "[My father] ruffled a whole heap of feathers. From his years in editorial cartooning, he pissed off quite a few presidents -- LBJ, Nixon, Ford."
"Seeing that my father could raise six kids on a cartoonist's wage just inspired me," Spyder says of his decision to follow in his dad's footsteps. He spent 11 years penning editorial cartoons for the weekly Edmonton Examiner before being fired -- for being too left-wing, he says. Not surprisingly, Spyder has to resist the urge to politicize the pieces he shows in galleries. "Sometimes I've gotta stop myself because it's a natural impulse to speak out about things. It's just I find that that's how I voice my opinion against social injustices and stuff like that, through my art. So sometimes I've gotta just say, Okay, no, we're just doing a fun piece, a happy piece,' and drop the -ism's," he says. "I know when people are going in galleries and looking at artwork they don't always want to be hit over the head with other people's ideas, they just want to look at something that's fun brain candy."
Since his firing in 2001 (also the first year he showed his paintings in the U.S., right here at Thought Crime), Spyder has spent his artistic energies teaching illustration to children and adults, taking on freelance projects ranging from medical drawings to logo design, and illustrating backdrops which were then computer-animated for an award-winning touring production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
A good childhood friend lives here in the Valley, hence Jones' Phoenix connection. His paintings have hung in the Edmonton Art Gallery, where he also teaches, but the majority of his audience and patrons reside here in the Valley. While he can't make it to the upcoming show at reZurrection, he's focusing on creating new pieces for an upcoming show in his hometown. "I haven't had a show [in Edmonton] in three years, I've just been concentrating on the Phoenix shows. So I think I'll go hit the locals, because my style -- I go around the art galleries and there's nothing like it around here, it's mostly still abstract and landscape paintings. I think I should be rocking a few minds around here, that's for sure."


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First Team News
Dzeko signs four-year deal at City
He enjoyed a dream start to the season at St James' Park and now the new Bosnia-Herzegovina captain has committed his future to the champions.
Edin Dzeko, one of the most decisive players in the club's recent history, has signed a new four-year contract at City which will keep him at the Etihad Stadium until at least 2018.
Commenting on this announcement, Edin said: "I'm really happy here at City, it's a second home to me, so it was an easy decision to stay for the long-term.
"I knew from the beginning when I started here that I wanted to stay for a long time - I can't see any place better than here.
"I'm settled perfectly to life here, I know my teammates, the club, the team, very well and I feel like I can improve even more.
"Over the last three and a half years we've made history together but I feel like we are only at the start of something really special.
"There are still so many objectives and goals that I want to reach from my career in the game and I believe that I am in the perfect place to achieve them all.
"The fans have always shown so much faith in my ability and I feel so much love, both from supporters inside Manchester and from those all over the world.
"I hope I can continue to repay this unbelievable support over the coming season and beyond."
...Edin Dzeko...
Dzeko has appeared for City on 155 occasions in all competitions since he joined from Wolfsburg on 3 January 2011.
In that time he has scored 66 goals for the reigning champions, including a number of the most important strikes in the club's recent history.
Who can forget Dzeko's last minute equaliser against QPR on 13 May 2012 which paved the way for a moment 44 years in the making, or his double against Everton last May which put City on the brink of a second title in three years?
Last season, Edin weighed in with 26 goals across four competitions and featured in all but seven games in his team's run to a second Premier League title in three years.
Included in his 26 strikes was the pivotal opening goal in the penultimate game of the season against Aston Villa.
That wasn't his only contribution to the title run-in – Dzeko scored five goals in the last four games of the season, including that brace against Everton in the crucial 3-2 win at Goodison Park.
In the Premier League, Edin has has scored 46 times and 25 of those goals (60.87%) have seen City take the lead or equalise, proving just what a vital asset he has been since signing in January 2011.
In his three and a half year spell at the club, the 28-year old has won the FA Cup, the League Cup and two Premier League titles.
The Bosnian represented his nation at their first World Cup this summer, scoring the winning goal against Iran in their final group game.
He was named as the new skipper of the national team ten days ago and will be hoping to fire the Dragons to Euro 2016 over the coming two years.
Dzeko began his season with a man of the match winning performance against Newcastle on Sunday, setting up David Silva for the first goal of City's 2014/15 season with a sublime backheel.
He joins Aleksandar Kolarov, Samir Nasri, Silva, Vincent Kompany and Sergio Aguero in committing his future to the club this summer.
We'll have our exclusive CityTV interview with Edin on the site on Thursday.


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Awesome Instant Search is a WordPress plugin (by yours truly) that allows anyone to add instant search features to their WordPress website.
It can theoretically work with any website and any theme using the correct settings. Built-in presets are included for WordPress's twentyeleven, twentytwelve and twentythirteen themes.
Mimicking Google's instant search feature, this plugin will make your website instantly display search results when information is typed into a search field.
Setting up Awesome Instant Search
Difficulty Level: Begginner (but…. patience is a must)
Estimated Time: 15-20 minutes
The plugin takes a bit of assembly off the bat, but anyone can get it setup by following these instructions (and perhaps with a bit of trial and error!).
Install the plugin. It will be listed on the WordPress Repository allowing you to search for it within your website's admin panel. Follow the instructions for installing a typical plugin from the wordpress.org.
Modify Settings to fit your website.
Due to the limitless variations on website layouts, it's impossible to make this work out of the box. There are three main settings that need to be adjusted to get the basics down, Search Input Selector, Page Content Selector and Search result selector. If you are familiar with CSS or jQuery selectors and HTML code, this will be a breeze for you. Otherwise, don't fear, these instructions are intended for someone who only knows how to install a WordPress plugin and not much else!
The Options
The options for the plugin are found under Settings > Awesome Instant Search. The first three settings (excluding "Activate Plugin") are going to be the focus of this tutorial.
Search Input Selector
This is where things can get tricky for the code-illiterate, but have no fear this is pretty simple if you follow my instructions. If you've never played with CSS or jQuery, will be a fun little dive into coding.
First of all, these instructions work with Google Chrome only, but can be accomplished other browsers if you know what you're doing already. Download Google Chrome here if you for some reason don't have it already.
The Search Field Selector is the selector that references your search field. To find the out what this is for your theme, right click on your search field (in Google Chrome) and select Inspect Element. A new window will pop up labeled Developer Tools, and it will have something like this highlighted:
<input type="search" name="s" ... />
Google developer tools let you see the into the code and select your search input.
We're using Google Developer Tools to inspect the code of your website. If you didn't get the above to work, try using the inspector tool, which is represented by the magnifying glass icon. Click the icon and hover over an element to see it highlighted in Developer Tools. In this case, again, we want to inspect the search field.
Once you found the search field in the code, what you need to look for is the
class attribute. In the above image, the class attribute is the following:
class="search-field autocomplete-input"
And that's it! Using the class, we can now reference the search input. In the above example, there are actually two classes separated by a space. We are going to use the first one because the second (autocomplete-input) is actually added by the plugin itself. Back to your plugin settings, type in a period (.) followed by the class name. So if you're following along with twentythirteen this example, you would fill use
.search-field as your Search Input Selector setting
Not too difficult, right? Note that when you first install the plugin this field is set to
input[name="s"]. This should actually work with any wordpress website but it is a little more complicated. Regardless, if you want to target a specific text field (assuming you may have many) you can use the class or id attribute as done in this tutorial. If your search field didn't have a class attribute, try reverting to the default
input[name="s"] setting or see below on how to use an ID instead.
If there is no class attribute, you can use the ID if available. ID selectors uses a number sign (#) instead of a period, e.g. if
id="myid" in your search selector (input element), you would set the plugin's search input setting to
#myid. Also, it's good to note that multiple search fields can be selected if they have the same
class attribute whereas id's are supposed to be unique.
Content Selector
Next up, configuring the rest of the settings starting with the content selector.
Like the search field selector, the content selector is found using Google Developer Tools. This time we want to find the class of the main content. This can be tough because not all websites are the same. Generally though, the content contains all the article or page text and possibly the sidebar.
Right click in the body of your website and again select Inspect Element. Chances are you didn't get the element because this one is not as easy to detect as the search field. In the With the Developer Tools window now open, preferably in front of you website so you can still see the content (see the image below), hover over the different elements until you get something that highlights the entire content of your website.
Here are some tips on finding the correct content element:
• The content element is typically proceeded by an
article or
div element with the class
post or
• This element will often times have either a class or id of
content or
• This is where the search results will appear, so getting the "wrong" element is probably an acceptable mistake. At the very least use the magnifying glass tool available in Google Developer Tools to find a good block for your results to appear.
Once you get the correct element highlighted, hopefully it has an id. It doesn't have to, but in the image above you can see the code looks like this:
<div id="content" class="site-content" role="main">
Just like with the search field, we can use either the id or the class. We prefer to use id here because id's are supposed to be unique (no other element should be using the same id as another). In the above example, the id is content. Go back to your Awesome Instant Search plugin settings and fill in the content selector option with a number sign (#) followed by the id you found when inspecting the code. In this example the full thing would be
Note that we could use the class in this example. Classes are refereneced using a period (.) followed by the text. In this case the option would be set to
The last option is for the search results. Each search result should have it's own container, likely an article or div element with common class between all of them. To find the search container, do a search on your website and basically follow the steps above — except this time we're looking for the elements that surround the search results.
Each search result is wrapped in an article element (aka tag), and each article tag has a class of hentry and status-published. The former, hentry, use commonly used in themes and doesn't refer to the published status of the post, so we'll use that.
Most themes will use a div or article tag with the class hentry, as does the twentythirteen theme in this example. Like in the above example, we could use the class selector (a period followed by text) to select the element, but we're going to be more specific and append
article to it. So if you followed along using the twentythirteen theme, your options should look like this:
Search URL – this is the page where you search results appear. This field should not require any change, but in case you need to check your search url, try doing a search and find out what appears.
For example: If I do a search for "WordPress Plugin" on JameelBokhari.com, the address bar becomes
Everything preceding
wordpress+plugin is the Search URL.
More information is coming soon but just briefly, the Also Hide setting uses comma-separated selectors to hide other elements while an instant search is being performed. It is recommended to hide navigation or page-specific elements when a search is activated.
The next two settings control speed and animation, in miliseconds. Play around with these to get them just right.
Before Instant Results allows you to append some html to your search results. Use the tag
%%SEARCH_TERM%% to output the current search.
Theme Quick Settings allows you to load settings for the twentyeleven, twentytwelve and twentythirteen themes that come included with the last few version of WordPress.
Debug mode is mostly for me actually. This just makes sure scripts and style sheets do not cache, so it's best to leave this one unchecked.
Lastly, you'll find an option for autocomplete. It is not recommended you enable this setting quite yet, as it is still being fixed up… but go ahead and try it if you're adventurous.


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Microsoft IntelliMouse
Drivers Download
|Hardware Type:
|Gaming Accessory
|Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10
|Download Size:
|Database Update:
|Available Using DriverDoc:
|Download Now
This page contains information about installing the latest Microsoft IntelliMouse driver downloads using the Microsoft Driver Update Tool.
Microsoft IntelliMouse drivers are tiny programs that enable your Gaming Accessory hardware to communicate with your operating system software. Maintaining updated Microsoft IntelliMouse software prevents crashes and maximizes hardware and system performance. Using outdated or corrupt Microsoft IntelliMouse drivers can cause system errors, crashes, and cause your computer or hardware to fail. Furthermore, installing the wrong Microsoft drivers can make these problems even worse.
Recommendation: If you are inexperienced with updating Microsoft device drivers manually, we highly recommend downloading the Microsoft IntelliMouse Driver Utility. This tool will download and update the correct Microsoft IntelliMouse driver versions automatically, protecting you against installing the wrong IntelliMouse drivers.
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While Houston and Baylor entered the picture late, Houston Lamar's Eric Lair is sticking with his guns.
Lair verbally committed to the University of Minnesota prior to the season and will stick with the Gophers through signing day.
"I'm going to be attending Minnesota," he said. "The coaches have a plan for me right away and I like how they are going use me. Houston wasn't sure how they wanted to use me."
Article Continues Below
With Lair on board, the Gophers next target is Lair's teammate Tracy Robertson, a 6-foot-4 defensive end. Robertson took his official visit to Minnesota and enjoyed his visit. He also lists Houston, TCU and Baylor as other close favorites.
"I really think he's coming with me to Minnesota, but can't be sure," Lair said.
The Gopher coaches don't seem to be stopping at Roberston. Minnesota coaches have also extended an offer to junior running back Kalvin Guyton. The 5-foot-10, 190-pound back rushed for over 900 yards and 15 touchdowns as a junior. He has been offered by the University of Houston.
They are also looking at receiver Josh Gordon. The 6-foot-3, 190-pound receiver is a glider on the outside and has huge, soft hands. Houston has also offered the junior athlete.
Lamar's sleeper is senior linebacker Steve Erzinger, who cleaned up in the awards category for his play in 2007. The 6-foot-2, 215-pound linebacker was his district's defensive Most Valuable Player, a first-team, all-Greater Houston selection and a Houston TD Club defensive finalist.
"I'm one of the late guys," he said. "I officially visited Army last weekend and it seems like it has a lot to offer. I'm hearing from Air Force, TCU, Baylor and Boise State. I hope to be taking some visits over the next few weeks."


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You're welcome! :)
Thanks so much!
I googled candy cake and found this url with instructions for a similar one:
Sorry...I didn't make it..I get most of my pics from the internet..
Can you send instructions? I would like to reproduce for my daughter's b'day cake!


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It was the first big national speech of Ann Romney's career – and, with a few dissenters, most people felt she knocked it out of the park.
She was smiling, giggly, and a bit nervous, dressed in a bright red dress, and her emotional appeal to "trust Mitt" seemed to resonate with voters.
Her task was to "humanize" her sometimes wooden husband, and she won convention-goers over with her comment that her 43-year marriage to her high school sweetheart wasn't a "storybook marriage" but a "real marriage," filled with screaming boys and shared hardship as her husband helped her face multiple sclerosis and breast cancer.
She also made a not-so-subtle appeal to a demographic with whom Romney struggles. "I love you women," she shouted to a cheering crowd, before telling them that "it's the moms who always have to work a little harder."
Pandering? Maybe, and not everyone was won over, especially by Mrs. Romney's attempt to relate to experiences of hardship. But the overall consensus here was that Ann needs to speak more often.


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Lyon Sheriff calls off abduction investigation
ROCK RAPIDS, Iowa -- The Lyon County Sheriff was able to disprove a report of a possible abduction Wednesday in Rock Rapids.
The sheriff launched an investigation after witnesses reported seeing a girl, approximately 15 years of age, being forced into an older model Pontiac Grand Prix. The girl was described as kicking and screaming.
The event happened at about 6:30 p.m. Wednesday near the Sunshine Foods store in Rock Rapids.
The Lyon County Sheriff's Office did not receive a missing persons report, and the information was released in an effort to ascertain whether the event was a family dispute or an actual abduction.
It was eventually determined Wednesday evening that the girl was with a group of teens who were engaged in youthful hijinks.
This incident is just the latest in a series of attempted abduction and suspicious person sightings that have been reported recently in the region.
Last week, Lake Park, Iowa, Chief of Police Joe Hoover issued a press release stating that Lake Park Police were dispatched to reports of a man who was following a girl on Sept. 3; and another similar incident Sept. 4 in which a 35-year-old woman was approached by a male driving a white van.
The female involved in the Lake Park incident described the white male as 60 to 66 years old with a beard and large framed prescription eyeglasses. The suspect vehicle appeared to be a 1990s or newer white van with two rear door windows blacked out with Dickinson County plates.
On Sept. 5, the Lyon County Sheriff's Office investigated an attempted abduction of a 61-year-old female from outside of her residence in Little Rock, Iowa.
The suspect in the Little Rock attempted abduction was described as an older white male with graying long hair and a beard, approximately 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighing approximately 250 pounds. The subject was driving a smaller, older, dark-colored (possibly black) car with a white top.
Another report of a suspicious person in the vicinity of the school in Round Lake was investigated Friday by the Nobles County Sheriff's Office, although no contact was made.


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Smurf Romper with stocking cap 6-12 monthsItem #: 8801277
£37.91incl. VAT, plus shipping
Delivery until 25.11. possible**
Smurf Romper with stocking cap 6-12 months
Let be your little one to the blue SmurfsThe Smurfs are so small that they fit in an adult hand and have a blue color.They wear uniform clothing, so that they differ by the head of the village.They are usually with white pants are made in a kind of romper clothed.Papa Smurf is the only one of the many Smurfs red clothes and a white beard wearing.
Verwandel your child in one of the sweet little Smurfs from Schlumpfhausen.The Smurf costume includes a romper and a cap.The sweet bodysuit is divided into two colors, blue and white and it can be on and off Bquem.The sleeves of the smurf costume trimmed with an elastic band and the pants have the pants end two sewn shoes.To help your small and like a real Smurf can occur when children's carnival, the white Smurf hat is included in the delivery.More smurfy accessories you can find in the online shop.
- Scope of delivery: 1 Smurf Romper with stocking cap
- Color: blue, white
- Size: 6-12 months


text:
Artist description:
:D I redid his symbol!! :D It looks better than my first go round. Please feel free to comment and rate :D
Canvas Draw Created Jul 21, 2012 1024 x 736px Unless noted Copyright 2012 vulpixtrainer12.
We encourage you to submit a comment and let the artist know what you think of this drawing. Please log in or join to post a comment.
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midnighter_01 Jul 22, 2012
awesome drawing!!! love it!!!! 5/5
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Ubisoft Signs Console Game Deal with Hasbro
August 7, 2013 - Ubisoft will now develop and publish console games based on Hasbro properties like Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble.
Monopoly DS Review
November 8, 2010 - Monopoly on the Nintendo DS is the most recent example of the classic board game in videogame form. Unfortunately for DS owners, what you'll end up finding in Monopoly on the DS is little more than the classic board game, with very few bells and whistles to be had otherwise. That's not to say that this iteration of Monopoly doesn't pull off the classic board game successfully, because it does. It's just that, when taken as a whole package apart from the allure of the board game itself, this particular effort comes off as more watered-down and outright lazy than you might have preferred.
New Dragon Age, Shooter from Epic Due In 2011
February 8, 2010 - Electronic Arts revealed the company's title lineup for its fiscal 2011 year. Some of the highlights in the list include: Skate 3, Crysis 2 and a New Dragon Age title as well as the Epic Games co-published shooter.


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At least two of the three Democratic candidates for state schools superintendent plan to speak Saturday at the next Athens Area Democrats Breakfast, scheduled for 9 a.m. Saturday at Brett's Restaurant, 3190 Atlanta Highway.
Joe Martin and Brian Westlake told local Democratic leaders that they will attend. The Clarke County Democratic Committee invited the third candidate, Beth Farokhi, to speak as well.
Reservations cost $10 and are due Monday by contacting Barney Brannen at email@example.com or (706) 543-1480 or Denise Ricks at email@example.com or (706) 247-3558.
© 2017. All Rights Reserved. | Contact Us


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Well that was one long, long week…
My plan following the upgrade was to post about how it went and to introduce everyone to the new features of the site. And now it's 9 days later… oh well, you live, you learn, you try to get some sleep once in a while.
I'm going to share some details with you but in return for that I'm also going to turn off anonymous commenting to this blog. If you want to say something, don't hide and be anonymous. Step up and show your face rather than being a troll in the dark. I think it's only fair that if I'm honest, you're honest too.
D-Day… that'd be deployment day
The day started out really well. We had all the bits and pieces in place and ready to do our final deployment. Our bloggers had spent time over the weekend getting their updated designs in place and making sure their content was up to date. We began the deployment around 12pm and started deploying the final bits. Shortly after that we flipped the switch to let you, our blog readers in on the new design… and that is when things didn't go exactly to Plan A. Well, Plan A for MSDN. The TechNet blogs didn't really run into much trouble – we deployed, and given the scope of the content and the visitors, we were able to stay up and remain online…
However, MSDN blogs was another story. Over the next 20-30 minutes we saw our SQL Server (really sweet piece of hardware) start to get backed up with queries. That in turn backed up the web servers and before we knew it we were locking people out of the site. We removed a few widgets from the site that we knew could have an impact to performance and it helped a bit… but not enough.
We kicked into investigation mode while discussing in the background how long we had before we rolled back to the old version of the blogs. Yes, that was in our list of plans should things not get resolved quickly. We care about our bloggers internally and you our blog readers.
As we looked at the SQL traces and the site setup we found a page within the site that contained a full site tag cloud. The page was in the out-of-the-box platform deployment and just happened to be sitting at a URL the previous version of the blogs had registered with the search engines. Well, bad timing and all and the search engines decided that crawling that page right as we were going live was the best idea they'd had all day. Well every tag in the site turns out to be a lot for the MSDN Blogs and the resulting search crawl turned browsing the blogs into a crawl. Once we removed that page, things settled down for us.
After that we saw one more spike that afternoon. We have a full suite of analytics installed with the blogs. And we'd been running those for weeks without any issues. However after the search engines began their crawl the analytics system wanted to process all those page views and activity and that shot the analytics into overdrive. While the blogs remained online, we certainly were suffering from some very slow page loads. We've since moved any batch processing of the analytics into replicated databases to avoid this issue moving forward. Lessons learned.
Well after that we started to settle down. Well sort of. When a new blogging platform comes online not only does everyone outside Microsoft want to look at it, the 15,000 or so bloggers we have internally all decided it was time to post new articles. You just can't script a movie story line like this. Anyway, all those bloggers posting and updating the blog designs took a bit of a toll on the system as well.
Finally around 4am I went home. Exhausted but at least we had the blogs migrated and accessible…
The days that followed…
We spent the next few days working through additional performance investigations and listening to the literally hundreds of people telling us how much we sucked for moving their cheese. We heard complaints about the W3C validation. We heard complaints about the rolling blog post list no longer existing. Heck, I think I even saw a few demands for someone to be fired… eeek!
Clearly folks are passionate about reading the blogs, which is great. However contrast what was going on outside the blogs and you come to realize this is all just very small. Oil was pouring out of the Gulf of Mexico and BP couldn't stop it – if I thought I was getting harassed, I can't imagine what they are dealing with. A 1000 dead Americans in the war. I even contrast it to my wife… she's a counselor and she is dealing with 16 year olds who have no real home, no family support and are pregnant. Again, the blogs… small, really small in comparison to what's going on in the rest of the world.
So over the past week we've assisted our bloggers get used to the new system. We've also deployed some performance fixes to both the blog sites. You should find both are now performing quite well even under load. We aren't done but at least we are stable.
And today we've been able to bring back the rolling blog post list. No, it's not on the home page – but it's linked off there so it's easy to get to. There were clearly some people very mad about this functionality not being online – however it was one of the casualties of the early performance issues we experienced. We tweaked a few SQL indexes and now the control is back. For some of you this is the only thing you cared about on the entire blog site – but based on our metrics, you're in the minority. Most people find the blog content through search (external and internal to the blogs) and by direct visits to a blog. Anyway, it's back now so hopefully that'll help you sleep at night.
What's up with the home page?
The home page has been updated to move beyond just the rolling blog post list. As a landing page to the blogs, new visitors need to land softly. The old home page, while clearly useful for some, actually was one of the weirdest experiences for new users I've seen. It didn't even look like MSDN or TechNet. The traffic to the home page told a clear story – yes, some folks landed there, but that was less than 1% of our traffic. We have many blogs that receive more traffic than that. And if we wanted to move the blogs on to 2010, then we needed to look at the data and adjust from there. Which we'll continue to do…
So we have a few things on the home pages now…
- An editorial section. Right now there is a welcome message. As time goes on we'll be updating that to be in alignment with spotlights and features from the corresponding MSDN and TechNet sites. We've clearly heard the feedback that we need to remove the silo's of information and this is one step forward to bring consistency between our applications and sites.
- Recent Blog Posts. The recent blog posts is a fast way to see what's been posted recently and expand the reach of the RSS feed for the blogs. Many, many people follow the blogs solely via RSS and that's great. We want to encourage that. You'll now find the link to the rolling blog post list at the bottom of the Recent Blog Post widget.
- Recent Site Activity. This lets you know what's going on in the site, with the people you're following and the activity you've performed. Perhaps you commented on a blog but can't remember which one, just look at your activity and you'll be quick to return. Again, as a landing page for the blogs this allows people to see the site is active and not be overwhelmed by a never ending list of posts.
If you're one of those who just want to the old blog post list back then use the new rolling blog post list page. There is nothing else on the page to distract you. Enjoy. 🙂
What's next?
So at this point we've got the new blog site where we expected it to be about a week ago. We'll be updating the help pages and finally getting to talk about the new features. Our bloggers are mostly up to speed now and I'm seeing a lot of posts come out daily which is great.
So what's next… well we are working on the next update which should be out in a couple of weeks from now. This should include:
- Bug Fixes: Yep, there are bugs. We've been logging them and we are working on fixing them.
- Performance Improvements: There is still yet more performance we can wring out of this platform. We're analyzing load times, SQL traces, CSS and HTML to reduce what we can.
- Search within a Blog: Right now if you search while viewing a blog, you'll get search results from all blogs. That seems like a great idea if you're just looking for an answer if you don't care where it comes from. But we also know searching within a blog is a great feature so that's on the schedule as well.
- Default discovered RSS Feed on a Blog: Right now it's broken. It points to a search RSS feed that doesn't exist. This one slipped through. We'll correct this to be the posts for a blog.
- A few new widgets: Our bloggers will have a few new widgets to use including a standard code syntax highlighter along with the Microsoft Translation widget.
- Validation of HTML: We have identified a few issues with the HTML being output. We'll fix those over time as we can.
Ok, with that I'm definitely late for dinner. Hopefully this post won't cause a riot and we can have constructive conversations about the blogs, not just shouting, flaming abuse sent my way. I want to listen and I want the blogs to be a great place for all of us. Let's keep the talk respectful and the comments on topic and we can move forward together…


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President Hamid Karzai has said that replacing the private companies is an important step toward Afghan sovereignty.
Report raises concerns about new Afghan security force
By Ray Rivera New York Times / November 2, 2011
Text size – +
President Hamid Karzai's plan to disband private security companies that protect billions of dollars worth of aid projects and replace them with government forces is fraught with problems and unlikely to meet the president's March deadline to complete the transition, according to a six-month assessment of the program. The assessment, conducted by NATO and the Afghan Interior Ministry, outlines dozens of issues that have slowed the development of the new security force, and it raises questions about the government's capacity to carry out and sustain the program.
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Michigan continued with its month-long variety of basketball camps this weekend -- with Friday being the first day of the team camp.
While not as intense or instructional as the college practice camp earlier this month, Michigan did have a few players in with their teams who have either already committed to the school or are a high-profile recruits.
Teams -- including one from Alaska -- competed in pool play Friday and will play in a single-elimination tournament Saturday.


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Allen, who is also chair of the nations and regions group of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, was awarded the rank of knight bachelor for his services to the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics.
Bazalgette, the creator of shows such as 'Ready Steady Cook', 'Changing Rooms' and 'Ground Force', was made a knight bachelor in recognition of his services to broadcasting.
Jonathan Ive, senior vice-president of industrial design at Apple, was appointed to the higher ranking position of a knight commander of the most excellent order of the British Empire (KBE) in recognition of his services to design and enterprise.
Andrew William Brown, the former director general of the Advertising Association was awarded a commander of the order of the British Empire (CBE) in recognition of his services to the advertising industry.
Surjit Singh Ghuman, founder of the Punjabi radio station Panjab Radio was given the rank of member of the order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to broadcasting in the list.
Follow Maisie McCabe on Twitter @MaisieMcCabe


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A businessman is locked in dispute with a prestigious car dealership after he claims he shelled out for unnecessary repairs to his Porsche.
Damian Markland, who runs the Speedy Model Shop in Broughton, claims he spent more than £20,000 on the Porsche 911 during 2007 and 2008 – believing he would get it back under warranty.
Mr Markland bought the car when it was seven years old, with just 27,000 miles on the clock.
It had a service history of regular maintenance with both Porsche and specialist mechanics.
But shortly after he bought the car, Mr Markland noticed the vehicle was cutting out when cold and was losing power at low revs.
Between May 2007 and April 2008, Mr Michael Mulholland, speaking on behalf of Mr Markland, said the vehicle went in to the Pendragon Porsche dealership in Bolton on numerous occasions.
In November 2007 a failed hydraulic lifter caused a valve head to collapse causing significant engine damage.
The car was once again returned to the dealer where the engine was dismantled and completely rebuilt.
But Mr Mulholland said: "What is clear is that following the rebuild is the car was still not performing properly.
"We know that the car was back with Porsche on a further three occasions but the problem with the lack of power was there following the rebuild and the problem with the engine cutting out was persistent notwithstanding the rebuild."
Lawyers for Pendragon claim Mr Markland told the company to keep the costs low.
But Mr Markland told the court he had been quoted £28,000 by another Porsche specialist to replace the engine.
He told the court: "I trusted them (Porsche Bolton). I went down with piles of cash. I didn't even get a receipt. I thought there wasn't a problem with any of this. This is a Porsche garage – we are not talking about some back street garage here. They told me I had to pay for it up front and I didn't go into massive depth about what the money was for.
"It got to £20,000 and I started to think 'hang on a sec...I've been without my car for a couple of months and they have charged me near enough what I have been quoted for a new engine. What's going on here?'"
"However he said he paid the money willingly as he understood he would be able to claim it back under the Porsche warranty scheme once the work was completed.
In July the vehicle was taken to Bob Watson Engineering where it was diagnosed throttle cables which would have been unclipped during the rebuild had not been refitted correctly, which was causing a loss of power to the vehicle.
It was also noted the tyres had been fitted the wrong way round and a connection to the power steering was loose.


text:
Drivers warned about ice heaves on lakes
Ice anglers are urged to take caution when considering crossing ice heaves on area lakes.
At approximately 7:30 a.m. Saturday, the rear wheels of a vehicle fell through Blackduck Lake after a driver attempted to cross an ice heave off of the Blackduck Lake Road Northeast access point.
In the report, the responding Beltrami County sheriff's deputy noted it was made obvious the public should not use the access to enter onto the lake.
Sheriff Phil Hodapp said he talked to the deputy and learned the ice heave stuck out about 4 feet from the surface of the lake.
"The ice heave is so big and high, anyone with a half a brain wouldn't try and cross it," he said Monday.
Beltrami County dispatch also received a call Monday morning about a vehicle's front end falling into open water on Lake Bemidji after the driver tried to cross a thin spot on the ice while searching for a place to park on the lake.
Hodapp said law enforcement officials typically mark areas considered potentially dangerous, but officials do not always know where these areas are.
"Our lakes are getting springtime ice fishing conditions," he said. "There are areas where there's flowing water under the ice and it creates thin ice in areas that are not obvious to a person looking at it."
This is why Hodapp said it is still risky to take large vehicles onto the ice.
On some lakes, resort owners have taken wooden planks or sheets of steel to make bridges over ice heaves that occur along designated ice roads. But in places where there are no bridges, ice fishermen should not attempt to cross large ice heaves, Hodapp said. Instead, anglers should find a place where the ice is safer to cross, but even this can be tricky.
He recommends anglers who still choose to drive on lakes take it easy and drive slow.
"If you drive fast, you're pushing water under the ice out in front of your vehicle," he said. "As your vehicle gets closer to shore, there's no place for the water to go except up, causing ice to bust up."
Hodapp said people should slow down, know where they are at, be familiar with the lake and not go out onto the ice known to be thin, Hodapp added.
"Catching a few fish is not worth dumping the car into the lake," he said.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources also urged ice safety Monday.
The DNR says ice needs to be at least 8 inches thick in order to support a car or small pickup and at least 12 inches for a medium-sized truck. But these thicknesses are guidelines for new, clear, solid ice, the DNR states. Many factors other than thickness can cause ice to be unsafe.
The DNR says a person cannot judge the strength of ice by its appearance, age, thickness, temperature or whether it is covered with snow.


text:
Forums > General Industry > Fine Art Nude vs Artistic Nude vs Glamour Nude
Posts: 40
Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
the fine-art genre: is just detail oriented shots ...
Oct 07 07 11:01 pm Link
Posts: 28762
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
For most shooters Fine Art Nude is an oxymoron
Oct 07 07 11:25 pm Link
Posts: 14
Nashville, Tennessee, US
This is a subject I have had to articulate to models - often! We live in a society in which sexuality is regarded as the primary function of the naked body... (Lewis Grizzard: Nude means you ain't got no clothes on... Nekkid means you ain't got no clothes on and you're up to something...") Unfortunately, that seems to be the range of purpose when dealing with the nude in art.
Personally, I think digital photography is less to blame for the poisoning of the nude in art than our nation's puritanical roots, false morality, and the killing of art education in our schools - along with a media presence drenched in commercial sexuality.
OK - enough of that. For me, the difference between fine art nude and glam/commercial/fashion nudes has to do with intent and respect for classical conventions in the artistic tradition. One of the challenges for photographers is that when a viewer looks at a painting of a nude, he sees a nude. When he looks at a photograph of a nude, he sees a person. The camera is a machine that captures, not creates. The photographer must supply the creativity and to the extent he does or does not, a final photograph is either an expression of beauty, or a recording of what the optic nerve set in the frame.
Kenneth Clark, in his book "The Nude" wrote that the nude is not a subject of art but a form of art" - invented by the Greeks in the 5th century BC. Try as we might to get away from it, if we are to talk about the nude as art, that is our touchstone. Not that we have to all our photos look like Venus of Urbino, but the conventions, practices, and "rules" that they set down are what we have to work with.
Here's another way to look at it - It's like asking the difference between classical music and pop music... Rooted in the same basic rules (scales, harmonies, rhythms, etc.) - it is intent that makes the difference between, say, Mozart and Madonna... the notes are the same. And it's tough to learn Mozart by studying Madonna.
All of this is to say, if you really want to understand the difference between glam nudes and fine art nudes, dive into a study of art. It's fascinating, and a great place to begin is with Kenneth Clark's book "The Nude." Hope this helps.
Jul 10 13 06:55 pm Link
Posts: 32177
Dearborn, Michigan, US
Zombie thread!
Jul 10 13 06:58 pm Link
Posts: 288
VALLEY VILLAGE, California, US
Candy Poses wrote:
I would say that's a pretty good description.
Jul 10 13 07:10 pm Link
Posts: 4484
Mission Viejo, California, US
Chaya Phally wrote:
That about sums it up. A++ would quote again.
Jul 10 13 07:21 pm Link
Posts: 37171
Columbus, Ohio, US
PBVincent wrote:
Why didn't you articulate this in a thread of your own rather than one from SIX years ago?
Jul 10 13 07:29 pm Link
Posts: 14
Nashville, Tennessee, US
Why start a new thread? You read it, didn't you?
I wrote it on MM because I found it and wanted to add my 2 cents.
I'll add more pix when I'm ready. Had several, didn't like the crude responses to some of the models, so I took them all down till I can get some new ones up. And you?
Jul 10 13 07:59 pm Link
Cherrystone wrote:
There are six images in the portfolio. MM now requires more than that?
Jul 10 13 08:27 pm Link
Posts: 18391
Oakland, California, US
Though Clark's book is dated now, I think.
What's lacking these days is the balance between male and female nudes. I think that the prudery and prurience of US culture which sexualizes them. Perhaps an overabundance of self-consciousness and a deficit of self-awareness. Even this website disallows priapic images, which were certainly accepted in Classical times. Yet priapic images are inherently sexual, whereas female nudes need not be, yet flaccidity is a requirement of "acceptable" male nudes, thus they are specifically de-sexualized. This seems a contradiction enforcing de-sexualized male nudes, yet assuming female nudes are sexual.
Twisted, ain't it?
Jul 10 13 09:23 pm Link
Posts: 7777
Indianapolis, Indiana, US
I was here.
Jul 10 13 09:39 pm Link
Posts: 12221
Los Angeles, California, US
One's in black and white (only half kidding).
Jul 10 13 09:46 pm Link
Posts: 9719
Santa Barbara, California, US
Fine Art Nude
- Naked women you study into the scene and compose before you hit the shutter.
Artistic Nude
- Naked women with stuff and props and in color half the time.
Glamour Nude
- Naked women with make-up, nice hair, glitter, T&A and heals selling sex and sensuality, a stepping stone to Playboy [and so on] and always shot in color.
Got it? Good!
Jul 10 13 10:35 pm Link
Posts: 835
Baltimore, Maryland, US
|ris wrote:
Great question! I think that I may have a bit of all of the above, but IMO fine art and artistic depends on who's looking. Glamour nudes spruces the model up a bit with make up and props. Then there are fashion nudes, which I get confused with the glam nudes. UUUUgh, so many boxes and categories.
Jul 10 13 10:45 pm Link
Posts: 37171
Columbus, Ohio, US
Art of the nude wrote:
Nice assumption....but you're late.
Jul 10 13 10:47 pm Link
Posts: 17696
El Segundo, California, US
Moderator Warning!
Jerry Nemeth wrote:
The topic contains a still-legitimate question, whether it's 60 minutes old or 6 years old, unlike interjections such as "zombie thread!", which help nobody.
Cherrystone wrote:
See above. Also note that the poster didn't request a critique.
Respond to the ideas being expressed, not the person expressing them.
Mnemosyne Photography wrote:
The industry forum rules note: "Positive contributions are welcomed and encouraged. Nonsense and attempts at misinformation are not."
Jul 10 13 10:50 pm Link
Posts: 4740
Asheville, North Carolina, US
Clark's book is a classic, a must read for people interested in the nude in art and certainly worthy of some consideration and study. I would caution however that interpreting Clark's thesis to mean that we must import Greco-Roman allusions and styles into current photographic efforts is not likely to correct some perceived degradation of the nude but rather shade over into a sort of kitsch, pseudo classicism. Which is fertile territory for both cultural commentary and humor but is unlikely, if pursued uncritically, to raise the nude to some exalted level beyond the purview of mere glamour or T & A.
Jul 11 13 05:48 am Link
Posts: 1213
Ormond Beach, Florida, US
I think it is the nature of the evocation that matters.....
Fine Art Nude
"Man, that's kind of profound, deep, I think I'm crying inside"
Artistic Nude
"Nice, very tasteful, I like the way the light curves, good photography"
Glamour Nude
"I didn't know 'Glamour Shots' was still in business??"
Jul 11 13 01:05 pm Link
Art of the nude wrote:
Cherrystone wrote:
Assumption? I counted to six. And, apparently, they've all been around more than a few hours.
Uploaded: Aug 15, 2012
Jul 11 13 01:26 pm Link
Posts: 25319
Bath, England, United Kingdom
Kevin Connery wrote:
In that case I think we need to update it to include:-
Jul 12 13 12:57 am Link
Posts: 3265
Iserlohn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
That Italian Guy wrote:
I thought Fashion-Nude was: "Nude, wearing Jimmy Choo's"... ?
Jul 12 13 01:01 am Link
Posts: 25319
Bath, England, United Kingdom
RKD Photographic wrote:
Come on now... the model doesn't actually have to be wearing them!
Jul 12 13 01:30 am Link
Posts: 3447
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Chaya Phally wrote:
And succeeded, rest assured
Jul 12 13 01:40 am Link
Posts: 923
Missouri City, Texas, US
Leroy Dickson wrote:
Jul 12 13 04:08 am Link
Posts: 7073
Huntsville, Alabama, US
in the order of your title: hype and marketing; artistic; titillation
that pretty much sums up my interpretation.
Jul 12 13 05:06 am Link
Posts: 15916
Cheltenham, England, United Kingdom
That Italian Guy wrote:
Naturist's wearing trainers.
Jul 12 13 12:28 pm Link
Posts: 7344
New York, New York, US
Artistic nude and fine art nude - same to me, I don't try to separate the two.
Glamour nude is just sexy without sex.
Jul 12 13 12:50 pm Link
Posts: 1042
Santa Fe, New Mexico, US
I am often told that my nudes are museum quality. I guess that means they are "Fine Art," nudes... and they are NOT black and white...
Jul 12 13 12:53 pm Link
Posts: 7258
New Orleans, Louisiana, US
Let's see how many rocks get thrown at me for these definitions--Remember they're just my opinion, not in any way definitions used by the industry.
FINE ART NUDE: A nude shot or painted in a style or treatment reminiscent of the "Fine Artists" whether classic or modern. The goal is to express an emotion, a social statement, to study the human anatomy and/or the interplay of color, light, shadow, posture, etc. The purpose is not to titillate. Although the work may in itself be valuable, the purpose is not commercial in the sense that an illustration in a catalog would be.
ARTISTIC NUDE (Two possible definitions depending on the work in question):
A- Similar to Fine Art Nude but without the similarity to Fine Art works. Likely to be more concerned with the interaction of other objects or locations with the subject or to present a narrative or story that can be implied from the picture rather than the study of either anatomy or light and shadow. Steam Punk, for example, Digital
Art, Body Paint, all might fall into this class. Again, the purpose is neither commercial nor sexual. Or possibly
B- A description applied to a glamour, pornographic or merely bland nude by a photographer who doesn't quite grasp the meaning of "Art" or "Glamour" but doesn't want to define his work as pornographic or bland. For obvious reasons, I won't offer examples that I think fit this category.
GLAMOUR NUDE: Nudes that make no pretense of being fine art, but stop this side of pornography. They may or may not be more explicit than other nudes, and the best contain at least a touch of actual glamour in terms of posing, lighting, surroundings, but they differ from art nudes in that they are unabashedly sexual in theme and message. Playboy, MET and Classic Pin Up would be examples but outright Pornography would not. Nor would "Biker Chick", Burlesque or most Fetish or Tattoo, in my opinion, but depending on treatment both Fetish and Tattoo might well fit here as well as in both Fine Art and Artistic.
The thing to remember in defining any form of art as art is that the definition is dependent on the judgement of both the creator and the observer. There are no hard and fast rules, only generalities.
All IMHO as always, of course.
Jul 12 13 01:07 pm Link
Posts: 39894
Peoria, Illinois, US
This thread has been a gathering spot of people seeking to prove how little they know about what they don't do.
Jul 12 13 01:22 pm Link
Posts: 7258
New Orleans, Louisiana, US
Kevin Connery wrote:
Jerry Nemeth wrote:
The topic contains a still-legitimate question, whether it's 60 minutes old or 6 years old, unlike interjections such as "zombie thread!", which help nobody.
Cherrystone wrote:
See above. Also note that the poster didn't request a critique.
Respond to the ideas being expressed, not the person expressing them.
The industry forum rules note: "Positive contributions are welcomed and encouraged. Nonsense and attempts at misinformation are not."
And relative to "you made it less likely that he would respond in the future." I note that the OP has only 89 posts to date. I think she deserves a round of applause for hanging around after some of the treatment here.
Jul 12 13 01:34 pm Link
Posts: 876
Paris, Île-de-France, France
|ris wrote:
I just keep it simple and describe some of my work as 'nudes', nothing more, nothing less.
Jul 12 13 01:59 pm Link
Carioca wrote:
I tend to say "art nudes", because it's the phrase that comes closest to giving the potential model / viewer an idea of what I do, or intend to do.
Jul 12 13 02:37 pm Link
Posts: 1780
Miami Beach, Florida, US
|ris wrote:
What comes to my mind with each of those terms-
Jul 12 13 02:53 pm Link
Posts: 14859
Fayetteville, Arkansas, US
PBVincent wrote:
Holy shit, I love your stuff.
Jul 12 13 02:57 pm Link
Posts: 96
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
MelissaLynnette LaDiva wrote:
They can also be taken in black and white.
Jul 13 13 09:50 am Link
Posts: 7116
Beaumont, Texas, US
Explaining the differences between these is like explaining the difference between English and Japanese.
As with spoken languages, most people can distinguish among them without knowing a lick of anything but their own language.
Someone familiar with a language can understand traits of the language, or themes, or patterns of speech and idioms without knowing the language itself. For example, I know that in Japanese, you wouldn't say the word "cousin" per se, you'd use a term that might include their gender, age in relation to yourself, and how you are related.
But without knowing the actual languages, you can't really grok how they are different, and any "rules of thumb" made by someone who does know them will just draw ire from someone who can point to an exception of that rule.
You can imitate a language without knowing it. I can make some decent Japanese-like sounds. A Japanese-speaking person would find my imitation at best idiotic and at worst terribly offensive, but people who only speak English might not be able to tell that I'm just imitating the language, or even if they know I'm doing so, can't technically point out how to tell the difference between my blabber and actual Japanese.
Likewise, someone can imitate traits commonly found in fine art photography, such as use of B&W, high contrast lighting, demure nudity, etc. without actually understanding the genre. And most people won't be able to tell the difference, or at least won't be able to nail it down to specifics. But the end result, to someone who actually speaks the genre fluently, will be as incomprehensible and infantile as my Japanese-sounding gibberish.
The same goes for glamour... I can't shoot glamour to save my life. Many years ago, I tried. I made glamour-like images, with the same wardrobe, the same models, the same lighting ratios, but since I haven't really studied the history of the genre, the great masters of it, etc., I was flying blind. I could make the sounds, but anyone who knows the genre well enough to tell the difference between a David Mecey and a Scott Windiz could tell I was out of my league. My pin-up attempts were even more god-awful.
Some photographers and models are "multilingual" to some extent, and some really great ones are fully fluent in multiple genres, and can even blend them to bend each genre's definitions. I think that's why some photographers like Helmut Newton are revered by so many -- they were virtuosos in multiple genres and could create something that was simultaneously pure fashion, pure glamour, pure fetish, and damned good art. But if you try to follow suit without knowing those languages fluently, it ends up being like really bad Engrish.
Jul 13 13 11:37 pm Link
Posts: 458
El Paso, Texas, US
EL Perdido wrote:
Funny. I wonder how many people did say that when it first came around.
Jul 14 13 12:43 am Link
Jul 14 13 01:08 am Link
EL Perdido wrote:
I don't even consider your photos nude, glamour or otherwise.
Jul 14 13 01:13 am Link


text:
Hannah Goodman and Max Molinsky received the South-West Conference Athlete/Leader Award for Weston High. Both, along with other athlete/leaders in the South-West Conference, were honored at a dinner at the Stone Barn restaurant in Monroe on Thursday, May 3.To qualify for this award a student must be a graduating senior and a student/athlete who is a true leader in their sports and school community.
Goodman is a four-year field hockey, indoor and outdoor track and field athlete and a team captain of all three in her senior year and a member of the National Honor Society. She will attend Wesleyan University.
Molinsky has participated in basketball and baseball throughout his four years of high school. As a senior, he was named a captain on both teams. He will Tulane University.


text:
This post has not been edited by the GamesBeat staff. Opinions by GamesBeat community writers do not necessarily reflect those of the staff.
With my game time still currently on life support thanks to our new, three-month old, I thought it might be fitting to start 2013 with a few gaming related resolutions. Like any New Years resolutions, only time will tell if I have to will power to stick to these over the new year – but it'll be an interesting experiment either way I suppose. It's not a huge list mind you – only two resolutions actually, but two that will be very challenging to stick to no doubt.
Resolution #1 – Finish Backlog
First up for 2013, I am going to aggressively attack my gaming backlog one title at a time. The current count for un-played games in my library stands at 49 spread across my Xbox 360, PS3, PS Vita, 3DS and iOS.
Some of these titles I purchased as far back as 2010 which is absurd that they have gone untouched for so long. 49 games is more than enough to keep me busy throughout 2013 – which I'm counting on to make sticking to my next resolution that easier…
Resolution #2 – No new game purchases until Black Friday
Out of the two resolutions, this one is no doubt going to be more difficult for me. I love being there day 1 for new titles, and there are plenty of games I am eagerly anticipating this year such as Bioshock Infinite, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Gears of War Judgement and Tomb Raider to name a few. Alas, this year I am resigning myself to watch the fanfare from the sidelines and miss out on whatever pre-order treats ship along side these titles. My gaming dollars will stay locked firmly in my wallet until they are unleashed on Friday, November 29th for a massive shopping spree.
One huge threat to Resolution #2 is the prospect of a new Xbox coming this holiday season. Not sure how I'm going to weight that into the equation, as I doubt I have to self control to remain an entire generation behind. Will deal with that one as it comes I suppose. New consoles aside, if I can manage to stick to these two resolutions it will be a rinse and repeat for 2014.
Wish me luck!
Happy Gaming New Year to everyone.
Making any gaming resolutions yourself?


text:
When doing a form it is possible to use THUMBNAIL to place .bmp pictures.
I was however wondering if there is any way to translate picture file (bmp/jpg) into something that can be represented in a form as a axl drawn picture. I would prefer not being dependent on bmppath for users copying bmp pictures to the correct folder. Maybe skill can represent ps code directly or write the code to a file at run time.
Any suggestions.
Best regards
You look at the at the family of axlGrpDrw APIs. There is no skill code that will translate an existing bmp to line draws there are commerical/shareware programs that will attempt to do it.You would have to take this type of output and convert it to axlGrpDrw APIs
You can also pass a full path of a bmp file to axlGrpDrwBitmap to avoid BMPPATH issues.
In <cdsroot>/share/pcb/examples/skill/basic/* has a simple example.
You can also try converting a bitmap file to encoded Ascii (look at uuencode/decode as an example). Embed the encoded Ascii in your skill file by assigning it to a variable. When the code is executed, it would save the encoded ascii to a temp file, decode it back to binary and load it via axlGrpDrwBitmap.
Could it (the basic folder) be named something else as i do not have it ?
Look in <cdsroot>\share\pcb\examples\skill\form\basic


text:
Once a month, the pastor of the local Catholic Church, Fr. Leo LeBlanc, hosts students for a prayer service and supper. We start at 6 p.m. for the prayer service at the Holy Trinity Parish Rectory, a large white house located behind Belknap Hall, at the corner of Highland and Langdon Streets. Then we have a delicious supper provided by parishioners.
Note: For Lent, we have a soup supper and Taize prayer service at St, Matthew church hall and St. Matthew church, located behind Blair Hall.
Think of a big holiday dinner, with lots of talking and laughing. The atmosphere is very relaxed and casual. Bring friends, even if they are not Catholic. It's a great way to end the weekend and get ready for the coming week!
To attend, contact Kathy Tardif (603) 535-2673 so that we have enough food for everyone.


text:
Woodside wrapped its second consecutive girls soccer title in the Bay Division of the Peninsula Athletic League with a 3-0 win at Menlo-Atherton on Thursday.
In the first half, the sides battled evenly with each getting off five shots.
A controversial push from behind call in the box set up a penalty kick for the Wildcats in the 35th minute. Senior Giana Rosati hit a perfectly placed ball in the left corner to give Woodside a 1-0 halftime lead.
In the second half Woodside (15-2-3, 10-2-2 Bay) was given another golden opportunity to score when a foul just outside the box gave the Wildcats another set piece. This time, sophomore Jillienne Aguilera headed in the free kick for a 2-0 lead in the fifth minute of the second half.
From there, Woodside took control of the game and continued to pressure the Bears, outshooting them 5-1 in the second half.
The Wildcats scored the third goal in the 25th minute of the second half when Alex Augulis managed to get a cross off from the right corner that was headed in by Isabella Bascara.
It was senior day for M-A, which finished the regular season 10-5-5 overall, 6-5-3 in the Bay.
The seedings meeting for the Central Coast Section playoffs is today. Woodside is in; M-A must wait to see if it is chosen.


text:
Increased cholesterol efflux from cultured fibroblasts to plasma from hypertriglyceridemic type 2 diabetic patients: Roles of pre β-HDL, phospholipid transfer protein and cholesterol esterification
We tested whether hypertriglyceridemia associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus is accompanied by alterations in pre β-HDL, which are considered to be initial acceptors of cell-derived cholesterol, and by changes in the ability of plasma to promote cellular cholesterol efflux. In 28 hypertriglyceridemic and 56 normotriglyceridemic type 2 diabetic patients, and in 56 control subjects, we determined plasma lipids, HDL cholesterol and phospholipids, plasma pre β-HDL and pre β-HDL formation, phospholipid transfer protein (PLTP) activity, plasma cholesterol esterification (EST) and cholesteryl ester transfer (CET) and the ability of plasma to stimulate cholesterol efflux out of cultured human fibroblasts. HDL cholesterol and HDL phospholipids were lower, whereas plasma PLTP activity, EST and CET were higher in hypertriglyceridemic diabetic patients than in the other groups. Pre β-HDL levels and pre β-HDL formation were unaltered, although the relative amount of pre β-HDL (expressed as % of total plasma apo A-I) was increased in hypertriglyeridemic diabetic patients. Cellular cholesterol efflux to plasma from hypertriglyceridemic diabetic patients was increased compared to efflux to normotriglyceridemic diabetic and control plasma, but efflux to normotriglyceridemic diabetic and control plasma did not differ. Multiple linear regression analysis demonstrated that cellular cholesterol efflux to plasma was positively and independently related to pre β-HDL formation, PLTP activity and EST (multiple r = 0.48), but not to the diabetic state. In conclusion, cholesterol efflux from fibroblasts to normotriglyceridemic diabetic plasma is unchanged. Efflux to hypertriglyceridemic diabetic plasma is enhanced, in association with increased plasma PLTP activity and cholesterol esterification. Unaltered pre β-HDL formation in diabetic hypertriglyceridemia, despite low apo A-I, could contribute to maintenance of cholesterol efflux.
|Additional Metadata
|ATP-binding cassette transporter type 1, Cholesterol efflux, Human fibroblasts, Pre β-HDL, Reverse cholesterol transport, Triglycerides, Type 2 diabetes mellitus
|Persistent URL
|dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2006.12.027, hdl.handle.net/1765/29040
de Vries, R, Groen, A, Perton, F.G, Dallinga-Thie, G.M, van Wijland, M.J.A, Dikkeschei, L.D, … Dullaart, R.P.F. (2008). Increased cholesterol efflux from cultured fibroblasts to plasma from hypertriglyceridemic type 2 diabetic patients: Roles of pre β-HDL, phospholipid transfer protein and cholesterol esterification. Atherosclerosis, 196(2), 733–741. doi:10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2006.12.027