text:
Today is the day you will start growing your brand with Circle Consulting Agency LLC
We Understand Your Challenges
- You want to get into brand marketing but you do not know where to start
- Your current traditional advertising methods are not working anymore, but it's the only method you know
- You are running an online marketing campaign but you are not seeing the results
We Want You to Succeed!
Businesses like you trust Circle Consulting Agency LLC with their online & offline brand marketing to take their business to the next level. As your brand marketing company we ONLY succeed when you succeed! It is our mission in life to grow your sales and increase your customer base.
Increase Online Visibility, Traffic and Engagement
We make sure that you become more visible across online marketing channels and get the traffic you need with our cutting edge brand marketing techniques. With high quality content and promotions, your visitors will become attracted to you and become highly engaged with your brand.
Increase Leads and Customers with Brand Marketing
Online visibility, traffic and engagement are nothing if they do not turn into leads and customers. Our online & offline brand marketing strategies for all our services are geared towards transforming your visitors into leads and your leads into customers. Not just any customers, but loyal customers who will be inclined to spread the good word about your brand, in turn amplifying all of our marketing efforts.
Increase Revenue, Profits and ROI
The online world is always changing and evolving. Having a world class brand marketing company managing your online visibility is a necessity in this day and age. We can offer you world class services at affordable rates. With our brand marketing intelligence and experience, coupled with your passion for what you do, together we will work together to successfully increase your Revenue, Profits, and ROI.
Our Popular Brand Marketing Articles
- Click Here for 9 Tips On How To Seriously Build Your Brand
- Click Here For The Importance Of Brand Reputation Marketing


text:
Butch Carter to be next Magic coach?
ORLANDO, Fla. – Local 6 Sports Director David Pingalore has learned through multiple NBA sources that former Toronto Raptors head coach Butch Carter could be the Orlando Magic's next head coach.
Pingalore first reported Friday night that Carter interviewed for an assistant head coach position on Thursday with the Magic.
"Carter would be a fantastic choice for the franchise," said a source.
Reports surfaced late Sunday that Brian Shaw and Mike Malone may in fact be out of the head coaching race.
Carter was the Raptors head coach for three seasons, starting in 1997, when he took over for Darrell Walker in the middle of the season.
Pingalore also was the first to report that Lindsey Hunter would be considered for the head coaching job. He is still in the mix, according to conversations Pingalore had Sunday night.
Copyright 2012 by ClickOrlando.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Sort by:
Welcome to our new website! We offer thousands of top fabrics, and can turn any fabric into a panel (up to 120"). Sign up for our newsletter below to receive special offers, products updates, and more! If you would like a custom cut of fabric please message us in the bottom left of the corner and we will create a custom order for you.
FREE SHIPPING AND FREE SAMPLES for all orders in the continental US
If you need help with ordering or have questions about installation, check out our Help page or email us!


text:
EQ Coaching Solutions, LLC… partners with individuals and organizations to achieve their goals through career and executive coaching, and emotional intelligence competence training.
Invest in Yourself
Coaching can increase your effectiveness, and improve your performance.
Coaching can develop critical skills, such as greater self-awareness and self-management to achieve the outcomes that you want.
Coaching can improve your teambuilding and leadership skills, enhancing your ability to influence and connect with others.
For Organizations & Businesses: Invest in Your People
Develop your people to reach their full potential.
Increase retention of your talent by developing effective leaders:
Ones who lead, influence, and develop others, and create a thriving workplace.
Emotional intelligence is the critical factor that enables people to make the most of their education, experience, knowledge and skills to achieve their goals. According to a large body of research, it is the strongest predictor of career success, even more than one's IQ, and coaching is the most effective way to develop and grow these competencies.
To partner with individuals who are in career transition, desiring to change careers, looking for a new position and those currently employed who want to reassess their career path to achieve their vision and goals.
To develop emotional intelligence competencies in professionals and executives through training and coaching.
To educate others on the importance of utilizing one's emotional intelligence to achieve career success.
Individuals are more effective in reaching their goals by developing their emotional intelligence skills. The foundation for life and career satisfaction lies in the development of one's full potential. This is achieved by knowing oneself, managing oneself effectively, and by accurately assessing others, the situation and choosing the best way to interact and respond. This is what we call "emotional intelligence". Through coaching, training and practice, individuals develop these skills and thus improve their performance and overall effectiveness. Organizations that invest in their people and develop these personal and social competencies in their employees and managers will yield better business results through: improved communication, team work, customer service and leadership.
Utilize the highest professional and ethical standards to serve others with honesty and integrity.
Reinforce qualities of self determination, personal responsibility and accountability which play an essential role in achieving life goals and life satisfaction.
Provide quality, effective, and affordable coaching services, training, and development programs, promoting a rewarding learning experience and achieving client satisfaction to all who utilize its services.
The Smart New Way to Get Hired
Use Emotional Intelligence and Land the Right Job
By Lisa Caldas Kappesser, Certified Career Coach and Emotional Intelligence Expert. Foreword by Steven J. Stein, Ph.D., Author of
The EQ Edge and Make Your Workplace Count
Lisa Caldas Kappesser unveils how to identify, use, and enhance your emotional intelligence, or "EQ" for short to make a smart career choice, find the best job, and score the job offer. Her book provides a quiz to assess your emotional intelligence skills. Practical exercises and examples are given to teach you how to stand out in the job search by using your EQ, which is composed of your: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social skills. Readers can learn how to overcome common job search obstacles, as well as gain self- confidence by building their skills and knowledge.


text:
About a week ago I ran into a snag with templates. at the time it infuriated me as I hadn't touched anything like it yet. but since then I've been trying several attempts on making minor changes to templates in the hopes of letting the AI build tanks according to my design (new templates).
1 week inwards, I've managed to get the game crashed about 2 to 5 minutes in, instead of even before actual play.
I set up about 10 templates in the Nexus AI , see code below
All the entries with "Viper2" are units that use a new light body, and is researchable right after the viper body (so from the start)
Code: Select all
numTemplates[0] int 48
tmpl[0][0] TEMPLATE "Mach1Viper1Wheels"
tmpl[0][1] TEMPLATE "Mach1Viper1Tracks"
tmpl[0][2] TEMPLATE "Mach1Viper2Wheels"
tmpl[0][3] TEMPLATE "Mach1Viper2Wheels"
tmpl[0][4] TEMPLATE "Mach2Viper1Wheels"
tmpl[0][5] TEMPLATE "Mach2Viper1Tracks"
tmpl[0][6] TEMPLATE "Mach2Viper2Tracks"
tmpl[0][7] TEMPLATE "FlamerViper1Wheels"
tmpl[0][8] TEMPLATE "FlamerViper2Wheels"
tmpl[0][9] TEMPLATE "FlamerViper2Tracks"
tmpl[0][10] TEMPLATE "ViperLtCannonHTracks"
tmpl[0][11] TEMPLATE "CobraLtA-Thalftrack"
tmpl[0][12] TEMPLATE "CobraMRLHalftrack"
tmpl[0][13] TEMPLATE "CobraInfernoHTracks"
tmpl[0][14] TEMPLATE "SK-Cobra-Hover-Lancer"
tmpl[0][15] TEMPLATE "Sk-CobraBBHover"
tmpl[0][16] TEMPLATE "CobraMedCnTrks"
tmpl[0][17] TEMPLATE "SK-Cobra-Track-HVC"
tmpl[0][18] TEMPLATE "CobraHvyCnTrks"
The game however crashes on me, presumably as soon as the AI wants to build tanks (I think).
and this is the error message I receive:
I looked very meticulously and carefully to the names I entered in the stats editor, and the names match. Can someone please help me? what is going wrong?
Code: Select all
--- Starting log [C:\Users\Paul\Documents\Warzone 2100 3.1\logs\WZlog-0225_191926.txt]---
info |07:19:26: [realmain:1143] Using C:\Users\Paul\Documents\Warzone 2100 3.1\logs\WZlog-0225_191926.txt debug file
fatal |07:20:14: [scrSkCanBuildTemplate:1484] scrSkCanBuildTemplate: Unhandled template type
The error message isn't really helpfull


text:
Edamame Hummus Recipe
Edamame is more commonly known as a soybean. In Asia, soybeans have been used for over two thousand years as a major source of protein. The pods are lightly boiled in salted water, and then the seeds are squeezed directly from the pods into the mouth with the fingers. Using soybeans instead of chickpeas to make this hummus I guess you can say is Asian-Middle Eastern fusion. Serve this as a dip or for lunch with crudites for a low carb meal.
Servings: 6 • Serving Size: 1/4 cup • Points +: 3 pts • Smart Points: 3
Calories: 107.4 • Fat: 6.7 g • Carb: 7.2 g • Fiber: 3.8 g • Protein: 6.1 g • Sugar: 0.5 g Sodium: 11.4 mg
1 1/2 cups edamame (green soy beans) cooked and shelled
1/4 cup water plus more if needed
1 tsp lemon zest
juice of one lemon
1 clove garlic, crushed
Kosher salt to taste
2 tsp olive oil
black and white sesame seeds as a garnish (optional)
Keywords: Edamame Hummus


text:
Here's your silver platter
In the interest of openness, I've decided to release the exploit. Hopefully, this will ignite the PS3 scene, and you will organize and figure out how to use this to do practical things, like the iPhone when jailbreaks were first released. I have a life to get back to and can't keep working on this all day and night.
Please document your findings on the psDevWiki. They have been a great resource so far, and with the power this exploit gives, opens tons of new stuff to document. I'd like to see the missing HV calls filled in, nice memory maps, the boot chain better documented, and progress on a 3D GPU driver. And of course, the search for a software exploit.
This is the coveted PS3 exploit, gives full memory space access and therefore ring 0 access from OtherOS. Enjoy your hypervisor dumps. This is known to work with version 2.4.2 only, but I imagine it works on all current versions. Maybe later I'll write up how it works
I've gotten confirmation the exploit works on 3.10. Also I've heard about compile issues on Fedora. I did this in Ubuntu. I would really like someone to write up a nice tutorial :)
Source: http://geohotps3.blogspot.com/2010/01/heres-your-silver-platter.html


text:
"A poised, absorbing book. . . . Shapiro is a gifted writer, and Family History is a bona fide page turner." –The New York Times Book Review
"One of those books most readers will finish in one sitting . . . because it is so intense you can't take a break. In gripping, moving prose, Shapiro reminds us of any family's essential fragility, but also of the tenacious strength of love." —Detroit Free Press
"Shapiro writes wonderfully. . . . Her portrayal of a mother and wife struggling to accept the limits of her love and custody will resonate with anyone who has wished they could protect someone, and failed." —Chicago Tribune
"Real heart-in-your-throat scariness . . . the characters are so real and the situations so emotional that they leave the reader almost dizzy." —San Francisco Chronicle
"Shapiro is an abundantly emotional writer with a deep understanding of life's banal blessings." —Los Angeles Times
"Shapiro's small observations of motherhood are keen and astute; they demand empathy. . . . Realistic and heartbreaking." –The San Diego Union —Tribune
"A brutal firecracker of a novel that chronicles the dissolution of a cinematically perfect New England Family." –Newsday
"Shapiro has both a best-selling writer's instinct for plot and pacing and a fine literary sensibility. . . . A powerful, penetrating illumination of the hidden agendas and consequences of family relationships." –Elle
"A gripping, contemporary story of guilt, love and redemption." –Rocky Mountain News
"Keeps us flipping pages late into the night. Through seamless writing and a good plot, Shapiro manages to impart to us Rachel's frenetic desire to understand the past." –The Oregonian
"Riveting." –Harper's Bazaar
"Shapiro displays a sharp eye for the tiny epiphanies of everyday life, the quiet contentments we all have taken for granted." –The Charlotte Observer
"Dani Shapiro has the gift. That a book as harrowing as Family History can be such a page-turner is testimony to the primal power of storytelling and the saving grace of art." –David Gates
"Absorbing . . . elegantly written, wry and unsettling." –NPR's Fresh Air
"A gripping account of a contemporary Massachusetts family of four unraveling as problems with the eldest daughter start to rip the delicate fabric of love and partnership." –Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"From the first page to the last, Family History is virtually impossible to put down: a beautifully structured, tightly woven exploration of the mysteries of adolescent pain, and the brutal efficiency with which a crisis can engulf a family and transform it into something unrecognizable." –Jennifer Egan
"Start reading Dani Shapiro's Family History and you'll be wishing you didn't have to put it down for anything. Let the kids wait for their ride home from school; let the phone ring; cancel the doctor's appointment you waited six weeks for. This writer has a story to tell." –Calgary Herald
"Dani Shapiro's new novel strikes at the heart of every mother who has ever worried that she has failed her child . . . readers will fly through this book. A contemporary domestic drama . . . a quick powerful read." –Chattanooga Times Free Press
"Book covers often tout that readers won't be able to put it down. In the case of Dani Shapiro's compelling Family History, no one would accuse the publisher of false advertising." –Buffalo News
"Graceful." –Glamour
"Shapiro's suspenseful novel movingly explores the fragility of family life . . . the overall effect is to create a web that lures readers in, curious to find out who is guilty of what and whether the ending will be happy." –People
"Family History isn't a book you have to work to get into. Shapiro hooks you on page one." –The Missourian
"Spare, compelling, and heartbreakingly authentic . . . Shapiro has fashioned a deeply moving, beautifully crafted story. Once begun it is impossible to put down." –Denton Record-Chronicle


text:
|TheGrizz (talk)
|Date Created:
|Mostly complete
|Please feel free to edit constructively!
|Greater Deity
|A pair of hands holding a large oak tree
|Home Plane:
|The Resplendent Garden of B'Garra
|Neutral Good
|Birth, Life, Agriculture, Harvest
|Clergy Alignments:
|Any good and Any Nuetral
|Good, Healing, Plant, Sun
|Favored Weapon:
Summary::B'Garra is the Mother Goddess of birth, life, and agriculture within the Altinian Pantheon. She is of ageless and timeless beauty appearing wise yet childish while radiating a soothing sense of calm and serenity.
Dogma Edit
Respect life for it is the foundation of all creation including your own. Learn the cycles of the sun for it is this heavenly body that grants all the growing things in the world life. Treat those you love as you would treat yourself and always share the rich bounty that you are blessed with. Despise evil and the undead above all else for these are a mockery of life and the value of creation.
Clergy and Temples Edit
The B'Garran clergy are expected to act as shepards to their faithful. They are expected to help with the planting as well as the harvest. They are renowned as midwife's and marriage counselors. The Glergy of B'Garra are expected to exterminate any undead they discover without hesitation.
B'Garran temples are simple affairs and often only a small chapel attached to a silo where the bounty of the harvest is stored.
Pantheon Edit
B'Garra is the Mother diety of the Altinian Pantheon and as such is given a great deal of respect. Even her hated enemy (and father diety of the pantheon) Yith gives her respect though he works hard to foil her plans. B'garra has a special relationship the Amberra the goddess of healing and the two often work together to improve the lives of their faithful.
Back to Main Page → 3.5e Homebrew → Deities


text:
List of Projects that use Haskell
From HaskellWiki
Revision as of 14:29, 24 February 2020 by Phuhl (talk | contribs) (Adds deadd-notification-center as a project)
People often ask, «Okay, Haskell looks like a fun language; but what's written in it?»
The purpose of this page is to create a list of Haskell-based projects.
To qualify, the project should meet these requirements:
- Programs, not libraries
- The project should be of value to the end user. Programs that are configured by writing a small piece of Haskell code (xmonad, yi) or that expose a Haskell-based DSL are okay.
- A significant part is written in Haskell
- As a rough guideline, no less that 30% of the source code should be Haskell.
- Open source
- Not necessarily «free as speech», but people should be able to try it out and look at the source code.
- Valuable outside of the Haskell community
- Haskell infrastructure is almost entirely written in Haskell, but that isn't very useful in selling Haskell to outsiders. Tools that work with other languages (e.g. a Perl6 implementation written in Haskell) are okay.
- Successful
- The project should be maintained and have a non-trivial user base.
- PortFusion
- cross-platform, distributed reverse / forward proxy & tunneling
- darcs
- a distributed version control system
- xmonad
- a tiling X11 window manager
- Deadd notification center
- a notification daemon/center for Linux using GTK3 and DBUS
- pandoc
- a universal document converter
- Timeplot
- a program for visualizing data from log files
- hledger
- a personal finance tracker
- FreeArc
- a general-purpose archiver
- xmobar
- a text-based status bar for X11
- HedgeWars
- Worms-style combat game (gameServer built in Haskell)
- Nikki and the Robots
- A commercial platform game (code is open source)


text:
mbwinograd brauchte ein neues Logo Design und hat einen Wettbewerb auf 99designs gestartet.
Aus 97 Designs von 23 Designern wurde eine Gewinner gewählt.
NuLabel Technologies
We are an early-stage start up company that is developing innovative technology for companies that print millions of labels. Today, these labels typically go on packages and products and are generally considered basic and old-line stuff. Our solution is a label that helps companies cut costs and reduce waste. Our labels can save companies millions of dollars every year. We are a less expensive, more efficient label. Our solution uses polymer science and is unique, novel, and innovative.
Our target audience has two facets. First, we are targeting potential customers, which are companies that print millions of labels as part of their everyday operations. These customers care about cost, efficiency, waste reduction, and like that our solution is simple, yet technologically transformative. The second facet to our target audience is potential investors who will back our company. They need to see that this technology is unique and innovative, that their is a compelling reason for companies to buy it, and that our company is going to be a high-tech disruption in an otherwise low-tech, basic marketplace.
Here is our old logo: http://www.nulabelprinting.com
As you notice it is black-and-white, serifed, and has a barcode coming off of the N in NuLabel.
We want some color injected into our logo - we do not want to be too loud or too bright, but a little more than the current black-and-white design.
Our name is now NuLabel Technologies - which is different than what the original logo suggests.
The type-face should be bold and simple, and sans serif.
We do not want stock photos, hokey cartoons, or clipart in the logo.
The files we will require are:
Print file format - .ai (CMYK)
Web file format - .jpg, .png, and layered .psd (RGB)
Finden Sie heraus, wie ein Designwettbewerb funktioniert, oder lernen Sie mehr über unsere Logo-Design-Angebote.


text:
Product Aftercare
Buzz Rickson's cloth and nylon flight jackets:
Buzz Rickson flight Jackets have been made with great attention to detail , adhering to the original specs as closely as possible. Due to the natural materials in each garment, we recommend you do NOT wash the jackets in washing machines or dry clean. Nor do we recommend use of a dryer. Doing so can result in damage (shrinkage, transformation, color change, ink fading, etc). If you need to clean your flight jacket, first spot test in a less obvious part of the jacket. Spot clean with a mild soap and cloth. Note this can lead to irregular coloring. CAUTION: In our effort to faithfully reproduce each detail, the main label says "DRY CLEAN ONLY." In fact, we do NOT recommend this.
Buzz Rickson's leather flight jackets:
If the leather becomes dirty, wipe off with a clean cloth or a soft brush. Wearing the jacket frequently is the best maintenance. When not wearing, keep it in a mold-free, well ventilated place. If the jacket gets wet, dry in a shaded and a well ventilated place. As the moisture dries, oils and fats will be taken away. Before fully drying, apply a leather conditioning cream and wipe off the excess with a dry cloth.
Hang on a thick hanger to help prevent deformation. Use moisture absorbing products and insecticides to protect. We also recommend you check it from time to time to make sure there is no moth damage or mold damage.
Be careful to take it to a reputable and trusted cleaner. Note that cleaning can change the leather, markings, inks and materials permanently. The best maintenance tip is for you to take care and love your jacket by wearing it often.


text:
In the game of Craps, a "Pass Line" bet proceeds as follows. Using two six-sided dice, the first roll of the dice in a craps round is called the "Come Out Roll." The bet immediately wins when the come out roll is 7 or 11, and loses when the come out roll is 2, 3, or 12. If 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10 is rolled on the come out roll, that number becomes "the point." The player keeps rolling the dice until either 7 or the point is rolled. If the point is rolled first, then the player wins the bet. If the player rolls a 7 first, then the player loses.
Write a program that plays the game of Craps using the rules stated above so that it simulates a game without human input. Instead of asking for a wager, the program should just calculate if the player would win or lose. The program should simulate rolling the two dice and calculate the sum. Add a loop so that the program plays 10,000 games. Add counters that count how many times the player wins, and how many times the player loses. At the end of the 10,000 games, compute the probability of winning, i.e. Wins / (Wins + Losses) and output this value. Over the long run, who is going to win the most games of Craps, you or the house?
Note: To generate a random number x, where 0 <= x < 1, use x = Math.random(); . For example, multiplying by six and converting to an integer results in an integer that is from 0 to 5.
Use a nested loop, with the outer loop for the number of games and an inner loop for the scenario of rolling the point.
can anyone help me with this please?
this is all i have so far.
public static void main(String[] args) {
Random diceRoller = new Random();
double NUM_GAMES;
for (NUM_GAMES = 10000)
for (int i = 1; i <= 12; i++) {
int roll = diceRoller.nextInt(11) + 2;
i am so stumped. i understand what the assignment is all about. i'm supposed to create a program that would simulate a dice roll for 10,000 times but how am I supposed to do taht by using loops? The assignment says to use a nested loop but I'm not sure how. Am I supposed to define the constants using the "private static final int" for the counts, wins and losses? If someone can help me with this that would be greatly appreciated.


text:
The Myth of Jonas Davenport
I lived near Lexington. My house stood on the road. I joined the minute-men when I heard of the comin' of the British troops, and left my wife and two children home, under the care of my father, then about sixty. I told 'em to keep as quiet as possible and they would be safe.That text comes from Henry C. Watson's 1851 book, The Yankee Tea-Party. Watson had Davenport go on to tell the legend of Hezekiah Wyman. Another voice in the book was David Kinnison, Chicago's fake Tea Party veteran. In sum, the book is full of spurious stories.
Well, as I said, I joined the minute-men, and, when the rascals retreated from Concord, followed and did some execution with my firelock. But one of 'em shot me in the shoulder, and I could n't point my gun any more. I waited till the enemy had got a considerable distance on the road towards Boston, and then managed to reach my house—but such a house as I found it!
The windows were broken in, the doors torn off their hinges, and the furniture broken and thrown about in heaps. I called for my father and wife, but received no reply. I crawled up stairs, for I was nearly exhausted from loss of blood, and there I found my father and oldest child stretched on the floor dead. The old man had his gun still clenched in his hand, and he had, no doubt, done the enemy some damage with it. But his face was beaten in, and he had two or three bayonet stabs in his breast. The little boy had been shot through the head.
I was a pretty tough-hearted man, but I fainted at the sight; and, when I came to myself, I found my wife and the youngest child bending over me crying. How they did hug and kiss me when they saw me revive! I think I did as much to them, for I never expected to see them alive.
My wife told me that the old man would fire at the British as they were passing the house, and some of them stopped, broke open the doors, and knocked the things about. The old man and the little boy ran up stairs, while my wife and the other child ran from the house towards a neighbor's. As she ran away, she heard the muskets fired, but could n't stop, as she thought the rascals were after her. She had returned as soon as she knew they were far on the road.
I did n't grieve long; but sent her for the doctor at Lexington to dress my wound. Boys, boys, I've made many a red-coat pay for the lives of that old man and child. I hated them enough before, but that day's work made me all gall!
In this case, Watson combined the bloodiest elements of three actual incidents:
- Hannah Adams of Menotomy running from her house, leaving her children.
- Jason Russell of Menotomy, an older man shot and stabbed in a fight over his house. (The Arlington Historical Society's Jason Russell House shown above.)
- Edward Barber, a boy shot through the head in Charlestown—the only Massachusetts child killed in the fighting.


text:
Dance concert
The Misako Ballet Company offers a free dance concert from 1 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 21, at 5485 Harper's Farm Road, Suite 203 in the Harper's Choice Village Center. This concert, tailored to the young audience, will feature ballet with Japanese and classical themes and contemporary dances. Open registration will be held noon to 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 20, and 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 24. Information: 410-884-9690, 443-805-1350, or go to misakoballet.com.
Charity cycling event
The benefit cycling event to fight cancer, "24 Hours of Booty," will be held Aug. 27-28 at Columbia Gateway Park. Funds raised support LIVESTRONG and the Ulman Cancer Fund for Young Adults. To sign up or for more information, go to 24hoursofbooty.org.
The Columbia Art Center holds a mini-workshop from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 27, at 6100 Foreland Garth. "How to Glaze Large Forms with Cat Holt" presents the process and provides practical, hands-on approaches to glazing large work. Fee is $45, $35 for residents. Participants should bring at least one large form to the workshop. To register or for more information, call 410-730-0075, email email@example.com or go to columbiaartcenter.org.
Slayton House Gallery presents a two-person exhibit through Aug. 31 at 10400 Cross Fox Lane. The exhibit features a group of photographs titled "Faces of Aging," by Marie McGing, which includes landscape photographs of Ireland and Scotland. "Eye Around the World" is an exhibit of oil and mixed media by Molly Safren. Summer gallery hours will be in effect through Aug. 12: 3:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. Fridays and 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays. Closed Sundays. Information: 410-730-3987 or 301-596-4883.
Stand-up comedy night
The "ER" show, hosted by Sean Savoy, takes place at 8 p.m. Tuesdays at Nottingham's Tavern, 8850 Stanford Blvd., Suite 1100. Tickets are $10. For reservations and more information, call 410-290-0077.
Vendors needed
The Oakland Mills Community Association seeks vendors for the annual Cultural Arts Festival being held Oct. 15 in the Oakland Mills Village Center. Food, beverage, arts and crafts, nonprofits, Howard political candidates and commercial vendors are welcome. For application or information, call 410-730-4610 or go to oaklandmills.org.
Film festival
Enjoy family outdoor movies under the stars at the 40th annual Columbia Association Summer Lakefront Film Festival at 10320 Little Patuxent Parkway. Films will be shown Mondays and Fridays and begin at dusk (about 8:30 p.m.). Free dance instruction is offered from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays. Inclement weather hot line: 410-715-3127.
•Aug. 15: "Shrek Forever After" (PG)
•Aug. 19: "The Adjustment Bureau" (PG-13)
Looking for artists
The Bernice Kish Gallery at Slayton House, 10400 Cross Fox Lane, is accepting applications to exhibit at the gallery for the 2012 season. Applications are available at the gallery or by email to firstname.lastname@example.com. Information: 410-730-3987 or email@example.com.
Singles social group
The Phoenix Cultural Singles Group, a Columbia social group for those 50 and older, meets from 11:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. Sundays at the Oakland Mills Interfaith Center, 5885 Robert Oliver Place in the Oakland Mills Village Center. Coffee, tea and a light snack are served. The group plans events and trips. Information: 410-997-0739.
Around town
English conversation The Howard County Public Library, 10375 Little Patuxent Parkway, offers "Let's Get Together: English Conversation Club." It's a chance for those for whom English is a second language to practice speaking and understanding English in a group setting. The club meets at 9:30 a.m. Mondays and 7:30 p.m. Thursdays. Register with the library before your first meeting. Information: 410-313-7850.
Wii Club Howard County Department of Recreation and Parks offers a Wii Club for those 55 and older from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Tuesdays at the Bain Center, 5470 Ruth Keeton Way. The first game is free. Information: 410-313-7213.
Parent support meeting Group provides support for parents and caregivers of children and adolescents with serious mental health issues. The meeting takes place from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday, Aug. 8, at First Presbyterian Church, 9325 Presbyterian Circle. Free. Information: 410-772-9300.
Single Again Changing Focus Single Again, a nonprofit program for adults who are separated, widowed or in the process of divorce, provides weekly presentations and small-group discussions in a confidential, comfortable atmosphere. The group meets at 7 p.m. Mondays at First Presbyterian Church, 9325 Presbyterian Circle. An orientation for new members is offered at 6:30 p.m. Information: changingfocus.org.
Chair yoga The East Columbia 50 Plus Center at the East Columbia branch of the Howard County Public Library, 6600 Cradlerock Way, will offer chair yoga, an easy introduction to yoga that helps ease the pain of arthritis, reduce fatigue and improve circulation and breathing, at 10 a.m. Tuesdays. Cost is $25 per month. Reservations: 410-313-7680.
Also at the 50 Plus Center:
•Line dancing with Mary McCormick will be held at 3:30 p.m. Mondays for advanced dancers, 4:30 p.m. for beginners. Cost is $43.
•Age Well Exercise with Joyce Diatoms will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Cost for a 12-week session is $48.
•A class to reduce the fear of falling and increase the activity levels of older adults will be held from 10 a.m. to noon Tuesdays. Cost is $24.
•A belly dance class will be held from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays. Camilla Karma will teach hip movements, stretches, arm and hand techniques, and veil dancing. Cost is $25 per month.
•A yoga class with Smite Javari is offered from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays. The cost is $24 per month.
•Beginner tai chi classes are offered 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays. The cost is $24 per month.
•Ryan Shimabukuro leads a hula class from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Thursdays that helps tone and strengthen the body. Cost for a six-week session is $28.
•A chess club for novice and veteran players meets at 1 p.m. Thursdays. Free.
•View newly released DVD movies on a large screen at 7 p.m. Thursdays. Free.


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HDTVs are fragile, especially if you play the Nintendo Wii. One sweaty palm and overeager pitch, and you've got some shattered dreams on your hands. If you're really paranoid about protecting your precious purchase, maybe you should take some extreme measures.
TV armor is designed for klutzy worrywarts such as yourself. It's a durable acrylic shield that fits over your screen, allowing you to see the screen through it while protecting it from flying debris. Finally, you can play Wii Tennis with relative peace of mind!
U.S. & World
For more gadget news, check out DVICE.com.
Copyright DVICE - DVICE


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At least ten suspected militants killed as Pakistan air force strikes hideouts
PESHAWAR: At least ten suspected militants were killed and 12 others injured as Pakistani jet fighters targeted nine militants hideouts in Khyber tribal region and Darra Adam Khel.
Official sources say that the jet fighters struck the militants hideous in Akakhel area of Bara Tehsil in Khyber tribal region destroying at least three of their secret bases while five alleged militants were killed and six others injured.
Separately in other strikes carried out by the military jets in Kharmatong, Mansoor Sangar, Zawao Adda and Khawngai area of Dara Adam Khel region, six militants hideouts were destroyed.
The death toll could not be independently verified as access of media is restricted in the region.
Pakistani military officials believe mountains linking the Orakzai, Khyber and Kurram tribal areas are one of the main strongholds for the Taliban-linked militants in Pakistan.
Another senior military official in the northwestern frontier city of Peshawar confirmed that air strikes had taken place "somewhere between Orakzai and Khyber".
Many Taliban and their al Qaeda allies fled Afghanistan to Pakistan's tribal areas after the US invasion in 2001.
They retreated even deeper into the mountains following a Pakistan army offensive in 2009, launching attacks from places where ground forces cannot reach them.
In another unrelated incident a FC vehicle met with an accident in Charsadda area of Khyber Pahktunkhwa killing one FC person and injuring 24 others.
The victims were rushed to a nearby hospital.


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By Olivia Solon, Wired UK
"To be really frank, I want to push this play and not talk about The Pill." The play in question is Insufficiency, which has its stage debut on 20 September at Riverside Studios. Like it or not, you are more likely to have heard of the play's author Carl Djerassi for his contribution to the development of oral contraceptives and the resulting social revolution than for his work as a novelist, poet and playwright.
[partner id="wireduk" align="right"]In 1951, aged 27, Djerassi achieved the first chemical synthesis of a contraceptive steroid, norethindrone, that wasn't broken down by the digestive system and could therefore be taken orally.
Now 89, Djerassi is a novelist and playwright, a career he has been pursuing for more than 25 years. It's understandable that he is a little tired of being referred to as the "inventor" or "father" of The Pill. "That was 60 years ago and I've done a lot more since then," he told Wired UK. "A lot more" refers to three more decades of research, with significant contributions to the application of physical measurements (such as optical dispersion and mass spectrometry) to organic chemistry. It also refers to five novels, a collection of short stories and numerous poems. Since 1997, Djerassi has focused on play-writing, honing a genre that he refers to as "science-in-fiction".
Insufficiency centres around a Polish chemist and bubbleologist Jerzy Krzyz, a new arrival at an American university chemistry department keen to secure tenure. Rivalry gets out of hand when he gives two colleagues trying to block his appointment some experimental champagne which turns out to be deadly. The whodunit examines the tribal behaviour of academics, xenophobia and fashion in science.
Wired UK caught up with Djerassi about the production, his struggle for acceptance among the literati, his reluctance to be considered the "father" of the contraceptive pill and the tensions between science and the arts.
Wired UK: Have you always had a creative outlet?
Carl Djerassi: I was an active scientist for half a century and moved to literature about 25 years ago. As a scientist I never did anything in the area of creative writing or never had any urge. However, I am an intellectual polygamist and have already been interested in music and theatre and art. I am not a cultural Neanderthal. But when it comes to writing I only started when I was 63 and a few years later decided to make this a new intellectual life.
__Wired UK:__You have developed a genre that you describe as science-in-fiction. Can you elaborate on what that is?
Djerassi: Science in fiction portrays the lives of real scientists. It's specifically differentiated from science fiction, which is a much more popular genre. When I first embarked on this career change, I had a didactic motive. If you can do it cleverly then that's what I do. I call myself an intellectual smuggler, where smuggling is a commendable activity not an illegal one. I am trying to do something about the enormous gulf between the scientific community and non-scientific one. I have to seduce readers or theatre-goers on my literary merits and not scientific ones. When they've sat through the whole thing they'll learn something whether they like it or not.
Wired UK: Why do you think there is such a gap between humanities and science?
Djerassi: The public or the media can do nothing for our reputation as a scientist. It's completely controlled, raised, demolished by our most important colleagues. If I'm an important organic chemists, it's only because 27 other organic chemists think so. The New York Times or the Times mean nothing and we get no brownie points for this.
Wired UK: What spurred you to trade academia for literature?
Djerassi: It's a bad motive, but it was revenge. I lived with [esteemed English professor] Diane Middlebrook for five years. It was my most important relationship emotionally. Then one day she told me she was in love with someone else. I had a typical male response – testosterone, cortical steroids and adrenaline – and asked her how she could not love me any more? I'd never met the man. I don't even know his name, but he was a literati. And I said "I'll show her". Suddenly there was an explosion of poems – 60 or so poems [recently released under the title A Diary of Pique]. Then I decided to write a novel about her, titled Middles. In that year I wrote a 300-page manuscript which I sent her. She was flabbergasted. An English professor who spent five years living with a chemist did not expect a novel. We got married a year later in 1985 and she made me promise that I didn't publish it. Two months later I was diagnosed with bowel cancer and I became very self-centred and depressed, thinking about death aged 63. That's when I decided to lead another intellectual life.
Wired UK: What keeps you writing plays?
Djerassi: It's an effective treatment for loneliness. I am an old widower. I am interested in younger people, not my contemporaries. I have a young brain and appearance. But an 89-year-old man isn't going to find many people who are thirty or forty years younger. With playwriting you have continuous conversations in your mind and that is extremely stimulating.
Wired UK: Many members of the scientific community are dismissive about the arts. As an organic chemist who has transitioned to the other side, how have you dealt with this?
Djerassi: I sit completely between two chairs. Important research scientists don't read books. They don't have that curiosity because they are completely and totally occupied in a very sophisticated way with their science. You have to read the scientific literature. If you don't keep up that's it. It's not that they are intellectual boors inherently, but they become that through being total workaholics. It's exciting but culturally limited. The vast majority of people think you are dabbling. "You can write a novel on the side," they say. Some are jealous, some admire, but vast majority think I'm wasting my time.
On the other side, it's the other way round. The arts have an almost pathological fear of science and technology. You see very few plays that deal with science of technology in an interesting way. They worry that science and technology are taking on the world and now they are going to come and take over the theatre as well. They will not accept me as a real member of that tribe.
Wired UK: There are lots of doctors (eg Chekhov) who have become playwrights, but not very many chemists. Why is this?
Djerassi: Because they deal with human beings; chemists deal with molecules. We don't speak the same language; we communicate in pictography of chemical structures.
Wired UK: Where did the idea for Insufficiency come from?
Djerassi: I decided that if I want to bring science to the public, talking about science is not what to do. Science journalists do that much better. Much more interesting is the behaviour and culture of scientists – it's a very tribal culture. Rather than describing science, describing a tribal behaviour requires an insider. Insiders don't write about it because they are not really aware of their own behaviour. People accused me of washing dirty lab coat in public and that's exactly what I'm doing and it should be done.
Wired UK: What is Insufficiency about?
Djerassi: I'm talking about a couple of issues. The first is fashion in science. Some topics are fashionable and others aren't and so are deemed not important. The second is the brutal tenure track and the xenophobia that exists in Europe and the US. My main character is a young Polish immigrant scientist working in an American university. I can comment on the tribal culture because I don't say "you stupid jerks", I say "we stupid jerks". I did exactly the same thing and I am now honest enough to address it whereas most people don't address it.
Wired UK: The lead character Jerzy Krzyz is mocked for being a bubbleologist...
Djerassi: It's a reasonable term. It's not used very frequently, but it's the science of bubbles. If you hear it you don't take seriously but it's very complicated and involves quantum form and physics. I have no question that anyone who sees the play will never drink a glass of champagne without thinking about it. Why do the bubbles when you boil water start at the side? These are questions that people don't pay attention to.
Wired UK: How do you feel about being referred to as the "inventor" of the pill?
Djerassi: I don't like the word inventor or the father of the pill, because there has to be a mother. Any chemist is the mother of a medicinal invention, the biologist is the father and the clinician is the midwife. You can't produce a baby just being the father or the mother. The inventor of the pill is a meaningless term. I was responsible for the first synthesis of an oral contraceptive. [The biologist was Gregory Pincus and the clinician was John Rock]. I am the co-inventor.
If you look at the many reviews of my plays or books, there isn't one that doesn't mention something like "Carl Djerassi, involved in the pill, has now started to write" [sorry, Carl]. I wish when I decided to change professions I had done it under a nom de plum.
Wired UK: But surely you can appreciate why people are interested in it?
Djerassi: It is in terms of societal consequences by far the most important things that I've done, but scientifically I'm much better known as a chemist for elements that have nothing to do with the pill. I've published over 1,000 papers and only a very small proportion of them have anything to do with oral contraceptives. Even as a chemist I am sensitive to this point.
Wired UK: As a chemist what are you most proud of?
Djerassi: As an organic chemist I think I played an important role in bringing physical methods to the structural elucidation of organic compound such as optical dispersion, circular dichroism and mass spectrometry. These methodologies have changed the conduct of structural elucidation in organic chemistry.
Wired UK: How does criticism within science compare to literary criticism?
Djerassi: In science you have no professional critics. The evaluation process is peer review. They are doing the same thing you are doing and it's anonymous. If you have misbehaviour, it is generally based on competition. You are in a position to say nasty things that you wouldn't dare say to their face. It is addressed to their editor and often don't know who has written it.
In literature most people who write reviews are professional critics and I don't mean this pejoratively. There are very few playwrights who review plays. Some professional critics have very sharp tongues, but many do it to prove that nastiness is the equivalent to cleverness and it is not. The trouble is that I'm very vulnerable to this. I have maximum another ten years. It's not like a 29-year-old Irish playwright. I'm not going to live until I'm 120.
*Insufficiency runs from 20 September to 20 October at Riverside Studios in London. For more information visit riversidestudios.co.uk *
Source: Wired.co.uk


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While the nation is mourning what happened in Boston on Monday and the piecing together details of a deadly fire and explosion in Wake, Texas on Wednesday night, many are taking Thursday to also remember a terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut 30 years ago.
On this day in 1983, what has been classified as an act of terrorism killed 52 American diplomats, military personnel, and Lebanese Embassy colleagues. 100 Americans and Lebanese were also wounded in the attack.
At the time, the attack on Embassy Beirut was considered the single largest attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility.
The casualties of the April attack in 1983 were more than quadrupled nearly six months later.
On October 23rd of the same year, Lebanese terrorists drove a truck packed with explosives into the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 U.S. military personnel.
In a statement issued Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry looked back at both bombings from 1983 and to the more recent embassy bombing in Libya.
"The recent loss of State Department colleagues in Zabul, Ankara, and Benghazi remind us of the sacrifices made by our colleagues around the world who work at U.S. diplomatic missions to promote and protect democracy, enhance freedom and justice, and facilitate development," wrote Sec. Kerry.
A local, public memorial service is set for 10a.m., Saturday, April 20th in Jacksonville in the Lejeune Gardens off Highway 24.
Camp Lejeune will participate in the remembrance service, which will include songs, the laying of wreaths, and reading names of military members lost in the April 18th bombing.


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For more information on the Xtext framework, consult Project of the Month: Xtext DSL Framework.
In a previous article, my colleague Sebastian Zarnekow discussed how to use Xtext to create a DSL without too much effort. Once you've honed the DSL syntax to your satisfaction, no doubt you'll want to do something useful with it for example, execute it with an interpreter or compile it with a code generator. This article focuses on the code generation approach. Giving DSL instances semantics by mapping them onto an existing language, framework, or library is an ideal way to reuse an established technology stack. Coding that becomes tedious, boiler-plate repetition, and begs for the definition of a concise notation that expresses intent at a higher-level of abstraction. Code generation makes this stratighforward.
Xtend, part of the Eclipse Xtext project released with Eclipse 2.7 (Indigo) in June 2011, is a statically typed language focused on code generation. It is tightly integrated with and bound to Java (not only does it support reuse of any existing Java classes, it also compiles down to Java source code). It's a good example of a DSL that exploits code generation. In case you have already been working with Xtext, you might find it interesting that Xtend has been implemented with Xtext and on top of Xbase. The final article in this series will explain in detail how Xtext languages can benefit from Xbase.
A First Glance at Xtend
Figure 1 shows a small Xtend file on the left, along with the Java code that is generated from it on the right. In Xtend, a class is compiled to a public Java class, a
def is compiled to Java method, and a multiline string is compiled to multiple Java statements that append contents to a
StringConcatenation object. To run an Xtend template, simply invoke the Java methods in the generated code. There is no need to generate the Java code from the Xtend files manually, It is done in the background by an incremental builder in Eclipse; so each time you modify and save an Xtend file, the corresponding Java code is automatically produced.
For your convenience the code in the left and right panes, respectively, is shown below.
Left pane:
import org.example.domainmodel.domainmodel.DataType import static extension org.eclipse.xtext.xtend2.lib.ResourceExtensions.* class DomainmodelGenerator implements IGenerator { override void doGenerate(Resource resource, IFileSystemAccess fsa) { for(type : resource.allContentsIterable().filter(typeof(DataType))) fsa.generateFile(type.name + ".java", type.contents) } def getContents(DataType type) ''' public class <<type.name>> { } '''
Right pane:
/* * generated by Xtext */ package org.example.domainmodel.generator import org.eclipse.emf.ecore.resource.Resource import org.eclipse.xtext.generator.IGenerator import org.eclipse.xtext.generator.IFileSystemAccess class DomainmodelGenerator implements IGenerator { override void doGenerate(Resource resource, IFileSystemAccess fsa) { //TODO implement me } }
Generators Within Xtext
We will now implement a simple code generator for the DSL introduced in the previous article. In case you don't already have an Xtext project for this in your workspace,
- Follow the steps in the "Getting Started" section.
- Copy and paste the complete grammar from section "Start the Entity Editor."
- Select file "GenerateDomainmodel.mwe2" and trigger
"Run As" -> "MWE2" from the context menu.
After this, open the file DomainmodelGenerator.xtend in your project.
So far, Xtend looks very similar to Java. Some differences to note in this code snippet are that terminating semicolons are optional and Java's
@Override annotation is a keyword. Note that IGenerator is a plain Java interface provided by Xtext as a simple way to plug in code generators.
Step 1: A Basic Template
To start, we'll implement the method
doGenerate(). This example collects all
DataType instances from the parsed DSL model and generates a Java class for each. If you look at the code, you will again notice several differences when compared with Java.
Type Inference
Xtend can infer the types of variables, methods, closures, and so on. This significantly reduces notational noise. In the example we see type inference for the variable
type in the
for-loop and for the return type of
Access Getters and Setters as Properties
If an object has a getter named
object.getFoo(), you can access that value using
object.foo. If it has a setter named
object.setBar(String value), you can assign a value to
object.bar. In essence, you can use
foo like a Java field. This is appropriate given that it represents an abstraction over a field. In the example,
type.name is translated to
type.getName() and
type.contents is translated to
type.getContents(). Because they support assignment, setters need to have exactly one parameter. One would assume, too, that getters must have no parameters, which is true for the most cases, but not extensions methods, which are explained next.
Extension Methods
Xtend extension methods are methods declared outside that object that can be invoked on objects as if they were member methods. An extension method must accept the object as its first parameter. This design allows for the use of the Method Chaining pattern for types that don't provide all the desired APIs and are beyond your control. Method chaining can make your code more concise and more readable. Extension methods don't have a special declaration syntax. Whether a static method can be used as an extension method is determined by whether its first parameter type is compatible with the receiver (the object to which the method is applied). Extension methods can come from three sources:
import static extension: The imported methods must be static. This implies that it is implemented in Java, as Xtend doesn't support the declaration of static methods. In the example, the method
getAllContentsIterable()is imported as a static extension from the Java class
- member methods: All member methods of an Xtend class can implicitly be used as extension methods. In the example,
type.contentsis equivalent to
- injected extensions: Xtend supports member variables annotated with
@Inject. At runtime, an instance is injected by Google Guice. With the syntax
@Inject extension MyType myObject, the nonstatic methods from
myObjectare available as extension methods.
Multiline Strings
The example template generates its output using multiline-strings. They are easy to recognize: the strings are enclosed by three single-quotes (
'''). Within multiline strings, expressions and statements for flow control can be embedded within guillemots (
<< >>). In the example, this is how the value of
type.name is inserted into the string. Statements for flow control are
IF-conditions and
FOR-loops. For further examples, see Step 3 in this article.
Step 2: Adding Helper Functions
In the example from Step 1, package names have not been handled correctly. In fact, files were always written to the root folder and didn't contain package declarations. Because in our model packages can be nested, we need an algorithm to determine the full package name. In the following listing, I've chosen a recursive algorithm that lets me introduce Xtend's switch statement.
class DomainmodelGenerator implements IGenerator { // (...) def String getPackageName(EObject obj) { switch(obj) { PackageDeclaration case(obj.eContainer instanceof PackageDeclaration): obj.eContainer.packageName + "." + obj.name.toLowerCase PackageDeclaration case(obj.eContainer instanceof Domainmodel): obj.name.toLowerCase AbstractElement: obj.eContainer.packageName default: "" } } def getJavaName(Type dataType) { dataType.packageName + "." + dataType.name } def getFileName(Type entity) { entity.javaName.replace(".", "/") + ".java" } }


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Cowl knit in worsted twist.
Cowl knit in worsted twist.
It's raining today so I thought I'd re-visit some sunny photos from last month. I'm searching for a cardigan pattern for my daughter. Maybe a mini manu?
Some moments in my studio last week.
Belated birthday socks for my recently turned 4 yr old.
Wrap her in hugs and hand knits (and her little brother too, if he would let me). Garter stitch scarf using Blue Sky Metalico, strands of Silver and Opal held together.
Scarves left in my shop are now on sale!
New extra long hand knit socks.


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When you think of Florence - you think of Thai food - right? Of course you do! Okay - maybe not - but if you're a Thai freak and you think just because you're in the land of fast food on Dream St you can't have good Thai - you're mistaken. Head on over to the Wildwood Inn exit, go down a couple blocks and look on the left - and find Mai Thai!
The outside is really cute - looks like a pagoda - or at least what tv shows make me think a pagoda would look like. I mean - America's Next Top Model wouldn't lie would it?
Strangely enough the inside looks like a sports bar - a mildy Asian sports bar - but still a sports bar...
I got Spicy Noodle (Thai noodle stir-fried with egg, broccoli, carrots, and bamboo shoots in spicy sauce) with chicken. It was tasty. I figured out the orange was carrot curlies - but what are the red????? BEET! After many trial bites I ended up having to ask...never would have though of beet. I am a wuss and got a 1 and thank goodness I did - it even had a kick!
I'm a big fan of the noodle dish - I always get it now - it's like my version of Pad Thai - I just don't like the peanuts and such in Pad Thai so this is how I judge the Thai of Cincinnati. Is that wrong? This version of the dish was not as quite good as Mekong or Green Papaya but better than Ban Thai. How's that?
A good friend of mine was with us (she likes to keep her anonymity) and she has some food issues. And by some I mean enough to fit into the Grand Canyon. But she knows what she likes and her coworkers love Mai Thai. So she HAD to find something she could eat there. And there it is! Mai Thai Chicken - Served with steamed rice - Sliced chicken, onions, carrots, celery & steamed broccoli in chili sweet and sour sauce. It's different from their "official" sweet & sour - sort of like sweet & sour deconstructed (too much Top Chef - sorry).
It's really good - the chicken isn't like the heavily breaded crap you get at a "chinese" buffet. It's a much lighter and more flavorful coating. The sauce was definitely sweet and sour but not like the thick goo that can often accompany the breaded crap. It was again lighter and more delicate but definitely sweet.
Said friend also doesn't eat rice or pasta and only likes the stem of the broccoli. God I love her.
I talked Larry into getting "the official" sweet & sour chicken. This was really great as well. It's a much lighter sauce even than the Mai Thai and a little more spice - not quite that SWEET of the traditional thick s&s. Not sure if that makes sense...but it was damn good.
I had to taste both versions numerous times before I made my choice - in the end I thought the latter was my favorite - but Larry would have preferred the prior. So live and learn.
All in all though - very good Thai and a nice change of pace from the usual-chain fare that is found in the Florence area.


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New CLAAS electronics development centre opened
CLAAS has opened its new electronics development centre in Dissen, southern Lower Saxony. Chairwoman of the Supervisory Board, Cathrina Claas-Mühlhäuser, welcomed many political and business guests. 'This location will enable us to take another big step towards a digital future,' said Thomas Böck, member of the CLAAS Executive Board responsible for Technology and Systems. 'Electronic assistance systems, software and communication technologies are becoming increasingly important in agriculture.'
More than 170 software developers, engineers and other specialists from CLAAS E-Systems are working in Dissen on pioneering solutions that will enable the networking of machinery to help the farmer manage his business more efficiently. These include control units, electronic architecture, terminals, camera systems, automatic satellite-based steering systems, and many other innovations. 'With us, theory and practice go hand in hand,' explained Dr. Carsten Hoff, Managing Director of CLAAS E-Systems. 'In addition to modern work stations and laboratories equipped with state-of-the-art technology, we have a workshop and also a test track where we can put our developments to the test straight away.'
In Dissen a great deal of importance has been attached to the creation of a dynamic working environment designed to promote innovation. For example, there are open-plan meeting rooms on every floor, equipped with the latest media technology, and there is a parent-child room that staff with children are free to use whenever needed.
CLAAS has invested an eight-figure sum in the new five-hectare CLAAS E-Systems site in Dissen. Back in 1998 CLAAS acquired one of the leading agricultural software companies and has integrated it successfully into the Group. Since then, a powerful range of technologies designed to increase efficiency has emerged under the brand name EASY. CLAAS has become one of the leading suppliers of precision farming solutions, and has won numerous awards for its innovations.


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Life, as are many things, is often not always about quantity so much as it is about quality. Aging seniors often face losses in the quality of their lives well before they face the end of their days. It's not enough just to see to their medical needs. We must also see to their mental and emotional needs in order to help them have a positive view of life.
In fact, a positive view of life can help alleviate some of the medical issues that seniors face such as cognitive decline and stress, lack of energy and appetite. Below are five tips you can use to help improve your aging senior's quality of life.
1. Monitor and treat depression.
Millions of seniors age 65+ are affected by depression. The cause can be a single trigger like losing a spouse, being unable to stay in their own home any longer, or retirement. Medical triggers can come from disease or even medication.
Speak with your doctor and get familiar with the signs of depression. If you notice warning signs, seek medical treatment for your senior.
2. Remind seniors that they are useful and needed.
People of all ages want to feel needed. Being useful is a reinforcement that they are needed. Find ways to make your senior feel useful and needed. A great fear among the elderly is that of becoming a burden. Feeling like a contributing member of the household helps to alleviate that fear. Find ways to make them feel wanted.
Ask seniors for help with tasks appropriate for their abilities. Ask for help to fold laundry (If it's all folded, sneak to the linen closet, unfold towels, etc., and toss them into a clothes basket). They can clip coupons and make grocery or shopping lists, or tell you the latest stories on the news. Ask for help to prep food for cooking. Ask for company while running errands.
3. Encourage physical activity.
Try to encourage some regular physical activity. Walking, physical therapy exercises, even clapping hands to music all stimulate blood flow, relieve stress and anxiety, and encourage heart health. Exercise also improves the quality of sleep, builds stamina, and can relieve depression.
4. Encourage mental activity.
Everyone needs mental stimulation. Seniors need this type of activity to retain or improve cognitive function and, also, to gain or maintain an overall sense of well-being.
Offer daily "brain games" such as sudoku, crossword puzzles, reading, writing, and storytelling. These are wonderful activities to keep the mind engaged and sharp.
5. Keep them connected.
Seniors can often become isolated and lonely, especially if they are unable to drive or have mobility issues. These seniors are at greater risk for dementia. They also have shorter life spans. Help your aging senior to stay connected to family, friends, and community.
Arrange family visits or outings for your aged adult, especially holidays or days of family celebration like weddings or birthdays. Line up transportation to get them to senior centers, church, or community functions. Encourage volunteerism. Suggest a new hobby (possibly one you can do together).
For more tips on caring for your senior loved ones, visit our blog page.
Home Helpers of Denver is a locally-owned, trusted home health care agency and offers quality, compassionate senior in-home care services including home care assistance, personal care, companion care, respite care, Alzheimer's & dementia care as well as homemaker services in Denver, Centennial, Arvada, Littleton, Aurora, Lakewood, Greenwood Village, Cherry Creek, Englewood, Bailey, Golden, The Highlands, Wheat Ridge, Glendale, Cherry Hills Village, and Evergreen.


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New products introduced over the last week include a real return fund from Goldman Sachs Asset Management and an open-end mutual fund from RiverPark.
In addition, Morgan Creek Capital Management launched an open-end alternative fund and Allianz Life offered a new indexed variable annuity.
Here are the latest developments of interest to advisors:
1) Goldman Sachs Asset Management Launches Real Return Fund
Goldman Sachs Asset Management announced the launch of the Goldman Sachs Multi-Asset Real Return Fund (GHRAX), which it says should help investors access to a multi-asset class solution that seeks to help individuals achieve real return over inflation.
GHRAX provides exposure to inflation-sensitive asset classes, including opportunistic fixed income, commodities and select equity sectors. This diversified strategy seeks to perform well across most market environments, and specifically, seeks to provide real return during periods of rising and high inflation.
Samantha Davidson, Raymond Chan, and Chris Lvoff from GSAM's global portfolio solutions team are GHRAX's co-portfolio managers. In addition to A shares, the fund is available in C, I, R and IR shares.
2) River Park Introduces RiverPark Structural Alpha Fund
RiverPark Advisors, LLC announced recently that it has launched the RiverPark Structural Alpha Fund (RSAFX, RSAIX),a new open-end mutual fund that seeks to give investors exposure to the broad-based equity markets while limiting downside risk and volatility by investing primarily in highly liquid global index options. The fund was initially made available to investors on July1.
The RiverPark Structural Alpha Fund is a conversion of a hedge fund called Wavecrest Partners Fund I, which was launched in September 2008. Justin Frankel and Jeremy Berman, who founded Wavecrest and managed the fund, have joined RiverPark and will continue to manage the fund in its new mutual fund format.
3) Morgan Creek Capital Management Launches Open-End Alternative Fund
Morgan Creek Capital Management recently announced the launch of its first open-end alternative mutual fund, featuring a broadly diversified global portfolio, actively managed utilizing a multi-asset class investment strategy with daily liquidity. The Morgan Creek Tactical Allocation Fund (MIGTX, MAGTX) will express Morgan Creek's views on global asset allocation through a number of asset classes including equities, fixed income, currencies, commodities and cash.
The investment objective is to provide long-term total returns while utilizing a strategy that seeks lower volatility than a traditional portfolio of equities and fixed income securities. The fund will incorporate a broad set of global strategies across asset classes, geographies and sectors, including directional as well as long-short strategies.
4) Allianz Life Launches New Indexed Variable Annuity
Allianz Life Insurance of North America recently announced the launch of Allianz Index Advantage, a new indexed variable annuity (IVA) that aims to offer a balance of growth potential and some downside protection. It provides flexibility through two different strategies, the index performance strategy and the index protection strategy, and also includes built-in death benefit protection.
Unlike variable annuities with guaranteed minimum accumulation benefits that require waiting periods of up to 10 years, the new product provides the opportunity for benefits to be protected every year. Compared to fixed index annuities (FIAs), the IVA increases the amount of return potential by having much higher limits (or caps) on the interest credit coming from the growth of an equity index in exchange for less protection.
IVAs, according to Allianz, offer protection from the first 10% of losses per year versus guarantees of no losses from a traditional FIA, although some IVAs will offer that option in exchange for less upside potential. This is a fundamental shift for accumulation choices among variable annuities.
Read the Sept. 13 Portfolio Products Roundup at ThinkAdvisor.


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The next generation of the ArbotiX Robocontroller is here! The ArbotiX-M uses the same ATmega 644p processor, but has a variety of features that make it even easier to build robots with:
- -A smaller footprint(61mm X 61mm)
- -10 more general purpose I/O pins
- -Barrel Jack for DC Power
- -Separate Power Bus for 4 PWM Digital outputs for Hobby Servos
- -Improved 5v Regulator
- -Still compatible with ArbotiX Robocontroller code
- -Price Dropped to $39.95
Pick up one of these new boards by itself, in the ArbotiX Starter kit, or in any of our InterbotiX Labs Robot Kits. For more information on the ArbotiX-M check out our Documentation Page


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Clashes erupted in Sudan's Blue Nile state early Friday, making the area the latest and most critical to descend into fighting between the Sudanese government and rebel forces and bringing the prospect of an all-out Sudanese civil war ever closer to reality. Together with the still unresolved conflict in Darfur and recent war in the Nuba Mountains, the ring of Sudan's rebellions now stretches from the western border with Chad to its eastern border with Ethiopia. Sudan's old civil war appears to be roaring back to life. And chances are, it is only getting started.
The storm clouds had been building for months. Rebel forces in parts of Blue Nile fought as part of the South Sudan rebels, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), during the decades-long civil war, but the optimistically-named 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement brokered by the U.S. did little to resolve the area's plight. While the South Sudan leaders of the SPLM who negotiated the peace deal won their homeland its independence, the agreement got their allies across the border in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile almost nothing.
The Sudanese military's latest target, judging by the attack on his house on Friday, is Blue Nile's elected governor Malik Agar. (Agar is also the head of the SPLM-North Party and commander of its remaining forces in Blue Nile State.) In the first day of fighting, the Sudanese military quickly grabbed control of the state capital, Damazin, and the Sudanese air force is reportedly already bombing SPLM-held towns. Agar, unharmed, is in the southern part of the state mobilizing his troops; his forces are still heavily armed from his days with South Sudan's SPLM.
When the Nuba Mountains reverted to war in June, the most pressing question in Sudan was: Is Blue Nile next? When I asked Agar that question one month ago in South Sudan's capital, Juba, he didn't explicitly reply in the affirmative, but he gave plenty of cues that he thought so. The heavyset graying general looked tired from trying to balance war-room strategizing with his fruitless shuttle diplomacy aimed at negotiating a ceasefire for his deputy Abdulaziz al-Hilu, who was leading the SPLM's Nuba Mountains fight. Agar predicted Sudan would "disintegrate more." He made sure I had his email address, just in case his phone line stopped working.
It's still not clear who exactly fired the first shot in the new Blue Nile conflict. But both the SPLM in Blue Nile and the Sudanese government in Khartoum had been preparing for this scenario for weeks, and in the past few days the buildup escalated even further, with the two militaries edging physically closer and closer to each other. "It doesn't really matter who started it, it was going to start anyway," says one diplomat closely following the events.
Over the past six years, under the terms of the peace deal, the former rebel Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains SPLM units stayed under the main South Sudan army, which paid for all their salaries and equipment. Now that they are two different countries, South Sudan says it has cut off support to those parts fighting the Sudanese government. Few find that claim entirely credible. If a full war breaks out with its old northern units leading the rebellion against the Sudanese government forces, South Sudan will be forced to make a hard choice: abandon old friends for the sake of neighborly relations with their bitter enemy in Khartoum, or risk a wider war and economic meltdown as it tries to build a nation from a war-ravaged scratch. The South Sudanese leadership in "Juba is divided" over what to do, says the International Crisis Group's Fouad Hikmat.
Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir can be expected to respond to the rebels in Blue Nile how he generally does: bloodily. Already indicted on several war crimes charges, including genocide at the International Criminal Court, for actions he allegedly took during the conflict in Darfur, he has employed many of the same military tactics in the Nuba Mountains as he did in Darfur: bombing villages and unleashing ethnically-targeted terror in apparent violation of international law.
Pointing to the Western intervention in neighboring Libya, the rebels who say they want a secular, democratic country and were forced into war by the Khartoum government's aggression and intransigence are hoping the West sees a parallel in their situation in Sudan. "We are calling for a no-fly zone," says Yasir Arman, the secretary-general of the SPLM-North. But he isn't holding his breath for outside action. "Bashir is wanted by the ICC, and nobody is paying attention to what he is doing," he bemoans, before concluding: "The international community doesn't care about the Sudanese."
So the SPLM-North is making other plans. The rebels have already signed an alliance with Darfur rebel groups, even fighting alongside them in some battles near the Nuba Mountains. With three open rebel fronts, and possibly more on the way, the rebels hope to keep a weakened Bashir poorer after the loss of the South's oil on his heels. But to be a serious threat to his rule, they'll need more help: both from the restless youth and opposition parties within Sudan's capital, Khartoum, and from their South Sudanese friends. Whether that happens will determine whether a decade of international diplomacy and billions of aid dollars actually ended a war, or merely created a new sovereign border in the middle of it.


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Nassau emergency shelter set to close seeks pets' owners
At its busiest, the repurposed Navy hangar housed some 225 caged cats and dogs.
That was in November. These days, it's mostly quiet inside Nassau County's emergency pet shelter, which sprang up after superstorm Sandy struck Oct. 29 to accommodate scores of displaced pet owners who could not take their animals with them. Hundreds of pets have come and gone home. About 50 were adopted. Six dogs flew off last week to meet new caregivers in California.
But with the shelter set to close this week, nearly 30 cats and dogs remain. Volunteers are scrambling to track down owners to give them an ultimatum: pick up your pet, permit a temporary adoption or surrender ownership altogether.
So far, communication with displaced homeowners has proved "difficult, if not impossible," said Beverly Poppell, vice president of Wantagh-based Pet Safe Coalition, one of the organizations caring for the pets since November.
"We have called, we have texted," Poppell said. Some pet owners, she said, simply can't be found.
The push to complete arrangements, she said, has put a strain on the volunteers, some of whom have been living at the site for several months. Some are locals, but some have come from out of state and even from Canada.
"We're tired, dog tired," Poppell said. "We need to hear back."
The shelter, opened by the Nassau County Office of Emergency Management three days after the storm adjacent to Nassau Community College in Garden City, was intended to be temporary. But weeks went by and pets remained unclaimed.
Of the pets still in their care, shelter officials said Thursday four have been "freed" for adoption, and 12 will either return home or be placed in temporary foster care. The future for the other 11 cats and dogs remains uncertain.
The shelter sent letters last month to pet owners, saying Monday is the cutoff for decisions on their pets. Failing a response, the Nassau County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals will assume ownership of the pets. None of them, officials stressed, will be euthanized.
Gary Rogers, a spokesman for the county SPCA, said volunteers have gone door-to-door looking for pet owners. "They're not there anymore," he said. "They've moved on in life and left their pets behind."
Another obstacle for the shelter has been space shortages at nearby municipal shelters, Poppell and Rogers said. And Rogers said interest expressed early on by prospective adopters has waned. Many of the animals that remain, he said, are older or have special needs. One cat -- dubbed "Oily Oreo" -- was soaked in petroleum and still requires daily extensive bathing. The work is daunting.
"We're literally begging people to come and help," he said.
Sue Hassett, who directs North Hempstead's animal shelter and has helped the emergency site, said the shelter's volunteers are prepared for a sad reality: "Some of these owners are never going to have their pet back." But, she added, "A phone call would be nice."
Emergency shelter opened: Nov. 1
Total pets housed: 515
Pets remaining, as of Thursday: 27
To adopt a pet, call 516-272-0017
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As traitorous as this sounds, I am having to leave the Windows world where I've been since Windows started, and enter the doman of the Apple iMac. I know it is nigh on impossible to export the contents of BarcoPro email folders (ie. the inbox etc) to other PC email software so this might be a forlorn request, but is it possible to export to a format recognised by either Mail or Entourage on a Mac?
Many thanks in advance.


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Gary Vaynerchuk is a NY Times best selling author. His books include The Thank You Economy, Crush It (my favorite) and now in pre-sale, Jab Jab Jab, Right Hook.
Gary is like nobody else. He is a brilliant funny, Energizer Bunny talent. He is no holds barred, and a media Visionary. He is the CEO of marketing company, Vaynermedia with his brother, AJ.
He made Conan eat dirt and Ellen lick a rock. He is a wine expert with a Jets Spitoon.
Gary was so passionate and energetic. He talked about how to Crush It. His amazing book subtitled - Now is the time to cash in on your passion. I had never heard of the term,"Crush it" before. It may have been the first time, but I never forgot it. "Gary was really inspiring. I wanted him for a mentor. I wasn't the only one though. Gary Vaynerchuk has about a million Twitter followers.. Gary's fans call themselves "Vaniacs" I learned about Twitter from Gary. @Garyvee How to write a thank you to people who follow me. @Lorileepeters.
I was very excited to do a 20 minute interview with Gary Vaynerchuk about TV Marketing, Subscription Boxes, the movie of his life and Branded Entertainment.
Lori Do you remember me as myhairtalking?
Gary: I do of course. Yes we met a couple times.
Lori did you meet any TV clients in LA?
Gary: No not on this trip. It was a different kind of business trip, I was speaking at Disney and with some different people.
Lori: Are you working on on TV? I just started a new website, http://blogmytv.com.
Gary: great. Great. Good for you. I have TV clients I didn't talk to any TV clients, so whenever you want to get into the Q and A I'm ready to go.
Lori: Ok, so like I know at that point when we met at Mediabistro, I was the only one who said I'd rather have my TV then my computer.
Gary: Um hm. I remember.
Lori: So what do you recommend for TV clients now, as far as social media?
Gary: Well, I think the big thing is there's a couple different things going on. Obviously people are watching at different times so scheduled programming has changed a little bit and thinking about what those habits are and what you could be doing to market the people 24 hours a day not just when your show is premiering. I think is one thing we talk about and the other thing we talk about is integrating into the show itself. Obviously hashtags have become the norm on Television. Well, but other things can we drive people to Instagram or to Facebook and things of that nature so um so kind of integration on television to take advantage of the second screen phenomenom.
Gary: and talking about the fact that programmed television is now watched at all different times so you have to be on it all times.
Lori: That's true. I was looking at Zeebox
Gary: mm hmm
Lori: the TV app and I noticed that they were telling me um say good-bye to Amber because she went home on the Fashion Show on NBC and I hadn't even watched the show yet and they should have said spoiler alert or something. They just ruined the show for me.
Gary: Absolutely
Lori: so what do you think of that app?
Gary: Yeah I think you have to be careful right, of that recognizing that every TV Network in Production has to realize that that it's gonna be tough to put out stuff in social media. Honestly a lot less people use social media on the West Coast than the East coast.
Lori: Oh really.
Gary: yeah, because a lot of people already watched it and they try to stay off social media if they don't want to have spoilers so there's a lot of dynamics that that are really changing the way the world works and so there's going to be a lot of shifts over the next ten years.
Gary: I think that one of the things you'll see is that maybe that shows starting to air at the same time on both coasts so literally 10 PM Eastern and 7 PM West Coast more like a sports schedule for bigger shows.
So There's just going to be changes. The world always evolves and spoiler alerts really are a problem for people so you have to do a better job with it.
Lori: Right Um so what about Get Glue? What do you think of that?
Gary: yeah, so I think Get Glue and Viggle and things like that, companies that have check ins and rewards I think that obviously so many people that are going to listen or read this interview or watching Television with their phone and there's no reason not to take advantage of the potential to create more actions, more engagements and more advertising dollars, so I'm a fan. I mean I think all those things are very early right now. I don't think we're all figuring out how we're living with that second screen phenomenon
Lori: That's true. I was looking at Zeebox
Gary: mm hmm
Lori: the TV app and I noticed that they were telling me um say good-bye to Amber because she went home on the Fashion Show on NBC and I hadn't even watched the show yet and they should have said spoiler alert or something. They just ruined the show for me.
Gary: Absolutely
Lori: so what do you think of that app?
Gary: Yeah I think you have to be careful right, of that recognizing that every TV Network in Production has to realize that that it's gonna be tough to put out stuff in social media. Honestly a lot less people use social media on the West Coast than the East coast.
Lori: Oh really.
Gary: yeah, because a lot of people already watched it and they try to stay off social media if they don't want to have spoilers so there's a lot of dynamics that that are really changing the way the world works and so there's going to be a lot of shifts over the next ten years.
Gary: I think that one of the things you'll see is that maybe that shows starting to air at the same time on both coasts so literally 10 PM Eastern and 7 PM West Coast more like a sports schedule for bigger shows.
So There's just going to be changes. The world always evolves and spoiler alerts really are a problem for people so you have to do a better job with it.
Lori: Right Um so what about Get Glue? What do you think of that?
Gary: yeah, so I think Get Glue and Viggle and things like that, companies that have check ins and rewards I think that obviously so many people that are going to listen or read this interview or watching Television with their phone and there's no reason not to take advantage of the potential to create more actions, more engagements and more advertising dollars, so I'm a fan. I mean I think all those things are very early right now. I don't think we're all figuring out how we're living with that second screen phenomenon.
Gary: and I'm a fan of the Get Glue founders and I'm definitely a fan of the hustle at Get Glues and Viggles and companies of that nature.
Lori: Yeah I haven't seen that many I've seen that maybe they have 500 people tops, but it's nothing compared to if something's on Twitter.
GARY: Of course. That's still very early.
LORI: And trending.
GARY: Yeah, that's kind of like you remember I don't know if you remember Twitter '06, '07 it was still very early.
LORI: Right right. Yeah. So it'll get bigger.
What about I heard you say something about the 72 hour rule as far as Social Media for Vine. You said there's a 72 hour rule with new social media that clients should just go on and try it and not worry about ROI.
GARY: I see. I see. Yep yep yep yep, so I'm a pretty big fan of testing things out. Ya know so a lot of people didn't think that Instagram or Pinterest,com or Snapchat were going to be a big deal, but a lot of those people have never used it right? All they did was read articles or heard people talk about it so I'm a big fan of using product so I always try to recommend our products TV and non-TV clients use and try these products, because it's a whole lot easier to talk about them or criticize them once you've actually had a chance to actually try them and I think that once something's out to try them for three days is a really important thing to do to get a taste for yourself of what the platform is about.
LORI: Yeah and I saw the Trident gum and Ritz crackers they were just sort of having fun with it.
GARY: you're talking about Vine, right?
LORI: Yep.
GARY: and Vine turned out to be pretty big, so it's a good thing.
GARY: yeah so we believe in that stuff quite a bit.
LORI: so tell me about your new book coming out, Jab Jab Jab Right Hook, How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World?
GARY: So my big thing is figuring out how to story tell on Social Media. So the new book really talks about how you create micro-content, how the content needs to be native to the platform so I talk about how to story tell in a mobile, noisy world and I really think about how I really talk about breaking down lots of pieces of content throughout the book. On what's good, what's bad, what's good content what's not and so it's more like a guide.
LORI: How do you show that?
GARY: So I do it by picture and then I speak over the status update so there's thousands of status updates from Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram that I go through So it's going to be more like a guide like a reference tool than it is even a book, so I'm excited about it.
LORI: That's cool.
GARY: Yeah, I wanted it to be a little more Evergreen meaning like that you use it for like a year or two and go back to it and so I wanted to make it as much of a utility as much as I wanted to make it entertaining so I'm excited about it.
LORI: So will that be like audio video?
GARY: So it's obviously going to be written. There will be an audio and I am thinking about it and I haven't come up with it yet, but I have a lot of energy to come up with some kind of video product for it. I just haven't gotten all the way there yet with my publisher.
LORI: I know that on iBooks, I was looking at writing one there and you can do anything.
GARY: Yep, you really can.
LORI: I wrote a book on How to Start a Subscription Box Company.
GARY: Nice. Did you interview any of the founders or any of the Box Companies or you just kind of talkedabout it yourself?
LORI: Well, I had done it for a while myself and I had interviewed a few of them I interviewed Klutchclub founder, Julie.
GARY: Yep, Yep
LORI: and I actually referred to Birchbox a lot and I thought their April Fool's joke that was really funny and I put it on a website and that they were starting a new subscription box and everybody looked at it and then it was just a box of boxes.
GARY: Yeah, that was really good.
LORI: (laughs)Yeah that's was really funny. Everybody was like Oh my God they're starting a new box.
GARY: That was good.
LORI: So what would you recommend to somebody that was going to start a new one?
GARY: A new subscription box?
LORI: Yeah.
GARY: Two things, one know the space, have a good knowledge of the space that you want to sell and make sure that you know the products and to pay attention to the math of how you're acquiring users and what they're worth. In the subscription box business I think it's very important to acquire math And I think that it really really matters and so understanding acquisition costs vs. lifetime value costs it's very important so have a founder or at least a very substantial hire that's surrounded in strong Math skills.
LORI: I know that a lot of people that have written me, because right now I have an eBook and I'm expanding it and people are writing me from Saudi Arabia
GARY: I love it.
LORI: I'm getting emails from all around the world. It's amazing.
GARY: Good for you. Good for you that's awesome.
LORI: So do you like LA?
GARY: I do like LA the weather's nice. Now, that now that Uber? Is in LA and it's a lot easier to get around. I like it a lot more.
LORI: The traffic's like really bad right?
GARY: yeah. So I'm used to it with New Jersey and New York traffic.
LORI: I lived in LA for a while and I found that it was the city that nobody ever said no to me.
GARY: laughs
LORI: Cause they don't know who you are going to become. What do you think of that?
GARY: that's fascinating.
LORI: I saw you wrote a thing about giving back and being nice to all your fans, because you never know who they are going to be someday.
GARY: Yeah, I think I don't ever think how in the world paying forward is a bad idea, right ? Ya know I don't seem you know you've seen it you know when I give talks I stay longer, talk to people I just think it's good to give back. Why not right?
LORI: Sure and it's gotta be good Karma.
GARY: obviously I think people take it too far, but I think like my grandmother used to say everything's good when it's in balance.
LORI: When you did South by Southwest were people pitching you at all?
GARY: Yeah, I'd say half I'd say a third were pitching.
LORI: Really.
GARY: That comes with the territory I would have been fine if all of them were. I knew what I was signing up for and I knew that was possible so…I'm OK with that just kind of comes with the territory.
LORI: So what would you answer? What would you say to people or give advice for somebody who was going to talk to you?
GARY: So you know I'm really being very hyperselective these days with investings so I didn't invest in anything, but I do give people feedback on what kind of investors or what I thought they could possibly do to make the pitch more attractive so ya know giving money is the ultimate goal for a lot of people, but giving good advice sometimes has a lot of value as well.
LORI: oh of course. I'm amazed that they would even do that.
GARY: I think that some people ya know you take your shot when you have it kind of thing ya know?
LORI: Yeah I saw there was a kid on who was on who asked to play piano at a University with Billy Joel, New York State of Mind and he went up on stage and it became this huge YouTube sensation and so now they keep saying you have to ask for it if you don't ask nobody will give it to you.
GARY: I think there's truth to that you know? I mean there's a mix, you've got to be respectful too. Um you've just got to have good intuition of when ask versus when it's not. Ya know?
LORI: Right. I've been taking some classes in marketing and one of my teachers said that there's a hundred trillion words over the on the internet now.
GARY: There's what?
LORI: A hundred trillion words.
GARY: Oh words. Geez Louise. OK
LORI: Yeah, so how do you break through all the clutter?
GARY: I think it comes down to talent you know? I mean if you find the right subject and you're good enough you'll break through ya know it's like breaking through it's like there's 300 basketball players or ten Academy Award Winners. It just comes down to skill so I think finding the right thing for you and then having enough talent to see it through and putting in the work it's a blend of those things so I would say self-awareness
GARY: ambitions, work ethics and you know I think it starts with self-awareness. You have to know what you're good at and not everybody's born with that and I don't know how to get better at something, but at the end of the day I think that's very important. I could have been very unsuccessful if I focused on things that I wasn't as good at. So I think that's super important to think about.
LORI: So people have to focus on their strengths?
GARY: I think so, Lori I think much more. I think America always taught. I think our society is very predicated on people's weaknesses. Get better at this learn how to do this. All the books that teach you how to do things you're not good at. I think it's betting on your strengths.
LORI: Yeah, Chris Brogan talks about that too. He says that even really successful people they get so upset if one person says they don't like them or says something offensive or against their work or something. So he has Human Business Works and teaches classes on social media so he's kind of has the same ideas as you with the Thank You Economy, right?
GARY: I like Chris a lot he's a good man.
LORI: So has anybody ever compared you to Mark Cuban? He's on Sharktank.
GARY: Yeah I know who Mark is.
GARY: I think you know I'm sure people have in some ways, because of our high energy, but Mark's had a lot of success more than I have and so his sports franchise is something I aspire to do and so if they have I'm flattered because I feel that his body of work is better than mine at this point, but I also think it's a long road so I have ambitions to get there. So ya know I've spent some time with Mark this South by Southwest and I have a lot of respect for him.
LORI: Oh you did?
GARY: Yeah and I have a lot of respect for what he's done in his career and if they have I'll take it as a compliment.
LORI: Well, that's what I think, because I watch him and I always think of you when I see him. He's talking about the Mavericks and you're talking about the Jets.
GARY: Yep Yep. I think there's some similarities there for sure.
LORI: I thought your life would make a really good movie, cause I write scripts. What do you think about that? How would you tell your life in a story as a movie? I mean you don't have to go into details, but just in general
GARY: (Laughs) You know I haven't thought about that yet, because I just feel like I'm so deep in it, but that's really flattering and I think it would be really neat. I think like I'm better off better off focusing on doing amazing things to justify that. More so than thinking about how it's structured so I haven't given it enough thought yet, but that's super flattering Lori, I appreciate that.
LORI: (laughs) I thought that a number of times. Yeah, well you know from your upbringing, coming from Russia and
GARY: Sure. Sure. It's definitely one of those great American stories for sure. That I'm aware of.
LORI: Right. So if that happened who would you want to play you?
GARY: Somebody very attractive. Yeah so we're still a long ways away from that so
LORI: (Laughs)
GARY: So we'll have to see who those actors are at the time, but as long as they're the best looking actor than that's interesting to me.
LORI: Maybe Justin Timberlake.
GARY: I'm in.
LORI: (laughs) Did you hear what he did recently to promote his new album coming out? He was making all these videos and walking away from the room and leaving it empty and say something's coming and wouldn't tell them what it is. Did you hear anything about that?
GARY: I didn't see it. I heard a little bit of buzz about it, but I'd have to see it to comment on it. What did you think?
LORI: I think it was really great. He got so many people talking about him and wondering what was happening and the timing when his album came out was just perfect.
GARY: I'll have to check it out that's cool
LORI: I've been studying branded entertainment and different forms of that. So how do you think people should use that?
GARY: I think the same way as they should do everything, which is bring value to their fans and be authentic and it sounds like the example you're giving Justin was being himself and brought value, because people were interested and it was fun and there was curiosity and it sounds like he pulled off a good move.
LORI: Coca Cola changed the way they are going to attract fans and people and everything they're going to do is Coca Cola 20/20 and do is for branding and for people to see it and tweet it
GARY: Yep
LORI: and put it on Facebook and Videos
GARY: That makes tons of sense. Let people make the contact. Makes sense.
LORI: So you're coming up in Westchester soon?
GARY: Yeah. Are you going?
LORI: Yes
GARY: I look forward to seeing you there.
LORI: Oh I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me
GARY: Of course Lori. I hope you have a great great weekend.
LORI: Thank you. You too.
GARY: Alright bye.
To Learn More About Gary Vaynerchuk go to: GaryVaynerchuk.com
You can buy Gary's books, The Thank You Economy, Crush It,
Jab, Jab, Jab Right Hook at Amazon.com. Also visit Vaynermedia.com and for your favorite Wine, reach out to Winelibrary.com. Gary's Wine Review show is WineLibraryTV.Com
To Learn More About author, Lori Peters, go to:
Boxmonthly.com, where you can also pick up her book, "How to Start a Subscription Box Company."