text:
Dude, Where's Your Car?
Do you know those keychain voice recorders they used to advertise? Typically the commercials are on a Saturday afternoon, during a news program that recaps all the old news, preventing it from being news anymore.
The purpose of the voice recorder was to save information quickly - like a grocery list, where you parked, or where you left the remote control so you can change the channel from this terrible program.
Now most cell phones come with voice recording capabilities, but I have never used my phone to record the location of my car. I figure if I am smart enough to remember to carry my phone, I am smart enough to remember where I parked.
I live in an apartment in Los Angeles with fellow comedian Adam Hunter. He and I are very similar and very different simultaneously, and our friends all say we would make a good sitcom. The cool part is, unlike every roommate pairing in America who's friends say that (read: every roommate pairing in America), our professions might actually make that happen.
Anyway, I was supposed to stay home this past Monday night; I was tired from hiking earlier in the day. But Adam invited me to a comedy show in Universal Studios, and I didn't have any good reason to say no, mainly because I can't see the future.
When we arrived, we were instructed to park in the first available area, which was coincidentally next to comedian John Roy. We were late, so we quickly ran to the show.
That show was not the important part. After Adam got off stage, he and I left. What we didn't know was that there are three garages in Universal Studios, and we had no idea where we'd parked.
In fairness, we've all done this (some on sitcoms, already). Coincidentally, the time I lost my car was because I was late for a show at the Universal Studios in Orlando. But I was still not prepared to spend three hours walking Universal Studios in LA feeling like an idiot.
We started in the garage closest to us. It wasn't until we checked to see if there was another garage that we even noticed Curious George on the wall. Apparently, the painted characters are the way to tell the difference between the garages. If you're Curious George as to why, Universal Studios has a long tradition of opting for kitsch over intelligence.
We retraced our conversation sparked by places we'd passed on the way in, which led us to the second garage called--get this--Jurassic Parking. Our ability to find Adam's car was also extinct. We called John but he didn't pick up. Maybe he'd been eaten by an animatronic raptor.
We tried Curious George again. Then Jurassic. And back. And back again. Why do we keep looking in the same place for things? This wasn't car keys, this was a car. We'd have noticed it. By this time, I knew where everyone else's car was, just not ours.
Whenever we asked the guards for help, their answer was always the same: "Do you know where you parked?" If we remembered where we parked, we wouldn't have said, "Excuse me, we don't know where we parked." Though I couldn't call the guards stupid - we were the ones who misplaced two tons of metal.
John still didn't answer his phone. So we flagged down two girls and asked them to drive us around. In an unlikely twist that makes for a better column, our new hosts were a white rapper and an Armenian girl who couldn't speak English, but nodded whenever anyone else spoke. Why not?
While driving around the third garage (denoted by pictures of Frankenstein, of course), MC White Chick explained to us that maybe it was fate, and Adam lost his car to prevent him from getting into an accident. Adam said it was either that or because he was an idiot. The Armenian girl nodded.
In an unlikelier twist, we drove right by John. The good news was he didn't ignore our calls - he left his phone in his car. Which he couldn't find.
We parted ways with the girls, added John to our crew, and hunted for both cars on foot. Garage to garage to garage, I finally suggested that the cars may have been towed. We went to the security office to check, and were told that the staff would find our cars for us. A half hour later, they did. But not before asking if we remembered where we parked.
The cars were around a far corner on the basement floor of Jurassic Parking and we were relieved. Partly because we found the cars, and partly because there were seven other people following the security guard looking for theirs.
In addition to the layout of Universal Studios, we learned a valuable lesson. If you can't remember where you parked your car, please use the recorder on your phone to remind you.
Though that only works if you don't leave your phone in your car.


text:
Frank West Cut From Marvel vs. Capcom 3; Phoenix Wright Being Considered for Post-Release Update
"[Frank West]... was actually in the process quite deep, and in one of our high quality CG trailers he was actually part of it," said Niitsuma. "But we've taken him out, due to the fact that we've foreseen some extra work involved, just from the nature of his moves. We felt we could direct our resources to better use, so we've taken Frank out."
Of course, this doesn't preclude West from being added to the MvC3 roster as post-release DLC, a move that seems rather likely, given the significant time invested in his development (and prior appearance in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom.) That said, Niitsuma also mentioned that a certain objection-prone lawyer by the name of Phoenix Wright is being considered as a post-release roster addition, provided that MvC3 gets a following after release.
"It would be interesting to see him, although he distinctively lacks the number of moves he might have [in a fighting game]," said Niitsuma. "But if Marvel vs. Capcom 3 does well, he's definitely up on the list as one of the characters to add, given the chance."
Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is headed to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on February 18.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Vážení zákazníci, využijte našeho online předprodeje vozů a testovacích jízd až k vám domů. Více informací ZDE
Choose a car model
New i10 from 229 990 CZK
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i30 N from 699 990 CZK
i30 Fastback N from 719 990 CZK
Kona from 369 990 CZK
Kona Electric from 799 990 CZK
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Santa Fe
Santa Fe from 1 034 990 CZK
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IONIQ Plug-in from 799 990 CZK
The smartest way to stay connected on the move
Get plugged into Hyundai's mobile world of multimedia infotainment.
Stay in touch,
informed and entertained
informed and entertained
Wherever you're driving, nobody makes connectivity easier than Hyundai.
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Every trip can be an adventure, and with LIVE Services on your side, you'll always be able to by-pass the chaos of heavy traffic, disruptions and delays on the way to where you want to be. Provided by TomTom, LIVE Services are standard with your Hyundai Navigation System
LIVE Services
Save time and reduce stress on the road. Hyundai's LIVE Services provides you with real-time traffic information as well as speed camera alerts*, points of interest (POI) online search and weather conditions. What's more, it now also lets you access real-time information on fuel prices and EV charging stations on your route, as well as On & Off Street parking and Hyundai dealerships. And you'll always be able to cope with the unexpected by taking intelligent decisions that reduce stress, improve road safety and save you valuable time for the things you want to do.
Charging stations
With your Hyundai electric vehicle, you can find charging stations quickly and easily. Enjoy access to real-time charging station information such as location, connector types and availability. Forget about range anxiety – find what you need, exactly when and where you need it. Now you can plan your journey and never have to worry about running out of battery.
On & off-street parking
Find a parking spot faster – and enjoy more efficient and stress-free parking. The parking information features helps you find and compare parking options in garages and parking lots, as well as on-street parking spots. Information is available on: real-time parking availability and location as well as costs, operating hours, vehicle size restrictions, etc. There's even a walking distance calculator.
Hyundai dealerships
Easily access live information on nearby Hyundai dealerships. Perfect if you should need service assistance when you're on the road away from home.
Live fuel price information
Find fuel fast when you need it and at a nice price – the continually updated fuel service coverage provides you with current fuel prices and location information – just tap the screen to set your choice as a destination. Supplementary information like opening hours, payment types and additional services (like car wash or shop) can be accessed as well.
Speed camera alert*
Drive more relaxed with speed camera alerts. This comprehensive service provides you with alerts for both fixed and mobile speed cameras* – allowing you to focus on a safe and confident driving.
* Where allowed by local legislation.
* Where allowed by local legislation.
Traffic information
Traffic jams can be a major hassle – and increasing levels of traffic are leading to even more congestion on the roads. That's why Hyundai offers you real-time traffic information, providing you with the best routes according to the prevailing conditions. This way you can get where you're going faster – and enjoy precise time of arrival estimates.
Live POI
Looking for something special? Searching for an address, POI or a combination of both has never been so easy. Locate places around you and navigate directly there. Thanks to the free text search, you can find the place you are looking for easily. Search covers 11 million places in over 500 categories.
It's always good to know what kind of weather is heading your way when you're starting out on a road trip. The weather service provides live on-map weather information for major European cities. This lets you always monitor the latest weather information of your current location, destination or favourite cities.
Technology that enriches every journey
LIVE Services is yet another reason to make your next car a Hyundai. It's just one of the innovative technologies that's available in your following Hyundai models*.
Android auto
Let your smartphone be your guide.
Plug in your compatible smartphone, touch the Android Auto icon on the navigation screen and you're all set to enjoy a more rewarding drive with fewer distractions. Nothing could be simpler.
Application Android Auto is not yet supported in Czech Republic.
Phone calls, messages, navigation, music and more can be operated simply and safely while on the move.
Simple and intuitive: Android Auto
Easy to operate via your steering wheel controls or Voice Control, Android Auto integrates all the best of Google functionality within your Hyundai navigation system.
- Google Now
- Voice Control
- Calls & Messages
- Navigation
- Your Music
- Google Now Android Auto accesses your smartphone for useful information and organizes the content into simple cards that can be called up on the display in your Hyundai. So you've got weather data, missed calls, received messages, appointments and all the most relevant information in the same, easily accessible place.
- Voice Control Talk to Google and keep your hands on the wheel. Android Auto is designed especially for you to use while driving and features Talk to Google. It also works via your steering wheel controls or touch-screen. And the apps you want to access in the car have been made intuitive so you can use them while your eyes and hands stay where they belong.
- Calls & Messages Send, read and reply to your text messages plus make calls, return missed calls, and listen to voicemail your Hyundai can help you do it all.
- Navigation In addition to giving you turn-by-turn directions, traffic conditions and estimated travel time, Android Auto can also predict where you most likely want to go. It's a capability based on your recent destinations, calendar appointments and more. Android Auto will even suggest directions to locations it learns you go to every day, such as your office.
- Your Music Seamlessly access your favourite artists, songs and playlists using your car's touch-screen. Android Auto also supports selected audio apps that you've downloaded to your phone for enjoying music, podcasts, radio or streaming services such as Spotify.
Application Android Auto is not yet supported in Czech Republic.
Apps on the go
Whether you're going around the block or making an epic road trip, Android Auto makes it easy to access your selected apps and content in your Hyundai.
Click on an app to learn more.
Android, Android Auto, Google, Google Play and other marks are trademarks of Google Inc.
Application Android Auto is not yet supported in Czech Republic.
Technology that enriches every journey
Android Auto is yet another reason to make your next car a Hyundai. It's just one of the innovative technologies that's available in your following Hyundai models*.
Apple carPlay
Access the full potential of your iPhone.
Activate Apple CarPlay via the icon on the navigation touch-screen to enjoy all the guidance, communication and infotainment capabilities of your iPhone.
Application CarPlay is not yet supported in Czech Republic.
Get directions, make calls, receive messages or listen to your favourite music all via the easy-to-use touch-screen in your Hyundai. Or talk to Siri for ab,solute hands-free control. It's the safe, distraction-free way to use your iPhone on the move.
Enhance your driving experience.
Just connect your iPhone and your drive gets even better.
- Voice Control
- Calls & Messages
- Navigation
- Music
Voice Control
Make calls, return missed calls, and listen to voicemail. Your Apple CarPlay-equipped Hyundai can help you do all of these things. All you have to do is ask.
* Apple, iPhone, Siri and Apple CarPlay are trademarks of Apple Inc.
Calls & Messages
Siri can send, read, and reply to your text messages for you, so you never have to look at your iPhone while driving your Hyundai. You can play audio messages and hear from people in their own voices.
* iPhone and Apple CarPlay are registered trademarks of Apple Inc.
The power and simplicity of Maps is now available on your dashboard. Apple CarPlay can also predict where you most likely want to go using addresses from your email, texts, contacts, and calendars. And with the nearby feature, you can find fuel, parking, restaurants, and more with just a tap of the finger. So you'll know the best places to stop.
* iPhone and Apple CarPlay are registered trademarks of Apple Inc.
Access all of your content from iTunes, your Apple Music membership, and additional audio apps using the built-in controls in your Hyundai. Or just tell Siri what you'd like to hear. You can also enjoy New and For You from Apple Music with songs, artists, and albums handpicked by experts, plus selections based on your preferences.
* iPhone and Apple CarPlay are registered trademarks of Apple Inc.
Application CarPlay is not yet supported in Czech Republic.
Technology that enriches every journey
Apple CarPlay is yet another reason to make your next car a Hyundai.
It's just one of the innovative technologies that's available in your following Hyundai models*.
It's just one of the innovative technologies that's available in your following Hyundai models*.


text:
Buxton is a small fishing town situated on the banks of the Burrum River at the southern end of the Isis Shire. It's about 20 kilometres off the Bruce Highway and upstream from Burrum Heads and Walkers Point. There is a general store, picnic facilities and boat ramp. Buxton offers a relaxed lifestyle with pleasant surroundings. Boat enthusiasts are able to explore four river systems from this village.
Flanking the main road into Buxton are a number of rural homesites. Those on the southern side of the road have river frontage. The area is known as having some of the best fishing, prawning and crabbing waterways in the south east.
Note: Information on listed products and services are provided by the operator and were correct at the time of publishing. Rates are indicative based on the minimum and maximum available prices of products and services. Please visit the operator's website for further information. All prices quoted are in Australian dollars (AUD).


text:
Artist Michael Milton Talks Jesus, War on Christmas
There are many multitalented people in the world but few like Michael A. Milton. Seeing the Music for Missions recording artist as a musician would just be scratching the surface. Pastor, seminary chancellor, and army chaplain are just a few roles that Milton has but he's made time this year to return with a stirring theological Christmas single and to offer sound words to the "War on Christmas."
Working on his fourth album, the sophisticated and smooth voiced Milton has graced his fans with a Christmas single that delivers the depths of theological truths, wrapped in everyday language.
Milton, who has a doctorate in theology from the University of Wales, recently released "When Heaven Came Down" which not only captures the incarnation of Jesus but unlike most Christmas songs, completes the story with the second advent of Jesus, leaving the listeners thinking of eternity.
"It was important to me because I think its important to Scripture. It's important in that, this is what is communicated. The advent of Jesus Christ comes to us in a sense, in three ways," Milton told BREATHEcast.
"It is prophesied. There is a coming advent, a first advent – advent happened. And then there is the very nativity, the very advent of Jesus which is the culmination of that. And then there is the fact that he comes to us."
"There is a timeless advent, if you will, and that is the personal coming of Jesus Christ to person that opens his or her heart in repentance and faith to the Lord Jesus," he continued. "So there is the first coming, a timeless coming, and then there is a literal, physical second coming when ... the King of Kings and Lord of Lord appears."
"I believe that Scripture emphasizes these aspects of His advent and I wanted to emphasize those as well."
"When Heaven Came Down" features three movements that takes the listener on the journey through Jesus' life.
The song opens with the voices of children and Christmas Eve service attendants settling down as the choir sings "Once in Royal David's City." The opening movement fades into "When Heaven Came Down" as the choir sings "He came down to earth from heaven."
The beautiful duet of "When Heaven Came Down" which features the lovely vocals Milton's duet partner Cindy Gibbs, fades into the majestic third movement that takes the listeners into the second advent of Jesus.
Milton, also a published author and followed blogger, is not only offering something valuable to Christmas music this year but has offered words concerning the "War on Christmas."
With many atheist groups working to remove any faith related symbols from public areas including Nativity scenes and the phrase "Merry Christmas" with hopes of replacing it with politically correct and all inclusive phrases such as "Happy Holidays" and "Season's Greeting," many analysts have called this push a "War on Christmas."
With a string of these events occurring, many have wondered if Christians should keep the peace and be politically correct or do otherwise. The theologian shared his thoughts on the matter with BREATHEcast.


text: My husband and I have a game we play with our sheltie, we call it Bed Monster. We will place our hand under the blanket and Camille will try and find it, we usually grab her front paws. She grabs our hand and does this ferocious growl, we're thinking "Oh Yeah! You are a real threat". She loves another game called Soccer, we do this indoors when it's raining or snowing. We'll stand in the kitchen and kick a tennis ball or soft ball down the hallway where she is standing and try to get it past her, she does pretty good blocking it-she will bring it to us to kick again. When we are outside, she plays kickball & frizbee. She's a very active sheltie, definitely keeps us active too.


text:
Mike Milikich serves as director of engineering for the Qualcomm Innovation Center (QuIC), a wholly owned Qualcomm subsidiary. In this role Mike focuses on the architecture of web application frameworks for mobile devices. Prior to joining Qualcomm, Mike designed software architectures for a wide range of mobile and wireless devices, including phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), and pagers.
Mike received a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering and a Master of Science degree in Computing and Information Sciences from Case Western Reserve University.
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text:
Keanu Silva, Mo FalkYou Got The Love MIDIDance
- Artist
- Keanu Silva, Mo Falk
- Track Title
- You Got The Love
- Label
- Release year
- 2019
- Genre
- Dance
- MIDI made by
- theseus
- Key
- D-Sharp Minor
- 124
About this MIDI
Contains Piano, Riser, Chord Pluck and Bass. Drop and break are included.
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- 01:21
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- 10
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Published on: 2019-10-23


text:
The honeymoon's over. A new look at the Web's true power to serve and sell you.
The Web was built on promises. I can remember two of them.
This article has been reproduced in a new format and may be missing content or contain faulty links. Contact firstname.lastname@example.com to report an issue.
Let us love you, Web sites first said to consumers in the fall of 1994, when I helped launch HotWired as one of the first of the commercially supported ventures. Let us love you, and we will love you back. Start by telling us your secrets. If you do, they promised, we will deliver everything you ever wanted – not just pizza (though that will satisfy the Homer Simpson in all of us), but every other consumer product and service you covet now, and others you can only dream of. Imagine it, if you can: the Ultimate Takeout Menu.
Join us, the Web sites whispered to marketers out of the other side of their mouths. If you give us your money, they promised, we will give you a more intimate knowledge of customers than has ever existed before. In fact, we'll give you so much more than those dinosaurs in print and broadcast can give you, we'll blow your minds. Because we'll vacuum up all those responses to the Ultimate Takeout Menu, repackage them, and spit them out the other end of the pipe. We'll give you the Ultimate Focus Group. (The Web sites also perhaps saw that the Ultimate Focus Group could distract marketers into ignoring the small fact – especially in 1994 – that their audiences were infinitesimally smaller than the ones offered up by the dinosaurs.)
Delivering a happy convergence of these mirrored promises – the Ultimate Takeout Menu and the Ultimate Focus Group – would produce that Holy Grail of commercial relationships predicted by marketing gurus Don Peppers and Martha Rogers in their 1993 book The One to One Future even before the Web arrived in our lives.
The One to One Future was the title under the arm of nearly every publisher and marketer I ran into at Web conferences or read about in the trade press during the medium's earliest days. And their speeches and quotes were full of Peppers and Rogers mantras, like the ones the authors delivered in the February 1994 issue of this magazine ("Is Advertising Finally Dead?" Wired 2.02, page 71). Eight months before the commercial Web's début, one-to-one's dynamic duo predicted that among the "new rules of engagement governing business competition" were "initiating, maintaining, and improving dialogs with individual consumers, abandoning the old-fashioned advertising monologs of mass media."
An unspoken, and quite believable, premise of the one-to-one future is that as consumers in a service economy, we always want "more" – and we reliably want that "more" to be ever easier to obtain. The Peppers and Rogers acolytes hauling around those dog-eared copies of the way new marketing bible understand. They've declared that the Web will offer personalization, customization, and unlimited choice – a more perfect couch-potato experience. Filtering software, intelligent agents, and personal shoppers, they have said, will be at the beck and call of our digital alter egos (a declaration that merely extends a promise first offered, but not fulfilled, by companies like General Magic in the days before the Web took off).
The one-to-one disciples have also proclaimed that marketers, who always want to move more product, will now get instant feedback, near-perfect information, and deeper insights into the habits, feelings, likes, and dislikes of us, their often elusive customers. The Web will reverse the mistakes of the mass-market economy's unproductive commercial relationships, which were "based on guesswork on the part of the seller and frustration on the part of the buyer," as Firefly Network executive Saul Klein sardonically observes.
It is the perfect project for the decade's consumerist new economy society: finding, at long last, the one-to-one Shangri-La. The topic skimmed by one pundit or another at nearly every recent TED conference. The "Web lifestyle" Bill Gates says he now anticipates. And, since 1994, the target of dozens of companies in a race to build the growing set of tools – for consumers and marketers alike – that can make it real. Among the entrants are Firefly and Net Perceptions, which provide filtering and recommendation software for businesses; Excite and Yahoo!, with personalized services like My Excite Channel and My Yahoo!; MatchLogic, which sells marketers a service that centralizes management of advertising banners and measures the number of times consumers see and click on those ads; and RelevantKnowledge, Media Metrix, even Nielsen Media Research itself, which strive to build Web-ratings services that count and compare audiences – like the services Nielsen has offered for decades to the television industry.
These companies, and others, have adapted, altered, and reimagined the uses of technologies like Web-server logs, email lists, and the once-innocuous, now-ubiquitous magic cookie in the quest for a true one-to-one experience. Some, like San Diego-based Aptex Software, are even performing an almost alchemical magic on surfing patterns, using technologies originally developed for the spooks of the national-security state.
The love story between consumers and marketers may at long last have a happy ending. The Ultimate Takeout Menu and the Ultimate Focus Group may actually be hovering within harmonious reach. Perhaps the promises were real, after all.
Or were they?
Or were they?
"The truth of the matter is that all this stuff is about optimization – optimizing your profits, optimizing your P&L – but most companies on the Web don't yet have a business to optimize," says Peter Rip, managing director of Knight-Ridder Ventures, the media company's venture capital arm. Before he joined K-R, Rip was a vice president and general manager at Infoseek, which has struggled to keep up with its rivals in a still-developing business niche.
Rip is right. A vast wealth of information is flowing through the system at every Web site – but take a look around the Net, and beyond Yahoo!, Lycos (barely), and one or two other players, the companies that should be leading the race to construct the Ultimate Takeout Menu and the Ultimate Focus Group have yet to earn a dime of profit. Most of them are more concerned with the immediate goal of survival, and haven't even entered the one-to-one contest. And although the market itself is nearly four years old, many of the companies trying to develop a business within it are far younger.
Mind you, since day one it's been easy for many Web sites to collect the most basic data about what their users are up to: how many times a page has been viewed, which domains visitors came from, the types of browsers they used, and which domains have linked to the site and driven traffic in its direction. But few commercial sites collect much beyond that basic information: ZIP code and area code are among the more prevalent requests; companies like Amazon.com don't even ask for your name until you make a purchase. Ironically, there's actually far less information available to marketers about consumer activity on the Web than they're able to gather elsewhere, particularly through credit-data companies such as Equifax or TRW.
Put bluntly, the information that marketers are gathering about consumers on the Web "pales by comparison with what marketers already have in their databases about purchase history," says Rex Briggs, who tracks and measures Web consumer patterns as a vice president at Millward Brown Interactive in San Francisco. (Briggs is also the former research director for HotWired.) Spend a bit of time talking to the operators of some leading sites on the Web and you discover why: Much of that data gets dumped into the black hole of a hard disk, where it may lie forever untouched and untapped. "In theory, any site can know a great deal about what its users are doing," says Donna Hoffman, a Vanderbilt University professor who, with husband and fellow faculty member Tom Novak, is a leader in the study of Internet marketing. "But in practice, very few sites have the technical expertise or the marketing expertise to know what to do with the data," Hoffman says. "They have not begun to mine the gold that's there."
At Excite – the Web-directory company generally acknowledged as Number Two in its category, behind Yahoo! – company cofounder and senior vice president Joe Kraus says the operation has been collecting data like age and ZIP code from visitors for more than two years now. But according to Kraus, Excite, which sold US$36 million of advertising in 1997, has yet to use that information even to better target its ads. Excite has had enough trouble just keeping up with its phenomenal growth: In February the company served 28 million pageviews each day, up from 4 million per day a year earlier. At this pace Excite collects 40 gigabytes of data in its log files every day. "If we tried to look at things at that level, we'd go insane – we'd drown in the information," says Craig Donato, Excite's vice president for product marketing.
Faced with such exponentially increasing volumes, Excite is trying, for the moment, merely to detect directional patterns in the data. If it's obvious, for example, that traffic is flowing to its horoscope pages, the company will pile on more horoscopes. "We know what people want by watching the logs," explains Kraus. This instant-gratification feedback loop can be fed until consumers are satiated. Then it's on to the next loop. The Drive-Thru Takeout Menu. News sites now employ it fervently: Witness their scandal-chasing coverage of Bill and Monica. Watching the traffic on Lewinsky stories rise through the roof, big news sites like Pathfinder, MSNBC, and washingtonpost.com briskly added special sections to the Menu, with more coverage serving to further feed the frenzy. It's this same phenomenon that for years has driven the traditional media to produce quickie books and magazine special issues – but on the Web, for the first time, the continuously updated empirical evidence needed to assess those efforts is at hand.
At Excite, the logical extension of Drive-Thru was a new "personalized" front page, launched in April, that attempts to join many of the features of Excite's basic Web directory with those drawn from the My Excite service. My Excite (and similar services, such as My Yahoo!) allows you to customize features like news headlines, a portfolio of stock quotes, and weather reports. Excite's Craig Donato takes pains to emphasize the distinction between customization and personalization: "Customization is when you remember something for the user – like his stocks. With personalization, we're taking information about our relationship and using that to deliver a better experience for the user."
Now, when you use Excite services at www.excite.com, its server computers immediately try to personalize the exchange. If you've ever before divulged any basic personal information to Excite – even your ZIP code on a contest-entry form – the servers locate it and, in the case of your ZIP code, trot out a local weather report with all the pride of a puppy delivering a slipper.
Hmm. It doesn't sound all that different from the techniques used for the "personalized" ink-jet messages you still find shoehorned into the hoariest junk-mail pitches filling your meatspace mailbox: "Congratulations, CHIP BAYERS! You and the members of the BAYERS household may have already won One Million Dollars!" Where's the one-to-one future? Where's the real Menu?
"One-to-one is a bit tricky," Donato allows.
To be fair, Excite is doing as well as, if not better than, its competitors at delivering on the promise. Nor are users unhappy with the kind of simulated personalization delivered via ZIP-code-based weather forecasts. "If you get users to commit data about themselves, they're far more likely to return frequently," Kraus says. He claims the key is to make the changes immediately noticeable to the user. If you're willing to "commit data," Excite will jump all over it. "Any active data we get, we put to instant use on the page."
The trick is to use technology to achieve the same economies that you have in a mass-marketing model, while delivering some personalized messages to the consumer," says Rex Briggs of Millward Brown Interactive. A less visionary goal than one-to-one, surely, but far more realistic. It's called mass customization, and if you can get past the oxymoronic bounce, you can see that its possibilities are not lost on the consumer-products retailers who have carved out a market for themselves on the World Wide Web.
Brand-new companies like online bookseller Amazon.com, virtual record store CDnow, and N2K (which operates the Music Boulevard Web site) have ridden the strength of their rapid sales growth to successful IPOs and are already being credited with forcing fundamental changes in the retail categories they inhabit. PC manufacturer Dell's Web sales explosion – an average of $3 million per day in early 1998 – has been so amazing that Apple, among other competitors, has been quick to copy it. And traditional catalog retailers like Lands' End and J.Crew are now trying to exploit the marketing and sales possibilities of the medium.
Amazon.com's phenomenal success has prompted recent visits to its virtual mountaintop by such seekers of the truth as Simon & Schuster consumer group president Jack Romanos and John Sargent, CEO of St. Martin's Press. The New York-based publishing executives, who still make most of their money pushing best-sellers through the major chain retailers like Barnes & Noble and Borders, have been drawn by the startling contrast between their business model and Amazon.com's.
"The thing they're responding to in particular," says David Risher, Amazon.com's senior vice president of product development, "is that very few of the books that Amazon.com sells are best-sellers. What the publishers get excited about is that we can revitalize a midlist or even backlist book by featuring it or by helping them target a book to a specialized audience."
In fact, Amazon.com has put traditional publishing into a state of delirium. This is, after all, the most anachronistic of the consumer-products industries, which for years has allowed retailers, constantly short on shelf space, to ship their unsold inventory back up the food chain. The publishers even pay for the privilege! As a result, publishers' warehouses are filled not only with copies of new books yet to be ordered and copies of evergreen classics like A Tale of Two Cities, but with millions of copies of books that languished at the Waldenbooks in your local mall when they were first released.
If you're a member of what Risher calls a "specialized audience," you like to buy as many books as possible on a given subject, but you're unlikely to find them all on the shelf. You're usually forced to endure a time-consuming special-order process, which requires several trips to the bookstore and a good deal of waiting around. At Amazon .com, of course, if it's in print (and sometimes even when it isn't) it's always there – and deliverable to your doorstep in, for most transactions, two or three days. Great for you, great for Amazon.com, and great for the publishers. But one-to-one? Hardly.
"I'd say we're about 1 percent of the way there," Risher says of the company's ability to individually target customers. "There's a ton of work to be done to get there."
The problem is data glut. At the moment Amazon.com doesn't ask for much background on you, because it has no way to use that information. For most communications all you're asked to provide is your email address. (If you post a book review, the site requests that you volunteer your city or town.) Even your name is optional. Then, when you order a book, Amazon.com asks only for your name, email and mailing address, and credit card number. At this point, you are assigned a unique customer ID that, theoretically, allows the company to track all of your activities on the site: the pages you look at, the links you click, the recommendations you request. But Amazon.com execs will admit privately that the company's growth has outstripped its ability to warehouse, let alone mine, the data it collects. For the moment, most of that information – surprise! – simply disappears onto Amazon.com's hard disks.
Mass customization is in evidence, however. "If you come tour the site and you bought a book before, you will see a message at the top of the screen that says 'Personal Recommendations' – a real-time lookup of other clients' most recent purchases," Risher says. "We change it every single day for the entire customer base. If every customer came every day, they'd be guaranteed to see a new book." Amazon.com is also integrating filtering software from Minneapolis-based Net Perceptions into a service called BookMatcher. Net Perceptions' software, like that of one of its chief competitors, Firefly, works best when you devote the time to answering series of questions about your likes and dislikes. Then it begins to recommend new selections to you, learning over time from your answers. But Risher, for one, has yet to be convinced of its utility.
"Basically, nobody yet – and this is not a slam at Net Perceptions – has figured out how to make this stuff work," he says. "One mistake is to make that Q&A session sound like an SAT. An even worse mistake is to make someone feel like all their answers are wrong! We've spent a lot of time figuring out what that list of questions should be."
The mass marketing continues, but the customization more or less ends right there. "We spend 98 percent of our energy right now doing things in aggregate," Risher acknowledges. Things like bulk email. Once you sign up for an Amazon.com email list, particularly one targeted at subject areas like cooking or science fiction, rest assured that you'll receive frequent updates about new titles. It's the sort of active-data response espoused by Excite's Joe Kraus. The company also periodically sends mass promotional emails to its entire customer list – a practice that has prompted some critics on the Usenet newsgroup news.admin.net-abuse.email to nickname it Spamazon.com. (Other large Web sites, including HotWired, have also been attacked from time to time for similar bulk mailings to member lists). "Honestly, it's very frustrating for us, because we use email as our primary communication with our customers," Risher says of the complaints.
But Amazon.com's experience also offers the paradox that one-to-one marketing on the Web may be unnecessary – or at least nonessential – depending on the product you're pushing. How else to explain the fact that the company has seen its repeat business grow even as its customer base has broadened? When Amazon.com filed for its IPO in March 1997 it claimed 340,000 customers, 40 percent of whom were repeat purchasers. By early this year 58 percent of its 1.5 million shoppers had purchased from Amazon.com before.
Amazon.com is now heading into new markets: The company already offers a limited selection of videos and CDs, and it has a major music effort under way that will bring it more directly into competition with CDnow and Music Boulevard. Its customer profiles – your profile – will become only more valuable to Amazon.com when the company can observe your buying habits across product categories. The relational possibilities (buy a Madonna album, receive a pitch for the Evita video, perhaps) are enticing from the marketer's perspective. Will they be a convenience, and an improvement, for you? Possibly. True one-to-one? Not necessarily.
While Amazon.com may not yet be getting much use from the data it collects, the site is gathering it using one of the most vilified – and most misunderstood – of Web tools. It's the magic cookie, or just plain cookie, a tiny tag of data inserted inside your browser files that can identify you – or, more accurately, your browser – as a unique entity every time you return to the site that issued it. If you're a moderate Web surfer, chances are that at this very moment your hard disk is host to about 200 cookies placed there by the various sites you have visited to, say, get the latest news or conduct a search. On the Web, the cookie is becoming nearly ubiquitous at major commercial sites as a means of tracking user activity. (If you use Netscape, go into the Preferences menu and check the box next to the message "Warn me before accepting a cookie" to see just how prevalent it has become.)
Cookie and magic cookie are old Unix hacker terms. Eric Raymond's New Hacker's Dictionary defines a magic cookie as "something passed between routines or programs that enables the receiver to perform some operation; a capability ticket or opaque identifier. … small data objects that contain data encoded in a strange or intrinsically machine-dependent way." Cookie, according to Raymond, means "a handle, transaction ID, or other token of agreement between cooperating programs. 'I give him a packet, he gives me back a cookie.' The claim check you get from a dry-cleaning shop is a perfect mundane example of a cookie; the only thing it's useful for is to relate a later transaction to this one (so you get the same clothes back)."
Lou Montulli is as surprised as anyone at the innovative uses found for one of his best-known hacks. The Netscape programmer is acknowledged by his peers as the Father of the Web Cookie – a somewhat dubious title, until you consider the alternatives: Montulli also gave the Web world the Netscape <blink> tag and The Amazing Fish Cam, one of the first computer-connected cameras aimed at a tank of saltwater fauna.
"The problem that sparked the idea was that we were trying to make an online-shopping application," Montulli recalls. "We had a newly formed application group that wanted to build a shopping cart."
It's harder than it sounds. Under hypertext transfer protocol, the language used by Web-browser software (your copy of Netscape) to communicate with Web-server software (like Wired's), a series of discrete connections open and close like a fluttering eyelid. In each of those connections, the browser software requests a specific piece of information, the server delivers it, and then the connection closes. Visiting a Web page with your Netscape or Internet Explorer browser sets off a cascade of such requests – one for each text, image, sound, and video file available on the page. Each time, the server knows only that a request has been made by a certain type of browser (say, Communicator 4.0) running on a certain type of machine (say, a PC running Windows 95) coming from a certain domain (like att.worldnet.com). Amidst all these connections, the server doesn't even try to identify a single browser as unique.
But if, like Montulli, you wanted to create a shopping basket that could be linked to an individual browser so that the user could fill the basket up with goods and pay for them, then the unique-identity problem had to be solved. Other programmers tried to solve the dilemma within the boundaries of HTML, the markup language riding atop HTTP, which describes the contents and structure of a Web page itself. HTML-based solutions, unfortunately, worked only within the individual site where they were tried. As soon as you moved out of the site, or even out of order – clicking on the back arrow was the easiest way to do it – the contents of any shopping basket described in HTML were easily lost.
Montulli's solution? Move the shopping-basket function from HTML to HTTP by sending a small data packet – the cookie – to a browser, which would store it in a file on the hard disk. The cookie could have a life span – years in length, if necessary, rather than the few seconds of an HTTP connection request. It could be updated on repeat visits. As a unique identifier, it could refer to information permanently stored in a database connected to a server. And the Web-server software could set a new cookie every time a browser connected to it.
Before Montulli's magic cookie saved the day, early Web publishers tried to track visitors by adapting a range of authentification tools. One tool originally created to restrict access to specific Web sites – by issuing each user a unique name and password – could be repurposed as an information-gathering device, for example. But authentication systems were a pain in the ass – people are always forgetting their login names and passwords – and they defeated the egalitarian, open nature of Web surfing, where each site was only one click away from another.
With the cookie, sites could store registration information for you. (Consumer convenience wins another round.) More important, the cookie could also be used to track even the browsers of those individuals who didn't register, providing publishers and advertisers with a wealth of new information about the traffic on their sites.
Ironically, while marketers and publishers have gone crazy for cookies, some retailers still aren't sold on their ultimate usefulness. "We use it for things like the shopping cart, where you can save things for 30 days. It's strictly a trade-off thing for convenience," says Amazon.com's David Risher. But in the future, Risher claims, the company may dispense with cookies altogether in favor of its own account-management tools. "Cookies are sort of complicated to track, and they're not very reliable," he says. "You don't want to build a marketing campaign around something affected by whether someone changes their browser or not."
Then there are the privacy concerns. The problem with all this cookie passing, some people complain, is that it occurs surreptitiously. Since you and I are basically lazy (how many people have netscape.com as their homepage because it's the browser's default setting?), we don't notice those little bits of code traveling onto our hard disks unless someone tells us. We don't know that we're being groomed for the Ultimate Focus Group.
For nearly a year there's been a tug-of-war over the privacy and notification wording of the RFC 2109, the cookie standard being developed under the auspices of the Internet Engineering Task Force. Privacy advocates are demanding full disclosure, and marketers – particularly ad-network and ad-management companies like DoubleClick and Imgis (more on them later) – are lobbying for the status quo: the appearance of a pop-up window revealing that a cookie has been set only when a user alters his or her browser settings.
At least one marketer agrees that the lack of disclosure poses a serious privacy challenge. "I think cookies could be the death of the Internet," says Allen Olivo, Apple's senior director of worldwide marketing communications. "I think they're insidious. I realize the need for good, solid tracking information, and I have no problem with that. The problem is that they're hidden, and that's an invasion of electronic privacy."
It's difficult, in fact, to find a gung-ho endorsement for cookies, even from some of their biggest users. MatchLogic, a Web-marketing service company that Excite recently purchased for $89 million in stock, operates an ad-management service at Preferences.com that relies heavily on cookies to track ad views and clickthroughs across a range of Web sites. But MatchLogic executive vice president Ben Addoms – who also bears the title of president of MatchLogic's Digital 1:1 Division – says most cookie data isn't even being used in ways useful to advertisers: "If I look at the sites that can do geographic targeting, it's a pretty small number. I don't think the state of the art being used to target ads is very sophisticated right now."
Whether the use is sophisticated or not, when you look at the biggest users of cookies – ad-management networks – one thing is apparent: They're a lot better at delivering on the promise of the Ultimate Focus Group for marketers than on the promise of the Ultimate Takeout Menu for you. Imgis, MatchLogic, and DoubleClick, for example, have set cookies inside millions of browsers visiting hundreds of sites. The benefit to you is less repetition of advertising when you surf the covered sites. The benefit to them is far greater: information on the behavior of millions of people using the sites.
In the future, not only will the cookie need to be more efficient to win the skeptics over, but data-mining techniques will need to keep pace with that smarter cookie. Addoms suggests that companies like Engage Technologies, a wholly owned subsidiary of CMG Information Services, may point the way. (CMG is a publicly traded holding company that owns, in addition to Engage, pieces of firms like Lycos, GeoCities, and Reel.com, among other properties.) Engage recently announced plans to create and rent access to a giant, anonymous database of user profiles – a sort of Penultimate Focus Group – called Engage.Knowledge, which will collect data from cookies delivered across multiple sites (including Lycos) and make it available for real-time lookups. Engage is calling the new service a "crystal ball" for marketers.
"As far as on-the-edge or out-there technologies, there really isn't a lot," Addoms says. But who needs a lot when what's there is dripping with intrigue?
What we do is, we predict from behavior what their age, sex, and household income are," says Michael Thiemann from a car phone somewhere between Logan International Airport and downtown Boston. Thiemann, the CEO of Aptex Software, is explaining how the technology behind his company's SelectCast ad-targeting engine works.
"We can predict that you're straight or gay, whether you like sports, and a hundred other things. You may be a 40-year-old white male, but you may act like a 16-year-old Hispanic woman," says Thiemann.
This is not – trust me – the setup line for some horribly politically incorrect joke about a middle-aged cross-dresser who thinks he's Selena. Thiemann is serious. Aptex's SelectCast is a neural-network-based tool that constructs behaviorally based profiles of Web users. It then targets users with ads and personal promotions their behavior dictates they will like. Using Aptex, Thiemann claims, marketers can finally achieve the one-to-one future. His analogy – familiar to one-to-oneheads – is the friendly neighborhood shopkeeper during the halcyon days before mass marketing descended and doomed his existence. A man who knew his customers by their habits, not by their demographic particulars. Of course, that shopkeeper also knew your name and your face – Thiemann says that while SelectCast can certainly benefit from being linked to a name-based registration system, it can be just as effective working with complete anonymity.
"Basically, your presence on any given site gives us a lot of information that allows us to begin profiling you immediately," Thiemann explains. "If you're on a homepage, we might use the general behavior-profile type for people at that site, but once you start clicking beyond that homepage, we are building – in real time – a personal profile."
That mathematical profile, or vector, is about a kilobyte in size per user. According to Thiemann, while SelectCast processes gigabytes – perhaps terabytes – of data every day for its customers in order to derive and improve the profiles contained in its vectors, it is necessary only to pass that data through its system. The system doesn't need to digest it. "We don't keep it in some master relational database – there's no massive database anywhere," he assures me.
Aptex's entry into the Web's advertising and marketing game came courtesy of Infoseek, which first contacted Aptex to discuss how its neural-network tools could be applied to Infoseek's bread-and-butter business of Web categorizing and searching. Thiemann credits then Infoseek CEO Robin Johnson for first suggesting that Aptex's technology could be used to target advertising.
"It's clustering based on interest to reach someone at a certain psychographic stage," explains Peter Rip of Knight-Ridder Ventures. (Rip was VP and general manager of Infoseek's network division when the company first began to use Aptex's tools, and the white paper he wrote about the success of the joint Infoseek-Aptex project has become part of Aptex's standard marketing pitch.)
That project ultimately became Ultramatch, an Infoseek service for ad buyers that targeted 22 user segments and promised significantly higher clickthrough rates on all of them. It worked in spectacular fashion, according to Rip, and he believes that Aptex makes it possible for Web sites to identify even smaller segments – say, webmasters looking for Java tools – for which advertisers would be willing to pay four to five times the going rate for search-engine ad inventory. In a market where the average ad can cost between $20 and $40 per 1,000 impressions, "you could get $200 CPMs on some microsegments," Rip says. SelectCast, the outgrowth of the Ultramatch project, is now available to any and all customers – or, at least, those that can afford its base $100,000 price tag. But even the cost doesn't bother Aptex's most enthusiastic endorsers.
There's just one other problem with Aptex, besides the ungodly expense. And it's one that offers room for enough Big Brother fear and paranoia to stimulate an entire army of conspiracy nuts. "Do you know some of the biggest customers of neural networks?" Firefly's Saul Klein asked when I first mentioned Aptex to him. Of course, I answered. The CIA. The NSA. The spooks.
Thiemann is nonchalant about Aptex's history. The company is a spinoff of HNC, a longtime contractor for certain black-budget departments hidden in Uncle Sam's pockets. "Call it government intelligent agencies," says Thiemann, describing HNC's traditional customer base. In the early 1990s HNC won a bid to design the latest generation of research technology for those vaguely described government agencies – agencies that have a tendency to accumulate vast databases of information that needs constant and accurate sifting. "HNC has probably received more money for advanced analysis research than any other company around," Thiemann says. It appears HNC also had the sense to recognize that the Cold War cash cow that had fed it and other military-industrial contractors was drying up.
"In 1995 we were shipping our most advanced systems to the US government, and the Internet was taking off," Thiemann says. "We at HNC were saying, 'This was working so well at government operations – why not apply it in another high-information stream environment: the Internet?'" (As it happens, the generation of analysis technology used in certain government agencies before HNC won its contract was also being adapted to the Net at about the same time. That technology is now the core of the Verity search engine.)
Firefly's Klein – who can sound like Thiemann's twin when it comes to disparaging the more brain-dead approaches of traditional marketers on the Net – nevertheless says he's uncomfortable about what he labels Aptex's "stealth" approach to tracking.
"We as a company have no problem with behind-the-scenes filtering technologies," says Klein. "But we believe it is in the best economic interest of both the individual and the business to form consensual relationships. That's just my opinion." A few minutes later he launches into a more elaborate rant against the whole notion of tracking itself:
"My personal take on the whole tracking issue is, that's old media. That's what Nielsen people meters do. That's all about masquerading under the guise of 'customer first' and saying, 'OK, we're going to give you a better service, and we're not going to tell you how we do it, and we're going to set up all these video cameras to watch what you're doing, and we're going to make some assumptions based on analyses of what you do.'" All of this is, of course, a prelude to describing why the alternative offered by Klein and Firefly is a better option.
"What we're doing is giving people a tool that allows them to identify themselves to a business they want to do business with," Klein says about the Firefly Passport Web plug-in. Passport is part of Firefly's own proposal for jump-starting a one-to-one future, a proposal endorsed by both Microsoft and Netscape last year when they joined Firefly to promote the adoption of the Open Profiling Standard, a framework informing the World Wide Web Consortium's data-exchange proposal, P3P (Platform for Privacy Preferences Project). The standard has also attracted the attention and the praise of Clinton's Internet czar, Ira Magaziner, as well as representatives from the Federal Trade Commission.
Under OPS – and soon under P3P – you get to create a personal profile linked to your Web browser. This profile could contain everything from your name and email address to credit card data and lifestyle information.
At each Web site you visit, you would choose how much of that information – if any – to make available. The Firefly Passport is the first OPS-compliant client; the company that made its name on collaborative filtering wants to follow the Netscape path and sprinkle free Passport clients far and wide, creating a critical mass for the servers it will then sell to Web-based businesses.
If there's one thing Michael Thiemann and Saul Klein can agree on, it's the need to clear out the undergrowth of traditional advertising and marketing before it wraps its tendrils around the Web and strangles it.
The problem, says Thiemann, is that training marketers in the advantages of systems like Aptex requires undoing their training in mass marketing. "We've all been trained in the Procter & Gamble School. We've been trained to make demographics stand in as proxies for what you build." Proxies like VALS, the Values and Lifestyles target-marketing spawn of the brains at SRI International, which attempted to divide Americans into eight categories based on personality types, including Actualizers, Achievers, Strivers, and Strugglers. (SRI also developed a Japanese edition of VALS.) And PRIZM – the Potential Rating Index by Zip Markets – developed at the Claritas Corporation in 1974, which purported to separate us all into 40 lifestyle clusters with names like Furs and Station Wagons, Back-Country Folks, Hard Scrabble, and Pools & Patios. "Tell me someone's ZIP code, and I can predict what they eat, drink, drive – even think," said Jonathan Robbin, who is not the Amazing Kreskin, but the PRIZM system's creator.
The goal of marketers using these systems – the nirvana of the mass marketing and advertising industries – was to identify an ideal customer profile for every product. Because ideal customers are loyal customers. Ideal customers are brand-friendly customers. Ideal customers are trusting customers. And ideal customers are, remember, the Ultimate Focus Group.
The two halves of the marketing brain that have transported themselves onto the Web – the direct marketers who send us junk mail and the advertisers who sponsor Buffy the Vampire Slayer – would very much like to transport these targeting categories with them. (Many, in fact, have – why else do you think they want to know your ZIP code?)
How primitive! But the old, impossibly monolithic mass-market approach still has one advantage over Web marketing: the consumer's trust.
"There's a big, big challenge, which I think has not been figured out yet, about how to develop trust with a brand online," suggests Klein. A point interactive-marketing researchers Donna Hoffman and Tom Novak recently verified in a paper they coauthored with colleague Marcos Peralta. Poring through the responses to two major consumer surveys on the Web – the 1997 Internet Demographics Study, sponsored by Nielsen Media Research and CommerceNet, and the Seventh GVU WWW User Survey, conducted at Georgia Tech, the three discovered a gap in consumers' privacy concerns.
Call it the Trust Gap. It turns out that the Number One issue on the minds of Web surfers, the Number One issue that may be holding back the one-to-one future, is trust. More accurately, the lack of it.
"Consumers do not understand the relationship in an economic context," says Hoffman about the tarantella dance between Web buyer and Web seller. "Consumers want to be friends. They want a relationship. Now, how do you have a relationship? They want to be honest!" Codependent consumers no more. "Consumers want full disclosure, full consent, opt-in," concludes Hoffman. "But the best they get today is opt-out."
Absent trust, Web consumers seem to be more than willing to upset the marketing apple cart. They refuse to cooperate: Some 94 percent of them have declined to provide personal information at one time or another when asked for it. And they lie. Through their teeth! Forty percent have taken the time to make shit up when they actually do provide data on a Web form.
Absent trust, the confidence of the marketers themselves will eventually slip away. "If you don't trust me – I can have all the advanced technologies under the sun, but if you're putting bad information into my technology, it's useless," says Klein. "I might as well take out an ad on Friends. That's a trusted medium for communicating with people."
Ah, those two promises. Four years and countless magic cookies later, we know that at least one of them has largely been ignored. From the ad networks to Engage, the Focus Group has grown larger. The marketers are making out. Meanwhile, the consumer chasm (as well as the Trust Gap) detected by Hoffman and Novak still yawns, while a host of technological and organizational hurdles still block the path to fulfilling the pledge to consumers. Can Aptex and P3P and the marketers' soul-stirring testaments that a higher standard of privacy will live on the Web help bridge the gap and rebalance the two parties in this relationship? "Nirvana," says Saul Klein, "is balance."
Klein says equalization is coming, that the "serious" companies are rethinking the ways they deal with consumers. But the evidence of that, so far, is thin. And something Millward Brown Interactive's Rex Briggs said about mass customization sticks in my brain: It's all about using the trick of technology to deliver a personalized message that isn't really personal at all. Sites considering mass customization will ask whether it can help squeeze a little bit extra out of every customer. Improving incremental revenue, it's called. And if it's clear the little bit extra is there for the taking, Briggs suggests, you can bet sites will seize on the trick. The consumer, it is hoped, will perceive a one-to-one relationship; the truth will be somewhat different.
"I think the reality," Briggs says of the future, "is that technology is going to empower the producer far more than it empowers the consumer."
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The House Political Subdivisions Committee unanimously approved a watered-down version of Rep. Kraig Powell's bill requiring meeting agendas be posted 72 hours in advance.
The committee voted Monday to send out HB207 after the Heber Republican altered his original provision that only "unforeseen" items could be added to the posted agenda up to 24 hours before the meeting. Now, any item can be added to the agenda up until the day before the meeting.
Also, the bill states that the state could not take action against a city council, school board or other public entity subject to the Open and Public Meetings Act for failing to comply with the 72-hour notice rule. The bodies' actions would still be subject to being overturned if they violate the current 24-hour deadline for posting meeting notices.
Instead, Powell said it would be up to the public's moral indignation to enforce the 72-hour rule.
"But there would be political pressure if [a public agency] did that for a couple meetings," Powell said. "The people would be asking, 'What are you hiding?'"
Powell made the changes after the Utah League of Cities and Towns objected to the original text of the bill. Lincoln Shurtz, the league's lobbyists, told lawmakers at the first committee meeting that since "foreseen" was not adequately defined, cities would be open to lawsuits for adding an item to the agenda that someone believed did not come up at the last minute.
Lynn Pace, a member of the league's board of directors and a Holladay City Councilman, said the ULCT appreciated Powell's willingness to amend the bill.
Powell said the bill's intent is to increase transparency. He said many cities already have agendas ready three or more days before a meeting.
The additional time, Powell said, allows people to become better informed about issues in their communities.
The bill is now awaiting a vote in the House of Representatives.


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Select Skills List by Country to review the Skills List for a particular country. These country-specific skills are subject to the two-year home-country physical presence requirement.
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12.03 Funeral & Mortuary Service
12.05 Cooking, Culinary Arts and Related Services
including Baking and Pastry Arts; Bartending; Culinary Arts/Chef Training; Restaurant, Culinary, and Catering Management; Food Preparation/ Professional Cooking; Meat Cutting; Food Service; Institutional Food Workers
13.01 Education, General
including Educational Administration
13.02 Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural
13.03 Curriculum and Instruction
including Media Design
13.06 Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research
13.09 Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education
13.10 Special Education and Teaching
13.11 Student Counseling and Personnel Services
13.12 Teacher Education and Professional Development, Specific Levels and Methods
including all types of levels and types of teaching including, but not limited to Adult and Continuing Education; Early Childhood, Elementary, Middle School and Secondary Education; Montessori Teacher Education; and Waldorf/Steiner Teacher Education
13.13 Teacher Education and Professional Development, Specific Subject Areas
including, but not limited to Agriculture; Art; Business; Computers; Drama; Driver Safety; English, Foreign Languages; Geography; Health; History; Home Economics; Industrial Arts; Sales and Marketing; Math; Music; Physical Education; Psychology; Reading; Science; Social Studies; and Speech
14.01 Engineering, General
14.02 Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering
14.03 Agricultural/Biological Engineering and Bioengineering
14.05 Biomedical/Medical Engineering
14.07 Chemical Engineering
14.08 Civil Engineering
including Geotechnical, Structural, Water Resources, and Transportation and Highway Engineering
14.09 Computer Hardware and Software Engineering
14.10 Electrical, Electronics and Communications Engineering
including Radio Engineering
14.14 Environmental Engineering
including Pollution Control; Waste and Hazardous Material Disposal
14.18 Materials Engineering
14.19 Mechanical Engineering
14.20 Metallurgical Engineering
14.21 Mining and Mineral Engineering
14.22 Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering
14.23 Nuclear Engineering
14.24 Ocean Engineering
14.25 Energy Engineering & Tech.
including Petroleum and Natural Gas
14.33 Construction Engineering
14.35 Industrial/Manufacturing Engineering
14.38 Surveying Engineering
14.39 Geological/Geophysical Engineering
Including Foreign Languages and Literatures; Linguistics; Language Interpretation and Translation; Comparative Literature; Language, Literature and Linguistics For All Languages In The World Including Various Forms and Study of Sign Language
Formerly Home Economics
19.01 Family and Consumer Sciences/Human Sciences, General
formerly Home Economics
19.05 Foods, Nutrition, and Related Services
19.09 Apparel and Textiles
including Textile Manufacturing; Textile Science; Apparel and Textile Marketing Management; and Fashion and Fabric Consulting
Including Law, Legal Research, Judicature and All Branches and Specialties In The Practice of Law
Including English Literature, Composition, and Various Types of English Writing
26.01 Biology
26.03 Botany/Plant Biology
26.04 Anatomical Sciences
including Anatomy
26.05 Microbiological Sciences and Immunology
also under Medicine
26.07 Zoology/Animal Biology
26.08 Genetics
all types, including Animal; Plant; Molecular; Microbial and Eukaryotic; and Human; as well as Genetic Engineering
26.11 Biomathematics and Bioinformatics
26.12 Biotechnology
26.13 Ecology, Population Biology
31.01 Parks, Recreation and Leisure Studies
31.05 Health and Physical Education/Fitness
36.0101 Camp Counselor
40.01 Physical Sciences
40.02 Astronomy; Astrophysics; Planetary Astronomy and Science; and Space Technology
40.04 Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
40.05 Chemistry
40.06 Geological and Earth Sciences/Geosciences including Oceanography; Hydrology
40.08 Physics
Including, But Not Limited To Psychometrics and Psychobiology
Including Law Enforcement, Fire Protection, and Corrections
44.04 Public Administration
including City Planning, Urban Planning, Urban Transportation
44.07 Social Work/Youth Services
including Welfare and Probation
45.02 Anthropology
including Physical Anthropology
45.03 Archeology
45.04 Criminology
45.05 Demography and Population Studies
45.06 Economics
45.07 Geography and Cartography
45.09 International Relations and Affairs
45.10 Political Science and Government
45.11 Sociology
45.99 Social Sciences, Other
Application of Technical Knowledge and Skills To Create Products Using Techniques Of Precision Craftsmanship or Technical Illustration.
48.00 Precision Production Trades
including Metal Working, Woodworking, and Drafting
49.01 Air Transportation
including Aeronautics/Aviation/Aerospace Science and Technology, General; Airline/Commercial/Professional Pilot and Flight Crew; Aviation/ Airway Management and Operations; Air Traffic Controller; Flight Instructor
49.02 Ground Transportation
including Construction/Heavy Equipment/Earthmoving Equipment Operation; Commercial Vehicle Operation; and Mobil Crane Operation
49.03 Marine Transportation
including Commercial Fishing; Diver, Professional and Instructor; Marine Science/ Merchant Marine
50.01 Visual and Performing Arts
including, but not limited to: Music, Theatre, Sculpture, Photography, TV & Motion Picture Arts & Sciences
50.04 Design and Applied Arts
including Commercial and Advertising Art; Industrial Design; Fashion/Apparel Design; Interior Design; Graphic Design; and Illustration
51.01 Chiropractic
51.02 Communication Disorders Sciences & Services
including Speech Language Pathology and Sign Language Interpretation
51.04 Dentistry, Advanced/Graduate Dentistry, Oral Sciences, Dental Technology
including Orthodontics
51.06 Dental Support Services/Assistant
51.07 Health and Medical Administrative Services
including statistics and documentation
51.08 Medical Support Services/Assistant
51.09 Allied Health Diagnostic, Intervention, and Treatment Professions
including, but not limited to the following fields: Emergency Medical; Cardiovascular; Electrocardiograph; Electroneurodiagnostic / Electroencephalographic; Nuclear Medical; Perfusionist; Radiation Therapy; Respiratory Care Therapy; Surgical; Sonography and Ultrasound; Radiography; Athletic Training; Genetic Therapy; Cardiopulmonary; and Radiation Protection/Health Physics
51.10 Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science and Allied Professions
51.12 Medicine, Medical Research, including all specialties and fields
including, but not limited to: Allergy and Immunology, Anesthesiology, Audiology, Cancer, Cardiography, Cardiology, Colon and Rectal Surgery, Dermatology, Embryology, Emergency Medicine, Epidemiology, Family Practice, Forensic Medicine, Gastroenterology, Geriatrics, Hematology, Internal Medicine, Medical Genetics, Neurological Surgery, Neurology, Nuclear Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Oncology, Ophthalmology, Orthopedic Surgery, Otolaryngology, Pathology, Pediatrics, Pharmacology and Pharmaceutics, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Physiology, Plastic Surgery, Podiatry, Preventive Medicine, Proctology, Psychiatry, Radiology, Radiation Oncology, Speech Pathology, Sports Medicine, Surgery, Thoracic Surgery, Toxicology, Transitional, Thoracic Surgery, Urology, Virology
51.15 Mental and Social Health Services
including Substance Abuse Counseling; Marriage/ Family Counseling; and Psychoanalysis
51.16 Nursing
including all specialties
51.17 Optometry
51.19 Osteopathic Medicine/ Osteopathy
51.20 Pharmacy
including Administration
51.22 Public Health
including, but not limited to Environmental Health; Occupational Health and Industrial Hygiene; Public Health Education and Promotion; International Health; Community Health and Preventive Medicine; and Health Services Administration
51.23 Rehabilitation and Therapeutic Professions
51.24 Veterinary Medicine
51.25 Veterinary Biomedical and Clinical Sciences
including all Veterinary Sciences; Anatomy; Physiology; Microbiology; Pathology; and Toxicology as well as Animal/ Veterinary Surgery and Medicine
51.27 Medical Illustration and Informatics & Medical Photography
51.31 Dietetics and Clinical Nutrition
51.33 Alternative Medicine
52.02 Business Administration, Management and Operations
including Industrial Administration & Management; Small Business Administration/ Operations; Franchising
52.03 Accounting and Related Services
52.04 Business Operations Support and Assistant Services
52.06 Business/Managerial Economics
including Management Studies & Economic Information Analysis
52.08 Finance, Banking and Financial Management Services
52.09 Hospitality Administration/ Management
including Hotel, Motel, and Restaurant Management & Tourism and Travel Services Management
52.10 Human Resources Management and Services
including Labor and Industrial Relations; Organizational Behavior Studies; and Labor Studies
52.11 International Business/ Trade / Commerce
52.12 Management Information Systems and Services
52.13 Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods
including Operations Research; Statistics
52.14 Marketing/Marketing Management
52.15 Real Estate
52.16 Taxation
52.17 Insurance
52.20 Construction Management
54.01 History
including Regional History, such as American, European and Asian; History of Science and Technology; and Public/ Applied History and Archival Administration
Residency programs are designed to prepare medical doctors M.D. or osteopaths DO, dentists DDS, D.M.D., and veterinarians D.V.M. for certification as practitioners of recognized specialties in their respective professions. These programs are approved and accredited by designated professional associations and require from one to five years to complete, depending on the program. Medical residencies usually require completion of an internship after the M.D. degree for program entry, while requirements vary for dentistry and veterinary programs.
60.01 Dental Residency Programs
60.02 Medical Residency Programs The program sponsor for medical residency programs is The Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates
60.03 Veterinary Residency Programs


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Here it is, the best thing to come out of Toronto since this picture of Rob Ford drunk. A mall Christmas market Santa traumatizing the very first child on line to meet him.
"He said, 'Oh, you're wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs tuque, you shouldn't be wearing that, they suck.' At that point, I took my son and told him we should go, Santa isn't being very good today."
Trent said her son was inconsolable and cried all the way home to Mississauga.
Santa was later fired, and the child told that Santa was just "having a bad day," so he's not going to lose his faith. But it'll soon be time to stop shielding this kid from the world. I know his parents want to keep up the illusion, to keep a little bit of magic in his life, but eventually he'll grow too old to believe. He'll be teased at school and mocked by his friends for his naivety, so maybe the time has come to put away childish things. Sooner or later, he's going to have to hear the truth: the Leafs do suck.


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Sports Photographers in Pueblo, Colorado, United States
Here are the listings of Sports Photographers for Sports photography work in Pueblo Colorado United States. Each Pueblo photographer has its profile with portfolio of photography work, specialities and other details. You can use the filter facility on the left to exactly find an appropriate photographer in your area.
Find Sports Photographers Near Pueblo
The above results list Pueblo Sports Photographers. You can expand your search and find local Sports Photographers in the surrounding areas of Arvada, Aurora, Centennial, Colorado Springs, Denver, Fort Collins, Lakewood, Thornton, Westminster, or the state of Colorado.
Why you should choose a local photographer serving Pueblo, Colorado?
There are many reasons why someone would hire a professional Pueblo Sports photographer ... Some Sports photographers offer video shooting as well. Hiring a Pueblo Sports photographer is an important decision that requires researching local photographers, learning a bit about photo equipment and style and finding the right personality. Be aware that some of the better Sports photographers are booked up to 2 years in advance. Be sure that all of the details are clearly outlined in your contract with your Sports photographer. By hiring a creative, experienced and reputable Pueblo Sports photographer, you can ensure that you'll get high-quality and professional photos.


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Kirsten Potenza and Cristina Pereenboom as creators of the fitness phenomenon POUND Rockout Workout. However, these girls are more than just fitness junkies – they're style mavens, each with are just own personal flair just as dynamic as their rockstar-chic regime that has swept the nation. Splash Magazines got a chance to sit down and get a few insider tips and background information on how to live a healthy life, the importance of working out, and why you should try out this new workout that is sweeping the nation.
Sargent: How did you both get involved in fitness?
We "fell" into Fitness. We needed to stay active and nurture our bodies and through that Journey, we ended up creating Pound.
Sargent: Was a healthy lifestyle always something that was taught when being raised?
We didn't grow up with a lot of money but our parents made taught us to conserve and not be wasteful. This came with planting gardens, spending time outdoors, and being more aware of how we affect others and our own internal ecosystems.
Sargent: What is the importance of living a healthy lifestyle?
Health to us is balance. A healthy lifestyle is a balance of proper nutrition and exercise, but also a balance of carefree indulgence and fun. Balancing the fun of eating tasty food with the knowledge of what the body needs leads us to a happy, moderate zone. The same goes for working out. Teaming the necessity for exercise with enjoyment, stress-release and music creates a sustainable, do-able lifestyle.
Sargent: This method of working out, Pound -the 'ultimate rockout workout' is sweeping the nation. How does this make you feel, knowing you are doing something you love while helping and inspiring others as well?
Seeing our little baby, Pound, grow and expand has been the most powerful and amazing experience of our lives. It has single handedly transformed our path in life: we are now on a full-time mission to reach as many people as possible! We love what we do and hope we can bring the Pound experience to every music/fitness loving person in the world and get people moving.
Sargent: Where did incorporating 'music and drums' come from, and can you give me an example of what a person can expect when attending a POUND class?
We were both recreational drummers and were most drawn to the therapeutic aspect that playing the instrument brought to the table. We also realized that drumming, even sitting down, worked up a thorough sweat, and that if you removed the seated aspect, the arm movements would serve as an instability-producing factor.
When we realized that we could team the same euphoria of drumming, simple drum downbeats and all of our favorite exercises together, that's when we knew. And, when we felt the immediate change in our bodies and experienced our stress levels plummeting, we decided to "stick" with Pound.
Sargent: What can one expect to gain from a POUND class? -Could you give me a few class statistics.
25% men
75% Women
Classes come with membership
45 or 30 minute class
30-40 people
15,000 reps (drum downbeats)
600-800 calls burned per hour
Sargent: Give me some examples of current fitness and health trends. How do you integrate them in your work?
It seems like the current trend in fitness involves capturing the feeling of being something you don't usually get to be. For example, Zumba allows participants to step into the role of a dancer for an hour. Crossfit allows everyone to feel like a professional athlete. Fitness video games give all types of people the freedom to sample what it's like to play basketball, golf, ski and tackle obstacles. Pound does the same thing, except creates an environment where anybody can feel like a rockstar. Pound grants the permission to rock, and also happens to dole out a kick-ass workout. You can live out your rockstar fantasy as part of a healthy lifestyle (where else will you see that?)
Sargent: How did you know you would do well as a fitness instructor?
We did well because we never thought we did well: we always strive to improve. We continue to just listen, learn and change, which to us, is the only way to be good at anything.
Sargent: What's next on the horizon? Any upcoming projects?
We have a ton going on before the end of the year, a lot of exciting change! We will be expanding to Mexico City, creating a specific program for Madonna's gyms, Hard Candy, worldwide! We will be traveling to Chile, Australia, Cancun and Vancouver to train Pound Pros and launch classes, as well. We are most excited to announce that Pound is launching an in-home version, where you get weekly videos and checkins from us and your very own pair of Ripstix. We've been aching to bring Pound to all types of people, gym-goers, class-takers or people who stick to the privacy of their own homes, and now we're going to get to do that.
Sargent: What's the best way to keep up with you ladies?
@thepoundgirls on Instagram
LA drummers and fitness enthusiasts, Kirsten and Cristina, are best known as the creators of the nationwide fitness-craze POUND. These ladies have revolutionized the idea that drumming can make for one sexy workout! Their bohemian, hipster style and sculpted physiques, are the epitome of sexy rockers and embody an eclectic sense of fashion that transcends labels and stereotypes. So schedule a class and try it out for yourself, I'm sure they will change your outlook on working out.
For more information, please visit: www.poundfit.com


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Schedule an Interview
An interview will help answer your questions about Agnes Scott and ensure that you are comfortable and satisfied with your final college choice. In addition, when you share more about your academic and extracurricular interests during the interview process, our counselors are better able to evaluate your application for admission.
Informational Interviews for All Applicants
All prospective students are welcome and strongly encouraged to participate in a 30-minute, informational interview with an admission counselor. Informational interviews are automatically scheduled for all students participating in an on-campus tour. To inquire about holding an interview in your hometown, please contact us at 404.471.6285 or firstname.lastname@example.com.
Schedule a campus tour to arrange your interview>
Evaluative Interviews for Test-Optional Applicants
Evaluative interviews are required for test-optional applicants who do not submit SAT or ACT scores or a graded writing sample. You will meet with an admission counselor for 30 to 60 minutes (an interview via Skype is available for international students). Questions are designed to inform us about your academic preparation for Agnes Scott. Your application must be completed and submitted prior to requesting an evaluative interview.


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Glide along @CB_Connector from #CincyCyclones Stop 1 @TheBanksCincy to #FindlayMarket and #OTR and back again. Pa… https://t.co/Bt3rB8ws3b
Collective serves up high-quality pastries and sweets. Located in the Historic Findlay Market District, Collective is a full-functioning bakery. Whether you need a cake or just want to enjoy a flakey, buttery danish with some coffee, this storefro...read more


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With summer officially in full swing, many minds conjure up ideas for outdoor parties which then turns to the thought of food. The fare at these warm weather parties often include grilled items, cold salads and various other spreads. But while most folks are envisioning burgers, brats and deciding what to include on the crudité platter, I'm ruminating over what accompanies said items.
To me, the stars of the show are the condiments — able to mask any overcooked hunk of meat or bland sandwich — and Heinz just doesn't cut it for me anymore, so I choose to make my own condiments. The ingredients are inexpensive, plus they're easy to make and customizable to suit any taste. Check out the following recipes to impress your cookout guests (and never get caught buying boring condiments again).
'Better than 57' Ketchup
Before making my own ketchup, I assumed Heinz 57 was the end all, be all because that's what the commercials tell us, right? Try this simple recipe on for size and you'll won't have to battle with that infamous glass bottle again.
Makes a little over 1 cup
14 ounces of crushed tomatoes or plain tomato sauce (1 small can or 1/2 large can)
1/3 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar, light or dark
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon kosher or sea salt (or more to taste)
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/8 teaspoon cayenne (or more to taste)
A dash of freshly ground black pepper
Combine all ingredients in a medium sauce pan, whisk together and put on medium-high heat. Bring the mixture to a heavy simmer, then lower heat and simmer gently for about 20 minutes, whisking occasionally. Partially cover the pot as the mixture will splatter as it cooks. The mixture will thicken as it simmers. Let cool to room temperature, then either serve it or put it in a covered container and refrigerate for up to 3 weeks.
Read the rest of this entry


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Premier Dark Grey - Wooden Venetian Blind
From £10.92
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"Measure twice, cut once"
Measure your blinds again and we will check your new measurements match your original measurements.
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Still worried about sizing? Add Surefit when you get the basket. With Surefit, if your blinds are not measured correctly, we will remake your blinds and send them out to you.
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Never fear! We also have a fitting video
Add luxury to your windows with this Premier Dark Grey Wooden Venetian Blind.
Featuring a versatile dark grey hue, this fashionable blind effortlessly brings a modern feel to any room. Coordinating with a vast number of colour schemes including other tones of popular grey and shades of white.
The Premier Dark Grey Wooden Venetian Blind combines style and functionality, giving you full control over the light while providing a sophisticated look. The wooden blinds at Blinds Direct are crafted from the finest quality wood, which has been sourced from FSC-certified forests.
Made in-house, by our very own talented production team, we always endeavor to bring the very best quality in the window furnishings industry. With over a decades worth of experience you can rest assured that only the best will make its way to you.
When only the best will do, choose the beauty of real wood.
Touched by Design is our in-house Wooden Blind Range, made using only the highest quality hardwood as well as the best quality components.
As Touched by Design is our own brand this range of blinds is far higher quality than the price would suggest.
|Dark Grey
|Real Wood
|Headrail System
|5 years
|Slat Width
|Available Widths
|35cm to 240cm
|Available Drops/Length
|30cm to 300cm
Product images are for illustration purposes only.
How to measure blinds
Measuring your windows to decide which size of wooden blind to order is easy. Just follow these simple steps on how to measure your window for your blinds. With this measurement guide you will be able to get the correct size.
Please Note.
- Please use a metal tape measure to take measurements and use centimetres to the nearest 0.1cm.
- Please be aware our blinds are made to a 5mm manufacturing tolerance.
100% Genuine Real Wood
At Wooden Blinds Direct, we only use the finest quality hardwood that is sourced from sustainable forests. Hardwood is genuine wood with a fine grain and natural luster, bringing style to every room in the home. The strength and versatility of hardwood makes it perfectly suited to window blinds.
Genuine wood blinds offer an unrivalled warmth and elegance. This naturally beautiful material will coordinate with just about every interior, so you can rest assured that your new wooden blinds will complement existing decor.
Our 100% real wood blinds come complete with a complementary valance, which is used to cover the head rail and provide a sleek finish. We also coat our wooden blinds with a UV stain or paint, preventing fading in sunlight.
Wooden Blinds Direct has been selling blinds for over ten years, and we're proud to say that our products are the best and most reliable on the market.
We are dedicated to maintaining an eco-friendly business, ensuring our materials and manufacturing methods do not have a negative impact on the environment. We work closely with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) to ensure that we only use wood that comes from well-managed, sustainable sources.
These blinds are made to measure and have a variety of options. To find more information on an option click the ? next to the selection.
|Recess or Exact
|Recess, Exact
These guides provide you with information on how to measure and fit your wooden venetian blinds.
|Measuring Guide
|Measuring Guide
|Installation Guide
|Installation Guide
Please note that made to measure blinds are made within a 5mm manufacturer tolerance. The actual drop is dependent upon the size of the slat, we will however make it is as close as possible to your measurements.
Take measurements at the narrowest point on the width. Made to measure and cut to width blinds in this range are cut down from standard width blinds.
Made to measure blinds
A product which requires the exact width to be typed in the box is 'Made-to-Measure' and cannot be returned under our normal terms and conditions.
Fixing & Controls
The blinds are easily fitted using universal brackets which can be face fixed to the window, wall or lintel. All necessary brackets and fittings are included. The raise control is on the right and the tilt control on the left.
Matching pelmet valance
Matching pelmet valance - The wooden pelmet will be left at the standard size so it can be used to cover the metal head rail if fitted outside the window recess. The pelmet is mitred on one end only. This means that the wooden pelmet will need cutting down. This can easily be done with a fine wood saw or hack saw.
Unfinished ends
These blinds are cut from standard blinds so the ends will be unfinished/painted. This is not normally a problem as the ends are not visible when placed inside a window recess.
Free UK Mainland delivery on all orders to UK Mainland - today only!
Overseas deliveries, including Isle of Wight, are calculated according to weight and destination. You would be advised to Contact Us Prior to ordering if this is the case.
Please see our Delivery Information page for further details.
Blinds eligible for next day delivery when purchased with Next Day Delivery.


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Coaches are something that we've all seen. They're impossible to miss. Coaches, or motor coaches, are huge vehicles designed for carrying many passengers, or converted to provide a large amount of space and comfort for just a few, or for a task-specific purpose. Passenger coaches can be compared to airliner cabins or railroad cars, as they usually have separate storage for passengers luggage, as well as aligned rows of seats and many windows.
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