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How To Achieve A Base Level Of SharpnessThis article is designed to provide a specific practical flow of work for providing an overall, high quality base level of sharpening using ACDSee Pro 7. Because I have a compulsive need to provide detail and explanation, I have included some background information on sharpening in general. As a result, users of software other than ACDSee Pro 7 might find this text useful.
My advice regarding the various scalar levels of the controls, and how the controls are operated by the user, are specific to ACDSee Pro 7. Other software may (and probably will) require different levels and a will offer a different User Interface for the controls they provide.
A word of warning regarding the relationship between sharpening and noise. It has been my experience that people start to worry about noise too soon. One of the great ironies of digital photography is that noise can actually increase the appearance of sharpness. It is my belief that sharpness often gets ignored or compromised in the rush to eradicate any hint of noise. Finding the ideal compromise between noise and sharpness can be difficult, but I think the techniques I describe can at least lessen the pain and make having sharp images a pretty consistent experience for you.
My advice is to sharpen first without regard to noise. Then when the Base level sharpening is complete (and perhaps after detailed sharpening as well), only then attempt to find the balance between noise and sharpness. I find myself much happier with a sharp and slightly noisy photo than I am with a "creamy" and "plastic" photo with little detail.
If you do any research, you will discover that my advice is the opposite of what many pundits believe. I think their advice is built around the idea that noise is the greater problem over sharpness. I have not found that to be so from my own practice. However you decide to order your noise reduction and sharpening tasks, I think my advice will still help you achieve the maximum sharpening of your photos possible considering the other processing choices you have made.
What is Sharpness?
When discussing sharpness in photography, two words need to be understood, "resolution" and "acuity".
Resolution is pretty much an "In Camera" feature. This is the ability of the sensor in your camera to distinguish closely spaced objects and parts of objects in your photo. You will often see in camera reviews, photos of closely spaced lines that placed in increasingly close proximity. The ability to see these lines as distinct and separate lines is a good measure of Resolution.
Acuity is the measure of how the edge between different adjacent objects transition from one object to the other. In the example of the lines above, the black bars could be considered one object, while the white spaces between them could be considered another object. If the edge of those black bars is sharp and distinct, the acuity is high. But if the transition between the bars and the white space fades from black, to shades of gray, and only then to white, then the acuity is considered low. Acuity is considered to be an aspect of the combination of your lens and the type of photo processing you do.
Clearly, resolution can be improved by the acquisition of a new camera with a better sensor. Though making sure that your camera doesn't move or shake during the exposure can help you capture all the resolution your sensor can provide. Learn to hold your camera steady when taking photos.
However, to improve acuity, if you have a camera with interchangeable lenses, you can buy a better lens. And regardless of the quality of your lens, acuity can be improved by careful selection of photo processing techniques.
There are 3 Types of Sharpening
It is important to remember that there is no single sharpening step in post processing a photograph. There are three types of sharpening, each performed at different times of the development and editing process.
Base Level Sharpening - This provides the level of overall sharpness found in a photograph. It can include any sharpening done within the camera itself, but it also includes any sharpening you might do in the "Develop" Tab of ACDSee Pro 7 or the equivalent section of other tools. Often this is the only thing that many people think of as sharpening. This type of sharpening is the subject of this tutorial.
Detail Sharpening - This allows the photographer to selectively sharpen (or soften) specific areas of a photo for the maximum effect on the viewer. This used to be the exclusive domain of an external editor, but the addition of the Develop Brushes in the "Develop" tab of ACDSee Pro 7 allows the photographer to move much of this sharpening to the developing step.
Output sharpening - This type of sharpening is often forgotten by beginners, and sometimes even by experienced photographers. The reason it is needed is that, sometimes, preparing a photo for publication to the internet, a magazine, re-sizing it, or just printing, will soften an image just a bit, and the photographer will wonder why his or her photo just doesn't look like it did in ACDSee Pro 7.
Additional notes on Base Level Sharpening - Unless, I am shooting jpgs straight from the camera for immediate use, I prefer to do my base level sharpening during the post processing phase. Actually, even pre-sharpened jpgs, while pretty good straight from the camera, can often be improved by additional sharpening or selective softening.
Many Workflow tools like ACDSee Pro 7, as well as Lightroom and others, now have the ability to do detailed sharpening at the same time as the Base level sharpening.
It has been my experience that is a tricky line to negotiate. I have personally found it useful to separate Base level sharpening from the Detailed sharpening. I find myself starting to concentrate on details, long before I have created the best possible level of base sharpening. I wind up with a mediocre base level of sharpening, which I then go in and fix with detailed sharpening. But if I had done a better job on the Base, I wouldn't have had as much to fix in Detail.
Additional Notes on Output Sharpening - This sharpness adjustment is often subjective and according to taste, but it is absolutely essential if you want your viewers to get the full effect of a given photo. This is usually done AFTER the developed photo has been completed and any creative edits are made, and after the developed photo (which is usually raw, at least for me, but it could be a tif or jpg file format) is converted to the bit mapped distribution format, which for me, is usually an appropriately sized jpg file.
Because of this, the ACDSee Pro 7 "Edit" tab is most useful for this functionality, as would also recommend that this sharpening be done outside any non-destructive editing tool. One doesn't really want these distribution specific edits permanently incorporated into the developed version since future sharpening and distribution needs may not be predictable.
The Differences Between the Develop and Edit Tabs
While my comments above, specifically address the ACDSee Pro 7 infrastructure, the "Develop" and "Edit" model is relatively common in photographic software in general.
Lightroom and a few other software titles appear to want to blur the line between the develop and edit modes, placing almost every change it can make to a photo in the "Develop" tab and leaving the "true" edit mode to external editors. There is no right or wrong in this, just subjective preferences.
The "Develop" mode
In general, "Develop" refers to the non-destructive sort of editing found in most raw developers. An XML text file is created for each photo and all changes to the photo are stored in that XML file. This is sometimes referred to as a "Side-car" file.
Changes made to the photo are applied to the photo you see on screen, but NOT to the photo stored on the hard drive. Instead, the changes are stored in the XML file. Then, the each time you display that photo in ACDSee Pro 7 or your favorite non destructive editor, that XML file is read and the cumulative changes you have made to the photo are applied to the photo you see on the screen, print, or the exported photo you convert a photo to a different file format.
The Practical effects of this information
This non destructive "editing" comes at a cost though. First, there is a lot of extra work for the computer in terms of keeping track of the XML file, keeping it associated with the right photograph, and displaying the changes properly to that photo when it needs to do sp. But It's a computer, it doesn't care how much work like that it has to do.
The other cost affects us more directly. If you want someone to see a photo who doesn't have ACDSee Pro 7, or your favorite raw developer, that XML file is useless to them (even if they have another program that uses XML files). The reason is, while XML files are 'universal' and available to any who want to use them, HOW those XML files are used by your favorite software are unique to each Software program you use.
One advantage of the non destructive sort of development is that the photographer can easily remove the changes made to the photo by deleting the xml file or editing it so that the changes no longer desired are eliminated.
So creating a tif or jpg file with the changes and edits applied is the only practical way to distribute and share a photo.
The "Edit" mode
Editing refers to the traditional manipulation of a photo as found in conventional Bit mapped editors. Any editing changes are made directly to the photo displayed on the screen, and while changes may, or may not, be stored in temporary memory, they are not saved to any file other than the photo itself. As a result, the only permanent record of changes that have been made are the cumulative changes made to the displayed photo and those changes are only saved when the photo itself is saved to the Hard drive.
In ACDSee Pro 7, the sharpening controls of "Amount", "Radius", "Mask", "Detail", and "Threshold" are the same in both modes, and function in the same way. However, the big difference is that you can undo the sharpening in the "Develop" tab at any point, but once the image is saved in the "Edit" tab, the changes are permanent and can not be undone.
Clearly, it would be wise to do as much sharpening as possible in the "Develop" tab rather than in the "Edit" tab. But I would recommend that Output sharpening be done in the "Edit" tab.
Why? For the non destructive editing that the "Develop" tab does, all changes to the photo are stored in an XML file. Each time you display a photo with an XML file, ACDSee Pro 7 reads this file and then applies these changes immediately to the image on the screen and the display copy in RAM (Not to the image saved to disk.)
How to Sharpen a Photo with ACDSee Pro 7
Before we can discuss sharpening a photo with ACDSee Pro 7, we need to have a basic understanding of the controls ACDSee uses to create and modify sharpness.
Users of other software will find this section pretty useful, I think. In my research for this article, it became obvious that sharpening controls don't differ all that much from one piece of software to another. While the ACDSee specific advice might have marginal value to non-ACDSee users, the basic definitions and strategies will have a practical application to them.
ACDSee Pro 7 Sharpening Controls
As stated earlier in this article, the sharpening controls between the "Develop" and "Edit" tabs are essentially the same. So I have arbitrarily decided to use the sharpening controls in the "Develop" tab as a point of reference. Above, is a screen print of the ACDSee Pro 7 sharpening controls in the "Develop" tab, with them resting at their default values.
The "Amount" slider controls works in conjunction with the other control settings. However even with the other controls at the default settings, there is still some change as the slider is moved, since the default settings are just that, settings.
The amount of sharpening change occurs by adjusting the amount of contrast around the edges of objects in a given photo. When the slider is "zeroed out" (all the way to the left) no sharpening change occurs and the more you move the slider to the right, the more sharpening changes occur.
How to get comfortable with this control:
- Select a photo with faces, leaves (grass or tree leaves are good), and possibly with some big text such as signs.
- "Zero out" all the sharpening controls. In ACDSee Pro 7, you can do this by placing the cursor on a slider control, and right clicking the mouse button. This will place that control in either the "Zero", or absolute minimum effect position. On some controls that will be all the way to the left, on at least one control, it will be in the middle.
- Without setting the Radius or Detail controls, move the slider to the right, notice the level of sharpening that occurs. This is the level of sharpening that can occur with the other controls "zeroed out".
- Now set the Radius and Detail controls to taste, and then move the Amount control. Note that the quality of the sharpening change that occurs is different. This control is very much dependent on the parameters set, or not set, in the other controls.
To successfully use the Radius control, you must first decide if the detail in the photo is fine, coarse, or somewhere in between. This decision will affect how you want to set the Radius control.
The Radius control specifies the number of pixels to adjust around the edges of each object. Higher values will work best for coarser detail while the lower values work best for the fine detail. By setting this control first, you won't actually see any change to the photo as you set this control since you aren't making any changes, merely setting one of the parameters for when you ultimately will move the "amount" slider control.
The Radius control for sharpening is a slider bar with a scale increment varying from 1 to 20. Unfortunately, the ACDSee Pro 7 documentation doesn't appear to state with certainty that the increment numbers enumerate the number of pixels from the edge that are affected, though my experiments with this control tell me it is reasonably close to the absolute number of pixels affected. I believe from a day to day, operational point of view, it is safe to interpret the values as the number of pixels deep into the edge that the change will affect.
How to get comfortable with this control:
- Select a photo with faces, leaves (grass or tree leaves are good), and possibly with some big text such as signs.
- "Zero out" all the sharpening controls. In ACDSee Pro 7, you can do this by placing the cursor on a slider control, and right clicking the mouse button. This will place that control in either the "Zero", or absolute minimum effect position. On some controls that will be all the way to the left, on at least one control, it will be in the middle.
- Set the Radius slider control all the way to 20. and then move the Amount Control slider to the right. You will notice that the faces and the leaves start to develop a many pixels deep border (called a "halo" by ACDSee) as you move the amount slider to the left, yet coarse detail like the big letters in the signage seem unaffected. This is because the faces and the leaves are often considered fine detail and fine detail is more susceptible to the "halo" effect.
- Now, move the Radius slider to between a "2" and "5", and then repeat moving the amount slider, You will likely notice that the "halo" border that develops on the faces and leaves is almost non existent. It may even refuse to develop at all; yet there is a subtle, but real, overall sharpening effect that you can see, while the sharpening on the signs is VERY minor. If that border halo develops around the fine detail, move the radius slider control closer to "1" till it disappears. There will still be some level of sharpening as you subsequently move the Amount slider control.
The Masking Control
The Masking control targets the edges of objects while ignoring the sharpening of noise and texture, which can occur with the other controls. This control attempts to emulate the sharpening masks that can be created in typical mid level editors and above. Is it as effective as a bit mapped sharpening mask? I think so. Certainly, it is much more convenient, and it does have certain advantages over an editor based sharpening mask.
First of all, it can be done in both the "Develop" and "Edit" tabs of ACDSee Pro 7. Since the "Develop" tab of ACDSee Pro 7 is non destructive "editing", that means, if you don't like what you have told it to do, it is easy to reverse what you have done. And in either the "Develop" or "Edit" tab, it doesn't require the use of layers. If you are new enough to bit mapped editing that you are uncomfortable with layers, this offers a pretty good alternative.
I also like the easy control this tool provides over edge sharpness. At lower settings, this tool looks for edges within the body of objects, but as you move the slider more to the right, the relatively minor interior edges are ignored and greater emphasis is placed on the more delineated object edges.
You need to be careful to find the right balance for this. I've discovered that a slight halo begins to appear around object edges as the slider is moved to the right. In this situation, the object edges do become sharper, but that halo slightly offsets the greater sharpness the tool provides. At normal viewing magnifications, or normal viewing distances for printed material, this halo isn't too noticeable, but if you magnify the image beyond what is considered normal, or if you expect viewers to get "up close" to a print, you will want to make sure that halo is at its minimum.
I've found that for foliage, and small detail objects, along with people (especially bare heads and skin) a low to medium masking value is useful. For those more coarse details, a higher masking value will work well.
In ACDSee Pro 7, if you just slide the slider to the right you won't see any change or accommodation to the photo at all. To see the edge delineation level, you need to press the "Alt" key as you move the slider to the right. Doing this, you will quickly see how the tool identifies the various edges found within the photo.
How to get comfortable with this control:
- Select a photo with faces, leaves (grass or tree leaves are good), and possibly some big text such as signs.
- Set your Radius, amount, detail, and threshold according to taste.
- "Zero Out" the Masking slider. In ACDSee Pro 7, this will be at level "0".
- Move the slider gradually to the right, while pressing the "Alt" key. Note that at "0", the image is completely whitened out. As the slider moves to the right, the interior edges of objects start to appear in black. As the slider moves further to the right, the object edges gradually start to appear in white, and the interior edges grow together in black. This is a visual representation of the sharpness masking layer found in bit mapped editors.
I'm not all that comfortable with the Detail control description in the ACDSee Pro 7 help file. It may be accurate from a technical perspective, but it doesn't really give us any help in figuring out how to use it and I don't think it is complete in its description. (Look it up if you're curious. Getting comfortable with the help file is a GOOD thing!).
Instead, I like to think of it as providing us the ability to fine tune the effect of the combination of the Radius and Amount controls. It allows us to shift emphasis from fine to coarse within the spectrum already delimited by Radius and Amount, and it can reduce the size of the halo generated by the combination of the settings in the Radius and Amount controls. Moving the Detail slider to the right shifts sharpening emphasis to fine detail while shifting to the left emphasizes the coarser elements.
How to get comfortable with this control:
- Select a photo with faces, leaves (grass or tree leaves are good), and possibly with some big text such as signs.
- Set your Radius and Amount according to taste.
- "Zero Out" the Detail slider. In ACDSee Pro 7, this will be at level "50", with an equal amount to the right in the slider as there is to the left.
- Zoom into a key area (from a sharpening perspective) of the photo. Depending on the photo, the zoom ratio could be as much as 200% - 300%. The goal is to see clearly the edges of the objects and those transition areas that define the edges.
- Move the slider to the left. Note that the image gets a tiny bit softer as does any halo that might still be there. Then move the slider to the right, note that sharpness goes up and the halo gets a bit more defined.
If you are happy with the level of sharpness and the halo generated by just using Radius and amount, there is no need to use the "Detail" Slider. Just leave it at the default setting of "50" for ACDSee Pro 7 (other software may use a different value scale, but you get the idea, I hope.)
Also, remember that the amount of change this control can make varies with the level of overall sharpening defined by the combination of the Radius control and the Amount control. This control is highly dependent on the other sharpening controls.
It is also good to remember that like the "Radius" control, the edges this control "sees" aren't always the edges you think of as important. This control affects the whole of the photo including noise and texture, what I call the "logical" edges, and not those edges a reasonable person might see as important, those I call the "rational" edges.
Also, remember that the amount of change this control can make varies with the level of overall sharpening defined by the combination of the Radius control and the Amount control. This control is highly dependent on the other sharpening controls.
It is also good to remember that like the "Radius" control, the edges this control "sees" aren't always the edges you think of as important. This control affects the whole of the photo including noise and texture, what I call the "logical" edges, and not those edges a reasonable person might see as important, those I call the "rational" edges.
Threshold Control
Threshold controls the level of difference in pixel brightness within an object's edge must be before sharpening can occur.
So, sharpening can occur only if two adjacent (or physically close) pixels are different enough to overcome the threshold level you set. The higher values tend to sharpen strongly delineated edges and tend to ignore background noise. Lower values tend to sharpen both the edges of objects and the logical edges in their interior. As a result, at lower levels, noise also tends to get sharpened. I think the Threshold control could be reasonably described as a very mild Masking control.
ACDSee recommends that you set the threshold high enough to enhance the edges while minimizing the background noise. My experience indicates this is essentially correct. I think one gets better and more distinctive control over edge sharpening with the Masking control, however. But this tool is quite effective in adding just a mild boost to sharpness without excessively affecting noise.
The further to the LEFT the control slider resides, the more change that moving the Amount control to the RIGHT will display in terms of sharpness though at the cost of increased noise.
This control isn't really designed, however, to register large changes in sharpening. It seems its real function is to help you find a balance between noise and sharpness without excessive softening. If I need more edge sharpening, I use the Masking control.
How to get comfortable with this control:
- Select a photo with faces, leaves (grass or tree leaves are good), and possibly some big text such as signs.
- Set your Radius and amount according to taste.
- "Zero Out" the Threshold slider. In ACDSee Pro 7, this will be at level "0".
- Zoom into a key area (from a sharpening perspective) of the photo. Depending on the photo, the zoom ratio could be as much as 200% - 300%. The goal is to see clearly the edges of the objects and those transition areas that define the edges.
- Move the slider gradually to the right, note that edge sharpness goes up very slightly and a very slight "creaminess" starts to appear in the interior of the objects.
Suggested Base Level Sharpening Workflow
- Set your base level exposure, white balance, and color controls. Don't concern yourself with cropping, or black and white conversion if that is your goal. At this point we are interested in developing a good, well exposed and color corrected photo with which to work.
- Decide if you are going to use the Develop tab or the Edit tab in ACDSee Pro 7. If you don't know, or don't have a strong reason to do otherwise, I recommend that you use the Develop tab for this step.
- Decide if the photo requires a fine detail strategy or a coarse detail strategy. In my experience, a coarse detail strategy is relatively rare.
- Set your Radius control. If you feel the need to go higher than, say, 4 on the radius scale, know that you are starting to pursue a medium coarse sharpening strategy and you might find detail in grass and leaves or hair to be less than you might want. I would suggest a "2" as a starting point for Radius.
- Set the Amount control according to taste.
- Set the Detail control. Remember, this sort of fine tunes the combination of Radius and Amount. If you already like the sharpness neighborhood that Radius and Amount put you in, you don't need to use this control. But it's there if you need it.
- Set the Threshold to whatever standard you are comfortable with. I use an "8" in ACDSee as a default, and if it seems inadequate, I adjust to taste.
Ask yourself, "Will adjusting one of the above mentioned controls make things better, or, are you reasonably certain that they are set properly?" If you are reasonably certain that the prior controls are reasonably well set, then you might want to move on to the Masking control or you may decide to fix the issues you see in the Detailed sharpening phase.
After that, we are free to address other issues such as additional noise control, B&W conversion, special effects, etc.
There you have it. This is pretty much how I sharpen my photos. I'm pretty happy with the sharpening I now get from my images and I am now going back and redoing a large number of "old" photos that I no longer consider sharp enough.


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My motherboard has dual firmware, a BIOS and UEFI. Its an Asus m5a97.
It allows for booting into a GPT formatted disk by way of a boot menu in the firmware.
I have 3 hard drives, 2 are MBR drives with several Windows and one Linux managed by BIBM.
The other drive is EFI with Windows8.1 installed but does not boot from BIBM. It boots from the firmware loader and runs just fine.
I would like to be able to multiboot from this EFI drive but have not found a way yet.
There is, however, a UIFE boot manager called rEFIind which when installed and configured right could help.
My question; How would this UIFI boot manager affect BIBM?
So far I have the best of both worlds with BIBM managing the MBR boots and the motherboards firmware handling the UIFI boot.
But, like I said, still would like to multiboot in UIFE mode.
There is not much literature out there on this topic and whatever there is its not very consistent.
I would hope that Terabyte might consider developing a Boot and partition manager to include booting from GPT drives.
Hopeful thinking?
Yours truly
Bernard B

subset: commoncrawl


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Nevada is less vulnerable than the East Coast to a huge power failure, but would not escape a widespread outage in the West, the head of the state's Public Utilities Commission said Tuesday.
"We can take comfort that we have a newer system, we can take comfort that we have an adequate system," Don Soderberg said.
"But I think the concern at the commission today is that if the system works exactly as it's planned, does it create another problem?
"A major disturbance in the West would create two islands, one in northern Nevada and one in southern Nevada, and then you'd have to rely on the generation that you have in your area."
Since Nevada generates only about half the power it uses, the rest has to be bought from suppliers outside the state.
"If we created an island in southern Nevada, our loose calculation is we'd be almost 1,200 megawatts short at peak," he said.
A megawatt is enough electricity for about 600 homes.
During last month's intense hot spell, Nevada Power Co. delivered a record 4,808 megawatts to its 680,000 customers in southern Nevada.
In Reno, where Sierra Pacific Power Co. delivered a record 1,620 megawatts, Soderberg said the utility would fall about 570 megawatts short of its peak capacity without importing power. Sierra Pacific has 323,000 customers.
Using last month's peak loads and Soderberg's estimates, the power companies would fall about 35 percent short of supplying Reno's electrical needs, and one of every four customers in southern Nevada could be without power.
"If we can't import for an extended period of time, we're going to have to have what they call in California rolling blackouts to make up the difference."
Earlier this month power failures darkened parts of eight states from Ohio to New York, stretched into Canada and left 50 million people in the dark.
Soderberg was joined at Tuesday's news conference by Walt Higgins, president and CEO of Sierra Pacific Resources, the parent of Nevada's two principal electrical utilities.
Both stressed the need for more generating plants and transmission lines in addition to those in use or nearing completion, a task Higgins conceded would be challenging because his company's grim financial situation.
Sierra Pacific Resources lost $172.4 million in its most recent quarter compared with a $41 million loss in the same quarter a year earlier. Its debt load has reduced its bond rate to high-interest junk status.
"Obviously the ability of the company to raise the needed capital to invest in transmission and generation is a challenge that we currently face," Higgins said.
A new transmission project in southern Nevada will cost $300 million, he said. Building a line linking Ely and Elko will require $100 million. Proposed power plants for southern Nevada will cost $250 million to $300 million each.
"Those kinds of capital improvement costs lie on top of the $250 million, plus or minus, a year that it takes to operate and hook the system up to new customers, "he said.
"We believe we're up to the challenge."


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Difference between revisions of "Puerto Galera"
Latest revision as of 05:35, 23 September 2019
Puerto Galera is a town on the northeastern coast of Mindoro Island, Philippines. Among travelers it is commonly known as encompassing the region surrounding it. While a small town itself, other adjacent smaller towns, such as Sabang and White Beach, are the primary destinations; however, all are lumped together as Puerto Galera as it hosts the ferry terminal (to Batangas) through which most people arrive.
Get in[edit]
By car[edit]
Puerto Galera is three hours away from Metro Manila. If you're already in Manila, getting there is pretty easy. Having a car is very convenient, all you need to do is drive through South Luzon Expressway turn right to Star Toll gate and then head to Batangas Pier. From there, you can either park your car and ride a ferry going to Puerto Galera or have your car ride a RoRo(roll on, roll off) ship so you could take your car with you to Puerto Galera.
By bus & van[edit]
From Manila
Puerto Galera is easily accessible from areas around Manila. Most tourists prefer to take a JAM transit or DLTB bus - from it's terminals along EDSA Cubao. These ply every hour between Cubao (Manila) and the Batangas pier. The Sikat tourist service operates one trip per day and is convenient for people staying in Manila close to Ermita.
From Calapan
Regular jeepney and vans ply the route between Calapan and Puerto Galera. An air conditioned van ride cost ₱100 and took about 1 hour. While the jeepney cost ₱80 from the city center and ₱100 from the Calapan pier, taking about an hour and a half to complete the drive. In Puerto Galera there is a separate jeepney terminal (about 3 blocks west of where the Calapan van/jeepney will let you off) that connects to Sabang for ₱20 (as of Aug. 2016).
By boat[edit]
From Bantangas (Manila connection)
Scheduled ferries arrive at Puerto Galera mostly from Batangas but also from other islands. From there, most people immediately depart for Sabang (known for SCUBA diving) or White Beach (a stretch of white sand holding small restaurants and bars). At the Batangas pier, ignore all the porters and touts and walk past them to the ticket area where there are several windows where you can buy ferry tickets.
Crossing the waters between Batangas Port and White Beach can be a thrill by itself especially during the meeting of the tides when the sea can be quite rough. The first half of the journey is smooth though. However, the boatmen know these waters very well, so there is no need to be hysterical. These smaller ferry boats that run directly to White Beach and Sabang will be canceled if the weather is too rough for the boats. In that case it is possible to take a larger ferry to Calapan which takes between 1 and 3 hours depending on what you pay for. These ferries to Calapan range in cost from ₱100 promo fair for the slow open air boat to about ₱300 for air conditioned fast boat. Buy a round trip ferry ticket to avoid a fully booked ferry on your return. Returning on a Sunday without reserving a ticket can leave you stranded with no options from Muelle or Balatero. You will have to go to Calapan to return to Batangas. If arriving at Calapan Port, you can take a Tricycle for ₱20 per person to the Jeepney Terminal and from there take either an air conditioned van to Puerto Galera (₱100, takes 1 hour) or a Jeepney (₱80, takes 1.5 hours). The above pricing is current as of August 2016.
From the ferry terminal in Batangas, take MSL Shipping instead of Father & Sons (FSL aka Fickle & Slow Lines) for a quicker ride. Father & Sons makes several stops, and it is faster to take MSL even if you have to wait an extra half hour for the boat to arrive.
There are four main points of entry. Sabang pier is still closed in 2019 and the two closest piers to Sabang are Muelle port, on the east side, and Balatero port, on the west side. In 2018, the local authorities banned all small wooden-hulled boats from depositing tourists directly at White Beach. Montenegro Lines has a 12-12:30 pm departure from Batangas to Balatero that is not listed on the schedule at https://www.pgyc.org/ferry-sched.php
On arrival in Batangas, you will be overwhelmingly approached by porters. Ignore all of them and follow the signs to the ticketing kiosks and buy the ticket yourself, without any porter assistance. They will follow you to the desk and demand tips for their "service". Do not tip them unless they carried your bag for you, at your request.
From Boracay
2Go Travel has regular ferry service between Caticlan Port (Boracay) and Batangas Port. These ferries are quite nice, with staterooms, restaurant, bar, etc. When coming from Caticlan, you will then take the ferry to Puerto Galera. Note that if you take the day ferry out of Caticlan, it will arrive at Batangas Port after the last ferry has departed for Puerto Galera. If you want to make a better connection, you should take a night sailing out of Caticlan, which will arrive in Batangas Port in the early morning. Alternatively, for a slower trip, you can go with the big ferry to Roxas and from there with a local jeepney or hire a van to Calapan and then transfer to another going to Puerto Galera/ Sabang Beach.
Get around[edit]
At the harbor you will find lots of people trying to get you to ride with their tricycle. In 2019, at Balatero port, the lowest barter with the trike mafia was ₱50 per person. You may be able to get ₱25 if you walk 3 minutes to the main road. This is the official rate from the mayor's office. You may have to share the ride with 3-4 people. There is no public bus to White Beach. The local government must be getting a cut from the tricycle drivers and do not crack down on their swindling. You can also find them everywhere in town and get a ride to White Beach, Sabang etc. At night when it gets dark, the prices changes to higher rates (for example, instead of 20php you pay 50php). In Sabang there are 3 motorcycle rental providers. For 500php you can rent a scooter for the whole day. You have to mind the local traffic rules, of course.
To get to Sabang there is a regular jeepney service that cost ₱20 per person as of August 2016. Supposedly it runs every 20 minutes throughout the day and into the early evening hours.
To get to Calapan, take a tricycle (25php per person) to Bayan Jeepney Terminal near the Puerto Galera wet market. 80php to the Calapan City Center and 100php to the Calapan Pier. AC minivans also travel this route and the price is the same as the jeepney. 60-90 minutes. If all the ferries are fully booked at Balatero port, this is the next option to get a ferry to Batangas.
See[edit][add listing]
Do[edit][add listing]
Accredited masseuses can give you massage right on the beach. To prevent hanky-panky, in-room massage, other than in an especially designated room at the hotel, is prohibited. Aside from Scuba Diving, golf is also another activity, a golf course is available.
Most visitors to Puerto Galera are attracted by the excellent scuba diving provided by the protected marine sanctuary. There are a number of dive shops in the area (estimated at around 35) that provide access to a macro (i.e. small life) diving heaven. The dive sites that feature a large variety of small sea life with the occasional shark or turtle. Several sites are drift dives and often turn into (strong) current dives with the best diving (for coral and small life) being at 20m or 60 feet. Almost all of the dive sites are within a 10 minute boat ride of Sabang which allows you to spend your surface interval on the shore and it also allows most shops to offer as many as four dive trips (single tank) each day. Prices for a single dive are around $26~$32 (estimated) for a single tank dive, including equipment rental, boat and dive guide, with discounts for more dives and if you have your own equipment.
Other activities[edit]
Buy[edit][add listing]
Eat[edit][add listing]
There are many restaurants near Muelle Pier, Puerto Galera and Sabang Beach.
Drink[edit][add listing]
The Jager Bar (http://www.thejagerbar.com/)
Floating Bar - enjoy a beer on a boat off the coast of Sabang.
Sleep[edit][add listing]
Puerto Galera has numerous hotels and resorts that tourists can choose from.
Tourists will also find many cheap bungalows to stay on white beach. These cost from 500 pesos to 1500 pesos a night, you can get better rates during week days.
Stay safe[edit]
Get out[edit]
Jeepney to Calapan (1.15h, 90P) leaves from the end of the main road several times daily. Also, air conditioned mini vans now operate for 100P and have fewer stops. From Calapan you can take a minivan (3h, 180P) to Roxas.
Jeepney/Tricycle (25php per person from the main road) to Balatero port where a boat, M/S Caribbean, leaves daily at 10AM for Abras de Llog, 180php one-way, 10php terminal fee. Easy entry into Mindoro Occidental. An easier and cheaper option compared to chartering your own pumpboat or going to Abras via Batangas.


text: Log In Lodge Info - Grand Lodge of Michigan Home Grand Lodge BGPs Calendar DDI's Event Registrations Genealogy Requests Grand Lodge Office Grand Lodge Officers Masonic Charitable Foundation Masonic Museum and Library Past Grand Masters RGL's Lodges Find Lodge Lodges in Districts Members HELP DESK Member Log In/Account Article and Calendar Submissions Background Check Clip Art Considering on Becoming a Mason? Links to Other Jurisdictions Masonic Pathways Michigan Masonic Charitable Foundation MORI Login Outreach & Member Care About S.A.Y. Detroit Michigan Masons Donate $100,000 Help Basics of Masonry History Our Vision Philosophy and Beliefs Request More Info Who, What and Where HomeLodgesFind LodgeLodge Info Lodge Info Howell Lodge No. 38 401 W Grand River Ave Howell, MI 48843-2147 Website: www.howell38.com County: Livingston Bus. mtg: 1st Wed Monthly@ 7:00 PM Charter date: 01/10/1850 Districts - DDI/BGP: 031 Secretary: Justin Surman ph: 248-760-0496 c: 248-760-0496 email: firstname.lastname@example.com You must log in to see the Worshipful Master.


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Hey everyone! I hope you all had a WONDERFUL holiday! We are still enjoying family being in town, but I did want to show you some ornaments I had made before its too far past Christmas Lol. This is a DT Project for Discount Paper Crafts. All of my Christmas themed projects were made using products from Cathie's store. She has it all! I really loved this Nutcracker Sweet Paper! I made these for my scrappy besties, we did a little ornament swap, so they are all different to suit their personal tastes and likes :) Big hugs ya'll!
Products used:


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This page will mention some of the programs available to students to further their classroom learning.
Day Program
Our day program is ideal for local students who are able to commute to and from school each day.
Full-time Program
Another program is our full-time experience. This allows the student to live independently and grow as a person. Both local
and out-of-state students are eligible for this program.
Our morning program is also popular. This is for younger students just beginning to go to school. The morning program offers
the same strong academics and activities as our other programs.
Please call or e-mail us with questions on the various programs.
---smkns--gemilangkan sekolah kita---


text: Fab You Bliss, Once In A Lifetime Rainy Day Wedding 06 Enter your email here: Or, get updates via Facebook Twitter Iinstagram Google+ RSS Pinterest StumbleUpon DID YOU ENJOY THIS POST? There is always plenty more to come - subscribe now and never miss a thing! Lovely Blush and Gold Rainy Day Wedding


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Just had this error for the second time. This occurred when clicking 'Full scan with cleanup'. When this happened the first time, I just re-logged back into Madsonic to correct the issue but now it is persistent.
However, BIG problem. I tried to post the relevant error message as instructed but got this - "Your post looks too spamy for a new user, please remove off-site URLs. "
There are no offsite urls as far as I can see, only general paths to files on the server. Being a new user should not restrict me from posting this kind of output and if I removed all the paths, then my error submission would be meaningless. I don't see what the problem is whether I am a new user or not and I think this is a bit too restrictive for an anti-spam measure as it appears not to work correctly anyway. Oh, by the way, "spamy" should be "spammy"
When I tried to find a solution for this "spammy" message problem, I got
SQL ERROR [ mysqli ]
The SELECT would examine more than MAX_JOIN_SIZE rows; check your WHERE and use SET SQL_BIG_SELECTS=1 or SET MAX_JOIN_SIZE=# if the SELECT is okay [1104]
An SQL error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact the Board Administrator if this problem persists.
I really don't see what I can do to report this.....
Post your Server Bug Report
Post Reply
First unread post • 1 post • Page 1 of 1
Post Reply
1 post • Page 1 of 1


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Those who need to be ready for anything take one of these with them everywhere. Since 1897, the Swiss Army Knife has been a trusted tool of adventurers around the world. Whether you're exploring the city, the ocean, the mountains or even space, the Swiss Army Knife is the companion you can count on.
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I set aside all the things that I wanted copies of and good ole cousin Daniel scanned them for me. I just received them this morning and among these goodies is the obituary of grandma Hazel so I wanted to share that today.
The one with her photo came from the Idaho State Journal, I believe. I don't know where the other one came from.
Surnames mentioned: Madsen, Piggott, Crocker, Findlay, Rich, Wallentine, Hansen, Stucki, Bateman, Stock, Hart, Dunford, Gardiner, Beck, Smedley.


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Gholamali Balouch-Fashion Interaction Dress
At Design Interviews
Interview with GHOLAMALI BALOUCH : Frank Scott: What is the main principle, idea and inspiration behind your design?. GHOLAMALI BALOUCH : the basic idea comes from the vintage video games(John Conway's Game of Life) and computer graphics in the late 70's and early 80's and tries to use it as a digitally created pattern applied on textile. .Frank Scott: What has been your main focus in designing this work? Especially what did you want to achieve?. GHOLAMALI BALOUCH : it's all about bringing the new possibilities to make things in a different way.in specific making a wearable platform capable to interact and communicate with human . .Frank Scott: What are your future plans for this award winning design?. GHOLAMALI BALOUCH : this concept is capable to inspire fashion and high-tech consumer electronics industry to new solutions for intelligent materials and textiles. .Frank Scott: How long did it take you to design this particular concept?. GHOLAMALI BALOUCH : entire process of design,research and prototyping took about 6 mouths. .Frank Scott: Why did you design this particular concept? Was this design commissioned or did you decide to pursuit an inspiration?. GHOLAMALI BALOUCH : this experimental project is considered as a part of bachelor study program in politecnico di milano. .Frank Scott: Is your design being produced or used by another company, or do you plan to sell or lease the production rights or do you intent to produce your work yourself?. GHOLAMALI BALOUCH : in any case of interest,the prototype and all intellectual rights are transferable. .Frank Scott: What made you design this particular type of work?. GHOLAMALI BALOUCH : personal interest. .Frank Scott: Where there any other designs and/or designers that helped the influence the design of your work?. GHOLAMALI BALOUCH : inspiration by John Conway and Vivienne westwood. .Frank Scott: Who is the target customer for his design?. GHOLAMALI BALOUCH : the art and design museums or R&D sectors in fashion and textile industries or show business or collection owner can be considered as customer. .Frank Scott: What sets this design apart from other similar or resembling concepts?. GHOLAMALI BALOUCH : this is wearable and flexible,and the open source digital device bring variety of functions and aspects. .Frank Scott: How did you come up with the name for this design? What does it mean?. GHOLAMALI BALOUCH : "fashion interaction" may suite well the whole idea behind this concept.it means to have a dialog with what you wear trough a digital device. .Frank Scott: Which design tools did you use when you were working on this project?. GHOLAMALI BALOUCH : some traditional tools and Technics like pattern makings,swing Technics, and of course computer softwares like wiring program environmental. .Frank Scott: What is the most unique aspect of your design?. GHOLAMALI BALOUCH : combination of old and new makes it different: vintage computer graphics,modern electronic devices,retro fashion style,... .Frank Scott: Who did you collaborate with for this design? Did you work with people with technical / specialized skills?. GHOLAMALI BALOUCH : this is a solo project. .Frank Scott: What is the role of technology in this particular design?. GHOLAMALI BALOUCH : the inspiration,design,prototyping all are based on technology. .Frank Scott: Is your design influenced by data or analytical research in any way? What kind of research did you conduct for making this design?. GHOLAMALI BALOUCH : the research areas expend in different fields like:life style,art and culture and technological aspects in other hand, basically focused on 80's. .Frank Scott: What are some of the challenges you faced during the design/realization of your concept?. GHOLAMALI BALOUCH : design the electronic devices ,large amount of wiring and swing job all done by hand. .Frank Scott: How did you decide to submit your design to an international design competition?. GHOLAMALI BALOUCH : to promote and interduce this concept and probably develop it. .Frank Scott: What did you learn or how did you improve yourself during the designing of this work?. GHOLAMALI BALOUCH : the fact of being independent helped much to resolve the unexpected problems. .
Gholamali Balouch-Fashion Interaction Dress Images:
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Mayor Chuck Fewell
Parks Office & Policies: Weather Updates
Support quality parks/recreation services and facilities. Help us with citizen recreation and leisure pursuits. Please earmark contributions to the Parks Endowment.
Click HERE to donate.
Support Thornwood Preserve so that it will be protected and kept in its natural state for the enjoyment of future generations to come. Please earmark contributions to the Thornwood Endowment
Senior Center 2017
James Whitcomb Riley
Beckenholdt Dedication
Pennsy Trail
Greenfield Soccer
Riley Garden
Thornwood Preserve
Rovers Run
Zumba, April 2011
Dulcimer Connection


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Women's Basketball Returns to Action at Ole Miss on Sunday
The Tennessee State University women's basketball team will return to action on Sunday when the Lady Tigers take on SEC member Ole Miss in non-conference action. Game time is slated for 2 p.m. in Tad Smith Coliseum.
Tennessee State is coming off a tough loss to Texas A&M Corpus on Thursday. The Lady Tigers dropped the contest, 76-74, at home. With the loss TSU fell to 1-4 overall.
After five games, TSU is averaging 64.2points per outing while shooting 35.1 percent from the field. Chelsea Hudson leads the team in scoring with 18.8 points per game while Rachel Allen (9.4 ppg) and I'mani Davis (8.2 ppg) round out the top three scorers for TSU.
The Lady Tigers, under second year head coach Larry Joe Inman, returned four letterwinners from last year's squad and added eight newcomers, including seven freshmen, to the roster.
TSU finished last season with an overall record of 13-15 and a 9-7 conference mark. In an Ohio Valley Conference preseason poll that was released in October, TSU was predicted to finish fifth in the East Division standings.
Tennessee State controlled the tempo for most of the game but couldn't come away with the win in a tough, 76-74, loss to Texas A&M Corpus Christi at home. The Lady Tigers led by as many as 12 but saw the double-digit lead dissipate down the stretch. Three TSU players scored in double-figures led by Chelsea Hudson who had, a game-high 22 points. Rachel Allen finished the game with 16 while freshman Jemilah Leonard posted a career-high 11 points in the contest. Alana Morris hauled in eight rebounds.
Ole Miss (1-4) opened the season up with a win over Jacksonville State (83-62) before dropping the next four. The Rebels' last loss was against Washington State (79-65). Ole Miss has a game on Friday night before facing TSU on Sunday.
In the loss to Washington State, Tia Faleru was the only player to score in double-digits as she led the team with 29 points. Valencia McFarland and Diara Moore each chipped in nine each.
Following five contests, Ole Miss is averaging 66.0 points per game behind a 32.7 field goal percentage. The Rebels are 19-of-107 (.178) from three-point range.
Faleru (13.6 ppg), McFarland (12.6 ppg) and Joseph (7.6 ppg) lead the Rebels in scoring.
TSU vs. OLE MISS
Tennessee State and Ole Miss will meet for only the third time in the program's history. Ole Miss holds a 2-0 series advantage. In the last meeting between the two teams, the Rebels defeated the Lady Tigers, 90-50, on Nov. 30, 2005.
Updates on the game will be available throughout the game on the official twitter page via @TSU_Tigers. Live stats, audio and video (with a subscription) will also be available for the TSU vs. Ole Miss game. Links can be found on tsutigers.com under the schedule.
TSU will return to the Gentry Center to face cross-town rival Lipscomb in a contest just before the Thanksgiving break. Game time is slated for 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 26.


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When Kristin Davis revealed the name of her adopted baby daughter last week – Gemma Rose – the name struck a chord with many "Sex and The City" fans, and even series star, Sarah Jessica Parker.
Rose, after all, is the name of the baby Kristin's "SATC" character, Charlotte York Goldenblatt, had in the first big screen installment of the HBO franchise.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: 'Sex And The City's' Kristin Davis
U.S. & World
"That occurred to me," Sarah Jessica Parker smiled, when asked about the coincidence by Access Hollywood on Monday.
"But it's a beautiful old-fashioned name, and Kristin is a really old fashioned girl," Sarah Jessica continued. "She's a southern-raised kind of… She has a real traditional streak, so I think it's a beautiful name… It's nice."
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Fab Four Mania: The Official 'Sex And The City 2' Movie Stills
SJP hasn't yet seen Kristin's own baby girl yet, but she's over the moon for her longtime co-star and friend.
"She lives in Los Angeles and I live here [in New York], so I've not met her [baby] yet, but I'm so happy for her and I just could not be happier for Kristin," the star told Access. "It's a wonderful situation. I know she's wanted to have a family for a long time and she deserves that unique kind of happiness that children bring and I'm so happy for her."
As for Sarah Jessica, she has her own new arrival on the way – in the form of Season 2 of her series "Work of Art," which premieres October 12 at 9/8 C on Bravo.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Hollywood's Hottest Moms & Their Loveable Little Ones
"I'm really excited," Sarah Jessica said about the return of her show, a reality TV competition series, based around emerging artists. "I'm still kind of in disbelief that we found a home for a show about art, because it was not necessarily something that people cottoned to immediately.
"I'm so thrilled that we got to have a second season," she added.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: The Unbelievably Stylish Sarah Jessica Parker
Copyright 2011 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Related Content from AccessHollywood.com:
PLAY IT NOW: Sarah Jessica Parker 'Couldn't Be Happier' Over Kristin Davis Adopting A Baby Girl
PLAY IT NOW: Access Extended: Sarah Jessica Parker's 'I Don't Know How She Does It' Premiere
More from Access: [ Sarah Jessica Parker Kristin Davis Reality TV ]


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PRAIRIE GROVE – Finding someone to stick with for the long haul, who will bring out a person's best self and their partner's best self, is a hard enough task without making gender an issue, the Rev. Catherine Erwin said.
She's one of a dozen or so area religious leaders who have signed up as supporters of same-sex marriages willing to perform marriage ceremonies once county clerks begin issuing licenses June 1.
The list was put together by Equality Illinois, a group that advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights and covers the greater Chicago area.
The list is dominated by several Christian denominations, including the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church of the United States, the United Methodist Church, and especially, United Church of Christ. There are also many Unitarian Universalist and Jewish reformed and conservative congregations represented.
Erwin, who has lived in McHenry since the early 1990s, just started as the pastor at Faith Community, a United Church of Christ parish in Prairie Grove, in February. She has been a member of the church since 1991, long before she decided to go to seminary and become a pastor.
"I've always been in favor [of same-sex marriage]," she said. "I never saw that there was a reason not to. In fact, in this day and age, all of the arguments against it don't make any sense in a lot of contexts."
The Rev. Jess Harren, who has been the pastor at Capron Lutheran Church just west of Harvard for nearly two years, agrees, especially since some similar Bible verses that have been used to condemn same-sex relationships have also been aimed at women.
"I think that in order for things to change in the world, there needs to be pressure from both inside organizations and outside organizations," she said. "I really feel like part of my personal call to ministry is healing some of the hurts that the church has historically caused in the world."
But for many of these churches, the decision didn't just come down to the pastor.
Each United Church of Christ parishioner had a vote to decide whether they would allow same-sex marriages in their church and whether their pastor would be allowed to perform them.
The vote was unanimous at the Rev. Lance Lackore's First Congregational Church in Huntley – though some parishioners abstained.
Leading up to the vote, Lackore brought in other pastors who were more educated on this area to lead a conversation on the topic from a Biblical perspective.
"It was awesome because that's the kind of church I want to serve, one that welcomes all of God's children," he said, adding the vote also affirmed the acceptance of the congregation's openly gay and not openly gay members.
The move for some religious institutions to be more openly welcoming regardless of sexual or gender orientation has brought some people back the church, Erwin said.
Some of the visitors told her they simply haven't been at church for so long they can't remember, she said, adding that she plans on doing outreach to spread the word about open churches.
Harren also has spoken to another pastor about officiating the marriages of same-sex couples in their parish because that denomination doesn't allow it. Her parish also recently got rid of a separate fee structure for non-parishioners under the idea that "in the kingdom of God, there aren't insiders and outsiders."
"I'd just be happy if people are worshipping God and having a relationship with Jesus," she said. "If that's in my church, great, wonderful, but if that's not in my church, I'd rather they be with Jesus in someone else's church than not know Jesus at all."


text: I see by today's providence paper that the state is stocking some brood Stock in some local ponds, and Wood River, which is in the southern part of the state. Seeing the temperature is going to be around 20 degrees F it is tough fishing. The fish are between 6 and 10 lbs. I will give them a week, then I am going to try if I get a day over 30 degrees:D I have fished every month here in RI so I know it can be done. Just have to find some open water.:)


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UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Thomas D. Larson Pennsylvania Transportation Institute's Center for Dirt and Gravel Road Studies at Penn State was selected by the Pennsylvania Association of Environmental Professionals (PAEP) to receive the 2013 Karl Mason Environmental Stewardship Award. The award was presented at the PAEP award banquet on May 9, at the Toftrees Golf Resort and Conference Center in State College, Pa.
Karl Mason served as Pennsylvania's first state environmental administrator from 1952 until his death in 1966. His holistic vision of environmental management set the pattern for the state to this day, according to a statement on the PAEP website. Mason believed and put into practice the notion that environmental protection is primarily the business of professionals who have the skills by virtue of their scientific training to manage the technical and scientific complexities of maintaining a safe, healthy and clean environment.
The award was created to commemorate his vision of a strong, well-managed environmental program. The center was recognized as making a significant contribution toward maintenance or restoration of Pennsylvania's environmental quality."
Under the direction of Steve Bloser, the Center for Dirt and Gravel Road Studies is the prime education and outreach conduit for Pennsylvania's Dirt and Gravel Road Maintenance Program through the State Conservation Commission and Bureau of Forestry. The center also provides training programs and seminars to government and industry personnel throughout the country.
"The work we do is fundamentally changing the way people look at rural roads," said Bloser. "A lot of people never realized the severity of the environmental impact of roads, and that methods exist to do things better."
Created in 2000 in partnership with the state's Dirt and Gravel Road Maintenance Program, the Center for Dirt and Gravel Road Studies specializes in education, outreach, research, and project oversight related to the environmentally sensitive maintenance of unpaved roads and trails. Pennsylvania's Dirt and Gravel Road Maintenance Program provides funding to eliminate stream pollution caused by runoff and sediment from the state's 20,000-plus mile network of unpaved public roads.
"These environmentally sensitive maintenance practices stress long-term solutions," said Bloser. "The goal is to reduce sediment pollution and long-term maintenance costs associated with rural roadways. What you get in return is a more environmentally and economically sustainable rural road system."
Center researchers developed Driving Surface Aggregate, a PennDOT-approved specification that has been applied successfully to hundreds of miles of unpaved roads. With municipalities across the country facing crippling budget decisions, the prospect of providing a way for unpaved roads to require less maintenance and have a lesser impact on the local environment addresses two key concerns simultaneously.
"A key aspect of our mission is capacity building," said Bloser. While the center's efforts have reached thousands of sites within Pennsylvania, much work lies ahead. More than16,600 stream pollution sites have been identified by the center as eligible for funding. To date, the state program has funded 2,400 of the identified project sites in the past 15 years.
In addition to providing educational and technical assistance throughout Pennsylvania, the center's efforts also have assisted agencies and municipalities in Arkansas, California, Wyoming, Missouri, South Dakota, South Carolina, Michigan, Maine, Maryland, New York and Ohio. The center also receives inquiries from governments and organizations around the world.
The Center for Dirt and Gravel Road Studies was recently selected by the Transportation Research Board to host the 11th International Conference on Low-Volume Roads in 2015. Held every fourth year, the conference brings together practitioners worldwide in local, state and federal agencies; universities; private firms; and international organizations to discuss case histories, research results and innovative practices related to rural roadways. Previous conferences have attracted transportation professionals from all continents.


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Press Release: City of Oakland Launches Open Data Platform to Spur Civic Innovation
Oakland, CA — Announcing the launch of its open data platform today, the City of Oakland has joined the ranks of other forward-thinking government organizations around the world that are using Open Data as a platform for increased civic engagement and government transparency, improved decision making, and more efficient and effective service delivery.
The newly launched data.oaklandnet.com website will serve as the central repository of the City of Oakland's public data. The new website allows users to access, visualize and download City data. In addition, programmers will appreciate the site's Application Programming Interface (API), which enables direct access to tap into City data to build software applications.
Data.oaklandnet.com also provides the public with the opportunity to engage with the City and contribute feedback and ideas. The site allows users to request additional datasets and create their own unique maps and charts that they can then share via social media, or embed on blogs and websites.
The City of Oakland collects a broad range of data in order to perform its tasks. By making the data easily accessible to both staff and the public alike, it has the potential to transform how the City does business. The platform gives the community a better view into the inner workings of local government, and encourages the community to develop applications that enhance City services.
The data catalog will grow over time as City employees discover or aggregate new data, or as data is suggested by the pubic. An initial offering of over 50 datasets is available on the site, including:
- Crime statistics
- City infrastructure
- 2010 census data
- Parks and Recreation facilities
- Spatial data
The Open Data platform is the latest in a series of recent efforts by the City to engage with citizens through the use of free, third-party apps, social media and Open Data.
- Last year, the City of Oakland's Public Works Agency opened up its service request data and integrated with SeeClickFix, an online and mobile tool that helps residents report, track and monitor non-emergency problems, such as graffiti, illegal dumping or potholes.
- The Oakland Police Department began using Nixle and Twitter to send out neighborhood-specific crime alerts.
- Citizens have long had the ability to track and monitor crime through websites such as crimemapping.com and oakland.crimespotting.org, as a result of efforts by the Oakland Police Department and the Department of Information Technology to open Crime Data to the public.
- The City has been working with OpenOakland—the Code for America Brigade—to launch "Adopt-A-Drain," a map-based, web app that allows for individuals, small businesses and community organizations to volunteer to clear the City's storm-drains.
- Last fall the City launched a community engagement web site called EngageOakland.com. The platform encourages community ideas, feedback and suggestions to help shape, grow and sustain the healthy future of Oakland. The site is sponsored by the City to help advance innovative ideas and improve service delivery.
The launch of the open data platform comes as Oakland welcomes three innovative Code for America fellows to start their one-year fellowship. Their role will be to work with City staff and the community to develop new apps and technology tools to bring greater openness, efficiency and participation to local government. The goal of Code for America is to help bridge the digital divide between the public and private sectors by helping local governments create new tools and demonstrate new ways of resolving local challenges.
Open Data Day Hackathon
On February 23, 2013, the City of Oakland will co-host a hackathon with OpenOakland to celebrate International Open Data Day. Join volunteer programmers, coders and community members at the 81st Avenue Branch Library to explore, visualize and build apps using government data. To suggest ideas for apps and needed data, visit engageoakland.com. For more information and to register for the event, visit: http://opendatadayoakland.eventbrite.com/.


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When someone calls you out of the blue and offers you free stuff – beware. If that caller asks to "verify" your bank account information – hang up! You're talking to a con artist.
The Federal Trade Commission says Suntasia Marketing of Largo, Fla. used this trick to deceive nearly a million people out of approximately $172 million between 1999 and 2007.
Suntasia also did what is called negative option marketing. If the consumer said yes, and didn't cancel within a specified amount of time, the company would debit the person's checking account, using the number that was obtained through the deceptive sales pitch.
Two weeks ago, Suntasia settled fraud charges brought by the FTC.
A federal court judge ordered the company's owners to stop their illegal actions and pay back more than $16 million to unhappy customers.
When asked to respond to the settlement, an attorney for two of the individuals in this case said "there was no admission of liability of admission or finding of wrongdoing." In his e-mail, attorney Jack Fernandez said the company believes its marketing parctices "have at all times been in full compliance with applicable laws" and it intends to resume business operations.
Complaints against Suntasia reached near-record numbers. The FTC collected more than 5,000 of them. How could so many people be duped? "Suntasia's salespeople would represent that they were affiliated with the consumer's bank," explains Todd Kossow, one of the FTC lawyers who handled this case. "They would have the consumer believing that they already had their bank account number, when they didn't."
Nicole Jones of Seattle took the bait. She agreed to a discount travel club offer that would only cost $19.95 a month. "It didn't sound half bad and there was a 14-day free trial period," she says. "I figured that would give me time to look into it and see if it was something I wanted to do." So she gave the caller her checking account number.
About 14 days later, the envelope arrived. Along with the travel club material, there was an unexpected membership for a time share in Florida. That time share offer had to be canceled within seven days.
Jones called to complain but was told the company could not be responsible for when the letter was delivered. Because she had not cancelled within the seven-day period, the company used her checking account number to make an electronic withdrawal for $149.
"They completely lied to me," says Jones, who never got her money back.
The pitch was slick
The Suntasia telemarketers would always start their calls by offering some freebies in return for accepting a 14-day trial membership in a buying club or discount travel program.
Here is one of the scripts Suntasia salespeople used. It was introduced as evidence in court:
"My name is (your name), I'm a registered Agent calling on behalf of Agents Travel Network in regards to your banking account. As a valued customer we are going to send you $400 in airline savings vouchers and two free nights of hotel accommodations, just for you for accepting a 14-day free trial into our Agents Travel Network program."
The salesperson went on to explain that after the free trial period, the charge was $19.95 a month "billed to your checking account," plus a one-time activation fee of $40. "If you decide to cancel," the script says, "just call the toll-free number in your package during the trial period, you'll never be billed and there's no further obligation."
The FTC's Kossow says this violates the federal Telemarketing Sales Rule which requires the salesperson to provide the cancelation number during the initial call.
The salesperson would then ask for the name of the person's bank and the city and state where the account was opened. Armed with this information, it's easy to find the bank's nine-digit routing number.
Once he "verified" that routing number, he would ask the "customer" for the last set of numbers – the all-important account number. That was all Suntasia needed to make an electronic withdrawal from the person's bank account.
But there's more. Before getting off the line, the Suntasia salesperson would talk about two more "free-trial" offers, such as a time-share, buying club or long distance phone service. Again, if the person didn't cancel within a certain time period, withdrawal from the checking account would be made. The buying club was $149 plus $9.95 a month. The long distance service was $49.95 a month.
"They tricked me"
Janis Gorton lived in Austin, Texas, when she got the call offering her a free one-week vacation and a calling card. "She made it sound like she already had my checking account information," Gorton says. "So I confirmed the information for her and gave her more information. I know now I shouldn't have done that."
Gorton tells me she got the calling card and cancelled within the two-week period, avoiding the $19.95 charge. But about a month later $19.95 was withdrawn from her checking account. The next month another $19.95 was taken out. Not knowing how long the charges would keep coming, Gorton closed her checking account.
"What they did was deplorable, she says. "They're basically crooks. They took advantage of me."
Gorton was lucky. After complaining to the Better Business Bureau, she got her money back. But she learned her lesson. "Do not give your account number over the phone; even if they make it sound like it's legitimate."
My two cents
Many telemarketing sales people are honest and hard-working. But there are also plenty of crooks. When the phone rings, you have no way of knowing who is really on the line. Callers can lie. Caller ID can't always be trusted; con artists can manipulate what shows up on the screen.
That's why we have a simple rule in my house. We don't buy things from an unknown caller. I won't even make a charitable donation this way. I may ask the caller to send information, but I will not give out my credit card or bank account number to an unknown caller. Period! That may sound harsh, but it eliminates any chance of getting scammed.
© 2013 msnbc.com. Reprints


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Covid-19 Office Operations
Our offices are available for phone or video appointments. Email or call for more information. For information, please visit the UA coronavirus information website.
Interested in hiring UAS students/alumni?
We value our partnership with employers both locally and regionally and appreciate the opportunity for our students to gain workplace skills while working towards their degrees. Please review the Career Services Recruiting Policies and Procedures that govern employment practices and UAS students.
If you would like to post a position, please follow the steps below:
1. Preview the current job postings via the Off-Campus Jobs link to see the type of information other employers are including.
2. Email your job posting (including any attachments) to Deborah Rydman.
3. You will receive a reply email with the link to preview the posting for any edits/revisions.
4. Once the position is filled, or you no longer would like it posted, please let Career Services know.
5. Questions? Call 907-796-6368 or email Deborah Rydman
**Notice to employers: this is a free service offered by UAS Career Services and does not include additional information or analytics of posting**
Interested in Offering an Internship?
Internships are excellent experiential learning opportunities for UAS students as well as a solution to pressing needs of an employer. Internships should be designed to provide learning opportunities for students and can be either paid or unpaid. Students are also able to earn college credit while participating as an intern.
Internship Guidelines for Employers is designed to answer common questions employers have as well as list contact information for our different degrees and programs.
If you would like to discuss a possible internship, please contact Deborah Rydman for further instructions and assistance.
Thank you for your interest and investment in our students!


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Dove focuses on providing supplements that are necessary for Dr Rind's Metabolic Therapy™ - correction of adrenal and thyroid dysfunction. Our mission at Dove is to give our customers an easy way to buy quality supplements at a good price. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or comments.
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"Hey, you ever feel just a little strange? That we're hopping around all these planets and humans are the only intelligent life forms out here?" Halo: Helljumper, the fan-made web series centered on marine culture in the Halo universe, begins before contact with the Covenant. These greenhorns won't be finishing the fight. They've only just started it.
If you missed it the first time around, be sure to check out the series' teaser, and their official website.


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Spooky Halloween!
Halloween Zombies and Halloween Pumpkins have been seen roaming around our battle zones.
Help your faction by exterminating these pests and keeping their generals in line.
If you wander too much around them, you will find who is in charge and that would be the Mad Pumpkin (Lv15), the Mad Pumpkin Princess (Lv30) and the Mad Pumpkin Queen (Lv80)!
Oh and by the way, if you see The Most Ugly Pumpkin (Lv80) in the world, stomp it!
The Nightmare before Halloween
Help Jack the Skeleton free his wife from the hands of the Mad Pumpkin Queen by gathering the required materials for it.
You will require three special pumpkins for him to regain his strength. Check out around the city for someone to help you out.
A witch's gift (Daily)
Talk to Esther/Aisha and help her out by gathering the candies she want. Witches like candy too!
Nightmare on Halloween (Daily)
Lapoon/Hashi have trouble sleeping. Find out why!
All NPC are in your Capital City.
Mad Pumpkin spawns in Proelium Frontier every 8 hours.
Mad Pumpkin Princess spawns in Cantabilian every 8 hours.
Mad Pumpkin Queen spawns in D-Water Borderlands every 8 hours.
The Most Ugly Pumpkin spawns in D-Water Borderlands every 8 hours.


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© 2004-, Ìmmørtål Kníghtz™. All rights reserved.
Immortal Knightz is a UT2004 Zark Clan dedicated in keeping the UT Community current by creating custom content. Epic, Epic Games, the Epic Games logo, Unreal, Unreal Engine,
Unreal Tournament, Unreal Tournament 2004, Unreal Tournament 3, Unreal Tournament 4 are trademarks or registered trademarks of Epic Games, Inc. in the United States of America and elsewhere.
Other brands or product names are the trademarks of their respective owners.


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Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University researchers found these 55-gallon drums at a known chemical weapons dumpsite near the mouth of the Mississippi River. They suspect mustard gas was leaking out.
Oil and bombs don't mix, yet there's millions of pounds of unexploded World War II munitions dumped in the Gulf of Mexico that pose a risk to offshore drilling and the environment, researchers say.
The military carried out the dumping from 1946 to 1970 — including off the Pacific, Atlantic and Hawaii coasts — so it's no secret. But now that some of the containers used to store the munitions are more than 60 years old, the researchers say it's time to see them as a threat.
"The bottom line is that these bombs are a threat today and no one knows how to deal with the situation," Texas A&M oceanographer William Bryant said in a statement ahead of a briefing he'll give at a weapons disposal conference. "If chemical agents are leaking from some of them, that's a real problem. If many of them are still capable of exploding, that's another big problem."
Photos taken during surveys show that some of the chemical weapons canisters, such as those that carried mustard gas, appear to be leaking materials and are damaged, Bryant and others on his team reported.
The surveys have turned up 10 dump sites at 60 and 100 miles out — and one of them had a pipeline running through it.
Texas has the closest dump, followed by Louisiana, "not far from where the Mississippi River delta area is," Bryant said. "Some shrimpers have recovered bombs and drums of mustard gas in their fishing nets.
Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University researchers found this unexploded, 500-pound bomb at a dumpsite near the mouth of the Mississippi River in 2008.
"No one seems to know where all of them are and what condition they are in today," he added. "The best guess is that at least 31 million pounds of bombs were dumped, but that could be a very conservative estimate.
"These were all kinds of bombs, from land mines to the standard military bombs, also several types of chemical weapons," he said. "Our military also dumped bombs offshore that they got from Nazi Germany right after World War II.
"Is there an environmental risk? We don't know, and that in itself is reason to worry," he said.
The hazards pose even more of a risk as the Obama administration and energy companies pick up the pace of drilling after the 2010 BP oil spill.
Ironically, unexploded ordnance was found in the offshore zone known as Mississippi Canyon where the BP well was drilled.
This chart lists some of the munitions dumpsites in the Gulf of Mexico, and what's there.
"My first thought when I saw the news reports of the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf two years ago were, 'Oh my gosh, I wonder if some of the bombs down there are to blame'," recalled Bryant.
That turned out not to be the case, but such World War II finds are not surprising in the oil industry.
Last year, BP shut a major North Sea pipeline for five days to remove a 13-foot unexploded German mine. BP discovered the mine during an inspection, then spent months devising a plan to remove and safely detonate it.
This chart lists some of the munitions dump sites in the Gulf of Mexico, and what is there.
In 2001, BP and Shell found the wreckage of the U-166, a German WWII submarine, 45 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River.
While the practice of dumping bombs and chemical weapons in the ocean ended 40 years ago, some effects are just now being seen, Terrance Long, founder of the International Dialogue on Underwater Munitions, told Reuters. Bryant will be briefing the group's conference, which begins Monday in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
"You can find munitions in basically every ocean around the world, every major sea, lake and river," Long said. "They are a threat to human health and the environment."
Reuters contributed to this report.
More content from NBCNews.com:
- Lawsuit: Pentagon denied rape victims their constitutional rights
- US immigration chief: Same-sex ties are family ties
- A country song about PTSD: 'All you've got left are these pieces'
- Michigan police dig into driveway in latest search for Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa
- Six teenage girls beat Pennsylvania woman, videotape attack
- Video: Pilot proposes during emergency stunt
Follow US News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook


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Full-text coverage of 380 periodicals and more than 220 books. In addition, Art & Architecture Complete offers cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts for more than 780 academic journals, magazines and trade publications, as well as for over 230 books. Also includes an Image Collection of over 63,000 images provided by Picture Desk and others.
Provides more than one million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences with an accessible suite of software tools for teaching and research. Our community-built collections comprise contributions from outstanding international museums, photographers, libraries, scholars, photo archives, and artists and artists' estates.
Online access to Grove Art Online, the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, The Oxford Companion to Western Art, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms, as well as many specially commissioned articles and bibliographies available exclusively online.


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Finally Vonnegut Night
I Think this Vonnegut thing is finally going to work tonight. For information on the rationale for the event, take a look here:
Plurktalk Late Night – Vonnegut
but carefully ignore the date. It happens tonight. We have had much difficulty in getting this idea off the ground, but it's finally going to work.
We're going to do the regular show first, of course, probably 90 minutes of it, or maybe 120. Nothing changes about that. Then I'm going to shoo everyone but Laura and Willfall off camera and we're going to talk about the Kurt Vonnegut book A Man Without a Country. We hope that you all stay and participate in the chat room, which the three of us will watch. I hope that this will be interesting, of course. If it is, we will do this often with different books and ideas, and with additional guests spotlighted in the discussion. There will always be required reading to be a Late Night guest.
Wednesday, August 5, at 8:00 pm Central Time (Late Night Later)
URL: http://www.stickam.com/plurktalk
You can watch and or listen just by going to that address. To participate, audio or video, you will have to join Stickam and friend user plurktalk. The Stickam system is sometimes slow in processing friend requests, so try to do this early. We will do a couple of announcements of the show today on Plurk. We will also use Plurk to ask for the topics you would like to see discussed during this show. If you miss those and want to see a particular topic discussed, please leave it as a comment to this post. Still no tutorial on joining Stickam, life has been entertainingly full.
I'm KDFrawg on Plurk and I hope you come to tonight's PlurkTalk.


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The latest updates for the next events of the 2014 season include important rider information, a cancelled tour stop in Mexico, and anticipation of the next two exciting events for the PKRA tour.
The Mondial Du Vent will kick off on the 26th of April and will, once again, stand out as one of the most-loved events of the year. With consistently strong winds, and the showcasing of extraordinary remarkable talent, this 18th annual event will surely contribute to one of the most surprising and thrilling events we've seen in many years.
Directly after this event, the PKRA tour will travel straight to Podersdorf, Austria, for the Surf World Cup Podersdorf, which will feature the exciting discipline of Slalom. Both of the back-to-back stops are renowned as some of the biggest events in their respective regions – where riders and fans will undoubtedly enjoy everything the excitement has to offer.
As for scheduled changes to the PKRA schedule, the tour stop planned for Cancun, Mexico, in May has been cancelled due to sponsor fallout. Next year will likely see the return of this event.
Lastly, riders should be aware that if they currently sit within the top 41 in rankings, they will need to register and pay for their entrance to the Mondial Du Vent event by April 2nd, to insure their participation.
In the coming weeks, be sure to stay tuned to the Facebook and Twitter feeds for all the latest info from the PKRA World Tour.


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(CNN) -- It would seem no one saw it coming -- not his parents, not students at his school.
Described by his lawyer as "a typical young kid" who has "never been in trouble," 16-year-old Alex Hribal shocked the people in his life and the nation Wednesday when he allegedly went on a rampage at his high school in Murrysville, Pennsylvania, stabbing or slashing 20 students and a security officer.
No one knows yet what might have motivated the attack.
But pieces of Hribal's story are starting to come together, so far painting a portrait of a teenage boy no one ever expected to show such violence.
"He's a typical young kid. He's a B+ student. The family is like Ozzie and Harriet. They have dinner together every night," said his attorney, Patrick Thomassey.
"All the students liked him. He wasn't a loner. He worked well in groups, and this happened. So there's a reason for it -- that's what I'm saying. And we have to get to the bottom of that," the attorney said.
Hribal, who was arraigned as an adult, faces four counts of attempted homicide, 21 counts of aggravated assault and one count of possession of a weapon on school grounds.
His attorney said he would file a motion to move the case to juvenile court. He also said it would be important to have his client examined by a psychiatrist to help determine "where he is mentally."
"I'm not sure he knows what he did, quite frankly," Thomassey said, adding that Hribal feels remorse.
"He's scared. He's a young kid. He's 16, looks like he's 12. I mean, he's a very young kid, and he's never been in trouble, so this is all new to him," the attorney said.
'Shy kid ... kept to himself'
Mia Meixner, a student at Franklin Regional Senior High School, witnessed a part of Wednesday's attack.
"He (Hribal) was very quiet. He just was kind of doing it," she said. "And he had this, like, look on his face that he was just crazy and he was just running around just stabbing whoever was in his way."
She said she didn't know the boy well, but he had been in a lot of her classes.
"From past experiences with him, he hasn't been violent at all. He's actually been a really nice kid from all the times I've talked to him. He was just more of a shy kid, and kept to himself," she said. "He was nice whenever you would talk to him. I never thought anything bad would happen with him."
Meixner said she didn't know of Hribal getting bullied, which was something his attorney also said.
"I'm not gonna comment on what my client had to say, but I don't know anything about any bullying," Thomassey told reporters.
Earlier, FBI agents seized Hribal's personal computer in hopes of discovering a possible motive, according to spokeswoman Kelly Kochamba.
'Not a troubled young man'
Hribal appeared in court shortly after the attack, where it was revealed he has lived in Murrysville since he was 2. He has an older brother.
Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck argued against bail, saying there could be no conditions that would protect the community and noting Hribal made "statements when subdued by officials that he wanted to die."
A judge agreed, and Hribal is being held without bail at the Westmoreland County Regional Youth Services Center.
He did not speak to reporters as he was led into a waiting police car.
According to Dan Stevens, the county deputy emergency management coordinator, Hribal had a very minor Facebook presence and didn't have much experience on Twitter. He is not believed to have had a cell phone.
Adding to the mystery, Thomassey said his client "was not a troubled young man to this point."
"They (his parents) offer their condolences to everybody involved in this case. They're very upset. They did not foresee this coming at all," the attorney said. "This is a nice young man. He's never been in trouble."


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John Napier, who was born in 1550 in the medieval Tower House of Merchiston Castle, is best known for his invention of logarithms. His work on logarithms, titled 'Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio', was published in 1614 and widely embraced by academics across Europe. Despite the academic acclaim, it was clear to John Napier that a universal system for simplifying logarithms would enable those, without the privilege of an extensive education, to access his innovation.
John Napier published Rabdologiae in 1617 which introduced a series of mathematical innovations, he hoped, would assist in making logarithms accessible to wider audiences within society. One of those innovations was a system of rods, colloquially named 'Napier's Bones', which were widely adopted within science and commerce and proved mathematics could be put to common use.
Napier's Bones were credited as the world's first pocket calculator which contined to be used throughout the 20th Century, surpassed only in recent times through digital age innovations.