text:
In a disaster, there are never too many ways to receive a possibly life-saving alert.
That's why Sonoma County will use multiple ways to reach you if there is a threat to your life or property.
The County has published additional recommendations for those who have access and functional needs.
The County of Sonoma strongly recommends subscribing to the following:
SoCoAlert – Create a managed account to receive urgent notifications about local emergencies by phone and/or text message. Powered by CodeRED.
Learn more about SoCoAlert »
Log in to manage your account
Nixle – Text your zip code to 888777 to opt-in or sign up online to receive email, text or voice messages with alerts and advisories from local law enforcement.
Learn more about Nixle »
Sign in to modify your location or settings.
NOAA Weather Radio (NWR) – Get a NOAA Weather Radio and leave it on at all times. When activated by an event, these radios generate an alarm, voice alert, and flasher.
Sonoma County residents may tune their NOAA radio to frequency 162.475.
If you are deaf or have hearing loss these radios have add-on equipment such as strobe lights and bed shakers to help alert everyone in the household that action is needed in an emergency.
Learn more about National Weather Radio (NWR) Receivers »
Alerts that Do Not Require Subscriptions
Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) – Evacuation orders and other important messages will be sent to compatible mobile devices based on your current location.
Emergency Alert System (EAS) – Alerts will interrupts local radio broadcasts and Comcast television programming in the event of a large-scale emergency.
hi-lo sirens – Beside knocking at your doors the Deputies will also use hi-lo sirens. When you hear the hi-lo siren, pay attention. Listen for instructions from first responders.
To learn more watch the Evacuation Preparation Video »
Alternate Notification Methods
The following require subscription before activation.
Please note: Due to potential delays, please do not rely on the following methods as your primary notification of a local emergency.
County Emergency Updates – Subscribe to the County of Sonoma to receive updates on new safety information and incidents.
Road Closures Updates – Subscribe to receive emails for closed roads or delays due to emergencies or construction. Information is available in text or map format.
Nextdoor – A resource for staying informed about what's going on in your neighborhood.
Learn more about Nextdoor »
Log in to see updates and manage your account
- The Press Democrat, Bay Area Newspaper
- Sonoma West Times & News, Bay Area Newspaper
- NorCal YouTube page
- NorCal Facebook page
- NorCal Website
- KRCB FM Radio 91 live stream
- 91 FM: KRCB Radio
- 1350 AM: KSRO Radio
- 100.1 FM: KZST Radio
- 89.1 FM: KBBF Radio (Bilingual/Spanish)
- 740 AM and 106.9 FM: KCBS Radio
The following mobile applications are recommended:
Ready for Wildfire Mobile App – Current fire maps and incident updates from California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Learn more about CalFire's Ready for Wildfire mobile app »
CodeRED Mobile Alert App – Create a CodeRED account to receive mobile push notifications that deliver location-based alerts based on your GPS location to ensure you receive critical information when you are in a CodeRED client's jurisdiction..
Learn more about CodeRED Mobile Alert App »
Weather Channel – Instantly get storm warnings and live radar alerts.
Learn more about the Weather Channel mobile app »
FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) – This simple and easy-to-use app provides safety notifications, emergency preparedness tips, and disaster resources.
Learn more about FEMA's mobile app »
Red Cross Mobile Apps – Several apps available including First Aid, Emergency, Earthquake, Flood, and Pet First Aid.
Learn more about the many mobile apps offered by Red Cross »
SoCo Report It – See something that needs to be fixed (potholes, street lights, culverts, etc.); submit a request and attach a photo.
Learn more about Sonoma County's SoCo Report It mobile app »


text: Real Estate Ownership Opportunities: All residences have expansive ocean views. • Private Villas: Cliff Top / Ocean from three bedroom, three bathroom, full kitchen, private verandah - 1,900sf + total area ($1,895,000 - $1,995,000) • Condominium Residences: One and Two Bedrooms: full kitchen, private balconies or terraces - 1000 - 1400 sf total area. ($650,000 - $995,000) In accordance with Bermuda Law AZURA Property Owners may be entitled to: A Residence Permit to allow full time residence / retirement in Bermuda; Ownership and use of an automobile in Bermuda. Use Options: A) Full Residence or individual bedrooms available for rental through the Hotel Management Company. B) Optional private "Owner's Suite": Studio or 1 Bedroom portion of Residence with ensuite bathroom and full kitchen / living room, private for owner use year around; with the other bedrooms available for rental through the Hotel Management Company. C) Private use only - no Hotel use. Subject to description of Sponsor, would create higher cost to Purchaser resulting from loss of Bermuda Government incentives. Pricing shown herein assumes participation in Hotel guests. Residence Owners receive 50% of net rental proceeds from transient Hotel guests. No Purchaser Risk During Redevelopment Period - All Purchaser Payments are held in third party escrow to be released only as corresponding stages of construction on their residence are completed.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Welcome to the fourth edition of this video series where we talk you through The 10 Big Advisory Questions.
Join Micheal as he answers Question 4 – Don't I Have to Become An Expert?
The below is a transcript of Question 4 of the 10 Big Advisory Questions Video Series – Don't I Have to Become An Expert?
My name is Micheal O'Neill and I'm delighted to welcome you to this video series where I answer the 10 Big Advisory Questions. These are the questions that I get asked by my clients in Ireland on a regular basis and also the questions that my colleagues in the UK, US, Canada, and Africa get asked.
So, let's get started with today's question.
Question 4, Don't I Have to Become an Expert?
So, this is another question that we get on a very regular basis. And it's understandable because so much of what we do as a profession is based on expertise. It's based on knowledge.
And it can seem like a big step to becoming this advisor. And I think in certain ways, it's really been built up more than it actually is necessary. But here's the great news, no, you do not have to become an expert.
Yes, if you're looking at getting into very specific areas of consulting, absolutely, you have to become an expert in that area. However, the true beauty of advisory is that as accountants, we already possess the majority of the skills, talents, expertise and knowledge that we need to be a highly effective advisor.
You might not recognize it, you might not think it, but from working with accountants for so long, I know it's true.
You know, it's all about identifying the client's goals and plans. And the best advisors are the people who don't jump in and tell the clients what to do and try to force their expertise on them. The best advisors sit back, let the client identify their goals, their aspirations and then facilitate them create a winning plan to achieve their goals.
Now don't for one second think that I'm saying that your technical skills are not needed. They form an absolutely critical part of the implementation plan, but it's not the solution itself.
And the beautiful thing is if there are specific areas where you truly are an expert, well then you have an opportunity to deliver that expertise as part of the implementation plan that you create with your client.
You see during the advisory process, the client is going to identify issues and problems. And let's say they have a problem; it could be management accounting.
At the moment, most accountants can and do provide management accounting services for their bigger clients, now the actual interpretation of management accounts, that is a skill, that is a talent. To be able to run all the ratios and provide insights into the financial performance of the business, that is actually a skill.
Now you might deploy those skills during the overall advisory process, but that's not where you start.
And the beautiful thing is if that's not a core area of expertise that you possess, what you need to do is identify other providers who can provide it on your behalf or other people where you can direct your clients to.
Now to say that there's no skill or level of expertise required, well, that's not exactly true because one of the key skills that you need is facilitation. However, I truly believe that the vast majority of accountants already have the skills that're needed in order to deliver advisory.
There are 10 reasons why you're the perfect advisor. And these really play true to me every time I see them.
1. You are trusted
First of all, there's trust.
As an accountant, as the person who has the financial acumen and a relationship on an ongoing basis with your client, it is unquestionable that your client trusts you.
A trusted relationship will help them open up more, and it will allow them be more forthcoming with and laying out exactly what's on their mind, exactly what's in their head, exactly what is going on in their business.
2. You care
Point two why you're a perfect advisor, you care.
We have worked with thousands of accountants and I've yet to come across an accountant who didn't genuinely care about the success of their clients.
To be honest, it's one of the main reasons why I, and OmniPro, are so passionate about accountants.
Because it's unquestionable, the benefits that accountants can bring to business owners.
But more than anything else, it's the caring part.
Accountants by and large care deeply about the success of their clients.
3. You have financial acumen
Number three, you have real financial acumen.
Now I don't want this to sound like I am taking a shot at any other group of people.
But it does deeply upset me when I see clients of accountants, accountants who truly understand the inner workings of that client's business, who know the financial drivers, who understand exactly what's happening behind the scenes with their client's business.
And then those clients engage somebody else who does not necessarily have the same level of understanding and financial acumen that you have, and they're willing to spend large amounts of money, freely, with these other people who are not as well positioned as you to deliver advisory.
This one that really gets me because I see it day in, day out.
I see the challenges and frustrations that accountants have with raising compliance bills.
When it comes to raising a bill, and you are looking at the WIP, saying – "Oh we can't possibly charge this, we're gonna have to knock x amount off the top." Or "Just bill'em this amount despite what's on the clock."
And then the client goes to someone who is not as well positioned as you for business advisory services and is willing to hand over significant sums without any hesitation.
Why is that – well from an advisory perspective, clients truly value your input and they're willing to pay what is asked, there is no fee haggle when it comes to advisory.
4. You can run meetings
Point four, you can run meetings.
It's unquestionable.
You run meetings, that's part of what you do.
It's part of your bread and butter, day in, day out.
You know how to keep meetings efficient; you know how to keep people on track, you know about setting an agenda and moving people through it.
5. You love process
You love processes as well.
And so much of accountancy is process. And the fact is, advisory should be no different. You should have advisory processes for everything that you do.
And in following a process, that's when I mean when I mentioned earlier, the difference between structured and unstructured advisory.
Really the difference is having processes that back up your advisory services.
6. You ask questions
Accountants, I think, are curious by nature
Part of it is the training you get. Part of it is what attracted you to the profession in the first place.
And so much of being an advisor is actually about asking the questions.
7. You have commercial acumen
You've commercial acumen. You know how the world works
You have been hands-on with a large number of clients, you've seen that number of businesses, what has worked, what hasn't worked, what works out there for businesses in the different industries.
You can bring your knowledge to bear from your experience, from all your training, from everything you've seen, every other client you've worked with.
You can bring that into the fold with each one of the clients that you provide advisory to.
8. You are a good listener
By and large, accountants are good listeners.
The real challenge is to allow yourselves to listen.
9. You are a problem solver
Because the other part, which is point nine here you are a problem solver, very often for accountants the problem solver trait kicks in too soon.
So, you hear a client say something, and immediately you snap back with the answer.
Accountants are good listeners but what they need to do is they need to contain their problem-solving ability so to give themselves an opportunity to actually listen and hear what the client is saying.
Because very often, it's not the first, the second, third or fourth thing out of the client's mouth which is the actual, what I would say that the core or the true truth of the circumstance.
Sometimes it takes people a while to drop down through the layers and levels and actually get their issues out of their own mind and to verbalize it concisely.
There's no question that accountants are problem solvers but remember what I said earlier –
clients hate having problems, but they love having their problems solved.
And it's a perfect match if you can come in once they have identified their problems and you can make them go away.
10. You like making money
Obviously, the majority of accountants are financially driven.
And advisory is unquestionably one of the best routes for a firm to become more profitable and generate higher revenues.
So that is question four of our 10 Big Advisory Questions Video Series.
In this one I have answered – Don't I Have To Become An Expert?
If you haven't seen the first three in the series, please do go find them and check them out now.
And make sure keep an eye out for the remaining questions that are coming later on in this series.
So, from me, thank you very much for listening, see you again soon


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Click Image for Full Size
Ash here with another one of these for the upcoming season. I've pretty much finished the majority of my stuff from previous seasons (expect afterwords sometime for the series that haven't gotten one). Xewleer is using the past few days and the upcoming week to finish off his series as well. I'm hoping this will give us the fresh start we need to this next season.
As with most seasons nowadays, this season offers a little bit of everything (who says anime is dying again?) and hopefully you anime fans out there can stumble upon something to your own liking. To date, there hasn't been a season without a show I could recommend to anyone and it is my hope that is the case for all seasons going forward, unchanged. The industry is constantly evolving to suit the tastes of its supporters and remains my favorite medium for story telling.
- *RDG: Red Data Girl – An interesting concept for a fantasy series, though I'm not exactly sure how well it will play out plot wise. My main interest in this series is because the character designs come from Kishida Mel, one of my favorite artists.
- *Karneval – I'll have to admit, what I've seen of the source for this series has not impressed me. There's tons of hype following this one and it's mainly the reason I'm even going to bother with it.
- *Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge – A rather weird plot that involves curses and a hair cutting fetish. There's tons of hints that this show might get a bit dark and the animation style is totally giving the opposite vibes.
- *Yahari Ore no Seishun Rabukome wa Machigatteiru – also known as "My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong as I Expected" is one of my most anticipated series this upcoming season. I loved the novel this series will be based on and am expecting great things from the series, though the animation reminds me of the Special A anime (which ended up very disappointing); so I'm a bit mixed on it all.
- *DEVIL SURVIVOR 2 THE ANIMATION – A game to anime adaptaton. I haven't played through the second incarnation of the Devil Survivor games yet, so I have no idea what the plot will be like. I just hope that the adaptation becomes similar to the Persona 4 one and stays faithful to source material. The dark nature of story universe will no doubt be able to pull people in; if for nothing else.
- *Ginga Kikoutai Majestic Prince – A mecha series directed by the director of Jormungand? It all depends on how well the source material holds up; I'm still not tired of the Gundam Seed era character designs yet!
- *Hataraku Maou-sama! – also known as "Demon Lord at Work!" is a spin-off of the high school story of similar name (Demon Lord in High School!) The draw here is watching the typical fantasy archetypes adjust to modern life. The source material was enjoyable enough and I'm glad they picked this one over the high-school one, as I feel I can relate to it more.
- *Photo Kano – I would label this under generic harem romance if not for the comparissons I've been hering to Kimikiss and Amagami. I'm hoping they follow a formula similar to Amagami SS and give each girl her own "arc" of episodes, I've found that method to satisfy the most people overall.
- *Date A Live – Probably the biggest show of the season. I've not develed too much into the source material, but from what I've seen; it wasn't too special. Nevertheless, I feel that I always need to check out the supposed breadwinners of the season to see what all the hype is about, who knows; it might impress me.
- *Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Bride – A guilty pleasure of mine. The original series had tons of potential, but I feel the push for fanservice really hurt the story.
- *Aku no Hana – A really DEEP psychological piece. I'll say this isn't for everyone and the twists within will probably have many raging.
- *Shingeki no Kyojin – the second big show of the season. The source manga for this series has won many awards and the PVs have really ramped up my anticipation for this series. I love the source, though it is a bit gritty and down trodden at times. I suspect this will be the action show for most this season.
- *Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai. – After over two years, the sequel finally arrives. I've been waiting for them to unveil Saori to the gang without her glasses. Hopefully with the source material far ahead, we can make this a 24 episode series. Like Saki/Girls Und Panzer etc, I feel that this show is one of those that just brings a smile on your face when you sit and watch it.
- *Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2199 – I'm already following this, but since the "movie" release happens every season, I don't feel too inclined to talk much about it.
- *Haiyore! Nyaruko-san W – Tons and tons of parody. I may come back and relook at the series, but I lost interest during the prior season because the gags really weren't catching me.
- *Hayate no Gotoku! Cuties – The fourth season of this show. I love the characters, but the last adaptation has made me wary over this one.
- *Arata Kangatari – Its been awhile since we've had one of Watase Yuu's epic fantasy adventures. What will determine if this series becomes another Fushigi Yugi or falls flat will be how well the manga source is adapted and how long the series is.
- *Toaru Kagaku no Railgun S – Second season of Railgun. I'm more of a fan of the main story (Index), but I hear this season is a bit darker. I found the first Railgun to be a bit "light hearted" story-wise when compared to Index, which was probably its main flaw.
- *Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko – I really like the source material so I have high expectations. Hopefully J.C. Staff can work a miracle with this one like they did with Sakurasou.
- *Kakumeiki Valvrave – A sunrise mecha show, there isn't much else to say. They've pretty much perfected this formula by now.
- *Suisei no Gargantia – The final of the BIG THREE of the season and the one with arguably the most hype by the solely anime crowd. Urobuchi Gen, the person that brought us Madoka, Fate/Zero, and Psycho Pass returns to bring us military sci-fi. Knowing Urobochi's style there is probably going to be some dark twist, but for now the visuals and setting have me enthralled!
The big three shows for this season are: Date A Live, Attack on Titan!, and Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet. (PVS below)
Date A Live
Attack on Titan!
Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet


text: The U.S. Attorney's office in D.C. has dropped felony riot charges against three journalists who were arrested while covering inauguration day protests. Independent journalist Matthew Hopard, documentary producer John Keller, and RT reporter Alexander Rubenstein were cleared of the riot charges they faced after being arrested while reporting on the January 20 protests. At least six journalists were arrested during the event, sparking fears of a crackdown on the press. Evan Engel, a senior producer at Vocativ, also had his riot charges cleared last week. "After a review of evidence presented to us by law enforcement, we have concluded that we will not proceed with the charges against the three defendants, who are journalists," reads the attorney's orders. "We are continuing to work with the Metropolitan Police Department to review evidence related to the arrests on Jan. 20. As in all of our cases, we are always willing to consider additional information that people bring forward. Because these matters remain pending in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, we have no comment on other specific individuals beyond our public filings. The charges against these three individuals have now been dismissed."


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And Thus it Ever Was With Fascists
But at least now the fascist Prozi "liberals" are coming out in the open, admitting to it:
How Conservatives Weaponized the First Amendment
Off to a great start, Adam. Oooh, weaponize! Boo!
WASHINGTON — On the final day of the Supreme Court term last week, Justice Elena Kagan sounded an alarm.
The court's five conservative members, citing the First Amendment, had just dealt public unions a devastating blow.
…by finding that no, unions CAN'T steal people's money and donate them to whomever they like (who all happen to be Prozi fascists) for those trying to keep track. But he's not wrong about the "devastating" bit, although we suspect that it will be even more devastating to the Prozi Party that they're laundering stolen funds for.
The day before, the same majority had used the First Amendment to reject a California law requiring religiously oriented "crisis pregnancy centers" to provide women with information about abortion.
What, they don't have to helpfully help out the Planned Genocide abortion mills up their revenue by keeping the flow of sellable baby parts flowing? Why that's, that's OUTRAGEOUS!
Conservatives, said Justice Kagan, who is part of the court's four-member
liberalStalinist wing, were "weaponizing the First Amendment."
Corrected that for you.
The two decisions were the latest in a stunning run of victories for a conservative agenda that has increasingly been built on the foundation of free speech.
Conservative groups, borrowing and building on arguments developed by liberals, have used the First Amendment to justify unlimited campaign spending,
So freedom of speech is a "liberal" invention now? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, and to clarify, "unlimited campaign spending" means "even non-unions have a right to vote with their wallets and support causes they believe in" which, we can all agree, is EXACTLY WHAT HITLER WOULD HAVE SAID!
discrimination against gay couples
Or, as it's known outside of hysterical Prozi circles, "freedom of religion".
and attacks on the regulation of tobacco, pharmaceuticals and guns.
We're not entirely sure what poor Addled Adam is referring to here, and we suspect that he isn't either.
"The right, which had for years been hostile to and very nervous about a strong First Amendment, has rediscovered it," said Burt Neuborne, a law professor at New York University.
Proving, once again, that the Marxist Prozis, for all of their obsession with history and "the right side thereof", really don't have the slightest familiarity with it.
His Imperial Majesty has been of "the right" for almost his entire adult life, and we can't remember a single time when we found ourselves "hostile" to Freedom of Speech. Growing up in a socialist country, we know a thing or two about what NOT having it means, however, and we weren't big fans.
As a result,
liberalsProzis who once championed expansive First Amendment rights are now uneasy about them.
"The left was once not just on board but leading in supporting the broadest First Amendment protections," said Floyd Abrams, a prominent First Amendment lawyer and a supporter of broad free-speech rights. "Now the progressive community is at least skeptical and sometimes distraught at the level of First Amendment protection which is being afforded in cases brought by litigants on the right."
The New Rules™, you're going to hate them.
Of COURSE they are "nervous." It's not so much fun when the people you've been bludgeoning for decades suddenly realize that the bludgeon works just as well when applied to fascist skulls, is it?
As is always the case, proto-fascists only embrace things like democracy and freedom of speech when they're useful to THEM, just as they use everything and everybody else. Once their new tool stops being useful and/or is used against them, they throw their precious "principles" of yesterday overboard immediately in their pursuit of the Prozi Utopia of Next Tuesday™.
"By any means necessary."
It's not like they're even trying to HIDE it, for pity's sakes.
Ask the socialist Hitler or, failing that now he's dead and roasting forever in Hell, read his book. He explains quite succinctly how it works. First you use democracy and freedom of speech while you're weak. Then, when you have the power, you throw them out.
One Man, One Vote, One Time.
They never change, it's just their body count that keeps going up.
Until somebody finally stops them. For good.


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Former Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Kingsley Moghalu, has blamed Nigeria's lack of economic philosophy for its failure to achieve high quality economic growth.
He explained that the country's economy is managed mostly on an ad-hoc, reactive basis, even when it is clear that the wealth of nations is usually based on philosophical foundations.
Speaking on the theme titled, "The Secret of the Wealth of Nations and the Imperative of Economic Transformation" during the Centre for Financial Journalism (CFJ Nigeria)'s annual bullion lecture series in Lagos yesterday, Moghalu revealed that, "according to the World Poverty Clock, Nigeria has overtaken India as the poverty capital of the world and that according to the African Development Bank (AfDB), 152 million Nigerians, out of an overall population of about 190 million, meet the criteria of absolute poverty which means that 80 per cent of Nigerians are extremely poor."
He further said that Nigeria needs to become a developmental country with philosophical foundations so as to build a sustainable economic future and address the need for clear economic vision, situated on a philosophical framework from which economic policy should be derived.
According to him, the pre-conditions for moving from the path of poverty to the path of prosperity hinges on the philosophical foundation for the Nigerian state, economic vision, innovation, economic complexity and institutions.
"The absence of a link between science, commercialised indigenous innovation, and economic and business activity is a fundamental obstacle between Nigeria and a quantum leap to prosperity. This gap is all the more tragic because science and technology is one area in which African countries such as Nigeria can quickly develop global competitive advantage over the Western world and even Asia," the former CBN deputy governor said.


text:
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text:
Leeds-based Menace Beach return with news of their third album 'Black Rainbow Sound', which is due out August 31st via Memphis Industries. The band are sharing the album-titled first single from the record online now, which features Brix Smith.
New album Black Rainbow Sound is the band's first new material since early 2017's Lemon Memory, and after a self-imposed break from tour duties, the album exhibits a profound shift in their sound, whilst still mainlining the blasts of noise, visceral power, and timeless pop songsmithery of their previous releases.
Unlike the bands previous records, Black Rainbow Sound came to life in the bands studio, where Liza Violet and Ryan Needham built dense late-night orchestrations from drum machines, synthesizers, loops and guitar noise, before being ripped apart and reimagined by the full Menace Beach cast at The Nave studio in Leeds with producer Matt Peel (Eagulls).
See Menace Beach live:
18 Oct – Derby, The Hairy Dog
20 Oct – Birmingham, Hare & Hounds
22 Oct – Glasgow, Broadcast
23 Oct – Newcastle, The Cluny 2
24 Oct – Manchester, Deaf Institute
25 Oct – London, Oslo
26 Oct – Bristol, Rough Trade
27 Oct – Sheffield, Picture House Social
02 Nov – Leeds, Brudenell Social Club


text:
Ensuring Literacy in an Age of Scrutiny
As Many as 25 Per Cent of High School Students At Risk of Not Graduating
by Leanne Miller
The final report of the province's At Risk working group rang the alarm in January 2003: Significant work must begin immediately or a large number of students will not graduate and will become disenfranchised young adults without hope for their futures.
The facts were clear. In 2002 only 72 per cent of the Grade 10 students who wrote the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) for the first time passed it. Eighty-five per cent of students rewriting (having previously failed) in 2002 passed the test. Since success on the test is required for high school graduation, these results indicated that as many as one quarter of Ontario's high school students were at risk of not graduating.
Such results did little to alleviate teachers' concerns about standardized testing. According to an Ontario College of Teachers/COMPAS survey in July 2003, 85 per cent of teachers believe standardized tests demoralize students, 90 per cent feel they do not improve learning and 88 per cent think they do not track student success.
"Many kids who struggle with the OSSLT have superb hands-on learning skills but cannot do well, or actually panic, when they have to perform on demand - especially when taking a high-stakes test," notes Kerry Stewart, a literacy leader at Limestone District School Board and a member of the Ontario government's expert panels on numeracy and literacy.
But arguments concerning what such tests actually measure or their efficacy aside, Stewart says, "When we saw that more than 60,000 kids might not graduate we knew we had to do something fast."
Educators continue to seek solutions. Expert panels on literacy, numeracy and pathways (school-to-work initiatives) met throughout 2003 to develop recommendations for support of at-risk students. (The literacy panel's report was published at the end of October.) School boards have created at-risk leader positions to co-ordinate strategies and supports for these students. In the coming months their work will focus on the implementation of panel recommendations.
The test-results statistics, available on the Education Quality and Accountability office web site (www.eqao.com), do help to identify particular problem areas. Eighty-five per cent of academic students were successful compared with 38 per cent of applied students. Seventy-five per cent of female students passed compared with 68 per cent of males.
Devona Crowe, a former superintendent of education who has recently retired from the Thunder Bay Catholic District School Board offers one explanation: "Our system has been based on passive learning that has suited girls more than boys. And a focus on fiction engages girls more than boys. To engage boys we need more manuals and techie stuff."
On the positive side, good literacy teaching helps to engage all students, not just those at risk. And across the province educators are moving to help their students succeed.
Literacy Course an Alternative to Test
This September the ministry introduced a new Grade 12 literacy course, the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Course (OSSLC) in some schools and it will be offered at most schools during the upcoming semester. The reading and writing competencies required by the standardized test form the instructional and assessment core of the course. Grade 12 students who failed the test twice but complete this course successfully, earning a Grade 12 English credit, will meet the literacy requirement for graduation.
Stewart explains: "As with many boards the most urgent priority at the Limestone board has been implementing the OSSLC. First we identified students who are currently in Grade 12 but did not pass. We made sure that they were signed up to write the test this fall if that was the best choice for them. These students all received tutoring to help them prepare. If the test wasn't the right route for a student - and for many it wasn't - we enrolled them in the OSSLC."
As the school year began, the Limestone teachers assigned to teach the new literacy course learned strategies to teach reading and writing. They received planning time to develop handouts, course outlines, assessment materials and a similar introductory unit.
Barbara Halliday teaches the OSSLC at Queen Elizabeth Collegiate and Vocational Institute in Kingston and Michelle Kehoe teaches it at Ernestown Secondary School in Odessa. The two English teachers were apprehensive at first. "I wondered who was mad at me," joked Halliday. "Now that I'm doing it I love it. It's the best course profile I've ever read."
Kehoe says, "The kids have bought into the course. They know that it has been created just for them and they're motivated. It's their last chance and they know it."
Expect Most if Not All Students Will Pass
Halliday explains how this course is different from traditional English literature. "There's no Shakespeare or novel study. We read high-interest short stories and we regularly read the newspaper. Sometimes the kids choose their own readings. They read things that are relevant and practical and this motivates most of them to read more than they ever have before."
Kehoe explains other differences: "I have learned how to teach reading and I use strategies like previewing, chunking activities into small pieces and having the kids read backwards to find key vocabulary."
Shalane Lowry's students at Napanee District Secondary School discuss the differences between this course and the anxieties of writing the test. "There's no way to study for the test," says one student. "It stresses me out too much. If I didn't finish something, everything was wrong and that wasn't fair."
Another student adds, "I need to listen to music to make me relax and I wasn't allowed to. I started tapping my fingers on my desk when I got nervous and I was yelled at to be quiet. It was no good. Here, if I'm nervous I can listen to music or walk around a bit and it helps me concentrate."
Lowry points out the difference between the test and the course when she says, "In this class, we are process-oriented; the OSSLT is product-oriented."
Reaching Higher
The web site Reaching Higher is one of hundreds of literacy initiatives that have been developed in Ontario in the past three years to address these issues.
Judith Taylor, Peel District School Board's literacy co-ordinator and a member of a multi-board team that worked on Reaching Higher, says that the resource package available on the site - a series of practical, ready-to-use documents - provides a starting point for a cross-curricular team of teachers. The resource was delivered to board leaders throughout Ontario. It was developed to offer teaching and learning strategies for students in Grades 6 to 9 who were performing at Level 1 and below in reading, writing and communications skills.
The site states that "Literacy is the responsibility of all teachers in the school, and there are many opportunities to develop literacy skills in all subject areas." To help teachers meet that responsibility a professional-development video and viewing guide were created and the Ministry of Education has distributed one copy to each board leader for students at risk.
University and Peer Tutoring
The Limestone District School Board has taken advantage of its close relationship with Queen's University. For the past two years Faculty of Education students wanting to work with high school students (and undergraduate students applying to faculties of education) have been trained to work as paid literacy tutors within the local board.
Tutors are hired in the fall to work in all secondary schools specifically to help at-risk students prepare for the OSSLT. The tutors return in May and June. They help to compile information concerning at-risk students - identifying their literacy strengths and weaknesses as well as strategies that will help them prepare for the test.
Limestone also uses peer tutoring. Anne Marie McDonald, the literacy consultant for Grades 7 to 12, explains how peer tutoring works: "Senior students begin training in September. They learn reading and writing strategies similar to those used by elementary teachers. It's a rigorous and demanding assignment and these student tutors earn a credit for their work." Many are students who want to become teachers themselves.
All Grade 9 students are tutored in the fall of each year and from these sessions schools can determine who needs more support.
Practice Tests
Many boards have Grade 10 students write practice literacy tests. Some begin earlier. This fall all Grade 8 students in Limestone district wrote a practice test designed to help determine how well students had acquired the skills expected by the end of Grade 7. Staff will use the results to assess strengths and weaknesses in their programming. They hope to find out how prepared students are for writing high-stakes tests and whether they are learning the literacy skills they will need to succeed.
Changing Timetables
In September 2001 principal André Labrie of La Salle Secondary School in Kingston piloted a new timetable. Instead of four 75-minute periods the school now has four 60-minute periods and time for one additional 60-minute multi-subject instructional period (MSIP).
Students have their regular four classes each day plus a one-hour supervised study period. One teacher is assigned for every 30 students. Students in any one MSIP may be from all grades, with varied levels of ability. Their course selections determine their timetable and the MSIP comes when they are not in one of those classes.
Each MSIP begins with 20 minutes of silent literacy work - reading or writing. Reading choices can be subject-related or personal. Following that, students may work alone or in small groups. They may work on assignments, make up work they missed due to absences or get help in areas where they are falling behind.
Students can also sign out of the classroom to work in other MSIP classes - a science or computer lab or the library. Michael Howe, a vice-principal at the school, explains: "There are multiple MSIP classrooms during each period of the day. I schedule them so that teaching staff in each of the core areas - English, math, social sciences and science - will be available during each time slot."
"If kids need extra help in math they can go to one of the math teachers. But students could also go to the computer lab or take on extra projects in the woodworking shop."
It is easy to see how the flexibility of MSIPs would be ideal for students who need extra help with their literacy skills. Some also take advantage of peer tutoring, which is primarily focused on literacy.
Labrie points out that it's not a study hall. "Student learning is the single most important motivator for everything we do. We're developing the ability in our students to sit and work for one hour every day and we're giving them time during school to reinforce daily instruction."
He says, "MSIPs are structured to facilitate consolidation, remediation and extensions of students' learning. The five-period day using the MSIP gives us a flexibility that is not available in any other timetable structure that I know of. This flexibility has resulted in a professional dialogue among staff that is focused on teaching and learning, specifically related to at-risk students."
Labrie is extremely proud of two success indicators. "First," he reports, "our OSSLT test scores have improved dramatically. In 2001, 57 per cent of our students passed the OSSLT. In 2002, 86 per cent were successful. Second, La Salle has the board's highest percentage of students at the applied level who have passed the test. Our goal is to take care of 100 per cent of the students in our building and we're working hard to reach that goal."
Such success is highly motivating. Teachers at La Salle have more student contacts and 15 more minutes in class each day than teachers in most semestered schools, but more than 90 per cent voted to continue the program.
Literary Resource Strategists
In York Region District School Board every 10 secondary schools have an extra teacher, called a literacy resource strategist. These resource people support their colleagues and provide professional development to help improve the literacy skills of Grade 9 and 10 students. They co-plan and co-teach with subject teachers, integrating literacy strategies into the curriculum.
Cathy Costello, York's Curriculum Co-ordinator for Literacy, says, "The strategies complement and enhance what teachers are already doing with their students."
Costello points to research showing that Grade 9 students are exposed to as many as 2,000 new words during the year and notes how something as low-tech as a word wall can help improve student learning. In a Grade 9 geography classroom, for example, a word wall may be used to list and define terms such as esker, tundra or tectonics. The word wall keeps correct spellings and definitions before their eyes so students have a ready reference and reinforcement of what they are learning.
Costello observes, "It has always been said that in Grades 1 to 3 students learn to read, and from Grades 4 to 12 they read to learn. But that's simply not true - especially for at-risk students with weak literacy skills. We continue to teach them literacy strategies that will help them read, write and comprehend because that's what going to make them successful, both in school and beyond."
Tailoring Programming
Rita Mannella is the Chair of Languages at St. Ignatius High School in the Thunder Bay Catholic District School Board. "Literacy is not solely the responsibility of English teachers," she points out, "It's everyone's job."
Last year, Grade 9 teachers in both applied and academic subject areas at St. Ignatius developed lesson plans with their colleagues so that literacy skills were integrated throughout and there was consistency in terms of language use and expectations. This collaboration gave students many cross-curricular opportunities to practise and use the literacy skills they need.
By June, in all Grade 9 classes, teachers could identify which students were at risk and which things gave them the most trouble. From this data Mannella and her colleagues then developed their Grade 10 literacy programming.
Manella developed a short guide for colleagues to use with the 96-page Grade 10 Test of Reading and Writing Workbook. The guide presents activities that relate to the five reading and writing components of the OSSLT, allowing teachers to address weaknesses that they identified in Grade 9.
Time Will Tell
OSSLT results for 2003 will be released at the end of January and time will provide the measure of success for these varied strategies. But it is clear that Ontario's educators are committed to helping their students succeed with the new curriculum and the literacy test.
The programs touched on here are definitely having a positive impact on student learning. And the dedication and innovation of educators make it a certainty that there will be fewer at-risk students in Ontario's schools.


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Two of the mental health workers killed by a former U.S. soldier at a California veterans home were psychologists who treated veterans with post-traumatic stress syndrome and the third victim was the program's the executive director.
The three women were found dead Friday along with the suspect who took them hostage in a day-long standoff in Yountville, Calif., at the largest veterans home in the U.S., officials said.
Nearly eight hours earlier, the gunman had slipped into an employee going-away party in a building where combat veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan receive treatment, said California Highway Patrol Assistant Chief Chris Childs.
The nonprofit Pathway Home program, housed on the campus of the Veterans Home of California-Yountville, issued a statement saying that 42-year-old Jennifer Golick and 29-year-old Jennifer Gonzales were accomplished mental health therapists. The program said director 48-year-old Christine Loeber was also killed Friday.
The statement called them brave women who "were accomplished professionals who dedicated their careers to serving our nation's veterans."
It also said they worked "closely with those in greatest need of attention after deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan."
U.S. Department of Defence records show the gunman had a decorated U.S. Army career.
The records obtained Friday said 36-year-old Albert Wong was awarded four medals, including an Afghanistan campaign medal with two campaign stars.
Records showed Wong served as in the infantry during three years of active service in the U.S. Army ending August 2013. He was also awarded an Expert Marksmanship Badge with Rifle. Wong served one year in Afghanistan.
Childs said investigators have not determined a motive for the shooting.
"It's far too early to say if they were chosen at random," Childs said.
Yountville is about 85 kilometres north of San Francisco in Napa Valley.
A sheriff's deputy responding to an emergency call shortly after 10 a.m. PT got into a shootout with the gunman, but the officer was not injured.
Highway Patrol Sgt. Robert Nacke said negotiators were unable to make contact with the gunman throughout the day.
Larry Kamer told The Associated Press that his wife, Devereaux Smith, was at a morning staff party and told him by phone that the gunman had entered the room quietly, letting some people leave while taking others hostage.
Smith, a fundraiser for Pathway Home, was still inside the facility's dining hall and was not allowed to leave, he said.
Police evacuated the property and closed off nearby roads. An armoured police vehicle, ambulances and several fire trucks were at the facility, which houses about 1,000 residents.
Army veteran and resident Bob Sloan, 73, was working at the home's TV station when a co-worker came in and said he had heard four gunshots coming from the Pathway Home. Sloan sent alerts for residents to stay put.


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In the top of this page, you can navigate to the manual, tutorials, and API reference.
This manual provides background information for the Utrecht University Crowd Simulation (UUCS) Unity3D plugin, version 1.2. The plugin is compatible with 64-bit Windows applications. We optimized this version for Unity3D version 2018.2.10f1. NB We have also compiled the plugin for the following operating systems: iOS, Linux and MacOS. Please contact us at email@example.com if you are in need for one of these.
The UUCS plugin is a framework that provides advanced tools for simulating a crowd of agents, based on 12 years of research at Utrecht University and abroad. It embodies four main functionalities:
- Modelling the navigable environment and computing an exact navigation mesh;
- Setting up a scenario;
- Performing an interactive simulation;
- Making analyses.
The UUCS plugin allows programmers to develop applications that need realistic movements and behaviors of agents in virtual environments featuring e.g. big infrastructures, events or computer games. You can easily set up a crowd using the provided GUI, or use scrips that directly talk to the UUCS API.
In short, the plugin offers the following features.
Modelling the navigable environment
- Creating (static) 2D layers of walkable parts and obstructed parts
- Performing Boolean operations on 2D polygons
- Composing a 3D multi-layered environment
- Computing an exact navigation mesh
Setting up a scenario
- Placing building blocks, including start, goal and action areas
- Creating agent profiles; (NB We use the terms agent, character, pedestrian interchangeably.)
- Setting agent characteristics
- Moving possibly thousands of agents in real time; (NB The number of real-time simulated agents is based on your device's performance.)
- Creating global indicative routes with some desired amount of clearance to obstacles
- Employing realistic collision avoidance
- Incorporating social groups
- Interpolating between individual and flowing behaviors
- Re-routing based on local density information
- Adding and removing dynamic obstacles
- Adding your own behaviors
- Analyzing crowd density
To demonstrate features of the plugin, we have also built several Demo scenes. You can find more information about the demos at the end of this manual.


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The World Machine is the second volume Piero Boitani devotes to the way in which the sciences and the arts interact when it comes to modern consideration of the stars and the cosmos (the first, also published in English by Nova Science Publishers, is entitled Looking Upwards: Stars in Ancient and Medieval Cultures). This is not a history of astronomy or astrophysics, but the story – arranged in chronological order – of how humans have reacted to fundamental changes in astronomy by means of poetry, narrative, painting, architecture, and music over the last five hundred years. This time, the story is basically European (and American), as all the relevant scientific discoveries were made in Europe, and it is the European imaginaire that dominates world culture (non-European images of the universe are dealt with in Looking Upwards).
The historical development of this image and of the ideas that contribute to its formation is rather complex and diversified, but two major turning points are clearly identifiable – one lies between the sixteenth and seventeenth century, and one at the very beginning of the twentieth century. Concerning the former, the observation of the sky was revolutionized by the telescope. Galileo, Kepler and Newton could thus base their new models of the universe on much more precise experiences, and mathematics became the new language of astronomy. The cosmos increasingly tended to be viewed as a "machine," a mechanism like a clock (hence the book's title). Between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century the second scientific revolution took place. The instruments became so refined that they began to detect increasingly remote objects, and the phenomena found in the sky, as well as their behavior, no longer fully responded to Newtonian laws. New theories – relativity and quantum mechanics – were elaborated, the mathematics needed for them becoming much more difficult for the layman, and the whole structure of matter, with the discovery of the atom, its constituent parts, and its particles was gradually uncovered. Things reached a critical moment with Heisenberg's and Hubble's formulation of, respectively, the "uncertainty principle" and of the increasing speed at which galaxies recede from us the further they are – and finally with the conflict between relativity and quantum theories.
Some recent poets (notably in South America) and many painters and musicians in Europe and North America have tried to describe this new cosmos, but the same happened after the first scientific revolution. In short, The Machine of the World recounts an exciting adventure whose protagonists are the likes of Tasso and Milton, Goethe and Wallace Stevens, Canaletto and Friedrich, Verdi and Puccini, Van Gogh and Schoenberg, Joyce and Thomas Mann.


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In 9th grade I met a sculptor who had a studio next door to my grandmother whom I was visiting in Florida. This sculptor carved soapstone. I liked the stone, and the shaping process. The sculptor loaned me some rasps and gave me two small pieces of grey soapstone. I set to applying the rasps to the stone, to changing its shape, to carving a bird. I did the same thing with the second piece of stone. I returned home to Massachusetts with the two birds. I gave one to my best friend. She still has that bird, and I still have the one I kept. They each are very simple in form and line, about three inches tall. I felt pleased with the results, and said I wanted to be a sculptor. I enrolled in a sculpture class at the local Jewish Community Center, and learned to work with brown wax. I formed figures on wire armatures. I carved abstract shapes, usually two in relation to each other, with a space between.
My other great love in high school was geometry, the simple shapes and lines, and the mathematical rules that applied to the angles, and to the relationships between line and volume.
I went to college and studied psychology. I moved to Vermont; I moved to New York City. In Vermont I had learned to knit sweaters on a knitting machine and found that many fashion designers in New York wanted knitters to hand-loom their sweaters. I supported myself in New York City by knitting for several designers. I started to knit my own designs, one-of-a-kind, of asymmetrical bold color blocks. I had a cottage industry of knitters who worked for me, and a sales rep who sold the sweaters around the country. I knit and sewed twelve hours a day. I continued with my pursuit of psychology through psychoanalysis.
And then I took a turn in an entirely different direction: I started working for a lawyer friend, and then as a legal advocate for mentally ill people. I spent three days a week working in a state mental hospital. I applied to law school and attended, at night, while continuing this work. I then was hired as a mitigation consultant on capital cases--I spent hours in prisons, interviewing accused murderers, compiling information to be used after conviction, to argue for mitigation of the punishment, from death to life.
After law school I worked for the legal needs of poor people, particularly, for battered women, and abused children. I argued in court weekly. I constantly spoke with other lawyers. I saw the horrors of how a person can treat a person he loves. The opposing lawyers argued the law for their hate-filled sad clients. I said to myself: I need more beauty, much more beauty in my life; I want to learn about glass, working with glass. I proceeded to take every course I could find about glass: first blowing, then casting and fusing and mosaics. I wanted to thoroughly understand the material. I arrived at kiln fused or cast glass as my focus, the activity I have been doing in my basement for many years. My fused glass is usually 5 or 6 inches square, consisting of overlapping layers of color, and lines; abstract, yet about color and beauty and relationship of forms, and, again, the spaces in between.
After years of glass classes, I went to art school, to learn the fuller picture of art. My major was sculpture. The 3-dimensional work I create is geometric, abstract, formal, quiet, and beautiful. The forms have an interior and and exterior shape, a positive, and a negative space. The spaces between are just as important as the physically occupied space. My work is about the importance of that space between but not as a void, rather as an integral part of the relationship, as an entity in itself. My work is angular yet soft and peaceful. It holds contrasts which combine into a whole.
I've told the lengthy history of where I've come from because my route has included interactions with people not usually encountered, people who are marginalized. Developing a relationship with any person means recognizing the existence of the space between, and the fact that that space is filled, has a meaning of its own.


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We update our blog several times a week, with news and comment on ministry, theology, the Bible, liturgy and issues of the day.
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Lee on the Lectionary: Epiphany 4 / 5th Sunday before Lent (Year C)
Posted by Lee Gatiss, 30 Jan 2019
The set readings for this week focus on the joyful impact of the living God's presence with his people.
The readings for the Fourth Sunday of Epiphany (Year C) or the 5th Sunday before Lent in years when 6th January is a Sunday (as it is in 2019), are Ezekiel 43:27-44:4, 1 Corinthians 13, and Luke 2:22-40.
You can follow along with these video expositions on the Lee on the Lectionary Facebook page. We also tweet the video link every Sunday morning at 6am for those who like a morning exposition of the word to begin the week. Follow us @churchsociety.
Revd Dr Lee Gatiss is the Director of Church Society and a weekly columnist in the Church of England Newspaper.
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Duration: 2 days
The goal of every organization should be to improve its ability to solve problems and the quality of its decisions. Achievement of this goal is its own reward. Imagine how a company's bottom line would improve if decisions improve by as little as 25%.
One out of four costly mistakes – in filling positions, in pricing products, in deal making, in strategy formulation – would be eliminated and replaced by a smart choice that improved effectiveness or made the enterprise more competitive. Employee energy, often wasted by poor decisions, would be directed toward activities that really create value.
Bad decisions & poor solutions by executives can never be eliminated totally because we live in an uncertain world, but replacing some of them with good ones can make a huge difference in the fortunes of a business, its owners and, not least, the decision maker.
Indeed, an investment in problem solving and decision making skills may have a higher return than almost anything else a company can do, and for a simple reason: improved decision making & problem solving generally costs very little but creates enormous value.
Fortunately, better decisions at all levels are possible when companies:
Creative Decision Effective Solution workshop is designed to help the participants achieve all these and more.
After attending this program, you will be able to...
Problem solving & decision-making techniques, processes and tools can be learnt, and must be learnt, to improve decision-making and importantly, the quality of decisions & the effectiveness of solutions. Whether decisions are straightforward or complex, a methodical and systematic approach will lead to greater certainty & success.
This interactive and intensive workshop will equip executives and managers with essential mindset & skill-set to enable them to solve problems and make decisions more systematically & effectively.
Participants will learn the step-by-step process of problem solving & decision making. Each learning step will be fortified and equipped with critical thinking tools, useful techniques and applicable methodologies which participants can use and apply right away in the workplace.
At the end of the program, the participants will gain by being able to…
Generate Alternatives – The Source of Superior Solutions
We use competency based learning models and deploy a myriad of accelerated adult learning methods in our delivery including:
We enable the participants to be totally immersed in the program and learn from the inside-out.
By the end of the intervention, the participants would be willing, able and ready for a change in thinking, feeling and actions.


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Bling King
Gold Women's Studded Classical Pink Dial Watch
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Diameter: 36 mm
Thickness: 9 mm
Band width: 15mm
Weight: 85g
Double push pins buckle
Fully adjustable strap to fit any wrist size.
Elegant and classical design for refined functionality. Gold tone hardware paved with Czech stones that deliver eye-catching details. Pink dial gives it a pop of colour.
Makes a beautiful addition to any outfit.
Specially manufactured to look like real gold and real diamonds costing thousands.


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On July 26, 2013, my colleague, Maureen Hutchinson, and I hosted a twitter travel chat with Backroads Travel.
What a wonderful company with very different vacation options – especially for families.
Did you know that you could bike through Yellowstone, and do some glamping (glamourous camping)? That's the only way that I'd camp – with someone else putting up, and taking down the tent – and someone else cleaning and cooking! (Else, camping is all the work of home, with none of the conveniences!)
But Backroads makes me want to give it a try!
Of course, glamping is not their only mode of travel – they also do premiere and casual inns – and you can vacation through California, Italy, France, etc.
The world is VAST – go explore!
And explore Backroads Travel through this transcript.
And give me a call if you'd like to learn more!
Sheila Gallant-Halloran


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Every year the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count team and volunteers embark on a 3-day mission to canvas 80+ cities and 200 communities to count our homeless neighbors across LA County. The counts are important because the data collected helps direct resources where they are needed most.
You can now register for the Count, which will take place January 22-24:
Tuesday, January 22: San Fernando Valley, Santa Clarita Valley, & San Gabriel Valley
Wednesday, January 23: South Bay/Harbor Cities & East and West Los Angeles County
Thursday, January 24: Antelope Valley, Metro Los Angeles, & South Los Angeles County
To sign up and for more information please visit https://www.theycountwillyou.org/


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Good morning, thank you for stopping by.
We thought we would treat you to another day of inspiration with the introductions from yesterday's Rabbit hole frame and the eye templates, the eye template seem to be very well received thank you.
So today it's the turn of the Rose Edge frame
Like the rabbit hole frame this also co-ordinates well with the previously released Alice collection, but certainly isn't exclusive to that theme, the idea is to paint your picture on the back piece and partly frame it with the next layer. This design has a few more layers, with the roses bringing it up to four layers in places.
here's a close up of the etch lines, I also wanted to point out the roses match the rose layers stamp set, and there are a few extra hearts to adorn your frame.
The Details:
- Rose Edge MDF Layered Frame kit will be available to purchase on Sat 2nd June.
- The kit will retail for £9.99
- There are sixteen pieces in this kit, including two hanging discs and two spacer discs to help make the picture float from the wall when hanging.
- The MDF is 3mm thick, and is approximately 29cm(11 1/2") tall.
Now onto my project
Firstly I painted the blank substrate in a wood effect using a sponge and acrylic paints. I thought my coloured pencil would work well on this but it's turned out very textured, shall we pretend that was my intention?
I did of course use the eye template to help stamp her eyes, fab!
I used my gelli plate to add colour and texture to my roses, and edged them in a little copper wax. The hearts I have heat embossed with some gold, as I did with her crown.
Here's the back of my finished picture, it's certainly possible that I may have practised my wood effect on the back first...(which is why it's finished looking)


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Motor City Creations was created in 2011 and established on February 19, 2012 // our passion drives our business // we love making houses become homes from our elegant candles and mini melts to our new string art collections // we proudly support local businesses in our area, by shopping local we keep the Detroit dream alive! // we donate a portion of our sales to a local non-profit animal rescue group - that aids in vetting / shelter / food / placing in responsible homes.
all of our candles are hand-poured in small batches to keep them fresh // we only use the highest quality of natural soy wax - no toxins go into the air while using our products // we use wood wicks that give off a light "crackle" sound while burning, something that is unique and sets us apart from the rest // all of our candle glasses are reusable and we highly recommend using them for other things when you are done with them.
we love hearing feedback about our products - what you love, what you want to see, so drop us a line!
social media is the future, follow us on instagram @motorcitycreations and use the hashtag #motorcitycreations to show us off! find us on Facebook to keep up with special deals / promotions / giveaways and contests!
as always, thank you for supporting a local Detroit business - times are tough in the city, and I know we will make the greatest comeback!
Jenna and Ted


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The Olympian reports on a recent ruling dismissing Pierce County's countersuit against a public records requestor, the Building Industry Association of Washington.
Note: Allied Law Group represents the requestor so we will not comment.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Pierce County's Attempt to Sue Records Requestor Defeated
Posted by OG-Blog at 11/12/2007 08:37:00 AM


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Corporate Finance Law Jobs
One of many major ironies on the earth is that when a right individual tries
One of many major ironies on the earth is that when a right individual tries his level finest to appropriate the system that has been producing the incorrect outcomes, there are various individuals who attempt to do their stage best to carry down that particular person, in any which method attainable. And something similar has occurred with Roger James Hamilton, the reason is that this man has turned the world of wealth creation the wrong way up. All of the outdated theories aphorisms in addition to the treatises that have until now been written on the subject of wealth creation in addition to wealth management has actually been put to sword, and all as a result of this man has created a principle that has proved the present ones not only improper, but misplaced.
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Within the final decade, there have been many modifications going on in the world of waste removal. Many cities now supply curbside service and are requiring people to recycle. The majority of recycling packages include paper and cardboard, several types of plastics, all glass and steel in addition to particular packages for things equivalent to paint, batteries and television screens. Other items that are not recyclable get picked up altogether and are additional sorted on the disposal middle.
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20 year old Life Scientist Jaimes from Gravenhurst, likes vehicles, . and rock music. Discovered some lovely spots after working 5 weeks at Abbey Church of Saint-Savin sur Gartempe.


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True, but measurements will usually show if and how the amp was "voiced." You just need to trust the source of said measurements. Most of the big magazines have the means to take credible measurements. I never take the manufacturer's word for it.Hope that helps.
I have no clue about "voicing" an amplifier. It is NOT a musical instrument. It is not supposed to "sound good".The best it can do is to not screw up the information presented at its inputs and drive whatever load is connected to it without interacting with or being modified by the load.The more causes of non-linearities we can identify and fix (without the fix making something else worse ) the more people seem to appreciate the performance of our amplifiers in their audio systems.We will leave "voicing" to trumpets and tubas and such, and keep doing basic evaluation of circuit electronics.For example, did you know that a capacitor as a power supply feed likely will have an impedance as high as several hundred ohms as some frequencies, and the circuit formed by the inductance of the leads and feeds to the active devices and the capacitor will have many underdamped resonances that can be mathematically modeled? That means at some frequencies, you run out of power supply, and you also generate an error signal across that impedance.A shunt zener regulated supply will take that impedance down to about ten ohms, an active ultra wide band analog regulator will take it down to under one ohm.Or, the error signal you can generate across a passive supply, even a battery, can be hundreds of times as big as with a carefully designed active analog regulator. Can you hear the difference?Well, can anyone hear the difference between our Transcendence hybrid preamps of ten years ago and a new Ultra?We did not spend any time "voicing", only refining our engineering knowledge and the application of that.
Frank Van Alstine doesn't publish quite a few measurements such as damping factor, etc; only the -3db points and THD as a general rule. He doesn't "voice" his amps either. See this statement from him in his own forum.
I never said that he did voice his amps. If anything, from my statements you could say that I am under the impression that he doesn't voice them. Henry (oneinthepipe) and I were talking about manufacturers that DO voice their amps.
Sorry Nuance, I wasn't trying to pick on you in particular, just clarify AVA's policies. I probably shouldn't have quoted you in my post.
Pray tell how does one "voice" an amplifier? Does this mean playing with the frequency response or tonality to get something slightly different that absolutely linear and distortion-free response? Who does one voice the equipment for? If it is voiced for one set of conditions, does that mean it will be all wrong for other conditions?Our observation is that anything one does to change the output from the input has a name - - - distortion. How much distortion do you want and what flavor?The electronics designer can do no better than to not screw up the source material. Anything else is just adding distortion in some form or other. Maybe with fast acting artificial intelligence sometime in the future, the system will be able to understand the intent of the composer, musicians, conductor, and recording engineer and make it all come out perfect, but not yet.We cannot design perfect equipment yet, but our goal is to make equipment that screws up the source material as little as possible and hope the end user will combine it with other equipment done with the same design goal.Two wrongs don't make a right, even with the Tower of Piza, they just make two wrongs combined.Best regards,Frank Van Alstine
I have the SongTower Rts. I have an Outlaw 770. It runs my rears as I picked up an AVA Ultra 550 about 2 months ago (have a 240/3 from AVA still in the box waiting on the move discussed below). I have had the Wyred4Sound amps in my apartment to listen as well. Is there a huge difference in sound on the amps? No. Like most things in this price range, it is around the edges. The sound, to me, was clearer and more detailed from the 550. Is it night and day? No. Is it discernible? To me, yes. I think I noticed it most in the the subtle sounds you hear when a person modulates their voice, or a brush rolls off a symbol/snare drum. It sounded more detailed and clean to me. Now was the W4s bad? Not at all. It just wasn't quite as good. Of course, that comes with a trade off. The W4S runs completely cool. You cannot cook an egg on the 550, but I could warm bread. The W4S amps are smaller, and you could by a 5 or 7 channel amp housed in one box. Is that worth it? To some, sure. To me? No. I am sticking with my hybrid tube for now. Now to throw everyone for a loop. I got an Ultimate 70 that (it's waiting to go into an office/room when I move to Brooklyn) which I hooked up to the home theater to test after I had made the wiring upgrade. Well, I turned it on and played some music. My wife noticed it was different to a degree I have never seen before. She said, "Wow, everything is more separate than the other amp." Yes, she was finally hearing what I had told her to listen for all this time. Well, now I have to find a really good set of bookshelf speakers for the office we will share as either it is going to be a home office with a 550 or an Ultimate 70. Ah, choices...
Pray tell how does one "voice" an amplifier? Best regards,Frank Van Alstine
I loved your reply. Great stuff! That is exactly what I was looking for. The heat comparison was something I hadn't even thought of. And your wife's comment about the Ultimate 70 really separating everything better makes me wonder maybe it really is the ultimate even over the 550.
Just for the record, The Ultimate will be a better heater the the Ultra.
Speaking of heat, etc, y'all think I could stack the T8 Pre on top of the Vision DAC?
And your wife's comment about the Ultimate 70 really separating everything better makes me wonder maybe it really is the ultimate even over the 550.
If using the term "voice" were not inaccurate, I would also say that speaker designers voice their speakers. They use specific electronic components to determine the characteristics of the sound that will reproduced by the speakers.
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#comics #videogames
by Carolynn Calabrese and Rachel Weiss
May 3, 2018 at 9:00 am
< Previous – Archive – Next >
anderson, donnel, Dr. Chakwas, mass effect, Mass Effect 2, omega 4 replay, reapers, space dad, space mom, wine mom
If you prick your finger and write "Cat Fancy" on your mirror during a harvest moon, CC will appear behind you and make you put human clothes on your pets.
CC is Head Crone in Charge at POMEgranate Magazine, as well as the co-host of Moon Podcast Power MAKE UP!!
Rachel is a designer and artist from Texas. She is pro-feminism, pro-crones, and pro-dogs. She's also Boss Crone at POMEgranate Magazine, and one day hopes to be able to drink her tea without so much milk and sugar.


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BRIC NS aims to engage, mobilize, educate and guide health professionals, researchers, policymakers, students and citizens across Nova Scotia and facilitate collaborative efforts to:
- identify primary and integrated health care priorities that can be addressed through research
- form research teams
- connect and form collaborations with like-minded research teams in other provinces
- develop successful research proposals
- secure matching funds
- conduct research and disseminate results
- work with policymakers and system administrators as they put the research findings into action
BRIC NS has identified a number of research priorities (updated in 2019). These will help to guide the network's mobilization and facilitation efforts.
1. Integration of care for those with or at risk of developing complex health and/or social needs
This includes projects in the areas of:
- Health services
- Social services
- Programs
2. Innovations in primary and integrated service delivery (with a focus on multi-complexity)
Research projects within this area could find better ways to:
- Optimize community primary healthcare and integrated care to better meet the needs of those with multi-complexity
- Use decisions aids, tools and technology
3. Bringing evidence forward for the improvement of effective, efficient and timely care
Examples include:
- Implementation and quality improvement studies
- Investigating what models work, where, and why
- Evaluation
- Knowledge translation
4. Enabling the primary health care workforce to meet the needs of patients with multi-complexity and future demands for a range of services
For example:
- Supports to enable efficient, effective team functioning
- Enhancing provide skills and competency
- Attention to cultural appropriateness and person-centred care
- Family practice readiness to better match community needs


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Fulfilling a lifelong dream
Sarah Rogers, Features Editor
April 16, 2019
Angela Ackerman stood alone on the Mallette Studio Theatre stage and aimed an AR15. A single heartbeat thumped through the audience for several seconds followed by a sharp burst of gunfire shattering the tension. The master of liberal studies student lowered the weapon and clutched her heaving chest...


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Written by: Dave Cantrell
His name's Ben Harrison and he's an event curator at Pittsburgh's Andy Warhol Museum. Listening to Floored, his band Stutter Steps' newest offering past their fine – and rather deliriously-received – self-titled debut from 2015, that background fact makes a perfectly imperfect sense well beyond the Steel City connection.
While his mystique, especially since his death, has evolved into that of a legendary iconoclastic aesthete, the unalterable truth about Andy Warhol is that beneath that über-cool fringe and charismatically impenetrable persona beat the heart of a tastemaker obsessively addicted to pop, so much so one got the feeling that he'd bleed for it. From the sound coursing through my headphones I'd guess that Harrison can relate.
Released back in June on Blue Arrow, Floored finds the guy, as ever, deeply fluent in the language of jangle and melody, with, as one might expect, a highly developed level of wit and melancholic inflection. Kicking off with a title track that not only establishes this lot's late-period power-pop credentials but as well contains 2017's winner of 'couplet of the year' ("Do you still hear Julee Cruise songs through the wall? / and see her singing to you each time you fall?"), the EP moves through the subdued churn of "Dim" where we hear the Luna influence that's soaked in from Harrison's collabs with Dean Wareham even as the vocal's more like a midwest version of Evan Dando, through "Submarine"'s mellow melodicism that sits adjacent to the Feelies' most recent work and into "Identical Eyes," a slowcore-ish gem that triangulates that fertile territory between Spain and, yes, Galaxie 500. Add to those the sprightly bass-punctuated chime and pulse of "Weak Restraint" and "Encino"'s gloriously somber, amber-hued recalcitrance with its notable (but wholly unironic) mention of Pet Sounds and Loaded, and you've got 22+ minutes of un-escapist throwback bliss.
Burnished in an emotional timbre akin, perhaps, to reliving in vivid detail a sunny summer's day on an overcast, late autumn afternoon, Floored also, because of its author's immersive day job, left me idly wondering whether Warhol might have secretly wished his Factory's house band had sounded just a bit more pop. Something like, I dunno, Stutter Steps maybe.[Floored available here]


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We want to hear from you!
29 November 2018
How can libraries improve the ways they work with young people?
The Association of Senior Children's and Education Librarians (ASCEL) wants to hear from you! ASCEL is working to improve the ways in which library staff work with young people and they would like to hear your views on public library services.
Follow the link below to share your thoughts:
Click here to take the survey


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BY Dr. ROGER STRASSER
Born out of a widespread community movement to build a sustained network of physicians and health-care professionals in northern communities, the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) was established in 2005 as the medical school in the North for the North.
NOSM was founded with an explicit social accountability mandate − meaning that the school's education, research and service activities are directed toward addressing the priority health concerns of the peoples and communities of Northern Ontario. To achieve this, we designed a new model of medical education, grounded in the North.
Even though NOSM's history is relatively short, our unique distributed, community-engaged learning model has grown into something extraordinary. Through interdependent partnerships that we have developed across the whole of Northern Ontario, communities are engaged actively in educating medical students and shaping the future of health care in their region. We work with them to understand what they are expecting of their physicians, and they help us identify what is reasonable and achievable through our curriculum.
This unique learning model is one of the reasons NOSM has become an international leader in rural and socially accountable medical education.
We view the entire geography of Northern Ontario as our campus. NOSM involves more than 90 communities, where our students, residents and other learners complete part of their clinical learning.
Students in our MD program spend four weeks in an Indigenous community in their first year, and another two four-week integrated community experiences in small Northern Ontario communities in second year. The comprehensive community clerkship sees our MD students living and learning in one of 15 small communities, excluding Thunder Bay and Sudbury, across the region for the entirety of their third year, allowing for more robust continuity exposure to the clinical demands as well as the professional and personal rewards of generalist practice in rural and remote settings.
And it's not just about the doctors. NOSM participates in the education of a range of other members of the health workforce, including registered dietitians, medical physicists, physician assistants, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech language pathologists and audiologists. Learning in the community is about learning in context, and learners in all our programs have the opportunity to complete clinical placements in communities across the North.
For this to be practical, we rely heavily on electronic communications. Our digital Health Sciences Library is an essential piece of the puzzle, and with internet access, learners have access to educational resources and information equal to those available in an urban teaching hospital.
The distributed community-engaged learning model works in producing high-quality physicians and other health workforce, and contributes to improving access to care and the health of Northern Ontarians. In fact, 92 percent of NOSM medical students grew up in Northern Ontario, while eight percent come from other remote and rural parts of Canada; 62 percent of graduates choose predominantly rural family practice training, and of those graduates from the MD program who also completed their residency in Northern Ontario, 94 percent choose to practise in the North, including about one third in rural and remote communities.
Because so many of graduates are completing their residency and practising in Northern Ontario, our model is helping build professional networks in the North. Many graduates are now faculty members and an increasing number have taken on academic leadership roles at NOSM.
We are also in the last stages of approval to start a masters of medical studies, a distributed community-engaged learning opportunity for physician faculty. This program will allow physicians to undertake academic training without moving to a larger centre. They can pursue academic career progression by doing research in their own community and clinical setting.
When NOSM was founded, we didn't take an off-the-shelf model and try to transpose it. We started with the Northern Ontario context and developed our own model of medical education for Northern Ontario, and it's working, thanks to the hundreds of health professionals who serve as clinical faculty members for students, and the people of Northern Ontario, who have welcomed our learners into their communities and into their homes. n
Dr. Roger Strasser is the founding dean of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine.


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Robot Jellyfish Created to Patrol the Waters
Getting robots to patrol other planets and the deep blue ocean have been effective alternatives in helping scientists learn more about the world. Researchers from Virginia Tech College of Engineering announced that they have created a robot jellyfish named Cyro, who can patrol the waters and help scientists learn more about the environment under the sea. The research team had previously created a robotic jellyfish that was the size of a human head in their attempt to find something that can monitor the events under water. After long hours of work, the team has modified the jellyfish and created a functional robot.
Cyro was designed after the jellyfish, Cyanea capillata and stands at five feet and seven inches tall, weighing 170 pounds. Like real jellyfish, Cyro has eight functional legs, but these legs buzz from the mechanical composition that the researchers made from a strong metal framework. Cyro is completely covered in silicone and swims like a normal jellyfish. Unlike the jellyfish, however, Cyro can gather, store, analyze, and transmit information.
The research team chose to mimic the jellyfish model because the researchers know that the sea creatures' movements take up very little energy. The researchers believed that by copying the jellyfish's movements, the robots they create would ideally also take up less energy than robots modeled after other sea creatures. The research team hopes that Cyro will be the first functioning robot that can effectively collect information on the environment under the sea that is difficult to evaluate by humans alone. The autonomous robot will ideally travel and live in the oceans and provide surveillance of the ocean and how it functions. However, more work needs to be put into the robot to perfect it before it can be used effectively.
The U.S. Naval Undersea Warfare Center and the office of Naval research funded Cyro and the robotic jellyfish before it. The project costs $5 million.
See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare


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"We'll rebuild this cathedral all together," French President Emmanuel Macron pledges to rebuild Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris razed by fire on Monday.
France's richest man has pledged €200m (£170m) towards the restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, doubling the donation of Salma Hayek's husband.
Multi-billionaire Bernard Arnault, head of the LVMH luxury goods group, instantly became the biggest benefactor of an appeal launched by President Emmanuel Macron.
On Monday – the day of the blaze – French tycoon Francois-Henri Pinault, who is married to Hollywood actress Salma Hayek, pledged 100 million euros (£86.2 million) towards the rebuilding of the Cathedral.
But, in a statement, the LVMH group said their donation would be double that.
Deputy Interior Minister Laurent Nunez, also present at the scene on Monday evening, said that for the first time 'the fire had decreased in intensity' while still urging 'extreme caution'.
The Vatican on Monday expressed its 'incredulity' and 'sadness', expressing 'our closeness with French Catholics and with the Parisian population.'
The cause of the blaze was not immediately confirmed. The cathedral had been undergoing intense restoration work which the fire service said could be linked to the blaze.
French prosecutors said it was being treated as an 'involuntary' fire, indicating that foul play was ruled out for now.
Notre Dame is a symbol of human accomplishment, and more than that, of social accomplishment. It's not the work of any one person, but of generations upon generations of labour.
Work began on Notre Dame in 1180. It took 200 years to finish. And in the time since the cathedral was largely completed in 1260, it has survived war and weather and changing fashions.
It survived the loss of its spire once before, in 1786, after the spire's supporting structure was so weakened by centuries of weathering that restorers removed it and replaced it. It survived riots from the Huguenots. It survived the French Revolution. It survived Napoleon. It survived World War II.
And so if Notre Dame is irrevocably damaged, it might be a good time to turn to one of the greatest celebrations of what the cathedral represents, which appears in Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This description appears at the opening of Book Three of the novel, just after we meet Quasimodo the hunchback and Esmeralda the dancing girl, and it's an evocation of what makes Notre Dame great:
Great edifices, like great mountains, are the work of centuries. Art often undergoes a transformation while they are pending, pendent opera interrupta; they proceed quietly in accordance with the transformed art. The new art takes the monument where it finds it, incrusts itself there, assimilates it to itself, develops it according to its fancy, and finishes it if it can. The thing is accomplished without trouble, without effort, without reaction,— following a natural and tranquil law. It is a graft which shoots up, a sap which circulates, a vegetation which starts forth anew. Certainly there is matter here for many large volumes, and often the universal history of humanity in the successive engrafting of many arts at many levels, upon the same monument. The man, the artist, the individual, is effaced in these great masses, which lack the name of their author; human intelligence is there summed up and totalized. Time is the architect, the nation is the builder. […]


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2010 Undergraduate Ethics Symposium – DePauw University
April 8-10, 2010
DePauw University invites you to take part in the Undergraduate Ethics Symposium at the Prindle Institute for Ethics, a center for interdisciplinary reflection on ethical issues. This symposium is an opportunity to engage in dialogue with leading scholars and artists about today's ethical concerns.
Although students may write about any ethical issue, this year we especially encourage submissions focusing on Self-Interest, Altruism and Morality: Evolutionary, Religious and Philosophical Perspectives. Students may write an argumentative essay or an analysis focused on an ethical question or subject; or they may wish to explore ethical themes that are addressed in plays, poetry, film, or fiction. In addition, students may wish to explore these themes through fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry or dramatic writings. The Institute welcomes works centered on ethics from all disciplines, including the humanities and social sciences, but also the natural sciences and arts.
- Students' travel (up to $400), lodging, and meals will be covered by the Institute
- Deadline extended to February 12, 2010
- Submit to Linda Clute at firstname.lastname@example.com
- Place name and collegiate affiliation on separate page
- Guidelines:
▪ Essays and fiction pieces should be submitted in Chicago style (3,500 word limit)
▪ Poets should submit 5-10 poems, not more than 10 pages total.
▪ Playwrights should submit a 10-minute play
▪ Film makers should submit a 10-minute film
▪ Screenwriters should submit a 10-page screenplay
- Notification: March 1, 2010
David Sloan Wilson, Professor of Biological Sciences and Anthropology, Binghamton University
Claudia Mills, Professor of Philosophy, University of Colorado
Ronald Sundstrom, Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of African American Studies, University of San Francisco
More info: http://prindleinstitute.depauw.edu/programs/ethics_symposium10.asp


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Crafting lore is needed to upgrade blueprints. You get crafting lore by resetting the progress of your workshop (in addition to other rewards) based on your current Lore Per Point (LPP) in the Dynasty tab and your current fame. Your LPP can be raised through reincarnation.
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