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Press Release
Don't miss the latest news of the Singapore Grand Prix.
Tung and Gene win, Singapore drivers shine
20 September 2015, Singapore - Teenage exuberance and a touch of experience were the keys as Ho-Pin Tung and Jordi Gene won Sunday's support races at the 2015 FORMULA 1 SINGAPORE AIRLINES SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX.
Tung, a former Formula One™ hopeful now showing his class in the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia, took victory in the second race for Budweiser Team Absolute Racing after teenaged pole-sitter Nico Menzel locked his brakes in the PICC Team StarChase car and was left playing catch-up for the rest of the 12-lap race.
While Tung cruised to a comfortable win by 2.842 seconds it was the all-New Zealand battle behind him that caught the eye.
The two men leading the overall standings, Craig Baird and compatriot Chris van der Drift, were at it hammer and tongs in the early stages until Baird eased away to add second place to his Saturday race win for the Singapore-based Clearwater Racing team.
The result gave Baird a weekend total of 48 points for an overall tally of 203 and put him back in the series lead from Van der Drift, driving for Kamlung Racing, on 200.
In Class B Singapore's Yuey Tan rescued his own weekend after Saturday's retirement with a controlled drive to third place in class and ninth overall. 'That was a good result,' said a delighted Tan, 'because I wasn't sure everything would be right with the car after Saturday's problem.'
Team Jebsen's Tan is on course to become Singapore's first champion in the category and his sensible approach mirrored his season so far. 'The plan is not to do anything stupid,' he grinned, 'because no-one likes a would-be hero! I'm trying to stay calm and collected, although I did push a little bit harder at the beginning until I realised I could afford to back off.'
Chong's closest class rival Wayne Shen was only sixth in class, while Singapore-based Egidio Perfetti in the Spark Motorsports Porsche took the class victory for the second day running ahead of OpenRoad's Francis Tjia.
Local favourite Ringo Chong also had a better Sunday, finishing 10th overall and fourth in class in his Team Kangshun car.
Earlier in the day the highly entertaining TCR International Series laid on another crackerjack 10-lap race with Spain's Jordi Gene Team Craft Bamboo-LUKOIL making a superb start and streaking away to a third win of the new class's inaugural season.
"Everything went very well today and I am very happy to still be in the fight for the championship,' said the 45-year-old Spaniard. 'Actually, the car had been excellent throughout the weekend, I only had an unlucky qualifying that put me in a difficult position for Race 1, but my pace was very good yesterday too. Today was a different story and I only needed to stay focused to avoid trouble and mistakes.
The top three runners in the series overall were the top three finishers, making it an all-SEAT Leon podium. Stefano Comini of Switzerland, who was second for front-runners Target Competition in Saturday's opening race, and Pepe Oriola, Gene's compatriot and team-mate, fought a race-long battle before coming home second and third.
The reversed top 10 starting positions in race two made for exciting racing through the field as Comini and Oriola dispensed with Lorenzo Veglia's SEAT and the two LiquiMoly Team Engstler VW Golfs of Tomas Engstrom and Mikhail Grachev.
Italian veteran Gianni Morbidelli shook off the effects of heatstroke from Saturday's race to bring his West Coast Racing Honda Civic home in fourth place ahead of his team-mate and first Singapore race winner Kevin Gleason of the USA.


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Functionality Added or Changed
Bugs Fixed
Functionality Added or Changed
Incompatible Change; Plugin API: MySQL 5.1 adds support for a very flexible plugin API that enables loading and unloading of various components at runtime, without restarting the server. Although the work on this is not finished yet, plugin full-text parsers are a first step in this direction. This enables users to implement their own input filter on the indexed text, enabling full-text search capability on arbitrary data such as PDF files or other document formats. A pre-parser full-text plugin performs the actual parsing and extraction of the text and hands it over to the built-in MySQL full-text search. (Author: Sergey Vojtovich)
The plugin API requires the
mysql.plugin table. When upgrading from an older version of MySQL, you should run the mysql_fix_privilege_tables command to create this table. See mysql_fix_privilege_tables — Upgrade MySQL System Tables.
Plugins are installed in the directory named by the
plugin_dir system variable. This variable also controls the location from which the server loads user-defined functions (UDFs), which is a change from earlier versions of MySQL. That is, all UDF library files now must be installed in the plugin directory. When upgrading from an older version of MySQL, you must migrate your UDF files to the plugin directory.
Incompatible Change: Renamed the
table_cache system variable to
table_open_cache. Any scripts that refer to
table_cache should be updated to use the new name.
MySQL Cluster:
VARCHAR columns used in MySQL Cluster tables are now variable-sized; that is, they now only allocate as much space as required to store the data. Previously, a
VARCHAR( column allocated n+2 bytes (aligned to 4 bytes), regardless of whether the actual inserted value required that much space. (In other words, a
VARCHAR column always required the same, fixed, amount of storage as a
CHAR column of the same size.)
Partitioning: MySQL Server now supports user-defined table partitioning, which enables distributing portions of individual tables across a file system, according to rules which can be set when the table is created. In effect, different portions of a table are stored as separate tables in different locations, but from the user point of view, the partitioned table is still a single table. See Partitioning, for further information on this functionality. (Author: Mikael Ronström)
RAND() no longer permits nonconstant initializers. (Previously, the effect of nonconstant initializers is undefined.) (Bug #6172)
Added the
SHOW AUTHORS statement.
The Instance Manager (IM) now has some additional functionality:
SHOW provides a listing of all log files used by the instance. (Author: Petr Chardin)
instance_name LOG FILES
SHOW retrieves a part of the specified log file. (Author: Petr Chardin)
instance_name LOG {ERROR | SLOW | GENERAL}
SET sets an option to the specified value and writes it to the config file See mysqlmanager — The MySQL Instance Manager, for more details on these new commands. (Author: Petr Chardin)
ALTER TABLE: Operations that change only table metadata and not table data do not require a temporary table to be used, which improves performance. For example, renaming a column changes only the
.frm file and no longer uses a temporary table.
SET sets an option to the specified value and writes it to the config file See mysqlmanager — The MySQL Instance Manager, for more details on these new commands. (Author: Petr Chardin)
The performance of boolean full-text searches (using the "+" Operator) has been improved. See Full-Text Search Functions, for more details about full-text searching. (Author: Sergey Vojtovich)
Added the
SHOW FUNCTION CODE and
SHOW PROCEDURE CODE statements (available only for servers that have been built with debugging support). See SHOW PROCEDURE CODE Syntax.
SHOW retrieves a part of the specified log file. (Author: Petr Chardin)
instance_name LOG {ERROR | SLOW | GENERAL}
Added the
table_definition_cache system variable. If you use a large number of tables, you can create a large table definition cache to speed up opening of tables. The table definition cache takes less space and does not use file descriptors, unlike the normal table cache.
SHOW provides a listing of all log files used by the instance. (Author: Petr Chardin)
instance_name LOG FILES
Bugs Fixed
RESET MASTER failed to delete log files on Windows. One consequence of this change is that server opens the general query and slow log files in shared mode, so now they can be renamed while the server has them open (something not true in previous versions). (Bug #13377)
Set functions could not be aggregated in outer subqueries. (Bug #12762)

subset: commoncrawl


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New bar helps to deliver Rotherham's future and its pastPublished Tuesday, 22nd November 2016
Rotherham's historic sorting office is being brought back to life as one of Rotherham's finest eateries and wine establishments - with a special nod to its heritage.
The 1915 Bar & Bistro - formerly Yates Wine Lodge - is set to open on Domine Lane in December and is already getting a reputation as a special place to visit – before it has even opened its doors or completed its refurbishment.
The bar's new owner is Mark McGrail, a successful local businessman who owns SME Environmental Services. The name 1915 is a nod to Rotherham's General Post Office which occupied the site and the building next door at that time.
Mark says that if he hadn't bought the building, another company had plans to demolish it. He is now in the process of restoring the building to its former glory and also hopes to buy other historical properties in the borough. However, it is not all about preservation – Mark believes Rotherham is on the cusp of something great. The new bar looks out on Forge Island where a new leisure hub is being planned. Rotherham Council is currently in talks to purchase the site with several investors already showing an interest in development opportunities, with demolition of the former Tesco building expected to take place in December.
Rotherham Council has been keen to support Mark's plans, with the council's Cabinet Member for Jobs and the Local Economy Cllr Denise Lelliott believing people like Mark are central to the future of the town.
She said: "Mark has a clear plan for 1915 which is mirrored by the Council's vision for the town centre. Rotherham has the opportunities – beautiful landmarks, historical buildings, green spaces, and a fantastic canal and river running through the town. We need to encompass and make the most of these assets. We're delighted that Mark recognises this potential and we are honoured to be given the chance to support him with his new bar and we are looking forward to working with him on future projects."
Born in Rotherham, and leaving school at 13, Mark's first job was helping to dismantle the old Sheffield infirmary. Now having built up a successful environmental recovery and reclamation business he says he wants to give something back to Rotherham with his dream to restore buildings which have a focal point to Rotherham's great past.
The original post office was designed by architect Walter Pott and opened in March 1907. Besides arrangements for sorting letters and telegrams, there was the chief clerk's office, rooms for the storage of messengers' bicycles, postmaster's and telegraph instrument rooms and telegraph linesmen's rooms. An impressive building, the external includes stone carving crests and the coat of arms of George VI, Walker, Fitzwilliam and Effingham.
The new 1915 bar was once an extension to the main Post Office. Mark is passionate about the building and its refurbishment, even down to exposing the English stitch bricks to restore the wall to its natural state. Skylights, which house half of the building and were previously covered in sticky black plastic, have been meticulously removed to reveal a light and airy space inside. The original stained glass windows which adorn the internal walls and eaves have also been uncovered and lovingly restored.
The new bar and bistro will feature an indoor mezzanine. Whilst there will be a bistro-style menu featuring chunky burgers and a selection of steaks, an outdoor kitchen will enable street food to be cooked on the forecourt. The bar will also offer a selection of draft and bottled beers and lagers, wines and cocktails and will feature a gin-bar and real-ale bar.
1915 will have its official launch at the beginning of December when 200 guests will be invited to celebrate 40 years of Rotherham Rise - Rotherham Women's Refuge - as well as celebrate the work of The Old Market Gallery which sits across the road from the bar. Guests will be given the opportunity to learn more about the history of the building. Following a Facebook invite, over 600 people have already said they would like to attend.
The popularity of the venue even before it has opened, and the mixed launch, can be attributed to Mark, who is passionate about Rotherham and is determined to be inclusive in the rejuvenation of the town centre.
He said: "Rotherham was once such a powerful town, but it's forgotten where it's from. Speak to people who live outside of Rotherham and they appreciate the history of the place, the buildings and its landmark. This building is central to a lot of what went on at the time it was built. It is critical that it is saved and used for decades to come.
"At the end of the day, I'm a businessman and I wouldn't be investing if I didn't believe it could make money. And Rotherham has a lot of potential with the future development of Forge Island and the Council's plans to rejuvenate Rotherham."
Mark wants to be a key part of those plans, and part of that means offering opportunities to young people in the borough. As such, he is renovating the underground rooms of the old offices – on average, the basement is 24 feet below street level, which required a large amount of building work when it was originally built, and none less so today.
Four rooms, each fronted by glass, with access via an underground corridor to the front of the building, will be offered to young entrepreneurs aged 18-24 years old as retail incubation space.
Rotherham Council's Strategic Director for Regeneration and Environmental Services Damien Wilson said: "Mark first approached our RiDO team when he was looking for an opportunity to invest and we are pleased we've been able to give him the practical support he wanted. A lot is happening in Rotherham – it is a unique town with much to offer and we are confident that businesses who choose to invest here will succeed and flourish in the coming years."
In addition to supporting 1915, Rotherham Council recently approved plans for a restaurant on Ship Hill, and for a restaurant and bar in the former Santandar bank on College Street.
Other ventures taking place nearby include the new Amber Lounge - a cocktail, champagne and craft beer lounge on Moorgate Street - whilst refurbishment work is currently taking place on the former Corn Law Rhymer to become Stone and Taps at the top of High Street. The Crofts, the vacant former Cross Keys pub, has also recently sold at auction.
Go to the 1915 Bar & Bistro Facebook page


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Marion Cotillard in Dior. She looked unbelievable and I love the sheer grid skirt.
Diane Kruger wore an unbelievable purple Prada dress. I'm obsessed with the combination of dress/hair and makeup. And the hot pink clutch is great.
Scarlett Johansson wore a gold Dolce & Gabanna and it looked great on her. This is the best I've seen her look in a really long time!
Carey Mulligan wore Prada (it felt like everyone was in Prada). LOVE that it's fun, short and sparkly!
Solange Knowles wore a yellow Rachel Roy. I love the colour and her hair is amazing!
Camilla Belle in Ralph Lauren. This is such an old Hollywood glamour look.
Rooney Mara in black lace Givenchy. I'm not a fan of hers but I LOVE this dress.
Kristen Stewart in a short colourful Balenciaga dress. I love the colours and that it's such a young, playful dress but I'm not sure this was the most appropriate venue for it...
Christina Ricci in Thakoon. I love the dress but obviously hate how hard she's posing. Still the beauty of the dress wins out here.
Rihanna wore a black Tom Ford crocodile print dress and looked amazing. This dress fit her like a glove and the cool pattern was so cool.
Ginnifer Goodwin wore an orange Monique Lhuillier and it looked great on her. Not the most innovative gown but there's something to be said for looking fresh and classy.
Anna Wintour and her daughter Bee Shaffer. Anna wore a white and gold Prada dress while Bee wore a blue printed Erdem.
Tom and Gisele are so unbelievably gorgeous! Gisele wore a black Givenchy dress. I really don't like her hair but that dress fits her perfectly.
Rosario Dawson in a black leather Calvin Klein dress.
Emma Stone in a red Lanvin dress. It's borderline too cutesy for me but the fact that it's so fun and it's short saved it for me.
Ashley Greene looked like a goddess in white Donna Karan. I'm not usually a fan of hers but this dress looks beautiful on her.
Chanel Iman and Tom Ford (he is so cool).
Nina Dobrev looked stunning in a backless black and gold Donna Karan. I LOVE her on the Vampire Diaries but have never been a fan of her style. This dress seems to be the exception.
Jessica Alba in a gold Michael Kors looking every inch the goddess.
January Jones looked stunning in a yellow Versace dress and turquoise necklace.
Dakota Fanning wore a very prom-like Louis Vuitton dress. I like that it's age appropriate but wish it wasn't such a boring colour.
Debra Messing wore a glittery gunmetal KaufmanFranco dress that is very Studio 54...
Jessica Biel wore a pretty fabulous Prada dress (with the exception of the unfinished hem) however her crazy fringe that starts at the back of her head completely threw me off. I also really hate the satin shoes.
MK wore a black satin The Row dress. I'm such a fan of the Olsen twins but I wish MK would wear something a little more unexpected. It feels like this is what she wears to every event and to be honest the shock factor has worn off.
Lana Del Rey wore a glittery gown and cape by Altuzarra. I like that it's whimsical and fun.
Chloe Sevigny wore a fun retro Miu Miu. It's not my favourite for an event like this but for another party it would have been great.
Amy Adams wore a flowing white Giambattista Valli dress. She looks stunning but I don't feel like this dress is particularly memorable.
Kate Bosworth wore a Prada fringe mini. I love the colour but it doesn't really stand out for me.
Cate Blanchett wore a black Alexander McQueen dress that was a real let down. She looks fine but it's definitely NOT what you expect from Kate or an Alexander McQueen frock.
Linda Evangelista wore a black Prada dress. The look is pretty boring but I had to post about her especially since she must have come straight from court to the Met (she settled with ex-beau and Salma Hayek's husband Francois-Henri Pinault just hours earlier).
Rosie Huntington Whiteley wore a black and brown striped Burberry dress. The dress fits her really well but I'm not loving the stripes...
Heidi Klum wore a gray Escada lace dress. It looks nice but again - boring.
Brooklyn Decker wore a Tory Burch dress that was probably designed for a 60 year old... Not flattering!
Emily Blunt wore a pink Calvin Klein. It looks great on her body but it is definitely underwhelming.
Liv Tyler wore a black Givenchy. Rooney Mara definitely got the better black Givenchy dress. Combined with the hair the entire look is just forgettable.
Eva Mendes wore an orange Prada dress. I actually really like the detailing on the top but find the peplum very unflattering.
Leighton Meester wore a gold Marchesa. It feels very Days Of Our Lives.
Kristen Bell wore an orange Tommy Hilfiger dress. For any other event I'd love this dress on her but it was too boring for The Met.
Dianna Agron wore an emerald green Caroline Herrera dress. The colour is stunning but the dress seems to over power her. If Eva Mendes would have worn this it would have been amazing.
Renee Zellweger wore a black backless Emilio Pucci dress. I like that she isn't wearing Carolina Herrera but it's the standard Renee look.
Amy Poehler wore a black peplum Fotini dress. I really don't like everything going on here but it's nor horrendous.
Ivanka Trump is so stunning! Her hair and makeup are AMAZING. I don't know what possessed her to wear this blue velvet bondage dress though...
Karolina Kurkova wore a gold sequin Rachel Zoe dress with matching turban. This is so out-of-control. I think the dress looks amazing on her but the high neck, long sleeves and crazy turban are WAY TOO MUCH.
SJP in Valentina drapes from my grandmother's house...
Elizabeth Banks wore a bizaare Mary Katrantzou dress that looks like she's still in character as Effie in Hunger Games.
Claire Danes wore a white J. Mendel dress. I don't know if it's just the makeup or the combination of the dress and makeup but she looks rough.
Gwyneth Paltrow wore a silver Prada dress. I really don't like anything about this. The length, side boob or ruffle back are all too much.
Cameron Diaz wore a gold Stella McCartney that is unbelievably unflattering. And I'm hating on her hair too...
Coco Rocha wore vintage Givenchy that once belonged to Elizabeth Taylor and the result just feels comical. The bright yellow, pink hair and satin pink shoes are too much.
Jaime King wore a red TopShop and all I can say is you can definitely tell it's TopShop. The material of this dress looks SO CHEAP!
Amber Heard wore a Zac Posen dress in really horrible colour.
Paula Patton wore a lilac Vera Wang that is every inch the bridesmaid dress. I really hate this dress!
Lea Michele wore a navy sequin Diane von Furstenberg dress that feels really old-school. It feels like she always tries SO hard but never gets it right.
Hilary Swank was BORING in red Michael Kors. What was the point of this?
Leslie Mann wore a pale pink Nina Ricci with an asymmetrical hem. This dress just feels cheap to me. Nothing about it works.
Florence Welsh wore this crazy Alexander McQueen. I honestly like how sartirical it is but can't in all honestly put it on the best dress list (or middle of the road).
My worst dressed of the night is hands down Kate Upton. There are rumours that she paid her own way into the event and I hate to say it but you can tell. She's such a beautiful girl but she looks like a drag queen in this gold Michael Kors dress.
That's the wrap up. There was a LOT of fashion and I'm sure I've still left people out. Tell me what you think - I'd love to hear who made your best, middle-of-the-road and worst list!


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Nearly three decades ago, David Fink helped assemble an international dream team of chefs and winemakers, bringing them to Highlands Inn in Carmel each year for the aptly named Masters of Food and Wine.
The event served as a blueprint for every food and wine festival to come, including Pebble Beach Food & Wine, the grand culinary extravaganza that picked up the local mantle after the Masters ended its run in 2005.
Fink went on to become an accomplished restaurateur and hotelier, working under the prestigious brand of Relais & Chateaux, a global fellowship of individually owned and operated luxury hotels and restaurants.
Last year Fink saw an opportunity to build new culinary bridges, dusting off that old blueprint and adding a few twists in the form of the first-ever GourmetFest at his inn L"Auberge Carmel (March 27-30).
"I just had a vision of doing a new food and wine festival that would have Relais & Chateaux involved," he said. "The best chefs in the world are Relais & Chateaux chefs, and if we could do a festival together we could do something extraordinary."
Fink took it to the Relais & Chateaux board of directors and they loved the idea, especially as the group celebrates its 60th anniversary this year.
The lineup of talent is nothing short of extraordinary, and could quite possibly be the greatest assemblage of chefs and winemakers in history.
"This is similar to the Masters in format, with chef demos, tours, tastings and combining great chefs in the same kitchen, but because Relais & Chateaux is involved, GourmetFest hits the highest possible level, with some of the best chefs and wine estates in the world."
The group of participating chefs creates a veritable galaxy of Michelin stars. We"re talking three-starred Christopher Kostow (The Restaurant at Meadowood in St. Helena) and Jean Michel Lorain (La Cote Saint Jacques, Paris), and two-starred Gaetano Trovato from Arnolfo Ristorante in Siena, Italy, along with a legion of James Beard winners and Relais & Chateaux Grand Chefs. Sharing the kitchen at Fink"s Aubergine, led by executive chef Justin Cogley (Best Chef, Food and Wine magazine), will be other chef luminaries, including Joachim Splichal (Patina, Los Angeles), Jason Franey (Canlis, Seattle), Johann Lafer (Johann Lafer"s Stromburg, Germany), Michael Tusk (Quince, San Francisco) and many others.
The list of epic winemakers may just eclipse the chef lineup in terms of prestige: Aubert de Villane, co-director of Domaine de la Romanee-Conti in Burgundy; German wine legend Hermann Dönnhoff; Olivier Krug, director of Krug Champagne; G nter Kunstler, whose Weingut Künstler family wine estate in Germany dates back to 1648; and many others, including local producers Galante, Talbott, Roar and Pisoni, along with self-described "cheese-eating oenophile" Kent Torrey, owner of the Carmel Cheese Shop.
More later on each epic event. Only one, the 10-course, $5,250 Rarities Dinner, is sold out. More reasonably priced events begin at $160. Find out more at www.gourmetfestcarmel.com.
58 years of Kosher goodness
Temple Beth El organized its first Kosher-style luncheon the same year Elvis Presley appeared on the American music charts with "Heartbreak Hotel."
On Thursday, for the 58th time, the community tradition in Salinas will turn 100 volunteers into the feeding of 7,000, a modern-day miracle if there ever was one. The annual Kosher-style Deli Lunch and Bake Sale benefits several local charities and the Temple"s religious school.
The lunch includes an oversized, hot corned beef or pastrami sandwich, salad, Kosher dill pickle and homemade cake. Box lunches ($11) may be eaten at the temple or taken to go, and are available from 9a.m. to 6p.m. There will also be a large bake sale featuring a variety of homemade cakes, cookies and other treats.
The Temple is at 1212 Riker St. (at Blanco Road) in Salinas. More information at 424-9151 or templebethelsalinas.org.
Rio in a Clase by itself
Rio Grill has upped the ante on its tequila-themed dinners, inviting Clase Azul owner John Hanson to join forces with chef Cy Yontz, gifted at creating inventive food with bold flavors.
The dinner is Thursday, Feb. 20 (6-9p.m.), and will sell out quickly (cost is $85). Clase Azul is that premium tequila sold in those distinctive blue-and-white talavera bottles. The bartending team will concoct tequila cocktails to pair with Yontz"s five courses. Hansen will pour his Ultra Premium Anejo for the dessert course (this sells for $225 a shot at upscale bars).
The menu is classic Yontz, with items such as: tequila-cured salmon tostidas; huevos diablos with double-smoked bacon jam; chicken-fried ahi tuna with mango-habanero coulis; and smoked lamb chops with plantain-mint chutney.
See you there.
Carousel Candies on the Wharf launches its "Find Your Heart"s Desire" Valentine"s promotion throughout February, where a percentage of proceeds go to the critically important Kinship Center. Mention the promotion and get 20 percent off all purchases in the store or online. Stroll down the pier to the hot-pink candy store the first three weekends of February for a meet-and-greet and photo ops with cute cupids, who will pass out free candy from noon to 5p.m. Guess the number of candy hearts in a apothecary jar to win a $50 gift certificate, or enter the drawing to win a one-night romance package at Lovers Point Inn in Pacific Grove. Information: carouselcandies.com … Hyatt Carmel Highlands plans some novel events through its "Forks. Corks. Action!" program, starting with Meet the Abalone Farmer on Saturday, Feb. 15. A benefit for MEarth in Carmel Valley, the noontime lunch features sustainable abalone from the Monterey Abalone Co. and a talk by abalone farmer Arthur Seavey, who will also pour his Seavey Family Wines. Information: 622-5445 or www.pacificsedge.com … Cantinetta Luca"s Backroom Dinner series continues with a black truffle feast on Wednesday, Feb. 12 (5:30-9p.m.). Cost is $78. Buy tickets at http://bit.ly/LucaTruffles … The Carmel Valley Woman"s Club luncheon on Wednesday, Feb. 5 (11:30a.m.-1:30p.m.), at Corral de Tierra Country Club will provide Valentine"s Day inspiration. Guest chef Wendy Brodie will offer insight and unique ideas relating to the holiday menu planning. Cost is $35 and is open to all. Call 659-0934 to reserve … Wandering Wolffman"s BBQ has finally found a home, inside Planet Gemini in Monterey. The grand opening is Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 2. Look for a whole-roasted pig, tri-tip, chili, garlic bread and garden salad. Planet Gemini will provide viewing, and beer and drink specials. Wolffman will be open weekdays from 11a.m. to 3p.m. … Best bite of the week goes to Jeninni Kitchen + Wine Bar and chef Jeffrey Weiss" chicharones (fried pork rinds with caramelized maple syrup and a dusting of smoked paprika). I demand the Lighthouse Theater across the street serve bags of these delicious cracklins. Someone get on that right away, please.
Mike Hale can be reached at email@example.com. Listen to his weekly radio show "Food Fodder" at noon Wednesdays on KRML, 102.1 FM.


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Egypt isn't what it appears to be in the media...but that's no real surprise, since not much is. I moved here in the late 80's from Toronto, Canada, with my Canadian/Egyptian husband, my son and my daughter. The children adapted quickly and we decided that this country was a good place to live. Now I wouldn't change my home for anything.
Monday, June 09, 2008
Very Misplaced Sympathy
Every so often, I read something that I just want to send to everyone I know. DB Shobrawy's post on Mideast Youth was just one such post. He quotes a well-meaning post regarding some Egyptian children who the writer imagines as fanaticized beggars. Hmmm. There are a few missing steps there and a lot of unwarranted assumptions. One of the assumptions seems to be that one must have a lot of stuff to be happy. To be honest, when I spend time in the US I tend to feel overfed every second of the day and shopping becomes painful. I mean, what do you really need all that stuff for?
I know that it is really nice to be able to order in Mexican food from a particular province, and having vitamin water must be terrific. But do you really need it? Last time I talked to a nutritionist, the major use of water was to hydrate a thirsty body. Theoretically, you get your vitamins from your food, but I can rather understand if people don't get much in the way of vitamins from foods in the US. I washed some dinner plates that had contained salad and the lettuce didn't even wilt in the hot soapy water. What is in that stuff anyway? I love to buy the little roast chickens from the chicken man in our village. They taste wonderful and you actually have to chew them. My daughter and I bought a roast chicken at an excellent grocery in New York, and it tasted like marshmallow. You don't need teeth to eat chicken in New York.
A lot of tourists are taken aback at children begging at tourist sites in Egypt. My late husband used to go ballistic whenever he saw people giving them money, and rightly so. He would point out that most of them were doing it for entertainment rather than to stave off starvation, and that giving them money simply taught them that they didn't have to work to make a living. He very reasonably didn't want them learning that lesson...but it was amazing how upset some people could get when he objected. I have a rule where I live. I never give kids anything. Nothing, zip, nada, mafeesh. If there is a family in true need, the neighbourhood pitches in and I will do so with all the others, but I never pass out candy, toys, or money to kids. As I tell them, no one has given me anything lately, but if they ever do, I'll come back and buy a package of biscuits to share.
copyright 2008 Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
18 comments:
I arrived in cairo less than two weeks ago .. while I agree to a great extent about your philosophy about not giving anything to the street children...I wonder what you suggest in my instance when I come across two children, about ages 4, eating the contents from a garbage can; their hair matted; dirty and unkempt in appearance -- I would not assume that they are doing this for 'entertainment'. They did not beg from me for money as they did not see me in my car; I asked my husband to pullover and I gave them a small amount of money. So what would you suggest as an appropriate response?
- AUHgal said...
Great post, m.a. There is a family that used to frequent road 9. A child approached my friend sitting outside Cafe Greco. After much pestering, my friend relented and gave her less than a pound. The child came back w/ a little sister and said, "My mother says you have to give to her, too," and pointed back at her mother sitting across the street.
- Dina said...
Right on!
- Maryanne Stroud Gabbani said...
For Anonymous,
The other day I was in a KFC store and met two girls who are obviously living on the streets in the women's bathroom washing themselves and their hair. Sure! Why not? There's soap and clean water...go for it.
In the case of people who really need food, give them food. If you can carry something relatively unspoilable in your car, that's great. I've given out sandwiches, pieces of cheese and bread and fruit in the past. I've had people beg at the window of a car with the hand to mouth gesture indicating hunger. If I can, I'm happy to give them food. Funny how often I've been quite scornfully turned down, but the economic situation of the urban poor tends to be much worse than that of the rural poor.
- AUHgal said...
I agree w/ the notion of giving food over money...even a piece of clothing that might be of use. I was never ased for food when I lived in Cairo, though.
- Don Cox said...
Begging is a job like any other. There have been beggars for as long as there have been priests - they just have different methods of demanding money.
Hi MaryAnne,
My name is karin, and I am the editor of green prophet (www.greenprophet.com). I also write for TreeHugger. I happen to be Canadian. It would be great if we could collaborate somehow...on green issues... Karin
- Lynn said...
I lived in Cairo 77 to 85. I learnt my lesson early on; given the scenario of two small girls doing the hand to mouth begging scene, I offered some fruit and a sandwich. They were tossed back inside the car with a spitting noise, with the girls screaming, feloos, feloos! (Money, money).
The gullibility of the new white face in Cairo ended on the spot.
It may be thirty years on, but I suspect that there is still a cunning father behind the begging youth of Cairo today. Just as Don cox said.
- Maryanne Stroud Gabbani said...
Yesterday I was in Khan el Khalili with some American and Kiwi friends having a quick lunch of fiteer at the "pancake" shop in Hussein when a little girl about 5 years old sidled up to me and murmured something to me. My hearing isn't always so great so I turned around to talk to her and asked her to repeat.."Give me 10 pounds." I tried hard not to laugh or anything and I asked her what she was going to do with 10 pounds. She told me that she was going to go home. Okay. "Do you ask everyone for 10 pounds?" (I'm thinking that this is not a bad scam) "Yes."
About this time the shop owner spotted her (and she wasn't particularly dirty or malnourished in appearance) and came to shoo her off...she's obviously pretty well known to him. I told him that we were just having a conversation. At this point, she said, "Give me half a pound". Quite a drop from the first demand. While I considered her new request one of my friends asked if she'd like some chewing gum. (I'd been translating the conversation as we went) "Oh, yes indeed. Chewing gum would be great!" So Jackie gave her a couple of pieces of gum and she skipped off quite happily to look for another mark. This was quite obviously a life and death situation that could be solved with some orange flavoured Orbit.
- Modern Pharaoh said...
Wow, couldn't you find any worse pictures to put under the title "living in Egypt" ?? i understand you say nice things, but the pics show NOTHING NICE about living in Egypt,,,no pics of the beautiful clean places of Cairo, or Alexandria!
This is sad because you come up as the FIRST article on GOOGLE SEARCH when typing in :living in egypt:
- Maryanne Stroud Gabbani said...
Funny what people think of as awful. LOL The photos are of kids that the initial post might refer to as "beggars" but who in fact are not. They are happy, healthy kids who happen not to have a lot of money. I live in the countryside and I like our little shops and our kids. Maybe you need to get to know Egypt a bit better. I have plenty of "pretty" pictures of Egypt, but let's face it, the world isn't a sanitized "pretty" place. I happen to appreciate it in its entirety.
- AUHgal said...
One only needs to read through Maryanne's archives, Modern Pharaoh, to see how beautiful Egypt is. It's actually not through her photos that one comes to this conclusion but through her words.
Egypt is a fabulous country: warts and all. I see no point in making this blog pretty for the sake of potential tourists Googling away.
Great post, when I was in Egypt in April my tour group unanimously agreed that the most mentally taxing thing was all the begging/asking for baskeesh. After 2 days we were wore out from it. At the Museum in Alexandria the bathroom attendant has removed all toilet paper and distributed it out with a hand out asked for tips. All under a sign posted that said "no tipping please." after the first day, I took my own tissue paper and refused to tip. Maryanne, can you comment on that?
Brenda S
- Maryanne Stroud Gabbani said...
After 20 years in Cairo, I've identified many types of "baksheeshing". You have the kids who are doing it for a kick, and if they get money, so much the better. There are the alleged parking attendents all over Cairo. If they really help me find a space, I pay them. If they suddenly show up as I'm leaving...forget it.
I take my own paper to bathrooms too. A) you never know if there will be some, and B) I hate the situation you describe. What you are seeing there is an employee who is paid a pittance to do a dead end job and is trying to augment her salary. I'd love to have a chat with the employers in this case. Guards in antiquities areas who are usually paid a salary of about LE 200 a month are almost always happy to show tourists a "closed" area for a tip on the same thinking. This shortchanging of the employees is really bad thinking on the part of the employers. Dumb. I have to admit that I've taken advantage of these offers from guards myself.
Then there are the people who are selling items of dubious usefulness..kleenex, postcards, incense. If I need it, I will buy it, if not, I don't. In the end, you sort of have to decide for yourself. Sometimes you have to become sort of deaf.
Children in Egypt are taught to ask for money and food. In the village where I lived with my Egyptian husband our little neighbor cousins were forever pounding on our door asking for chocolate. It became very annoying. As much as I love the Egyptian people they can be rather demanding. Tipping is a way of life in Egypt. This was quite a shock to this American woman, but I learned to accept it. Children learn from their parents. The thing that shocked me most was that the women and children will ask you for anything. And I do mean anything.
- Maryanne Stroud Gabbani said...
When the neighbour cousins came knocking on your door to ask for chocolate, did you give it to them? If you did, then of course they'd come back. My neighbours out here know that if someone is hurt and they need medical supplies, I have them. If someone wants chocolate, they'd better go to the store because they aren't going to find it here. It isn't just a case of parents teaching them to ask so much as it is the "victims" teaching them that it works as well. When I'm out riding and a kid asks if he/she can have some money, I can honestly say I don't have any because I never carry any with me. Even if I do carry some, I say I don't have anything. It's taken some time, but most of them have stopped asking except maybe as a joke.
If you perchance require annoyance in your life from beggars, come to Toronto. We've got a bumper crop of young people panhandling. They are doing it because they can not because they are in dire straits. Same deal, different country.
If no one gave them money, they'd stop bothering everyone, go home (because these are not all 'physically and sexually abused teens'.)
Unlearning a reward generating behaviour is difficult for cat and human. Maybe more difficult for the cat.
- Ashraf Al Shafaki said...
Great post! I love it. I agree with you completely.
As an Egyptian living in Egypt (Cairo), I believe one should not give beggrs. Instead, NGOs that try to help families in need are the path to follow whenever you want to help those who are in "real" need. I've had the chance a couple of times to participate with Resala, a local Egyptian NGO with 32 branches in Egypt and some 75 thousand volunteers, in delivering assistance to families in need in poor areas in Egypt. The families are first screened to make sure they are really in need. No money is given to them, only assistance in the form of stuff they might need such as blankets, a stove ... etc.
Here are some photos from the activities Resala has been doing:


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Insights into Crowdfunding Campaign Success: an Interview with Chris Buckingham
by Louise Graham
We interviewed Chris, who has over 8 years of experience and has contributed to over £2 million worth of Crowdfunding activity. Chris is the passionate and enthusiastic author of Crowdfunding Intelligence, and has three new books in the pipeline this year. We spoke to him about his experience and what constitutes a successful Crowdfunding campaign.
A question on many people's minds is: "what exactly is Crowdfunding?"
It's very simple. It's asking the crowd for permission to create your vision. In my book Crowdfunding Intelligence I call it 'crowdconsent'.
And, how does a start-up, brand, or entrepreneur know if Crowdfunding is the right strategy for them?
Firstly, I'd say that Crowdfunding is not the be all and end all. There is a lot in the entrepreneurial press about alternative finance, and Crowdfunding being a saviour, but that's not necessarily the case.
If you are looking for finance, some key questions to ask yourself are:
i) is it just money that I am looking for? In which case traditional financial institutions may be a better option
ii) am I looking to engage a community, or build a community around my vision? In which case Crowdfunding is an ideal way to move forward
iii) have I already got a community or vision? Then community shares or a co-operative model may be a better way to go.
There are so many Crowdfunding platforms these days. How does a start-up go about choosing the right Crowdfunding platform?
Good question. If we look just in the UK alone there are over 100 Crowdfunding platforms. This includes all models of Crowdfunding: donation, reward, equity, interest, and mixed models. We list all the platforms on our Minivation website.
Auditing is key. Take time to assess all the options. Start by looking at the campaigns on each platform, the type of successes they've got, the seasons when they are being launched, what are they asking for, and rewards and promises that they are making. So take all this into account, the pitch, what are they saying, what kind of language they are using and the amount of money coming into each campaign. From that you can start to gauge if that is likely to happen with your campaign and if it is an appropriate platform for you.
If the auditing process becomes just a little bit too much, and someone wants to be handheld through that process, what questions should the consultant be asking?
They will need to understand your vision more than anything. They need to ask about the finances, the team and the product. Be mindful. If the consultant jumps straight in over-enthusiastically and promises you the earth then be very suspicious. A real consultant, someone that really wants to add value for you, will want to know those details first before there any sort of commitment on their side. If they can't help then they should be able to pass you on to someone that can.
Do you have any tips on the amount to ask for with Crowdfunding?
My advice is to always ask for the top amount. For example if you can create your vision for a set level of 1000 pounds but for 5000 pounds you could create "wow", then go for the 5000 pounds. It may not work, but you will get valuable feedback from the crowd on your vision. Armed with this you can always make another attempt for the lower amount.
What minimum level of investment do you feel is needed for a successful Crowdfunding campaign?
I'd say anywhere between 500 and 1500 pounds. Most of the time you need a polished video and a polished message to engage the crowd. It's rare that you can get away with not having that.
What do you think the biggest mistake that companies make when opting to run a Crowdfunding campaign?
That's easy. Lack of planning, without a doubt. A lack of preparation and a lack of awareness of Crowdfunding. These are the two key reasons that campaigns will fail.
At the start of the interview, you mentioned the definition of Crowdfunding is "crowdconsent", that is, asking the crowd for permission to create your vision. Can you tell us a little bit more about this ?
With any campaign that you are launching you are making a promise to the crowd. It's all about taking the time to assess who those individuals are, if they match your campaign, what can you offer them in return, why would they invest and give you their crowdconsent?
There are three layers of what I call "ties" to consider. First are the strong ties, which are your friends and family. Second, there are the weak ties, which are the friends and family of your friends and family. The third are the tertiary ties which are another level of investor that may not have any face to face contact with you but they may like the campaign and see you on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or whatever. Outside of this you've also got satellite influencers, and these satellite influencers may prevent others from investing in you. Of course, they don't pop-up until you've gone live, and then it can be a bit late.
It's really making a judgement call on who the crowd are, what they need and what platform they are on, and matching all this up — that should lead to crowdconsent.
So, once you have the crowd, how do you maintain it?
Part of it is actually asking for help, what we call supplication — simple impression management. You need to impress on the crowd that you have the desire to create this vision, but that you need their help to create it.
It's part of the 'updating' process. In Crowdfunding Intelligence we talk about the "push" and the "pull". The "push" is about you pushing out information — the pitch. The "pull" is the comments and questions being asked by crowd. These are both really important as is it is through them that you are engaging with the crowd, which gives you an opportunity to tell more of the story behind the product.
How do companies share their vision while at the same time making sure that their ideas are protected?
This is a major issue that nobody has managed to resolve yet. I'm currently writing about issues of Intellectual Property in a new book called "The Dark Era" which should be out by the end of 2017.
How do you measure the success of a Crowdfunding campaign?
It depends on what you are going to measure. There are many different ways to view success. I would say that primarily it's about exposure. You have to ask yourself: what is "success" in your vision? I think it's important to determine this quite early, as those that focus just on the money quite often won't succeed as they aren't creating value or being authentic.
What top tips do you have for after a Crowdfunding campaign?
Number 1. Keep talking. Keep communicating with the people. Keep telling them what's going on.
Number 2. Be open to ideas. The crowd might have ideas, a skillset, input that you might want to use, and why not?
How long do you recommend between one Crowdfunding campaign and the next?
It really depends on the campaign and on the vision. It's all about evidence. If you can: prove to the crowd that it's a serious business; that you've moved from being an idea to something concrete that works; and are coming back to offer equity to achieve something together as a community, then you are ready to launch the next campaign. It's all about making an impression on the crowd and not coming across as greedy.
Where do you see Crowdfunding going in 2017?
My personal view is that I think technology Crowdfunding will increase. I think we are still at the very early stages of the IOT (Internet Of Things), and in the future we will see more connected devices, connected clothing and wearables coming out.
In terms of financing, I think the trend will be towards a reward model for early phase start-ups and businesses, especially in the technology industry. Based on the trends that our trackers see at the moment it looks like the market for equity will reach a plateau and possibly decline slightly by 2020.
Can you tell us a little bit more about Minivation and the work that you do?
Minivation is the educational side of Crowdfunding. On Minivation we have the CPP — the Crowdfunding Planning Page, which includes 5 essential segments available for download: i) pre-campaign, ii) live, iii) pitch, iv) promises, and v) 'post'. 'Post' is important segment, as once you've crowdfunded you've got a community around you ready to leverage.
Among the creative industries there's a tendency to think you don't need a business plan as you aren't selling a product, but actually you are. Business planning will help you focus on your vision, and those intricate grey areas and how it all connects together.
These are all presented in easy to watch video formats. The idea being that viewers can gain insights and tips for building a more robust campaign.
What other services to do you offer to assist start-ups?
We have a series of consultants here in the UK that we can pass people to.
We've also developed a brand new framework for Crowdfunding and are looking to gamify this process. Towards the end of 2017 we should have our first series of games coming out. The idea is that the entrepreneur can step into the game, play the game, and then be able to conceptualise problems and see the issues that they may encounter in their campaign, meaning they should be much better prepared.
At the moment we have a series of board games that we are working on and we hope to digitise those towards the end of 2017 if the games work. We are just at validating the framework, so if you know anyone that's looking to Crowdfund, we are looking for entrepreneurs and experts like yourself to tell us what they think. It means they also become part of the research we are doing with University of Southampton (Call to action below).
The Think Collective were sent some questions by Manta Watch Camp: a grassroots marine conservation and ecotourism project based in Papua New Guinea. They are considering using Crowdfunding as an innovative way to fundraise for a rehabilitation and education centre, that primarily focuses on protecting mantra stingrays and sharks.
Manta Watch Camp: What advice would you give for choosing tempting incentives for backers if the campaign isn't product specific?
Yes, this is always a problem. For example if you have a sanctuary like this, then vision is not that specific; the problem could be that you have a nebulous entity that you are seeking crowdconsent for. I would suggest the creative strategy for the campaign would be to focus on one shark or one particular aspect of the centre. For example a shark within a family that maybe has an illness, or needs a bit of special extra attention, or hasn't developed friendships as much with the other sharks, or is vegetarian…
It's about finding that emotional tie. Then it's all about finding your consumer tribe. In this case you can't sell to them but can offer them something as a support mechanism in order for them to grant you crowdconsent in return. For example, Dartmoor Zoo ran a campaign a few years ago where they offered sponsorship of the animals as a reward. That was the deal. That particular campaign had over 40 rewards, way more than we advised at the time, but they received more than £300,000 for the campaign.
Call to action: If you are interested in participating in the research at the University of Southhampton reach out at email@example.com and we'll make introductions.
Crowdfunding Intelligence, The Crowded Cases , Crowded Comments: Equity , Crowded Comments: Loans, The Dark Era (covering issues of Intellectual Property), and the Crowdfunding Readiness Assessment (currently in early stages of development).
About Louise Graham:
London-based (for now) Co-Founder The Think Collective. We create experiences that help attention seeking startups get to the core of understanding how to attract, talk and market to their audience.
A big thank you(!) for clicking the 💚 if you found this blog inspiring.
If you have any questions or have anything that you'd like to share we'd love to hear your thoughts 💬 .


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Principessa Holiday Gift Guide 2014
We've picked some of our favorite Principessa staples to make your holiday gift giving just a little bit easier!
We've picked some of our favorite Principessa staples to make your holiday gift giving just a little bit easier!
Meet the Principessa girls! Every month we would like to introduce you to the Princi gals & 10 things they cannot live without! This month we introduce Principessa's Manager, the beautiful & incredibly multi-faceted Mehera Hunter!
Who doesn't love the one-of-a-kind uniqueness of vintage fashion? Principessa certainly does & we are beyond excited to offer you an amazing collection from some of the best Vintage dealers in Los Angeles! Make sure you join us November 15th for our first ever in-store Principessa Vintage Salon!
If there's one thing we love here at Principessa – it's visual inspiration. Have a look at our Pinterest & get obsessed. All things beautiful make the world go round… !!
Halloween is upon us! And since it's one of our favorite holidays, you know we have to throw a party…
Please make sure to join us Saturday October 25th for a very-Principessa-Halloween-party with one of our favorite (and sexiest) designers, Leticia Loza. She'll be purveying her incredible sorceress inspired webbed dresses just in time for your Halloween costume perusing… and if that wasn't enough, the babes behind LIVINLARGE PHOTO will be changing out our mural, one Goddess for another… Read on to meet the designer & see what we have in store for you…
The Abbot Kinney Festival was an incredible time at Principessa this year!! The Princi girls were looking amazing, our bohemian inspired booth was popping off & I got to walk around & check out the organized chaos. Thank you again to Unicorn Airlines for supplying us with so many gorgeous head pieces!
Click on to see my recap in pictorial form …
Odylyne Flutter Top in Tea Rose Vintage Gold Sequin Butterfly Top Chaser Motorhead Tee Luxury Jones Sequin Top Mikal Winn Eagle Necklace Mikal Winn Steer Necklace Mikal Winn Garnet Necklace [product id="" sku="P212031″]
Local designer Naomi Strauss (an avid surfer and absolute sweetheart) is an angel in my book…she's created my dream bag line. The perfect blend of boho & preppy, these bags are made of reclaimed army canvas and deadstock materials. They remind me of the perfectly aged LL Bean totes I grew up with back East, but with enough edge to give them a little street cred. The overnight bags are perfect for a weekend getaway and the italian tote has two side compartments for wine (at least that's how I see it)…genius.


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Sen. Charles Grassley
Sponsored By
Emails: IRS Official Sought Audit Of Top GOP SenatorCongressional investigators say Lois Lerner expressed interest in an audit of Sen. Charles Grassley.
Report: IRS Paid $4.2 Billion To Undocumented ImmigrantsA new report finds that the Internal Revenue Service mailed $4.2 billion in child-credit checks to undocumented immigrant families.
Amid Hot Issues Nationwide, Lawmakers Avoid Public MeetingsFrom her front row seat at the Fort Dodge Public Library, pugnacious retiree Betty Nostrom wasted no time grilling the U.S. senator standing before 80 constituents over how he was investigating the deaths of four Americans in Libya last fall.
Several Governors Want Online Sales Taxes Gov. Terry Branstad has joined other governors in calling for the passage of federal legislation requiring online businesses to pay state sales taxes to states choosing to collect them.


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Daily Mash – Dr. Dre vs Miley CyrusOctober 16th, 2010 by Siegz | Mashup |
I love the Biggie vs Miley Cyrus mashup so much I had to post the Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg vs Miley Cyrus one. This also includes Lil Jon saying what we all expect, "YEAH".
http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F2408816%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-VpREZ&secret_url=false The Next Episode (dj pinto remix)–Miley Cirus vs. Dr. Dre
This is about 6 months old, but a great song to listen to before you go out. Enjoy!


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Email Overload: A Little Help From MicrosoftAugust 28, 2008 at 9:23 am | Posted in Attention Management, Information Work, interruption science | Leave a comment
In June, Google announced an "Email addict" feature that was kind of a gag response to people complaining about email overload. When you press a "take a break" button, the screen turns gray and locked the user out of email until you clicked again. I had posted my own suggestions of how an email tool could help with email overload at https://knowledgeforward.wordpress.com/2008/06/08/google-lands-crushing-blow-to-email-addiction-with-new-feature/.
I was just turned on to Email Prioritizer from Office Labs which seems like a nice (and real) response to Google's gag approach with its "Email Addict" feature. It hits on one of the features I wrote about: mail arrival schedules. I'd also recommend that Microsoft add automated scheduling options (hourly, morning/noon/evening, etc) to the manual option provided. This would simulate the cycle of the postman coming to deliver the mail, and leave your brain free outside those times to concentrate.
One nit: the description of the tool on their website annoyingly equated "do not disturb" as allowing you to "work without interruptions". Unless you have toasts turned on email doesn't interrupt you. And if that bothers you, the feature is already there to turn them off. I'd say email is a distraction or a temptation, not an interruption. The reason I'm picky is that there is a lot of great research around "interruption science" (for example, see interruptions.net) that mostly can't help or doesn't apply to this situation. One needs different approaches and has different goals and metrics when dealing with distractions versus interruptions.
Collaborative Authoring ReduxAugust 25, 2008 at 8:41 am | Posted in collaboration, Content Management, Information Work | Leave a comment
A quick update to my entry from last week called "Where Did All The Collaborative Authoring Researchers Go?" where I hunted down a few collaborative authoring researchers to find out why all the research seemed to stop in 2000. I posted my summaries of our email exchanges, but they have since both posted their own enlightening entries on the matter.
Dr. Sylvie Noël's entry is at "Is collaborative authoring research dead?". She makes the argument "would it really be a very efficient method to have two people editing the same bit of text at the same time? Personally, I think the answer is no."
Dr. Michael Spring posted two entries at his mBsLOG : "The research on collaborative authoring" and "What we still don't do in collaborative authoring". In the latter he gives the following list of features still not found in collaborative authoring tools (read his blog for more details on each):
1. Document locking
2. Document access controls
3. User and group awareness
4. Wow tools
5. Enhanced Communication
6. Lost in space
From Pain Points to Numb PointsAugust 19, 2008 at 1:01 pm | Posted in Attention Management, Globalization, Uncategorized | 5 Comments
I've heard marketing folks in the IT space use the term pain points for years. According to the Buzzword Compliant Dictionary "Business consultants use 'pain points' as a term to describe the places where a business feels the 'pain' due to poor operational structure, bad software or good, old-fashioned inefficiencies." If you're in marketing for a software, hardware, or services firm or in IT and trying to secure budget or resources to address a problem, it's a good idea to isolate the pain points and then describe how your recommended solution will ease the pain.
But I noticed today that many of the IT issues I've been writing about lately don't lend themselves to pain points. It's more like they are numb points. Users don't think day-to-day about the symptoms of the underlying problem because they've been there so long and are so difficult to put your finger on, that they have become numb to it and just treat any resulting inefficiency as business-as-usual. For example, in my report on Enterprise Attention Management I wrote:
Most people treat attention management problems like e-mail overload and interruptions from IM and phone calls like they do the weather. Everyone complains about it but no one does anything about it.
That's what I mean by a numb point. A second example I've run across is the cost and expense of translating and localizing content that was created for one language without regard to how easy it will be to localize later. A third is collaborative authoring.
But trying to get people to address a numb point is not easy, despite the criticality of the issue. For a parallel, think about the human body. Both pain and numbness can indicate very serious problems. A host of dreaded conditions involving circulation or damaged nerves can lead to parts of the body going numb, signaling major trouble. While the human body is wired to respond instantly to pain and force you to attend to the problem, numbness is more sneaky. It can go unnoticed at first. And once it is noticed, the numbness can be scary and lead to dread, but doesn't inspire the same quick reaction as pain.
To get someone to address a numb point you have to first make them aware of the numbness, the nature of the efficiency loss it is causing, and how it is a symptom that is likely to get worse. You have to tap that numb part, show how that isn't normal, and shake them awake into dealing with it rather than accepting a slow decline in function. That's what I and others in the attention management / information overload space are trying to do in different ways. That's what I hope to do with collaborative authoring and other content authoring trends in my current research. And I hope that over time, IT and business executives become more sensitive and aware that sometimes numbness, not just pain, demands immediate attention.
Where Did All The Collaborative Authoring Researchers Go?August 15, 2008 at 7:43 am | Posted in Attention Management, Content Management, Information Work | 2 Comments
My job as an industry analyst sometimes requires me to be a detective. I'm in the midst of researching my upcoming document on "Content Authoring in the Enterprise 2.0 Age" and uncovered an interesting mystery.
Most of my day-to-day interactions are with end user clients, with a smattering of vendor conversations thrown in. But when researching a new topic I like to see what research is going on in academia, which is where I noticed an interesting phenomenon. One of the trends in content creation I'll be writing about is "collaborative authoring". This is the idea that more and more documents are being created as a collaboration between many authors, which introduces procedural and technical challenges. My research uncovered quite a bit of academic work in this area, but the lists of papers I found all mysteriously stopped around 2000. It's as if an academic meteorite hit the earth at the end of 2000, wiping out all the collaborative authoring researchers without a trace!
Did humanity solve the collaborative authoring problem rendering further research unnecessary? Or was a more nefarious hand at play? I had some theories, but this was just too curious to ignore, so I contacted some of the academics who were involved in this space in the late '90s to find out what happened. I'm happy to say they are still alive and well.
Dr. Sylvie Noël, an HCI research scientist for the government of Canada, fingered "free collaborative authoring tools such as Wikipedia" as a culprit. And since quite a few commercial products offering collaboration started coming out after 2000, researchers weren't as interested. Dr. Noël did point out that work continues under the rubric of "collaborative editing" (more encompassing than just authoring). Regarding collaborative authoring, she still hopes for "a popular product that meets the large corporations' needs and is as simple to use as email." Me too.
Dr. Michael Spring, Associate Professor of Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh, pointed out that while the research assumed people author content together, in reality there is generally one owner with others just commenting. And getting information workers to be a bit more structured and maybe – gasp! – look beyond Microsoft Word is often futile. Like Dr. Noël he points out a profusion of "good enough" tools like wikis and better reviewing features in Word. Once theory starts showing up in real, commercial products like word processors and wikis the grants and academic interest dries up pretty quick.
Dr. Spring had another observation that carries over into my research on attention management and improving employee productivity. After exploring the potential time and cost savings that technology could yield for distributed collaborative authoring for engineering standards, he wonders if "the senior engineers really didn't want to be that efficient." They liked getting together in first-class global cities to hang out together rather than efficiently exchanging snippets of content using web-based collaboration. In fact, these efficiencies could threaten the staff and budgets of their departments.
To me, it's unfortunate that this research has died down. Even if the theoretical level is now understood, it hasn't all been turned into practice and technology yet. Large vendors like IBM and Microsoft do have research groups, but I haven't confirmed they have picked up the research now that academia has handed it off. It's clear there is still more than enough room for some good ideas.
Note: This is a cross-posting from the Collaboration and Content Strategies Blog
The Myth of Information Overload « IT Organization Circa 2017August 6, 2008 at 9:42 am | Posted in Attention Management, Information Work, interruption science | Leave a comment
My last posting ("I'm a Conscientious Objector in the War on Interruptions") was about how, despite my belief that information overload and interruptions are a real issue, some pundits go too far in lumping all sorts of issues in with it and propagating potentially misleading statistics on the problem. I just found a blog posting from Vaughan Merlyn that summarizes this issue beautifully:
if you pick the wrong label, you might misunderstand the problem, and thus come up with the wrong solution (or at least, come up with a solution that generates all sorts of undesirable, unintended consequences!) If you think of the problem as information overload you might look for a solution that cuts back on the information, and that would be a crime!
There is indeed danger in misdiagnosing this problem. I had an exchange with one information overload pundit (a group I'll include myself in as well). We agree it's a problem, but I disagree when he lumps all sorts of inefficiencies like socializing, distractions, and a one-sided view of interruptions into the IO bucket. When I pointed out how much of that isn't strictly an IO problem and that there's danger of overmedicating for this problem, his answer was effectively "So what? We all know the amount of IO is so high there's no chance of cutting into good interruptions and information flows anyways"
Despite the "myth" statement in Vaughn's title, he did say later that he thinks information overload is a real problem. It's just that "my assertion [is that] that coming at this as an "information overload" issue presumes some things about the problem that are misleading and potentially dangerous".
Agreed. It's worth focusing on the real issues of enterprise attention management – how to pull important messages forward and push less important messages back. Even if you strip out the junk that gets incorrectly tossed in the "information overload", like socializing and bad management practices and distractions, there is still enough real inefficiency left that can be addressed. Leave the crackdown on time-wasting distractions, socialization, and general corporate inefficiencies to the culture police – I don't want any part of that.
I'm a Conscientious Objector in the War on InterruptionsAugust 4, 2008 at 1:28 pm | Posted in Attention Management, interruption science | 3 Comments
There is a lot of conversation about information stress and overload that I can fully get behind, but sometimes it's taken in a direction that can be counterproductive. First some things I do agree with:
People feeling deluged by the increasing amount of email, blogs, websites, etc. would generally benefit from stepping back and thinking hard about what they are doing and come up with processes and systems (personal attention management) to deal with it?
The amount of information and the number of channels it is used to launch at people are on a hyperbolic increase?
Oh yeah.
Many people have fallen down a slippery slope of e-mail, IM, or texting habits that are causing stress and counterproductive behaviors?
Hell, yes.
Organizations need to do more to understand how they use attentional technologies and capabilities and optimize them where it makes sense?
Amen, brother.
Many people are finding it more difficult to sort through all the noise to find important information and make good decisions in a timely manner?
Yes, yes, say it again!
I buy into all of that – I really do. I'm not a member of Stowe Boyd's "overload, schmoverload" club. But it seems like at the other extreme a "war on interruptions" was declared somewhere along the way that I just don't buy into (for a typical example, see here). How can I not be on that bandwagon when it seems like common sense? While I believe information overload and information stress are under-diagnosed issues, an easily quotable number incorrectly pinning this problem on one specific cause (unnecessary interruptions) can overmedicate for one symptom while ignoring a more holistic approach.
Let me step back for a minute and explain why I disagree with statements like "The cost of unnecessary interruptions plus recovery time (time spent getting back to where you were, if indeed you do get back there) to the U.S. economy is $650 billion as of 2007. Most interruptions are neither urgent nor important. The above represents 28% of the knowledge worker's day." (This comes from a Basex newsletter).
First, everything seems to count as an interruption, from socializing to e-mail (e-mail just sits there until you check it – how is that an interruption? It's a "distraction" like having a TV in your office. Turn off alerts if they annoy you). Second, the time eaten up by interruptions is touted but not the time saved for those who felt impelled to interrupt. Third, before the word "interruption" I've noticed the modifier "unnecessary" casually flickers in and out (such as when the cost figure was $588 billion and didn't mention "unnecessary") despite the complexity involved in making a such a value judgement about each interruption.
I think it's important to have realistic goals about how much fat is there to be cut. If 20% of that 28% really can't be touched, then someone proposing a project to tackle info-stress or interruptions should make clear they are going after 8%, not 28%. The dangers of pumping up the inefficiency being tackled are:
- There's danger in promising more than they can fix (you're setting yourself up for failure).
- There's danger of causing a net loss by cutting beneficial (to the organization) interactions. This must be tied to optimizing enterprise productivity – not the productivity of one worker at the expense of others.
- There are negative cultural impacts that could result if one thinks there is 28% waste out there and a major crackdown is needed. Extreme problems tend to lead to extreme actions.
- There's a danger in proposing a number that is so uncredible that an executive decision maker dismisses the bearer of the information (article, consultant, internal employee asking for a mandate to address the issue). Executives are used to squeezing out a few percentage points of inefficiency. Being told there's 28% sitting around just causes eye-rolling – I've seen it myself.
I wonder if these 28% and $650bn stats would stand a reversal test. If totally unnecessary interruptions are costing this much, does that mean eliminating them would save 28% of time and $650bn? If not, what's going unsaid? If you lump distractions and socializing with interruptions or play loose with "unnecessary" then you're implying a payoff that is an order of magnitude more than what is really achievable. There's a base level of inefficiency to all human work that won't be eliminated unless you get rid of the humans, so understand how much you really stand to gain as you tackle this problem. Dividing the two terms out (and literally meaning "interruptions" when using that term) allows creation of metrics, ROI, and strategies to address that can be applied to interruptions but would be useless against distractions and socializing. I would focus on how to improve the effectiveness of information workers by pulling more important information forward and pushing less important information back rather than sending in an exterminator to blast all the (unnecessary) interruptions.
JSR 286 Grows UpAugust 1, 2008 at 8:00 am | Posted in BEA, IBM, Oracle, portals, SAP | Leave a comment
A belated congratulations to the JSR 286 group, which went into final release in June. You can get the details here. Good job to Stefan Hepper of IBM, the specification lead, who must have had a tough time herding the cats on this one. Right out of the gate it's good to see JSR 286 getting some attention from the portal vendors.
Of course it's been in development for quite some time. When JSR 168 was being created a number of enhancements were shifted to JSR 286 to keep from slowing down the original portal spec's ratification. The most important features of JSR 286 are inter-portlet communication (IPC) and alignment with the ongoing work on Web Services for Remote Portlets 2.0 (WSRP 2.0).
Vendor support has been promised soon as well (or is already here in the case of IBM).
- IBM quickly announced support in for WebSphere Portal 6.1 (as well as for WSRP 2.0). Way to track the standards guys!
- Oracle's ALUI and Oracle Portal don't have support yet. I'm told Oracle Portal may get it in 11gR1 release or later
- JBoss (Red Hat ditched its own portal in favor of the JBoss portal after acquiring JBoss) is promising support in Version 2.7, due out in Q3 2008 according to CMS Watch.
- A document from someone at SAP coldly stated that "SAP supports and actively participates in this new standard as EG member. As this specification is in draft version, it is not supported in NW CE." I checked with my contacts at SAP and was told that JSR 286 is currently in scope for NetWeaver 7.0 Enhancement Pack 2, which is expected around October. I also noticed they did not vote on the standard. I wondered if this was a sign of lack of interest or a passive way to vote "no", but their analyst relations staff said it was in fact because their committee representative was in the hospital.
My guidance to portal architects though is to consider bypassing JSR 168 or 286 portlets and even WSRP and focus on creating web services for information that they want to expose. Once the data portion is available as a web service, any decent portal product can create a quickie portlet (maybe in JSR 168 or some proprietary format) from the WSDL of the web service so it can be used in a portal. And then you have the option of leveraging that interface through non-portal mechanisms as well.
I should mention JSR 301 here as well. Presentation models have changed since the original JSR 168 specification was created. JavaServer Faces (JSF), the most significant of the presentation models for Java and has spawned many proprietary and open source attempts to transform JSF interfaces into JSR 168 portlets. The JSR 301 specification is only in its early stages, but promises to standardize these bridging mechanisms. No solid word yet on what that's coming though.
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Sunny Daydreams: Southwest Expands International Travel South Of The Border
Southwest announced Monday that it's entering the Mexican market by offering flights to Cancun and Los Cabos.
Beginning Aug. 10 the airline will operate daily, nonstop flights to Cancun from Atlanta and Baltimore/Washington. A Saturday-only nonstop flight will be available from Milwaukee to Cancun. Daily, nonstop flights to Los Cabos will also be available from Santa Ana/Orange County.
Beginning in October, Southwest will offer daily, nonstop service between Denver and Cancun and Saturday-only flights to Los Cabos.
In late January, Southwest announced their first foray into international flights would begin July 1 with daily trips to Aruba, Jamaica and the Bahamas. The inclusion of international travel was one of the most anticipated aspects of Southwest's 2011 merger with AirTran.
The new routes will be eligible to be purchased using Rapid Reward points and travelers can begin booking flights now.
The integration of AirTran is expected to be completed by the end of 2014. At that time, all international flying will be converted to Southwest airlines.
Southwest's first international routes won't be its last. Officials said in January that they will look to expand international travel outside the scope of AirTran's current routes as early as 2015.
Southwest Airlines Bringing New Service To Mexico! [Southwest Airlines]
Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.


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Echo Park's elementary school principals will be the guests of honor at a community reception hosted by the Positive Energy Group and the Greater Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood Council. The reception will be held on Tuesday, December 15, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at St. Paul's Cathedral (840 N Echo Park Ave).
Please RSVP by Friday, December 11, to Rosie Betznaos or Lisa Baca. For more information, please call 323/660-7234.


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|index : members : erectus123 : Biography
( Click on username to send feedback to member. )
|erectus123's Biography:
|Some words from erectus123:
Personal Bio Notes: I was born in Belfast through my dear mother's loins and that is where I find most comfort, with other women, not my mother. I survived though the years of Irish troubles and immigrated to USA after assorted family tragedies.
I worked in various Irish pubs and bars in my late teens where I learned to appreciate Irish whiskey.
I was adopted by a wealthy benefactor who facilitated my opportunity for an Ivy league education with upper degrees. After graduation I taught several years on various levels.
I have one child from my first marriage which ended when my darling wife was tragically killed in a cruise ship disaster. My second marriage is permissive w/pre-nuptual that permits mutual open sexual relationships.
Recent employment (last 18 years): Worked as political speech writer for major politicians both right and left as well as gay rights political strategy movement.
Poetry: Poetry in my humble opinion, should make the reader laugh or cry, it should elicit emotion from the reader. Erotic poetry can run the gamut from old time dirty ballads to blistering sweaty porno and romantic pledges of love forever; however it may also reveal the duplicities, guile and betrayals that the human animal commits on a daily basis, while evoking sexual tension and even orgasmic response in the reader. Oh yes, you might wonder, does a poem have to rhyme? Of course not, although it is preferred in a classical style poem and in ballads; however, if you do not rhyme the lines should be so good or so explosive that no one notices the absence of rhyme.
All of the poems for literotica are written for the site, usually in the day or two before submission in the wee early hours of the morning..
On a personal note: People are curious as to one's physical image. I am a little taller than average, brown hair with a bit of grey sneaking in, strong athletic build and a confident very masculine personality. People tell me I am good looking but I don't think so, I am just passable. I have close friends both straight and gay and am open to all without bias or bigotry. As to sex, I can't imagine life without it. If there is an after life I hope to continue elsewhere what I do here on earth. I doubt that will occur but here's hope-ing. I hold dear to long time sexual partners who I love but on occasion find new ones if only for a brief sexually driven session or longer if mutually desired. Occasional threesomes are always fun but usually one time chance happenstances. I have special affection for transsexuals, both pre and post op who never fail to surprise me with their creativity, maternal personalities and their love of animals. Naturally there are exceptions to any general statement.
Although I prefer female partners I have been know to turn the other cheek without any regrets. Vaginal intercourse is still my preference in various easy positions although anal is close and proves to be excellent with the right partner. Oral is a pleasant interlude but rarely brings me to a full finale. I prefer frequency with good partners to one time shots with many different people, although it is obviously necessary to cull though great numbers to find those who are excellently compatible in bed and out. As to the size of my penis, let me just say it is enormously beautiful. Probably more info than any of you wanted to know. Love and pizza to all!
What do I hope for in the future? A few more days. Oh yes, I have not had sex with a full blown hermaphrodite, looking forward to that! The lines to that poem are still to be written.
Best wishes and regards to all, and if I managed to piss you off (lovely expression) I apologize and beg forgiveness. Sometimes I am too alpha, sorry!
Oh yes, just a word on fotos-and I caution you to never believe a thing on the internet but that is me-I have repeatedly posted photos of myself but the site never wants to post them. The one of me with a naked girl was reconfigured so you could not see her holding my erection that somehow snuck out of my open fly; then I posted a shadowy pic of me and a girlfriend in a foggy shower stall, she on her knees, nope didn't post; then I tried a foto of me embracing a nude lover in bed, no sex organs visible, no again; finally they posted a foto of me with two beautiful French girls who joined me for a few nights in Paris, you can see how happy I am....(of course you can't see that the girl to my right is also holding my erection).
PS--I tried googling erectus123 and some naked guy in Venezuela pops up on a site called Fuck Space, same name but in capital letters, nice cock foto but that is not me, if it is I don't recall posing...
PSS--My recent series FFB (Face Fuck Book) involves various vignettes as if the writer has found all these people on Face Book with whom he has shared intimacies of mind and/or body over a lifetime. All have a basis in fact and reality. Hope you find them enjoyable..
My most recent poetic series, Reunions, tells the fate of some of the high school gang, hope you see yourselves in there too.
PSSS--When I first started on Literotica, I followed the points scheme in comments, I don't anymore. If I like a poem I vote 4 or 5, if not I usually hit 3. With time I find I comment less and less because people are sensitive and may not be looking for criticism. Certain long time reader/poets have set themselves up as the arbiters of what is right and wrong in poetry. It is interesting that these critics rarely follow their own dictates in their "poems" but humans are a mischievous lot so we must ignore or pity them and pay little attention to their hurtful comments. One final comment--the more you write the better you become, so persevere!
PSSSS-I decided to return and am once more posting, so thanks to all who have contacted me and God, if there is one out there laughing, God Bless you All! I was living in Thailand but for now I'm back to NYC and in the land Los Angeles.
p.s. my email has changed to email@example.com
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The benefits of a good disaster recovery/business continuity (DR/BC) plan are obvious: It helps an organization stay up and running and, if things go south, it makes recovery quicker and limits damage.
A less obvious advantage of DR/BC is that it fits conveniently with mobility. Both are based on decentralization. A highly mobile workforce benefits from assets that are just as scattered about. A good BC/DR decentralizes assets so that there is no single point of failure.
Continuity Central takes a close look at an important issue in DR/BC to which IT departments must pay attention. The interconnectedness of businesses means that a failure by one company can affect another. Thus, companies sign complex agreements and take out insurance against the loss of business that may occur due to disaster-related downtime:
The piece touches on a number of other issues that relate to the legalities and contractual intricacies of DR/BC. The high-level view is that business does not happen in a vacuum – and neither does BC/DR. Downtime due to a poor BC/DR plan can hurt the company in several ways, including an increase in its related insurance policies.
The key to landing on the right side of these complex and intricate legal issues, many of which can only truly be unraveled by specialized lawyers, is having a solid BC/DR program in place. Tony Bradley at Computerworld lists some of the key lessons that were learned from Hurricane Katrina as the tenth anniversary of that disaster passes.
The keys are pretty basic:
This isn't rocket science. Another useful list is from BLR. Among other steps, it counsels organizations to do such things as identify critical assets and plan around them, evaluate solutions already in place, evaluate solution providers, and continually test the BC/DR plan.
The good news here is that the legal liabilities of an organization's ability to stay open for business and fulfill its tasks align perfectly with a solid approach to business continuity and disaster recovery. So, whether the creation of a good plan starts with the IT or legal department, the key is creating a plan and continually executing on it.
Carl Weinschenk covers telecom for IT Business Edge. He writes about wireless technology, disaster recovery/business continuity, cellular services, the Internet of Things, machine-to-machine communications and other emerging technologies and platforms. He also covers net neutrality and related regulatory issues. Weinschenk has written about the phone companies, cable operators and related companies for decades and is senior editor of Broadband Technology Report. He can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com and via twitter at @DailyMusicBrk.
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Amulya Rich Marie Biscuits, very tasty and crispy biscuits. Tea time healthy biscuits, Natural goodness of wheat and good appearance in shape and colour.Our Amulya Marie Biscuits available in different Packing sizes like 12g, 50g, 65g, 75g, 145g, 150g and 300 grams.
Packing : Marie Biscuits are packed in colourful wrapper as single pack,Each Pack weighs 12 grams. Such 300 packets arranged in a carton Box.and the loadabilty in 40 HC is 3600 Cartons.


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Nick Enfield -
Name: Nicholas James Enfield
Born: 22 November 1966, Canberra, Australia
Citizenship: Netherlands
Current functions:
Senior staff scientist, Language and Cognition Group, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. (Since 2000)
Professor of Ethnolinguistics, Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen (since 2009)
Leader, European Research Council grant "Human Sociality and Systems of Language Use" (2010-2014)
Post: PB 310, AH-6500, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Street: Wundtlaan 1, 6525 XD, The Netherlands
Email: email@example.com
Fax: 31-24-3521-213
Ph.: 31-24-3521-275
Academic qualifications:
PhD (Linguistics), University of Melbourne. (2000) Thesis: On the polyfunctionality of 'acquire' in mainland Southeast Asia: a case study in linguistic epidemiology. Supervisor: Nicholas D. Evans.
BA (Asian Studies) (1st Class Honours with University Medal), Australian National University (1994), specialising in SE Asian languages (Lao/Thai major, linguistics major, Chinese, Sanskrit, Hindi/Urdu sub-majors). Sub-thesis supervisors: R.M.W. Dixon, Anthony V. N. Diller.
National Visiting Scholarship, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (Department of Linguistics), July-October 1997, under supervision of Professor Andy Pawley.
Areas of experience/expertise:
Semantics and pragmatics, gesture, language and social intelligence, language contact, Southeast Asian languages, descriptive linguistics (fieldwork-based), syntax, linguistic anthropology.
Editorial Board, Language and Cognition
Editorial board, Language Sciences
Editorial board, Gesture
Editorial Board, Journal of Lao Studies
Editorial Board, Australian Journal of Linguistics
Member, Linguistic Society of America
Member, American Anthropological Association (Society for Linguistic Anthropology)
Member, Australian Linguistic Society
Member, Association for Linguistic Typology
Member, Int'l Pragmatics Assoc.
Ad hoc reviewer, Language, Brain and Behavioural Sciences, Current Anthropology, Cognition, American Anthropologist, Cognitive Linguistics, Journal of Pragmatics, Language Sciences, Linguistics, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, John Benjamins, inter alia
Other qualifications:
Accreditation as Interpreter Level II (English and Lao), since 1992
(National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters, Australia)
Certificate in Lao Linguistics and Literature
(modified 2 year course conducted in Lao language) Vientiane Teachers' Training Institute, Vientiane, Lao PDR. Sept. 1990-June 1991


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SPAIN: November output off 39% - ANFAC
Spanish vehicle output fell 39% year on year in November, trade group ANFAC said on Thursday, noting this was the fourth consecutive month of falling production.
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PHX Sky Train™ Opens at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport
PHX Sky Train™, the $1.58 billion inter-terminal train system at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, opened on April 8 as one of the world's most advanced and energy-efficient automated people movers.
By bringing transit directly into one of the nation's busiest and most urban airports—Sky Harbor is located just three miles from downtown Phoenix—the PHX Sky Train™ serves as more than just a hub for smart transit or transit-oriented development. It establishes a new framework for the city's long-term growth.
The all-electric PHX Sky Train™ is the result of an eight-year collaboration between HOK and transportation design and engineering firm Gannett Fleming. HOK designed the three stations while Gannett Fleming designed the rail system and bridges.
The first of three planned stages, Stage 1, which includes three elevated passenger stations, travels a 1.7-mile route linking Phoenix's METRO light-rail station with the airport's economy parking structure and the 88-gate Terminal 4. It is expected that 2.5 million passengers will ride Stage 1 in the first year of operation.
"We wanted to design something efficient and flexible that would fit with the airport's goals," said Chris Anderson, HOK in Los Angeles' senior design architect for the project. "They were looking to make Sky Harbor a multi-modal airport. While this would serve the immediate need to reduce congestion around the terminals, it also reinforces the airport's long-term goals for smart growth and flexibility."
Ernest Cirangle, AIA, director of design for HOK in Los Angeles, says the design team had to navigate two primary challenges. "One was that everything had to fit seamlessly within very complicated existing conditions," he said. "It was like working inside a Swiss watch." The other challenge was determining the overall design language. Cirangle developed the idea to play off aerodynamics and aviation imagery to give the 44th Street station (pictured above and below) a public character that signaled its purpose.
Connecting with Phoenix's METRO light-rail, the 44th Street station was conceived as the flagship station for the entire system. "This station was designed to capture the imagination and excitement of movement," said Anderson. Overall, the design provides a streamlined and functional solution that makes a statement without being grandiose. This flagship station will stand out as a symbol for Sky Harbor and the city as a whole.
The elliptical form of the 44th Street METRO station, while easily identifiable, is more than a symbolic gesture. Because the shape is structurally more efficient, it allows for a 30 percent reduction in steel compared to more conventional structures. This was a significant carbon footprint-reducing measure. The elliptical shell also functions as a high-performance envelope, protecting passengers from the extremes of the desert climate. Set between this envelope and below the platform is the covered, open-air breezeway. While strategically conceived as space for the future growth of the station, the phasing of this expansion created a significant reduction in the station's immediate and near-term heating and cooling requirements.
The design strategies enabled the team to reduce the airport's greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 6,000 tons per year. The three stations will also use 30 percent less power than an established baseline. The entire project has achieved a rating of LEED-NC Gold, making it the first automated people mover system to earn this rating.
The clean, flexible design made it possible for local artists to use the architecture as a palette for vibrant works of large-scale public art, such as expansive floor, ceiling and wall mosaics. HOK's team helped select the art and coordinated how it would be integrated into each station and bridge connection. As a result, PHX Sky Train™, while evoking the dynamism of high-tech travel, is imbued with a sense of place specific to the history and identity of Phoenix.
Watch Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton tour the Terminal 4 station on the airport's YouTube channel.
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