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Podocarpus lawrencei
Mountain plum pine
Podocarpus lawrencei is a medium to large spreading shrub which would be ideal as a feature plant and groundcover in a rockery. It also occurs as a tree to 15 m so care should be taken to ensure that the desired form is being purchased. This article will refer to the shrubby, alpine form for its value as a garden plant. As it is the only conifer occurring above the treeline in our alpine regions and because it has an attractive, red fruiting body, its common name is the Mountain Plum Pine.
The Mountain Plum Pine is one of Australias few native conifers from a plant family which has existed in the southern hemisphere since the time of the super-continent Gondwana (180 my). The natural habitat is low heath in the alpine areas of south-eastern Australia, including Tasmania.
An adaptation to the harsh alpine environment is its habit of clinging to and taking the form of exposed granite boulders. This enables the plant to maximize the light and warmth available for growth during the snow free season. It is the longest lived alpine species but, in that harsh environment, the growth rate is very slow. A specimen from near Mt Kosciuszko was found to be 170 years old but had a trunk diameter of only 6 cm.
The leaves are narrow and about 1.5 cm long. They are crowded, thick and dark green with a prominent mid-rib beneath. They give the plant a resinous pine-like aroma and form a dark background to contrast the bright cones and fruit.
Unusually, for a conifer, the sexes are on different plants. The cones on the male plants are an attractive pink-purplish colour and are about 1 cm long in small clusters.
On the female plant the reproductive structure does not resemble cones. When ripe, it develops into a bright red, succulent berry-like structure, above which is attached a hard green seed. The male cones in spring and the red fruit in summer each stand out against the dark green foliage.
Another attractive feature of the plant in its natural state is the existence of bare limbs among the mat of growth. These are a twisted, gnarled and weathered to a whitish-grey to contrast with the other colours and with the rock chosen as a substrate.
Propagation of the plant is by cuttings and this is essential to retain the chosen form and sex. It can be transplanted while small and can be purchased as tubestock. In the Australian National Botanic Garden the Mountain Plum Pine is used as a feature, growing among and over boulders in the Tasmanian section.
It is frost hardy and likes full sun. An exposed, windy position would add to the gnarled effect in its growth. The plant is adapted to the poor young, soils of the alpine region and so will prefer freely draining acidic soils but is quite tolerant. It forms mats of vegetation from which new roots develop and these roots have nodules to convert nitrogen into plant nutrients. Regular watering, and some light pruning would help to give the plant a desired shape and encourage a faster rate of growth than occurs in its natural environment. It can also be grown in a container and it will appreciate a slow release native fertilizer applied in the spring.
The plant has few disease problems but must have adequate water. It can be purchased by ordering from nurseries but it is difficult to ensure that the plant is either male or female.
Text by Peter McCrorey (Botanical Intern 2003)
Name meaning: Podocarpus lawrenceiPodocarpus - from the Greek podos a foot, and karpos a fruit, which draws attention to a characteristic feature of the plum pines: the single seed is borne on a swollen colourful base. In this case the base is red. lawrencei - commemorates Robert William Lawrence (1807-1833), a botanical collector and amateur botanist who collected in Tasmania. |
Codd, P., Payne, B. & Woolcock, C. (1998). The plant life of Kosciuszko. Kangaroo Press, Roseville, NSW.
Costermans, L. (1981). Native trees and shrubs of south-eastern Australia. Rigby, Adelaide.
Costin, A., Gray, M., Totterdell, C. & Wimbush, D. (2000). Kosciusko alpine flora. CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Vic.


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In this magnificently illustrated cultural history—the tie-in to the pbs and bbc series The Story of the Jews—simon schama details the story of the jewish people, tracing their experience across three millennia, from their beginnings as an ancient tribal people to the opening of the new world in 1492It is a story like no other: an epic of endurance in the face of destruction, of creativity in the face of oppression, joy amidst grief, the affirmation of life despite the steepest of odds.It spans the millennia and the continents—from India to Andalusia and from the bazaars of Cairo to the streets of Oxford. It takes you to unimagined places: to a Jewish kingdom in the mountains of southern Arabia; a Syrian synagogue glowing with radiant wall paintings; the palm groves of the Jewish dead in the Roman catacombs. And its voices ring loud and clear, from the severities and ecstasies of the Bible writers to the love poems of wine bibbers in a garden in Muslim Spain.In The Story of the Jews, the Talmud burns in the streets of Paris, massed gibbets hang over the streets of medieval London, a Majorcan illuminator redraws the world; candles are lit, chants are sung, mules are packed, ships loaded with gems and spices founder at sea.And a great story unfolds. Not—as often imagined—of a culture apart, but of a Jewish world immersed in and imprinted by the peoples among whom they have dwelled, from the Egyptians to the Greeks, from the Arabs to the Christians.Which makes the story of the Jews everyone's story, too.
Additional information
Book Condition | Paperback Very Good |

subset: commoncrawl


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Sounds like Greek to me
Not long ago, I found myself on a long ocean voyage, traveling to three continents in 22 days, which meant that most of our time was spent at sea.
The fact that our ship had never before left the calm confines of the Mediterranean became immediately evident as soon as we hit the open water. The tiny thing shuddered its way down the coast of Spain and on to Africa before crawling across the Atlantic to Brazil.
I tried to read, but found it difficult and soon had a lot of free time. This led to my love affair with everything Greek – I'm talking about the language.
It all started with the gorgeous sounds emanating from our crew. Have you ever listened to spoken, modern Greek? It pearls right over you, far richer than French or Italian – the usual contenders for most lovely language.
Greek is a crocheted language, an afghan of sound: large bright squares of color covering you with their tonal warmth. It's soothing and energizing at the same time. I wanted to wrap my tongue around these sounds too. Ha!
You know that expression, "sounds like Greek to me?" Ever wonder why it isn't Polish or Arabic or Chinese, languages surely more difficult and even poorer in cognates? I mean, why Greek?
I soon found out.
Naively, I assumed that Greek would just nestle down comfortably among the English, German, French, and Italian I had already learned.
It couldn't be that bad, right? What about all those geo-, psycho-, hydro- words we know derive from Greek?
Unfortunately, that leaves another couple hundred thousand words that either don't sound remotely like anything else, or, worse, sound like something familiar but aren't. Take dendro, the root for words with tree. In Italian, a similar sound means "inside." The Greek for inside, "mesa," sounds like the word "half" or "table" in Romance languages. "Table," while we're at it, turns out to be "trapezi." Don't ask. "Appidi" isn't an apple, it's a pear, which can also be an "achladi."
Back in New York, I signed up at Berlitz, a foreign language school. These people, I figured, have taught deafer ears than mine and, indeed, if you have corporate sponsorship, Berlitz is great. But for a private student, a two-hour lesson runs just over $300. At that rate, it would cost me about a six-months' salary to learn how to order a cup of coffee. In all fairness, I should give my teacher a plug: Perfectly fluent in Polish as well as Greek, she taught Meryl Streep her Polish for "Sophie's Choice."
Reluctantly, because it was as expensive as staying at the Ritz, I decided to leave Berlitz. My new teacher teaches the old-fashioned way: You earn the right to speak by first memorizing and writing everything.
First on the list, this means memorizing fables and irregular verbs. It also means that you can rattle off a convincing yarn without being able to actually say anything, as I recently discovered on my first stay in Greece, where new acquaintances were stunned by my shining vocabulary and penmanship. "How can you write like this and not talk?" Easy.
Consider a nice useful word like melon, which is roughly that in German, French, and Italian. Here, it's "peponi," or, if it's watermelon you want, "karpousi" (why not "hydropeponi" at least?). Mastering the alphabet is a snap in the scheme of things. It won't take more than a lesson or two. The real trick is inventing mnemonic devices to anchor those strange syllables. For pirouni, "fork," try pierces-your-food. Meijarevo, "I cook," sticks in the mind as my, a rave, oh. And "he/she agrees" turns out to sound and be spelled just like symphony.
The word that sounds like "then" means "not," while the word for "then," tóte, is not a carry-all and looks just like toté, which means "never." The other word for "then" is metá, which looks like "half." "Yes" is "nah," which is German slang for "no." You get the picture. Even your "geo-" root becomes "ye" in spoken parlance, as in "oh ye of little faith."
But I am hopeful, even though Greek verbs give new meaning to the term irregular. In most languages there's some thread of continuity, as in "see, saw, will see." The Greek for this trio is vleppo, eetha, tha tho. "Drink, drank, will drink" is peeno, eepia, tha pio. And "say, said, will say" comes in as layo, eepa, tha po. Now try memorizing some 20 of these in all persons, singular and plural. The tongue reels while the mind boggles.
No quarter is given to learning basics, either. Say you're studying French. In no time at all you can at least ask the waiter if the tip is included: "service compris" is the operative phrase. In Greek this inflates to: seem be ree lem va non te ke ta po sos ta. But the reaction is worth the work. When I tried this out the first time, the owner of the small eating establishment came rushing out and insisted that my whole meal was "compris" and that they wouldn't take a drachma.
So, I'm struggling along, keeping the faith, but it looks like I'll be crocheting for a long time.


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Our editors will review what you've submitted and determine whether to revise the article.
Gympie, city, southeastern Queensland, Australia, lying on Gympie Creek and the Mary River. It was first known as Nashville, after James Nash, who discovered gold there in 1867; its present name comes from gimpi-gimpi, the Aboriginal word for the stinging tree. Proclaimed a town in 1890, it was made a city in 1905. In addition to gold, which was mined until 1930, limestone and silver have been worked in the locality. The Borumba Dam (completed 1964), on Yabba Creek, mitigates floods and impounds water for irrigating the area, which yields dairy products, tropical fruits (especially pineapples), vegetables, and beef cattle; there are also state plantations of pine trees. Situated on the Bruce Highway and the main northern rail line to Brisbane (90 miles [145 km] south), Gympie has sawmills, a joinery works, and food-processing plants. In January 2011, after weeks of heavy rains, the Mary River overflowed its banks, flooding Gympie and surrounding areas. Pop. (2006) 9,497; (2011) regional council, 45,749.


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After 32 consecutive starts for the Jacksonville Jaguars, Dawan Landry is looking for work.
NFL.com's Ian Rapoport reported the team's starting safety will be released Friday, according to a source who spoke with player. The Jaguarsconfirmed the move, along with the release of cornerback Aaron Ross.
Offseason Forecast: Jaguars
With the offseason under way, Around The League examines what's next for all 32 teams. Dan Hanzus covers the Jaguars. **More ...**
Landry -- the brother of Jets safety LaRon Landry -- signed a five-year, $27.5 million deal with the Jaguars in 2011. He made $5.35 million last season and was set to match that in 2013. Cutting him will cost the team $3.9 million in dead money.
Ross is history just one season into the three-year, $9.75 million contract he inked in 2012. That leaves Kevin Rutland and Mike Harris as the only corners under contract in Jacksonville.
New coach Gus Bradley is rebooting the machine in a secondary that ranked 22nd against the pass last season. Cornerbacks Derek Cox and Rashean Mathis are set to hit the open market and aren't expected to return. Dwight Lowery is still in the mix at safety, but the Jaguars saw enough of Landry, who stayed healthy but struggled in run support and generated just three interceptions in two seasons.
Landry previously started 64 games for the Baltimore Ravens from 2006 to 2010.
More changes are ahead. Bradley was pulled out of a Seattle Seahawks system that wreaked havoc on offenses with tall, powerful corners and bigger safeties better prepared for matchups against the NFL's increasingly pass-happy schemes. Expect the Jaguars to move in that direction as this team remakes its defense in full.
Follow Marc Sessler on Twitter @MarcSesslerNFL.


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Press Release
About Us
FTTL: "Gigabit Libraries NetWork"
"WhiteSpace Libraries Initiative: National Pilot"
"K-20 Librarian" Launches
KCK "K-20 Librarian"
Google Endorses
Microsoft Endorses
How Public Libraries can Benefit from Using Fiber Optics
Next-Generation Broadband for Next-Generation Libraries
(with video)
FCC Filings
Next generation BB by 2012
Biggest bang for stimulus buck
Goals and metrics for nat'l plan
Prioritize library connectivity
FTTL Supports Recovery Plan
"Fiber to the Library" Deploy next generation broadband to nation's 16,500 public libraries
Sausalito Workshop
Fiber to the Library
State Broadband Roundtables
"Gov. Schwarzenegger Signs Executive Order to Help Make California the Leader in
Telecommunications Revolution"
National Initiative to Deliver Fiber-Speed Internet Connectivity to Every US Library Underway
"National Campaign of State Broadband Roundtables Aims to Stimulate Local Markets"
"IEEE-USA white paper: US prosperity at risk"
"New, Neutral Group Advocates Local Broadband Networks"
"PTI Joins Call for Local Commitment to Broadband Strategies"
"TechNet Commends Community TeleStructure Initiative"
"Community TeleStructure Initiative Launches"
"Digital City Case Study"
"There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library."
Andrew Carnegie
"For centuries, libraries have provided a tremendous public service, allowing Americans to access useful information in their free and open facilities. What better way to continue and expand that mission in the 21st century than to provide every library in the United States with a high-speed fiber connection to the Web?"
Google Public Policy Blog
"Fiber to the Library' is by far the most economical, expedient and equitable way to deliver free and openly accessible, high performance broadband capability to anyone in every community in the nation."
Digital Village
"Libraries that simply rely on existing broadband connections that provide less than highspeed capacity will inevitably fall behind. Instead of waiting for the need to materialize before initiating technology planning, libraries would be better served by anticipating the need and seeking forward-looking solutions today."
American Library Association,
Office for Information Technology Policy
"For the past four years Don Means has been a pioneer in the effort to bring the benefits of broadband Internet access to more Americans. Specifically, Don and his organization, the Community TeleStructure Initiative, have been working through the details of building high-speed links to community facilities around the country"
Microsoft on the Issues
"Local communities can play an important role in determining our nation's broadband future. TechNet strongly supports Community TeleStructure Initiative's commitment to local strategies and policies that spur the deployment of broadband to all communities and citizens."
"NATOA is proud to endorse the 'Fiber to the Library' initiative. Countless local governments have worked with public libraries for more than a decade to offer high-capacity Internet access over fiber optics, much as we do to other key anchor institutions such as schools and first responders"
National Association of Telecommunications
Officials of America
"New, broadband-intensive services will be generated sooner and made available more broadly via fiber-connected libraries. Providing next-generation broadband access via optical fiber to America's libraries assures our library system will be able to meet the information needs of the 21st century."
Fiber to the Home Council
"Libraries are becoming the digital hubs of our communities, where high-speed connections and information intersect with community."
Susan Hildreth
Director Institute for Museum & Library Services
fmr. California State Librarian
"Providing high-capacity fiber - at 100 Mbps speeds - to each and every public library can help transform those institutions into future technology hubs, local community nodes, and the essential information centers for the 21st Century."
Richard Whitt,
Telecom Counsel, Google Inc.
"I really think libraries can help to get our country back on its feet; it can help to get families back in the workforce, it can help families obtain education, it can help them with résumé writing, and its just a real jewel of a resource that I want to make sure we maximize the benefits of. This is an investment, not just in libraries but in our communities, families, in the country as a whole. -U.S Education Secretary"
Arne Duncan,
U.S Education Secretary
"Rick Boucher (fmr) House Communications Subcommittee chairman, has told FCC chairman Julius Genachowski that a plan to equip public libraries should focus on delivering "extraordinarily high bandwidth" to libraries."
"I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries."
Carl Sagan, Cosmos
"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library."
Jorge Luis Borges
"There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration."
Andrew Carnegie
"Providing high-capacity fiber - at 100 Mbps speeds - to each and every public library can help transform those institutions into future technology hubs, local community nodes, and the essential information centers for the 21st Century."
Richard Whitt, Telecom Counsel,
Google Inc.
"I applaud CTI's mission to promote the deployment of broadband across the country. Nationwide deployment of high speed, always-on broadband will fuel the development of millions of new jobs in the United States..."
Nancy Pelosi, fmr. Speaker,
House of Representatives
Events Roundtable
Broadband Roundtable
"Broadband deployment represents the infrastructure challenge
of the 21st century. "
Mitt Romney,
fmr. Governor
Virginia Roundtable
Governor's Broadband Roundtable
"In accord with the Community Telestructure Initiative, we encourage every community to take active responsibility for the design and development of strategies that promote local broadband deployment."
Mark Warner, fmr. Governor
California Roundtable
Broadband Roundtable
"Telecommunications is in the midst of a revolution. Broadband has become central to the needs of families, the health of our economy and the vitality of our communities."
Arnold Schwarzenegger, fmr. Governor
Digital Village Associates
Press Release
About Us


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Anarchy Found
JA Huss
Series: SuperAlpha Series
Published on 12-02-15
Genres: Adult Suspense, Erotic Romance, Psychological, Romance, superhero romance
Everyone needs a hero.
That's what Detective Molly Masters tells me. "What we need," she says, "what the whole world needs," she pleads, "is a champion."
The only thing I want to talk about with Molly Masters is how I'd like to make her scream my name when I push her up against a wall, slide my hand up her thigh, and live out my wildest fantasies.
"Someone who will fight against injustice," she says.
I'll fight against anything you want, honey. Just come a little closer.
"Someone who will stand tall in the face of adversity," she says.
I'll do it standing, sitting, or lying down. See how easy I am?
"Someone who believes in the value of a good deed," she says.
I believe in the value of me, sweetheart. Because I'm Lincoln Wade. Jaded genius, obscenely wealthy, capable of violence, and looking for revenge.
Molly Masters might have delusions of grandeur. She might see me as some superman capable of cleaning up the scum, filth, and corruption in Cathedral City.
But I'm not the hero she's looking for.
I'm the dark alley where all her good intentions hide.
So be careful what you wish for, Molly Masters.
Because you're about to get it.
This is a hand drawn cover by Ambro Jordi – watch him draw the main image in time-lapse:
"Please," he says. The word is so soft. So filled with longing, and regret, and emotion. It reminds me of that friend of his while we were dancing. His plea makes me want to obey. Against my will, I try to convince myself. But it's a lie. There is something here… like it's on the tip of my tongue. Like my brain has been keeping secrets and they're about to explode out of me. So I reach down, grab a fistful of silk tulle and I give him what he needs.
His mouth is suddenly hungry and crushing. His tongue dancing inside me. One hand leaves my face and goes to his belt and I hike my skirts up even more, exposing the bare skin of my leg. The brisk air flows upward, making my pussy tingle with anticipation. His belt buckle drops away, and then I hear the tug on his zipper, just before he presses his hard cock against my hip.
I push forward, making him groan with the pressure against his hard-on. "Do it, then," I whisper. "Just do it. Before someone comes." The voices of other couples in the maze are louder, but there's no way for me to tell how close they are to finding the center. Or finding me here, doing this with him.
He grabs my skirts, the sudden force enough to make me gasp with surprise, and then he reaches between my legs and pulls my panties aside, just enough to slip a gloved finger inside me. "Open your legs wider, Molly."
Just hearing his gruff voice say my name sends my mind spinning. Why? Why is he making me feel this way?
But that thought disappears as soon as the pressure inside me turns to pleasure. I obey his last command like I'm that computer thing in his cave. Forced to do his bidding. At his beck and call and under his spell.
Just as that thought crosses my mind, his cock—full, and hard, and throbbing just like my pussy—replaces his finger and I moan. Loudly. "Oh, God."
"Shhh," he laughs.
And that. That laugh.
His laugh twists the whole thing around from forbidden and terrifying to reckless and tantalizing.
"I want to fuck you in the open," he says. "Right here under these spotlights. With all those high-society fucks two hundred feet away, oblivious to what's coming. All paranoid and pathetic, wondering what we're going to do next. And if you make noise, Molly, I'll have to drag your trembling and aching body over into the shadows and that would ruin everything."
"Oh God," I say.
"You don't want me to ruin everything, do you?"
I shake my head as I stare up into his eyes. His hands gripping my waist like they never want to let go. He rocks against me, pressing me so hard up against the cold pedestal, I can feel the roughness of the stones embedded in the concrete.
"Wrap your legs around me," he says, fisting my hair with one hand until my head jerks up. "And look at me when I fuck you."


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Thomas Rhett is ready to hit the road and Bring The Bar To You in 2022!
Starting in June, Thomas will kick-off his Bring The Bar To You tour with back to back shows in Gilford, New Hampshire with openers Parker McCollum and Conner Smith.
After going through the last two years, Thomas says, "I'll never take for granted being able to come see y'all and I'm so fired up to play some of these new ones that were made with these nights in mind. I have a feeling things are going to get loud – I'm counting down the days already!"
Photo Courtesy of Thomas Rhett


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Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015: asset transfer guidance for community transfer bodies
Guidance for community bodies on the statutory asset transfer scheme.
1. Introduction
1.1. The Scottish Government is determined to see a Scotland where community-led action is celebrated and community ownership is desirable and viable.
1.2. Ownership or control of land and buildings is a powerful tool for communities to drive change and achieve their own goals. In the first place it provides a base for activities and services that might not otherwise be accessible to members of a particular community, and can provide jobs, training and bring income to the local area. More widely, it can provide stability and sustainability for the community organisation, allowing them to develop new initiatives and support other developing groups, and it can create a stronger sense of community identity, cohesion and involvement.
1.3. Many communities in Scotland have already taken on ownership of assets, from public sector or private sellers. A baseline study carried out by the Community Ownership Support Service (COSS) in 2012 identified 2740 community assets owned by community bodies, and there has been increased interest in recent years. Many local authorities, and some public bodies, have operated successful asset transfer schemes, mainly in relation to property they have identified for disposal. There is a thriving network of community landowners, both rural and urban, as well as a range of lease, management and partnership arrangements, and plenty of examples to show the benefits communities can deliver, given the right opportunity.
1.4. The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 moves forward from this voluntary approach by the public sector, and introduces a right for community bodies to make requests to all local authorities, Scottish Ministers and a wide-ranging list of public bodies, for any land or buildings they feel they could make better use of. Community bodies can request ownership, lease or other rights, as they wish. The Act requires those public authorities to assess requests transparently against a specified list of criteria, and to agree the request unless there are reasonable grounds for refusal. This shifts the balance of power clearly towards the community body, and ensures that asset transfer is available throughout Scotland.
1.5. Despite the introduction of a statutory scheme, much of the existing best practice will still apply. COSS, funded by the Scottish Government, has developed advice for both community bodies and public sector authorities, based on experience of supporting organisations through the existing, voluntary schemes. A range of other organisations can also provide support to community bodies in developing their proposals, depending on their location and the type of project they have in mind. Links to some helpful websites are provided in Annex C.
Email: Jean Waddie
Phone: 0300 244 4000 – Central Enquiry Unit
The Scottish Government
St Andrew's House
Regent Road
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Three Woods Hole Scientific Institutions Forge Alliance to Address Societal Issues
April 2, 2009
Three leading research centers based in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, announce the creation of the Woods Hole Consortium, a new alliance that will bring their combined scientific power to bear on some of the major issues facing society today and spawn scientific growth and job opportunity on the South Coast of Massachusetts.
The consortium comprises the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC), and focuses on the interlocking issues of climate change and ecosystems health and human well-being.
Massachusetts officials, including Senate President Therese Murray, Senator Robert O'Leary (D-Barnstable), and Representative Timothy R. Madden (D-Nantucket) and MassDevelopment President and CEO Robert L. Culver hailed the consortium for its potential benefits to the state.
"Individually, each of these organizations is world renowned for their cutting-edge work," said Senate President Murray. "Combining their efforts will make the Woods Hole scientific community a powerhouse for research and providing solutions to the environmental issues facing the world. This consortium will add even more prestige to an already stellar reputation of cutting-edge research."
"This is a wonderful idea," said Senator O'Leary. "Collaboration is always important but in difficult financial times, it is crucial. Awareness of the importance of the marine environment and marine research is growing and to see these three very reputable institutions come together is a great show of support for marine research and the environment."
"I am pleased to see that these world-leading institutions are coming together. The cooperation and collaboration of these institutions enhances the scientific and academic resources of the Woods Hole scientific community in battling tough and timely issues, such as climate change. I look forward to working with the consortium in the future and seeing the new discoveries made as this evolves. The work being done in Woods Hole is something beneficial to the entire planet. I think it's wonderful that these institutions are coming together for the betterment of all our lives," said Representative Madden.
"There is strength in numbers, so it's exciting to see these institutions join together to address climate change, energy and other environmental issues," added Mr. Culver. "On the economic development side, they create more than ideas. They create good jobs and serve as the backbone of the regional economy. I look forward to working with the consortium to support the members as they develop new programs and initiatives."
A major goal of the consortium is to strengthen Woods Hole's reputation as an international hub of scientific excellence by accelerating research outcomes and attracting new funding sources. The alliance is also expected to create new opportunities for job growth in the region through scientific advancements enabling spin-off companies.
Although each participating institution will maintain its individual identity, the consortium will facilitate research and educational collaborations that capitalize on the complementary strengths of the institutions in areas of mutual concern, including:
• Climate change and its impacts
• Sustainable energy
• Earth's processes and cycles
• Land-ocean-atmosphere interactions
• Oceans and human health
• Living marine resources and biodiversity
• Human impacts on our planet's environment
According to MBL Director and CEO Gary Borisy, the Woods Hole Consortium makes perfect sense. "The missions of the MBL, WHOI, and WHRC are complementary and synergistic," he said. "This unique and powerful scientific partnership will be more effective than the sum of the individual efforts of these institutions. By working together, we can serve society with our combined knowledge."
WHRC Acting Director R. A. "Skee" Houghton agreed. "Our institutions have always been collegial and collaborative, especially in those areas where our research interests are complementary or overlap," he said. "This formal agreement acknowledges that cooperative foundation. By establishing the consortium, we can more clearly focus our shared resources and objectives on addressing the key scientific issues of our time."
"We've got something very special here in Woods Hole — a very vibrant scientific community bringing its unique intellectual resources to bear on some of society's greatest problems," added WHOI President and Director, Susan Avery. "This agreement acknowledges our commitment to maximize the potential of these independent organizations, by collaborating, whenever possible, to make the world a better place."
For more information on the Woods Hole Consortium, visit woodsholeconsortium.org.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, independent organization dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the oceans and their interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the oceans' role in the changing global environment. | |
Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory is a leading international, independent, nonprofit institution dedicated to discovery and to improving the human condition through creative research and education in the biological, biomedical and environmental sciences. Founded in 1888, the MBL is the oldest private marine laboratory in the Americas. | |
Woods Hole Research Center is an independent, nonprofit institute focused on environmental science, education, and public policy. The Center seeks to conserve and sustain the planet's vegetation, soils, water, and climate by clarifying and communicating their interacting functions in support of human well-being and by promoting practical approaches to their management in the human interest. |
Media Contacts
Stephanie Murphy, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 508.289.3340, email@example.com
Gina Hebert, Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, 508.289.7423, email@example.com
Elizabeth Braun, Woods Hole Research Center, 508.540.9900, ext. 109; email@example.com


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Morning Five: 06.19.14 Edition
Posted by rtmsf on June 19th, 2014- Most college sports fans probably aren't following the day-by-day action in the Ed O'Bannon vs. the NCAA case taking place in Oakland, California, this month, and why would they? First of all, there's no nifty "doink doink" Law & Order plot mover to let us know we are moving on to a more important part of the proceedings, and secondly, many people probably don't believe that the outcome will amount to much change in their annual sports viewing habits anyway. Fair points, both, but if you're interested in summarily catching up through the better part of two weeks of proceedings and following along in the future, SI.com's Stewart Mandel and Andy Staples have you covered with their daily updates. The big fish scheduled on the line this week, of course, is NCAA president Mark Emmert, who will be called to testify today and possibly beyond (if necessary). Emmert has been a staunch public supporter of the NCAA's amateurism model throughout his four-year tenure, and you have to wonder if he will fall victim to fits of hubris while on the stand defending what is widely becoming disparaged as an indefensible system. His testimony could be a key tipping point in the ultimate outcome of this case, so keep an eye on it.
- The underlying force driving the O'Bannon case, of course, is money. It's always money, and specifically, who is getting their grubby little hands on it. To most Americans just getting by, the division of tens of millions of dollars between the NCAA, schools and the television networks doesn't much move the needle — in their view, it's just a case of rich people enriching other rich people. But even their fur gets a little raised when a clearly successful business model that can produce a third of a billion dollars ("B") in a single year doesn't give a taste of the steady stream of money to those whose backs on which all those dollars were made — the athletes. And yet, the Pac-12, as Dennis Dodd reported this week, produced $334 million in 2012-13 — the most of any conference in college sports history — disseminating around $18.5 million back to each school as a result. Once you start to add ticket sales, bowl games, NCAA Tournament shares and other revenue producers to each school's athletic pie, you start to see some very large numbers generated at the bottom of the spreadsheet. Good luck with your arguments for amateurism, NCAA.
- Kansas basketball got some really interesting news earlier this week when it was announced that Bill Self's team will represent Team USA in next summer's 2015 World University Games in Gwangju, South Korea. Typically, the WUG teams have consisted of some of the top rising stars in college basketball, but the all-star model with limited practice time for players to get to know each other has resulted in only one gold and two bronze medals in the last seven events (Team USA won six straight golds from 1989-99, for some perspective). The Jayhawks have another loaded team coming into next year's college basketball season, but a number of those players such as Cliff Alexander and Wayne Selden, are unlikely to still be in uniform for international competition a year from now. Still, perhaps the knowledge of Self's system and the resultant familiarity among the remaining players will allow Team USA to improve on its ninth-place finish in 2013. We can only hope.
- It wouldn't be summer without some transfer news, and there were a couple of name-brand players who found new destinations this week. First, LSU guard Anthony Hickey, a solid if not spectacular player whose senior-year scholarship was not "renewed" by head coach Johnny Jones in Baton Rouge, has resurfaced at Oklahoma State and was deemed eligible to play for the Cowboys immediately. This is a major boon for an upcoming year where head coach Travis Ford is in dire need of a reliable point guard after the losses of both Marcus Smart and Stevie Clark from his team. It may not save Ford's job in Stillwater, but it gives him a fighting chance. In other news, Maryland guard Nick Faust has decided to finish his career across the country at Long Beach State. Unlike Hickey, who took advantage of the NCAA's "run-off" rule to become eligible for next season, Faust will have to sit out 2014-15 before playing his senior year with The Beach. We wish both the best of luck in their new environments.
- You probably heard about the too-soon passing of the late great baseball Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn earlier this week, and while every American sports fan recognizes the ridiculous batting prowess of the man who hit safely 3,141 times with a .338 average over two decades in the majors, they may not realize that Gwynn was a college hoops star before he ever became one of the friendliest and most beloved faces of Major League Baseball. As SI.com's Brian Hamilton explains in this piece, Gwynn to this day remains one of the best point guards to have ever played at San Diego State, a two-time all-WAC selection on the hardwood that featured the best single-season assist average in program history (8.2 APG in the 1979-80 season). We never saw him play hoops, but we have to imagine that he brought the same passion and respect for our game as he did to the baseball diamond. RIP, Tony Gwynn.


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AES San Francisco 2010
Exhibitor Seminar
Saturday, November 6, 3:30 pm — 4:30 pm (Room 112)
Renkus-Heinz, Inc.
Stefan Feistel
Latest Developments in AFMG Measurement Tools EASERA and SysTune
This seminar presents the latest developments and trends in the standard-setting AFMG measurement software packages SysTune and EASERA. It focuses on using mobile devices with SysTune, the renowned live sound measurement software, as well as on new windowing options and loudspeaker alignment techniques. Also, new and expanded measurement options of EASERA v1.2 are discussed such as the determination of absorption, reflection and scattering coefficients.


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Real kids, real trends! A few weeks back, we invited you to submit your kids fashion snaps to email@example.com, to be featured in the real, wild childhood series we're bringing back. Keep the photos coming — there's something so alive about these images.
Today's little star is Scout Larson, better known as @hello.scout. Isn't she something?
Thank you, Scout's mama, for sharing your little's impeccable style with us.
Mamas, your little rockstar could appear here, too! Read how to get your child featured on Babiekins Mag.


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Self Catering Ireland Holiday Homes
Welcome to West Coast Holidays, the ultimate destination for self-catering holiday homes in Ireland. We have a fantastic range of self catering holiday homes, self catering holiday cottages and self catering holiday apartments to rent in Ireland.
Our holiday homes are ideal for family breaks and are situated in excellent locations across Ireland. Our high standard accommodation delivers the ultimate in holiday home comfort. The high number of repeat visitors we have each year reflects this commitment to quality!
Our Holiday Homes
West Coast Holidays brings you a superb collection of self catering accommodation in Ireland. Choose from country cottages, apartments, town houses or holiday lodges. All of our Irish holiday homes are finished and maintained to the highest standard, offering the ultimate in comfort along with every modern convenience to allow you to relax, unwind and enjoy your break.
Book Online with Confidence
Browse through our selection of properties by clicking on "Holiday Homes" on the menu bar above. Alternatively use the search box on this page to check availability and rates in Kerry, Cork, Clare, Galway and many other popular destinations in Ireland. For great value holiday discounts, check out our Special Offers page.
For questions about our Self Catering Holiday Homes in Ireland we have put together a list of the most Frequently Asked Questions regarding our holiday home rentals. If your question is not answered here, please email West Coast Holidays or call +353 61 335 799.


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TrueCar.com, the authority in new car pricing information, trends and forecasting, has released its Performance Scorecards for automotive manufacturers and brands for November 2013.
The Performance Scorecards grade each manufacturer and brand on eight different measurements related to pricing, sales, incentives, customer loyalty, market share and days in inventory data. Year over year analysis compares October 2013 over October 2012.
Overall, the top manufacturers on the November 2013 Performance Scorecard were BMW, Daimler, Subaru, and Honda. Near the bottom of the list were Chrysler, Volvo, and Mazda. GM and Jaguar showed the largest improvement, jumping up four places from last month. Ford and Mazda showed the largest drop, falling four places from the October Manufacturer Performance Scorecards.
The brands that received the highest grades for the period were BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, Acura, and Land Rover, while the brands with the lowest grades were Mazda, Infiniti, Dodge, Chrysler, and Smart. The brand that showed the largest improvement was GMC, up six spots from last month, while the brand that showed the largest drop was Mazda, falling six places from the
Heading Explanations
Grade: Overall performance grade compared to the other brands or manufacturers.
Discount Percentage: Transaction price over MSRP for the last 30 days. The lower the discount the higher the grade.
Price Variation: Standard deviation of transaction price over MSRP over the last 30 days. The lower the variation the higher the grade.
Customer Loyalty: Percentage of new-vehicle buyers who are replacing their current car or truck with the same brand. The higher the loyalty percentage the higher the grade.
Retail Sales Change: A year over year comparison of change in retail sales per brand or manufacturer. The higher the change percentage the higher the grade.
TrueCar.com Price Trending: Average price of vehicles published on TrueCar.com.com (normalized by MSRP). It is based on the change of this month's average TrueCar.com Price/MSRP relative to the average TrueCar.com Price/MSRP over the last twelve months. The lower the change the higher the grade.
Incentives/Price: A measurement of incentives per unit over transaction price. The lower the ratio the better the grade.
Market Share Change: A year over year calculation of a brand or manufacturer's U.S. market share. The higher the change the better the grade.
Days in Inventory: Average number of days to sell a vehicle once it reaches a dealership lot. The lower the number of days, the higher the score.
Click here to download the complete contents of our November 2013 TrueTrends report, providing clarity into consumer buying trends and auto manufacturer performance as well as a variety of data and analysis on new car sales and pricing.


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Encrypted File System (EFS) is the Cryptographic File System that is build into Microsoft Windows.
Windows can encrypt files on an EFS volume by file, by directory, or by the entire volume. Encryption is done using a certificate. The certificate itself is saved on the encrypted volume, but it is encrypted with a password. Volumes can be configured so that they can be recovered using one of several certificates — for example, a recovery certificate belonging to the organization that owns the computer.
How it works
The first time EFS is used Windows creates a symmetric File Encryption Key (FEK). Windows then creates an RSA public/private key pair that is used to encrypt the FEK. The private key is then encrypted with a hash of the user's passphrase and username. The FEK can also be encrypted with the organization's public key. Microsoft calls this second key a "Recovery Agent".
In Windows 2000 the computer's administrator is the default recovery agent and can decrypt all files encrypted with EFS.
In Windows XP and beyond there is no default recovery agent.
EFS can be used in conjunction with BitLocker if desired.
Recovering an EFS Key
Several tools are available that can recover an EFS key or volume if the original encryption key (or passphrase) are lost. These include:
- EFS key from Passware;
- Advanced EFS Data Recovery from Elcomsoft (http://www.elcomsoft.com/aefsdr.html);
- EnCase Forensic (can perform a brute-force attack on the user's passphrase);
- WinHex Forensic (can also perform a brute-force attack on the user's passphrase).
It is possible to decrypt files using ntfsdecrypt tool. In this case, you should get the private key first (by running cipher /x filename.pfx on a Windows system).


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Advanced Search
Open CourseWare | News
The University of California, Irvine OpenCourseWare is now offering four new courses in Public Health, Physics, and Chemistry on iTunes U.
iTunes U provides users with free public access to lectures, videos, books, podcasts, and courses from colleges and universities across the globe. Users can download the content to their iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch with the iTunes U app.
With these new courses, UC Irvine adds to its already expansive library of 66 courses, 120 video lectures, and more than 1,000 learning assets available through iTunes U.
"iTunes U is a powerful tool because it reaches both national and international audiences, provides self-learners with free UC-quality courses and materials, and furthers our land grant mission to increase universal access to higher education," said Larry Cooperman, director of UC Irvine's OCW project, in a prepared statement released today. "Within one year, UC Irvine will make the core, undergraduate Chemistry curriculum available openly through channels such as iTunes U."
The four new UC Irvine iTunes U courses are:
UC Irvine was the first campus in the UC system—and the West Coast institution—to join the OpenCourseWare Consortium (OCW Consortium), a non-profit association of global OCW publishers. For more information on its Open CourseWare initiative, visit the university's Web site.
About the Author
Kanoe Namahoe is online editor for 1105 Media's Education Group. She can be reached at [email protected].
View More Webcasts
View More Whitepapers


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(WASHINGTON, DC) - The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's Council of Ministers ratified a law on July 13 that adopted a tougher stance on human trafficking. The new law will ban all forms of human trafficking and put in place more severe consequences, including a sentence of up to 15 years and/or a fine of up to $267,000.
"Saudi Arabia will spare no effort to prevent all types of mistreatment against human beings and will pursue and punish those involved in such criminal offences to the fullest extend of the law," stated Second Deputy Premier and Minister of Interior Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz.
The law includes a more severe penalty if the victims are women, minors, or persons with special needs. Penalties were also increased for perpetrators found to be a guardian or to have had authority over the victim; an official of the regulations' enforcement; or to have exploited a close relative of the victim.
The new law defines human trafficking as: coercion of a person, threat, deception, deceit or abduction, misuse of position, influence or authority against a person, taking advantage of their weakness, or giving or receiving money or enticements to gain the approval a person for sexual acts, work, coercive service, begging, slavery, practices similar to slavery, organ removal or performance of medical tests on a person.
The Council of Ministers also announced they would establish a ministerial-level committee in the Human Rights Commission composes of representatives from the ministries of Interior, Foreign Affairs, Justice, Social Affairs, Labor, Culture and Information, .and the Human Rights Commission, that is responsible for combating human trafficking.


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While Republicans and the Tea Party movement are poised to win a sweeping victory on November 2, a large and growing cloud hangs over the entire election process. While it has always been with us to some extent, new technologies, new forms of voting and a Justice Department that plays favorites with Americans' voting rights now threaten our electoral system and our expectations of free and fair elections.
In an exclusive in-depth interview, Accuracy in Media talked to Hans von Spakovsky about the various forms of voter fraud that are happening today, with specific examples, and the potential for massive fraud. The Obama Justice Department doesn't seem too concerned about keeping the elections honest as much as they do about winning. And the media seem indifferent to it all.
Hans von Spakovsky is the senior legal fellow and manager of the Civil Justice Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation's Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, and a former member of the Federal Election Commission.
When asked about how concerned he is about the integrity of the upcoming elections, he replied that "any place where it comes down to the wire, any place around the country where we have a really close election, well, that's when we have to be worried, because anytime you have a really close election where a small number of votes is going to make the difference—like what happened in Minnesota—that's when people who can put out bogus votes, that's when the temptation is greatest, and that's where it can really make a difference. Any time we have a close election, that's when we've got to be vigilant the most."
The following are excerpts from my interview with Hans von Spakovsky. You can listen to the entire interview or read the transcript here.
The biggest thing is having election officials who actually pay attention to the law, and make sure that they have clean voter lists and good officials in their precincts. The other part of that is, frankly, poll-watchers. You have people, unfortunately, on the Left, and in the Democratic Party, trying to make it tough for poll workers to be there, trying to say that they'll "intimidate voters"—but having poll-watchers, frankly, from both parties—in the polling places on election day, watching each other like a hawk, watching election officials make sure that everything is done the way it should—that is the best guarantee of secure and safe elections.
Because I believe in clean voter registration rolls, I've been labeled as a "vote suppressor" by a Left-wing blog site, because I think people ought to have to show a photo ID when they go in to vote. That's called "wanting to intimidate voters from voting." Those kinds of claims are ridiculous, but that's the kind of thing that is said when people, when regular citizens get concerned over, and want to make sure we have, a secure election.
What the Obama administration did try and do is, they tried to stop Georgia from verifying the citizenship status of newly registered voters, and Georgia actually had to sue in federal court, and once they actually sued, and the Obama administration was faced with the prospect of having to show a federal judge evidence to back up their claim that this was somehow "discriminatory," the Obama administration quickly backed down, agreed to settle the case, and agreed to allow Georgia election officials to check to make sure that people who are registering to vote are really U.S. citizens.
It is different in each state, and, unfortunately, absentee ballots—that's really the tool of choice, of people who want to steal ballots. A city commissioner in Daytona Beach was just arrested yesterday for absentee ballot fraud. We have a trial that is just starting up in Atlantic City because thirteen people there, including city councilmen, were indicted for absentee ballot fraud, and, I think, just this past week something happened that I've never seen before, which is, in Troy, New York, the local DA there has asked for DNA swabs of various officials who he's investigating for having engaged in absentee ballot fraud in one of the last elections. He wants to compare their DNA with the DNA on the fraudulent absentee ballots.
Unfortunately, these days, it's overwhelmingly Democrats who are involved in this. The one exception to that, in the past, has been the state of Kentucky, where, unfortunately, the Justice Department has prosecuted a number of local Republican officials for vote buying. It's very unfortunate, but Kentucky has a long tradition of paying for votes. But other than that, really, the overwhelming majority of these cases are against Democrats
I can tell you, because I know from people I talk to within the Obama administration, that they have absolutely no interest whatsoever in prosecuting voter fraud cases. It's just not something that interests them. That was also demonstrated this year in their reluctance to get into enforcing the federal law that guarantees the right of military people to vote overseas, and, also, the fact that they have completely failed to go after states who haven't cleaned up their voter registration lists by taking people who are dead, or people who have moved, off of their lists. That's actually a real scandal, but they haven't done anything about that. There's a number of states—for example, Arkansas, Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Tennessee—who, when they filed a federal report last year that they're required to file, showed that they hadn't removed a single person who had died from their voter registration rolls for two years.
I think the problem, really, is not so much the ballots themselves as not having clean voter registration rolls so that people who shouldn't be voting—because they don't really exist, or they're registered more than once, or aren't U.S. citizens—can go in and vote, whether it's on electronic machine or whether it's using paper ballots that are then scanned and counted.
There were reports than an election official in Illinois, a couple of weeks ago, said that he just didn't really care about overseas military voters, and he didn't care about whether the Justice Department came after him for that. Can you imagine if he had said the same thing about African-American voters? That would have been front-page news in every newspaper in the country, and that guy would be out of office by now. And yet, he gets away with doing things like that for military voters
The voting rights laws are there to protect all Americans from discrimination, for example, and to protect them against problems in the voting area, no matter what their race. But that is not the attitude of the Obama administration. If there are any problems that arise again, or if there are problems that are claimed by white voters—I mean, I can tell you, this administration just isn't interested in investigating that kind of thing.
…the Justice Department never went after ACORN for the kind of actions they were engaging in. It took state officials in some states—like, in fact, Nevada—Nevada actually went after ACORN for this, but the Justice Department never did, and we don't hear or see any indication that they're going to investigate these kind of problems by ACORN-like organizations, or the kind of things that the SEIU is now, apparently, doing to cover what ACORN used to do.
…during the big Senate contest between Norm Coleman and Al Franken—which, as you know, was only decided by about 300 votes—they had not taken people who were felons, and who shouldn't be voting, off of the voter rolls there, and there have actually been prosecutions going on of felons for voting. But the problem is, the Secretary of State, Mark Ritchie—someone who was, in fact, supported by ACORN and by people like George Soros—hasn't been really doing his job the way he should in cleaning up the voter rolls and getting those folks who shouldn't be voting off of the rolls.
[The DISCLOSE Act] was a law that, if it had been passed, would have really restricted the ability of a lot of non-profit organizations to participate—and it wouldn't have prevented unions from doing things that they shouldn't be doing in elections. I just don't think that the President got that right. I think he was trying to scare people in the election and, and I don't think it was a good thing to do.
The New Black Panther voter intimidation case is one that the mainstream media has ignored for a year and a half—particularly the fact that this Justice Department threw that case out even though they won the case—and yet mainstream media has done almost no coverage of that.
I just think that there needs to be more even coverage. That is something that hasn't happened. I'm not quite sure. You've covered that much better than other folks have. I'm not sure what we can do about it. You know, the Internet—the one good thing about it is that it's given ordinary people the ability to go around sources like The New York Times, which doesn't like to cover things that they don't want other folks to see.
Roger Aronoff is a media analyst with Accuracy in Media, and is the writer/director of the award-winning documentary, "Confronting Iraq: Conflict and Hope."
He can be contacted at email@example.com.
Graphics added by Gulag Bound.


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Government officials across the lower shore are showing concerns about how they are going to get through the upcoming budget season. That much is clear after just a few meetings in 2012.
In Ocean City, Councilmen Doug Cymek and Lloyd Martin took issue Tuesday with the Ocean City Police Department's three-captain restructuring plan, believing the department could get by with an efficient two-captain system that would result in some salary savings. In a 5-2 vote, the City Council ultimately okayed the three-captain proposal, which resulted in a lieutenant being advanced to captain and several subsequent promotions down the line.
In Worcester, the County Commissioners would usually have little to say about a $6,000 study of a sewer plant expansion, but not on Tuesday. Several commissioners wondered if outsourcing the plant study, to the tune of $6,000, was truly necessary, questioning if county staff could carry out the examination instead. Eventually, the commissioners voted unanimously to approve an outside firm to carry out the study, but it wasn't without a friendly reminder to not go over that amount and to try and handle some aspects of the study in-house.
In Wicomico, the County Council is hesitant to move forward with an endorsement on Bennett Middle School's future over financial concerns. Whether to okay a massive renovation of the aging facility or replacing it altogether will be decided later this month, but between now and then serious fiscal considerations will be crunched and will surely be the clincher.
This heightened inspection of all expenditures is always a good thing, but it makes me wonder what's looming ahead. My guess is tax increases for most property owners, if not all of us.
While many folks understandably dispute their validity in accurately counting heads in Ocean City at any given time, the weekly demoflush estimates are extremely useful in comparing the numbers from one year to the next.
According to numbers released by Communications Manager Donna Abbott this week, 2011's population estimates were down 1 percent from 2010. However, the 2011 figures will always include an asterisk because they are skewed as a result of the fourth weekend in August being lost as a result of Hurricane Irene.
Due to the evacuation, demoflush estimates were not computed, resulting in a "zero" for that weekend. Without the storm's lost weekend, clearly crowd estimates would have surpassed 2010's figures and rivaled 2009 and 2002. In some cases, 2011 was better than previous years even with the lost weekend.
Below is a look at annual demoflush estimates for the last decade.
2011: 8,164,466
2010: 8,244,783
2009: 8,486,612
2008: 7,866,091
2007: 8,151,132
2006: 8,239,349
2005: 8,165,703
2004: 8,012,229
2003: 8,004,608
2002: 8,360,627
The unseasonable and dry weather that dominated last month helped make Winterfest of Lights in Ocean City a record breaking event, bringing in more than $500,000 revenue, most of which if not all of that is offset by the expensive to operate the extravagant special event.Here's a look at Winterfest of Lights tram passenger data dating back to 1993:
2011: 107,405
2010: 84,230
2009: 74,726
2008: 80,915
2007: 86,844
2006: 93,227
2005: 87,643
2004: 83,602
2003: 85,825
2002: 78,835
2001: 93,937
2000: 58,470
1999: 90,263
1998: 81,325
1997: 83,034
1996: 79,138
1995: 76,138
1994: 91,787
1993: 72,633


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HOBOKEN – Hoboken City Council candidate Eduardo Gonzalez, who is part of Ruben Ramos's campaign slate that will challenge the leadership of incumbent Mayor Dawn Zimmer in a November election, filed a complaint with the city's pay-to-play compliance officer over contributions Zimmer received last spring that he said he believes violates city code.
The contributions in question, $150 from Boswell Engineering on March 14 and $150 from Bernard Kenny of the law firm Florio & Kenny LLP on April 4, both cause those donors to exceed the aggregate amount any professional firm can donate to a political candidate, $300. With the newest contributions, both Kenny and Boswell have given Zimmer $450 each.
After Gonzalez filed his complaint with the city, Ramos blasted the mayor, saying that her "Do as I say, not as I do" attitude has gone far enough.
"Mayor Zimmer doesn't seem to care about ordinances, rules or deadlines when they don't fit her own political agenda," he said in a press release. "We all have heard over and over that the mayor ran as a reformer, but what she has done since getting elected is grab power and become just another politician that causes a traffic jam in City Hall."
Zimmer said last week that she planned to return the contributions, but her most recent filing with the Election Law Enforcement Commission showed no refunds. It was filed on July 15, well past the state's 45-day grace period for returning such contributions.
Zimmer did not offer comment by the end of the day on Wednesday, but said that her campaign's treasurer would issue a response to Ramos' criticisms as soon as possible. Keep an eye on hudsonreporter.com as this story develops. – Dean DeChiaro


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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- California's unemployment rate dropped in March to 9.4 percent as job growth in the state continued to outpace the nation, figures released Friday show.
The rate represented a drop from 9.6 percent in February and from 10.7 percent during the same period a year ago. California has added 286,000 jobs in the past 12 months.
The decrease in March put California's unemployment rate at the lowest level since December 2008, a year after the recession began.
However, California still has the third-highest jobless rate in the country. The state is tied with Mississippi, and ranks behind Nevada, at 9.7 percent, and Illinois, at 9.5 percent.
The national unemployment rate decreased in March to 7.6 percent.
California added 25,500 jobs in March, with the largest gains in professional and business services, which added 15,800 jobs, and information-based companies, with 11,700 positions.
Construction, financial activities, educational and health services, hospitality and government also added jobs, according to the preliminary figures released by the state's Employment Development Department.
Trade, transportation and utilities posted the largest decreases, cutting a total of 8,400 positions. Mining, logging, manufacturing and other services also reported fewer jobs.
Colusa County, a farming region north of Sacramento, had the state's highest unemployment rate in March at 23.9 percent. Marin County was the lowest at 5.2 percent.
California continues to add jobs faster than the national rate, wrote Stephen Levy, senior economist at the Palo Alto-based Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.
Statewide, the number of jobs has risen by 2 percent during the past 12 months, compared to 1.4 percent nationally. Levy said strong gains were made in Southern California, particularly in the movie industry.
"The California recovery remains led by coastal regions with the southern part of the state now joining the (San Francisco) Bay area in the recovery," he wrote.


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When most people think of Baja California, what comes to mind is either the resort of Los Cabos at the southern tip of the peninsula, or the "Gold Coast," which runs from Tijuana through Rosarito to Ensenada. These are by far the most visited parts of the peninsula. However … there are nearly 800 miles between the two. The recipes for this week all came from either road or plane trips to some fairly remote places along Mexico's Highway 1. I've included some of my favorites from places like CataviZa, Bahía de Los Angeles, Santa Rosalía, Mulege, Bahía Concepción and Loreto. While Loreto is an up-and-coming tourist resort, CataviZa is barely a blip on the radar screen, out in the middle of nowhere. It boasts a hotel, a sometimes open Pemex (gas) station and a few other tiny businesses. Bahía de Los Angeles is a fishing village with a colony of gringo expatriates. Santa Rosalía is a fair-sized Mexican town with a French flair and Mulege-Bahía Concepción boast some of the best scenery anywhere. So travel on with me, amigos, then try these recipes. You can make quite the central Baja fiesta with them!
Buen provecho!
Just southeast of the steamy subtropical jungle of Mulege, almost two-thirds of the way down the Baja peninsula, lies the incomparably lovely Bahía Concepción. It is one of the most-photographed spots in all of Baja, and justly so. Its pristine white crescent sand beaches surround an equally pristine, breath-takingly beautiful aquamarine bay. From one of our camping trips to the area comes this simple but distinctive chilled soup. The combination of cantaloupe and potato gives it a wonderfully rich flavor and texture. Serve it outdoors in the spring or summer and you'll be able to imagine yourself dining al fresco-under a palapa-on the shore of Bahía Concepción at Santispac Beach. Even if you can't be there, you're still guaranteed to get a flock of compliments. Serves six. Takes about five minutes to make and an hour to chill.
1/2 cup half and half
1 cup potato, cooked, peeled and diced
3 cups cantaloupe, peeled and diced
1/4 cup sherry
salt to taste
nutmeg and lime slices for garnish
Place the half and half, potato and cantaloupe in blender. Puree. Stir in sherry and season to taste with salt. Serve chilled in glass bowls, garnished with nutmeg and lime slices.
Quick, easy and dyn-o-mite, this salad is guaranteed to transport you right to a palapa on the beach, where you're eating barefoot, with your feet digging aimlessly in the grainy sand-sand that's still warm from the leftover heat of the just-set-sun. Can you hear the waves quietly lapping against the shore in front of you as the new moon cuts a silver sliver in the early evening sky? Ah yes. Here comes the first star.
You are in Loreto, the oldest permanent settlement in all of Baja. Yes. It's true. Located nearly three quarters of the way down the peninsula, on the Sea of Cortez side, Loreto was founded by Padre Juan María Salvatierra, a Jesuit priest on October 25, 1697. The Misión de Nuestra SeZora de Loreto is located in the center of town. It was the first of 20 missions founded by Jesuit priests in Baja before they were expelled in 1767 for mistreating the Indians. Loreto was the capital of Baja until it was destroyed by a hurricane in 1829-at which time the capital was moved to La Paz.
So, how are things in Loreto these days? Well, it's been targeted by Fonatur, the Mexican tourist bureau, to become the next Cancún or Ixtapa-serious tourist resorts both. It has a lovely malecón, a walkway that runs right along the sea, a new marina and a swanky resort that offer tennis, golf, fishing and diving. It has daily air service from L.A. And it's growing-both in size and in fame since the big tricentennial fiesta in October of 1997.
So you're ready to go? Me too. Until such time as we get those plane tickets, or have the car packed and ready to roll, we can feed our Baja hunger by cooking up a storm! You'll find the medley of flavors in this tangy crab salad both scrumptious and inspiring. Serves two as a meal and takes less than 20 minutes to prepare.
1 pound cooked crab, diced and chilled (or 3 jars)
2 avocados, peeled, seeded and diced
1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
2 tomatoes, diced
1 3 1/2 ounce can sliced black olives
8 - 10 romaine leaves, rinsed and dried
1 1/2 cups tortilla chips
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp Mexican lime juice
1 tsp garlic powder
2 cups salsa fresca
Two to four hours before serving, combine all ingredients except lettuce, crab and chips. Cover and refrigerate. At mealtime, arrange crab mixture on top of lettuce leaves and garnish with chips.
Mix together ingredients for dressing in small bowl. Pour over salad, toss gently and serve.
The first time I ever heard of lobster tacos was at Mama Diaz' restaurant in Bahía de Los Angeles. (Bay of L.A., as we gringos call it, is a remote but spectacularly scenic fishing village on the Sea of Cortez, a third of the way down the Baja peninsula.) That trip was almost thirty years ago, before there was even a paved road south of El Rosario (barely the other side of Ensenada).
We flew in with Francisco MuZoz, a World War II ace who ran Baja Airlines and was a great buddy of both my grandfather and Erle Stanley Gardner. Francisco's leaflets advertised the Bay of L.A. as, " ... the Fabulous Fishing Resort in Baja." A flight left Tijuana every Friday morning at 11:00 and returned every Saturday at 2:00 pm. Round trip tickets went for $47.52. Flying time was a little over two hours in one of his two Douglas B-18's (World War II bombers similar to DC-3's). After we'd traveled with MuZoz a few times, he and my dad (who are the same age) became great amigos in their own right. Often, over the years, when we flew with him, one of my folks would sit up in the cockpit and hang out with him. Sometimes Nina and I got to also, but our favorite jobs were when we got to serve canned drinks, sack lunches and other snacks to the passengers-which to two girls under 12 was-in today's gringo lingo -- way cool.
A few years ago I went back to the Bay of L.A. Sure enough, the Casa Diaz was still there, even though Mama and Antero had both passed away. And sure enough, they still served lobster tacos, even though they weren't on the menu. Some things don't ever change and one of those facts of life is that the best things in Mexico are not always on the menu! I like that. Lobster tacos are best served as soft tacos in fresh corn tortillas. Makes 12 tacos and takes about 15 minutes to make after the lobster is cooked.
2 pounds cooked, diced lobster meat
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 serrano chiles, minced (hot)
1 tbsp fresh Mexican lime juice
Heat all ingredients in medium sized saucepan. Serve as you would any tacos with a variety of condiments.
Santa Rosalía, almost two thirds of the way down the Baja coast is the only place in Baja with a French heritage. It was first settled by the French in the 1870s and for nearly 80 years flourished as a manganese-mining town. Its church is still world-famous. It was designed by Gustav Effeil for the Paris World's Fair in 1898 and actually constructed by one of his fellow students. After the fair's completion, the church was dismantled and shipped in pieces to Santa Rosalía around Cape Horn.
These days the town still has the best bakeries in all of Mexico, the most famous being El Boleo, named after the French Mining Company. It has a new marina and has begun to attract a few yachties that travel the Sea of Cortez in their sail and powerboats during the pleasant fall, winter and late spring months. Other than that, Santa Rosalía is pretty much off the beaten tourist path as no major airlines fly in there. Caravans of motor homing travelers stop in to rest and stock up on supplies. A few folks, old school Baja types-the serious peace-and-quiet seekers-come to fish and hang out a while. Others stop in to catch the ferry to Guyamas on the mainland.
Serves six and takes 20 minutes to prepare.
2 pounds shark fillets or steaks
salt and pepper to taste
dash paprika and cayenne pepper
1/2 cup butter or margarine
2 tbsp lemon or Mexican lime juice
1 - 2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp cilantro, chopped
Season fish fillets to taste with salt, pepper, paprika and cayenne. Melt butter in saucepan and add lemon or lime juice and garlic. Gently pour lemon butter over fish. Grill on barbecue on both sides until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork. Garnish with chopped cilantro.
I don't have the words in me to do justice to CataviZa. CataviZa is one of my sacred places. Midway between the Pacific and Sea of Cortez in the middle of the peninsula, a little less than a third of the way down Baja, you can find it on a map due west of Gonzaga Bay. The Baja highway slices right through it, providing the traveler with stunning views of high country cacti found nowhere else in Baja, prehistoric rock formations and endless, endless blue sky. Aside from being the perfect place to stop overnight at the La Pinta Hotel on the way south, it is also a place to connect powerfully with the ancient Indian mystics who walked these hills so long ago.
I created this dish on a motor home trip back in the 80s. We were staying overnight at the one campground (which consisted of a dirt lot surrounded by a fence) in CataviZa on our way to the Bay of L.A. I was trying to make a Baja version of that great Russian entree, Chicken Kiev. I made it from ingredients I had on hand in my cupboards, and we were so impressed with how it turned out that we named it after our stopping place, CataviZa. Serves six and takes an hour to prepare.
12 filets of boneless skinless chicken breasts
10 ounces diced green chiles (approx. 3 cans)
6 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, cut in 12 strips
3/4 cup cornflake crumbs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tbsp American chili powder
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp black pepper
8 tbsp melted butter or margarine
1 16 ounce can Mexican stewed tomatoes, pureed
3/4 tsp ground cumin
1/2 cup green onions, chopped
salt, pepper and hot pepper sauce to taste
Pound chicken pieces to about 1/4 inch thickness. Put about two tablespoons chiles and one strip Jack cheese in center of each chicken piece. Roll up and tuck ends under. Combine cornflake crumbs, Parmesan cheese, chili powder, salt, cumin and pepper. Dip each chicken in shallow dish of butter and roll in crumb mixture. Place chicken rolls, seam side down in oblong baking dish and drizzle with leftover butter. Cover and chill four hours or overnight. Bake uncovered at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.
To make sauce, combine stewed tomatoes, cumin and green onions in small saucepan. Season to taste with salt, pepper and hot pepper sauce. Heat well and spoon over chicken to serve.
Fried bananas were transplanted to Baja from Vera Cruz. I first tried these on my first trip to Mulege and my mom was able to get the recipe to take home with us. This is a "must eat" dessert. Fried and lightly spiced with Orange and cinnamon, it's simple to make and will please everyone.
In case you haven't heard much about Mulege, let me clue you in on a couple of things. First of all, it has the only navigable río in all of Baja. The riverbanks are lined with groves of date palms, coconut palms and olive trees. Mulege has a lovely mission and some offshore rock islands that colonies of sea lions call home. There are prehistoric cave paintings in the nearby hills- and of cours-Bahía de Concepción. This recipe serves eight and takes about 25 minutes to prepare.
4 tbsp butter or margarine
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup Orange juice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
4 green tipped bananas, peeled and sliced lengthwise
Melt margarine in skillet with brown sugar, Orange juice and cinnamon. Cook over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Add banana slices. Stir and cook over medium high heat for four to five minutes until bananas are golden and liquid is almost caramelized. Serve immediately.
Visit our Mexican Gifts & Packages section at Mexican Gifts & Packs
Recipe and tips provided by Ann Hazard.


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Charlie Sheen -- Read Warner Bros. Letter to Charlie Sheen
Warner Bros. to Charlie: Here's Why You're Fired
TMZ has obtained a letter Warner Bros. sent to Charlie Sheen's lawyer, stating Charlie was being terminated because he committed a felony involving "moral turpitude."
In the 11-page letter, obtained from sources connected to Charlie, Warner Bros. states, "Your client has been engaged in dangerously self-destructive conduct and appears to be very ill."
The letter then goes on to describe Charlie's hijinks, including trashing the Plaza Hotel in NYC, coke binges, on-set failures because of drug fatigue, and diatribes against "Two and a Half Men" creator Chuck Lorre.
The letter also notes that Charlie derailed production when he went into rehab, and then he fired his sobriety coach. In fact, Warner Bros. claims it was so concerned about Charlie's well-being, "Warner Bros. had an airplane waiting" to take him to a treatment facility ... but Charlie would have none of it.
As for why Charlie got fired, the letter says there is a clause in his contract saying they can fire a performer who commits "a felony offense involving moral turpitude."
The letter says, "There is ample evidence supporting Warner Bros. reasonable good faith opinion that Mr. Sheen has committed felony offenses involving moral turpitude (including but not limited to furnishing of cocaine to others as part of the self-destructive lifestyle he has described publicly) that have 'interfere[d] with his ability to fully and completely render all material services required' under the agreement."
In short, that's why Charlie was fired.
Charlie's lawyer, Marty Singer, has demanded Warner Bros. pay Charlie for the eight canceled episodes -- or else.


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A criticism I hear often about Maven is, "every time you run Maven, it downloads the internet." I understand the criticism, as the first time you run Maven it has to populate your local repository. Maven downloads plugins and artifacts that your project depends on. Maven does in fact download artifacts from remote repositories, but it downloads the artifact once and keeps a local cache.
Maven only downloads most of these dependencies because you've added them to your project. If you are unhappy that Maven is "downloading the internet" then stop developing software that depends on external libraries. Easy, right? Stop using Spring and Hibernate, stop referencing the commons libraries, and do everything yourself. This would be one way to avoid downloading any artifacts from a remote repository. Stop using Maven to build your software and write your own build tool that has all of the capabilities of Maven and every imaginable Maven plugin baked into it.
Not a workable solution, right? The fact of the matter is that your software has dependencies on external libraries. If you find yourself constantly "downloading the internet" there's a reason. You are depending on projects that depend on "the internet" or, your projects have a very wide set of dependencies that may need to be trimmed.
How can we avoid creating projects and POMs that "download the internet"? The simple answer is that everyone needs to start focusing on dependencies. Library developers need to be smarter about creating leaner, meaner dependency lists, and you need to start evaluating your own dependencies with an eye on efficiency.
Library Developers Need to Modularize
Take a project like Spring as an example. Spring's libraries provide interoperability across a number of core enterprise APIs: JMS, JDBC, JTA. Spring also allows people to plug-in different implementations for various feature: Hibernate, ehcache, MyBatis, log4j, slf4j, etc. Picking on Spring in particular, artifacts from Spring tend to rely on the world. If you use some of the core Spring libraries you'll soon realize that that one simple dependency XML snippet actually translates to 30 or 40 dependencies.
If you are creating a library (Spring, Guice, or Hibernate) you need to start thinking about the dependencies that you are selecting. Instead of just blindly adding in a dependency to ten artifacts, split up your projects so you don't create that one, gigantic library which depends on the world. I'll bring the conversation back to Spring. Spring is moving in the right direction, the most recent version of spring-core version 3 has five dependencies, while spring-core 2.5.6 has 13 dependencies. If you've watched the progression of the Spring libraries over time, you'll notice a trend toward modularization. Take the Spring AWS as an example - there isn't just one spring-aws library, there is a spring-aws-ant, spring-aws-ivy, spring-aws-maven library. As more people within the Springsource use Maven as a build tool, more people are starting to realize the value of having more projects with lighter POMs.
This matters because low-level, almost universal libraries like Spring, Hibernate, log4j, Guice, Commons libraries. These projects end up putting dependencies into everyone's classpath. If developers of popular libraries get the message and move toward more modular project scopes then you shouldn't see so much bloat in your own project's classpaths.
Don't just let any dependency into your project
What can you do? You need to have some standards. Don't just let anybody put some new dependency into your POM. Have some process to evaluate and assess exactly what a new dependency is going to do to your classpath. Is that new-fangled database library going to drop a dependency bomb and pull in 20 other libraries, some of which have incompatible licenses?
One tool you can use to make this process easier is Nexus Professional. Nexus Professional has a new Maven Dependency report. It is very easy to use, find an artifact in Nexus Professional, and then select the Maven Dependencies tab. This report will allow you to see just how many dependencies a particular artifact is going to introduce into your project. It will also list artifacts that may be missing from the public repositories, giving you a chance to assess the quality of an artifact's dependencies.


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I've had such a fun time checking out all the blocks as you quilt along and I can't wait to see what you do with mine!
Happy Quilting!
Click HERE for instructions to Emily's block.
Thanks Emily!!!
Here are my blocks: First with Attitude Girls
Great! Copy made in Oslo, Norway at 11 am. Monday April 26 :-)
Oh cool, I can't wait to get home and try this. I have the magazine so I can put the directions right next to my sewing machine! hahaha Maybe I won't mess up on this one.
Oh yes, I was going to say: I won the jelly roll I am using from Emily at Crazy Old Ladies! So this block will be extra special for me.
Interesting block. I will get to it yet today and look forward to it. Thank you for sharing these blocks and your creativity. It was an honor to meet you at Paducah. Such a nice person you are.
Have a super great day and stay safe on the road.
Hey, Gene! Thx for reminding me not to print this one out. *L* I have the zine too, but I would have gone right ahead and wasted my ink and paper.
Hey Konda, It was so great to meet you at the Quilt show in Paducah! Hope you are having a good and safe trip home! It was so nice to see some of your quilts in person! YOU do beautiful work! Take care!
Cynthia from St. Louis!
Oh I love the way this block looks in a completed quilt. That is on my todo list for sure
Where can I find the "Stitch and Flip" technique instructions that are referred to in the instructions for the block?
I didn't include it because it is just what you see in the picture there. Put the rectangles together as shown. Sew on that diagonal shown. You can draw that sew line if you want. Then trim the seam allowance to 1/4". Press open. If that doesn't make sense, let me know.
Whew! I finally caught up! Great block!
I love this block and really enjoyed making it.


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Happy Holidays!
I'm not big into the whole commercial Christmas thing, but I am into Christmas trees. In the spirit of that, I offer you one of my favorite paintings of trees. Granted, it's not loaded with ornaments and lights, but, geez, it's a gorgeous little study of a blossoming tree.
What better way to celebrate the "holidays" than celebrating nature? After all, the evergreen (Christmas tree) is an ancient symbol of the endurance of nature and rebirth in all cultures. What better symbol for this season than the tree? And, speaking of "rebirth," one could say that American impressionists fueled a rebirth in American art at the end of the 1800s!
Childe Hassam (1859—1935), Blossoming Trees, 1882. Watercolor on brown paper, 10 1/2" x 9" (26.7 x 22.9 cm). © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. (MFAB-199) |
Through the colonial period up until the 1800s, American artists looked to European painting for inspiration. Although the American Academy of Fine Arts (Philadelphia) and the National Academy of Design (New York) were well established by the mid-1800s, young American artists during the 1880s looked to France for inspiration in painting. Despite the infusion of Impressionism and other modernist tendencies early in the 1900s, Realismpersisted as the chief American mode of expression into the middle of the 1900s. But, thank goodness for American Impressionism!
Childe Hassam was born in the Boston area and trained as an illustrator and painter. By the 1880s he was painting scenes of Boston in the dark palette of the Munich school, a group aware of Impressionism, but emphasizing contrasts in light and dark much like Baroque artists. That style is now called Dark Impressionism. Hassam went to Europe in 1883, spending three years in Paris starting in 1886, during which time he was exposed to Impressionism. His palette lightened and he adopted the short, quick brush strokes of Impressionism as well.
Back in New York, starting in 1890 Hassam painted in the impressionist manner. Initially, he and the other Paris-influenced artists were not critically acclaimed. But, by the mid-1890s, Impressionism was a more-or-less accepted style in American art. Hassam's favorite locations to paint in the summer were in New England. This painting of a brook near New Canaan comes from his summering in Cos Cob. He also produced many paintings from the artists' colony in Old Lyme, CT.
This work, while still displaying the broken color and importance of brush work of all Impressionism, also shows how, throughout his life, Hassam leaned toward more expressionistic brush work. I love this work, because not only is it a study, but, in my mind it mimics a Christmas tree—the blossoms are the lights!
Childe Hassam in Winter:
Childe Hassam, Boston Common at Twilight, 1885–1886. Oil on canvas, 42" x 60" (106.68 x 152.4 cm). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. (MFAB-93) |
Childe Hassam, Late Afternoon, New York: Winter, 1900. Oil on canvas, 37" x 29 1/3" (94 x 74 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY. (BMA-579) |
Childe Hassam, The Breakfast Room, Winter Morning, 1911. Oil on canvas, 25 1/8" x 30 1/4" (64 x 77 cm). Worcester Art, Museum, Worcester, MA. (WAM-87) |
Studio activity: Create a personal tree. In a personal style, create an artwork with a tree as the subject. Use chalk, oil pastel, or acrylic to engender expression in the tree depicted. Try to personify the tree, give it emotion that expresses a personal point of view. Choose colors, exaggerated lines and shapes to make the tree seem calm, energetic, angry, happy, or sleepy.
Correlations to Davis programs: Explorations in Art 4: 1.6, 6.33, 6.34; Explorations in Art Grade 6: 5.26; Exploring Visual Design: 4. 6; Discovering Art History: 13


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Two executives from marketing tech company Visual IQ are striking out on their own with a new startup, Conversion Logic, which promises to help advertisers track the effectiveness of their video campaigns across devices.
As consumers engage with media and ads on smartphones, smart TVs, and more, ad attribution across those devices (say, when you see an ad on your phone but buy it on your laptop) has become increasingly important — in fact, Facebook announced yesterday that it will be offering its own cross-device data to advertisers.
CEO Trevor Testwuide, who co-founded Conversion Logic with COO Alison Lohse (they both held vice president roles at Visual IQ), characterized existing solutions as "first generation" technology. Conversion Logic's goal is to address what he said have been the four big pain points — reducing friction in accessing this data, prioritizing automation, getting closer to real-time reporting (closer than, at least, monthly or weekly reports), and making the data "consumable and actionable."
When asked for more specifics on his last point, Testwuide said that instead of forcing users to log into Conversion Logic itself, the company will be "opening up the APIs and seeding the output of our science into platforms like DSPs and bidding platforms."
Cross-device attribution, he added, is "relatively new technology that came into the market in the last three-ish years. In the beginning, the only constituent at an advertiser was the analytics professional. We're just at the tail end of the early adopter phase, where this has moved from the analytics professional to advertising and marketing, then to strategy and then media. … Our clients are any data-driven company that wants to optimize ad spend in a holistic way."
Behind the scenes of the product is Conversion Logic's data science team led by Jeong-Yoon Lee, formerly the lead applied science engineer at Demand Media. Testwuide said the team is developing "an advanced algorithmic approach" to determining when the same user is accessing multiple devices.
In addition to officially launching today, Conversion Logic is also announcing that it has raised $1.1 million in what Testwuide called a "founders' round" from investors including Brian Baumgart of Gradient X (acquired by Amobee), Kim Perell of Amobee (ditto), Evan Rifkin of Burstly (acquired by Apple), and Clark Landry from Shift.
The company is currently developing the product in collaboration with a few clients, and it plans to bring on its first paying customers this fall. While it's focused on video initially, Testwuide said he hopes to expand to other ad formats. And while Conversion Logic is working closely with its initial customers, Testwuide said, "We're not here to build a consulting company. We're here to build a SaaS company, with some client services on top."